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Coronavirus impact: Chinese tourism would be hit by prolonged outbreak | If China's new coronavirus turns into a prolonged outbreak, the country's travel and leisure industry will likely be among the hardest hit.
News of the pneumonia-causing virus first emerged in late December in the city of Wuhan, about 700 miles south of Beijing. At least nine people have died from the disease. Authorities have also confirmed more than 400 cases, primarily in China, but other countries have also reported the illness, including the first U.S. instance overnight.
It's unclear how threatening the virus ultimately is, but the acceleration of the outbreak has evoked fears of another epidemic similar to the severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which broke out in late 2002 in China.
The virus also comes as Chinese are expected to make about 3 billion trips for the Lunar New Year that officially kicks off Friday.
After growing 12% in 2002, China's domestic tourism growth turned negative for the first time in a decade in 2003 amid the SARS crisis, Eric Lin, head of research at UBS Securities, pointed out in a note Tuesday.
`` Valuations of tourism companies ( incl. scenic sites, hoteliers) de-rated 20-50% from peak to trough between February and June 2003, '' Lin said.
Authorities have announced measures to limit flow of people to and from Wuhan. On Tuesday, the Civil Aviation Administration of China announced that airlines should process refunds for flights to the city free of charge.
China Southern Airlines has the highest capacity exposure to Wuhan among the three big Chinese airlines, at about 3%, Goldman Sachs analyst Ben Hartwright wrote in a note published Monday.
China Eastern Airlines ' domestic capacity for Wuhan is 2.2%, while Air China's capacity is 1.3%, according to Goldman.
In fact, the analysis showed that Air China earnings are the least sensitive to a 1% change in domestic traffic volume, at 5.1%, while China Southern Airlines had roughly double the impact at 10.8%. Goldman has a buy rating on all three airline stocks.
From January 10 to February 18, Chinese are expected to take about 79 million passenger flights.
For China's economy overall, the services sector was hit the most during the SARS epidemic of 2002 and 2003, Ting Lu, Nomura's chief China economist said in a note Tuesday. He noted that China's real GDP growth dropped by 2 percentage points from 11.1% in the first quarter of 2003 to 9.1% in the second quarter, before recovering to 10% in the third quarter of that year.
“ ( Growth was) largely dragged by the tertiary sector, especially by two major subcomponents of GDP: ( 1) transport, storage, and post, and ( 2) hotel and catering services, '' he said.
China has been increasing its reliance on the services sector for growth — it accounted for 59.4% of GDP last year, versus 39% in 2003, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China accessed through Wind Information.
That said, the Chinese economy is more than 6 times larger than it was in 2003. | business |
Goldman: China Coronavirus Could Push Oil Down By $ 3 | The outbreak of a coronavirus in China that is now an international threat could cut oil demand by 260,000 bpd, which would translate into a price drop of almost $ 3 per barrel, Goldman Sachs has said. Most of the demand loss will come from jet fuel as the risk of disease discourages travelers from getting on a plane, according to the investment bank, whose analysts qualified the outbreak & rsquo; s effect on oil prices as modest, Bloomberg reports. Coronaviruses are common among animals but some of them can jump species, which is what happened with the SARS virus, to which the new one is related. Once it does jump species, the virus can be passed from human to human. Since the outbreak, hundreds have been infected and health authorities around the world are on red alert for more outbreaks. The effect of the disease on oil prices is likely to be limited regionally, if the SARS epidemic is any indication. At the time, Bloomberg recalls, Asian airlines registered an 8-percent decline in annual traffic, according to data from the International Air Transport Association, but carriers elsewhere were much less affected. So, while the actual effect on demand for jet fuel and, related to it, crude oil, would be limited, it is the uncertainty about demand prospects that may drive prices down. & ldquo; While an OPEC supply response could limit the fundamental impact from such a demand shock, the initial uncertainty on the potential scope of the epidemic could lead to a larger price sell-off than fundamentals suggest, & rdquo; & nbsp; Goldman & rsquo; s Damian Courvalin and Callum Bruce wrote in a note. Oil prices were already trending lower when Bloomberg reported the news, pressured by an Energy Information Administration forecast that U.S. shale production is set for another monthly increase next month, to reach a total 9.2 million barrels daily.By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com | business |
Tetra Pak & Mirakl launch Virtual Marketplace to change the way buyers and sellers operate | Or wait...
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22-Jan-2020 - Last updated on 27-Jan-2020 at 08:47 GMT
Related tags: Tetra pak, virtual marketplace, Digitisation, Packaging function sanitize gpt value2 ( gptValue) { var vOut= '' ''; var aTags = gptValue.split ( ', '); var reg = new RegExp ( '\\W+ ', `` g ''); for ( var i=0; i < aTags.length; i++) { vOut += aTags [ i ].trim ().replace ( reg, '- ').substring ( 0,40); if ( i! = ( aTags.length-1)) vOut += ', '; } vOut = vOut.toLowerCase (); return vOut; } $ ( document).ready ( function () { dataLayerNews = { }; dataLayerNews.related tags = sanitize gpt value2 ( `` Tetra pak, virtual marketplace, Digitisation, Packaging ''); dataLayer.push ( dataLayerNews); });
Germany is the first country to launch the marketplace in January 2020, later expanding in selected countries in Europe, then globally.
The marketplace will host more than 300,000 spare parts and consumables from Tetra Pak, with an additional 200,000 products for maintenance, repair and operations from vetted sellers.
The 24/7 marketplace will host vendors selling products within Safety & Security, Industrial Supplies, Cleaning Solutions and areas for F & B production and the number of products will grow as more vendors join the platform.
Klara Svedberg, VP, part and consumables, Tetra Pak, will be speaking at the World Economic Forum at Davos in collaboration with Mirakl to discuss the launch of the marketplace and its impact on the F & B sector today ( January 22).
The panel, Securing a Competitive Future: Platform your business to thrive in a digital world, will be in partnership with Florian Bress, COO, Mirakl and Felix Staeritz, author of “ FightBack: A Guidebook for Disruptive Growth in the Digital Era ”, to discuss how to navigate a business in a world exposed to political tensions and driven by exponential technological change.
“ Tetra Pak Marketplace will have a positive impact on the sector, bringing a new era of convenience and ease. The F & B industry is going through a digital revolution, and new technologies are continuing to emerge that offer the potential to transform our customers and our own business for the better, ” said Svedberg.
“ Tetra Pak Marketplace enables customers to choose from more than 300,000 products, in the categories of spare parts and consumables, from a ‘ one stop shop’, 24/7.
“ This follows research amongst our customers that revealed how time consuming it is to source suppliers and manage multiple accounts. Our customers want to consolidate their ordering systems by purchasing all they need in one place. Tetra Pak Marketplace is a reflection of the current digital revolution and customer expectations. ”
Svedberg said Germany is the first country to launch the marketplace because it ‘ saw there was an interest from our customers in Germany to make the purchasing of products much simpler and faster’.
“ We are in the process of discussing with our customers, the rollout of Tetra Pak Marketplace in various countries but that depends entirely on demand from food and beverage producers, ” she added.
“ Tetra Pak Marketplace will in time be available globally, with the exact date to be confirmed. ”
According to Phillipe Corrot, CEO, Mirakl, marketplaces are ‘ taking over the world of eCommerce’.
“ It’ s about creating a shopping destination where buyers can get everything they need, ” he said.
“ The F & B industry needs a platform that will allow it to catch up with other sectors, and the combination of Tetra Pak’ s F & B expertise and our digital technology means we can enhance the way F & B manufacturers do business. ”
Iris Schmeckthal, CEO, LAT & SGF/Schmeckthal Group, who is one of the vendors on Tetra Pak’ s marketplace said: “ It is an exciting opportunity for us to grow in new areas. ''
Tetra Pak said it was unable to share a link to the marketplace as it is a closed system and only available to customers and vendors.
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WHO says will decide on Thursday if China virus is a global health emergency | emergency @ ( Updates with fresh headline, details, quotes)
GENEVA, Jan 22 ( Reuters) - The World Health Organization ( WHO) said it will decide on Thursday whether to declare a global emergency over the outbreak of a new flu-like virus spreading in and beyond China.
If it does so it will be only the sixth international public health emergency to be declared in the last decade.
`` The decision is one I take extremely seriously and one I am only prepared to make with appropriate consideration of all the evidence, '' WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. `` This is an evolving and complex situation, '' he added. `` Our team in China is working with local experts and officials to investigate the outbreak. ''
He was speaking after the WHO held a day-long meeting of an independent panel of experts in Geneva on Wednesday.
Deaths from China's new coronavirus virus rose to 17 on Wednesday with more than 540 cases confirmed, increasing fears of contagion from an infection suspected to originate from illegally traded wildlife.
The WHO's head of emergencies programme, Mike Ryan, said the priority now was to find the roots of how the virus is passing between people.
`` We are in agreement with Chinese authorities who have been clear and transparent that there is evidence of human-to-human transmission, '' he said. `` The primary issue is to limit ( that) human-to-human transmission. ''
The previously unknown coronavirus strain is believed to have emerged from an animal market in the central city of Wuhan, with cases now detected as far away as the United States.
Wuhan is closing its transport networks and advising citizens not to leave the city, state media reported on Thursday. ( Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Kate Kelland in London; Editing by Hugh Lawson) | business |
WHO to decide on Thursday if coronavirus constitutes international emergency | - The World Health Organisation said that it will decide on Thursday whether to declare a global emergency over the outbreak of a new flu-like virus spreading from China.
If it does so it will be only the sixth international emergency to be declared in the last decade.
`` The decision is one I take extremely seriously, '' WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, adding that he was only prepared to make it with the appropriate amount of consideration and information.
He was speaking after the WHO held a day-long meeting of an independent panel of experts in Geneva on Wednesday.
Deaths from China's new coronavirus virus rose to 17 on Wednesday with more than 540 cases confirmed, increasing fears of contagion from an infection suspected to originate from illegally traded wildlife.
The previously unknown coronavirus strain is believed to have emerged from an animal market in the central city of Wuhan, with cases now detected as far away as the United States.
Wuhan is closing its transport networks and advising citizens not to leave the city, state media reported on Thursday. ( Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Hugh Lawson) | business |
WHO postpones decision on declaring China coronavirus a global health emergency | The World Health Organization postponed making a decision Wednesday on whether the mysterious coronavirus that has killed at least 17 people and sickened hundreds of others in China is a global health emergency.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said physicians need more information and he's asked his committee, which held an emergency meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, to reconvene on Thursday.
`` Today, there was an excellent discussion during the committee meeting, but it was also clear that to proceed we need more information, '' Tedros told about 150 reporters on a conference call that was delayed for almost two hours while the committee met.
Tedros said the emergency committee on Wednesday was split on whether to designate the illness a global health emergency. He said WHO has researchers on the ground in China collecting data.
`` The decision about whether or not to declare a public health emergency of international concern is one I take extremely seriously, and one I am only prepared to make with appropriate consideration of all the evidence, '' Tedros said.
Chinese authorities say many of the patients with the new illness had come into contact with seafood and meat markets, suggesting the virus is spreading from animals to people. WHO physicians said they 've found evidence of human-to-human transmission within close contacts, citing family members, and within a health-care environment. They said the virus was stable and not showing any kind of unusual activity.
Physicians compared the outbreak to the 2003 outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which had a short incubation period of 2 to 7 days and WHO officials said was less infectious than the flu. It took almost two months for SARS to spread to 456 people. The 2019 coronavirus has infected more than 571 people in less than a month.
WHO defines a global health emergency, also known as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, as an `` extraordinary event '' that is `` serious, unusual or unexpected. '' The virus that emerged from Wuhan, China, over the holidays has spread throughout Asia, infecting people in China, Thailand, Taiwan, Japan and the Republic of Korea, according to WHO and Chinese state media.
The U.S. confirmed its first case on Tuesday, a Washington state man who was traveling in China, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
WHO doesn't enact the emergencies lightly, according to Lawrence Gostin, a professor and faculty director of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. The international health agency has only applied the emergency designation five times since the rules were implemented in the mid-2000s.
The last time WHO declared a global health emergency was in 2019 for the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo that killed more than 2,000 people. The agency also declared global emergencies for the 2016 Zika virus, the 2009 H1N1 swine flu and the 2014 polio and Ebola outbreaks.
Declaring an emergency doesn't give the WHO extra funding or power, but it allows Tedros to ask countries not to impose travel or trade bans.
The meeting came a day after public health officials confirmed the first U.S. case of the virus and two days after officials said that the respiratory illness is capable of spreading from person to person. This weekend, the CDC and Homeland Security began screening people flying to the United States from Wuhan.
Chinese state media said Wednesday that government officials in Wuhan are suspending all public transportation, including buses, trains, airplanes and ferries, to better combat the coronavirus outbreak. Officials are also asking citizens not to leave the city unless there are special circumstances. Additionally, people in public places will be required to wear masks to prevent exposure to the illness, local officials said.
The new virus is similar to the flu and can cause coughing, fever, breathing difficulty and pneumonia.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. | business |
Scientists still searching for causes of mysterious pneumonia outbreak in China | Scientists are still trying to analyse a new strain of coronavirus that caused a pneumonia outbreak in China, with around 300 people infected and six people dead as of Tuesday.
The outbreak started in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei Province in December. The World Health Organisation reported Monday that cases have been found in Beijing and Shenzen, adding to last week’ s confirmed cases in Thailand and Japan from people who had travelled from Wuhan.
The WHO refers to the unknown virus as novel coronavirus or 2019-nCoV.
The WHO states the most likely source of this 2019-nCoV is an animal, and there is some limited human-to-human transmission between those in close contact. Scientists have yet to find the first animal that transmitted it to humans.
The first case of 2019-nCov came from Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan. On December 31, China reported 27 people had suffered from symptoms of pneumonia such as fever and difficulty breathing, and there were signs of abnormal infiltration in the patients’ lungs.
The Chinese government closed the market to prevent the spread of the disease.
Novel coronavirus ( nCoV) is a virus from coronavirus family. It’ s a close relative to MERS-CoV and SARS.
Wuhan novel coronavirus ( nCoV) is a new strain of coronavirus that has never been identified by scientists on humans. The virus has not been officially named although it is known that nCoV is a member of the betacoronavirus genus in the sarbecovirus subgenus.
Genetic analysis indicates the virus has an 89% similarity to the SARS virus, which is a relative of the SARS bat virus, also a member of coronavirus. However, this does not mean nCoV comes from bats.
For instance, MERS-CoV also has a 88% genetic closeness to bat coronavirus, but MERS-CoV spreads to human through camels. Investigation on the zoonotic nCoV is still ongoing.
Common medical symptoms of coronavirus infection are fever and difficulty breathing. In severe cases, the infection can lead to pneumonia, SARS, kidney failure and even death.
This is not the first time in the last decade that a virus from an animal was reported to infect humans.
In 2012, for example, we were shocked when media reported a viral respiratory illness caused by the ( Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, or MERS‐CoV), which was first identified in Saudi Arabia. The disease caused concern on the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages.
Five years before, the swine flu ( Influenza A/H1N1pdm) pandemic caused fatalities of more than 5,700 people globally.
In 2013, avian influenza ( Influenza A/H7N9) from China was reported to have infected 1,567 people and killed 615 there.
There is currently no vaccine available to prevent transmission. But we still can do things to prevent the disease from spreading.
The most important thing we can do for prevention is wash our hands with soap. Cleaning your hands is easy and cheap. A number of disease transmission is through hands. So, keeping our hands clean is crucial.
When you cough and sneeze, cover your nose and mouth with a tissue or with your arm ( not with your palm).
Use a mouth and nose mask when you are sick or in a public space. Dispose of the used tissue and mask in the trash and wash your hands.
Avoid contact with farm and wild animals. Cook meat and eggs thoroughly.
If you plan to visit a country where this virus is found such as China, Thailand and Japan, be careful and take care of your health. If you experience symptoms similar to those above after going to these countries, don’ t panic – go immediately to the hospital and report your conditions. | business |
WHO expert panel to decide whether new virus an emergency | - A World Health Organisation panel of experts on the new coronavirus met on Wednesday to evaluate whether the outbreak, which has spread from China to several countries, constitutes an international emergency.
The 16 independent experts in disease control, virology, epidemiology and vaccine development held a closed-door meeting at the U.N. agency's Geneva headquarters.
Didier Houssin, an adviser to France's national health security agency, was seleted as chair. Chinese health authorities were to make a presentation by teleconference.
A news briefing is tentatively set for Wednesday at 1800 GMT.
Here are some facts about WHO Emergency Committees:
- Director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced on Monday that the WHO had called an Emergency Committee to assess the outbreak of the novel coronavirus ( 2019-nCoV) that began in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of last year.
- Declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern - known as a `` PHEIC '' in WHO jargon - is rare.
- The WHO panel's recommendations, after assessing any evidence of human-to-human transmission and other factors, would have to be accepted by Tedros, who would declare an emergency.
- Only five emergencies have been declared in the past decade: the H1 virus that caused an influenza pandemic ( 2009), West Africa's Ebola outbreak, polio ( 2014), Zika virus ( 2016), and the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo ( 2019).
- The WHO's criteria, laid out in the 2005 International Health Regulations, define a PHEIC as `` an extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other states through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response ''.
- Such situations are `` serious, sudden, unusual or unexpected '', carry cross-border implications and may require immediate international action, its rules say.
- A declaration would lead to boosting public health measures, funding and resources to prevent and reduce international spread.
- It could include recommendations on trade and travel, including airport screening of passengers, although the WHO generally aims to avoid disruptive trade restrictions. ( Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Giles Elgood) | business |
China coronavirus takes down travel stocks: What to watch | Travel stocks tanked as an outbreak of the deadly new coronavirus spread from China to the United States.
The World Health Organization was trying to determine on Wednesday whether the fast-spreading strain that killed nine people and sickened about 470 in China constitutes a global emergency.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday reported the first U.S. case of the mysterious virus, which many have likened to the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.
U.S. stocks broadly fell on Tuesday from their record levels in response to the developments. Chinese securities also sank as investors grew concerned that the country's Lunar New Year holiday, which begins Saturday, could worsen the spread as millions of Chinese nationals travel domestically and abroad.
Stocks in travel-based industries, including those of online booking facilitators Booking Holdings, Expedia and TripAdvisor, hotel operators Wynn Resorts, Hyatt and Hilton Worldwide, cruise line giants Royal Caribbean, Norwegian and Carnival, and airlines Delta, United and American, felt the brunt of the pain in Tuesday's trading session.
Based on the historical impact of illness outbreaks on U.S. stocks, two market professionals — Ari Wald, head of technical analysis at Oppenheimer, and Nancy Tengler, chief investment strategist at Laffer Tengler Investments — agreed that while now was not the moment for investors to pile into travel plays, the space offered some selective opportunities.
`` For needed exposure, '' Wald suggested the stock of Hilton Worldwide, which fell nearly 3% on Tuesday. The $ 31 billion hotel and resort operator gets 3.7% of its total revenue from mainland China, according to FactSet.
`` [ Why Hilton's stock is ] a standout is because it's coming off a new relative high versus the S & P 500, '' Wald said, pointing to a chart.
`` If you look back at the strength last year, this stock broke through very big resistance in May of 2019, came back, tested that breakout in October [ and ] has since inflected from there, '' Wald said. `` It's consolidated this year, but the more important point is that trend of leadership is still intact and I think it can continue to work over the long term. ''
The reason Wald thinks Hilton could resume its longer-term run stems from stocks ' response to the 2014 spread of the Ebola virus.
While he emphasized that investors shouldn't `` take these outbreaks too lightly, '' Wald reminded viewers that in the end, Ebola fears `` caused market volatility that did ultimately provide an opportunity. So, it did not derail what was a strong advance at the time and what I still think is a strong advance for the broader market. ''
Tengler agreed that investors may want to wait before buying travel stocks in earnest.
`` I would wait a little bit, but I think this may be an opportunity for midterm investors, '' she said, adding that she didn't `` mean that cynically because... people are ill and dying. ''
Tengler also recalled how stock behaved after another outbreak — the 2009 swine flu pandemic.
`` The airlines [ had ] double-digit pullbacks and they 've been quite resilient on and off since then, and that's what we expect here, '' she said. `` We're looking at Wynn [ Resorts ]. It was a stock that cut its dividend in 2015 and is now yielding 2.8% and has a great management team and some diversification, so I would argue that you let it settle, and then we're probably going to step in and pick up some shares in that particular name. ''
Wynn Resorts shares sank by more than 6% on Tuesday. According to FactSet, the hotel and casino operator gets over 75% of its total revenues from Macau, an autonomous region off the coast of China that doubles as a gambling mecca.
Tengler's lingering worry was tied to China's overall economic health.
`` China was starting to turn, '' Tengler said. `` I 'm hopeful that they can get this contained and that it won't spread, the disease and the economic slowdown, through the rest of the globe. Because we were starting to see all the signs of an uptick in global growth. So, I 'm hopeful that this will get contained and the damage will be mitigated. ''
Disclaimer | business |
Coronavirus could shave $ 3 from oil prices, Goldman warns | The coronavirus outbreak in China could shave $ 3 from oil prices thanks to a slowdown in air travel, Goldman Sachs warned in a note to clients.
Using the 2002-2003 outbreak of SARS as a reference case, the firm said coronavirus could cause jet fuel demand to drop by 170,000 barrels per day, with overall demand declining by 260,000 barrels per day.
This is roughly 1.6 times larger than the slowdown caused by SARS due to the rapid growth in Asian air travel since the early 2000s.
`` Ultimately we expect jet fuel markets — including cracks, regrade and Asian differentials — to decline most if this outbreak persists given the likely decline in regional air travel, '' Goldman analyst Damien Courvalin said in a note to clients Tuesday night.
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that typically infect animals but can spread to humans. Symptoms include fever, coughing and shortness of breath, which can progress to pneumonia.
According to China's state TV, 17 people have died from the virus, which started in the Chinese city of Wuhan, and 444 cases have been reported. There has been one confirmed case in the United States, with the virus also spreading to Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.
Chinese New Year, which kicks off Saturday, is an especially popular time for domestic travel, and so the outbreak could hit jet fuel demand even harder than analysts are forecasting if the virus is not contained.
For the time being, Courvalin said these demand fears will `` counter concerns around supply disruptions in Libya, Iran and Iraq, driving spot price volatility in coming weeks. '' That said, he was quick to note that estimates at this point are `` highly '' uncertain and that the firm takes `` no view on its [ the coronavirus ] development. ''
On Wednesday, international benchmark Brent crude and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude were each down more than 2%.
— CNBC's Michael Bloom and Berkeley Lovelace contributed to this report. | business |
Wuhan coronavirus outbreak comes at a terrible time: Chinese New Year — Quartz | The outbreak of a mysterious virus in China has infected hundreds and killed nine. The exact source has yet to be determined, human-to-human transmission has been confirmed, and Chinese health authorities say the virus has mutated and will likely spread further.
Now add to that China’ s busiest travel season, as hundreds of millions are expected to criss-cross the country to get home for Lunar New Year family reunions kicking off this week—New Year’ s Eve falls on Friday, Jan. 24—and millions more making trips abroad. Nearly 120 million railway trips have already been made from Jan. 10 to 19, according to the transport ministry, a 20% increase compared to last year. But such a large-scale migration of people at a time of a virus outbreak will likely spread the disease further, both within China and beyond. Cases have already shown up in Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States.
“ Four hundred million people going home for Chinese New Year is certainly going to potentially complicate the control of this outbreak, ” said Allen Cheng, a professor of infectious diseases epidemiology at Monash University in Australia. And though train stations and airports have set up mechanisms like temperature checks, he added, “ evidence suggest that entry screening isn’ t very effective at identifying people with new viruses. ”
Around the world, airports have stepped up screening measures. But the fact that the symptoms of the new coronavirus seem to be relatively mild—fever, cough, tightness of the chest, and difficulty with breathing—is “ paradoxically more worrying ” because it allows people to travel further before their symptoms are detected, Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, told Agence France-Presse. China’ s health commission at a press conference on Wednesday warned that the virus is still evolving.
The new virus belongs to the same family as the SARS virus that hit mainland China and Hong Kong hard in 2003, leading to nearly 800 deaths, but scientists who have sequenced the current strain say it is quite distant from that virus.
Chinese health officials have urged people to limit travel, though they have stopped short of enforcing actual blanket travel bans. They have also asked people to limit public gatherings. In Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province and the epicenter of the outbreak, officials have prohibited outbound tour groups from departing the city, and private cars coming in and out of the city are to be checked for wildlife and live poultry, according to state news outlet People’ s Daily.
Some people have cancelled their Lunar New Year family reunions altogether. “ I made the decision after seeing the spike in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Wuhan over the weekend, ” said Carol Huang, a Hong Kong-based financial reporter from Wuhan. “ My mother called me three times asking me to cancel the flight, and all of my family’ s spring festival gatherings have been cancelled. ”
Travel and hotel stocks have plummeted in reaction to the news. Hong Kong-listed Air China has slumped almost 7.5% since Monday, while New York-listed Chinese travel services company Trip.com dove almost 8%. Huazhu, the New York-listed Chinese hotel management company, sank more than 10%.
The outbreak at peak season for the travel, retail, and catering industries could deal another blow to an economy already contending with slowing economic growth, and food price inflation due to the spread of African swine fever among pigs last year. Lunar New Year holiday spending, which has seen its growth tapering, nevertheless hit $ 150 billion in 2019 for the seven-day period people typically take off. | tech |
Davos 2020: Business leaders worried about coronavirus from China | DAVOS, Switzerland — Leaders of American businesses attending the World Economic Forum have privately expressed concerns about the coronavirus, which has killed more than a dozen people in China.
Several of these executives, who have investments in China, said on Wednesday that they are concerned about the virus spreading beyond China's rural areas and into heavily populated cities, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. These people declined to be named because they didn't want to cause alarm.
The virus, which has sickened at least 440 people and killed 17 in China, has already spread into Beijing, Shanghai and Macau. Beyond China, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently confirmed one case of the virus making its way to the U.S.
Some business leaders raised these concerns directly with President Donald Trump during a breakfast Wednesday morning, according to an executive at the gathering who declined to be named because the event was private.
Trump brushed aside those concerns, according to the executive, echoing comments he made earlier in the day, during an interview with CNBC's Joe Kernen that aired on `` Squawk Box. '' The president said in the interview that he trusted China's President Xi Jinping's handling of the virus and said the U.S. has it `` totally under control. ''
A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
The discussions in Davos have focused, in part, on the impact the virus could have on the livelihoods of the citizens of China and people around the world if it turned into a pandemic, the people said. The talks also covered how leaders would manage their businesses amid the upcoming Chinese New Year celebrations and beyond. The holiday is one of the busiest travel days in China.
Many companies, including big financial institutions J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, have offices in China and employ thousands of people there. While these American banks have yet to issue any warnings about the virus, a Europe-based financial institution has issued guidance to its staff as the virus spreads, according to a person at the bank participating in the World Economic Forum. This executive declined to be named or disclose the name of the bank issuing the guidance, given the sensitivity of the matter.
`` We are advising staff to be aware of the situation, close monitoring is in place, and staff health and safety is our top priority, '' the bank executive said.
Some business leaders have said publicly that the spread of the virus could hurt stocks.
`` We 've got a curveball with this coronavirus. I think that's a big deal. If you look at what happened in 2003, estimates ranged 0.5% to 2% in GDP for China, half a percent for Southeast Asia, '' investor Paul Tudor Jones told CNBC's `` Squawk Box '' from the World Economic Forum.
U.S. business executives at the conference have been hearing privately from their Chinese counterparts that the outbreak could become equivalent to that of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which originated in China in 2002. That virus led to more than 700 deaths. Some analysts have said the virus does not appear to be as lethal as SARS.
Not everyone in Davos is raising a red flag about the coronavirus. A medical industry executive, who declined to be named because their company sessions are private, said they had not started holding deliberations about it because they believe the virus is mostly contained in rural areas.
But Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, told CNBC in a phone interview on Wednesday that the unknown aspects of the virus could create fear, especially if it turns into an epidemic.
`` It appears, based on the limiting information we have now, that for most people it should only cause a mild or moderate illness, '' Gottlieb said. `` But there's a lot we don't know, and even a mild illness, if it's novel and becomes epidemic, can create a lot of fear and uncertainty. ''
— CNBC's Lauren Hirsch and Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report. | business |
Oil slides nearly 3% as surplus forecast overshadows Libya disruption | Oil prices fell more than 2% on Wednesday as a market surplus forecast by the International Energy Agency ( IEA) and demand worries outweighed concern over disruptions to Libya's crude output.
Brent crude was down $ 1.39, or 2.2%, at $ 63.20 per barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude fell 2.8%, or $ 1.64, to settle at $ 56.74 per barrel.
The head of the IEA, Fatih Birol, said he expects the market to be in surplus by 1 million barrels per day ( bpd) in the first half of this year.
`` Oil prices remain heavy on oversupply concerns and after the Saudi Energy Minister Price Abdulaziz did not offer any hints of optimism that the OPEC+ production cuts would be extended beyond March, '' said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA in New York.
`` China's coronavirus will likely see travel restrictions that could end up hurting demand for crude during a peak travel time in China. ''
Markets are also focusing on the emergence from China of a new coronavirus just ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays this weekend and the possible impact a pandemic might have on global economic growth.
Should the virus develop dramatically and hit travel and growth, demand for oil could fall by 260,000 bpd, Goldman Sachs said in a note.
`` Demand concerns over a potential epidemic will counter concerns around supply disruptions in Libya, Iran and Iraq, driving spot price volatility in coming weeks, '' Goldman said, though the `` impact on oil fundamentals remains limited so far ''.
Oil prices have been marginally supported after Libya's National Oil Corp on Monday declared force majeure on the loading of oil from two major oilfields after the latest development in a long-running military conflict.
Unless oil facilities return to operation quickly, OPEC member Libya's crude output will be reduced to about 72,000 bpd from about 1.2 million bpd.
`` The Libyan pipeline blockade continued to have a muted impact on sentiment... There is a consensus that the disruption will prove short-lived, '' said Stephen Brennock of oil broker PVM.
Meanwhile, Brazil's energy minister, Bento Albuquerque, said the country will start talks about joining the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries during a visit to Saudi Arabia in July.
Supply is likely to continue to rise, with U.S. crude production in large shale deposits expected to rise to record highs in February, though the pace of increase is likely to be the lowest in about year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration ( EIA) said on Tuesday.
U.S. crude inventories were likely to have fallen for a second week last week, a Reuters poll showed, but gasoline stocks are expected to have risen for an 11th week in a row.
Weekly U.S. energy reports have been delayed a day in observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday on Monday. The American Petroleum Institute is scheduled to release its report at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, followed by official data at 11 a.m. on Thursday. | business |
United says two passengers appeared to show symptoms of coronavirus | Two passengers flying from Shanghai into Chicago's O'Hare International Airport were examined by U.S. health officials after appearing to show symptoms of the coronavirus, United Airlines said Tuesday.
However, it was a false alarm and the passengers were released by health officials, the airline said.
`` We continue to follow CDC guidelines and remain in close contact with authorities in the United States and Asia to further ensure the safety of our customers and employees, '' a United spokesperson said.
Earlier Tuesday, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said they were expanding screenings for the virus to both Chicago's and Atlanta's airports after health officials confirmed the first U.S. case of the illness.
The patient, a 30-something male from Washington state, was diagnosed with the Wuhan coronavirus after returning from a trip to China, according to the CDC. Officials said the man is `` very healthy. '' He is currently being isolated at a medical center in the state `` out of caution '' and `` poses little risk '' to the public, they said.
At least six people have died from the illness. Public health officials have confirmed more than 300 cases of the illness, which has evoked memories of the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, in China. Health officials have also confirmed cases in Thailand, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.
Fears that the coronavirus could disrupt travel and commerce and slow economic growth sent a chill through global risk markets on Tuesday, including hitting airline stocks.
The World Health Organization is expected to convene a panel of experts in Geneva, Switzerland, on Wednesday to consider whether the illness should be a global health emergency. | business |
Thailand finds fourth coronavirus ahead of Lunar New Year | Thailand has quarantined a fourth patient with the new coronavirus, including one Thai national, authorities said on Wednesday, days before Saturday’ s start of the Lunar New Year holiday is expected to bring an influx of Chinese tourists.
At least nine people have died from the flu-like virus in China following an outbreak in the central city of Wuhan, and more than 470 cases have been reported globally. Global health authorities and financial markets fear the transmission rate will accelerate as hundreds of millions of Chinese travel domestically and abroad for the holiday.
Thai officials were stepping up screening at airports to look for passengers with high body temperatures, coughs, headaches and trouble breathing, police said.
The Thai patient, a 73-year-old woman, had traveled to Wuhan during the New Year holiday and developed a fever after returning. She was admitted to the hospital on Jan. 15, the Public Health Ministry said. She was being monitored in a separate ward in a hospital in Nakhon Pathom, 60 km ( 37 miles) west of Bangkok, where her condition was gradually improving.
“ We can control the situation. There have not been cases of human-to-human transmission in Thailand because we detected the patients as soon as they arrived, ” Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters.
The other three patients in Thailand were Chinese. Two had recovered and been sent home, while a third would return once tests showed he was clear of the virus, Anutin said.
The virus has spread to Beijing and Shanghai, as well as the United States, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Singapore on Wednesday began screening all passengers arriving on flights from China.
The Tourism Council of Thailand said that if the virus situation persists, it could have an impact on the industry, which accounts for 12% of the Thai economy. It predicts 41 million tourists will come to Thailand this year.
“ If China asks its people from other areas not to leave the country, that will affect our tourist target this year, ” the council’ s president, Chairat Triratanajaraspon, told Reuters.
Share prices of hotel operator Central Plaza Hotel Pcl ( CENTEL.BK) fell nearly 4% and Airports of Thailand Pcl ( AOT.BK), which operates the international Suvarnabhumi airport, also dropped 1.3% with a smaller decline the benchmark index.
The price movements were attributed to an overreaction by retail investors, said Vikas Kwatra, head of foreign institution sales at SCB Securities.
“ Sentiment has caused more damage than reality, ” he said.
Reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng, Panarat Thepgumpanat and Satawasin Staporncharnchai; Editing by Stephen Coates and Peter Graff | business |
Coronavirus outbreak in China traced to snakes -- ScienceDaily | The study notes that patients who became infected with the virus -- which is a type of virus called a coronavirus and was named 2019-nCoV by the World Health Organization -- were exposed to wildlife animals at a wholesale market, where seafood, poultry, snake, bats, and farm animals were sold.
By conducting a detailed genetic analysis of the virus and comparing it with available genetic information on different viruses from various geographic locations and host species, the investigators concluded that the 2019-nCoV appears to be a virus that formed from a combination of a coronavirus found in bats and another coronavirus of unknown origin. The resulting virus developed a mix or `` recombination '' of a viral protein that recognizes and binds to receptors on host cells. Such recognition is key to allowing viruses to enter host cells, which can lead to infection and disease.
Finally, the team uncovered evidence that the 2019-nCoV likely resided in snakes before being transmitted to humans. Recombination within the viral receptor-binding protein may have allowed for cross-species transmission from snake to humans.
`` Results derived from our evolutionary analysis suggest for the first time that snake is the most probable wildlife animal reservoir for the 2019-nCoV, '' the authors wrote. `` New information obtained from our evolutionary analysis is highly significant for effective control of the outbreak caused by the 2019-nCoV-induced pneumonia. ''
An accompanying editorial notes that although the ultimate control of emerging viral infections requires the discovery and development of effective vaccines and/or antiviral drugs, currently licensed antiviral drugs should be tested against the 2019-nCoV. | science |
US briefing: Bezos hacked by Saudis, impeachment trial and coronavirus | Good morning, I’ m Tim Walker with today’ s essential stories.
UN investigators are expected to release a statement about the alleged 2018 hacking of Amazon boss Jeff Bezos’ s phone by the Saudis, details of which were revealed by the Guardian. A forensic analysis implicated a WhatsApp account purportedly owned by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, which sent a large video file to Bezos in May 2018. It is “ highly probable ”, investigators found, that the file contained malware. Within hours, large amounts of data were exfiltrated from Bezos’ phone.
Dinner meeting. Prince Mohammed and Bezos, the world’ s richest man, had both attended a dinner in LA a few weeks before the hack, hosted by the film producer Brian Grazer. Months later, Prince Mohammed was implicated in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post, which is owned by Bezos.
As the first day of Donald Trump’ s impeachment trial stretched towards midnight, Adam Schiff, the lead Democratic prosecutor, voiced his frustration over Republican tactics. “ There is a reason why we are still here at five minutes till midnight, ” he said, “ and that’ s because they don’ t want the American people to see what’ s going on here. ” In votes that – to Democrats’ disappointment – fell squarely on party lines, the Senate voted down proposals to subpoena testimony from four potential witnesses.
Forever Trump? The impeachment trial is a test of whether the Republican party can ever divorce itself from a demagogic president, writes David Smith. And on the evidence of its first day, that seems unlikely.
One of the two CIA contract psychologists who created the so-called “ enhanced interrogation techniques ” used by the agency on terror suspects has told a military tribunal he was unable to prevent “ abusive drift ” by an unnamed senior agency official. Giving evidence in a pre-trial hearing of the 9/11 case, James Mitchell described the 2002 decision to use waterboarding and other techniques that the US later admitted constituted torture, as Julian Borger reports from Guantanamo Bay.
Legal line. “ The CIA was never interested in prosecution, ” Mitchell said, watched by the five defendants including the self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. “ They were going to go right up to the line of what was legal, put their toes on it, and lean forward. ”
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced the first known US case of the coronavirus strain that has now killed nine people in China. A man in his 30s, who recently returned from a trip to central China, was diagnosed in Seattle and is said to be in good condition at a hospital in Everett, Washington. That makes the US the fifth country to report cases of the illness, which was first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan before spreading to Beijing, Shanghai and beyond.
‘ Mutating’ disease. China has said 440 people have contracted the Sars-like disease, as Beijing unveiled measures to contain its spread, warning the disease could mutate and advising Wuhan residents to remain in the city.
Harvey Weinstein will at last go on trial in New York on Wednesday for the alleged rape and sexual assault of six women, more than two years since the first public accusations against him sparked the beginning of the # MeToo movement.
A report by Human Rights Watch has found that guerrilla groups have supplanted state authorities on either side of the lawless border between Venezuela and Colombia, leaving citizens vulnerable to murder, kidnappings, child recruitment and rape.
Press freedom activists are up in arms after the US journalist Glenn Greenwald was charged with cybercrimes in Brazil, for allegedly helping hackers who leaked cellphone messages between leading figures in a major corruption scandal.
The National Weather Service on Tuesday warned Floridians that overnight temperatures would be so low in the Sunshine State that they ought to beware of frozen iguanas falling from the trees.
Planned Parenthood chief feels ‘ incredibly good’ about 2020
Planned Parenthood has pledged to spend $ 45m on the 2020 election, its largest ever commitment to electoral work. The organisation’ s president, Alexis McGill Johnson, tells Jessica Glenza how she plans to “ undo all of the damage ” of abortion bans in the Trump era.
Dancer hit by # MeToo scandal stages a Broadway comeback
Amar Ramasar was caught up in a major # MeToo scandal in 2018, when he and his former New York City Ballet colleague Chase Finlay were revealed to have exchanged explicit photographs of female dancers. Alexandra Villareal asks whether Ramasar ought to be back on stage already, in the Broadway revival of West Side Story.
American Dirt: is Oprah’ s latest book club pick ‘ problematic’?
American Dirt, the divisive new novel by Jeanine Cummins, tells the story of a Mexican mother and son’ s perilous journey to the US border after their family is murdered by a cartel. It has earned a coveted place in Oprah’ s book club, but critics say it is exploitative and patronising. André Wheeler reports.
The strange, surprising world of faecal transplants
Injecting patients with other people’ s excrement has proven to be a highly effective treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections. Rose George asks whether this unlikely sounding approach could also hold the key to curing dementia, anorexia and obesity.
Peter Daou worked on both of Hillary Clinton’ s presidential campaigns. He says her attack on “ online Bernie bros ” amplifies a destructive myth about Sanders supporters, who in fact comprise a diverse coalition, committed to upholding core progressive values.
It is long past time for a progressive overhaul of the entire party, and it would better for our country and our future if Democratic leaders encouraged the Sanders movement rather than try to erase it.
The 19-year-old New Orleans rookie Zion Williamson is expected to make his long-awaited NBA debut for the Pelicans on Wednesday. He may be the most promising professional basketball prospect since LeBron James, writes Gabriel Baumgaertner.
Arsenal’ s new manager, Mikel Arteta, hailed the “ spirit, fight and leadership ” of his team after they secured a 2-2 Premier League draw at Chelsea on Tuesday, despite losing David Luiz to an early red card.
The US morning briefing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you’ re not already signed up, subscribe now. | general |
Snakes could be the original source of the new coronavirus outbreak in China | Editor’ s note: Since publication of this article, the World Health Organization has said that there is “ no conclusive evidence ” that snakes were the source of the virus, although the exact viral intermediate host remains unknown.
Snakes – the Chinese krait and the Chinese cobra – may be the original source of the newly discovered coronavirus that has triggered an outbreak of a deadly infectious respiratory illness in China this winter.
The illness was first reported in late December 2019 in Wuhan, a major city in central China, and has been rapidly spreading. Since then, sick travelers from Wuhan have infected people in China and other countries, including the United States.
Using samples of the virus isolated from patients, scientists in China have determined the genetic code of the virus and used microscopes to photograph it. The pathogen responsible for this pandemic is a new coronavirus. It’ s in the same family of viruses as the well-known severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus ( SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus ( MERS-CoV), which have killed hundreds of people in the past 17 years. The World Health Organization ( WHO) has named the new coronavirus 2019-nCoV.
We are virologists and journal editors and are closely following this outbreak because there are many questions that need to be answered to curb the spread of this public health threat.
The name of coronavirus comes from its shape, which resembles a crown or solar corona when imaged using an electron microscope.
Coronavirus is transmitted through the air and primarily infects the upper respiratory and gastrointestinal tract of mammals and birds. Though most of the members of the coronavirus family only cause mild flu-like symptoms during infection, SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV can infect both upper and lower airways and cause severe respiratory illness and other complications in humans.
This new 2019-nCoV causes similar symptoms to SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. People infected with these coronaviruses suffer a severe inflammatory response.
Unfortunately, there is no approved vaccine or antiviral treatment available for coronavirus infection. A better understanding of the life cycle of 2019-nCoV, including the source of the virus, how it is transmitted and how it replicates are needed to both prevent and treat the disease.
Both SARS and MERS are classified as zoonotic viral diseases, meaning the first patients who were infected acquired these viruses directly from animals. This was possible because while in the animal host, the virus had acquired a series of genetic mutations that allowed it to infect and multiply inside humans.
Now these viruses can be transmitted from person to person. Field studies have revealed that the original source of SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV is the bat, and that the masked palm civets ( a mammal native to Asia and Africa) and camels, respectively, served as intermediate hosts between bats and humans.
In the case of this 2019 coronavirus outbreak, reports state that most of the first group of patients hospitalized were workers or customers at a local seafood wholesale market which also sold processed meats and live consumable animals including poultry, donkeys, sheep, pigs, camels, foxes, badgers, bamboo rats, hedgehogs and reptiles. However, since no one has ever reported finding a coronavirus infecting aquatic animals, it is plausible that the coronavirus may have originated from other animals sold in that market.
The hypothesis that the 2019-nCoV jumped from an animal at the market is strongly supported by a new publication in the Journal of Medical Virology. The scientists conducted an analysis and compared the genetic sequences of 2019-nCoV and all other known coronaviruses.
The study of the genetic code of 2019-nCoV reveals that the new virus is most closely related to two bat SARS-like coronavirus samples from China, initially suggesting that, like SARS and MERS, the bat might also be the origin of 2019-nCoV. The authors further found that the viral RNA coding sequence of 2019-nCoV spike protein, which forms the “ crown ” of the virus particle that recognizes the receptor on a host cell, indicates that the bat virus might have mutated before infecting people.
But when the researchers performed a more detailed bioinformatics analysis of the sequence of 2019-nCoV, it suggests that this coronavirus might come from snakes.
The researchers used an analysis of the protein codes favored by the new coronavirus and compared it to the protein codes from coronaviruses found in different animal hosts, like birds, snakes, marmots, hedgehogs, manis, bats and humans. Surprisingly, they found that the protein codes in the 2019-nCoV are most similar to those used in snakes.
Snakes often hunt for bats in wild. Reports indicate that snakes were sold in the local seafood market in Wuhan, raising the possibility that the 2019-nCoV might have jumped from the host species – bats – to snakes and then to humans at the beginning of this coronavirus outbreak. However, how the virus could adapt to both the cold-blooded and warm-blooded hosts remains a mystery.
The authors of the report and other researchers must verify the origin of the virus through laboratory experiments. Searching for the 2019-nCoV sequence in snakes would be the first thing to do. However, since the outbreak, the seafood market has been disinfected and shut down, which makes it challenging to trace the new virus’ source animal.
Sampling viral RNA from animals sold at the market and from wild snakes and bats is needed to confirm the origin of the virus. Nonetheless, the reported findings will also provide insights for developing prevention and treatment protocols.
The 2019-nCoV outbreak is another reminder that people should limit the consumption of wild animals to prevent zoonotic infections.
This article has been updated to clarify that the genetic material from the virus was RNA, not DNA.
[ You’ re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’ s authors and editors. You can get our highlights each weekend. ] | business |
Wuhan virus: App games about plague, disaster surge in China — Quartz | Strategy games about epidemics and war are going viral in China, just as it’ s facing a real-life challenge of grappling with a fast-spreading new virus that has led to hundreds of infections and nine deaths.
Plague Inc. and Rebel Inc., both developed by British game studio Ndemic Creations, have seen a surge in downloads since Monday ( Jan. 20), the day China announced that a new pneumonia-like illness had spread to cities outside Wuhan, the Chinese city where the outbreak began.
Plague Inc., which lets players evolve a pathogen to wipe out humanity, jumped from the fifth spot on Monday to top the charts among paid games on China’ s iOS store as of Wednesday ( Jan. 22), according to data provider Sensor Tower. Meanwhile, Rebel Inc., which requires users to stabilize a war-torn country and “ win the hearts and minds of the people ” while also trying to prevent a deadly insurgency from taking power, jumped from the 27th spot on Monday to fifth on Wednesday.
The popularity of the doomsday simulation games comes as worries have increased about the new coronavirus, a type of virus that can cause colds but also more serious respiratory illnesses, as it spread to more cities in China and more countries this week. The country’ s health commission said on Wednesday authorities have confirmed more than 440 infections and nine deaths, a sharp increase from around 300 cases and six deaths reported a day before. Outside mainland China, the US, Thailand, Taiwan, Macau, Japan and South Korea have reported confirmed cases of the illness, which can be transmitted human-to-human.
On China’ s Twitter-like Weibo platform, many joked darkly about the similarities between the games and the real situation. “ The best way to get rid of fear is to face the fear itself, ” wrote 17173, a Chinese game news site, commenting on Plague Inc.’ s sudden rise in popularity. Some users said that in order to have a more immersive experience, they chose China as the origin country that exports the virus to other regions in the game. Others felt especially connected to the fake news scenario in Plague that allows players to use modern technology and psychological tricks to spread misinformation about the virus.
“ This scenario feels so real, ” said a user. There has already been a strong online backlash against Chinese authorities over their handling of the disease, with some people complaining that information updates are not coming quickly enough, and others criticizing the Wuhan government for having a slow response initially.
The public distrust in authorities can be traced back to 2003, and the SARS epidemic, a deadly coronavirus that also originated China and killed close to 800 people in the region. Beijing was at the time accused of covering up information in the early stages and being slow to report cases to the World Health Organization. While China is now in the age of social media, which allow for online updates from municipalities and internet discussions of the virus, China’ s strict online censorship regime ( paywall) continues to fuel suspicion about the government.
A leading Chinese infectious diseases expert known for his role in combatting SARS, however, says China is being transparent, while a top Chinese political body has warned officials that if they dare to suppress information this time they would be “ nailed on the pillar of shame for eternity. ” | tech |
' I am here ': Holocaust survivors mark Auschwitz liberation | Hi, what are you looking for?
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Their faces lined by age and haunting memories, about 100 Holocaust survivors joined political leaders Thursday in Jerusalem to recall the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp 75 years ago.
While many of the dignitaries at the sombre ceremony were born after World War II, with no personal memories of Nazi Germany's industrial-scale murder of Jews, for 81-year-old Yona Amit, the event was deeply personal.
Just five years old when she and her family escaped Nazi-occupied Italy for Switzerland, she spoke of her remarkable survival, accompanied by her granddaughter at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial centre.
Amit said her family was forced to flee her home by horse and cart, spending much of the war in hiding.
`` We couldn't travel as Jews, because they collected the Jews and they took them straight to Auschwitz, '' she told AFP.
The escape through the Alps was horrifying, she said: `` It wasn't easy, it was the most terrible thing -- the Germans, with their Alsatian dogs looking for us. ''
She remembers one day playing with her cousin, and exchanging shoes, before they were separated and her young relative was betrayed to the Nazis by smugglers.
`` They were straight away sent to Auschwitz. And of course my cousin with my shoes: straight away up in the chimneys.
