The new coronavirus pandemic could severely disrupt access to anti-malaria nets and drugs in sub-Saharan Africa, the World Health Organization said Thursday, warning that malaria deaths risked doubling if efforts are not urgently scaled up.
The UN health agency called on countries in sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly 95 percent of all the world's malaria cases and deaths occur, to rapidly distribute malaria prevention and treatment tools now, before they become too overwhelmed with novel coronavirus cases.
"Severe disruptions to insecticide-treated net campaigns and access to antimalarial medicines could lead to a doubling in the number of malaria deaths in sub-Saharan Africa this year compared to 2018," the WHO warned, citing new modelling analysis.
The analysis, it said, considers nine scenarios for potential disruptions in access to core malaria control tools during the pandemic across 41 countries, and the resulting possible increases in cases and deaths.
Under the worst-case scenario, in which all campaigns to distribute insecticide-treated nets are suspended and there is a 75-percent reduction in access to effective antimalarial medicines, "the estimated tally of malaria deaths in sub-Saharan Africa in 2020 would reach 769,000," WHO said.
That is twice the number of deaths reported in the region in 2018, it stressed, adding that such an increase would mean returning to malaria mortality levels not seen in two decades.
The hike would have particularly dire consequences for young children, with those under five making up more than two-thirds of all malaria deaths in 2018.
- 'Critical window' -
WHO stressed that so far, sub-Saharan African countries had reported relatively few cases in the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 180,000 people globally and infected more than 2.6 million.
But the agency, which has long warned that weak health systems in the region risked becoming seriously overwhelmed as cases increase, said the disease was picking up pace there.
"This means that countries across the region have a critical window of opportunity to minimise disruptions in malaria prevention and treatment and save lives at this stage of the COVID-19 outbreak," it said.
"Mass vector control campaigns should be accelerated, ensuring protection for both health workers and communities against COVID-19 transmission," it said.
In a separate statement Thursday, the WHO also reiterated its call to maintain immunisation services worldwide to ensure the measures taken to halt the pandemic do not end up sparking a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases like measles and polio.
"While the world strives to develop a new vaccine for COVID-19 at record speed, we must not risk losing the fight to protect everyone, everywhere against vaccine-preventable diseases," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in the statement.
"These diseases will come roaring back if we do not vaccinate."
Oxford University is launching a human trial of a potential coronavirus vaccine, with the daunting aim of making a successful jab available to the public later this year.
Of the more than 100 research projects around the world to find a vaccine -- described by the United Nations as the only route back to "normality" -- seven are currently in clinical trials, according to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Such trials are already underway in China and the United States and are due to begin at the end of this month in Germany, where the federal vaccine authority gave the green light on Wednesday.
The British government strongly supports Oxford University's work, and the first human trials were to start on Thursday, Health Minister Matt Hancock said.
He hailed the "promising development", pointing out that it would normally take "years" to reach such a stage of vaccine development.
In its first phase, half of 1,112 volunteers will receive the potential vaccine against COVID-19, the other half a control vaccine to test its safety and efficacy.
The volunteers are aged between 18 and 55, are in good health, have not tested positive for COVID-19 and are not pregnant or breastfeeding.
Ten participants will receive two doses of the experimental vaccine, four weeks apart.
Professor Sarah Gilbert's team hopes for an 80 percent success rate, and plans to produce one million doses by September, with the aim of making it widely available by the autumn if successful.
But the teams carrying out this research say on their website that this timetable is "highly ambitious" and could change.
The government's chief medical officer Chris Whitty acknowledged on Wednesday that the likelihood of getting a vaccine within the year was "incredibly small".
"If people are hoping it's suddenly going to move from where we are in lockdown to where suddenly into everything is gone, that is a wholly unrealistic expectation," he warned.
- Financial gamble -
The strategy of not waiting for each step to be completed before launching production is a financial "gamble", according to Nicola Stonehouse, professor of molecular virology at the University of Leeds.
But the current crisis makes it a necessary gamble, she told AFP.
The Oxford vaccine is based on a chimpanzee adenovirus, which is modified to produce proteins in human cells that are also produced by COVID-19.
It is hoped the vaccine will teach the body's immune system to then recognise the protein and help stop the coronavirus from entering human cells.
