Claim: Scramble for masks as Italian region orders coronavirus cover-up.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: being followed up. On 31 May 2013, the Italian health ministry announced its first case of MERS-CoV in a 45-year-old man who had traveled to Jordan. The patient is being currently treated in a hospital in Tuscany and his condition was reported as not life-threatening. On 1 November 2013, a woman who had recently traveled to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj, contracted the disease. She is stated to be in stable condition, and investigators from the World Health Organization are investigating whom she came in contact with. In February 2013, the first UK case of the novel coronavirus was confirmed

title: Severe acute respiratory syndrome
text: SARS victims. In late May 2003, studies were conducted using samples of wild animals sold as food in the local market in Guangdong, China. The results found that the SARS coronavirus could be isolated from masked palm civets ("Paguma" sp.), even if the animals did not show clinical signs of the virus. The preliminary conclusion was the SARS virus crossed the xenographic barrier from asian palm civet to humans, and more than 10,000 masked palm civets were killed in Guangdong Province. The virus was also later found in raccoon dogs ("Nyctereuteus" sp.), ferret badgers ("Melogale" spp.), and domestic cats. In

title: SARS coronavirus
text: as human SARS victims. In late May 2003, studies from samples of wild animals sold as food in the local market in Guangdong, China, found the SARS coronavirus could be isolated from masked palm civets ("Paguma" sp.), but the animals did not always show clinical signs. The preliminary conclusion was the SARS virus crossed the xenographic barrier from palm civet to humans, and more than 10,000 masked palm civets were killed in Guangdong Province. Virus was also later found in raccoon dogs ("Nyctereuteus" sp.), ferret badgers ("Melogale" spp.), and domestic cats. In 2005, two studies identified a number of SARS-like

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: coronavirus researcher at the Erasmus Medical Center (EMC) in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The second laboratory-proven case was in London, confirmed by the UK Health Protection Agency (HPA). The HPA named the virus the London1_novel CoV 2012. On 8 November 2012, in an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Zaki and co-authors from the Erasmus Medical Center published more details, including a scientific name, Human Coronavirus-Erasmus Medical Center (HCoV-EMC), which was then used in scientific literature. In the article, they noted four respiratory human coronaviruses (HCoV) known to be endemic: 229E, OC43, NL63, and HKU1. In May

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: MERS had infected at least 60 people with cases reported in Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Tunisia, Germany, the United Kingdom (UK), France and Italy, with a death toll of 38. Saudi officials expressed great concern that millions of Muslims from around the world would potentially be exposed to the virus during the autumn Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca. In May 2014, the WHO said it was monitoring the situation as global cases of MERS appeared to be on the rise, but said the situation did not yet constitute a health emergency. On 3 June 2014,

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: a nurse who came in contact with the deceased patient are suspected to have contracted the disease. The victim's son-in-law is also reported to have been infected. According to Dr. Gooya, the infection of 1 out of the 3 suspected patients is confirmed and more tests are under way to determine the situation of the other two patients. On 7 May 2013, a case was confirmed in Nord departement of France in a man who had previously traveled to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. On 12 May 2013, in a case of human to human transmission, a man previously hospitalized in

title: Coronavirus
text: 2013, a case of contamination from human to human in France was confirmed by the French Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. In addition, cases of person-to-person transmission have been reported by the Ministry of Health in Tunisia. Two confirmed cases seem to have caught the disease from their late father, who became ill after a visit to Qatar and Saudi Arabia. By Oct. 30 2013, there were 124 cases and 52 deaths in Saudi Arabia. After the Dutch Erasmus Medical Centre sequenced the virus, the virus was given a new name, Human Corona Virus-Erasmus Medical Centre (HCoV-EMC). The final

title: Masked palm civet
text: and in humans working at the same market. In 2006, scientists from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention of the University of Hong Kong and the Guangzhou Centre for Disease Control and Prevention established a direct genetic link between the SARS coronavirus appearing in civets and humans, bearing out claims that the disease had jumped across species. A later study revealed that the sequences of many SARS genomes show that the civets' cases of SARS were just one part of the family tree of SARS viruses in humans — probably humans got SARS from bats, then humans gave

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: 2013, the Coronavirus Study Group of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses adopted the official designation, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV). which was adopted by the World Health Organization to "provide uniformity and facilitate communication about the disease" By May 2013, 10 of the 22 people who died and 22 of 44 cases reported were in Saudi Arabia and over 80% were male. This gender disparity is thought to be because most women in Saudi Arabia wear veils that cover the mouth and nose, decreasing their chances of being exposed to the virus. By 19 June 2013,

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: said virus. The Evangelista Medical Hospital in San Pedro, Laguna, the facility where the patient was first admitted, was temporarily closed by DOH for fourteen days. On 17 February 2015, all those who had exposure or had contact with the said nurse were tested negative of the said virus. On 6 March 2015, The Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed three Filipino female healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia who were infected with MERS-CoV. On 6 July 2015, DOH confirmed the second detected case of MERS-CoV in the country. The patient who had contracted the virus was from the Middle East and

title: Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus
text: and were therefore delaying the development of diagnostic tests. Erasmus MC responded that the patent application did not restrict public health research into MERS coronavirus, and that the virus and diagnostic tests were shipped—free of charge—to all that requested such reagents. There are a number of mapping efforts focused on tracking MERS coronavirus. On 2 May 2014, the Corona Map was launched to track the MERS coronavirus in realtime on the world map. The data is officially reported by WHO or the Ministry of Health of the respective country. HealthMap also tracks case reports with inclusion of news and social

