Experts have warned the UK government that COVID-19 antibody tests lack “adequate assessment” to be rolled out nationwide. The tests could also reportedly create an unnecessary burden on the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).

Bad Timing

This comes during a pivotal period in the country, as lockdown restrictions are being lifted. Despite these warnings, the government has rolled out millions of tests to NHS Trusts nationwide. They have also rolled out the tests around care homes, whose primary patients are the elderly.

What’s more, the UK is set to lift even more lockdown restrictions on July 4. However, it must take precautions to ensure that, unlike the United States, reopening efforts do not cause higher reinfection rates.

Why Dentists?

Healthcare workers on the frontline are at the highest collective risk of exposure to the virus. This is according to statistics curated by the US Department of Labor. In particular, dentists are at the greatest risk in both exposure to the disease and physical proximity to others.

Dr David Denning is a Professor of Infectious Diseases in Global Health at the University of Manchester. He believes that dentists can be a great asset in the fight against the virus transmission.

Furthermore, he explains, the many unanswered questions of the SARS CoV2 infection are an “intrinsic problem”. Yet, “many individual patients do want to know if they have had COVID-19 or not.”

Can Antibody Testing Reduce Coronavirus Transmission?

Some scientists have argued that testing dental patients for COVID-19 transmissibiity could be a great way to reduce reinfection rates.

Co-founder of DenScreen, Dr. David Denning states that this new system will “assist dentists in getting back to work safely.”

“If only IgG (immunogloblulin test) results from symptomatic SARS CoV2 PCR positive patients obtained at least 2 weeks after infection are taken into account, the sensitivity of the best fingerprick and some of the ELISA methods is 95-97% and specific approximately 99%,” he wrote in a letter in the peer-reviewed, British Medical Journal.

The letter was in response to criticisms against the scientific inadequacies of “rapid roll out of SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing.” Indeed, the novelty of the virus has created scientific dispute about the proper methods for testing the British population.

“While not perfect, this is a high level of performance and much higher than many of the routine tests we currently do and substantially better sensitivity that SARS CoV2 PCR approximately 70%,” he continued.

“There are now some data indicating that asymptomatic SARS CoV2 infection usually generates an IgG antibody response, but sensitivity is lower. Also antibody levels fall over time, and so repeat testing many be indicated,” Denning argued.

He added that “we are missing data from children, many immunocompromised groups and those of different ethnic backgrounds.

“Without prospective studies these data are unlikely to be generated in the UK, because of the necessary linkage with medical records required for analysis, which requires explicit consent and is unattainable for a devolved laboratory system as the PHE (Public Health Emergency) is currently structured without substantial resource put into gaining consent.

“The UK’s tight rules on consent for this sort of linkage data is an impediment to data generation for public health benefit, as in the current crisis,” the letter reads.

Using Dentists to Collect Valuable Data

Although dentists face the highest risk of exposure to the virus, millions of people visit dentists every year. For example, in the UK, about 20 million people visit a dentist annually. In other words, dentists make a great addition to frontline workers who can test a significant part of the population

For Denning, the plan is “to collect all the data antibody data and basic demography to better understand the background infection rates in dental workers and in patients.”

To illustrate, Dr. Gareth Elgan Rees, a dentist in England, has introduced the system in practice.

“As our dental practices open their doors to patients again, we have to prepare and protect both our staff and patients from an invisible enemy,” he asserted.

“Dentists can now screen patients to see who is high or low risk and do a ten minute antibody test to see who has already had COVID-19 and is non-infectious,” he added.

“Everyone’s risk of carrying the coronavirus can be checked – whether low, medium or high. Dentistry can be very safe for patients with good systems in place.”

L'articolo How Dentists on the Frontline Can Reduce Coronavirus Infection Rates proviene da InsideOver.

“Social distancing” is a silent and intimate journey trying to photograph this limbo in which the coronavirus outbreak seems to have suspended our lives. Read the full report here

L'articolo Social distancing proviene da InsideOver.

Brazil is now second in the world for the number of coronavirus cases after the United States. The South American developing nation of over 209 million now has more than 25,700 recorded fatalities from the virus. Specifically, Brazil now has over 414,000 recorded cases of COVID-19 and some experts have projected this number is likely to be five times higher by August. According to a report cited by Reuters last month, Brazil likely has up to 12 times more coronavirus cases than the amount being officially recorded. So far testing has been minimal with only approximately 560,000 tests performed (less than .5% of the population), although the Brazilian government aims to test 46 million citizens (22 % of the population) by this December.

At this point Brazil is the epicenter of the coronavirus in Latin America and a surging global hot spot. US President Donald Trump recently blocked all Brazilians and foreigners currently in Brazil from entering the United States.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has long been one of the biggest skeptics of COVID-19, dismissing it early in the pandemic as a “little flu” and stating that the crisis was being exploited by his enemies to remove him from power and intentionally crash Brazil’s economy. Conflicts between Bolsonaro and state governors who wanted stricter lockdowns such as the Governor of Goiás Ronaldo Caiado have caused division and political turmoil in the geographically massive Latin American nation.

Brazil’s Raging Political Firestorm

In the midst of the coronavirus crisis, Brazil has also been embroiled in an intense political showdown.

Bolsonaro fired the head of Brazil’s federal police last month and other key officials after learning they were investigating his son Flavio Bolsonaro and Carlos Bolsonaro for corruption and disinformation offences. A video showed Bolsonaro saying he would go up the government ranks as far as necessary to fire anyone who tried to “screw” with his family. The firing led Bolsonaro’s key partner and justice minister Sergio Moro to resign in protest at Bolsonaro’s executive intervention.

