Conservation International says an estimated eight million metric tons of plastics go into the ocean every year. And that’s not even counting the amount that ends up in landfills or by the side of the road. But slowly, environmentally conscious entrepreneurs are creating alternatives to plastic products. VOA’s Unshin Lee reports.
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India is bracing for a potential explosion of coronavirus cases as authorities rush to trace, test and quarantine contacts of 31 people confirmed to have the disease.
    
It is screening international travelers at 30 airports and has already tested more than 3,500 samples. The Indian army is preparing at least five large-scale quarantine centers.
    
For weeks, India watched as cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, multiplied in neighboring China and other countries as its own caseload remained static, three students evacuated from Wuhan, the disease epicenter, who were quarantined and returned to health in the southern state of Kerala.
    
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government said last week that community transmission is now taking place. India has shut schools, stopped exporting key pharmaceutical ingredients and urged state governments to cancel public festivities for Holi, the Hindu springtime holiday in which people douse each other with colored water and paint.
    
Modi canceled travel plans to Brussels for an India-EU summit amid a rising caseload in Belgium, and tweeted that he would not attend any Holi festivities.
    
Experts fear these precautions won’t be enough for India’s beleaguered, under-funded and under-staffed health system to stave off an epidemic. Here are their foremost concerns:
    Too few labs, not enough hospitals
    
As the virus spread globally, India began bolstering its ability to test and detect the virus. While the National Institute of Virology at Pune remains the main testing facility, the government has identified 35 additional labs for testing.
    
But concerns remain over India’s overstretched health infrastructure _ a single state-run hospital for every 55,591 people on average and a single hospital bed for every 1,844 people. India needs about 10 times more doctors to meet the norms prescribed by the World Health Organization, a shortfall of at least 500,000 doctors.
    
Experts fear that an epidemic would cause other routine health care functions to suffer.
    
“Everything will become about COVID-19. And other routine services like immunization or taking care of maternal mortality would be affected,” said Anant Bhan, a global health and policy expert.
    Health care inequality
    
India’s health performance, an index that includes access to primary care, maternal mortality rates and child health, runs the spectrum, with some states outperforming others by almost 2.5 times, according to the government-run think tank NITI Aayog.
    
The best performer was Kerala, the small state that found and treated India’s first three cases. The worst was Uttar Pradesh, a state with roughly the population of Brazil that has detected at least six cases. Kerala has a doctor for approximately every 6,000 people, while Uttar Pradesh has one for every 18,000 people. The inequalities are further pronounced between urban and rural areas, with the bulk of the available beds concentrated in India’s cities.
    
India spent an average of $62.72 per person on health care in 2016, according to WHO, compared to China’s $398.33.
    
Inequalities could make prevention even harder. In places with limited access to clean water, washing hands to prevent the spread of the virus is difficult, said Dr. Gagandeep Kang, a microbiologist who heads India’s Translational Health Science and Technology Institute.
    
Retired virologist and pediatrician Dr T. Jacob John said these inequalities aren’t just a reflection of not spending enough on health care, but also of not knowing where to spend.
    
“The last time a needs-based survey was done for India’s health care was in 1946,” he said, adding that the country’s “health management system is very inadequate for India’s existing problems, let alone new ones.”Quarantine millionsIndia’s health minister told Parliament that the “need of the hour” is to contain viral clusters, to prevent and break chains of transmission. But in India, with a population of 1.4 billion, that is far from easy.
    
Take the city of Agra, famous for the Taj Mahal, where six Italian tourists tested positive for the virus. Apart from the 40,000 tourists who visit the monument each day, the city has a population of more than 4 million, with nearly 3,000 people crammed into every square mile. Following WHO advice, the Indian government has told people keep a distance of at least six feet from others.
    
But “anywhere you’ve a dense population, all the issues of social distancing become challenging,” Kang said.
    Short on medicines
    
With the virus lockdown in China resulting in shortages in India, the government halted the export of 13 key drug ingredients and the medicines made from them on Tuesday.
    
Although India is the world’s primary supplier of generic drugs, it relies on China for nearly 70% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients it uses for making medicines.
   
 India has said it has enough stocks, but the government’s minister for chemicals and fertilizers told Parliament that there remains “an apprehension” that supplies of ingredients from China would be disrupted if the epidemic continues.
   Long-term response
    
On Thursday, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan met the management of India’s top private hospitals to ask them to work with the government in dealing with the outbreak, and urged them to “prepare a pool of beds.”
    
