Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
It should not have come as a surprise. Life had already been upended in China. Iran and Italy have been reeling for a month. And yet it still felt sudden, this week, when walls were raised across the world, entire societies were quarantined and billions of people realised they had crossed a dividing line: from life before coronavirus to after.
After weeks of governments prevaricating over whether to ban mass gatherings, close businesses or seal borders, restrictions came in a flurry. “We are at war,” announced the French president, Emmanuel Macron. But without adequate weapons to fight the virus, let alone enough hospital beds or ventilators, this was the week the world beat a tactical retreat.
The Chinese doctor who was reprimanded for “spreading rumours” after he sought to warn colleagues about the emergence of Covid-19 has been officially exonerated by an investigation into his death.
However the report has also been criticised for not going far enough, after it only recommended the reprimand against Dr Li Wenliang be withdrawn.
Two Republican senators have faced demands to resign after it was reported they sold off millions of dollars worth of stocks just before the market dropped amid fears of the coronavirus pandemic.
Richard Burr of North Carolina, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, whose husband is chairman of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), denied that they kept the public in the dark about the scale of the threat.
It’s now about one month since Covid-19 began to sweep across Italy. With more than total cases topping 40,000 as of 19 March, it is now the worst-affected country outside of China.
But in the last two weeks, a promising pilot study here has produced results that may be instructive for other countries trying to control coronavirus. Beginning on 6 March ,along with researchers at the University of Padua and the Red Cross, we tested all residents of Vò, a town of 3,000 inhabitants near Venice – including those who did not have symptoms. This allowed us to quarantine people before they showed signs of infection and stop the further spread of coronavirus. In this way, we eradicated coronavirus in under 14 days.
Despite the growing death toll and the unprecedented speed at which events are moving, the past few weeks feel like just a prelude of what is to come. By Gavin Francis
On 13 January, a bulletin from Health Protection Scotland was sent to all GP practices in the country describing a “novel Wuhan coronavirus”. I work in a small clinic in central Edinburgh with four doctors, two nurses and six admin staff. It was the first time I’d heard of the virus. “Current reports describe no evidence of significant human to human transmission, including no infections of healthcare workers,” it said reassuringly.
I cast my mind back to the Sars coronavirus of almost two decades ago, and briefly wondered how quickly the spread of this coronavirus would be stopped, as Sars was. A seafood market had been closed and sanitised. The bulletin said that although Wuhan was a city of 19 million people, there were only three flights per week from there to the UK, and the likely impact was “very low”. I shrugged, and carried on with my work.
About 2,700 passengers who disembarked a cruise ship in Sydney have been told to self-isolate after three people who were onboard tested positive for Covid-19.
Confirming the news on Friday, the NSW health minister, Brad Hazzard, said the doctor onboard had conducted 13 tests on the Ruby Princess, which had completed a relatively short cruise around the Pacific to New Zealand.
When China announced it was shutting down Wuhan, the centre of the coronavirus outbreak, in a bid to prevent further spread of the disease, the world was stunned and experts sceptical.
Beijing’s decision was a vast experiment, epidemiologists warned, that might not work despite its huge human and economic cost. Quarantine had never been tried on such an enormous scale in the modern world.
Callers to BK radio, a station broadcasting to the remote region around Mount Elgon in western Kenya, were worried on Wednesday evening.
“Will the government help us if we stay indoors and we need food?” one asked. “What if we have small houses, where we can’t stay too far apart?” asked another.
Wearing a face mask is certainly not an iron-clad guarantee that you won’t get sick – viruses can also transmit through the eyes and tiny viral particles, known as aerosols, can penetrate masks. However, masks are effective at capturing droplets, which is a main transmission route of coronavirus, and some studies have estimated a roughly fivefold protection versus no barrier alone (although others have found lower levels of effectiveness).
Weak. Clumsy. Behind the curve. The European Central Bank took stick for its initial response to the Covid-19 pandemic – and rightly so.
Those accusations can no longer be levied after the ECB used an emergency meeting to launch a gigantic new package of quantitative easing (QE) – the electronic money creation device that has become a key tool for central banks since the financial crisis of 2008.
