Arresting survivors of human trafficking for their testimony in criminal prosecutions creates trauma and trouble returning to society, research by a leading U.S. trafficking group showed on Thursday, calling for an end to the practice.Survivors detained as material witnesses to help prosecute their traffickers can lose custody of their children, jobs and services they need for recovery, said the Human Trafficking Legal Center (HTLC), a legal group for trafficking survivors. By law, witnesses who may not want to cooperate can be detained if they have testimony needed to prosecute a criminal case.The number of trafficking survivors held under material witness warrants is uncertain, as such warrants are typically used in secrecy, the HTLC said.The U.S. Department of Justice initiated more than 200 human trafficking prosecutions and convicted more than 500 people, according to the latest data from 2018.The detention practice makes criminal justice a priority over victims’ needs and wants, said the HTLC, which examined 49 cases of victim arrests between 2009 and 2018.”They’ve experienced trauma of being locked up and being forced to do things they didn’t want to do,” said Martina Vandenberg, HTLC president. “In a sense it replicates much of the trauma they’ve already experienced,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.Representatives of the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment or an estimate of the numbers of survivors held.”While material witness warrants are sometimes necessary in federal criminal cases, they should be an absolute last resort in a trafficking case,” said Luis C. deBaca, former U.S. anti-trafficking ambassador-at-large.”In a trafficking case there is a cruel irony in using this type of coercion as an instrument to punish a trafficker who held that same person through coercive means.”The HTLC also said the pandemic provided more reason to release trafficking victims, as concerns mount over the coronavirus spreading through crowded inmate populations. The pandemic has prompted inmate releases, reduced bail requirements and other measures to reduce jail populations around the country.An estimated 400,000 people are believed to be trapped in modern slavery in the United States, according to the Global Slavery Index which is published by the human rights group Walk Free Foundation.
…

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and U.S. billionaire Bill Gates have joined the chorus of those expressing concern about U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend U.S. funding for the World Health Organization.Carter, a Democrat, issued a statement Wednesday saying the United Nations agency “is the only international organization capable of leading the effort to control this virus.” He said he was “distressed” by the decision to withhold critically needed U.S. funding during an international epidemic.Gates, who is a major funder of the WHO, said the decision was “as dangerous as it sounds.”A man wears a mask to protect himself against the spread of the new coronavirus as he donates food for poor families in Turano favela, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 15, 2020.The United Nations and many leaders have criticized Trump’s timing for cutting the funds when they are most needed.The U.S. is the world’s largest contributor to the WHO, with its more than $400 million contribution in 2019, amounting to about 15 percent of the organization’s budget.Trump accused the Geneva-based organization Tuesday of failing to obtain independent reports about the coronavirus originating from China’s central city of Wuhan and relying instead on China’s official reports. Beijing officials initially tried to downplay the dangers of the new strain of coronavirus. Trump said the funding will be suspended pending an investigation into the WHO’s handling of the outbreak.The United States is now the worst-hit country with more than 637,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Wednesday evening, out of more than 2 million infected people worldwide, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. Critics have blamed Trump for waiting too long to act, and some say he is now looking to shift the blame to China and the WHO.Returning to normalMeanwhile, all eyes are on coronavirus daily tolls as leaders try to determine how soon people’s lives can return to normal. Denmark is the first European country to reopen its schools, but students are seated at a distance from one another and have to follow a strict hygienic protocol. Several other European countries are planning to reopen schools and businesses in the coming weeks.The U.S. president is eager to restart the economy as soon as possible, but health officials and many state governors agree that the hoped-for date of May 1 would be too soon and could lead to a new wave of infections.California Governor Gavin Newsom said he would consider lifting lockdown orders only when the number of hospitalizations declines for at least two weeks. He also wants more widespread testing so officials have a better ability to track and isolate those who are infected, and he wants more protective gear for health care workers.The economy is a big worry for all, especially after the IMF said Tuesday that the world would be hit this year by the worst economic depression since 1930.Leaders of the G-20 industrialized nations have decided to put a partial moratorium on debt payments this year from the world’s developing countries. Many of them are in Africa, where the coronavirus has not spread as much as in Europe and the United States. But the number of new cases is creeping up, forcing leaders to impose protective measures.Workers in full protective gear disinfect the casket of a coronavirus victim at the Fontaine funeral home during a partial lockdown to prevent the spread of the disease in Charleroi, Belgium, April 15, 2020.Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Wednesday that small and medium-size companies in his country would receive financial aid of $162 per employee if they had preserved at least 90 percent of staff as of April 1.In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced she and other top officials were voluntarily cutting their salaries by 20 percent in a symbolic move acknowledging the country’s economic hardships in response to the outbreak.The British Home Office reported Wednesday that border police had found more than $1.25 million worth of cocaine in a shipment of protective masks in a truck at the Channel Tunnel. 
…