Kang said India’s current approach, which is focused on travelers, might restrict some cases. But eventually, it will have to expand testing to limit the spread of the disease within the country, Kang said. The question, she said, is whether authorities want to do that now, or at the height of an epidemic.
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U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign legislation Friday releasing $8.3 billion in emergency spending to combat the COVID-19 outbreak, including money for developing a vaccine.  The legislation passed through the Senate and the House almost unanimously.Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby said, “In situations like this, I believe no expense should be spared to protect the American people and in crafting this package none was.”
The U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary said Thursday a million test kits for the COVID-19 are expected to arrive this weekend at U.S. labs.  Alex Azar said the coronavirus tests are shipping from a private manufacturer.The Trump administration has received criticism about the short supply of test kits.  Vice President Mike Pence said in Washington state Thursday, “We don’t have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward,” but added that “real progress” had been made “in the last several days.”Pence met Thursday with Washington Governor Jay Inslee.  Washington is the site of 11 of the 12 U.S. deaths from the virus.  Most of the deaths in Washington took place in a nursing home near Seattle.
National Nurses United said its members have not been given the resources, supplies, protections and trainings they need to do their jobs properly.  Executive Director Bonnie Castillo said, “It is not a successful strategy to leave nurses and other health care workers unprotected.”  Castillo, who is a registered nurse, said when nurses are quarantined, “We are not only prevented from caring for COVID-19 patients, but we are taken away from caring for cancer patients, cardiac patients and premature babies.”US states affected
Five U.S. states – Maryland, California, Florida, Washington and Hawaii – have declared states of emergency because of the virus.Maryland joined the roster Thursday after three Montgomery County residents – a husband and wife in their 70s and a woman in her 50s – were diagnosed with the coronavirus.  All three were reported to have contracted the virus while on an overseas cruise.  Montgomery County is a Maryland suburb located next to Washington, DC.Colorado has announced its first two cases – a man and a woman – of of the coronavirus.  Both had traveled internationally, but officials say the cases are not related.U.S. Forces Korea said Friday that one of its workers in South Korea has tested positive for the virus.  She is the seventh USFK employee to test positive for the coronavirus.  Authorities say she is in quarantine at her off-base residence in Cheonan.A man wearing a mask walks in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, March 6, 2020.Vatican, Cameroon
The Vatican reported its first coronavirus case Friday.  Spokesman Matteo Bruni said its health clinic has been closed for a deep cleaning, but its emergency room remains open.Cameroon also has its first coronavirus case.  The minister of health said in a statement  Friday the victim is a 58-year-old French male who arrived in Yaounde on February 24.  “The active surveillance put in place by the country since the occurrence of the Covid-19 outbreak has made it possible to detect this case,” the statement said.  The French citizen has been placed in “solitary confinement.”Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared a state of emergency Thursday, shutting down schools for 30 days and closing the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem after seven coronavirus cases were confirmed in the city. These are the first cases in the Palestinian territories.Closing the church in the town that worshipers say was Jesus’s birthplace will devastate Bethlehem’s vital tourism industry and comes just weeks before Easter.China
The threat appears to be waning in China, where the outbreak erupted in December. The WHO said Thursday there are about 17 times as many new cases outside China now than inside China itself.On Friday, however, China reported that the number of new cases had risen from 139 on Thursday to 143.  Hundreds of patients are being released from Chinese hospitals and shuttered factories are starting to reopen. But Chinese President Xi Jinping has called off a scheduled state visit to Japan, where Tokyo has declared that all visitors from China and South Korea will be placed under quarantine. South Korea has the largest number of coronavirus cases outside China.Passengers wear protective masks walk in their way to their plane as workers wearing protective gear spray disinfectant as a precaution against the coronavirus outbreak, at the Rafik Hariri International Airport, in Beirut.Travel bans
Australia joined China and Iran in banning travel from South Korea.Indonesia is also restricting travel from parts of South Korea as well as two other hard-hit nations — Iran and Italy. Both of those nations have shut down schools.The United Nations said the virus has disrupted classes for nearly 300 million students worldwide from preschool through 12th grade. That number does not include colleges that have also been shuttered.The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights called on governments to find a holistic approach in their efforts to stop the spread of the virus.  Michelle Bachelet, who is also a medical doctor, said in a statement Friday that “efforts to combat this virus won’t work unless we approach it holistically, which means taking great care to protect the most vulnerable and neglected people in society, both medically and economically.”She said the measures to halt the spread of the coronavirus will likely “disproportionately affect women” and that people “who are already barely surviving economically may all too easily be pushed over the edge by measures being adopted to contain the virus.”  The High Commissioner added, “Being open and transparent is key to empowering and encouraging people to participate in measures designed to protect their own health and that of the wider population, especially when trust in the authorities has been eroded.  It also helps to counter false or misleading information that can do so much harm by fueling fear and prejudice.”  
 Fake news
President Trump took some heat Thursday from health experts after he told Fox News that the World Health Organization is sending out false information, and he suggested infected patients are safe going to their jobs in offices and stores.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the coronavirus is highly transmissible and that people who are sick must stay home.Asian markets tumbled again Friday over apprehensions about the virus.Thursday, global markets took another beating with investors nervous about the coronavirus outbreak and uncertain about exactly which way the situation is going.Experts say the roller coaster ride in the markets is likely to continue as long COVID-19 spreads to more countries, with investors acting out of fear over where the next state of emergency, quarantine or business shutdown will be declared.At his daily virus briefing Thursday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus again stressed the seriousness of the virus about which scientists still know little.”This is not a drill. This is not the time for giving up, this is not a time for excuses,” Tedros said. “Countries have been planning for scenarios like this for decades, Now is the time to act on those plans.”As of late Thursday, there were more than 98,000 COVID-19 cases worldwide and at least 3,300 deaths. 
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Portugal’s flag carrier TAP cancelled around 1,000 flights scheduled in March and April on Thursday after concerns about the coronavirus epidemic led to a fall in demand and said it envisaged an unspecified impact on revenues.Separately, organizers of the Lisbon Travel Market, an annual gathering that brings more than 1,000 tourism sector firms from over 40 countries to the Portuguese capital and is visited by tens of thousands of people, announced next week’s event would be postponed until May 27-30.TAP, which is 50% state-owned, said in a statement that the cancellations would mainly affect destinations in Italy, France and Spain, but also some intercontinental flights, and account for 4% of its capacity in March and 6% in April.”The drop in demand naturally means lower revenues, therefore TAP has decided to suspend all non-critical investment, review non-essential spending cuts and suspend
hiring,” it said.The International Air Transport Association (IATA) warned earlier on Thursday that the virus could rob passenger airlines of up to $113 billion in revenue this year as fears of a pandemic that could plunge the global economy into recession grow.Airlines across the globe are rushing to cut flights and costs, and warning of a hit to earnings.Portugal, whose economy depends heavily on tourism, has so far reported nine cases of the virus, far fewer than the more than 230 cases in neighboring Spain. The first two cases were registered on Monday.
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The Carnival period in Venice usually marks the start of peak season in one of the world’s most visited cities, with hordes of tourists piling onto vaporettos to cruise the Grand Canal, strolling through cobblestone streets and lingering in picturesque cafes.
    
Venice in the time of coronavirus, though, is a shell of itself, with empty piazzas, shuttered basilicas and gondoliers idling their days away. The cholera epidemic that raged quietly through Venice in Thomas Mann’s fictional “Death in Venice” has been replaced by a real life fear of COVID-19.
    
Venice, a UNESCO world heritage site, had already been brought to its knees last year, when near-record high tides flooded a lagoon city which is used to frequent spells of “aqua alta.” Officials had hoped that tourists would return as soon as the waters receded, and they did to some degree. Hotels were at 95% capacity on the last weekend of Carnival celebrations last month.
    
But then the virus hit, claiming its first Italian fatality in the Veneto region and some of the first positive cases in Venice’s historic center. The regional president closed Venice’s decadent Carnival celebrations with two days to go, forcing revelers in ball gowns and painted masks to cancel their parties.
    
