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Rabu, 04 Maret 2020

COVID-19: 'We Can Push This Virus Back,' WHO Leader Says Of Coronavirus - NPR

The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 can be contained, says WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Here, an Indian student wears a self-made mask as he listens to a teacher in Hyderabad, India, on Wednesday. The country has reported at least 29 cases of the virus. Mahesh Kumar A./AP hide caption

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Mahesh Kumar A./AP

The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is now in at least 75 countries, the World Health Organization said in a Wednesday update on the respiratory disease that has killed more than 3,200 people globally. Italy is being hit particularly hard, with more than 2,000 cases.

Despite the increase in cases, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says, "We can push this virus back."

"This virus is not SARS, it is not MERS, and it is not influenza," Tedros said at a briefing in Geneva. "The nature of this virus means we have an opportunity to break the chains of transmission and contain its spread."

The COVID-19 illness has been confirmed in more than 94,000 people worldwide. Of that number, 51,000 people have recovered, according to a dashboard created by the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering.

More than 80,000 cases are in mainland China, and most of that country's new cases continue to be reported in Hubei province – home to Wuhan, the center of the coronavirus outbreak.

The U.S. has reported more than 100 cases nationwide, and health officials expect the number to rise as more labs gain the ability to test for the virus. At least nine people in the U.S. have died — all in Washington state.

But in recent days, the fastest growth of new coronavirus cases has come outside of China – particularly in South Korea, Italy, Iran and Japan.

South Korea now has 5,328 cases, according to the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of that figure, 32 people have died and 41 have been discharged after recovering from the disease.

As of late Wednesday local time, South Korea had carried out more than 136,000 tests for the coronavirus.

At least 95 countries and territories have imposed restrictions to limit travel between their region and South Korea, including 36 total bans on Korean citizens, according to the Korean foreign ministry.

Italy has also been walloped by the virus, with 2,263 confirmed cases, according to its health ministry. COVID-19 is also linked to 79 deaths.

People remain on lockdown in the "red zone" of the outbreak, the Italian Ministry of Health says. The area includes 10 towns in the Lombardy region (which has 1,520 cases) and one in Veneto.

In the affected areas, schools and universities have been closed and public events canceled; Italian officials are now considering extending those shutdowns nationwide.

Iran has canceled Friday prayer gatherings in every provincial capital, as the country confirmed more than 2,900 coronavirus cases. It also has 92 deaths — the most of any country outside of China.

"Those infected include top leaders and clerics. President Hassan Rouhani posted to his official website the news that coronavirus has now affected almost every province in the country," NPR's Peter Kenyon reports. "Even so, Rouhani told a cabinet meeting that Iran would get over the crisis quickly."

To stop the spread of infection, officials have shut down schools and universities and cancelled public gatherings such as concerts and sport events.

Japan currently has more than 280 cases, and the country has performed more than 8,111 tests for the coronavirus, the health ministry says.

Japan's new cases include a man in his 40s who arrived at an airport near Nagoya and tested positive for the virus. The man arrived back in his home country after traveling internationally for more than two weeks, making stops in Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines. He developed a fever on Feb. 21; respiratory symptoms emerged this week, including chest pain.

While the WHO's top priority is to help contain COVID-19, Tedros acknowledged that countries should also prepare for "sustained community transmission" within their populations, suggesting COVID-19 could continue to disrupt daily life and tax health systems in more areas.

"At the very least, we can slow it down and buy time," he said.

To help stop the virus from spreading, the WHO recommends washing hands for at least 20 seconds or using a hand sanitizer. Face masks should be worn only by people who are either sick or caring for someone who is, the agency says.

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2020-03-04 15:46:00Z
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Iran to temporarily free 54,000 prisoners as coronavirus spreads - CNN

Pressure has been mounting on Iranian officials to take action against the virus as the death toll and number of cases rapidly shoots up. Iran has reported 92 deaths, as 586 new infections were reported overnight, bringing the total up to 2,922, state media reported.

The country has also come under pressure as Middle Eastern nations, including Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have reported cases with links to the Iranian city of Qom, where several holy sites are regularly visited by large crowds.

WHO warns of global medical equipment shortage as world braces for coronavirus spread

After weeks of refusing to restrict visits to the sites, the government on Wednesday said that those trying to leave the city would be quarantined if they showed symptoms of the virus, including a fever. Medical teams will begin taking temperatures of those trying to leave, according to Qom University of Medical Science's Deputy Dean Ali Abrazi. He also said the university was building a field hospital to tackle the outbreak, according to state media.

