Category: World

Brazil: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has tested positive for Covid-19, Bolsonaro himself announced, speaking on Brazilian TV channels Tuesday.

“Everyone knew that it would reach a considerable part of the population sooner or later. It was positive for me,” Bolsonaro said, referring to the Covid-19 test he took Monday.

Earlier on Tuesday Bolsonaro’s press office told CNN affiliate CNN Brasil that the President was being treated with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as he awaited the result of his fourth Covid-19 test in four months.

Bolsonaro reassured supporters on Monday outside the presidential palace in Brasília that he had taken a test and his lungs were “clean” — following media reports that he had a fever.

“I’ve done a lung screening, my lung is clean, OK? I went to do a Covid exam a while ago, but everything is okay.”

The President, who was wearing a mask, warned people to not get near him. “You can’t get very close [to me], OK? Recommendation for everyone,” Bolsonaro said.

CNN Brasil reported Monday that the President said he was showing symptoms consistent with Covid-19, including a 38 degree Celsius fever (100 degrees Fahrenheit). Bolsonaro’s office told CNN Brasil Tuesday that his temperature was normal.

Bolsonaro has derided coronavirus as just a “little flu,” and previously appeared in public and at rallies without a mask, even hugging supporters.

He has encouraged the country to reopen, even as the number of cases rises, and has criticized local governments’ efforts to stamp out the virus through social distancing measures, such as quarantine and shelter-in-place orders.

Brazil is second only to the United States in numbers of coronavirus infections and deaths.

More than 65,000 people have died of the virus in Brazil, according to figures released by the country’s health ministry on Monday, and 1,623,284 cases have been confirmed so far.

Coronavirus tests remain hard to come by in the country and some local experts say the real number of people infected could be 12 to 16 times higher.

The Brazilian leader had previously tested negative for coronavirus in three separate examinations. Those tests were administered between March 12 and March 17, after Bolsonaro returned from a bilateral meeting with US President Donald Trump in Florida and many in his entourage tested positive.

“Our life has to go on. Jobs should be maintained,” Bolsonaro said in the still-early days of the pandemic, during a March 24 speech broadcast on national television and radio. He has maintained that position, arguing that the economic fallout of lockdown could be worse than the virus itself.

He has also continued to occasionally greet supporters without protective equipment — even after a court ordered him to wear a mask or face a fine. The order has since been overturned.

More than 200 scientists from 32 nations have written to the WHO, saying there is evidence that the coronavirus is airborne and even smaller particles can infect people, a significant departure from the UN health agency’s claims so far that COVID-19 is spread primarily through coughs and sneezes.

A report in The New York Times says that clusters of infections are rising globally as people go back to bars, restaurants, offices, markets and casinos, a trend that increasingly confirms that the virus lingers in the air indoors, infecting those nearby.

“…in an open letter to the WHO, 239 scientists in 32 countries have outlined the evidence showing that smaller particles can infect people, and are calling for the agency to revise its recommendations,” the report said, adding that the researchers plan to publish their letter in a scientific journal next week.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has long held that the coronavirus is spread primarily by large respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes. In its latest update dated June 29 on the coronavirus, the WHO said airborne transmission of the virus was possible only after medical procedures that produce aerosols, or droplets smaller than 5 microns.

The guidance that the health agency has given to deal with the virus, such as wearing masks, maintaining social distance and frequent handwashing, since the pandemic first broke is based on its claim that the virus spreads through large droplets when an infected person coughs and sneezes.

“If airborne transmission is a significant factor in the pandemic, especially in crowded spaces with poor ventilation, the consequences for containment will be significant. Masks may be needed indoors, even in socially-distant settings. Health care workers may need N95 masks that filter out even the smallest respiratory droplets as they care for coronavirus patients,” the NYT report said.

It said that ventilation systems in schools, nursing homes, residences and businesses may need to minimise re-circulating air and add powerful new filters.

“Ultraviolet lights may be needed to kill viral particles floating in tiny droplets indoors,” it said. WHO’s technical lead on infection control Dr Benedetta Allegranzi, however, said in the report that the evidence for the virus spreading by air was unconvincing. “Especially in the last couple of months, we have been stating several times that we consider airborne transmission as possible but certainly not supported by solid or even clear evidence. There is a strong debate on this,” she said.

