China’s economy shrank at a rate of almost 7 percent in the first three months of the year, officials said Friday, showing how the pandemic has wrought a devastating impact on the world’s second-largest economy. The first contraction since the country began releasing data in 1992 offers a glimpse of what may be to come globally.
On Thursday evening, President Trump unveiled broad guidelines to slowly begin reopening daily life, leaving specific plans to the nation’s governors as health officials sound the alarm for more testing.
Here are some significant developments:
- The death toll in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak in China, has been revised up by 50 percent. The move followed criticism of the accuracy of China’s data, though officials gave several reasons for the discrepancy, including people dying at home who went uncounted in official statistics.
- Britain extended a national lockdown for least three more weeks, as virus-stricken Prime Minister Boris Johnson recovers out of the hospital and some other countries in Europe start to reopen slowly.
- A lawyer for Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney, claimed that he had been informed by Cohen’s family that Cohen would be released to home confinement.
- Outbreaks in the United States have sickened workers and forced closures at some of the country’s biggest meat processing plants, sparking fears of a beef shortfall.
- Despite hopes that any number of existing drugs could serve as potential therapies for covid-19, including Trump’s boosterism about some treatments, specialists say expectations need to be tempered.
April 17, 2020 at 2:36 AM EDT
Analysis: Trump’s pandemic response underscores the crisis in global politics
There are understandable reasons for President Trump’s anger with the World Health Organization. The Geneva-based U.N. body has struggled to combat the coronavirus pandemic and, as my colleagues have reported, gave too much credence to China’s initial messaging around the outbreak. The WHO’s seeming acquiescence in its dealings with Beijing stoked the ire of not just Trump supporters in the United States, but critics elsewhere. Japan’s deputy prime minister recently called the WHO the “China Health Organization.”
But Trump’s dramatic declaration this week that he would halt critical funding to the WHO in the middle of the pandemic is proving unpopular. It puts him at odds with his own administration’s officials in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the State Department — major agencies that recognize the importance of supporting and influencing the WHO in a time of shared crisis. And it underscores, yet again, Trump’s penchant for punishing or weakening multilateral, international institutions, even when it’s unclear what the United States gains from such disruption.
By Ishaan Tharoor
April 17, 2020 at 2:18 AM EDT
U.S. gives nearly $5 million to Palestinians to fight coronavirus
BEIRUT — The United States is donating about $5 million to Palestinian hospitals and households in an effort to combat coronavirus, as part of a $508 million commitment in aid to help various countries deal with the pandemic, the U.S. Department of State announced on Thursday.
“I’m very pleased the USA is providing $5M for Palestinian hospitals and households to meet immediate, life-saving needs in combating COVID-19,” David M. Friedman, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, announced late Thursday via Twitter. “The USA, as the world’s top humanitarian aid donor, is committed to assisting the Palestinian people, & others worldwide, in this crisis.”
The donation, which will come from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the form of international disaster assistance, comes on the heels of the United States cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians since 2018.
In an effort to pressure Palestinians to negotiate the Trump-sponsored peace plan, which was unveiled in January, the Trump administration has cut funding to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which funds schools, health care and food for impoverished Palestinians, as well as slashing other programs in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza.
The donation package by the State Department and USAID also designated aid disbursements to other countries in the region. War-torn Syria will receive nearly $18 million; Lebanon, struggling with an acute economic crisis and large numbers of Syrian refugees, will receive $13.3 million. Afghanistan will also receive $18 million, while Iraq is set to receive the second-largest donation worldwide, set at over $25.6 million.
By Sarah Dadouch
April 17, 2020 at 1:45 AM EDT
San Diego doctor charged with peddling false coronavirus ‘miracle cure’ that included hydroxychloroquine, prosecutors say
The email advertisements from Skinny Beach Med Spa in San Diego started flooding inboxes late last month. Only instead of hawking beauty-related services, the promotions allegedly proffered a false “miracle cure” for the novel coronavirus, federal prosecutors said Thursday.
In the latest case of alleged coronavirus-related fraud, Jennings Ryan Staley, a licensed physician and the spa’s operator, was charged Thursday with mail fraud after authorities say he attempted to sell “covid-19 treatment packs,” claiming that the “concierge medicine experience” could both cure those with the virus and ensure immunity from infection for at least six weeks.