The adenovirus vaccine is known to develop a strong immune response with a single dose and is not a replicating virus, so cannot cause infection, making it safer for children, the elderly and patients with underlying diseases such as diabetes.
The government, under fire in the media over its handling of the crisis, set up a task force last weekend to coordinate research efforts and to develop capability to mass-produce a vaccine as soon as it is available, wherever it comes from.
It is also supporting research at Imperial College London, which hopes to start clinical trials in June.
Their research focuses on a vaccine exploiting a different principle, using RNA, the messenger molecules that build proteins in the cells, to stimulate the immune system.
Finding a vaccine is the only possible way to bring the world back to "normality", UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned last week, calling for an acceleration of projects.
The UN on Monday adopted a resolution calling for "equitable, effective and rapid" access to a possible vaccine.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards chief on Thursday warned the US of a "decisive response" after President Donald Trump said he instructed the US Navy to "shoot down" Iranian boats that harass American ships in the Gulf.
"We declare to the Americans that we are absolutely determined and serious... and that all action will be met with a decisive response that will be efficient and quick," Major General Hossein Salami told state television.
"We have also ordered our naval units to target (US boats and forces) if they try to endanger the safety of our ships or boats of war."
Tensions between decades-old foes the United States and Iran escalated again last week with Washington accusing its arch enemy of harassing its ships in the Gulf.
Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday after Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had launched the Islamic republic's first military satellite.
The US president said he had "instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea".
Salami said last week's maritime incident was the result of "unprofessional and dangerous behavior by the Americans in the Persian Gulf".
The Guards commander also indicated that US actions in the sensitive waterway had been hampered by an outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
"In last week's incident, there was operational turmoil and disorder among US naval units at sea," said Salami.
This, he added, was an indication that the "command and control of their military units may have been weakened by... the coronavirus disease."
Iran and the United States are among the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
Italy began conducting antibody tests in one northern region on Thursday seeking information about coronavirus immunity to help guide authorities as they reopen the long locked-down country.
Lombardy, the region hardest-hit by the coronavirus crisis in Europe's worst-affected country, is betting that the science about "herd immunity" derived from the blood tests will help the prosperous industrial region return to work faster and safer.
Nearly 13,000 people have already died of the virus in densely populated Lombardy, whose capital is Milan -- or more than half of Italy’s total dead.
Although Germany has already started nation-wide antibody tests and countries such as Finland and Britain have announced plans to roll them out, many questions remain about how reliable data derived from the tests will be.
Health authorities have said 20,000 tests would be performed every day in Lombardy. First to be tested are those in the worst-hit provinces: health workers, those under quarantine showing coronavirus symptoms and those they have been in contact with, as well as others with mild symptoms.
Authorities hope to roll out the tests to the wider region after April 29.
The head of Italy’s National Health Council, Franco Locatelli, said last month antibody tests would help authorities determine the spread of the coronavirus.
Data would also provide “very relevant information on herd immunity” which would useful in developing strategies to help restart the country, he said, such as who could be allowed to go back to work.
The kits, made by Italian biotech firm DiaSorin, look for the presence of antibodies in the blood. Such antibodies indicate that the person has been exposed to the virus, pointing to some level of immunity.
They differ from the more common swab tests, which test molecules from nasal secretions to determine whether a person currently has the virus.
Lombardy's swab testing has revealed that 24 percent of those tested have the virus.
- Risks remain -
Immunity to the virus is little understood and hopes about its efficacy possibly exaggerated. Lacking data, virologists and epidemiologists must extrapolate information from past coronaviruses to make predictions.
Experts believe at least 60 to 70 percent of a population must be immune to the virus in order to gradually wipe it out. But recent studies, such as one conducted in March and April by France's Institut Pasteur, have found that so-called "herd immunity" was harder to attain than believed.
At a high school in the Oise department, site of one of the country's first outbreaks, researchers found only 26 percent of students, teachers and their families carried antibodies.
Moreover, it is not known for how long immunity to coronavirus lasts, meaning there is a risk those deemed "immune" may be re-infected and pass along the virus to others.
In the 2002-2003 Sars epidemic, those who had contracted the virus but recovered were immune for two to three years on average, according to Francois Balloux, director of the Genetics Institute at London's University College.
"One can certainly get reinfected but the question is, after how much time? We won't know until retroactively," Balloux told AFP.