The situation has now escalated, with a series of “fake news” raids carried out May 27, including reportedly targeting Carlos Bolsonaro and what one Sao Paulo paper called his “fake news racket.” The 29 warrants seizing computers and information from Bolsonaro supporters and bloggers has outraged the President, and conservative Brazilian Congressman Douglas Garcia said the raids were nothing less than an attempt to “silence the voices of conservatives on social networks.”

Speaking on May 28, Bolsonaro angrily denounced the “absurd orders” of federal police acting on orders of Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF), saying the situation is already “f***ing over” and bringing it back into the spotlight is an attempt to drag back up unfounded allegations and oust him from power. Bolsonaro said that the current fake news crisis is being staged to portray him as a “right-wing pseudo-dictator” and wrest power from him. Bolsonaro has previously expressed support for extrajudicial killings and torture, but indignantly referred to the necessity of upholding liberty and democracy in his May 28 remarks. The president ended his press conference when a journalist tried to ask him a question and walked away with his entourage to leave in a waiting vehicle. 

Bolsonaro Bucks the Trend

Bolsonaro has long claimed there is an agenda to steal his election win through the COVID-19 crisis by collapsing Brazil’s economy and fomenting political chaos. Despite early warning signs from other nations across the globe, Brazil responded relatively late by implementing quarantines and closing public facilities and restaurants. Bolsonaro attended rallies with anti-lockdown protesters, taking selfies with their phones and insisting that a lockdown would be far more harmful as a whole than letting the disease take its course.

Brazil’s former minister of health Nelson Teich quit after one month on the job in the middle of this month after falling out with Bolsonaro. Teich had taken over after Bolsonaro fired the previous Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta for insisting that social distancing was necessary. The new Minister of Health is General Eduardo Pazuello, a military man without medical experience.

The coronavirus hit Brazil relatively late compared to other South American countries, with the first case recorded in Sao Paulo on Feb. 25, 2020 and the first death in Sao Paulo by March 17 from a 62-year-old man who had recently been to Italy. COVID-19 spread in Sao Paulo and other major regions and cities of Brazil but Bolsonaro was cautious about locking down, noting that “the economy has to function because we can’t have a wave of unemployment.”

As state governors exercised authority to lockdown they clashed with Bolsonaro who urged that “life must go on” and made it clear he was still going out shopping. He also promoted hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID-19 and said closing everything would be a surefire path to “breaking Brazil.” By May 16 Brazil’s coronavirus death toll was over 15,000 and is now surging, reaching 21,000 five days later. Cases are particularly prevalent in northern cities like Manaus and crowded, poor favelas in the south which are home to around 13 million densely-packed low-income citizens with minimal access to healthcare. Bolsonaro now says the fight against coronavirus is a “war” but remains disquieted by the prospect of extending the economic standstill.

Death Toll Doubling Every Five Days

The most alarming number so far out of Brazil is that the death toll is doubling every five days at the current time and Brazil has the highest transmission rate in the world. Here in Goiania near the capital the number of cases is still remarkably low with life mostly continuing as normal apart from hand sanitizer everywhere you turn, masked people on the streets and businesses locked down. Locals express frustration with the closure of businesses and question when things can return to normal, while others express fear of the tidal wave of infections in the country and have relatives who are being treated for COVID-19.

COVID-19 Isn’t Just Killing Brazil’s Elderly

As it tears through the favelas of Rio, Sao Paulo and in Brazil’s north, the coronavirus is not just killing Brazil’s elderly. One of the most shocking statistics of the pandemic in Brazil is that the mortality rate for COVID-19 in Brazilians under 35-years-old is 65% higher than in developed nations, as Globo reported. As in other nations, most of those dying from the disease are male but Brazil has more female victims than most other countries as well. While one reason for the higher amount of younger people dying from coronavirus in Brazil could be that comobordities in the elderly are distorting the data, a more worrying possibility is that many younger Brazilians live in close quarters, crowded neighborhoods and lower-income areas.

Brazil’s Class Divide and COVID-19

Brazil’s earliest cases of COVID-19 started among wealthier middle and upper class individuals who could afford to travel and imported it from abroad. Similar patterns occurred around Latin America. The disease has quickly spread in the favelas of Rio and Sao Paulo, with service industry workers often contracting the disease and elderly family members without good access to healthcare services dying. Of course, coronavirus does not look at your wallet before it kills you, but the class divide is certainly also being thrown into sharper contrast by the disease’s pattern of transmission and wider impact.

Reality Check

The situation in Brazil is and should be cause for concern and there is no way to confidently state that the situation will decline in severity in the near future. Nonetheless, the skeptical analyst must take into account that Brazil may not actually be second in the world in COVID-19 cases. For one thing, the real numbers of China’s coronavirus cases and fatalities are clearly much higher than reported, and Iran likewise tapered off accurately reporting its case and death count. Turkmenistan, as another example, is forbidden from public statements on COVID-19 and doctors are not permitted to officially treat the disease. So when Turkmenistan reports “no cases” and Brazil reports hundreds of thousands we need to understand the exponential influence of political censorship on numerical transparency.

Still, Brazil and Bolsonaro are in for a tough fight.

The truth is that Bolsonaro is both the object of strong and targeted political opposition and has also contributed to a uniquely chaotic governance scenario that intensifies Brazil’s lack of readiness to effectively fight the virus. Although the actual benefits of full lockdown on transmission and fatality rates from the disease are fair to question there’s no doubt that Brazil’s approach so far has been far behind much of the world.

