The debate over the usefulness of an antimalarial drug to treat U.S. coronavirus victims is pitting President Donald Trump against the country’s top U.S. infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci. With the U.S. coronavirus death toll increasing by hundreds a day, Trump at daily news briefings regularly touts the use of hydroxychloroquine, calling it a potential “game-changer” to save lives.  President Donald Trump speaks during a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, April 5, 2020, in Washington.”What do you have to lose? Take it,” the president said in a White House briefing over the weekend. “I really think they should take it. But it’s their choice. And it’s their doctor’s choice or the doctors in the hospital. But hydroxychloroquine — try it if you’d like.” Fauci, often standing a step or two away from the U.S. leader in the White House briefing room, says data showing possible hints of success from use of the drug in treating coronavirus patients is “at best suggestive” and not based on scientific studies. He is the longtime director of the country’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. A contentious debate over the use of the drug erupted at a coronavirus task force meeting in the White House situation room on Saturday between Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro and Fauci, who consistently has voiced skepticism and caution about use of the drug. FILE – White House trade adviser Peter Navarro speaks during a television interview at the White House, Oct. 8, 2019.“This drug could save lives,” Navarro told CNN on Monday. “We are at war here. We’re trying to make sure as few people die as possible.” But Navarro also acknowledged, “There are downsides to this. There can be in some cases negative effects. It’s related to [the] heart and related to vision.” He said that ultimately, use of the drug must depend on agreement between doctors and their patients after they have discussed possible side effects. Navarro downplayed the weekend argument with Fauci, saying, “If we didn’t have disagreement and debate in the Trump administration, this administration wouldn’t be as strong as it is.” Navarro, a social scientist with a doctoral degree but not a medical doctor, said initial studies from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus first appeared, show use of the antimalarial drug is promising as a treatment. Fauci mostly dismisses the reports, saying they were not conducted under rigorous scientific testing protocols. Navarro said the U.S. has a stockpile of 29 million tablets of the antimalarial drug, adding that “virtually every New York (coronavirus) patient is given hydroxy.” The country’s biggest city is at epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. FILE – President Trump listens as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks during a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, April 5, 2020, in Washington.The debate over hydroxychloroquine comes as Trump, Fauci and Surgeon General Jerome Adams all are warning Americans they face daunting days ahead, as the U.S. death toll mounts rapidly with more than 9,600, and with 337,000 confirmed cases of the infection. “This is going to be the hardest and saddest week of most Americans’ lives, quite frankly,” Adams told “Fox News Sunday.” “This is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment, only it’s not going to be localized. It’s going to be happening all over the country.”  Trump, speaking to reporters at a Sunday evening briefing, expressed some optimism, saying there is a “light at the end of the tunnel,” while noting the difficult circumstances that lay immediately ahead. “The next week and a half, two weeks, are going to be, I think, they’re going to be very difficult,” Trump said.  “At the same time, we understand what they represent and what that time represents. And hopefully, we can get this over with, because this is a very horrible thing for the world.” Fauci said that stay-at-home orders that cover 41 of the country’s 50 states and social distancing guidelines take time to show their effects. A body wrapped in plastic is unloaded from a refrigerated truck by medical workers wearing personal protective equipment due to COVID-19 concerns, March 31, 2020, at a hospital in New York.”What you’re hearing about potential light at the end of the tunnel doesn’t take away from the fact that tomorrow, the next day, are going to look really bad,” Fauci said. Trump has not issued national lockdown orders like those in Italy and Spain, preferring to leave that decision to state governors.  Most have given their own order, but nine have not. Fauci said the people in the nine states are “putting themselves at risk” by not self-isolating, even if their governors have not issued stay-at-home orders.  “This virus does not discriminate” whether one lives in a small community or a large city,” Fauci said.       
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 The new coronavirus made Dr. Jag Singh a patient at his own hospital.His alarm grew as he saw an X-ray of his pneumonia-choked lungs and colleagues asked his wishes about life support while wheeling him into Massachusetts General’s intensive care unit.An X-ray room is seen at a Hospital in Fairfax, Virginia. (Photo: Diaa Bekheet). In some hospitals, chest X-ray has taken center stage as a frontline diagnostic test for COVID-19 patients.When they offered him a chance to help test remdesivir, an experimental drug that’s shown promise against some other coronaviruses, “it did not even cross my mind once to say ‘no,’” said Singh, a heart specialist.Coronavirus patients around the world have been rushing to join remdesivir studies that opened in hospitals in the last few weeks.Interest has been so great that the U.S. National Institutes of Health is expanding its study, which has nearly reached its initial goal of 440 patients. The drug’s maker, California-based Gilead Sciences, is quickly ramping up its own studies, too.“I would enroll my family in a heartbeat” if the need arose, said Dr. Libby Hohmann, who placed Singh and nearly 30 others in the NIH one at Mass General. To have no approved medicines for COVID-19 now is “kind of terrifying,” she said.For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, which can include fever and cough but sometimes pneumonia requiring hospitalization. The risk of death is greater for older adults and people with other health problems.Remdesivir is given through an IV. It’s designed to interfere with an enzyme that reproduces viral genetic material.In animal tests against SARS and MERS, diseases caused by similar coronaviruses, the drug helped prevent infection and reduced the severity of symptoms when given early enough in the course of illness. It’s farther along in testing than many other potential therapies and the current studies could lead to regulatory approval.Gilead has given remdesivir to more than 1,700 patients on a case-by-case emergency basis, but more people ultimately will be helped if the company does the needed studies to prove safety and effectiveness, chief executive Dan O’Day wrote in a recent letter to the public.