Two U.S. astronauts say it’s hard to comprehend the changes on Earth that have occurred due to the coronavirus pandemic, as they prepare to return from the International Space Station.The astronauts, Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir, have been in space for more than half a year, having left Earth before anyone had ever heard of the coronavirus, let alone gotten sick or died.Morgan said Friday from the space station that the crew has been trying to keep up with developments about the virus, but said, “It’s very hard to fathom” all that is going on.Morgan, who is an Army emergency physician, said he feels a little guilty returning to Earth when the crisis is already underway.Meir said, “We can tell you that the Earth still looks just as stunning as always from up here, so it’s difficult to believe all the changes that have taken place since both of us have been up here.”“It is quite surreal for us to see this whole situation unfolding on the planet below,” she said.Morgan said the pandemic has affected operations at NASA’s mission control, with the handover taking place “between shifts between two different rooms to minimize the contact.” He said NASA staff members are persevering through “their ingenuity and their professionalism” and said, “They’re going to return us to Earth safely, just like their predecessors did 50 years ago.”Apollo 13 anniversaryThe two U.S. astronauts, along with a Russian cosmonaut, Oleg Skripochka, will return to Earth on April 17, exactly 50 years after the U.S. Apollo 13 mission returned to Earth.That mission faced a crisis when the spacecraft’s oxygen tank ruptured two days into the trip, aborting the astronauts’ mission to the moon.“Once again, now there’s a crisis, and the crisis is on Earth,” Morgan said.Meir said she is looking forward to seeing her family and friends again, even if just virtually. She said she expects to feel more isolated on Earth than in space.“We’re so busy with so many other amazing pursuits and we have this incredible vantage point of the Earth below, that we don’t really feel as much of that isolation,” Meir said.Meir has been in space since September and Morgan since last July. They will return in a Soyuz capsule, landing in Kazakhstan.The Americans will leave three astronauts who arrived at the space station Thursday — NASA’s Chris Cassidy and Russians Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner.The launch of a Russian Soyuz rocket carrying those astronauts was carried out under tight restrictions because of the coronavirus. Support workers wore masks and kept their distance from the crew to prevent the possibility of the virus being taken to the space station. The crew members, who routinely go into quarantine ahead of launch day, stayed in isolation longer than normal because of the virus.Cassidy said Friday from the space station, “we knew as a crew we were going to be in quarantine about nine months ago or a year ago, those exact weeks, but we didn’t know the whole rest of the world was going to join us.”Following Thursday’s launch, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted his congratulations. “No virus is stronger than the human desire to explore,” he said.The next astronauts who visit the space station will be launched by SpaceX from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, as early as next month. It will be the first launch of astronauts to the space station from the United States since NASA’s space shuttle program ended in 2011. 
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By the time the towering Saturn V rocket carrying the Apollo 13 crew  left the launchpad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, thundering into the skies on April 11, 1970, traveling to the moon seemed about as interesting to the general public as commuting to work.It was, after all, America’s third mission aimed at landing on the desolate orb, a feat accomplished nine months before during the much-celebrated Apollo 11 mission.“After the landing there was a general letdown, not just by the general public, but I think by NASA itself,” Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell explained to VOA during a 2015 interview at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. “Enthusiasm for lunar flights had diminished greatly. … By the time Apollo 13 came around, I think the only mention in The New York Times was on page 67 of the weather page, because everyone had forgotten.”Lovell added, “Very few people in the news media had manned the news desk at Johnson Space Center.”The public’s lack of attention all changed in an instant, when an explosion rocked their spacecraft hurtling through space two days into the mission. Lovell and crewmates Jack Swigert and Fred Haise were in grave peril.“It had been a major sound, a metallic echoing, a bang that came through the spacecraft,” Haise recalled. “We knew it was nothing normal, something bad.”As warning signals lit up the cabin of their command module – and instrument panels at NASA’s mission control in Houston, Texas – Lovell uttered a sentence that would reverberate through history.“Houston, we’ve had a problem.”FILE – In this April 10, 1970, photo made available by NASA, Apollo 13 astronauts, from left, Fred Haise, Jack Swigert and Jim Lovell pose for a photo on the day before launch.“My team was the one who responded to Jim Lovell’s call,” said Gene Kranz, NASA’s lead flight director for Apollo 13. “This was the third attempt at a lunar landing, and we had problems all along the way.”