L'articolo Bolsonaro vs. COVID-19: What’s Really Going On in Brazil? proviene da InsideOver.

Millions of people in Wuhan are being tested for the coronavirus after six new cases were reported in the central Chinese city last week. They are the first reported cases in 35 days, after a 76-day lockdown. None of the cases were imported from overseas, leading to fears of a new outbreak of mass infections at the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Details of the Testing

The city-wide nucleic acid testing are set to be carried out over ten days, with Wuhan authorities promising to test their 11 million residents. The scheme is also set to collect data on people who are asymptomatic, but may still be spreading the virus.

Experts, however, have criticized these measures as overzealous.

“In communities without infections, there is no need to screen everyone,” Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention told CCTV.

‘It’s Not Over Until it’s Over’

Germany and South Korea, previously glowing examplars of effective pandemic control, have also seen renewed outbreaks after easing lockdown restrictions.

“It’s not over until it’s over,” South Korean President, Moon Jae-in said last week, in response to the emergence of a new cluster of coronavirus cases in the capital, Seoul. Experts have warned governments that re-opening countries must be handled with extreme caution and care to prevent a new rise in domestic transmission rates.

Fasehun Diipo, an NHS nurse working with coronavirus patients told InsideOver that: “There will most likely be a second wave of the pandemic in Europe, as countries lift their lockdowns, especially in light of the laissez-faire attitude with which the easing of the lockdowns are being implemented.

“Europe is rushing to lift its lockdowns,” he continued. “For example Germany has restarted its football league which will pull a lot of crowds. With schools reopening as well, children will not respect social distancing rules, and teachers cannot be expected to maintain total enforcement of the rules. All these bits and pieces are what will make the second outbreak possible, if stringent measures are not put into place.”

Shulan is Also Having a COVID-19 Comeback

Wuhan is not the only region in China experiencing a rise in domestic transmissibility. According to Chinese state media, Shulan, a high -risk region in China, has seen 15 new cases since last week. Shulan has now locked down all residential areas, banned all non-essential travel, and closed schools again. Other places with high public gatherings, such as restaurants and transport stations have also been closed.

“There is no vaccine yet for this disease: with trials still ongoing, we have not yet heard of a successful confirmation of vaccine trials,” Mr Diplo said.

“Without a viable vaccine we don’t have immunity, apart from any natural immunity that has developed in some people. I believe there should be a systematic release of the lockdown, but countries are rushing to bring their economy back up and save the financial sector. Countries are trying to become productive again, and that’s totally acceptable.

“Looking at the positive side, however, there is still a ban on inter-country flights, with only essential travel being allowed. That might just curtail the resurgence of a second wave, even for a little bit. The next two weeks will be very crucial for every country in the European world. We will need to follow, and to monitor, very accurately for a second outbreak of the virus, so that we can go on lockdown again if need be.”

‘This is a Wake-up Call’

For Diipo, more needs to be done by European governments to protect their citizens.

“This is a wake-up call for the government,” he explained, “because we can see that the government was not earlier prepared for this. We never really thought it would escalate to this stage, but now we are better prepare for a possible second wave.

He explained that he believed wide-scale tasts of populations are possible in countries. Using Britain as an example, he said: “Test numbers have been improving so far. There is an average testing facility within cities. You can now easily get a location where you can go to get tested. Frontline workers have virtually all been tested, so testing is not as difficult, or as impossible in the UK as it previously was during the peak of the pandemic. Testing, so far, has been a success in the UK, and it has helped us to progress positively. Testings are also a benchmark for us in the case of a second wave,” he added.

“The health secretary said earlier that the UK hoped to achieve 100,000 tests a day. With a population of about 66 million people, 100,000 tests daily is too low in comparison. He further stated that he would invite organisations in the private sector into the conversation to see how they can collaborate with the government to achieve that. We may not have reached the 100,000 mark, but we are progressing every day. There is no decline or derailment in testings at this moment in time.”

Coronavirus Cover-Ups in China

In the same week, a whistleblower report sent to NTD News shows that there has been a cover-up of coronavirus numbers in China’s hospitals. Chinese officials have previously been accused of covering up the severity of the virus by publishing inaccurate infection and death figures.

Asymptomatic cases are not counted as confirmed cases, despite asymptomatic carriers’ possession and transmission of the virus.

“It is important we tread carefully about countries like China (and Iran), because of the political sanctions upon these countries, and the tensions between China, Iran and the US,” Diipo said, adding that “The coronavirus has come to stay. It has come to change the way we live, the way we relate. We need to stay healthy, safe, exercise, and take our vitamins, because the coronavirus is going to be around for a very long time.”

L'articolo Wuhan Mass Tests 11 Million Citizens for Coronavirus proviene da InsideOver.

The US intelligence community has ruled out that the coronavirus was generated in a Chinese laboratory. The agencies thus contradict the notion that COVID-19 was developed as a biological weapon and released by accident.

US Intelligence to Trump: You’re Wrong

Moreover, the intelligence community once again contradicts the president of the United States, Donald Trump. The commander in chief had previously hinted that China could have indeed deliberately created the virus.

Now, the dispute with China over the origin of the coronavirus is entering a new round. In the previous weeks, Trump threatened China with punitive tariffs for its role in the pandemic. The US was currently looking into the case. According to Trump, he has evidence that the corona pandemic may have originated in a Chinese research laboratory, after all. When asked by a journalist if he had seen information that would give him “a high level of trust” in this regard, Trump said in the White House on Thursday night, “Yes, I have.”

What is Trump Admin Claiming?