Three potential COVID-19 vaccines are making fast progress in early-stage testing in volunteers in China and the U.S., but it’s still a long road to prove if they’ll really work.
China’s CanSino Biologics has begun the second phase of testing its vaccine candidate, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology said Tuesday.
In the U.S., a shot made by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc. isn’t far behind. The first person to receive that experimental vaccine last month returned to a Seattle clinic Tuesday for a second dose.
NIH infectious disease chief Dr. Anthony Fauci told The Associated Press there are “no red flags” so far and he hoped the next, larger phase of testing could begin around June.
A third candidate, from Inovio Pharmaceuticals, began giving experimental shots for first-step safety testing  last week in the U.S. and hopes to expand its studies to China.  
Initial tests focus on safety, and researchers in both countries are trying out different doses of different types of shots.
But moving into the second phase is a critical step that allows vaccines to be tested in many more people to look for signs that they protect against infection.  
Last week, CanSino filed a report showing it aimed to enroll 500 people in this next study, comparing two doses of the vaccine to dummy shots. As of Monday, 273 of the volunteers had been injected, state media said.
Looking ahead, Fauci said if the new coronavirus continues to circulate widely enough over the summer and fall, it might be possible to finish larger studies slightly sooner than the 12 to 18 months he’d originally predicted — maybe toward “mid to late winter of next season.”
“Please let me say this caveat: That is assuming that it’s effective. See, that’s the big ‘if,'” Fauci stressed. “It’s got to be effective and it’s got to be safe.”
During a news conference in China, authorities also cautioned that the studies must be done properly.
“Although we are in an emergency, we cannot lower the standards of safety and effectiveness in the reviews of vaccines,” said Wang Junzhi, a Chinese biopharmaceutical expert. “The public is paying huge attention.”
The World Health Organization this week counted more than five dozen other vaccine candidates in earlier stages of development being pursued around the world. Many research groups are teaming up to speed the work; in an announcement Tuesday, vaccine giants Sanofi and GSK became the latest to partner on a candidate.
On the WHO’s list are a wide variety of ways to make vaccines — so if one approach doesn’t pan out, hopefully another one will.  
CanSino’s vaccine is based on a genetically engineered shot it created to guard against Ebola. The leading U.S. candidates use a different approach, made from copies of a piece of the coronavirus’ genetic code.
…

The U.S. ambassador to China said Wednesday that he doesn’t believe Beijing is deliberately blocking exports of masks and other medical supplies to fight the coronavirus, and that the shipment of 1,200 tons of such products to the U.S. could not have been possible without Chinese support.  
Ambassador Terry Branstad also said the U.S. has concerns about how China initially handled the virus outbreak in the central city of Wuhan, but that such issues should be addressed after the pandemic has been brought under control.  
“Let’s focus now on saving lives and helping people,” Branstad told a small group of reporters.  
Chinese officials are believed to have delayed reporting the outbreak for several crucial days in January due to political concerns, allowing the virus to spread further.  
China has adamantly denied doing so, despite strong evidence, saying it has consistently provided accurate, timely information.  
Despite working with half their normal staff, U.S. diplomats and local employees in China have been able to facilitate 21 flights of supplies on behalf of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, along with multiple private chartered flights, Branstad said.
He said there had been a slowdown in the provision of supplies, but that it appeared to be caused by China’s implementation of stricter quality standards following complaints it was sending shoddy equipment abroad.  
“We have been able to solve several problems. We’re just trying to find a workable way to get it done,” Branstad said, adding that a March 27 telephone conversation between President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, had been “really helpful.”  
“We always remind them of the leaders’ commitment to work together to address these issues,” the ambassador said.  
“I feel good about it and I feel that, yes, they want to enforce their laws and regulations … we’re trying to say let’s use some common sense in doing this and if it’s Food and Drug Administration approved and companies like 3M have already been shipping these things to the United States, it doesn’t make sense to hold them up when we feel confident that it meets the quality requirements that we have.”  
Shipments to the U.S. began after China’s own demand for such gear fell in recent weeks, alongside a sharp decline in its number of new cases and a gradual rise in people declared cured and released from hospitals.  
China reported 46 new virus cases on Wednesday, 36 of them from overseas. Of the 10 domestic cases, eight were in the province of Heilongjiang that borders on Russia where authorities have been rushing to stem a new outbreak among those traveling back to China.  
It said almost 1,100 people were also under quarantine as suspected cases or for having tested positive for the virus without showing symptoms. China says it has recorded a total of 3,342 deaths among 82,295 cases.
“Now with domestic Chinese demand for personal protective equipment receding to more normal levels, our mission’s most urgent priority is to help get (personal protective equipment) and medical equipment to the United States as quickly as possible,” Branstad said.  
Earlier, American diplomats evacuated the consulate in Wuhan and organized charter flights to bring out U.S. citizens. Worldwide, the state department has organized the return of about 60,000 U.S. citizens from more than 100 countries. 
Chinese cooperation both in providing antivirus supplies and implementing the first phase of a trade deal aimed at ending disputes over tariffs and intellectual property may actually help ease friction between the world’s two largest economies, said Branstad, a former long-term governor of the important agricultural state of Iowa.
“I am hopeful that because of the collaboration and work on fighting the virus, and also of course the phase one of the trade agreement, that there will be a better relationship going forward,” Branstad said.  
“We’re two big countries, the two biggest economies in the world. Our systems are very different and there’s always going to be certain areas of tension and conflict,” he said.
While saying that the two sides should not engage in political sniping, Branstad criticized a tweet by Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on March 12 which said: “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!”  
Zhao provided no evidence and the comment prompted the State Department to summon China’s ambassador to protest.  
Branstad said Zhao’s comment was “really outrageous and counterproductive from the Chinese perspective because there’s no credibility with that and that was unfortunate.”  
China has said the tweet did not constitute an official statement.
“I think we’ve moved beyond that and are focusing on the future and on cooperation,” Branstad said.
…

