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GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — China will not invite international experts to investigate the source of COVID-19 until the “final victory” over the virus, Beijing’s UN ambassador in Geneva said Wednesday. China’s priority is first beating the pandemic — and secondly countering the “absurd and ridiculous” US politicization of the new coronavirus, Chen Xu told reporters in an online briefing. The World Health Organization says it is waiting on an invitation from China to take part […]
MADRID, Spain (AFP) — Spain’s parliament on Wednesday voted to extend the country’s state of emergency, allowing stringent coronavirus lockdown measures to remain in place for at least two more weeks. The government imposed a nation-wide lockdown nearly eight weeks ago to curb the outbreak, which has killed more than 25,000 people and infected over 220,000 in the country — one of the hardest hit in the world. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez warned […]
GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — Coronavirus patients declared recovered who later test positive for the disease are still expelling dead lung cells rather than getting a new infection, the World Health Organization (WHO) told AFP on Wednesday. South Korean health officials reported more than 100 such cases in April, raising concerns that patients who had recovered could become reinfected. “We are aware that some patients test positive after they clinically recover,” a WHO spokesperson told AFP, […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Nearly a fifth of young children in the United States are not getting enough to eat since the coronavirus pandemic erupted, according to research out Wednesday highlighting the broader health impact of the crisis. The Brookings Institution report said a survey found that 17.4 percent of mothers with children aged 12 or under reported that their offspring were not eating enough due to lack of money. “It is clear […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US prisons have reported 30,000 cases of coronavirus among inmates and guards, a US university research group reported Wednesday, as a government study said prison guards could be instrumental in the spread of the disease. Data compiled from official sources by the COVID-19 Behind Bars Project of the UCLA law school showed that out of more than two million people incarcerated nationwide, there were 21,007 confirmed coronavirus cases, and 295 […]
MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Russia recorded more than 10,000 new coronavirus cases for the fourth day in a row on Wednesday, surpassing Germany to become the country with the sixth-highest number of confirmed infections. Russia has emerged as a new hotspot for the virus and in recent days has been recording the highest number of new infections in Europe. Health officials on Wednesday reported 10,559 new cases over the last 24 hours, bringing the total […]
by James Pheby, with Brendan Smialowski in Phoenix, Arizona Agence France Presse US President Donald Trump made his first major foray out of the White House since the coronavirus lockdown began in a push for economic reopening as the daily US death toll from the disease spiked. It came as Britain became the country with the second most deaths in the world at 32,000, putting it above Italy in the grim ranking of […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China warned Hong Kong protesters Wednesday it would not tolerate them “stirring up trouble again” in the semi-autonomous territory that was rocked by months of pro-democracy demonstrations last year. Mass arrests of protesters and a ban on large gatherings due to the coronavirus outbreak in the financial hub have stifled the protest movement, but small demonstrations have been held in recent weeks as contagion fears ease. Hong Kong police used pepper […]
by Laurent BANGUET Agence France Presse LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — For two weeks now, Dr Matthew Budoff has been overseeing a coronavirus antibody testing site in Los Angeles, offering people a rapid answer to a question on everyone’s mind. “It’s the only medical screening that people generally want to be positive,” says Budoff, a professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The procedure is quick and simple. A prick […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — Chinese youngsters in the global virus epicenter of Wuhan filed back to class on Wednesday, wearing masks and walking in single file past thermal scanners. Senior school students in 121 institutions were back in front of chalkboards and digital displays for the first time since their city — the ground zero of the coronavirus pandemic — shut down in January. “School is finally reopening!” posted one user of Weibo, China’s Twitter-like […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea returned largely to normal Wednesday as workers went back to offices, and museums and libraries reopened under eased social distancing rules after new coronavirus cases dropped to a trickle. The South endured one of the worst early outbreaks of the disease outside China and while it never imposed a compulsory lockdown, strict social distancing had been widely observed since March. Employees were urged to work from home where […]
UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called on governments around the world to specifically take into account the billions of people with disabilities in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Even under normal circumstances, persons with disabilities are less likely to access education, healthcare and income opportunities or participate in the community,” Guterres said in a statement released in support of a UN study on people with disabilities. “The […]
