Italian officials ordered schools, public buildings, restaurants and coffee shops closed in a tiny town in northern Italy Friday after six people tested positive for the new virus, including some who had not been to China or the source of the global health emergency.
    
The new cases represented the first infections in Italy acquired through secondary contagion and tripled the country’s total to nine. The first to fall ill met with someone in early February who had returned from China on Jan. 21 without presenting any symptoms of the new virus, health authorities said.
    
Authorities think that person passed the virus onto the 38-year-old Italian, who went to a hospital in the town of Codogno with flu-like symptoms on Feb. 18 but was sent home. He returned to the hospital after his conditions worsened and is now in intensive care, Lombardy region public welfare director Giulio Gallera said.
    
The man’s wife and a friend who did sports with him have also tested positive for the virus. The Italian Health Ministry ordered anyone who came into direct contact with the three to be quarantined for 14 days. About 150 people, including medical personnel, were in isolation undergoing tests.
    
Another three people in the Lombardy region also tested positive Friday, the health ministry said later.
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Several states have begun picking up the tab for family planning services at clinics run by Planned Parenthood, which last year quit a $260 million federal funding program over a Trump administration rule prohibiting clinics from referring women for abortions.
    
States including New Jersey, Massachusetts and Hawaii already are providing new funding, and Democratic governors in Connecticut and Pennsylvania have proposed carving out money in state budgets to counter the effects of the national provider’s fallout with the Republican presidential administration.
    
The proposals have stirred political debates over abortion at the state level, with some opponents claiming it’s a government endorsement of abortion and an inappropriate use of taxpayer money.
    
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont earmarked $1.2 million for Planned Parenthood in his new budget proposal. The executive director of the Connecticut Catholic Conference, Christopher Healy, criticized it as a purely political act.
    
“Where is the pressing need here to do this?” Healy said, arguing Planned Parenthood does not need taxpayer money. “They have the ability to raise money.”
    
Lamont said he wants to help cover an expected shortfall for Planned Parenthood to ensure women in Connecticut have access to all the health services they need. A spokesman for Lamont said the administration doesn’t want the abortion debate to stymie access to things like contraception and cervical cancer screenings.
   
“Look, this is the law of the land. Here in a state like this, we believe that abortion rights are right, and we believe they ought to be affordable for folks who otherwise might not have that availability,” Lamont said. “So I think it’s the right thing to do.”
    
Nationwide, about 4 million women across the U.S., many low-income and uninsured, were receiving services last year under the Title X federal program, including STD testing, various screenings, education and wellness exams. Planned Parenthood and some other providers decided to withdraw from the program  rather than comply with what Planned Parenthood calls the Trump administration’s “gag order,” which bars clinics that participate in Title X from referring women for abortions. The move caused a money crunch for some clinics.
    
Since then, some of the rejected federal funds have been replenished by state or local funds in Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Vermont, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, California and New York. Hawaii’s current fiscal year budget sets aside $750,000 to partly cover a $2 million loss in Title X grant money.
    
In Massachusetts, Republican Gov. Charlie Baker signed legislation authorizing up to $8 million. In California, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors last year voted to cover a $482,000 expected shortfall for six Planned Parenthood clinics serving 36,274 patients. And Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Tom Wolf, has included a $3 million line item in his proposed 2020-21 budget to also help offset the funding loss for Planned Parenthood providers.
    
In Oregon, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s rule, a spokesman for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon said the agency has been “working closely with state officials to create critical backstops and protect access to care for all Oregonians who need it, regardless of federal action on Title X,” and commended Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, for prioritizing funding for reproductive health services.
    
Abortion opponents have accused governors of providing the money to gain favor with an organization that often supports Democrats at election time.
    
In New Jersey, where Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy last month signed legislation that set aside $9.5 million in state money for family planning at Planned Parenthood, New Jersey Right to Life called it a disgraceful money grab.
    
“The taxpayers of NJ should not be forced to fund abortion, and make no mistake, that is what this bill will do,” Marie Tasy, the group’s executive director, said in a written statement.
    
Title X regulations prohibit funds from being used for abortions, with some narrow exceptions, and the money Lamont has proposed would fund Title X services and not on abortions, according to Connecticut’s Department of Public Health.
Abortion opponents in Connecticut have argued for years that state funds should not be used for abortions or abortion referrals. The state’s health insurance program paid for 6,995 abortions in 2018. A Department of Social Services spokesman said Connecticut is under a court order to pay for any abortion for a Medicaid-covered woman that she and her doctor have determined to be necessary.
    
The state money budgeted by Lamont would not go toward abortions, as it would fund only Title X services, according to state health officials. But opponents say that regardless of where it goes, the money for Planned Parenthood makes it appear the state is outwardly advocating for abortion.
    
“I’m disturbed by it, that it’s now state policy to outwardly advocate it no, matter what,”said Chris O’Brien, executive director of Connecticut Right to Life.
    
It’s unclear how long the help from states will continue.
    
Jacqueline Ayers, vice president of government relations and public policy at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said it’s “encouraging” that governors and state legislators are trying to fill the gap, but said the state-by-state efforts cannot replace the nearly 50-year-old Title X program.
    
“While we applaud leaders in the states for taking these temporary but critical steps, we must continue fighting for a nationwide solution,” Ayers said. “Only Congress has the power to permanently stop this harmful rule, and people across the country are continuing to call on them to do so.”
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Iranian health authorities on Friday reported two more deaths from the new virus that emerged in China and said the fatalities were from among 13 new confirmed cases of the virus in Iran.
    
The report by the semiofficial Mehr news agency came as Iranians voted in nationwide parliamentary elections. After authorities reported two earlier deaths this week, the death toll from COVID-19, the illness caused by virus, stands at four in Iran.
    
So far, 18 cases have been confirmed in Iran, including the four who died.
    
The spokesman of the health ministry, Kianoush Jahanpour, said the newly detected cases are all linked with city of Qom where the first two elderly patients died on Wednesday.
    
Jahanpour said the new cases were either from Qom or had visited the city recently. He said four of them have been hospitalized in the capital, Tehran, and two in northern province of Gilan.
    
Minoo Mohraz, an Iranian health ministry official, said the virus possibly came from Chinese workers who work in Qom and traveled to China.'' She did not elaborate. A Chinese company has been building a solar power plant in Qom.
    
In Lebanon, Health Minister Hamad Hassan on Friday reported the Mediterranean country's first case of the new virus.
    
At a news conference in Beirut, he said the patient was a 45-year-old woman who arrived Thursday on a flight from Qom. He said the woman was ingood health” and the ministry was also following up on the cases of two other people suspected of having the illness.
    
The woman and two other suspected victims were quarantined at the Rafik Hariri government hospital in Beirut.
    
Concerns over the spread of the virus, which originated in central China, prompted authorities in Iran this week to close all schools and Shiite seminaries in Qom, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of Tehran.
    
Also, earlier news reports said Iran had recently evacuated 60 Iranian students from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the epicenter of the epidemic. The students were quarantined upon their return to Iran and were discharged after 14 days without any health problems.
    
Qom is a popular religious destination and a center of learning and religious studies for Shiite Muslims from inside Iran, as well as Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan and Azerbaijan. It is also known for its cattle farms.
    
