Tag Archives: WorldNews

They Survived the Worst Battles of World War II. And Died of the Virus.

Inside the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home was a man who had served as a jailer to Hitler’s top aide. A man who had rescued Japanese kamikaze pilots from the sea. A man who carried memories of a concentration camp.

Wuhan lab had three live bat coronaviruses but none match Covid-19: Chinese state media

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BEIJING (AFP) – The Chinese virology institute in the city where Covid-19 was first detected has three live strains of bat coronavirus on-site, but none match the new contagion wreaking chaos across the world, its director has said.

Scientists think Covid-19 – which first emerged in Wuhan and has killed some 340,000 people worldwide – originated in bats and could have been transmitted to people via another mammal.

But the director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology told state broadcaster CGTN that claims made by US President Donald Trump and others the virus could have leaked from the facility were “pure fabrication”.

In the interview filmed on May 13 but broadcast Saturday night (May 23), Dr Wang Yanyi said the centre has “isolated and obtained some coronaviruses from bats.”

“Now we have three strains of live viruses… But their highest similarity to Sars-CoV-2 only reaches 79.8 per cent,” she said, referring to the coronavirus strain that causes Covid-19.

One of their research teams, led by Professor Shi Zhengli, has been researching bat coronaviruses since 2004 and focused on the “source tracing of Sars”, the strain behind another virus outbreak nearly two decades ago.

“We know that the whole genome of Sars-CoV-2 is only 80 per cent similar to that of Sars. It’s an obvious difference,” she said.

“So, in Professor Shi’s past research, they didn’t pay attention to such viruses which are less similar to the Sars virus.”

Conspiracy rumours that the biosafety lab was involved in the outbreak swirled online for months before Mr Trump and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brought the theory into the mainstream by claiming that there is evidence the pathogen came from the institute.

The lab has said it received samples of the then-unknown virus on Dec 30, determined the viral genome sequence on Jan 2 and submitted information on the pathogen to the WHO on Jan 11.

Dr Wang said in the interview that before it received samples in December, their team had never “encountered, researched or kept the virus.”

“In fact, like everyone else, we didn’t even know the virus existed,” she said. “How could it have leaked from our lab when we never had it?”

The World Health Organisation said Washington had offered no evidence to support the “speculative” claims.

In an interview with Scientific American, Prof Shi said the Sars-CoV-2 genome sequence did not match any of the bat coronaviruses her laboratory had previously collected and studied.

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Grant Shapps backs Dominic Cummings over lockdown breach

It’s pretty simple, he broke the government’s lock down policy while tens of thousands in same situation complied. It’s clear that he thought he was exempt from the policy or above it – he is/was not!

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‘In moments of crisis, we seek to have our family around us,’ says transport secretary

The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has defended the behaviour of Downing Street aide Dominic Cummings, who drove from London to Durham during the lockdown, saying: “In moments of crisis, we seek to have our family around us.”

Cummings travelled to his parents’ property at a time when he believed he may have been infected with Covid-19.

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NPC 2020: China to expand medical, testing capabilities to prevent resurgence of epidemics like Covid-19

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BEIJING – China will build more medical facilities and expand testing capabilities, as part of medical reforms to prevent the resurgence of an epidemic like Covid-19, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Friday (May 22).

Delivering his work report at the annual opening of the meetings of the National People’s Congress, Mr Li flagged these improvements to the public health system as a priority for Beijing going forward.

“The Covid-19 epidemic is the fastest spreading, most extensive and most challenging public health emergency China has encountered since the founding of the People’s Republic,” he told some 3,000 assembled delegates at the Great Hall of the People in the Chinese capital.

The coronavirus pandemic, which was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan last December, has infected more than 82,000 people in China and killed about 4,600.

The coronavirus has also dealt the economy a heavy blow, after the government instituted lockdowns to curb the spread of the virus – China’s GDP contracted 6.8 per cent in the first quarter of this year, the worst on record.

It also caused the annual legislative meetings or Two Sessions, usually held in March, to be delayed by more than two months.

China is facing both international and domestic criticism over whether it had reported the emergence of the coronavirus in a timely manner – first discovered as a mysterious pneumonia-like illness in Wuhan.

On Friday, Mr Li said: “We will reform the system for disease prevention and control, improve mechanisms for direct reporting and early warning of infectious diseases, and ensure prompt, open, and transparent release of epidemic information.”

Beijing would also increase inputs into research and development of vaccines, medicines and testing technologies,” he said.

“We need to greatly enhance our prevention and control capability, resolutely prevent a resurgence of Covid-19, and protect the health of our people.”

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India reports biggest 24-hour rise in coronavirus cases as lockdown eases

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MUMBAI (REUTERS) – India registered some 6,000 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Friday (May 22), the country’s biggest jump in 24 hours, as New Delhi eases a nationwide lockdown and airlines prepare to resume some domestic flights.

The country of 1.3 billion people reported a total of over 118,000 confirmed cases on Friday, a roughly 5 per cent increase from Thursday’s figures. Included in the total are 3,583 deaths.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has extended a lockdown, begun on March 25, to May 31, but relaxed rules in areas with lower numbers of cases and allowed state governments to issue their own guidelines on some matters.

India’s airlines will be allowed to resume flights with about a third of operations as of Monday, but only on domestic routes and under rules that are among the strictest in the world.

“This surge in cases has happened after movement of people has been partially allowed. But if you see overall, this is a much lower exponential trajectory as compared to the rest of the world,” said Giridhar Babu, a professor of epidemiology with the Public Health Foundation of India.

“The only question now is: How do you reduce mortality? Do we have the capacity? The answer seems to be yes,” Babu added.

India’s contagion hotspots include the capital New Delhi, financial hub Mumbai, Modi’s home state of Gujarat, and the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

“Our Covid wards have been full for the past week, and we are expanding capacity to enable us to admit more patients,”said Dr. Lancelot Pinto, a respirologist at the P. D. Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai.

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