Customers willing to shell out $3,995 would receive enough medication for a family of four, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of California. Authorities said the packs included hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, a combination of medicine that has been touted by President Trump as a potential treatment, among other drugs. So far there is no scientifically proven treatment for coronavirus.
“We will not tolerate covid-19 fraudsters who try to profit and take advantage of the pandemic fear to cheat, steal and harm others,” U.S. Attorney Robert S. Brewer Jr. said in the release. “Rest assured: those who engage in this despicable conduct will find themselves in the crosshairs of federal prosecutors.”
The FBI began investigating Staley, 44, after receiving a tip about the treatment packs, installing an undercover agent to pose as a potential buyer, the release said.
In a recorded phone call with the agent, Staley touted the medicine as a “magic bullet,” insisting that it would cure covid-19 “100 percent,” according to prosecutors.
“It’s preventative and curative. It’s hard to believe, it’s almost too good to be true,” Staley allegedly told the agent. “But it’s a remarkable clinical phenomenon.”
Staley, who later allegedly denied making such statements, is also accused of smuggling hydroxychloroquine from China.
The charge against Staley comes just days after the FBI issued a warning to the public about health care fraud schemes emerging amid the ongoing pandemic.
An attorney representing Staley did not respond to a request for comment. The physician faces up to 20 years in prison and is scheduled to be arraigned Friday afternoon.
By Allyson Chiu
April 17, 2020 at 1:13 AM EDT
Coronavirus advice from those who have endured social distancing in the extreme
Don’t count the days. Tallying them, like etches on a prison wall, will only serve as a reminder of how interminable the coronavirus quarantine is, how insufferably abnormal.
“I have no idea how many days I’ve been in quarantine. None,” said Scott Kelly, the former NASA astronaut who spent 340 days in space, the record for the longest single spaceflight. “I don’t think about it. I just think this is my reality. This is my mission. And it will some day be over.”
Astronauts have a lot to teach us about how to survive the great covid-19 lockdown of 2020. So do explorers and scientists. And the researchers who study them say their experiences — confined in a spacecraft in orbit, a ship at sea or an outpost in Antarctica — can shed light on how we can best navigate an unsettling time that in its darkest moments can feel like an unjust incarceration.
By Christian Davenport
April 17, 2020 at 12:50 AM EDT
As testing outcry mounts, Trump cedes to states in announcing guidelines for slow reopening
President Trump released federal guidelines Thursday night for a slow and staggered return to normal in places with minimal cases of the novel coronavirus, moving to try to resume economic activity even amid an outcry from political and health leaders about the nation’s testing capacity.
Despite Trump’s desire for a May 1 reopening, his plan does not contain a date for implementation and is a vague set of recommendations for a three-phased reopening of businesses, schools and other gathering places in jurisdictions that satisfy broad criteria on symptoms, cases and hospital loads.
“America wants to be open and Americans want to be open,” Trump said.
By Philip Rucker, Josh Dawsey and Yasmeen Abutaleb
April 17, 2020 at 12:34 AM EDT
Wuhan’s death toll was almost 50 percent higher than previously reported, Chinese authorities say
China has revised up the number of people who died from coronavirus in Wuhan by almost 50 percent, saying Friday that the death toll at the epicenter of the pandemic now stands at 3,869.
The figure was previously 2,579, a number that many analysts and ordinary citizens said appeared far too low. U.S. intelligence agencies had also reportedly concluded that China’s official numbers are much lower than reality.
The Wuhan municipal headquarters for the novel coronavirus disease epidemic prevention and control added 1,290 to the death toll on Friday — at the same time attention was focused on China’s much-anticipated economic statistics, which showed that growth contracted by a whopping 6.8 percent in the first quarter.
The agency said the discrepancy in Wuhan’s fatality figures was the result of many patients dying at home in the early stages of the epidemic rather than being treated in hospitals, so their deaths were not included in medical figures.
For those who died in hospitals, medical staff were preoccupied with treating patients, “resulting in belated, missed and mistaken reporting,” according to a statement from the agency. There were repetitions, mistakes and omissions in the reporting of deaths during the height of the outbreak in Wuhan, it said.