Iran once relied heavily on China to buy its oil and some Chinese companies have continued doing business with Iran in the face of U.S. sanctions. Unlike other countries _ such as Saudi Arabia, which barred its citizens and residents from traveling to China _ Iran has not imposed such measures. But it has suspended all passenger flights with China for the past two weeks, allowing only cargo flights.
    
Iran’s civil aviation spokesman Reza Jafarzadeh said on Thursday that the cargo flights, if necessary, are under supervision, and controls imposed by the health ministry are carried out.
    
In Turkey, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said officials have started to screen travelers arriving from Iran at border gates and are refusing entry to anyone with signs of illness. He also said Iranians who have traveled to Qom in the past 14 days will be refused entry.
    
The new virus emerged in China in December. Since then, more than 76,000 people have been infected globally, in as many as 27 countries, with more than 2,200 deaths being reported, mostly in China.
    
The new virus comes from a large family of coronaviruses, some causing nothing worse than a cold. It causes cold- and flu-like symptoms, including cough and fever, and in more severe cases, shortness of breath. It can worsen to pneumonia, which can be fatal. The World Health Organization recently named the illness it causes COVID-19, referring to both coronavirus and its origin late last year.
    
There have been few virus cases in the Middle East so far. Nine cases have been confirmed in the United Arab Emirates, which is a popular tourist destination, and one case in Egypt. Of the nine in the UAE, seven are Chinese nationals, one is a Filipino and another an Indian national.
    
Iran’s neighbor Iraq, which has reported no cases of the virus, took measures to contain it by suspending visas on arrival for Iranian passport holders and direct flights between the two countries.
    
Also Friday, one of 11 Israelis who were flown home after being quarantined on a cruise ship in Japan has tested positive for the virus, the first case to be reported inside Israel, the Health Ministry.
    
The Israeli cruise ship passengers, who had all initially tested negative, arrived on a charter plane overnight. They were met by medics in protection suits and immediately taken to the Sheba Hospital near Tel Aviv, where they will be kept in quarantine.
    
Another four Israelis were hospitalized in Japan after testing positive for the virus. Israel has cancelled all flights to and from China, and is requiring Israelis returning from China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore or Thailand to be quarantined at home for two weeks.
   
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A procedure one might expect to see only on an episode of popular television show Grey’s Anatomy actually occurred at a London hospital recently as a patient played the violin while undergoing surgery to remove a brain tumor. Dagmar Turner, 53, has had a passion for playing the violin since she was 10, and she is currently a member of the Isle of Wight Symphony Orchestra. So losing the ability to play because of a brain tumor was an especially frightening scenario for her. During a symphony performance in 2013, Turner suffered a seizure that brought to light the slow-growing brain tumor. Located on the right frontal lobe of her brain, it threatened to damage her left hand’s fine motor skills — the hand that controls the notes being played on the violin. According to King’s College Hospital, where Turner was treated, her first course of treatment was radiotherapy. But after that proved unsuccessful and the tumor continued to grow, surgery became the next best option. Surgery put her hand mobility and playing abilities at risk, though, and it was a possibility Turner could not ignore. It was neurosurgeon consultant Keyoumars Ashkan, a professor at the college, who understood firsthand Turner’s concerns about the surgery, since he is an accomplished pianist with a music degree. So they designed a plan specifically for Turner’s January 31 surgery. First, her brain was mapped, allowing doctors to recognize and identify sections  that were active while she played the violin, as well as sections that dictated movement and language. Then, halfway through surgery, Turner would be awakened to play her violin so surgeons could avoid the sections of her brain that were active as she moved her hands to play. With the brain having no pain receptors, Turner was able to be fully awake and performing as the tumor was removed. Turner’s surgery was a success, and she was released from the hospital and back home in just three days. She plans to resume playing soon in the orchestra. 
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Did an artificial-intelligence system beat human doctors in warning the world of a severe coronavirus outbreak in China?In a narrow sense, yes. But what the humans lacked in sheer speed, they more than made up in finesse.Early warnings of disease outbreaks can help people and governments save lives. In the final days of 2019, an AI system in Boston sent out the first global alert about a new viral outbreak in China. But it took human intelligence to recognize the significance of the outbreak and then awaken response from the public health community.What’s more, the mere mortals produced a similar alert only a half-hour behind the AI systems.For now, AI-powered disease-alert systems can still resemble car alarms — easily triggered and sometimes ignored. A network of medical experts and sleuths must still do the hard work of sifting through rumors to piece together the fuller picture. It’s difficult to say what future AI systems, powered by ever larger datasets on outbreaks, may be able to accomplish.The first public alert outside China about the novel coronavirus came on Dec. 30 from the automated HealthMap system at Boston Children’s Hospital. At 11:12 p.m. local time, HealthMap sent an alert about unidentified pneumonia cases in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The system, which scans online news and social media reports, ranked the alert’s seriousness as only 3 out of 5. It took days for HealthMap researchers to recognize its importance.Four hours before the HealthMap notice, New York epidemiologist Marjorie Pollack had already started working on her own public alert, spurred by a growing sense of dread after reading a personal email she received that evening.“This is being passed around the internet here,” wrote her contact, who linked to a post on the Chinese social media forum Pincong. The post discussed a Wuhan health agency notice and read in part: “Unexplained pneumonia???”Pollack, deputy editor of the volunteer-led Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases, known as ProMed, quickly mobilized a team to look into it. ProMed’s more detailed report went out about 30 minutes after the terse HealthMap alert.Early warning systems that scan social media, online news articles and government reports for signs of infectious disease outbreaks help inform global agencies such as the World Health Organization — giving international experts a head start when local bureaucratic hurdles and language barriers might otherwise get in the way.Some systems, including ProMed, rely on human expertise. Others are partly or completely automated.And rather than competing with one another, they are often complementary — HealthMap is intertwined with ProMed and helps run its online infrastructure.“These tools can help hold feet to the fire for government agencies,” said John Brownstein, who runs the HealthMap system as chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital. “It forces people to be more open.”The last 48 hours of 2019 were a critical time for understanding the new virus and its significance. Earlier on Dec. 30, Wuhan Central Hospital doctor Li Wenliang warned his former classmates about the virus in a social media group — a move that led local authorities to summon him for questioning several hours later.Li, who died Feb. 7 after contracting the virus, told The New York Times that it would have been better if officials had disclosed information about the epidemic earlier. “There should be more openness and transparency,” he said.ProMed reports are often incorporated into other outbreak warning systems. including those run by the World Health Organization, the Canadian government and the Toronto startup BlueDot. WHO also pools data from HealthMap and other sources.Computer systems that scan online reports for information about disease outbreaks rely on natural language processing, the same branch of artificial intelligence that helps answer questions posed to a search engine or digital voice assistant.But the algorithms can only be as effective as the data they are scouring, said Nita Madhav, CEO of San Francisco-based disease monitoring firm Metabiota, which first notified its clients about the outbreak in early January.Madhav said that inconsistency in how different agencies report medical data can stymie algorithms. The text-scanning programs extract keywords from online text, but may fumble when organizations variously report new virus cases, cumulative virus cases, or new cases in a given time interval. The potential for confusion means there’s almost always still a person involved in reviewing the data.“There’s still a bit of human in the loop,” Madhav said.Andrew Beam, a Harvard University epidemiologist, said that scanning online reports for key words can help reveal trends, but the accuracy depends on the quality of the data. He also notes that these techniques aren’t so novel.“There is an art to intelligently scraping web sites,” Beam said. “But it’s also Google’s core technology since the 1990s.”Google itself started its own Flu Trends service to detect outbreaks in 2008 by looking for patterns in search queries about flu symptoms. Experts criticized it for overestimating flu prevalence. Google shut down the website in 2015 and handed its technology to nonprofit organizations such as HealthMap to use Google data to build their own models.Google is now working with Brownstein’s team on a similar web-based approach for tracking the geographical spread of tick-borne Lyme disease.Scientists are also using big data to model possible routes of early disease transmission.In early January, Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease physician and researcher at Toronto General Hospital, analyzed commercial flight data with BlueDot founder Kamran Khan to see which cities outside mainland China were most connected to Wuhan.Wuhan stopped outbound commercial air travel in late January — but not before an estimated 5 million people had fled the city, as the Wuhan mayor later told reporters.“We showed that the highest volume of flights from Wuhan were to Thailand, Japan, and Hong Kong,” Bogoch said. “Lo and behold, a few days later we started to see cases pop up in these places.”In 2016, the researchers used a similar approach to predict the spread of the Zika virus from Brazil to southern Florida.Now that many governments have launched aggressive measures to curb disease transmission, it’s harder to build algorithms to predict what’s next, Bogoch said.Artificial intelligence systems depend on vast amounts of prior data to train computers how to interpret new facts. But there are no close parallels to the way China is enforcing quarantine zones that impact hundreds of millions of people. 
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Ukraine’s effort to evacuate more than 70 people from China over the outbreak of a new virus faced setbacks Thursday as weather conditions delayed the return of the evacuees and protests broke out near a hospital where they are to be quarantined.
    
