Along with the global coronavirus virus pandemic, Nigeria is also battling a deadly Lassa fever outbreak that so far this year has killed at least 176 people in the country. Doctors say the illness is an annual problem in Africa that deserves more attention. Ifiok Ettang reports from Jos, Nigeria.
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Month: April 2020
India will pull out of a three-week lockdown in phases, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday, as officials battle to contain the country’s biggest cluster of coronavirus infections in the capital, New Delhi.
The shutdown, which has brought Asia’s third-largest economy to a shuddering halt, is due to end on April 14.
Modi had ordered India’s 1.3 billion people indoors to avert a massive outbreak of coronavirus infections, but the world’s biggest shutdown has left millions without jobs and forced migrant workers to flee to their villages for food and shelter.
He told state chief ministers that the shutdown had helped limit infections but that the situation remained far from satisfactory around the world and there could be a second wave.
“Prime minister said that it is important to formulate a common exit strategy to ensure staggered re-emergence of the population once lockdown ends,” the government quoted him as saying in a video conference.
India has had 1,965 confirmed infections, of whom 50 have died, low figures by comparison with the United States, China, Italy and Spain.
But the big worry is the emergence of a cluster in Delhi because of a gathering held by a Muslim missionary group last month that has spawned dozens of cases across the country, officials said.
Thousands of people visited the headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat in a cramped corner of Delhi over several days in March, including delegates from Muslim-majority countries Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh.
About 9,000 people linked to the Tablighi have been tracked down including 1,300 foreigners and transferred to either quarantine centers or hospitals, a top official said.
These people had either attended prayers and lectures at the Tablighi’s headquarters in the densely packed neighborhood or came into contact with them later.
“This has emerged as a critical node in our fight against the coronavirus,” the official leading the operation to trace potential virus carriers told Reuters. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The Tablighi is one of the world’s largest proselytizing groups, drawing followers from the South Asian Deobandi branch of Sunni Islam.
Its leader, Maulana Saad Kandhalvi, issued an audio message to his followers asking them to cooperate with the government to fight the disease.
“We have to take precautions, follow the guidance of the doctors and give full support to the government such as not crowding into places,” he said. “This is not against the principles of Islam.”
Muslims make up about 14% of India’s 1.3 billion population, the largest Muslim minority in the world.
Health experts have warned that the death toll could surge across South Asia, home to a fifth of the world’s population and with weak public health systems.
Bangladesh, home to about 160 million people, has extended a lockdown that was initially intended to last 10 days by a week, so it will last till April 11, the Public Administration Ministry said in a statement.
Pharmaceuticals and export-oriented factories such as the garments industry, which account for over 80 percent of overseas shipments, can keep running, the ministry said.
“If the garment factory owners want, they can run their factories following proper health guidelines,” Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi said.
Sri Lanka’s central bank asked Sri Lankans overseas to deposit their foreign currency holdings in Sri Lankan banks to help the country tide over the economic pain.
The island nation’s key export earners, including tourism, textiles and garments and worker remittances, have ground to a halt.
Following is data on the spread of the coronavirus in South Asia, according to government figures:
* Pakistan has registered 2,291 cases, including 31 deaths.
* India has registered 1,965 cases, including 50 deaths.
* Sri Lanka has registered 148 cases, including three deaths.
* Afghanistan has registered 196 cases, including four deaths.
* Bangladesh has registered 56 cases, including six deaths.
* Maldives has registered 28 cases and no deaths.
* Nepal has registered six cases and no deaths.
* Bhutan has registered five cases and no deaths.