“We were not prepared for any kind of problems as large as Apollo 13,” said NASA Flight Director Gerald “Gerry” Griffin who, alongside Kranz, led mission control through the crisis. “We had never contemplated anything quite that drastic.”“We had three crewmen in a dead spacecraft 200,000 miles away from Earth heading towards the moon,” Kranz explained. Getting them back alive meant round-the-clock problem-solving in a high-stress environment where the stakes were life or death.“We had been trained with the notion that as long as you had plenty of options left, don’t give up, just keep on plugging,” Griffin said. “We never ran out of options.”But the one option that quickly evaporated once the explosion occurred was completing the mission as planned.“I was sick to my stomach because I knew that we were not going to be able to land on the moon,” Haise told VOA.As the world witnessed the events unfold on radio and television, Kranz’s mantra during Apollo 13 became the title of his book: Failure is Not an Option.“The crisis lasted the best part of almost four days, and that was maybe where the world’s attention was able to be focused upon this particular event more than some of the other missions we focused on.”By using the lunar module as a temporary lifeboat, Lovell and his crew were able to slingshot around the moon and limp back to Earth. They touched down in the Pacific Ocean to the excitement – and relief – of millions, making the mission what NASA called a “successful failure.”FILE – In this April 17, 1970, photo made available by NASA, the command module carrying the Apollo 13 crew parachutes to a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.But returning safely also meant ending a dream and not completing a goal. Neither Jim Lovell nor Fred Haise would ever walk on the moon.“Years later when we decided to write a book about the story of Apollo 13 – I got the feeling that yes, the flight was a failure,” Lovell said.  “But in another aspect it was a triumph in how people can take an almost certain catastrophe – working together, figuring out solutions to crisis that we didn’t plan for or train for and get this spacecraft back home.”Lovell’s book about the experience, Lost Moon, was the basis for the 1995 Apollo 13 Hollywood blockbuster featuring actor Tom Hanks as Lovell, Kevin Bacon as Swigert, and Bill Paxton as Fred Haise.“I think the movie and its exposure that way has obviously added hype to become a little bit of folklore at this point,” Haise said.“The Apollo 13 movie was actually a godsend because it gave the young people who weren’t even born at the time a chance to find out what was really happening back then,” Lovell said.“Sometimes stories that we see in movies that are based in reality you sort of have to increase the drama,” said Andrew Johnston, vice president of astronomy and collections at the Adler Planetarium. “This one was a real drama. It was not clear that these guys were going to be able to get home alive. That’s why it makes such a good story and why it grabbed people’s attention.”It’s a story that the planetarium highlights in its Mission Moon exhibit showcasing equipment from Apollo 13 donated by Lovell, who visited the Chicago planetarium himself as a young boy. Now, Lovell hopes his story and experiences inspire a new generation of explorers who visit the Adler.While an Adler Planetarium event to celebrate Apollo 13’s 50th anniversary has been postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak, the celebration is moving online, where visitors to the Adler and NASA social media sites can see and hear highlights – digitally – of the U.S. space program’s successful failure.
 
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As the world fights the coronavirus pandemic, there are questions about whether restrictions to contain the virus are leading to cleaner air and skies. Some say there is a correlation between lockdowns and pollution levels, but others disagree. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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Scientists with the U.S. space agency NASA say recent satellite data are showing as much as a 30 percent drop in air pollution along the U.S. East Coast compared with the same time last year.Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, studied March’s data from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument, which is onboard the agency’s Aura satellite.The team said the data showed that levels of nitrogen oxide – a key indicator of air pollution caused by human activity – from Washington to the south and Boston to the north were at their lowest level for any March since 2005, when they began recording such data.NASA said similar drops have been recorded elsewhere in the world in recent weeks, particularly in coronavirus hot spots such as Italy and China, where widespread lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders have been implemented.The scientists noted that variations in weather from year to year also can affect monthly averages of nitrogen oxide and other materials in the atmosphere. They said they would conduct further analysis to determine exactly what caused the drop.
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After managing to keep on top of the first wave of coronavirus outbreaks, Singapore is grappling with an alarming rise in infections among migrant workers housed in crowded dormitories.  
