Coronavirus is a bigger threat than terrorism: World Health Organization - New York Post

Coronavirus should be treated as “public enemy number one” — posing a bigger threat than terrorism, the World Health Organization has warned.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insisted Tuesday that the virus — now formally named COVID-19 — is “a very grave threat” well beyond China, where it originated and has killed at least 1,113 people.

The world needs to “wake up and consider this enemy virus as public enemy number one,” Tedros warned.

“A virus is more powerful in creating political, social and economic upheaval than any terrorist attack,” Tedros told reporters in Geneva.

“It’s the worst enemy you can imagine.”

So far, the virus has infected over 45,000 people worldwide — although 99 percent of the cases have occurred within China and only two fatalities have been reported outside the Chinese mainland.

But Tedros said it was “concerning” that person-to-person transmissions to people with no travel history to China had recently appeared in France and Britain.

His alert follows other warnings that 60 to 80 percent of the world’s population could be sickened by the virus, resulting in a massive global death toll.

With Post wires

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2020-02-12 15:21:00Z
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The world's oldest living man is 112. His secret is to just keep smiling and never get angry - CNN

He was presented with a certificate on Wednesday at the nursing home where he lives in Niigata, Japan -- he's 112 Years, 344 days old, according to Guinness.

Watanabe made a calligraphy banner for the occasion that says "World No. 1."

In an interview last year, Watanabe said his secret to longevity is "not to get angry and keep a smile on your face."

He also loves sweets, like brown sugar, but he mostly enjoys things like custards and the filling in cream puffs these days because he's lost his teeth.

Watanabe was born on March 5, 1907, and was the oldest of eight children.

He worked for a sugar company for many years, before working in a Japanese government agriculture office until he retired, Guinness said. He was also in the military in 1944 near the end of World War II.

He had five children.

Watanabe was an active gardener and grew fruits and vegetables until he was 104 and grew and exhibited bonsai trees until 2007.

The world's oldest living person also lives in Japan, and turned 117 in January, according to Guinness. Kane Tanaka was born on January 2, 1903, and was certified as the world's oldest living person and the oldest living woman last year.

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2020-02-12 15:17:00Z
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Pope Francis Won't Allow Married Men As Priests, Women As Deacons - NPR

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Pope Francis says married male deacons and women can "regularly assume important responsibilities" for the Catholic Church in the Amazon region, but he turned down bishops' request to allow those deacons to become priests and women to become deacons. Filippo Monteforte /AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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Filippo Monteforte /AFP via Getty Images

Pope Francis has sidestepped a request for married men to be ordained as priests and women to be ordained as deacons, saying the Roman Catholic Church should find other ways to address a dire shortage of clergy in South America's Amazon region. Bishops in that part of the world had asked for fundamental shifts in Roman Catholic policy last autumn.

The bishops' plan was widely seen as another potential rift between Francis and his conservative critics within the church — some of whom have already accused the pope of heresy because of his stances on issues such as homosexuality and divorce.

"Ultra-conservatives in the church in Europe and the U.S. have warned allowing married priests in the Amazon could trigger total abolition of the clerical celibacy requirement," NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports from Rome.

Speculation has swirled for months about how the pope would respond to requests to allow married male deacons and women to take on new roles. The proposals came out of a special three-week Synod of Bishops last October that included countries from the Amazon region, from Brazil and Bolivia to Colombia and Venezuela. Deacons are allowed to oversee weddings and baptisms but are not permitted to consecrate the Communion wafer and wine.

A critical shortage of priests has hobbled Catholics' ability to celebrate sacraments in that area of South America.

"They can't have a priest for weeks or months, which, if they can't have a priest, that means they can't have Mass," Rocco Palmo, editor of the website Whispers in the Loggia, told NPR last year. "If they can't have Mass, they can't have the Eucharist, Holy Communion, the thing that Catholics consider to be the bread of life, the thing that keeps us alive spiritually."

Pope Francis' response came Wednesday in the form of a document titled Querida Amazonia – or "Dear Amazon." In it, he deflected many of the core issues about ordaining married men as priests and women as deacons.

"Priests are necessary, but this does not mean that permanent deacons (of whom there should be many more in the Amazon region), religious women and lay persons cannot regularly assume important responsibilities for the growth of communities," Francis wrote, "and perform those functions ever more effectively with the aid of a suitable accompaniment."

Speaking of women's historic role in the Amazon, Francis said, "women have kept the Church alive in those places through their remarkable devotion and deep faith."

The pope later added that women "should have access to positions, including ecclesial services, that do not entail Holy Orders and that can better signify the role that is theirs."

For most of the lengthy document, Francis focused on another dire situation: climate change, and the struggle to protect the Amazon region's cultural and natural vibrancy.

Laying out what he calls his four "dreams" for the region, Francis called for "an Amazon region that 'fights for the rights of the poor,' that 'preserves its distinctive cultural riches,' that 'jealously preserves its overwhelming natural beauty' and lastly, that the Christian communities might be 'capable of generous commitment, incarnate in the Amazon region,' " as the official Vatican News reports.

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2020-02-12 14:21:00Z
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Coronavirus outbreak infections ease in China but death toll keeps climbing - CBS News

Global health officials have warned the coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 1,100 people and sickened about 45,500 could get worse before it gets better. As of Tuesday, there were only two clusters of the virus outside of China; a significant one on a cruise ship docked in Japan and a handful of cases in southern England. At least 174 people from the cruise have been diagnosed with the disease, and hundreds more were being tested.

