Health adviser says on CNN ‘you could logically say if you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives’
Prominent US public health adviser Dr Anthony Fauci appeared on Sunday to confirm a bombshell New York Times report which said he and other Trump administration officials recommended the implementation of social distancing to combat the coronavirus in February, but were rebuffed for almost a month.
Continue reading...International relations expert warns policy failure could do lasting damage as president insults allies and undermines alliances
Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, which he once dismissed as a hoax, has been fiercely criticised at home as woefully inadequate to the point of irresponsibility.
Yet also thanks largely to Trump, a parallel disaster is unfolding across the world: the ruination of America’s reputation as a safe, trustworthy, competent international leader and partner.
Call it the Trump double-whammy. Diplomatically speaking, the US is on life support.
Continue reading...Jessica Salfia’s widely shared poem First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining has the refrain ‘As you know, many people are struggling’
Everyone has received at least one and now they’ve been elevated to poetry: a US teacher has highlighted corporate opportunism during the coronavirus outbreak, in a viral poem titled First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining.
Jessica Salfia, an English teacher and writer in West Virginia, posted the poem on Twitter on Saturday. “In these uncertain times / as we navigate the new normal, / Are you willing to share your ideas and solutions? / As you know, many people are struggling,” the poem begins.
Continue reading...Whole families are falling victim as African Americans are hit disproportionately hard by the coronavirus pandemic
Last weekend, at two churches in New Orleans, two pastors read from separate passages of the Bible as they buried four members of the same family. Each had died within days of each other after contracting the novel coronavirus.
Related: 'A nightmare all over again': after surviving Katrina, New Orleans battles Covid-19
Continue reading...Stella Moris, who had two sons with WikiLeaks founder while he was in Ecuadorian embassy, says he is in danger from coronavirus while in prison
The partner of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has revealed that she had two children with him while he was living inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
Stella Moris, 37, a South African-born lawyer, issued a plea for the father of her two young sons, Gabriel, three, and Max, one, to be released from prison and said there were genuine fears for Assange’s health.
Continue reading...New York governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio once again had differing opinions on who has authority to implement certain Covid-19 policies.
This time, it involved De Blasio’s announcement on Saturday morning that New York City’s school district, which oversees 1.1 million students, would shutter for the rest of the academic year to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus. De Blasio said his administration was forging a “comprehensive plan” to safely reopen schools in September and that “next year is going to have to be the greatest academic year New York public schools have ever had”.
Continue reading...Tom Cotton told Fox News he did not believe virus originated in Wuhan market and said bioweapons link should not be ruled out
A Republican senator who floated a conspiracy theory which said the Chinese government created Covid-19 in a weapons lab claimed on Saturday that since he first learned of the outbreak, in mid-January, “common sense has been my guide”.
The Covid-19 outbreak began in the Chinese city of Wuhan, but has spread globally and by Saturday evening had killed more people in America, nearly 20,000, than in any other country. White House public health experts have said they currently expect a death toll of around 60,000 in the United States.
Continue reading...US death toll tops 19,600. Italy and India extend lockdown, while IHME revises down forecast for number of deaths in the UK
I’m keen to share some powerful photojournalism from around the world with you.
Here’s a photograph of women in Pakistan queuing up to get government aid to support themselves and their families during coronavirus.
The latest figures for France have just been released by the health ministry. They are as follows:
Continue reading...More than 500,000 cases confirmed in US, according to Johns Hopkins University, as taskforce member warns: ‘We have not reached the peak’
A TV news channel in Mississippi has found a church pastor who says he plans to hold an in-person Easter Sunday service – in contravention of a mayor’s executive order – because he’s upset that more people will be at home improvement stores tomorrow than would be permitted in his congregation.
“It’s kinda hard for me to understand why I can only have 10 in a worship service when I go to Lowe’s, Home Depot, and there are more than 10,” Jesse Horton Sr, pastor at Jackson’s Emmanuel Baptist missionary church, told WAPT-TV.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau says his country faces a “fork in the road” after public health officials revealed a projected death toll between 11,000 and 22,000.
“We will not be coming back to our former normal situation; we can’t do that until we have developed a vaccine and that could take 12 to 18 months,” Trudeau said in an address to the House of Commons in Ottawa. “We don’t exactly know how long – we hope it’s earlier rather than later.”
Continue reading...Spain to let some non-essential staff return to work, but Italians shut in until at least 3 May
The US has become the first country to record more than 2,000 deaths from coronavirus in a single day, as its overall toll surpassed that of Italy, making it the worst-hit country in the world.
White House experts said there were some signs the spread of the disease may be levelling off, but the US now has more than half a million confirmed infections and in the last 24 hours 2,108 people died. Hotspots include New York, Detroit, Louisiana and the capital, Washington DC.
Continue reading...Shootings and murders have remained fairly consistent during shelter-in-place, with the city registering more shootings in March than the previous year
The coronavirus pandemic has forced Chicago into lockdown, closing restaurants, bars, stores and even its celebrated lakefront. But the crisis hasn’t slowed the city’s devastating gun violence epidemic.
While crime overall has ticked down slightly amid shelter-in-place orders from local leaders, shootings and murders have remained fairly consistent so far, with the city registering more shootings in March this year than the previous year.