“Many people have reached out to Gilead to advocate for access to remdesivir on behalf of friends and loved ones. I can only imagine how it must feel to be in that situation,” he wrote. “We are taking the ethical, responsible approach.”In another letter on Saturday, O’Day said the company has 1.5 million doses, which could mean more than 140,000 treatment courses, depending on how long treatment needs to last. The company is providing the drug for free for now and has set a goal of making 500,000 treatment courses by October and more than a million by the end of the year.Gilead supplied remdesivir for two studies in China expected to give results by the end of the month. It also launched two studies for hospitalized patients in the U.S., Asia, Europe and elsewhere. One in severely ill patients tests five versus 10 days of treatment. Another in moderately sick patients compares those two options to standard care alone.“There’s so much anxiety about the disease that the patients are quite interested” and no one offered the chance has refused, said Dr. Arun Sanyal, the study leader at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.The first patient he enrolled was a previously healthy middle-aged man who had an out-of-state visitor a few days before his symptoms began. What started as mild illness escalated to profound shortness of breath requiring supplemental oxygen.At University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, Dr. Grace McComsey has enrolled roughly half a dozen patients.“We’re seeing more and more younger people, like 30, really sick,” she said.The NIH study is the most rigorous test. It compares remdesivir to placebo infusions, and neither patients nor doctors know who is getting what until the end of the study. Besides the U.S., it’s open in Japan, Korea and Singapore.In Chicago, an 89-year-old man was Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s first participant and “the family was very excited” to have him included, said infectious diseases chief Dr. Babafemi Taiwo.At the University of California, Irvine, Dr. Alpesh Amin has enrolled several patients. All are getting standard care even if they wind up getting a placebo rather than remdesivir, Amin said.The Boston cardiologist, Singh, said he was willing to take that chance to advance science even if he personally winds up not benefiting. He’s now recovering at home after spending a week in the hospital.“The word ‘placebo’ freaks some people out,” but rigorous testing is needed to avoid giving false hope or using something unsafe. Still, it’s tough to face patients with no proven therapy now, Hohmann said.“The worst thing is seeing some really young people who are really, really sick,” such as a 49-year-old man with three young children on life support, she said. “That’s pretty awful.”
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In the middle of the deadly, worldwide coronavirus pandemic, Michael Wells, a 34-year old neuroscientist, wanted to be useful
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The world crossed the one-million mark of confirmed COVID-19 cases this past week. With untold millions more possible in the months to come, scientists are committed to making a vaccine.There’s a lot about COVID-19 that scientists still don’t know. They don’t know entirely how it is spread. And without proven treatments or vaccines, good hygiene and staying away from other people are the only known methods of prevention.Dr. Peter Hotez at Baylor College of Medicine started working on a coronavirus vaccine in 2003, during the outbreak of SARS, but after that, research funds dried up.Hotez expects more coronaviruses to develop and spread. Some may be more benign that COVID-19, some far deadlier.”Pandemics for coronaviruses have become a new normal. That we saw with SARS in 2003. We saw it in MERS s in 2012, and now this one. So we can expect a new major coronavirus every decade.”A pharmacist gives Jennifer Haller, left, the first shot in the first-stage safety study clinical trial of a potential vaccine for COVID-19 at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle, Washington, March 16, 2020.Which is all the more reason to develop a vaccine, even after the COVID-19 infections taper off and life gets back to normal.  “We’re developing a vaccine for global health purposes. We’re very concerned what happens when this virus moves into the crowded urban areas slums of Mumbai and Kolkata, and then Delhi, how do you practice social distancing, you basically can’t so that’s why a vaccine is going to be very important for places like India, and that’s become our big priority right now.”Hotez is one of a number of scientists working on a vaccine for COVID-19, on treatments for the sick and methods to protect health care workers. He knows clean water is not available everywhere around the world, that it’s possible that COVID-19 will be a recurring virus, and that there will likely be new coronaviruses emerging in the coming years. 
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Michael Wells was looking for a chance to use his scientific training to help fight the coronavirus when — on the same day the pandemic forced his lab to temporarily close — he decided to create his own opportunity. “CALLING ALL SCIENTISTS,” he tweeted on March 18. “Help me in creating a national database of researchers willing and able to aid in local COVID-19 efforts. This info will be a resource for institutions/(government) agencies upon their request.” That’s how the 34-year-old neuroscientist at the Broad Institute and Harvard University launched a national effort to marshal scientists to volunteer in the fight against the virus. Less than 10 days later, more than 7,000 scientists had joined Wells’ database. Organizations and governmental departments in a dozen states, as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have tapped into the information. Wells is also working with EndCoronavirus.org, a project of the research-focused New England Complex Systems Institute, to help maximize the usefulness of the volunteer scientist cavalry he has assembled. As health care workers risk their own lives to treat patients and some scientists work toward a vaccine, Wells’ database offers a way forward for other science professionals who want to be of use. Scientists are asked to match their specific training with potential needs in the battle against the disease, including experience with RNA viruses such as the coronavirus. Wells, an Ohio native, has lived for nearly a decade in the research hotbed of Cambridge, Massachusetts. He created the database, he explained, in part to help ensure that in places without access to nearby major academic centers, governmental entities and institutions — and by association, citizens — can tap into scientific knowledge. “Scientists are a tremendous resource for this country. And it’s not something that should just be confined to the coasts,” Wells said. “It’s something that everyone should be able to benefit from.” His project isn’t the only one looking to match scientists eager to help battle the virus with opportunities to use their skills — regional efforts were already underway when Wells first created his Google spreadsheet. One focus of the project is to identify volunteer scientists qualified to be deployed like “cavalry” to hotspots to conduct tests. The database also asks if scientists are able to donate testing materials, such as RNA extraction kits and nasal swabs, an acknowledgement that a lack of testing capacity at labs and supplies is also a concern. Wells has experience in virus research, but the database