Shanghai lockdown snarls world's busiest port and China supply chains

BEIJING — Shanghai's grinding coronavirus lockdown is slowly clogging China's supply chains, as delays hit the world's busiest container port where staff are tangled in a morass of COVID controls.

Beijing has refused to tack away from its strict zero-COVID strategy that has protected its public health system through the pandemic but at a mounting economic cost.

China's financial hub Shanghai -- home to multinational firms and its busiest port -- has been sealed off almost entirely for a week following an outbreak fueled by the Omicron virus variant.

That has many forced companies to halt production and slow new projects, factories told AFP, while those still operating are struggling with a shortage of truck drivers on top of onerous permit and COVID testing requirements.

At Shanghai's port, the lack of drivers and other workers means getting goods in and out is increasingly hard.

The docks are working normally with a "single-digit" number of vessels waiting to berth, Shanghai International Port Group said this week.

"But the fact is... due to restrictions caused for truck drivers, it is not really operating," Bettina Schoen-Behanzin, vice president of the EU Chamber of Commerce's Shanghai Chapter, told AFP.

"The figure I heard is that... week-on-week volumes at the Shanghai port are down by 40 percent. So that's really enormous."

Shortages are starting to bite across China's vast consumer economy, where online shopping platforms such as Taobao face delivery delays, especially of imported goods.

COVID curbs in a number of cities have forced factories to find new suppliers.

But the impact may soon also be felt outside China if lockdowns persist.

Shanghai is the world's number 1 container port, a spinal point in the global supply chain and a key gateway for foreign trade.

It handles around 17 percent of China's total port volume and shipped 47 million TEU -- the standard measurement for cargo, meaning Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit -- in 2021.

FACTORIES CAN'T WORK FROM HOME

Chinese manufacturers say lockdowns, no matter how flexible or targeted, pile pressure on their business.

"Not many roles allow working from home," said Jason Lee, founder of wheelchair producer Megalicht Tech, whose factory in Shanghai's Puxi area has suspended production.

"People can't enter the factory... and because our raw materials come from other provinces or cities, these can't enter Shanghai either," he said.

A Shanghai-based clothing exporter surnamed Zheng said his biggest problem was that he could not send samples to clients.

"Deliveries can neither leave nor enter," he said

Experts say the outbreak is currently nibbling at growth, but could soon take a big bite.

Nomura economists estimate that 23 cities accounting for 22 percent of China's GDP have rolled out full or partial lockdowns.

"The costs of the zero-COVID strategy will rise significantly as its benefits decline, especially as exports are hit by the ongoing lockdowns," Nomura chief China economist Lu Ting told AFP.

That will challenge Beijing's 2022 GDP growth target of around 5.5 percent, he added.

ADAPTING TO SURVIVE

For now, companies are adapting to try and handle the restrictions.

"Our main business activity is down by over 50 percent," said Gao Yongkang, general manager of Qifeng Technology in eastern China's Quanzhou city.

The company has been unable to transport textile materials to regular clients because of the COVID curbs, and has instead pivoted to supplying the booming market for protective gear.

Meanwhile, those who cannot reach their original suppliers are scouring for new ones.

"The costs are a little higher and it's slightly less efficient but we can fulfill our regular needs," said Shen Shengyuan, deputy general manager of diaper-producer New Yifa Group.

In a nod to struggling industries, Premier Li Keqiang this week announced a temporary deferment of old-age insurance premiums for sectors such as catering, retail and civil aviation.

But industry groups say hard lockdowns on major cities such as Shanghai are unsustainable, especially with many Omicron cases presenting light or no symptoms.

"Does the zero-COVID strategy still work in the current environment," said Eric Zheng, American Chamber of Commerce president in Shanghai. 

"That's a big question, particularly when you try to balance the economic cost."

Agence France-Presse

Deadly pandemic surge in US as regulators meet on Pfizer vaccine

WASHINGTON — American regulators were due to meet Thursday to assess the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine for emergency approval, as the country logged one of its worst-ever daily COVID-19 death tolls with more than 3,000 people lost to the pandemic.

Other northern hemisphere countries were also grappling with a winter virus surge, as the number of global infections raced towards 70 million with more than 1.5 million deaths.

It is not confirmed when the US Food and Drug Administration will issue the emergency authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, but Health Secretary Alex Azar indicated that officials have early next week in mind.

“Now we actually get to do something that hopefully will bring this… pandemic to an end,” said Terri White, a nursing education specialist at UW Health in the state of Wisconsin, where the staff is being trained to administer the vaccine.

“I know our whole team is really excited about that prospect… to help our lives return to normal.”

Top US government scientists said, however, that people with a known history of severe allergic reactions would be asked not to take the Pfizer vaccine, following a similar warning in Britain.

The United States is the worst-hit nation in the world, with more than 15 million known infections and close to 290,000 deaths.

U.S. Army General Gus Perna, who is overseeing logistics nationwide, said he had given the order Wednesday to begin distributing syringes, needles, alcohol wipes, and dilutants required for the Pfizer vaccine, a process expected to be completed by Friday.

The next vaccines to receive approval might be those made by Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca, most likely in that order.

The U.S. hopes to vaccinate 20 million people this month, with long term care facility residents and health care workers at the front of the line. The goal is to reach 100 million by the end of February and the whole population by June.

‘I’m really excited’

After Britain gave the first approved vaccine shots in the Western world, Canada also approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Wednesday.

The first shipments to 14 sites across Canada are scheduled to arrive Monday with people receiving shots a day or two later, according to Major-General Dany Fortin, the commander put in charge of coordinating distribution.

Healthcare workers and vulnerable populations including the elderly are to be the first to receive it.

“I’m really excited. I want to get vaccinated as soon as possible because I have a new baby,” Michelle, a Toronto resident, told AFP.

“She’s under six months old, and so obviously my main concern through the whole pandemic has been to protect her.”

Israel accepted its first shipment of the Pfizer vaccine on Wednesday, targeting a rollout on December 27, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promising to be the first to be injected — although the vaccine has yet to pass regulatory hurdles there.

Both Russia and China have already begun inoculation campaigns with domestically produced vaccines.

‘I hope better days are coming’

As European countries eagerly await vaccines, the EU’s medical regulator was hit by a cyberattack in which documents related to the Pfizer vaccine were accessed, the firm said Wednesday.

The European Medicines Agency has promised to reach a decision on conditional approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by December 29, with a ruling on Moderna’s candidate to follow by January 12.

But while wealthier nations have the financial and logistical abilities to roll out the vaccines, there are concerns that the poorer — and more vulnerable — parts of the world will be left behind.

African Union chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat said Wednesday that “those who have the (financial) means must not monopolize the vaccines.”

At an annual Christmas toy and food giveaway in a poor neighborhood of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where Mrs Santa Claus embraced children from behind a plastic “hug curtain”, people hoped for an end to their suffering.

“I hope better days are coming,” said Valmira Pereira, a house cleaner. “That next year we’ll be able to give real hugs, be able to feel that human warmth that everyone’s been missing.”

Agence France-Presse

Colleges combating coronavirus turn to stinky savior: sewage

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Days after he crossed the country to start college, Ryan Schmutz received a text message from Utah State University: COVID-19 had been detected at his dorm.

Within 10 minutes, he dropped the crepes he was making and was whisked away by bus to a testing site.

“We didn’t even know they were testing,” said Schmutz, who is 18 and from Omaha, Nebraska. “It all really happened fast.”

Schmutz was one of about 300 students quarantined to their rooms last week, but not because of sickness reports or positive tests. Instead, the warning bells came from the sewage.

Colleges across the nation — from New Mexico to Tennessee, Michigan to New York — are turning tests of waste into a public health tool. The work comes as institutions hunt for ways to keep campuses open despite vulnerabilities like students’ close living arrangements and drive to socialize. The virus has already left its mark with outbreaks that have forced changes to remote learning at colleges around the country.