Venice has remained quiet ever since. Only residents and intrepid tourists wearing a different type of mask, surgical ones, remain to take advantage of a hauntingly beautiful jewel of a city that otherwise would be jammed. They have the place to themselves: Rialto, the Bridge of Sighs, the pigeons of Piazza San Marco.
    Tourists walk in St. Mark’s Square in Venice, Italy, Feb. 28, 2020.On Wednesday came another hit, with the May start of Venice’s Architecture Biennale now postponed until the end of August. The delayed opening cuts in half the planned six-month attraction that provides a steady stream of visitors to Venice’s art and film festival circuit.
    
The economic losses are piling up in a city already going under, given the more existential, long-term threat that Venice is sinking.
    
The head of Venice’s hotel association, Claudio Scarpa, estimated lost revenue had already reached 1 billion euros, local media reported. Nationwide, the Confturismo-Confcommercio tourist lobby estimated virus-related losses of 7.4 billion euros from March 1-May 31. In Italy, tourism and its related industries amount to 13% of gross domestic product.
    
The Veneto region surrounding Venice has been hard hit from the virus, counting 345 of Italy’s 3,089 positive cases. Veneto schools have been closed since the start of the outbreak, and the tiny town of Vo’Euganeo has been under quarantine for nearly two weeks.
    