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Google on Thursday said it is pumping $6.5 million into fact-checkers and nonprofits as it ramps up its the battle against coronavirus misinformation. Fact-checking organizations, which often operate on relatively small budgets, are seeing a surge in demand for their work as mistaken or maliciously false information about the pandemic spreads, according to Alexios Mantzarlis of the Google News Lab. “Uncertainty and fear make us all more susceptible to inaccurate information, so we’re supporting fact-checkers as they address heightened demand for their work,” Mantzarlis said. A Poynter Institute report last year on the state of fact-checking indicated that more than a fifth of fact-checking organizations operated with annual budgets of less than $20,000. “We are supporting fact checking projects around the world with a concentration on parts hardest hit by the pandemic,” Mantzarlis told AFP. “This can be a noticeable infusion of additional support at a time of stress.” Google is also looking to use its products and “ecosystem” to bolster the battle against COVID-19 misinformation. The Google News Initiative is increasing its support for nonprofit First Draft, which provides a resource hub, training and crisis simulations for journalists covering news during times of crisis, according to Mantzarlis. Google is also supporting the creation of a public health resource database for reporters. “We also want to do more to surface fact-checks that address potentially harmful health misinformation more prominently to our users,” Mantzarlis said. “We’re experimenting with how to best include a dedicated fact-check section in the COVID-19 Google News experience.” Google is conducting a test in India and Africa to explore how to use trends in what people are asking or searching for online to let fact-checkers know where a lack of reliable answers may invite misinformation. “Unanswered user questions — such as ‘what temperature kills coronavirus?’ — can provide useful insights to fact-checkers and health authorities about content they may want to produce,” Mantzarlis said. That test compliments an effort to train 1,000 journalists across India and Nigeria to spot health misinformation, according to the California-based internet titan. “There is definitely an appetite for this stuff,” Mantzarlis said. “We grasp for certainty, a glimmer of something we can do to protect ourselves and those we care about. It makes us more vulnerable to this kind of misinformation.” Facebook has also supported fact-checking operations with AFP and other media companies, including Reuters and the Associated Press, under which content rated false is downgraded in news feeds so that fewer people see it.
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A California hydrogen fuel cell company is now repairing and updating old ventilators, answering a challenge by the state to address a shortage of the life-saving equipment needed to help coronavirus patients breathe. Bloom Energy manufacturing director Joe Tavi told the Associated Press news agency state officials reached out to the Silicon Valley firm asking for its help in refurbishing old ventilators the state had on hand. Tavi said he downloaded a 300-page operating manual for the ventilators, and his co-workers developed a plan to fix the machines. Since then, the company has fixed more than 400 ventilators and averages about 100 a day. California Governor Gavin Newson says the state — with a population of about 40 million people — needs about 10,000 ventilators. Nationwide, the Society of Critical Care Medicine tells AP there could be a need for as many as 900,000 ventilators, while only about 200,000 are currently available. Other U.S. companies, such as garment and automobile manufacturers, have been shifting their focus to address the shortage of medical gear and protective equipment due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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Ellis Marsalis Jr., jazz pianist, teacher and patriarch of a New Orleans musical clan that includes famed performer sons Wynton and Branford, has died after battling pneumonia brought on by the new coronavirus, one of his sons said late Wednesday.He was 85.Ellis Marsalis III confirmed in an Associated Press phone interview that his father’s death was sparked by the virus causing the global pandemic. “Pneumonia was the actual thing that caused his demise. But it was pneumonia brought on by COVID-19,” he said.He said he drove Sunday from Baltimore to be with his father as he was hospitalized in Louisiana, which has been hit hard by the outbreak. Others in the family spent time with him, too.Four of the jazz patriarch’s six sons are musicians: Wynton, trumpeter, is America’s most prominent jazz spokesman as artistic director of jazz at New York’s Lincoln Center. Branford, saxophonist, led The Tonight Show band and toured with Sting. Delfeayo, a trombonist, is a prominent recording producer and performer. And Jason, a percussionist, has made a name for himself with his own band and as an accompanist. Ellis III, who decided music wasn’t his gig, is a photographer-poet in Baltimore.In a statement, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said of the man who’d continued to perform regularly in New Orleans until December: “Ellis Marsalis was a legend. He was the prototype of what we mean when we talk about New Orleans jazz. He was a teacher, a father, and an icon – and words aren’t sufficient to describe the art, the joy and the wonder he showed the world.”Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis and Delfeayo Marsalis perform in the Ellis Marsalis Family Tribute in the Jazz Tent during the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in New Orleans, Louisiana on April 28, 2019.Because Marsalis opted to stay in New Orleans for most of his career, his reputation was limited until his sons became famous and brought him the spotlight, along with new recording contracts and headliner performances on television and tour.”He was like the coach of jazz. He put on the sweatshirt, blew the whistle and made these guys work,” said Nick Spitzer, host of public radio’s American Routes and a Tulane University anthropology professor.The Marsalis “family band” seldom played together when the boys were younger but in 2003 toured East in a spinoff of a family celebration that became a PBS special when the elder Marsalis retired from teaching at the University of New Orleans.Harry Connick Jr., one of Marsalis’ students at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, was a guest. He’s one of many now-famous jazz musicians who passed through Marsalis’ classrooms. Others include trumpeters Nicholas Payton and Terence Blanchard, saxophonists Donald Harrison and Victor Goines, and bassist Reginald Veal.Marsalis was born in New Orleans, son of the operator of a hotel where Marsalis met touring black musicians who couldn’t stay at the segregated downtown hotels where they performed. He played saxophone in high school; he also played piano by the time he went to Dillard University.Although New Orleans was steeped in traditional jazz, and rock ‘n’ roll was the new sound in the 1950s, Marsalis preferred bebop and modern jazz.Spitzer described Marsalis as a “modernist in a town of traditionalists.””His great love was jazz a la bebop – he was a lover of Thelonious Monk and the idea that bebop was a music of freedom. But when he had to feed his family, he played R&B and soul and rock ‘n’ roll on Bourbon Street,” Spitzer said.The musician’s college quartet included drummer Ed Blackwell, clarinetist Alvin Batiste and saxophonist Harold Battiste playing modern.U.S. saxophonist Branford Marsalis performs with his father, Ellis Marsalis, at the 51st Jazzaldia Jazz Festival in San Sebastian, northern Spain, July 22, 2016.Ornette Coleman was in town at the time. In 1956, when Coleman headed to California, Marsalis and the others went along, but after a few months Marsalis returned home. He told the New Orleans Times-Picayune years later, when he and Coleman were old men, that he never figured out what a pianist could do behind the free form of Coleman’s jazz.Back in New Orleans, Marsalis joined the Marine Corps and was assigned to accompany soloists on the service’s weekly TV programs on CBS in New York. There, he said, he learned to handle all kinds of music styles.Returning home, he worked at the Playboy Club and ventured into running his own club, which went bust. In 1967 trumpeter Al Hirt hired him. When not on Bourbon Street, Hirt’s band appeared on national TV – headline shows on The Tonight Show and The Ed Sullivan Show, among others.Marsalis got into education about the same time, teaching improvisation at Xavier University in New Orleans. In the mid-1970s, he joined the faculty at the New Orleans magnet high school and influenced a new generation of jazz musicians.When asked how he could teach something as free-wheeling as jazz improvisation, Marsalis once said, “We don’t teach jazz, we teach students.”Jazz musician Ellis Marsalis (second from left) makes a curtain call with former student Harry Connick Jr. (left) and sons, Wynton, Delfeayo and Branford at Lakefront Arena in New Orleans on August 4, 2001.In 1986 he moved to Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. In 1989, the University of New Orleans lured him back to set up a jazz-studies program.Marsalis retired from UNO in 2001 but continued performing, particularly at Snug Harbor, a small club that anchored the city’s contemporary jazz scene – frequently backing young promising musicians.His melodic style, with running improvisations in the right hand, has been described variously as romantic, contemporary, or simply “Louisiana jazz.” He’s always on acoustic piano, never electric, and even in interpreting old standards there’s a clear link to the driving bebop chords and rhythms of his early years.He founded a record company, ELM, but his recording was limited until his sons became famous. After that he joined them and others on mainstream labels and headlined his own releases, many full of his own compositions.He often played at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. For more than three decades he played two 75-minute sets every Friday night at Snug Harbor until he decided it was exhausting. Even then, he still performed on occasion as a special guest.On Wednesday night, Ellis III recalled how his father taught him the meaning of integrity before he even knew the word.He and Delfeayo, neither of them yet 10, had gone to hear their father play at a club. Only one man – sleeping and drunk – was in the audience for the second set. The boys asked why they couldn’t leave.”He looked at us and said, “I can’t leave. I have a gig.’ While he’s playing, he said, ‘A gig is a deal. I’m paid to play this set. I’m going to play this set. It doesn’t matter that nobody’s here.”Marsalis’ wife, Dolores, died in 2017. He is survived by his sons Branford, Wynton, Ellis III, Delfeayo, Mboya and Jason.