The tests work by detecting genetic material from the virus, which can be recovered from the stools of about half of people with COVID-19, studies indicate. The concept has also been used to look for outbreaks of the polio virus.

Sewage testing is especially valuable because it can evaluate people even if they aren’t feeling sick and can detect a few cases out of thousands of people, experts say. Another wastewater-flagged quarantine of 300 students at Arizona State University, for example, turned up two cases. Both were students who were asymptomatic, but they could potentially still have spread the virus.

“That’s just tremendously valuable information when we think about the setting of a college dorm, and how quickly this disease can spread through that population,” said Peter Grevatt, CEO of The Water Research Foundation, which promotes studies of water and wastewater to ensure water quality and service.

Wastewater tests also flagged the possible presence of the virus at University of Colorado residence halls.

Utah has used the method more widely, including to track an outbreak at a meatpacking plant. The British, Italian and Dutch governments have also announced similar monitoring programs, and the Massachusetts-based company Biobot tests wastewater from cities around the country.

The method remains imprecise, though. It can spot infection trends, but it can’t yet pinpoint how many people have the virus or the stage of infection. That means it’s not yet quite as useful on a larger scale in cities, which don’t always have a university’s scientific resources or ability to require people to get tested.

The technology is being closely studied, though, and it is evolving rapidly, Grevatt said, adding that it’s best used along with other methods like contact tracing.

It’s not a panacea for colleges either. Utah State, for example, can only closely monitor sewage from the relatively small portion of students who live on campus — not the thousands of other people who come and go every day. The university has an enrollment of about 28,000.

And this week, Utah State’s positive wastewater test could be narrowed only as far as four residence halls that share the same sewer system. The test came back positive late Aug. 29, and the quarantine started the next day. Students were required to stay in their rooms, eating meals delivered by a “COVID care” team and barred from walking more than a few steps outside the residence hall.

The buildings are laid out in apartment-style suites, and students were released from quarantine in small groups if every roommate in a suite tested negative. The tests had turned up four coronavirus cases as of Thursday.

Schmutz, who tested negative along with his roommates, didn’t miss much in-person class time during his four-day quarantine.

But he’s a little disconcerted that he and his family weren’t told about the sewage testing. “It felt like we were kind of out of the loop on everything. It’s definitely hard to process,” he said.

Utah State has heard from parents and students similarly frustrated, though many others are grateful, spokeswoman Emilie Wheeler said. “They see it as a noninvasive early detection system,” she said.

The program is relatively inexpensive, too. The school takes samples daily to monitor several living areas, and the tests are run by a team of students.

“Wastewater has a story to tell about the public health status of communities,” Grevatt said. “There’s so many folks working on this right now. It’s just remarkable to see how quickly it has moved forward.”

Associated Press

Virus curbs tightened over fears of a second wave

PARIS, France — Spain and Germany were among the countries tightening restrictions on Tuesday in a bid to cool coronavirus hotspots that have sparked fears of a second wave.

The World Health Organization warned that the virus did not appear to be affected by seasonality, as the global death toll from the pandemic passed 654,000 Tuesday -- nearly a third of the dead in Europe, according to an AFP tally.

More than 100,000 deaths have been recorded since July 9 and the global toll has doubled in just over two months.

The UN's World Tourism Organization said the sector lost $320 billion in revenue globally during the first five months of 2020, threatening millions of livelihoods.

This is "more than three times the loss during the Global Financial Crisis of 2009", the Madrid-based body said in a statement.

The International Air Transport Association meanwhile warned that global air traffic would not return to levels seen before the coronavirus pandemic until at least 2024.

Spain, one of the countries hit hardest by the pandemic, insisted it was still a safe destination for tourists despite tackling 361 active outbreaks and more than 4,000 new cases.

Several countries have nonetheless imposed quarantines on people returning from Spain, including its biggest tourist market, Britain.

The strict lockdown in Spain destroyed more than a million jobs during the second quarter of the year, the National Statistics Institute (INE) reported Tuesday -- mainly in tourism.

'Situation worrying' in Iran
Germany, which has registered an average of 557 new cases a day over the past week, also tweaked its mask rules, saying they must be worn outdoors wherever social distancing was not possible.

"We must prevent that the virus once again spreads rapidly and uncontrollably," its disease control agency said Tuesday.

Iran suffered its worst day yet of the pandemic, reporting 235 new deaths on Tuesday, a record toll for a single day in the Middle East's hardest-hit country.

"The situation is worrying," health ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said, with Tehran, the most populous province, hitting the highest category on the country's coronavirus risk scale.

Officials have made masks mandatory in enclosed public spaces and allowed Tehran and other hard-hit provinces to reimpose the restrictions progressively lifted since April to reopen Iran's sanctions-hit economy.

Lebanon also raised fears for its crisis-hit health sector after recording 175 cases on Saturday, its highest daily tally.

On Tuesday, it announced a full lockdown over the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha from July 30 until August 3, and limits on bar and restaurant capacity.

Trump retweets 'misinformation'
Twitter removed a video retweeted by President Donald Trump in which doctors made allegedly false claims about the pandemic, saying it was in violation of its "COVID-19 misinformation policy".

Earlier, Facebook had also withdrawn the video, which claimed masks and lockdowns were not necessary to counter the pandemic.

Florida's virus death toll passed 6,000 on Tuesday as the disease claimed another 186 lives.

McDonald's meanwhile blamed coronavirus closures for a 68 percent drop in second-quarter profits to $483.8 million.

The virus continued to hit major sporting events, as Major League Baseball on Tuesday shut down the Miami Marlins for the remainder of the week. Four more members of the virus-stricken franchise had tested positive for COVID-19.

And in American football, the New England Patriots' pre-season preparations were hit after six players opted out of the 2020 campaign over coronavirus fears.

The 2020-21 Belgian football season will begin behind closed doors following new measures announced by the government to stem a flare-up in coronavirus cases, the Pro League announced Tuesday.

Not a seasonal virus: WHO
In China, officials moved to head off the possibility of a second wave after a new cluster in the northwest port city of Dalian spread to other provinces.

Health authorities said the Dalian cluster had now spread to nine cities in five regions across the country, including as far away as the southeast coastal province of Fujian.

Beijing has tightened measures in the affected region, introducing mass testing in Dalian and heightened scrutiny of travellers arriving in the city.

China had largely brought the virus under control since it first emerged in the country late last year, through a series of strict lockdowns and travel restrictions.

Greece said it would reopen six of its ports, including Piraeus in Athens, to cruise ships at the weekend. But responding to a recent rise in infections, it made masks compulsory again in shops and public services.

"Season does not seem to be affecting the transmission of this virus," WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told reporters.

It is summer in the United States, which with nearly 148,000 deaths and close to 4.3 million cases is the hardest-hit country.

It is winter in the second most affected country Brazil, which has recorded more than 87,000 deaths.

"What we all need to get our heads around is this is a new virus... and even though it is a respiratory virus and even though respiratory viruses in the past did tend to do these different seasonal waves, this one is behaving differently," Harris said. — Barney Spender with AFP bureaus

Agence France-Presse

Virus rebounds around the world, deaths top 600,000

BERLIN (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic has found fresh legs around the world, as confirmed deaths pass 600,000 and countries from the U.S. to South Africa to India struggle to contain a surge of new infections. Hong Kong issued tougher new rules on wearing face masks, Spain closed overcrowded beaches and Germany reported another outbreak at a slaughterhouse.

Pope Francis said “the pandemic is showing no sign of stopping” and urged compassion for those whose suffering during the outbreak has been worsened by conflicts.