About 850,000 people could be seriously sickened by the coronavirus in Japan and almost half of them could die if no social distancing or other measures are followed, according to a government-commissioned estimate released Wednesday.
Japan has the world’s oldest population, and the virus can be especially dangerous for the elderly. And there are concerns that Japan’s government has done too little to stave off high numbers of badly ill patients.  
Japan’s current state of emergency is voluntary and doesn’t compensate workers for lost earnings. Japanese companies also have been slow to introduce remote work, and people have continued to use public transit to commute to large offices in the densely populated capital region.
Already, patients are being moved to non-specialist hospitals and even hotels as infections surge in the capital, where medical experts warn the health care system is on the brink of collapse.
The projection is a worst-case scenario, said Hokkaido University professor Hiroshi Nishiura, an expert on cluster analysis. He urged people to cooperate in the social distancing effort. “We can stop the transmission if all of us change our activity and significantly reduce interactions,” he said. The report projected 420,000 deaths if no preventive measures were taken.
Japan has more than 8,800 confirmed coronavirus cases and 131 deaths, including about 700 cases from a cruise ship that was quarantined at a port near Tokyo earlier this year.  
The health ministry reported 457 new cases on Wednesday. Tokyo has about a quarter of Japan’s total cases.  
In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region: South Korea Votes: Voters wore masks and moved slowly between lines of tape at polling stations after the government resisted calls to postpone South Korea’s parliamentary elections, seen as a midterm referendum on President Moon Jae-in. Long lines and record-high participation in early voting seemed to defy expectations of low voter turnout in the middle of a social-distancing campaign to slow infections.Vaccine Study Advances: Chinese scientists have started the second phase of a clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine in the hardest-hit city of Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province. China Central Television reported 273 out of 500 volunteers have been injected with the vaccine candidate. The first phase of the vaccine clinical trial focused on its safety, while the second phase is studying its efficacy. China reported 46 new virus cases on Wednesday, 36 of them from overseas.  Who Funding: Australia’s prime minister says he sympathizes with U.S. President Donald Trump’s criticisms of the World Health Organization but Australia will not stop funding the U.N. agency. Trump has ordered his administration to freeze funding for WHO, saying it didn’t deliver adequate early reports on the coronavirus and cost the U.S. valuable response time. “I sympathize with his criticisms and I’ve made a few of my own,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told Perth Radio 6PR on Wednesday. “WHO is also an organization that does a lot of important work, including here in our own region in the Pacific, and we work closely with them so that we’re not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater here.” China said Wednesday it is “seriously concerned” about the U.S. funding freeze.US: China not Blocking Medical Supplies: The U.S. ambassador to China says he doesn’t believe Beijing is deliberately blocking exports of masks and other medical supplies to fight the coronavirus, and that the shipment of 1,200 tons of such products to the U.S. could not have been possible without Chinese support. Ambassador Terry Branstad also says the U.S. has concerns about how China initially handled the virus outbreak in the central city of Wuhan, but that such issues should be addressed after the pandemic has been brought under control. Chinese officials are believed to have delayed reporting the outbreak for several crucial days in January due to political concerns, allowing the virus to spread further. China has adamantly denied doing so, despite strong evidence.  Nes Zealand Pay Cuts: Top New Zealand officials are taking a 20% pay cut for six months in acknowledgment of people’s sacrifices in dealing with the coronavirus. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says it applies to government ministers, chief executives of government organizations, and that opposition leader Simon Bridges had volunteered to join as well. She said it wouldn’t apply to any front-line staff such as doctors and nurses. Ardern’s salary of $286,000 is comparatively high for a country with only 5 million people.Mandatory masks: Singapore has made masks mandatory following a sharp spike in new cases. Most people not wearing masks can be fined $212, while repeated offenders could face stiffer penalties. Infections in the tiny city-state have surged beyond 3,200 after two straight days of sharp increases. Many were among foreign workers living in crowded dormitoriesVirus Tracking App: Australia’s prime minister expects a tracking app under development in the country will massively boost health authorities’ ability to trace coronavirus contacts if the government can overcome privacy concerns. Prime Minister Scott Morrison told Perth Radio 6PR on Wednesday his government is carefully working through privacy issues because at least 40% of Australians will need to download the app on their smart phones if it is to effective. The Australian app is based on Singapore’s contact tracing app, TraceTogether.Flight Ban Extended: Thailand has extended through April 30 a ban on international passenger flights to help control the coronavirus. The ban was initially ordered April 4 after chaos broke out at Bangkok’s international airport when more than 100 returning Thais reportedly refused to go directly to state-run quarantine centers. The original three-day ban has already been extended once. Strict regulations requiring prior certification by foreigners that they are virus free have effectively banned the entry of most foreign visitors. Thailand has a huge tourism industry and last year welcomed about 40 million visitors.Hong Kong Arrivals Plunge: Arrivals in Hong Kong plunged to a new low of 82,000 in March, a 99% drop from the same time last year as the city banned the entry of foreigners to curb the spread of the virus. The indefinite ban on incoming travelers was imposed March 25.Sneaking Out Of Quarantine: A man who repeatedly left a hotel to visit his girlfriend has become the first person in Australia to be jailed for breaching a coronavirus quarantine order. Jonathan David was sentenced to six months and two weeks in prison but will likely only spend one month behind bars. He was also fined $1,280. David returned home to Perth from the Australian east coast on March 28 and was directed to spend the next two weeks in quarantine in a hotel, a standard requirement for interstate travelers. But he repeatedly left and used public transport to visit his girlfriend.
…