Such cases now account for about a quarter of Singapore’s 1,910 infections. The government reported 287 new cases Thursday, its biggest daily jump. More than 200 were linked to the foreign workers’ dormitories.  
The tiny city-state of less than 6 million people was seen as a model in its early, swift response to the virus. But it apparently overlooked the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers living in conditions where social distancing is impossible. Now more than 50,000 workers are quarantined and others are being moved to safer locations.  
The outbreaks merit attention in a region where practically every country has large numbers of migrants working, commuting and living in crowded conditions.  
On one recent night, masked foreign workers laden with luggage got off buses, each keeping a small distance from the others, to be registered and screened before moving into a Singapore army camp.  
The 1,300 workers moving into segregated facilities in two army camps will be required to observe strict health measures, stagger their meal times and maintain social distancing. They are due to stay in the camp until May 4.
Posing beside single cots spaced several feet apart, several gave thumbs ups in a short video on the defense ministry’s Facebook page.  
Others are to be moved into unoccupied housing estates, an exhibition center and other locations to help reduce crowding in their dormitories.  
Foreigners account for over a third of Singapore’s workforce, and more than 200,000 are migrant workers from Pakistan, Bangladesh and other poorer Asian countries living in 43 registered dormitories across Singapore.  
Most work in construction, shipping and maintenance jobs, helping to support Singapore’s trade-reliant economy.  
Virus clusters have emerged in nine of the privately-run dormitories that house up to 20 men per room, with shared toilets, cooking and other facilities.  
By failing to act sooner, Singapore allowed the illness to spread more widely than expected in communities that already are relatively vulnerable, experts said.  
“This is a very major and urgent issue that requires active and urgent intervention,” Lawrence Wong, the national development minister, said in televised remarks.
This week, the city tightened precautions with a four-week “circuit breaker,” shutting down non-essential businesses and schools until May 4.  
“Hindsight is 20/20. In general, Singapore could have implemented measures earlier that would have blunted the initial surge in imported cases in the second half of March,” said Hsu Li Yang, an associate professor and program leader for Infectious Diseases at the National University of Singapore.  
“The important matter at hand is to swiftly disrupt the chains of transmission in the dormitories, as well as in the rest of Singapore,” Hsu said.  
The more than 50,000 workers quarantined for two weeks in five dormitories that were declared “isolation areas” are being screened and tested. They are still paid wages and provided food and other essentials. The facilities are sanitized daily and they have been given health kits with face masks and hand sanitizers.  
Labor advocates have questioned the strategy, saying confinement en mass in dormitories might put the workers at greater risk.  
“When social distancing in dorm rooms with 12–20 men per room is effectively impossible, should one worker in a room be infected – and he could be asymptomatic — the repeated contact he has with his roommates because of confinement would heighten the risk to his mates. The infection rate in the dorm could increase dramatically,” the group Transient Workers Count Too, a charity group helping migrant workers, said in a statement.  
It likened the quarantines to the conditions aboard cruise ships that were incubators for coronavirus infections.  
The pace of testing, reportedly at less than 3,000 a day, cannot keep up with infections, and many thousands of workers live outside the 43 registered dormitories, noted the group’s vice president Alex Au.  
“They may be able to move 5% or 10%, but our guess is that the densities in the dormitories are so high, you may need something something like a 50% reduction. Where do you place tens of thousands of workers? It’s a very, very big problem,” Au said.
The virus is highlighting the need for better living conditions for workers.  
“The problem here is Singapore’s whole economic model, our prosperity, is really built on the assumption or expectation of cheap labor,” Au said. “This is going to show us that cheap is a temporary thing. There will be hidden costs that will erupt when you don’t expect it,” he added.
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Southeast Asian foreign ministers have endorsed the setting up of a regional fund to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and discussed a planned video summit of their leaders with counterparts from China, Japan and South Korea.
The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said Friday that the top diplomats of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations linked up by video Thursday in a meeting led by Vietnam. 
The ministers endorsed several collective steps to fight the pandemic, including the establishment of a COVID-19 ASEAN response fund, the sharing of information and strategies and ways to ease the impact of the global health crisis on people and the economy, the department said in a statement.It did not provide details.   pandemic, three Southeast Asian diplomats told The Associated Press. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity due to a lack of authority to discuss the high-level meeting.  
In Thursday’s discussion, Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. stressed the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea amid the contagion, the department said.  