Even more risky, a person who has developed antibodies can still carry traces of the virus, and thus be contagious. Therefore, experts such as Italy's Locatelli say antibody tests should be accompanied by swab testing.
Immunologist Jean-Francois Delfraissy, who heads France's scientific council formed to fight coronavirus, said many doubts remain.
"We're currently asking the question whether someone who has had COVID-19 ... is as protected as we think," said Delfraissy.
Scientists must wait until more reliable data is available, said Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health.
"It's too premature," Omer told AFP. "We should be able to get clearer data very quickly -- in a couple of months -- when there will be reliable antibody tests with sensitivity and specificity."
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics cannot be delayed beyond the year-long postponement already forced by the coronavirus outbreak, the organising committee's president has warned in comments published Thursday.
Tokyo 2020 president Yoshiro Mori said there is "absolutely no" chance of postponing the Games beyond their rescheduled July 23, 2021 opening, according to Kyodo News agency.
"Also thinking about athletes and issues over Games management, it is technically difficult to delay it by two years," Mori was quoted as saying.
Mori said he had earlier asked Prime Minister Shinzo Abe whether Japan should consider a two-year postponement but "the prime minister decided that one year is the way to go".
Under heavy pressure from athletes and sports associations, Japanese organisers and the International Olympic Committee in March agreed to a year-long postponement of the Games.
Organisers and Japanese officials have said the delayed Olympics will be a chance to showcase the world's triumph over the coronavirus, but questions have arisen about whether even a year's postponement is sufficient.
Earlier this week, a Japanese expert who has criticised the country's response to the coronavirus warned he is "very pessimistic" that the postponed Olympics can be held in 2021.
"To be honest with you, I don't think the Olympics is likely to be held next year," said Kentaro Iwata, a professor of infectious diseases at Kobe University.
He said holding the Games would require not only Japan but also the rest of the world to have the virus under control.
The organising committee itself has been hit the virus, saying Wednesday that a staff member in his 30s working at its Tokyo headquarters had tested positive for the disease.
Postponing the Games is a massive logistical undertaking, and expected to incur significant additional costs.
Kyodo News quoted Mori as saying the opening and closing ceremonies would need to undergo "drastic reviews" in order to cut costs, adding that organisers would ask the ceremonies' directors to consider including a message about the coronavirus crisis.
The global coronavirus crisis will not end any time soon, with many countries still in the early stages of the fight, health experts have warned as researchers revealed the first US deaths from the disease came weeks before the alarm was raised there.
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed more than 180,000 people and infected 2.6 million, and nations are struggling to check its spread with social distancing measures and lockdowns, while trying to repair their virus-ravaged economies.
AFP / Yuri KADOBNOV Medical workers get ready for a shift treating coronavirus patients at the Spasokukotsky clinical hospital in Moscow
Some have started to slowly ease restrictions as pressure mounts on governments to find ways to reopen their societies after tens of millions of jobs were wiped out.
But World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday cautioned that the struggle is far from over.
"Make no mistake: we have a long way to go. This virus will be with us for a long time," he said.
AFP / Ulises RUIZ The Civil Protection and Fire Department of Zapopan teaches "Pre-hospital management of patients with COVID-19 and Biosafety" to its officers in Mexico
"Most countries are still in the early stages of their epidemics. And some that were affected early in the pandemic are now starting to see a resurgence in cases."
The comments came after the director of the US Centers for Disease Control asked Americans to prepare for a second, possibly more devastating, wave of coronavirus infections.
AFP / PRAKASH MATHEMA Hindu holy women (sadhvis) sit at the front door of a house as a sadhu looks down from a window during a government-imposed lockdown in Kathmandu, Nepal
The United States is the hardest-hit country on the planet, with more than 46,500 coronavirus deaths and nearly 840,000 infections.
Researchers have now revealed that the first COVID-19 fatalities in the country happened weeks earlier than previously thought -- meaning the current US tally is likely far short of reality.
AFP / Behrouz MEHRI A face mask-clad shrine worker sweeps the ground before a Shinto ritual during the annual spring festival at the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo
The newly confirmed COVID-19 deaths on February 6 and February 17 were in California's Santa Clara county, where Stanford University researchers found that the true number cases was at least 50 times higher than the confirmed official figure.
But pressure is growing on authorities to ease restrictions to boost the economy, which is reeling from the pandemic.
