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China's Ambassador to Israel, Du Wei, was found dead inside his official residence Sunday morning, a spokeswoman for Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs told CNN.

At this stage, the 57-year-old's death is not being treated as suspicious.
Police are outside the ambassador's residence in Herzliya -- to the north of Tel Aviv -- as part of standard procedure, the spokeswoman said.
His death comes less than a week after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Jerusalem, openly criticizing China's actions during the coronavirus pandemic, as well as calling on Israeli leaders to stop signing major infrastructure and communications deals with Chinese companies.
There has been no comment on the ambassador's death from the Chinese embassy in Israel or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing.
Ambassador Du assumed his current role in Israel in February 2020, according to the embassy's webpage, as the coronavirus pandemic was sweeping across the globe. He wrote in an article in the Jerusalem Post in mid-March that he immediately had to enter two weeks of mandatory self-quarantine on his arrival.
Ambassador Du was married with one son.

edition.cnn.com/2020/05/17/middleeast/israel-chinese-ambassador-dead-intl/index.html

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Over three hours via teleconference Tuesday, the Supreme Court delved into two of the term's most momentous cases that will determine whether the House of Representatives and a New York prosecutor can subpoena President Donald Trump's accounting firm and banks for his financial documents.

The justices, participating by phone because of health precautions related to Covid-19, focused on Trump's effort to shield his documents, but they also prodded the lawyers to look into the future and gauge how an eventual decision will impact the separation of powers and an executive's broad claims of immunity.
Trump's attorneys argued that that the House subpoenas were "unprecedented in every sense" and they asked for "temporary presidential immunity" against a subpoena from a New York prosecutor for Trump's tax records.
"We're asking for temporary presidential immunity," Trump attorney Jay Sekulow told the court, defending against a subpoena from New York for the President's tax records.
When a lawyer for the House argued in support of the subpoenas issued by three committees, several conservative justices zeroed in on whether the efforts by the Democratic-led house amounted to harassment of Trump.
For his part, Chief Justice John Roberts asked the lawyer about the limits of congressional powers and suggested that the House needed to take into consideration the fact that the subpoenas involved, not at an ordinary litigant, but the President.
Roberts said the House didn't seem "to take account of the fact that we are talking about a coordinate branch of government, the executive branch." He suggested that the House was arguing that its power was "limitless."
Justice Clarence Thomas shared the concern, looking down to the road at future investigations and noting that "at some point" there is a "straw that breaks the camel's back."
Thomas worried about efforts to debilitate a president with a wave of subpoenas not only from Congress but grand juries as well.
"One could be manageable. But 100 could be impossible," Thomas said to House General Counsel Douglas Letter.
"That's the issue here: Whether something should be done" to "prevent harassment of the President," Justice Samuel Alito said.
'10-ton weight'
The liberal justices, meanwhile, pounced on lawyers for Trump, suggesting that the court has long upheld Congress' power to investigate.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that every recent president has voluntarily turned over his tax returns. She pointed to past investigations concerning Watergate, Whitewater and Paula Jones.

"How do you distinguish all of those cases," she asked, adding that before Congress can legislate, it must investigate.
Justice Elena Kagan noted pointedly that "this isn't the first conflict between Congress and the President," she said. In previous conflicts, the White House and Congress were able to reach an agreement. That obviously hasn't happened here, she told Trump attorney Patrick Strawbridge.
"And it seems to me, you're asking us ... to do is to put a kind of 10-ton weight on the scales between the President and Congress and essentially to make it impossible for Congress to perform oversight and to carry out its functions where the President is concerned," Kagan said.
Roberts had started by asking to see whether the House had any power to subpoena personal records, perhaps in an effort to find a middle ground. "It sounds like, at the end of the day, this is just another case where the courts are balancing the competing interests on either side, is that the wrong way to look at it?"
'The President isn't above the law'
In the case concerning the New York grand jury subpoena, several of the justices did not seem receptive to Trump's broad claims of immunity, pointing at times to court precedent concerning Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton that were relied upon by the lower courts that ruled against Trump.
Roberts asked a lawyer for Trump about the fact that in Clinton v. Jones, the court allowed a private citizen to bring civil suit against a sitting president.
"You focus on the distraction to the President" in this case, Roberts told a lawyer for Trump, but he said in the Clinton case, "we were not persuaded that the distraction in that case meant that discovery could not proceed."

Justice Neil Gorsuch, too, emphasized that in the Clinton case the court allowed the case to go forward against a sitting president, but in the case at hand, all that was being sought was records from third parties.
Sotomayor stressed that New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance was not targeting official acts by the President.
"You are asking for a broader immunity than anyone else gets," she told Sekulow.
And when he emphasized that the president is different than an ordinary litigant, Kagan shot back, saying: "The President isn't above the law."
Trump has sought for years to shield his tax returns and other records, while his critics launched a variety of investigations into hush money payments and potential violations of financial disclosure as well as ethics rules.
The cases come in the middle of a blockbuster term where the justices are already deciding cases concerning DACA, LGBT rights, and abortion. The court is also considering the Justice Department's emergency request concerning whether the House can have access to grand jury material from the Mueller probe and redacted portions of the Mueller report.
Arguments were scheduled to be heard at the end of March but were delayed due to the pandemic. Decisions are expected this summer.
House Democrats subpoena of accounting firms
The first two cases, argued concurrently, pit the President's personal lawyers against House Democrats who say they need records from Trump's longtime accounting firm and two banks to investigate a variety of issues ranging from alleged hush money payments, illegal foreign involvement in a US campaign and potential violations of money laundering and ethics rules.
Trump's lawyers sued to block the subpoenas arguing that although they are directed to third parties -- Mazars USA, Deutsche Bank and Capital One -- they involve the President and members of his family and amount to an illegal fishing expedition. Democrats say they need the documents regardless of the fact the impeachment trial of the President earlier this year ended in acquittal.
Federal appeals courts have ruled against the President.

edition.cnn.com/2020/05/12/politics/trump-taxes-financial-records-supreme-court/index.html

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Bollywood may be best known for its glamorous casts, glitzy costumes and energetic dance routines. But it also has a far less flattering reputation -- for promoting the offensive practice of brownface.
"It's actually racism," said award-winning film director Neeraj Ghaywan. "Let's not mince our words."
In the United States, the concepts of blackface and brownface date back to the 19th century, when white performers would darken their faces with makeup, and use racist stereotypes to portray black and other ethnic minority characters. White performers did this in a time when non-white professionals were themselves barred from employment in the industry.
And the practice dates back even further in England, to the Elizabethan era, when directors traditionally cast white actors to play minority characters in Shakespearean plays. Even into recent decades, the African general in "Othello" has long been played by a white actor with darkened skin, including Orson Welles in 1951 and Laurence Olivier in 1965.
It's also appeared in modern films. Dan Aykroyd wore blackface and dreadlocks in 1983's "Trading Places," and Robert Downey Jr. appeared several shades darker in 2012's "Tropic Thunder," to play a white Australian method actor who darkened his skin to play a black man in a Vietnam war film.
Bollywood has adopted brownface in a number of films -- by temporarily darkening the skin of performers, especially when they are portraying characters from disadvantaged backgrounds.
As in the early days of Hollywood, critics of this practice say that Bollywood often prefers this approach to actually hiring performers who have naturally darker skin, thus perpetuating discrimination and inequality in the industry.
For example, the popular 2019 film "Bala" featured the story of a woman who suffered discrimination on the basis of her skin tone.
The woman was played by famed actress Bhumi Pednekar (pictured above), who had her skin darkened in order to play the role. The move was slammed by some Indian media outlets, commentators and on social media.
Some pointed out the irony of one of the film's promotional posters tweeted by Pednekar, where her character was "surrounded by skin lightening products (and) is actually lightskinned and in brownface."

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Access Bank Plc on Monday debunked reports that it plans to sack 75 per cent of its workforce and as well close more than 300 branches.

The bank in a statement signed by the Company Secretary, Mr Sunday Ekwochi, obtained from the Nigerian Stock Exchange website described the news as malicious and a distraction from the genuine and compassionate plan to protect its workers and help keep jobs in the unfolding macroeconomic environment.

It said the closure of a bank branch was an action that required the approval of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

According to the bank, it has neither applied for this nor obtained the approval of the CBN for the closure of its branches as widely speculated.

“The bank has only suspended operations in some branches following the directive by the CBN.

“At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, we suspended in-branch operations at different locations as directed by the CBN and in line with business continuity plans at vulnerable spots; whilst we continued to provide services through our alternative digital platforms.

“In line with the phased re-opening of the economy effective May 4, following the Presidential directives, we will be resuming in-branch services in some of our affected branches in a programmed manner to ensure the health and safety of our employees and customers.

“This is also necessary to provide relevant contingency should there be any incident arising from the pandemic.

“We deny in its entirety the baseless and twisted speculation that the bank is sacking 75 per cent of its workforce,” said the statement.

It noted that based on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, not all its branches would be fully open for in-branch services until later in the year.

“This has made it impossible for many of our outsourced workers to perform duties as usual.“We have commenced engagement with various stakeholders with a view to ensuring that they provide the relevant services and optimum manpower as may be required by the bank on an on-going basis,” it added.

The bank, however, assured its esteemed stakeholders that it would continue to ensure that its actions and decisions are guided by fairness, justice, equity and good conscience.
punchng.com/access-bank-denies-sacking-75-workers-closing-branches/

Nigerians Will Pay Higher Electricity Tariffs - FG Promises IMF
Nigerians will pay much higher tariff for power in 2021, going by promises made by the Federal Government to the International Monetary Fund while seeking the $3.4bn emergency financial assistance recently approved for Nigeria.

The Executive Board of the IMF approved the Rapid Financing Instrument, which the Federal Government plans to use to address the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, on April 28.

A Letter of Intent, jointly signed by the Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmed, and the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, and addressed to the IMF Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, indicated that the Federal Government made a number of promises to the fund in order to secure the financial assistance.

One of the promises, or commitments, which the government made in a bid to assure the executive board of the IMF of its readiness to reposition the Nigerian economy after the pandemic, is that Nigerians would pay full cost-reflective tariff for power in 2021.

The Federal Government also told the IMF it intends to cap electricity tariff shortfalls to N380bn in 2020.