The Philippines has expressed solidarity with Vietnam after a Vietnamese fishing boat was reportedly rammed and sank by a Chinese coast guard ship in disputed waters near the Paracel islands in the South China Sea.
Vietnam and the Philippines and two other ASEAN member states, Brunei and Malaysia, have been locked in longstanding territorial disputes with China and Taiwan in the strategic waterways, one of the world’s busiest,
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Taking a toy out of the box can make a mess.Hardly eco-friendly, the process can yield more clutter from plastic and cardboard than the actual toy.But there are moves to change that as some toy manufacturers say they’re going green with a series of environmentally friendly initiatives: Army soldiers and Kermit the Frog aren’t the only toys that are green.“Companies are trying to be more environmentally conscious with their products, whether it’s using their packaging that has less plastic or making sure that their packaging is part of the toy … it’s really taking over the industry and we’re going to see a lot more of it this year,” said Maddie Michalik, senior editor for Toy Insider magazine.These initiatives range from using minimal packaging and recycled packing materials to opting for bio-based plastics rather than their petroleum counterpart. Some have even made the formerly discarded box part of the play experience.Mattel — the maker of Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher Price — is touting several of its lines as sustainable, including a Woodland Friends edition of the popular Mega Bloks as well as an upcoming version of its traditional Fisher-Price Rock-A-Stack.“Those are now made of bio-based sugar cane plastic. And we’ll be taking that into other lines rolling out throughout the years,” Scott Shaffstall, Mattel’s senior public relations manager, said.Mattel said it also reduced packing waste by using 93 percent recycled or sustainably sourced materials, and by 2030 has the goal that its toys will be made from 100 percent recycled, recyclable or bio-based plastic materials.Professor Tensie Whelan, the former head of the Rainforest Alliance and current director of NYU’s Stern Center for Sustainable Business, said focusing on sustainability practices in the toy industry is long overdue.“We’ve got 60 million kids under 14 in the United States. We’ve got 90 percent of toys made of plastic. We have chemical issues, waste disposal issues, social supply chain issues. So, a lot of things that need to be addressed,” Whelan said.She points out that while manufacturers are introducing eco-friendly initiatives, it’s hard to verify their sustainability claims, noting “you’d have to be looking at waste, carbon emissions, water emissions, the product themselves …. what their supply chain partners are doing. And none of that is very transparent.”Whelan believes Mattel is making positive commitments when it comes to materials used in manufacturing and reducing packaging. She also cites Hasbro and Lego for making strides when it comes to reducing packaging and using safer materials. But she said the toy industry as a whole has much more work to do.“I think there’s still plenty of room to improve on packaging, to reduce the packaging and also to use far less plastics,” Whelan said.And manufacturers seem to be listening. MGA Entertainment unveiled a biodegradable ball as part of its L.O.L Surprise! Doll line. MGA also unveiled a new product line from Little Tikes made from a blend of recycled resins.Educational Insights has focused on educational toys for young children for more than 50 years. For their Design and Drill: Bolt Buddies Pick-It-Up Truck they’ve made the packaging part of the play experience.At Toy Fair New York in February, product manager Stacie Palka demonstrated how the toy and its packing come together so there is little waste as the box the toy is shipped in becomes part of the toy.“What they can do is use this for color packaging to unfold and create this play set. So, it really extends the play pattern because you’ve got a set that you can use for pretend play,” Palka said.Another company, the Netherlands-based Safari Ltd., offers the BioBuddi line of toy blocks, much like Lego and Mega Bloks, that uses sugar cane in the manufacturing process.The company’s general manager, Job Nijssen, says their mandate is to reduce our carbon footprint in the manufacturing process, while at the same time setting an example for its young consumers.“We want to produce products for children, but also teach children about environmental education,” Nijssen said. 