President Donald Trump, who is keen to restart the US economy, issued rare criticism of a Republican state governor on Wednesday, after Georgia allowed small businesses to reopen.
"It's too soon," the president said.
The explosion of coronavirus cases across the United States has overwhelmed healthcare facilities, from the most developed parts like New York City to the Native American territory of the Navajo Nation in the southwest, where a lack of running water and poor infrastructure has made the situation worse.
AFP / RIJASOLO Malagasy army soldiers distribute masks and samples of a local herbal tea, touted by President Andry Rajoelina as a powerful remedy against the COVID-19 coronavirus, in Antananarivo
"Right here in the middle of the most powerful nation, the United States of America, our citizens don't have the luxury of turning on a faucet to wash your hands with soap and water," Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez told AFP.
- Vaccine trials -
The WHO and other health experts have warned that strict containment measures like lockdowns should remain until there is a viable treatment or vaccine for the coronavirus.
AFP / VALERY HACHE An elderly woman carries her shopping down a street in Nice on the 37th day of a strict lockdown in France
There was a ray of hope on that front in Europe, where Germany announced Wednesday that human trials for a vaccine will start by next week.
It is only the fifth such effort to have been authorised worldwide, and is a significant step in making a vaccine "available as soon as possible", Germany's regulatory body said.
But even at the current, rapid pace of development, an effective prophylactic could be several months away.
AFP / Jonathan NACKSTRAND People have lunch at a restaurant in Stockholm during the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.
In Europe -- where the death toll climbed past 110,000 -- some countries have slightly eased coronavirus measures, but bans on large gatherings have been extended.
Finland said it would maintain a ban on gatherings of more than 500 people until the end of July, while hard-hit Spain said it did not expect to lift its strict lockdown until mid-May.
"We must be incredibly careful in this phase," said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
Vietnamese authorities eased social distancing measures as cases in the country plateaued, with experts saying the apparent success was down to aggressive containment measures and contact tracing.
Vietnam's Communist government has reported just 268 coronavirus cases and no deaths, despite its long and porous border with China -- where the virus first emerged late last year.
- 'I feel helpless' -
The pressure on governments everywhere to ease the economic pain is growing by the day, with tens of millions unemployed and several countries at risk of famine.
AFP / Johan ORDONEZ Volunteers wait to deliver food to people economically affected by the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, at the Rayuela Bar in Guatemala City
With movement and travel severely restricted, sectors from small business to tourism and aviation have been hammered.
Providing more evidence of the scale of devastation, the UN's International Civil Aviation Organization said Wednesday the pandemic could mean 1.2 billion fewer passengers worldwide, with hundreds of billions of dollars slashed off airline revenues.
The economic suffering is intense for the people of Dharavi, the largest slum in India, who have been unable to leave home to eke out a living as factory workers or maids and chauffeurs to the well-heeled residents of Mumbai.
AFP / Gal ROMA The 3 Ts of COVID-19: testing, tracking, tracing
Home to an estimated one million people, the massive slum has been under a strict lockdown, with police drones patrolling to make sure no one goes outside.
"I feel helpless at times and worry about my family and neighborhood," one Dharavi resident, in hospital for COVID-19 treatment, told AFP.
"Looking at so many people losing lives due to infections makes me feel terrible. Will we ever recover from this.
Police said Wednesday they caught a break several hours into a manhunt for the perpetrator of the worst mass shooting in Canadian history when they learned he was wearing a patrolman's uniform and driving a mock squad car.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Chief Superintendent Chris Leather also confirmed that the attacker acted alone in the shooting and arson spree in which he killed at least 22 people.
But authorities, he said, "are continuing to investigate whether anyone may have assisted him, leading up to the incident," including helping him to acquire the unregistered guns used in the shooting spree or the police uniform he wore.
The gunman, identified as 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman, launched his rampage late Saturday in the seaside village of Portapique. His motive remains a mystery.
Wortman died roughly 14 hours later after being shot by police at a gas station outside Halifax, 100 kilometers (60 miles) away.
Going over a preliminary timeline of events, Leather said police responded to an emergency call about a possible shooting at 10:26 pm Saturday (0326 GMT Sunday), which was soon "determined to be a homicide."
A search revealed additional victims as well as fires. A police perimeter was set up and the search continued into Sunday morning, but by 8 am it became clear that the suspect had fled.