By his claims, Trump specifically referred to the Institute of Virology in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the first cases were recorded at the end of last year. The head of the laboratory, Yuan Zhiming, categorically rejected the allegations several days ago, however. Trump again criticized the leadership in China, accusing it of not having contained the virus in the country and instead of having it let spread and thus putting “the greatest economy in the history of the world” to a hold.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the administration’s hardliner on China, supported the president’s claim by stating he too had seen “significant amount of evidence” that the virus came from the laboratory in Wuhan, which has long specialized in researching coronaviruses in horseshoe bats. However, Pompeo did not present any evidence to accompany his assertion.

Intelligence Community Conclusions on COVID-19

However, according to US intelligence agencies, the novel coronavirus has not been produced in a laboratory. The broad scientific consensus was that the COVID-19 virus was neither human-made nor genetically modified, according to the Acting Director of the United States National Intelligence Richard Grenell.

The intelligence community did not rule out, however, that the outbreak of lung disease COVID-19 could be the result of an accident. “Rigorous checks” whether the outbreak “started due to contact with infected animals or resulted from an accident in a laboratory in Wuhan,” were currently being conducted, the intelligence community said in a rare statement.

The latest rumors had spread that the Sars-CoV-2 virus was developed by Chinese scientists in a laboratory as a biological weapon and spread from there. The World Health Organization had already examined the theory and concluded that the virus was of natural origin. However, Trump stuck to the theory. Moreover, Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill have also begun to push this narrative forward. According to reports from the New York Times, Trump even urged the intelligence community to look for clues to the theory.

Criticism of China

Trump has repeatedly criticized China since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Among other things, he accused the Chinese government of lack of transparency and allowed the virus to spread, while also stating that the United States could demand compensation from Beijing.

Critics and Democrats alike have accused the US government of seeking to distract from its own failures to fight the pandemic and the almost 70,000 dead Americans it has caused.

The bilateral relations, meanwhile, are on course to deteriorate further. During his statements on Sunday, Pompeo accused China moreover of “covering up” the virus. This could well lead to further diplomatic tensions between the two nations, who only recently agreed upon the first phase of a major trade agreement.

L'articolo Intelligence Community and Trump Disagree On COVID-19 proviene da InsideOver.

Nine Russian military planes landed in Italy on March 22 in an aid operation to the coronavirus pandemic in Italy.

From Russia With Love

“From Russia with Love” — as coined by Moscow —the Ilyushin Il-76 transport planes carried medics, medical supplies and equipment for diagnostics and disinfection as well as healthcare specialists in infectious diseases from Russia.

Italians Are Not Satisfied by the EU’s Coronavirus Response

A recent poll by Monitor Italia concluded that 88% of Italians think that the European Union has not done enough to assist their country. The same poll revealed that 67% of Italians now believe Italy’s membership with the EU to be a disadvantage — a major rise from 47% in November.

As of March 25, Italy has more than 75,000 cases of coronavirus, nearly as much as China’s 82,000 cases. The country has suffered more than 7,500 deaths, resulting in a fatality rate of 10%, more than double the global 4.5% fatality rate. Over half of the world’s coronavirus death toll has occurred in Italy and Spain, as their death tolls top the global rates.

Italy’s Chief of Defense Thanks Russia

“I would like to express my gratitude on behalf of the entire Italian people for Russian assistance at such a difficult moment,” Italy’s Chief of the Defense Staff, General Enzo Vecciarelli, who personally received the emergency aid said.

In Italy, hospital and medical staff are unable to meet up with patients’ medical needs. France and Germany initially refused to send face masks and other medical equipment to Italy, explaining that these supplies were needed in their countries. Although both countries later lifted these restrictions, with Paris sending Italy 1 million masks and 200,000 gowns, the EU, however, was unable to successfully communicate its u-turn.

“On the issue of solidarity, we had a narrative weakness,” an Elysee adviser told reporters. “Europe hasn’t, as a group, communicated enough on the concrete efforts it was making at the local or regional level towards one another. Germany has sent masks to Italy, France has sent masks to Italy, as many as China has so far.”

Germany is Also Helping Italy Cope With Its Crisis

On March 24, German hospitals with spare beds accepted their first Italian patients,” the adviser to President Emmanuel Macron continued. “A lot has been done, so we need to get out of this Europe-bashing, because that’s not right.

“Mistakes were made for sure, there was some flip-flopping, hesitations, but that’s the case everywhere in the world. When we see what’s going on in the United States today, Europe is not the continent that’s the least organised.”

With EU integration and cohesion currently dishevelled, Russia, Cuba and China have been accused of taking advantage to further their political aims. On March 23, the Kremlin denied that its aid was a plot to manipulate Rome to help lift EU sanctions on Moscow, sanctions imposed in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea.

“We’re not talking about any conditions or calculations or hopes here,” Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov explained. “Italy is really in need of much more wide scale help and what Russia does is manageable,” he said.

“This is all about perception,” said Nathalie Tocci, director of the Italian Institute of International Affairs in Rome. “This medical help from Russia is nothing compared to the 750 billion euros of assets the ECB is going to buy. But it’s very hard to convey the importance of that to the public.”

Anti-Pandemic Efforts Double as Soft Power Moves

On March 22, more than 50 Cuban doctors and paramedics arrived in Milan to help a coronavirus-hit Italy. Today, the Cuban Medical Brigade is present in a total of 59 countries worldwide. Like Russia, the Latin American island has been accused of using its anti-pandemic efforts as a tool for lifting decades-long US sanctions against it.

One Cuban official described US sanctions as “the main obstacle not only to respond to major health crises like COVID-19, but the main obstacle to the country’s development at any area.”

