U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in intensive care in a London hospital with COVID-19, officials said on Monday, one day after Johnson was admitted to the hospital with persistent symptoms of the coronavirus. Johnson was the first world leader to test positive for the coronavirus on March 27. “Over the course of this afternoon, the condition of the prime minister has worsened and, on the advice of his medical team, he has been moved to the intensive care unit at the hospital,” a spokesperson said. The Prime Minister is reportedly conscious and the decision was taken as a precaution in case he needs ventilation. Officials had earlier said Johnson was only taken to hospital as a “precautionary step” on Sunday, and would continue to lead the British government. He has nominated Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to deputize for him “where necessary,” a spokesperson said. “Last night, on the advice of my doctor, I went into hospital for some routine tests as I’m still experiencing coronavirus symptoms,” Johnson tweeted from the hospital earlier on Monday, before being admitted to intensive care. “I’m in good spirits and keeping in touch with my team, as we work together to fight this virus and keep everyone safe.” Johnson is not the only top British government official to be infected with COVID-19. His Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, also has the disease, along with his top advisor Dominic Cummings. His Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, recently returned to work after self-isolating with symptoms of the disease. And Johnson’s pregnant fiancée, Carrie Symonds, said she has been suffering with symptoms of COVID-19 for the past week.
HOLY SMOKE Idiots ‘BURNING 5G masts’ after conspiracy that ‘radiation sparked coronavirus’ is spread by celebs
CONSPIRACY nuts are reportedly setting phone masts alight and targeting engineers after a bizarre claim 5G “radiation” caused the deadly coronavirus spread.
The theory originated last month after a video filmed at a US health conference claimed Africa was not as affected by the disease because it is “not a 5G region”. The myth was quickly debunked after the World Health Organisation confirmed there were thousands of Covid-19 cases in Africa. The government has also confirmed there is “no evidence to suggest that 5G has anything to do with Covid-19”. Celebs have been slammed for sharing the conspiracy theory, including Jason Gardiner and Callum Best, who posted similar claims that 5G can impact the immune syste. But the claims have still been doing the rounds on WhatsApp via a lengthy voice note – with phone masts now being set alight in the UK. Engineers are now also being targeted with social media users encouraging each other to destroy the masts in a Stop 5G Facebook group.
One telecoms engineer, who didn’t wish to be named, said: “There are Facebook groups posting videos of the masts being set on fire and people encouraging others to do the same. “Wuhan was a test bed for the 5G rollout but is a dumbfounded connection.” Mobile UK, who represent networks EE, 02, Three and Vodafone, confirmed to The Sun Online some workers had been abused over the false claims. They said in a statement: “During this challenging situation, it is concerning that certain groups are using the COVID-19 pandemic to spread false rumours and theories about the safety of 5G technologies. “More worryingly some people are also abusing our key workers and making threats to damage infrastructure under the pretence of claims about 5G.
Antibody tests key to ending COVID-19 lockdowns
Paris (AFP) – It’s the key that opens to door from total lockdown: serologic testing, which will show definitively who has contracted COVID-19 and is in theory safe to return to work. “Everyone’s waiting for serologic testing, the whole world,” said France’s Health Minister Olivier Veran. He said that the global research community was focussing on ways of perfecting the tests, which measure viral antibodies in a person’s blood that signal immunity. Veran said that mass production of the tests could start within weeks. “It’s a huge factor, especially when we’re trying to reduce confinement,” he said. The World Health Organization said that serologic tests were still being developed but were yet to be properly evaluated. Current diagnostic tests, known as RT-PCR, are invasive and use genetic analysis to see if a person is actively infected. Serologic testing, which only requires a drop of blood to conduct, focuses instead on finding virus antibodies, the presence of which indicates that an individual has had COVID-19 and is now likely immune.
“Antibodies are one of the key immune response components. They start to be detectable around a week after initial infection,” said Andrew Preston, a reader in Microbial Pathogenesis at the University of Bath.
There are two types of antibodies associated with the COVID-19 immune response: IgM, which the body produces in the early stages of viral response, and IgG, which arrive later on during infection. The tests being developed can identify both antibodies, key hallmarks of a patient’s auto-immune response to the virus. “Thus there is great interest in the use of an antibody test to indicate immunity against disease for use in the lifting of lockdown restrictions,” said Preston. Antibody testing is so crucial because of the large proportion of people with COVID-19 infections who may not show symptoms but can still pass the virus on to others. Such tests already exist for other illnesses. And once they are perfected for the novel coronavirus the results can be analysed in labs using existing hardware.
