Queen Elizabeth will call on Britons to show the same resolve as their forebears and take on the challenge and disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak with good-humoured resolve when she makes an extremely rare address to rally the nation on Sunday.

In what will only be her fifth special televised message to the country during her 68 years on the throne, the queen will also thank healthcare workers on the front line and recognise the pain already suffered by some families.

“I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge. And those who come after us will say that the Britons of this generation were as strong as any,” the 93-year-old monarch will say, according to extracts released by Buckingham Palace.

“That the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good-humoured resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterise this country.”

On Saturday, the government said the death toll of those who had tested positive for the virus rose by 708 in 24 hours to 4,313, with a 5-year-old among the dead, along with at least 40 who had no known previous health conditions.

Health officials have cautioned that high fatalities were expected for at least another week or two even if people complied with strict isolation measures.

Like many countries in Europe, Britain is in a state of virtual lockdown, with pubs, restaurants and nearly all shops closed, and social gatherings banned.

Britons have been told to stay at home unless it is absolutely essential to venture out to try to stop the spread of the epidemic. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is still in self-isolation, and a number of senior ministers have been among those who have tested positive for the virus.

‘As strong as any’

“I am speaking to you at what I know is an increasingly challenging time,” Elizabeth will say in what has been framed as a deeply personal message.

“A time of disruption in the life of our country: a disruption that has brought grief to some, financial difficulties to many, and enormous changes to the daily lives of us all.”

Sunday’s address, which will be aired at 1900 GMT, was recorded at Windsor Castle where the monarch is staying with her husband Prince Philip, 98.

In order to ensure any risk to the queen herself was mitigated, it was filmed in a big room to ensure a safe distance between her and the cameraman, who was wearing personal protective equipment and was the only other person present.

Earlier this week, Elizabeth’s son and heir Prince Charles, 71, came out of self-isolation himself after seven days following a positive test.

The queen usually only broadcasts to the nation with her annual televised Christmas Day message and this special address will be only the fifth she has made.

The last was in 2012 following celebrations to mark her 60th year as queen. That came a decade after the preceding broadcast which followed the death of her mother, the Queen Mother, in 2002 when she thanked Britons for their messages of condolence.

She also gave an address at the start of the Gulf War in 1991, and most famously, delivered a sombre live broadcast after the death of her daughter-in-law Princess Diana in a Paris car crash in 1997 amid a national outpouring of grief and criticism of the royal family’s response.

(REUTERS)

A former American counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer at the CIA has said that Washington’s “war on the novel coronavirus might well wind up being the most expensive conflict in American history.”

“The United States has been at war almost continuously since the founding of the nation in 1783,” Philip Giraldi said in a recent article published by the Strategic Culture Foundation.

“Some of the wars were undeclared like the centuries-long eradication of the native Americans, while others – the Mexican and Spanish-American wars – were glorified by including the names of the countries defeated by Washington’s war machine. America’s bloodiest war actually has multiple names, including the Civil War, the War Between the States, The War of the Rebellion and the War of Northern Aggression, allowing one to pick and choose reflecting one’s own political preferences,” he wrote.

“More recently wars in Korea and Vietnam were named in straightforward fashion, though current conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan do not really have names. In fact, it has become somewhat politically incorrect to name a war after an ethnic group or a country in the old fashion way. But this shortage of wars has been somewhat made up for by an increase in the number of metaphorical wars to include a war on drugs, a war on poverty and a war on terror. Now Americans are confronting what might some day be called the War on Coronavirus,” he added.

 He noted that Trump has already declared himself to be a “wartime president” and he is preparing to help the economy with a $2.2 trillion injection.

The analyst pointed out that most this money “will go to the salivating profiteers that are already lining up as well as to the greedy corporate constituencies who will do their best to use the cash to increase their value for potential shareholders.”

He observed that the $2.2 trillion amount is “considerably more than the Vietnam War cost in today’s dollars ($1 trillion) though it does not yet come close to the $5-7 trillion in borrowed dollars that the going-on-twenty-years engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq has cost.”

The United States recorded 1,321 deaths from the contagious coronavirus between Thursday and Friday, according to statistics site Worldometers, which is the highest single-day death toll recorded by any country in the world.

A total of 7,844 people have now died of COVID-19 in the United States and about 300,000 have been infected with the virus, Worldometers said.