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NASA may have just found the next man to walk on the moon — or the first woman to land on Mars — or someone who can float above the Earth and make repairs to the International Space Station.Wednesday was the deadline for submitting an application to join the next class of astronauts.NASA says more than 12,000 people applied — the largest number in three years — proving that those who believe Americans have lost interest in space are wrong.“We’ve entered a bold new era of space exploration with the Artemis program, and we are thrilled to see so many incredible Americans apply to join us,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Wednesday. “The next class of Artemis Generation astronauts will help us explore more of the moon than ever before and lead us to the red planet.”The Northrop Grumman Antares rocket, with Cygnus resupply spacecraft onboard, launches from Pad-0A at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia, Feb. 15, 2020.Artemis is the name NASA has given to its next big era in space exploration — and among the 12,000 would-be astronauts could be a name that becomes as legendary as John Glenn, the pioneering Gemini program, Neil Armstrong and Apollo.NASA received applications from every one of the 50 states and four U.S. territories. But the odds of being picked to fly into space are remote.Candidates must have a master’s degree in science, technology, math or engineering.NASA’s Astronaut Selection Board will assess each applicant’s qualifications and invite those who pass to the Johnson Space Center in Houston for interviews and medical tests before making a final selection.The board must pare down the 12,000 hopefuls to around 12.It’s an exclusive club. Only 350 men and women have been chosen for astronaut training since the 1960s. NASA currently has 48 astronauts in the pool.FILE — A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, carrying the U.S. Air Force’s Space Test Program-2 mission, lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., June 25, 2019.“We’re able to build such a strong astronaut corps at NASA because we have such a strong pool of applicants to choose from,” selection board manager Anne Roemer said. “It’s always amazing to see the diversity of education, experience and skills that are represented in our applicants. We are excited to start reviewing astronaut applications to identify the next class of astronaut candidates.”So how does one person who dreams of space stand out among 12,000 other dreamers?Astronaut Kayla Barron, who was part of the NASA class of 2017, said if you’re lucky enough to qualify as a finalist, there is no reason to feel intimidated or that you can’t be yourself.“When I go into that interview room and sit at the end of this long table with all of these astronauts and senior NASA officials … what are they looking for? What do they want from me? For some reason the last thing I thought before I walked [in] the door was, ‘Don’t make any jokes,’ ” she recalled with a laugh. “Because I was so worried I was going to say something sarcastic or whatever.”This NASA image obtained March 24, 2020, shows the city lights at the intersection of Europe and Asia as they sparkle as the International Space Station orbited 262 miles above.But when one of the panel members made a joke seemingly at Barron’s expense, she said, “I dished it right back at him. And there was this moment of silence and I was like, ‘Oh, no, that was the one I wasn’t supposed to do.’ But then [astronaut] Kjell Lindgren started laughing … everyone started laughing and it just relaxed me … just be yourself, be honest about who you are. I think that goes a long way.”When the astronauts are chosen, they will go through about two years of training in such skills as spacewalking and robotics. They must also show people skills, including leadership and teamwork — two qualities that are essential for living on the International Space Station, taking a trip to the moon or enduring a long journey to Mars.NASA expects to introduce the new astronaut candidates in the summer of 2021 with plans for a trip to the moon in 2024 and a mission to Mars in the next decade.
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A growing number of Americans are being ordered to stay home to help contain the spread of Covid-19. So musicians who can’t stop playing are finding creative ways to share their music, both online and in places close to home. VOA’s Julie Taboh found several Washington area musicians who are keeping the music flowing for audiences everywhere.
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Astronomers using the U.S. space agency NASA’s orbiting Hubble telescope, as well as two orbiting x-ray observatories, say they have gathered the best evidence yet of a so-called “intermediate mass” black hole.A report published Tuesday in the Astrophysical Journal, and reported by NASA, explains that the so-called intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) are about 50,000 times the mass of our sun.
They are smaller than the supermassive black holes that lie at the cores of large galaxies, but larger than stellar-mass black holes formed by the collapse of a massive star.