“The lifting of the blockade against Cuba would have an extraordinarily positive impact on Cuba and mostly in the health sector, which has been one of the most damaged areas since the establishment of the blockade almost 60 years ago with more than 3 billion in economic losses,” the official added.

China, on the other hand, has not been subtle with using the pandemic to strengthen diplomatic and financial relations with Italy. President Xi Jinping, in a March-telephone call with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, reiterated that China wants to build a “Health Silk Road” to fight Italy’s pandemic-battle. Defying EU and American allies, Italy was the first G7 nation to endorse China’s $900 billion “One Belt One Road” New Silk Road project last year. At the signing ceremony with President Jinping, Prime Minister Giuseppe said that the agreement would “build a better relationship” between China and Italy.

Time to Work Together for the Greater Good

As leaders used the pandemic to forge diplomatic relations, the global, financial, health and humanitarian costs of Covid-19 grow increasingly higher, ensuring there would be no nations to lead if political chess games are not put aside for the greater good. A true measure of anti-pandemic global unity can be seen with Cuba, whose efforts in global healthcare has been proven in its decades-long consistence for promoting global and almost-free healthcare.

The mental strain the virus has wrought on Italy’s national identity cannot be left to be soothed by countries who stand to gain huge financial and political rewards at the dismemberment of the European Union. The EU must begin to effectively communicate its extensive assistance to Italy. At the same time, the Italian people must not give in to propaganda targeted against their own best interests.

L'articolo Anti-EU Sentiments Up in Italy as Russia and China Offer Coronavirus Aid proviene da InsideOver.

Covid-19 strikes without regard to a person’s gender, ethnicity, or status in life. The only discernible difference among infected people is the higher mortality rate that comes with their increased age. No one has been spared from possibly contracting it, even many world leaders and government officials who are trusted to contain the pandemic have become ill.

World Leaders Test Positive for COVID-19

“I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were actually a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody, you’ll be pleased to know, and I continue to shake hands,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. That was on March 3. Three weeks later, he tweeted a video in which he revealed a positive diagnosis for the virus. Johnson’s hand shaking days over: instead, he has been self-isolating.

Before Johnson’s revelation, British heir Prince Charles tested positive for Covid-19, immediately calling into question the status of Queen Elizabeth II. While her son and the prime minister have confirmed their cases, the queen reportedly remains in good health.

“The queen last saw the PM on the 11th March and is following all the appropriate advice with regards to her welfare,” spokesman said. She also has not seen Charles since March 12, according to Reuters and is in lockdown at Windsor Castle while Charles and his wife are quarantined in Scotland.

UK Health Minister Nadine Dorries was also confirmed to have the virus. 

In France, the Minister of Culture, Franck Riester, and Brune Poirson, Secretary of State to the minister of ecological and inclusive transition, have both tested positive in addition to some members of the National Assembly.

Friedrich Merz in Germany, a presumptive frontrunner to lead the Christian Democratic Union Party, has the virus and reported mild to moderate symptoms. Italy, one of the hardest-hit nations, lost Giorgio Valoti, Mayor of Cene due to Covid-19. At the national level, Nicola Zingaretti, leader of the Italian Democratic Party, has also tested positive.

Torbjorn Roe Isaksen, Norway’s minister of labor and social inclusion, and Prince Albert, ruler of Monaco, both tested positive. Polish environment minister, Michael Wos, also tested positive. 

In Spain, Begoña Gómez, wife of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez confirmed her positive test, after which she and her husband isolated themselves in Madrid. Pere Aragones, the deputy head of the Catalan government, and Irene Montero, Spain’s equality minister all tested positive.

Elsewhere in the world, Ukrainian member of parliament Serhiy Shakov revealed a positive test as did Jeremy Issacharoff, Israeli ambassador to Germany. In Canada, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, wife of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, tested positive and the couple are undergoing a two-week quarantine with Sophie in complete isolation.

Australian home affairs minister Peter Dutton was hospitalized, and senators Susan McDonald and Andrew Bragg confirmed their positive tests.

Fabio Wajngarten, press secretary for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, tested positive as did the nation’s national security advisor, Augusto Heleno, and the head of Brazil’s Senate Davi Alcolumbre.

Iran’s government endured the most cases among politicians with at least 24 parliamentary members contracting the disease and two of them dying.

In America, the virus made its way to the inner circle of Capitol Hill after Sen. Rand Paul, R–Ky., tested postive as did Reps. Mario Dias-Balart, R–Fla., and Ben McAdams, D–Ut.

Officials At Risk of Infecting One Another

The list of infected world leaders, politicians, and diplomats will undoubtedly grow as the the world struggles to contain COVID-19. Considering the importance of having leadership in the time of crisis, it’s worth questioning how governments might change their routines to limit the spread amongst themselves while still operating on a day-to-day basis.

Consider the butterfly effect of one leader meeting with several heads of state at a conference. Dutton had just returned from a meeting with US President Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, and Attorney General William Barr when he learned of his diagnosis. Although the White House said Trump tested negative, how close is too close for comfort?

In an attempt to limit the spread among top officials, some governments have begun doing what a large percentage of the working world has done: telecommute. A G20 meeting was recently held virtually and Johnson has said he is actively managing the British government from his home. 

In the US, Trump is on lockdown at the White House, but members of Congress are still required to meet. Although Congress can pass bills on unanimous consent, without taking a tally of yes and no votes, if any member objects, the votes must be counted. For that to occur, members must be in physical attendance in Washington, shoulder-to-shoulder next to one another.