New York was the worst-hit state in the US. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio pleaded with the US government for more help, as new statistics have confirmed that hundreds of thousands of people across the country have lost their jobs.

Meanwhile, public health specialists have warned that mass shutdowns of businesses and schools to enforce social distancing measures over the coronavirus outbreak will lead to thousands of deaths and suicides in the US that are unrelated to the disease itself.

Source: Presstv

The United States recorded 1,169 COVID-19 fatalities in the past 24 hours, the Johns Hopkins University tracker showed on Thursday, the highest one-day death toll recorded in any country since the global pandemic began.

The toll reflected figures reported by the university between 8.30pm on Wednesday and the same time on Thursday.

The grim record was previously held by Italy, where 969 people died on Mar 27.

The US has now recorded 5,926 coronavirus deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Globally, Italy still has the highest total death toll, with 13,915 dying of the disease there, followed by Spain at 10,003.

The US also recorded more than 30,000 new cases of COVID-19 in the same 24-hour period, bringing the total number of officially reported cases in the country to more than 243,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.

That is roughly a quarter of the more than a million cases reported globally.

New York City is at the epicenter of the American outbreak, recording more than 1,500 deaths and nearing 50,000 positive cases, according to figures released late Thursday by city health authorities.

More than 1.3 million COVID-19 tests have been conducted in the US, Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday at a daily White House press conference on the virus.

“We are now conducting over 100,000 coronavirus tests per day,” President Donald Trump added at the same briefing, saying that was “more than any other country in the world, both in terms of the raw number and on a per capita basis”.

White House projections show the virus is expected to kill between 100,000 and 240,000 people in the US.

(Source: AFP)

The United States recorded 1,169 COVID-19 fatalities in a single day, the Johns Hopkins University tracker showed Thursday, the highest one-day death toll recorded in any country since the global pandemic began.

The toll reflected figures reported by the university between 8:30pm Wednesday (0030 GMT) and the same time Thursday.

The grim record was previously held by Italy, where 969 people died on March 27.

The US has now recorded around 6000 coronavirus deaths since the pandemic began.

Trump changes his position on masks

US President Donald Trump’s administration appeared to join local officials on Thursday in advising Americans to wear masks when venturing out during the still-exploding coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking at a White House briefing, Deborah Birx, a member of Trump’s coronavirus task force, said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would issue guidelines in the coming days on the use of face coverings.

Birx however cautioned that Americans, who have been admonished to stay at home except for essential outings, should not develop a “false sense of security” that they are fully protected from the respiratory illness by wearing a mask.

Trump, answering questions from reporters at the same briefing, said only that “if people want to wear them, they can.”

Global cases surpassed 1 million on Thursday with more than 52,000 deaths, according to a Reuters tally based on country by country data.

White House medical experts have forecast that between 100,000 to 240,000 people could be killed even if Americans follow the sweeping lock-down orders.

The Trump administration, CDC and public health officials have all wavered on the issue of face masks since the pandemic broke out, initially telling healthy people such measures were unnecessary or even counter-productive.

Lack of resources

In New York City, the center of the US outbreak, Mayor Bill de Blasio urged residents to wear face coverings, citing studies showing that the virus can be transmitted by infected people who are showing no symptoms.

“What that means is when you put on that face covering you’re protecting everyone else,” de Blasio said. The Democratic mayor suggested New Yorkers use scarves or other home-made masks because medical-grade protective gear was in short supply.

An emergency stockpile of medical equipment maintained by the US government has nearly run out of protective garb for doctors and nurses.

In New York City, where at least 1,400 people have been killed by the virus, hospitals and morgues struggled to treat the desperately ill and bury the dead.

New York City funeral homes and cemetery directors described a surge in demand not seen in decades as cases surpassed 50,000 in the city.

Crematories extended their hours and burned bodies into the night, with corpses piling up so quickly that city officials were looking elsewhere in the state for temporary interment sites.

“We’ve been preparing for a worst-case scenario, which is in a lot of ways starting to materialise,” said Mike Lanotte, director of the New York State Funeral Directors Association.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)

Latest updates on the spread of the new coronavirus pandemic around the world show that the number of confirmed cases of the infection has exceeded one million.

Figures provided online by Johns Hopkins University on Thursday said that more than 51,000 people had died of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, while 208,000 had recovered.