At around this time, "a key witness" helped police identify the suspect and they learned that he was wearing what turned out to be a real police uniform and driving a fake police car.
"The bulk of the details about our suspect came to us" from the witness between 7 and 8 am, said Leather.
Within two and a half hours, police caught up with Wortman.
At least 22 people were shot or burned to death in fires set by the suspect. Witnesses have told local media that Wortman lit homes on fire and shot residents as they escaped the flames.
The victims identified so far include a veteran police officer, a 17-year-old girl, a nurse, and pregnant care worker, an elementary school teacher, prison guards and a retired firefighter.
Police have said more victims may be found as they continue to comb through the rubble of several burned homes and vehicles.
A search for evidence is ongoing at 16 locations in the towns of Portapique, Wentworth, Debert, Shubenacadie, Milford and Enfield.
Local media said Wortman was a denturist who owned clinics in Halifax and Dartmouth that were closed under the pandemic lockdown.
He was also reportedly obsessed with policing, having refurbished several old squad cars, and struggled with alcoholism.
The European country worst hit by the coronavirus pandemic is approaching a fateful decision on how to start lifting a nearly two-month-long lockdown on May 4, with experts warning that Italians must learn to “coexist” with the virus for months to come.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is a man under siege, his advisers, allies and rivals pulling him left, right and centre as he prepares to make the most important call of his political career.
By the end of this week, the leader of Italy’s unruly coalition government will announce a plan to gradually lift the stringent lockdown measures that have been in place for seven traumatic weeks since March 10.
In what the Italian press has described as “phase 2” of the pandemic, Italy will reopen in line with “serious scientific policy”, Conte assured in a Facebook post on Tuesday, stressing that the country will not surrender its policy of “maximum caution”.
“I would like to be able to say, let's open everything. Right away,” he wrote. “But such a decision would be irresponsible (...) and would jeopardise all the efforts that we've made until now.” Instead, the “easing of measures must take place on the basis of a well-structured and articulated plan,” Conte added. “A reasonable expectation is that we will apply it from May 4.”
When the prime minister details that plan later this week, governments around the world will be looking closely to see how Italy charts its way out of weeks of lockdown after having been hit earlier and harder than others in the West.
Earlier this month, the head of the country’s top health agency likened Italy to a “pilot programme” for other nations as they grapple with the various stages of the pandemic.
“There are no studies or literature on this,” Silvio Brusaferro, the director of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, told a news conference. “We are looking into scenarios that have never been taken before by countries that resemble Italy. Other nations are looking at us as a pilot programme.”
In fact, several European countries have slowly started to ease restrictions this week, with Germany, Austria, Denmark and the Czech Republic among those allowing certain businesses to reopen.
But none of them has been hit anywhere near as hard as Italy or been forced into such stringent lockdowns.
‘The virus is still among us’
With 25,000 confirmed deaths from Covid-19, Italy has suffered the greatest number of fatalities in Europe. Globally, it is second only to the United States.
After weeks of depressingly high daily tolls, more recent figures have shown that the lockdown measures are producing the desired results. The number of people officially being treated for Covid-19 – either at home or in hospital – is now falling in every region, including worst-hit Lombardy. The rate for new daily infections is down to a low of just 1.5 percent.
However, the upturn on the health front contrasts sharply with the increasingly dire forecasts for Italy’s economy, crippled by more than seven weeks of shutdown.
With economic anxiety mounting, Conte's advisers have sensed Italians' eagerness to get going, especially as other European nations are starting to gradually open up. But they also know the public will not be as forgiving should the virus hit back harder. While the first wave caught most governments by surprise, there will be no such excuses in the event of a second wave.
"We must not run into hasty decisions," Domenico Arcuri, the prime minister's coronavirus commissioner, cautioned on Tuesday. "The virus is still among us — not quite as strong, but it is still there."
And while the safety of Italians is paramount, Conte will know his own political future is at stake, writes the Corriere della Sera.
The newspaper notes that the prime minister’s ratings have enjoyed a bump during the lockdown, while his main rival and erstwhile ally Matteo Salvini, of the hard-right Lega, has foundered. But things could change very quickly once the reality of Italy’s looming economic cataclysm sinks in and Conte’s “promises of help clash with the state’s meagre resources and the many bureaucratic hurdles that render them inaccessible”.