Geneva: Hundreds of scientists say there is evidence that novel coronavirus in smaller particles in the air can infect people and are calling for the World Health Organization (WHO) to revise recommendations, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

The WHO has said the coronavirus disease spreads primarily from person to person through small droplets from the nose or mouth, which are expelled when a person with COVID-19 coughs, sneezes or speaks.

In an open letter to the agency, which the researchers plan to publish in a scientific journal next week, 239 scientists in 32 countries outlined the evidence showing smaller particles can infect people, the NYT said.

The WHO did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

Whether carried by large droplets that zoom through the air after a sneeze, or by much smaller exhaled droplets that may glide the length of a room, the coronavirus is borne through air and can infect people when inhaled, the scientists said, according to the NYT.

However, the health agency said the evidence for the virus being airborne was not convincing, according to the NYT.

“Especially in the last couple of months, we have been stating several times that we consider airborne transmission as possible but certainly not supported by solid or even clear evidence,” Dr. Benedetta Allegranzi, the WHO’s technical lead of infection prevention and control, was quoted as saying by the NYT. (Reuters)

The Bayannaoer health commission warned of the risks of human-to-human infection from the plague and urged people in the city to take precautions.

By: Bloomberg

A hospital in northern China’s Inner Mongolia reported one suspected case of bubonic plague on Saturday, according to a statement on the local health commission’s website.

A third-level warning alert was issued on Sunday; the warning period will extend to the end of this year.

The Bayannaoer health commission warned of the risks of human-to-human infection from the plague and urged people in the city to take precautions.

The differences between the samples may still represent decades’ worth of evolutionary distance, according to dissenting scientists cited in the article

By: Thomas Seal | Bloomberg

Virus samples sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology seven years ago closely resemble Covid-19, according to a report in the Sunday Times that highlights unanswered questions about the origins of the global pandemic.

Scientists in 2013 sent frozen samples to the Wuhan lab from a bat-infested former copper mine in southwest China after six men who had been clearing out bat feces there contracted a severe pneumonia, the newspaper said.

Three of them died and the most likely cause was a coronavirus transmitted from a bat, the Sunday Times reported, citing a medic whose supervisor worked in the emergency department that treated the men. The same mine in Yunnan province was subsequently studied by Shi Zhengli, an expert in SARS-like coronaviruses of bat origins at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Shi, nicknamed “bat woman” for her expeditions in bat caves, described Covid-19 in a February 2020 paper, saying it was 96.2% similar to a coronavirus sample named RaTG13 obtained in Yunnan in 2013. The Sunday Times said RaTG13 is “almost certainly” the virus that was found in the abandoned mine.

The differences between the samples may still represent decades’ worth of evolutionary distance, according to dissenting scientists cited in the article. The Sunday Times said the Wuhan lab did not respond to its questions.

In May, the director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology said there was no live copy of the RaTG13 virus in the lab, so it would have been impossible for it to leak. There is no evidence the lab was the source of the global outbreak that began in Wuhan. But U.S. President Donald Trump claimed in May he’d seen proof of the theory, contradicting intelligence services.

Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards Navy chief said Tehran had built underground “missile cities” along the Gulf coastline and warned of a “nightmare for Iran’s enemies”

Reuters

A fire at Iran’s underground Natanz nuclear facility has caused significant damage that could slow the development of advanced centrifuges used to enrich uranium, an Iranian nuclear official said on Sunday.

Iran’s top security body said on Friday that the cause of the fire that broke out on Thursday had been determined but would be announced later. Some Iranian officials have said it may have been cyber sabotage and one warned that Tehran would retaliate against any country carrying out such attacks.

On Thursday, an article by Iran’s state news agency IRNA addressed what it called the possibility of sabotage by enemies such as Israel and the United States, although it stopped short of accusing either directly.

Israel’s defence minister said on Sunday it was not “necessarily” behind every mysterious incident in Iran.

Three Iranian officials who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity on Friday said they believed the fire was the result of a cyber attack but did not cite any evidence.

“The incident could slow down the development and production of advanced centrifuges in the medium term … Iran will replace the damaged building with a bigger one that has more advanced equipment,” state news agency IRNA quoted the spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, Behrouz Kamalvandi, as saying. “The incident has caused significant damage but there were no casualties.”

Separately on Sunday, Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards Navy chief said Tehran had built underground “missile cities” along the Gulf coastline and warned of a “nightmare for Iran’s enemies”.

Iranian authorities have said such sites exist in all provinces of Iran but have unveiled only three bases so far and not disclosed that they have been built along its coast.