More than nine out of 10 people in Southeast Asia want the state to end wildlife trafficking, according to a new poll from the World Wildlife Fund that shows unprecedented consensus after COVID-19 spread from animals to humans. 
 
WWF International said that 93% of people polled in the region would like “action by their governments to eliminate illegal and unregulated wildlife markets,” which the organization said is the second biggest threat to global biodiversity, after habitat destruction. 
 
Although COVID-19 is believed to have broken out at a meat market in China, nations in Southeast Asia often act as transit hubs to get trafficked wildlife into China. Governments in the region have started to introduce more new laws to crack down on the illegal trade as a result. 
 
“People are deeply worried and would support their governments in taking action to prevent potential future global health crises originating in wildlife markets,” Marco Lambertini, the director general of WWF International, said last week. “It is time to connect the dots between wildlife trade, environmental degradation and risks to human health.” 
 
He added that taking action now “is crucial for all of our survival.” 
 
It is believed COVID-19 spread from an animal to a human in China in December, and reactions have ranged from foreign pundits snubbing Chinese who eat bats or snakes, to the government itself taking action to ban consumption of wild meat.A woman with a load of dogs on her tricycle cart arrives at a market for sale during a dog meat festival in Yulin in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, June 21, 2016.Neighbors in Southeast Asia now are starting to follow suit with exactly the kind of action desired by WWF survey respondents. 
 
In the Philippines for instance, the government is working on a draft law that includes as much as 20 years in prison for those found guilty of wildlife trafficking, according to Theresa Tenazas, a lawyer for the Philippine’s state Biodiversity Management Bureau. 
 
She said authorities must more closely regulate contact between humans and animals, particularly at wet markets.  
 
“The conditions of these markets are ideal for incubating new diseases and bolster their transmission,” she wrote in an analysis for the bureau. “They form one of the most detrimental bridges created by man over the natural barriers that previously separated humans and wild animals.”  
 
Vietnam has taken similar steps to crack down on the trade of wild animal products, and there is pressure on Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar to toughen restrictions as well. 
 
Southeast Asia is particularly at risk of viral contagion because of its close proximity to China. Outside of China, the Philippines was the first to report a death linked to COVID-19, while Thailand was the first to report a COVID-19 infection. 
 
“Our global connectedness means the risk of re-introduction and resurgence of the disease will continue,” World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday. 
 
The WHO has confirmed COVID-19 is a “zoonotic disease,” meaning humans first became infected with it from animals, most likely bats. While bats were consumed legally before China’s crackdown, other animal parts commonly trafficked to China through Southeast Asia come from pangolins, rhinos and elephants.  
 