Veneto’s regional president Luca Zaia has been battling to preserve Venice’s tourism industry in the face of contagion. On Wednesday, he posted a gauzy photo of the lagoon city on his Facebook page with the caption: “Venice `infects’ only with its beauty.”
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Anna Alexander, a property manager in Virginia Beach, Virginia, started the day Monday thinking that she might avoid shaking hands because of the coronavirus outbreak. Then somebody stuck out a hand to shake.
She took it.
“I’m a business person,” Alexander, 65, explained. “But if somebody else does it next time, I might try to be careful because of the coronavirus.”
As the viral infections spread across the globe, everybody has to make a decision: How worried should I be about getting infected, and what should I do about it?
Those decisions can have wide impacts. “Seriously people – STOP BUYING MASKS!” tweeted U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome M. Adams on Feb. 29. He explained masks aren’t effective in protecting the general public “but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!”
The right degree of concern for somebody who lives near a coronavirus hotspot might very well differ from that of somebody who lives far from one. In any case, say experts in how people gauge risk, it’s not a simple, cold statistical calculation. Instead, it is colored by our emotions and other psychological factors.
“Emotions are the filters through which we see the facts,” says David Ropeik, a retired Harvard instructor on risk communication.
And this virus outbreak presents a list of “hot buttons … that ramp up our perception of risk” and sometimes make those perceptions differ from the evidence-based conclusions of medical officials, says Paul Slovic, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon.People wear protective masks to fend off the Corona Virus, while street vendors pedal masks, hand sanitizer and other disinfecting products in Queens, New York.For example, it’s new and unfamiliar, unlike the usual seasonal flu that kills a lot more people every year than coronavirus has. It doesn’t appear to be fully understood. And it seems hard to control, either by public health authorities or our own actions.
“We see there is no vaccine that can prevent it,” he said. It can spread through airborne droplets released by infected people, but we can’t be sure the people we meet are truly healthy, which also undercuts any sense of personal control, he said.
As Ropeik put it, in the face of a new and poorly understood threat “we start feeling like we don’t know what we need to do to protect ourselves, and that feels like powerlessness, a lack of control, like driving down the road but with your eyes closed.”
Meanwhile, the information people get from the news and social media is “not particularly reassuring,” Slovic said. “The geographic risk of this seems to be rapidly expanding” and within any country the case numbers start relatively small and then grow, without any known upper bound, he said. And reports focus on people getting sick and dying, not those who’ve become infected and had only mild symptoms, he said. “We’re getting only the scary information.”
What’s more, Ropeik said, “everybody is telling everybody about it” in news and social media, which amplifies the perceived risk.
Ropeik said the coronavirus triggers thinking about years of warnings about lethal pandemics. “This idea of the new disease being a major killer is an idea that has been burned into our recent fear memory,” he said.
Vincent Covello, director of the Center for Risk Communication, based in New York, provided a list of 17 psychological factors that he said can influence how individuals gauge the risks of coronavirus. For example, he said, people are often more concerned about events if they don’t trust the authorities or institutions in charge. They’re more concerned about involuntary things, like exposure to an infected person, than voluntary ones, like smoking or sunbathing. And they’re often more concerned about risks that have delayed effects, like the lag time between infection and symptoms, than those with an immediate effect, like poisoning.
So how can people minimize the risk of overreaction in themselves and others? Don’t spread the word about every little development, including minor missteps by government authorities, Ropeik says. And “don’t just share the scary parts,” but also include things like infection usually causing only mild to moderate symptoms.
Finally, “don’t be a 24/7 information victim,” he said. “Log off, put your phone down, pick up a book … Shut down your risk radar screen for a while…. You’re probably just as much at risk or safe tomorrow as you are now, whether you stay online all the time or not.” 
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After nearly three decades of war, many Somalis carry invisible scars from exposure to violence.According to the World Health Organization, FILE – A man walks past a body and destroyed buildings at the scene of a blast in the capital Mogadishu, Somalia, Oct 14, 2017.‘A nation that needs healing’Working with political leaders, aid organizations and civil society groups, Olad holds training events to educate the public about the problem and its treatments.“Most of my work relates to how I can tell the international community and people who work in the humanitarian sector and development and Somali government to understand this is a nation that needs healing,” she said. “This is a nation that has experienced more than what a human mental capacity can take.”Olad also believes progress on issues like reconciliation and peace-building cannot occur without including mental health services. Many of the people entrusted with playing roles in healing the country need to be healed themselves, she said.“What I have seen is people who are in a conflict reconciliation setting or negotiation setting, you can see people are so traumatized, and you can feel their interactions daily,” she said. “You can see the clinical and psychosocial healing needs on the ground.”Stigma of mental illnessOlad’s organization is working to erase the stigma around mental health in Somalia. People suffering from mental illness are often shunned by society and even their families. Harmful practices, including using chains to restrain patients, are still used in the country.“There is a stigma because [people believe] either you are crazy or you’re not crazy. You are insane or you’re not, there’s nothing in between,” she said. “And people don’t see mental health as something that’s curable or sometimes it can go severe that a person experiences schizophrenia or bipolar, that you need to have medication.”Olad also wants to use the lessons learned from Somalia to help post-conflict countries around the world. She is hoping to pursue a fellowship at the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation at George Mason University to develop a guidebook on how mental health can be used for peace-building in post-conflict societies.“This guide will be used by all the countries that have experienced war,” she said. “So I’m hoping if we get academic institutions supporting this [it can] have an influence on the policy level of the organizations and the government institutions.”
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Its doomed maiden voyage happened more than a century ago, but the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 remains the stuff of popular culture and the object of deep-sea salvage.  A firm has recovered more than 5,000 of its artifacts, but as VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, time may be running out to raise the ship’s Holy Grail.
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A young mother painstakingly applies disinfectant cloths to clean meticulously the baby rattles for her gurgling blue-eyed infant bouncing happily on her lap.This is normally a wet and cold season in Lazio, but this year there have been many days of blue skies and warm temperatures. Unless you are a farmer praying for more seasonal rain, all should feel right with the world.But it doesn’t.We are the only ones sitting outside a usually bustling piazza bar on the outskirts of Rome sipping mid-morning coffees — and, in my case, nibbling on a ciambella cake.Journalist and author Beppe Severgnini wrote this week a column for The New York Times, noting that most young and middle-aged Italians have no firsthand experience of war or epidemics, unlike their elders, who suffered greatly during the Second World War and after. Italians, he argued, are finding it hard to find their bearings to navigate the current coronavirus contagion — one many fear will morph into a much larger and disruptive epidemic.
“Most of us don’t know what to think,” he wrote. “Mood swings are obvious around any dinner table. Is coronavirus just a nasty flu, and we are overreacting? Or are we facing a serious epidemic and there are plenty of reasons to be worried?” He adds: “So they struggle to find a suitable reaction.”Many go to extremes away from their dinner tables, too, displaying a split national psyche.FILE – A fishmonger waits for customers in a barely empty street food market in Venice, Feb. 29, 2020.Either they storm supermarkets depending on the latest spike in numbers and steer sharply and ostentatiously clear of anyone’s path they may cross, especially people of Asian appearance. Or they display a theatrical nonchalance, insisting on shaking hands while lamenting loudly how absurd it all is that championship soccer fixtures are being postponed. A video of an elderly man complaining in a store about shelves empty of pasta, of course, went viral this week.But bravado aside, the roads are becoming less traveled, the restaurants emptier, and ordinary stores are seeing foot-fall trailing off — even in towns with no confirmed cases for hundreds of miles around.Lazio has — at time of writing — just 12 confirmed cases of infection. The latest involve two family clusters. But noticeably as the numbers climb up north in Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia Romagna, the worst affected regions, people here are becoming more somber. They scan the evening reports published online by Italy’s Civil Protection Authority with the furrowing of brow once reserved for the soccer results.A friend and local restaurateur has stopped following the news. He says it is all too depressing. Better not to know. Better to stay ignorant. But that is just a trick. He can tell when the case numbers have jumped from how many or how few diners he gets that day. He tells me this in his empty restaurant. I am the only diner, so far, this night. In his face is the same alarm I see in the faces of other small-business owners wondering whether they will survive the economic impact of coronavirus.This is the greatest fear for most Italians. Most under the age of 60 don’t appear concerned about contracting the virus. They’re confident — as they should be — that they will survive and just undergo a few days off flu-like discomfort. What is terrifying for them are the potential ramifications on the economy, on their job, on their business, and on their family. Will it dash dreams and shatter hopes and undo years of hard work?While the young may be less anxious about the actual virus, the old are certainly alarmed. On Tuesday, the country’s civil protection agency confirmed the virus has killed 79 people so far in Italy, all aged between 63 and 95 with underlying pre-existing illnesses. Italy is an old country, not just in terms of its rich history but also in terms of its demographics, nearly a quarter of Italian are over the age of 65. An increase in new cases doesn’t mean an increase in serious cases, officials say. That doesn’t sound reassuring to seniors though.FILE – Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte presents his government’s program ahead of confidence vote at the Parliament in Rome, Italy, Sept. 9, 2019.One thing is clear a viral spread can’t be stopped, or even slowed, by government action alone, even the kind of decisive and quick intervention taken by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s coalition. Everyone will have to contribute — if only by paying more attention to personal hygiene and washing their hands frequently, and sneezing and coughing into paper tissues which are then promptly discarded securely.Reducing travel. Social distancing. All will play a part in avoiding abrupt surges and peaks of infections, otherwise healthcare services will fracture, say Italian officials. Their comments are echoed by counterparts in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, who watch with anxiety the climbing numbers in Italy, fearing their fate is also being foretold.But are we able to be self-disciplined? Shockingly, there have been at least five attempted escapes from a “red zone” around 10 locked-down Lombardy towns. They were frustrated by police, although one escapee managed to make it to another region.People are pictured wearing protective face masks in London, March 2, 2020.In London, columnist Clare Foges worries that “we are too selfish to stop coronavirus spreading.”  She wrote her biggest concern is not about the resilience of the country’s health service or the time it might take for researchers to develop a vaccine, but about the public’s willingness to respond to the challenge.