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It looked like a white splotch on the underside of a Neanderthal stone tool. But a microscope showed it was a bunch of fibers twisted around each other.Further examination revealed it was the first direct evidence that Neanderthals could make string, and the oldest known direct evidence for string-making overall, researchers say. The find implies our evolutionary cousins had some understanding of numbers and the trees that furnished the raw material, they say. It’s the latest discovery to show Neanderthals were smarter than modern-day people often assume. Bruce Hardy, of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and colleagues report the discovery in a paper released Thursday by the journal Scientific Reports. The string hints at the possibility of other abilities, like making bags, mats, nets and fabric, they said.  It came from an archaeological site in the Rhone River valley of southeastern France, and it’s about 40,000 to 50,000 years old. Researchers don’t know how Neanderthals used the string or even whether it had been originally attached to the stone cutting tool. Maybe the tool happened to fall on top of the string, preserving the quarter-inch (6.2 mm) segment while the rest perished over time, Hardy said. The string is about one-fiftieth of an inch (0.55 mm) wide.  It was made of fiber from the inner bark of trees. Neanderthals twisted three bundles of fibers together counterclockwise, and then twisted these bundles together clockwise to make the string. That assembly process shows some sense of numbers, Hardy said.Paola Villa, a Neanderthal expert at the University of Colorado Museum who was not involved in the new study, noted that Hardy had previously found “tantalizing evidence” for string-making by Neanderthals. The new work now shows that directly, she said. 
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Apollo 13’s astronauts never gave a thought to their mission number as they blasted off for the moon 50 years ago. Even when their oxygen tank ruptured two days later — on April 13.Jim Lovell and Fred Haise insist they’re not superstitious. They even use 13 in their email addresses.As mission commander Lovell sees it, he’s incredibly lucky. Not only did he survive NASA’s most harrowing moonshot, he’s around to mark its golden anniversary.”I’m still alive. As long as I can keep breathing, I’m good,” Lovell, 92, said in an interview with The Associated Press from his Lake Forest, Illinois, home.A half-century later, Apollo 13 is still considered Mission Control’s finest hour.  Lovell calls it “a miraculous recovery.”  Haise, like so many others, regards it as NASA’s most successful failure.  “It was a great mission,” Haise, 86, said. It showed “what can be done if people use their minds and a little ingenuity.”  As the lunar module pilot, Haise would have become the sixth man to walk on the moon, following Lovell onto the dusty gray surface. The oxygen tank explosion robbed them of the moon landing, which would have been NASA’s third, nine months after Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took humanity’s first footsteps on the moon.Now the coronavirus pandemic has robbed them of their anniversary celebrations. Festivities are on hold, including at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the mission began on April 11, 1970, a Saturday just like this year.That won’t stop Haise, who still lives in Houston, from marking what he calls “boom day” next Monday, as he does every April 13.Lovell, Haise and Jack Swigert, a last-minute fill-in who died in 1982, were almost to the moon when they heard a bang and felt a shudder. One of two oxygen tanks had burst in the spacecraft’s service module.FILE – In this April 10, 1970, photo made available by NASA, Apollo 13 astronauts, from left, Fred Haise, Jack Swigert and Jim Lovell pose for a photo on the day before launch.The tense words that followed are the stuff of space — and movie — fame.”OK, Houston, we’ve had a problem here,” radioed Swigert, the command module pilot.”This is Houston. Say again, please.””Houston, we’ve had a problem,” Lovell cut in.Lovell reported a sudden voltage drop in one of the two main electrical circuits. Within seconds, Houston’s Mission Control saw pressure readings for the damaged oxygen tank plunge to zero. The blast also knocked out two electrical power-generating fuel cells and damaged the third.  As Lovell peered out the window and saw oxygen escaping into the black void, he knew his moon landing was also slipping away. He shoved all emotions aside.”Not landing on the moon or dying in space are two different things,” Lovell explained, “and so we forgot about landing on the moon. This was one of survival. How do we get home?”The astronauts were 200,000 miles (322,000 kilometers) from Earth. Getting back alive would require calm, skill and, yes, luck.”The explosion could not have happened at a better time,” Lovell said.Much earlier, he said, and the astronauts wouldn’t have had enough electrical power to make it around the moon and slingshot back to Earth for a splashdown. A blast in lunar orbit or, worse still, while Lovell and Haise were on the surface, “that would be the end of it.”  “I think we had some divine help in this flight,” Lovell said.The aborted mission went from being so humdrum that none of the major TV networks broadcast the astronauts’ show-and-tell minutes before the explosion, to a life-and-death drama gripping the entire world.  