The World Health Organization said that 259,848 new infections were reported Saturday, its highest one-day tally yet.

While the U.S. leads global infections, South Africa now ranks as the fifth worst-hit country in the pandemic with more than 350,000 cases, or around half of all those confirmed on the continent. Its struggles are a sign of trouble to come for nations with even fewer health care resources.

India, which has now confirmed more than 1 million infections, on Sunday reported a 24-hour record of 38,902 new cases.

In Europe, where infections are far below their peak but local outbreaks are causing concern, leaders of the 27-nation European Union haggled for a third day in Brussels over a proposed 1.85 trillion-euro ($2.1 trillion) EU budget and coronavirus recovery fund.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said there is “a lot of good will, but there are also a lot of positions” in the talks, which have have laid bare divisions about how the countries hit hardest by the pandemic, such as Italy and Spain, should be helped. She said the talks, which were initially scheduled to end on Saturday, could still end without a deal.

As scientists around the world race to find a vaccine to halt the pandemic, Russia’s ambassador to Britain on Sunday rejected allegations by the United States, Britain and China that his country’s intelligence services have sought to steal information about vaccine efforts.

“I don’t believe in this story at all, there is no sense in it,” Ambassador Andrei Kelin said when asked in a BBC interview about the allegations. “I learned about their (the hackers’) existence from British media. In this world, to attribute any kind of computer hackers to any country, it is impossible.”

Confirmed global virus deaths risen to nearly 603,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins. The United States tops the list with over 140,000, followed by more than 78,000 in Brazil. Europe as a continent has seen about 200,000 deaths.

The number of confirmed infections worldwide has passed 14.2 million, with 3.7 million in the United States and more than 2 million in Brazil. Experts believe the pandemic’s true toll around the world is much higher because of testing shortages and data collection issues.

Infections have been soaring in U.S. states such as Florida, Texas, Arizona, with many blaming a haphazard, partisan approach to lifting lockdowns as well as the resistance of some Americans to wearing masks. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Sunday that the situation was so dire in his California city that authorities were considering a new stay-at-home order.

Even where the situation has been largely brought under control, new outbreaks are prompting the return of restrictions.

Following a recent surge in cases, Hong Kong made the wearing of masks mandatory in all public places and told non-essential civil servants to work from home. Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said the situation in the Asian financial hub is “really critical” and that she sees “no sign” that it’s under control.

Police in Barcelona have limited access to some of the city’s beloved beaches because sunbathers were ignoring social distancing regulations amid a resurgence of coronavirus infections. Authorities in Amsterdam urged people not to visit the city’s famous red light district and have closed off some of the historic district’s narrow streets because they are too busy.

Slaughterhouses also have featured in outbreaks in the U.S., Germany and elsewhere. Authorities in northwestern Germany’s Vechta county said 66 workers at a chicken slaughterhouse tested positive, though most appeared to have been infected in their free time. An earlier outbreak at a slaughterhouse in western Germany infected over 1,400 and prompted a partial lockdown.

Cases in the Australian state of Victoria rose again Sunday, prompting a move to make masks mandatory in metropolitan Melbourne and the nearby district of Mitchell for people who leave their homes for exercise or to purchase essential goods.

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said those who fail to wear a mask will be fined 200 Australian dollars ($140).

“There’s no vaccine to this wildly infectious virus and it’s a simple thing, but it’s about changing habits, it’s about becoming a simple part of your routine,” Andrews said.

Speaking on Sunday from his window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis renewed his appeal for an immediate worldwide cease-fire that he said “will permit the peace and security indispensable to supplying the necessary humanitarian assistance.”

___

Moulson contributed from Berlin. Associated Press writers around the world contributed to this report.

-AP

Confirmed virus cases hit 10 million as Poland, France vote

ROME (AP) — Worldwide confirmed coronavirus infections hit the 10 million mark Sunday as voters in Poland and France went to the polls for virus-delayed elections.

New clusters of cases at a Swiss nightclub and in the central English city of Leicester showed that the virus was still circulating widely in Europe, though not with the rapidly growing infection rate seen in parts of the U.S., Latin America and India.

Wearing mandatory masks, social distancing in lines and carrying their own pens to sign voting registers, French voters cast ballots in a second round of municipal elections. Poles also wore masks and used hand sanitizer, and some in virus-hit areas were told to mail in their ballots to avoid further contagion.

“I didn’t go and vote the first time around because I am elderly and I got scared,” said Fanny Barouh as she voted in a Paris school.

While concern in the U.S. has focused on big states like Texas, Arizona and Florida reporting thousands of new cases a day, rural states are also seeing infection surges, including in Kansas, where livestock outnumber people.

The U.S. handling of the outbreak has drawn concern from abroad. The European Union seems almost certain to bar Americans from traveling to the bloc in the short term as it draws up new travel rules to be announced shortly.


The infection surges prompted Vice President Mike Pence to call off campaign events in Florida and Arizona, although he will still travel to those states and to Texas this week to meet with their Republican governors. Those three governors have come under criticism for aggressively reopening their economies after virus lockdowns despite increasing infections in their states.

After confirmed daily infections in the U.S. hit an all-time high of 40,000 on Friday, Texas and Florida reversed course and closed down bars in their states again. Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey reversed himself and allowed cities and counties to require face masks in public even though he hasn’t been seen wearing one.

“This is not a sprint, this is a marathon,” said Dr. Lisa Goldberg, director of the emergency department of Tucson Medical Center in Arizona. “In fact, it’s an ultra-marathon.”

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar stressed that “the window is closing” for the U.S. to take action to effectively curb the coronavirus.

Azar pointed to a recent spike in infections, particularly in the South. He says people have “to act responsibly” by social distancing and wearing face masks, especially “in these hot zones.”

Speaking on NBC and CNN, Azar argued that the U.S. is in a better position than two months ago in fighting the virus because it is conducting more testing and has therapeutics available to treat COVID-19.

But he acknowledged that hospitalizations and deaths could increase in the next few weeks.

Globally, confirmed COVID-19 cases passed the 10 million mark and confirmed deaths neared half a million, according to a tally by the Johns Hopkins University, with the U.S., Brazil, Russia and India having the most cases. The U.S. also has the highest virus death toll in the world at over 125,000.

Experts say all those figures significantly undercount the true toll of the pandemic, due to limited testing and missed mild cases. U.S. government experts last week estimated the U.S. alone could have had 20 million cases.

Workplace infection worries increased after Tyson Foods announced that 371 employees at its chicken processing plant in the southwestern corner of Missouri have tested positive for COVID-19.

In the state of Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee put a hold on plans to move counties to the fourth phase of his reopening plan as cases continue to increase. But in Hawaii, the city of Honolulu announced that campgrounds will reopen for the first time in three months with limited permits to ensure social distancing.

Britain’s government, meanwhile, is considering whether a local lockdown is needed for the central English city of Leicester amid reports about a spike in COVID-19 among its Asian community. It would be Britain’s first local lockdown.

“We have seen flare-ups across the country in recent weeks,” Home Secretary Priti Patel told the BBC on Sunday.

Polish voters were casting ballots, in person and by mail, for a presidential election that was supposed to have taken place in May but was chaotically postponed amid the pandemic. President Andrzej Duda, a 48-year-old conservative backed by the nationalist ruling Law and Justice party, is running against 10 other candidates as he seeks a second five-year term.

Iwona Goge, 79, was encouraged to see so many people voting in Warsaw.

“It’s bad. Poland is terribly divided and people are getting discouraged,” she said.

French voters were choosing mayors and municipal councilors in Paris and 5,000 towns and cities in a second round of municipal elections held under strict hygiene rules. Key battlegrounds include Paris, where the next mayor will preside over the 2024 Summer Olympics. The spread of the virus in France has slowed significantly but is still expected to hurt Sunday’s turnout.