`` My shoes are in that big mound of shoes in Auschwitz... I am here. ''
- 'People who helped ' -
More than a million people -- most of them Jews, but also ethnic minority members, communists, homosexuals and others -- were killed at the extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
Amit finally reached Israel in 1949, going on later in life to also teach Hebrew in South Africa and Australia.
On Thursday she was at Yad Vashem, along with hundreds of journalists and other survivors there to listen to speeches by leaders such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Amit said the event was an opportunity to remember those who took grave risks to save European Jews.
`` So many priests, and so many monasteries, endangered their lives to save Jews, '' she said.
`` I think this is the most important message of this war. Not the horrible things that were done -- we all know about them -- but the simple people who helped. ''
- 'Plague of anti-Semitism ' -
Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev, who had a fall days before the event, reached the stage on crutches, joking that breaking a leg was good luck ahead of such an occasion.
He and Moshe Kantor, founder of the World Holocaust Forum which organised the event, both spoke about the importance of continuing the fight against anti-Semitism.
But Fanny Ben Ami, whose parents were killed in Nazi extermination camps, told AFP she feared that anti-Semitism will not be eradicated.
`` I think that the leaders of the whole world have come, above all, to affirm that anti-Semitism is a plague, but... nothing changes, '' said the 89-year-old.
Ben Ami joined the French resistance at the age of 12, helping children flee to Switzerland, and emigrated to Israel in 1957.
Auschwitz survivor Nahum Rottenberg also voiced doubt about what could be achieved at the memorial, dubbed the most important event Israel has ever hosted.
The frail 92-year-old talked with tears in his eyes about his family who died at Auschwitz.
`` I fight against anti-Semitism each time I tell my story, '' he said.
He voiced dismay at present-day wars raging unabated, including in the Middle East.
`` Today we kill in Syria and elsewhere, '' he said. `` The world keeps quiet. I don't think that things will really change. ''
Their faces lined by age and haunting memories, about 100 Holocaust survivors joined political leaders Thursday in Jerusalem to recall the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp 75 years ago.
While many of the dignitaries at the sombre ceremony were born after World War II, with no personal memories of Nazi Germany’ s industrial-scale murder of Jews, for 81-year-old Yona Amit, the event was deeply personal.
Just five years old when she and her family escaped Nazi-occupied Italy for Switzerland, she spoke of her remarkable survival, accompanied by her granddaughter at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial centre.
Amit said her family was forced to flee her home by horse and cart, spending much of the war in hiding.
“ We couldn’ t travel as Jews, because they collected the Jews and they took them straight to Auschwitz, ” she told AFP.
The escape through the Alps was horrifying, she said: “ It wasn’ t easy, it was the most terrible thing — the Germans, with their Alsatian dogs looking for us. ”
She remembers one day playing with her cousin, and exchanging shoes, before they were separated and her young relative was betrayed to the Nazis by smugglers.
“ They were straight away sent to Auschwitz. And of course my cousin with my shoes: straight away up in the chimneys.
“ My shoes are in that big mound of shoes in Auschwitz … I am here. ”
– ‘ People who helped’ –
More than a million people — most of them Jews, but also ethnic minority members, communists, homosexuals and others — were killed at the extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
Amit finally reached Israel in 1949, going on later in life to also teach Hebrew in South Africa and Australia.
On Thursday she was at Yad Vashem, along with hundreds of journalists and other survivors there to listen to speeches by leaders such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Amit said the event was an opportunity to remember those who took grave risks to save European Jews.
“ So many priests, and so many monasteries, endangered their lives to save Jews, ” she said.
“ I think this is the most important message of this war. Not the horrible things that were done — we all know about them — but the simple people who helped. ”
– ‘ Plague of anti-Semitism’ –
Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev, who had a fall days before the event, reached the stage on crutches, joking that breaking a leg was good luck ahead of such an occasion.
He and Moshe Kantor, founder of the World Holocaust Forum which organised the event, both spoke about the importance of continuing the fight against anti-Semitism.
But Fanny Ben Ami, whose parents were killed in Nazi extermination camps, told AFP she feared that anti-Semitism will not be eradicated.
“ I think that the leaders of the whole world have come, above all, to affirm that anti-Semitism is a plague, but … nothing changes, ” said the 89-year-old.
Ben Ami joined the French resistance at the age of 12, helping children flee to Switzerland, and emigrated to Israel in 1957.
Auschwitz survivor Nahum Rottenberg also voiced doubt about what could be achieved at the memorial, dubbed the most important event Israel has ever hosted.
The frail 92-year-old talked with tears in his eyes about his family who died at Auschwitz.
“ I fight against anti-Semitism each time I tell my story, ” he said.
He voiced dismay at present-day wars raging unabated, including in the Middle East.
“ Today we kill in Syria and elsewhere, ” he said. “ The world keeps quiet. I don’ t think that things will really change. ”
With 2,400 staff representing 100 different nationalities, AFP covers the world as a leading global news agency. AFP provides fast, comprehensive and verified coverage of the issues affecting our daily lives.
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World leaders in Israel to recall horrors of Auschwitz | Hi, what are you looking for?
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Israel hosts dozens of world leaders Thursday to mark 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, the World War II death camp where the Nazis killed more than 1.1 million people, most of them Jews.
The presidents of Russia, France and Germany, US Vice President Mike Pence and Britain's Prince Charles were set to address the sombre event at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial centre in Jerusalem in the presence of Auschwitz survivors.
Guarded by more than 10,000 police, one third of the national force, the meeting of more than 40 presidents, premiers and monarchs is the biggest international diplomatic gathering ever held in Israel.
Alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the leaders will warn against a resurgence of anti-Semitism in speeches at the memorial centre for the six million Jews that Nazi Germany killed in gas chambers, ghettos and forced labour camps.
`` This is a historic gathering, not only for Israel and the Jewish people, but for all humanity, '' Israeli President Reuven Rivlin told a dinner on the eve of the commemoration.
`` As we remember the victims of the Holocaust, and World War II, we also mark the victory of freedom and human dignity, '' he said, calling for a global push to `` stand united in the fight against racism, anti-Semitism and extremism ''.
The ceremonies move on next Monday to the site in Poland of the Auschwitz camp, liberated by the Soviet Red Army on January 27, 1945.
While the focus in Jerusalem will be on the Holocaust and its haunting legacy, modern politics have impacted the event, held at a time of soaring US-Iranian tensions and ahead of Israel's March general election.
Netanyahu this week drew a direct link between the Nazis ' `` Final Solution '' to exterminate Europe's Jews and the threat that Israel says it faces from its arch-foe Iran.
While in the Nazi death camps, `` a third of the Jewish people went up in flames '', today `` Iran openly declares every day that it wants to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, '' he said.
`` I think the lesson of Auschwitz is: one, stop bad things when they're small. And Iran is a very bad thing, it's not that small, but it could get a lot bigger with nuclear weapons. ''
Tehran strongly denies all accusations of anti-Semitism, insisting that while it opposes the Jewish state and supports the Palestinian cause, it has no problem with Jewish people, including its own Jewish minority.
- 'Memory of victims ' -
Netanyahu enjoys strong backing from US President Donald Trump, who in 2018 pulled out of a landmark nuclear deal with Iran and has heaped sanctions and `` maximum pressure '' on Tehran and ordered the targeted killing of a top Iranian general on January 3.
In his talks with Pence, who arrived early Thursday, Netanyahu was expected to seek reaffirmation of Washington's support for Israeli settlement policy in the occupied Palestinian territories and on other contentious issues.
One of the most powerful players in Jerusalem will be Putin, a key actor in the Middle East since his forces, along with Iranian fighters, started backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2015.
The commemorations were organised by Moshe Kantor, a billionaire close to the Kremlin who is also a prominent figure in Russia's Jewish community and the president of the European Jewish Congress.
Putin, who is travelling with his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, will give a key speech, but Poland's President Andrzej Duda is staying away after being denied the right to address the event.
Relations between Moscow and Warsaw, its Cold War-era satellite, have been strained since Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in 2014, and have deteriorated further in disagreements over history.
Last month, Putin provoked an outcry after he made the false claim that Poland had colluded with Adolf Hitler and contributed to the outbreak of World War II.
Poland, which sees Moscow as rewriting history and ignoring its own 1939 non-aggression pact with Hitler, has urged Putin `` not to use the memory of the victims of the Holocaust for political games ''.
While in Jerusalem, Putin will inaugurate a monument to honour victims of the Nazis ' siege of Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, that left hundreds of thousands of people dead, including an estimated 70,000 Jewish soldiers.
For Israel, the commemoration comes at a time of political paralysis, when voters face a third general election in less than 12 months on March 2.
Polls indicate Netanyahu, the caretaker premier, and his centrist rival Benny Gantz are still neck-and-neck -- potentially leaving both unable, again, to form a majority government.
Israel hosts dozens of world leaders Thursday to mark 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, the World War II death camp where the Nazis killed more than 1.1 million people, most of them Jews.
The presidents of Russia, France and Germany, US Vice President Mike Pence and Britain’ s Prince Charles were set to address the sombre event at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial centre in Jerusalem in the presence of Auschwitz survivors.
Guarded by more than 10,000 police, one third of the national force, the meeting of more than 40 presidents, premiers and monarchs is the biggest international diplomatic gathering ever held in Israel.
Alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the leaders will warn against a resurgence of anti-Semitism in speeches at the memorial centre for the six million Jews that Nazi Germany killed in gas chambers, ghettos and forced labour camps.
“ This is a historic gathering, not only for Israel and the Jewish people, but for all humanity, ” Israeli President Reuven Rivlin told a dinner on the eve of the commemoration.
“ As we remember the victims of the Holocaust, and World War II, we also mark the victory of freedom and human dignity, ” he said, calling for a global push to “ stand united in the fight against racism, anti-Semitism and extremism ”.
The ceremonies move on next Monday to the site in Poland of the Auschwitz camp, liberated by the Soviet Red Army on January 27, 1945.
While the focus in Jerusalem will be on the Holocaust and its haunting legacy, modern politics have impacted the event, held at a time of soaring US-Iranian tensions and ahead of Israel’ s March general election.
Netanyahu this week drew a direct link between the Nazis’ “ Final Solution ” to exterminate Europe’ s Jews and the threat that Israel says it faces from its arch-foe Iran.
While in the Nazi death camps, “ a third of the Jewish people went up in flames ”, today “ Iran openly declares every day that it wants to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, ” he said.
“ I think the lesson of Auschwitz is: one, stop bad things when they’ re small. And Iran is a very bad thing, it’ s not that small, but it could get a lot bigger with nuclear weapons. ”
Tehran strongly denies all accusations of anti-Semitism, insisting that while it opposes the Jewish state and supports the Palestinian cause, it has no problem with Jewish people, including its own Jewish minority.
– ‘ Memory of victims’ –
Netanyahu enjoys strong backing from US President Donald Trump, who in 2018 pulled out of a landmark nuclear deal with Iran and has heaped sanctions and “ maximum pressure ” on Tehran and ordered the targeted killing of a top Iranian general on January 3.
In his talks with Pence, who arrived early Thursday, Netanyahu was expected to seek reaffirmation of Washington’ s support for Israeli settlement policy in the occupied Palestinian territories and on other contentious issues.
One of the most powerful players in Jerusalem will be Putin, a key actor in the Middle East since his forces, along with Iranian fighters, started backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2015.
The commemorations were organised by Moshe Kantor, a billionaire close to the Kremlin who is also a prominent figure in Russia’ s Jewish community and the president of the European Jewish Congress.
Putin, who is travelling with his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, will give a key speech, but Poland’ s President Andrzej Duda is staying away after being denied the right to address the event.
Relations between Moscow and Warsaw, its Cold War-era satellite, have been strained since Russia annexed Ukraine’ s Crimea peninsula in 2014, and have deteriorated further in disagreements over history.
Last month, Putin provoked an outcry after he made the false claim that Poland had colluded with Adolf Hitler and contributed to the outbreak of World War II.
Poland, which sees Moscow as rewriting history and ignoring its own 1939 non-aggression pact with Hitler, has urged Putin “ not to use the memory of the victims of the Holocaust for political games ”.
While in Jerusalem, Putin will inaugurate a monument to honour victims of the Nazis’ siege of Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, that left hundreds of thousands of people dead, including an estimated 70,000 Jewish soldiers.
For Israel, the commemoration comes at a time of political paralysis, when voters face a third general election in less than 12 months on March 2.
Polls indicate Netanyahu, the caretaker premier, and his centrist rival Benny Gantz are still neck-and-neck — potentially leaving both unable, again, to form a majority government.
With 2,400 staff representing 100 different nationalities, AFP covers the world as a leading global news agency. AFP provides fast, comprehensive and verified coverage of the issues affecting our daily lives.
Citigroup is prepared to fire employees at the end of the month who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 14 deadline.
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Cyber Ninjas, the cybersecurity firm that led a controversial GOP audit of the 2020 election results in Arizona's county, has shut down.
It’ s not often you see an idea as useful as this with so many applications – Separating microplastics using sound waves.
COPYRIGHT © 1998 - 2021 DIGITAL JOURNAL INC. Digital Journal is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more about our external linking. | general |
Libya's neighbours reject foreign interference in crisis-hit country | Hi, what are you looking for?
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Published
Libya's neighbours on Thursday denounced foreign interference in the conflict-hit North African country, at talks in Algiers to seek a political solution to a crisis they say threatens regional stability.
The meeting organised at Algeria's initiative brought together foreign ministers from Tunisia, Egypt, Chad and Mali, as well as diplomats from Sudan and Niger.
The participants insisted on the `` need to respect Libya as a united country and to respect the sovereignty of its legitimate authorities, '' Algerian Foreign Minister Sabri Boukadoum said after the talks.
They also rejected `` any foreign interference in Libya '' and urged all sides there `` to solve their conflict by peaceful means '', Boukadoum added.
`` We are confident that the Libyan people will be capable of overcoming their differences through dialogue... and reaching a political solution, '' he said, adding that the African Union and the United Nations should be a part of a solution.
A statement at the end of the talks said the foreign ministers `` exhorted the Libyan belligerents to engage in a dialogue under the auspices of the United Nations and with the help of the African Union and Libya's neighbours in order to reach a global settlement away from any foreign interference ''.
`` Foreign interference only prolongs the crisis and makes it more complex, '' they warned.
The Algiers talks came days after an international summit hosted by Germany in Berlin during which world leaders committed to end foreign meddling in Libya and to uphold a weapons embargo.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas briefed the Algiers meeting on the results of Sunday's Berlin talks, then made a brief stop in Tunis on his way home.
Several African countries had complained at not being invited to the Berlin conference. Boukadoum said the Algiers talks were aimed at `` making the voices of Libya's neighbours heard '' by the international community.
Tunisia, which like Algeria shares a long border with Libya, was not invited to Berlin but Maas, in a statement released by the Tunisian presidency, said Tunis would be involved in future efforts to try and end the Libyan conflict.
- 'Algerian mediation ' -
Libya has been torn by fighting between rival armed factions since NATO-backed insurgents toppled and killed dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.
Two rival administrations have emerged from the chaos.
Since April last year, the UN-recognised Government of National Accord ( GNA) in Tripoli has fought back against an offensive by fighters loyal to military strongman Khalifa Haftar who draws his legitimacy from an administration based in the country's east.
Haftar is supported by several countries including Russia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and France, while the GNA has the backing of Turkey and Qatar.
GNA head Fayez al-Sarraj and Haftar refused to meet in Berlin and did not take part in the Algeria talks.
On Tuesday the UN Security Council urged Libya's warring parties to reach a long-term deal paving the way for a political process aimed at ending the conflict.
`` The current situation in Libya can not withstand an escalation, '' Boukadoum said as the meeting got underway on Thursday with statements from each participant.
Algeria shares a border of almost 1,000 kilometres ( 620 miles) with Libya.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who attended the Berlin summit, said Wednesday: `` Peace in Libya is equal to peace '' in Algeria.
`` There are statements from Sarraj, statements from Haftar's side, which indicate that the only power capable of settling the problem is Algeria. We have their trust, '' he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called Thursday for a summit of leaders of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to `` defend peace '' in the face of global instability, and suggested Libya could be on the agenda.
On the ground in the North African country, tensions remained high.
Late Wednesday, Tripoli's sole functioning airport was closed for several hours following a rocket strike the GNA blamed on Haftar's forces, briefly re-opened and then closed again after their rivals threatened air traffic over the capital.
But on Thursday the GNA reopened Mitiga and said it would raise the issue of Haftar's threats at the UN Security Council.
Libya’ s neighbours on Thursday denounced foreign interference in the conflict-hit North African country, at talks in Algiers to seek a political solution to a crisis they say threatens regional stability.
The meeting organised at Algeria’ s initiative brought together foreign ministers from Tunisia, Egypt, Chad and Mali, as well as diplomats from Sudan and Niger.
The participants insisted on the “ need to respect Libya as a united country and to respect the sovereignty of its legitimate authorities, ” Algerian Foreign Minister Sabri Boukadoum said after the talks.
They also rejected “ any foreign interference in Libya ” and urged all sides there “ to solve their conflict by peaceful means ”, Boukadoum added.
“ We are confident that the Libyan people will be capable of overcoming their differences through dialogue… and reaching a political solution, ” he said, adding that the African Union and the United Nations should be a part of a solution.
A statement at the end of the talks said the foreign ministers “ exhorted the Libyan belligerents to engage in a dialogue under the auspices of the United Nations and with the help of the African Union and Libya’ s neighbours in order to reach a global settlement away from any foreign interference ”.
“ Foreign interference only prolongs the crisis and makes it more complex, ” they warned.
The Algiers talks came days after an international summit hosted by Germany in Berlin during which world leaders committed to end foreign meddling in Libya and to uphold a weapons embargo.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas briefed the Algiers meeting on the results of Sunday’ s Berlin talks, then made a brief stop in Tunis on his way home.
Several African countries had complained at not being invited to the Berlin conference. Boukadoum said the Algiers talks were aimed at “ making the voices of Libya’ s neighbours heard ” by the international community.
Tunisia, which like Algeria shares a long border with Libya, was not invited to Berlin but Maas, in a statement released by the Tunisian presidency, said Tunis would be involved in future efforts to try and end the Libyan conflict.
– ‘ Algerian mediation’ –
Libya has been torn by fighting between rival armed factions since NATO-backed insurgents toppled and killed dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.
Two rival administrations have emerged from the chaos.
Since April last year, the UN-recognised Government of National Accord ( GNA) in Tripoli has fought back against an offensive by fighters loyal to military strongman Khalifa Haftar who draws his legitimacy from an administration based in the country’ s east.
Haftar is supported by several countries including Russia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and France, while the GNA has the backing of Turkey and Qatar.
GNA head Fayez al-Sarraj and Haftar refused to meet in Berlin and did not take part in the Algeria talks.
On Tuesday the UN Security Council urged Libya’ s warring parties to reach a long-term deal paving the way for a political process aimed at ending the conflict.
“ The current situation in Libya can not withstand an escalation, ” Boukadoum said as the meeting got underway on Thursday with statements from each participant.
Algeria shares a border of almost 1,000 kilometres ( 620 miles) with Libya.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who attended the Berlin summit, said Wednesday: “ Peace in Libya is equal to peace ” in Algeria.
“ There are statements from Sarraj, statements from Haftar’ s side, which indicate that the only power capable of settling the problem is Algeria. We have their trust, ” he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called Thursday for a summit of leaders of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to “ defend peace ” in the face of global instability, and suggested Libya could be on the agenda.
On the ground in the North African country, tensions remained high.
Late Wednesday, Tripoli’ s sole functioning airport was closed for several hours following a rocket strike the GNA blamed on Haftar’ s forces, briefly re-opened and then closed again after their rivals threatened air traffic over the capital.
But on Thursday the GNA reopened Mitiga and said it would raise the issue of Haftar’ s threats at the UN Security Council.
With 2,400 staff representing 100 different nationalities, AFP covers the world as a leading global news agency. AFP provides fast, comprehensive and verified coverage of the issues affecting our daily lives.
The Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, during the telematic press conference called after the meeting of the Council of Ministers on March 17,...
An Irishman who refused to wear a Covid mask during a flight from Dublin to New York faces up to 20 years in prison.
Geneva, the neutral turf that was once host to so much Cold War bargaining, is again welcoming Russian and US officials.
Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo are postponing the glittering parades that are the highlight of carnival festivities due to a surge in the...
COPYRIGHT © 1998 - 2022 DIGITAL JOURNAL INC. Digital Journal is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more about our external linking. | general |
Studies suggest role of bats, snakes in outbreak of China virus | Hi, what are you looking for?
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A new strain of coronavirus that emerged in China may have originated in bats or snakes, according to genetic analysis of the virus that has so far killed 17 people.
The theories are based on examination of the genome sequence of the virus released by authorities in the wake of the outbreak, with two studies pointing to the likely role of bats in the outbreak.
One study, published Tuesday in the journal Science China Life Sciences, which is sponsored by Beijing's Chinese Academy of Sciences, looked at the relations between the new strain and other viruses.
It found the coronavirus that emerged from China's Wuhan was closely related to a strain that exists in bats.
`` Bats being the native host of the Wuhan CoV ( coronavirus) would be the logical and convenient reasoning, though it remains likely there was intermediate host ( s) in the transmission cascade from bats to humans, '' the researchers from several institutions in China wrote in the paper.
That study did not speculate about which animal could have been an `` intermediate host, '' but a second study published Wednesday in the Journal of Medical Virology identifies snakes as the possible culprit.
`` To search for ( a) potential virus reservoir, we have carried out a comprehensive sequence analysis and comparison. Results from our analysis suggest that snake is the most probable wildlife animal reservoir, '' the paper says.
The researchers caution that their conclusions require `` further validation by experimental studies in animal models ''.
Neither study explained how the virus may have been transmitted from animals to humans.
But they could offer clues to Chinese authorities as they hunt for the source of the outbreak that has sickened hundreds of people in the country and has been confirmed as far afield as the United States.
The food market where the deadly virus surfaced offered a range of exotic wildlife for sale, including live foxes, crocodiles, wolf puppies, giant salamanders, snakes, rats, peacocks, porcupines, camel meat and other game.
Gao Fu, director of the Chinese centre for disease control and prevention, said in Beijing on Wednesday that authorities believe the virus likely came from `` wild animals at the seafood market '' though the exact source remains undetermined.
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, was linked to Chinese consumption of civet meat.
Many exotic species are still widely consumed in China or other Asian countries where they are considered a delicacy -- like the civet or some rats or bats -- or for purported health benefits unproven by science.
A new strain of coronavirus that emerged in China may have originated in bats or snakes, according to genetic analysis of the virus that has so far killed 17 people.
The theories are based on examination of the genome sequence of the virus released by authorities in the wake of the outbreak, with two studies pointing to the likely role of bats in the outbreak.
One study, published Tuesday in the journal Science China Life Sciences, which is sponsored by Beijing’ s Chinese Academy of Sciences, looked at the relations between the new strain and other viruses.
It found the coronavirus that emerged from China’ s Wuhan was closely related to a strain that exists in bats.
“ Bats being the native host of the Wuhan CoV ( coronavirus) would be the logical and convenient reasoning, though it remains likely there was intermediate host ( s) in the transmission cascade from bats to humans, ” the researchers from several institutions in China wrote in the paper.
That study did not speculate about which animal could have been an “ intermediate host, ” but a second study published Wednesday in the Journal of Medical Virology identifies snakes as the possible culprit.
“ To search for ( a) potential virus reservoir, we have carried out a comprehensive sequence analysis and comparison. Results from our analysis suggest that snake is the most probable wildlife animal reservoir, ” the paper says.
The researchers caution that their conclusions require “ further validation by experimental studies in animal models ”.
Neither study explained how the virus may have been transmitted from animals to humans.
But they could offer clues to Chinese authorities as they hunt for the source of the outbreak that has sickened hundreds of people in the country and has been confirmed as far afield as the United States.
The food market where the deadly virus surfaced offered a range of exotic wildlife for sale, including live foxes, crocodiles, wolf puppies, giant salamanders, snakes, rats, peacocks, porcupines, camel meat and other game.
Gao Fu, director of the Chinese centre for disease control and prevention, said in Beijing on Wednesday that authorities believe the virus likely came from “ wild animals at the seafood market ” though the exact source remains undetermined.
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, was linked to Chinese consumption of civet meat.
Many exotic species are still widely consumed in China or other Asian countries where they are considered a delicacy — like the civet or some rats or bats — or for purported health benefits unproven by science.
With 2,400 staff representing 100 different nationalities, AFP covers the world as a leading global news agency. AFP provides fast, comprehensive and verified coverage of the issues affecting our daily lives.
Turkeys being raised on a turkey farm. Credit - Scott Bauer/Visual Information Specialist/USDA.Public Domain A new strain of Avian influenza that was present in Europe,...
A convoy of vehicles from across the Netherlands brought The Hague’ s city centre to a standstill on Saturday.
Police in Canada were positioning Saturday to clear a key bridge on the US border, snarled for days by protesting truckers.
‘ Parallel Mothers’ follows two single mothers who meet by chance at the hospital and become unexpectedly intertwined as they both confront deep traumas.
COPYRIGHT © 1998 - 2022 DIGITAL JOURNAL INC. Digital Journal is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more about our external linking. | general |
Hong Kong holiday camps become quarantine zones as virus fears spike | Hi, what are you looking for?
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Hong Kong has turned two holiday camps, including a former military barracks, into quarantine zones for people who may have come into contact with carriers of the Wuhan virus, officials announced Thursday.
The international financial hub has been on high alert for the virus, which has killed 17 people since the outbreak started in central China.
The same sites were used as quarantine facilities during the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ( SARS) outbreak 17 years ago.
Nearly 300 people in Hong Kong were killed by SARS, a tragedy that left a profound psychological impact on one of the most densely populated places on earth.
So far, two people in the city have tested positive for the new coronavirus -- which is similar to the SARS pathogen. Both had visited Wuhan in recent days and are being treated on isolation wards in hospital.
On Thursday evening Hong Kong officials cancelled a five-day Lunar New Year festival in a public park that had been due to open on Saturday.
The gambling hub of Macau -- hugely popular with mainland tourists -- also confirmed two cases this week, and earlier on Thursday Macau's tourism bureau announced it was cancelling all official Lunar New Year celebrations in response.
City officials also announced two parks usually used by campers and holidaymakers had been prepared to isolate any potential cases while they await test results.
`` We will have a full team of staff to operate the quarantine camps, '' Wong Ka-hing, the director of the Centre for Health Protection, told reporters.
Wong said three people who had come into close contact with the two confirmed cases would be taken to a camp in rural Sai Kung district.
Another holiday camp, a former British military barracks on Hong Kong island, was being prepared to serve as a quarantine facility.
- Scarred by the past -
Local news network RTHK said one of the first people to be transported to the quarantine site in Sai Kung was an Australian visitor who had stayed at the same hotel as a man who tested positive for the virus.
`` I feel so good right now, '' RTHK quoted the unidentified man as saying.
When asked what he had been told about why he was being placed in isolation, the visitor replied: `` I have no idea why. I was just living in the hotel. ''
An AFP photographer saw a woman in a face mask being brought into the camp in the back of a minibus but she declined to answer questions.
Those who test positive for the Wuhan virus will then be treated in isolation wards at the city's hospitals, but the holiday camp quarantine zones will lower the risk of the virus spreading while people await results.
The same system was used during the SARS outbreak, which dramatically transformed Hong Kong into a place where the population is now far more conscious of contagion and hygiene standards.
Door handles, elevator buttons and escalator handles in the city's myriad skyscrapers and metro stations are routinely sterilised multiple times a day, while an unguarded sneeze on the crowded subway can cause neighbouring commuters to scramble for distance.
Surgical face masks are ubiquitous, not just in the winter flu season, with many shops selling out in recent days.
Hong Kong's difficulties in battling SARS were compounded by the veil of secrecy that surrounded the outbreak on the authoritarian mainland.
But officials insist they are more prepared than 2003 and say Chinese authorities are being much more transparent with data.
- Trains and planes -
Nonetheless, suspicion of the mainland remains high in Hong Kong, especially as it convulses with anti-government protests sparked by fears Beijing is eroding the city's unique freedoms.
All passengers coming to Hong Kong via high-speed rail link will have to fill out health declaration form and trains will be disinfected on arrival, Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung said late Thursday.
Earlier, opposition lawmakers called for the station to be closed, accusing the government of not wanting to embarrass the authorities in Beijing.
Officials have also been criticised by opposition lawmakers for allowing relatives of the first confirmed case to travel on to Manila.
Hospital Authority Director Chung Kin-lai said around half of the roughly 500 beds available in isolation wards within Hong Kong's hospitals were currently occupied by patients with various illnesses.
She added that extra emergency clinics could also be opened within 48 hours if a major epidemic broke out.
Hong Kong's train operator MTR Corporation also said it was no longer selling tickets to Wuhan, which has been placed under lockdown by Chinese authorities.
Cathay Pacific said it would stop flights to the city until February 29.
Hong Kong has turned two holiday camps, including a former military barracks, into quarantine zones for people who may have come into contact with carriers of the Wuhan virus, officials announced Thursday.
The international financial hub has been on high alert for the virus, which has killed 17 people since the outbreak started in central China.
The same sites were used as quarantine facilities during the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ( SARS) outbreak 17 years ago.
Nearly 300 people in Hong Kong were killed by SARS, a tragedy that left a profound psychological impact on one of the most densely populated places on earth.
So far, two people in the city have tested positive for the new coronavirus — which is similar to the SARS pathogen. Both had visited Wuhan in recent days and are being treated on isolation wards in hospital.
On Thursday evening Hong Kong officials cancelled a five-day Lunar New Year festival in a public park that had been due to open on Saturday.
The gambling hub of Macau — hugely popular with mainland tourists — also confirmed two cases this week, and earlier on Thursday Macau’ s tourism bureau announced it was cancelling all official Lunar New Year celebrations in response.
City officials also announced two parks usually used by campers and holidaymakers had been prepared to isolate any potential cases while they await test results.
“ We will have a full team of staff to operate the quarantine camps, ” Wong Ka-hing, the director of the Centre for Health Protection, told reporters.
Wong said three people who had come into close contact with the two confirmed cases would be taken to a camp in rural Sai Kung district.
Another holiday camp, a former British military barracks on Hong Kong island, was being prepared to serve as a quarantine facility.
– Scarred by the past –
Local news network RTHK said one of the first people to be transported to the quarantine site in Sai Kung was an Australian visitor who had stayed at the same hotel as a man who tested positive for the virus.
“ I feel so good right now, ” RTHK quoted the unidentified man as saying.
When asked what he had been told about why he was being placed in isolation, the visitor replied: “ I have no idea why. I was just living in the hotel. ”
An AFP photographer saw a woman in a face mask being brought into the camp in the back of a minibus but she declined to answer questions.
Those who test positive for the Wuhan virus will then be treated in isolation wards at the city’ s hospitals, but the holiday camp quarantine zones will lower the risk of the virus spreading while people await results.
The same system was used during the SARS outbreak, which dramatically transformed Hong Kong into a place where the population is now far more conscious of contagion and hygiene standards.
Door handles, elevator buttons and escalator handles in the city’ s myriad skyscrapers and metro stations are routinely sterilised multiple times a day, while an unguarded sneeze on the crowded subway can cause neighbouring commuters to scramble for distance.
Surgical face masks are ubiquitous, not just in the winter flu season, with many shops selling out in recent days.
Hong Kong’ s difficulties in battling SARS were compounded by the veil of secrecy that surrounded the outbreak on the authoritarian mainland.
But officials insist they are more prepared than 2003 and say Chinese authorities are being much more transparent with data.
– Trains and planes –
Nonetheless, suspicion of the mainland remains high in Hong Kong, especially as it convulses with anti-government protests sparked by fears Beijing is eroding the city’ s unique freedoms.
All passengers coming to Hong Kong via high-speed rail link will have to fill out health declaration form and trains will be disinfected on arrival, Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung said late Thursday.
Earlier, opposition lawmakers called for the station to be closed, accusing the government of not wanting to embarrass the authorities in Beijing.
Officials have also been criticised by opposition lawmakers for allowing relatives of the first confirmed case to travel on to Manila.
Hospital Authority Director Chung Kin-lai said around half of the roughly 500 beds available in isolation wards within Hong Kong’ s hospitals were currently occupied by patients with various illnesses.
She added that extra emergency clinics could also be opened within 48 hours if a major epidemic broke out.
Hong Kong’ s train operator MTR Corporation also said it was no longer selling tickets to Wuhan, which has been placed under lockdown by Chinese authorities.
Cathay Pacific said it would stop flights to the city until February 29.
With 2,400 staff representing 100 different nationalities, AFP covers the world as a leading global news agency. AFP provides fast, comprehensive and verified coverage of the issues affecting our daily lives.
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COPYRIGHT © 1998 - 2021 DIGITAL JOURNAL INC. Digital Journal is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more about our external linking. | general |
China failed to meet U.N. deadline for repatriating North Koreans, U.S. says | WASHINGTON – China failed to send home North Korean workers by a December deadline in violation of United Nations sanctions, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday, adding that this was why Washington had blacklisted two entities involved in Pyongyang’ s labor exports.
A 2017 U.N. Security Council resolution, which China backed, demanded that all countries repatriate all North Korean workers by Dec. 22 to stop them from earning foreign currency for North Korea’ s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
The United States has estimated Pyongyang was earning more than $ 500 million a year from nearly 100,000 workers abroad, of whom 50,000 were in China and 30,000 in Russia.
A senior State Department official told reporters, referring to the repatriation requirement: “ Many — most … have actually taken this to heart and moved them. But we know one particular country has the large majority of North Korean guest workers and has not taken action, hence the steps we had to take in terms of sanctions. ”
In response to a question, the official confirmed he was referring to China.
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Washington last week imposed sanctions on two North Korean entities, including the China-based lodging facility Beijing Sukbakso, saying they were involved in sending North Koreans to work abroad in violation of U.N. sanctions.
Countries were required to submit a midterm report to the U.N. Security Council’ s North Korea sanctions committee early last year about compliance with the 2017 resolution and are now due to submit a final report in late March on how many North Korean workers they have repatriated.
According to Russia’ s midterm report, it sent home nearly two-thirds of some 30,000 North Koreans working there during 2018. Beijing said it had repatriated more than half but did not specify a figure.
“ China will continue earnestly implementing its international obligations, carry out the repatriation work in an orderly manner and complete the repatriation on time, ” China’ s U.N. mission said at the time.
The State Department official also said Washington still hoped North Korea would engage in negotiations over its nuclear program, regardless of the apparent change in its foreign minister.
Last week, North Korea told countries with embassies in Pyongyang that Ri Son Gwon, a senior military officer and official of the ruling Workers’ Party, had been appointed foreign minister.
Asked whether this was the case, the U.S. official said, “ Apparently, yes. ”
“ I don’ t have a lot of data on who he is, or what he represents, ” he added.
“ But the hope is that they’ ll understand the importance of having a conversation and talking about these things as we agreed in the original Singapore agreement, ” the official said.
“ There’ s nothing to be gained by not talking. It’ s only to their benefit. ”
North Korea reiterated on Tuesday it was no longer bound by commitments to halt nuclear and missile testing, blaming the United States’ failure to meet a year-end deadline for nuclear talks and “ brutal and inhumane ” U.S. sanctions. | tech |
Taipei complains to World Health Organisation after coronavirus case is classed as ‘ Taiwan, China’ | Taiwan has complained about being classed as part of China by the | business |
Programme 2021 – ESSC | Chaired by Christian Fillet, Chair, European Social Network, with this session delegates will be formally welcomed to the conference by political representatives from national and EU executives.
Chaired by Christian Fillet, Chair, European Social Network, with this session delegates will be formally welcomed to the conference by political representatives from national and EU executives.
Social service professionals are key in transforming community care. In the wake of Covid-19, how should we rethink community care workforce training, retention, and wellbeing?
Social service professionals are key in transforming community care. In the wake of Covid-19, how should we rethink community care workforce training, retention, and wellbeing?
1. Responsive Social Services: What does it mean to be ‘ responsive’ in the new normal? Ryan van Leent and Ian Ryan, SAP Institute for Digital Government, SAP Australia, Wolfgang Nobeling, Solution
1. Responsive Social Services: What does it mean to be ‘ responsive’ in the new normal? Ryan van Leent and Ian Ryan, SAP Institute for Digital Government, SAP Australia, Wolfgang Nobeling, Solution Manager, SAP Germany.
Responsive governments form more intimate connections with their citizens, and earn the right to be more proactive, ambitious and innovative. Our experience working with Service NSW, the City of Orlando, and other leading Social Services organisations, has helped us to define a state of business where agencies innovate with experience and operational data to meet citizen’ s needs. We’ ve prepared a Responsive Government Playbook full of scenarios agencies can use to get more proactive by understanding, not only WHAT’ s happening, but WHY it’ s happening, and take action in-the-moment.
2. Action for Children’ s Serious Organised Crime Early Intervention Service’ Paul Carberry and Sharon Maciver, Action for Children, and John Cuddihy, Daramol Ltd, UK
A partnership between Action for Children, Police Scotland and Glasgow City Council’ s Health and Social Care has led to the creation of a serious organised crime ( SOC) early intervention service in two areas of Glasgow, Scotland. The service provides an early intervention approach to target, identify and divert young people aged 12 to 18, who are considered to be at risk, away from serious crime, and to work with them in pursuing alternative paths. During the workshop, participants will learn more about this partnership and the impact on reducing the number of young people being involved in criminal activity. This project won the European Social Services Excellence Award in 2019.
3. Employment first: a relational employment approach to social inclusion Vibeke Jensen and Pernille Randrup Thomsen, City of Aarhus, Denmark
To attain significant, sustainable and lasting social inclusion, the inclusion of all citizens in the job market is of fundamental importance. In this workshop, delegates will learn about a project implemented in the Danish city of Aarhus, which is using a holistic and relational employment approach to promote the social inclusion of vulnerable families in the district of Gellerupparken. The presenters will present the innovative job-first approach, where professionals work with the whole family to ensure that adults access employment to increase the whole family’ s social inclusion and overall wellbeing.
4. Economy of Wellbeing – a new policy approach Jussi Ahokas, Finnish Federation for Social Affairs and Health ( SOSTE), Paula Saikkonen, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Taru Koivisto, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and Lea Suoninen-Erhiö, Huoltaja Foundation
The Economy of Wellbeing emphasises that increasing people’ s wellbeing creates positive outcomes for the economy and societies. As the concept and policy approach of’ Economy of Wellbeing’ is somewhat abstract, it is important to discuss what are its building blocks and how different sectors of society relate to the creation of an economy of wellbeing. Community care is a vital part of the economy, and policies that impact the resources and delivery of community care should be in the centre of the ‘ Economy of Wellbeing’ policy approach. In this workshop, delegates will learn about the concept and how it can be implemented to improve delivery of community care in Europe.
5. Improving outcomes for children in care in France: Supporting professionals through specialist training ( FR) Marie-Paule Martin-Blachais and Jean-Marie Vauchez, Child Protection School ( Ecole de protection de l’ enfance), France
The introduction of two child protection laws in France in 2007 and 2016 highlighted the need for managers and practitioners in this field to receive ongoing and specialist training. The Child Protection School was created with the aim to provide this type of training via different masters, seminars and sessions. In this workshop, delegates will learn how this new training sessions are supporting professionals in the field of child protection to deliver improved quality services.
As we set to rebuild community care beyond Covid, it is possible to get value for money when investing in community care? Do we need to rethink the financing of community care? In this context how, and to what extent private and third sector providers may join for a mixed economy of care is a critical question. Care financing is directly linked to questions around the sustainability and management of social services now and in the future, including planning and budgeting, contracting and procurement.
1. Virtual reality experience for older people and people with disabilities Mathilda Domeij, Strategist, digitalisation, Municipality of Gävle, Sweden This programme gives older people and people with disabilities the opportunity to learn
1. Virtual reality experience for older people and people with disabilities Mathilda Domeij, Strategist, digitalisation, Municipality of Gävle, Sweden
This programme gives older people and people with disabilities the opportunity to learn to use virtual reality tools. Virtual reality experiences are currently offered in 17 older people’ s homes and in 35 centres for people with disabilities in the municipality of Gävle, Sweden.
2. YAP Wraparound Advocate Model Diana Matteson, Director of International Programs and Development, Dorienne J. Silva, Chief Operating Officer, Youth Advocate Programs Inc. United States
The innovative community-based YAP Wraparound Advocate Model has been at the forefront of system change in juvenile justice, child protection, mental health, and disability services because it is dedicated not just to programming but empowering communities, families, and individuals to advocate for change on a systemic and individual level.
3. Jump with me – Among friends – share leisure for people with intellectual disabilities ( ES) Alvaro Revilla Castro, Social Areal Genaral Manager, Municipality of Fuenlabrada, Madrid, Spain
Jump with me -Among friends is a leisure programme for young people and adults with intellectual disabilities. It supports young people with disabilities in the development of healthy leisure time. The programme currently has 170 participants who actively engage in the development, implementation and evaluation of this programme intended to increase the social inclusion of young people with intellectual disabilities.
4. The right time: integrated support for mothers ( IT) Carmine De Blasio, Director, Consortium A5, Italy
This project aims to support women who are in employment to have a better work/life balance and those who are unemployed to find a job. This is done through three counselling centres consisting of several professionals, including job counsellors, who are trained to support women through individual pathways to work or with childcare duties.
5. Setting up a new Social Security Program – Policy to Implementation Alison Byrne, Deputy Director for Programme Social Security, Scottish Government, Scotland, United Kingdom
Social Security Scotland came into being as an Executive Agency of the Scottish Government. As a new Agency it needed to create systems to support the delivery of its devolved services. This project is the first step in delivering upon its commitment to promoting fairness, dignity and respect in service delivery to low-income families with young children in Scotland, young people getting into work and young carers. in this presentation participants will learn how the Scottish Government implemented a single highly scalable benefits platform and a citizen’ s portal to support social benefit delivery.
We have realised how technology can help improve community care during Covid-19. Technology has been instrumental in facilitating various forms of services, including remote counselling, individual support, and case management.
We have realised how technology can help improve community care during Covid-19. Technology has been instrumental in facilitating various forms of services, including remote counselling, individual support, and case management. Or the collection, analysis and use of data to help maximise the effectiveness of interventions. However, there are also a series of considerations raised regarding the use of personal data in technology, particularly when it comes to sharing data between services and compliance with data legislation. How can technology help in rethinking community care for future crisis preparedness? This question will be addressed in a round table discussion with industry partner leads that will refer to specific examples of their products or solutions that helped support social services during the pandemic. Speakers from IBM, Edenred, SAP and others to be announced soon.
1. Addressing the needs of vulnerable families in our communities Alfred Grixti, Foundation for Social Welfare Services ( FSWS), Malta When planning and delivering community care, social services working in the community need
1. Addressing the needs of vulnerable families in our communities Alfred Grixti, Foundation for Social Welfare Services ( FSWS), Malta
When planning and delivering community care, social services working in the community need to come together to provide an integrated multi-professional approach and, ultimately, fight poverty and social exclusion. In Malta, an agency was exclusively created to offer such a space. By explaining the mission of the agency, the Maltese Foundation for Social Welfare Services will stress the importance of nurturing social development through an integrated multi-professional approach based on families’ and community needs.
2. The economic case for community care – a regional authority perspective ( IT) Marco Espa and Francesca Palmas, ABC Associazione Cerebrolesi, Italy
Presenters from the region of Sardinia, Italy, will make an economic case for individualised plans for people with disabilities versus their institutionalisation in residential care. Thanks to the establishment of such plans, people with severe disabilities now manage to live independently and the region of Sardinia has saved more than 5 times the costs of institutionalisation.
3. Only the lonely: Experiences from initiatives in a municipality in Denmark to help users of public care out of loneliness Jens Bejer Damgaard, Municipality of Holstebro, Denmark
Loneliness can deprive people of their ability to manage everyday tasks. Many health and social care professionals try to address issues concerning health, material, and social needs. However, addressing loneliness requires a different approach, one that involves professionals, the individual and the communities where they live. In this workshop, the Municipality of Holstebro in Denmark will present its local strategy to reduced unwanted loneliness, which is implemented through a community care approach with a range of stakeholders.
4. Personalising workforce development – Better outcomes for all. Jim Thomas and Marie Lovell, Skills for Care, United Kingdom
Creating support for people that is right for them requires thoughtful and respectful conversations. Personalising care and support, and the funding to support this, is fundamental to enabling people to live independent lives. But in personalising care and support we forget to do the same for the workforce supporting that person. This session explores a project where we did personalise learning and development to the needs of individuals and their specific needs. It shows how doing so can increase people’ s life opportunities and empower the workforce that supports them.
Room: Plenary Covid-19 led to an unacceptable number of excess deaths in care homes, and far too many care workers dying. How will this situation make us rethink ethics in community
Covid-19 led to an unacceptable number of excess deaths in care homes, and far too many care workers dying. How will this situation make us rethink ethics in community care? This session will consider key values of social inclusion and community care, from the ethics of care through ethical ideas behind community care to practical questions of professional ethics.
1. Implementation of the Self-Sufficiency Matrix ( SSM) in the Netherlands and Catalonia ( Spain) Steve Lauriks, Marta Ballester, Xavier Delgado Alonso, Coordinator of Social Inclusion and Cohesion Programmes. Directorate General of Social
1. Implementation of the Self-Sufficiency Matrix ( SSM) in the Netherlands and Catalonia ( Spain) Steve Lauriks, Marta Ballester, Xavier Delgado Alonso, Coordinator of Social Inclusion and Cohesion Programmes. Directorate General of Social Services in the Department of Social Rights of Catalonia, Avedis, Donabedian Research Institute, Public Health Service Amsterdam, Spain, Netherlands
The SSM is a tool to measure the level of self-sufficiency of an adult person in their daily life. This tool has the potential to standardise professional assessments, improve communication among different teams of practitioners, and homogenise service provision across municipalities. Finally, this tool could also support decision-making if specific algorithms are developed. Examples from Spain and the Netherlands will illustrate the potential uses of the matrix to support the delivery of community care.
2. Aiming for higher quality – Transforming specialised social services in Denmark Susanne Wollsen and Christian Schacht-Magnussen, Region of Southern Denmark
The Region of Southern Denmark is investing in improving the quality of specialist social services to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities. They have introduced a management training on ‘ LEAN’ methods, qualitative methods, improved user involvement, and waste and value assessment tools. During the workshop, delegates will learn about the positive impact of these methods on services improvement.
3. Promoting access to early childcare, building bridges with early education ( DE) Nancy Ehlert, Program Coordinator, Stiftung SPI on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, and Sandra Berkling, Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Freien Wohlfahrtspflege ( AGFW) Hamburg, Germany
The access of children to quality day care is fundamental for the creation of an inclusive community, which promotes equal opportunities for people and their full participation in social life. This workshop will present the activities of the German federal government for the promotion of low-threshold services to guarantee access to day care for children, especially those who are difficult to reach by institutional day care. In this workshop, delegates will learn more about the federal programme and on how it was designed together with children and families themselves through a co-production approach.
4. Socio-spatial approaches to social work with the most vulnerable – way forward for community care? ( DE) Iris Mann, Monika Büning, Deutscher Verein für öffentliche und private Fürsorge e. V. und Stadt Ulm. Germany
Social spaces consist of the relationships that emerge between people living in their neighbourhoods and communities. In this workshop, the German Association for public and private welfare ( Deutscher Verein) promotes the idea that social space orientation is the way forward when it comes to identifying the needs of the community, as needs are formulated in social spaces, where people live, in their families and neighbourhoods. Delegates at this workshop will also discuss the importance of a human-centred focus in the social space orientation approach, using a co-production and inclusive methodology in the formulation of care responses.
While self-care is about the individual caring for their own needs, community care is focused on the collective: taking care of people together, from basic physical needs to psychological ones. This session will explore a crucial pillar of community care: the support offered to individuals ‘ by’ the community, as well as how the community can help individuals to reinforce their own assets and promote self-help. This has become particularly relevant in the context of Covid-19. In periods of self-isolation and lockdowns, there have been a series of spontaneous and organised community activities to support the most vulnerable.
Delegates at this session will learn about the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare assessment of needs that allows individuals to strengthen their own personal resources to help them participate in community activities. Empowering individuals has had a positive impact on increased levels of participation of older people in the Basque Country ( Spain). The region is implementing an older people’ s plan that focuses, among others, on a successful dialogue with all stakeholders in the community. Delegates at the session will also learn how Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa works on the personal and social skills of young people leaving care to help them transition to adulthood. Finally, the third sector organisations Leben mit Behinderung Hamburg and Balance Vienna will present how ‘ circles of support’ can build a supportive social network around persons with intellectual disabilities. We will learn how they work with the people they support in their communities and reflect on the impact that Covid-19 has had on their programmes.