“To contain this virus governments around the world must rely on citizens doing as they are told… In the age of entitlement, the age of the individual, the age of anti-establishment populism, this seems a very flimsy safety net indeed,” she wrote.    
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Scientists say they have used the gene editing tool CRISPR inside someone’s body for the first time, a new frontier for efforts to operate on DNA, the chemical code of life, to treat diseases.A patient recently had it done at the Casey Eye Institute at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland for an inherited form of blindness, the companies that make the treatment announced Wednesday. They would not give details on the patient or when the surgery occurred.It may take up to a month to see if it worked to restore vision. If the first few attempts seem safe, doctors plan to test it on 18 children and adults.“We literally have the potential to take people who are essentially blind and make them see,” said Charles Albright, chief scientific officer at Editas Medicine, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company developing the treatment with Dublin-based Allergan. “We think it could open up a whole new set of medicines to go in and change your DNA.”Dr. Jason Comander, an eye surgeon at Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Boston, another hospital that plans to enroll patients in the study, said it marks “a new era in medicine” using a technology that “makes editing DNA much easier and much more effective.”Doctors first tried in-the-body gene editing in 2017 for a different inherited disease using a tool called zinc fingers. Many scientists believe CRISPR is a much easier tool for locating and cutting DNA at a specific spot, so interest in the new research is very high.The people in this study have Leber congenital amaurosis, caused by a gene mutation that keeps the body from making a protein needed to convert light into signals to the brain, which enables sight. They’re often born with little vision and can lose even that within a few years.Scientists can’t treat it with standard gene therapy — supplying a replacement gene — because the one needed is too big to fit inside the disabled viruses that are used to ferry it into cells.So they’re aiming to edit, or delete the mutation by making two cuts on either side of it. The hope is that the ends of DNA will reconnect and allow the gene to work as it should.It’s done in an hour-long surgery under general anesthesia. Through a tube the width of a hair, doctors drip three drops of fluid containing the gene editing machinery just beneath the retina, the lining at the back of the eye that contains the light-sensing cells.“Once the cell is edited, it’s permanent and that cell will persist hopefully for the life of the patient,” because these cells don’t divide, said one study leader not involved in this first case, Dr. Eric Pierce at Massachusetts Eye and Ear.Doctors think they need to fix one tenth to one third of the cells to restore vision. In animal tests, scientists were able to correct half of the cells with the treatment, Albright said.The eye surgery itself poses little risk, doctors say. Infections and bleeding are relatively rare complications.One of the biggest potential risks from gene editing is that CRISPR could make unintended changes in other genes, but the companies have done a lot to minimize that and to ensure that the treatment cuts only where it’s intended to, Pierce said. He has consulted for Editas and helped test a gene therapy, Luxturna, that’s sold for a different type of inherited blindness.Some independent experts were optimistic about the new study.“The gene editing approach is really exciting. We need technology that will be able to deal with problems like these large genes,” said Dr. Jean Bennett, a University of Pennsylvania researcher who helped test Luxturna at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.In one day, she had three calls from families seeking solutions to inherited blindness.“It’s a terrible disease,” she said. “Right now they have nothing.”Dr. Kiran Musunuru, another gene editing expert at the University of Pennsylvania, said the treatment seems likely to work, based on tests in human tissue, mice and monkeys.The gene editing tool stays in the eye and does not travel to other parts of the body, so “if something goes wrong, the chance of harm is very small,” he said. “It makes for a good first step for doing gene editing in the body.”Although the new study is the first to use CRISPR to edit a gene inside the body, another company, Sangamo Therapeutics, has been testing zinc finger gene editing to treat metabolic diseases.Other scientists are using CRISPR to edit cells outside the body to try to treat cancer, sickle cell and some other diseases.All of these studies have been done in the open, with government regulators’ approval, unlike a Chinese scientist’s work that brought international scorn in 2018. He Jiankui used CRISPR to edit embryos at the time of conception to try to make them resistant to infection with the AIDS virus. Changes to embryos’ DNA can pass to future generations, unlike the work being done now in adults to treat diseases.
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Triathlete Julie Moss is a portrait of the power of human spirit and true dedication, even in the face of pain and exhaustion. Angelina Bagdasaryan met with the sportswoman and learned about the many stories behind the Ironman World Championship legend. Anna Rice narrates her story.
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Senegalese officials are asking the public to remain calm after confirming the country’s first case of coronavirus, or COVID 19.The patient is a Frenchman living in Senegal who returned from a vacation to France on February 26. He had visited Nimes and a ski resort in the French Alps.Dr. Ousmane Gueye is with Senegal’s Ministry of Health.  He says the patient had a high fever, sore throat, headaches and weakness but is now in stable condition and at Dakar’s Fann Hospital.  Gueye says the ministry has been in contact with the plane’s other passengers and that none are showing symptoms.He says there’s not a single Senegalese person who is infected, neither outside nor inside the country.  People should not panic, he says. They should stay calm.But business owners are already starting to worry.Abdou Ba is an airport chauffeur.  Just hours after news of the case surfaced, one of his clients cancelled their trip. Ba said he’s expecting many other cancellations to follow.He’s also concerned for his health and has been avoiding physical contact with his clients for the last several weeks.For example, he says he no longer touches his clients when he greets them, and he asks them to sit in the backseat. He’s just taking precautions, he says, because no one is safe from the virus.The Senegalese government has installed thermal cameras at Dakar’s airport, which can detect if a traveler has a fever.But Ba said he’d like to see more safeguards, such as more Health Ministry personnel stationed at the airport.English schoolteacher Helene Coly says she feels vulnerable as her job also requires her to be in daily close contact with many people.”Children are still going to school,” said Coly. “We teachers are still going to school.  We don’t know what to do or how to protect ourselves.  We just are moving on.  Life is going on as if nothing is happening here.”The infection in Senegal is the second to hit sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria confirmed a case in an Italian national last week.Health officials worry the virus could spread quickly if it gets into African countries with weak healthcare systems or those with close transport and trade ties to China, where the outbreak started.To reduce the chance of spreading the virus, doctors recommend washing hands with soap, avoiding contact with those infected and cleaning frequently touched surfaces like counter tops and doorknobs.
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Pandemics are a worst-case scenario for infectious diseases. The World Health Organization describes a process through which a disease can reach the pandemic level
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The World Health Organization is urging countries affected by the coronavirus to enact containment measures as the best way to slow down the spread of this deadly disease.While most of the nearly 89,000 cases of coronavirus are reported from China, WHO said Monday the virus appears to be declining there while it is accelerating elsewhere.Outside China, South Korea is the most seriously affected country. The World Health Organization reports more than half of the more than 8,700 cases of coronavirus reported in countries outside China are in South Korea. WHO cites Italy, Iran and Japan as other countries of greatest concern.COVID-19 a unique virusWHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said COVID-19 is a unique virus with unique features. He said the virus is not influenza. He said it is a respiratory pathogen that is capable of community transmission. At the same time, he notes  it can be contained with the right measures.“If this was an influenza epidemic, we would have expected to see widespread community transmission across the globe by now,” Tedros said. “And efforts to slow it down or contain it would not be feasible. But containment of COVID-19 is feasible and must remain the top priority for all countries.” Containment is key The executive director of WHO Health Emergencies Program, Michael Ryan, said containment will not get rid of the virus, but the strategy will buy governments precious time in which they can prepare for the possibility of an epidemic of this deadly disease within its borders.“If we are lucky and if we do the job really well, we may get the opportunity, we just might get the opportunity to interrupt transmission,” Ryan said. “But at the very minimum, containment is allowing us to significantly slow down the spread of the virus, thereby giving an opportunity for health systems to prepare; for PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) to be made available, for training to take place, for laboratories to get reagents, for laboratory technicians to be trained.”  WHO said the earlier countries take action to aggressively identify people who are sickened by coronavirus, the better the outcome. The world body said applying basic public health measures quickly and efficiently will save lives.These measures include finding cases and tracing those who have come in contact with an infected person, managing people throughout the incubation period and providing adequate care to those in the hospital.
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Covering the coronavirus story requires careful navigation and constant attention.
    