Italy was honoring its dead later Sunday with an evening Requiem concert in hard-hit Bergamo province. The ceremony in the onetime epicenter of the European outbreak came a day after Italy registered the lowest daily tally of COVID-19 deaths in nearly four months: eight.

European leaders were taking no chances in tamping down new clusters. German authorities renewed a lockdown in a western region of about 500,000 people after about 1,300 slaughterhouse workers tested positive. Swiss authorities ordered 300 people into quarantine after a “superspreader” outbreak of coronavirus at a Zurich nightclub.

In Asia, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his country must focus on bolstering the economy as it exits lockdowns, even as the number of coronavirus cases still keep on climbing. On Sunday, India reported additional 19,906 confirmed cases, taking its total to nearly 529,000 with 16,095 deaths. The pandemic has exposed wide inequalities in India, with public hospitals being overwhelmed by virus cases while the rich get expert treatment in private hospitals.

China reported 17 new cases, all but three of them from domestic transmission in Beijing. But authorities say a campaign to conduct tests on employees at hair and beauty salons across the city has found no positive cases so far.

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Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

Britain starts mandatory self-quarantine for arrivals

Britain introduced a two-week quarantine on Monday for most people arriving from abroad to try to limit the spread of the coronavirus, sparking condemnation from the ailing aviation sector, which claims it could cost tens of thousands of jobs.

British residents and overseas visitors will have to comply with the 14-day self-isolation rules or face a £1,000 ($1,250, 1,125-euro) fine or prosecution.

Critics question why Britain, which has been hardest hit by COVID-19 in Europe and is only gradually easing a lockdown, is inflicting more pain on hotels and airlines by reducing travel from countries with fewer virus cases.

British Airways and budget carriers EasyJet and Ryanair have launched joint legal proceedings against the government over what they called a "disproportionate and unfair" step.

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary told Sky News television on Monday the plan was "useless" and unenforceable, and said it would "devastate thousands of jobs in British tourism".

The chief executive of London's Heathrow, John Holland-Kaye, told the City AM newspaper it could lead to the loss of potentially 25,000 jobs at his airport -- a third of staff.

But Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the new rules made sense because "the proportion of infections that come from abroad increases" as Britain's own caseload drops.

"We've got to take an approach that starts with caution," he told Sky News.

To enter Britain by plane, train, road or sea, travellers must provide details of their journey and the address where they will self-isolate.

How the quarantine will be implemented differs between Britain's devolved nations, and the measures will be assessed every three weeks.

Exemptions are being made in several cases -- including for lorry drivers, "essential" healthcare workers and people travelling from Ireland who have been there for at least two weeks.

- Travel corridor hopes -

At London's Heathrow Airport, where only two of the five terminals are operating due to reduced travel, the quarantine got a mixed reception.

"It's a good idea," said Sandy Banks, 45, returning to Britain with her three children from Jamaica via the United States. "Other countries are doing it."

But a 52-year-old Dutch lawyer living in London, who wished to remain anonymous, called it a "political thing".

"I just think it's a bonkers idea. More people are ill and dying in the UK; probably Europe should be protected from us."

Britain's official death toll is 40,542 -- second only to the United States.

Home Secretary Priti Patel told sceptical lawmakers in parliament last week the measure was "backed by the science, supported by the public, and essential to save lives".

But main opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer called it a "blunt instrument".

"Weeks ago other countries put quarantine in and we didn't, now as everybody's lifting it we are putting it in," he told LBC radio, adding he would prefer testing within airports.

As part of the gradual easing of lockdown restrictions, non-essential retail outlets will reopen from June 15. Restaurants and bars will follow with a limited service in early July.

But the devastated hospitality sector relies heavily on tourists, and business leaders fear the quarantine will mean much of the summer season will be lost.

It comes after heavily-hit Italy reopened its borders last week and other European states follow suit.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government is trying to arrange "travel corridors" with countries such as France and Spain that could see them lift their quarantine demands.

But officials are reportedly giving themselves until late June to strike these deals -- and the airlines behind the lawsuit say they cannot wait that long.

"These measures are disproportionate and unfair on British citizens as well as international visitors arriving in the UK," the airlines said in a joint statement.

The quarantine "will have a devastating effect on (the) UK's tourism industry and will destroy thousands of jobs in this unprecedented crisis", they said.

Agence France-Presse

US company trials coronavirus vaccine candidate in Australia

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A U.S. biotechnology company began injecting a coronavirus vaccine candidate into people in Australia on Tuesday with hopes of releasing a proven vaccine this year.

Novavax will inject 131 volunteers in the first phase of the trial testing the safety of the vaccine and looking for signs of its effectiveness, the company’s research chief Dr. Gregory Glenn said.

About a dozen experimental vaccines against the coronavirus are in early stages of testing or poised to start, mostly in China, the U.S. and Europe. It’s not clear that any will prove safe and effective. But many work in different ways, and are made with different technologies, increasing the odds that at least one approach might succeed.

“We are in parallel making doses, making vaccine in anticipation that we’ll be able to show it’s working and be able to start deploying it by the end of this year,” Glenn told a virtual news conference in Melbourne from Novavax’ headquarters in Maryland.

Animal testing suggested the vaccine is effective in low doses. Novavax could manufacture at least 100 million doses this year and 1.5 billion in 2021, he said.

Manufacture of the vaccine, named NVX-CoV2373, was being scaled up with $388 million invested by Norway-based Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations since March, Glenn said.

The results of the first phase of clinical trials in Melbourne and Brisbane are expected to be known in July, Novavax said. Thousands of candidates in several countries would then become involved in a second phase.

The trial began with six volunteers being injected with the potential vaccine in Melbourne on Tuesday, said Paul Griffin, infectious disease expert with Australian collaborator Nucleus Network.

Most of the experimental vaccines in progress aim to train the immune system to recognize the “spike” protein that studs the coronavirus’ outer surface, priming the body to react if it was exposed to the real virus. Some candidates are made using just the genetic code for that protein, and others use a harmless virus to deliver the protein-producing information. Still other vaccine candidates are more old-fashioned, made with dead, whole virus.

Novavax adds another new kind to that list, what’s called a recombinant vaccine. Novavax used genetic engineering to grow harmless copies of the coronavirus spike protein in giant vats of insect cells in a laboratory. Scientists extracted and purified the protein, and packaged it into virus-sized nanoparticles.

“The way we make a vaccine is we never touch the virus,” Novavax told The Associated Press last month. But ultimately, “it looks just like a virus to the immune system.”

It’s the same process that Novavax used to create a nanoparticle flu vaccine that recently passed late-stage testing.

Associated Press 

Rolls-Royce cuts 9,000 jobs as airlines turn off engines

Rolls-Royce, the British maker of plane engines, said Wednesday it will cut at least 9,000 jobs and slash costs elsewhere, as the coronavirus hammers the aviation sector.

"This is not a crisis of our making. But it is the crisis that we face and we must deal with it," chief executive Warren East said in a statement announcing that Rolls would cut nearly one-fifth of its global workforce.

"Our airline customers and airframe partners are having to adapt and so must we."

Unions said they expected most of the cuts to occur in the UK, while analysts said the knock-on effect for supply chains meant many more people working across the aerospace industry were set to lose their jobs.

- 17% of staff -

Rolls said it expected "the loss of at least 9,000 roles" from a global workforce of 52,000 and would also cut "expenditure across plant and property, capital and other indirect cost areas".

The measures is expected to hand the company annual savings of more than £1.3 billion ($1.6 billion, 1.4 billion euros).

The restructuring will cost Rolls about £800 million.

Rolls said the restructuring would predominantly affect its civil aerospace business.

"Our defence business, based in the UK and US, has been robust during the pandemic, with an unchanged outlook, and does not need to reduce headcount," it added.