Other viruses have spread from animals to humans, including SARS, MERS and Ebola, WWF said. 
…

Scientists have observed the biggest supernova – stellar explosion – ever detected, the violent death of a huge star up to 100 times more massive than our sun in a faraway galaxy.The supernova, releasing twice as much energy as any other stellar explosion observed to date, occurred about 4.6 billion light years from Earth in a relatively small galaxy, scientists said. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).It might represent, they added, a type of supernova that until now has only been theorized.Astrophysicist Matt Nicholl of the University of Birmingham in England said two very massive stars – each about 50 times the sun’s mass – may have merged to make one extremely massive star roughly 1,000 years before the explosion. They had been part of what is called a binary system with two stars gravitationally bound to each other.The merged star exploded in a supernova, formally named SN2016aps, inside a very dense and hydrogen-rich envelope.”We found that the supernova was able to become so bright because of a powerful collision between the debris ejected by the explosion and a shell of gas shaken off by the star a few years earlier,” said Nicholl, lead author of the study published this week in the journal Nature Astronomy.Stars die in various different ways depending on their size and other properties. When a massive star – more than eight times the mass of our sun – uses up its fuel, it cools off and its core collapses, triggering shock waves that cause its outer layer to explode so violently that it can outshine entire galaxies.The researchers, who observed the explosion for two years until it diminished to 1 percent of its maximum brightness, said it may have been an example of an extremely rare “pulsational pair-instability” supernova.”Pulsational pair-instability is when very massive stars undergo pulsations which eject material away from the star,” said study co-author Peter Blanchard, a postdoctoral fellow in astrophysics at Northwestern University in Illinois.”This discovery shows that there are many exciting and new phenomena left to be uncovered in the universe,” Blanchard added.Very massive stars like this one were probably more common early in the universe’s history, Nicholl said.”The nature of those first stars is one of the big questions in astronomy,” Nicholl added. “In astronomy, seeing things further away means looking back further and further in time. So we might actually be able to see the very first stars if they explode in a similar manner to this one. Now we know what to look for.”
…

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said Tuesday the U.S. does not yet have the critical testing and tracing procedures needed to begin reopening the nation’s economy, adding a dose of caution to increasingly optimistic projections from the White House.
 
“We have to have something in place that is efficient and that we can rely on, and we’re not there yet,” Fauci said in an interview with The Associated Press.
 
Fauci’s comments come as President Donald Trump and others in the administration weigh how quickly businesses can reopen and Americans can get back to work weeks after the fast-spreading coronavirus essentially halted the U.S. economy. Trump has floated the possibility of reopening some areas by May 1 and said he could announce recommendations as soon as this week.
 
Fauci said a May 1 target is “a bit overly optimistic” for many areas of the country. Any easing off the strict social-distancing rules in place in much of the country would have to occur on a “rolling” basis, not all at once, he said, reflecting the ways COVID-19 struck different parts of the country at different times.
 
Among Fauci’s top concerns: that there will be new outbreaks in locations where social distancing has eased, but public health officials don’t yet have the capabilities to rapidly test for the virus, isolate any new cases and track down everyone that an infected person came into contact with.
 
“I’ll guarantee you, once you start pulling back there will be infections. It’s how you deal with the infections that’s going count,” Fauci told the AP.
 
Key is “getting people out of circulation if they get infected, because once you start getting clusters, then you’re really in trouble,” he added.
 
At the same time Fauci is directing critical government research, he’s also one of the administration’s leading spokespeople on the virus, spending hours each week by Trump’s side during his lengthy, daily White House briefings.
 
Fauci said his public role is important but conceded that the duration of those briefings — Monday’s ran for nearly two-and-a-half hours — was “really draining” and that doesn’t even count preparation and waiting for it to start.
 
“If I had been able to just make a few comments and then go to work, that would have really been much better,” he said. “It isn’t the idea of being there and answering questions, which I really think is important for the American public. It’s the amount of time.”
 
Much of Fauci’s time outside of the White House briefing room is focused on analyzing progress on blood tests that aim to tell who was exposed to the coronavirus — whether they knew they were sick or not — by spotting antibodies their immune system formed to fight back. Those tests will be crucial in determining when and how people can go back to work.
 
The problem: Most of the tests have not yet been proven to work well, Fauci cautioned. He noted that some countries bought millions of antibody tests only to learn they didn’t work.
 
Fauci, infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health, said his staff is working with the Food and Drug Administration to validate those tests. That means proving what level of antibodies it takes to really be immune; if particular types of antibodies are key rather than an overall level; and how long that protection lasts.
 
“We’re going to have to find out the answer to all of those questions,” Fauci stressed. “I know people are anxious to say, ‘Well, we’ll give you a passport that says you’re antibody-positive, you can go to work and you’re protected.’ The worst possibility that would happen is if we’re actually wrong about that” and those people get infected.
 