Dozens of local residents protested Thursday morning seeking to prevent the evacuees from being quarantined there because they fear being infected. People put up road blocks and burned tires, while Ukrainian media reported that there were clashes with police.
    
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy weighed in saying that those demonstration show “not the best side of our character” and sought to assure people that the quarantined evacuees wouldn’t pose any danger to local residents.
    
In a statement published on his Facebook page, Zelenskiy said the people evacuated from China are healthy and will live in a closed medical center run by the National Guard in the village of Novi Sanzhary as a precaution.
    
“In the next two weeks it will probably be the most guarded facility in the country,” Zelenskiy said.
    
In the early hours of Thursday, a plane with 45 Ukrainians and 27 other foreign nationals took off from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak that has infected  more than 75,000 people worldwide and killed over 2,100.
    
The plane stopped off in Kazakhstan to drop off two Kazakh passengers. Later, it sought to land in Kharkiv, a city in northeastern Ukraine, but could not due to bad weather conditions.
    
Instead it flew to Kyiv to refuel, and eventually arrived in Kharkiv.
    
Also Thursday, the Russian Embassy in Japan said that two more Russians aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined in Japan have been diagnosed with the virus, the Russian Embassy in Japan said. That raises to three the number of Russians on the ship confirmed to have the virus.
    
The two will be transferred to a hospital in Japan for treatment, according to the embassy.
    
The Diamond Princess has been docked in the Yokohama port near Tokyo since Feb. 4, when 10 people on board tested positive for the virus. So far 621 cases of the virus, which has been named COVID-19, have been confirmed among the the Diamond Princess’s original 3,711 people on board.
    