Rolls has already spent the past two years cutting thousands of management roles following weak demand for its power systems used by the marine industry.

"The restructuring announced... (in) June 2018 will transition into this wider proposed reorganisation," Rolls said Wednesday.

"Focused predominantly on reducing the complexity of our support and management functions, the programme has substantially delivered on its objectives."

- 'Terrible prospect' -

The new cull comes as global air travel remains virtually non-existent, even though governments have begun to ease their lockdowns.

With planes grounded worldwide, airlines are slashing thousands of jobs and Rolls has followed suit.

"Being told that there is no longer a job for you is a terrible prospect," East added on Wednesday.

"But we must take difficult decisions to see our business through these unprecedented times."

Steve Turner, a senior official at British union Unite, accused Rolls of "shameful opportunism".

"The news that Rolls Royce is preparing to throw thousands of skilled, loyal, world-class workers, their families and communities under the bus during the worst public health crisis since 1918 is shameful opportunism," he said in a statement.

Paul Everitt, chief executive of UK aerospace trade body ADS, meanwhile said that Britain's government needed to take "urgent action" to "minimise the impact on jobs and manufacturing capability in the long-term".

Following its announcement, Rolls-Royce saw its share price slide by 2.5 percent to 261 pence in morning deals.

London's benchmark FTSE 100 index was down 0.1 percent overall.

"In a positive economy job layoffs will often send shares higher since it lowers wage costs," said Jasper Lawler, head of research at London Capital Group.

"In such a hard economy for air travel to which Rolls Royce is closely tied, the job losses just spell out the difficulties."

Agence France-Presse

Seoul closes bars and clubs over fears of second virus wave

SEOUL — South Korea's capital has ordered the closure of all clubs and bars after a burst of new cases sparked fears of a second coronavirus wave.

The nation has been held up as a global model in how to curb the virus, but the order from the Seoul mayor on Saturday followed the new infection cluster in Itaewon, one of the city's busiest nightlife districts.

More than two dozen cases were linked to a 29-year-old man who tested positive after spending time at five clubs and bars in Itaewon last weekend.

Health authorities have warned of a further spike in infections, with around 7,200 people estimated to have visited the five establishments identified.

"Carelessness can lead to an explosion in infections," Seoul mayor Park Won-soon said, adding the order will remain in effect indefinitely.

Park asked those who visited those clubs and bars to come forward voluntarily.

Of the 18 new South Korean cases reported on Saturday, 17 were tied to the Itaewon cluster, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The jump in new infections comes as everyday life in South Korea has slowly started returning to normal, with the government relaxing social distancing rules last Wednesday.

The nation endured one of the worst early outbreaks of the disease outside mainland China, and while it never imposed a compulsory lockdown, strick social distancing had been widely observed since March.

But it appears to have brought its outbreak under control thanks to an extensive "trace, test and treat" programme that has drawn widespread praise.

Facilities like museums and art galleries have returned to business and some professional sports, including baseball and soccer, have started new seasons, while schools are set to reopen starting next week.

South Korea reported 34 new cases on Sunday, taking the total to 10,874, its largest daily increase in a month.

Agence France-Presse

Madonna says she has had COVID-19

Madonna said Thursday she has recovered from the coronavirus which forced her to pull out of a string of concerts in Paris in February and March.

The "Queen of Pop" said she had tested positive for antibodies which may mean she had COVID-19 -- though at the time she said she didn't realise she had it.

"I am not currently sick," she told her 15 million followers on Instagram.

"When you test positive for anti-bodies it means you had the virus, which I clearly did as I was sick at the end of my tour in Paris over seven weeks ago along with many other artists in my show," she said.

The 61-year-old star only played a single night in Paris on February 22 before calling off the next show, citing "ongoing injuries".

She later called off two further Paris concerts -- the last in her Madame X world tour -- after French authorities banned large gatherings in a bid to stem the spread of the virus in early March.

"At the time we all thought we had a bad flu," Madonna wrote in her post.

"Thank God we are all healthy and well now."

- 'Cursed' -

The Paris dates on Madonna's tour seem to have been cursed, with her opening night concert not starting till after midnight, three and a half hours late.

Scientists are sceptical about the accuracy of many antibody tests which claim to show a person has had the virus.

Some warned that even those tests that meet the US government's informal standards may produce false positives.

The singer revealed she had the virus after sharing an article about her donating $1.1 million (one million euros) towards research to find a vaccine for the coronavirus.

Madonna was among 200 artists and scientists who signed an open letter Wednesday calling for radical change across the world rather than "a return to normal" after the coronavirus lockdowns.

Alongside Hollywood stars Cate Blanchett, Jane Fonda and Marion Cotillard and a clutch of Nobel Prize winners, she pleaded for an end to unbridled consumerism and a "radical transformation" of economies to help save the planet.

"The ongoing ecological catastrophe is a meta-crisis," the open letter said.

"Unlike a pandemic... a global ecological collapse will have immeasurable consequences," it added.

Madonna made a large donation to a fund organised by the EU to find a vaccine for COVID-19, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen revealed last week.

Agence France-Presse

South Korea leads virus success in Asia as drug trial raises hope

South Korea, once one of the hardest-hit countries in the coronavirus pandemic, reported no new cases on Thursday, boosting hopes of an eventual return to normality as US scientists hailed the results of a major drug trial.

The good medical news caused equities to rally, despite mounting deaths worldwide and abysmal economic figures caused by the COVID-19 crisis.

Data showed the pandemic, which has killed more than 224,000 people, has plunged the United States into its worst economic slump in a decade, and has left Germany expecting its biggest recession since the aftermath of World War II.

But for the first time since the new disease was detected there in mid-February, South Korea reported zero new infections.

The East Asian nation had the world's second-largest coronavirus outbreak for a period after the virus emerged in China late last year.

But with an aggressive test-and-trace strategy and widespread social distancing, it has managed to bring the spread of the pathogen under control.

"This is the strength of South Korea and its people," said President Moon Jae-in as he announced the milestone.

Meanwhile in the first proof of successful treatment, a clinical trial of the drug remdesivir showed that patients recovered about 30 percent faster than those on a placebo.

"The data shows that remdesivir has a clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery," said Anthony Fauci, the top US epidemiologist.

- Hope in Asia -

South Korea's virus death toll is around 250 -- vastly lower than that of Italy, Britain, Spain and France, which have each recorded more than 24,000 fatalities, and the United States, topping the table with a third of global deaths.

Other parts of the region have seen similar success in their fight against the virus.

Infections have dwindled in China after it imposed extremely strict lockdown measures on millions of people earlier this year. Its official toll is around 4,600, although doubt has been cast on the figures' accuracy.

Hong Kong, a city of seven million where there have been just four virus deaths, reported no new cases for the fifth straight day on Thursday.

And New Zealand has declared the battle won against widespread, undetected community transmission.

However the economic costs are beginning to mount, raising fears of an era-defining global crash and increasing pressure worldwide to ease lockdowns despite fears of a second wave of contagion.

- Recession warning -

The US announced that economic output collapsed 4.8 percent in the first quarter -- ending more than a decade of expansion.

On Thursday, France and Spain both said their economies had fared even worse, contracting 5.8 percent and 5.2 percent respectively, while the Eurozone economy as a whole also shrank.

Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell warned worse was to come, and economic activity will likely drop "at an unprecedented rate" in the second quarter.

Germany, Europe's largest economy, has succeeded in holding off the devastating death tolls seen elsewhere, but is still bracing for an overwhelming economic hit.

Germany "will experience the worst recession in the history of the federal republic" founded in 1949, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier warned, predicting that GDP would shrink by a record 6.3 percent.