Another complication is that scientists still don’t have a solid understanding of how often people who show either no obvious symptoms or very few symptoms are spreading the virus. It’s “purely a guesstimate” but no less than 25% and no more than half of overall cases may be from the relatively asymptomatic, he said.
 
Looking ahead, Fauci said a second wave of infection isn’t inevitable. But he added: “if you mean it goes way down and then come September, October, November, we have another peak, I have to say I would not be surprised. I would hope that if and when that occurs, that we jump all over it in a much, much more effective way than we have in these past few months.”
…

The WHO said its emergency committee would meet Tuesday to discuss whether the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo still constitutes an international health emergency, after fresh cases were detected.
 
The meeting comes a day after DR Congo had been expected to announce that the outbreak in the east of the country that began in August 2018 was over.
 
The epidemic has killed 2,276 people to date. For it to be declared over, there have to be no new cases reported for 42 days — double the incubation period.
 
But as the World Health Organization’s emergency committee met last Friday to determine whether its declaration of a so-called Public Health Emergency of International Concern, or PHEIC, could be lifted, a new case was reported.  
 
“We now have three cases, two people who have died, one person who is alive,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told reporters in a virtual briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.
 
She said that all of the contacts of those cases had been traced and vaccinated and were being followed closely.
 
DR Congo health authorities announced Friday that a 26-year-old man was listed as having died from the disease, and a young girl who was being treated in the same health center passed away on Sunday.
 
Both died in the city of Beni, epicenter of the outbreak.
 
Due to the shifting situation, the WHO decided to reconvene its emergency committee to again evaluate whether or not the outbreak still constitutes an international health emergency, Harris said.
 
It was scheduled to announce its decision later Tuesday.
 
The DR Congo has meanwhile started a new 42-day countdown to declare an end to its 10th epidemic of the deadly hemorrhagic fever disease.
…

More than 3,600 deaths nationwide have been linked to coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, an alarming rise in just the past two weeks, according to the latest count by The Associated Press.
Because the federal government has not been releasing a count of its own, the AP has kept its own running tally based on media reports and state health departments. The latest count of at least 3,621 deaths is up from about 450 deaths just 10 days ago.
But the true toll among the 1 million mostly frail and elderly people who live in such facilities is likely much higher, experts say, because most state counts don’t include those who died without ever being tested for COVID-19.
Outbreaks in just the past few weeks have included one at a nursing home in suburban Richmond, Virginia, that has killed 42 and infected more than 100, another at nursing home in central Indiana that has killed 24 and infected 16, and one at a veteran’s home in Holyoke, Mass., that has killed 38, infected 88 and prompted a federal investigation. This comes weeks after an outbreak at a nursing home in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland that has so far claimed 43 lives.
And those are just the outbreaks we know about. Most states provide only total numbers of nursing home deaths and don’t give details of specific outbreaks. Notable among them is the nation’s leader, New York, which accounts for 1,880 nursing home deaths out of about 96,000 total residents but has so far declined to detail specific outbreaks, citing privacy concerns.
Experts say nursing home deaths may keep climbing because of chronic staffing shortages that have been made worse by the coronavirus crisis, a shortage of protective supplies and a continued lack of available testing.
And the deaths have skyrocketed despite steps taken by the federal government in mid-March to bar visitors, cease all group activities, and require that every worker be screened for fever or respiratory symptoms at every shift.  
But an AP report  earlier this month found that infections were continuing to find their way into nursing homes because such screenings didn’t catch people who were infected but asymptomatic. Several large outbreaks were blamed on such spreaders, including infected health workers who worked at several different nursing home facilities.
This past week, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that regulates nursing homes issued recommendations urging nursing homes to use separate staffing teams for residents, and to designate separate facilities within nursing homes to keep COVID-19 positive residents away from those who have tested negative.
Dr. Deborah Birx, who leads the White House coronavirus response, suggested this past week that as more COVID-19 tests become available, nursing homes should be a top priority.
“We need to really ensure that nursing homes have sentinel surveillance. And what do I mean by that? That we’re actively testing in nursing homes, both the residents and the workers, at all times,” Birx said.
…

The coronavirus outbreak could reach its peak in the United States this week, a top U.S. health official said on Monday, pointing to signs of stabilization across the country.
 
The United States, with the world’s third-largest population, has recorded more fatalities from COVID-19 than any other country, more than 22,000 as of Monday morning according to a Reuters tally.
 
About 2,000 deaths were reported for each of the last four days in a row, the largest number of them in and around New York City. Experts say official statistics have understated the actual number of people who have succumbed to the respiratory disease, having excluded coronavirus-related deaths at home. 
 Robert Redfield Jr. headshot, as US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, graphic element on gray”We are nearing the peak right now,” Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told NBC’s “Today” show. “You’ll know when you’re at the peak when the next day is actually less than the day before.”
 