‘Maximum pressure’

Natanz is the centrepiece of Iran’s enrichment programme, which Tehran says is for peaceful purposes. Western intelligence agencies and the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog (IAEA) believe it had a coordinated, clandestine nuclear arms programme that it halted in 2003. Tehran denies ever seeking nuclear weapons.

Iran agreed to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for the removal of most international sanctions in a deal reached between Tehran and six world powers in 2015.

But Iran has gradually reduced its commitments to the accord since U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration withdrew from the deal in 2018 and reimposed and intensified sanctions that have battered Iran’s economy. The deal only allows Iran to enrich uranium at its Natanz facility with just over 5,000 first-generation IR-1 centrifuges, but Iran has installed new cascades of advanced centrifuges.

Iran, which says it will not negotiate as long as sanctions remain in place, has repeatedly vowed to continue building up what it calls a defensive missile capability run by the Revolutionary Guards, in defiance of Western criticism.

Israel has backed Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy on Tehran aimed at forcing it to agree a new deal that puts stricter limits on its nuclear work, curbs its ballistic missile programme and ends its regional proxy wars.

In 2010, the Stuxnet computer virus, widely believed to have been developed by the United States and Israel, was discovered after it was used to attack Natanz.

The Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP), Iran’s main uranium enrichment site which is mostly underground, is one of several Iranian facilities monitored by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog. The IAEA said on Friday that the location of the fire did not contain nuclear materials and that none of its inspectors was present at the time.

If approved, the law would require some 800,000 Indians to leave the country

A draft law calling for an expatriate quota system in Kuwait has been approved by the National Assembly’s legal and legislative committee, local daily Kuwait Times reported.

The draft law, submitted by five MPs, “is in line with the Kuwaiti constitution and laws”, the committee found.

The bill will now be referred to the concerned committee that will study legislation related to implementing the quota system, the report added.

According to the bill, Indians – who form the largest foreign community in Kuwait – must not exceed 15 per cent of the national population – which currently stands at 1.45 million.

If approved, the law would require some 800,000 Indians to leave the country, the report added.

Last month, Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah said that the Gulf state would like expat numbers to reduce to 30 per cent of the country’s population – down from 70 per cent at present.

That would require cutting down the number of foreign workers by around 2.5 million.

Read: Kuwait doesn’t want to be an expat-majority nation anymore

MPs have already called to replace all expat jobs in the government within one year.

Kuwait said in June that it will ban the employment of expatriates in state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) and its subsidiaries for the year 2020-21.

In May, it was announced that Kuwait’s Municipality will soon dismiss all expat employees and replace them with Kuwaitis.

The decision also calls for freezing employment applications from expats, cancelling appointments under process and not renewing the contracts of existing employees.

Last year, MP Safa Al Hashem also urged Kuwait to expel close to two million expatriates from the country over the next five years to rectify its ‘demographic imbalance’.

She said that it was essential to have Kuwaitis number more than 50 per cent of the country’s population.

–Agencies

The Ministry of Health in Kuwait signed a cooperation agreement in the field of health with the Ministry of Health of Pakistan to combat the outbreak of the coronavirus (Covid-19).

The director of the Department of International Health Relations at the Ministry, Dr. Rehab Al-Watyan, told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that within the field of cooperation, expert medical teams of doctors, nurses and technicians with previous experience in dealing with disasters and epidemics at all health facilities will be sent to Kuwait to combat coronavirus.

Al-Watyan mentioned that this falls within the scope and framework of joint cooperation and exchange of experiences between the two countries. The agreement was signed at the headquarters of the Ministry of Health and Undersecretary Dr. Mustafa Reda, and on the Pakistani side, Ambassador Syed Sajjad Haider.

–Agencies

PTI

Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan vowed on Friday that his government would complete the ambitious China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) at “any cost” as the USD 60 billion project is a manifestation of the all-weather friendship between the two countries.

Addressing a meeting held here to review progress on the CPEC projects, Khan said it is an excellent project for Pakistan’s socio-economic development and the “gigantic multi-faceted initiative would guarantee a bright future for the nation”, the Dawn newspaper reported.

Lauding the performance of the CPEC Authority, he said measures must be taken to improve its working as well as capacity.

The corridor is a manifestation of Pakistan-China friendship and the government will complete it at any cost and bring its fruit to every Pakistani, Khan said.

Khan’s statement came a day after Chinese Foriegn Minister Wang Yi discussed the CPEC projects with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi during a phone conversation.