The International Labour Organization said half the global workforce -- around 1.6 billion people -- are in "immediate danger of having their livelihoods destroyed".

One of the worst-hit sectors is the aviation industry, but an unprecedented drop in demand for fossil fuels means global energy emissions are expected to fall a record eight percent this year, the International Energy Agency said.

- Drug trial -

Experts have warned that only a vaccine will allow the full removal of restrictions that this year put half of humanity under some form of lockdown.

But there have been encouraging signs in the search for a treatment.

Fauci likened remdesivir to the first retrovirals that worked, albeit with modest success, against HIV in the 1980s.

The drug failed in trials against the Ebola virus, and a smaller study, released last week by the WHO, found limited effects among patients in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the disease's original epicentre.

Senior WHO official Michael Ryan declined to weigh in on the latest findings, saying he had not reviewed the complete study.

"We are all hoping -- fervently hoping -- that one or more of the treatments currently under observation and under trial will result in altering clinical outcomes" and reducing deaths, he said.

While the world keeps looking for signs of progress against the pandemic, research is also revealing frightening new details about COVID-19.

Britain and France have both warned of a possible coronavirus-related syndrome emerging in children -- including abdominal pain and inflammation around the heart.

"I am taking this very seriously. We have absolutely no medical explanation at this stage," French Health Minister Olivier Veran said.

Experts have also warned of longer-term psychological tolls on both children and adults after weeks or even months in isolation.

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Agence France-Presse

Virus toll nears 200,000 as UN pushes for global vaccine effort

The global coronavirus death toll approached 200,000 on Saturday as the United Nations launched an international push for a vaccine to defeat the pandemic.

Governments around the world are struggling to limit the economic devastation unleashed by the virus, which has infected nearly 2.8 million people and left half of humanity under some form of lockdown.

The scale of the coronavirus pandemic has forced medical research on the virus to move at unprecedented speed, but effective treatments are still far off and the United Nations chief said the effort will require cooperation on a global scale.

"We face a global public enemy like no other," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a virtual briefing on Friday, asking for international organizations, world leaders and the private sector to join the effort.

"A world free of COVID-19 requires the most massive public health effort in history."


Any vaccine should be safe, affordable and available to all, Guterres said at the meeting, which was also attended by the leaders of Germany and France.

But notably absent were the leaders of China, where the virus first emerged late last year, and the United States, which has accused the UN's World Health Organization of not warning quickly enough about the original outbreak.

The spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, is increasing other medical risks as well with the WHO warning nearly 400,000 more people could die from malaria because of disruption to the supply of mosquito nets and medicines.

Saturday marked World Malaria Day, a disease which the WHO said could kill around 770,000 this year, or "twice as much as in 2018".

- Early stages -

With more than four billion people on lockdown or stay-at-home orders to slow the spread of the virus, governments are weighing how to lift restrictions without causing a spike in infections and how to revive economies battered by weeks of closure.

The daily death toll in Western countries seems to be falling, a sign hopeful epidemiologists had been looking for, but the WHO has warned that other nations are still in the early stages of the fight.


Global COVID-19 deaths have climbed past 195,000, according to an AFP tally, but new reported cases appear to have leveled off at about 80,000 a day.

The United States is the hardest-hit country by far in the pandemic, recording more than 51,000 deaths and over 890,000 infections.

The UN chief's urgent vaccine appeal came a day after US President Donald Trump prompted outcry and ridicule with his suggestion that disinfectants be used to treat coronavirus patients.

As experts -- and disinfectant manufacturers -- rushed to caution against any such dangerous experiment, the president tried to walk back his comments, saying he had been speaking "sarcastically."

"I can't believe I have to say this, but please don't drink bleach," tweeted Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to face Trump in November's election.

The world's biggest economy has been hammered by the pandemic, with 26 million jobs lost since the crisis began, and American leaders are under pressure to find ways to ease social distancing measures.


Despite criticism from Trump, the governor of Georgia allowed some businesses, including nail salons and bowling alleys, to reopen on Friday, sparking both criticism and relief.

The mayor of the state's capital Atlanta condemned the "irresponsible" move, telling ABC News: "There is nothing essential about going to a bowling alley or giving a manicure in the middle of a pandemic."

In Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer extended her stay-at-home order until May 15, but she eased some restrictions by allowing landscapers and bike mechanics to return to work, and ended prohibitions against golfing and motorboating.

- Lifting lockdown -

The unprecedented situation has left the world staring at its worst downturn since the Great Depression, and world leaders are trying to balance public health concerns with economic need.

Beyond the US, other countries have already started loosening restrictions.


Sri Lanka said it would lift a nationwide curfew on Monday after more than five weeks, as Belgium became the latest European nation to announce an easing from mid-May.

In France, which will be on lockdown until May 11, residents still confined to home have taken to praising health workers and protesting their frustrations with officials on painted banners hung outside their windows.

"Thank you to the caregivers, shame on the leaders" read one such banner hanging outside a building in a Paris suburb.

On the other side of the world in Australia and New Zealand, people held vigils from the isolation of their own driveways to pay tribute to their war veterans on Anzac Day.

Official memorials were held behind closed doors.

Across the Muslim world, hundreds of millions of faithful also opened the Ramadan holy month under stay-at-home conditions, facing unprecedented bans on prayers in mosques and on the traditional large gatherings of families and friends to break the daily fast.

In the Islamic holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, the Grand Mosque, usually packed with tens of thousands of people during Ramadan, was deserted.

"We are used to seeing the holy mosque crowded with people during the day, night, all the time," said Ali Mulla, the muezzin who gives the call to prayer at the Grand Mosque.

"I feel pain deep inside."

burs-qan/amj/pma/bmm

Agence France-Presse

Canada sends army to combat pandemic in Ontario, Quebec

OTTAWA, Canada — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday the army would be sent in to help Ontario and Quebec provinces combat coronavirus outbreaks at long-term care facilities hardest-hit by the pandemic.

"There have been requests for military assistance by both Ontario and Quebec which, of course, we will be answering," Trudeau told a daily briefing.


"Our women and men in uniform will step up with the valour and courage they've always shown."

Quebec asked for 1,000 troops in addition to 130 military doctors and medics previously requested, to help overwhelmed staff at elderly care homes.

Ontario has asked for an unspecified number of soldiers to be deployed at five of its most affected care homes.

Seventy to 80 percent of all COVID-19 deaths in the two provinces were at long-term care homes, with the number of fatalities at the homes surpassing 1,000 in Quebec and 500 in Ontario.

Trudeau said the Canadian military "will be there with support so that provinces can get control of the situation."

"But this is not a long-term solution," he added. "In Canada, we shouldn't have soldiers taking care of seniors."

"Going forward in the weeks and months to come, we will all have to ask tough questions about how it came to this," he commented.

"I think the system needs to be changed, and we are (going to be) changing the system," Ontario Premier Doug Ford told reporters.

"But right now, our main focus is to make sure we protect the people inside these long-term care homes," he said

Quebec had tried to recruit 2,000 new staff for its long-term care facilities in recent weeks to ease the workload for existing staff, but few applied.

Even with a salary top-up from the government, the jobs are relatively low-paying.

One of the worst cases in Montreal, where 31 elderly residents died after their caregivers fled the Herron nursing home, leaving them to fend for themselves, provoked a public outcry.

Another in Laval, north of Montreal, has recorded 69 COVID-19 deaths.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault lamented on Thursday that 9,500 healthcare and senior care workers in the province had not shown up for work this week; 4,000 are under quarantine or are being treated for the virus, while 5,500 feared exposure.

"This isn't a normal situation," he said. "This is a crisis and we need more hands."

As of 1800 GMT Thursday, there were 41,752 coronavirus cases in Canada, including 2,199 deaths.