The figures showed that Italy topped the list of countries with the highest number of deaths from the virus while the United States had the highest number of confirmed cases.

More than three months have passed since the new coronavirus was detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan where tens of thousands were infected before the disease was mostly contained last month. Wuhan and surrounding regions are now set for a reopening of schools and businesses in the upcoming days.

However, many countries around the world have yet to see the worst of COVID-19 with the World Health Organization saying on Wednesday that the number of confirmed cases had doubled in less than a week.

However, reports on Thursday suggested that scientists and researchers were making progress in the initial stages of developing vaccines for COVID-19 as efforts are underway to immunize a substantial portion of the global population from the virus and allow a return to normal life in many countries.

Australia’s national science agency said that a first stage of testing a potential vaccine had begun on animals in a lab near Melbourne.

A US biotechnology company, whose efforts for developing a vaccine enjoys the support of the federal government in Washington, also said that it would carry out the first phase of testing the vaccine on humans in late spring or early summer.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh also said on Thursday that they had made promising progress on finding a protein that could induce immunity against the new coronavirus.

They said that their prototype vaccine, called PittCoVacc, had caused a surge of antibodies against the new coronavirus two weeks after it was tested in mice.

However, the researchers said the animal should be tracked for a longer period for the vaccine to prove immune and effective.

All governments and institutions around the world have declared that it would take between 12 to 18 months before a vaccine with a decisive ability to induce immunity against COVID-19 could be accessible to the public.

Source: Presstv

The World Health Organization said Wednesday it was deeply concerned about the near-exponential escalation of the new coronavirus pandemic, with the number of deaths doubling in a week.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged citizens around the globe to stand together to fight COVID-19, as he braced for the millionth confirmed case.

“As we enter the fourth month since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, I am deeply concerned about the rapid escalation and global spread of infection,” he told a virtual news conference.

“Over the past five weeks, we have witnessed a near exponential growth in the number of new cases, reaching almost every country.

“The number of deaths has more than doubled in the past week. In the next few days we will reach one million confirmed cases and 50,000 deaths.”

Since emerging in China in December, COVID-19 has spread across the globe, claiming more than 43,000 lives, and infecting more than 860,000 people, according to an AFP tally of officially confirmed cases.

The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 30,000 people in Europe alone. Italy and Spain account for three in every four deaths on the continent.

Debt relief call

However, the virus is expected to gain a greater foothold in parts of the world that have not, so far, seen such large numbers of cases and deaths.

“While relatively lower numbers of confirmed cases have been reported from Africa, and from Central and South America, we realise that COVID-19 could have serious social, economic and political consequences for these regions,” Tedros warned.

“It is critical that we ensure these countries are well equipped to detect, test, isolate and treat COVID-19 cases, and identify contacts.”

He urged governments to implement social welfare measures to ensure that vulnerable people have access to food during the crisis — and called for debt relief for poorer states.

“Many developing countries will struggle to implement social welfare programs of this nature. For those countries, debt relief is essential to enable them to take care of their people and avoid economic collapse,” said Tedros.

He said there were many “unknowns” about how COVID-19 will behave, as it is the “first-ever coronavirus pandemic in the world”.

A safe vaccine is thought to be 12 to 18 months away, while WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan stressed: “There is no therapy that has been proven to be effective in the treatment of COVID-19.”

As regards the use of face masks, the WHO recommends that those people who are infected and health workers who care for them should use medical masks.

(AFP)

President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned of a “very painful” two weeks as the United States wrestles with a coronavirus surge that the White House warns could kill as many as 240,000 Americans.

“This is going to be a very painful, a very, very painful two weeks,” Trump told a press conference at the White House.

Trump described the pandemic as “a plague”.

“I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead,” he said.

White House coronavirus coordinator Deborah Birx displayed charts demonstrating data and modeling that showed an enormous jump in deaths to a range of 100,000 to 240,000 people from the virus in the coming months.

Trump said 2.2 million people could have died, according to the modeling, if no mitigation efforts had been put into place.

He cited those high projections when announcing on Sunday that he planned to extend the federal guidelines rather than pursuing his earlier stated desire to get the US economy moving again by Easter on April 12.

“There’s no magic bullet. There’s no magic vaccine or therapy. It’s just behaviors: Each of our behaviors translating into something that changes the course of this viral pandemic over the next 30 days,” Birx told reporters, predicting a peak in deaths in the coming two weeks.