“We are also advancing in our power sector reforms – with technical assistance and financial support from the World Bank – including through capping electricity tariff shortfalls this year to N380bn and moving to full cost-reflective tariffs in 2021,” the Federal Government said in the letter.

On January 4, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission approved an increase in electricity tariff for the 11 electricity distribution companies in Nigeria.

It, however, could not implement the tariff increase after labour unions, lawmakers and other Nigerians kicked against the move, which would have commenced on April 1, 2020.

Although the NERC-reviewed tariff was not cost-reflective enough as required by power distributors, it showed that Nigerians would definitely pay more for electricity if it had been implemented.

This, therefore, implies that once the government enforces the payment of full cost-reflective tariff, in line with the promise to the IMF, power users might pay far higher than what was projected in NERC’s recent tariff review.

The commission had explained that its directive on the January 2020 tariff regime for different Discos superseded the earlier one issued on the subject matter.

According to details of the review published by the commission in January, for the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, residential customers in R3 category who were paying N27.20 per unit would have been paying N47.09, had the regime started on April 1, 2020.

The customers would have paid N19.89 more per unit.

The NERC review also showed that for Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company, customers on the R3 category who were paying N26.50 per unit would have paid N36.92 per unit from April 1.

The new rate amounted to an additional N10.02 per unit.

In the same vein, going by the NERC’s stalled tariff plan, Enugu Electricity Distribution Company residential (R3) customers who were paying N27.11 per unit in 2015 would have paid N48.12 per unit from April 1, 2020.

The new rates were, however, put on hold after customers kicked vehemently against the development.

But going by the Federal Government’s promise to the IMF, an implementation of cost-reflective tariffs in 2021 means that Nigerians would pay even much higher for power than the rates which NERC had planned to charge from April 1.

Also, in the Letter of Intent, which was dated April 21, the Federal Government also hinted at further increment in Value Added Tax as part of plan to increase its revenue to 15 per cent of Gross Domestic Product.

The planned revenue drive also includes hike of excise fees and removal of tax exemptions.

“First and foremost, we will revert to our government’s planned medium-term fiscal consolidation path – which includes increasing revenue to 15 per cent of GDP through further VAT reforms, rise in excises, and removal of tax exemptions – once the crisis passes,” the letter said.

The Federal Government also assured the IMF that it was working to reduce its budget deficit to under three per cent of GDP in line with the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

The Federal Government also assured the fund that it was committed to eliminating recourse to central bank financing of budget deficits by 2025.

punchng.com/nigeriansll-pay-higher-electricity-tariffs-fg-promises-imf/

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Andy Murray is backing a merger between the men's and women's tennis tours, a topic that rose to the forefront after a tweet from Roger Federer during the sport's lockdown due to coronavirus.

Alignment of the ATP and WTA has been discussed on and off for years but might be closer than ever following Federer -- arguably the most popular player in tennis history -- asking on April 22, "Just wondering...am I the only one thinking that now is the time for men's and women's tennis to be united and come together as one?"

The men's record 20-time grand slam winner immediately got support from friend and 19-time major champion Rafael Nadal, with Murray -- another member of tennis' Big Four -- now joining them.
Murray has long been a champion for equality, becoming the first high-profile male player, for instance, to employ a women's coach.
"I think it's great if more of the male players are seeing it as a positive step for the sport," Murray told CNN's Christiane Amanpour as she interviewed the three-time grand slam winner and trailblazer Billie Jean King.
"I think we have a very unique sport in that we have the men and the women competing at the biggest competitions together. That doesn't really happen in any of the other global sports and I see that as a big positive. We have equal prize money at the events which I think is fantastic and very attractive to sponsors, to the audience.
"We have pretty much a 50/50 kind of audience split between men and women which again is rare across sports and I think all of these things are things that we should be celebrating in the sport.
"Sometimes they aren't and there's a lot of in-fighting that goes on with these things and I don't think that should be the case. There's obviously going to be some issues potentially with a merger, as well, but it is definitely I think a step in the right direction to start these conversations."

It was King who sought to come together with the men nearly 50 years ago, which Murray was quick to point out. But when the men declined, King founded the WTA tour.
She was "thrilled" with Federer's public declaration because "when top male players bring it up, people listen." The 76-year-old American has spoken with the Swiss, who is part of the ATP's player council alongside Nadal and, among others, the other Big Four member, Novak Djokovic.
The lone prominent player to publicly go against the idea has been Murray's friend, the sometimes controversial Nick Kyrgios.
More leverage
"We can grow," said King. "But what we have to understand is we have to stay together as a sport, because we're not competing within our sport like a lot of tennis people think. We need to compete against the other entertainment and other sports.
"I don't think people realize we are in this business. And so I think it's very important that we are together, that we're not an acquisition. The WTA would not be an acquisition. We would be a full partner in this drive to make our sport better and more valuable.
"Can you imagine how strong we could be if we negotiate as one voice? Ka-ching."
Indeed, a combined tour would presumably strengthen the bargaining position of players at a time when they are seeking a larger piece of tennis' revenue, particularly for lower-ranked players and at grand slams.
The current suspension of the tours due to the virus has given the ATP and WTA more time to discuss matters than ever before, while new ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi seems intent on collaborating with the WTA.
"Recent cooperation between governing bodies has only strengthened my belief that a unified sport is the surest way to maximize our potential and to deliver an optimal experience for fans on-site, on television and online," Gaudenzi said in a statement sent to CNN last month.
He stopped short at this stage, though, of calling for a formal merger.
WTA chairman and CEO Steve Simon added in a statement: "I have long stated that we are at our best as a sport when we can work together, and the recent weeks have highlighted that fact."
He has always been a fan, for example, of mixed events.
But while Murray, Nadal and Federer are on board, the Scot revealed that some of his ATP peers haven't been keen on gender equality.
Some male players unhappy
The 32-year-old said in the past when there have been prize money increases for both men and women -- and women made the same amount as the men -- some of his fellow players objected.
"I spoke to some of the male players about that who were unhappy because the prize money was equal," he said. "And I said, 'Well, would you rather there was no increase at all? You know?' They said to me, 'Yeah, actually.'
"That's some of the sort of the mentalities you are working with in these discussions where someone would rather make less money so they're not on an equal footing with some of the female players, so there will be some challenges."

He said it was imperative for more women to be involved in the decision-making process.
"Coming to this sort of key decision makers right now in tennis, pretty much all of them are men and I think that when these discussions happen it's quite important not just to see this merger through a man's eyes and to bring more women into the decision making positions so that everybody's voice gets heard and protected in the discussions," said Murray.
"And if that happens we have huge potential as a sport to -- I already think it's a very special sport because of what we already have -- (make it) even better."
Visit our tennis page for more news and videos
Pro tennis won't return until July 13 at the earliest, following the cancelation of Wimbledon, though several exhibition series' are starting.


edition.cnn.com/2020/05/02/tennis/murray-king-atp-wta-merger-tennis-gbr-intl-spt/index.html

Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, has said that he infected four persons in the state with Coronavirus, all of whom have since recovered.

El-Rufai, who doubles as the index case in the state, made the disclosure at the 24th edition of The Platform hosted by Pastor Poju Oyemade.

The governor said Kaduna State had tested about 400 people and now has three testing centres.

He said, “As I announced some days back, we received 169 almajiris from Kano and so far 21 of them have tested positive. We expect more to test positive; the spike in our numbers have largely been the almajiris and other people that have come in.

“We have been successful in closing down our state, in reducing the traffic into our state, every case in the state has been imported.

“I was the first case, fortunately, I’d say, because it served to scare everyone about reality. COVID is real, it’s not a joke. I was the first case, I got it in Abuja and infected four other people, all of us are okay now.”

saharareporters.com/2020/05/02/i-infected-four-persons-coronavirus-says-governor-el-rufai

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He started his musical journey a long time ago but was recognised when he released his first song, "Vision 2020".

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President Donald Trump lied Friday when he said he was being "sarcastic" when he asked medical experts on Thursday to look into the possibility of injecting disinfectant as a treatment for the coronavirus.

Doctors and the company that makes Lysol and Dettol warned that injecting or ingesting disinfectants is dangerous. But when Trump was asked about the comments during a bill signing on Friday, he said, "I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen."
He then suggested he was talking about disinfectants that can safely be rubbed on people's hands. And then he returned to the sarcasm explanation, saying it was "a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside."
A reporter noted that he had asked his medical experts to look into it. Trump responded: "No, no, no, no -- to look into whether or not sun and disinfectant on the hands, but whether or not sun can help us."
Facts First: Trump was not being "sarcastic" on Thursday when he raised the possibility of injecting disinfectant. There was simply no indication that he was being anything less than serious. He was also wrong Friday when he denied he had asked the medical experts to "check" the idea of disinfectant injections; he was looking at them at the time. And he did not mention hands during his Thursday remarks.
Here's what Trump said Thursday while looking in the direction of coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx and Department of Homeland Security science official Bill Bryan: "And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you're going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds -- it sounds interesting to me."
What happened on Thursday
Bryan, the acting undersecretary of science and technology for the Department of Homeland Security, outlined tests in which he said disinfectants like bleach and isopropyl alcohol quickly killed the coronavirus on surfaces. Bryan also spoke about how the virus was found to be negatively affected by exposure to UV rays and higher temperatures.
Trump first spoke about the possibility of using light as a treatment for people who already have the coronavirus, musing that a "very powerful light" could be used to "hit the body" or be brought "inside the body...either through the skin or in some other way." Trump said Bryan had said he is going to "test that." (Experts said this idea does not make sense; when Trump asked Birx if she has heard of the use of heat or light related to the virus, she said, "Not as a treatment.")
Bryan said he would "get to the right folks" who could do testing. Trump then began his comments about disinfectant, which he concluded by saying "it sounds interesting to me."
Reminded by a reporter on Friday that he had been looking at Birx when he made these Thursday comments, Trump said he was looking at Bryan, Birx, but also "some of the reporters." In fact, the video shows he was looking in the direction of Birx and Bryan for almost the entirety of his musings about disinfectant, glancing forward at reporters only very briefly.
Later in the Thursday briefing, when a reporter asked Bryan if there is any scenario in which household cleaners could be injected into a person, Bryan said, "No, I'm here to talk about the findings that we had in the study. We won't do that within that lab and our lab." Trump then interjected: "It wouldn't be through injection. We're talking about through almost a cleaning, sterilization of an area. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't work. But it certainly has a big effect if it's on a stationary object."
So: Trump can argue that he walked back his comments during the briefing. But even in this more cautious follow-up, he offered no indication that he had been anything less than completely serious.
Differing spin
The White House's initial statement on Friday about the disinfectant remarks did not say the President had been sarcastic. It only alleged that the media had taken him out of context.
Trump has a history of falsely claiming that serious but controversial remarks had been sarcasm. For example, he has insisted that his famous 2016 "Russia, if you're listening" request for Russia's help obtaining Hillary Clinton emails was him being "sarcastic" and making "a joke."
edition.cnn.com/2020/04/24/politics/fact-check-trump-disinfectant-sarcastic/index.html

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A woman who survived a close-range gunshot wound to the chest was saved because of her silicone breast implants, doctors believe.