Russia so far has reported only two cases of the disease on its soil. Two Chinese nationals diagnosed with the virus and hospitalized in two different regions of Siberia in late January have recovered and have been released from hospitals.
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Scientists in China who studied the nose and throat swabs from 18 patients infected with the new coronavirus say it behaves much more like influenza than other closely related viruses, suggesting it may spread even more easily than previously believed.In at least in one case, the virus was present even though the patient had no symptoms, confirming concerns that asymptomatic patients could also spread the disease.Although preliminary, the findings published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, offer new evidence that this novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 2,000 people, mostly in China, is not like its closely related coronavirus cousins.“If confirmed, this is very important,” said Dr. Gregory Poland, a virologist and vaccine researcher with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who was not involved with the study.Easily spreadUnlike severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which causes infections deep in the lower respiratory tract that can result in pneumonia, COVID-19 appears to inhabit both the upper and lower respiratory tracts. That would make it not only capable of causing severe pneumonia, but of spreading easily like flu or the common cold.Researchers in Guangdong province monitored the amount of coronavirus in the 18 patients. One of them, who had moderate levels of the virus in their nose and throat, never had any disease symptoms.Among the 17 symptomatic patients, the team found levels of the virus increased soon after symptoms first appeared, with higher amounts of virus present in the nose than in the throats, a pattern more similar to influenza than SARS.The level of virus in the asymptomatic patient was similar to what was present in patients with symptoms, such as fever.“What this says is clearly this virus can be shed out of the upper respiratory tract and that people are shedding it asymptomatically,” Poland said.Related to SARS, not behaving like SARSThe findings add to evidence that this new virus, though genetically similar, is not behaving like SARS, said Kristian Andersen, an immunologist at Scripps Research in La Jolla who uses gene sequencing tools to track disease outbreaks.“This virus is clearly much more capable of spreading between humans than any other novel coronavirus we’ve ever seen.“This is more akin to the spread of flu,” said Andersen, who was not involved with the study.The researchers said their findings add to reports that the virus can be transmitted early in the course of the infection and suggest that controlling the virus will require an approach different from what worked with SARS, which primarily involved controlling its spread in a hospital setting.
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China is reporting its biggest drop in new cases of the new coronavirus that has killed more than 2,000 people on the mainland since the outbreak began more than two months ago.The country’s National Health Commission said there were just 394 confirmed new cases of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) Wednesday, compared to the 1,749 cases the previous day, the biggest drop since last month. The death toll rose to 2,118 after another 114 people died from the virus, while the total number of confirmed cases rose to 74,576.Chinese authorities have struggled to contain the spread of the new coronavirus since it was first detected in December in Hubei province, in the city of Wuhan. The province was placed under lockdown, with nearly all transportation in and out of Wuhan and several other cities halted.Outside of mainland China, at least 11 people have reportedly died from the virus, including one in South Korea, two people in Iran and an elderly couple in their 80s who were passengers aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which been quarantined at the Japanese port city of Yokohama since its arrival on February 3.  Japanese health officials placed the ship and its 3,700 passengers and crew under quarantine after a passenger who disembarked in Hong Kong was diagnosed with the coronavirus.  But the attempt to contain the spread of the virus backfired, as 621 people became infected, making it the largest cluster of confirmed cases outside of China.About 600 passengers are expected to leave the ship Thursday, a day after 500 passengers disembarked Wednesday after testing negative for the virus and showing no symptoms.  Meanwhile, more than 150 Australian passengers arrived in Darwin early Thursday after being evacuated from Yokohama.  The group was immediately placed in another 14-day quarantine.  Canberra extended a ban on foreign nationals who have traveled mainland China from entering Australia until February 29.Russian passengers walk with their luggage after leaving the coronavirus-hit Diamond Princess cruise ship docked at Yokohama Port, south of Tokyo, Feb. 20, 2020.About 300 Americans were evacuated Monday and immediately placed in another 14-day quarantine. Several other governments, including Britain, Canada, Australia and Hong Kong, are also making plans to evacuate their citizens from Yokohama.Despite the drop in the daily number of confirmed cases, the World Health Organization cautioned people earlier this week against relaxing and believing the worst is over. The WHO said it is still too early to predict exactly which way the outbreak will go.
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Every month, the 30 staffers at Chris Boehlke’s public relations firm each get $100 to pay for anything that contributes to their wellness. And not just for typical expenditures like gym memberships or yoga classes.“You can get nails done, anything you feel is helping your overall well being,” says Boehlke, co-owner of San Francisco-based Bospar. The company also has flex time and a generous time off policy including 17 paid holidays each year.As a result, Boehlke says, the 5-year-old company has lost only two staffers.Many small business owners are starting wellness programs to help employees be healthier, happier and more likely to stay. Wellness efforts encompass a wide range of benefits and services, including gym subsidies, stipends for classes and activities and apps that help motivate staffers to exercise and take care of themselves. n this Feb. 11, 2020, photo, Brent Frederick, founder of Jester Concepts, a restaurant group in Minneapolis poses at P.S. Steak.Owners are aware that many big companies have wellness programs, an advantage when it comes to recruiting and retaining staffers.Rob Wilson sees interest in wellness programs growing among his small business clients, and his company, human resources provider Employco, is focusing more on these programs.“A lot of it so far has been online classes and health coaching, also a lot of online tools right now that employees can access anywhere to help them keep track of what they’re doing,” says Wilson, whose company is based in Westmont, Illinois.“The companies doing it are really interested in keeping their employees,” he says.Work can take a tollThey also want to care for staffers who can be sacrificing good health habits by working long and hard hours. At MonetizeMore, an advertising technology company, CEO Kean Graham has sensed that the sedentary lifestyle of his more than 100 staffers has taken a toll. He’s seen extended absences and depression, and staffers have said that they’ve gained weight.“We came up with a steps program that measures everybody’s number of steps per month via their smart watches or apps on their phones,” says Graham, whose company is based in Victoria, British Columbia. After several months, he saw an improvement in absenteeism and spirits.The 100 employees at Birch Coffee get stipends toward a variety of wellness activities, and the company pays for monthly massages at its 14 New York stores. Birch is trying to offset the physical and mental stress staffers encounter, co-founder Jeremy Lyman says.“Each barista engages with hundreds of people every day,” Lyman says. “Mentally, it can take its toll, and you’re standing on your feet for seven hours.”Encourage good healthSome owners sign up with companies that run structured wellness programs. These can include encouraging staffers to take care of their health with weight-loss and smoking cessation aids, health screening and coaching and apps to track steps, calories and other metrics. Some businesses have point systems and competitions to reward staffers.Nearly all the 86 employees at Connor & Gallagher OneSource take part in its program created by a wellness software company, says Kayla Roeske, the director of client wellness at the Lisle, Illinois-based human resources and employee benefits firm. She finds that staffers are more likely to participate fully when the program is presented to them in a positive way, rather than the company coming across as “Big Brother” trying to control them. The company doesn’t get individual data but instead “we can see aggregate data from an organizational standpoint that tells us where we are year to year,” she says.Avoid cheerleading Owners need to steer clear of being overbearing and negative about employees’ health. While a boss might be happier if staffers didn’t smoke or if they lost weight, if the company comes across as intrusive, it could lose good employees.“If you start to push decision-making and judgment on these things, that’s where you may begin to cross the line,” says David Lewis, CEO of OperationsInc, an HR provider based in Norwalk, Connecticut. He advises that owners offer education and make tools available, but avoid too much cheerleading.“If you say, `we want you to live a better life,’ to some extent employees are going to take that, but they’ll be skeptical if it’s syrupy,” Lewis says. He suggests owners speak to staffers about realities, like the need to lower health insurance costs.Owners may need to be creative about funding their wellness efforts, especially when they include health insurance, a benefit many small businesses can’t afford. Brent Frederick, founder of Jester Concepts, a Minneapolis restaurant operator, includes a voluntary 3% surcharge on guest checks to pay for health and mental health insurance. ‘A better business’Frederick has 250 employees among his four establishments, which include restaurants, a food truck and a sports arena concession. Even the part-timers get coverage. That has made Jester Concepts a more competitive employer.“We’ve been able to retain employees and be a better business in the community,” Frederick says.The majority of Jester Concepts’ customers are willing to pay the 3% surcharge, which amounts to $3 on a $100 check. Some question it, but Frederick estimates that no more than once a month at each location does a guest ask to have it taken off their bill. Customers can look at the surcharge as proof that the company is concerned about its staffers’ well-being.Owners who want healthier employees may have to set a good example, and even make some changes to office routine and policies. A boss who likes to keep cola and other highly sugared beverages in the break room fridge may need to stop stocking it.  And at companies where the culture is for everyone to work through lunch at their desks, there may need to be a new normal — staffers have to break away.At Hoppier, an Ottawa, Ontario-based company that delivers snacks and supplies to businesses, “we don’t let anyone eat behind their computer screens. We think that everyone deserves a proper break, so we ask them to eat somewhere that doesn’t require any work,” CEO Cassy Aite says.Aite used to work at a consulting firm and eat at his desk; it’s what people did. His next job was at a German company, where he learned a very different approach — talking 90 minutes away from the office each day for lunch.“It’s an amazing way to break up the day,” says Aite.
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A dengue epidemic in several French Caribbean islands has claimed its second victim, officials said Wednesday.A 75-year-old French woman who traveled regularly to St. Martin died this month after contracting the mosquito-borne virus and being evacuated to Paris, according to a statement from the Regional Health Agency for Guadeloupe, St. Martin and St. Barts.It is the second such death reported this month in the region. Officials in the nearby island of Martinique announced last week that one of three unidentified people who were recently hospitalized with dengue died.The viral infection usually causes a severe headache, rash and high fever and can become hemorrhagic, leading to death.
 
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North Dakota regulators were expected to take action Wednesday on a proposal to expand the capacity of the Dakota Access Pipeline.The three-member, all-Republican Public Utilities Commission signaled last month that it would approve a permit to expand the capacity of the pipeline, despite objections from opponents who said it would increase the probability of a disastrous oil spill.Texas-based Energy Transfer proposed doubling the capacity of the pipeline last year to meet growing demand for oil shipments from North Dakota, without the need for additional pipelines or rail shipments.The company wants to build a $40 million pump station on a 23-acre (9-hectare) site near Linton in south-central North Dakota. The new station is necessary to increase the volume of oil the pipeline can move.The company also plans additional pumping stations in South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. Commissioners in a South Dakota county last year approved a conditional use permit needed for a station there. Permits in the other states are pending. Iowa regulators want Energy Transfer to provide expert analysis to back up the company’s claim that doubling the line’s capacity won’t increase the likelihood of a spill.FILE – In this Nov. 20, 2016 photo, provided by Morton County Sheriff’s Department, law enforcement and protesters clash near the site of the Dakota Access Pipeline in Cannon Ball, N.D.The $3.8 billion, 1,172-mile (1,886 kilometer) underground pipeline was subject to prolonged protests and hundreds of arrests during its construction in North Dakota in late 2016 and early 2017 because it crosses beneath the Missouri River, just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The tribe draws its water from the river and fears pollution. Energy Transfer insisted the pipeline would be safe, and said the expansion would be, too.The pipeline has been moving North Dakota oil through South Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois since June 2017. Since some of the land in North Dakota falls outside of the pipeline corridor, permission was needed from the commission to build the pump station.Opponents argued the commission should have considered affects all along the line and not solely at the pump station location. If the North Dakota commission approves the permit, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe will review its legal options, including a possible appeal in state court, attorney Tim Purdon said.Energy Transfer argued the commission could only consider a permit application for its pump site and commissioners agreed, saying the state would not impose conditions beyond those required by the federal government, which has jurisdiction on the pipeline.The company said in court filings that its pump station would produce only “minimal adverse effects on the environment and the citizens of North Dakota.”The company has said it hoped to start construction this spring, and finish within 10 months.
 