Vice President Mike Pence said the mitigation efforts were having an impact. “We have reason to believe that it’s working,” Pence said of the guidelines. “Do not be discouraged.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has said previously that the pandemic could kill between 100,000 and 200,000 people in the United States, said all efforts were being made to make those numbers lower.

“We’re doing everything we can,” he said.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS and AFP)

After England’s deputy chief medical officer warned on Sunday that the UK’s coronavirus lockdown could last for “six months or more”, experts say that prolonged social distancing measures – if not full-blown confinements – may well be necessary and that some permanent changes to behaviour are likely.

As the UK braced for its second week under lockdown following Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s March 23 announcement of unprecedented curbs on peacetime public life, England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jenny Harries set out a medium-term timeline for how the British government might renew restrictions aimed at supressing the coronavirus.

Containment measures must stay in place at the end of the original three-week lockdown period, she said at the British government’s daily coronavirus briefing on March 29: “We must not then suddenly revert to our normal way of living; that would be quite dangerous. If we stop, then all of our efforts will be wasted and we could potentially see a second peak.”

“So I think three weeks for review,” Harries continued. “Two or three months to see whether we’ve really squashed it, with about three to six months ideally, and lots of uncertainty in that, but then to see at which point we can actually get back to normal. It is plausible that it could go further than that.”

Two years of restrictions?

Britain is not the only country whose government has warned that coronavirus containment measures will be extended beyond their initial period. Europe’s worst-affected country and the first on the continent to impose a lockdown, Italy has said that its confinement measures could be extended to July 31 despite their crippling economic effects.

Germany’s disease control and prevention agency, the Robert Koch Institute, declared earlier in March that – in an “extreme situation” – restrictions on public life to combat the coronavirus could stay in place for as long as two years until a vaccine is ready for use.

“Some kind of distancing will likely be necessary for at least six months,” William Hanage, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard University, told FRANCE 24. “The distancing measures already in place are stopping the establishment of new cases. Those already infected should be resolved for better or worse in two months, after which the goal will be to prevent the surge we have seen in the first wave happening again.”

The German health institute’s idea that two years of restrictions could be necessary to deal with the coronavirus presents a “fairly likely” scenario, Hanage said, adding that it “depends on what is meant by restrictions; two years of the current state is unlikely, but two years without large gatherings is another thing”.

Of course, completely stopping the transition of the disease would make lockdowns and social distancing unnecessary. This could be achieved one of three ways, explained Greg Gray, a professor and medical epidemiologist at Duke University School of Medicine, in an interview with FRANCE 24.

First, “through a massive, worldwide, safe and effective vaccine programme”. Second, through the “massive employment of some other effective prophylaxis against transmission”, such as effective lockdowns, “combined with intense contact tracing to stop transmission networks”. Or third, “when a large proportion of the human population becomes immune due to infection (known as herd immunity) and the epidemic burns out”. Until then, he said, “the virus will likely continue to circulate wherever it finds new susceptible people to infect”. 

Only the second option – lockdowns and tracing transmission networks – appears to be feasible in the short term.

Paradoxically, lifting restrictive measures earlier may be most suitable in relatively hard-hit nations, Gray said.

“As the virus has hit the UK and Italy very hard, these countries may see [herd immunity] sooner than most other countries.”

As a result, “six months (of restricted movement) may be reasonable for the UK” while “two years may be reasonable for Germany if transmission remains low”.

Coronavirus will ‘change our way of life’

By minimising the number of people who contract the coronavirus, lockdowns protect the most vulnerable. However, they do not make people immune. Consequently, scientists expect the virus to resurge when restrictions are lifted. For example, the Imperial College London study – famous for having persuaded Johnson and US President Donald Trump to adopt tougher approaches against the coronavirus – predicted that if confinement measures end after five months, a second wave of infections would emerge in late autumn.

In light of that, “most epidemiologists believe that once the social distancing is relaxed, it needs to be accompanied by widespread testing and isolation of infected persons for 14 days”, Charles Horsburgh, a professor of epidemiology at Boston University, told FRANCE 24.

While governments will need to deploy mass testing and contact tracing,  experts say that people will also need to modify their behaviour to prevent fresh outbreaks.

“This virus has and will continue to change our way of life, our traditions and our human-to-human interactions,” Gray said.