In a case study published to the SAGE medical journal last week, doctors described how a silicone breast implant deflected a bullet away from a 30-year-old woman's vital organs.
The incident, which took place in 2018 in Toronto, Canada, is one of only a handful of instances recorded in medical literature where a breast implant played a role in saving a patient's life, and the first recorded instance of a silicone implant doing so, surgeon Giancarlo McEvenue told CNN.
Doctors noted that the silicone implant was likely responsible for deflecting the bullet's trajectory -- ultimately saving the woman's life.

There are two types of breast implants approved for sale in the United States. They both have a silicone outer shell, but one is saline-filled, and the other is silicone gel-filled. They can vary in size, shell thickness, shell surface texture and shape, and are typically implanted to increase breast size or to rebuild breast tissue, such as after a mastectomy or other damage to the breast.

Though the exact details of the shooting are unclear, surgeon McEvenue told CNN that the patient walked into a local emergency department seeking treatment after being shot in the chest.
"She was talking -- the trauma team was in disbelief at how well she was," McEvenue, one of the treating surgeons, said.
"The bullet wound entry was on the left breast, but the rib fracture was on the right side. The bullet entered the skin on the left side first, and then ricocheted across her sternum into the right breast and broke her rib on the right side," he explained.
"The implant caused the change in the trajectory of the bullet," he said.
The woman suffered a gunshot wound, broken ribs and broken implants, but otherwise was remarkably unscathed.


"On the left hand side is the heart and lungs -- if the bullet would have gone into the chest, she would have had a much more serious, possibly life-threatening injury," McEvenue added.
Medics found a hard, bullet-like object in the woman's right lower anterior thoracic wall below the right breast.
Using trauma radiographs, medics were able to spot the bullet in the right lateral thoracic wall, a fractured rib and air bubbles in the left breast, and concluded that the bullet traveled from the left breast to the right thoracic wall.
The patient was later evaluated and cleared by the trauma service, doctors said, but the firearm was never recovered and the shooter remains unknown, according to the report.
Doctors treated the wound by removing the implants, irrigating the wound and prescribing a short course of antibiotics, they noted in the report.

edition.cnn.com/2020/04/21/americas/breast-implant-bullet-wound-wellness-intl-scli/index.html

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The coronavirus pandemic has dragged China's economy into its worst three-month period in decades — and the road toward recovery will likely be long. But the country may still eke out some growth this year, unlike its Western counterparts.

The world's second largest economy shrank 6.8% in the first quarter of 2020 compared to a year earlier, according to government statistics released Friday. That's slightly worse than analysts polled by Refinitiv were expecting, and amounts to about 693 billion yuan ($98 billion) in lost output.

While a contraction was expected, it's still a historic moment for China. The plunge is the worst for a single quarter that China has recorded since it started publishing those figures in 1992. It's also the first time China has reported an economic contraction since 1976, when Communist Party leader Mao Zedong's death ended a decade of social and economic tumult. The economy shrunk 1.6% that year.
China's three major engines for growth — consumer spending, exports and fixed asset investment — all sputtered as large swaths of the country were placed on lockdown in late January and early February to contain the spread of the virus. Retail spending dropped 19% last quarter, while exports plunged more than 13%. Fixed asset investment declined 16%.
A barometer for the world
The country's quarterly economic report is in some ways a barometer for the United States and Europe, which began to feel the full impact of the pandemic as the situation in China was starting to improve. While Beijing has faced criticism for its alleged lack of transparency early on in the pandemic, the country has been reporting a shrinking number of locally transmitted infections. And a lockdown on Wuhan — ground zero of the pandemic — was lifted earlier this month.
Still, China is far from returning to normal. There are still restrictions in place for many cities, even those that have come off lockdown. And economic data for March, while an improvement over the first two months of the year, suggest the recovery is tentative. Industrial output and exports, for example, remained weak as the rest of the world contends with disruption caused by the virus.
"The March data add to broader signs that China's economy is past the worst," wrote Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist for Capital Economics, in a research note. He added, though, that China may still not be fully acknowledging the extent of the downturn.
China's labor market continues to show signs of strain. The unemployment rate, which tracks jobless numbers in urban areas only, jumped to 5.9% in March — better than February's record high of 6.2%, but still worse than the 5.2% China recorded in December. That means 3.6 million more people were out of work in March compared to the end of last year, according to a CNN Business calculation using government data.
"China is in for a drawn-out recovery," Evans-Pritchard added.
Unemployment as a top priority
The country's unemployment rate is of particular concern for state authorities.
While the metric has often been criticized as too stable — official data has barely budged beyond 4% and 5% in recent years — messaging from Beijing before the coronavirus hit showed how concerned officials were that the existing economic slowdown would take a toll on jobs. The fact that China acknowledged record unemployment during the pandemic suggests the country knows it has a problem on its hands.

"Stability in employment might become the top policy priority for this year," said Chaoping Zhu, a global market strategist for J.P. Morgan Asset Management.
Job losses caused by the coronavirus have also weighed on consumer spending, another problem for a country that was already dealing with cooling domestic demand. Per capita income declined nearly 4% in the first quarter compared to last year. That lead to a 12.5% plunge in consumer spending, according to Friday's government data.
Zhu said those declines could push authorities to consider additional measures to ease the country's economic pain, including more rate cuts meant to make it cheaper for small businesses to borrow money and stay afloat. (China has already been spending billions to support its economy by pumping money into infrastructure projects to create jobs and reducing taxes on small businesses.)
Despite contraction, China could still grow this year
Even as China reels from the shock, the country could still end the year with a growing economy.
The International Monetary Fund earlier this week predicted that China's economy will grow 1.2% in 2020 before jumping 9.2% next year — making it the best performer among major economies.

That annual growth could come even as much of the rest of the world shrinks. The IMF expects the global economy to contract by 3% this year as it slumps into its worst recession this year since the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Chinese officials seem wary of making predictions, though. While Beijing has set an annual GDP target every year since 1985, it has not yet done so for 2020. Asked whether the government could still set one this year, Mao Shengyong, spokesman for China's National Bureau of Statistics, said Friday he was not certain.
Even so, Chinese authorities on Friday were optimistic about the country's prospects, pointing specifically to the recent IMF forecast. If the IMF's predictions come true, China would average growth of 5% over the next two years, Mao said.
"The coronavirus has caused China economic losses and activity has been suppressed," he said. "[But] it may be unleashed next year."
Analysts also expect a faster recovery in China then elsewhere, bolstering its position in the world economy and continuing to close the gap with the West in terms of income and GDP per person.
"It will rebound quicker than Western economies to reach a larger share of the global economy," said Sebastien Galy, senior macro strategist at Nordea Investment.

edition.cnn.com/2020/04/16/economy/china-economy-gdp/index.html

China has revised its official death toll from the novel coronavirus, raising the number of fatalities attributed to the pandemic by more than a third.

Officials in Wuhan, where the virus was first reported late last year, on Friday added 1,290 coronavirus deaths to the city's toll. They also added 325 confirmed cases to the city tally.
The total number of cases recorded in the city now stands at 50,333, with 3,869 deaths. The previous reported death toll for Wuhan was 2,579 -- so the revised figure marks a 50% increase in the number of deaths in the city from coronavirus.
As of April 17, China's National Health Commission had reported 3,342 deaths nationally, before the revised Wuhan figures were published.
Officials explained that the deaths had initially gone uncounted because in the early stages of the pandemic some people died at home, overwhelmed medics were focused on treating cases rather than reporting deaths and due to a delay in collecting figures from various government and private organizations.
They added that the figures had been revised to show "accountability to history, to the people and the victims," as well as to ensure "open and transparent disclosure of information and data accuracy."
This isn't the first time health authorities in China have changed numbers related to the pandemic. The way cases were counted was changed three times in January and February, leading to widespread confusion over the extent of the crisis in China.
Experts have also previously raised the alarm over China's approach to measuring asymptomatic cases. Some patients who tested positive for the virus but did not show symptoms were not included in official tallies, making comparing China's figures to the rest of the world difficult.
Changing figures
The latest change to the figures out of Wuhan could renew skepticism over China's numbers, as the country faces intense criticism from Washington and other countries over its alleged lack of transparency regarding the origin of the virus and its official response in the early weeks.
According to a report by the Associated Press this week, based on leaked documents from a confidential teleconference with China's National Health Commission, China's leaders allegedly failed to notify the public about the looming crisis during a critical six-day period, despite their internal evidence painting a dire situation. That six-day delay is alleged to have resulted in more than 3,000 people becoming infected in China, laying the groundwork for an outbreak that has swept the world.
The internal documents show that even as officials were downplaying the potential risk of the virus in public, a top Chinese health adviser warned it was "the most severe challenge since SARS in 2003 and is likely to develop into a major public health event."
Chinese government spokespeople have consistently denied accusations the government covered up key information or was overly slow in responding to the initial outbreak.
But US President Donald Trump has criticized "China's lack of transparency," when announcing he was pulling funding for the World Health Organization (WHO) this week, though he had previously praised Beijing's response.
China has also faced criticism at home and from the scientific community, particularly over the censorship of whistleblowers and a recent clampdown on research into the origins of the virus.

edition.cnn.com/2020/04/17/asia/china-wuhan-coronavirus-death-toll-intl-hnk/index.html

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The Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen has declared a two-week ceasefire in a bid to stem the spread of the coronavirus in the war-torn country, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

The ceasefire in the five-year conflict was set to begin Thursday, according to coalition spokesman Col. Turki al-Malki. SPA said the move was prompted by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' call for a pause of hostilities in the country in order to counter the spread of Covid-19.
The coronavirus has now infected more than 1.5 million people and killed over 88,000 worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Malki also said the temporary ceasefire would pave the way for talks between the Saudi-backed government in Aden, and Iran-backed Houthi rebels based in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.