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Protective suit-clad inspectors in the epicenter of China’s viral outbreak went door-to-door Wednesday to find every infected person in the central city suffering most from an epidemic that is showing signs of waning as new cases fell for a second day.
    
Wuhan, where the new form of coronavirus emerged, is on the final day of a campaign to root out anyone with symptoms whom authorities may have missed so far.
    
“This must be taken seriously,” said Wang Zhonglin, the city’s newly minted Communist Party secretary. “If a single new case is found (after Wednesday), the district leaders will be held responsible.”
    
His remarks were published on Hubei’s provincial website, alongside the declaration, If the masses cannot mobilize, it's impossible to fight a people's war.''
    
Mainland China reported Wednesday 1,749 new cases and 136 additional deaths. While the overall spread of the COVID-19 illness has been slowing, the situation remains severe in Hubei province, which has Wuhan as its capital. Infections in Hubei constitute more than 80% of the country's 74,185 total cases and 95% of its 2,004 deaths, according to data from China's National Health Commission.
    
Cities in Hubei with a combined population of more than 60 million have been under lockdown since the Lunar New Year holiday last month, usually the busiest time of the year for travel. Authorities put a halt to nearly all transportation and movement except for quarantine efforts, medical care and delivery of food and basic necessities. “Wartime” measures were implemented in some places where residents were prevented from leaving their apartments altogether.
    
The stringent measures have followed public fury over Hubei authorities' handling of the epidemic when it began in December. The risk of human-to-human transmission was downplayed, and doctors who tried to warn the public were reprimanded by police. Wuhan residents reported overcrowding in hospitals and futile attempts to seek treatment.
    
Many countries have also set up border screenings and airlines have canceled flights to and from China to prevent further spread of the disease, which has been detected in around two dozen countries and caused about 1,000 confirmed cases outside mainland China. Five deaths have been reported outside the mainland, in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines and France.
    
In Hong Kong, a spokesman for Princess Margaret Hospital reported the city's second death out of 62 cases. Media reported the victim was a 70-year-old man with underlying illnesses.
    
The much-criticized quarantine of a cruise ship in Japan ends later Wednesday. The Diamond Princess' 542 virus cases were the most in any place outside of China, and medical experts have called its quarantine a failure.
    
South Korea evacuated six South Koreans and a Japanese family member from the ship, and they began an additional 14-day quarantine Wednesday. More than 300 American passengers were evacuated earlier and are quarantined in the United States, including at least 14 who had tested positive for the virus.
    
On Tuesday, the U.S. government said the more than 100 American passengers who stayed on the ship or were hospitalized in Japan would have to wait for another two weeks before they could return to the U.S.
    
Passengers from the MS Westerdam, another cruise ship, have tested negative for the virus, Cambodia's Health Ministry announced Wednesday.
    
Seven hundred of the Westerdam's passengers had already left Cambodia after the ship docked last week, only to have one woman test positive for the virus when she arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The discovery that the 83-year-old American woman harbored the virus caused the suspension of plans to send home the other passengers still in Cambodia.
    
The dispersal of those who had already left for various countries has caused concern that they might be undetected carriers of the virus, and health authorities in several nations were tracing them to take protective measures.
    
“Prevention and control work is at a critical time,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said during a phone call Tuesday evening with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, according to Chinese state media.
    
Likewise, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told The Associated Press in an interview in Lahore, Pakistan, that the viral outbreak “is not out of control, but it is a very dangerous situation.” He said thatthe risks are enormous and we need to be prepared worldwide for that.”
    
Outside Hubei, other localities have imposed quarantine measures to varying degrees. Residential neighborhoods in Beijing have placed limits on the number of people per household who can go out, and those who do must carry exit-entry cards. In Shanghai, police detained a man for 10 days for repeatedly leaving the house and taking public transportation when he was supposed to be under quarantine at home.
    
Despite such warnings, Beijing was showing signs of coming back to life this week, with road traffic at around a quarter of usual, up from virtually nothing a week ago. While most restaurants, stores and office buildings remained closed, others had reopened.
    
The country may postpone its biggest political meeting of the year, the annual congress due to start in March, to avoid having people travel to the capital while the virus is still spreading. One of the automotive industry’s biggest events, China’s biannual auto show, was postponed, and many sports and entertainment events have been delayed or canceled.
    
The U.S. also upgraded its travel advisory for China to Level 4, telling its citizens not to travel to anywhere in the country and advising those currently in China to attempt to depart by commercial means.
    
“In the event that?the situation further deteriorates, the ability of the U.S. Embassy and Consulates?to provide assistance to U.S. nationals within China may be limited. The United States is not offering chartered evacuation flights from China,” the notice said.
    
“We strongly urge U.S. citizens remaining in China to stay home as much as possible and limit contact with others, including large gatherings. Consider stocking up on food and other supplies to limit movement outside the home,” the notice said. The U.S. previously flew out scores of its citizens on charter flights from Wuhan but does not have any further plans to do so, it said.
    
Also on Wednesday, China said it was expelling three Wall Street Journal reporters over the headline for an opinion column which referred to the current virus outbreak in China and called the country the “Real Sick Man of Asia.”
    
In a statement Wednesday, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the Feb. 3 op-ed by Bard College Professor Walter Russel Mead “smears the efforts of the Chinese government and people on fighting (the virus) epidemic.”
    