Italy Risks Losing Grip in South With Fear of Looting, Riots
As Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte fights to hold Italian society together through a crippling nationwide lockdown, the depressed south is turning into a powder keg. Police have been deployed on the streets of Sicily’s capital, Palermo, amid reports gangs are using social media to plot attacks on stores. A bankrupt ferry company halted service to the island, including vital supplies of food and medicines. As the state creaks under the strain of the coronavirus pandemic, officials worry the mafia may be preparing to step in. Preventing unrest in the so-called Mezzogiorno, the underdeveloped southern region that’s long lagged behind the wealthy north, has become the government’s top priority, according to Italian officials who asked not to be named discussing the administration’s strategy. With the European Union’s most dangerously indebted state already fighting the Germans over the terms of the financial aid it needs, the fallout may reach far beyond Rome if Conte fails. “We need to act fast, more than fast,” Palermo Mayor Leoluca Orlando told daily La Stampa. “Distress could turn into violence.” As the lockdown enters its fourth week, Health Minister Roberto Speranza said in a statement late Monday that the government will follow the recommendation of its scientific advicers to extend the lockdown from the current deadline of April 3 until Easter at least. Conte is also working on a new stimulus package for mid-April worth at least 30 billion euros ($33 billion), following initial measures worth 25 billion euros, the officials said. Italy has the highest death toll from the virus, with more than 11,000 fatalities, and almost 102,000 confirmed cases, second only to the U.S. It reported the smallest number of new coronavirus infections in almost two weeks on Monday. Within the aid he’s already announced, Conte is trying to channel funds toward the South. Over the weekend he advanced 4.3 billion euros from a solidarity fund for municipalities and added 400 million euros to mayors that can be converted into coupons for groceries. “No one will be left behind,” the premier said in a televised address. Still, southern leaders are clamoring for more. They say that cash from the solidarity fund was already due to them and the economic damage from the lockdown has brought their region to the verge of a breakdown. That opens another front for Conte, who is already struggling to stop the Italian health system from collapsing and fighting the European Union for joint debt issuance to help relieve the financial pressure on his government. Italy’s economic output is set to shrink by 6.5% in 2020, according to research group Prometeia. The lockdown has hit the 3.7 million Italians working in the underground economy particularly hard since they don’t receive a regular salary and have difficulty accessing unemployment benefits. Many of them are concentrated in the South. In the South, “many people live day-to-day, doing odd jobs, like unloading trucks at markets, and they are in trouble,” Stefano Paoloni, a police union leader, said by phone. “We need to be on the alert to see whether there’s organized crime behind social unrest.” Police have been stationed outside supermarkets in Palermo after at least one group of angry residents refused to pay for their purchases. The private Facebook group National Revolution, which has about 2,600 members, is urging others to stage such raids, according to newspaper la Repubblica. Other social media outlets, including WhatsApp chats, are being monitored, the newspaper said. Adding to the sense of things breaking down, ferry company Tirrenia CIN on Monday decided to halt all its connections with Sicily, Sardinia and other minor islands because of financial difficulties. The government said in a statement it will ensure that vital goods are delivered. Giuseppe Provenzano, who is in charge of the south in Conte’s cabinet, said an emergency handout should also be given to those in the illegal economy. The risk is that organized crime gangs will step in to provide assistance to those in need, filling the gap left by the state. The government needs to move “without hesitation,” said Graziano Delrio, leader of lower-house lawmakers from the Democratic Party, the second-biggest group in Conte’s coalition. Rome needs “to do whatever’s necessary for the essential needs of families,” he said in an interview.
Nurses Die, Doctors Fall Sick and Panic Rises on Virus Front Lines
A supervisor urged surgeons at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in Manhattan to volunteer for the front lines because half the intensive-care staff had already been sickened by coronavirus. “ICU is EXPLODING,” she wrote in an email. A doctor at Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan described the unnerving experience of walking daily past an intubated, critically ill colleague in her 30s, wondering who would be next. Another doctor at a major New York City hospital described it as “a petri dish,” where more than 200 workers had fallen sick. Two nurses in city hospitals have died. The coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 30,000 people in New York City, is beginning to take a toll on those who are most needed to combat it: the doctors, nurses and other workers at hospitals and clinics. In emergency rooms and intensive care units, typically dispassionate medical professionals are feeling panicked as increasing numbers of colleagues get sick.
“I feel like we’re all just being sent to slaughter,” said Thomas Riley, a nurse a Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, who has contracted the virus, along with his husband.
Medical workers are still showing up day after day to face overflowing emergency rooms, earning them praise as heroes. Thousands of volunteers have signed up to join their colleagues. But doctors and nurses said they can look overseas for a dark glimpse of the risk they are facing, especially when protective gear has been in short supply. In China, more than 3,000 doctors were infected, nearly half of them in Wuhan, where the pandemic began, according to Chinese government statistics. Li Wenliang, the Chinese doctor who first tried to raise the alarm about Covid-19, eventually died of it. In Italy, the number of infected heath care workers is now twice the Chinese total, and the National Federation of Orders of Surgeons and Dentists has compiled a list of 50 who have died. Nearly 14 percent of Spain’s confirmed coronavirus cases are medical professionals. New York City’s health care system is sprawling and disjointed, making precise infection rates among medical workers difficult to calculate. A spokesman for the Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs New York City’s public hospitals, said the agency would not share data about sick medical workers “at this time.”