Agence France-Presse

US surpasses 700,000 coronavirus cases: tracker

WASHINGTON, United States — The United States on Friday passed 700,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, according to a tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

With the highest number of cases and deaths of any country in the world, the US had recorded 700,282 cases of COVID-19 and 36,773 deaths as of 8:30 pm (0030 GMT Friday), according to the Baltimore-based university.

That marked an increase of 3,856 deaths in the past 24 hours, but that figure likely includes "probable" virus-linked deaths, which had not previously been counted.

This week, New York City said it would add 3,778 "probable" virus deaths to its official count.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave a toll Friday night of 33,049 dead, including 4,226 probable virus-linked deaths.

The United States has seen the highest death toll in the world in the coronavirus pandemic, ahead of Italy (22,745 deaths) although its population is just a fifth of that of the US.

Spain has recorded 19,478 deaths, followed by France with 18,681.

Agence France-Presse

Abra health worker wounded in shooting

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — A barangay health worker was wounded in a gun attack in Dolores, Abra on Tuesday.

Ana Maria Macapagat, 45, a resident of Barangay Cabaroan, Dolores, was in a tricycle on her way home after her duty at the task force on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the village when she was shot at past 5 p.m.

The tricycle driver, an unidentified barangay councilman, was unhurt.

Brig. Gen. Rwin Pagkalinawan, Cordillera police director, said they are investigating the incident, the first attack against a health worker in the region.

The Department of Health had condemned attacks, discrimination and harassment against health workers, noting that they help the country survive the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, the city council of Lipa in Batangas has passed an anti-COVID-19 discrimination ordinance.

The measure prohibits any person from committing any action ”which causes stigma, disgrace, shame, humiliation, harassment or discrimination” against frontliners, COVID-19 patients  and persons suspected to be infected with the flu virus.

Frontliners are defined as medical and non-medical personnel, such as doctors, nurses, health volunteers, hsopital staff, janitors and security personnel. – With Arnell Ozaeta

philstar.com

US sets new global record with 1,480 virus deaths in 24 hours

WASHINGTON, United States — The United States on Friday advised all Americans to wear masks in public to protect against the new coronavirus, fearing the illness that has infected more than one million people worldwide may be spreading by normal breathing.

The recommendation came as the US set a new record for the number of COVID-19 deaths in one day with 1,480 dead, the most of any country since the pandemic began. That topped the record set by the US the previous day with 1,169 deaths.

President Donald Trump said the government recommendation for all 330 million Americans to wear non-medical masks in places such as grocery stores would last "for a period of time."


"It's going to be really a voluntary thing," Trump told reporters. "You don't have to do it and I'm choosing not to do it, but some people may want to do it and that's okay."

US Surgeon General Jerome Adams said the decision came because many people with the virus were showing no symptoms, but warned it was still vital to practice "social distancing" by maintaining space between people.

The announcement came after Anthony Fauci, who is leading the government's scientific response, backed recent scholarship that found SARS-CoV-2 can be suspended in the ultrafine mist formed when people exhale.

Research indicates "the virus can actually be spread even when people just speak as opposed to coughing and sneezing," Fauci said on Fox News.

The National Academy of Sciences sent a letter to the White House on April 1 summarizing recent research on the subject, saying it's not yet conclusive but "the results ... are consistent with aerosolization of virus from normal breathing."

Since the virus was first identified in China in late December last year, health experts have said it is primarily spread through coughing and sneezing.

The US recommendation will likely worsen an already severe shortage of masks in the United States and Europe, which both rely heavily on imports from China.

Trump urged Americans to "just make something" or use scarves, saving clinical masks for health professionals and patients.

Rising tolls but hope in Europe

More than 57,000 people have died from COVID-19 since it was first detected late last year.

Worse may be coming as a quarter of global infections are in the United States, where Trump has warned of a "very, very painful" first two weeks of April.

Europe reached the dark milestone of 40,000 dead, with Spain on Friday reporting more than 900 deaths in the past 24 hours.

Spaniard Javier Lara survived after being put on oxygen in an overcrowded intensive care unit -- a shock to a 29-year-old who was athletic and doesn't smoke.

"I was panicking that my daughter would get infected," he said, describing facing death with an eight-week-old as the "worst moment" in his life.

But there were also signs the peak may be passing in Europe.

Hardest-hit Italy recorded 766 new deaths but its infections rose by just four percent, the lowest yet, according to the civil protection service.

"It's true that the latest figures, as high as they are, give us a little bit of hope," said Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.

"But it is definitely much too early to see a clear trend in that, and it is certainly too early to think in any way about relaxing the strict rules we have given ourselves," she added.

'Worst yet to come'

Prosperous countries have borne the brunt of the disease, but there are fears of an explosion among the world's most vulnerable living in conflict zones or refugee camps.

"The worst is yet to come," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, referring to countries such as Syria, Libya and Yemen. "The COVID-19 storm is now coming to all these theaters of conflict."

The world economy has been pummelled by the virus and associated lockdowns, with the US economy shedding 701,000 jobs in March -- its worst showing since March 2009 in the wake of the subprime banking crisis. Even more dire figures are expected for April.

Financial ratings agency Fitch predicted the US and eurozone economies would shrink this quarter by up to 30 percent and the Asian Development Bank warned the global economy could take a $4.1 trillion hit -- equivalent to five percent of worldwide output.

Latin America is heading into a "deep recession" with an expected drop of 1.8 to 4.0 percent in GDP, according to the UN economic commission for the region.

New measures taken

In signs that the world wants to avoid a repeat of the crisis, the African country of Gabon said it was banning the sale and consumption of bats and pangolins, the critically endangered, scaly mammals.

The novel coronavirus is believed to have come from bats, but researchers think it might have spread to humans via another mammal such as pangolins through an unsanitary meat market in Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak in China.

The virus has chiefly killed the elderly and those with pre-existing medical conditions, but recent deaths among teenagers and babies have highlighted the dangers for people of all ages.

In Spain, 34-year-old Vanesa Muro gave birth with COVID-19 and has been warned not to touch her newborn without wearing gloves and masks.

"It's hard," she told AFP. "He grabs your finger, the poor little thing, and holds onto the plastic, not on to you."

Agence France-Presse

'Superheroes': Coronavirus survivors donate plasma hoping to heal the sick

NEW YORK, United States — As she emerges from quarantine, recovered COVID-19 patient Diana Berrent is eager to join the battle against the pandemic and donate precious antibodies that researchers hope might help others.

In mid-March, the New Yorker woke up with a 102-degree (39 Celsius) fever and intense chest heaviness, becoming one of the first from her Long Island neighborhood to test positive for coronavirus.

This week, Berrent was the first survivor in her state screened for antibodies — immune system-generated proteins that can ward off viruses -—to contribute to initial tests seeking treatment for the infection that's left more than 51,000 people dead worldwide.

Convalescent plasma, the fluid in blood teeming with antibodies post-illness, has proven effective in small studies to treat infectious diseases including Ebola and SARS.

Now, the US Food and Drug Administration has greenlit physicians to experiment with the strategy as coronavirus patients fill hospitals and the nation's positive caseload spikes to over 236,000.

Bruce Sachias, chief medical officer of the New York Blood Center — which will collect, test and distribute donations in the city — said while there is reason to believe plasma transfusions can help alleviate the current crisis, tests underway are not intended to yield golden-ticket solutions.

"It's really important for us to be very cognizant of the fact that we're still in very new territory," he said.

Crisis mode

Eldad Hod and Steven Spitalnik — transfusion medicine doctors leading trials at Columbia University's Irving Medical Center — are cautiously optimistic but, like Sachias, emphasize the unknowns.

Spitalnik told AFP they believe "within seven to 14 days after the onset of an infection, that people will develop an immune response and eventually make high amounts of antibodies -- although exactly when the peak of antibody production will be, we don't know."