Long sensitive to its portrayal in global media, China has been pushing a narrative of transparency and tight control over the current outbreak, while emphasizing the sacrifices made by its health workers and ordinary citizens.
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Hundreds of passengers have begun leaving the cruise ship that has been quarantined for two weeks at a Japanese port in a futile attempt to curb the spread of the new coronavirus that has claimed the lives of over 2,000 people in mainland China.Around 500 relieved passengers are expected to disembark the Diamond Princess Wednesday at Yokohama, where it has been docked since its arrival on February 3. Japanese health officials placed the ship and its 3,700 passengers and crew under quarantine after a passenger who disembarked in Hong Kong was diagnosed with COVID-19.But the attempt to contain the spread of the virus backfired, as 542 people became infected, making it the largest cluster of confirmed cases outside of China.Only those passengers who have tested negative for the virus and have not shown any symptoms are being allowed to disembark the Diamond Princess.  About 300 Americans were evacuated Monday and immediately placed in another 14-day quarantine.  Several other governments, including Britain, Canada, Australia and Hong Kong, are also making plans to evacuate their citizens from Yokohama.Beijing announced earlier Wednesday that the death toll from the COVID-19 outbreak had reached 2,004 with most of the deaths reported in Hubei province, where the outbreak began in December. One hundred-32 deaths were reported in Hubei.But the health commission reported Wednesday 1,749 newly confirmed cases — the lowest number so far in February — bringing the total number of confirmed cases in China to 74,000.Chinese state-run media said Tuesday President Xi Jinping spoke to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson by telephone, telling him that China’s measures to fight the virus is making “visible progress.”Despite the drop in the daily number of confirmed cases, the World Health Organization cautions people against relaxing and believing the worst is over. The WHO says it is still too early to predict exactly which way the outbreak will go.“We don’t have enough data on cases outside China to make meaningful conclusions,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. He added that more than 80% of coronavirus patients “have mild disease and will recover.”The coronavirus outbreak continued to wreak havoc around the world. WHO reported that outside China there are now 804 cases in 25 countries, with three deaths.Russia said starting Thursday it would ban all Chinese from entering its territory.Deputy prime minister for health Tatiana Golikova, said the decision was necessary “because of the worsening epidemic in China and the fact that Chinese nationals are continuing to arrive on Russian territory.”
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South Korea reported 15 new cases of the coronavirus Wednesday, intensifying concerns of an outbreak following a lull in reported South Korean infections.A total of 46 people in South Korea have been infected with the highly contagious virus, which causes a pneumonia-like illness recently named COVID-19. South Korean health officials this week warned of a possible “new phase” of the outbreak, following five days in which no new infections were reported.Thirteen of the latest cases are in the area around Daegu, South Korea’s fourth largest city, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).More than 1,000 people are being checked for the virus or are under quarantine, the Yonhap news agency reported Wednesday, citing figures from the KCDC. The virus has killed more than 2,000 people and infected more than 75,000 worldwide. Almost all of the infections have been in China.No South Koreans are reported to have died from the virus. Twelve of the patients have made full recoveries and were discharged from quarantine. But the virus could have a major impact on South Korea’s economy, which was already experiencing lagging growth.A woman wearing a face mask stands behind lanterns decorated for upcoming celebration of Buddha’s birthday on April 30, at Jogye temple in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020.Citing the virus scare, Moody’s Investor Service on Monday cut its forecast for South Korea’s economic growth in 2020 to 1.9% from 2.1%. Moody’s also said China is now expected to experience 5.2% growth in 2020 — down from an earlier estimate of 5.8%.Economic turmoil in China is acutely felt in South Korea, since Beijing is Seoul’s top trading partner. Some South Korean automakers, including Hyundai and Kia, were forced to temporarily halt or reduce production due to a shortage of parts from China, where many factories have closed.”China is the second largest economy in the world, and we are closely tied to the Chinese economy, so I believe that a sizable shock will be inevitable,” Vice Foreign Minister Kim Yong-beom said Tuesday, according to Yonhap.South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Tuesday that the situation is “more serious than we thought,” adding that “emergency steps” are needed to contain the economic fallout.Moon, whose party faces a tough legislative election in April, is facing increased pressure to implement tighter virus prevention measures. 
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Many wealthy nations are letting the world’s younger generations down by failing to curb planet-warming emissions, a U.N.-backed report said Wednesday, warning climate change posed an urgent threat to the health and future of every child and adolescent.A new global index showed children in Norway, South Korea and the Netherlands had the best chance at survival and well-being thanks to good health care, education and nutrition.
 
But a ranking of countries by per-capita carbon emissions put those and other rich nations, including the United States and Australia, close to the bottom on that measure, as major contributors to global health threats driven by climate change.”Countries need to overhaul their approach to child and adolescent health, to ensure that we not only look after our children today but protect the world they will inherit in the future,” said former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, co-chair of the international commission that produced the report.Child flourishing, sustainability and equityIt said dramatic progress had been made in improving children’s lives in the past five decades but economic inequalities meant the benefits were not shared by all.And the heating up of the planet and damage to the environment, among other stresses, meant every child faced an uncertain future, it added.”Climate disruption is creating extreme risks from rising sea levels, extreme weather events, water and food insecurity, heat stress, emerging infectious diseases, and large-scale population migration,” said the report by more than 40 experts.Commission member Sunita Narain, director general of the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, said that in her region of South Asia the main environmental threats came from water shortages and contamination, as well as air pollution.Children’s health today “is at grave risk because of environmental degradation,” she added.They are victims of a problem they did not cause — a situation that is particularly acute for the poor, she noted.”The biggest inequity that we need to confront today is the inequity (of) climate change,” Narain told journalists.The “sustainability” part of the index ranks countries on how their per-person emissions compare with a 2030 target giving a two-thirds chance of keeping global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.Of the top 25 countries with the best score on emissions, all but two were African.That contrasts starkly with the “flourishing” part of the index, where many African nations did badly on children’s health, education, nutritious food and protection from violence.Not one country performed well on all three measures of child flourishing, sustainability and equity, concluded the commission convened by the World Heath Organization, The Lancet medical journal and U.N. children’s agency UNICEF.Protect and respondAnother key threat identified was exploitative marketing practices that push fast food, sugary drinks, alcohol and tobacco at children, increasingly through social media channels.Report author Anthony Costello, professor of global health and sustainability at University College London, said children’s data was being harvested via online games and sold to big technology firms which then target youth with advertising.”This is totally unregulated,” he said. “We think that there needs to be much greater attention to the protection of children around the world.”They should also be placed at the center of efforts to achieve the global development goals agreed in 2015, he added.Few countries have recorded much progress toward achieving those goals, which include ending poverty and hunger by 2030 and tackling climate change, the report noted.Children should be given a bigger voice in policy decisions that affect their futures, it said — something they are already demanding through social movements like the school climate strikes that have mobilized students worldwide since mid-2018.Jennifer Requejo, a UNICEF adviser on statistics and monitoring, said children could be involved through measures such as setting up local youth committees, informing them about their rights and having them participate in data collection.Costello said young people’s calls for a cleaner, safer world must be heeded by politicians.”They are simply not responding at the moment in a way that is mature and evidence-based,” he added.
 
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A roadside bombing targeted a police vehicle in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing a policeman and wounding three others, officials said. The police were assigned to escort health workers during an anti-polio vaccination campaign in the region.
    
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing in Kolachi, a town in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province which borders Afghanistan. Pakistan regularly carries out anti-polio drives, despite attacks and threats by the Taliban who claim the campaign is a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
    
Pakistani security forces were searching the area for the attackers, said police official Wahid Khan. No polio workers were travelling with the police at the time of the bombing, he added.
    
Attacks on anti-polio campaigns increased in the years following revelations that a fake hepatitis vaccination campaign was used as a ruse by the CIA in the hunt for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who was killed by U.S. commandos in 2011 in Pakistan.
    
The latest attack came after Pakistan on Monday launched a three-day nationwide vaccination campaign against the crippling disease.
    
Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria are the only three countries in the world where polio is still endemic. Pakistan had hoped to make the country polio-free in 2018 but failed to meet the target because of a sudden surge in the new polio cases. Since January, 17 new cases of polio have been reported in Pakistan.
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The U.N. secretary-general said Tuesday that the virus outbreak that began in China poses a very dangerous situation'' for the world, but “is not out of control.”
    
Speaking in an interview with The Associated Press, Antonio Guterres said that” the risks are enormous and we need to be prepared worldwide for that.”
    
Guterres said his greatest worry was a spread of the virus to areas withless capacity in their health service,” particularly some African countries. The World Health Organization is looking into how to help handle such a development, he added.
    