News organizations trying to responsibly report  on the growing health crisis are confronted with the task of conveying its seriousness without provoking panic, keeping up with a torrent of information while much remains a mystery and continually advising readers and viewers how to stay safe.
    
“It’s a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week, around-the-world story,” said Michael Slackman, international editor at The New York Times.
    The Times maintains a live news blog about the coronavirus that is refreshed 24 hours a day, with editors in New York, London and Hong Kong dividing responsibility. The Slack channel set up by Associated Press journalists to discuss coverage among themselves and contribute to the story has more than 400 members. Starting Monday, NBC News is turning its morning newsletter solely into a vehicle for talking about the disease.
    
The coronavirus has sickened thousands, quarantined millions and sent financial markets reeling, all while some cultural critics say the story is overblown.
    
“It’s hard to tell people to put something into context and to calm down when the actions being taken in many cases are very strong or unprecedented,” said Glen Nowak, director of the Grady College Center for Health and Risk Communication at the University of Georgia.
    
But that’s what journalists in charge of coverage say they need to do.
    
“We have been providing a lot of explainers, Q-and-A’s, trying to lay out in clear, simple language what the symptoms are and what the disease means for people,” said Jon Fahey, health and science editor at the AP.
    
Fear is a natural response when people read about millions of people locked down in China, he said. Yet it’s also true that, right now, the individual risk to people is very small.
    
Late last week, the Times’ Vivian Wang tried to illustrate some of the complexities in writing about a disease that has struck more than 80,000 people, with a death toll approaching 3,000. Most people have mild symptoms, good fortune that paradoxically can make the disease harder to contain because many won’t realize they have the coronavirus, she noted.
    
“I keep reminding the viewers that still, based on two very large studies, the vast majority of people who get this infection are not going to get sick,” said Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s medical correspondent. “They’re going to have a mild illness, if any, and they’re going to recover. This tends to be very reassuring to people. But I don’t want to minimize this. We’re dealing with something that is growing and becoming a legitimate pandemic.”
    
“Pandemic” , defined by Webster’s as an outbreak that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects an exceptionally high proportion of the population, is one of the scary-sounding words and phrases that some journalists take care about using.
    
Fahey said the AP avoids calling it a “deadly” disease because, for most people, it isn’t. Dr. John Torres, medical correspondent at NBC News, edits out phrases like horrific'' or “catastrophic.”
    
“I try not to delve too much in adjectives,” Torres said.
    
Nearly every day brings word of more cases, in more countries. That's news. Yet should journalists consider the cumulative impact of a statistical drumbeat?At some point the numbers become less meaningful,” Gupta said.
    
Images, too, merit careful consideration. Pictures of people wearing face masks often illustrate stories, despite evidence that the masks matter little in transmission of the virus, Nowak said.
    
Sensational headlines can grab attention yet also unnecessarily frighten. The banner of an Atlantic magazine article last week, “You’re Likely to Get the Coronavirus,” earned author James Hamblin a segment on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
    
Sensationalism actually tends to decline in these situations, said Peter Sandman, a consultant and expert in risk communication.
   
“Reporters love to sensationalize trivia or rare risks – think flesh-eating bacteria – to give their audience a vicarious thrill,” Sandman said. “But when risks get serious and widespread, media coverage gets sober.”
    
The words and actions of journalists and other public figures send signals of their own.
    
CNN’s Gupta has talked about people needing to consider “social distancing” if pockets of infection build in the United States. He has revealed on the air that his own house is stocked with supplies in case his family has to remain home for any period of time.
   
 “People could be frightened by that,” Gupta conceded. “It’s not the intent. It’s in the way that you convey these things.”
    
It was news last week, and also a little scary, when it was revealed that a federal health official had checked on the coronavirus readiness of her child’s school district. Donald G. McNeil, a science reporter at The New York Times, attracted attention for talking about his own preparedness on the newspaper’s podcast, “The Daily.”
   
 “I spend a lot of time thinking about whether I’m being too alarmist or whether I’m not being alarmist enough,” he said.
    
Besides constantly reminding people about basics of the disease, journalists say it’s important to explain what they don’t know.
    
“It lets them know that we’re not just ignoring the questions or dismissing them, and it’s an opportunity to show readers how science progresses in real time,” said Laura Helmuth, health and science editor at The Washington Post.
    The Post’s Lena H. Sun and Yasmeen Abutaleb wrote last week about the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sending workers without proper training or protective gear to meet the first Americans who left the coronavirus epicenter of Wuhan, China.
    
The virus produces a seemingly endless supply of stories that stretch beyond the medical: Wall Street’s tumble, school and business closings, concert cancellations. The makers of Corona beer denied reports that the similarity of its name to the virus was hurting business. Italians are shying away from traditional kisses on the cheek. Churchgoers are nervous about handshake greetings of peace.
    
Last Thursday, the AP listed 17 coronavirus stories on the digest it sends to subscribers, including pieces from Japan, Italy, Australia, South Korea and China.
    The Times takes pride in how it profiled the lives of people stuck in Wuhan, through reporting by Chris Buckley, Amy Qin and Elsie Chen. Such front-line reporting illustrates another need: The paper maintains a hotline with a medical professional to answer questions from reporters concerned about their own health, Slackman said.
    
As is inevitable in divided times, the coronavirus has become a political issue in the United States, where commentators are weighing in on how President Donald Trump is reacting to the crisis. On Fox News, Donald Trump Jr. said of the Democrats: “For them to try to take a pandemic, and hope it comes here and kills millions of people so they can end Donald Trump’s streak of winning, is a new level of sickness.”
    
CNN’s Gupta said he tries to be wary of what politicians say about the coronavirus.
    