1. Using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health ( ICF) to support individuals needs, goals and outcomes Erik Wessman, Programme officer, The National Board of Health and Welfare, Sweden
2. A public-social participation model for older people in the Basque Country Beatriz Gaquez Delgado, Nagusi Agenda Coordinator, Basque Government, Spain ( ES)
3. Autonomy and Community Integration: supporting the transition to adulthood of young people leaving care João Bicho, Community Integration Team Director, Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, Portugal
4. Circles of Support: an empowering peer-to-peer support Celine Müller, Project Management, Leben mit Behinderung Hamburg Sozialeinrichtungen gGmbH, Germany ( DE)
Safeguarding is about preventing harm happening to people using social services and responding effectively when it occurs. However, most safeguarding protocols have been affected by Covid-19 across Europe. Drawing on examples from the United Kingdom, Spain and Ireland, this panel discussion will explore the different safeguarding measures that had been put in place when it comes to the development of a model of care in line with human rights, participation, and staff training. We will also explore how these protocols have been impacted by the pandemic in the countries discussed.
1. The Catalan Social Services Ethics Committee: involving people using services in decision-making Begoña Roman, Chair of the Catalan Social Services Ethics Committee, Regional Government of Catalonia, Spain ( ES)
2. Supporting staff to implement a human rights-based approach in community care Deirdre Connolly, Standards Development Lead, Health Information and Quality Authority, Ireland
3. Training staff to prevent abuse of adults with learning disabilities Herculano Castro, Senior Group Operations Manager, Mentaur, United Kingdom
The Recovery and Resilience Facility Funds and future FSE+ provide a good basis for robust investment in public social services and aim at transforming the care and social welfare support models. Minimum income schemes are among the European recommendations for social welfare systems and Spain launched last year its first national minimum income. This social benefit should be combined with access to social services in an integrated social inclusion programme that guarantees the active participation of beneficiaries in our societies.
Delegates at this session will learn about how the European Funds can be used to promote these approaches using a wide range of resources, including innovation, technology and digital tools, to guarantee their implementation.
Speakers will include senior representatives from national and regional authorities, in cooperation with Accenture.
Los Fondos de Recuperación y Resiliencia y el futuro FSE+ ofrecen la oportunidad de realizar una inversión robusta en los servicios sociales públicos y aspiran a transformar los modelos de apoyo de cuidados y bienestar social. Los sistemas de rentas mínimas se encuentran entre las recomendaciones europeas para los sistemas de bienestar social y España lanzó el año pasado su primer sistema nacional de ingreso mínimo ( IMV). Esta prestación social debe estar combinada con el acceso a los servicios sociales mediante soluciones integrales e integradas que garanticen una inclusión total de las personas beneficiarias.
En esta sesión se aprenderá sobre cómo pueden utilizarse los Fondos Europeos para fomentar tales soluciones desde una perspectiva amplia, incluida el ámbito de la innovación, la tecnología y la digitalización, y bajo el objetivo de unos parámetros comunes que garanticen la correcta aplicación de los derechos que los servicios sociales aportan.
La sesión contará con la participación de máximos representantes a nivel ministerial y autonómico, en cooperación con Accenture. | general |
FTI Consulting's Resilience Barometer 2020 | As executives continue to confront cybersecurity, financial crime and regulatory threats in 2020, companies remain largely unprepared for events that can impact revenue, valuation and reputation, according to a new survey released at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The “ FTI Consulting Resilience Barometer 2020, ” a survey of more than 2,200 executives from private and publicly traded companies across all G-20 countries, measured the preparedness of companies against 18 regulatory, operational, cultural, leadership and technological threats. The survey found the average resilience score rose from 40 out of 100 in 2019 to 43 out of 100 in 2020.
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Founded in 2010, CCI is the web’ s premier global independent news source for compliance, ethics, risk and information security.
Got a news tip? Get in touch. Want a weekly round-up in your inbox? Sign up for free. No subscription fees, no paywalls. | general |
Freshfields ' Horizon 2020: Critical Intelligence for Boards | Global law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has just published a new report on collective, holistic corporate governance. “ Horizon 2020 ” focuses on strategic intelligence for boards as we enter the new, fast-changing decade.
As we’ ve seen this year, public companies face a host of challenges not limited to fluctuating economic conditions, geopolitical instability and regulatory regimes. More than 35 Freshfields attorneys came together to assemble the most relevant, pressing issues in the new year that will affect the board level across their complimentary, though distinct, practices. Topics in this report include:
As the COVID-19 pandemic rolls into its second full year, it's reasonable to reflect on the massive changes the virus...
Sustainability has become the watchword of our modern moment. Shareholders may withhold investment from firms that don't center responsible environmental...
Automation is changing the face of business; don't leave your compliance and risk functions behind. No matter the size of...
FCPA enforcements fell in 2021 to their lowest in a decade, but many signs point to a rebound in FCPA...
Founded in 2010, CCI is the web’ s premier global independent news source for compliance, ethics, risk and information security.
Got a news tip? Get in touch. Want a weekly round-up in your inbox? Sign up for free. No subscription fees, no paywalls. | general |
China's Wuhan coronavirus: CDC advisers concerned about lack of basic information |
Advisers to the CDC say a lack of data from China about the Wuhan coronavirus is curtailing international efforts to quell the outbreak.
While the advisers commended the Chinese researchers for mapping the virus's genome in just a few weeks, they said there's a glaring lack of basic epidemiological evidence about who's getting infected with the virus and how it's spreading.
`` This is Epi 101, '' said
Dr. William Schaffner
, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and a longtime CDC adviser. `` I don't want to denigrate our Chinese colleagues, but when information is not presented clearly, you have to wonder. ''
Wuhan virus spreads as China puts cities on lockdown and scraps New Year celebrations
The outbreak has grown quickly. The first cases were reported to the
World Health Organization
on December 31, and by January 3, there were 44 cases in China. Now, not even three weeks later, there are more then 600 cases, and the outbreak has spread to Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and the United States, where there is one case.
The CDC advisers said since there's no vaccine against this new virus, public health efforts, such as catching cases early and instituting
quarantine
rules, are crucial. But they say it's hard to know whom to quarantine and for how long without knowing how people are getting infected, at what point and for how long they're capable of spreading the virus to others.
Read More
`` This information is critically important. It tells you how to control the outbreak and what to worry about and whom to worry about, '' said
Dr. Paul Offit,
a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and a longtime CDC adviser.
Disease detectives hunting down more information about'super spreader ' of Wuhan coronavirus
At a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday, Li Bin, the vice minister of China's National Health Commission said his country is `` committed to public disclosure of information as well as international exchanges and cooperation. ''
`` We will disclose information on the outbreak in a timely, open and transparent manner, objectively reporting outbreak developments, '' Li said, adding that China will share information with the WHO and other countries `` on outbreak monitoring, investigation and treatment as well as risk assessment opinions in a timely manner so that we can discuss and improve measures together. ''
Crucial questions left unanswered
Wuhan coronavirus is not yet a public health emergency of international concern, WHO says
On Thursday, Chinese authorities presented top officials from the World Health Organization with new epidemiological information that revealed an increase in the number of cases, suspected cases, affected provinces and the proportion of deaths that are occurring. They reported fourth-generation cases in Wuhan -- meaning one infected person can give the virus to a second person, who can give it to a third person, who can give it to a fourth person. They reported second-generation cases outside of Wuhan, as well as some clusters outside Hubei province, according to a WHO media release.
But the CDC advisers said that's not nearly enough. They said there are very specific pieces of information about the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus that are still missing.
Among them: Of more than 600 cases, how many contracted the virus from handling animals at the market where the virus emerged and how many contracted it from people who had been at the market?
Among those who never went to the market, are they family members of the people who got infected at the market or colleagues who sit next to each other at work? Or maybe they don't know anyone who is sick and it's unclear where they caught it?
Looking at that chain of infection, are people spreading the disease before they have symptoms, while they have symptoms or after they 've recovered?
Wuhan: Inside the Chinese city at the center of the coronavirus outbreak
Answers to those questions would help officials decide how long to isolate sick patients and who needs to be quarantined to see if they do develop symptoms.
`` You 've got to understand how this spreads, '' said
Patricia Stinchfield
, vice president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and a CDC adviser. `` And you want to know what people's symptoms are and who's having mild versus severe disease. How many people are hospitalized? How many in the intensive care unit? ''
Stinchfield
, a pediatric nurse practitioner and senior director of infection control at Children's Minnesota and Schaffner, an infectious disease doctor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, are both liaison members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Offit was a voting member of that group from 1998-2003 and has been on CDC working groups since then.
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A CDC spokesperson declined to comment for this story.
A WHO official said he understands the frustration about a lack of epidemiological information, but that it's possible that some CDC staffers know the answers to some of these questions and just haven't shared them with the advisers or the general public.
Dr. David Heymann, chair of the
WHO's Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards
, said at the beginning of an outbreak, sometimes different groups know different pieces of information.
`` The CDC might have access to info that WHO doesn't have, and vice versa, '' he said.
In general, the more information public health officials know, the better, Schaffner said.
`` The more you know, the more comprehensive you can be in defining and controlling what the issue is, '' he said.
CNN's Steven Jiang and John Bonifield contributed to this story. | general |
The Wuhan Coronavirus Outbreak in China: What We Know So Far | The Wuhan Coronavirus is spreading fast with various countries increasing screening measures. Here's what you need to know.
At the time of writing Wuhan in China has been put on lockdown due to a recently detected coronavirus that is taking lives and has infected many.
As always, when something of this magnitude happens, there will be a lot of information doing the rounds. While it is always important to keep informed, it is also important not to panic.
The virus is yet to be called a global health emergency, and initial reports say that, though it is dangerous, it is not as aggressive as similar strands of viruses like SARS. We 've put together some of the most important things you need to know.
As Gulf News reports, the new coronavirus is SARS-like, having originated in animals in the Hubei province of China. Arnaud Fontanet, head of the department of epidemiology at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, told AFP that the new virus strain, which has been officially named `` 2019-nCoV, '' is 80 percent genetically identical to SARS.
Airports around the world are increasing health screenings and implementing new quarantine procedures as officials race to slow the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus https: //t.co/yKXXnhNLnY pic.twitter.com/nfX4wx1xHX
It has already spread to the United States and fears are mounting as hundreds of millions are set to travel for the upcoming Lunar New Year celebrations starting on Friday.
Breaking News: The first U.S. case of the Wuhan coronavirus has been confirmed in Washington State, federal officials said. The virus has spread from China to at least 4 other countries. https: //t.co/ahjgXTS9sM
Many countries are stepping up screening efforts at borders, with checks at airports from travelers coming in from China and other affected countries.
The current rising death toll sits at 26 people and there are more than 800 confirmed cases of people infected by the virus, the BBC reports. The latest affected countries are Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam.
# UPDATE China locked down some 20 million people around the epicentre of a deadly virus outbreak on Thursday, banning planes and trains from leaving in an unprecedented move aimed at containing the disease which has spread abroad https: //t.co/tya66YqOY3 # Wuhan # coronavirus pic.twitter.com/tmW8YtTGQQ
The WHO said on Monday it believes an animal source was the `` primary source '' of the outbreak. Wuhan authorities identified a seafood market as the center of the epidemic. Now, Wuhan, the city at the heart of the epidemic has locked down its population of 11 million and is not allowing them to travel. Other cities in China are also starting to restrict travel, as per the BBC.
There is evidence that the virus is passing from person to person. According to Gulf News approximately 1,400 people are currently under medical observation due to symptoms that might mean they are carrying the virus.
These are the symptoms of Wuhan coronavirus, and how you can protect yourself: https: //t.co/hW4QEtVTak pic.twitter.com/WXTQyU78cs
Nathalie MacDermott of King's College London said on Science Alert that the virus is most likely spreading through droplets in the air passed on by people sneezing or coughing. Symptoms include aching muscles, a runny nose, and a sore throat.
Some experts are claiming the new virus is not as dangerous as other coronaviruses in the same family, including SARS, and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome ( MERS), which has been responsible for the death of more than 700 people since 2012.
`` The early evidence at this stage would suggest it's not as severe a disease as SARS or MERS, '' Australia's Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said, according to Gulf News.
The symptoms appear to be less aggressive than those of SARS. According to authorities in Wuhan, 25 of the more than 200 people infected in the city have already been discharged.
`` It's difficult to compare this disease with SARS, '' said Zhong Nanshan, a scientist at China's National Health Commission at a press conference this week. `` It's mild. The condition of the lung is not like SARS. ''
“ The problem with social distancing is that we have very little evidence that it works, ” Larry Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, told Wired.
“ At most, it might delay for a short time an outbreak, but it’ s very unlikely to stop the progressive spread. ”
In the case of an outbreak, by the time you try something as ambitious as quarantining a megacity, it’ s already too late to quarantine the megacity. https: //t.co/sfKX4TrTGt
Understandably, locking down a city with a population of 11 million is an incredibly tall order. Especially as there will be panic within the city with many wishing to leave. Countless travelers will have also left Wuhan between the time of the first known infection and the enforcement of the travel ban.
As per the BBC, authorities have stated that the virus originated in a seafood market in Wuhan that `` conducted illegal transactions of wild animals ''. The market has been closed since January.
Various sources have said the virus could have originated from the snakes or bats sold illegally at the market, though this has yet to be confirmed and differing reports are still being disputed.
The World Health Organization ( WHO) has said it is a `` bit too early '' to declare this a global health emergency. More time is needed, but if it does make the declaration, the international response will become even more focused on detecting and containing the virus.
Edit 01/24/20: The article was edited to show the latest death toll as well as updates on the origin of the virus and the WHO's latest statement.
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Scale of China’ s Wuhan Shutdown Is Believed to Be Without Precedent | In closing off Wuhan, a city of more than 11 million people, China deployed on Thursday morning a centuries-old public health tactic to prevent the spread of infectious disease — this time, a mysterious respiratory infection caused by a coronavirus.
Experts said the stunning scale of the shutdown, isolating a major urban transit hub larger than New York City, was without precedent.
“ It’ s an unbelievable undertaking, ” said Dr. Howard Markel, a professor of the history of medicine at the University of Michigan, adding that he had never heard of so many people being cordoned off as a disease-prevention measure.
Still, “ people are going to get out, ” he said. “ It’ s going to be leaky. ”
By Thursday evening, China said it planned to extend the shutdown even further. Officials said they would impose travel restrictions on at least four other nearby cities — Huanggang, Ezhou, Chibi and Zhijiang — affecting millions more residents.
By limiting the movements of millions of people in an attempt to protect public health, China is engaging in a balancing act with a long and complicated history fraught with social, political and ethical concerns.
James G. Hodge Jr., director of the Center for Public Health Law and Policy at Arizona State University, said the shutdown would almost certainly lead to human rights violations and would be patently unconstitutional in the United States.
“ It could very easily backfire, ” he said, adding that the restrictions could prevent healthy people from fleeing the city, perhaps exposing them to greater risk of infection. “ In general, this is risky business. ”
To combat the spread of the virus, which first appeared at the end of December and has killed at least 17 people and sickened more than 600, the Chinese government said it would cancel planes and trains leaving Wuhan beginning Thursday, and suspend buses, subways and ferries within it.
In Huanggang, a city of seven million about 30 miles east of Wuhan, residents would not be allowed to leave the city without special permission, according to a government statement. In Ezhou, which has about one million residents, all rail stations were to be closed.
The practice of isolating people and goods to halt the spread of disease dates at least to the 14th century, when ships arriving in Venice during the plague epidemic were required to anchor off the coast for 40 days. The isolation period gave rise to the term quarantine, from the Italian quaranta giorni, meaning 40 days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Professor Hodge said quarantines could be effective if they selectively isolate only those who have been infected or are suspected of infection. The response in Wuhan, with the establishment of a “ cordon sanitaire ” -type boundary, goes much further than that.
“ Quarantine would be saying ‘ You can’ t leave your own home, can’ t go to school, work or church,’ ” he said. But the Chinese authorities “ have drawn a line around this city and said, ‘ No one in and no one out.’ That type of thing is obviously an excessive response. ”
In recent years, governments have imposed other large-scale measures to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.
Sierra Leone, a country of about seven million people, said “ everybody ” was expected to stay indoors for three days in September 2014, as 7,000 teams of health and community workers went door to door to find hidden Ebola patients.
Earlier that year, Liberian officials placed West Point, a sprawling slum in Monrovia where 60,000 to 120,000 people were crammed into shacks, under an Ebola quarantine. The order led to deadly clashes with soldiers and may have helped to spread the disease, experts said, forcing people to crowd together for basic humanitarian aid.
Updated June 12, 2020
Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus — whether it’ s surface transmission or close human contact — is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.
So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “ very rare, ” but she later walked back that statement.
A study by European scientists is the first to document a strong statistical link between genetic variations and Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Having Type A blood was linked to a 50 percent increase in the likelihood that a patient would need to get oxygen or to go on a ventilator, according to the new study.
The unemployment rate fell to 13.3 percent in May, the Labor Department said on June 5, an unexpected improvement in the nation’ s job market as hiring rebounded faster than economists expected. Economists had forecast the unemployment rate to increase to as much as 20 percent, after it hit 14.7 percent in April, which was the highest since the government began keeping official statistics after World War II. But the unemployment rate dipped instead, with employers adding 2.5 million jobs, after more than 20 million jobs were lost in April.
Mass protests against police brutality that have brought thousands of people onto the streets in cities across America are raising the specter of new coronavirus outbreaks, prompting political leaders, physicians and public health experts to warn that the crowds could cause a surge in cases. While many political leaders affirmed the right of protesters to express themselves, they urged the demonstrators to wear face masks and maintain social distancing, both to protect themselves and to prevent further community spread of the virus. Some infectious disease experts were reassured by the fact that the protests were held outdoors, saying the open air settings could mitigate the risk of transmission.
Exercise researchers and physicians have some blunt advice for those of us aiming to return to regular exercise now: Start slowly and then rev up your workouts, also slowly. American adults tended to be about 12 percent less active after the stay-at-home mandates began in March than they were in January. But there are steps you can take to ease your way back into regular exercise safely. First, “ start at no more than 50 percent of the exercise you were doing before Covid, ” says Dr. Monica Rho, the chief of musculoskeletal medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago. Thread in some preparatory squats, too, she advises. “ When you haven’ t been exercising, you lose muscle mass. ” Expect some muscle twinges after these preliminary, post-lockdown sessions, especially a day or two later. But sudden or increasing pain during exercise is a clarion call to stop and return home.
States are reopening bit by bit. This means that more public spaces are available for use and more and more businesses are being allowed to open again. The federal government is largely leaving the decision up to states, and some state leaders are leaving the decision up to local authorities. Even if you aren’ t being told to stay at home, it’ s still a good idea to limit trips outside and your interaction with other people.
Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. ( Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)
Taking one’ s temperature to look for signs of fever is not as easy as it sounds, as “ normal ” temperature numbers can vary, but generally, keep an eye out for a temperature of 100.5 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. If you don’ t have a thermometer ( they can be pricey these days), there are other ways to figure out if you have a fever, or are at risk of Covid-19 complications.
The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’ t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks don’ t replace hand washing and social distancing.
If you’ ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.
If you’ re sick and you think you’ ve been exposed to the new coronavirus, the C.D.C. recommends that you call your healthcare provider and explain your symptoms and fears. They will decide if you need to be tested. Keep in mind that there’ s a chance — because of a lack of testing kits or because you’ re asymptomatic, for instance — you won’ t be able to get tested.
During the SARS outbreak of 2003, Canadian health officials asked anyone in Ontario who had even one symptom of the respiratory infection to stay home for a few days out of fear that the disease might spread during the Easter holiday weekend.
In Beijing, at least 4,000 residents who had been exposed to the virus were kept in isolation, and 300 college students who had had contact with infected people were sequestered in a military camp for two weeks.
Historians have noted that quarantines have often targeted marginalized populations.
During the plague epidemic of the 14th century, European city-states posted armed guards on roads and access points to keep out merchants, people with leprosy and minority groups such as Jews, according to Eugenia Tognotti, a researcher in Italy who has written on the history of quarantine.
And during a wave of cholera outbreaks in Europe in the 1830s, Naples restricted the movement of prostitutes and beggars, who were thought to be carriers of the contagion, she wrote.
Russian Jews brought typhus fever into the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1892, Dr. Markel said. It was not only infected people who were rounded up and quarantined on an island off the Bronx, however, but also their neighbors and others whom they had simply greeted on the street.
“ That’ s the darker side of quarantine — its misuse as a social tool rather than its scientific use as a medical tool, ” Dr. Markel said.
Mihir Zaveri contributed reporting. | business |
Haiti pushes foster homes to counter problems in orphanages | Hi, what are you looking for?
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Rose Boncoeur brought two emaciated little girls to live in her modest home in Haiti as part of a reform drive aimed at keeping children out of orphanages.
`` People often asked me if I am crazy, '' said Boncoeur, whose name means `` good heart. ''
The government of the Americas ' poorest country is pushing to deinstitutionalize children so as to avoid the darkest sides of orphanage life -- trafficking of kids or even worse abuse.
So far, 120 homes in Haiti have opened their doors to children with nowhere else to go.
Boncoeur gets no financial help to feed or clothe her two charges, and is forced to ask people for used clothing for her foster children -- sisters, aged eight months and three years.
`` Some people do not understand that I spend money on children who are not mine, '' said Boncoeur, who is proud that her biological daughter treats those girls like siblings.
Much of the problem goes back to the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010, which left more than 250,000 people dead and largely demolished the capital city, Port-au-Prince.
The number of orphanages and other care facilities for children more than doubled.
Of the 754 that now exist in Haiti, only around 50 are licensed or in the process of getting a license from IBESR, the government's child social welfare agency.
The government has now barred any more such institutions from opening.
-Pedophilia, organ trafficking -
The government has also finally signed an international convention designed to safeguard inter-country adoptions.
Before, a foreigner could just go to an orphanage in Haiti, strike a deal with the director, and adopt a child, with IBESR only involved at the end of the process to act as a type of registrar of the match, said its director, Arielle Jeanty Villedrouin.
IBESR now heads the process, deciding who the children will go with, `` which averts some excesses because there has been talk of pedophilia and organ trafficking, '' she said.
State intervention in matching children with people who want to adopt is also seen as a critical to avoiding heartbreak for parents who give up their kids to orphanages.
`` People would entrust their children to an orphanage and maybe sign a document without even knowing how to read, '' said Villedrouin.
She said the child welfare agency often had to deal with weeping mothers who came looking for children who had been adopted and taken out of the country.
Eighty percent of the estimated 27,000 children living in orphanages in Haiti have at least one parent alive.
- Orphanages with money -
Child welfare advocates here say it is a shame that abject poverty can destroy families and strip children from their parents when some orphanages actually have a lot of money.
In 2017, Lumos, an NGO founded by the writer JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame to reunite orphanage kids with their parents, reported that at least 70 million dollars are received yearly by just a third of the orphanages in Haiti.
`` Seventy million dollars: imagine how this money could have helped children stay with their parents, '' said Villedrouin, whose agency has an annual budget of just $ 1 million.
UNICEF is also pushing for governments to change their way of thinking and spend money to keep families together.
`` Studies have shown that for each year that a child spends in an orphanage, he or she loses three to four months of psycho-cognitive development, '' said Maria Luisa Fornara, director of the UNICEF office in Haiti.
While the killer 2010 earthquake caused international aid to be channeled toward orphanages, it prompted the Cledion family in Haiti to become foster parents.
They had already become empty-nesters.
Now, they are raising two girls -- Jesly, 10, and Fedjiana, 11.
`` After making it through that terrible experience alive, you understand that you owe other people, '' said Solon Cledion.
`` They are little. It is not their fault that they are poor, '' said Cledion, who considers these girls to be his daughters.
Rose Boncoeur brought two emaciated little girls to live in her modest home in Haiti as part of a reform drive aimed at keeping children out of orphanages.
“ People often asked me if I am crazy, ” said Boncoeur, whose name means “ good heart. ”
The government of the Americas’ poorest country is pushing to deinstitutionalize children so as to avoid the darkest sides of orphanage life — trafficking of kids or even worse abuse.
So far, 120 homes in Haiti have opened their doors to children with nowhere else to go.
Boncoeur gets no financial help to feed or clothe her two charges, and is forced to ask people for used clothing for her foster children — sisters, aged eight months and three years.
“ Some people do not understand that I spend money on children who are not mine, ” said Boncoeur, who is proud that her biological daughter treats those girls like siblings.
Much of the problem goes back to the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010, which left more than 250,000 people dead and largely demolished the capital city, Port-au-Prince.
The number of orphanages and other care facilities for children more than doubled.
Of the 754 that now exist in Haiti, only around 50 are licensed or in the process of getting a license from IBESR, the government’ s child social welfare agency.
The government has now barred any more such institutions from opening.
-Pedophilia, organ trafficking –
The government has also finally signed an international convention designed to safeguard inter-country adoptions.
Before, a foreigner could just go to an orphanage in Haiti, strike a deal with the director, and adopt a child, with IBESR only involved at the end of the process to act as a type of registrar of the match, said its director, Arielle Jeanty Villedrouin.
IBESR now heads the process, deciding who the children will go with, “ which averts some excesses because there has been talk of pedophilia and organ trafficking, ” she said.
State intervention in matching children with people who want to adopt is also seen as a critical to avoiding heartbreak for parents who give up their kids to orphanages.
“ People would entrust their children to an orphanage and maybe sign a document without even knowing how to read, ” said Villedrouin.
She said the child welfare agency often had to deal with weeping mothers who came looking for children who had been adopted and taken out of the country.
Eighty percent of the estimated 27,000 children living in orphanages in Haiti have at least one parent alive.
– Orphanages with money –
Child welfare advocates here say it is a shame that abject poverty can destroy families and strip children from their parents when some orphanages actually have a lot of money.
In 2017, Lumos, an NGO founded by the writer JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame to reunite orphanage kids with their parents, reported that at least 70 million dollars are received yearly by just a third of the orphanages in Haiti.
“ Seventy million dollars: imagine how this money could have helped children stay with their parents, ” said Villedrouin, whose agency has an annual budget of just $ 1 million.
UNICEF is also pushing for governments to change their way of thinking and spend money to keep families together.
“ Studies have shown that for each year that a child spends in an orphanage, he or she loses three to four months of psycho-cognitive development, ” said Maria Luisa Fornara, director of the UNICEF office in Haiti.
While the killer 2010 earthquake caused international aid to be channeled toward orphanages, it prompted the Cledion family in Haiti to become foster parents.
They had already become empty-nesters.
Now, they are raising two girls — Jesly, 10, and Fedjiana, 11.
“ After making it through that terrible experience alive, you understand that you owe other people, ” said Solon Cledion.
“ They are little. It is not their fault that they are poor, ” said Cledion, who considers these girls to be his daughters.
With 2,400 staff representing 100 different nationalities, AFP covers the world as a leading global news agency. AFP provides fast, comprehensive and verified coverage of the issues affecting our daily lives.
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Procter & Gamble ( PG) earnings Q2 2020 | Procter & Gamble on Thursday reported quarterly revenue that fell short of estimates for the first time in five quarters, hurt by a stronger dollar and a struggling baby segment, which includes Pampers diapers.
But the consumer giant also raised its 2020 forecast and beat Wall Street's earnings estimates.
`` We continue to face the challenges of a very volatile macro and geopolitical landscape and a competitive response to our growth, but all-in, we're continuing to make progress behind a set of integrated and mutually reinforcing strategies, '' Chief Financial and Operating Officer Jon Moeller told analysts.
Shares were trading up less than 1% in morning trading after initially falling as much as 2% before the market opened.
Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by Refinitiv:
P & G reported fiscal second-quarter net income of $ 3.72 billion, or $ 1.41 per share, up from $ 3.19 billion, or $ 1.22 per share, a year earlier.
Excluding items, the consumer giant earned $ 1.42 per share, topping the $ 1.37 per share expected by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.
Net sales rose 5% to $ 18.24 billion, falling short of expectations of $ 18.37 billion. Stripping out the impacts of foreign exchange, acquisitions and divestitures, organic sales increased 5%, helped by strong growth in its health care and beauty units.
Its health care business, which includes brands like Vicks and Oral B, saw organic sales growth of 7%, and its beauty business reported 8% organic sales growth, driven by double-digit growth in skin and personal care products, which include SK-II and Olay. P & G's fabric and home care business, which includes brands like Tide and Ariel, saw organic sales increase by 5% during the quarter.
Organic sales of P & G's baby care segment declined by low-single digits. The company attributed the decrease to competition, fewer customers buying baby products in certain markets and an inventory decrease in Japan, its third-largest market, due to an increase in the country's value-added tax.
Moeller told analysts that the decrease in Chinese birth rates has hit the overall baby care category. Rival Kimberly-Clark, which owns Huggies diapers, said Thursday that its overall volumes for baby and child care declined by mid-single digits during its fiscal fourth quarter.
China and the United States are P & G's two largest markets. Moeller said that the company will be monitoring the coronavirus spreading in China because it can also effect consumer confidence and travel.
`` I have no idea what the investments are going to be relative to the new virus, '' he said on the conference call.
Organic sales of P & G's shaving segment, which includes Gillette and Venus, rebounded to low-single digit growth during the quarter, thanks to new products like the Gillette SkinGuard and price increases driven by currency changes that make imports more expensive.
In early January, the company announced plans to acquire Billie, a direct-to-consumer shaving company aimed at women.
`` Clearly, they 've created very effectively a fresh, new brand that extends across several categories, and they 've done it, and we can benefit from their experience on this in a digital fashion with one-to-one mass marketing, '' Moeller said.
P & G has been trying to reignite sales for its Gillette and Venus products as Billie, Unilever's Dollar Shave Club and Edgewell Personal Care's Harry's lure away its customers.
P & G now expects sales growth of 4% to 5% in fiscal 2020, up from its prior range of 3% to 5%. It also expects core earnings per share to increase to a range of 8% to 11%, up from its prior range of 5% to 10%.
The company expects to buy back more shares during fiscal 2020. It raised its repurchase range to $ 7 billion to $ 8 billion, up from $ 6 billion to $ 8 billion. During its second quarter, P & G bought back $ 3.5 billion of common stock.
Shares of P & G, which has a market value of $ 309 billion, have risen nearly 31% over the last year.
The stock of rival Kimberly-Clark, valued at $ 49.5 billion, is up 28% in the same time period. Shares of the Kleenex owner were unchanged in premarket trading after it topped analyst estimates for its quarterly earnings and revenue and raised its quarterly dividend from $ 1.03 to $ 1.07.
Read the full earnings release here. | business |
Do face masks help protect users against coronavirus infections? | Hi, what are you looking for?
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It wasn’ t but a short time after the Wuhan coronavirus was confirmed in a patient in Washington state that John Elzinga, who manages an industrial supply store in Langley, British Columbia, noticed his N95 face masks were flying off the shelf, reports CBC Canada.
N95 masks are standard-issue industrial face masks and are used in construction and many manufacturing facilities. But in checking, it was found that average citizens were buying the boxes of masks. One person bought 30 boxes, And they were soon sold out.
“ The good news is they’ re on sale. This isn’ t a price-gouging scenario, ” Elzinga said with a laugh, adding that some customers specifically asked if the masks would protect from coronavirus. And herein lies a question – Are the masks effective in protecting someone from the coronavirus?
What is a coronavirus? Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses, some causing illness in people and others that circulate among animals, including camels, cats, and bats. The virus gets its name from the crown-like spikes on its surface.
Adding the newly identified form of the virus, there are a total of seven coronaviruses that can infect humans, the CDC says. Other well-known coronaviruses include SARS and MERS. The new coronavirus is officially called “ 2019-nCoV. ”
While it remains unclear how the coronavirus is spread so easily, the CDC recommends that anyone who may have been exposed to the illness monitor themselves for 14 days after close contact with an infected person. Be on the lookout for symptoms that include fever, cough, shortness of breath, trouble breathing, body aches, sore throat or vomiting, and diarrhea.
Should you wear a mask? There are some skeptics that believe the face masks are not that effective against airborne viruses, even though there is some evidence the masks can help to prevent hand-to-mouth transmissions, according to the BBC.
Surgical masks were introduced to hospitals in the later part of the 18th century and transitioned to public use during the 1919 Spanish flu pandemic that eventually killed 50 million people worldwide.
Dr. David Carrington, of St George’ s, University of London, told BBC News “ routine surgical masks for the public are not an effective protection against viruses or bacteria carried in the air. ” This is how most viruses are transmitted, said Carrington, adding that the surgical masks have no air filter and leave the eyes exposed.
However, the masks do prevent receiving a “ splash ” from a cough or sneeze and offer some protection against hand-to-mouth transmissions.
Danuta Skowronski, with the British Columbia, Canada Centre for Disease Control, told CBC Canada that the agency is not recommending that people use the masks for protection, and said it would be unlikely the agency would ever issue such a directive.
“ That is a huge cost with no proven benefit. It could run the risk of draining our supply of masks for the real indications that we have in the health-care system, and even from an environmental perspective, it’ s ill-advised, ” she said.
She went on to say that the only time they would recommend wearing a face mask is when someone has symptoms and is entering a health-care facility for treatment.
In 2009, in the aftermath of the SARS outbreak, the Public Health Agency of Canada asked a panel of medical experts for guidance on how flu is transmitted and how best to protect against infection.
The report found that flu viruses are mainly transmitted over short distances and that more people become infected by inhaling viruses than by touching contaminated surfaces.
One of the questions the panel considered was whether face masks would offer protection in the event of a pandemic. The study found that yes, the masks would provide protection, to some extent. The report says a face mask “ can offer protection, but there’ s no evidence inexpensive surgical masks can protect against flu virus particles small enough to be inhaled into the lower respiratory tract or the lungs. ”
So, based on evidence from a number of sources, what should we look for in a good mask that will protect us from getting sick? The CDC recommends a mask be individually fitted to a person’ s face to create a seal and one that filters out 95 percent of particles that at least 0.3 microns in diameters. ( A micron is 1/1,000th of a millimeter.) This type of mask is called N95.
Health officials say masks can help, but unless the person wearing the mask can ensure a sealed fit, the mask will offer no significant protection. This can be more of a problem for children or men with beards, but if you think it will offer some protection, then, by all means, wear a face mask.
Karen Graham is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for environmental news. Karen's view of what is happening in our world is colored by her love of history and how the past influences events taking place today. Her belief in man's part in the care of the planet and our environment has led her to focus on the need for action in dealing with climate change. It was said by Geoffrey C. Ward, `` Journalism is merely history's first draft. '' Everyone who writes about what is happening today is indeed, writing a small part of our history.
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Nurse in Saudi hospital infected with Wuhan coronavirus | Hi, what are you looking for?
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” About 100 Indian nurses mostly from Kerala working at Al-Hayat hospital have been tested and none except one nurse was found infected by Coronavirus. The affected nurse is being treated at Aseer National Hospital and is recovering well, ” reads the tweet from Minister of State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan Thursday morning.
Al-Hayat Hospital is in Khamis Mushait, some 900 kilometers ( 560 miles) southwest of the capital Riyadh. The minister added that the nurses had been quarantined and tested due to the threat.
Update from @ CGIJeddah: About 100 Indian nurses mostly from Kerala working at Al-Hayat hospital have been tested and none except one nurse was found infected by Corona virus. Affected nurse is being treated at Aseer National Hospital and is recovering well. @ PMOIndia @ MEAIndia January 23, 2020
According to Indian media, the nurse may have contracted the coronavirus while caring for a colleague from the Philippines who had tested positive. However, it is noted that neither Riyadh or Delhi have reported cases in their respective countries.
Saudi Arabia, while not responding to a request for comment by Reuters – did say on Wednesday they would begin screening passengers arriving from China, as well as take other measures following the outbreak in Wuhan, China.
The coronavirus, which can pass from person-to-person, has been reported in Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and the United States. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization will decide on Thursday whether or not to declare the outbreak a global health emergency, reports the Huffington Post.
Karen Graham is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for environmental news. Karen's view of what is happening in our world is colored by her love of history and how the past influences events taking place today. Her belief in man's part in the care of the planet and our environment has led her to focus on the need for action in dealing with climate change. It was said by Geoffrey C. Ward, `` Journalism is merely history's first draft. '' Everyone who writes about what is happening today is indeed, writing a small part of our history.
There is no stated power in the US Constitution to regulate human reproduction.
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No talks with Iraq yet on removing US troops: official | Hi, what are you looking for?
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The United States has not yet entered into talks with Iraq on the removal of US troops from the country, as demanded by the Iraqi parliament, a senior US official said Thursday.
`` There has not been any real engagement, '' said ambassador James Jeffrey, the US special envoy for Syria and the coalition against the Islamic State.
`` Our position, as you know –- we 've said it several times -- is that we're prepared to discuss with the Iraqi government our overall strategic relationship, '' Jeffrey told reporters.
`` We have a Strategic Framework Agreement with Iraq since 2008, '' he said. `` It covers economic, security, and diplomatic engagement across the board.
`` We see this as a package, '' Jeffrey said. `` And when we do sit down and talk with them, that's where we 'll be aiming to direct the conversation. ''
Jeffrey said that operations against IS fighters have been on hold since a January 3 US drone strike near Baghdad airport killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.
The killing of Soleimani prompted retaliatory strikes from Tehran on an Iraqi base hosting US troops and a vote in Iraq's parliament for the removal of foreign forces.
`` Coalition operations have been primarily on pause in Iraq as we focus on force protection and looking into the way forward with the Iraqi government after the non-binding vote by the Council of Representatives on the withdrawal of US and thus coalition forces, '' Jeffrey said.
The special envoy said there had been no notable surge in IS activities in Iraq since Soleimani's killing.
`` We have not seen an uptick in violence in Iraq, '' he said. `` They haven't taken advantage of it, as far as we can see. ''
Jeffrey said US operations against IS would not remain on hold forever.
`` There is a possibility of a degradation of the effort against Daesh if we're not able to do the things that we were doing so effectively up until a few weeks ago, '' he said.
`` We're not keeping thousands of Americans and thousands of other coalition country troops in Iraq without doing something, '' he said. `` We have a mission, it's an important mission. ''
The United States has not yet entered into talks with Iraq on the removal of US troops from the country, as demanded by the Iraqi parliament, a senior US official said Thursday.
“ There has not been any real engagement, ” said ambassador James Jeffrey, the US special envoy for Syria and the coalition against the Islamic State.
“ Our position, as you know –- we’ ve said it several times — is that we’ re prepared to discuss with the Iraqi government our overall strategic relationship, ” Jeffrey told reporters.
“ We have a Strategic Framework Agreement with Iraq since 2008, ” he said. “ It covers economic, security, and diplomatic engagement across the board.
“ We see this as a package, ” Jeffrey said. “ And when we do sit down and talk with them, that’ s where we’ ll be aiming to direct the conversation. ”
Jeffrey said that operations against IS fighters have been on hold since a January 3 US drone strike near Baghdad airport killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.
The killing of Soleimani prompted retaliatory strikes from Tehran on an Iraqi base hosting US troops and a vote in Iraq’ s parliament for the removal of foreign forces.
“ Coalition operations have been primarily on pause in Iraq as we focus on force protection and looking into the way forward with the Iraqi government after the non-binding vote by the Council of Representatives on the withdrawal of US and thus coalition forces, ” Jeffrey said.
The special envoy said there had been no notable surge in IS activities in Iraq since Soleimani’ s killing.
“ We have not seen an uptick in violence in Iraq, ” he said. “ They haven’ t taken advantage of it, as far as we can see. ”
Jeffrey said US operations against IS would not remain on hold forever.
“ There is a possibility of a degradation of the effort against Daesh if we’ re not able to do the things that we were doing so effectively up until a few weeks ago, ” he said.
“ We’ re not keeping thousands of Americans and thousands of other coalition country troops in Iraq without doing something, ” he said. “ We have a mission, it’ s an important mission. ”
With 2,400 staff representing 100 different nationalities, AFP covers the world as a leading global news agency. AFP provides fast, comprehensive and verified coverage of the issues affecting our daily lives.
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The hunt for answers - like whether the Omicron variant will trigger new waves of infection.
The new Omicron coronavirus variant has a high number of mutations which the WHO believes may make it more transmissible or resistant to vaccines...
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Inside China's virus zone, unease grips a city in lockdown | BEIJING – In Wuhan, the central Chinese city that’ s ground zero of the deadly new virus spreading through the country, a sense of fear is rapidly taking hold.
On Thursday morning, the city’ s some 11 million residents woke to learn it’ s now on lockdown, with public transport halted, flights out canceled and trains not running right on the eve of the Lunar New Year holiday that traditionally unites families for days of feasting.
It’ s a dramatic escalation for Wuhan, which has found itself at the epicenter of a potentially global health crisis after a market selling freshly slaughtered meat and live animals was identified as the source of an outbreak that’ s killed over a dozen people and sickened hundreds.
Student Yi Zixuan is terrified a meal Sunday with friends near a hospital may have exposed her to the new coronavirus, which causes pneumonia in those infected.
“ I didn’ t wear a mask, ” said Yi, 21. “ I’ ve canceled a trip to Changsha during the Lunar New Year holiday and I’ m even canceling my plans to watch movies at the cinema. I’ ll try to stay home as much as I can. ”
With the death toll from the virus rising markedly last weekend, and more cases identified, life in Wuhan has gone from normal to fraught in a matter of days. Within hours of the travel restrictions being announced, hundreds of cars queued in barely moving traffic at a toll booth for a highway out of the city.
Home to a bustling port on the Yangtze River, Wuhan is a transport hub for central China with a number of high-speed rail lines converging there. A former British settlement, it still retains architecture from that period, with steel and car manufacturing among the main employers.
When Yi left home Monday morning, she says about 20 percent of people wore protective face masks; by evening, she estimated the number had soared to about 80 percent. Across the city, people are already finding ways to carry on — with caution. Yi’ s mother is still gathering with friends to play mahjong, but now they check each other’ s body temperatures before playing.
“ Our fate is at the mercy of the gods, ” Yi said. “ It’ s hard to tell who carries the virus so we have no other options. ”
For Wuhan native Guo Zirui, that means an unusual separation. One of the 21-year-old student’ s parents works at a local hospital so he says his family decided to send him back to his dormitory in Beijing, where he’ s studying at Tsinghua University.
“ The hospital is not a hotel so medical staff have to go back home after work, ” he said, speaking by mobile phone from Wuhan railway station on his way back to the capital on Wednesday afternoon. “ The situation is still unclear and we don’ t know if it’ s safe for me to keep staying in Wuhan. ”
The New Year holiday — when hundreds of millions of people are set to travel in the biggest annual migration of humans on the planet — is providing a significant challenge for Chinese authorities striving to contain the outbreak that has also infected people from Thailand to the U.S. On Wednesday, China announced a stepping up of controls at transport points across the country and increased screening of travelers. But officials admitted there’ s much they don’ t know about the new virus, which belongs to the same family of bugs as SARS, a respiratory outbreak that killed about 800 people 17 years ago.
The coronavirus symptoms include fever, cough or chest tightness, and difficulty breathing. While footage on social media showed deserted streets and vacant subway platforms in Wuhan, retiree Wang Ping, 61, said in an interview before the lockdown that people were still venturing out to shop and visit relatives.
“ I don’ t wear masks, because I’ m in great health condition, ” Wang said. “ For sure they will get it under control. ” | tech |
Search suspended for South Koreans, Nepalis hit by avalanche | Hi, what are you looking for?
By
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The search for four South Korean trekkers and three Nepalis swept away by an avalanche in the Himalayas almost a week ago was suspended Thursday as conditions made further operations too risky.
The trekkers were descending near Annapurna base camp in Nepal, around 3,230 metres ( 10,600 feet) above sea level, when the avalanche struck last Friday.
`` The situation has become too risky for the search teams to continue, '' said Dandu Raj Ghimire, chief of Nepal's tourism department.
`` We will resume when the conditions allow and the mass of snow begins to melt, '' he told AFP.
Officials said some snow could thaw in two weeks if the weather is sunny, but it could take up to a month for most of it to melt.
On Wednesday, a search team of Nepal Army specialists, several South Korean personnel, and locals dug into an area where signals from various tracking devices had been recorded.
Sniffer dogs were also used.
But fresh avalanches since the initial fall have piled on the snow, hampering digging and adding to the risks for search parties.
`` There is a chance that a bigger avalanche might be triggered, '' said Suraj Paudyal, rescue coordinator with Simrik Air, who has been involved in the operation.
Thousands of trekkers visit Nepal every year for its stunning views of the Himalayas and routes lined with picturesque villages.
The Annapurna region is particularly popular among tourists, with 172,720 visiting the area in 2018.
The search for four South Korean trekkers and three Nepalis swept away by an avalanche in the Himalayas almost a week ago was suspended Thursday as conditions made further operations too risky.
The trekkers were descending near Annapurna base camp in Nepal, around 3,230 metres ( 10,600 feet) above sea level, when the avalanche struck last Friday.
“ The situation has become too risky for the search teams to continue, ” said Dandu Raj Ghimire, chief of Nepal’ s tourism department.
“ We will resume when the conditions allow and the mass of snow begins to melt, ” he told AFP.
Officials said some snow could thaw in two weeks if the weather is sunny, but it could take up to a month for most of it to melt.
On Wednesday, a search team of Nepal Army specialists, several South Korean personnel, and locals dug into an area where signals from various tracking devices had been recorded.
Sniffer dogs were also used.
But fresh avalanches since the initial fall have piled on the snow, hampering digging and adding to the risks for search parties.
“ There is a chance that a bigger avalanche might be triggered, ” said Suraj Paudyal, rescue coordinator with Simrik Air, who has been involved in the operation.
Thousands of trekkers visit Nepal every year for its stunning views of the Himalayas and routes lined with picturesque villages.
The Annapurna region is particularly popular among tourists, with 172,720 visiting the area in 2018.
With 2,400 staff representing 100 different nationalities, AFP covers the world as a leading global news agency. AFP provides fast, comprehensive and verified coverage of the issues affecting our daily lives.
The hunt for answers - like whether the Omicron variant will trigger new waves of infection.
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Dow to drop, China coronavirus worsens and Mnuchin rips Greta Thunberg | U.S. stock futures are pointing to a slightly lower open ahead of the Thursday session, after a mixed session Wednesday. The Dow has a two-day losing streak, its first back-to-back losses since Dec. 9–10, although the S & P 500 and Nasdaq have risen in four of the past five days. ( CNBC)
World leaders continue to meet at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, at a press event there, sharply criticized the financial credentials of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg today, saying the 17-year-old should study economics at college before lecturing the U.S. on fossil fuel investments. ( CNBC) * Al Gore compares climate crisis to historic events like 9/11 ( CNBC) * Finance industry chief warns of 'white elephants ' amid record global debt ( CNBC) The United States could still apply tariffs on European carmakers, despite their aim to put together a new trade deal, the Commerce Secretary told reporters in Davos today. Trump has said that Europe is `` possibly just as bad as China '' when it comes to trade and called it a `` brutal '' trading partner. ( CNBC)
On Thursday's earnings and economic calendars, CNBC parent Comcast ( CMCSA), Dow stock Procter & Gamble ( PG), Union Pacific ( UNP) and American Airlines ( AAL) are out with quarterly results. Intel ( INTC) reports after the bell. The government issues weekly jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. ET. The Conference Board delivers its December index of leading economic indicators at 10 a.m. ET. ( CNBC)
World health officials hesitated to designate an outbreak of a flu-like coronavirus, which has now killed at least 17 people, a global health emergency, trying to contain the fast-spreading illness without unnecessarily spooking global trade. The WHO is set to reconvene today after international health experts were split on deciding on an international classification. ( CNBC) * China locks down two cities at epicenter of virus outbreak ( Reuters) * Biotech working on a vaccine for China's deadly coronavirus ( CNBC)
House Democrats are set to continue the three-day process of laying out their case to the Senate that impeached President Donald Trump should be convicted and removed from office. Lead House impeachment manager Adam Schiff kicked off the trial proceedings yesterday with an overview of Trump's alleged abuses of power obstruction. ( CNBC) Ukrainian officials are preparing for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's visit next week, CNBC reported, which is now scheduled for Jan. 30–31. Pompeo canceled a previously planned trip to Ukraine and four other nations slated for early January amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran that led to protests and heightened security in the region.
The Trump administration is expected to announce completion as soon as today of one of its most momentous environmental rollbacks, removing federal protections for millions of miles of the country's streams, arroyos and wetlands. Trump has portrayed farmers as the main beneficiaries of the rollback. ( AP)
Trump will attend the March for Life rally tomorrow, making him the first president in history to join the annual event, in person, to protest abortion. Trump will speak to the thousands of marchers who will gather on the National Mall for the event. ( USA Today)
A new Wharton School study, looking at policy proposals from 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, finds that Sen. Bernie Sanders ' proposed wealth tax will generate $ 1 trillion to $ 1.5 trillion less than he claims. The analysis also found that former Vice President Joe Biden's plan would raise $ 600 billion to $ 900 billion less than he estimates. ( CNBC)
Boeing's ( BA) new CEO said he wants the company to resume production of the 737 Max months before regulators sign off on the planes and airlines prepare to return them to service. Boeing shares fell more than 3% on Tuesday after the company pushed back its estimate of when regulators would sign off on the planes by months to the middle of 2020. ( CNBC) * Boeing CEO says it will keep paying its dividend despite Max crisis ( CNBC) * Calhoun says return of 737 Max was delayed further because it recommended pilot simulator training ( CNBC)
Amazon ( AMZN) filed a motion to pause the Department of Defense and Microsoft ( MSFT) from carrying out an up to $ 10 billion cloud computing deal until a court rules on Amazon's protest of the contract award. Amazon, originally considered to be the favorite to win the business, had indicated last week that it would file a temporary restraining order. ( Reuters)
The CEO of the Hallmark Channel's parent is leaving, according to the Wall Street Journal. The departure, effective tomorrow, comes just weeks after the channel found itself in a firestorm of controversy over commercials featuring a same-sex wedding ceremony.