Across Europe and around the world, as people are confined to their apartments, they gather on balconies to applaud medical staff working on the frontline against the virus, as well as perform music, take part in spontaneous flash mobs, or just make the most of the sunshine
Competition laws will be temporarily relaxed to allow supermarkets to collaborate in feeding the UK.
Retailers will be able to pool staff, share data on stock levels, and share distribution depots and delivery vans as supermarkets face intense demand, the government confirmed.
Donald Trump sowed fresh confusion about the US government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic by claiming that a therapeutic drug will be available “almost immediately” – only to be contradicted by officials.
In a rambling performance at Thursday’s White House press conference, the president asserted that chloroquine, used to combat malaria, had been approved and would be made available by prescription.
They’re doing great with the vaccines but there’s still a long process, but the therapies are something we can move on much faster potentially. And the treatments that will be able to reduce the severity or duration of the symptoms – make people better.
Chloroquine, or hydroxychloroquine, this is a common malaria drug. It’s also a drug used for strong arthritis … It’s been around for a long time, so we know if things don’t go as planned it’s not going to kill anybody … It’s shown very, very encouraging early results, and we’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately.
Pres. Trump touts chloroquine, an old malaria drug, that doctors say may help treat novel coronavirus, claims it will be available "almost immediately."
The tiny airport at Lukla, perched on the edge of a mountain high in Nepal’s Himalayas, usually echoes with the roar of propeller planes flying a constant stream of adventure-seekers into the small town, known as the gateway to Mount Everest.
During the peak spring tourist season, tens of thousands of trekkers and mountaineers arrive to test themselves on the popular trek to Everest base camp, and perhaps go on to climb the world’s highest peak.
Everything that was once an urgent priority has evaporated. What matters right now is people’s health, and their family’s futures
It’s day three of my self-isolation. I returned to Aotearoa New Zealand on Monday night from a long-planned family wedding in Australia, itself book-ended by apocalyptic circumstance. Fires and floods rolled out the red carpet, while rapid global escalation of Covid-19 brought it to a finale.
I had booked flights back directly into Wellington, our capital city, because I’d intended to return immediately to work on Tuesday morning with the sitting of Parliament. Those intentions had been wiped clear on the weekend, with calls between caucus members and staffers confirming all arrivals back into the country would be required to quarantine themselves for a fortnight. To limit further travel, it transpired I’d be locking myself into a Wellington apartment, the opposite end of the North Island from my home of Auckland.
More than 170 Australians trapped in locked-down Peru have been advised by the government to find a commercial charter flight to get out of the country.
Some passengers have been able to get on chartered flights to the US, while others have been offered a dedicated charter flight from Lima to Sydney, but at a cost of more than $5,000.
Transport for London (TfL) is now moving to cut the number of trains and buses running throughout the week, most likely to the level of weekend schedules. On Wednesday night it announced it was closing up to 40 stations with no interchange from Thursday onwards. But what are the key issues transport chiefs need to consider when limiting services?
Belgium is the latest country to go into lockdown, with citizens asked to stay at home and limit contact to their closest family. From noon on Wednesday, all non-essential shops and open-air markets closed and people were expected to work at home
In her short tenure as prime minister, Jacinda Ardern has shown herself to be extremely good in a crisis.
After taking on the leadership of the Labour party just seven weeks before the 2017 general election, Ardern has put together a disparate coalition government, had a baby while in office, dealt with the Christchurch terrorist attacks, guided the nation through a deadly volcano eruption, and now this.
Imagine working in an underfunded, understaffed hospital facing a devastating disease outbreak. Imagine being forced to make impossible choices about who to treat and who to let die. Imagine coming home to your family, knowing you might be putting them at risk.
These are the awful situations we health workers faced in dealing with the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Libera. For me the greatest tragedy is hearing similar stories emerge from colleagues around the world who are up against the coronavirus. It terrifies me to see that developed countries health systems are at breaking point – I hate to imagine what this virus might do to my region next.