“As a medical journalist, I don’t have the luxury of just getting somebody’s opinion about something,” he said.
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 The White House is expected to meet Wednesday with top executives from U.S. airlines and the cruise industry amid the growing coronavirus outbreak, two people briefed on the matter said.
Vice President Mike Pence, who is overseeing the administration’s efforts, is expected to attend, as are airline
and cruise officials. U.S. airlines report travel demand has fallen sharply. Airlines have cut flights to Asia and Italy amid
the crisis and canceled all flights to China until late April.
  
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The U.S. surgeon general has a message for Americans inclined to wear a mask to ward off the deadly coronavirus — don’t.”Their risk as American citizens remains low,” Surgeon General Jerome Adams told the “Fox & Friends” show on Monday. “There are things that people can do to stay safe. There are things they shouldn’t be doing. And of the things they shouldn’t be doing, the general public, is going out and buying masks.”He said, “It actually does not help. It’s not been proven to be effective in preventing spread of coronavirus amongst the general public. And actually people who tend to buy masks don’t know how to wear them properly.”Adams said that “as a health care provider, I have to get fit tested. Folks who don’t know how to wear them properly tend to touch their faces a lot and actually can increase the spread of coronavirus.”The surgeon general, the U.S. government’s top medical official, said, “Americans get scared when they feel like they’ve lost control.””I want Americans to understand there are things you can do to stay safe,” he said. “You can clean your hands frequently, for 15 to 20 seconds. You can cover your cough (with an arm) when you’re sneezing and (taking) social precautions and staying home when you’re sick, or staying away from people who are sick, are important ways keep from being exposed to coronavirus.”Adams noted that 18,000 people die annually in the U.S. from seasonal influenza, compared to the two deaths so far in the United States blamed on coronavirus.”I remain convinced that more people are going to die by far from the flu than coronavirus,” he said, “not only in our country but across the planet.”And if they do contract coronavirus, he said, “It’s important for folks to know that most people are going to have a mild illness, they’re going to stay home for a few days and they’re going to get better.””It’s the time for caution, not panic,” he concluded.
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A member of a council that advises Iran’s supreme leader died Monday after falling sick from the new coronavirus, state radio reported, becoming the first top official to succumb to the illness that is affecting members of the Islamic Republic’s leadership.
   
The death of Expediency Council member Mohammad Mirmohammadi came as Iran announced the virus had killed 66 people among 1,501 confirmed cases in the country.
   
Iran has the highest death toll in the world after China, the epicenter of the outbreak.
   
Mirmohammadi died at a north Tehran hospital of the virus, state radio said. He was 71.
   
The council advises Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as settles disputes between the top cleric and parliament.
   
His death comes as other top officials have contracted the virus in Iran.
   
Those sick include Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar, better known as “Sister Mary,” the English-speaking spokeswoman for the students who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and sparked the 444-day hostage crisis, state media reported. Also sick is Iraj Harirchi, the head of an Iranian government task force on the coronavirus who tried to downplay the virus before falling ill.
   
Iran has reported 978 confirmed cases of the new virus with 54 deaths from the illness it causes, called COVID-19. Across the wider Mideast, there are over 1,150 cases of the new coronavirus, the majority of which are linked back to Iran.
   
Experts worry Iran’s percentage of deaths to infections, around 5.5%, is much higher than other countries, suggesting the number of infections in Iran may be much higher than current figures show.
 
Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei, himself addressing journalists by teleconference over concerns about the virus, acknowledged the challenges remaining for the Islamic Republic.
   
“We will have two difficult weeks ahead,” he said.
   
Trying to stem the outbreak of the new coronavirus, Iran also on Monday held an online-only briefing by its Foreign Ministry. China as well has held similar teleconference briefings.
   
Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi opened the online news conference addressing the outbreak, dismissing an offer of help for Iran by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
   
Iran and the U.S. have seen some of the worst tensions since its 1979 Islamic Revolution in recent months, culminating in the American drone strike that killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad and a subsequent Iranian ballistic missile counterattack against U.S. forces.
   
“We neither count on such help nor are we ready to accept verbal help,” Mousavi said. He added Iran has always been “suspicious” about America’s intentions and accused the U.S. government of trying to weaken Iranians’ spirits over the outbreak.
   
Judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi acknowledged some people had begun stockpiling medical supplies for profit in the country, urging prosecutors to show “no mercy for hoarders.”
   
“Hoarding sanitizing items is playing with people’s lives and it is not ignorable,” Raisi said.
   
Raisi also urged officials to grant “maximum” leave to prisoners. Activists have raised concern about the spread of the new coronavirus in Iran’s prisons.
   
The British Embassy meanwhile has begun evacuations over the virus.
   
“Essential staff needed to continue critical work will remain,” the British Foreign Office said. “In the event that the situation deteriorates further, the ability of the British Embassy to provide assistance to British nationals from within Iran may be limited.”
   
While Iran has closed schools and universities to stop the spread of the virus, major Shiite shrines have remained open despite civilian authorities calling for them to be closed. The holy cities of Mashhad and Qom in particular, both home to shrines, have been hard-hit by the virus. Shiites often touch and kiss shrines as a sign of their faith. Authorities have been cleaning the shrines with disinfectants.
   
Police have arrested one man who posted a video showing himself licking the metal enclosing the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, the most-important Shiite saint buried in the country, according to reports by semiofficial news agencies. In the video, the man said he licked the metal to “allow others to visit the shrine with peace of mind.”
   
Meanwhile Monday, the virus outbreak saw itself dragged into the yearslong boycott of Qatar by four Arab nations over a political dispute.
   
A prominent columnist at Dubai’s government-owned Al-Bayan newspaper on Twitter falsely described the virus as being a plot by Qatar to hurt the upcoming Expo 2020 world’s fair in Dubai  and Saudi Arabia. Noura al-Moteari later described the tweet as “satire” to The Associated Press after it gained widespread attention.
   
The Dubai Media Office similarly described the tweet as being written in a “cynical style” while distancing the Arabic-language daily from al-Moteari.
   
“Noura is a freelance writer and is not an employee of Al-Bayan nor does she represent the publication’s views,” it told the AP. “That being said, this has no relevance to any social media policy being practiced by the publication nor the state.”
   