Clothing retailer Express ( EXPR) said it plans to shutter roughly 100 of its stores by 2022 as part of its strategy to save $ 80 million in costs annually over the next three years.
BP's ( BP) finance chief Brian Gilvary is to step down in June after eight years in the role and will be replaced by a close ally of Bernard Looney, who takes over as chief executive next month. Murray Auchincloss, currently finance head of BP's upstream division, will become BP's chief financial officer on July 1.
A whistleblower said federal regulators improperly sped to authorize Southwest Airlines ( LUV) to begin flights between California and Hawaii last year, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Bankrupt California power producer PG & E ( PCG) said it had reached a deal on its restructuring with creditors, who were pushing for a rival plan.
Ford Motor ( F) will see a $ 2.2 billion pretax loss for the fourth quarter due to higher contributions to its employee pension plans.
Kinder Morgan ( KMI) reported adjusted quarterly earnings of 26 cents per share, missing estimates by 1 cent. The pipeline operator's revenue also fell short of Wall Street forecasts, as prices for natural gas and crude oil fell.
New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning will announce his retirement on Friday after 16 seasons with the team. `` Eli is our only two-time Super Bowl MVP and one of the very best players in our franchise's history, '' said Giants president John Mara. The announcement comes after a season in which Manning spent most of his time as backup to rookie Daniel Jones. ( CNBC) | business |
Dollar gains vs euro as ECB holds policy steady, launches review | The dollar rose against the euro on Thursday after the European Central Bank left unchanged its key interest rates and stimulus programs and launched a broad review of its policy that was likely to see new President Christine Lagarde redefine the ECB's main goal and how to achieve it.
The euro zone's central bank has fallen short of its inflation target of just under 2% for years, even after Lagarde's predecessor, Mario Draghi, launched increasingly aggressive stimulus measures.
`` We will not leave any stone unturned and how we measure inflation is clearly something we need to look at, '' Lagarde said.
`` Basically, what she is saying is that they are reassessing some of the tools they have been using for basically a decade to booster up inflation to no avail, '' said Minh Trang, senior FX trader at Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, California.
ECB rate-setters did not make any policy change on Thursday, simply standing by their pledge to keep buying bonds and, if needed, cut interest rates until price growth in the euro zone heads back to their goal.
The euro was 0.37% lower against the greenback at $ 1.1051, its weakest since Dec. 9.
The Japanese yen strengthened and China's yuan fell to a two-week low on Thursday as investors grew more anxious about the spread of a virus in China.
Deaths from the flu-like coronavirus stand at 17 and almost 600 people are infected. China has locked down Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, where the outbreak was believed to have originated.
The moves up in the safe-haven yen and down in the yuan were measured, suggesting investors were not yet panicking about the virus.
Against the yen, which tends to draw investors during times of geopolitical or financial stress, the dollar was 0.36% lower at 109.43 yen.
The dollar gained 0.36% versus the offshore Chinese yuan to 6.9337 yuan. The Chinese currency has now lost more than 1% of its value since it touched six-month highs on Monday. The onshore yuan is on course for its worst week since August.
Sterling was 0.24% lower, but remained close to a 2-week high hit on Wednesday, as data this week reduced market expectations of a interest rate cut at next week's Bank of England policy meeting. | business |
5 Stocks That Could Pop as Coronavirus Fears Spread | As the coronavirus spreads
, economists are looking for clues to what the deadly illness’ s broader impacts could be.
Many have drawn comparisons to the severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, outbreak of 2003, which also originated in China and infected more than 8,000 people and killed nearly 800.
While the outbreak of the coronavirus is still in the early stages, there is reason to believe that the economic impact
might be somewhat muted
when compared with SARS. This is due both to the swifter response to the illness from Chinese officials as well as advances in technology that can facilitate commerce even when travel is constrained.
To be sure, economists still predict “ significant downside risk ” over the next two quarters, but there could also be differences in transmission, according to a Wednesday note by
J.P. Morgan
’ s
Haibin Zhu
.
“ The Chinese government has taken serious action much faster this time, ” Zhu wrote.
It took three weeks for the Chinese government to notify the World Health Organization after the first case of the coronavirus was identified on Dec. 8. By contrast, nearly three months passed from the time the government first identified SARS on Nov. 16, 2002, to when WHO was notified, leading to the government being criticized for withholding information.
With the Chinese government thought to be better prepared to handle an outbreak as the memory of SARS is still recent, the impact may be “ less severe, ” Zhu wrote.
China’ s gross-domestic-product growth averaged 10.5% in the four quarters leading up to China taking serious action to quell the SARS outbreak, but plunged to 3.4% in the second quarter of 2003 as the number of confirmed cases increased rapidly. Growth swiftly rebounded in the second half of the year as the health alert was removed by WHO, putting China’ s economy back in line with previous years.
But it isn’ t just China’ s relatively faster response this time that may mitigate an economic slowdown. The world economy has changed enormously over the past 17 years as more business is conducted online.
Online sales in China have risen 30% since 2014 and now account for 20% of total retail sales, up from zero to low single digits in 2003, by Zhu’ s estimate.
While airlines, airports, and other public places
are sure to see a drop in traffic
as travel bans take hold and people avoid going out,
online business may rise
. E-commerce platforms such as
Alibaba Group Holding
( ticker: BABA),
Meituan Dianping
( 3690.Hong Kong), and
Vipshop Holdings
( VIPS) could benefit, as could delivery companies such as
ZTO Express
( ZTO) and
BEST
( BEST), Zhu writes.
Write to
Carleton English at
carleton.english @ dowjones.com | business |
Vaccine makers tap into virus-driven rally to raise money | Some small vaccine developers that saw their stocks
take off on Tuesday
over growing concern about the new coronavirus are using the rally to raise money.
Novavax Inc.
NVAX,
-10.60%
in 2013 developed a vaccine for Middle East respiratory syndrome ( MERS), which is also a coronavirus. On Tuesday after the market closed, the company filed a shelf registration seeking to raise more than $ 100 million over time. A spokesperson said Novavax also plans to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus. Its stock fell 15% in early trade Wednesday on concerns about dilution.
“ We don’ t expect Novavax will run human trials without non-dilutive government funding, ” Ladenburg Thalmann’ s Michael Higgens wrote in a note. “ The timing for such support in our view depends on how severe and uncontrolled the 2019-nCoV becomes. ”
Read:
This is how far and fast the coronavirus has spread through U.S. stocks
Moderna Inc.
MRNA,
-5.16%
said it is working with the National Institutes of Health on a potential vaccine response, saying its “ vaccine technology could serve as a rapid and flexible platform that may be useful in responding to newly emerging viral threats. ” Moderna’ s stock was up 10%.
NanoViricides Inc.
NNVC,
-1.26%
said it has raised $ 7.5 million in an offering of 2.5 million shares at a price of $ 3 per share. Its stock was down 55% in morning trading, after gaining 153% on Monday.
The company had also worked on treatments for MERS and the Ebola virus. NanoViricides president Anil Diwan said in an email that the company believes that the drugs “ we had previously developed are worth testing against the Wuhan virus and are likely to work against it. ”
The virus was first identified in December in Wuhan City, China. It has since sickened more than 300 people, including a U.S. resident who had traveled to Wuhan this month, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. China’ s National Health Commission
told news outlets
that nine people have died and at least 440 people in China have been infected. Health officials now believe the virus is spread human to human.
“ Some equities believed to have a potential tie to treatment or prevention of this infectious disease have seen positive movement today, however we believe that movement is overblown, ” wrote Raymond James’ Chris Meekins on Tuesday.
The SPDR S & P Biotech
XBI,
-1.08%
exchange-traded fund has climbed 13% over the last year, while the S & P 500
SPX,
-0.15%
has gained 26%. | business |
Censorship shackles China's battle against Wuhan virus — Quartz | In the past several weeks, a biting joke has been widely shared on Chinese social media: The new coronavirus is patriotic, so it goes, because it infected only one of China’ s 33 provinces and municipalities before venturing outside of the mainland.
Then, people this week woke up to official announcements of a shocking surge of confirmed new infections, and of the virus’ s spread to more than a dozen provinces and municipalities. As of Thursday, there are more than 550 confirmed cases, 17 people have died and Wuhan, where the outbreak started, is on lockdown.
Beyond mainland China, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the US and Hong Kong have confirmed cases, and more countries could report cases as China’ s biggest travel season gets underway: Chinese Lunar New Year.
People are panicking. When a new disease is discovered, it’ s undeniably hard to identify and inform the public about it quickly. Yet China is making the problem harder to solve, even though it should have learned from the SARS outbreak in 2003, when the government admitted to underreporting cases in the initial stages. Nearly 800 people died in that epidemic, which saw desperate people emptying shops for Chinese herbal medicines and vinegar that would turn out to be ineffective.
That frenzy was driven by the lack of accurate information and rumors because of a vacuum in top-down communication. The idea of wei wen, or maintaining stability in China’ s political system made “ conceal as many as possible and keep it at the local level ” a natural immediate response to a crisis like this. That approach to information might work on other kinds of issues, but not when it comes to a potential epidemic. Trying to control information in that case becomes a kind of shackle in the face of something that can progress and change swiftly beyond one’ s control.
Of course, there is one thing that’ s different than 17 years ago: WeChat. A tool connecting more than a billion users in China should be one the government can use to help keep the public up-to-date, and to debunk false information. Yet it too has become a hotbed for both rumors and information suppression amid China’ s broader regime of online censorship honed over the past decade. Already, a focus of social media discussion about the current virus crisis has been on how hard it’ s been to get correct information, and whether officials were slow to respond in the early stages, at least in Wuhan. While some international public health experts have commended China’ s information sharing as superior to 2003 in the face of a quickly evolving situation, others have expressed doubt that the country is being as transparent as it should be.
This month, almost as soon as the first local municipal health statement was issued ( link in Chinese) about a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, in central China, police detained eight local people for “ spreading rumors about pneumonia. ”
It took several weeks for authorities to adopt precautions like measuring body temperature with infrared thermometers in highly-crowded public places such as train stations, noted a comment piece in Beijing News ( link in Chinese), a local government-backed newspaper on Tuesday ( Jan. 21). The public was also puzzled by how to understand the authorities’ communications about the likelihood of human-to-human infections, an indication that an infection can spread more quickly and be more dangerous, with authorities saying the risk of such transmission was “ limited ” and low, then later confirming that such infections were taking place.
An interview in 2017 with Jiang Yanyong, the whistle-blower of China’ s SARS coverup, that resurfaced two days ago on WeChat goes to the heart of what people worry about most. In it, the expert argued that China has suffered too much from information control, recalling how a big Beijing hospital dodged checks from the World Health Organization by putting patients in other departments of the hospital, instead of the respiratory or infectious diseases wing. In another popular article, a doctor at a Beijing hospital claimed he had observed his hospital putting 29 patients in ambulances to dodge the checks during SARS.
Now both posts are no longer available because of “ violation of regulations ” a reason often used as an excuse to delete what authorities deemed as sensitive, even though the information may be accurate and valid. It might be that the doctor’ s claim was unverified or untrue. But it’ s hard to tell whether authorities want to suppress incorrect information or merely to try to contain fear. Either way, it increases mistrust of the authorities at the time they most need the public’ s trust.
For example, it was only when Zhong Nanshan, the 83-year-old respiratory expert who is widely-recognized as a medical hero of the SARS outbreak, appeared on China’ s state broadcaster on Tuesday ( Jan. 21), that people came to know three key pieces of information–the fact that 14 healthcare workers been infected, the fact that the disease can spread from human to human, and that wearing masks helps. Zhong’ s comments, which circulated all over WeChat and microblog platform Weibo, seemed to inspire more trust than those from the authorities, since he is known for questioning official statements during the SARS outbreak and during subsequent outbreaks of infectious disease. Articles questioned why the local health commission in Wuhan hadn’ t been more forthcoming about the medical workers’ infections.
These questions aren’ t shaped only by missteps 17 years ago. There are many examples of more recent cover-ups as well, such as the 2008 baby milk powder case which killed six babies and left many sick. Ten years later, people still refrain from buying milk powder made in China. A top government body has warned that any party member who conceals information this time will be “ nailed on the pillar of shame for eternity. ”
But in a system where people feel constantly tricked and puzzled by the discrepancies in the information they get, over time the public tends not to believe in anything the government says—and to disbelieve its representatives are acting in good faith.
“ All of those who have received a good education in China know from deep down in their heart that the biggest fear brought by SARS and Wuhan pneumonia is the uncontrollable behavior of the bureaucratic class, ” said a Weibo post commenting on Zhong’ s interview, “ China has the world’ s best 5G and high-speed train technology, but in some aspects of governing, China is still in the Middle Ages. ”
This essay was first published on Medium. | tech |
Wuhan quarantined as China fights coronavirus outbreak — Quartz | The notice came at 2am this morning ( Jan. 23): The city of Wuhan would be shutting down all its public transportation systems by 10am. That meant those who wanted to leave the city had eight hours to do so—and so the scramble began. The local airport and railway stations were crowded even in the dead of night as people jostled to get on the last trains and flights out of the city, scrambling to change travel plans and buy remaining tickets.
“ So long as I can get out of Wuhan, any train ticket to whichever destination will do, ” one traveler at Wuhan’ s Hankou railway station told business publication Caixin ( link in Chinese). Another traveller at the station said that he had packed his bags within minutes of seeing the lockdown order. “ I’ m a tourist, I can’ t get stuck here, I have to leave at night, ” he said.
In the statement ( link in Chinese), the city’ s special office set up to oversee handling of the deadly coronavirus outbreak said that in order to best tackle the disease, the airport and all mass transit would be suspended indefinitely. Departures at railway stations and the airport would also be temporarily put on hold, and authorities urged people to refrain from leaving Wuhan unless they had a “ special reason. ”
The sudden order came just hours after the official death toll nearly doubled between morning and evening on Wednesday ( Jan. 22), rising to 17 from the previously reported 9. More than 570 people have been confirmed to be infected with the novel coronavirus as of late Wednesday, according to state television. Cases have now also been confirmed in multiple places outside China, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, and the United States.
The new virus comes from the same family as the SARS virus that hit mainland China and Hong Kong in 2003, leading to nearly 800 deaths. However, scientists who have sequenced the current strain said earlier this month that it is quite distant from that virus; health officials have also noted that it is nevertheless “ highly infectious ” and still mutating. While authorities are still investigating the exact origin of the virus, they have confirmed that the outbreak traces back to a wholesale fish and live animal market in Wuhan that also sold illegal wildlife. The market has since been disinfected and shut down.
Earlier yesterday evening, the Wuhan government also mandated that everyone must wear face masks in public places, including restaurants, bars, cinemas, parks, and public transportation. To cope with an upsurge in demand for the face coverings, the central government is taking emergency measures to coordinate mask production across all provinces, according to state media China Daily.
Online, the hashtag # Wuhan on lockdown # has been viewed more than 300 million times on Weibo as of this morning. Some Wuhan citizens said they understood why the government made the decision, but also urged the authorities to step up supplies of medical equipment, especially face masks. “ I couldn’ t find any face mask at my nearby drug stores, while the ones I ordered online will take days to be delivered, ” said one user.
Meanwhile, there are signs that Wuhan is struggling to keep up with the deluge of patients, with some reporting a shortage of beds in hospitals. A staff member at Wuhan’ s No. 4 Hospital, one of the city’ s designated hospitals for receiving coronavirus patients, confirmed to Quartz that they could not receive or test new patients due to a shortage of beds. Wuhan Lung Hospital told Quartz it was able to test patients, but not to admit them. “ Only those who have shown very serious symptoms, who have been screened by an expert team, may be admitted, ” a hospital employee said.
When asked what a patient confirmed to have the virus who can’ t be admitted should do instead, the hospital staffer said the patient should quarantine themselves at home, “ following the many tips posted online. ”
Caixin ( link in Chinese), citing multiple doctors, also reported a shortage of testing kits for diagnosing potential infected cases.
On Chinese social media network Weibo, some complained that their family members, who had shown symptoms of being infected with the virus, did not receive proper care.
“ My 63-year-old father has had a fever since Jan. 13 and went to two major hospitals in Wuhan for treatment. However, although he was diagnosed with pneumonia, after seven days’ of treatment of using antibiotics, his situation became worse. The hospitals would not confirm whether he was infected with the coronavirus using the testing kit and neither would it receive him, ” wrote user Rebecca Zhang Xiaodai ( link in Chinese) in a post on Jan. 22, garnering over 30,000 shares. Phone calls Quartz made to Zhang’ s mobile phone went unanswered. | tech |
Rail stocks look ready to break out, chart suggests | A flood of airline earnings out Thursday failed to give the transports sector a lift on Thursday.
JetBlue, Southwest Airlines and American Airlines were all higher after reporting on their recent quarters, but the IYT transports ETF was flat on the day.
One corner of the transports is on the cusp of a make-or-break moment, according to Matt Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak.
`` You look at the S & P 500 railroad index, and it broke above its all-time high last week, and that's good but it was only a slight break and then it's pulled back down and it's right basically at that level so we're worried -- is this a head fake or is it really going to break out? '' Maley said Wednesday on CNBC's `` Trading Nation. ''
`` We're kind of at a key juncture right now and I 'm going to be watching the railroad stocks to see what happens next, '' said Maley.
Union Pacific led the rail names higher on Thursday even after falling short of estimates for its fourth quarter. CEO Lance Fritz said Thursday morning that the `` phase one '' trade deal between the U.S. and China should stop declines in freight volumes.
Boris Schlossberg, managing director of FX strategy at BK Asset Management, said a catalog of problems could put pressure on the transports here – from weak freight numbers to the Boeing Max 737 groundings, which continue to weigh on certain airlines, to a spreading coronavirus outbreak in China.
`` The story isn't over. That's why I 'm very leery of the transports at this point, I don't think the IYT is going to break the $ 200 level here, because nobody who is going to come out with earnings is going to grossly surprise to the upside. So at this point, I think it's going to be pretty much fizzling out, '' said Schlossberg during the same segment.
The IYT ETF, which holds Union Pacific and UPS among other names, most recently traded just above $ 197.
Schlossberg also worries that weakness in the broader economy is going to weigh on the group.
`` The mainstream economy isn't growing as much as the equity market is growing, and I think you see this disconnect most glaringly in this particular sector and I think it's going to pull everything else down as we go forward, '' Schlossberg said.
Disclaimer | business |
Op-Ed: Martina McBride deserves to be in the Country Music Hall of Fame | Hi, what are you looking for?
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She helped pave the way for countless artists and groups that followed into her footsteps, especially women in the country genre. She is known for such powerhouse country songs as “ Independence Day, ” “ A Broken Wing, ” “ Concrete Angel, ” “ Whatever You Say, ” “ Where Would You Be, ” “ God’ s Will, ” “ Anyway, ” “ I’ m Gon na Love You Through It, ” and “ Love’ s the Only House, ” among countless others.
Throughout her illustrious career in the music business, McBride has sold in excess of 18 million albums. She secured 20 Top 10 singles on the Billboard charts, which include six No. 1 hit singles. She is also known for her Christmas music, and her “ Joy of Christmas ” Tour, which has become a holiday tradition from year to year.
McBride is the recipient of four “ Female Vocalist of the Year ” Country Music Association ( CMA) Awards and three “ Female Vocalist of the Year ” awards by the Academy of Country Music ( ACM). She has 14 gold records to her credit, as well as three double-platinum albums and two triple-platinum albums. She is known for her philanthropy, especially her charitable work to end domestic violence, as well as with her own charitable organization, Team Music is Love.
In 2019, she won the coveted Cliffie Stone Icon Award at the ACM Honors event for her significant contributions to the country music industry.
This summer, McBride will have her own exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, where she will be joined by such artists as Bill Anderson and Chris Stapleton, who will also have their own exhibitions. The exhibit that explores McBride’ s legacy will open on August 21, 2020.
Overall, Martina McBride deserves to be recognized by the Country Music Hall of Fame as an inductee in the “ Modern Era ” category. She has one of the best-loved voices in country music history and she is long overdue for such a prestigious honor.
Read More: Digital Journal’ s Markos Papadatos chatted with Martina McBride in December of 2019.
Markos Papadatos is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for Music News. Papadatos is a Greek-American journalist and educator that has authored over 16,000 original articles over the past 15 years. He has interviewed some of the biggest names in music, entertainment, lifestyle, magic, and sports. He is a five-time consecutive `` Best of Long Island '' winner, and in the past two years, he was honored as the `` Best Long Island Personality '' in Arts & Entertainment, an honor that has gone to Billy Joel six times.
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Oil falls 3% as specter of China virus threatens fuel demand | Oil prices fell 2% on Thursday on concern that the spread of a virus from China could lower fuel demand if it stunts economic growth, but losses were limited by a drawdown in U.S. crude inventories.
Brent crude futures lost $ 1.20, or 1.9%, to trade at $ 62.00 per barrel, after having touched $ 61.25 a barrel, the lowest since early December.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell $ 1.15, or 2%, to settle at $ 55.59 a barrel. The contract earlier fell to $ 54.77 a barrel, the lowest since Nov. 1.
Two Chinese cities were put in lockdown on Thursday as health authorities around the world scrambled to prevent a global pandemic. The coronavirus outbreak has killed 17 people and infected nearly 600.
The potential for a pandemic has stirred memories of the Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome ( SARS) outbreak in 2002-03, which also started in China and caused a slump in travel.
`` Such health issues represent significant impediments to normal travel and as a result, have forced the oil market to discount some significant weakening in jet and diesel fuel demand that is extremely difficult to measure until the spread of the health virus is contained, '' said Jim Ritterbusch, president of trading advisory firm Ritterbusch and Associates.
With coronavirus cases detected as far as away as the United States, global stock markets also felt the effects of fears that the virus could spread further as millions of Chinese prepare to travel for the Lunar New Year this weekend.
`` We estimate a price shock of up to $ 5 ( a barrel) if the crisis develops into a SARS-style epidemic, '' JPM Commodities Research said in a note.
The U.S. bank maintained its forecast for Brent to average $ 67 in the first quarter and $ 64.50 throughout 2020.
Amid recent heightened tension between the United States and Iran, the United States on Thursday imposed Iran-related sanctions on two individuals and six companies, including four firms tied to the National Iranian Oil Company.
Tempering losses, U.S. crude inventories fell 405,000 barrels last week, although gasoline stockpiles rose to their highest on record after 11 weeks of consecutive builds, the Energy Information Administration reported.
`` The report was modestly supportive, '' said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC in New York.
China, meanwhile, released data showing gasoline exports rose by nearly a third last year thanks to new refineries.
This week, the International Energy Agency ( IEA) said it expects a surplus of 1 million barrels per day in the first half of the year. | business |
U.S. CDC seeks emergency approval to use diagnostic test for coronavirus | U.S. CDC is seeking emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration to allow states to use its diagnostic test for coronavirus outbreak, a CDC spokesman said on Thursday.
China has put millions of people on lockdown in two cities at the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak as authorities around the world worked to prevent a global pandemic. ( Reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur) | business |
Procter & Gamble says it is monitoring China coronavirus | Procter & Gamble said Thursday that it is monitoring the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus as the World Health Organization weighs whether to call the virus a global health emergency.
The global consumer giant, which owns brands such as Vicks and Pampers, counts China as one of its two largest markets, along with the United States. Halfway through fiscal 2020, P & G said that it has seen growth of 13% in the Asian country.
The virus was first diagnosed less than a month ago and has already killed at least 17 people in China. Roughly 650 cases of the virus have been reported in China, and several other countries have confirmed cases. U.S. health authorities have quarantined one Washington state man with the virus. Symptoms range from a mild cough to fever to pneumonia.
Seven Chinese cities near Wuhan are under lockdown in an effort to stop the spread of the virus. Lunar New Year's events in Beijing, China, have reportedly been canceled.
`` I have no idea what the investments are going to be relative to the new virus, '' Chief Financial and Operating Officer Jon Moeller told analysts.
Moeller said the company will monitor the virus as it relates to the health of its employees and the broader community. He also said that the virus could have broad impacts beyond its business in China.
`` It can also affect consumer confidence and large parts of the market. It can affect travel, which does affect our business, and so it's one of the many pieces of volatility that's just important as we think about the prospects for the future, '' Moeller said.
P & G products like its pricey SK-II skincare line are often sold in airports and are popular with international tourists.
The company reported its fiscal second-quarter earnings on Thursday. P & G beat Wall Street's earnings estimates but fell short on revenue. It also raised its full-year outlook. Shares were trading down less than 1% in morning trading. | business |
European stocks close lower on coronavirus fears and dovish ECB tone | European markets closed lower on Thursday amid increasing concerns over the spread of the China coronavirus, while dovish tones from the European Central Bank ( ECB) exerted further downward pressure.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed provisionally down by 0.7%, with most sectors and major bourses in negative territory. Basic resources stocks led the losses with a 2.9% decline.
The ECB held its interest rates steady Thursday, with President Christine Lagarde's remarks on the economic outlook for the euro zone seemingly disappointing market participants.
The ECB on Thursday held interest rates steady and launched its first strategic review since 2003, in a bid to establish whether its inflation target is still appropriate.
Markets reacted negatively to a slightly more dovish tone than anticipated from Lagarde, as the former IMF chief told a press conference in Frankfurt that the risks were still `` tiled to the downside. ''
On Wall Street, equities fell as investors pored through the latest batch of corporate earnings results and grappled with fears of the coronavirus spreading.
The coronavirus remains at the forefront of investor concerns as the death toll from the disease continues to rise; 17 people have now died from the virus and there have been nearly 600 confirmed cases of the infection.
The World Health Organization postponed a decision Wednesday over whether to declare the disease a global health emergency. Beginning Thursday morning Beijing time, all public transportation was suspended in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak is believed to have started.
The outbreak comes ahead of the Lunar New Year period which is set to kick off on Saturday, with hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens expected to travel domestically or abroad during the period.
The biggest mover was German construction company Hochtief, which saw its shares plunge 8% after its Cimic unit forecast a $ 1.23 billion hit for its exit from the Middle East. Spain's ACS, which holds a majority stake in Hochtief, fell 5%.
Renault shares fell 5% after Citigroup downgraded the stock to `` sell, '' while Russian mining company Evraz's London-listed stock tumbled 6%.
At the top of the European benchmark, STMicro climbed nearly 7% after reporting strong fourth-quarter earnings and optimistic guidance. Novozymes stock also gained about 7% after the Danish biotech company's CEO said the roll-out of its new freshness platform is going according to plan. | business |
'The worst has yet to come, ' analyst says of China coronavirus outbreak | The severity of the rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak in China that's claimed more than a dozen lives is still unknown, and the extent of its spread will only be clearer after the Lunar New Year holidays, said David Roche of Independent Strategy said on Thursday.
Hundreds of millions of Chinese will be traveling during the week-long holiday period as China celebrates the Spring Festival.
`` The bad news is that the worst has yet to come, as the number of new infections is still on the rise, '' warned Larry Hu, economist at Macquarie Capital.
Much is still not known about the mysterious new virus that has killed 17 people so far and infected nearly 600 others worldwide. The disease, first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has spread to Beijing, Shanghai and other populated cities in the country. Cases in Thailand, Japan, South Korea and even the United States, have also been discovered.
The World Health Organization will convene again on Thursday, a day after deciding not to designate the outbreak of the virus as a global health emergency.
`` We don't really know the characteristics of this virus yet, '' David Roche of Independent Strategy said on Thursday.
He pointed out that one important question is whether the outbreak will morph into a pandemic.
`` In order to get a pandemic, you really have to have a virulent infection to be exponential... many of these new cases are due to much tighter reporting, not necessarily a rate of infection. So we really don't know to what extent the rate of contagion, '' he said.
`` The answer is wait till after Chinese New Year … we will know the degree, the speed and the breadth of infections by this virus, and get a much clearer idea on mortality, '' he said. `` It's … when people come back ( after Lunar New Year), that's the crunch point, in terms of the spread of the virus, the contagion, and the fatality. ''
Another characteristic in question is the mortality rate. `` You have to have a very high mortality rate to really create a pandemic. In SARS, it hit 60%, 70%, 80% at one point. So far the mortality rate here is 3.4%, which is low, '' Roche said, drawing a comparison with severe acute respiratory syndrome — a deadly epidemic that occurred between 2002 and 2003.
The new coronavirus, which could lead to a type of pneumonia, has sparked alarm as it comes from the same family of viruses as SARS, which killed nearly 800.
The new outbreak was first reported in late December and was thought to have originated from a wholesale seafood market in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Officials have confirmed the new virus can spread between humans, and the World Health Organization said it appears the outbreak began in an animal source.
A U.S. resident who returned from China was among those diagnosed with the Wuhan coronavirus.
Speaking to CNBC's Joe Kernen at the World Economic Forum in Davos, U.S. President Donald Trump said: `` We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It's going to be just fine. ''
The number of new infections is set to rise further given that the virus has a two-week incubation period, Macquarie's Hu said in a note. `` The lesson from SARS suggests that the turning point for sentiment will come only after the number of new infections starts falling. ''
Furthermore, the `` largest people movement on the planet '' is underway, Hu said referring to the extensive travel during the Lunar New Year celebrations.
The number of travelers has increased multiple times in China, as compared with 17 years ago during SARS, Hu added, further compounding the risk of even more infections. | business |
Stock market live updates: S & P claws back, Netflix pops, coronavirus lifts biotechs, GE jumps | This is a live blog. Check back for updates.
The S & P 500 manages to finish the day barely in the green. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed only slightly lower. Netflix helped lead the comeback, ending the day up a whopping 7%. Boeing and GE were other big winners. Apple also finished in the green. — Melloy
Shares of Intel are moving higher ahead of the company's fourth-quarter earnings report. The stock is up 1.5% on the day, outpacing the 0.7% gain by the Philadelphia Semiconductor index. Analysts expect the tech company to post $ 1.25 in earnings per share and $ 19.23 billion in revenue after the bell, according to Refinitiv. — Pound
With roughly one hour to go in the trading session, the major averages are well off their session lows after the WHO eased fears surrounding the spread of the deadly coronavirus. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is trading about 24 points lower, or less than 0.1%, after dropping more than 200 points. The S & P 500 and Nasdaq Composite are both marginally higher. —Imbert
Oil prices fell 2% on Thursday as demand fears fueled by the coronavirus outbreak continued to weigh on prices. At its session low, U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude touched $ 54.77, its lowest level since Nov. 1. It rebounded slightly to settle at $ 55.59, for a loss of $ 1.15, helped by data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration which showed that stockpiles declined by 405,000 barrels for the week ending Jan. 17. International benchmark Brent crude also fell about 2%. —Stevens
Shares of Gilead Sciences climbing higher, now up 0.7%, after the company said it was assessing whether its experimental Ebola treatment could be used to treat coronavirus infection. Inovio Pharmaceuticals, a small biotech company with a market cap of $ 390 million, skyrocketed 13% after it said it's in the process of developing a vaccine against the new deadly virus. But analysts cautioned any commercial treatment from Inovio could be years away. — Li
After the new WHO headlines mentioned below, stocks have continued their comeback as fears about the coronavirus spreading ease. Stocks with the most at stake from a disease weighing on the global economy rebounded. United Airlines is higher now. Also Las Vegas Sands and Wynn Resorts are well off their lows. —Melloy
Investor Bill Miller, who beat the market for 15 straight years while at Legg Mason, boasted a return of 119.5% for 2019 ( net of fees) in large part because he didn't touch his portfolio to end the year. `` In the 4th quarter, we did our favorite thing to do in markets: nothing. No new names and no elimination of holdings from the portfolio, '' Miller said in a letter to investors of Miller Value Partners, his new firm. Miller Value posted a fourth-quarter return of nearly 60%. Those returns all trounced the broader market. But even as worries that the record run is a bit long in the tooth, Miller thinks the `` path of least resistance for stocks remains as has been for a decade: higher. '' —Imbert
The major stock averages are off the lows with the Dow now down about 100 points, after the World Health Organization's emergency committee said it's premature to consider the coronavirus outbreak to be a public health emergency. `` Now is not the time. Bit too early to consider this event is a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, '' it said. — Li
As noted earlier, Netflix is rebounding and is now up more than 5%. It's completely wiped out the drop on Wednesday which came following some slightly disappointing subscriber numbers contained in its earnings report. Investors appear to be reassessing that stance, helped along by the bullish Guggenheim note. —Melloy
In addition to airlines and travel companies that are negatively impacted by the deadly coronavirus ( see below), large-format movie theater company IMAX is also taking a hit. Shares of IMAX are down more than 4% as the Chinese government ordered distributors to cancel new film releases to discourage the public from congregating in crowded places. This move could significantly hurt IMAX's sales in a traditionally strong holiday period. An analyst at Dougherty & Co. covering the company said `` clearly our Q1 numbers will need to come down. '' — Li
Bank of America raised its price target on Apple to $ 340 per share from $ 330 per share on Thursday. The firm said strength in Airpods and iPhone11 sales `` proves Apple's brand loyalty '' and shows the company can count on a steady stream of phone sales despite no function changes. `` The 5G cycle offers multi-year visibility on iPhone sales and this, combined with double-digit Services revenue growth, has driven the multiple higher, in our opinion, '' Bank of America research analyst Wamsi Mohan said in a note to clients. The firm has a buy rating on Apple. Apple shares were flat on the day. —Fitzgerald
Stocks are falling around midday ET as Wall Street takes some profit as new earnings reports come out while investors gauge the potential impact of the coronavirus on the global economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down more than 173 points as Travelers led the losses. The S & P 500 and Nasdaq pulled back 0.4% and 0.1%, respectively. —Imbert
Shares of the streaming giant jumped 4%, making it the second best performing stock in the S & P 500, after Guggenheim raised its target on the stock to $ 420, which is about 24% above where it currently trades. Thursday's jump follows a 3.6% decline on Wednesday, fueled by the company's fourth quarter earnings which beat expectations, although guidance was disappointing as membership growth slows. — Stevens
Buckingham cut estimates `` hard '' on United Airlines over fears the coronavirus could affect the airline in the near future. The company said it has `` confidence '' in the `` story '' over the next 6-12 months but is cautious given the uncertainty over the virus. Shares are likely to remain under pressure near-term, according to analyst Daniel McKenzie. United shares were little changed after opening lower on the coronavirus fears Thursday. -Bloom
Yum China is down 4.5% Thursday and over 10% this week on pace for its worst week since September 2018 on fears of declining sales due to the coronavirus. The operator of Taco Bell and KFC in China hit correction levels Thursday, down more than 11% from its intraday all-time high from Jan 10th of this year. —Francolla
After three consecutive down days, Boeing's stock climbed as much as 2% on above-average volume. Shares of the aerospace giant had slipped steadily as Boeing's 737 Max crisis continues to unfold: Newly-appointed CEO David Calhoun on Tuesday said he doesn't expect the aircraft to fly until June or July at best. — Sheetz
The bond market took heed when Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the Treasury was still looking at 50-year and 100-year bonds, even after its plan to issue 20-year bonds. There was a brief steepening of the yield curve between the 5-year note yield and the 30-year bond, but yields are most under pressure as investors worry about China's coronavirus. Yields move opposite price. Mnuchin told CNBC's Becky Quick that Treasury got what he called a `` reverse inquiry '' for a 20-year bond while it was studying and surveying markets on the idea of 50-year and 100-year issues. John Roberts, rate strategist at NatWest Markets, said the market move was slight and faded because the Treasury is unlikely to move quickly on the `` ultra-longs, '' after just announcing the 20-year. Mnuchin also told CNBC the government can raise a lot more money at the 20-year duration. Treasury is expected to reveal more info Feb. 5 on its revival of the 20-year, last issued in 1986. `` From a technology standpoint, we can do 20s very quickly, '' he said. `` It will take us a little bit longer to do the 100 year…In terms of duration and pricing, we can raise a lot more money in 20 years than in 50s and 100s. '' —Domm
The Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund hit another intraday all-time high and the sector is on pace for another record close as broader market retreats from its record levels. American Electric Power, CME Energy, Eversource Energy, NextEra Energy, WEC Energy and Xcel Energy are among the utility stocks that reached all-time highs. Meanwhile, First Energy hit its highest level since 2012. Real estate is also the only other sector trading higher thus far. —Francolla
Not a name we talk about everyday, but Travelers is having an outsized impact on the Dow on Thursday, subtracting 43 points from the average. Shares of Travelers plunged nearly 4% after the insurance company reported disappointing business insurance segment and net investment income. The company said its net premiums writtens, an important measure of revenue growth, rose less than expected. Meanwhile, it reported a margin miss in business insurance due to its experience with an accelerating tort environment. However, the company beat on top and bottom line. `` This quarter is disappointing but not as bad as 3Q, but we think could be a slight letdown given strong performance in the shares recently, '' Evercore ISI analyst said. — Li
Tesla shares opened lower on a very negative call out of UBS ( see below). But you can't keep this one down. Tesla shares are now up nearly 1%. Maybe Musk will be able to keep his big payday? — Melloy
The Dow is now down more than 200 points. Bank stocks are falling as yields decline. Bank of America is off by 1.5%. Big names that have led the rally are also taking some hits including Apple and Tesla. —Melloy
Blame Travelers for the Dow's poor open. The broader market is weak too with the S & P 500 off by about 0.3%. Overall, there is lots of red on the board with banks and tech stocks weak. — Melloy
When oil prices started climbing in early December, it was partly on optimism the U.S. and China would strike a trade deal that would help the global economy and oil demand. After this week's sharp drop, that premium has been wiped out by fears of a sharp drop in demand, due to potentially chilling impact of China's new coronavirus on global transportation and commerce and travel within China. West Texas Intermediate futures were down 2.7% Thursday and are now off 5.6% for the week. WTI fell through its 200-day moving average at around $ 57.70 Wednesday, and now is trading just above $ 55 per barrel. `` The downside objective now are the lows from October/November at about $ 52. $ 50 would be the big round number, '' said energy analyst John Kilduff. `` $ 50 will be a tough nut to crack. It's held up like a line in the sand. It's much more than just a round number, or psychological point. '' WTI futures hit a high just under $ 65 in January, when there were fears of a bigger conflict with Iran. The market quickly gave up those gains, but the boost it got from trade had held. —Domm
While pandemics can exact high human totals, they don't often amount to much as far as financial markets go.When scares like the current coronavirus first hit, they can exact short-term damage. For instance, the Chinese stock market fell 10% when the SARS virus appeared in 2003. Concerns about ebola took 8% off global stocks in 2014.But Capital Economics points out that markets quickly recover as the scares are contained and conditions return to normal. In fact, the MSCI China Index rose more than 15% five months after the SARS news broke. The drop in stocks during the ebola panic was erased in three weeks. A bit more caution could be warranted this time around, as China plays a larger role in the world economy. But `` the fairly fleeting market fallout from even the most severe of these instances means that we are not minded to change our forecasts for the year as a whole, '' Capital wrote. —Cox
L Brands is poised to pop at the opening of trading after Barclays issued an unusual double upgrade on the equity, with analyst Adrienne Yih telling clients `` change is afoot '' at the Victoria's Secret parent. Barclays, which now recommends buying shares, hiked its price target 100% to $ 30 from $ 15 and said it expects an announcement from management or an activist investor to launch the struggling stock higher. LB stock is up more than 4% around $ 20.80 in premarket trading around 8:10am ET. — Franck
The automaker's stock slipped 2.2% in premarket trading after UBS resumed coverage of Tesla with a sell rating. The firm expects Tesla will drop 28% in the year ahead, saying the stock has `` over-shooting right now '' after running up more than 120% in the past six months. Tesla is now the second largest automaker in the world by valuation, trailing only Toyota. —Sheetz
The firm raised its rating on GE to overweight from equal weight and lifted its price target to $ 14 from $ 11. Morgan Stanley said it sees the company in a `` budding turnaround '' and that it expects minimal disruption from Boeing's 737 Max according to analyst Joshua Pokrzywinski. The company will report its fourth-quarter earnings on January 29. — Bloom
Shares of Procter & Gamble drop more than 1% in premarket trading after the consumer giant reported quarterly revenue that fell short of estimates for the first time in five quarters. P & G posted $ 18.24 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter, less than $ 18.37 billion expected per Refinitiv. The company was hurt by a stronger dollar and a struggling baby segment, which includes Pampers diapers. At these levels, P & G was taking off 11 points from the Dow. — Li
Oil prices are down again, as traders worry that the coronavirus outbreak could lead to a substantial slowdown in air travel and therefore soft demand for jet fuel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude and international benchmark Brent crude fell to session lows of $ 55.57 and $ 62.08 per barrel respectively, their lowest levels since early December. As demand concerns weigh, investors will be closely watching the numbers released today by the U.S. Energy Information Administration on inventory for the week ending Jan. 17. Analysts are expecting a build of 500,000 barrels, according to estimates from S & P Global Platts. — Stevens
Stocks in China took a massive hit overnight as worries about the spread of the deadly coronavirus increased. The Shanghai Composite plunged 2.75%, its biggest one-day drop since May 6, when it plummeted more than 6%. The spread of the coronavirus led Chinese authorities to suspend all public transportation in the city of Wuhan, where the outbreak is believed to have originated. —Imbert
Fears about the coronavirus outbreak in China continued to weigh on travel stocks Thursday morning. Deaths from China's new virus rose to 17 on Wednesday with more than 540 cases confirmed. Shares of casino and hotel chain Wynn Resorts fell more than 4% in premarket trading and Las Vegas Sands dropped 3.9%. Cruise lines also took a hit, with shares of Norwegian Cruise Line down 2.6% and Carnival down nearly 1% in premarket trading. -Fitzgerald
Stock futures are slipping on Thursday as Procter & Gamble's quarterly results failed to impress investors while worries over the deadly coronavirus spreading dampened sentiment as well. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down just over 60 points and indicated a loss of 65 points at the open. Thursday's decline, if it holds, would be the latest pause in the market's record-setting rally as investors pore through corporate earnings results and grapple with the potential economic implications of the spreading virus in China. —Imbert
— With reporting by Michael Bloom, Michael Sheetz, Tom Franck, Jeff Cox, Patti Domm, John Melloy, Yun Li, Gina Francolla, Jesse Pound | business |
China coronavirus: Confirmed cases and where they are |
A new strain of virus that was first reported in China has killed 26 people and infected more than 800.
The total number of coronavirus cases in China rose to 830, China's National Health Commission said on Friday. There are at least 16 known cases outside mainland China, which brings the cases worldwide to 846, according to CNBC's tally.
Sometimes referred to as the Wuhan virus, it has been temporarily named the `` 2019-nCoV '' and belongs to a family of viruses known as coronaviruses, which can be transmitted from person to person.
The deadly pneumonia-like disease was first identified on Dec. 31 in the Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei province. It has since spread beyond Wuhan — which has a population of 11 million — to other major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Macao, and Hong Kong. Outside mainland China, Thailand, Vietnam, the United States, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Japan have reported cases.
The World Health Organization declined on Thursday to formally designate the new virus as a global health emergency, after postponing its decision the day before. Such a designation would give it the power to set temporary recommendations to coordinate a global health response with its 196 member countries.
Here's a snapshot of the number of known cases and where they are.
Total:846 confirmed cases ( according to CNBC's tally) 26 deaths
Number of confirmed cases: Mainland China: 830Taiwan: 1Macao: 2Hong Kong: 2Vietnam: 2Thailand: 3Japan: 2South Korea: 2Singapore: 1United States: 1
* Chinese cities or provinces with reported cases include Wuhan ( Hubei province), Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Hebei, Liaoning, Jiangsu, Fujian
As of Friday, at least 10 cities were put under lockdown.
China locked down the city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus, on Thursday in a bid to stem the spread of the disease. Transportation by bus, ferry and subway were suspended and people were told not to leave. The airport and train station in Wuhan were also temporarily closed.
Other cities that suspended transportation include Huanggang, Xiantao, Ezhou, Qianjiang, Zhijiang and Chibi, Xianning, Huangshi and Enshi. The combined population of those cities is about 33 million people.
Wuhan's city government said it would shut down all urban transport networks and suspend outgoing flights from 10 a.m. local time ( 0200 GMT) Thursday. Domestic media said some airlines were operating after the deadline, however.
State media broadcast images of one of Wuhan's transport hubs, the Hankou rail station, nearly deserted, with gates blocked or barred. The government is urging citizens not to leave the city.
Similar measures will take effect starting Friday in the nearby city of Ezhou, a city of 1 million. Theaters, internet cafes and other entertainment centers were also ordered closed, further increasing the economic costs of the response to the outbreak.
`` The lockdown... is unprecedented in public health history, so it is certainly not a recommendation the WHO has made, '' Gauden Galea, the World Health Organization's representative in Beijing, told Reuters.
China's capital city Beijing canceled major public events including two popular Lunar New Year temple fairs, the state-run Beijing News said Thursday, as authorities try to curb the outbreak.
Separately, the country's railway operator, China State Railway Group, said passengers would be able to receive full refunds on tickets nationwide starting on Friday.
— CNBC's Eunice Yoon and Evelyn Cheng, as well as The Associated Press contributed to this report. | business |
China Expands Virus Lockdown, Encircling 35 Million | WUHAN, China — The authorities drastically expanded a travel lockdown in central China on Thursday, essentially penning in more than 35 million residents to contain a deadly virus that is overwhelming hospitals and fueling fears of a pandemic.
The new limits — abruptly decreed ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, China’ s busiest travel season — were an extraordinary step that underscored the ruling Communist Party’ s deepening fears about the outbreak of a little understood coronavirus. It has killed at least 26 people and sickened more than 800 in China and at least six other countries, including the United States, according to statistics from health officials.
In Wuhan, the Hubei provincial capital of 11 million where the outbreak began, anxiety and anger prevailed as worried residents crowded into hospitals and teams of medical workers in hazmat suits sought to identify the infected.
“ They can’ t take proper care of all the people here, ” said Sun Ansheng, a man in his 50s who was waiting outside a hospital while his wife was tested for the coronavirus, so named because of the spiky halo around the microorganism.
“ The city government told us there was a virus, but they didn’ t explain enough what we should do, ” Mr. Sun said. “ They left it sounding too minor. Now look. ”
Even as the Chinese authorities imposed the new restrictions — blocking expressways, cutting flights and warning residents to stay put — experts warned that the country risked a repeat of the SARS epidemic, which broke out in China in late 2002 and spread for months while officials played down its severity.
The updated death toll, announced early Friday by Chinese officials, jumped by more than a half-dozen in 24 hours.
The World Health Organization’ s emergency committee, meeting in Geneva on Thursday for the second consecutive day, said it was too early to declare an international health emergency though it would reconvene in 10 days or less to reassess the outbreak.
The images in Wuhan offered a jarring contrast to the attempts by Chinese leaders in Beijing to project confident composure. President Xi Jinping led a toast in an ornate hall in Beijing to the Lunar New Year, which begins on Saturday, and he did not mention the crisis in his remarks to the cheerful crowd of officials and guests.
Even so, a sense of anxiety was deepening across China, with hospitals scrambling to cope with an influx of possibly infected patients and people lashing out online at the government. In Beijing, officials announced that they would temporarily close the Forbidden City.
On Thursday morning, the authorities imposed a travel lockdown in Wuhan, the industrial city at the epicenter of the outbreak. Airlines canceled hundreds of flights to Wuhan, leaving thousands of people stranded.
Later in the day, officials said they would also halt public transportation in the nearby cities of Huanggang, Ezhou, Zhijiang and Chibi, which are together home to more than nine million residents. And by Friday, restrictions had extended to Xiantao and Qianjiang, two other cities that include large rural populations.
“ This was a very difficult choice, ” Wang Xiaodong, the governor of Hubei Province, which includes Wuhan and the other locked-down cities, told Chinese state television. “ Although Wuhan has taken a series of measures to ease things, there are certainly many hardships. ”
An announcement Friday in the Hubei Daily, the province’ s official newspaper, indicated that the restrictions could vary from city to city. In Zhijiang, one of the cities listed, shops and businesses were ordered to close, except for supermarkets, food markets, and other ones essential for daily life.
Some residents in Wuhan spoke speculatively of trying to skirt the blockade by driving on rural back roads to evade police checkpoints.
“ It’ s serious, but not that serious, ” said Wang Mengkai, a worker in an electronics parts factory who was stuck at the Wuhan Railway Station, hoping to figure out a way to join his family in Henan Province for the Lunar New Year celebrations. “ If we can’ t get out on a train, we’ ll try putting together a car with a driver, ” he said.
Anger and frustration spread among Wuhan residents lined up at hospitals seeking diagnosis and treatment for coughs and fevers. Most residents interviewed said they could see the logic of travel restrictions. But many accused officials of having failed to ensure that enough medical workers were properly trained, while medical workers reported shortfalls of critical protective gear such as masks and goggles.
“ I’ m willing to accept that we have to stay in Wuhan, O.K., but the medical care needs to keep up, ” said Yang Lin, 28, who had come seeking treatment for what she described as a cold. “ You shouldn’ t tell us we can’ t leave, and then give us second-rate medical care. That’ s unfair. ”
Several residents said they had gone from hospital to hospital and lined up for hours, only to be sent home with medicine and instructions to seek further treatment if symptoms persisted.