Sweeping stay-at-home restrictions to curb the spread of the disease, in place for weeks in many areas of the country, have taken a painful toll on the economy, raising questions over how the country can sustain business closures and travel curbs.
 
On Sunday, a Trump administration official indicated May 1 as a potential date for easing the restrictions while cautioning that it was still too early to say whether that goal would be met.
 
Redfield refused to give a time frame for the re-opening of the U.S. economy and praised social-distancing measures that he said helped curb the mortality rate.
 
“There’s no doubt we have to reopen correctly,” Redfield said. “It’s going to be a step-by-step gradual process. It’s got to be data-driven.”
 
Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, cautioned that the country was not prepared to end the shutdown.
 
“We all desire an end to the shutdown orders so we can get Americans back to work and back to normal,” Pelosi said in a statement. “However, there is still not enough testing available to realistically allow that to happen.”
 
This week Congress will work on further measures to soften the blow of the pandemic. Democrats want to add money for other anti-coronavirus efforts to a measure targeted at small businesses, including funding for rapid national testing and personal protective equipment.
 
“It cannot wait,” Pelosi said.
 
President Donald Trump retweeted a call to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci after the country’s top expert on infectious diseases said lives could have been saved if the country had shut down sooner during the novel coronavirus outbreak.
 
The retweet fueled speculation Trump was running out of patience with the popular scientist and could fire him. The White House on Monday did not comment on Trump’s retweet.
…

Crowds swarm Stockholm’s waterfront, with some people sipping cocktails in the sun. In much of the world, this sort of gathering would be frowned upon or even banned.Not in Sweden.It doesn’t worry Anders Tegnell, the country’s chief epidemiologist and top strategist in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.The 63-year-old has become a household name in Sweden, appearing across the media and holding daily briefings outlining the progression of the outbreak with a precise, quiet demeanor.As countries across Europe have restricted the movement  of their citizens, Sweden stands out for what Tegnell calls a “low-scale” approach that “is much more sustainable” over a longer period.President Donald Trump has suggested that a rising number of COVID-19 deaths indicate Sweden is paying a heavy price for embracing the idea of herd immunity — that is, letting many individuals get sick to build up immunity in the population. He said: “Sweden did that — the herd. They called (it) the herd. Sweden is suffering very, very badly. It’s a way of doing it.”But Swedish Health Minister Lena Hallengren recently told The Associated Press: “We have never had a strategy for herd immunity.”So far, Sweden has banned gatherings larger than 50 people, closed high schools and universities, and urged those over 70 or otherwise at greater risk from the virus to self-isolate.The softer approach means that schools for younger children, restaurants and most businesses are still open, creating the impression that Swedes are living their lives as usual.Yet as Johan Klockar watches his son kick a ball around a field during a soccer practice in Stockholm, the 43-year-old financial analyst says it’s not like that. He and his wife work from home and avoid unnecessary outings. They socialize in a very small circle, and limit their son’s contacts to people he sees at school or soccer practice.”Society is functioning, but I think it’s quite limited,” Klockar said. “Other than this sort of situation — schools, soccer practice — we basically stay at home.”And while most businesses in Sweden are still operating, the economic cost of the pandemic is already being felt. Last week, 25,350 Swedes registered as unemployed, according to the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce — a larger increase than during the 2008 financial crisis.In contrast, just across a narrow strip of sea, neighboring Denmark is already talking about reopening society. They imposed a much stricter lockdown four weeks ago, closing borders, schools and businesses. This week, the prime minister said by acting early, Denmark averted the tragedy that struck hard-hit nations like Italy and Spain, which together have seen at least 37,000 virus-related deaths, and will be ready after Easter for a slow return to normal life that starts with reopening preschools and primary schools.For weeks, the numbers of COVID-19 cases and fatalities were proportionally similar between Sweden and Denmark, but while the economic results of the strict isolation are being felt in Denmark, Sweden’s mortality rate has reached more than 88 dead per million, compared with around 47 dead per million in Denmark.Sweden, with a population of 10 million, has registered 899 deaths, while Denmark, with 5.8 million people, has 273 deaths. Worldwide, the virus has infected a reported 1.8 million people  and killed 114,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Still, due to limited testing, different ways of counting the dead and deliberate under-counting by some governments, experts believe those numbers vastly understate the pandemic’s true toll.After a sharp spike in deaths in Sweden, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven proposed an emergency law allowing the quick closure of public venues and transportation if needed. Lofven also warned citizens to prepare for possibly up to thousands of deaths.Nevertheless, Tegnell, the chief epidemiologist, insists that Sweden’s approach still seems to make sense, though he also acknowledges that the world is in uncharted territory with the virus.
He argues that while Sweden might have more infections in the short term, it will not face the risk of a huge infection spike that Denmark might face once its lockdown is lifted.”I think both Norway and Denmark are now very concerned about how you stop this complete lockdown in a way so you don’t cause this wave to come immediately when you start loosening up,” he said.He said authorities know that the physical distancing Swedes are engaging in works, because officials have recorded a sudden end to the flu season and to a winter vomiting illness.Lars Ostergaard, chief consultant and professor at the Department of Infectious Diseases at Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, agrees it is too soon to know which approach is best.”Every day a person is not being infected because of the strict lockdown, we are a day closer to a cure,” Ostergaard said, underlining the advantage of the Danish approach. But he acknowledges that the long-term consequences of a locked-down community could also be “substantial.””There is no right or wrong way,” Ostergaard said. “No one has walked this path before, and only the aftermath will show who made the best decision.”
…