Some changes are already palpable. Face masks, already common in Asia, can now also be seen in Western cities; and in France, the traditional bise – a kiss on each cheek to greet family, friends and colleagues – has become taboo.

Permanent change is on the cards, Lynn Goldman, dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, told FRANCE 24. “It could well be that there are fewer people shaking hands and kissing; elbow bumps could become the norm as a form of greeting and I think face masks might become more normal too.”

Source: France 24

The new coronavirus has now killed 33,997 people and infected 722,435 others worldwide, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Italy continues to be a prime hotspot for the viral infection. The pandemic has already brought the entire world to a standstill, with governments and people putting up fights to save more lives and reduce the costs of the malady.

The following is a glance at the latest developments related to the pandemic.

Italy’s deaths decrease

Italy says the number of deaths from the disease fell for the second consecutive day on Sunday.

According to the country’s Civil Protection department, 756 people died on Sunday, bringing the total to 10,779. The Sunday toll was 133 smaller than that of Saturday.

Still, the overall tally is more than a third of all the deaths from the virus worldwide.

The total number of confirmed cases in Italy also rose to 97,689 on Sunday, from a previous 92,472.

It was the lowest daily rise in new cases since Wednesday.

The country, however, is still bracing for the peak. And restrictions on all but essential activities that were due to expire on Friday will be officially extended.

“The measures that were due to expire on April 3 inevitably will be extended,” said Regional Affairs Minister Francesco Boccia. “I think that it would be inappropriate and irresponsible to talk of re-opening (schools and production sites).”

According to Italian media, the restrictions could last for a further two weeks until about April 18.

Spain’s death toll passes 6,800

Spain, the second worst-hit nation in Europe, has approved a strengthening of measures to curb the spread of the outbreak, which killed 838 people on Sunday.

The total number of fatalities reached 6,803, and the confirmed cases 80,110.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Saturday night that all non-essential workers had to stay home for two weeks. The measure would last from March 30 to April 9.

Spain has already been on near-total lockdown for three weeks.

Local German finance minister kills self over outbreak’s economic toll

In Germany, the finance minister of Hesse State, Thomas Schafer, who was a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, has killed himself, reportedly due to becoming “deeply worried” about the outbreak’s economic toll on the country.

Governor Volker Bouffier said Sunday that Schafer, 54, had become consumed with how to handle the fact that the coronavirus crisis was sending global markets into free fall.

He said the minister had been concerned about “whether it would be possible to succeed in fulfilling the population’s huge expectations, particularly of financial help.”

Schaefer had held his position for a decade.

Germany has had the lowest fatality toll from the coronavirus in the world, with a total number of 541 deaths; but it has the fifth-largest infection tally, with 62,435 confirmed cases.

China continues to see drop in cases, president urges firms to reopen

China reported a drop in new COVID-19 cases for the fourth consecutive day on Sunday.

Officials said on Monday that 31 new coronavirus cases had been recorded on Sunday, including one locally transmitted infection, dropping from the 45 cases reported a day earlier.

With four new deaths on Sunday, the cumulative death toll in mainland China reached 3,304, and the infection figure now stands at 82,149.

This has prompted the government to urge businesses and factories to reopen for a recovery.

President Xi Jinping said that his government would adjust support policies for small and medium-sized firms promptly as the situation developed to protect them from the impact of the coronavirus epidemic.

Chinese firms should actively resume operations and production even as coronavirus prevention efforts continue, Xi said on Sunday.

South Korea cases rise steadily

South Korea on Monday reported 78 new COVID-19 cases, indicating a fairly steady rate of infections.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said the national tally stood at 9,661, while the death toll rose by six to 158.

President Moon Jae-in held an emergency meeting with economic policymakers to discuss financial support for the public. He is expected to announce details of the measures later on Monday.

Australia tightens measures

Australia has tightened physical distancing measures as the total number of infected cases reached 3,984 along with 18 deaths nationwide.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned that no more than two people should gather in any one spot outside households.

The government said it would use fines and the threat of jail to enforce the new rule.

Canada declares state of emergency

Canada on Sunday declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces and ordered people to stay home.

The number of confirmed cases in the country rose to 6,320 on Sunday, while the death toll climbed to 65.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Sunday that his government was “prepared for all kinds of different situations” but was not planning for the moment to use troops to help combat the outbreak.

“We are not closing the door to any scenario,” he said, however.

Source: Presstv