Trump: US extends social distancing guidelines until April 30
(CNN)The United States will extend its set of social distancing guidelines until April 30, President Trump said in a coronavirus news briefing at the White House on Sunday. “We will be extending our guidelines to April 30 to slow the spread,” the President said. “On Tuesday, we will be finalizing these plans and providing a summary of our findings, supporting data and strategy to the American people.” As of Sunday evening there are more than 137,000 cases of coronavirus in the United States. At least 2,400 people have died. Trump’s administration issued guidelines on social distancing on March 16 aimed at containing the coronavirus outbreak. The guidance, which initially had a 15-day time frame, urged Americans to avoid groups of more than 10 and advised that older people stay home. Trump hopes the country will be on its way to recovery by June 1, he said Sunday. “A lot of great things will be happening,” the President said.
Fauci says 100,000 to 200,000 Americans could die from coronavirus
WASHINGTON (AP) — As the White House looks for ways to restore normalcy in parts of the U.S., the government’s foremost infection disease expert says the country could experience more than 100,000 deaths and millions of infections from the coronavirus pandemic. Dr. Anthony Fauci, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, offered his prognosis as the federal government weighs rolling back guidelines on social distancing in areas that have not been as hard-hit by the outbreak at the conclusion of the nationwide 15-day effort to slow the spread of the virus.
“I would say between 100,000 and 200,000 cases,” he said, correcting himself to say he meant deaths. “We’re going to have millions of cases.” But he added “I don’t want to be held to that” because the pandemic is “such a moving target.
About 125,000 cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. had been recorded as of Sunday morning, with over 2,100 dead. It is certain that many more have the disease but their cases have not been reported. One in three Americans remain under state or local government orders to stay at home to slow the spread of the virus, with schools and businesses closed and public life upended. Dr. Deborah Birx, head of the White House coronavirus task force, said parts of the country with few cases so far must prepare for what’s to come. “No state, no metro area, will be spared,” she said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Fauci said he would only support the rollback in lesser-impacted areas if more testing is in place to monitor those areas. He said “it’s a little iffy there” right now. Most people who contract COVID-19 have mild or moderate symptoms, which can include fever and cough but also milder cases of pneumonia, sometimes requiring hospitalization. The risk of death is greater for older adults and people with other health problems. Hospitals in the most afflicted areas are straining to handle patients and some are short of critical supplies. Fauci’s prediction would take the death toll well past that of the average seasonal flu. Trump repeatedly cited the flu’s comparatively much higher cost in lives in playing down the severity of this pandemic. Meanwhile, governors in other hotspots across the country were raising alarm that the spread of the virus was threatening their health-care systems. “We remain on a trajectory, really, to overwhelm our capacity to deliver health care,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said on ABC’s “This Week.” “By the end of the first week in April, we think the first real issue is going to be ventilators. And we think it’s about the fourth or fifth of April before, down in the New Orleans area, we’re unable to put people on ventilators who need them. And then several days later, we will be out of beds.” He said officials have orders out for more than 12,000 ventilators through the national stockpile and private vendors, but so far have only been able to get 192.
The United States now has the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world, surpassing Italy and China
Donald Trump again struggled to reassure a fearful nation on Thursday as it emerged the US now has the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the world. News that America had surpassed virus hotspots China and Italy with 82,404 cases of infection, according to a tracker run by Johns Hopkins University, broke as the president was holding a press conference at the White House. His instinctive response was to question other countries’ statistics. “It’s a tribute to the amount of testing that we’re doing,” Trump told reporters. “We’re doing tremendous testing, and I’m sure you’re not able to tell what China is testing or not testing. I think that’s a little hard.” Trump later spoke to the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, by telephone and had what he described on Twitter as a “very good conversation”. The two leaders discussed the coronavirus in “great detail”, adding that: “China has been through much & has developed a strong understanding of the Virus. We are working closely together. Much respect!” While the US has increased its testing capacity in recent days the process has been flawed and incoherent, and the country still lags behind leaders such as South Korea in terms of the number of tests administered per-capita.