The ceasefire would create the environment for the UN "to hold a meeting between the legitimate government and the Houthis, and a military team from the (Saudi-led) coalition under the supervision of the UN envoy to discuss his proposals on the steps and mechanisms to implement a permanent ceasefire in Yemen," said Malki, according to SPA.
The UN welcomed Saudi Arabia's announcement. "I am grateful to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Arab Coalition for recognizing and acting on this critical moment for Yemen," Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen, Martin Griffiths said in a UN statement Wednesday. "The parties must now utilize this opportunity and cease immediately all hostilities with the utmost urgency, and make progress towards comprehensive and sustainable peace"
A Houthi rebel spokesman said the group was working on a plan to end the war.
"Building on the call of the United Nation's Secretary-General for a ceasefire in Yemen, we have put forward a comprehensive national vision to the UN that includes a comprehensive end to the war, and a complete end to the blockade," Mohammed Abdel Salam tweeted. "It includes the safety of Yemen and its unity and independence and it establishes political dialogue with a view to a new transition."
A source with knowledge of the Saudi officials' perspective on the process expressed hope for a deal, saying it's what the Saudis have been working towards for a long time.
According to the source, the aim of the ceasefire is to create an environment for UN talks to succeed.
Yemen has been embroiled in a years-long civil war that has pitted a coalition backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The war has claimed thousands of lives and led to mass starvation and outbreaks of disease in the country.

edition.cnn.com/2020/04/09/middleeast/saudi-yemen-coronavirus-ceasefire-intl/index.html

The Chinese government has issued a new draft list of livestock that can be farmed for meat in the wake of the coronavirus epidemic, which is suspected to have originated from wild animals in a Wuhan wet market.

Beijing temporarily banned all trade in wild animals for food following the outbreak, which has now spread globally to infect more than 1.6 million people, but the new law has yet to be finalized.
China's Ministry of Agriculture issued a draft list of animals considered fit to be used as livestock on Wednesday night, including dietary staples such as pigs, cows, chickens and sheep, as well as "special livestock" such as a number of species of deer, alpaca and ostriches.
Two species of fox, raccoons and minks can be kept as livestock but not for their meat.
There is no mention of the species of animal which are suspected by scientists to have spread the virus to humans, such as pangolins, bats and civet cats.

Dogs are also absent from the list of livestock, which, if formally enforced, would lead to China's first countrywide ban on their consumption in a victory for animal rights activists.
"With the progress of human civilization and the public's concern and preference for animal protection, dogs have evolved from traditional livestock to companion animals," said an accompanying explanation of the draft. "They are generally no longer regarded as livestock in the rest of the world. It is not advisable to list them under livestock or poultry in China."
The draft has still yet to be finalized and the public has until May 8 to provide feedback.
In a statement on Thursday, the Humane Society International said that the draft proposal could be a "game-changer" for animal protection in China.
"We have to await the outcome of the consultation phase but this draft could effectively pave the way for China to officially take dogs and cats off the menu," spokeswoman Wendy Higgins said.

The initial outbreak of the novel coronavirus epidemic has been linked to a wet market in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province in Central China, where a wide variety of wild animals were being sold as meat, including snakes, porcupine and raccoon dogs.
Wet market is a widely used term across parts of Asia to describe markets that sell meat, fish and perishable goods. Not all wet markets sell animal products.
The consumption of wild animals is not common in most of China but there is a highly lucrative trade, especially in the country's south.
When wild animals are kept in close proximity and unsanitary conditions, experts say there is a high risk of viruses spreading between the animals and then potentially to humans.
Researchers have theorized that it may have been a bat or a pangolin who originally spread the virus to humans, but there has been no conclusive answer yet.

edition.cnn.com/2020/04/10/asia/china-wildlife-law-coronavirus-intl-hnk/index.html

The half-brother of Boris Johnson has criticized the medical treatment the UK Prime Minister received before he was admitted to hospital suffering from coronavirus last week.

The PM announced he tested positive for the novel coronavirus on March 27. He said he was experiencing "mild symptoms" and would continue leading the country -- while self-isolating in his apartment in Downing Street. But 10 days later, the Downing Street announced the 55-year-old was not getting better and was taken to St. Thomas' Hospital in London. He was moved to an intensive care unit (ICU) the next day after his condition deteriorated.

"From what I gather -- and I wasn't there -- no one asked a doctor to mask up and physically examine him the whole time -- more than 10 days," Max Johnson said about the time his brother spent in self-isolation.
In response to Max Johnson's comments, Downing Street described the Prime Minister's health as a "private matter" adding it would be "inaccurate" to suggest Boris Johnson hadn't been physically examined by a doctor before entering hospital.
The PM spent three nights in intensive care and received "standard oxygen treatment," according to his spokesman, but did not require mechanical or invasive ventilation.
In a statement to CNN, Max Johnson said that while he was grateful for the care his brother received from the National Health Service, he wasn't pleased with the events leading up to his hospitalization.

"He'd tested positive so there was no doubt what he was dealing with. The word 'shambles' comes to mind," Johnson said. "What's the point of bodyguards when you can't have a doctor? The Office of Prime Minister needs better protection."
Officials around the PM have expressed gratitude for all the care he's had from his National Health Service doctors.
Johnson was moved out of the ICU on Thursday night. On Friday, a spokesperson said the Prime Minister was "able to do short walks" in between periods of rest, and waved his thanks to staff.

He "is in extremely good spirits," the spokesperson added.
Max Johnson said he was "massively relieved" by his brother's recovery, adding he hoped the PM would take time off to fully recover.
The strength with which Covid-19 struck the Prime Minister surprised many in the UK. Johnson is known for his lively persona, so the idea of the PM being incapacitated shook the nation. Well-wishes poured in from across the political scene, with even some of Johnson's old foes expressing their hope he'd recover swiftly.
Meanwhile, those leading the country's coronavirus response team said Johnson's hospitalization was a reminder of just how indiscriminate the virus can be and urged Brits to resist the good weather over the Easter weekend and stay at home.
As of Saturday, 9,875 people have died the UK after testing positive for coronavirus, according to a tally by the Department of Health and Social Care. Nearly 79,000 people have have tested positive

edition.cnn.com/2020/04/11/uk/boris-johnson-brother-max-coronavirus-intl-gbr/

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It gets really, really hot inside the protective gear Sean White has to wear most of the time. His skin is sore from the tight-fitting face mask and two pairs of gloves worn almost non-stop for 12 hours at a time.

White is a critical care nurse at a major teaching hospital in London and -- like nurses in almost every country around the world -- he couldn't be any more frontline in the battle against coronavirus. His hospital is currently treating several hundred Covid-19 patients in the city at the epicenter of the UK outbreak, which has so far claimed more than 7,000 lives.

When coronavirus patients end up in hospital, it's nurses who care for them most of the time and who are responsible for making sure they receive the right treatment.
"There is still this view that nurses, you know, are washing patients, feeding them and just being these compassionate, caring souls... which is exactly what nurses are, but there is this other layer of things that nurses do now," said Laura Duffell, a matron nurse at the King's College Hospital in London.
White spends his working days taking care of people who are fighting for their lives. Patients are often on ventilators, suffering from multiple organ failure, sedated, with number of tubes attached to them. It's a high-pressure job, but he knows what he is doing -- he has been doing it for years.
But in this crisis, White says even he is at his limits.

"We're having to prioritize things, not do some of the other things that we normally do, we make changes to our normal practice," he said.
White checks patients' oxygen levels, adjusts ventilators, runs blood tests, cleans wounds, replaces dressings, monitors tubes and takes care of sick people's mouths and eyes. Once every four hours, he moves them to prevent bed sores. He also reassures them when they wake up in a scary and unfamiliar environment.
At normal times, each nurse looks after one patient at a time. But these are not normal times. White has been deployed to other intensive care units (ICUs) and is now regularly juggling two patients. The plan is to go up to four if necessary, he says.
"These are demanding patients," said Rosana Josep Zaragoza, a nurse working at Guy's Hospital in London, of ICU coronavirus cases. "They might have eight infusions attached to their bed and you have to make sure they are not running out, that they are working properly, and you are dealing with a breathing machine and sometimes a kidney machine," she added.
At the same time, the nurses are very aware of the risk they themselves are facing. White said that he and his colleagues are wondering "when, rather than if" they catch the virus. "We're hoping that it will be like a cold, but we keep hearing all the time of people who don't necessarily have health problems who have died," he said.

edition.cnn.com/2020/04/09/europe/nurses-fighting-coronavirus-pay-gbr-intl/index.html

After her company laid her off last month, Tang Chen couldn't sleep. For days, her heart kept racing. There was one question at the front of her mind: would she be able to stay in the United States?

Tang comes from eastern China's Zhejiang province, but has worked in the US since 2014. Her H1-B work visa is due to expire later this year, so the travel firm where Tang worked as a software developer in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, had begun the arduous process of applying for a green card, which would allow her to live and work in the US permanently.
The 33-year-old was so confident about building a life in America, she even bought an apartment in the US.
But when Tang was made redundant on March 13, she didn't just lose her source of income — she lost her visa status. Now her former employer has decided not to proceed with her green card application, her path to permanent residency has been lost, too.

When H1-B visa holders like Tang lose their jobs they have 60 days to file for a change of status — such as becoming a tourist or student — or find a new employer willing to sponsor their work visa.

If they can't get a new job or change their status, they have to leave the US — or illegally overstay their visa. If they leave the US after having overstayed for more than 180 days, they could be banned from reentering in future.
Finding a job in the current climate is tough, let alone finding an employer willing to shoulder the additional costs and paperwork of visa sponsorship. Since she was laid off, Tang has not had much luck getting interviews and is not optimistic about being hired in the middle of a pandemic with a recession looming.
She had resigned herself to going back to China — only to find out that she can't. There are no seats available on any direct flights in April, and Tang is worried that cobbling together a multi-stop trip could put her at risk of catching the virus.
"Even if I want to go back now, I can't get a flight ticket," she said. Instead, she's desperately applying to university to get a student visa that will allow her to remain in the US legally.