The tweet comes after Qatar expressed disappointment Sunday that nearly all of its Gulf neighbors snubbed invitations to attend the weekend peace signing ceremony between the U.S. and the Taliban.
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The coronavirus claimed its first victim in the U.S. Saturday as the number of cases shot up in Iran, Italy and South Korea and the spreading outbreak continued to shake the global economy.
The virus altered daily life around the world as governments moved to combat the contagion. Islam’s holiest sites were closed to foreign pilgrims, while professional baseball teams played in deserted stadiums in Japan and officials in France advised residents to forgo customary greeting kisses.
The list of countries touched by the virus climbed to nearly 60, with new cases reported Saturday in Lebanon, Mexico, France and Ecuador. More than 85,000 people worldwide have contracted the virus, with deaths topping 2,900.
A man in his 50s with underlying health conditions became the first coronavirus death on U.S. soil. President Donald Trump initially said the victim was a woman, but the person’s gender was later confirmed by state and federal health officials. Officials say they aren’t sure how the man acquired the virus, as he had not traveled to any effected areas.
“Additional cases in the United States are likely, but healthy individuals should be able to fully recover,” Trump said Saturday at a briefing, where officials announced heightened warnings about travel to certain regions of Italy and South Korea as well as a ban on travel to Iran.
Many cases of the virus have been relatively mild, and some of those infected are believed to show no symptoms at all. But that can allow for easier spread, and concern is mounting that prolonged quarantines, supply chain disruptions and a sharp reduction in tourism and business travel could weaken the global economy or even cause a recession.
South Korea, the second hardest hit country after China, reported 813 new cases Saturday – the highest daily jump since confirming its first patient in late January and raising its total to 3,150.
Italian authorities say the country now has more than 1,100 coronavirus cases, with 29 deaths so far.
Iran is preparing for the possibility of tens of thousands'' of people getting tested for the virus as the number of confirmed cases spiked again Saturday, an official said. So far, the virus and the COVID-19 illness it causes have killed 43 people out of 593 confirmed cases in Iran.
As governments scrambled to control the spread and businesses wrestled with interruptions, researchers working to better understand the disease reported that the death rate may be lower than initially feared as more mild cases are counted.A teen wears a medical mask as a precaution against the spread of the new coronavirus, during an outing in Mexico City, Feb. 29, 2020.Effort to understand virus
A study by Chinese researchers published Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine analyzing 1,099 patients at more than 500 hospitals throughout China calculated a death rate of 1.4%, substantially lower than earlier studies that focused on patients in Wuhan, where it started and has been most severe.
Assuming there are many more cases with no or very mild symptoms, "the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%,'' U.S. health officials wrote in an editorial in the journal.
That would make the new virus more like a severe seasonal flu than a disease similar to its genetic cousins SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, or MERS, Middle East respiratory syndrome.
Evidence of the virus' economic toll continued to mount Saturday, with a new report showing a sharp decline in Chinese manufacturing in February after efforts to contain the virus shut down much of the world's second-largest economy.
The survey, coming as global stock markets fall sharply on fears that the virus will spread abroad, adds to mounting evidence of the vast cost of the disease that emerged in central China in December and its economic impact worldwide.
The monthly purchasing managers' index issued by the Chinese statistics agency and an industry group fell to 35.7 from January's 50 on a 100-point scale on which numbers below 50 indicate activity contracting.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a 270 billion yen ($2.5 billion) emergency economic package to help fight the virus. Abe said at a news conference that Japan is at critical juncture to determine whether the country can keep the outbreak under control ahead of the Tokyo summer Olympics.
Abe, whose announcement this past week of a plan to close all schools for more than a month through the end of the Japanese academic year sparked public criticism, said the emergency package includes financial support for parents and their employers affected by the closures.
"Frankly speaking, this battle cannot be won solely by the efforts of the government,'' Abe said Saturday.We cannot do it without understanding and cooperation from every one of you, including medical institutions, families, companies and local governments.”
Even in isolated, sanctions-hit North Korea, leader Kim Jong Un called for stronger anti-virus efforts to guard against COVID-19, saying there will be “serious consequences” if the illness spreads to the country.
China has seen a slowdown in new infections and on Saturday morning reported 427 new cases over the past 24 hours along with 47 additional deaths. The city at the epicenter of the outbreak, Wuhan, accounted for the bulk of both. The ruling party is striving to restore public and business confidence and avert a deeper economic downturn and politically risky job losses after weeks of disruptions due to the viral outbreak.Pedestrians wearing face masks cross a square in western Tehran, Iran, Feb. 29, 2020.Deserted streets
In other areas caught up in the outbreak, eerie scenes met those who ventured outside.
Streets were deserted in the city of Sapporo on Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido, where a state of emergency was issued until mid-March. Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan announced they would close, and big events were canceled, including a concert series by the K-pop group BTS.
In France, the archbishop of Paris advised parish priests not to administer communion by placing the sacramental bread in worshippers’ mouths. Instead, priests were told to place the bread in their hands. The French government cancelled large indoor events.
Saudi Arabia closed off Islam’s holiest sites in Mecca and Medina to foreign pilgrims, disrupting travel for thousands of Muslims already headed to the kingdom and potentially affecting plans later this year for millions more ahead of the fasting month of Ramadan and the annual hajj pilgrimage.
Tourist arrivals in Thailand are down 50% compared with a year ago, and in Italy _ which has the most reported cases of any country outside of Asia – hotel bookings are falling and Premier Giuseppe Conte raised the specter of recession.
The head of the World Health Organization on Friday announced that the risk of the virus spreading worldwide was “very high,” while U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the window of opportunity for containing the virus was narrowing.
Economists have forecast global growth will slip to 2.4% this year, the slowest since the Great Recession in 2009, and down from earlier expectations closer to 3%. For the United States, estimates are falling to as low as 1.7% growth this year, down from 2.3% in 2019.
Despite anxieties about a wider outbreak in the U.S., Trump has defended measures taken and lashed out at Democrats who have questioned his handling of the threat.At a political rally Friday night in North Charleston, South Carolina, Trump asserted that Democratic complaints about his handling of the virus threat are “their new hoax,” echoing similar past complaints by the president about the Russia investigation and his impeachment.
Trump accused Democrats of “politicizing” the coronavirus threat and boasted about preventive steps he’s ordered in an attempt to keep the virus from spreading across the United States. 
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