Wang called for the two countries to speed up the projects under the CPEC to help Pakistan’s economic recovery. He also hoped that the Pakistani government would provide more protection for Chinese companies and citizens working in the country.

The CPEC, which connects Gwadar Port in Pakistan’s Balochistan with China’s Xinjiang province, is the flagship project of China’s ambitious multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

A Chinese official last month admitted that the majority of the projects under the BRI are either adversely or partially affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

About a fifth of the projects under the BRI, which aims to boost trade and investment across Asia, Africa and Europe to further China’s global influence, had been “seriously affected” by the pandemic, according to Wang Xiaolong, director-general of the foreign ministry’s international economic affairs department.

About 40 per cent of the projects were “adversely affected”, and a further 30-40 per cent were “somewhat affected”, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post quoted Wang as saying.

The projects which were disrupted included the CPEC, it said.

The CPEC is a collection of infrastructure and other projects under construction throughout Pakistan since 2013. Originally valued at USD 46 billion, the projects were worth USD 62 billion as of 2017.

India has protested to China over the CPEC as it is being laid through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The BRI was launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping when he came to power in 2013. It aims to link Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Gulf region, Africa and Europe with a network of land and sea routes.

The BRI is seen as an attempt by China to further its influence abroad with infrastructure projects funded by Chinese investments all over the world.

The initiative also led to allegations of smaller countries reeling under mounting Chinese debt after Sri Lanka gave its Hambantota port in a debt swap to China in 2017 on a 99-year lease.

It has been over six months since we first heard of the coronavirus infection. While theories float around the origin and the first sighting of the deadly COVID-19 virus, scientists have been spending days to come up with a vaccine to prevent spread. From funding to speedy clearances, authorities are doing everything possible to have a vaccine ready to combat the surging cases.

When will we have a vaccine ready?

While promising developments are being made on the clinical trials front, there is no real surity that a vaccine might be our only ray of hope in these critical times. There was a claim which suggested that even with a vaccine, such as with Oxford-AstraZeneca’s prototype, it might only offer limited protection. There is also the possibility of side-effects emerging, or vaccine not working for everyone. And there’s growing resistance from the anti-vaxxers community.

Despite the world sighting its hope on producing a vaccine, an Oxford researcher feels that the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused 5,00,000+ fatalities till now will vanish on its own without the need for a vaccine.

How and when will the pandemic end?

Professor Sunetra Gupta, a researcher based out of Oxford University feels that while a lot of studies are being done on vaccine efficacy, the COVID-19 might be just another pandemic like the flu, and we might not need anything special for the same:

Speaking to a media house, the professor said that COVID-19 only poses an extreme danger for those belonging to high-risk categories, and those who are healthy can recover quickly:

“What we’ve seen is that in normal, healthy people, who are not elderly or frail or don’t have comorbidities, this virus is not something to worry about no more than how we worry about flu,”

Who should get the vaccine first?

She is also a staunch supporter of the fact that vaccine, even though it might be used, should ideally be used for those with low immunity or those who are at a vulnerable group.

“What we’ve seen is that in normal, healthy people, who are not elderly or frail or don’t have comorbidities, this virus is not something to worry about no more than how we worry about flu,”

COVID-19 less deadly than influenza outbreak?

Professor Gupta also mentioned that developing a vaccine for coronavirus is fairly easier than influenza, which was much more fatal for the human population.

“Hopefully with a lower death toll than influenza. I think it is fairly easy to make a vaccine for coronavirus. By the end of this summer, we should have proof that the vaccine works,”

She also said that while lockdowns across the globe helped curb the virus spread to an extent, they might not be the permanent non-pharmaceutical solution to fight the pandemic.

“Can’t depend on a vaccine alone,” says WHO official

Dr Sunetra’s statement might be in accordance with what the WHO said a month back.

Even as WHO has taken into account the speedy developments happening on the global front, an official from the health body once said that a ready vaccine for public deployment might take upto 4-5 years to happen and it would be wrong for the world to pin hopes on a vaccine alone. Other measures need to be put in place too.

How long does it really take for a vaccine to get ready?

While vaccines being developed and tested right now have been so far considered “safe” and “effective”, deployment and availability of a vaccine for the public will take a longer time. From the trials, testing out possible side-effects, costing and production, making an effective vaccine can sometimes take years. This is perhaps the first time a vaccine is being developed at such a fast pace.

With inputs from TOI