With the pandemic having seemingly turned a corner in mainland China, authorities there have focused their attention on preventing a new wave of infections coming into the country from overseas.
Since late March, China's aviation administration has cut the number of inbound international flights to under 134 per week, a mere fraction of pre-pandemic totals. The dwindling number of flights has seen ticket prices soar.
The number of daily travelers, including Chinese citizens, entering the country by air has been limited to 4,000.
There are no official statistics on how many Chinese nationals in the US have lost jobs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, but CNN has seen two groups on WeChat, a "must-have" messaging platform for the Chinese diaspora, in which hundreds of people claiming to be in this situation share stories and exchange information.
Every day, the chat rooms are filled with palpable anxiety over uncertain employment and visa prospects, as laid-off workers and those with visas due to expire soon discuss potential solutions and offer advice.
"I've never seen so many visa holders losing their jobs," said Ying Cao, a New York-based immigration lawyer whose clients are mostly Chinese expats. "It's worst than in 2008," she added, when the global financial crisis caused some 2.6 million job losses.
In March, Cao received twice as many inquiries as she would in a usual month. She advises most clients to file for a change of visa status if their grace period is expiring — perhaps to a tourist, student or dependent visa — to buy themselves more time.
Tsui Yee, another New York-based immigration attorney, said many of her clients are facing the same situation. She too has seen a surge in panicked calls from Chinese expats in recent weeks.
"(The immigration environment) was already bad, but this pandemic has propelled it to an even more dire situation," Yee said. "A lot of my clients who are here on work visas are extremely concerned."

So far, the US authorities have done little to help those in Tang's situation.
H1-B visas are the most common type of employment visa in the US, and some 900,000 were issued in the last five years. The visa is tied to a specific employer and is valid for three years, with an option to extend it for a further three years.
In 2019, Chinese nationals accounted for around 15% of H1-B visas issued, according to the US State Department.
So far, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has not moved to temporarily extend the grace period for work visa holders whose permits may expire during the coronavirus pandemic. The federal agency did not respond to a request for comment.
Last month, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) sent a letter to USCIS, calling on it to suspend immigration deadlines during the coronavirus emergency. On April 3, AILA filed suit against USCIS to try to maintain the status of non-immigrants and extend immigration-related deadlines.
"USCIS must join many other federal agencies in extending its filing deadlines so that lawfully present foreign nationals in the United States can maintain status during this national crisis," AILA President Marketa Lindt said in a statement. "By refusing to do so, USCIS is needlessly endangering lives."
As they wait to see if they can remain in the country, many laid-off Chinese expats are unlikely to be applying for unemployment benefits.
According to official data, more than 10 million US workers applied for unemployment benefits in March. But Yee and Cao, the immigration lawyers, both said this figure is unlikely to include visa holders, because many are reluctant to claim the benefits as they worry that doing so could mean they are denied a visa in the future.
Another issue, said Cao, is that even though work visa holders are eligible for unemployment insurance under federal immigration laws, they may not meet specific state laws, which require beneficiaries to be readily available for work.
While H-1B holders might be keen to start right away, they need to get their visa transferred to another company before they can do so — a process that could take months, according to Cao.
"It's hard to imagine any employer can wait that long," she added.

No more American dream
For Walton Wang, who recently lost his internship with a New York cosmetics company, there is yet another layer to his predicament.
Wang came to the US for college in 2015. As a member of the LGBT community, he always hoped to stay in the country, drawn to the more open environment for s*xual minorities compared to China. But Wang has changed his mind after seeing the US government's handling of the crisis, and increased racial animosity and violence against Asians in the US.
"I don't know if I'll be the next victim of a hate crime," Wang said. "Recently I've been pondering about which identity is more important to me: being g*y or being Asian?"
And he has come to a painful conclusion: "I've been leaning toward choosing my Chinese identity because I won't get beaten up in China for being g*y."
"I feel like I have no options," Wang said. "And this was a really harsh realization."
Like Tang, however, making the decision to go home does not mean Wang will actually be able to do so.
He is in the US on a post-graduation grace period, which allows him to stay without a work visa for a year. But according to the rules, he can't be out of employment for more than 90 days -- and if the pandemic drags on, Wang thinks he could easily be jobless for three months.
He started looking at flights in mid-March, but has so far been unable to find a route home due to the reduced number of flights and soaring prices.
"I have no way of returning to China, and I can't stay here for long," Wang said. "I have nowhere to go."

edition.cnn.com/2020/04/08/business/china-us-coronavirus-workers-intl-hnk/index.html

New Zealand has managed to do something that many countries wish they could achieve: for four straight days, it has reported a decline in new coronavirus cases.

On Thursday, the country reported 29 new confirmed and probable cases, bringing New Zealand's total to 1,239 -- including only one death. Of those cases, only 14 are in hospital -- and 317 have recovered.
New Zealand, a small island country with a population of just under 5 million, is halfway through a month-long lockdown aimed at not only containing the virus, but eliminating it.
And so far, the approach appears to be successful.
"We are turning a corner," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a speech Thursday. "And your commitment means our plan is working."

For other countries, those positive signs might be a reason to lift restrictions. Denmark, which has at least 5,597 cases and 218 deaths, announced it will begin to lift its lockdown next week if cases remain stable.
Instead, Ardern said Thursday she was tightening border restrictions, meaning all those who arrive in the country will be required to spend two weeks quarantined in an approved facility, rather than self-isolating at home. The rule only applies to New Zealanders -- foreign nationals have been banned from entering the country since March 20.
"At the halfway mark, I have no hesitation in saying that what New Zealanders have done over the last two weeks is huge," Ardern said at a press conference Thursday that many Kiwis listened to live. "You made the decision that together, we could protect one other. And you have. You have saved lives."
"But as I've said, this is going to be a marathon."

New Zealand's head-start
In the fight against coronavirus, New Zealand had two key advantages: geography and time.
On February 28, New Zealand confirmed its first case of coronavirus, well over a month after the United States confirmed its first case. And on March 29, the country confirmed its first -- and so far, only -- death.
"I think we had a little bit more time to think about it, and we could learn from the experience of China," said Professor Michael Baker, from Otago University's Public Health Department, who helped advise the government on its response.
New Zealand also had the advantage of being an island far from most other countries, with fewer flights than many other places, said Auckland University microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles.
That's something Ardern has pointed out. On Thursday, she noted that being an island was a "distinct advantage in our ability to eliminate the virus."

But the real lesson from New Zealand has been the combination of good science and leadership, said Baker. That's meant widespread testing. To date, New Zealand has carried out 51,165 tests. Earlier this week, the United Kingdom -- a country with around 13 times more people than New Zealand -- said it had tested 208,837 people.
Baker said he had been "really disappointed" that countries like the US and the UK which had some of the world's top science resources had not fared better than countries like New Zealand which have comparatively limited resources. "We have the same access to the same knowledge as you do -- the whole world has seen this coming, it's like a slow-moving tsunami, it hasn't changed its characteristics at all, and the virus is very stable."

While UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned citizens that they should prepare to lose loved ones before their time, Ardern was clear that she would value people not just the economy, and responded to the threat fast, said Wiles.
When Ardern announced on March 14 that anyone entering the country would need to self isolate for two weeks, it was among the toughest border restrictions in the world. At the time, the country had six cases.
When, on March 19, Ardern banned foreigners from entering the country, there were 28 confirmed cases. And on March 23, when Ardern announced that the country was going into lockdown, there were 102 confirmed cases -- and no deaths.
"Here in New Zealand, we don't have a lot of intensive care beds compared to some other countries. That's why (Ardern) acted really fast," Wiles said.
Why New Zealand only has one death
Another thing New Zealand has that is working to its advantage is the relative youth of those who have been infected with coronavirus.
People aged 20 to 29 make up just under 25% of New Zealand's confirmed and probable cases, while those aged 30 to 39 make up 15%.
By comparison, a report issued by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that analyzed the cases of 2,500 patients in the US whose ages were known, found that 29% were aged 20 to 44.

Countries around the world have consistently seen a much higher Covid-19 mortality rate among elderly patients than younger patients.
The reason why young Kiwis may have a higher rate of coronavirus is travel. Just over 40% of New Zealand's cases are still connected with overseas travel. Many young people hurried back to New Zealand after Ardern announced border restrictions.
Baker said that was the "healthy traveler effect."
"People who go traveling are generally in better health than most people. We know that the mortality risk is so much higher in older populations and people with chronic conditions and they tend to travel less," he said. "The very good outcomes so far in New Zealand is because the cases have been in younger age groups and they have been relatively healthy."
Can New Zealand succeed in stamping out the coronavirus?
There's certainly reason to be cautiously optimistic that New Zealand's plan is working -- but both Wiles and Baker agree that it is too early to celebrate.
Ardern has said she has no plans to lift the month-long lockdown early, and may need to extend it still.
"If we move too early, we will go backwards," she said Thursday.
While plan A remains "stamping" the coronavirus out, there is a plan B, Baker said. That involves preparing the health system for large numbers of severely ill people, he said.
And even if plan A works, New Zealand will still have to remain an island, so to speak, for some time yet.
"We'll be in the same boat as most countries that are doing the suppression approach -- we'll be waiting for good vaccines and good anti-virals," said Baker. "Much of Europe is saying we will be locked down for months, so we're all in the same boat."
CNN's Ivan Watson and Rebecca Wright contributed reporting from Hong Kong.

edition.cnn.com/2020/04/09/asia/new-zealand-lessons-intl-hnk/index.html

Starboy entertainment head huncho, Wizkid is set to dish out a brand new banger titled, "Galaxy". The song is expected to be a banger as it features Barbadian singer, songwriter, actress, and businesswoman, Rihanna.

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Olamide, the CEO of YBNL records releases a brand new single which he titles, Coro Coro featuring A-List artists such as Zlatan Ibile, Slimcase and Chizzy just to name a few.

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This first quarter of the year 2020 has seen many singers and rappers put in effort and tried their best to come out on top.

The last three weeks have marked one of the most devastating periods in history for the American job market, as first-time claims for unemployment benefits have surged more than 3,000% since early March.