Egypt recently reported its first case of the virus, raising fears of its spread to the African continent.
    
The outbreak has infected more than 73,000 people globally. The World Health Organization has named the illness COVID-19, referring to its origin late last year and the coronavirus that causes it.
    
China on Tuesday reported 1,886 new cases and 98 more deaths. That raised the number of deaths in mainland China to 1,868 and the total number of confirmed cases to 72,436.
    
Travel to and from the worst-hit central China region was associated with the initial cases of COVID-19 confirmed abroad. But Japan, Singapore and South Korea have identified new cases without clear ties to China or previously known patients, raising concern of the virus spreading locally.
    
A report saying the disease outbreak has caused a mild illness in most people raised optimism among global health authorities.
    
The U.N. chief was in Pakistan for a conference on 40 years of refugees fleeing neighboring war-torn Afghanistan.
    
In his interview with the AP, Guterres said that today’s world is a “chaotic” one beset by multiple crises.
    
He decried the horrors of Syria’s nine-year-old civil war. The U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock has warned that the most recent exodus of refugees there _ nearing 900,000 people fleeing fighting in the northwest Idlib region, risks being the biggest humanitarian disaster of the 21st century.
    
Syrian President Bashar Assad has, however, vowed to fight rebels in the country to the bitter end. Backed by Iran and Russia, his forces are making rapid progress against the last rebel-held enclaves in northern Syria. Turkey backs opposition fighters there and has sent troops in to try stopping the Syrian advance.
    
Some 3 million Syrian civilians are sheltering in those last rebel-held areas and many of them have been forced out into make-shift shelters and camps amid harsh winter conditions.
    
The suffering of Syrians is “horrible,” Guterres said. He called for an immediate cease-fire, urging Turkey, Russia and Iran to find a political solution.
    
Turning to the Libyan civil war, Guterres bemoaned the blatant violations of a U.N.-imposed arms embargo on the North African country.
    
Foreign powers have intervened in oil-rich Libya’s conflict, apparently jockeying for control over its resources while supporting its rival west- and east-based leaders.
    
“How many countries in Libya are interfering with the conflict and independent of an arms embargo, decided by the Security Council, they go on providing both personnel and equipment to Libya?” he asked.
    
Western Libyan forces rely on military assistance from the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as France and Russia. On the other side, Turkey, Italy and Qatar support the embattled Tripoli-based government in the country’s east.
    
The U.N. chief put some of the blame for the state of world affairs on the three leading powers, the United States, Russia and China, calling their relationship “dysfunctional.” He said it has paralyzed the U.N. Security Council.
   
 “It is clear that we live in the moment where chaos risks to transform our world in something much more unstable,” he said.
    
Earlier in his four-day visit, Guterres called on other countries to support Pakistan and show similar leadership in handling refugee flows in South Asia and around the world.
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Chinese health officials reported Tuesday the number of confirmed cases from a coronavirus outbreak has surpassed 72,000, with the death toll rising to nearly 1,900.The latest update included 98 more deaths and 1,886 new cases of the virus that has strained China’s healthcare system and caused authorities to put areas on lockdown to try to stop it from spreading.The country’s state television reported that one person who died from the virus Tuesday was Liu Zhiming, the director of Wuchang Hospital in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province that is the epicenter of the outbreak.The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said Monday that Chinese data from recent days appeared to indicate a decline in new cases. However, he said the trend “must be interpreted very cautiously.””Trends can change as new populations are affected. It is too early to tell if this reported decline will continue. Every scenario is still on the table,” he said. He described the outbreak as “very serious” with the “potential to grow” but said it was mostly confined to Hubei province.”Ghebreyesus also said more than 80% of patients “have mild disease and will recover.”The WHO said in its latest report on the virus there were 794 confirmed cases outside of China. Some 542 cases have been passengers on a cruise ship under quarantine in Yokohama, Japan, including 88 new cases reported Tuesday.A woman wearing a mask walks past a quarantine notice about the outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan, China at an arrival hall of Haneda airport in Tokyo, Japan, January 20, 2020.The United States said Monday it had evacuated more than 300 of its citizens and their immediate family members who had been on board the Diamond Princess.  One flight carrying the passengers arrived early Monday at Travis Air Force Base in California, while another landed hours later at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.A group of 14 people who did not show symptoms, but did test positive for the virus, were allowed on the flights in an area isolated from the rest of the passengers. All of the evacuees are being held under quarantine for 14 days.Australia announced Monday it would also be evacuating its citizens from the ship. Canada, Italy, South Korea and Hong Kong are planning their own evacuation efforts.The U.S. State Department is also looking into the case of a U.S. citizen who was diagnosed with the coronavirus after departing another cruise ship, the Westerdam, whose passengers tested negative for the virus before disembarking in Cambodia.Malaysian medical authorities said the passenger, an 83-year-old woman, twice tested positive for the virus upon arriving in Malaysia after showing signs of a viral infection, a State Department spokesperson said Sunday. She is the first person from the Westerdam to test positive. Her husband tested negative.The spokesperson said U.S. authorities do not have “sufficient evidence to determine when the passenger may have been exposed and where.”  The American patient remains in Malaysia where she is receiving treatment.While China has recently been complimented for the way it has handled the outbreak and its efforts to contain it, the WHO is still asking for more information on how China is making its diagnoses.Chinese state media Saturday published a speech President Xi Jinping made Feb. 3 that shows Chinese authorities knew more about the seriousness of the coronavirus at least two weeks before it made the dangers known to the public. It wasn’t until late January that officials said the virus could spread among humans.In a January 7 speech, Xi ordered the shutdown of the cities most affected by the virus. Those lockdowns began January 23.
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Australia is preparing to evacuate more than 200 of its citizens from the coronavirus-hit cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, in Yokohama, Japan.  They will face two weeks in isolation on their return home.   Also, the first group of Australian coronavirus evacuees from the Chinese city, Wuhan, has been released from quarantine. The Diamond Princess has been in quarantine since February 3. Onboard the cruise liner have been about 3,700 passengers and crew, including dozens of Australian tourists.The ship has more than 450 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus, including several Australians. It is the largest cluster of infections outside China, where the virus was first reported.Australian passengers must decide Tuesday if they will take up their government’s offer of an evacuation flight out of Japan.  Authorities in Canberra are planning to fly them home on Wednesday.  They will all go into isolation for 14 days, in addition to the time they have already spent confined on the Diamond Princess.  In a recorded message to passengers, Australia’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, said such precautions were essential.“There is evidence of ongoing further infections in the ship, in the crew and in some passengers.  Even though we think some of you probably have been well quarantined there is uncertainty about whether some of you may be incubating the virus, and if you came back into the Australian community you may expose your family or other members of the community to this infection,” Murphy said.Two planes carrying hundreds of U.S. citizens from the cruise ship in Japan have arrived back home, and will face 14 days in isolation. However, some American travelers have refused to be evacuated, preferring to wait until the ship’s official quarantine comes to an end on February 19.The first group of Australian coronavirus evacuees from the coronavirus epicenter at Wuhan, China, has been released from quarantine Monday from Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean.  More than 200 Australians were flown home, while other evacuees remain in isolation at a former miners’ camp near the city of Darwin.  There are currently 15 cases of the disease in Australia.  Health officials say eight patients are reported to have recovered, while the other seven are in a stable condition.
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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says he will give $10 billion of his own money to fight climate change.The world’s wealthiest person made the pledge Monday in an Instagram post.“Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet,” Bezos wrote. “I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change.”He said the initiative, called the Bezos Earth Fund, would begin issuing grants this summer.With the announcement, Bezos joins the ranks of several other U.S. billionaires who have pledged large sums of money to fight the effects of climate change, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and hedge fund manager Tom Steyer.Amazon has faced criticism from its own employees for not doing enough to combat climate change. The company, which delivers billions of parcels each year, has a high carbon footprint based on the planes, trucks and cars it uses to transport items around the world.Last year, Bezos pledged to make the retailer net carbon neutral by 2040. 
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Extreme hot spells made increasingly likely by climate change could overload urban power grids and cause roving blackouts as an ever-greater share of humanity opt to live in cities, scientists said Monday.In a series of studies and comment pieces in a special edition of the journal Nature Energy, researchers examined how cities can better use renewable power sources and plan for more frequent and potent temperature swings.With more than half of mankind expected to live in cities by 2050, existing infrastructure relying on power from fossil fuels is likely to prove insufficient to meet growing demand, as well as the exploding use of air conditioning as urban heat skyrockets in summer.While climate change is a long-term phenomenon, an international team of researchers wanted to see what effect short-term weather extremes would have on urban power grids.They used a host of climate models to simulate how electricity demand was likely to rise and fall in 30 Swedish cities during so-called “high impact” weather events.They found “significant” performance gaps and a high risk of blackouts.”Extreme weather events could reduce reliability of power supply by 16 percent, which can easily lead to blackouts resulting in huge economic losses,” lead study author Dasun Perera told AFP.Carbon footprintThe team also found that increasing hot and cold spells could effect the integration of renewable supplies within existing power grids.This, in turn, could have a significant impact on urban air quality and poses a further challenge to governments and cities seeking to shrink their carbon footprint.”Extreme climate events and their impact on the energy systems are not considered during energy planning at present,” said Perera, from the Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory at the Swiss Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne.”This can easily lead to a mismatch between demand and generation during extreme climate events resulting blackouts.”A study published last week warned that the number of extremely hot days and nights — which pose a significant health risk as the human body doesn’t get a chance to cool off — in the Northern Hemisphere could quadruple by 2100.Even with global air conditioning access set to mushroom as the century progresses, there are still likely to be hundreds of millions of people worldwide put in harm’s way by extreme heatwaves.’New thinking, new tools’This figure currently stands at around 1.1 billion people, those who are vulnerable to hot spells but lack the power or funds for cooling equipment.”Accounting for and formalizing the impact of extremes is significant not just because it is the extremes that will break us but because the extremes affect the most vulnerable first and most devastatingly,” said a linked editorial.In a comment piece, U.S. and European researchers said traditional climate modeling often failed to account for extreme weather events.They said the governments should consider the short-term risk of hot and cold spells when updating or building energy infrastructure.”Going beyond today’s status quo to explore the ‘out of the ordinary’ requires new thinking, new experiments, and, quite possibly, new combinations of tools, including off-model analyses,” said the authors.”This is a tall order to be sure, but there is no risk in trying.”
 