Time for Virtual Voting

“We probably cannot keep operating all in one location,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R–Mo. A group of 70 House Democrats also sent a letter to the Rules Committee chairman to request a rule change. 

Meetings can be held remotely, but decision makers often aren’t doing this even as the virus spreads. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in-person at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office last week. Both houses convened to vote on the stimulus bill, in-person. 

And even though Congress can rewrite its quorum rules to theoretically permit remote attendance and voting, it is unlikely to do so in the near future due to security concerns.

“While these concerns are completely valid, implementing remote voting would raise serious security, logistical, and constitutional challenges,” the Rules Committee said.

Lessons Governments are Learning from Covid-19

In Spain, members of parliament were allowed to vote remotely and similar calls were made in Italy. The European Parliament also navigated around security concerns with a system of its own.

“We will receive MEP vote card by email, we will vote by hand, we will sign our vote, scan it and send it by email and the parliament’s secretariat will count the votes,” said Renew group leader Dacian Ciolos ahead of a special session held March 26.  The temporary voting measure was approved for use until July 31.

Another possible alternative to in-person voting is “parallel postal voting”, an idea pitched by German Pirate Party MEP Patrick Breyer. In such a process, votes would be submitted electrically as well as mailed in the traditional sense, which would create a corresponding physical record.

The Covid-19 outbreak has revealed the critical need to have a backup system for governments to remain functional. Most governments have a line of secession in the event a head of state is incapacitated. These laws fail to account for a disease outbreak that could eliminate a wide swath of government officials. 

Once the pandemic dies down, governments would do well to create virtual operation policies to avoid future catastrophes. 

L'articolo How are Governments Functioning During Covid-19? proviene da InsideOver.

The New Coronavirus (Covid-19): some call it a global disease, some a Chinese virus, while others believe it is part of a conspiracy to rule the world. Despite the various theories, the central question is will the world forget the role of China in exporting the virus to the world and embrace Chinese President Xi Jinping’s idea of an all-out global war against coronavirus?

Can Italy forget the price it is paying for embracing the Chinese? China’s dilly-dallying tactics on sharing information and suddenly building 12,000-bed hospitals at a rapid pace give rise to the suspicion that they were prepared for the horrific turn of events. Moreover, why were the Chinese financial hubs — Beijing and Shangai — not hit? Why were China’s staunch allies North Korea and Russia not hit harder?

These are just some of the questions that should come to mind when the world thinks of joining hands with China to fight coronavirus.

Why should the world ever trust China again?

First, the Conspiracies …

In February 2020, the website The UFO Spotlight On… published an article revealing the supposed “truth” about the disease. The article which was supposedly written on behalf of a senior Chinese military intelligence officer states that China — unhappy with pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong — decided to make a biological agent that could make protesters more submissive. This bioweapon, the article claims, turned out to be more lethal than intended and resulted in the deaths of many people. China decided that the program was too dangerous (the author says “we wanted the population of Hong Kong to submit to us; we did not want to eliminate it”) and stopped using the bioweapon. However, the article claims the bioweapon was subsequently accidentally released near Wuhan, China.

Conspiracy theorists have also drawn similarities between the coronavirus events and the contents of certain novels. A 1981 thriller called The Eyes of Darkness by Dean Koontz features a Chinese lab in Wuhan that makes a virus named Wuhan-400 to be used as a biological weapon, which has various similarities with coronavirus.

The book Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America, written by two Chinese military strategists Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui in 1999 also has strange similarities with the coronavirus events. Unrestricted Warfare explores strategies that weak nations might exercise to attack a superpower like the United States. The authors argue that even a small nation can harm a far more powerful enemy by damaging their economic and political systems. In the book, the military strategists argued that China cannot defeat America in direct military confrontation but can leverage its economic prowess to leave America behind. Conspiracy theorists who focus on the China angle believe that amidst the coronavirus crisis, Beijing is executing its long-term conspiracy to rule the world as mentioned in the book.

On a different tack, three prominent Iranian officials, including former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ahave sserted that the virus is a manufactured bioweapon. Ahmadinejad wrote a letter to the UN secretary-general, which he posted on Twitter, stating that, “It is clear to the world that the mutated coronavirus was produced in a lab.” Iran has been one of the most effected countries outside of China by Covid-19 with 41,495 cases and 2,757 fatalities as of this writing.

Conspiracies Thrive Amidst China’s Defamation and Propaganda

Piqued by American President Donald Trump’s repeated reference to coronavirus as the Chinese virus, China first unleashed a campaign to shift blame for the emergence of the disease to its arch-rival the United States, and then Italy.

Chinese medical leaders, ambassadors, Foreign Ministry spokespersons and thousands of Chinese sponsored netizens posted comments on Chinese social media echoing the absurd conspiracy theories. The campaign was designed to deflect blame for the pandemic and China’s delay in taking action. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian even tweeted: “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan” alluding to the presence of hundreds of athletes from the US military in Wuhan for the Military World Games in October 2019. Furthermore, a discredited story that is widely shared on China’s Weibo social media platform claimed that coronavirus was first detected in Italy in November, 2019.

Why Hasn’t Coronavirus Hit Beijing and Shanghai?

The coronavirus was originated in the city of Wuhan, and it has now spread to 199 countries and territories around the world with a total of more than 740,000 confirmed cases and a death toll of over 35,000. But interestingly, the virus did not reach the adjoining cities of China — the national capital, Beijing and the economic capital, Shanghai.