includes experts from multiple backgrounds, including bioinformatics experts who can help localities and other researchers more effectively map and visualize data on the effects of the pandemic. Organizations or governmental entities have to request access to the full version of the database. Requests unrelated to the pandemic, such as companies scouting potential employees, have been denied. Wells and his collaborators acknowledge to scientists who sign onto the database that while they “hope that every single one of you get the opportunity to use your advanced skills in the fight against this outbreak,” it’s likely that many who enlist won’t be called upon. No matter how the database is used, Wells said, scientists “want to be part of the solution to this global problem.” The database, he said, ensures “that when we’re called upon, we’re ready to go right away.” While nonstop global news about the effects of the coronavirus have become commonplace, so, too, are the stories about the kindness of strangers and individuals who have sacrificed for others. “One Good Thing” is an AP continuing series reflecting these acts of kindness.  
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“Meetings are huge for me,” says Mike S., a 52-year-old web content specialist who has been sober since 2012.When his community began practicing social distancing, some of his usual meetings began offering the option of attending online. Mike went in person as long as he could, but things already felt different.With some regulars attending online through a video conferencing service called Zoom, the number of people physically attending “dropped on average by about half,” he said, “which was disconcerting and felt ominous.”Connection with one another is a key part of the way many people in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction stay clean and sober, which makes the stay-at-home orders affecting many urban centers particularly challenging.Larry C., a real estate agent, relapsed last year after more than a dozen years sober. He is participating in an outpatient treatment program that, due to social distancing restrictions, occurs entirely online through Zoom.“I initially did worry about 12-step meetings and [treatment] meetings via Zoom, but the video platform has turned out to be great,” he says. Like many of his peers in recovery, he supplements his online meetings with phone calls to other people in recovery, study of recovery literature, and by trying to maintain healthy eating, sleeping and exercise habits.Pedestrians pass Brooklyn Hospital Center on April 4, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York.Zoom, a cloud-based video conferencing service whose popularity has shot up 67 percent since the beginning of the year, has kept many meetings in the Washington, D.C., area afloat as churches and other venues are forced to close their doors. For some skeptics, it has been an easier-than-expected transition.“Zoom meetings were a pleasant discovery,” says Cheryl, who has been sober nearly 15 years and works in the federal immigration system. “I took part in one [recently] and realized that I knew a third of the women in it. Nice surprise.”Others say the online meetings have meant that friends who now live elsewhere can easily revisit meetings they used to frequent. And familiar faces mean familiar interactions.“We still tell the same bad jokes,” says Alan S., a real estate agent sober more than seven years. “Just online.”Meanwhile, new resources are emerging. Paul Brethren, a certified addiction treatment specialist with more than 20 years’ experience, has established a free service called Sober Buddy that currently sends a daily email to more than 10,000 subscribers and is set to launch a mobile app in mid-May. The messages from Sober Buddy are meant to educate, challenge and strengthen skills at maintaining a sober life. It’s an approach based on cognitive behavioral therapy, which replaces unhealthy thought and behavior patterns with better ones.With the onset of the pandemic, Brethren says, the service has begun to tailor its message to the specific challenges of the day – such as preventing relapse at a time of fear and uncertainty.“One of the major skills for people in recovery is adapting,” Brethren says. “Life is difficult. If you fail to adapt, then you get stuck. When people get stuck, they’re at greater risk of going back to what’s familiar.”For a person in recovery, that can mean reverting to addictive behavior. “So the better you are at adapting in a healthy way, the more successful you’ll be,” he says.Sober Buddy also incorporates links to other recovery programs, such as Smart Recovery and 12-step programs for alcohol and drug users, including maps showing the locations of local in-person meetings.An empty Hollywood Boulevard is seen under the neon lights of El Capitan Theatre, top left, on April 2, 2020, in Los Angeles.Other forms of online communication, such as websites, Facebook groups and old-fashioned email lists are also helping people in recovery find one another and their online meetings while physically separated. But for those with long-term sobriety, there is still one big worry.“What a lot of us are worried about is the newcomer,” says a 52-year-old sober woman who prefers not to give her name. “How does someone newly sober find an online meeting?”Mike S. notes that helping newcomers is a big part of the why and the how of staying sober. “I do worry about newcomers … or people who are curious about recovery, or people who are desperate, not being able to make a connection that could save their lives.”To that end, a few face-to-face meetings can still be found, advertised through local addiction hotlines, social media and word-of-mouth.Mike S. notes that he attended an outdoor meeting about a week ago, “with everyone bringing their own chairs and sitting 6 feet apart. … It was quite refreshing and calming.”Jason A., who facilitates recovery meetings and attends as a participant, says he has built a routine of online meetings, one-on-one phone calls, prayer and meditation, and self-care, all of which help him stay sober.“I really like the idea of staying physically distant but socially close,” he says. “It speaks to maintaining my overall wellness.”  Resources:  U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration helpline: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline  Alcoholics Anonymous: https://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/need-help-with-a-drinking-problem  Narcotics Anonymous: https://na.org/  Smart Recovery: https://www.smartrecovery.org/  Sober Buddy: https://yoursoberbuddy.com/  