Tug of war
As he mulls Italy’s path out of lockdown, Conte is being pushed into erring on the side of caution by top doctors, while also being asked to think more about the economic toll by big business leaders and some regional chiefs.
Health experts have warned that premature lockdown exits could set off a second pandemic wave, in turn leading to more shutdowns and greater economic pain. Waiting a few more weeks or months could potentially avert that cost.
But many Italian businesses warn that they will not be able to stand idle much longer. The pressure is strongest in the country’s industrious north, where factories are pushing hard to lift a lockdown they resisted in the first place, with catastrophic consequences.
Whether an economic catastrophe can be averted is likely to hinge on Conte's campaign for a comprehensive economic rescue from the European Union, says Maurizio Cotta, a professor of political science at the University of Siena.
“So far, the lack of solidarity from Europe – whether real or perceived – has helped stir patriotic sentiment and unite the country behind Conte,” Cotta told FRANCE 24. “But in the longer run, the fate of Italy and its government will depend in large part on the decisions that are made in Brussels.”
Italy is pushing the bloc to put aside its misgivings and start issuing a form of joint debt dubbed "coronabonds". It hopes that the pooled instruments could lead to either low-interest loans or outright grants from Brussels that his government can use to rebuild the economy once the pandemic subsides.
But Italy's push has run into entrenched opposition from northern countries, chief among them Germany and the Netherlands.
Conte told lawmakers this week that he would accept "no compromises" at a teleconference that EU leaders have scheduled for Thursday.
"The EU and the eurozone cannot afford to repeat the same mistakes they made in the 2008 financial crisis, when it was not possible to offer a joint response," he said, adding: "Either we all win, or we all lose."
‘Redesigning our lives’
Conte could just as well have been referring to his fractious governing coalition and Italy’s regional administrations, some of which have been at loggerheads with Rome since the start of the coronavirus crisis.
“Most regions are now run by the [right-wing] opposition and therefore have little loyalty and affinity with the central government,” Cotta explained, noting that some business leaders have exploited these differences to try to speed up the exit from lockdown.
“Conte, on the other hand, is keen for all of Italy to follow the same roadmap,” he added. “Some regions could open up faster than others, but Rome is wary of losing control over ‘phase 2’.”
The prime minister has convened a task force of health experts and leading economists to weigh the possible costs and benefits of gradually lifting Italy’s lockdown.
According to Italian daily La Repubblica, the task force has not excluded the possibility that some leading export sectors where the risk of infection is lowest, such as the car, fashion and design industries, may start opening as early as next week – though May 4 remains the preferred date.
On the other hand, highly exposed businesses such as non-essential shops, bars and restaurants are likely to remain shut at least until May 18. Confinement rules will also be extended for vulnerable elderly populations, who may be restricted to leaving their homes only at given hours.
Museums, cinemas and theatres will open at a later stage and with special distancing rules to ensure the audience is spread out, though open-air sites such as archaelogical parks could open as early as mid-May.
Conte has warned that face masks will remain mandatory “until a vaccine is available”. Provided they carry one, people will no longer be restricted in how far they walk, exercise and journey from their homes as of May 4 – though a ban on inter-regional travel is likely to remain in place until June.
Looking ahead to the summer holidays, seaside resorts will be allowed to resume business provided they can guarantee social distancing on Italy’s notoriously overcrowded beaches. But there will be no going to clubs for the foreseeable future, with tourism officials warning that “dance floors will be the last to reopen”.
Generally speaking, Italians will have to rethink the way they go about their daily lives, says Brusaferro, the senior health official.
“The keyword will be ‘coexistence’ with the virus,” he explained in an interview with the Corriere della Sera on Sunday, warning that only a vaccine can defeat Covid-19 in the long run.
“Coexisting with the virus means redesigning our lives,” he added. “There can be no more ‘rush hours’ in our daily routine. We must forget about packed streets and crowded transport.”
On Wednesday, The New York Timesestimated that in the last month, 28,000 people died from coronavirus whose deaths haven't been officially attributed to that cause.
"At least 28,000 more people have died during the coronavirus pandemic over the last month than the official Covid-19 death counts report, a review of mortality data in 11 countries shows — providing a clearer, if still incomplete, picture of the toll of the crisis," said the report. "In the last month, far more people died in these countries than in previous years, The New York Times found. The totals include deaths from Covid-19 as well as those from other causes, likely including people who could not be treated as hospitals became overwhelmed."