The bitter fact is that China exported the virus to the world, but itself has emerged largely unscathed. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Britain’s Prince Charles, a Hollywood star, Australia’s home minister, the Spanish Prime Minister’s wife — they all have been infected, but the coronavirus has not touched a single prominent leader or military commander in China. Why? Chinese markets have resumed selling bats and slaughtering rabbits on blood-soaked floors. Don’t they know that bats, dogs, and cats were the reported reasons for coronavirus? Don’t they care?

Bitter Truth: China is Selling Oxygen to the World While Choking It

China exported the virus to the world and now when the world is in the ICU, China is pretending to be the good guy and making massive profits. More than nine thousand Chinese companies have started manufacturing masks and medical equipment in China. China is purchasing distressed assets across the globe. The purchase of distressed assets has set alarm bells ringing in Australia. The Australian government is scrutinizing purchases made by China. America and other countries are devastated financially. China is now the single largest owner of the US treasury with 1.18 trillion holdings surpassing Japan.

Chinese factories are beginning to buzz again while the rest of the world has come to a halt.

According to conspiracy theorists, Covid-19 needs to be seen in the light of the arm twisting of China by the United States in the trade war. The global economy is ruined, but all business areas and financial hubs of China are safe. Factories are up and running and China is profiting. The global share market tumbled, but the virus has hardly had any impact on the Chinese stock market. These conspiracies may be entirely wrong, but the untrustworthy nature of the Chinese government is an established fact.

The disastrous turn of events triggered by coronavirus indicates that after this pandemic China will become one of the top nations that everyone will love to hate.

L'articolo Will the World Join Hands with Xi Jinping for All-Out Global War Against Coronavirus? proviene da InsideOver.

A new study has predicted that high temperature and humidity significantly reduces the spread of coronavirus. Researchers at Tsinghua University and Beihang University found that coronavirus transmission rates reduced as temperatures rose in 100 Chinese cities. The study, supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation of China, poses that Covid-19’s transmission rates will reduce by the end of March in countries with hot and humid weather, such as Nigeria.

The High Impact of Covid-19

As of March 30, Covid-19 has infected more than over 740,000 wordwide, resulting in more than 35,300 deaths.

Last week, China reported no new cases of the novel coronavirus amid hotter weather temperatures. In Europe and the rest of the world, however, coronavirus cases continue to rise. Over half of the world’s coronavirus death toll has occurred in Italy and Spain, topping global rates.

The study, conducted by Professors of computer science, Jingyuan Wang, Ke Tang, Kai Feng and Weifeng Lv, concludes that: “high temperature and high relative humidity significantly reduce the transmission of COVID-19, respectively, even after controlling for population density and GDP per capita of cities.”

“This result is consistent with the fact that the high temperature and high humidity significantly reduce the transmission of influenza. It indicates that the arrival of summer and rainy season in the northern hemisphere can effectively reduce the transmission of the Covid-19,” the study continues.

“Outbreaks of Covid-19 outside China show a noteworthy phenomenon. In the early dates of the outbreak, countries with relatively lower air temperature and lower humidity (e.g. Korea, Japan and Iran) see severe outbreaks than warmer and more humid countries (e.g. Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand) do.”

In the Southern Hemisphere, however, as cooler weather approaches South America, Australia and parts of Africa, there are fears that the pandemic could worsen.

Global Border Closures

Every person infected with the Covid-19 virus infects between 2 and 2.5 people, according to expert estimate of the virus’ R0 (basic reproduction number). Many nations worldwide have closed their borders to stem the transmission of the virus. In Europe and the United States, xenophobic attacks against people of Asian descent has risen, as global citizens blame China for the outbreak of the virus.

Effective 12:01 a.m. on March 28, China closed its border to foreign nationals, claiming that it wanted to prevent a new outbreak of the virus in the country. Last week, the country reported 54 new cases of coronavirus, all of them imported by foreign nationals.

“The suspension is a temporary measure that China is compelled to take in light of the outbreak situation and the practices of other countries,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement released last week.

Earlier in the year, China placed the country under quarantine, as its solution to what was then an epidemic. Mass factory closures disrupted the global manufacturing and financial industries, highlighting the world’s depedence on China’s manufacturing industry. With global supply chains dependent on China’s manufacturing, many global companies experienced financial loss.

Wilbur Ross: Coronavirus Can ‘Accelerate the Return of Jobs to North America’

In January, before the US topped the world’s largest cases of coronavirus, President Trump’s Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, said: “I don’t want to talk about a victory lap over a very unfortunate, very malignant disease, but the fact is, it does give businesses another thing to consider when they go through their review of their supply chain.

″I think [the coronavirus] will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America,” he said. “Some to the US, some to Mexico as well.”

Earlier in the month, Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, argued that “any reasonable board member would expect a CEO to be responding with greater supply redundancy and be prepared to pay for it. To the extent that this crisis appears to be heading toward a global phenomenon, it is a nudge toward a different, more diversified globalization rather than less globalization.”

Coronavirus Won’t Scrap Globalization and Predatory Capitalism

World finance is too deeply dependent on capitalism for globalization to be abandoned because of the coronavirus. Calls for a “more diversified globalization” are calls for strengthening globalization to avoid another global catastrophe capable of incapacitating global capitalism’s ongoing aim: making increasingly large profits.

Nevertheless, diversified globalization is built upon the hidden fervor of nationalism that keeps nations at odds and working classes chasing fantasies. Like Brexit, nationalism offers the promise of self-autonomy when in reality it is just another route to becoming part of the rapacious economic cycle of the global order. Still, there are some hopeful signs of moderate improvements.