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With the coronavirus pandemic nowhere near its end, for many patients the risk of infection has made seeking treatment in hospitals potentially dangerous. This has led to telemedicine becoming more and more routine. Andrei Dziarkach has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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Social distancing and isolation can be hard, as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently pointed out during a daily briefing on the status of COVID-19 in his state. “Don’t underestimate the personal trauma, and don’t underestimate the pain of isolation. It is real,” Cuomo said. “This is not the human condition — not to be comforted, not to be close, to be afraid and you can’t hug someone. … This is all unnatural and disorienting.”  Experts already know that years of loneliness or feelings of isolation can lead to anxiety, depression and dementia in adults. A weakened immune system response, higher rates of obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease and a shorter life span can also result. A Pittsburgh Public Works employee removes a basketball rim from a city court in an effort to encourage social distancing, March 30, 2020.Children who have fewer friends or are bullied or isolated at school tend to have higher rates of anxiety, depression and some developmental delays. But when it comes to a global pandemic like COVID-19, there is no documentation to which medical experts can refer.  “The studies that we have are more about forced isolation and no support,” said Elena Mikalsen, chief of the Psychology Section at Children’s Hospital of San Antonio. “The situation we’re in now, there’s a lot of social support … and social support is one of the big predictors of good health and mental health outcomes.” She adds that it is helpful that the entire world is basically in the same situation, a commonality that is leading to the rapid development of coping strategies from multiple sources, including friends, schools and businesses.  Playground equipment is wrapped in crime scene tape to prevent its use as part of the effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus March 31, 2020, in St. Louis, MIssouri.During this period, Mikalsen is advising her patients to stay connected with people,  exercise regularly, and keep to a schedule so that everybody in the household has some sort of purpose in their day. Waiting around and worrying about getting sick can lead to increased anxiety. A key factor driving people’s decisions on whether to isolate could come down to personality.  “Extroverts have this strong need to always be around other people. … The idea of being in a quiet place with no entertainment is extremely anxiety provoking,” Mikalsen said. “Versus, you know, an introvert is perfectly happy in a tiny little room with nothing. You can lock up an introvert in a New York City apartment and have them not come out for two months and they’ll be perfectly happy.” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo with daughter, Cara Cuomo, in Mt. Kisco, N.Y., Nov. 6, 2018.Meanwhile, Cuomo told reporters that he is focusing on the positives in the current situation, like having his grown daughter, Cara, 25, working with him during the crisis.  “They’ll come for the holidays. They’ll come when I give them heavy guilt,” he said of his three grown daughters. “But I’m now going to be with Cara, literally, for a few months. What a beautiful gift that is, right? I would have never had that chance, and that is precious. … This crazy situation, as crazy as it is, gave me this beautiful gift.” 
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Prince Charles on Friday remotely opened the new Nightingale Hospital at London’s main exhibition and conference center, a temporary facility that will soon be able to treat 4,000 people who have contracted COVID-19.
Charles said he was “enormously touched” to be asked to open the temporary facility at the ExCel center in east London and paid tribute to everyone, including military personnel, involved in its “spectacular and almost unbelievable” nine-day construction.
“An example, if ever one was needed, of how the impossible could be made possible and how we can achieve the unthinkable through human will and ingenuity,” he said via video link from his Scottish home of Birkhall.
“To convert one of the largest national conference centres into a field hospital, starting with 500 beds with a potential of 4,000, is quite frankly incredible.”
The new National Health Service hospital will only care for people with COVID-19, and patients will only be assigned there after their local London hospital has reached capacity.
Charles, who earlier this week emerged from self-isolation after testing positive for COVID-19, said he was one of “the lucky ones” who only had mild symptoms, but “for some it will be a much harder journey.”
He expressed his hope that the hospital “is needed for as short a time and for as few people as possible.”
The hospital is named after Florence Nightingale, who is widely considered to be the founder of modern nursing. She was in charge of nursing British and allied soldiers in Turkey during the Crimean War of the 1850s, her selfless care earning her the reputation as the “Lady with the Lamp.”
Natalie Grey, the head of nursing at NHS Nightingale, unveiled the plaque formally opening the hospital on the prince’s behalf.
Further new hospitals are being planned across the U.K., including in Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester, to alleviate the pressure on the NHS during the coronavirus pandemic.
“In these troubled times with this invisible killer stalking the whole world, the fact in this country we have the NHS is even more valuable that before,” said Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who also contracted COVID-19 and only emerged from his self-isolation on Thursday.
The number of people in Britain dying after testing positive for COVID-19 has been increasing sharply over the past couple of weeks. The latest U.K. figures showed that the number of people to have died increased in a day by 569 to 2,921.
Like many other countries, Britain is in effective lockdown, with bars and nonessential shops closed in order to reduce the rate of transmission, the hope being that it will eventually reduce the peak in deaths. Hancock would not be drawn across several interviews about when he expects the peak to be, beyond that it’s likely to occur in “coming weeks.”
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A cruise ship where at least two passengers died of coronavirus while barred from South American ports finally docked Thursday in Florida after two weeks at sea and days of negotiations with initially resistant local officials.
The Zaandam and a sister ship sent to help it, the Rotterdam, were allowed to unload passengers at Port Everglades after working out a detailed agreement with officials who feared it would divert needed resources from a region that has seen a spike in virus cases.  
Broward County officials and Holland America, the company that operates the ships, announced the agreement shortly before the ships pulled into port.  
Holland America initially said 45 people who were mildly ill would stay on board until they recovered, but the docking plan released later Thursday indicated that 26 passengers and 50 crew members were ill. The plan noted that the company had secured access at two local hospitals for 13 passengers and a crew member who needed medical care.  
For nearly three weeks, passengers have not been able to step on dry land. Four elderly passengers died on the Zaandam, at least two from COVID-19, said William Burke, chief maritime officer for Carnival Corp., which owns the ships. Nine people had tested positive for the new coronavirus, Burke said earlier this week.
There were 442 guests and 603 crew on the Zaandam, and 808 guests and 583 crew on the Rotterdam. The Rotterdam was sent last week to take in some of the passengers and provide assistance to the Zaandam since it was denied permission to dock at ports in South America.
 