As flight director Gene Kranz and his team in Houston raced to come up with a rescue plan, the astronauts kept their cool. It was Lovell’s fourth spaceflight – his second to the moon – and the first and only one for Haise and Swigert.Dark thoughts “always raced through our minds, but silently. We didn’t talk about that,” Lovell said.  Added Haise: “We never hit the point where there was nothing left to do. So, no, we never got to a point where we said, ‘Well, we’re going to die.'”The White House, less confident, demanded odds. Kranz refused, leaving it to others to put the crew’s chances at 50-50. In his mind, there was no doubt, no room for failure — only success.”Basically that was the name of the game: I’m going to get them home. My team’s going to get them home. We will get them home,” Kranz recalled.For the record, Kranz never uttered “failure is not an option.” The line is pure Hollywood, created for the 1995 movie “Apollo 13” starring Ed Harris as Kranz and Tom Hanks as Lovell.FILE – In this April 17, 1970, photo made available by NASA, the command module carrying the Apollo 13 crew parachutes to a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.The flight controllers went into crisis mode. They immediately ordered the command module Odyssey shut down to conserve what little power remained, and the astronauts to move into the lunar module Aquarius, now a lifeboat.  One of the low points, Lovell said, was realizing they’d be cramped together in the lander.”It was designed for two people for two days. We were three people for four days.”The carbon dioxide overload, from breathing, threatened to kill them.  Engineers scrambled to figure out how to convert the square air-purifying canisters in the dead capsule into round ones that would fit in their temporary home.  Their outside-the-box, seat-of-the-pants solution, using spacecraft scraps, worked. But it was so damp and cold that the astronauts couldn’t sleep. Condensation covered the walls and windows, and the temperature was close to freezing.Dehydrated and feverish, Haise had the roughest time during the six-day ordeal. Despite the sky-high stress, Haise recalls no cross words among the three test pilots. Even Swigert fit in, despite joining the crew a scant three days before liftoff. He replaced command module pilot Ken Mattingly, who with his crewmates had been exposed to German measles, but unlike them didn’t have immunity.  Rumors swirled that the astronauts had poison pills tucked away in case of a hopeless situation. Lovell dispelled that notion on page one of his 1994 autobiography, “Lost Moon,” the basis for the “Apollo 13” film.Splashdown day finally arrived April 17, 1970 — with no guarantees.The astronauts managed to power up their command module, avoiding short circuits but creating a rainfall inside as the spacecraft decelerated in the atmosphere.The communication blackout lasted 1 1/2 minutes longer than normal. Controllers grew alarmed. Finally, three billowing parachutes appeared above the Pacific. It was only then, Lovell said, that “we knew that we had it made.”  The astronauts had no idea how much their cosmic cliffhanger impacted the world until they reached Honolulu. President Richard Nixon was there to greet them.”We never dreamed a billion people were following us on television and radio, and reading about us in banner headlines of every newspaper published,” Lovell noted in a NASA history.The tank explosion later was linked to damage caused by electrical overheating in ground tests.  Apollo 13 “showed teamwork, camaraderie and what NASA was really made of,” said Columbia University’s Mike Massimino, a former shuttle astronaut.In the decades since, Lovell and his wife, Marilyn, of nearly 68 years have discussed the what-ifs and might-have-beens.”The outcome of everything is, naturally, that he’s alive,” she said, “and that we’ve had all these years.” 
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African officials pushed back Thursday against the global jostling to obtain medical equipment to combat the coronavirus, warning that if the virus is left to spread on the continent the world will remain at risk.
“We cannot be neglected in this effort,” the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, John Nkengasong, told reporters. “The world will be terribly unsafe, and it will be completely naive, if countries think they can control COVID-19 in their countries but not in Africa.”
While Africa’s 1.3 billion people had a head start in preparing for the pandemic as the virus spread in China, Europe and the United States, Nkengasong warned that “the very future of the continent will depend on how this matter is handled” as cases, now over 11,000, quickly rise.  
“The worst is still to come,” he said, and pointed to the global Spanish flu pandemic of a century ago when cases came in waves.
Africa is competing with the developing world for testing kits that will help give a clear number of cases, as well as ventilators for patients in respiratory distress and protective equipment that front-line health workers desperately require. Already, anxious workers have gone on strike or gone to court in places like Zimbabwe over the lack of gear.
“We may not actually know how big is the size of the problem” without scaling up testing, Nkengasong said.
While 48 of Africa’s 54 countries now have testing capability, that often is limited to countries’ capitals or other major cities, officials with the World Health Organization told reporters in a separate briefing.