The Social Costs of Covid-19 and Hopeful Signs for Future

Over 156,600 patients have recovered from coronavirus worldwide. The number of cases resulting in death, however, continues to rise daily. In countries badly hit by the virus, such as France and Italy, the social costs of this population loss will be decades-long.

Michael D. Higgins, the President of Ireland, on Friday, called for a “universal basic services” for public health, liking the pandemic’s legacy to other historical moments, such as The Great Depression and The First World War. Speaking on the Pat Kenny Show in Ireland, Higgins argued that Covid-19 has forced us to face our ineffective methods of social governance and public health.

We need “a flow of basic services that will be there to protect us in the future, from which we can depart to be able to live, for people to have a sufficiency for what they need. This is what happened after the war, this is what happened after the Great Recession in 1929,” Higgins said, adding that “when we come out of this we will not be going back to the insecurity of where we have before.”

Irish President: ‘We Have Learned Lessons’

“We have learned lessons in relation to healthcare and equality — in relation to what is necessary in terms of income and the necessities of life. There will be a wonderful opportunity to do things better,” Higgins said, noting that “this crisis will pass but remember that there will be other viruses, so we can’t let ourselves be in the same vulnerable position again, as we are now.”

With experts predicting that 50% -75% of the global population are asymptomatic but contagious — requiring a worldwide vaccine — Covid-19 is likely to be one of the biggest challenges of the century. Like influenza, the virus constantly mutates and is recurring. Universal basic services, therefore, must become the social goal of our globalized capitalist system.

As capitalism exploits the working class to benefit the very few could a new system of diversified globalization successfully co-exist with calls for better social governance and global public health? This is the question of the twenty-first century.

L'articolo What Will Our Post-Coronavirus Society and Economy Look Like? proviene da InsideOver.

So far, Africa has suffered less coronavirus deaths and infections compared to other continents. However, the continent will not escape the looming economic slump as the pandemic continues to cripple economies around the world.

On March 13, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) warned that the unfolding coronavirus crisis could seriously dent Africa’s already stagnant growth.

“Africa may lose half of its GDP, with growth falling from 3.2% to about 2% due to a number of reasons which include the disruption of the global supply chain,” said the Commission’s Executive Secretary, Mrs Vera Songwe.

African Countries are Vulnerable to Global Disruptions

Experts are blaming this on Africa’s over dependence on imports from outside the continent. According to UNCTAD, intra-African trade, which is defined as the average of intra-African exports and imports, was around 2% compared with 68.1% in Europe, 59.4% in Asia and 55.5% in America. This means that African countries are vulnerable to global disruptions caused by activities such as pandemics and terrorism.

According to statistics from the General Administration of Customs of China, in the first half of 2019, China’s total import and export volume with Africa was $101.86 billion, up 2.9% year on year. China’s exports to Africa were $52.86 billion, up 5.2% year on year. With China’s economy devastated by the coronavirus, the volume of exports to Africa will go down, resulting in lower consumer spending.

This exposes Nigeria’s economy which relies heavily on Chinese commodities. China accounts for almost a quarter of Nigeria’s imports. As the virus continues to spread across the country, economic growth will slow down, and borrowing costs will increase because of reduced imports from China.

The Demand for African Goods is Set to Fall Considerably

On the other hand, the demand for African goods is set to fall considerably as major trading partners outside the continent implement lockdowns and restrict flights.

South Africa’s top export destinations are China ($17.1B), the US ($8.21B), India ($8B) and the UK ($7.97B). All these countries have been hit had by the coronavirus, forcing them to introduce measures to prevent its spread. This is a major disruption to the foreign export markets for South Africa whose economy is already in recession.

70% of Kenyan flowers are sold in Europe, mostly though an auction in the Netherlands. Now the coronavirus has grounded shipments and most European governments have banned public gatherings exceeding two people. Flowers are now cut and left to rot in farms.

“This being a living product, we cannot stop the entire operation,” Sachin Appachu, general manager of Bliss Flora Ltd, told France 24.

In an interview with the AFP, Clement Tulezi, the director of the Kenya Flower Council, said: “We are cash-strapped. We are losing over 250 million shillings ($2.3 m). People in Europe have two immediate needs: that is food and their own safety. The rest are luxuries. And so they are looking at flowers as a luxury.”

How Will Travel and Tourism Be Affected?

The impact of the coronavirus on the travel and tourism industry is also expected to leave a huge dent on Africa’s economy. African governments have imposed travel bans on countries such as China and Italy, thereby reducing the number of people visiting the country for business and tourism. Before the pandemic, tourism in Africa was growing at 5% per year.

In Egypt, the Minister for Tourism and Antiquities, Mr Khaled el-Anani, said that monthly tourism losses due to the lockdown would reach $1 billion. “We lost a lot of money, especially since the monthly tourism revenue is $1 billion, but the health of Egyptians is more important,” he told Al-Monitor.

In Luxor, a major Egyptian tourist hotspot and one of the cities that were greatly affected by the coronavirus, one tour guide called Mohamed Said complained: “The coronavirus has really affected tourism here. Many hotels reservations have been cancelled and tourists can barely be seen at tourist sites.”

Central banks of various African countries are taking measures to cushion the economy from the effects of the pandemic. The Central Bank of Kenya last week lowered its lending rates to 7.25 from 8.25% to shield borrowers. This will ensure money is easily available to citizens to encourage spending. To prop up the tourism sector, the Egyptian Central Bank yesterday provided loans to tourist companies with repayment terms of up to two years and a six month grace period. It also slashed its main interest rates by 300 basis points.

L'articolo Impact of Covid-19 on Africa’s economy proviene da InsideOver.