Continue reading...
What does protest look like under a stay-at-home order?
This evening, activists are lighting a candle in solidarity with more than 90,000 people typically incarcerated in state prisons and jails in New York state, as coronavirus threatens to turn crowded, unsanitary prisons into death traps.
Lighting a candle for all incarcerated people tonight in solidarity with #FreeThemAll4PublicHealth pic.twitter.com/fzWJZ8O7Yj
It is inhumane to let people die in cages. That has always been true, and it is especially true now in the midst of a global pandemic.
6 y/o and I are joining the @FreeThemAll2020 campaign in calling on @NYGovCuomo to #FreeThemAll4PublicHealth. pic.twitter.com/vrAjImhUAe
#FreeThemAll4PublicHealth #FreeThemAll because people don't belong in cages pic.twitter.com/bWZGnmQQar
Advocates have been pleading for weeks that San Francisco move people out of homeless shelters and into hotel rooms, given that the conditions inside these facilities are often unsanitary and crowded, making it easy for a virus to quickly spread.
Now, there has been a major coronavirus outbreak inside a homeless shelter in San Francisco: nearly 70 residents at MSC South have tested positive, which is roughly half of all the people who were tested.
After 70 residents of a San Francisco homeless shelter test positive for Covid-19, advocates say others are trapped in lockdown in shelters with restrictions. "Telling them they cannot leave is not protecting them"-@Leahfsw. "People need to be moved to hotels, not just locked up" pic.twitter.com/YTfxVaMIGg
Continue reading...The effect of the three-week-long lockdown on daily life in San Francisco is revealed in drone footage showing empty streets and deserted landmarks. The city was the first in the US to announce a 'stay-at-home' order on 16 March, restricting all but essential activities
Continue reading...The app will use a Bluetooth technology to trace every phone a person comes in contact with, raising concerns over privacy
Apple and Google announced Friday an unprecedented collaboration to leverage smartphone technology to help trace and contain the spread of coronavirus.
The collaboration will open up their mobile operating systems to allow for the creation of advanced “contact-tracing” apps, which will run on iPhones and Android phones alike.
Continue reading...Prosecutors accuse film producer, serving 23-year sentence in New York, of sexual battery by restraint in 2010 incident
Los Angeles prosecutors have filed a new sexual assault charge against Harvey Weinstein, the film producer serving a 23-year prison sentence in New York for rape.
The LA district attorney’s office, which filed its original case in January, announced on Friday that Weinstein was facing a new felony charge of sexual battery by restraint, stemming from an incident at a Beverly Hills hotel on 11 May 2010.
Continue reading...Green activist turned China hawk shares president’s brittle traits and wrote books quoting expert who turned out to be fictitious version of himself
The rise of Peter Navarro – the man put in charge of marshalling emergency US production of medical equipment in the midst of a pandemic – is in many ways a classic story of the Trump era.
Related: Peter Navarro: the economist shaping Trump's economic thinking
Continue reading...Attorney general asserts that investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia was ‘without basis’, despite evidence
William Barr has said without evidence that he believes the Russia investigation that shadowed Donald Trump for the first two years of his administration was started without any basis and amounted to an effort to “sabotage the presidency”, he said in an interview with Fox News Channel that aired on Thursday.
The attorney general offered no support for his assertion that the FBI lacked a basis for opening the investigation and made no mention of the fact that the bureau began its investigation after a Trump campaign adviser purported to have early knowledge that Russia had dirt on his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
Continue reading...While ridership on the New York City subway has declined 92% during the outbreak of the coronavirus, for many essential workers it remains the only way to get to work. But with cramped conditions and busy train carriages, the subway brings its own risks.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson leaves intensive care; cases worldwide top 1.6m; UN chief says virus threatens global security
Oman’s capital, Muscat, went under full lockdown this morning as number of confirmed coronavirus cases reach 484 in the sultanate with 27 recorded in last 24 hours, writes Akhtar Mohammad Makoii.
The government announced that the isolation procedure will be implemented until April 22. The plan started 10 am this morning by “activating control and checkpoints”.
The Decision to Lockdown Muscat Governorate
comes into effect.#عمان_تواجه_كورونا pic.twitter.com/F6evI3u2Zv
Singapore has suspended the use of video-conferencing tool Zoom by teachers, its education ministry said on Friday, after “very serious incidents” occurred in the first week of a coronavirus lockdown that has seen schools move to home-based learning, Reuters reports.
One of the incidents involved obscene images appearing on screens and strange men making lewd comments during the streaming of a geography lesson with teenage girls, according to local media reports.
These are very serious incidents. MOE (Ministry of Education) is currently investigating both breaches and will lodge a police report if warranted. As a precautionary measure, our teachers will suspend their use of Zoom until these security issues are ironed out.
Continue reading...Italy extends lockdown; death rate in Spain begins falling again; cases worldwide top 1.6m
Here’s a summary of the most recent news:
The US has approved 661,000 loans to small businesses totalling $168bn (£134bn) under a programme to address the pandemic’s fallout, the White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow says.
A $2.3tn economic stimulus enacted last month allocated $349bn to loans to small businesses hurt by the crisis that can be turned into grants if they meet certain conditions.
Continue reading...