Iranian officials initially reassured its nationals that the virus would be contained, but it was difficult to convince Iranians that was the case as 23 members of parliament tested positive for the virus and an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei died on Monday.

Iran's First Vice President Eshaq Jahanghiri issued an order to government ministries, with the exception of the foreign ministry, suspending travel to international conferences and gatherings until further notice, state media reports.

Questions had swirled over whether the government was being transparent in reporting case numbers, as the high death toll reported several days ago suggested infection numbers should have been much higher than officials had confirmed.

Health system under stress

Iranian Deputy Health Minister Ali Reza Reisy announced Tuesday that a nationwide team of 300,000 health workers and specialists would be deployed to prop up the country's healthcare system.

There are growing concerns that Iran's health services are ill-equipped to respond effectively to the growing number of cases. Although the system has improved in recent decades, crippling sanctions have hampered its development.

Doctors in the country had told CNN before the outbreak that Iran was struggling to keep up with soaring prices of medications and medical instruments because of sanctions.

International organizations are now looking at how to fill the gaps in the system. The World Health Organization sent a team to Iran on Monday as well as its first planeload of assistance.

"The plane carrying the technical team members also contained a shipment of medical supplies and protective equipment to support over 15,000 health care workers, as well as enough laboratory kits enough to test and diagnose nearly 100,000 people," the WHO said in a statement.

Iran said the WHO supplied eight tons of medicines and test kits via a UAE military aircraft from Dubai as well as six teams of epidemiologists, physicians and laboratory tests specialists, state-run IRNA reported.

Britons stuck in Iranian jails

Iran's Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said the health ministry would oversee the release of prisoners, semi-official news agency ISNA reported. He did not elaborate on where they would be kept or how authorities would keep track of them,

"The health of the prisoners is very important for us regardless of their status as security prisoners or regular prisoners," Esmaili said.

It was also unclear whether Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian mother jailed in Iran on espionage charges, would be among those released.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe believes she has the coronavirus, her family says.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe believes she has contracted coronavirus in Evin prison outside Tehran, according to a family statement released Saturday.

On Tuesday, Iran's ambassador to the United Kingdom Hamid Baeidinejad tweeted that Zaghari-Radcliffe did not have coronavirus, amid calls for her to be tested.

He added that she may be granted a furlough on Wednesday or Thursday to join family in Tehran. Her husband Richard Ratcliffe told CNN her release had not yet happened.

How countries around the world are responding to the coronavirus outbreak

The UK's foreign office said in a statement: "We're following up the Iranian ambassador's comments on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and are urgently seeking clarification from the Iranian Government on her situation."

It also called for information from Iran on reports that the virus was spreading in Evin prison and to "immediately allow health professionals into Evin prison to assess the situation of British-Iranian dual nationals there."

People in Iran are among those in many countries panic-buying goods in case the outbreak worsens. The country is facing a shortage of hand sanitizers, as demand for the products soar.

CNN's Samantha Beech in Atlanta and Hira Humayun contributed to this report.

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2020-03-04 15:44:00Z
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Coronavirus updates: Race to increase testing as COVID-19 spreads in U.S. and elsewhere - CBS News

The coronavirus that emerged late last year and spread from central China was in almost 80 countries Wednesday morning, with outbreaks growing fast in South Korea, Italy, Iran and the United States. At least nine people have died of the COVID-19 disease in the U.S., all of them in Washington state and most of them from a single nursing home in the Seattle area.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was holding a press conference with top business leaders to discuss the potential economic impact of the coronavirus and American businesses' response. Watch the news conference in the player above from 9 a.m. Eastern.

Experts were clearly still struggling to get a firm grasp on how easily the disease spreads and how deadly it is, with the head of the World Health Organization saying the data available as of Tuesday suggested it could be more lethal, but less easily transmitted than previously thought. But epidemiologists have stressed there's still too little data to draw firm conclusions.

The WHO chief did issue an urgent plea for more data, urging countries facing outbreaks to test more people, more quickly, to bolster understanding of the disease. After faulty tests were distributed last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was working to get local health authorities across the U.S. the capacity to test about 1 million people by the weekend, to help assess the spread of the disease.

While the spread of the virus has slowed dramatically in China, infections were mounting fast in the U.S. and elsewhere. Almost 130 people in 16 states were infected by Wednesday, including the outbreak in the Seattle area.