But while those foreign disease clusters grew this week, China said the number of new cases confirmed inside the country had declined for two days in a row. As of Wednesday, China had 1,114 deaths from the disease, now officially named COVID-19. The only other fatality has been in the Philippines.

While the declining infection rate in China could indicate that draconian control measures implemented by the country are helping, the chief scientist for the World Health Organization has warned it's still possible that many cases are lurking around the world undetected, so more localized outbreaks could emerge. If that happens, what is still considered a Chinese epidemic could grow into a global pandemic.

The U.S. still had only 13 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, and the CDC said none of them had suffered severe symptoms.

The WHO gathered top disease specialists Tuesday for a second day of brainstorming in Geneva, to try and answer questions about the new disease. The agency's boss opened the meetings with a plea for global unity against "a common enemy that does not respect borders or ideologies."

Chinese paramilitary police officers transfer jugs of disinfectant in Yunmeng county, outside Xiaogan City, in China's central Hubei province on February 12, 2020, amid efforts to control a coronavirus outbreak. STR/AFP/Getty

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2020-02-12 14:12:00Z
52780579291157

Coronavirus outbreak infections ease in China but death toll keeps climbing - CBS News

Global health officials have warned the coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 1,100 people and sickened about 45,500 could get worse before it gets better. As of Tuesday, there were only two clusters of the virus outside of China; a significant one on a cruise ship docked in Japan and a handful of cases in southern England. At least 174 people from the cruise have been diagnosed with the disease, and hundreds more were being tested.

But while those foreign disease clusters grew this week, China said the number of new cases confirmed inside the country had declined for two days in a row. As of Wednesday, China had 1,114 deaths from the disease, now officially named COVID-19. The only other fatality has been in the Philippines.

While the declining infection rate in China could indicate that draconian control measures implemented by the country are helping, the chief scientist for the World Health Organization has warned it's still possible that many cases are lurking around the world undetected, so more localized outbreaks could emerge. If that happens, what is still considered a Chinese epidemic could grow into a global pandemic.

The U.S. still had only 13 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, and the CDC said none of them had suffered severe symptoms.

The WHO gathered top disease specialists Tuesday for a second day of brainstorming in Geneva, to try and answer questions about the new disease. The agency's boss opened the meetings with a plea for global unity against "a common enemy that does not respect borders or ideologies."

Chinese paramilitary police officers transfer jugs of disinfectant in Yunmeng county, outside Xiaogan City, in China's central Hubei province on February 12, 2020, amid efforts to control a coronavirus outbreak. STR/AFP/Getty

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2020-02-12 13:05:00Z
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Coronavirus outbreak infections ease in China but death toll keeps climbing - CBS News

Global health officials have warned the coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 1,100 people and sickened about 45,500 could get worse before it gets better. As of Tuesday, there were only two clusters of the virus outside of China; a significant one on a cruise ship docked in Japan and a handful of cases in southern England. At least 174 people from the cruise have been diagnosed with the disease, and hundreds more were being tested.

But while those foreign disease clusters grew this week, China said the number of new cases confirmed inside the country had declined for two days in a row. As of Wednesday, China had 1,114 deaths from the disease, now officially named COVID-19. The only other fatality has been in the Philippines.

While the declining infection rate in China could indicate that draconian control measures implemented by the country are helping, the chief scientist for the World Health Organization has warned it's still possible that many cases are lurking around the world undetected, so more localized outbreaks could emerge. If that happens, what is still considered a Chinese epidemic could grow into a global pandemic.

The U.S. still had only 13 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, and the CDC said none of them had suffered severe symptoms.

The WHO gathered top disease specialists Tuesday for a second day of brainstorming in Geneva, to try and answer questions about the new disease. The agency's boss opened the meetings with a plea for global unity against "a common enemy that does not respect borders or ideologies."

Chinese paramilitary police officers transfer jugs of disinfectant in Yunmeng county, outside Xiaogan City, in China's central Hubei province on February 12, 2020, amid efforts to control a coronavirus outbreak. STR/AFP/Getty

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2020-02-12 12:34:00Z
52780579291157

Coronavirus outbreak infections ease in China but death toll keeps climbing - CBS News

Global health officials have warned the coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 1,100 people and sickened about 45,500 could get worse before it gets better. As of Tuesday, there were only two clusters of the virus outside of China; a significant one on a cruise ship docked in Japan and a handful of cases in southern England. At least 174 people from the cruise have been diagnosed with the disease, and hundreds more were being tested.

But while those foreign disease clusters grew this week, China said the number of new cases confirmed inside the country had declined for two days in a row. As of Wednesday, China had 1,114 deaths from the disease, now officially named COVID-19. The only other fatality has been in the Philippines.

While the declining infection rate in China could indicate that draconian control measures implemented by the country are helping, the chief scientist for the World Health Organization has warned it's still possible that many cases are lurking around the world undetected, so more localized outbreaks could emerge. If that happens, what is still considered a Chinese epidemic could grow into a global pandemic.

The U.S. still had only 13 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, and the CDC said none of them had suffered severe symptoms.

The WHO gathered top disease specialists Tuesday for a second day of brainstorming in Geneva, to try and answer questions about the new disease. The agency's boss opened the meetings with a plea for global unity against "a common enemy that does not respect borders or ideologies."

Chinese paramilitary police officers transfer jugs of disinfectant in Yunmeng county, outside Xiaogan City, in China's central Hubei province on February 12, 2020, amid efforts to control a coronavirus outbreak. STR/AFP/Getty

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2020-02-12 12:13:00Z
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