On a grim day, the death toll in America surpassed 1,000 and it was revealed that last week 3.3 million people filed for unemployment – the biggest single-week jump in history. The president has been widely condemned for failing to act fast enough, misjudging the public mood and seeking to blame others rather than taking personal responsibility. “It’s nobody’s fault,” Trump said of the jobless figure. “Certainly not in this country. Nobody’s fault. We got very lucky when we made a decision not to allow people in from China on a very early date. I say that because some people don’t want to accept it, but this was a great decision made by our country, or the numbers that you’re talking about – we’re a big country – they’d be far greater, far bigger.” He added: “I heard it could be six million, could be seven million. It’s 3.3 or 3.2, but it’s a lot of jobs, but I think we’ll come back very strong. The sooner we get back to work – you know, every day we stay out it gets harder to bring it back very quickly, and our people don’t want to stay out … I think you’ll see a very fast turnaround once we have a victory over the hidden enemy.” Trump told the briefing that dates for reopening sections of the country were under discussion but he notably did not refer to Easter – 12 April – as he has been pushing in recent days. Critics have long accused him of lacking compassion, pointing to examples such as when, in 2017, he lobbed paper towels at hurricane survivors in Puerto Rico. On Thursday he was asked about the thousands of restaurants going out of business, causing personal devastation to owners and staff. “I understand the restaurant business,” he claimed, describing it as “very delicate”. He went on: “You can serve 30 great meals to a person and a family … one bad meal, 31, and they never come back again. It’s a very tough business.” He added: “It may not be the same restaurant, it may not be the same ownership, but they’ll all be back.” Even as New York hospitals become overwhelmed, with doctors complaining of nightmarish conditions, and cases spike in cities such as New Orleans, Trump continued to talk down the threat from the virus. “Many people have it. I just spoke to two people that had it. They never went to a doctor, they didn’t report it … The people that actually die, that percentage is much lower than I actually thought.” Continue reading “The United States now has the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world, surpassing Italy and China”
Italy expects drop in new coronavirus cases soon – official
Italian Deputy Health Minister Pierpaolo Sileri stated on Sunday that the country’s lockdown measures are “starting to work” and that the number of new coronavirus cases is likely to drop soon. “We are living in the peak of this epidemic,” Sileri told BBC’s Andrew Marr and noted the jump in the number of reported infections over the past few days came as a result of more tests being carried out.
“I believe in one week’s time, 10 days maximum, we will see a drop in positive cases,” he added.
On Saturday, Italy’s COVID-19 death toll climbed by 889 to 10,023 as it remained the country with most fatalities. The total number of coronavirus cases reached 92,472, making Italy the most affected country after the United States.
North Korea test fires missiles amid worries about outbreak
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Sunday fired two suspected ballistic missiles into the sea, South Korea and Japan said, continuing a streak of weapons launches that suggests leader Kim Jong Un is trying to strengthen domestic support amid worries about a possible coronavirus outbreak in the country. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the projectiles flying from the North Korean eastern coastal city of Wonsan into the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan on Sunday morning. The projectiles flew about 230 kilometers (143 miles) at a maximum altitude of 30 kilometers (19 miles), the statement said. The military described the launches as “very inappropriate” at a time when the world is battling the coronavirus outbreak. It urged North Korea to stop such military action. Japan’s Defense Ministry said that presumed ballistic missiles were believed to have splashed into the sea outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone. “Recent repeated firings of ballistic missiles by North Korea is a serious problem to the entire international community including Japan,” a ministry statement said.
In recent weeks, North Korea has fired a slew of missiles and artillery shells into the sea in an apparent effort to upgrade its military capability amid deadlocked nuclear talks with the United States.
Those weapons were all short range and capable of striking South Korea, but didn’t pose a direct threat to the U.S. homeland. Some experts say the latest North Korean launches were likely designed to shore up unity and show that leader Kim Jong Un is in control in the face of U.S.-led sanctions and the global pandemic. Kim “wants to show he rules in a normal way amid the coronavirus (pandemic) and his latest weapons tests were aimed at rallying unity internally, not launching a threat externally,” said Kim Dong-yub, an analyst at Seoul’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies. “North Korea doesn’t have time now to spare for staging (external threats).” North Korea has been engaged in an intense campaign to prevent the spread of the virus that has infected more than 660,000 worldwide. It has called its campaign a matter of “national existence” but has steadfastly denied there has been a single virus outbreak on its soil. Many foreign experts question that claim, warning an epidemic in North Korea could be dire because of its chronic lack of medical supplies and poor health care infrastructure. A week ago, North Korea said President Donald Trump sent a personal letter to Kim, seeking to maintain good relations and offering cooperation in fighting the outbreak. A North Korean state media dispatch didn’t say whether Trump mentioned any of the latest weapons tests by the North. Kim Jong Un has vowed to boost internal strength to withstand what he calls “gangsters-like” U.S.-led sanctions that are stifling his country’s economy. His nuclear diplomacy with Trump faltered after the American president turned down his calls for broad sanctions relief in exchange for a limited denuclearization step during their second summit in Vietnam in early 2009. North Korea hasn’t carried out nuclear or long-range missile tests since it began talks with the United States in 2018. A resumption of a major weapons test by North Korea risks completely disrupting the negotiations.