Social restrictions aimed at stopping the spread of the coronavirus could have saved lives if they’d been started earlier, and when they’re eased new cases are certain to arise, said the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, seeming to draw the ire of President Donald Trump.
Trump, who has been chafing at criticism that he didn’t do enough early on to fight the virus, reposted a tweet that referenced Fauci’s comments and that said “Time to #FireFauci.” The Republican president again pointed to his decision in late January to restrict travel from China, writing, “Sorry Fake News, it’s all on tape. I banned China long before people spoke up.”
Fauci said Sunday that the economy in parts of the country could have a “rolling reentry” as early as next month, provided health authorities can quickly identify and isolate people who will inevitably be infected. Fauci also said he “can’t guarantee” that it will be safe for Americans to vote in person on Election Day, Nov. 3.
When asked on CNN if earlier action on social distancing and “stay at home” policies could have saved lives, Fauci responded in part: “It’s very difficult to go back and say that. I mean, obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. Obviously, no one is going to deny that. But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated.”
Trump’s tweet referencing Fauci was one of several that Trump posted on Sunday that defended his handling of the virus outbreak and blamed others for missteps.  
Rather than flipping a switch to reopen the entire country, Fauci said a gradual process will be required based on the status of the pandemic in various parts of the U.S. and the availability of rapid, widespread testing. Once the number of people who are seriously ill sharply declines, officials can begin to “think about a gradual reentry of some sort of normality, some rolling reentry,” Fauci said.
In some places, he said, that might occur as soon as May. “We are hoping that, at the end of the month, we could look around and say, OK, is there any element here that we can safely and cautiously start pulling back on? If so, do it. If not, then just continue to hunker down,” Fauci said. Whenever restrictions ease, Fauci said, “we know that there will be people who will be getting infected. I mean, that is just reality. ”
Social distancing guidelines from Trump are set to expire April 30.
Trump is eager to restart the economy, which has stalled because most Americans are under orders to “stay at home” to help slow the virus’ spread.
But governors will have a lot to say about when to ease restrictions in their states, and the leaders of Maryland and New Jersey indicated Sunday that they are not likely to do so until widespread testing is available.
“The question is how fast we can get enough tests up to speed in order to help us get to the point where we are able to do all of those things,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said. He said he has set no “artificial deadline.”
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said the risks of reopening too soon are dangerously high. “And I fear, if we open up too early, and we have not sufficiently made that health recovery and cracked the back of this virus, that we could be pouring gasoline on the fire, even inadvertently,” Murphy said.
Increased testing would allow authorities to identify, isolate and trace the contacts of people who are newly infected, Fauci said.
Trump continues to deny ongoing problems with the coronavirus testing that’s available, including shortages and long wait times for people to learn results. He’s also resistant to the idea of more widespread testing, saying last week that “it’s unnecessary” and that “vast areas of our country don’t need this.”
Other scientists have echoed Fauci’s call for a gradual reopening, where restrictions can be ramped up or down.
Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the University of Washington institute that created widely cited projections of virus-related deaths, said studies show that lifting restrictions at the end of this month would lead to a rebound in the number of infections. Because states don’t really have the capability to deal with a big volume of new cases, he said, “by July or August we could be back in the same situation we are now.”
Speaking about the prospects of Americans physically going to polling places in November, Fauci said he hopes voting in person can take place.  
“I believe that if we have a good, measured way of rolling into this, steps towards normality, that we hope, by the time we get to November, that we will be able to do it in a way which is the standard way,” he said.
“However — and I don’t want to be the pessimistic person — there is always the possibility, as we get into next fall, and the beginning of early winter, that we could see a rebound,” he said.
The U.S. has the most confirmed cases and deaths of any nation, more than 555,000 and more than 22,000, respectively, according to Johns Hopkins University. In hard-hit New York, the number of deaths topped 700 for six straight days, but the increase in people who are hospitalized is slowing, in a hopeful sign.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.
Fauci was on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Hogan appeared on ABC’s “This Week.” Murray was on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Murphy was on CNN and CBS.
…