Doctors told some patients of insufficient hospital beds and testing kits. Some residents worry officials are underreporting the number of people ill with the virus, although the government has warned of dire consequences for those who hide or delay reporting cases.
“ The government did not fulfill its duty, ” Du Hanrong, 56, a retiree, said by telephone. “ They just are doing things hastily and carelessly. ”
The Wuhan city government acknowledged that crowds were forming at hospitals, and it came under intensifying criticism from scientists and the public, who described the response as too little, too late.
Experts said that the mass travel restrictions, while understandable, would do little to stop the spread of the virus outside China, as many infected people had already left Wuhan.
“ The horse is already out of the barn, ” said Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, an epidemiologist at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, who had assisted the Chinese authorities in the response to SARS.
In an unusually blunt rebuke, Dr. Guan Yi, a prominent Hong Kong scientist who also assisted in the SARS crisis, said officials had obstructed his efforts to investigate the outbreak during a trip to Wuhan this week.
“ I consider myself a veteran in battles, ” he said in an interview published Thursday by the influential magazine Caixin, citing his experience with bird flu, SARS, and other outbreaks. “ But with this Wuhan pneumonia, I feel extremely powerless. ”
On Thursday, in what experts described as a somewhat reassuring sign, the Chinese authorities released details about 18 of the people who had died in the outbreak, showing that the disease has so far largely killed older men, many with underlying health problems. But the 18th victim was the first to have died hundreds of miles from the Wuhan epicenter, punctuating the risk of fatal cases far from where the virus was first reported.
Experts said the severity of the outbreak would depend on whether other epicenters develop, as happened during the SARS crisis. But they acknowledged that much remains unknown, including how easily the new virus spreads between people.
Wuhan sits astride the mighty Yangtze River, and the restaurants and hotels along its banks — usually busy in the holiday season — were mostly shut. Retail streets were desolate, and the roads were often eerily empty.
But cars crowded around seven hospitals across Wuhan that have been designated as reception points for residents with high fevers that may have been caused by the new coronavirus. Some people waiting outside clinics in a drizzly rain said that their family members had lined up for much of the day to be checked by a doctor.
After SARS broke out nearly 20 years ago, the Chinese government took steps to improve its public health system, including monitoring infectious diseases. But the lingering public distrust created by cover-ups of SARS and other health threats appears to have undercut those achievements.
Updated June 12, 2020
Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus — whether it’ s surface transmission or close human contact — is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.
So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “ very rare, ” but she later walked back that statement.
A study by European scientists is the first to document a strong statistical link between genetic variations and Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Having Type A blood was linked to a 50 percent increase in the likelihood that a patient would need to get oxygen or to go on a ventilator, according to the new study.
The unemployment rate fell to 13.3 percent in May, the Labor Department said on June 5, an unexpected improvement in the nation’ s job market as hiring rebounded faster than economists expected. Economists had forecast the unemployment rate to increase to as much as 20 percent, after it hit 14.7 percent in April, which was the highest since the government began keeping official statistics after World War II. But the unemployment rate dipped instead, with employers adding 2.5 million jobs, after more than 20 million jobs were lost in April.
Mass protests against police brutality that have brought thousands of people onto the streets in cities across America are raising the specter of new coronavirus outbreaks, prompting political leaders, physicians and public health experts to warn that the crowds could cause a surge in cases. While many political leaders affirmed the right of protesters to express themselves, they urged the demonstrators to wear face masks and maintain social distancing, both to protect themselves and to prevent further community spread of the virus. Some infectious disease experts were reassured by the fact that the protests were held outdoors, saying the open air settings could mitigate the risk of transmission.
Exercise researchers and physicians have some blunt advice for those of us aiming to return to regular exercise now: Start slowly and then rev up your workouts, also slowly. American adults tended to be about 12 percent less active after the stay-at-home mandates began in March than they were in January. But there are steps you can take to ease your way back into regular exercise safely. First, “ start at no more than 50 percent of the exercise you were doing before Covid, ” says Dr. Monica Rho, the chief of musculoskeletal medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago. Thread in some preparatory squats, too, she advises. “ When you haven’ t been exercising, you lose muscle mass. ” Expect some muscle twinges after these preliminary, post-lockdown sessions, especially a day or two later. But sudden or increasing pain during exercise is a clarion call to stop and return home.
States are reopening bit by bit. This means that more public spaces are available for use and more and more businesses are being allowed to open again. The federal government is largely leaving the decision up to states, and some state leaders are leaving the decision up to local authorities. Even if you aren’ t being told to stay at home, it’ s still a good idea to limit trips outside and your interaction with other people.
Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. ( Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)
Taking one’ s temperature to look for signs of fever is not as easy as it sounds, as “ normal ” temperature numbers can vary, but generally, keep an eye out for a temperature of 100.5 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. If you don’ t have a thermometer ( they can be pricey these days), there are other ways to figure out if you have a fever, or are at risk of Covid-19 complications.
The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’ t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks don’ t replace hand washing and social distancing.
If you’ ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.
If you’ re sick and you think you’ ve been exposed to the new coronavirus, the C.D.C. recommends that you call your healthcare provider and explain your symptoms and fears. They will decide if you need to be tested. Keep in mind that there’ s a chance — because of a lack of testing kits or because you’ re asymptomatic, for instance — you won’ t be able to get tested.
Dali Yang, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, said that while the current response has benefited from China’ s improved technical capabilities since the SARS crisis, “ what I find astounding was how the Wuhan authorities consistently downplayed the seriousness of the situation. ”
The lessons from SARS, he said in an email, were “ that it’ s important to let the public know and get the public to modify their behavior. ”
Still, China’ s leaders maintained an unruffled face. The Communist Party’ s most influential news outlets did not feature the crisis, choosing instead to promote Mr. Xi’ s New Year speech and cheery reports about the holiday season.
On Thursday, China Central Television, the state broadcaster, treated the situation in Wuhan as a footnote in its evening newscast, one of the most watched television programs in China, airing a roughly one-minute report on the outbreak. Experts said Mr. Xi appeared to be trying to prevent a sense of panic and to limit criticism of the party’ s response.
“ The top priority will be to keep coverage from asking more probing questions about how China’ s institutions have responded, questions that might lead to criticism of the government, ” said David Bandurski, co-director of the China Media Project, a group affiliated with the University of Hong Kong.
Some internet users found ways around government censorship to criticize the response by local officials, saying on social media that they worried about a repeat of the SARS crisis. Many said they were also concerned about possible food shortages and higher prices on everyday goods.
Mao Shoulong, a professor of public administration at Renmin University in Beijing, said the Wuhan government had made a series of missteps that had eroded public confidence.
“ They failed the test, ” Professor Mao said. “ They just copied the SARS situation, making small things turn into a big problem. ”
Chris Buckley reported from Wuhan, China, and Javier C. Hernández from Beijing. Elsie Chen, Yiwei Wang and Zoe Mou contributed research. | business |
China's coronavirus will be a negative for some markets until it stops | As China's Wuhan virus spreads, it is expected to continue slamming Chinese and other financial markets, but economists say it may ultimately have more impact on sentiment than be a lasting negative for the economy or markets.
Strategists also point to the reaction in Chinese and other Asian markets following the SARS virus, which declined as the outbreak spread but bounced back once it was contained.
For now, strategists expect a more direct impact in Asian markets with a less intense hit to U.S. stocks though investors have been moving into the safety of U.S. Treasury bonds. The hit to U.S. stocks would be far greater if the virus proves to be more deadly than it is now believed to be or infects large numbers of people both inside and outside of China.
On Thursday, Shanghai's stock market tumbled nearly 2.8% and the yuan weakened, as China's government took the extreme step of closing off all public transportation in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people where the virus was believed to have started. Two more cities were also put on lockdown.
Shanghai stocks are now closed for one week for the celebration of the Chinese lunar new year.
U.S. stocks were weaker Thursday with the Dow falling as much as 219 points, but it was just slightly lower in afternoon trading after the World Health Organization declared it was too early to call the coronavirus a global emergency.
`` What happened here is everybody was shocked they would shut down a city of 11 million people. That made it sound like they were more worried about it. It's still a factor, '' said Art Cashin, director of floor operations at UBS. Cashin said if the outbreak is large in China and hits its economy, that weakness would spread globally. If the outbreak reaches the U.S., `` it would be a larger hit. ''
China's response has been a stark contrast to its slower reaction during the spread of SARS, which is the outbreak most compared to the current virus. There were an estimated 8,000 people infected with SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, and nearly 800 died, during late 2002 and 2003. The current virus, known as 2019-nCoV, has infected about 830 individuals and killed 25.
`` The global response is much more proactive. China is being much more transparent. The virus appears less virulent, '' said Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Global Advisors. `` On the other hand, because the world is more mobile now, it has the possibility of spreading quickly. It's impossible to predict where it goes. There are parts of the market that were questioning any big rebound on the trade deal even before this came out. ''
At the start of the SARS epidemic, the U.S. stock market was just coming out of a bear market, but it hit another low in the first quarter, 2003 on concerns about the outbreak, he said. `` It did result in a retest of the '02 lows in March '03, but then that was the end of that bear market, '' said Boockvar.
He expects any hit to the U.S. market to be less severe than in China's markets, unless the outbreak intensifies. `` The [ U.S. ] stock market has taken on a life of its own in terms of momentum. I think what the Fed will announce in terms of its balance sheet next week will have more impact than the coronavirus, '' he said.
In commodities markets, there has been a dramatic reaction. Globally, oil and refined petroleum products, like jet fuel, diesel and gasoline, have been hit by fears the virus will slow global transportation and chill commerce and travel within China. Brent crude futures are down 4.5% for the week so far, about the same as copper futures, which have fallen on fears of Chinese slowdown could hurt global growth.
`` When we compare it with SARS, it looks like the mortality rate is lower. A counter point is that China is far more connected with the rest of the world than it was in 2003. I think the number of people from China flying around the world has gone up by five to 10 times than it was in 2003, '' said Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics.
Williams noted SARS impacted China's economy by 5 percentage points and quickly bounced back. But he said it's too soon to even try to gauge the impact of the current virus.
`` As long as people think it is going to pass, then the impact on actual production will actually be quite small, '' he said. `` At some point, people will return to the shops. It isn't like a long run impact on demand. ''
The virus has roiled markets just as investors have been looking for benefits from the U.S.-China trade agreement, signed by the two countries earlier this month.
`` Sentiment had been improving. There had been signs that China's economy was turning around. Some of that was the trade deal, but not all of it, '' said Williams. `` [ The virus ] has certainly led sentiment to worsen quite sharply over the past few days. But markets can overshoot. As long as the outbreak is brought under control at some point, we 'll see the market pick up again. ''
With the SARS outbreak, markets quickly rebounded. `` Within a few weeks in 2003, the Chinese equity markets had made up a lot of their losses, '' said Williams.
When the first cases of SARS were discovered in November, 2002, the Shanghai stock market had already been falling. It hit its low point near year end, before recovering to November's level in January. Shanghai stocks took another dip later in the year, recovering those losses by January 2004.
Hong Kong's stock market, which was traded more by the international community, fell about 16%, between November, 2002 and the next April. It recovered those losses by July, in the month after the World Health Organization gave Hong Kong the all clear.
Larry Hu, head of China economics at Macquarie Capital said the worst is still yet to come on the Wuhan virus because it is early in the outbreak.
`` The lesson from SARS suggests that the turning point for sentiment will come only after the number of new infections starts falling, '' said Hu, in a note. The `` … bad news is that the largest people movement on the planet is underway right now as Lunar New Year is in three days. Moreover, compared with 17 years ago, both inbound and outbound travelers have increased multiple times in China. ''
The Chinese economy is not expected to suffer a large or even lasting hit, but economists are reluctant to put an estimate on it until there is more information on the nature of the virus and how far it will spread. Hu said the impact from SARS was manageable and didn't last long, trimming China's quarterly GDP growth by 2 percentage points from 11.1% year over year to 9.1% during the third quarter.
`` Unsurprisingly, things were especially bad for transportation, restaurants and retail sales, but property and exports were not much affected. Then the economy rebounded quickly after SARS faded away. GDP growth rebounded to 10.0% yoy in 3Q03, '' he noted.
Morgan Stanley analysts said SARS had the biggest impact on China of any recent epidemic, like the MERS virus or Avian flu.
`` The SARS experience shows the risk of a severe short-term disruption of economic activity and underperformance of local markets, '' they wrote. They said the MSCI Hong Kong and Korea indexes underperformed by 10% and 11% respectively, as SARS escalated.
`` Market troughs tend to occur at the initial signs of incidence stabilisation. Sector-wise, healthcare and defensive sectors have outperformed during the initial outbreak phase while macro-related sectors ( Financials, Real Estate) and sectors with higher valuations, including IT, corrected the most, '' they wrote. Williams said the reaction in energy prices was probably overdone, and the sectors most impacted should be retailers and other parts of the service sector, like restaurants.
The broad iShares MSCI China ETF was down 1.6%. Yum China Holdings shares were down 5.3% in U.S. trading.
The virus is impacting a lot of economic activity around the lunar new year, with many parties canceled and gatherings discouraged. In Huanggang, a city of 7.5 million people, officials shut its public transportation system and said they were closing movie theaters, internet coffee shops and cultural facilities.
After a case was discovered in Macao, officials were considering closing casinos, if the outbreak worsens. Las Vegas Sands, which has a Macao property, was lower in early trading, but edged higher Thursday afternoon after the WHO announcement.
Claudia Galimberti of S & P Global Platts said he expects that the outbreak has already impacted 200,000 barrels of refined products, mostly jet fuel. He said the shutdown of transportation in Hubei province has probably eliminated about 50,000 to 70,000 barrels a day of demand, with about 20,000 barrels of that jet fuel and the rest diesel and gasoline. Those barrels will be off the market until the province is no longer quarantined. Wuhan is the capital city of Hubei.
Source: S & P Global Platts Analytics
`` If we have something like SARS right now, we should have 700,000 barrels a day [ disrupted ], primarily in jet fuels and primarily within China, Southeast Asia and South Asia.... For now, we say 700,000 is the worst case. We're probably going to have something in the order of 150,000 barrels if we are able to contain the virus, and it has a lower mortality rate than SARS, '' he said.
Globally, jet fuel demand is about 7.1 million barrels a day, he said.
`` The impact is not tremendous, '' he said. `` Just because people are in fear of this virus, they are canceling their trips.... It's tiny, but in the oil market everything is about market economics. Relatively small changes can cause a large drop in prices. '' | business |
Novel Coronavirus that recently emerged in China: Research underway to address latest viral threat -- ScienceDaily | Dr. Fauci and his co-authors, Hilary D. Marston, M.D., M.P.H., of NIAID, and Catharine I. Paules, M.D., of Penn State University College of Medicine, note that human CoVs historically have been regarded as relatively benign causes of the common cold. In 2002, however, a novel, highly pathogenic CoV emerged in China that caused 8,098 recorded cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome ( SARS), including 774 deaths, and cost the global economy billions of dollars. Classic public health measures brought the outbreak to an end.
Another CoV jumped from animals to humans in 2012 to cause of Middle East respiratory syndrome ( MERS). Unlike SARS-CoV, which has not caused additional human cases since being eliminated within several months of the initial outbreak, MERS-CoV continues to smolder due to sporadic transmission from camels -- the virus's intermediate host -- to people, and limited chains of person-to-person transmission.
The latest CoV to emerge is the 2019 novel coronavirus ( 2019-nCoV), recognized by Chinese authorities in Wuhan on December 31, 2019. It has spread beyond Wuhan to other Chinese cities and to multiple countries, including at least one confirmed case in the United States. The Viewpoint authors write, `` While the trajectory of this outbreak is impossible to predict, effective response requires prompt action from the standpoint of classic public health strategies to the timely development and implementation of effective countermeasures. ''
Current studies at NIAID-funded institutions and by scientists in NIAID laboratories include efforts that build on previous work on SARS- and MERS-CoVs. For example, researchers are developing diagnostic tests to rapidly detect 2019-nCoV infection and exploring the use of broad-spectrum anti-viral drugs to treat 2019-nCoVs, the authors note. NIAID researchers also are adapting approaches used with investigational SARS and MERS vaccines to jumpstart candidate vaccine development for 2019-nCoV. Advances in technology since the SARS outbreak have greatly compressed the vaccine development timeline, the authors write. They indicate that a candidate vaccine for 2019-nCoV could be ready for early-stage human testing in as little as three months as compared to 20 months for early-stage development of an investigational SARS vaccine.
The authors conclude that, `` the emergence of yet another outbreak of human disease caused by a pathogen from a viral family formerly thought to be relatively benign underscores the perpetual challenge of emerging infectious diseases and the importance of sustained preparedness. '' | science |
Davos 2020: Carrie Lam says Hong Kong's ready to deal with coronavirus | DAVOS, Switzerland — The coronavirus is bringing back ghosts of the past to Hong Kong, but the city's chief executive, Carrie Lam, said the territory is ready to deal with the virus.
Coronavirus, which was first diagnosed less than a month ago, has killed at least 18 people and infected more than 650 people around the world. In China, where a total of 639 cases have been detected so far, major cities are on quarantine and Lunar New Year celebrations have been canceled.
`` Hong Kong has learned from the past, '' Lam told an audience at an informal event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday.
`` We have paid a huge price for this deadly disease that we encountered 17 years ago and since then we built a robust and resilient system, '' the city's leader said.
In 2003, the city saw an outbreak of SARS. In less than three months, a total of 1,750 cases were identified and 286 people died of the disease, severe acute respiratory syndrome, according to data from the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.
`` I am cautiously confident that the system we have built … will take us out of this current problem, '' Lam said.
She added that there are isolation wards in hospitals that are ready and that two cases of the virus have been confirmed so far in Hong Kong. | business |
Why snakes probably aren’ t spreading the new China virus | A team of researchers pointed to the many-banded krait snake as one possible source of the coronavirus that originated in Asia.
Credit: Alamy
As human cases rise in a
mysterious viral outbreak that originated in China
, scientists are rushing to identify the animals, where they suspect the epidemic began. In a controversial study published last night, a team of researchers in China claimed to have an answer: snakes.
But other scientists say there is no proof that viruses such as those behind the outbreak can infect species other than mammals and birds. “ Nothing supports snakes being involved, ” says David Robertson, a virologist at the University of Glasgow, UK.
China coronavirus: Six questions scientists are asking
The pathogen responsible for the outbreak belongs to a large family called coronaviruses, which includes the viruses that cause severe acute respiratory syndrome ( SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome ( MERS), as well as those behind the common cold. The latest virus — currently known as 2019-nCoV — is most closely related to SARS and related viruses that circulate in bats. But these can also infect other animals that can pass the virus to humans. Many scientists suspect that an unknown animal carrying 2019-nCoV spread the virus to humans at a live seafood and wild animal market in Wuhan, where the first cases were documented in December.
“ The intermediate host is the missing piece of the puzzle: how have all these people got infected? ” says Robertson.
Hedgehogs, chickens and bats
A team led by Wei Ji, a microbiologist at Peking University Health Science Center School of Basic Medical Sciences in Beijing, looked for a sign that 2019-nCoV had adapted to any specific animal host.
Most amino acids are encoded by multiple codons — sequences of three DNA or RNA nucleotide triplets that encode amino acids. One way that viruses adapt is by encoding proteins using the same choice of codons as their host. Wei’ s team compared the codons favoured by 2019-nCoV with those preferred by potential hosts including hedgehogs, pangolins, bats, chickens, humans and snakes.
How quickly does the Wuhan virus spread?
The team reported that 2019-nCoV’ s choice of codons was most similar to those used by two snakes:
Bungarus multicinctus
( the many-banded krait) and
Naja atra
( the Chinese cobra). Snakes were sold at the Wuhan seafood and animal market, the researchers note. “ Taken together, snakes could be the most likely wildlife animal reservoir for the 2019-nCoV, ” they write in a paper published on 22 January in the
Journal of Medical Virology
1
.
Robertson says it’ s unlikely that 2019-nCoV has infected any secondary animal host for long enough to alter its genome significantly. “ It takes a long time for such a process to play out, ” he says.
Evidence gap
“ They have no evidence snakes can be infected by this new coronavirus and serve as a host for it, ” says Paulo Eduardo Brandão, a virologist at the University of São Paulo who is investigating whether coronaviruses can infect snakes at all. “ There’ s no consistent evidence of coronaviruses in hosts other than mammals and Aves ( birds). ”
Stop the Wuhan virus
Wei’ s team has not yet responded to e-mails from
Nature
’ s news team seeking comment on the paper and the criticism it has received.
Many researchers are sceptical that the animal host or hosts of 2019-nCoV can be identified without further field and laboratory work. Many hope that genetic tests of animals or environmental sources, such as cages and containers, from the Wuhan market will turn up clues.
A mammal is the most likely candidate, says Cui Jie, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute of Shanghai who was part of a team that
identified SARS-related viruses in bats
from a cave in Yunnan province in southwestern China in 2017
2
. SARS and 2019-nCoV are part of a virus subgroup known as betacoronaviruses. Fieldwork in the wake of the 2002–03 SARS outbreak has found such viruses only in mammals, Cui says. “ Clearly this 2019-nCoV is a mammalian virus. ” | science |
WHO officials try to contain China coronavirus — as well as public fears | World health officials hesitated Wednesday to designate an outbreak of a flu-like coronavirus that's killed at least 17 people as a global emergency, trying to contain the fast-spreading illness without unnecessarily spooking global trade.
The World Health Organization is set to reconvene Thursday after an emergency committee of international health experts were split on deciding whether the virus should be classified as a `` public health emergency of international concern, '' Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists. That gives the organization the power to set temporary recommendations to coordinate a global health response with its 196 member countries, including the United States.
The previously unknown, flu-like coronavirus strain sent a chill through global markets this week. It's believed to have emerged from an animal market in central Wuhan city, China with cases now detected across Asia and as far away as the United States. Deaths from China's new virus rose to 17 on Wednesday with 571 confirmed cases so far, increasing fears of contagion from an infection suspected to originate from illegally traded wildlife.
Stay up to date with the latest on the coronavirus outbreak news here.
WHO physicians said they needed more data before declaring a global emergency, but the virus is now spreading through close human contact and in health-care settings, they said. One of the criteria used to determine whether it's an international threat is whether the disease spreads locally once it arrives in new parts of the world, `` and that's a nuanced and important distinction to make, '' Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's health emergencies programme, said on the call.
The other main criteria is whether it's already interfered or will likely interfere with trade and travel, he said. The WHO committee's goal, he said is to contain an outbreak without needlessly disrupting economic activity just by declaring a global health crisis.
`` There's a balance here to be struck and that balance is something the emergency committee tries to address in their advice to the director general, '' he said.
The impact on global trade and travel was felt from Beijing to Seattle — where a U.S. traveler was under quarantine with the virus in a Snohomish County, Washington hospital after flying back from Wuhan, U.S. health officials said Tuesday. U.S. health officials said they would begin screenings at major airports in Chicago and Atlanta, in addition to the screenings underway at Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York airports, in an attempt to control the spread.
Fears that the coronavirus could disrupt travel and commerce and slow economic growth sent a chill through global markets this week, hitting Asian stocks hard as investors grew concerned that the country's Lunar New Year holiday, which begins Saturday, could worsen the spread as millions of Chinese nationals travel domestically and abroad. Confirmation of the first U.S. case Tuesday depressed copper and oil prices, sending investors into safe havens, such as U.S. Treasurys and German bunds. Goldman Sachs predicted that the outbreak could shave $ 3 from oil prices due to a slowdown in air travel.
Already, across China, companies from Foxconn to Huawei Technologies and HSBC Holdings were handing out masks and warning staff to avoid Wuhan. Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of Apple supplier Foxconn, said he was advising employees not to visit China.
Some major U.S. companies, including General Motors and Ford, announced that they would also temporarily restrict employee travel and reports from Chinese state media that government officials in Wuhan were suspending all public transportation and asking residents to not leave the city due to the outbreak likely didn't help ease fears.
Physicians have compared the outbreak to the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which had a short incubation period of two to seven days. At the time, WHO officials said it was less infectious than the flu. While there were just eight confirmed cases in the U.S., it infected 8,098 people and killed 774.
SARS, however, didn't spread as fast in its first few weeks as the current coronavirus outbreak, according to WHO data. It took almost two months for SARS to spread to 456 people. By comparison, the 2019 coronavirus has already infected more than 571 people in less than a month.
WHO officials said the mortality rate from the new virus, is 3.8% as of Wednesday, which is low compared to other outbreaks. WHO officials have investigators on the ground in China gathering more data, which committee members said they need before calling it a global health emergency. The SARS outbreak two decades ago had a mortality rate of about 10%.
They said scientists are building on research and development advancements that have been made from the last outbreaks and could be applicable here.
WHO doesn't enact the emergencies lightly, health experts say. The last time WHO declared a global health emergency was in 2019 for the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo that killed more than 2,000 people. The agency also declared global emergencies for the 2016 Zika virus, the 2009 H1N1 swine flu and the 2014 polio and Ebola outbreaks.
CNBC's Michael Wayland and Leslie Josephs contributed to this article. | business |
Coronavirus: CDC advises against nonessential travel to Wuhan, China | The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday escalated its health warning to a level 3 as the coronavirus continues to spread, recommending that people avoid all nonessential travel to Wuhan, China.
The State Department reiterated its level 2 travel advisory, which urges people to exercise caution if traveling to an affected area.
An initial State Department website post erroneously showed that it had raised its travel advisory to a level 3, but the department later said in a statement to CNBC that it had made a mistake and that the travel advisory remains at a level 2.
`` Today, we updated the China Travel Advisory to include additional information on the outbreak. The Advisory remains a Level 2: Exercise Increased Caution, '' a State Department spokesperson told CNBC. `` Earlier today, the Travel.State.gov briefly displayed an inaccurate version of the Advisory due to a technical error – we apologize for any confusion. Again, the Advisory level has not changed. ''
The total number of coronavirus cases in China rose to 634 on Thursday as local authorities quarantined at least two major cities and canceled Lunar New Year's events in Beijing, China state television reported.
Chinese authorities have suspended air and train travel in Wuhan, which is under quarantine.
The virus — which was first diagnosed less than a month ago — has already killed at least 17 people in China and infected roughly 650 people around the world, including firsts in Singapore and Saudi Arabia, according to multiple reports from international and local media. Medical teams have been dispatched to affected cities, and hospitals are asking for donations of essential items including face masks, eye protectors, protective uniforms and sanitizer.
Local authorities in China have quarantined Wuhan and Huanggang, which have a combined population of 17 million, and planned a similar lockdown for Ezhou, a city of 1 million, on Friday. Travel bans were in effect for at least seven cities, including Wuhan, where the virus was first flagged to world health officials on Dec. 31.
China is offering to refund domestic airline and train tickets nationwide. An estimated 246,000 travelers arrived in Wuhan via either plane or train on Thursday before all transportation in and out of the city was shut down. The number of people who left the city is currently unknown.
U.S. health officials began screening passengers flying from China at major international airports over the weekend and confirmed the country's first case on Tuesday. A Washington state man is quarantined with the virus in a hospital outside of Seattle after flying back from Wuhan, U.S. health authorities said.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday told `` Squawk Box '' co-host Joe Kernen that `` we have it totally under control. ''
`` It's one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It's going to be just fine, '' Trump said in an interview from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Correction: The State Department issued the travel warning. An earlier story misidentified the agency that issued the warning. | business |
Nikkei retreats as China virus spreads, energy-linked firms sag | - Tokyo shares dropped on Thursday, led by energy-related and cyclical stocks, as investors remained anxious about the spread of a new flu-like virus in China and awaited Japanese corporate earnings.
The Nikkei share average dropped 0.5% to 23,901.72 in mid-morning trade, giving up nearly all the gains made in the previous session, while the broader Topix fell 0.4% to 1,736.65.
A broad range of shares fell, with all but one of the Tokyo Stock Exchange's 33 industry subindexes in negative territory.
Traders said a sharp slide in commodity prices, partly due to worries about China's virus outbreak, weighed on commodity-related and cyclical stocks.
Deaths from China's new coronavirus rose to 17 on Wednesday, with nearly 600 cases confirmed. The outbreak has evoked memories of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ( SARS) in 2002-2003, another coronavirus which broke out in China and killed nearly 800 people in a global pandemic.
Among the Tokyo bourse's subsectors, sea transport, mining and oil and coal products were the worst performing subindexes, declining by 2.0%, 1.9% and 1.8%, respectively.
Bucking the overall weak trend, semiconductor automated test equipment ( ATE) maker Advantest jumped 4.1% after its U.S. competitor Teradyne's fourth quarter earnings beat estimates.
In Japan, Nidec Corp and Disco Corp are due to announce their financial results for the October-December quarter later on Thursday. ( Reporting by Tomo Uetake; Editing by Jacqueline Wong) | business |
China Eastern Airlines: 2000 Taiwanese businesspeople grounded in Wuhan during LNY holiday | As Chinese authorities have locked down Wuhan, the epicenter of the potentially deadly coronavirus outbreak, around 2,000 Taiwanese businesspeople in the city are believed to have been prevented from returning home to celebrate the Lunar New Year holiday with their families.
According to media reports, all public and air transportation systems in Wuhan have all been suspended since Thursday morning ( Jan. 23) after the number of confirmed cases in China skyrocketed to 571 and the official death toll rose to 17. To prevent the spread of the virus, citizens are not allowed to leave the city.
Taiwan's Ministry of Transportation confirmed the news, saying a total of 12 outbound flights from Wuhan to Taiwan have been suspended under the new quarantine order, with around 2,000 Taiwanese businesspeople likely stranded in the city.
The flights being affected include those operated by China Airlines ( Mondays and Thursdays: Taoyuan-Wuhan); China Eastern Airlines ( Mondays and Thursdays: Taoyuan-Wuhan); China Southern Airlines ( Fridays: Taoyuan-Wuhan); Mandarin Airlines ( Wednesdays and Saturdays: Taipei-Wuhan); China Eastern Airlines ( Fridays and Sundays: Kaohsiung-Wuhan); and China Southern Airlines ( Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays: Kaohsiung-Wuhan).
However, the chairman of the Taiwanese business association in Wuhan told CNA that the information is not correct and that a majority of the more than 2,000 Taiwanese businesspeople have returned home as scheduled, with only a small number of them stranded.
Meanwhile, around 130 people in 8 tour groups from Wuhan have been closely monitored during their stay in Taiwan. The tourists have been asked to wear masks at all times in enclosed areas and to take their temperatures every day. The last group is scheduled to leave on Jan. 28, according to the tourism bureau.
Taiwan's immigration office also announced it has abolished permits issued to the tour groups from Wuhan scheduled to arrive before the end of January in light of the outbreak. Up to 429 people in 24 tour groups are affected.
© Pakistan Press International, source Asianet-Pakistan | business |
WHO says not declaring virus a global emergency but taking it seriously | - The World Health Organisation ( WHO) said on Thursday that the new coronavirus that has emerged in China and spread to several other countries does not yet constitute an international emergency but it was tracking its evolution `` every minute ''.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the announcement after its Emergency Committee of 16 independent experts reviewed the latest evidence and made its recommendations, which he accepted.
`` Make no mistake, though, this is an emergency in China, '' Tedros told a news conference at WHO headquarters in Geneva. `` But it has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one. ''
China put millions of people on lockdown on Thursday in two cities at the epicentre of a coronavirus outbreak that has killed 18 people and infected more than 630, as authorities around the world worked to prevent a global pandemic. ( Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay Editing by Alexandra Hudson) | business |
IBM CEO's Davos Panel Explores Precision Regulation of Emerging Tech | At the World Economic Forum in Davos, IBM launched the IBM Policy Lab – a new global forum aimed at advancing bold, actionable policy recommendations for technology’ s toughest challenges – at an event hosted by IBM Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty that explored the intersection of regulation and trust in emerging technology ( full transcript below).
The IBM Policy Lab, led by co-directors Ryan Hagemann and Jean-Marc Leclerc, two long-standing experts in technology and public policy, provides a global vision and actionable recommendations to help policymakers harness the benefits of innovation while building societal trust in a world reshaped by data and emerging technology. Its approach is grounded in the belief that technology can continue to disrupt and improve civil society while protecting individual privacy, and that responsible companies have an obligation to help policymakers address these complex questions.
Christopher Padilla, Vice President of Government & Regulatory Affairs, IBM, said: “ The IBM Policy Lab will help usher in and build a new era of trust in technology. IBM pushes the boundaries of technology every day, but we also recognize our responsibility relating to trust and transparency and address how technology is impacting society. I see an abundance of technology but a shortage of actionable policy ideas to ensure we protect people while allowing innovation to thrive. The IBM Policy Lab will set a new standard for how business can partner with governments and other stakeholders to help serve the interests of society. ”
Ahead of the launch event, the IBM Policy Lab released landmark priorities for the precision regulation of artificial intelligence, as well as a new Morning Consult study on attitudes toward regulation of emerging technology. The perspective, Precision Regulation for Artificial Intelligence, lays out a regulatory framework for organizations involved in developing or using AI based on accountability, transparency, and fairness and security. This builds upon IBM’ s calls for a “ precision regulation ” approach to facial recognition and illegal online content—laws tailored to hold companies more accountable, without becoming over-broad in a way that hinders innovation or the larger digital economy. These approaches are reinforced by a Morning Consult survey, sponsored by IBM, which found that 62% of Americans and 7 in 10 Europeans responding prefer a precision regulation approach for technology, with less than 10% of respondents in either region supporting broad regulation of tech.
IBM’ s policy paper on AI regulation outlines five policy imperatives for companies, whether they are providers or owners of AI systems that can be reinforced with government action. They include:
These recommendations come as the new European Commission has indicated that it will legislate on AI within the first 100 days of 2020 and the White House has released new guidelines for regulation of AI.
The new Morning Consult study commissioned by the IBM Policy Lab also found that 85% of Europeans and 81% of Americans surveyed support consumer data protection in some form, and that 70% of Europeans and 60% of Americans responding support AI regulation. Moreover, 74% of American and 85% of EU respondents agree that artificial intelligence systems should be transparent and explainable, and strong pluralities in both countries believe that disclosure should be required for companies creating or distributing AI systems. Nearly 3 in 4 Europeans and two-thirds of Americans of respondents support regulations such as conducting risk assessments, doing pre-deployment testing for bias and fairness, and reporting to consumers and businesses that an AI system is being used in decision-making.
In addition to its new AI perspective, the IBM Policy Lab has released policy recommendations on regulating facial recognition, technological sovereignty, and climate change, as well as principles to guide a digital European future.
The IBM-hosted event in Davos, Walking the Tech Tightrope: How to Balance Trust with Innovation, also featured the President and CEO of Siemens AG Joe Kaeser and White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Coordination Chris Liddell. CNN International Anchor and Correspondent Julia Chatterley moderated the discussion.
Hello, my name is Chris Padilla. I’ m Vice President of Government Affairs for IBM. This event today serves as the official launch of the IBM Policy Lab, which is meant to offer bold solutions to public policy problems of today, particularly focused on emerging issues around technology policy, skills and education and workforce policy.
It will be based in Washington and in Brussels; and we’ ll try to offer the point of view of IBM for public policymakers and the public at large, stakeholders, if you will, on specific actionable recommendations on how policymakers can address tough issues, like facial recognition or the regulation of online content, or today, as we’ re announcing in a new paper, ways to regulate artificial intelligence.
We’ re thrilled to have a very distinguished panel with us today to help launch the IBM Policy Lab and discuss some of those issues. So I’ m pleased to introduce Ginni Rometty, Chairman, President and CEO of IBM; Mr. Joe Kaeser, who is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Siemens, AG; also the founding partner of the Charter of Trust for Cybersecurity, of which IBM is a proud member; Chris Liddell. Chris is Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Coordination at the White House, and a strong voice on technology and innovation policy in the US government.
And to moderate and lead our discussion today, we’ re really honored to have you, Julia Chatterley, from CNN International, who has met and spoken with many of you and many experts in this field. So without further ado, Julia, over to you. Thank you all for being here.
Thank you so much and welcome everybody. Thank you so much. [ applause ] Two vital themes that I’ ve certainly been discussing, these leads have been discussing. The first, tech for good. Let’ s remember how beneficial tech can be. The second is, trust in tech. Perhaps more specifically, trust in the use of technology. And the bottom line here is trust in technology is declining. People are afraid.
I’ ve got a great stat, as I’ m known, I’ ll keep with one I promise. That 47% of people in their trust in a technology survey said, one, innovation is going too quickly. Two, it’ s leading to changes that are not good for society. We can talk about some of the recent stories, cybersecurity issues, privacy issues, data, then we can talk artificial intelligence, the use of it. All of these things, automation, the impact on jobs. It’ s no surprise that people are afraid.
The key is, how do you find the appropriate level of regulation; how do you react as a company; and what these guys are going to be talking about, which is and we’ re calling, a tightrope here, finding the right balance. Not to suppress innovation, but also to protect society. We think we’ ve got anger problems now, and we’ ll talk about this, oboy, when you hear some of the statistics that this panel will talk about.
Let’ s get on with it and hear from the experts. Is it right to be calling it a tightrope? Is that how it feels? Ginni, kick us off.
Well, I think it is because of the word balance. A friend of mine, don’ t ask me why, was trying to walk a tightrope this weekend and sent me a video of her trying to do that. And as I watched her – and thank goodness it was only this far off the ground, because she only made it two feet. And I thought – and it’ s so funny you say, because I thought well, what is it? I’ m like she has no balance.
And to me, this is a balance, because part of why we are I believe in a little bit of a fever – not a little – a fever over this is, people are not looking at it with the right balance. And it is going to be a balance between security, if I go to starkly say it, a security in innovation. And you can not – this is not an either/or discussion. I’ m passionate about this.
And I hope when – first off, I apologize for those of you standing, as the host, because we didn’ t think that would be that many people interested. So I appreciate you are and please be patient, okay? Give them more food in the back or something. Appreciate that.
Julia: We’ ll keep it lively.
But this issue about, so balanced security innovation. And if I can just add one other comment about when Julia said this is about trust, I can’ t tell you how strongly I feel this is a decade of trust. I told her, I remembered coming to Davos four or five years ago, producing a paper that said, we said, we’ re going to write down our principles for trust and transparency in this era. And everyone’ s like ohh, they weren’ t that interested.
And there was a reason we felt so strongly, and to this day – we won’ t talk skills ‘ til the end of this – but I believe at the heart of his is that people are not sure there’ s a better future here, when they take all of this technology into consideration. So yes, there’ s security issues, but I think what’ s really at stake is that is this an inclusive era? Will this digital era be an inclusive era? And if not, have/have nots get wider, societal divides get wider. People go to places you don’ t want them to go. And so I think that’ s why, yes for privacy, security, we’ re going to go down there, but this to me is as much about an inclusive way forward.
Joe Kaeser: Well, look, it depends on who you ask.
Julia: Say people.
Oh, depends on you ask. I mean if you ask the experts, the professionals, they will tell you we have a way of how to handle it, free flow of data, cybersecurity and what have you. If you ask people, the uneducated public, like tech no. They have fear because they don’ t exactly know their concern. They have fear.
The uneducated public, again, the elder generation, like I don’ t know, me maybe, maybe has more fear than somebody’ s been growing up with mean machine, human machine interfaces and intuitively deals with it. So it’ s a very, very broad topic.
I think the issue which we have is we are in the middle of the fourth industrial revolution, the Internet of Things or you call it. And like the first three, we feel tangible. When somebody was inventing the steam machine, everybody who’ s been working really hard physically, they saw oh, man, this is really good. It makes my life better. I have a better life. Second one, electrification automation. It was tangible. You could see it. So you said okay, well, actually I can see the benefit.
Now comes the fourth industrial revolution, the Internet of Things, technology. It’ s like this is about the cyber world, somewhere, somewhere, you don’ t exactly know, is this the dark force or what does it do to me? There is this uneasiness about the intangibility, what the hell is that all about? And that’ s the issue.
So what I would say is, there is fear in the uneducated public or the younger ones just dealing with stuff they would probably be sorry about 20 years later if they make their selfies when they are naked as a baby and when they’ re teenagers, they probably will like that one a lot.
And the middle thing, and this is what Ginni said, the middle thing is how to balance, how to be inclusive of experts versus uneducated is trust. That’ s exactly what it is. The question is, how are we going to build trust? Through action, through self-containment, through building a sort of an integrity of the intent; or to come with the big thing, with the regulator. And I think that’ s the environment we are in. There is no black-and-white story here. There is no binary story. We need to build one at a time.
Think about the Internet of Things. Well, free flow of data, connectivity 5G, all super, everything is connected, Internet of Things. So great. However, now we have a regulator who’ s been…
Julia: Chris, they’ re calling you a regulator.
He’ s closest to me. But I was saying, take any government, the government is used to a territorial integrity. The law is about a territorial boundary. The Internet of Things couldn’ t care less about how high you build your walls. It’ s just got to fly over, because that’ s what the connectivity will have. The question is, how do you deal with extra territorial lawmaking? There is no point in having the EU doing some stuff, United States do some stuff, China does some stuff, if we are in the countries of the world, and need to get our 500 factories together.
So that’ s the issue on the professional side, and we do need to have a regulation for that. And preferably in a global system like the WTO. Should there ever be [ overlapping talk ] renewed? You need to have that.
Julia: Don’ t worry, we’ ll talk about that.
Joe: Yeah, went a bit long, but it’ s a fact of life as it likes like in digitalization.
Julia: Mr. Chris regulator.
Yeah, sure. I totally endorse what Ginni says about balance, and I think that’ s probably going to be one of the issues, so one of the concepts we come back to. If we still with your tightrope analogy, I think the only extension I’ d make – I think tightrope is good metaphor as any – is it’ s really a series of tightropes.
So the relations (?) associated with autonomous vehicles or synthetic cancer drugs are going to be quite different to movie recommendation engines. It’ s not one-size-fits-all. And we also get quite quickly into privacy, free speech and other issues. There’ s a landscape of different issues and some of them are more severe in terms of if you fall off the tightrope than others.
I think the metaphor is great, and I think balance is a good way to think about it. And my life as a regulator, which I’ m not, but I’ m in charge of policy coordination at the White House, is I think it’ s as much about the what – I’ m sorry, is about the how as the what. So there’ s a natural tendency to leap to the conclusion, but the process by which you get to the conclusion is how you build trust, and hopefully build the best solution. And I’ m happy to talk about that.
But I think the important things in the first question is, is this is not a one-size-fits-all concept. So yes, we’ re on a tightrope for a lot of these issues; yes, the landscape is change below us; but one-size-fits-all is very unlikely to be it. So you need a very thoughtful process about getting to different results.
And arguably, big governments are on the highest tightropes of all, because you’ re in the line of fire if you get it wrong, if people get angry, if they are mistrustful, if they get injured by society; but also you want to foster innovation and economy. We’ ll come back to that.
Safety nets. Nice when the floor is only a foot below. Still get a bit of a bump, but when I’ m talking about tightropes, when I’ m thinking about tightropes, I do think about the safety nets here. And I think that goes – and we’ ll move on to the specifics here – but I think that goes to, Ginni, what you’ ve announced at Davos and the Policy Lab. Looking for that safety net, how responsible is government, is regulators and what responsibility does the private sector take in the intersection of those two things? And we’ ll start with AI, because that’ s what you’ re specifically focusing on; and then we’ ll talk about all the different tightropes that we’ ve got. It’ s a crisscross.
So again, you’ re here because you’ d like to I assume, hear just some different views of what we all think should be, could be some recommendations, right? And so one set of ours around AI, having been some of the original mothers and fathers of AI, back decades through its summers, its winters, its back. And in a strong belief that it does change 100% of jobs, didn’ t say replaced, said it changed, in some way.
And we see this happening for the good and I’ ve always said, this will be the opportunity of our time; it’ ll be the challenge of our time. And therefore, what would be pragmatic things – the speed that it’ s moving. It means that government can’ t do this alone by any stretch. It will be government and in business together.
If I could divert one quick second. We were talking before we started, Joe used all the analogies of the industrial revolutions and I said to Julia, if you really go back and look in time, when things started to happen, when people were no longer going to work in a farm and there was, as you saw, steam engines and everything else, we forget, there were times when it was not a law that you had to go to high school. There were not – the societal fabric always follows, it seems, behind the time the physical change happens. So we’ re in no different period, in some ways, than what happened before.
Back to pragmatic. It’ s happening quicker though. That is why it’ s going to be partnership now. This isn’ t like waiting for the government to make some edict. Here would be some practical recommendations, we would say. And Chris knows this. He’ s I believe a strong supporter – now maybe not everything I’ m going to say – but a strong supporter of innovation and this balance. He just said it himself.
One is, I wouldn’ t think of regulating the technology. We thought of the word precision regulation. So precision medicine. Precision medicine means if my leg hurts, the doctor does not chop my arm off. And therefore, with precision regulation, the first rule would be, regulate use of technology, not the technology itself.
Think about that for a minute. The use. So in other words, did – every one of you, well, not everyone, you have an Apple or a Samsung phone or whatever you happen to have. How many of you used your face to open it? It’ s facial recognition. I’ m going to turn it off. How do you feel about that? Now, on the other hand, if it was used to take away your civil liberties, you would feel very differently about this. So it’ s the use of how it’ s being done would be my first – our first basic recommendation.
The second thing would be, Chris did mention this on risk. Is one thing if I’ m giving you a restaurant recommendation; it’ s way different if I’ m going to recommend the top three ways to treat your particular kind of cancer. That’ s a risk-balanced set of regulations that are out there.
And the third is the one that I think has been crystal clear from the beginning on AI. Is that if you’ re going to use it, be transparent and clear about bias. Transparent meaning, I know when I’ m using it. I know who’ s trained it. I mean if I’ m going to get medical advice, do I want it trained by the unnamed internet? Or do I care that maybe five good institutions that I trust trained it?
Bias though, if I can say one last word on bias. We built software to tell you if we think there’ s bias in something. I want to pause for a minute. Very active bias is bias. You are applying some set of values to decide something’ s good or bad. You decide everyone should get a home mortgage, should not discriminate for certain – you’ ve made a set of value judgments in whatever it is.
As an example, I think you should check for bias. It’ s against the values you picked. We’ ve built software that will – it’ ll look at your algorithm built by anybody. Google doesn’ t matter. It’ ll just look for patterns. It’ s not judgmental. But I think everyone’ s got to be aware of what bias goes in.
So do it based on regulate-based – I’ ll just summarize. Regulate based on the use of the technology, not itself. I am very afraid this could go overboard. People that don’ t understand technologies could try to completely stifle the innovation. And some other country is going to go forward then. The second thing is going to be do it on a risk-based way, and the third is with transparency and with this keen eye around bias.
My first observation there and in the discussions I’ ve had with AI, there’ s so many different strains; there’ s so many different not only use purposes, but when we’ re talking about AI, algorithms, the processes, fast data processing versus human intelligence AI. So that complicates it. But I just want to bring in one stat.
That’ s right. You have to have an AI – we have an AI Ethics Officer. I am sure most, many companies nowadays are starting to do that. It’ s not black and white, to Chris’ point.
Yeah, I think it’ s easier if you deal with B2B because are experts versus experts. So pretty much know what you’ re apt to be doing in both of these companies. I think the real issue is where data from consumer go to someplace. And the question is, shouldn’ t the consumer have – or whoever gives data away to somebody else, shouldn’ t that consumer have the right to decide whether or not that data goes someplace? Or secondly, it’ s being used to something.
And this is what I always call the integrity of the intent. I think we should have a regulation where no matter who uses your data, you have a right to know what people do with your data. And you say yes or no or maybe. I think it’ s really important. It’ s integrity of the use of data. You need to know what happens with that thing. And if you say well, this is going to be taken to impact my behavior, well, I don’ t care. Well, then fine, do it. But if I say well, no, I didn’ t think that is a good idea, then stop it.
We need to have this, because otherwise you never know anymore where things travel. And the worst case is, you’ ve got the society in the world which gets manipulated by much smarter people than the last century manipulation happened coming to catastrophes. This is really what concerns me.
And what utility you’ re buying for your data as well. I mean Facebook is the obvious example. People are still adding to Facebook because they see a utility in giving up their data for free.
If you had asked me, I would have probably used that example. That’ s exactly what it is. You get a power over the people in a way that people don’ t even know about it; and once they figure it out, it’ s too late. That’ s in essence where we are at. And this can’ t be just let go and say well, may the better team win. It’ s clear who the better team is. That’ s decided.
Julia: It’ s on the tech side, not on the consumer side.
So I think there’ s a role for that public say again in the private sector. The public sector sets the minimum standards and then private sector through terms of service can decide if they want to, to experiment with more restrictive terms or different terms. And to Ginni’ s point, the public sector is likely to be more comprehensive, but slower. Private sector can experiment and do things in advance of the permanent solution, which can actually help them form the solution as well.
But I think the key in my mind is how do you get good regulation, and that’ s a more generic question. In terms of my approach, I don’ t come from the public sector in terms of background, I come from the private sector. But I use the same basic principles in the public sector as I do in the private. Which is you start with a good values-based conceptual framework; you apply that framework and you be willing to adopt, monitor and measure it and change it as time goes on.