Businesses continue to lay off and furlough workers amid the coronavirus outbreak.
6.6 million US workers filed for their first week of unemployment benefits in the week ending March 28 — a new historic high.

That was far greater than economists had expected, and more than 3,000% the pre-pandemic levels. Unemployment claims at this level suggest a severe job market decline hardly any American alive has ever seen in their lifetimes.
Economists characterized the increase as "monstrous," "stunningly awful," and "a portrait of disaster."
Including the prior week's 3.3 million initial claims, Americans have filed nearly 10 million jobless claims in the last two weeks alone.
That corresponds to roughly 6% of America's 165 million strong work force, which in turn implies a 9.5% unemployment rate, according to Citi economist Andrew Hollenhorst.
"Further job loss expected in coming weeks is very likely to push unemployment above 10%, even taking account of a potential steep decline in the labor force participation rate, as some displaced workers are neither furloughed nor looking for work," Hollenhorst wrote in a note.
The rules of who can file for unemployment benefits vary by state. But in the face of the coronavirus outbreak, the government has waived some restrictions. Independent contractors and self-employed people, for example, who don't usually qualify, can now temporarily receive benefits through a pandemic unemployment assistance program Congress created.
Whether this week's massive claims number was the worst of it remains to be seen. Ahead of the coronavirus outbreak, weekly first-time claims had been hovering in the low 200,000s.
This "tectonic shift" in the US labor market "implied a real-time unemployment rate of 10.1% at a minimum," said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM.
As companies continue to close their doors and shed workers to limit the spread of coronavirus throughout the population, more workers will need government aid to make ends meet.

Brusuelas said in his view, the Trump administration should work on a next-phase fiscal aid package to "target plugging the holes that are being blown in state and local budgets, in addition to Federal Reserve purchases of state and municipal debt." The government passed the CARES Act to combat the effects from the coronavirus outbreak last week.
The March jobs report, which is due Friday at 8:30 am ET, is not expected to look quite as dire. The Refinitiv consensus estimate is for a loss of 100,000 jobs, with the unemployment rate inching up to 3.8%, from its historic low of 3.5%.
The March report will be more muted because the survey it is based on concludes around the middle of the month -- which was before millions of Americans filed for unemployment benefits for the first time.

edition.cnn.com/2020/04/02/economy/unemployment-benefits-coronavirus/index.html

This is the Population of Deaths recorded in Nigeria, according to each state/region, during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918


Pls if you notice any symptoms (God Forbid)
This is the treatment for now, approved by American FDA, and other medical organizations.

Hydroxychloroquine
(200mg - 3times per day for 10days)

Azithromycin (500mg once day 1, 250mg once each day 2-5)

Let's Save lives please

www.instagram.com/tv/B-ZRFmkhL9L/?igshid=2zso83fbtbf3

Another pandemic 102 years ago: Volunteer nurses from the American Red Cross tend to influenza patients in the Oakland Municipal Auditorium

By Abankula

In 1918, a pandemic virus, called the Spanish flu blew across the world like the current coronavirus and killed at least 50 million people. In Nigeria, then under colonial rule, an estimated 500,000 died.

There is a striking similarity between the two pandemics in the way they affected Nigeria: both were brought in by travellers.

A little over a century ago, the old killer virus was brought in by travellers arriving by ship from England. Fast forward to the present; travellers arriving by planes from Europe and United States are the chief vectors of the new virus.

Don C. Ohadike, a historian and one of the leading scholars on Igbo history wrote about the 1918 pandemic in the Social Science and Medicine Journal in 1991.

In the article titled, Diffusion and physiological responses to the influenza pandemic of 1918–19 in Nigeria, he wrote:

“The disease was introduced into Nigeria by passengers and crews who arrived via ship from overseas. Thus, coastal ports were the primary focus of the diffusion of the disease.

Its spread to the hinterland was facilitated by improvements in transportation technology. Neither maritime quarantine, nor the isolation of patients checked the spread of the disease.

“About 500,000 Nigerians, out of a population of 18 million, died in less than 6 months, and between 50 and 80% of the population was stricken.

‘The over-crowded urban centre were the hardest hit and, even though the pandemic declined almost as suddenly as it began, morbidity, mortality, and panic adversely affected the productive capacity of the country”.

Jan-Bart Gewald of the African Studies Centre Leiden, The Netherlands, who wrote about the Spanish flu in 2007, relied on Ohadike’s paper, about how the virus impacted Nigeria. But he went further to lament the dearth of global data on victims in many African countries, suggesting that the 500,000 quoted by Ohadike, even for Nigeria could have been a guesstimate.

In Gewald’s account, the virus travelled from England to Sierra Leone, then to Gold Coast, now Ghana before landing in Nigeria, the same way travellers move around today, going to high risk areas, only to bring the virus home with them.

Gewald gave a pan-African perspective about the Spanish virus, how it decimated African population in South Africa, Zambia, Namibia, Zimbabwe and reinforced the evil ideology of racial separation and supremacy. The virus affected the colonialists as well. But Africans living in cramped environment were bigger victims. South Africa lost 300,000 people, 6 per cent of its population to the virus.

In Ghana, then the Gold Coast, the virus affected more women than men and altered gender role in the northern part of the country. In the desolate village of Lorha, so many women were sick that, contrary to custom, men had to grind grain and prepare meals.

Ohadike similarly wrote about how the virus forced dietary change in southern Nigeria, making people to adopt cassava as a staple food.

“The attractiveness of Cassava to so many people is the fact that it requires comparatively less agricultural labour to produce. In periods of stress, where labour may be short, it becomes the crop of choice.”

Gewald catalogued how the Spanish virus caused economic crisis all over Africa, how it affected mining, migrant labourers who fled from endemic centres.

In Namibia, the pandemic was christened as Kaapitohanga, a disease that did not distinguish between white or black.

We quote Gewald again: As in the rest of the world Kaapitohanga, the disease which passes through like a bullet and gave its name to the year 1918, did not respect class, creed or status, and least of all race. It struck German settler, Afrikaner soldier, Herero townsman, and South African administrator with equal vehemence. In its path shops, businesses, administration and daily life ground to a standstill. Like the silver bullet and wooden stake of Stokerian fantasy the disease brought settlers, missionaries and administrators to their knees and obliterated any form of superhuman condition that might possibly have been attributed to the colonisers of Namibia. In the sights of Kaapitohanga all humans were fair game.

West Africa

According to Gewald, the material available suggests that “Spanish Influenza” was introduced into Sierra Leone by the warship H.M.S. Mantua, which arrived in Freetown, capital and harbour of the British colony of Sierra Leone, on 15 August 1918, whilst escorting two passenger ships from Plymouth.

Captain of the Mantua, A. Dawson, later reported that on 31 July, “influenza was epidemic at Plymouth when Mantua and ships of her convoy left port”.

“In turn the Governor of Sierra Leone later reported to the Secretary of State that “the sanitary affairs of warships lie outside civil control and influenza is not a notifiable disease” consequently “no report was made”. On the day of its arrival, and contrary to the explicit warnings of “medical men” the Mantua was coaled by local labour. In “the week following the coaling … the number of labourers absent from work at the coaling station kept increasing” and by “the 27th August some five hundred out of six hundred were absent from work”.

In the disbelieving and shocked words of the Governor:
“The disease spread with devastating rapidity, disorganizing everything. Everybody was attacked almost at once. Of my own household of twenty servants not one escaped; and on one day I had to attend to their work myself. It can be easily understood what such a state of affairs would mean to others less fortunately situated“.

The disease spread so fast in Sierra Leone and by the time it was over, over a thousand people died.

Another ship S.S. Prah that had sailed from Freetown in August of 1918 took the disease to The Gambia. Before the ship reached Bathurst, now known as Banjul, Sierra Leone shipping authorities had warned via telegraph that the ship’s crew might bring influenza with them.

The account of Gambia’s response to the alert was so similar to the response of Nigeria’s health officials today to coronavirus.

Here is Gewald’s account:

“Upon arrival on 29th August, following telegraphic communication from Freetown warning of the outbreak of the pandemic in Sierra Leone, all passengers were “placed under surveillance, and instructed to report at the Colonial Hospital each morning for a period of four days after arrival”.

“On the day following the arrival of the S.S. Prah in Gambia one of the passengers developed symptoms of influenza and became severely sick, but not before passing the disease “on to every other inmate of the house, his medical attendant, etc”.

Containment failed. An estimated 387 people were killed by the virus out of a population of 8,000.

Gewald also described how the influenza pandemic reached Lagos that year:

Following telegraphic communication from Sierra Leone stating that there was a serious epidemic of influenza at Freetown, “and advising that all ships from the United Kingdom and Sierra Leone should be considered infected”, influenza was declared a notifiable infectious disease on 3 September 1918.

“Shortly after, on 14th September the S.S. Ashanti arrived from Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast “with a history of much sickness on board”. The body of a man who had died on board before arrival was taken ashore; “a post-mortem examination showed that he died from influenza”.

“On the same day S.S. Bida put in from the Gold Coast with no less than 239 people on board. It was later reported that: These passengers landed at Lagos and dispersed in all directions before the sanitary authorities were aware of the fact. These passengers were undoubtedly the primary cause of spreading influenza so rapidly and so intensely throughout Nigeria, and of the many thousands of deaths which followed. It was quite impossible to trace these passengers. In the days following, those who had been in contact with the passengers of the Bida, be they customs clerks or medical officers, spread the disease ever further, and on 25 September Lagos was declared infected under the Public Health Ordinance. Throughout the month of October the disease raged through Lagos

An estimated 1,200 people died from the influenza out of the Lagos population of 80,000 plus. Even much more deaths were recorded in the hinterland that led Ohadike to give an estimate of 500,000 dying in Nigeria of the pandemic disease.

It is certain the Nigerian authorities want to avoid a repeat of history, which led to the various containment strategies being deployed against coronavirus: tracing, tracking possible vectors and their contacts, curfews, shutdowns and statewide lockdowns. Not to forget, enlightenment campaigns stressing social distancing, hand washing and so on.

www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2020/04/01/flashback-how-another-pandemic-virus-killed-500000-nigerians-102-years-ago/

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has long provided other world leaders with a template for authoritarian rule. Now he faces a new test: Whether his top-down system can survive the coronavirus pandemic.