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: was referred to the RITM last 4 July 2015. Another person, who was also showing symptoms, was placed in isolation after he had close contact with the said patient; eight others, who also had contacted with the patient, were identified. DOH is in the process of tracking all the people whom the patient had contacted with. The first known case of a previously unknown coronavirus was identified in a 60-year-old Saudi Arabian man with acute pneumonia, who died of renal failure in June 2012. As of 12 May 2013, two more deaths have been reported in the al-Ahsa region of

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: government, in November 2013, reported a woman in Spain, who had recently traveled to Saudi Arabia for the Islamic pilgrimage, contracted the disease. On 14 April 2014, one Filipino paramedic died in the United Arab Emirates, with six other reported to be infected with the virus. On 17 April, the UAE Ministry of Health reported another fatality and four additional cases, including the Filipino medical worker who travelled to the Philippines on 16 April. On 21 April 2014, the Health Ministry of UAE reported an additional 9 cases. In April 2012, six hospital workers were diagnosed with acute respiratory failure

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: the same room as the first patient was confirmed by French Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. France reported its first death from MERS near the end of May 2013. On 28 May 2013, a report by the Associated Press said a French patient died of the novel coronavirus related to SARS. Fifty percent of those infected have died. On 20 April 2014, Greece reported its first MERS-CoV case. The infected individual was a 69-year-old Greek male who had returned to Greece on April 17 from Saudi Arabia. People with close contact with the infected man were identified and are

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: of unknown origin. Of the six, two died. All the cases were reported to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). After the September identification of a novel CoV strain, a retroactive analysis of the hospital workers was performed. Epidemiologists discovered the Jordan cases. Using stored laboratory samples for all six, it was found that samples from the two patients who had died tested positive for nCoV. On 24 April 2014, a 25-year-old male was found positive for the coronavirus. He had history of exposure to camels and had consumed camel milk. The Ministry of Health and Medical

title: Middle East respiratory syndrome
text: pneumonia and acute renal failure. After routine diagnostics failed to identify the causative agent, Zaki contacted Ron Fouchier, a leading virologist at the Erasmus Medical Center (EMC) in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, for advice. Fouchier sequenced the virus from a sample sent by Zaki. Fouchier used a broad-spectrum "pan-coronavirus" real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method to test for distinguishing features of a number of known coronaviruses (such as OC43, 229R, NL63, and SARS-CoV), as well as for RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), a gene conserved in all coronaviruses known to infect humans. While the screens for known coronaviruses were all negative, the

title: Seveso disaster
text: from skin lesions or chloracne. An advice center was set up for pregnant women of which only 26 opted for an abortion, which was legal in special cases, after consultation. Another 460 women brought on their pregnancies without problems, their children not showing any sign of malformation or pathologies. Herwig von Zwehl (Technical Director of ICMESA) and Paolo Paoletti (director of production at ICMESA) were arrested. Two government commissions were established to develop a plan for quarantining and decontaminating the area, for which the Italian government allotted 40 billion lire (US $47.8 million). This amount would be tripled two years

title: Middle East respiratory syndrome
text: care worker who had been in Saudi Arabia a week earlier, and was reported to be in good condition. A second patient who also traveled from Saudi Arabia was reported in Orlando, Florida on 12 May 2014. On 14 May 2014, officials in the Netherlands reported the first case has appeared. On Saturday, 17 May 2014, a man from Illinois who was a business associate of the first U.S. case (he had met and shook hands with the Indiana health care worker) tested positive for the MERS coronavirus, but has not, as of yet, displayed symptoms (others are probably also,

title: Coronavirus
text: of a vaccine against the disease "since [the spike protein] appears to be recognized by the immune system of the host." Following the high-profile publicity of SARS outbreaks, there has been a renewed interest in coronaviruses among virologists. For many years, scientists knew about only two human coronaviruses (HCoV-229E and HCoV-OC43). The discovery of SARS-CoV added a third human coronavirus. By the end of 2004, three independent research labs reported the discovery of a fourth human coronavirus. It has been named NL63, NL, and the New Haven coronavirus by different research groups. The three labs are still arguing over which

title: Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus
text: camel strains are intermixed suggesting multiple transmission events. The first confirmed case was reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Egyptian virologist Dr. Ali Mohamed Zaki isolated and identified a previously unknown coronavirus from the man's lungs. Dr. Zaki then posted his findings on 24 September 2012 on ProMED-mail. The isolated cells showed cytopathic effects (CPE), in the form of rounding and syncytia formation. A second case was found in September 2012, a 49-year-old male living in Qatar presented with similar flu symptoms, and a sequence of the virus was nearly identical to that of the first case. In November 2012,