And if you just do number one, that’ s just empty words. And there’ s plenty of that. So you actually need to take a conceptual framework and be able to apply it in a systematic fashion. If you do number one and number two without number three, you get permanent regulation, which is unlikely to actually survive the test of time. And most of us will agree that the internet is quite a different place now than it was say 20 years ago.
That’ s exactly the approach, coincidentally, we came out with our artificial intelligence regulation principles a couple weeks ago.
And so there are 10 principles which bucket into sort of 3 basic theories. The first which I think is the most important one, is engage the public. So all of these issues are unlikely to be 100 to zero issues where absolutely everyone agrees on what the regulation should be. Most issues in the political world fit into sort of 55/45, 55% of people agree, 45 don’ t, or the 80/20. Let’ s just say generously these are going to be 80/20 issues. That means 20% of the people aren’ t going to agree with it and are going to feel disenfranchised by it. Having public comment and having that debate up front is incredibly important for something like artificial intelligence.
The second is stop regulatory overreach. This is a US-based approach. Our general approach is to do the minimum amount from a regulatory point of view and do cost benefit analysis. So different jurisdictions will take a different approach where the balance is. Most of our approach in the US, and this administration, particular, is going to be to do something, but to do what we consider the minimum to protect the most number of people.
And the third is promote trustworthy artificial intelligence applied to this. That’ s going to pick up a lot of the things that Ginni was talking about, about transparency, lack of bias. So clearly, in order for people to trust it, going back to phase one, you actually have to have protections.
I think the other important aspect, and this again picks up on something that was talked about before, is there’ s a natural tendency to think we are going to regulate artificial intelligence. No, we are going to make regulations associated with activities which have artificial intelligence embedded in them. Because artificial intelligence is increasing not a thing, it is something which is embedded into other activities. So it’ s not just regulating artificial intelligence, it’ s regulating every activity that may have an artificial intelligence application.
And if you take that basic approach that I talked about, which obviously is going to differ enormously, depending on the situation, that’ s in our view at least how you’ ll get the best regulation, whatever that might be.
Julia: I look to – yeah, please.
Could I just jump in and something both that Joe and Chris said, and – now Joe obviously lives in Europe. I mean not obviously, but Joe does, if you know Joe. And Europe’ s got GDPR and there’ s how many countries now with GDPR? Chris, you know it, it’ s in the 20s or 30s or something that have followed and modeled after, right?
Joe: 5 or 7 or some.
But Chris said this word, I mean Joe teed up the privacy point on consumer and privacy. Chris teed up the point of engagement. I still think the US has yet to go through this phase, in that it needs to have – I think what Chris is describing, this engagement around this is not a technology issue, actually, whatever regulation we have is values-based regulation in this topic. So therefore, you have to engage the public in – the wide public, I mean by that — all different constituents – to have a discussion of where should the law, or where should the line be drawn? And by who?
And you can’ t just let that be decided by anyone. And in our country, in the US, the Congress has to decide. Those are laws that get written. And therefore, there has to be engagement, dialog and then courts uphold them. Courts don’ t decide those, that’ s how we do these things.
So I think your point on engagement is a really critical point for the US right now on that topic, because it’ s a values-based decision of what you want. Because like the old world, if there was a wire tapping, you got a warrant, you could do a wire tapping. I mean in the United States, if you tell something to a priest, that information is protected. I mean there’ s things – in the past there has been a dialog and a decision made on those things. We now need to do that for this world.
Can I streamline the question there a little bit? Where Europe’ s led, do you think the United States will follow? Because even if I take AI as an example here, the first line of the Executive Order is “ maintaining American leadership in artificial intelligence. ” So if we’ re looking at this as a relative competition, whether it’ s data use, whether it’ s innovation, whether it’ s artificial intelligence, is this a global solution required or is maintaining American leadership, and therefore, did in some way extra regulation as far as data privacy concerned, relatively hurt Europe?
I think it will be a global solution is what is needed. But when I look at so the EU versus the US, I’ d say there’ s much more commonality then difference. I would say, and jumping between AI and privacy, but let’ s just stick with AI.
I think most of the values that we would say were American-based values, like transparency and lack of bias I would say, the Europeans would sign up for exactly. We might argue about the implementation and the amount of prescriptiveness in the regulation or legislation, but I don’ t think the underlying values will be significantly different between most liberal democracies.
Julia: “ Maintaining American leadership ” though in something is the first line of your guidelines, is pretty punchy.
From an industrial point of view, obviously we want to promote US-based companies. But in terms of the actual regulations that sit behind it, as I say, and we are regulating the US, not the world, I don’ t think you’ ll see significant difference in the artificial intelligence area…
Joe: I mean if you think about maintaining the leadership, assuming it’ s there, which I believe it is, you don’ t need to look to Europe, you need to look to China.
Julia: Well, I was going there next.
But like it or not, and very simple, because the scalability methods, you want to try something out, it’ s good to have it scalable. And if you have 1 thousand 400 million people and a government, right or wrong – everybody needs to decide on that one – have a government which says tomorrow we go from here to there and next morning, 1.4 billion people go from here to there, a difference.
If I say something in my company, tomorrow we do it like this, next morning people start debating whether that was a good idea or not. [ laughter ]
Julia: Reflection is always useful.
Well, that’ s what big companies are all about. It’ s corporate – I think you got the former is a corporate cast, is that what he said? Something like that. I don’ t know, I don’ t know, maybe that was only in Stuttgart, but doesn’ t really matter. But anyway, what I’ m trying to say is, if you have a systemic difference in governance, state governance, and the scalability to practice on 1.4 billion people, you better figure out what you have against that one. Right or wrong? Probably the regulation.
And then it gets iffy because then you say, hey, the only one thing I can defend it is if I put regular the borders on it, then forget about IoT, free flow of data, everything is connected story. Is that going to work? And this is the sort of catch 22 we are in the middle of.
Well, I want Chris to – this to me is why Chris you’ ve written this paper and actually why Europe’ s written these things too. This is not about – scale is not the only way you win in AI. And innovation in AI, or any of these technologies, comes from a number of different factors. It comes from having the right people with the right skillsets. It comes from the creativity, it comes from the way you protect intellectual property. It comes from a whole ecosystem of things.
I for one am not giving up the that one country because of scale is going to own all the innovation in this world. I don’ t go for it. You don’ t either, really.
Well, I mean as much as I love the United States, it’ s been my second home. I worked there for six years and that’ s where I got to know the 49ers and they are going to the Super Bowl and they are going to win. But leave that important stuff, leave that important stuff aside.
What I’ m trying to say is, don’ t underestimate the capabilities of the Chinese. They are Huawei. [ Ginni: Absolutely right ] Why is that whole bus about Huawei. Well, because they are the leading – they are 5G generation by far. We’ ve tested all five of them and believe me, whether we like it or not, they are at least probably a year and a half if not two, ahead. Something.
The second topic is, I just visited Huawei, because sometimes it’ s better to talk to each other rather than about each other. I went there and they showed me industrial automation, simulation, digital . And what they intend to do in automotive. Let me tell you, hallelujah. If you are an automotive OEM provider, on any sort of electronics, you better watch out. The car of the future is nothing, nothing but the platform on wheels. That’ s what it’ s going to be.
Joe: And they have again, a million, a billion cars. So again, we go apples is scalability. And artificial intelligence, if not autonomous driving, what else can we get it started?
Chris: A couple thoughts. I mean just a word about scales.
Joe: I be provocative here.
Julia: Yes, I like it.
Ginni: That’ s why you’ re here Joe.
Julia: Chris is going to say something.
If you’ re just worried about scales (?), depending on how you measure it, somewhere between 75 and 100 democracies in the world, which have something like 4 billion people. So you actually have a liberal democracy-based set of AI principles, then scale’ s not an issue. Sure, China’ s one country and that’ s a series of countries, but let’ s assume to a large extent IBM operates in virtually all of those 75 countries, I would assume.
Secondly, the principles that you’ re looking at were based on an OECD process that went through the whole of last year. So it’ s not like they suddenly appeared from nowhere in the US only.
But the third, which I think is probably the most important is, if you think about more of an ecosystem, what’ s going to make the ecosystem win? And it’ s not just the regulatory side of it. Obviously it’ s the innovation engine, which I would put the US/European innovation engine ahead of China anytime. [ Joe: yeah ] Trust, to come back to this core principle. You can’ t force people to use technology. Adoption is going to be incredibly important. I think anyway, we’ re going to actually get adoption of cutting-edge technologies if people trust it.
And if you don’ t have citizens that trust their own government, you won’ t have adoption. So I think trust is fundamental to making the ecosystem work properly as well.
If you put sort of scale, I don’ t think it’ s a big disadvantage with the innovation system, which I think we’ re ahead of, albeit China is a formidable competitor, together with the other planks associated with trust. And when you get into trust, you get into other issues which probably not going to talk about a lot, but cybersecurity is one of them. IBM and other companies putting enormous amount in cybersecurity.
How you trust your data with private platforms is important. How you trust not to be bridged by cybersecurity is a big issue. Making sure that we have citizens who trust, or companies who trust their data with platforms like IBM is incredibly important as well. And then we get into issues like workforce development. People are only going to accept that we should be leaders in technology if they believe it’ s going to be beneficial to them. And therefore, building trust is associated with that.
If you think about the ecosystem, I think in most cases the US and its allies are at least equal to and superior to other alternatives.
I guess the only points I’ d make there very quickly is that China cares less, perhaps, about their people’ s interest in trust, than developed market nations. And the other point is, and I think this is to your point Ginni, actually, I don’ t think, from my conversations in China, they want the situation to get out of control either. The societal sweep that we’ re seeing for this kind of digitization technology, artificial intelligence, is having societal changes everywhere. And no one wants that out of control.
Can I ask about facial recognition technology? What do we think about this? Because the difference, again, in approaches here, this is something that China, other surveillance nations like Singapore, for example – it’ s not just about China – are using facial recognition technology very differently. And then there was the article in the New York Times if people read it this weekend, about clear view AI scraping the internet for pictures and working with law enforcement in the United States to literally pull all sorts of information, social media profile, address. That in the wrong hands in any country, never mind elsewhere, regulation, where does, again, private sector versus public lie?
Well, this is where I would say strongly this is you have to regulate on use and not on the technology. Because those same technologies are what also protect you. And so when you are going into an airport, some of us that go through the iris and go through the – these are things that protect you. And so you wouldn’ t have – you don’ t have an issue with most of those things. And therefore, this description about is it to restrict your civil liberties, and in some way all the things most of us in this room would say are wrong, or is it for good? And not only for protection, for healthcare, for all different reasons.
And so that’ s why I wish – everyone wishes it was black and white and it’ s not. It is between those two things. And so that’ s why I think when people call for outright bands on things, that just solves absolutely nothing. You’ ve got to actually – Chris said have that engagement, that dialog, You make your decisions based on values. And that will require precision regulation to get done. I don’ t know, Chris are you – you’ ve worked on this facial recognition point quite a bit, right?
Yeah, I agree with you entirely. I don’ t think outright bans make any sense. And I don’ t’ think regulating the technology is stopping the technology, especially when you are in an innovation race with other countries who don’ t care so much about it.
Having said that, none of us sign up for a surveillance state. So clearly that’ s an area that we need to look at. But there are plenty of positive aspects of facial recognition, not just the more trivial ones of using on your phone. But missing children, catching criminals, dangerous criminals or terrorists. It is a technology which is incredibly useful. Finding a balance and it’ s an argument that we’ ve been arguing about for 240 odd years. This is just the latest incarnation of that. Finding a balance that makes sense is I think incredibly important.
Julia: How urgent is it? You’ re talking about the policy level. You said four years ago people didn’ t care and some of your statistics…
Chris: Facial recognition is pretty important. It’ s because it’ s out there.
Julia: Yes. Are we going to move quickly enough?
Well, legislatively, unfortunately, in the US we’ re probably not going to see a lot happen in this year, just because we’ re in electoral cycle. But there are hearings on facial recognition going on as we talk, not as we talk, there’ s nothing going on in the legislative side as we talk. [ laughing ] But let’ s just say other than a pause that’ s happening at the moment, it’ s an issue that’ s being debated. So I would suspect, if not legislatively, then certainly we get free, we’ ll see something relatively soon in the US. I can’ t speak to the EU.
Do you think political change shifts the environment dramatically in the United States? I’ m not asking you to predict an election win or loss here, but we have had some pretty feisty rhetoric from Democratic candidates in the United States about breaking up big tech and more regulation. They’ re playing into the fears and misperception and misconceptions I think about the bad side of the use to technology, perhaps. Does that make a difference, Ginni, in the way you’ re planning?
Julia: Well, no, no, I’ ll come back to this as he was thinking about it too.
Chris: [ overlapping talk/inaudible ] stay away.
Julia: I’ m not going to say anything.
So I did the opening panel, or the panel with Klaus last night; and the topic was stakeholder capitalism, which I don’ t think it is just a technology discussion that you’ re teeing up right now. And Joe and I happen to run companies that are, well, I think yours is older than mine. I think we talked about that once. I’ m 108 and you are…
Joe: Thank you. But that’ s how the difference what we look like? But look…
Let me finish, then I’ ll turn it over to Joe. All my point was at that point, why have we existed that period of time? My view is it’ s that society has given us both a license to operate society. And that is because we have over time always balanced all those different stakeholders. And when you speak of it isn’ t just about what technology did for the good or the bad; it isn’ t just our customers; it was our employees; it was the communities we lived in; it was our shareholders that we returned; and it was that and in a virtuous circle between all of those.
And so when you say should things be broken up, I think it has more to do with how you look at your role. And your role is, in fact, to make it so that – I mean I feel that way in all the countries we operate. That we, therefore, make this a place that they want us there to be a citizen and they want to do business with us. And that’ s because we do something good for them; and we provide jobs and good jobs. And we do it in the right way according to a set of values.
I don’ t think that’ s motherhood. I believe our actions speak louder than our words, every one of us. And it gets to when people speak about a breakup or a – whatever they want, it’ s because they don’ t like what’ s happening today to them. And this to me circles back to people believing they have a better future in the digital era. And that will rely on can I have the skills that I can have a good paying job and a chance for success, have a family, whatever my dreams are; and that I see a brighter future.
And this goes back to the skills topic, if you allow me one second. And that is why I believe all of our efforts have been very timely. Many of you in the room that have worked with me on the skills topic. And many of us, Joe’ s very dedicated, extremely dedicated to it. And it takes everything from the speed – means you better have a different paradigm. Everybody can’ t have a four-year college degree. This is going too fast. And so, therefore, skills matter more than a degree.
You better give them multiple pathways right now to get into your company, because you can’ t wait that – we can’ t wait long. And you better give them different models. So some of us have done apprenticeships, some of us have done six-year high schools with vocational schools. But they need on-ramps, more on-ramps.
And so that to me is the biggest thing we could do to make this – to address many of these issues, actually. Yes, precision regulation, but they’ re in a broader context of a dislocation of an industry change and people seeing there’ s a good future.
This is the key for me, because this is where you move faster than anything else. Regulation is going to be behind the curve. I think we’ ve agreed that. But if you can try and address some of the societal issues that take place, the job displacement, then you’ re tackling some of the biggest risks. Joe.
Joe: Well, I mean I couldn’ t agree more. First of all, it’ s more important – it’ s not so much important how long we’ ve been around. It’ s more important how long we’ re going to be around in the future.
Ginni: Oh yeah, that’ s true too.
Because obviously, we are in the biggest transformation of all time. Let’ s face it. And what technology will help us is we’ re going to reduce – cut the value chain in half quicker and faster than ever before. And let hundreds of millions of people who need to change jobs or lose the job. So we better have an answer for that one. And then we are going against that fear type of stuff.
The American people will decide what’ s going to happen, but it’ s not my business. But there can not be a bipartisan issue. This is a global matter of responsible people on how to shape the world, and explain it to the uneducated what’ s in for them going forward.
This is a leadership topic. Ginni and I, IBM and Siemens and a few others have been putting this Charter of Trust in place. What has been done there is as I look, we are companies. We sign up for certain set of rules and values and everybody who signs up for that one, will be sort of a preferred supplier and partner because we know you do the same thing, in terms of protecting data and our interests. We are a guy who are closer to us. And then we have tons of people who wanted to join and then at the Munich Security Conference, there was somebody state – a company from Russia said hey, this is really good, can we join? And I said, hmm, maybe later. So I don’ t know.
But this is the type of stuff the private sector can do. We can do that. How do we act together as partners in ecosystems? Then this is the topic of how will the big nations deal with each other, that the Internet of Things is extra-territorial. So things need to come together and constantly need to be reapplied in the line, because we must not be…
Julia: It doesn’ t obey borders.
Joe: But training people and make them understand what it takes, make them fit for the next generation of know-how. That’ s the biggest recipe you can’ t be wrong. It may not be enough, but you can’ t be wrong.
And Ginni, your statistic, and this for me has become one of the issues I talk about on a weekly basis on my show. 125 million people needing re-skilling, to some degree, over the next 3 years. At Davos this year, climate, sustainability, it’ s incredibly important. But for me, when you’ re talking about that kind of risk – and it isn’ t that much incremental re-skilling, but it’ s enough – that kind of risk over that time horizon, these are the real issues that we need to be discussing. Chris, how do you approach this?
Well, coincidentally, we’ re working with Ginni on this very topic. We have something called the American Worker Force Council, which Ginni and a number of other top CEOs are on. And they are collectively making a commitment to retraining. So we have something called the Pledge to the American Worker, which Ivanka Trump and the White House and a number of CEOs have been working on. I think we’ re up to 13 or 14 million?
Ginni: I think 15.
15 million. So a commitment to retrain 15 million people, collectively. So clearly, we as a government can do something, because we spend money on retraining. But this is very much a private sector-led initiative. So it’ s been a focus, really, for the three years we’ ve been in there. I agree with you, it’ s one of the most fundamental issues we have to deal with.
And 15 million is a fantastic start, but it’ s not everything. It’ s a great start and you have companies doing real things. IBM is not just talking about this, it’ s actually doing it. I think it’ s a fabulous initiative or series of initiatives. And private sector led. Some great companies.
It’ s very cool. We kick it up together in the White House together with Ivanka, Ginni and I and Mark , he wanted to train a billion people. So not sure how far it’ s got. But it’ s good start and I think he’ s planting trees or some. But on a serious…
Chris: A billion (?) trees people. Don’ t get that mixed up.
Julia: It’ s a good number.
What I think you also need to do, and that’ s a company leadership topic as well as a societal one. I was on a business council and a panel. We talked about the same stuff, because this is all stuff you talk. And then I said, hey, you know what? We are spending 600 million Euro, about 750 million Euro, dollars, every year, for training, educating and our people. Pretty cool. Someone from the audience asked me, got a question. I said okay. Go ahead. Well, what do your shareholders tell you if you waste 600 million of their money?
I thought hmm, of course, all the high chief entertainment officer gathering, so I thought, well, I will say, the easy way out could have said well, we took and educate and what you typically say. And I thought come on, and I said look, you know what? What? If any shareholder believes that this is a waste of money, then should sell my share. That is not the person. You could have heard the needle drop in a Wall Street associated environment. Not saying it’ s wrong or right. And saying is, we don’ t have the guts to go out and say we are in here for a greater good of things for the longer term, for society, without making compromises on performance.
If you have issues on performance, you better shut-up and get the job done first and then speak up. This is really important. That we get this one out and say look, we know what we’ re doing and it is not about missing the next quarter by a penny. It’ s hard because you could lose your job. But I’ ll tell you something on Germany. It’ s a little tiny company compared to the United States and others. Chancellor Schroder (?) a long time ago, the whole staff, the whole world of Germany today is based on Chancellor Schroder’ s say 2010 where he said, you know what? We’ re going to do a reform now because this is enough.
He lost his job immediately because obviously people wouldn’ t vote for him. They said oh no, what’ s no nice, complacent, so what are you about? So he lost the job. But people in Germany, the Chancellors, they will not be reminded (?) how often they’ ve made it into the Chancery. They will be reminded in the history books of the Germany economic system what they did for their country. So a lot of stuff you can do which called leadership.
This is an issue I’ ve seen a lot of change in the last three years I’ ve been in the White House in terms of societal changes. One of the first questions I used to ask CEOs is how much they spend on workforce training. And the first year I was there. And I always found that interesting, because I used to be a CFO and I couldn’ t have told you the answer to that question.
Joe: Well, CFO is complicated.
And it’ s complicated, yeah. I can say you’ re telling it to a dollar how much they spend on healthcare, but not on training. And the interesting – the extent that people can articulate it, the answer I think is quite interesting. We spend about roughly – and these are US numbers, but it’ ll translate reasonably well. We spend about $ 10,000 a year educating people. So most people go through school or college. If they go through college you’ re spending roughly $ 10,000 a year on educating them.
We spend circa $ 500 on retraining them. So how can that make any sense in the society we’ re living in where we’ re in a world of continuous training, where we spend less than 10% a year retraining people for what are going to be vastly different jobs as they go through?
Part of what we’ ve been working on in the workforce is thinking about not only how we spend more money, but how we spend it more effectively from a retraining point of view. And this has changed dramatically in the two or three years we’ ve been working on it.
Chris: Yeah, probably.
Probably. We are coming to towards the end of the panel, so I just – I want to get back to where Ginni began. She said we were looking back at Davos four years ago and it was 2015, trust and innovation. And actually, trust has declined since then, despite the fact that some people were talking about it and others were just yawning.
How do we prevent in four years time having this same panel and this same discussion and me saying yep, trust has fallen again? We’ ve talked about it, precision regulation, not sure whether we can epic actually do something on a global basis to coordinate whatever the use of technology is. Individual companies will keep doing their own things. But how do we prevent…
I think every company has to stand up and act within their values. They have to take responsibility for these things, set what their principles are and be willing to be audited against them. That’ s what – and we are the ones. Many companies are the ones that are doing – they are the ones that have this data, collect this data, decide what to do with it, how to handle it. I think you need to declare your principles; you need to live by them; put that in place with actions that you could be measured against.
And I think it is time for everyone to stand up to realizing that you can’ t be an innocent bystander on this. We want this to be a healthy era that is both prosperous for people and people see a better future; and that is going to be the responsibility not just of government. So while we talked about precision regulation, I absolutely believe this is a co-partnership, that industry – and I’ m using that in a really broad term – industry, private sector, however you like to look at it – has to take its responsibilities.
And that’ s how I – and I hope we’ re there Julia. I hope that we are there by virtue that everyone is now talking. So now we need to – everyone needs to walk the talk on this.
Julia: The word for is stakeholder capitalism. If we actually believe that it means something and we’ re at an inflection point where profits matter for business, but they don’ t matter in absolute, other things matter too.
Ginni: I think like Joe. You don’ t exist for the long term if you don’ t manage all constituents. It’ s that simple I think.
Joe: Absolutely agree. As we as companies need to set examples to what we say and I keep banging on governments and they will give up.
Julia: And the truth is, you can’ t rely on governments because they change too often.
If you’ re talking four-year cycle, that’ s an electoral cycle in the US, and absolutely we should have some legislation across a number of different areas, and regulation we can do quicker than legislation. But we should have big planks of legislation associated with all of the different topics we’ ve talked about and the implementation of some of the regulation associated with that. We need tangible action. And we need to find a mechanism, which unfortunately is difficult in the government, of speeding up the way in which we adopt regulatory change as well.
At the moment, unfortunately, we’ re heading slightly in a different direction which is towards more inertia, but hopefully over a four-year period, in particular from a regulatory point of view, we can find a new muscle and move faster.
Julia: Might be easier to stay here.
Joe: The economy is fascinatingly strong. This is opportunity to do this now, because everybody is like…
Well, if job losses are going to come in, not a good idea to say, oh, got to do something else here. So it’ s a perfect timing now to piggyback on that one. You need to state it. Talked to the President just last night, it was pretty cool what happens there in terms of how the economy and the jobs are being created.
Julia: Time to act. Thank you guys. Good panel.
Ginni: As your host, let me thank you for all sitting in a hot room, in a crowded room. I hope you took away something of value. So thank you.
Today, IBM submitted the following letter to Congressional leaders advocating for the creation of a Science Readiness Reserve, underscoring a key pillar of IBM CEO Arvind Krishna’ s letter to President-elect Biden. # # # November 25, 2020 Dear Members of Congress, As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage across the country, IBM believes that America needs a [ … ]
IBM Chief Executive Officer Arvind Krishna sent the following letter to President-elect Joe Biden congratulating him on his election and outlining policy initiatives where IBM seeks to work with the incoming administration.
America has historically employed controls on the export of advanced technologies developed here at home to ensure they are not misused abroad in ways that would run counter to national security interests, foreign policy priorities, or American values [ 1 ]. Pick an innovation: components that could be used to produce nuclear weapons, chemical weapons precursors, precision weapon [ … ] | tech |
Chinese treasury futures surge as Wuhan coronavirus spreads | Chinese government bond futures surged on Thursday as investors ' worries heightened over the spread of a new flu-like virus that has forced China to lock down a city of 11 million people.
Chinese 10-year treasury futures for March delivery, the most traded contract, rose 0.42% in afternoon trade to 99.57.
Yields on China's 10-year government bonds fell below 3%.
China is putting a transport lockdown on the city of Wuhan, which is considered the epicenter of the new coronavirus outbreak that has killed 17 and infected nearly 600 people, as health authorities around the world work to prevent a global pandemic. | business |
S & P 500 ekes out small gain, erases losses after WHO calms coronavirus fears | Stocks closed little changed on Thursday, recovering most of their losses from earlier in the session, after the World Health Organization quelled some of the fears around the deadly coronavirus.
The S & P 500 closed 0.1% higher at 3,325.54 while the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.2% to 9,402.48, notching a record closing high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day down 26.18 points, or 0.1% at 29,160.09. The 30-stock average dropped more than 200 points earlier.
The WHO said it was a `` bit too early to consider this event is a public health emergency of international concern. ''
American Airlines rose 5.4% on the back of that comment while United Airlines closed 1.9% higher. Gilead Sciences rose 0.8% while Inovio Pharmaceuticals surged 11.6%.
Investors had been fretting over the virus as the number of confirmed cases topped 600. The virus originated in Wuhan, China and cases have now been reported in Singapore and the U.S.
Asian shares tumbled overnight, while Chinese Treasury futures surged, as fears of an economic fallout from the virus sent investors running for cover. The Shanghai Composite dropped 2.75%, its biggest one-day loss since May 6, when it plummeted 5.6%. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 dropped 1% along with Korea's Kospi index.
The outbreak `` has heightened fears of a global pandemic with potential implications across the economy, '' said Robert Samuels, consumer analyst of the Americas at UBS. He noted U.S. companies with exposure to China `` could potentially be negatively impacted from lower demand as nervous consumers stay home should the virus continue to spread. ''
In the U.S., investors also pored through the latest batch of corporate earnings results. NBCUniversal-parent Comcast and Travelers both reported better-than-expected quarterly figures. However, Comcast dipped 3.8% while Travelers slid 5.1%.
More than 12% of S & P 500 companies have reported quarterly earnings. Of those companies, about 70% have beaten analyst expectations, FactSet data shows.
`` As we look at fourth-quarter earnings, they're coming in a little bit better than expected. But we need to recognize the bar was relatively low in terms of expectations, '' said Bill Northey, senior investment director at U.S. Bank Wealth Management.
Wall Street was coming off a choppy session which ended with the major averages closing along the flatline. TThe major averages are also on pace for their first weekly decline of 2020.
`` Investors are wondering what will ultimately crack this stock market, '' said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at The Leuthold Group. `` Even though a stock market correction is almost assured at some point, a sentiment refresh, alone, would not likely produce a sustained decline. ''
On the data front, weekly jobless claims rose less than expected to 211,000 from 205,000 the week before.
—CNBC's Elliot Smith contributed to this report. | business |
Coronavirus costs China box office at least $ 210 million this weekend | China's box office was set to rake in 1.4 billion yuan ( $ 210 million) in two days, until the latest coronavirus outbreak.
On Thursday, all seven Chinese films scheduled for release during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday announced they were pulling screenings in the wake of a new virus that has killed at least 17 people in China.
Data from ticketing site Maoyan predicted at least 1.4 billion yuan in sales for the seven movies between Friday and Saturday, as of 10 p.m. Beijing time on Wednesday. Maoyan said in an online post it would refund customers in light of the film withdrawals.
The disease first publicly surfaced in December in the city of Wuhan. The number of officially confirmed cases has climbed rapidly in the last several days, to more than 570 as of Wednesday night. Wuhan is now under quarantine, and locals must wear face masks in public places.
The roughly one-week long Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, holiday officially kicks off on Friday and has become a key release period for Chinese films.
Last year, Chinese science fiction blockbuster `` The Wandering Earth '' helped boost the Spring Festival box office to 5.83 billion yuan, up from 5.77 billion yuan in 2018 and 3.42 billion yuan in 2017, according to ticketing site Maoyan.
This year, some of the highly anticipated film releases included action-comedy movie `` Detective Chinatown 3, '' comedy `` Lost in Russia, '' fantasy film `` Legend of Deification '' and `` Leap, '' which documents the Chinese women's national volleyball team's path to success.
Shares of many major Chinese film companies dropped Thursday, the last trading day before the Lunar New Year. Wanda Film closed nearly 7% lower, down 20% over the last five trading days. China Film closed nearly 5% lower, off more than 17% over the last five trading days.
Theoretically, the lack of blockbuster films during one of the few major public holidays in China gives consumers even less reason to go out and spend, just as fears of a widespread epidemic are already keeping many Chinese at home.
During the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, roughly 17 years ago, retail sales growth in China slowed dramatically from 10% in January 2003 to a low of 4.3% in May that year, before recovering and notching 8% for the year. That's according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics accessed through Wind Information.
`` ( The withdrawal of film releases) has almost no impact at macro level, '' Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie, said in an email. `` And it's too early to evaluate the macro impact for the Wuhan virus. '' | business |
Wheat hovers near 18-month peak as global supplies tighten | - U.S. wheat futures edged higher on Thursday as concerns about tightening global supplies pushed prices towards an 18-month high in the previous session.
FUNDAMENTALS
* The most active wheat futures on the Chicago Board Of Trade were up 0.3% at $ 5.79-1/4 a bushel by 0137 GMT. In the previous session, it closed 0.7% lower after hitting an Aug. 2, 2018 high of $ 5.92-1/2 a bushel.
* The most active soybean futures were unchanged at $ 9.13-3/4 a bushel, having closed down 1.5% on Wednesday when prices hit a Dec. 16 low of $ 9.13 a bushel.
* The most active corn futures were up 0.2% at $ 3.89-1/2 a bushel, having gained 0.3% in the previous session.
* Traders in the farm markets continued to wait for signs of increased demand from China after Beijing pledged to increase imports of U.S. agricultural products in an initial trade deal the countries signed last week.
* The United States has not confirmed new agricultural sales to China since inking the deal.
* Rail and port strikes in France have raised the risk of reduced export availability in the European Union's biggest wheat supplier.
* A French grain industry body said this week that industrial action over pension reform had left 450,000 tonnes of grain, worth some 100 million euros ( $ 111 million), blocked at French ports.
* Export prices of Russian wheat reached their highest level last week since the season began in July due to demand from major customer Egypt and risks related to Russian proposals to introduce an export quota, analysts said.
MARKET NEWS
* The safe-haven Japanese yen was firm and the Chinese yuan fragile on Thursday as traders kept a wary eye on the spread of a virus in China, while the ailing Australian dollar jumped after a surprise drop in unemployment.
* Oil prices fell more than 2% on Wednesday as a market surplus forecast by the International Energy Agency ( IEA) and demand worries amid the outbreak of a virus in China outweighed concern over disruptions to Libya's crude output.
* Technology shares led the S & P 500 marginally higher on Wednesday, as a healthy forecast from IBM helped mitigate worries over the developing coronavirus outbreak.
( Reporting by Colin Packham, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips) | business |
Saudi Arabia denies case of coronavirus infection | ( Updates with latest death toll)
RIYADH, Jan 23 ( Reuters) - A Saudi health ministry affiliate said on Thursday there were no cases of coronavirus in the kingdom, denying earlier reports of an expatriate resident being infected.
Earlier, India's minister of state for external affairs said an Indian nurse working at a hospital in southwestern Saudi Arabia has been infected by the coronavirus and was being treated, amid an outbreak that has killed 18 people in China.
But the Saudi Center for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC) said in a tweet that there were no cases of the novel coronavirus so far.
The kingdom said on Wednesday it would start screening passengers arriving from China and take other preventive measures following the outbreak in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
The virus, which can pass from person to person, has been reported in Thailand, Japan and South Korea, raising concerns about its spread through international air travel. More than 630 people have been infected, mostly in China, but cases have been detected as far away as the United States.
Elsewhere in the Gulf region, Qatar called on its citizens in China to exercise caution against the virus, the state news agency reported on Thursday. ( Reporting by Marwa Rashad and Stephen Kalin Editing by Mark Heinrich and Frances Kerry) | business |
Coronavirus outbreak could'significantly affect ' travel to Australia | The coronavirus outbreak in China could `` significantly affect '' Australia's travel sector, particularly if restrictions are imposed on international travel to stem the virus ' spread, according to Moody's.
The mysterious coronavirus has infected hundreds in China, triggering memories of the SARS epidemic in 2002 and 2003.
Authorities have said the current outbreak stemming from Wuhan, China has killed 17 people and infected nearly 600 others. The severe acute respiratory syndrome crisis killed about 800 people, mostly in China and Hong Kong, according to data from the World Health Organization.
`` While the World Health Organisation ( WHO) has to date not recommended any travel restrictions, if the effect on regional travel is similar to that during the SARS outbreak in 2003, passenger volumes between Asian destinations — particularly China — and Australia could be significantly affected over the next 2-3 quarters, '' Arnon Musiker, senior vice president at Moody's, said in a note dated Thursday.
On Wednesday, WHO officials said they would reconvene on Thursday to decide whether to classify the outbreak as a `` public health emergency of international concern. '' The agency's goal is to contain the outbreak without needlessly disrupting economic activity.
To exacerbate matters, the exposure of Australian airports to Chinese travelers is `` significantly higher '' today as compared to during the SARS epidemic, Moody's said in the note. Tourists from China now account for over 15% of total short-term inbound travelers to Australia, as compared with just 4% in 2003, the firm said.
`` Any decline in passenger volumes would add to the challenging operating conditions facing Australian airports, including moderating passenger volumes due to lower arrivals from China, tepid consumer confidence and the impact of the bushfires on the peak holiday season, '' Musiker said.
Still, Moody's said an escalation of the coronavirus outbreak would likely `` still be manageable. ''
According to the WHO, coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that could cause less-severe diseases such as the common cold, while other could lead to more severe disease such as the Middle East respiratory syndrome and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ( SARS).
— CNBC's Berkeley Lovelace Jr. and Dawn Kopecki contributed to this report. | business |
Coronavirus cases rise to more than 800 worldwide as infection spreads | China said on Friday local time that the total number of coronavirus cases in mainland China rose to 830 and the death toll has risen to 25. It comes as the fast-spreading infection prompted local authorities to quarantine several major cities and cancel Lunar New Year's events in Beijing and elsewhere.
The virus — which was first diagnosed less than a month ago — has also infected at least 15 people around the world, mostly in Asia. The Saudi Center for Disease Prevention and Control on Friday tweeted a statement refuting earlier reports that there was a case in Saudi Arabia.
Medical teams have been dispatched across China, and hospitals are asking for donations of essential items, including face masks, eye protectors, protective uniforms and sanitizer.
Local authorities in China have quarantined Wuhan and Huanggang, which have a combined population of 17 million. Including Wuhan where the virus was first identified, travel bans were in effect Thursday for at least eight cities.
China is offering to refund domestic flights and train tickets nationwide. An estimated 246,000 travelers arrived in Wuhan either via plane or train on Thursday before all transportation in and out of the city was shut down. The number of people leaving the city is currently unknown.
The U.S. State Department on Thursday reiterated its level 2 travel advisory, indicating travels should `` exercise increased caution. '' The department earlier on Thursday errantly raised its travel advisory and urged citizens to `` reconsider travel, '' but reverted that change. The agency, in a statement, said its website `` briefly displayed an inaccurate version of the Advisory due to a technical error – we apologize for any confusion. Again, the Advisory level has not changed. ''
In a statement, American Airlines said the airline has been working with its medical director to make crew members aware of the latest updates on the virus. `` Beginning on Thursday, American increased provisions of hand sanitizer wipes for flight attendants to use on all American Airlines departures to China, '' the airline said. `` The safety of our customers and team members is our top priority. ''
U.S. health officials began screening passengers flying from China at major international airports this weekend, and confirmed the country's first case on Tuesday. A Washington state man is quarantined with the virus in a hospital outside of Seattle after flying back from Wuhan, U.S. health authorities said.
Someone else was sent to the hospital `` for further evaluation '' by local and U.S. health officials after arriving at the Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday, a spokesman for the airport confirmed to CNBC on Thursday. The passenger was on an American Airlines flight from Mexico City. There was no confirmation that the passenger was infected with the virus.
British TV network BBC News reported Thursday that four people in Scotland are being tested for the virus.
The World Health Organization declined for a second day Thursday to formally designate the new virus as a global health emergency, after postponing its decision the day before. Health officials are trying to contain the fast-spreading illness without unnecessarily spooking global trade. WHO physicians said they needed more data before declaring a global emergency, but the virus is now spreading through close human contact and in health-care settings, they said.
`` Make no mistake, this is an emergency in China. But it has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one, '' Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters on a conference call following a second emergency meeting on the disease on Thursday. The emergency committee members were `` very divided, '' a WHO official said, coming to a split vote for a second time. While the disease is spreading through human-to-human contact in China, Tedros said it's not yet spreading in other areas of the world where people have flown to after visiting China.
The virus causes severe illness in about a quarter of the people who become infected, he said, killing people who generally have other underlying health conditions.
WHO is not recommending any broader restrictions on travel or trade at this time. Physicians recommended basic hygiene, including washing hands with soap and water and avoiding touching eyes, nose or mouth.
Health officials said that they still don't know the original source of the virus, understand how it spreads, its clinical features or severity.
The previously unknown, flu-like coronavirus strain is believed to have emerged from an animal market in central Wuhan city. A group of scientists said late Wednesday that they may have a breakthrough in discovering the original source of the virus, declaring that snakes, particularly the Chinese krait and the Chinese cobra, may be responsible for the outbreak. The scientist used samples of the virus from patients and determined the genetic code.
Some major U.S. companies, including General Motors and Ford, announced that they would also temporarily restrict employee travel. MGM Resorts said it has canceled its Lunar New Year's celebration in Macau this weekend as it works with authorities to protect guests and employees.
Here are where cases have been reported:
Mainland China: 830Taiwan: 1Macao: 2Hong Kong: 2Vietnam: 2Thailand: 3Japan: 1South Korea: 2Singapore: 1United States: 1
* Chinese cities or provinces with reported cases include Wuhan ( Hubei province), Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Hebei, Liaoning, Jiangsu, Fujian
CNBC's Leslie Josephs, Eunice Yoon, Joanna Tan, Riya Bhattacharjee and Reuters contributed to this article.
Correction: The U.S. State Department reiterated its China travel advisory on Thursday at level 2, indicating travels should `` exercise increased caution. '' An earlier version of this story, using incorrect information from the agency, misstated the travel advisory level. This story has been updated to clarify that Saudi Arabia refuted reports of a case of the new virus in the kingdom. | business |
Many in China Wear Them, but Do Masks Block Coronavirus? | Chinese authorities have encouraged people in the city of Wuhan to wear surgical masks in public to help curb the spread of the new coronavirus.
The question is: do they work?
Many infectious disease specialists say the cheap disposable masks, which cover the nose and mouth, may help prevent the spread of infections if they are worn properly and used consistently.
But there isn’ t much high-quality scientific evidence on their effectiveness outside health care settings, experts say. Most of the best studies, which are randomized controlled trials, focused on how well surgical masks protect health care workers in hospitals from picking up infections from sick patients, and found that consistent use of them helped.
Dr. Julie Vaishampayan, chairwoman of the public health committee for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said surgical masks are really “ the last line of defense. ”
“ We worry about people feeling they’ re getting more protection from the mask than they really are, ” she said. “ Washing your hands and avoiding people who are ill is way more important than wearing a mask. ”
Because surgical masks aren’ t fitted or sealed, they leave gaps around the mouth, “ so you’ re not filtering all of the air that comes in, ” she said.
The masks will, however, block most large respiratory droplets from other people’ s sneezes and coughs from entering your mouth and nose, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Coronaviruses are primarily spread through droplets, he said.
The bigger problem is that people don’ t use the masks properly. “ Most people will put their hand underneath the mask to scratch their face or rub their nose, ” bringing contaminants in contact with the nose and mouth, said Dr. Adalja. “ You can’ t take it off when you get a phone call. ”
Dr. Mark Loeb, an infectious disease specialist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, said a study during an outbreak of the SARS coronavirus found that any type of protection — whether a mask or a respirator — reduced the risk of infections in health care workers by about 85 percent.
“ The most important message was that the risk was lower if they consistently used any mask, ” he said.
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There is general agreement that infected patients who wear surgical masks are less likely to spread infection to others. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has instructed hospitals to ask any patients who have a fever or respiratory illness, have recently traveled to Wuhan, or have come in contact with someone who has traveled there, to wear a surgical mask. The C.D.C. also recommends that health care workers wear a respirator, which filters out more particles than a mask, when they are around such patients.
The risk of becoming infected with the coronavirus in the United States — where there is only one confirmed case — is “ way too low to start wearing a face mask, ” said Dr. Peter Rabinowitz, who is co-director of the University of Washington MetaCenter for Pandemic Preparedness and Global Health Security.
But washing hands — frequently and before eating — is universally recommended. Hand sanitizer is effective against respiratory viruses. Experts also recommend washing hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, rubbing the hands together and ensuring all parts of the hands — the palms as well as the back of the hands — are washed.
“ It’ s also important to keep your hands away from your face, ” said Dr. Vaishampayan. “ Respiratory viruses don’ t infect through your skin, they infect through your mucous membranes: the eyes, nose and mouth. ” | business |
Tankers Idle At Libyan Ports As Oil Exports Dry Up | Ten oil tankers capable of carrying some 8 million barrels of oil are idling near some of Libya & rsquo; s oil export terminals, tanker-tracking data monitored by Bloomberg showed on Thursday, as the Libyan port blockade entered an ugly sixth day. Groups loyal to eastern strongman General Khalifa Haftar blocked virtually all exports from the African oil producer, and when storage reaches maximum capacity, it will result in a complete loss of all of Libya & rsquo; s 1.2 million barrels per day of oil production and exports. & ldquo; Shutdown of all affected oil fields will result in a loss of crude oil production of 1.2 million b/d and daily financial losses of approximately $ 77 million, & rdquo; Libya & rsquo; s National Oil Corporation NOC said on Monday, confirming that nearly all of the OPEC member & rsquo; s production will be lost due to the blockade. This is the largest outage on the oil market since the September attacks on Saudi Arabia & rsquo; s oil facilities, yet it has failed to move oil prices higher. Market participants are largely ignoring the Libyan outage and are focused on the prospects of global oil demand growth this year and the pace of supply increase from non-OPEC producers, primarily the United States, Brazil, Guyana, and Norway. In addition, the new fear on the market, the outbreak of a coronavirus in China, could cut oil demand and push oil prices down by nearly $ 3 a barrel, Goldman Sachs said earlier this week. & nbsp; & ldquo; However while markets are obsessing over virus developments, they seem to be ignoring a number of oil supply risks in the market, which in aggregate would far outweigh the demand impact from the Wuhan virus, & rdquo; ING strategists said on Thursday. & nbsp; According to ING & rsquo; s estimates, the current outages around the world sum up to around 1.4 million bpd, & ldquo; which would be more than enough to shift the global market into deficit over 1H20, & rdquo; said Warren Patterson, ING & rsquo; s Head of Commodities Strategy and Senior Commodities Strategist Wenyu Yao. & nbsp; & ldquo; While the market may shrug at supply losses from Libya, it would be more difficult for the market to ignore large Iraqi supply losses if they became a reality, as Iraq is OPEC & rsquo; s second-largest producer, & rdquo; they noted. & nbsp; By Tsvetana Paraskova from Oilprice.com | business |
How China’ s Coronavirus Outbreak Could Threaten the Global Economy | HONG KONG — The outbreak of a deadly disease in China has cast a pall over growth prospects for the world’ s second largest economy, raising fears about the global outlook if the mysterious coronavirus spreads or worsens.
Financial markets across Asia fell on Thursday, led by sharp drop in stocks in China, as investors pondered the potential impact of the coronavirus. The extent of its severity has become more clear over the past two days, as Chinese officials reported a surge in cases and a jump in the number of deaths to at least 26.
On Thursday, officials extended limits on movement in and out of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, to two nearby cities that millions more call home
The uncertainty has put a palpable damper on Chinese life just before the Lunar New Year holiday — typically a time of travel, shopping and gift-giving — which begins on Friday. Train stations and airports were subdued as travelers changed plans for the weeklong holiday, and seven of the most anticipated film openings of the holiday season were postponed.
The Forbidden City in Beijing — China’ s most popular tourist attraction — announced, without giving further information, that it would be closed starting on Saturday.
On the minds of many in China and around the world right now: Could this new virus cause the same kind of damage as the SARS epidemic, which killed 800 people in 2003?
The question is a crucial one beyond China, because the Chinese economy has for years been one of the world’ s most powerful growth engines. A stumble in China could hobble jobs and growth elsewhere.
China’ s growth in 2003 plunged briefly during the height of SARS but came roaring back in a time when global companies were building Chinese factories and exporting more and more goods abroad.
Today, China’ s economy is bigger but is growing at its slowest pace in nearly three decades. It is grappling with problems like the trade war with the United States and a campaign to wean local governments and companies off their addiction to borrowing.
It also depends more on consumers like Mo Chen, 29, who is curtailing her holiday travel plans, to stay on the safe side. In 2003, the worst-hit sectors were transportation, retail and restaurants.
Ms. Mo, who works for an internet company in Shanghai, had been looking forward to traveling home to see her family in Xiangyang, Hubei Province, nearly 200 miles from Wuhan. But given the outbreak, she and her brother, who lives in the city of Hangzhou, decided not to go home. It will be the first time that Ms. Mo has not spent Lunar New Year with her parents.
She now plans to stock up on supplies and stay home, not even venturing out to meet friends or go to the movies. She also intends to skip a trip to the mall to buy new outfits, because nobody will be around to see her wear them. Her brother, meanwhile, is planning to buy pots and pans.
“ He never cooks, ” she said. “ He always either eats out or eats at the company canteen. But last night our mom asked us to stock up on food, not go out and cook at home. ”
For now, the impact is not yet clear. The authorities seem to be responding faster to this outbreak than they did in 2003, but China’ s censors are erasing anything that veers from the official narrative. The new coronavirus appears to be less deadly than SARS, but it is difficult to detect, and the authorities started limiting movement out of Wuhan only after many people had set out for their holiday travels.
“ It’ s going to depend on how China continues to be transparent with the international community, ” said Peter Levesque, the managing director of Modern Terminals, a port operator in Hong Kong. “ That’ s all business can ask for. The rest is unknown. ”
Wuhan is essential to commerce in its region of China, though the economic impact there is expected to be muted by the advent of the holiday. The city is a major national transport hub and has become a center for auto manufacturing, with factories that build cars for General Motors, Honda and many others, as well as dozens of auto parts makers.
But the effect on people across the country could be a more important factor.
Over the long term, China wants its consumers to spend more. Beijing has sought to develop a consumer culture similar to that of the United States so that China’ s economy becomes less reliant on big construction and infrastructure projects that often receive government financing. But that shift makes China more vulnerable to events that spook shoppers.
Chinese consumer sentiment had already been bruised. Families spent the past year watching prices rise in grocery stores, increases due largely to the outbreak of a pig disease that depleted much of China’ s pork supply. More families are saving rather than spending, and are worrying about the future.
“ We will probably see a lot less domestic activity than we would normally see at this time of the year, ” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, a senior China economist at Capital Economics.
Updated June 12, 2020
So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “ very rare, ” but she later walked back that statement.
Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus — whether it’ s surface transmission or close human contact — is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.
A study by European scientists is the first to document a strong statistical link between genetic variations and Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Having Type A blood was linked to a 50 percent increase in the likelihood that a patient would need to get oxygen or to go on a ventilator, according to the new study.
The unemployment rate fell to 13.3 percent in May, the Labor Department said on June 5, an unexpected improvement in the nation’ s job market as hiring rebounded faster than economists expected. Economists had forecast the unemployment rate to increase to as much as 20 percent, after it hit 14.7 percent in April, which was the highest since the government began keeping official statistics after World War II. But the unemployment rate dipped instead, with employers adding 2.5 million jobs, after more than 20 million jobs were lost in April.
Mass protests against police brutality that have brought thousands of people onto the streets in cities across America are raising the specter of new coronavirus outbreaks, prompting political leaders, physicians and public health experts to warn that the crowds could cause a surge in cases. While many political leaders affirmed the right of protesters to express themselves, they urged the demonstrators to wear face masks and maintain social distancing, both to protect themselves and to prevent further community spread of the virus. Some infectious disease experts were reassured by the fact that the protests were held outdoors, saying the open air settings could mitigate the risk of transmission.