In a televised address to the nation Wednesday, Putin announced a sweeping array of measures to cope with the spread of the virus and its widening economic effects.
"Let's not rely on our Russian luck," he said. "Please do not think, as we often do: 'Oh, this will not touch me.' It can touch everyone. And then what is happening today in many Western countries, both in Europe and overseas, could become our immediate future."

Some of the measures were meant to soften the economic blow. Starting on March 28, Russians will have a week's paid leave -- to stay home. Russians will see a moratorium on mortgage payments, and enterprises will be given credit holidays. And families entitled to government payments to support multiple children will receive extra monthly payments.
But coronavirus has taken on a political dimension for the Russian leader: Putin also announced that a nationwide referendum on constitutional amendments scheduled for April 22 has been postponed until further notice.
"We'll evaluate the situation and based only on the recommendations from doctors and specialists we will decide on a new date," Putin said.
It's hard to understate how important that vote was to securing the Russian president's hold on power. Putin has grasped the reins of power in his country for two decades, but his current term ends in 2024, leaving Russia with a potential succession crisis.
Putin's system of managed democracy means that power flows from one man: The president has no serious political competition, his friends and allies control the commanding heights of the economy and Putin is the ultimate arbiter of disputes between elites. The current constitution requires Putin to step down after his current term, meaning that the system he presides over could quickly unravel.

The April 22 vote was supposed to remedy that, in typically Putinesque fashion. The country's rubber-stamp parliament rammed through amendments to the constitution that could pave the way for the president stay in power after his current term ends, potentially until 2036. Putin signed the amendments, and the constitutional court endorsed the proposed changes, which must now be put to the popular vote.
Coronavirus, then, is a new political battlefield for Putin, and the Kremlin leader preceded his speech Wednesday with a public relations offensive.

On Tuesday, the Russian leader paid a visit to the main Moscow hospital for monitoring suspected coronavirus patients, donning protective gear to visit the hospital in the city's suburb of Kommunarka. It was the kind of costume play we're used to seeing from the Kremlin, and reminiscent of one of his earliest moves as Russia's acting president: flying to the war-torn republic of Chechnya in 2000 in the co-pilot's seat of an Su-27 fighter jet.
Putin cast the current campaign against coronavirus in martial terms.
"I watched how they [the hospital staff] are working, everyone is at their battle positions," he said, according to a Kremlin statement. "Everyone works like clockwork, good and well-coordinated."
Putin wasn't just playing the decisive commander-in-chief for a domestic audience. He also deployed his military as part of an international campaign to battle the pandemic. Over the weekend, the Russian military announced it was deploying a group of 100 doctors and virologists along with disinfection equipment to Italy to assist that country in countering the outbreak.

Russian Aerospace Forces Il-76 aircraft departed Sunday from Moscow's Chkalovsky military airfield with Russian military specialists and equipment aboard. The Russian Ministry of Defense posted a photo of one of the transport planes: the fuselage was decorated with a picture of two hearts, one each in the colors of the Italian and Russian flags.
"From Russia with love," the sign read in Russian, English and Italian.
Russian state television has featured footage of Russian military vehicles barreling down the road in Italy, a NATO member state. It was a potent image, and the swift Russian deployment made the US and its allies look slow in responding to the crisis. According to a US defense official, the Russian move came amid a direct appeal by the Italian defense minister for US military aid in combating the coronavirus.
"Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry and Ministry of Defense love PR-laden gestures and they have excelled at that since the war in Syria began," said Andrew Weiss, Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The reality is the underprovisioning of its [Russia's] domestic priorities and Russia sleepwalking into its Covid-19 response."

To be sure, the Kremlin's PR-centered approach does not mean Russia can stop the spread of the virus. On Wednesday, the country's coronavirus headquarters reported the largest one-day increase in cases, rising to 658 from 495 the previous day.
And in a Putin-centric system, all eyes are on the health of the leader. The Kremlin says Putin is healthy and working at his usual pace. But when describing the leader's health in a conference call, his spokesperson Dmitry Peskov often prefaces them by interjecting "tfu! tfu! tfu!" -- a superstitious utterance that's the equivalent of saying, "knock on wood."

edition.cnn.com/2020/03/25/europe/russia-putin-coronavirus-intl/index.html

"We ended up getting our first positive patients -- and that's when all hell broke loose," said one New York City doctor.

The doctor, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity out of concern for his job, described a hospital that was woefully unprepared for an influx of Covid-19 patients that started roughly two weeks ago -- which has already stretched the hospital's resources thin and led to severely ill patients outnumbering ventilators.
"We don't have the machines, we don't have the beds," the doctor said.
"To think that we're in New York City and this is happening," he added. "It's like a third-world country type of scenario. It's mind-blowing."
At first, patients skewed toward the 70-plus age group, but in the past week or so there have been a number of patients younger than 50.
"I don't think they understand the severity of this disease," the doctor said of the younger patients.
"Two weeks ago, life was completely different."
Increasing capacity
Public health experts, including US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams, have warned the US could "become Italy," where doctors in hospitals filled with Covid-19 patients have been forced to ration care and choose who gets a ventilator.
But the US may already be seeing the beginnings of this in some areas, marking a new stage of the nation's outbreak.

"The reality is that what we're seeing right now in our emergency rooms is dire," said Dr. Craig Spencer, director of global health in emergency medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.
"Last week when I went to work, we talked about the one or two patients amongst the dozens of others that might have been a Covid or coronavirus patient," Spencer told CNN's Anderson Cooper Tuesday. "In my shift yesterday, nearly every single patient that I took care of was coronavirus, and many of them extremely severe. Many were put on breathing tubes. Many decompensated quite quickly.
"There is a very different air this week than there was last week."

Officials in New York state are pushing hospitals across the state to increase capacity. The state is home to more than 6% of the world's confirmed cases so far -- and roughly half of all US cases.
In New York City, plans are also underway to build emergency hospitals and backfill other hospitals with 1,000 beds in the Javits Center, according to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. In addition, thousands of doctors and nurses, who are either retired or no longer see patients, have signed up as a "surge health care force," Cuomo said Wednesday.
There are simultaneous effort to procure ventilators for the most severe patients. According to Cuomo, New York has procured 7,000 ventilators in addition to 4,000 already on hand, and the White House said Tuesday that the state would receive two shipments of 2,000 machines this week from the national stockpile. But the state needs 30,000, Cuomo said.
The Strategic National Stockpile said Wednesday that it held approximately 16,660 ventilators before the coronavirus response, and ventilators have been deployed over the past few days.
"An outbreak, a pandemic like this could overwhelm any system in the world," warned Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States' top infectious disease expert. Without enough ventilators, "that's when you're going to have to make some very tough decisions."
Cuomo also described the extreme measures hospitals are planning to take to increase their capacity for patients who need intensive care.
"We're going so far as to trying an experimental procedure where we split the ventilator," Cuomo said Tuesday. "We use one ventilator for two patients. It's difficult to perform, it's experimental, but at this point we have no alternative."
'Exceptionally chaotic'
It's not just New York that's feeling the pressure. Hospitals across the country are seeing a surge of patients, a shortage of personal protective equipment such as masks and gowns, and health care workers who feel that they, their families and their patients are being put at risk.
Several nurses around the country also spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity, also fearing they could lose their jobs.

One ER nurse in v*rg*nia described her hospital as "exceptionally chaotic," with an emergency department where potential Covid-19 patients were sitting next to patients with other health conditions.
"You have an elderly couple that is having chest pain sitting right next to someone who has a cough and flu," she said. "I think that's extremely reckless."
She said she hadn't hugged her daughter since the outbreak started, for fear she may pass anything on to her.
Another nurse in Georgia said she was repeatedly denied testing, even as her own symptoms worsened over the course of a week. The nurse, who had cared for several patients who died of pneumonia but were never tested for Covid-19, was finally tested Tuesday -- the same day she was admitted to the hospital and put in isolation.
"It was not until this morning that I could finally be tested," she said as she gasped for breath between heavy coughs. "It is insane. And it's infuriating. You feel you have to scream to even be heard."
Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, an ER nurse at Montefiore Medical Center and president of the New York State Nurses Association, said that "everybody is terrified" about becoming infected because many lack the proper protective gear, and many are being told to reuse the same mask between multiple patients.
Sheridan-Gonzalez said she fears not having enough ventilators or staff to take care of everyone, but it hasn't "hit that level yet" at her hospital.

For Sheridan-Gonzalez, the risk of becoming infected amid a shortage of masks and gowns is all too real.
"We feel an obligation to take care of our patients. Everybody does. But we don't want to become sick and we also don't want to become carriers," she said. "In my own hospital -- and I don't think it's unique -- we have a nurse who is on a ventilator right now who contracted the virus."
If the virus takes out health care workers, "it's game over. It's lights out," Dr. Peter Hotez, professor and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, previously told CNN.
"If we have multiple frontline health care workers, ER physicians, nurses go down in this epidemic -- a situation where you have colleagues taking care of colleagues in the intensive care unit -- there's nothing more destabilizing for the United States."
Flattening the curve
The capacity of US health systems is at the core of the effort to "flatten the curve" -- to spread out the number of infections over time through measures such as social distancing.
The goal: to prevent hospitals from seeing a massive spike of patients arriving around the same time.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump said he wanted the nation "opened up and just raring to go by Easter," which is April 12 -- a date that few health experts believe will be sufficient to contain the spread of coronavirus.
Earlier this month, Fauci said "it probably would be several weeks or maybe longer before we know whether we had an effect" on flattening the curve, and on Tuesday he emphasized the need to be "flexible" in the timeline Trump laid out.
"Obviously, no one is going to want to tone down things when you see things going on like in New York City," Fauci said Tuesday.
Some in New York don't foresee the outbreak abating anytime soon.
On Wednesday, Cuomo said he expects to see peak numbers of patients in approximately 21 days, based on current projections.

"We're really at the beginning of this outbreak," said NewYork-Presbyterian's Spencer. "And you can feel that. You can sense that. It's palpable on the front lines in the emergency department."
In a series of tweets early Tuesday, Spencer urged people to practice social distancing in order to save lives: "We were too late to stop this virus. Full stop. But we can slow it's spread.
"Hospitals are nearing capacity. We are running out of ventilators," he said. "Ambulance sirens don't stop."

edition.cnn.com/2020/03/25/health/coronavirus-covid-hospitals/index.html

Here's an indisputable fact: President Donald Trump is as popular today as he has been since his first day in office.