“Life and people are what matter most,” the statement concluded. “Every life lost in the epidemic is not only a loss to their family but also a grief for the city. Our sincere condolences go to the families of those who deceased in the covid-19 epidemic, and we express deep sorrow to the compatriots and medical workers who lost their lives in the epidemic.”
By Anna Fifield
April 17, 2020 at 12:28 AM EDT
Pandemic delivers crushing blow to China’s economy
HONG KONG — The coronavirus pandemic is sending China’s economy, long the world’s growth engine, into a tail spin.
Gross domestic product fell at an annual rate of 6.8 percent in the first quarter, the first contraction since the country began releasing the figures in 1992, official data showed Friday. That’s a dramatic reversal for the world’s second-largest economy, which had been slowing in recent years but had still achieved growth rates of around 6 percent or more.
China’s leaders locked down swaths of the country in January to prevent the spread of infection, weeks after the coronavirus emerged in the city of Wuhan.
As authorities fought back the pandemic in China, the ruling Communist Party has pressed to get business gradually returning to normal without unleashing a second wave of infections. That’s proving a challenge. Beijing has also grown concerned as imported cases trickle in from abroad, notably among Chinese nationals returning from Russia.
Businesses that have resumed operations have often faced higher costs associated with hygiene measures and supply-chain disruptions. And with export markets in the United States and Europe facing a severe downturn, China’s policymakers face an uphill battle to right the ship.
“The scale and breadth of China’s economic contraction are staggering, and its ramifications for global growth are already becoming apparent,” said Eswar Prasad, professor of economics at Cornell University and former head of the China division at the International Monetary Fund, in an email. “China’s economic collapse is a bellwether of what the data for other major economies will reveal in the coming weeks.”
Unlike after the global financial crisis, there is little prospect of China driving a revival of global growth, Prasad added.
Asian markets had traded higher Friday and were little moved after China’s GDP figures. Benchmark indexes in Japan, Hong Kong and Australia were each about 2 percent higher, while U.S. stock futures were up 3 percent.
By David Crawshaw and Anna Fifield
April 17, 2020 at 12:27 AM EDT
New Zealand’s new coronavirus cases drop to single digits amid nationwide lockdown
After several weeks under a strict nationwide lockdown, New Zealand’s number of new coronavirus cases fell to single digits over the past 24 hours, officials said Friday.
The country reported eight new cases of the novel virus Friday, two confirmed and six probable, down from 15 the previous day, Caroline McElnay, director of public health, said at a news conference. New Zealand now has a total of 1,409 cases.
“We all need to continue to play our part to contribute to the elimination of this virus from New Zealand by staying home, staying in your bubble, breaking the chain of transmission and saving lives,” McElnay said.
New Zealand’s “elimination” approach to fighting the outbreak has largely stopped the virus from spreading among its population of nearly 5 million, but is expected to have a crushing impact on the country’s economy. Leaders plan to announce on April 20 whether New Zealand can begin easing out of lockdown or if the restrictive measures will continue.
On Friday, McElnay reported two new coronavirus-related deaths, both involving elderly patients in their 80s and 90s, bringing the country’s death toll to 11. But she noted that the number of cases of people who have recovered from the virus increased by 46 from the day before.
McElnay also announced that researchers from the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand have received funding to co-lead three scientific trials aimed at assessing potential therapeutic agents to fight covid-19. Hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug that has recently been touted by President Trump, is among the therapies that will be studied, she said.
By Allyson Chiu
April 17, 2020 at 12:27 AM EDT
China reports 26 new coronavirus cases as number of imported and domestic infections drops
China reported 26 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the National Health Commission said Friday, a drop from the previous day as border closures and restrictions on international travel continue.
After tallying 46 new cases for two days in a row, the country saw decreases in both imported cases and locally transmitted infections on Thursday and reported no new deaths.
The number of cases linked to people who have been abroad recently was cut almost by half, with 15 new cases on Thursday compared to 34 from a day earlier. Domestic cases also went down slightly, dropping from 12 to 11, health officials said.
Meanwhile, asymptomatic cases continue to rise. The country tracks those cases separately and does not include them in its count of confirmed cases. On Thursday, there were 66 new asymptomatic cases, an increase from 64 reported a day earlier.
By Allyson Chiu
Live updates: China’s economy shrinks for first time in decades; U.S. plots course toward reopening business
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