Exercise researchers and physicians have some blunt advice for those of us aiming to return to regular exercise now: Start slowly and then rev up your workouts, also slowly. American adults tended to be about 12 percent less active after the stay-at-home mandates began in March than they were in January. But there are steps you can take to ease your way back into regular exercise safely. First, “ start at no more than 50 percent of the exercise you were doing before Covid, ” says Dr. Monica Rho, the chief of musculoskeletal medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago. Thread in some preparatory squats, too, she advises. “ When you haven’ t been exercising, you lose muscle mass. ” Expect some muscle twinges after these preliminary, post-lockdown sessions, especially a day or two later. But sudden or increasing pain during exercise is a clarion call to stop and return home.
States are reopening bit by bit. This means that more public spaces are available for use and more and more businesses are being allowed to open again. The federal government is largely leaving the decision up to states, and some state leaders are leaving the decision up to local authorities. Even if you aren’ t being told to stay at home, it’ s still a good idea to limit trips outside and your interaction with other people.
Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. ( Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)
Taking one’ s temperature to look for signs of fever is not as easy as it sounds, as “ normal ” temperature numbers can vary, but generally, keep an eye out for a temperature of 100.5 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. If you don’ t have a thermometer ( they can be pricey these days), there are other ways to figure out if you have a fever, or are at risk of Covid-19 complications.
The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’ t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks don’ t replace hand washing and social distancing.
If you’ ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.
If you’ re sick and you think you’ ve been exposed to the new coronavirus, the C.D.C. recommends that you call your healthcare provider and explain your symptoms and fears. They will decide if you need to be tested. Keep in mind that there’ s a chance — because of a lack of testing kits or because you’ re asymptomatic, for instance — you won’ t be able to get tested.
“ The concern is that it encourages people to cancel their travel plans, and it comes at a crucial time in terms of holiday travel and spending, ” he said.
The disease has struck during one of the year’ s busiest spending seasons. Box office sales during the Lunar New Year holiday last year set a record, reaching $ 860 million over the first six days of the holiday, according to Maoyan, a ticketing service owned by Alibaba.
New spending records will be harder to attain this year. Among the film debuts postponed on Thursday was “ Boonie Bears: The Wild Life, ” a cartoon about clever bears that clash with a hapless logger. In a message to fans on its social media account, the production company wrote, “ We don’ t want to see audience friends take any health risks, ” adding that it did not want to “ see that the epidemic may spread further. ”
Other businesses in some parts of China have been temporarily closed. Major airlines, including Hong Kong’ s flagship carrier, Cathay Pacific, have restricted flights to Wuhan. Companies urged employees to wear masks and not to travel.
Companies that were still offering services urged caution. Didi Chuxing, China’ s equivalent to Uber, sent a message to passengers saying that “ due to the virus, for the health and safety of everyone, both drivers and passengers should wear face masks. ”
Hong Kong, the semiautonomous Chinese city that has been roiled by anti-Beijing protests, could sustain yet another blow. The region is already in an economic recession after over half a year of antigovernment protests.
“ If you look at those sectors of the economy, the retail and local businesses, they have already been sadly bruised by the protests last year, ” said Tara Joseph, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. “ This would just be an extra kick in the teeth that they don’ t need. ”
But, she added, “ it’ s too early to panic. ”
Cao Li contributed research. | business |
Oil Prices Head Lower Despite Small Crude Draw | Crude oil prices were stubbornly down following the Energy Information Administration reported a modest crude oil inventory draw of 400,000 barrels for the week to January 17. This compared with analyst expectations of a 1.117-million-barrel inventory decline and a draw of 2.5 million barrels reported a week earlier. Last week, however, oil prices were pressured by the EIA & rsquo; s reporting of hefty builds in both gasoline and distillate fuel. For last week, the authority reported a build in gasoline, of 1.7 million barrels, and a 1.2-million-barrel decline in distillate fuel inventories. This compared with a build of 6.7 million barrels in gasoline inventories a week earlier and an 8.2-million-barrel increase in distillate fuels. Gasoline production last week averaged 9.5 million bpd, versus 9.3 million bpd a week earlier. Distillate fuel production stood at 5.0 million bpd, down from 5.2 million bpd a week earlier. At the time of writing both Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate were trending lower after on Wednesday they closed at a seven-week low, pressured by concern about oversupply stemming from slackening demand. The demand decline is expected to be brought about by a drop in jet fuel demand as the coronavirus outbreak in China discourages travel for the Chinese New Year specifically and air travel in general. Comments from authorities are not helping either. The head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that he expected abundant supply to continue offsetting the potential price positive effect of production outages and political events in the Middle East. The EIA itself earlier this week said it expected crude oil production in the shale patch to continue increasing, adding 22,000 bpd next month to reach a total 9.2 million bpd. The increase will come from the Permian and the Bakken, which will together add 50,000 bpd to their daily average, more than offsetting declines across the rest of the shale patch. At the time of writing, Brent crude traded at $ 61.48 a barrel, with WTI at $ 55.05 per barrel. Both were down from opening, by nearly 3%.By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com | business |
Why The Coronavirus Is A Real Threat To Oil Markets | It impairs your breathing, causes extreme fatigue and fevers. It kills. And beyond that, it & rsquo; s keeping oil prices low by threatening to stifle oil demand in one of the world & rsquo; s largest oil markets. It & rsquo; s SARS CoV, better known as the SARS Coronavirus, and it & rsquo; s shaping up to be the oil market & rsquo; s biggest nemesis this year. And there & rsquo; s no cure. SARS, which stands for severe acute respiratory syndrome, is not only deadly, but highly contagious & mdash; more contagious than originally thought, and this coronavirus-inspired fear has now decisively spilled over into the oil market. Perception is Reality With highly contagious and deadly viruses like the SARS CoV, fear rules the day. Whether it & rsquo; s a personal fear that one might catch the virus, or whether one actually catches the virus, the result is that people will stop traveling to some extent. & nbsp; Even the fear that people may stop traveling is enough to result in an economic slump. Whether one catches the virus or not is irrelevant economically speaking & mdash; the mere perception that it & rsquo; s a possibility creates ripples in the world economy as people change traveling, purchasing, and trading patterns. & nbsp; The Oil Market & rsquo; s China Obsession The oil markets are obsessed with China & mdash; specifically China & rsquo; s demand for oil. & nbsp; Oil demand was at the forefront of all the pricing moves throughout 2019. The thought of dampened demand from the world & rsquo; s second largest oil consumer outweighs even significant geopolitical risk, as well as tangible oil production outages such as the attacks on Saudi Aramco oil facilities in September and Libya's current nearly complete outage of over 1 million barrels per day. Related The & ldquo; Twin Threats & rdquo; Facing Big Oil One may look at China & rsquo; s oil consumption, at 13.5 million bpd in 2018, as being far below that of the United States, which consumed 20.5 million bpd that same year. So, why all the China fuss Surely U.S. demand would move markets more than China But it & rsquo; s the oil demand growth that moves prices, and China & rsquo; s oil demand growth and India & rsquo; s too is far greater than that of the United States. In fact, China & rsquo; s oil demand has been growing at an annual rate of 5.5%, while the United States & rsquo; oil demand has been growing by 0.5%. And most of what China uses, it imports, adding another layer of market-sway into the mix. This is what moves markets. Not even OPEC and its jawbone to herald its oil production-cut prowess can outshine negative news about what is already China's slowing demand growth. And of all the threats to the oil industry that people were expecting in 2020, no one saw this coming the virus ripping through China at unprecedented rates is eating into China's oil demand more than anyone could have ever expected. & nbsp; Travel Disruptions Every aspect of the economy hits the oil market. But of particular note is the effect the virus could have on travel, which would affect air travel and road travel, impacting jet fuel and gasoline consumption. And with the persistent robust supplies that are loitering on the market today, slack demand couldn & rsquo; t come at a worse time. & nbsp; All of this at a time when the oil market was hopeful of an increase in demand thanks to the Chinese New Year holiday that typically sees an uptick in travel and gift giving. & nbsp; & nbsp; Against this perceived and real demand impact, OPEC will be mostly impotent, even with Libya & rsquo; s million-barrel-a-day loss and Saudi Arabia & rsquo; s overproduction. History Repeats Itself & mdash; or Worse SARS CoV could have the same effect on the oil market as the original SARS outbreak back in 2002, which saw the price of oil dip by 20%. Goldman Sachs said that if it mimics the last virus-induced supply shock, the oil market could see a drop of 260,000 barrels per day in the global oil demand market & mdash; 170,000 bpd of which would be in the form of jet fuel. This loss, Goldman predicted earlier this week, could see oil prices fall by $ 2.90 per barrel, but oil prices have already fallen more than $ 4.50 per barrel over the last few days alone, with the Brent benchmark falling to $ 61.41 on Thursday from $ 65.95 on Monday. And this is despite major oil production outages in Libya. We & rsquo; re Already Seeing the Effects Already the ramifications of the new virus are taking hold, disrupting everyday life. & nbsp; Related Hydrogen Costs Could Be Set To Plunge By 50% In China, movie releases have been pushed back, tourist attractions including the popular Forbidden City are scheduled to shut down this weekend, and people are already cancelling travel plans, according to the New York Times. The question isn & rsquo; t whether the virus will depress oil demand; rather, the question is how much it will depress oil demand. And it & rsquo; s hard to ascertain the true effect, because China isn & rsquo; t necessarily transparent in just how the virus is progressing, with the New York Times suggesting that Beijing is erasing information that doesn & rsquo; t toe the country line. & nbsp; What we do know is that on Thursday, China officially suspended travel to and from other cities near Wuhan & mdash; the origin city. & nbsp; The travel restrictions will affect tens of millions of people. Flights, trains, buses, subways, ferries, and for-hire cars have also been suspended & mdash; all of which will have an immediate effect on fuel consumption. The death toll of the virus has now climbed to 18, with 600 reportedly infected. By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com | business |
Near Miss of the Day 362: Punishment pass while beeping horn | Like this site? Help us to make it better.
It's impossible to interpret the driving in our latest Near Miss of the Day video as being anything other than a deliberate attempt to intimidate the cyclist.
The beeping the horn right before overtaking the cyclist is bad enough, but the fact the overtake itself takes place where the carriageway narrows due to a pedestrian island makes it clear that this is what is commonly termed a 'punishment pass '.
The footage was shot by road.cc reader Mike, who told us: `` This driver needs educating that there simply isn’ t enough space to squeeze past a cyclist while passing a pedestrian refuge island. ''
> Near Miss of the Day turns 100 - Why do we do the feature and what have we learnt from it?
Over the years road.cc has reported on literally hundreds of close passes and near misses involving badly driven vehicles from every corner of the country – so many, in fact, that we’ ve decided to turn the phenomenon into a regular feature on the site. One day hopefully we will run out of close passes and near misses to report on, but until that happy day arrives, Near Miss of the Day will keep rolling on.
If you’ ve caught on camera a close encounter of the uncomfortable kind with another road user that you’ d like to share with the wider cycling community please send it to us at info [ at ] road.cc or send us a message via the road.cc Facebook page.
If the video is on YouTube, please send us a link, if not we can add any footage you supply to our YouTube channel as an unlisted video ( so it won't show up on searches).
Please also let us know whether you contacted the police and if so what their reaction was, as well as the reaction of the vehicle operator if it was a bus, lorry or van with company markings etc.
> What to do if you capture a near miss or close pass ( or worse) on camera while cycling
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Simon has been news editor at road.cc since 2009, reporting on 10 editions and counting of pro cycling’ s biggest races such as the Tour de France, stories on issues including infrastructure and campaigning, and interviewing some of the biggest names in cycling. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, his background has proved invaluable in reporting on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, and the bike industry. He splits his time between London and Cambridge, and loves taking his miniature schnauzer Elodie on adventures in the basket of her Elephant Bike.
found it https: //www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/insulate-britain-protesters-drive-...
Are motorists likewise limited to being in bunches of vehicles no greater than the length of a bus, with a safe distance of 30m between groups?
I can't quite fit it to what Google maps but for anyone interested their plan is here:...
Runs to Ebay the set of pads he has sitting in the shed.....
* Breaking news *, Covid trend turns negative. Nige right again. | general |
This map shows the latest spread of coronavirus | The number of reported coronavirus cases continues to grow as the outbreak spreads around the world, according to the latest data collected by researchers at Johns Hopkins University.
But that's just the number of reported and confirmed cases from an outbreak that has posed a series of challenges for researchers trying to collect reliable data on the spread and severity of the new disease.
`` There is no way to get everything, '' said Dr. Este Geraghty, chief medical officer at ESRI, a mapping software company that is working with researchers at Johns Hopkins University to map the outbreak. `` We're always going to have things missing in the data. ''
Some researchers believe the actual number of coronavirus cases may be much higher that the reported data.
Cases of the virus have been confirmed very state in the U.S., along with Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that usually infect animals but can sometimes evolve and spread to humans. Symptoms in humans include fever, coughing and shortness of breath, which can progress to pneumonia.
Physicians recommended basic hygiene, including washing hands with soap and water and avoiding touching eyes, nose or mouth.
The previously unknown, flu-like coronavirus strain — now known as COVID-19 — is believed to have emerged from an animal market in Wuhan, a city of 11 million in Hubei. A group of scientists said last month that snakes, particularly the Chinese krait and the Chinese cobra, may have been the source of the virus. But officials from the World Health Organization cast doubt on that theory, saying there was `` no conclusive evidence. ''
The challenge of data collection in any outbreak starts from the moment someone contracts the targeted illness. Some of those infected may be reluctant or unable to go to a hospital or clinic; those cases will go unreported until they do so. Others may have been infected with the disease and show no symptoms — but may still be able to transmit the virus to others.
The result is that there is no `` official '' tally of cases, and the number of reported cases at any moment in time can change rapidly.
One reason for frequent changes in the numbers is that a shortage of test kits in some areas has meant that health workers have had to resort to other methods of diagnosing the illness, and those methods may produce false positives that are later deleted from the latest tally. Even when test kits are available, the initial results are typically sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a process that can take up to a week to produce a final confirmation.
When a patient presents at a hospital or clinic with symptoms, each diagnosed case is entered into a running tally from that location and then sent to a central reporting agency, according to Dr. Caitlin Rivers, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. But that data may pass through several layers of government agencies; not all countries use the same system for collecting national statistics.
The result may be a difference in the time it takes for those cases to show up in the provincial or national totals.
`` When people get sick especially in the context of a new outbreak, it takes a while to move them through the detection pipeline and the diagnostic pipeline, '' she said. `` So just because we saw a big influx in cases today, it doesn't mean those people got sick today, but they probably got sick recently. ''
That's another reason some researchers believe the number of coronavirus cases may be heavily underreported. Some estimates based on computer models suggest there may be five times as many cases as have been reported, according to Inglesby.
— Reporting by Berkeley Lovelace Jr. and John Schoen; data visualizations by John Schoen and Nate Rattner. Reuters contributed. | business |
5 things to know before the stock market opens January 23, 2020 | The Dow Jones Industrial Average is trying to avoid a three-session losing streak Thursday. But U.S. stock futures were pointing to a lower open on Wall Street. Despite a couple down days in a row, the Dow as of Wednesday's close was still less than 1% from record highs. Companies continue to report quarterly earnings, with three Dow components on Thursday's docket: Procter & Gamble and Travelers before the bell, and Intel after the close.
The World Health Organization is reconvening Thursday after international health experts were split on deciding whether China's coronavirus should be classified as a `` public health emergency of international concern. '' Such a designation would give the WHO powers to help coordinate a global response with its 196 member countries, including the United States. Seventeen people have died from the flu-like virus, with hundreds more sickened.
Global leaders continue to meet at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It ends Friday. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday criticized Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, saying the 17-year-old should study economics at college before lecturing the U.S. on fossil fuel investments. On trade, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the U.S. could still apply tariffs on European carmakers, despite their aim to put together a new trade deal.
A new Wharton School study, looking at policy proposals from 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, finds that Sen. Bernie Sanders ' proposed wealth tax will generate $ 1 trillion to $ 1.5 trillion less than he claims. The analysis also found that former Vice President Joe Biden's tax approach would raise $ 600 billion to $ 900 billion less he estimates.
House Democrats on Thursday will lay out more of their impeachment case against President Donald Trump, arguing to the Senate why he should be convicted and removed from office. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said a potential deal to swap former national security advisor John Bolton's testimony for Hunter Biden's is `` off the table. '' It's unlikely that the GOP-controlled Senate would vote to remove Republican Trump from office. | business |
Annova LNG Secures Supply Deal With Enbridge for Proposed South Texas Project | Sign in to get the best natural gas news and data. Follow the topics you want and receive the daily emails.
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Aiming to be part of the second wave of U.S. liquefied natural gas ( LNG) export projects, Annova LNG has scored a 20-year supply deal that would access multiple receipt points with major pipelines in the Agua Dulce area to feed its Brownsville, TX, project.
The precedent agreement with Enbridge Inc.’ s Valley Crossing Pipeline LLC ( VCP) would provide transportation for the still unsanctioned 6.5 million metric tons/year ( mmty) facility, which was approved by federal regulators in November. Under the deal, the existing 2.6 Bcf/d VCP from Agua Dulce to Brownsville would be expanded, and a roughly nine-mile lateral connecting VCP to Annova’ s facility would be constructed.
The underwater VCP began initial service in October 2018 and ramped up full operations last February.
“ Annova LNG’ s firm transportation arrangements will ensure security of supply and access to the most diversified, low-cost feed gas of any of the U.S. LNG facilities, ” said CEO Omar Khayum.
As proposed, the export terminal includes six liquefaction trains, each with a nameplate capacity of 1 mmty, for an aggregate nameplate capacity of 6 mmty and a maximum output at optimal operating conditions of 6.95 mmty on the Brownsville Ship Channel [ CP16-480 ]. Annova, a unit of Exelon Corp., has said the project would meet the requirements of multiple foreign purchasers whose annual demand is best met with increments of 1 mmty.
Black & Veatch Corp. and Kiewit Corp. are also equity owners and were jointly selected as the engineering, procurement and construction contractors in October 2018.
The project is expected to start commissioning in 2024 with full operations in early 2025. However, the road to reaching a final investment decision has not been easy.
In December, environmental groups led by the Sierra Club asked FERC to rehear its decision to approve the project. In its request, the groups said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission erred by “ failing to take a hard look ” at the economic impacts and its “ impacts on environmental justice communities, ” among other things.
Annova also faces competition from rival projects in South Texas, including Texas LNG Brownsville LLC’ s proposed export terminal and NextDecade Corp.’ s Rio Grande LNG project, both in Cameron County.
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Natural gas futures managed a rebound from the prior day’ s massive sell-off, even as the persistently warm December outlook trimmed gains from early in the session. After touching a $ 3.829/MMBtu intraday high, the January Nymex gas futures contract settled Tuesday at $ 3.708, up 5.1 cents on the day. February climbed 4.9 cents to $ 3.674. Spot…
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A Scramble to Retrace the Steps of the First Wuhan Coronavirus Case in the U.S. | SEATTLE — Health officials scrambled on Wednesday to contact more than a dozen people who may have been exposed to the United States’ first case of the Wuhan coronavirus, even as regulators sought to assure the public there was little risk from an illness that has rapidly spread across Asia, killing at least 17 people.
The patient, a man in his 30s who fell ill after traveling to China, has cooperated in helping public health workers trace his path from the Wuhan region of China to his home in Snohomish County, Wash., north of Seattle, health officials said.
Officials said they have been working to identify people who had close contact with the patient once his symptoms began to flourish. They do not believe he was symptomatic on his travel home, but the state health department said that out of “ an abundance of caution, ” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would notify passengers on his flight.
The primary focus, however, is trying to contact other patients at the clinic the man visited on Sunday, a hospital official said. He reported then that he was sick and concerned about the prospect of a coronavirus infection.
“ We’ re really pleased with the progress that we’ re making, ” John Wiesman, the secretary of health in Washington State, said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Health workers have reached out to 16 people who may have had close contact with the patient, all of them located in either Snohomish County or in Seattle’ s King County. That number may grow as the investigation continues, the officials said.
They said they planned to remain in daily contact with those people to monitor any possible symptoms but have not asked them to isolate themselves, under the assumption that this variation of coronavirus, which researchers are only beginning to understand, operates like other versions that transmit only once someone becomes symptomatic.
Officials believe that the virus is transmitted through the air by coughing and sneezing, by close personal contact such as touching an infected person, and from touching a surface with the virus on it before touching the mouth, nose or eyes.
The new virus emerged in China at the end of December and spread to other countries in Asia. The outbreak, which has sickened more than 540 people and left at least 17 dead, has triggered extensive protections around the globe, including extra screening and protocols for travelers coming from the Wuhan region in China.
In the United States, passengers from Wuhan are being funneled to airports in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago and New York, where screening stations have been set up.
Chinese authorities escalated their own actions, announcing plans to close off the city of Wuhan by canceling planes and trains scheduled to leave the area of more than 11 million people. The World Health Organization has been considering whether to declare an international emergency.
In Washington State, officials declined to discuss additional details about the patient or the specifics of his travel, saying they would publicly disclose them only if they had trouble making contact with people who might be at risk. While public health leaders said they saw minimal risk to the public, they also said the case in Snohomish County may not end up being the only one.
“ We have our first case in the U.S., ” Mr. Wiesman said. “ I would expect that at some point we’ re going to have more cases in the U.S. ”
Updated June 12, 2020
So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “ very rare, ” but she later walked back that statement.
Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus — whether it’ s surface transmission or close human contact — is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.
A study by European scientists is the first to document a strong statistical link between genetic variations and Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Having Type A blood was linked to a 50 percent increase in the likelihood that a patient would need to get oxygen or to go on a ventilator, according to the new study.
The unemployment rate fell to 13.3 percent in May, the Labor Department said on June 5, an unexpected improvement in the nation’ s job market as hiring rebounded faster than economists expected. Economists had forecast the unemployment rate to increase to as much as 20 percent, after it hit 14.7 percent in April, which was the highest since the government began keeping official statistics after World War II. But the unemployment rate dipped instead, with employers adding 2.5 million jobs, after more than 20 million jobs were lost in April.
Mass protests against police brutality that have brought thousands of people onto the streets in cities across America are raising the specter of new coronavirus outbreaks, prompting political leaders, physicians and public health experts to warn that the crowds could cause a surge in cases. While many political leaders affirmed the right of protesters to express themselves, they urged the demonstrators to wear face masks and maintain social distancing, both to protect themselves and to prevent further community spread of the virus. Some infectious disease experts were reassured by the fact that the protests were held outdoors, saying the open air settings could mitigate the risk of transmission.
Exercise researchers and physicians have some blunt advice for those of us aiming to return to regular exercise now: Start slowly and then rev up your workouts, also slowly. American adults tended to be about 12 percent less active after the stay-at-home mandates began in March than they were in January. But there are steps you can take to ease your way back into regular exercise safely. First, “ start at no more than 50 percent of the exercise you were doing before Covid, ” says Dr. Monica Rho, the chief of musculoskeletal medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago. Thread in some preparatory squats, too, she advises. “ When you haven’ t been exercising, you lose muscle mass. ” Expect some muscle twinges after these preliminary, post-lockdown sessions, especially a day or two later. But sudden or increasing pain during exercise is a clarion call to stop and return home.
States are reopening bit by bit. This means that more public spaces are available for use and more and more businesses are being allowed to open again. The federal government is largely leaving the decision up to states, and some state leaders are leaving the decision up to local authorities. Even if you aren’ t being told to stay at home, it’ s still a good idea to limit trips outside and your interaction with other people.
Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. ( Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)
Taking one’ s temperature to look for signs of fever is not as easy as it sounds, as “ normal ” temperature numbers can vary, but generally, keep an eye out for a temperature of 100.5 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. If you don’ t have a thermometer ( they can be pricey these days), there are other ways to figure out if you have a fever, or are at risk of Covid-19 complications.
The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’ t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks don’ t replace hand washing and social distancing.
If you’ ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.
If you’ re sick and you think you’ ve been exposed to the new coronavirus, the C.D.C. recommends that you call your healthcare provider and explain your symptoms and fears. They will decide if you need to be tested. Keep in mind that there’ s a chance — because of a lack of testing kits or because you’ re asymptomatic, for instance — you won’ t be able to get tested.
After the first American patient visited a clinic on Sunday, a few days after returning from China, doctors asked him to stay home and isolated as they worked with the C.D.C. to test whether he had been infected by the new coronavirus.
After confirming the illness, officials later coordinated with emergency medical technicians to bring the man to Providence Regional Medical Center in the city of Everett, where a containment unit had been built during the most recent Ebola outbreaks, said Dr. Jay Cook, the hospital’ s chief medical officer. The unit has a negative airflow to filter any air coming out of the room, and an adjacent room for workers to put on protective equipment if needed.
Dr. Cook said the patient was doing well under treatment by a team of caregivers that volunteered to handle patients who have illnesses of particular concern or that may be highly contagious. He said he was hopeful the patient could be discharged in the near future.
As the coronavirus has continued to spread through Asia, and as health officials try to determine how it spreads and how to contain it, regulators in the United States have sought to assure the public that there was little risk — while acknowledging that there may be anxiety about the arrival of an illness that has drawn global attention.
“ I think that’ s understandable given the amount of uncertainty and the new nature of this virus, ” Dr. Cook said.
Symptoms of the virus include runny nose, headache, cough and fever. Officials said that anyone who feels sick should follow the usual protocols of staying home from work, covering coughs and washing hands. They said people who were ill after traveling to the Wuhan region should contact a health care provider. | business |
Snakes could be the original source of the new coronavirus outbreak in China |
Snakes -- the Chinese krait and the Chinese cobra -- may be the original source of the newly discovered coronavirus that has triggered an outbreak of a deadly infectious respiratory illness in China this winter.
Wuhan coronavirus death toll rises, as city imposes transport lackdown
The many-banded krait ( Bungarus multicinctus), also known as the Taiwanese krait or the Chinese krait, is a highly venomous species of elapid snake found in much of central and southern China and Southeast Asia.
The illness was first reported in late December 2019 in Wuhan, a major city in central China, and has been rapidly spreading. Since then, sick travelers from Wuhan have infected people in China and other countries,
including the United States
.
Using samples of the virus isolated from patients, scientists in China have determined the genetic code of the virus and used microscopes to photograph it. The pathogen responsible for this pandemic is a new coronavirus. It's in the same family of viruses as the well-known severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus ( SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus ( MERS-CoV), which have killed hundreds of people in the past 17 years. The World Health Organization ( WHO) has named the new coronavirus 2019-nCoV.
We are
virologists
and
journal editors
and are closely following this outbreak because there are many questions that need to be answered to curb the spread of this public health threat.
Read More
What is a coronavirus?
The name of coronavirus comes from its shape, which resembles a crown or solar corona when imaged using an electron microscope.
A visual guide to the Wuhan coronavirus
The electron microscopic image, reveals the crown shape structural details for which the coronavirus was named. This image is of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus ( MERS-CoV). National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases ( NIAID)
Coronavirus is transmitted through the air and primarily infects the upper respiratory and gastrointestinal tract of mammals and birds. Though most of the members of the coronavirus family only cause mild flu-like symptoms during infection, SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV can infect both upper and lower airways and cause severe respiratory illness and other complications in humans.
This new 2019-nCoV causes similar symptoms to SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. People infected with these coronaviruses suffer a severe inflammatory response.
Unfortunately, there is
no approved vaccine
or antiviral treatment available for coronavirus infection. A better understanding of the life cycle of 2019-nCoV, including the source of the virus, how it is transmitted and how it replicates are needed to both prevent and treat the disease.
Read:
What exactly is a coronavirus?
Zoonotic transmission
Both SARS and MERS are classified as zoonotic viral diseases, meaning the first patients who were infected acquired these viruses directly from animals. This was possible because while in the animal host, the virus had acquired a series of genetic mutations that allowed it to infect and multiply inside humans.
First US case of Wuhan coronavirus confirmed by CDC
Now these viruses can be transmitted from person to person. Field studies have revealed that the original source of SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV is the bat, and that the
masked palm civets
( a mammal native to Asia and Africa) and
camels
, respectively, served as intermediate hosts between bats and humans.
In the case of this 2019 coronavirus outbreak, reports state that most of the first group of patients hospitalized were workers or customers at a local seafood wholesale market which also sold processed meats and live consumable animals including poultry, donkeys, sheep, pigs, camels, foxes, badgers, bamboo rats, hedgehogs and reptiles. However, since no one has ever reported finding a coronavirus infecting aquatic animals, it is plausible that the coronavirus may have originated from other animals sold in that market.
Life inside ground zero of Wuhan coronavirus outbreak
The hypothesis that the 2019-nCoV jumped from an animal at the market is strongly supported by
a new publication
in the Journal of Medical Virology. The scientists conducted an analysis and compared the genetic sequences of 2019-nCoV and all other known coronaviruses.
The study of the genetic code of 2019-nCoV reveals that the new virus is most closely related to two bat SARS-like coronavirus samples from China, initially suggesting that, like SARS and MERS, the bat might also be the origin of 2019-nCoV. The authors further found that the viral RNA coding sequence of 2019-nCoV spike protein, which forms the `` crown '' of the virus particle that recognizes the receptor on a host cell, indicates that the bat virus might have mutated before infecting people.
How influenza jumped from animals to humans
But when the researchers performed a more detailed bioinformatics analysis of the sequence of 2019-nCoV, it suggests that this coronavirus might come from snakes.
The Wuhan Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market, where the coronavirus outbreak is believed to have started, is now closed.
From bats to snakes
The researchers used an analysis of the protein codes favored by the new coronavirus and compared it to the protein codes from coronaviruses found in different animal hosts, like birds, snakes, marmots, hedgehogs, manis, bats and humans. Surprisingly, they found that the protein codes in the 2019-nCoV are most similar to those used in snakes.
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Sign up here to get
The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta
every Tuesday from the CNN Health team.
Snakes often hunt for bats in wild. Reports indicate that snakes were sold in the local seafood market in Wuhan, raising the possibility that the 2019-nCoV might have jumped from the host species -- bats -- to snakes and then to humans at the beginning of this coronavirus outbreak. However, how the virus could adapt to both the cold-blooded and warm-blooded hosts remains a mystery.
The authors of the report and other researchers
must verify the origin of the virus through laboratory experiments. Searching for the 2019-nCoV sequence in snakes would be the first thing to do. However, since the outbreak, the seafood market has been disinfected and shut down, which makes it challenging to trace the new virus ' source animal.
3 reasons the US is not ready for a pandemic
Sampling viral RNA from animals sold at the market and from wild snakes and bats is needed to confirm the origin of the virus. Nonetheless, the reported findings will also provide insights for developing prevention and treatment protocols.
The 2019-nCoV outbreak is another reminder that people should limit the consumption of wild animals to
prevent zoonotic infections
.
Haitao Guo and Shou-Jiang Gao are professors of microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of Pittsburgh. Guangxiang `` George '' Luo is a professor of microbiology at University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Republished under a Creative Commons license from
The Conversation
. | general |
Appetite for 'warm meat ' drives risk of disease in Hong Kong and China | Each evening, under cover of darkness, hundreds of live pigs from farms across China are trucked through the rusting gates of a cluster of mildew-stained quarantine and inspection buildings in the Qingshuihe logistics zone in Shenzhen.
Overnight they are checked for illness, primarily the African swine fever ( ASF) that is expected to kill off a quarter of the world’ s pigs, and reloaded on to ventilated trucks with dual mainland China and Hong Kong licence plates.
This week the Guardian’ s Animals Farmed series is focusing on the global live animal export trade, which, despite welfare and disease concerns, has quadrupled over the last fifty years.
Nearly 2 billion animals a year are loaded onto trucks or ships and sent off to new countries on journeys that can take weeks.
Every day at least 5 million creatures are in transit, in a secretive global trade in live farm animals.
And those numbers are just the cross-border journeys. They do not include long journeys within countries, which are becoming more frequent due to a trend that has seen smaller slaughterhouses close down.
We’ re taking a moment to focus on some of the implications of this global trade.
Before sunrise the caravan makes its way five-and-a-half miles south to the border at Man Kam To, a small customs and immigration checkpoint, where the pigs go through further visual health checks before crossing into Hong Kong.
They are bound for Sheung Shui slaughterhouse, the largest of three abattoirs in the territory. Once there they will be checked again before being dispatched in less than 24 hours under new rules meant to prevent the spread of ASF.
It’ s a lot of effort to get fresh meat from the 1,400 pigs that cross the border each day.
For various reasons, the Chinese prefer freshly slaughtered pig, chicken and beef over chilled or frozen meat that has been slaughtered before being shipped.
That desire is at the heart of why diseases such as avian flu in poultry and ASF have been so difficult to eradicate, with huge movements of live animals from all over the country – from farm to slaughterhouse to market – on a daily basis making controlling the spread of disease incredibly difficult.A recent coronavirus outbreak in China has been linked to a wet market in Wuhan, eastern China. Like other respiratory illnesses, the disease was initially transmitted from animal to human, but is now being passed human to human.
At the nearby Walmart, the customer flow at this time of day is only a trickle compared to the wet market.
But despite awareness of the issues, the markets are a huge part of Chinese life. On a busy morning at a so-called “ wet market ” in the Shajing area, the oldest inhabited and very Cantonese part of Shenzhen, hundreds of shoppers arrive soon after daybreak. Slabs of pork hang from the stalls and various cuts are piled on the counters amid lights with a reddish glare and the occasional buzzing of flies.
Just a few minutes away at the nearby Walmart, where there are also options for fresh, chilled and frozen meat, the customer flow at this time of day is only a trickle compared to the wet market. It has your average western supermarket vibe – white daylight lighting, sterile and clean.
Staff at the meat counter in Walmart and at the stalls in the wet market both say the meat comes in from the same slaughterhouse around 2am. So why the huge difference in foot traffic?
Molly Maj, a corporate communications representative for Walmart, says “ the average customer in China still prefers fresh meat ” over other options.
One reason for the demand for wet markets is that widespread refrigeration only came to China in recent years. While most urban homes now have refrigerators, many in rural areas and low income urban renters still do not own one, or only a mini-fridge if they do.
The habit of buying perishable food for daily use is still prevalent in many consumers, particularly older shoppers who grew up without refrigerators. They say they can tell the quality of fresh meat by its smell, colour and how it feels to the touch.
“ When I’ m talking with my students I say: ‘ The term warm meat, fresh meat, sounds disgusting to me, I grew up [ in Germany ] with chilled meat, that’ s all I know, ” Dirk Pfeiffer, a professor of veterinary medicine at City University in Hong Kong and an expert on diseases related to animal husbandry, says.
“ So I ask them why and they come up with all sorts of vague things like the soup tastes better or that it is a trust issue, knowing it is a live animal at the other end and not some diseased animal, ” he says. “ It’ s all very subjective. ”
Wet markets are central to the perception that fresh meat is better, says Pfeiffer. They evoke nostalgia among shoppers, many of whom come from rural areas where all they knew were wet markets and no refrigeration.
Where a wet market feels familiar a supermarket can seem alien and out of place.
“ I actually believe that it is an important thing for the older generation to go to the wet market and chat, ” says Pfeiffer. However, the way the animal trade operates in China is “ an utter disaster ”, for animal disease and welfare, he adds.
A year ago, before rising concerns about the spread of ASF, nearly 4,000 pigs crossed daily with less scrutiny. Pigs were held in dismal conditions for as long as five days before being slaughtered on the Hong Kong side, greatly enhancing the possibility of disease transmission, says Pfeiffer.The recent shortages due to the ASF outbreak have doubled and tripled prices for fresh pork at wet markets across Hong Kong. Farms in Hong Kong itself can usually supply about 300 pigs a day. Land use and environmental restrictions prevent any increase in production. The result is further worries about Hong Kong’ s reliance on mainland China beyond its water and energy dependence.
“ Many years ago, we had imports from all over Asia of live animals, but eventually the entire supply was monopolised by mainland China, ” said Helena Wong, a member of Hong Kong’ s legislative council panel on food safety and environmental hygiene. “ They killed all their competitors and monopolised the supply of live pig and chicken. ”
More than 6,000 pigs at the Sheung Shui slaughterhouse were culled in May 2019 after ASF was found among animals brought in from China. Hong Kong’ s legislative council is now trying to figure out how much it owes traders and farmers in compensation.
Massive culls of poultry due to avian flu in imported mainland chickens in the last decade also led to large compensation bills and, eventually, to ending live chicken imports in early 2016.
“ We as taxpayers have to give that money, ” said Wong. “ So now we are in a big crisis because in the past few years we have experienced avian flu and now African swine fever. ”
Disease outbreaks have raised wider questions about the sustainability of Chinese consumers’ appetite – both on the mainland and in Hong Kong – for what is often called “ warm ” meat.For Deborah Cao, a professor at Griffith University in Australia and an expert on animal protection in China, a deeper issue driving the live animal trade is a cultural disconnect about animal welfare.
“ The main problem is the indifference or perception of people who simply regard animals as food, tools, or as things that people can do anything they want to, ” she said.
“ In particular, there is no perception of farm animals as having feelings, or being capable of feeling pain or suffering. ”
Hong Kong may find it difficult to switch to a different model. There is almost no chance of farm expansion to support larger scale production within Hong Kong and, although the government is looking at possibilities of live imports from other Asian countries, the ports do not have adequate facilities to cope with large numbers.
“ To a large extent, if we insist on fresh food, we have to rely on China, ” said Wong. “ If we can change and make certain concessions, Hong Kong has always been an open market for importing food items from many parts of the world. It is only for the provision of live animals that we are monopolised by the mainland farms. ”
Reporting assistance from Zhong Yunfan. | general |
The Hottest Energy Conflict Right Now | Belarus has just bought two cargoes of Johan Sverdrup, the recently commissioned Norwegian oilfield and is in talks with several oil-producing countries from the Soviet Union to ramp up crude imports in the upcoming weeks. This in and of itself might not seem such a big thing yet considering that Belarus in the past years was 100 percent reliant on Russian crude and has barely purchased any in 2020, it marks an unexpected escalation of what initially seemed to a technical issue, a transit fee discrepancy, that should have been sorted on a professional level, without the involvement of politics. Instead, the undeclared war between Belarus and Russia is now upending traditional lines of supply and wreaking havoc in the two states. Let & rsquo; s start with the chronology first. The roots of the conflict are to be traced back to the inability of the two sides to settle on a crude supply deal for 2020, one which would build on the previous years & rsquo; uninterrupted supplies whereby Belarus was buying 23-24 million tons per year, of this some 18 million tons per year for domestic usage in its 240kbpd Novopolotsk and 320kbpd Mozyr Refineries. Belarus rejects any Russian proposals that mirror the pricing practice of the past years as the Russian tax maneuver jeopardizes up to 5 percent of Belarus & rsquo; GDP. The Russian tax maneuver is a long-mooted step to phase out crude and product export duties and offsetting the balance by means of a Mineral Resources Extraction Tax MRET increase. Graph 1. Russian Export Duty in 2014-2020, USD per metric ton. Source author. Since Belarus has been receiving all crude oil duty-free up until the last days of 2019, Russia & rsquo; s decision to move in the direction of harmonizing its oil sector taxation with the requirements of its post-CIS integration brainchild, the Eurasian Economic Union, renders it inadvertently one of its victims. The phasing out is not immediate as it is spread out over five years 2019-2024 yet Belarus does not want to sit idly whilst the margins and profits of its refiners shrink and their standing vis- & agrave; -vis Russia becomes unfavored. To complicate matters even more, 6mtpa of the 24mtpa Belarus annually purchased were only nominally related to the Eastern European state & ndash; the Kremlin used it as a political sweetener for purely political reasons, these volumes were customs cleared in Belarus not Russia so that the Belarussian budget gets some $ 600-800 million per year. Related Expect A Strong Year For Oil DiscoveriesSource CEFO. This might seem as a tough nut to crack & ndash; thanks to the duty-free character of crude imports Belarus saved approximately $ 2 billion per year and now would be compelled to purchase crude at market level. However, the particularities of post-Soviet deal-making render it even more complicated. All of the crude agreements are inextricably linked to the two sides & rsquo; gas agreements Belarus has paid 132 USD/MCm whilst the average European price of Gazprom was 242 USD/MCm in 2018 and 202 USD/MCm in 2019, Minsk & rsquo; s manifold debt repayment schemes vis- & agrave; -vis Russian state banks and President Lukashenka & rsquo; s erratic foreign policy. Gas negotiations are palpably less toxic than the crude-related ones, owing in no small part to the fact that Gazprom controls Belarus & rsquo; gas transmission network, i.e. it can not be used as a bargaining chip in bilateral negotiations/disputes. This is not the case with crude and one can see the result & ndash; as soon as the Belarussian-Russian dispute emerged, the Belarussian Trade and Anti-Monopoly Ministry declared that it seeks an immediate 16.6 percent hike on pipeline crude transit volumes the crude which is supplied to Central and Eastern Europe via the Druzhba pipeline. The Belarussian President upped the ante by imposing a sudden 50-percent & ldquo; environmental tax & rdquo; on all crude and product transit volumes, needless to say that in a completely unannounced fashion. Related Goldman China Coronavirus Could Push Oil Down By $ 3 Why Johan Sverdrup The reason for buying Johan Sverdrup is fairly straightforward & ndash; the 28 degree API density grade is very similar in its product yield to Urals, the crude for which both Belarussian refineries were initially configured. According to market rumors, the Belarussian state company BNK bought two Aframax cargoes and will ship them home from the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda, delivering them to the Novopolotsk Refinery by rail. The vicinity of Norway & rsquo; s continental shelf played no small part in this & ndash; MT Breiviken which will deliver the first cargo loaded January 19 and by January 23 it had already reached its final destination, i.e. the required voyage was really quick, coming in handy for Minsk & rsquo; s bargaining position even if it overpaid it. What does Russia seek As much as Russia has garnered a rather adverse reputation for its energy sector-related dealings, with Belarus it faces a difficult dilemma & ndash; it wants to make sure that a powerful political message is made to President Lukashenka, all the while keeping Belarus & rsquo; oil sector out of the trouble. Its interests are by no means altruistic & ndash; Belarus & rsquo; largest refinery in Mozyr is co-owned by a joint venture of Rosneft and Gazprom Neft, meaning that Russian NOCs control 42.58 percent of the asset the rest is controlled by the Belarussian state. Given that Belarus & rsquo; downstream was loss-making even in the & ldquo; good & rdquo; years of 2017 and 2018, primarily due to government-controlled fuel prices and currency devaluations, neither of the companies wants to incur even deeper losses. What next As wild as the current situation seems, this is not the first time such unbridled negotiations take place. Tariff hikes are a usual subject for the two sides & rsquo; disputes, moreover in 2010 Belarus has already tried to import Venezuelan crude to demonstrate that it can survive without Russian deliveries. Lukashenka & rsquo; s cash-strapped regime needs further Russian loans and Moscow & rsquo; s cooperativeness in keeping Belarus & rsquo; loss-making energy sector afloat, all the while Russia, seeking to enter a new period of d & eacute; tente with Europe, has no political interest in spoiling its geopolitical game by actions in Belarus. Hence, after the bombastic declarations and threats abate, Moscow and Minsk will curve out yet another modus operandi which everyone knows will last only for a couple of years, only to repeat the entire process from scratch. By Viktor Katona for Oilprice.com | business |
China new year plans scrapped as Wuhan coronavirus spreads |
Authorities have widened a
travel lockdown
in central China, ring-fencing millions of residents in a race to
contain a deadly virus
that is spreading throughout Asia and across the world.
The clampdown -- which comes amid the Lunar New Year, China's busiest travel period -- reflects mounting fears that the outbreak of a new strain of coronavirus could give rise to a pandemic. The virus has killed at least 25 people in China, several of whom did not have pre-existing conditions before they contracted the illness, with more than 830 infected.
Still, the World Health Organization's ( WHO) emergency committee said Thursday it was too early to declare the outbreak an international public health emergency.
Earlier in the day, David Heymann, the chairman of a WHO committee gathering data on the virus, said the virus spreads more easily from person to person than previously thought.
It initially appeared to spread only by very close contact that would typically occur within a family -- such as hugging, kissing, or sharing eating utensils -- but now evidence is accruing that shows more distant contact could spread the virus, such as if a sick person were to sneeze or cough near someone else's face.
Read More
He said there is no evidence at this point that the virus is airborne and could be spread across a room, as happens with the flu or measles.
Mounting evidence suggests the virus is spreading outside mainland China, with various countries reporting their first cases.
In Scotland, five people were tested for suspected coronavirus after traveling from Wuhan.
Hong Kong confirmed two cases of the virus and Singapore confirmed its first, a 66-year-old Chinese national who had also been in Wuhan.
Saudi Arabia has denied there are any cases of the virus in its territory, following reports that an Indian nurse working in the country had been diagnosed.
China's race to contain it
Wuhan --
ground zero
for the pneumonia-like respiratory virus -- `` temporarily '' closed its airport and railway stations on Thursday for departing passengers. All public transport services in the city of 11 million people have also been suspended until further notice.
On Thursday afternoon, transport authorities began shutting down some of the main highways leaving Wuhan, according to state news agency Xinhua.
A visual guide to the Wuhan coronavirus
The wearing of face masks is now mandatory in all public places in the city, including hotels, restaurants, parks, cafes, and shopping malls.
`` People who don't obey the requirements shall be dealt with by authorities in accordance with their respective duties and laws, '' a statement from Wuhan's municipal government said on Wednesday.
Authorities in Huanggang, about 80 kilometers ( 50 miles) east of Wuhan, announced a series of similar measures cutting off the city as of midnight local time ( 11 a.m. ET on Thursday).
Government officials said in a statement that the city's subway and train stations will close, per a report in the People's Daily, a state-run newspaper. All theaters, internet cafes and indoor public culture, tourism and entertainment facilities in the city will also stop business, People's Daily reported.
Hundreds of thousands of people will likely be affected. The entire administrative area of Huanggang has a population of 7.5 million, but People's Daily reported that the lockdown only applies to the urban area, which is only a part of the total population.
In Ezhou, the city's railway station has been closed `` in order to fully conduct prevention and control of the new type of pneumonia... effectively cut off the transmission of the virus, resolutely curb the spread of the epidemic, and ensure the safety and health of the people, '' according to a statement from city's Coronavirus Disease Prevention Control Headquarters on Thursday.
There was an unusual flurry of activity around the train stations in Wuhan early Thursday morning, as passengers -- most of them wearing face masks -- scrambled to leave the city before the lockdown began. Families were seen unloading their cars and hurrying to get into lines that already stretched outside the doors.
Travelers at Wuhan's Hankou railway station queue to leave the city early on Thursday morning before the citywide lockdown came into effect.
At Wuhan's Hankou railway station, one of the country's busiest high-speed rail hubs, officials used thermal detectors to scan for potential fevers as dozens of passengers filed through the security screening. Inside, crowds were shoulder to shoulder as they waited for trains out of the city.
The mass exodus was met with anger from many users of the Weibo microblogging platform.
`` Wuhan people, get out of Shanghai, '' one person posted. `` Don't sneak in and spread chaos. ''
Others shared their fears over the virus, and cautionary warnings. `` Don't panic and try not to go out, '' one person said.
Another person posted they had considered fleeing Wuhan. `` I was thinking about my parents and children -- if I bring them, where can we escape to? ''
The decision to stop trains and planes to and from Wuhan comes shortly before Lunar New Year begins on January 25 amid what is considered the biggest human migration on the planet, with hundreds of millions of people visiting families and traveling in China or throughout Asia.
Inside Wuhan, the epicenter
Wuhan is one of China's most important cities. Located on the confluence of the Yangtze River and its largest tributary, the Han River, it is considered the political and economic capital of central China.
For those remaining in the city, there is a sense of unease. Jan Renders, a 29-year-old PhD student in Wuhan, told CNN that many shops are closing for the Lunar New Year holiday, so people had already been stocking up on supplies. He said he was able to buy enough food for at least a week.
`` But of course people aren't sure whether shops will be going back to normal soon, '' he said.
Another man in Wuhan sent CNN a photo inside a grocery store Thursday morning that showed several empty shelves. The man, who asked not to be identified, said most of the food was sold out.
The Wuhan New-type Coronavirus Pneumonia Command -- a task-force set up to deal with the crisis -- said in a statement that Wuhan has a sufficient supply and reserve of food, medical supplies and commodities.
Disease detectives hunting down more information about'super spreader ' of Wuhan coronavirus
`` There is no need for the general public of the city to panic or hoard in order to prevent unnecessary wastes, '' the command said.
The scale of the challenge facing authorities tasked with implementing the blockade is immense. By way of comparison, the lockdown is akin to closing down all transport links for a city more than three times the size of Chicago, two days before Christmas.
`` The Chinese new year is the most important festival for Chinese. And many of the mobile population, they're coming from rural China to work in Wuhan, and now you ask them not to leave to see their relatives, that is difficult, '' professor Yuen Kwok-yung, a leading microbiologist, told CNN.
Yuen was part of a group of high-level experts who visited Wuhan earlier this week and recommended on Sunday that the Chinese central government should stop people traveling to and from the city.
`` It has to be done, '' he said. `` If you allow people to go out of Wuhan, especially those who may have symptoms, then the exported case numbers will continue to surge, and that is not a good thing for the whole outbreak control. ''
`` The mainland government policy now is that nobody should leave Wuhan and nobody should come into Wuhan, '' he continued.