About 250 people have reported influenza-like symptoms since March 22, including 17 aboard the Rotterdam, according to the docking plan.
Originally firmly opposed to the ships’ arrival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday that he had a change of heart after realizing many passengers were U.S. citizens and about 50 of them Floridians.  
He went further on Thursday, telling Fox News that allowing the ships to dock and transferring critically ill patients to hospitals was “the humanitarian thing to do.”  
“I think the accommodations have been made, and I think that things are going to be done very thoughtfully,” he said later at a news conference. “It’s going to be a very controlled exit from these ships.”  
The docking plan indicated that Florida residents would leave the ship first, with the disembarkation of all passengers not concluding until Friday night.  
Passengers who have no symptoms of the virus will be bused to airports and put directly on charter flights without passing through the terminals, DeSantis said.  
Emily Spindler Brazell, of Tappahannock, Virginia, was still in her cabin waiting for instructions from the Rotterdam’s captain but said she was relieved to be back home.  
“People greeted us, came out to their balconies, blew air horns and shouted, ‘Welcome home!'” she said. “It was surprising. We went to many countries that said, ‘We are not going to talk to you.'”
Passenger Laura Gabaroni, of Orlando, said she would not be comfortable until she disembarked. She was transferred to the Rotterdam last Saturday, along with husband Juan Huergo and other passengers not showing signs of illness.
“Many broken promises so far, so I’ll believe it when I see it,” she told The Associated Press via a WhatsApp message.
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Iraq has thousands of confirmed COVID-19 cases, many times more than the 772 it is has publicly reported, according to three doctors closely involved in the testing process, a health ministry official and a senior political official.
 