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Italy’s opposition leader Matteo Salvini provoked a vehement backlash on Monday after insinuating that migrant women who went to emergency rooms to seek an abortion led an “uncivilized” life.The comments from the ex-interior minister and head of the far-right League that some women having abortions were using emergency rooms “like health ATMs” came during a political rally in Rome on Sunday.Anti-migrant diatribes regularly launched by Salvini, a staunch Catholic, have made him hugely popular among supporters, who see in his nationalist “Italians first” messages a way to restore Italian pride.”Emergency room nurses in Milan let me know there are women who have shown up for the seventh time for an abortion,” Salvini told supporters.”It’s not for me to judge, it’s right for a woman to choose, but the emergency room can’t be the solution for uncivilized lifestyles in 2020.”Just before his comment, Salvini had railed against the problem of “non-Italians” using emergency rooms for free, saying the “third time you have to pay.”The general secretary for the union of Italian doctors, Pina Onotri, told AFP it would be “impossible” for a woman to have an abortion in an emergency room, unless it involved a miscarriage.Abortion has been legal in Italy since 1978. The law allows women to terminate their pregnancies within three months of inception, with later-stage abortions permitable in some cases.Women must request the procedure, then wait 7 days to lower the chance of their misgivings, the law states. Despite its legality, women often have a hard time getting an abortion because 70% of gynecologists whom the law allows to be “conscientious objectors” refuse to perform the procedure.- ‘Hands off women’ –
Reaction to Salvini’s comments was swift.The head of Italy’s Democratic Party (PD), Nicola Zingaretti, said Salvini’s comments showed him increasingly desperate ahead of regional elections this spring where he hopes to win key regions of Italy for the League.”Salvini mouths off even more every day because he’s in trouble. With insults, outlandish theories and random numbers,” Zingaretti wrote on Facebook.”Luckily, Italian emergency rooms don’t listen to his provocations. Get your hands off women.”The spokesman for the Five Stars Movement, which currently shares power with the PD, said women were the latest targets of Salvini.”After migrants, gypsies and gays, Matteo Salvini now has it out for women who choose abortion,” Giuseppe Buompane said on Twitter.As interior minister, Salvini toughened the law to make it harder for charity ships carrying rescued migrants from the Mediterranean to dock at Italian ports.Italy has long argued that it has taken the brunt of the migrants who have reached Europe’s shores, and Salvini’s tough stance against them has helped him in the polls.The country’s medical community cautioned that Salvini’s comments were inaccurate.For the gynecologist Gisella Giampa at the Sandro Pertini hospital in Rome, Salvini was taking “rare cases” and generalizing.”Before speaking, he could inform himself, and, when one wants to be a statesman, not to take his information from one single nurse.”
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Japanese officials have confirmed 99 more people infected by the new virus aboard the quarantined cruise ship Diamond Princess, bringing the total to 454, the Health Ministry said Monday.
    
The ministry has been carrying out tests on passengers and crew on the ship, docked in Yokohama, a port city near Tokyo.
    
The 14-day quarantine for those on the ship was due to end Wednesday.
    
Outside China, the ship has had the largest number of cases of the COVID-19 illness caused by the virus that emerged in China late last year.
    
The ministry said it now has tested 1,723 people on the Diamond Princess. The ship had about 3,700 passengers and crew.
    
Two chartered planes flew 340 Americans who were aboard the vessel out of Japan late Sunday. About 380 Americans had been on the ship. The State Department announced later that 14 of the evacuees were confirmed to have the virus in tests given before they boarded the planes.
    
They were taken to the U.S. because they did not have symptoms and were being isolated from other passengers on the planes, it said.
    
Japan’s Health Ministry said the 14 evacuees were among the 99 new cases, which included two other Americans and 43 Japanese.
    
Those who were earlier found to be sick with the virus have been hospitalized in Japan.Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and Italy were planning similar flights for their citizens.
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A lot of people are surviving cancer because new treatments are so effective. But there’s one thing that stands in the way for many people, and that’s having the money to pay for the drugs to fight their cancer. This includes people in the U.S. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports that at least one hospital is working to make cancer treatment more affordable.
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