"These numbers undermine the notion that many people who have died from the virus may soon have died anyway," said the report. "In Paris, more than twice the usual number of people have died each day, far more than the peak of a bad flu season. In New York City, the number is now four times the normal amount."
"Of course, mortality data in the middle of a pandemic is not perfect. The disparities between the official death counts and the total rise in deaths most likely reflect limited testing for the virus, rather than intentional undercounting. Officially, about 165,000 people have died worldwide of the coronavirus as of Tuesday," said the report. "But the total death numbers offer a more complete portrait of the pandemic, experts say, especially because most countries report only those Covid-19 deaths that occur in hospitals."
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday pressed China to allow inspectors into sensitive laboratories, voicing concern about their security amid the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Pompeo has refused to rule out that the deadly virus leaked out of a laboratory in the Chinese metropolis of Wuhan, a scenario strenuously denied by Beijing.
"You have to remember -- these labs are still open inside of China these labs that contain complex pathogens that were being studied. It's not just the Wuhan Institute of Virology," Pompeo told reporters.
"It's important that those materials are being handled in a safe and secure way such that there isn't accidental release," Pompeo told reporters.
Pompeo cited the example of nuclear facilities, pointing to the rigorous global inspections to ensure safety.
He renewed concerns that China has not shared a sample of the initially detected virus, known scientifically as SARS-CoV-2.
"We still do not have a sample of the virus, nor has the world had access to the facilities or other locations where this virus may have originally originated inside of Wuhan," Pompeo said.
Chinese authorities initially suppressed news of the deadly virus, including detaining a prominent whistleblower.
Chinese scientists have since said that they suspect that the virus emerged late last year in a Wuhan meat market that butchered exotic animals.
But questions immediately arose because of the presence nearby of the maximum-security virology lab, with senior US officials bringing into the mainstream what was initially an online conspiracy theory.
Critics say President Donald Trump is eager to deflect from blame over his own handling of the pandemic, which has killed some 45,000 people in the United States, more than any other country.
U.N. Chief António Guterres declared the pandemic "an unprecedented wake-up call" and urged world leaders to pursue a "green recovery."
The 50th annual global Earth Day coming amid the coronavirus pandemic sparked fresh demands from Fridays for Future founder Greta Thunberg, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, and others for the international community to simultaneously tackle the COVID-19 and climate crises.
"Today is Earth Day and that reminds us that the climate and environmental emergency is still ongoing and we need to tackle both the corona pandemic, this crisis, at the same time as we tackle climate and environmental emergency, because we need to be able to tackle two crises at once," said 17-year-old Thunberg.
She emphasized that while it is always "important" and "essential" to be guided by science, "during crises like this it is even more important that we listen to scientists, science, and to the experts. That goes for all crises, whether it's the corona crisis or whether it's the climate crisis."
Thunberg's comments came in a livestreamed conversation with Johan Rockström, a Swedish professor who is joint director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany, hosted by the Nobel Prize Museum. The teen activist, also a Swede, has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Price.
Thunberg's youth-led climate action movement Fridays for Future marked Earth Day by releasing a short video entitled "Our House Is On Fire," evoking a speech the activist delievered at the World Economic Forum's annual summit in Davos, Switzerland in January 2018.
"We believe it's time people realize that climate change isn't going to happen, but that it's already happening," Fridays for Future U.S. spokesperson Joe Hobbs said in a statement. "We hope that by watching this video people will realize they need to take action now, instead of putting it off until later."
During a video address Wednesday, Guterres said: "On this International Mother Earth Day, all eyes are on the COVID-19 pandemic—the biggest test the world has faced since the Second World War. We must work together to save lives, ease suffering, and lessen the shattering economic and social consequences.
"But there is another deep emergency—the planet's unfolding environmental crisis," he added. "Biodiversity is in steep decline. Climate disruption is approaching a point of no return. We must act decisively to protect our planet from both the coronavirus and the existential threat of climate disruption."
Guterres declared that "the current crisis is an unprecedented wake-up call" and outlined six "climate-related actions to shape the recovery and the work ahead," urging world leaders to pursue a green recovery from the pandemic that ensures "a healthy and resilient future for people and planet alike."