The sources all spoke on condition of anonymity. Iraqi authorities have instructed medical staff not to speak to media.
 
Iraq’s health ministry, the only official outlet for information on the COVID-19 disease, could not immediately be reached for comment. Reuters sent voice and written messages asking its spokesman if the actual number of confirmed cases was higher than the ministry had reported and if so why.
 
The ministry said in its latest daily statement on Thursday that the total recorded confirmed cases for Iraq were 772, with 54 deaths.
 
But the three doctors, who work in pharmaceutical teams helping test suspected COVID-19 cases in Baghdad, each said that confirmed cases of the disease, based on discussions among fellow medics who see daily results, were between about 3,000 and 9,000 although they each gave different estimates.
 
The health ministry official, who also works in testing for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, said that there were more than 2,000 confirmed cases from eastern Baghdad alone, not counting the number in other areas or provinces.
 
The political official, who has attended meetings with the health ministry, also said thousands of cases were confirmed.
 
The new coronavirus has hit Iraq’s neighbor Iran worse than any country in the region. Iraq has close trade and religious ties with Iran and a large border, which Iraq shut in February over fears of the spread of the infection.
 
Iraq’s healthcare system, among other infrastructure, has been stretched by decades of sanctions, war and neglect, one among several problems that spurred mass anti-government protests in recent months.
 Pilgrims
 
Governments across the world have struggled to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. The United States, Italy and Spain are the countries worst hit by the disease, which has infected nearly a million people worldwide and killed nearly 47,000.
 
The three Iraqi doctors and the political official said national security officials have attended health ministry meetings and urged authorities not to reveal the high figures because it could create public disorder with a rush on medical supplies, and make it harder to control the disease’s spread.
 
The health ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment on any such discussions.
 
One of the doctors said the death toll was also likely higher than the official toll, but not by much. “On Saturday last week alone, about 50 people were buried who died from the disease,” he said. At that time the official death toll was 42.
 
Testing facilities are limited and Iraq has publicly acknowledged that the actual number of cases must be higher than the number of confirmed cases.
 
Many doctors blame the accelerating spread of the disease on people refusing to be tested or isolated and on the flouting of a nationwide curfew, including by thousands of pilgrims who flocked to a Shi’ite Muslim shrine in Baghdad last month.
 
The three doctors and the health official said many new cases were from eastern Baghdad where those pilgrims live.
 
Separately, some Shi’ite pilgrims returning to Iraq from Syria have tested positive for coronavirus, a senior Iraqi official and health officials said on Sunday.
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