IMBHs are a long-sought “missing link” in black hole evolution. They have been particularly difficult to find because they are smaller and less active than supermassive black holes.
University of New Hampshire astronomer Dacheng Lin—who published the report—tells NASA that he and his team essentially caught an IMBH in the act of gobbling up a star that came too close to its gravitational pull.
Lin said they used the Hubble to explore data collected from both NASA and the European Space Agency X-ray detection satellites to determine its precise location.
The researchers say finding this mid-size black hole means there could be others out there, and it raises questions as to whether they eventually grow into the supermassive size.
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China’s National Health Commission (NHC) announced Wednesday it has more than 1,300 asymptomatic coronavirus cases, the first time it has acknowledged cases of people testing positive for the virus but not showing symptoms.At a news briefing in Beijing, commission spokesman Mi Feng said the 1,367 asymptomatic cases were under quarantine and medical observation.The commission had said Tuesday it would begin releasing figures on asymptomatic cases in response to “public concern” about the figures.The French news agency AFP reports there had been mass calls online for the NHC to release the information after it was reported an infected woman in Henan province had been exposed to three asymptomatic cases.While the proportion of people who have contracted the virus but remain asymptomatic is currently unknown, scientists say these “carriers” can still pass COVID-19 onto others who do end up getting sick.For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. But the virus can also lead to more serious symptoms and even death.
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The Wimbledon tennis championships in London — widely considered to be the world’s premier tennis event — will be canceled this year due the coronavirus pandemic. In statement Wednesday, the All England Tennis Club (AELTC) and the committee of management of the championships said the 2020 Grand Slam tournament — scheduled to be held June 29 through July 11 — will be canceled due to public health concerns. It will be rescheduled for 2021. It will be the first time since World War II the event has been canceled. “This is a decision that we have not taken lightly, and we have done so with the highest regard for public health and the wellbeing of all those who come together to make Wimbledon happen,” said AELTC chairman Ian Hewitt. The cancellation is the latest in a collection of major sporting events canceled or postponed by the pandemic, including the Summer Olympics scheduled for later this year in Tokyo, and professional soccer, baseball and basketball seasons.
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66-year-old Helen White doesn’t believe in stereotypes. She is sure anyone can do anything – regardless of age. That’s why she is a pickleball coach, and promotes this unusual sport based loosely on tennis as way for the elderly to have fun and exercise. Maxim Moskalkov caught up with this very active woman and filed this report
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Businesses and research facilities have joined a global effort to defeat the coronavirus. With respirators in short supply in many countries, a German university is developing rudimentary, no-frills devices to aid COVID-19 sufferers who are on the path to recovery, freeing fancier models for those whose lives are still in danger. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports.
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Facing intense surges in the need for hospital ICU beds, European nations are on a building and hiring spree, throwing together makeshift hospitals and shipping coronavirus patients out of overwhelmed cities via high-speed trains and military jets. The key question is whether they will be able to find enough healthy medical staff to make it all work.Even as the virus slowed its growth in overwhelmed Italy and in China, where it first emerged, hospitals in Spain and France reached their breaking points and the U.S. and Britain braced for incoming waves of desperately ill people.
“It feels like we are in a third world country. We don’t have enough masks, enough protective equipment, and by the end of the week we might be in need of more medication too,” said Paris emergency worker Christophe Prudhomme.
In a remarkable turnaround, rich economies where virus cases have exploded are welcoming help from the less wealthy. Russia sent medical equipment and masks to the U.S. on Wednesday. Cuba sent doctors to France. Turkey sent a planeload of masks, hazmat suits, goggles and disinfectants to Italy and Spain.London is just days from unveiling a 4,000-bed temporary hospital built in a massive convention center to take non-critical patients so British hospitals can free up space and keep ahead of expected virus demand. Still, there are concerns about finding thousands of medical workers to run it.Spain has already boosted its hospital beds by 20%. Dozens of hotels across Spain have been turned into recovery rooms, and authorities are building field hospitals in sports centers, libraries and exhibition halls.Europe’s greatest need at the moment, however, is intensive care units, which are essential in a pandemic in which tens of thousands of patients quickly descend into acute respiratory distress. Those ICU units are much harder to cobble together quickly than standard hospital beds.Milan opened an intensive care field hospital Tuesday at the city fairgrounds for 200 patients, complete with a pharmacy and radiology wards. It expects to eventually employ some 900 staff. The move came after the health situation turned extreme in Italy’s Lombardy region, where bodies overflowed in morgues, caskets piled up in churches and doctors were forced to decide in some cases which desperately ill patient would get a breathing machine.”We aren’t happy to have done this,” fairgrounds foundation head Enrico Pazzali said. “It something I never would have wanted to do.”The pressure is easing on hard-hit Italian cities like Bergamo and Brescia as the rate of new infections in Italy has slowed and hospitals have boosted ICU capacity. Still, many people are dying at home or in nursing homes because hospitals are saturated and they could not get access to ICU breathing machines. With over 12,400 dead so far, Italy has the most coronavirus deaths of any nation in the world.