There is an “urgent need” to expand testing, the WHO Africa chief, Matshidiso Moeti, said, noting that clusters of community transmission have emerged in at least 16 countries. That means the virus has begun spreading beyond the initial cases imported from abroad.
“Some countries might face a huge peak very soon” in cases, said the WHO’s emergency program manager, Michel Yao.
Even if testing kits and other equipment are found, another challenge is delivering them amid the thicket of travel restrictions. Cargo space is rare because many airlines have stopped flights to African destinations, Yao said.
Close to 20 African countries have closed their borders, and several are now under lockdown to try to prevent the virus’ spread. Millions of people wonder whether nations will follow Rwanda’s lead in extending the period that all but essential workers are confined to their homes.
Lifting the lockdowns will depend on the situation in neighboring countries, Nkengasong said. Otherwise, “what’s the point? If Botswana or Zimbabwe have cases and South Africa opens up, you waste everybody’s time.”
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Iran’s supreme leader suggested Thursday that mass gatherings may be barred through the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan amid the coronavirus pandemic, as Amnesty International said it believed at least 35 Iranian prisoners were killed by security forces amid rioting over the virus.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the comment in a televised address as Iran prepares to restart its economic activity while suffering one of the world’s worst outbreaks. He is also the highest-ranking official in the Muslim world to acknowledge the holy month of prayer and reflection will be disrupted by the virus and the COVID-19 illness it causes.  
“We are going to be deprived of public gatherings of the month of Ramadan,” Khamenei said during a speech marking the birth of Imam Mahdi. “Those gatherings are meetings for praying to God or listening to speeches which are really valuable. In the absence of these meetings, remember to heed your prayers and devotions in your lonesomeness.”
Ramadan is set to begin in late April and last through most of May. Iranian public officials had not yet discussed plans for the holy month, which sees the Muslim faithful fast from dawn until sunset. However, Iranian mosques have been closed and Friday prayers canceled across the country for fear of the virus spreading among those attending.
Khamenei urged Shiite faithful to pray in their homes during Ramadan. Shiites typically pray communally, especially during Ramadan, which sees communities share meals and greetings each night.  
Iran has reported over 66,000 confirmed cases of the new virus, with over 4,100 deaths. However, experts have repeatedly questioned those numbers, especially as Iran initially downplayed the outbreak in February amid the 41st anniversary of its 1979 Islamic Revolution and a crucial parliamentary vote.  
Khamenei’s comments come after Egypt’s Ministry of Religious Endowments on Tuesday called off all celebrations and late-evening prayer services for Ramadan in the Arab world’s most populous country. Mosques and churches have already closed for prayer across Egypt. Egypt has over 100 deaths amid more than 1,500 confirmed cases.  
Meanwhile on Thursday, Amnesty International reported that thousands of prisoners in at least eight prisons had rioted over their fears about potentially contracting the virus while incarcerated.
The rights group said it believed at least 35 Iranian prisoners were killed by security forces. There have been sporadic reports in Iranian media about the riots, with only one fatality claimed.
Amnesty, cited “independent sources including prisoners’ families” to report the fatalities. It said security forces used live ammunition and tear gas to suppress protests. Footage earlier verified by The Associated Press showed thick black smoke rising over one prison in southwestern Iran.  
“It is abhorrent that instead of responding to prisoners’ legitimate demands to be protected from COVID-19, Iranian authorities have yet again resorted to killing people to silence their concerns,” Amnesty’s Diana Eltahawy said in a statement.
Iranian media did not immediately acknowledge Amnesty’s report. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.  
Estimates suggest the Islamic Republic’s prison system held some 150,000 prisoners just prior to the new coronavirus pandemic. In the time since the outbreak took hold, Iran has temporarily released some 105,000 prisoners. Those who remain held include violent offenders and so-called “security” cases often involving political prisoners.  
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has ordered the country’s economy to slowly begin opening back up starting Saturday, leading to worries the nation could see a second wave of infections. The Islamic Republic’s economy is suffering under intense U.S. sanctions after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, made a point to remind Iranians that the U.S. is the main enemy and mocked Americans who fought over toilet paper at stores and lined up outside of gun shops to purchase firearms.  
“The problem of coronavirus must not make us ignorant of the plots of enemies and the arrogant power,” he said. 
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