He said some data suggests antibody production could peak around 28 days post-infection, and hopes the new research could provide a clearer picture.

Hod said each donation "can potentially save three to four lives."

The primary goal now is acquiring a significant plasma stock, so researchers can conduct formal studies with control groups who would receive non-convalescent plasma, and others the antibody-packed donations.

Initial plasma, however, will be distributed for "compassionate use," Hod said — to patients outside studies but for whom other strategies have failed.

They also aim to test treatments on already-hospitalized patients and as a preventative therapy in settings like nursing homes.

Spitalnik said that normally they would want "highly controlled" clinical trials, which take longer but are more definitive.

But "this is a crisis," he said.

"We understand and we are amenable to doing things that will take shorter amounts of time — but hopefully we'll yield at least some rigorous results."

Internal hazmat suit

Berrent is eager to open her personal blood bank and crossing her fingers in hope the process can prove life-saving.

"We can be superheroes," the 45-year-old photographer told AFP.

"These are unprecedented, frightening times where everything is beyond our control — except for we as survivors can help," Berrent said.

"We can be the ones running towards the fire in our own internally built hazmat suit. And that is a tremendous opportunity — how could you not take advantage of that?"

Berrent's antibody levels met donation requirements — but she is waiting on results of a nasal swab test to make sure any remnants of coronavirus have dissipated.

In the meantime, she's started the more than 17,000-member Facebook group "Survivor Corps" to mobilize other survivors to share their immunity.

"I can't wait to donate," Berrent said. "We need a forward-looking solution-based approach that offers hope because things are very, very bleak right now."

'Science will win'

A Houston hospital has already transfused plasma from a recovered patient into someone critically ill, though it's still too early to determine efficacy.

Sachias said hundreds of people who believe they have recovered from COVID-19 have applied to help in New York, the US epicenter of the highly contagious virus that accounts for nearly half of related deaths stateside.

As their research gets underway, Hod said one silver lining of coronavirus' global scale has been the boost to collaborative scientific efforts, saying data is being shared more openly than ever before.

"I think a lot of the scientific community has tried to put their egos aside... and banded together to try and work together for the common good," he said.

"And I think in the end, science will win."

Agence France-Presse

Moscow begins lockdown during tougher push to curb virus

MOSCOW — Moscow, with its more than 12 million people, went into lockdown on Monday while other parts of Russia moved to introduce similar steps to curb the coronavirus outbreak.

The enforcement of the strict new rules, which Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin suddenly announced late Sunday, coincided with the beginning of a "non-working" week declared by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"The situation is certainly serious and everyone should take this very seriously," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Moscow, which has become the epicentre of the contagion in Russia, announced the new measures after many Muscovites failed to heed recommendations to self-isolate and instead went to parks for barbecues at the weekend.

On Monday, Red Square in the heart of Moscow was eerily empty, while the streets of Europe's most populous city were quiet even though traffic could still be seen on the roads.

Anna, a 36-year-old web designer living in south Moscow, said the lockdown would be hard for her and her five-year-old daughter.

"But I don't want Arina to get sick," she told AFP while on her way to buy some bread. "So of course we will observe the quarantine."

But some were in no hurry to take the new rules to heart. Three teenagers flouted social distancing rules, walking and laughing together.

"Staying home with our parents will kill us quicker than the coronavirus," said one teen as the others nodded.

Regions eye lockdowns

Muscovites are now only allowed to leave their homes in cases of a medical emergency, to travel to jobs judged essential, and to go to local grocery stores and pharmacies which need to enforce social distancing.

People are also allowed to take out the trash and walk their dogs.

Over the past 24 hours Russia has recorded 302 new cases -- the biggest daily increase so far -- taking the national tally to 1,835 cases of coronavirus and nine deaths.

But the real number of infected people is believed to be higher and critics have rounded on authorities for not proposing tougher measures sooner.

At least eight regions including the Western exclave region of Kaliningrad have already imposed or were preparing to impose strict quarantines.

Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov was the first regional leader to announce a lockdown last week, banning non-residents from entering the once restive region.

Masked men in black uniforms were policing streets in Chechnya armed with white clubs, according to a video published by independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

In a rare televised address last Wednesday, Putin announced that Russians would not be required to go to work this week, but would still get paid.

He also postponed an upcoming public vote on constitutional reforms that would allow him to stay in power until 2036.

'Pray at home'

The powerful Russian Orthodox Church, which had initially said authorities had no right to close churches, finally fell into line on Sunday, with Patriarch Kirill calling on the faithful to pray at home.

"You can be saved without going to church," he told believers in an address.

The new isolation rules, which will be policed by a vast system of facial-recognition cameras in Moscow, came into force as Russia also closed its borders.

Agence France-Presse

Fauci says coronavirus could claim up to 200,000 US lives

A senior US scientist issued a cautious prediction Sunday that the novel coronavirus could claim as many as 200,000 lives in the United States, as state and local officials described increasingly desperate shortages in hard-pressed hospitals.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who leads research into infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health, told CNN that models predicting a million or more US deaths were "not impossible, but very, very unlikely."

He offered a rough estimate of 100,000 to 200,000 deaths and "millions of cases."

But Fauci, a leading member of President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force and for many Americans a comforting voice of authority, quickly added, "I don't want to be held to that ... It's such a moving target that you can so easily be wrong and mislead people."

By way of comparison, a US flu epidemic in 2018-19 killed 34,000 people.

COVID-19 has hit the US with explosive force in recent days and weeks, following a path seen earlier in parts of Asia and Europe.

It took a month for the US to move from its first confirmed death, on February 29, to its 1,000th. But in two days this week that number doubled, to nearly 2,200 on Sunday. The case total of 124,763 -- as tallied by Johns Hopkins University -- is the world's highest.

"This is the way pandemics work, and that's why we all are deeply concerned and why we have been raising the alert," Dr. Deborah Birx, the response coordinator for the White House task force, said Sunday on NBC.

"No state, no metro area will be spared."

- 'A sharp escalation ahead' -

In the US, the epicenter has been New York City, with 672 deaths so far. Hospital staff have issued desperate pleas for more protective equipment.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday that his city's hospitals have enough protective equipment -- but not enough of the life-saving ventilators -- for only another week.

He said he had made a direct request to President Donald Trump and the US military "to find us immediately more military medical personnel and get them here by next Sunday."

De Blasio credited federal officials with being "very responsive," but added, "we're talking about a sharp escalation ahead."

From Washington state, where the disease first struck with force, Governor Jay Inslee described "a desperate need for all kinds of equipment." He said the nation needed to be put on an essentially wartime footing.

Inslee pushed back against the notion, advocated earlier by Trump, that the country could begin returning to work by Easter.

"There are some hard realities we have to understand," he said on CNN. "Unless we continue a very vigorous social distancing program in my state, this will continue to spread like wildfire."

- 'Worse by the minute' -

Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan also described a deteriorating picture, especially in her state's largest city, Detroit.

"We had a thousand new cases yesterday," she said. "We know that number will be even higher today... The dire situation in Detroit is getting worse by the minute."

Whitmer bemoaned a system that has states competing against one another for desperately needed supplies.

"We're bidding against one another, and in some cases the federal government is taking priority," she said.

"It's really, I think, creating a lot more problems for all of us."

House speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Trump's "continued delay in getting equipment to where it's needed is deadly."

Asked on CNN whether she believed that Trump, by initially downplaying the severity of coronavirus, had cost American lives, she replied bluntly, "Yes, I'm saying that."

Dr. Birx declined to say what her recommendation would be to the president about an eventual easing of work and travel restrictions, but she offered this advice:

"Every metro area should assume that they could have an outbreak equivalent to New York, and do everything right now to prevent it."

Agence France-Presse