As the coronavirus has spread across the globe, killing nearly 180,000 people, infecting more than 2.59 million, and devastating the world's economy, climate and environmental activists have called for a global Green New Deal and just recovery that prioritizes a rapid transition to renewable energy and other efforts to reduce planet-heating emissions and pollution more broadly. Recent studies tying poor air quality to COVID-19 deaths have added weight to those demands.
The U.N. chief's comments Wednesday were welcome by 350.org, a global environmental advocacy group leading the calls for a just recovery from the public health crisis:
Author and activist Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, discussed Earth Day, the climate crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic on Democracy Now! Wednesday morning. McKibben's interview echoed his piece for The New Yorker last week entitled "How We Can Build a Hardier World After the Coronavirus."
Among the key messages that the coronavirus pandemic is sending the world, according to McKibben, is the importance of listening to science. As he put it during the show: "If they say stand six feet apart, we stand six feet apart. If they say it's time to stop burning coal and gas and oil, then that's what we need to do."
"Similarly, we're learning lessons about delay in timing here that are crucial," McKibben continued. "As you know, the countries that flattened the coronavirus curve early on are doing far better than those like ours, which delayed. That's a pretty perfect analog to the 30 years that we've wasted in the climate crisis."
"And I think third, maybe most powerfully," he added, "the lesson that we're learning is social solidarity is almost everything."
Addressing how the ongoing coronavirus-related lockdowns have caused a massive decline in emissions and pollution around the world, McKibben said that "there are people on Earth who are getting literally their first lungfuls of clean air this month in their lives... Even as we all live through the horror of this pandemic, there are people who are glimpsing the way that the world could be."
President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday morning that he has instructed the U.S. Navy to "shoot down and destroy" any Iranian vessels that "harass" American warships in the Persian Gulf.
Critics slammed the threat as an effort to distract from the president's abysmal response to the deadly coronavirus pandemic, which has now infected more than 800,000 people and killed at least 40,000 in the United States.
"If the xenophobia isn't doing the trick and providing a good enough distraction, there's always the classic authoritarian move: gin up a war," said Matt Duss, foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Trump's tweet came a week after the U.S. Navy accused Iranian gunboats of making "dangerous and harassing approaches" to American warships in the Persian Gulf.
"I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea," Trump wrote.
"The mother of all distractions," Trita Parsi, executive vice president at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said of Trump's tweet.
The president's threat closely followed a "Fox & Friends" segment on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' successful launch of a new military satellite on Wednesday.
John Bolton, the ultra-hawkish former national security adviser who has pressed for war with Iran for years, tweeted that "Iran's launch of a military satellite is proof we are still not applying enough pressure, deterrence has not been restored, and coronavirus is not slowing down the ayatollahs."
Amnesty International on Wednesday accused Facebook of "caving" to Vietnam's strict censorship regime, after the US tech giant confirmed it was blocking content deemed illegal by the country's communist government.
Authorities regularly sentence domestic critics to harsh prison terms but have come under fire recently for targeting dissent on the world's most popular social network.
Facebook is a popular platform for activists in Vietnam, where all independent media is banned, but the company confirmed in a statement to AFP that it had been instructed by Hanoi to restrict access to content "deemed to be illegal".
"We have taken this action to ensure our services remain available and usable for millions of people in Vietnam, who rely on them every day," a spokesperson said.
But Amnesty said the decision was "a devastating turning point for freedom of expression" in the country.
"Ruthless suppression of freedom of expression is nothing new, but Facebook's shift in policy makes them complicit," said the rights watchdog's William Nee.
More than 53 million people in Vietnam -- over half the population -- use Facebook. The platform is also a crucial marketing tool for local business.
Domestic social media networks have so far failed to win a share of that lucrative online market.
Since the beginning of the year, authorities have questioned hundreds of Facebook users over posts connected to the coronavirus pandemic and the government's handling of the health crisis.
Several were slapped with fines and had their posts removed after admitting they had spread "fake news".
The government introduced a new regulation this month that makes it easier for authorities to fine and jail online critics.
Around 10 percent of Vietnam's current crop of political prisoners were jailed because of their activity on Facebook, Amnesty says.
AFP / Yuri KADOBNOV 
AFP / Ulises RUIZ 
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