In a new Gallup poll, 49% approve of the job Trump is doing as president while 45% disapprove, matching the highest his approval rating has ever been in Gallup surveys. A Monmouth University poll released on Monday showed Trump at 46% approval, again the best he has done in that poll in more than three years.


What accounts for Trump's rise? Simple: His response to the coronavirus crisis.
In the Gallup poll, 60% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing in handling the crisis while 38% disapprove of how he has done. Six in 10 independents approve of how Trump has done on the coronavirus as do more than 1 in 4 (27%) of Democrats. In the Monmouth poll, 50% say Trump has done a good job with coronavirus while 45% said he has done a bad job.
The heightened approval for how Trump has managed this crisis -- particularly among independents and even Democrats -- is what is pushing up his overall approval numbers, which have been largely stagnant for years.

On one level, this isn't terribly surprising. Polling consistently shows a rallying effect around the president when major crises face the country. In the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, for example, President George W. Bush's approval rating soared into the high 80s and low 90s. There's a tendency for even partisans of the opposite party from the president to soften a bit in their perception of him as we are reminded of our common humanity and the need for our leaders to, well, lead us out of crisis.
On another, however, Trump's high approval ratings for how he has dealt with coronavirus and how he is handling the job more broadly might well shock people who have been keeping close track of his and his administration's performance on the pandemic.
After all, it's quite clear that the administration simply didn't take the threat of coronavirus seriously enough soon enough. And the testing capabilities for coronavirus in the US were decidedly slow. And Trump's public statements have been marked by inaccurate claims (the test is "perfect", the vaccine is coming fast, etc).
But what the Gallup and Monmouth numbers seem to suggest is that either a) people aren't following every single statement made by Trump on this matter or b) they don't hold him personally responsible for the hiccups along the way.
The average person seems to broadly believe that Trump is doing the best that he can in a very difficult circumstance. And that what he says on a daily basis matters less than the fact he is out there saying it, and assuring the country that this will all be over soon. (Nota bene: There's very little medical evidence to suggest Trump's optimism is rooted in established facts.)
It's important to keep this perspective in mind when analyzing the political impact this massive campaign of social distancing has as the medical world battles the virus. A large number of Americans are looking at Trump's behavior not from the 50-foot or even 500-foot level but the 50,000-foot level.
And at least so far, they like what they are seeing.

edition.cnn.com/2020/03/25/politics/donald-trump-gallup-approval-polling/index.html

The quarantines and local-level lockdowns put in place to combat the coronavirus outbreak will likely cause Chinese economic output to decline in the first three months of the year -- the first contraction in more than four decades for what was formerly one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Though the extent and duration of the downturn will not be known for several months, it is already becoming clear that Chinese President Xi Jinping will leverage the crisis to further bolster his power as the country's leader as he seeks to return China to what he views as its rightful position as a preeminent global power.

This may seem surprising given Xi's initial response to the Covid-19 outbreak. Xi disappeared from sight for more than a week just days after Beijing was forced to acknowledge the virus, spurring social media speculations and criticism of his aloofness. This reflected especially poorly on Xi because the ruling Chinese Communist Party has long predicated its legitimacy on effective governance, including delivering consistent economic growth and rising standards of living.
So why is Xi poised to emerge from this crisis stronger than ever?
First, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) will be a key channel of post-outbreak stimulus. Xi has overseen a renaissance of the country's SOEs, forcing mergers to create national champions in key sectors, including rail, nuclear and renewable energy and building materials, among others. And with economic activity constrained by the measures taken to combat the coronavirus, SOEs will take on an even larger national role. They will likely receive much-needed financing, given their connections to state-owned banks. And Beijing is pushing for more infrastructure investment to support the economy, an area where SOEs play a prominent role.
Meanwhile, privately owned small and medium enterprises have been disproportionately impacted by the lockdowns that blanketed the entire country, as locally-owned shops and restaurants with thin cash margins and greater difficulties in restarting business activity face imminent bankruptcy. The result: a further shift in economic weight toward SOEs controlled by Beijing and focused on implementing Xi's policy priorities.
Second, as the economy struggles to recover, officials will attempt to defuse social pressures by appealing to nationalist sentiment. Xi will point to the mishandled US response to the disease as both a reason for China's anemic economic performance, as well as a sign of the shortcomings of democratic capitalist systems. This line of messaging provides Beijing a way to channel social concern over the economic impact of the health crisis into a feeling of pride in the perceived advantages of a system in which he wields outsized power.
Third, despite leading the party's response, Xi has been able to deflect popular discontent regarding the initial outbreak toward lower-level officials, sparing himself and other elites. Beijing has dispatched inspection teams to uncover missteps made in the initial weeks of the outbreak, placing the blame elsewhere in the system.
The distinction between the mishandled initial response and the strength of the Xi-led response touted by state media will provide political cover for him to discipline anyone who spoke out about the failures in addressing the outbreak. In this, Xi will also be aided by his mixed messaging. He has pushed for both containing the disease and restarting work as equal priorities. As a result, he has shielded himself from criticism in case of a renewed outbreak or ongoing economic weakness.
For Xi, the success in containing the outbreak so far justifies the aggressive quarantine efforts. But more broadly, it offers vindication for the political system that enabled the quarantine: a presidency with unchecked power over lower-level officials, the propaganda apparatus, and the levers of economic power.
As China digs itself out from the weeks-long shutdown, Xi will use this success to expand the party's power over the economy, national dialogue and lower-level officials. He will be supported in doing so by the stumbling response in the US and will likely emerge in an even more powerful position, despite the political and economic weaknesses exposed by the initial outbreak in China.

edition.cnn.com/2020/03/19/perspectives/coronavirus-china-xi/index.html

A prominent 30-year-old television journalist has died in Zimbabwe after contracting the new coronavirus infection, the first person to die in the country from the virus.

Zororo Makamba was one of the two people who tested positive for coronavirus on Saturday.
He was admitted to hospital in the capital Harare after exhibiting flu-like symptoms last Thursday, the health ministry said in a statement.
Makamba contracted the disease while he was in New York and was in isolation at Wilkins hospital, Harare's only isolation facility.

A childhood friend of Makamba's told CNN he was suffering from a rare condition known as Myasthenia gravis, a chronic, neuromuscular illness, and had undergone surgery to remove a tumor from his chest last year.
TV personality and executive producer, Vimbai Muthinhiri said Makamba was like a brother to her and their families were close growing up.
"Zororo embodied what comes to mind when we talk about Africa's next generation being our hope," Muthinhiri said.
"He was Zo, our little brother and ever happy friend who always saw a silver lining in every situation. It's so difficult to accept that someone who was so full of life will no longer call to check in again," she added.

Zimbabwe's information minister, Monica Mutsvangwa, said she received the news with "extreme sadness and deep sense of shock."
Makamba had traveled to New York on February 29 and returned to his home in Harare on March 9.
He began to exhibit mild flu-like symptoms a few days later on March 12. He then contacted his doctor a week later and he was advised to self isolate, the Health Minister Obadiah Moyo said in the statement.

On arrival at hospital, Makamba developed severe respiratory distress and was kept in isolation under supervision from health practitioners.

Authorities are now tracing people who came into contact with him.
Mutsvangwa urged the nation to take precautions against Covid-19 after Zimbabwe confirmed its first case late last week.
"As we mourn him the whole nation should take the threat of COVID 1 very seriously. Let's all follow due medical precautions as announced by the Ministry of Health and by the World Health Organization," Mutsvangwa said.
Meanwhile, in an address to the nation on Monday night, Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced the closure of all borders except for returning residents and cargo effective immediately.
Mnangagwa also announced that all gatherings over 50 people will be banned and bars, nightclubs, gyms and swimming pools will be closed in an effort to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

edition.cnn.com/2020/03/23/africa/zimbabwe-broadcaster-dies-coronavirus/index.html

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said New York's greatest critical need is ventilators to treat "people who will have acute needs" and those "under respiratory distress" from coronavirus.

He said the state has procured 7,000, but needs at a minimum another 30,000 — and he needs them in 14 days. Ventilators will "make the difference between life and death" for some patients, Cuomo said.

He said New York is "scouring the globe" for ventilators and has resorted to trying experimental procedure where they split the ventilators between two patients because "we have no alternative."

Cuomo said the only way we can obtain these ventilators is through the federal government. He went on to criticize President Trump for not enacting the Defense Production Act to ramp up the number of ventilators that can be made available to New York. To not use federal powers to get ventilators to New York is “inexplicable,” he said.

edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-03-24-20-intl-hnk/index.html

At least 70 Nigerian soldiers were killed in an ambush on their convoy by Insurgents in Borno in the restive northeast, military and security sources said on Tuesday. Insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at a lorry carrying troops as it travelled near Gorgi village in Borno state on Monday, two military officers told AFP without giving their names.

“It was a huge loss, at least 70 soldiers have perished in the ambush,” one of the officers said. “The terrorists specifically targeted a truck loaded with soldiers with RPGs and incinerated the vehicle, killing all on board,” a second officer said.

“So far 70 bodies have been recovered but the toll is certainly more than that as rescue operation is still underway.” Several soldiers were injured and some others taken captive by the Insurgents, the two officers said. A spokesman for the Nigerian army told AFP that he was unable to comment on the reported attack. The convoy had left regional capital Maiduguri on its way to launch an offensive on a camp belonging to Insurgents affiliated to the Islamic State group in the area, a member of a government-backed militia fighting the insurgents told AFP.

The Islamic State West Africa Province faction split from Boko Haram insurgents in 2016 and has focused on attacking troops, raiding bases and laying ambush on military convoys. The group has been accused of increasing attacks on civilians and taking hostages at bogus checkpoints on main roads in the region.

The decade-long conflict has killed 36,000 people and displaced 1.8 million in the northeast of Nigeria. Fighting has also spilt over the border into neighbouring countries, prompting the formation of a regional military coalition to fight the insurgents. AFP

www.dailytrust.com.ng/insurgents-ambush-kill-at-least-70-soldiers-in-borno.html

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage on, former Vice President Abubakar Atiku and former Senator for Kogi West Senatorial district, Dino Melaye has sent short words of prayers to Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, after he reportedly tested positive for COVID-19.