Italy, Britain and France are among countries that have called in medical students, retired doctors and even airplane attendants with first aid training to help, although all need re-training.
The medical staffing shortage has been exacerbated by the high number of infected medical personnel. In Italy alone, nearly 10,000 medical workers have been infected and more than 60 doctors have died.Dr. Silvio Brusaferro, the head of Italy’s institutes of health, said three weeks into a nationwide lockdown, the country is seeing the rate of new infections level off. “(But) arriving at the plateau doesn’t mean we have conquered the peak and we’re done,” he warned. “It means now we should start to see the decline if we continue to place maximum attention on what we do every day.”In neighboring France, nearly 500 people died Tuesday and Paris hospitals are overflowing.
“We had an extremely difficult night, we are at the end of our hospitalization capacity,” Aurélien Rousseau, director of the Paris regional health agency, said Wednesday on France-Info radio.The Paris region more than doubled its ICU capacity over the past week – but the beds are already full. So Paris was sending some critically ill patients to less-saturated regions on specially fitted high-speed trains Wednesday and Thursday. Others have been moved by military plane, helicopter or warship. One reason Germany is in better shape than all other European countries is its high proportion of ICU beds, at 33.9 per 100,000 people, compared to 8.6 in Italy.For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause severe symptoms like pneumonia and can lead to death.As U.S. health authorities warned the number of dead could reach up to 240,000 even with social distancing measures in place, the New York region also rushed to set up extra hospital capacity.A 1,000-bed emergency hospital set up at the mammoth Javits Convention Center began taking non-coronavirus patients Tuesday to help relieve the city’s overwhelmed health system. A Navy hospital ship with 1,000 beds was expected to accept patients soon, and the indoor tennis center that hosts the U.S. Open tournament is being turned into a hospital.”I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead,” President Donald Trump said at a Tuesday briefing, as he extended social distancing guidelines until April 30. “We’re going to go through a very tough two weeks.”The U.S. recorded a big daily jump of 26,000 new cases, bringing its total infections to more than 189,000, the highest in the world. The U.S. death toll leapt to over 4,000, and refrigerated morgue trucks were parked on New York streets to collect the dead.Worldwide, more than 860,000 people have been infected and over 42,000 have died, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. Italy and Spain accounted for half of all the deaths. China, where it began late latest year, on Wednesday reported just 36 new COVID-19 cases.Some have chosen to ignore social distancing guidelines. In Louisiana, buses and cars filled a church parking lot Tuesday evening as worshippers flocked to hear a pastor who is facing charges for holding services despite a ban on gatherings.A few protesters also showed up at the Life Tabernacle Church, including one with a sign that read: “God don’t like stupid.” Two ships carrying passengers and crew from an ill-fated South American cruise are urging Florida officials to let them dock. Two people aboard with the virus have died, and nine have tested positive. Trump said, for humanitarian reasons, Florida should do so.
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With professional sports leagues all over the world on hold because of the coronavirus outbreak, stars from the National Basketball Association are turning to video games for some competition. Kevin Durant leads a roster of 16 active players set to compete in an NBA2K20 tournament starting Friday. Games will be shown on sports television network ESPN, and the winner will get to choose a charity to receive a $100,000 donation. Other players include Trae Young, Hassan Whiteside and Donovan Mitchell. Durant and Mitchell are among a small group of players who have tested positive for the virus.
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