A growing number of cases
Chinese health authorities said on Friday that at least 830 cases of the Wuhan coronavirus had been confirmed. The death toll rose on Friday to 25, from 17 the day before -- with all but one of those deaths in Hubei, the central Chinese province of which Wuhan is the capital.
The other death was in Hebei province, close to Beijing.
Cases of the virus have now been reported in nearly every Chinese province, with two cases confirmed in Macao, and two in Hong Kong. The self-governing island of Taiwan has also confirmed a case.
Beyond China, officials in Washington state said on Tuesday that a man in his 30s is the
first confirmed case on US soil
. A total of nine cases have also been reported in Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Japan and Vietnam.
The true extent of the Wuhan coronavirus is unclear, however, and official figures may be an underestimation as mild symptoms and delayed onset mean cases are likely to have been undetected, a team of scientists have said.
Scientists at Imperial College London estimate that around 4,000 people are likely to have been infected in Wuhan city alone as of January 18.
Passengers wearing face masks onboard one of the last trains to leave Wuhan before a citywide lockdown came into effect.
What we know about the virus
Officially called the novel coronavirus ( 2019-nCoV), the contagion is in the same family of infections as severe acute respiratory syndrome ( SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome ( MERS). SARS infected 8,000 people and caused 774 deaths in 2002 and 2003.
Coronaviruses are transmitted
by animals
and people, and the Wuhan strain has been linked to a market in the city that was selling seafood and live animals, including wild species. The coronavirus that causes SARS was traced to the civet cat, a wild animal considered a delicacy in parts of China that was sold in similar markets.
Chinese health officials said human-to-human transmission of the virus has been confirmed, raising the chance of its spread. In one instance, 14 doctors and nurses operating on a patient unknown to be carrying the virus were all infected with it, suggesting it can be spread relatively easily.
Snakes could be the source of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak
The disease is mainly transmitted `` through the respiratory tract, '' Li Bin, China's national health commissioner said on Wednesday, adding that `` there is possibility of viral mutation and further spread of the disease. ''
Li said that Wuhan and Hubei provincial authorities should tighten the regulation of farm markets and wild animals. He also urged the public to avoid crowds and minimize large gatherings.
China on Tuesday announced it was adopting Class A prevention and control measures, typically used for major outbreaks such as plague and cholera. The designation has given health officials sweeping powers to lock down affected areas and quarantine patients.
China previously used such measures in 2009 to tackle an outbreak of H1N1, introducing mandatory quarantine for anyone who had `` close contact '' with an infected person, including foreigners arriving in the country from areas where H1N1 outbreaks had been reported.
International containment efforts
Japanese officers work at a health screening station as they observe passengers arriving on a flight from Wuhan, China.
As officials race to slow the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus,
containment efforts are being put in place
in many travel hubs.
Airports around the world are increasing health screenings and implementing new quarantine procedures, including in major airports in the US, Thailand, Singapore and Australia.
Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway ( MTR) has halted the sale of high-speed railway tickets to and from Wuhan, according to its public relations manager Dobie Yam.
Several countries, including the UK and Japan, have advised against all but essential travel to Wuhan.
Coronavirus explained: What you need to know
However, the World Health Organization ( WHO) has not yet declared the virus a `` public health emergency of international concern, '' which might merit a coordinated global response.
The organization's emergency committee met Wednesday in Geneva, but decided more information was needed to declare the status of the outbreak and what recommendations should be made regarding it. It is expected to take up the matter again on Thursday.
Meanwhile, a senior State Department official said Wednesday the United States is concerned about transparency inside the Chinese government on the Wuhan coronavirus.
`` I do believe that the concern you see both inside China and internationally is a reflection of what we 've seen in the past. 2003 was SARS, and a number of issues, where the government has been slow to respond out of fear of embarrassment or making things look worse than they are. And that reluctance to respond in a rapid manner doesn't give the global community a secure feeling for this being managed inside China, '' the official said.
CNN's
Nectar Gan
, Steven Jiang, Tara John, Amir Vera, Chermaine Lee, Yong Xiong, Meera Senthilingam, Sandi Sidhu, Yuli Yang, Karla Cripps, and Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting. | general |
Inovio, Moderna score CEPI funding for vaccine work against deadly coronavirus | funding for three early-stage vaccine programs.
Moderna this week disclosed that it’ s working with federal researchers on a candidate, and now it 'll have financial backing from CEPI. Pennsylvania-based Inovio Pharmaceuticals scored $ 9 million in funding for its own program, and CEPI is further expanding a partnership with the University of Queensland. | tech |
Banking Earnings Mixed, ETFs Gain Moderately | The Q4 earnings season has been pretty moderate so far for the financial sector, which accounts for around one-fifth of the S & P 500 index. Four big banks have crushed estimates on both the lines while two reported mixed results ( read: Why Bank ETFs May Soar in 2020).
Let’ s take a look at major banking earnings releases in detail:
Big Bank Earnings in Focus
JPMorgan’ s JPM fourth-quarter 2019 earnings of $ 2.57 per share outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $ 2.32. Net revenues as reported were $ 28.3 billion, up 9% from the year-ago quarter. Also, the top line beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $ 27.3 billion.
Wells Fargo’ s WFC fourth-quarter 2019 adjusted earnings of 93 cents per share lagged the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $ 1.12, on lower net interest income and rise in expenses. Results exclude litigation accruals. The quarter’ s total revenues came in at $ 19.9 billion, outpacing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $ 19.8 billion. The revenue figure, however, came in lower than the prior-year quarter’ s tally of $ 21 billion.
Citigroup’ s C quarterly adjusted earnings of $ 1.90 per share beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $ 1.82. Revenues were up 7% year over year to $ 18.4 billion in the fourth quarter. The reported figure also beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $ 17.7 billion. Higher revenues, both from Global Consumer Banking ( GCB) and Institutional Clients Group ( ICG), mainly led to this upside.
Bank of America’ s BAC fourth-quarter 2019 earnings of 74 cents per share outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 68 cents. The figure rose 6% from the prior-year quarter. Net revenues amounted to $ 22.3 billion, which marginally beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $ 22 billion. However, the reported figure was down 1% on a year-over-year basis.
Goldman Sachs GS posted earnings per share of $ 4.69, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $ 5.20. Further, the bottom-line figure compares unfavorably with earnings of $ 6.04 per share recorded in the year-earlier quarter. Goldman’ s net revenues were up 23% year over year to $ 10 billion in the reported quarter. The revenue figure also beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $ 8.8 billion.
Morgan Stanley’ s MS fourth-quarter 2019 adjusted earnings of $ 1.20 per share surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $ 0.97. The figure jumped 64% year over year. Net revenues for the quarter were $ 10.86 billion, up 27% from the prior-year quarter. Also, the top line beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $ 9.52 billion. Morgan Stanley recorded a rise in both trading and investment banking revenues.
Market Impact
Against this backdrop, investors might be wondering how financial ETFs like iShares U.S. Financial Services ETF IYG, iShares US Financials ETF IYF, Invesco KBW Bank ETF KBWB, Financial Select Sector SPDR XLF and Vanguard Financials ETF VFH have responded to the earnings releases. These funds have considerable exposure to the aforementioned stocks ( see all Financial ETFs here).
Goldman and Morgan Stanley are not that prominent in the afore-mentioned ETFs, but are rather heavy on iShares U.S. Broker-Dealers & Securities Exchanges ETF IAI. Most of these ETFs put up a modest performance in the last five days — which marked the peak of banking earnings releases, apart from KBWB. The recent decline in long-term U.S. treasury yields in the wake of the Coronavirus outbreak resulted in the flattening of the yield curve and hurt the funds.
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Click to get this free report Wells Fargo & Company ( WFC): Free Stock Analysis Report Bank of America Corporation ( BAC): Free Stock Analysis Report JPMorgan Chase & Co. ( JPM): Free Stock Analysis Report Citigroup Inc. ( C): Free Stock Analysis Report The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ( GS): Free Stock Analysis Report Morgan Stanley ( MS): Free Stock Analysis Report iShares U.S. Financials ETF ( IYF): ETF Research Reports Invesco KBW Bank ETF ( KBWB): ETF Research Reports iShares U.S. Financial Services ETF ( IYG): ETF Research Reports iShares U.S. Broker-Dealers & Securities Exchanges ETF ( IAI): ETF Research Reports Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund ( XLF): ETF Research Reports Vanguard Financials ETF ( VFH): ETF Research Reports To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report | business |
Will Travel Restrictions Amid Coronavirus Outbreak Affect Transportation ETFs? | This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com.
The coronavirus outbreak could take its toll on the travel industry after companies like General Motors, Ford and other U.S. companies have been implementing employee travel restrictions to Wuhan, China. The outbreak has already taken the lives of 17 people and the latest travel setbacks could affect transportation ETFs.
Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Homeland Security are already screening passengers flying to major U.S. airports from China. The World Health Organization held an emergency meeting in Geneva to discuss the outbreak, as well as how to control it from spreading further.
Latest news via a CNBC report:
Transportation ETFs to watch:
For more real estate trends, visit ETFTrends.com.
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Huawei developer conference postponed due to Wuhan coronavirus | Huawei has announced the postponement of a major developers’ conference because of safety precautions around the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China. HDC.Cloud 2020 was planned to take place in Shenzhen on February 11th to 12th, but has been pushed back to March 27th-28th, according to the event’ s website. 17 people are confirmed to have been killed by the SARS-like virus so far.
The conference is enterprise-focused and serves as Huawei’ s primary event for IT developers. “ We want to share the ICT technologies and capabilities Huawei has developed over the past 30 years, ” Huawei said to promote it. “ Our Kunpeng and Ascend processors, in particular, will be powerful new engines for global developers. ”
Huawei is unlikely to be the last Chinese company to alter its upcoming events calendar, as the situation in Wuhan is being treated with serious countermeasures. Foxconn CEO Terry Gou has warned staff not to travel to mainland China during the upcoming Lunar New Year period, Reuters reports. The entire city of Wuhan, which has more than 11 million residents, is on lockdown as of Thursday morning, with airports and train stations closed until further notice.
It’ s unclear how effective the unprecedented containment effort will be. “ To my knowledge, trying to contain a city of 11 million people is new to science, ” Gauden Galea, the World Health Organization’ s China representative Gauden Galea told the Associated Press today. “ It has not been tried before as a public health measure. We can not at this stage say it will or it will not work. ” | tech |
Microsoft’ s software plan for the Duo Android phone is surprisingly realistic | Welcome back to Processor, a mostly daily newsletter mostly about computers, by which I mostly mean the consumer electronics industry at large. I’ m Dieter and if you already know all of the above, thanks for sticking around. If you’ re new, welcome!
I’ m going to leave the analysis of the truly bonkers story of Jeff Bezos’ phone hack to Casey Newton’ s newsletter, The Interface. Go subscribe now. He’ s drafting it as I write these words and it contains Very Practical Advice like “ Never open a WhatsApp message from the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. ”
For me and my personal obsession with the various ways companies are trying to reinvent the computer and computer interfaces, the most exciting story of the day was Microsoft releasing a bunch of software tools for its upcoming dual-screen Android phone, the Duo. It includes the necessary bits to build Android apps that are aware of the hinge and its various positions and even some proposed web standards so web pages can do the same.
I promise the previous very nerdy paragraph has implications that matter to more than just Android developers.
You’ re reading Processor, a newsletter about computers by Dieter Bohn. Dieter writes about consumer tech, software, and the most important news of the day from The Verge. This newsletter delivers “ mostly daily, ” which nets out three to four times a week, some of which include longer columns. You can subscribe to Processor and learn more about it here. Processor is also a YouTube series with the same goal: providing smart and surprising analysis with a bit of humor. Subscribe to all of The Verge’ s great videos here!
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I am really into Microsoft’ s developer tools for a lot of reasons — especially the various proposals for making the web work better on dual-screen devices, which in theory could help everybody. But the most important thing is the overall context: Microsoft has the horse and cart in the right order. It’ s trying to get the software right before it releases the hardware.
There have been two big problems with foldable devices thus far: 1. the screens are too fragile and 2. Android is not great on tablets and so the windowing systems have been kind of bad. ( And, well, a third big problem is that they have been super expensive.)
I have no idea when the fragility thing will be fixed, but I like that Microsoft isn’ t bothering with a flexible display. It compromised on whiz-bang hardware to make something more durable and, in many ways, elegant. But the trade-off is that there’ s a big ol’ seam between the Duo’ s two screens. That’ s the cart.
The horse, then, is how the software is designed to deal with that trade-off. ( This is a bad metaphor because I don’ t know what goes in the cart but we’ re in too deep to turn back now.) The details of Microsoft’ s answer to “ how does Android work on a dual-screen device ” all seem really smart.
Windows Central’ s Zac Bowden installed the emulator and made a little video showing how windows move around and it’ s refreshingly simple. Apps open on a single screen, you go into the multitasking view and drag them to move them across to the other screen, or you move them over the seam for some kind of split-screen.
There are different ways to split-screen: sometimes there’ s a list on one side and details on the other, sometimes there’ s two pages like on a book, and sometimes the canvas covers the whole thing and you just have to deal with the seam.
All that is fine, but it’ s not the smart part. Just because Microsoft appears to have created an elegant SDK doesn’ t mean that anybody will actually use it. We’ ve seen Microsoft try and fail to woo mobile developers before. RIP Windows Phone, we still miss ya.
But for the Duo, it’ s even worse than that. We’ ve watched Google struggle to get Android developers to make better big-screen layouts for their apps for years to disappointing results. Android tablets have gone the way of the dodo and Android apps on Chrome OS are best used in small doses.
So the way Microsoft appears to have dealt with that reality is one reason that I’ m actually more hopeful today than I was yesterday about the Duo’ s chances. That’ s because even if literally nobody customizes their Android apps for the Duo, it should still work pretty well. Instead of pinning the Duo’ s chances on the nearly impossible task of getting Android developers to invest resources in a completely new and untested phone, Microsoft is working with where the ecosystem is today.
The key reason is that Microsoft explicitly says that apps will only open on one screen by default and in fact, apps will not be allowed to open up on both screens — that can only happen if a user drags a window into that state.
Your app by default will occupy a single screen, but users can span the app to cover both screens when the device is in a double-portrait or double-landscape layout. You can programmatically enable full-screen mode for your app at any time, but spanning is limited to user activity for now.
It has the very practical benefit of working better with existing Android apps by default. Instead of being annoyed that many apps are kind of junky and poorly-designed in a tablet screen context, the entry experience will just be two normal Android apps, side by side. Android apps generally look alright on portrait, phone-style screens — and that’ s the way they’ ll launch on the Duo.
So even in the worst case scenario where only Microsoft’ s own apps are aware of the hinge, the Duo will still work. It’ s like the theory of progressive enhancement ( and graceful degradation) in web design, but applied to dual-screen Android apps. It’ s smart because, frankly, the worst-case scenario also happens to be the most likely scenario at launch.
Only allowing users to choose when to make apps span two screens adds a level of predictability that will be important for users to built up their intuitions for how things work on the dual-screen device. ( Side note: I have a whole rant about how there’ s no such thing as “ intuitive ” design in software, it’ s all learned.)
Assuming it all works, users won’ t be forced to learn a whole series of gestures and layouts and grids and whatever. Instead, they’ ll just be able to move stuff around and let the software do the right thing.
It is, pardon the alliteration, programmatically pragmatic.
None of this guarantees that the Duo will be any good or that my relative optimism will be rewarded. I’ m just glad that Microsoft isn’ t setting the whole situation up for immediate failure from the jump. There’ s simply very little chance that a ton of Android apps will be customized for the Duo’ s dual screens for launch, but that hopefully won’ t matter.
Speaking of things that aren’ t guaranteed: Windows 10X. The developer tools for that OS are still forthcoming and the questions about how it will operate are much more numerous than for the Duo. Given how many PC manufacturers are waiting for that OS for their foldables, the stakes for Windows 10X are much higher.
As Tom Warren noted yesterday, we should expect to see more at Microsoft’ s Build developers’ conference in May. If there were ever a time for Microsoft to be a little less hand-wavy about 10X, that will be it.
The Galaxy S20 is usually $ 1,000, but it’ s now $ 800 at several retailers. B & H Photo is offering an especially good deal in addition to the discount by including a 128GB microSD card and Samsung’ s Galaxy Buds truly wireless earphones with the purchase.
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└ Microsoft to force Chrome default search to Bing using Office 365 installer
In case you were feeling really good about the new Microsoft working across platforms, here is a reminder that it still sometimes does crappy things.
└ Senator asks Jeff Bezos for more information on Saudi-linked hack
Reading the bullet points in Wyden’ s letter really drives home how every successively revealed detail in this story is more eye-popping and mysterious than the last.
└ Alleged Xbox Series X photos show off the port selection
No HDMI-in, yet another sign that Microsoft isn’ t trying to make the Xbox the central hub of your living room. It’ s the right call. This feels vaguely related to the idea of a hub but I’ ll leave it to you to connect the dots: the more I look at this big box the more it feels like one of those old HP MediaSmart home servers.
└ Motorola’ s foldable Razr will launch on February 6th after delay
It’ s still $ 1499 and it’ s coming out just days before Samsung is expected to announce its own flip phone. But when people think flip phone, they think Razr, so Motorola still has a good chance even though it’ s up against a bigger company. A real question in my mind is how big this launch will actually be. Will Verizon, because it has an exclusive, try to make this a huge deal with tons of marketing?
During the announcement, Motorola acted supremely confident in the Razr’ s reliability and battery life. How much oomph gets put into the retail launch will say a lot about how real that confidence was.
└ Google publishes largest ever high-resolution map of brain connectivity
└ Google designed an envelope you can use to hide your phone from yourself
└ Amazon Music passes 55 million customers as it chips away at Spotify and Apple Music
└ Great interview by Loren Grush: NASA administrator on the year ahead: ‘ A lot of things have to go right’
└ Rapid global response to the new coronavirus shows progress made since SARS
Nicole Wetsman:
By comparison, the SARS virus emerged in November 2002, but it took until April 2003 for scientists to get a full genetic sequence. It took several months of disease spreading in Western Africa in 2013 before authorities determined it was caused by Ebola. It took around a year to identify Zika as the cause of illnesses in Brazil in 2014 and 2015.
└ How an experimental story about gender and warfare shook the sci-fi community
Incredible story about how we perceive each other online, how platforms like Google affect that, how the platforms themselves can be affected by our actions, identity online and off... I could go on. Even if you aren’ t interested in the specific things I just mentioned, I bet that the way this piece tells the story of their collisions and interactions will suck you in. | tech |
WHO Declines to Declare Coronavirus Outbreak a Global Health Emergency | The World Health Organization on Thursday declined to designate the ongoing outbreak of a novel virus in China a global health emergency, saying that, for now, health officials have enough resources to combat the outbreak there and in other countries and that the agency does not need the additional authorities that come from such a declaration.
Announcing a public health emergency of international concern, or PHEIC, grants the WHO director-general some certain powers, including the ability to issue recommendations for how countries should respond. Declaring a PHEIC can also galvanize global attention to the need to address the outbreak, which has sickened hundreds and killed at least 17 people in China, and led to cases in people who traveled from China to other countries, including Thailand, Japan, South Korea, and, as of Tuesday, the United States.
Didier Houssin, the chair of the committee, said Thursday that members remained divided about the need for a PHEIC, but that overall, they decided it was too early to recommend that WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declare one. Houssin said that some members felt because there were so few cases outside of China and because Chinese authorities had implemented steps to try to contain the virus, the outbreak at this point did not amount to a global emergency.
“ Make no mistake: This is an emergency in China, ” Tedros said. “ But it has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one. ”
The announcement came just a day after an initial committee meeting, after which the chair and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said they needed more information to reach a consensus on whether to declare a PHEIC. WHO officials stressed they were still responding rapidly to the outbreak and collaborating with national health authorities around the world even in the absence of a PHEIC.
Hundreds of cases of the virus, which is known provisionally as 2019-nCoV and has been determined to belong to a family called coronaviruses, have been confirmed in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, home to 11 million people and where the outbreak is believed to have started last month.
Infections have also started to crop up around China, with millions of people expected to travel around and from the country for the Lunar New Year holidays, which begin this week. In response, Chinese authorities have shut down transport from and within Wuhan, as well as the cities of Huanggang and Ezhou, essentially quarantining 20 million people.
Experts have questioned whether such a move will actually help with the public health response. Shutting down transit could limit medical supplies coming into the cities, and make it harder for people who are sick to get to clinics to get a confirmed diagnosis and for health officials to track the contacts of people who are sick. The decision could also stir distrust of the government’ s efforts to stem the outbreak and divert resources that could go to the response. Plus, the travel ban started in Wuhan Thursday morning; that allowed time for people who had been infected with the virus to leave the city.
“ There’ s just a real fundamental question of efficacy here, ” said Alexandra Phelan of Georgetown University’ s Center for Global Health Science & Security. “ Mass quarantines are typically considered not very effective. ”
More specific restrictions called social distancing measures might have some benefit, Phelan said, slowing the spread of the virus but not stopping it. These steps include suspending school and mass gatherings, and possibly public transit as well.
“ What we’ re seeing here with Wuhan and the two other cities appears more than social distancing, ” Phelan said. “ It’ s a bit like a sledgehammer. ”
Countries, including the United States, are screening passengers arriving from Wuhan for symptoms of the infection, including cough, fever, and shortness of breath, and informing travelers about the signs of the virus to encourage them to seek out medical care if they become sick. On Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said people should avoid nonessential travel to Wuhan.
Cutting off travel and trade with a country dealing with an outbreak is viewed as unlikely to stop disease spread and is likely to discourage countries from being transparent about outbreaks. The PHEIC designation would have enabled Tedros, as the WHO director-general is known, to urge countries not to close borders or limit trade, though countries do not have to comply.
Coronaviruses, which include SARS and MERS, typically spread to humans from an animal source. Many of the early cases of the novel coronavirus were linked to a seafood market in Wuhan that also sold animals for meat. But health authorities have confirmed that some infections have come through human-to-human transmission. They are still trying to determine whether spread among people is limited or whether it might be spreading in a sustained manner, meaning it easily passes from one person to the next and then onward.
The seafood market in Wuhan was closed Jan. 1, the day after Chinese health officials reported to the WHO a strange spike in pneumonia cases in the city.
The emergence of a global coronavirus outbreak from China is reminiscent of the SARS outbreak of 2002 to 2003, which went on to kill nearly 800 people. The PHEIC designation ( pronounced “ fake ”) was created following an update to the International Health Regulations after that outbreak.
The first PHEIC was declared for the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, and others have included the 2014-2016 West African Ebola outbreak and the Zika outbreak in 2016. The WHO set up an emergency committee to assess whether MERS should be declared a PHEIC, but it concluded after meeting several times that the disease did not constitute a global health emergency.
There are two active PHEICs: the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the continued transmission of polio.
Helen Branswell contributed reporting.
Republished with permission from STAT. This article originally appeared on January 23 2020 | science |
Should we be worried about the new Wuhan coronavirus? | The World Health Organisation has postponed its decision about whether to classify the new Wuhan coronavirus as a global health emergency. It wants to gather more information and will meet again at midday on Thursday in Geneva ( late Thursday night, Australian time).
There’ s so much we don’ t know about the virus, which increases the level of concern from public health officials.
We first heard about cases of pneumonia caused by a new virus in December from authorities in Wuhan, China – a city of 11 million people.
What started as a cluster of 27 people with pneumonia – with common symptoms including fever, dry cough, chest tightness and difficulty breathing – has spiralled to 582 confirmed cases, including medical staff, and 17 deaths.
The cases span 13 provinces in mainland China as well as Thailand, Japan, South Korea, the United States, Taiwan and Macau.
This is all occurring during peak influenza season in China so there are some illnesses around that may appear similar to coronavirus. It’ s also a time when millions of people in the region travel home to family for Lunar New Year celebrations, potentially carrying the virus to new places, as we’ ve already seen.
We are yet to see a confirmed case in Australia, but that could change any minute. Test results of a Brisbane man who was suspected of having the virus came back clear.
China was extraordinarily efficient and open in identifying the virus, a new strain of coronavirus, within just over a week. Chinese scientists sequenced the virus’ s genetic code and, within days, shared that information with the world.
This allowed researchers from Germany to rapidly develop and openly share a suite of specific nucleic acid tests that sensitively identify the virus by detecting small amounts of its ribonucleic acid ( or RNA, similar to DNA). Researchers in Hong Kong and from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control then published their own different tests.
Four other human coronaviruses ( HCoV-229E, HCoV-OC43, HCoV-NL63 and HCoV-HKU1) cause colds, flu-like illnesses and more severe respiratory diseases such as pneumonia. Viral pneumonia is a combination of virus infection of the lungs and our body’ s immune response to that damage.
Newborns, the elderly, immunocompromised people and those with underlying disease are at particular risk.
There are also two more infamous coronaviruses that jumped from animals to infect human hosts: SARS ( severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS ( Middle East respiratory syndrome).
The new Wuhan coronavirus seems to cause less severe disease than the SARS coronavirus, which is now extinct after its single dramatic outbreak in 2002-4.
MERS was less severe than either, unless the patient was already burdened with underlying disease. MERS continues to transmit from camels to humans, but it’ s relatively easy to avoid infection and vaccines are in development.
Because we are at such an early stage of discovery and characterisation of the new Wuhan virus, it’ s very difficult to compare it to other viruses or to draw any strong conclusions about how it transmits, and its impact on humans.
We don’ t know where the new virus came from originally. We think it originated in animals, but testing so far has not confirmed a specific animal host. Analysis of the genome suggests it has only recently emerged in humans. So which host were humans exposed to? And how was it transmitted to humans?
Once we know where it came from we can track down and remove the source of the virus.
Some evidence suggests it can also spread between people. We don’ t yet know how, but we can make some guesses.
It seems to be a respiratory virus, given the disease primarily involves the lungs, so it’ s likely to spread through the same routes as colds and flu: sneezes and coughs propelling droplets into the air or onto hands that then touch other surfaces, or by touching our eyes, nose or mouth after contact with contaminated surfaces.
We also don’ t know how easily it spreads. Initially it seemed to require prolonged and close contact, making it harder to catch in day-to-day life. However, there are more recent indications that it spreads more easily between people.
Up to January 22, 17 deaths have tragically occurred from 582 cases ( about 3%). This is lower than the proportion who die from influenza-associated pneumonia, which one study estimated to be 10%. It’ s a crude comparison, but one we can at least mull over for now.
The number of virus cases is likely to be an underestimate, but we don’ t know by how much.
At the moment, colds and flu-like illnesses are common in China. There are also many causes of viral pneumonia – 135 people with pneumonia arrived in Hong Kong from Wuhan between December 31 to January 22. To date only two cases have tested positive for the new virus; most had an influenza virus or other viruses.
So far, we know the new Wuhan coronavirus causes pneumonia and therefore places an extra burden on hospitals. It’ s likely transmitting from human to human, but may also still be transmitting from animal to humans. And it can be tested for by professional laboratories.
For now, health authorities are ensuring we are prepared and watching the situation while we await further details.
If or when it does come to Australia, you can protect yourself in the same way as you would against other respiratory illness: by being vigilant about hand-washing and practising good cough and sneeze etiquette, which means coughing or sneezing into your flexed elbow or into a tissue, and washing your hands. | business |
Wuhan coronavirus'super spreader ' alarms disease detectives |
Of all the alarming aspects of the rapidly spreading new virus out Wuhan, China, this is perhaps the most alarming: A single patient has infected 14 health care workers.
That's what's called a `` super spreader, '' and disease detectives are hot on that patient's trail. It's one element to stopping the spread of this coronavirus that's
killed
17 people and infected more than 500 in five different countries, including the United States.
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CNN goes to ground zero of Wuhan coronavirus outbreak in China
02:45
Super spreaders are a crucial part of a disease outbreak. Think about Mary Mallon, or
`` Typhoid Mary, ''
who was responsible for widely spreading typhoid in New York City in the early 1900s. Or the Chinese doctor who in 2003 spread
SARS
, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, to four different countries. Or the single patient at a South Korean hospital who in 2015 infected 82 people with MERS, or Middle East respiratory syndrome.
The Wuhan virus is a cousin of SARS and MERS. All three are coronaviruses.
Wuhan coronavirus death toll rises to 17 with 547 infected says China, sparking fears of wider spread
The presence of a super spreader in Wuhan indicates that the virus can spread with some ease, said Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist and professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.
Read More
He calls them `` super shedders, '' since they shed the virus -- for example, in sneezes or coughs -- in larger quantities than most other people.
`` You only need one super shedder to say, 'This dog is going to hunt, ' `` he said. `` It really does speak to the potential for this virus to be transmitted. ''
He added that there are probably more super spreaders -- or shedders -- of the Wuhan coronavirus than this one patient.
`` If we have one super shedder, that tells us we're going to have more super shedders, '' he said. `` If there's one, there will be more. ''
A visual guide to the Wuhan coronavirus
Osterholm's team at the
Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
is investigating the super spreader, and their research shows there might be more health care workers in or near Wuhan who 've become infected than the 14 mentioned by the health official earlier this week.
Super spreaders in coronavirus outbreaks
On Tuesday, the mayor of Wuhan said one patient spread the coronavirus to a doctor and 13 nurses.
The deadly new coronavirus has reached the US. Here's how to protect yourself
The mayor, Zhou Xianwang, said a patient wasn't screened for the virus before being admitted to Union Hospital in Wuhan for neurosurgery, and after surgery developed a fever. Zhou, who spoke on CCTV, the state-run television station, did not specify when this occurred.
Osterholm said his team's research shows that 20 health care workers have been infected by patients, with the other six cases possibly at hospitals in Wuhan and the nearby city of Huanggang.
Public health officials are trying to avoid devastating super spreader events that happened with SARS and MERS.
In 2003, a Chinese doctor who was staying at the Metropole Hotel in the city of Guangzhou infected other hotel guests who then traveled back to Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada. In Singapore alone, 94 cases of SARS can be traced back to the hotel, according to
WHO
.
Get CNN Health's weekly newsletter
Sign up here to get
The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta
every Tuesday from the CNN Health team.
In 2015, there were
five super-spreading
events of MERS at hospitals in South Korea. In one case, a single patient spread the infection to 82 other people.
The ramifications were huge. Two South Korean hospitals
closed
down, nearly 17,000 people had to be
quarantined
, and the economic loss was estimated at 9.3 trillion Korean won, or $ 8.5 billion. In all, 186 people became infected in the South Korea MERS outbreak and 38 died, according to
WHO
.
CNN's Steven Jiang contributed to this story. | general |
Wuhan virus: China's oil product demand under pressure in Q1 as Wuhan virus limits travel | The addition of nuclear and natural gas to the EU’ s sustainable finance taxonomy provoked a furious...
The freight rate for hauling Russian ESPO crude from the Far Eastern port of Kozmino to North China...
China's oil product consumption growth will likely receive a setback in the first quarter as the Lunar New Year festive period may fail to significantly boost fuel demand, with the outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus limiting both road and air traffic flows.
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The Lunar New Year, which falls in either late January or early February each calendar year, is a major national holiday that marks one of the country's busiest travel seasons, when gasoline and jet fuel consumption typically spikes. More than 90 million people are estimated to move more than 100 km during this period by road, railways or air each day.
However, the cyclical boost in domestic transportation fuel consumption in the first quarter may not materialize this year. The government has imposed a series of warnings and restrictions on key travel routes as authorities step up efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus outbreak, which reportedly began in China's Wuhan city.
Wuhan City Council has suspended all public transportation services, including city buses, subway, ferry and coach. It also shut the city's airport and railway stations, effective Thursday.
China's oil product consumption over the first 11 months of 2019 came in at 301.93 million mt, up 1.5% from the same period in 2018, latest data from the country's National Development and Reform Commission showed.
Considering the series of travel and transportation restrictions, the country's overall oil product consumption could slip between 2% and 8% on the year over January-February this year, according to a survey of industry, refinery and trade sources conducted by S & P Global Platts.
Demand for jet fuel may take a significant hit from the latest epidemic as authorities put greater emphasis on controlling flights in and out of Wuhan city.
Civil Aviation Administration of China announced Monday that all air tickets to or from Wuhan would be fully refunded.
`` People will not only cancel the Wuhan-bound flights for full refund but also other domestic flights and international flights to China, because an airplane is a sealed space, nowhere to hide if there is a virus-infected person inside, '' a Singapore-based aviation sector analyst said.
China's apparent demand for jet fuel rose 7.3% year on year to 898,000 b/d during the first quarter last year, S & P Global Platts Analytics ' data showed.
However, the year-on-year demand growth for the fuel would slow to 3% in Q1 this year if the coronavirus persists till May, a significant slowdown compared to the average growth rate of around 7% -8% seen in previous years, a Beijing-based analyst said.
Taking the SARS epidemic in 2003 as a preliminary guideline, several major cities could register a decline in aviation fuel demand.
Hong Kong, for one, saw the city's jet fuel imports tumble in the second quarter of 2003, a period during which the death toll peaked.
The city imported 719,736 mt of jet fuel in Q2 2003, down 37.1% from the same period a year earlier, according to data from the government of Hong Kong SAR's Census and Statistics department.
Similarly, apparent demand for the fuel in mainland China dropped around 35% on the year to 131,000 b/d in May 2003, Platts Analytics ' data showed.
The SARS outbreak reduced annual traffic of Asian airlines by 8% compared with only 3.7% for North American carriers, implying that Singapore jet fuel prices weakened more than the European and US prices, with a similar scenario likely to play out in 2020, Damien Courvalin, analyst at Goldman Sachs, said in a note.
China's gasoline demand may also register a substantial year-on-year decline in Q1 as Wuhan city -- located in the central Hubei province -- is considered one of the major transportation hubs along the Changjiang River. ''
The virus has affected driving activities around that area. Meanwhile, driving activities in big cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, will also slow down when the Chinese New Year holiday is over as companies encourage employees to work from home, '' the Beijing-based analyst said.
China's road traffic flow usually peaks in Q1 during the festive period, according to data from the Ministry of Transportation.
The road transportation turnover in February 2019 came in at 27.27 million person-km/day, sharply above 2019's monthly average of 24.07 million person-km/day, according to the ministry's data.
Still, the epidemic's impact on gasoline consumption would be less severe than that for other transportation fuels as passenger vehicle usage during the Lunar New Year holiday period is limited to mostly short-distance travels, industry sources and analysts told Platts.
In addition, `` gasoline demand has been in a downward trend anyway as transportation mode continues to change, '' the Beijing-based analyst said.
The country's expanding railway and air transportation networks have gradually replaced long-distance buses fueled by gasoil and cars fueled by gasoline.
Accordingly, China's apparent demand for gasoline in Q1 fell 1.2% year on year to 3.55 million b/d, Platts Analytics ' data showed.
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The coronavirus discovered in China is causing global alarm | CHINA’ S LEADER, Xi Jinping, often warns officials to be wary of “ black swan risks ”, meaning sudden unexpected events that can harm the economy. People typically assume he means wobbly banks or trade tensions. But the most immediate threat may be a new, sometimes deadly, virus that appears to be spreading. The outbreak raises dark memories of another one 17 years ago that killed hundreds of people and, briefly, nearly halted China’ s growth.
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The main worry is whether the government can control the virus, which can cause severe pneumonia. The bug is known as 2019-nCoV, or more commonly, the Wuhan virus. It appears to have originated in early December in a fish and animal market in Wuhan, a city of 11m people. On January 20th an official said 14 health workers who had treated patients were ill. This was the first clear evidence that the disease could pass from human to human and therefore spread more widely.
Between January 17th and 22nd the number of confirmed infections grew tenfold. It stood at 618 as The Economist went to press, of whom 17 had died. There are cases in most of China’ s provinces. Infected travellers from China have been found in America, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. On January 23nd Wuhan declared a travel ban. Hours later Wuhan’ s public transport was halted, airports closed and expressways blocked. A similar lockdown was imposed on two nearby cities, Ezhou and Huanggang.
This has echoes of SARS, a respiratory disease also caused by a coronavirus, the family to which the Wuhan virus belongs. More than 8,000 people in China and other countries contracted SARS between 2002 and 2003. Close to 10% of them died. Data released so far suggest the new virus may be less lethal. Officials tried to cover up SARS, probably increasing its toll. This time, they have been quicker to take preventive measures and give information.
Officials in Wuhan initially downplayed the new virus, but that changed just before the government said that health workers had been infected. On the day of that announcement, Mr Xi said officials should “ put people’ s lives and health first ”, a crucial signal that he would tolerate no cover-ups. The government started providing daily updates. It has appointed Zhong Nanshan, a doctor renowned for disputing the official line during the SARS crisis, to lead an advisory team.
Now that China has switched to crisis mode, few doubt the government’ s resolve. But there are still plenty of reasons to worry, both about the impact on people’ s health as well as on firms and investors. Just as SARS suggests how a coronavirus might spread, it also has lessons for how such a pathogen might affect an economy. In May 2003 passenger traffic numbers in China plunged more than 40% from a year earlier. Shops, restaurants and hotels all suffered. In annualised terms, quarter-on-quarter growth at the peak of SARS fell to 3.5%, down from more than 12%, according to Wang Tao of UBS, a Swiss bank.
In the case of the Wuhan virus, there are some grounds for optimism. Most hopefully, the government’ s faster response could mean that it takes less time to contain it. If experts conclude that the virus is not as dangerous as the one that caused SARS, China might also be able to relax its controls on travel to and from Wuhan before big economic damage is done. Efforts to ensure transparency could reduce panic.
However, Chinese people are far more mobile than they were in the early 2000s. About 450,000 of them travel daily by train in Hubei, the province of which Wuhan is the capital. That is more than double the daily passenger volume in Guangdong in 2002 when that province became a hotspot of SARS. Helped by a vast bullet-train network built over the past decade, passengers from Wuhan will have gone farther and faster than those in Guangdong back then. China is also far more connected to the rest of the world. In 2018 some 205,000 people took flights into and out of China each day, six times as many as on the eve of SARS.
The timing of the new outbreak compounds the difficulty of containing the virus. It has come just ahead of the spring festival, a public holiday which this year runs from January 24th to 30th. In recent days millions have travelled across the country to celebrate with relatives. At transport hubs, travellers’ temperatures are being checked to detect fever. But it may take a week or more for the virus to incubate, so some infected people may not be spotted.
The economy is bigger but less fizzy than it was in 2003. During the SARS outbreak a few big sectors thrived even as others struggled. Exports surged 35%. Spending on infrastructure and housing held strong. Today, however, export growth is far weaker—only 0.5% in 2019. Property sales have started falling after a long boom. And the country has less scope to increase its spending on infrastructure, having already built so much over the past decade. In the first few days after the number of confirmed infections surged this month, Chinese stocks fell about 5%. They could tumble further. During SARS, Hong Kong’ s main index declined by nearly 20%.
The part of the economy most hurt by SARS was the services sector, which then accounted for about 40% of GDP. Today the share is higher than 50%. But consumer spending could be more resilient this time because of huge growth in the popularity of online shopping. If they are fearful of venturing out ( Wuhan has ordered residents to wear masks in shops and other establishments where people congregate), people can continue to buy goods at home.
China can also draw comfort from the speed with which its economy recovered after SARS was conquered. By the second half of 2003 it was back to double-digit growth. Consumers indulged their pent-up demand for everything from cars to beer. But as the current crisis grows, the grim reality of the present is all that many people—especially the millions confined to Wuhan—are likely to be contemplating. ■
Published since September 1843 to take part in “ a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress. ”
Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2021. All rights reserved. | business |
Coronavirus: China suspends all modes of transport in Wuhan | China has shut down all modes of transport to and from Wuhan city, which is considered the epicentre of the new coronavirus outbreak.
By Kavya Chivukula
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China has shut down all modes of transport to and from Wuhan city, which is considered the epicentre of the new coronavirus outbreak.
The move is aimed at arresting the spread of the virus, which has so far claimed 17 lives and infected 600 people.
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Chinese newspaper People’ s Daily tweeted: “ No people in # Wuhan, C China’ s Hubei will be allowed to leave the city starting 10 a.m. of Jan. 23. Train stations and airport will shut down; the city bus, subway, ferry and long-distance shuttle bus will also be temporarily closed: local authority # WuhanPneumonia # coronavirus ”
With a population of around 11 million, Wuhan is one of China’ s major transport hubs for flights, trains and ferries.
Wuhan Tianhe International Airport is situated 26km north of Wuhan City and operates direct flights to New York, London, San Francisco, Paris, Rome and Moscow.
The Washington Post stated that the city’ s railway station has been fortified with armed guards to ensure that no person leaves the city.
Passengers driving out of Wuhan were checked for temperature by health workers in hazmat suits.
Coronavirus has been identified in other countries as well, with four cases in Thailand and one case each in the US, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan.
It is estimated that this move will impact the plans of around 400 million people who plan to travel to other parts of the country by air, rail transport or road for the Lunar New Year holiday, starting on Friday. | general |
Chinese stocks just had their worst day in more than eight months as the coronavirus spreads | China's Shanghai Composite ( SHCOMP) closed down 2.75% Thursday afternoon. It's the index's worst single-day percentage drop since last May, when President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs on China.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index ( HSI) closed down 1.5%. The benchmark has lost about 4% so far this week.
Japan's Nikkei 225 ( N225) slumped 1%, while South Korea's Kospi ( KOSPI) decreased 0.9%.
China's coronavirus problem is getting worse. The death toll from the disease has jumped to 17. More than 500 people have been infected, mostly in mainland China, though the disease has spread as far as the United States. The World Health Organization could decide Thursday whether the spread of the virus constitutes `` a public health emergency of international concern. ''
Asian markets crept up slightly Wednesday, even as the virus spread. But losses are now deepening: The outbreak coincides with the Lunar New Year, during which time millions of people are traveling throughout the region.
Medical supplier stocks have continued to surge, though: Shares of Zhende Medical and Jiangsu Nanfang Medical spiked 10% in Shanghai, the daily maximum limit.
A blow to the travel sector
China's travel industry in particular is bracing for disruption. The country's airline regulator has instructed Chinese carriers to offer passengers booked on Wuhan flights free cancellations if requested, while state media has cited China's rail authorities as saying they are offering free cancellations to passengers booked on Wuhan trains.
The country's aviation sector is `` likely to remain under pressure, '' Andrew Lee, an equity analyst at Jefferies, wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday. Shares of China Southern Airlines — which Lee estimated accounts for 30% of the flights in and out of Wuhan — dropped more than 3.5% in Hong Kong and Shanghai on Thursday.
Other major airlines, including Air China and China Eastern, also fell Thursday.
Meanwhile, Cathay Pacific ( CPCAY) stock declined 2.1% in Hong Kong. Shares of the carrier, which serves as Hong Kong's flagship airline, have already lost almost 12% this year, as ongoing protests fuel a drop in tourism.
The pain is expected to continue. `` If the effect on regional travel is similar to that during the SARS outbreak in 2003, passenger volumes between Asian destinations — particularly China — and Australia could be significantly affected over the next [ two to three ] quarters, '' analysts at Moody's Investors Service said in a report Thursday.
Oil prices could also take a hit, since the anticipated decline in regional travel may bring down jet fuel prices, analysts at Goldman Sachs said in a note this week.
Looking back at SARS
The outbreak is reminiscent of SARS, the respiratory virus that infected more than 8,000 people and killed 774 in a pandemic that ripped through Asia and spread as far as Canada nearly two decades ago. The Wuhan virus is from the same family as SARS.
Larry Hu, an economist at Macquarie Capital, noted Wednesday that the SARS outbreak dented China's quarterly GDP growth in 2003. Though he added that the economy rebounded as the virus faded away.
`` We have come a long way from SARS in 2003, '' said Jeffrey Halley, a senior market analyst for Asia Pacific at Oanda, wrote in a note to clients on Thursday. He said the slump in Asian markets `` looks more precautionary than panic-driven. ''
Markets in China will be closed for a week starting Friday, which marks the eve of the Lunar New Year. | business |
WHO urges global unity in fight against coronavirus outbreak | The World Health Organization has called on the global community to work together to fight the new coronavirus that is causing an epidemic of viral pneumonia and deaths in China, but stopped short of declaring it a public health emergency of international concern.
After the second day of meetings of the emergency committee, WHO’ s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Thursday that nobody should assume there was no risk that it would become a dangerous global epidemic.
“ Make no mistake, this is an emergency in China, ” he said. “ But it has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one. ”
There have been 584 cases and 17 deaths reported to the WHO so far, Tedros said, although reports from China confirmed an 18th death on Thursday in Hebei province – the first outside Hubei province, where the outbreak began in the city of Wuhan. Chinese state television put the number of confirmed cases at 634 by Thursday evening.
All the deaths and 575 cases were inside China, which is where all human-to-human transmission of the virus had so far occurred, said Tedros. “ There is no evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China. That doesn’ t mean it won’ t happen, ” he said.
“ We know this virus causes severe disease and can kill, although for most people it causes mild disease, ” he added. A quarter of those who became ill had severe disease and most of those who died had underlying poor health, such as heart disease.
There are many unknowns that need answers from the world’ s experts who must work together, such as the source of the virus, how easily it spreads, the clinical features and its severity. The committee’ s decision, he said, “ should not be taken as a sign WHO does not think the situation is serious or that we are not taking it seriously. Nothing could be further from the truth. ”
Peter Piot, a professor of global health and the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the outbreak was at a critical stage and international collaboration and more resources were vital to stopping it in its tracks.
“ There are still many missing pieces in the jigsaw puzzle to fully understanding this new virus, which is spreading rapidly across China and most probably around the world. Over the coming days and weeks we will know much more, but there can not be any complacency as to the need for global action, ” he said.
“ The good news is that the data to date suggest that this virus may have a lower mortality than Sars. We have a diagnostic test and there is greater transparency than decades gone by. And that is essential because you can not deal with a potential pandemic in one country alone. ”
Anxieties in the UK and around the world are already running high. The Scottish government said five people were being tested for the novel coronavirus. The Prime minister Boris Johnson’ s spokesman said that the tests were “ purely precautionary ”.
Prof Jürgen Haas, head of infections at the University of Edinburgh, said he expected there would be many more suspected cases following those in Scotland that emerged overnight.
“ The situation will be pretty similar in pretty much all UK cities with a large number of Chinese students. It’ s not too surprising. My suspicion is that there will probably be many more cases in many other cities in the UK. None of the cases I know of have been confirmed. ”
The virus has a long latency of between five and 14 days when there are no symptoms. Haas said the testing would be done by Public Health England.
The Scottish government confirmed that the patients had been in Wuhan recently. “ Following travel to Wuhan, China, two people confirmed as diagnosed with influenza are now being tested for Wuhan novel coronavirus as a precautionary measure only. Three further people are also undergoing testing on a similar precautionary basis, ” said a government spokesman.
“ There are currently no confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK and the risk to the Scottish public remains low. ”
He said they had “ robust arrangements to manage emerging diseases and are monitoring this situation closely ”. They would update the information further only if they had any confirmed cases, he added.
Belfast’ s Royal Victoria hospital was also said to have a patient who was being tested for the new coronavirus, but the Belfast health trust refused to comment.
Universities with large numbers of Chinese students said they were giving out information and advice, encouraging them to report any possible symptoms. Dundee, which has a joint education partnership with Wuhan University, said it had advised students to be careful with any packages they might receive from the city, especially if they contained food.
The US Centers for Disease Control warned citizens to avoid all but essential travel to Wuhan, in line with the advice from the UK government, while Egypt and Turkey joined the growing list of countries introducing screening at ports for travellers arriving from China.
There are no treatments available for those who fall sick, although Chinese doctors will be trialling potential new drugs – particularly those already being tested for use in Mers ( Middle East respiratory syndrome), which is a more lethal member of the coronavirus family.
A programme has already been launched to speed up work towards a vaccine. Cepi, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, said it hoped to have a vaccine in clinical trials within 16 weeks. | general |
Coronavirus Death Toll Climbs in China, and a Lockdown Widens | This briefing has ended. Read about developments in the coronavirus outbreak here.
The Chinese National Health Commission reported early Friday that there have been 25 deaths from and 830 cases of the coronavirus, a sharp increase.
The death toll increased by more than a half-dozen in 24 hours, while the number of confirmed cases jumped by more than 200.
Earlier, the first death was confirmed outside the virus epicenter.
A patient died in the province of Hebei — more than 600 miles north of the city where the outbreak began — after contracting the coronavirus, the provincial authorities announced on Thursday.
The victim was an 80-year-old man who had lived in the city of Wuhan, where the outbreak originated, for more than two months, according to Hebei’ s provincial health department. Wuhan is a major port city of 11 million in the province of Hubei, where all of the 17 previously reported deaths have taken place.
The victim died on Wednesday, but officials did not confirm that he had died of the coronavirus until Thursday, the Hebei provincial announcement said.
The announcement did not say when the man had returned to Hebei Province from Wuhan, but said that he had developed chest tightness and difficulty breathing after his return. Like many of the other confirmed victims of the virus, he appeared to have other underlying health issues: After being admitted to a hospital, he also was treated for high blood pressure, chronic bronchitis and emphysema, the authorities said.
After two days of deliberations, an emergency committee convened by the World Health Organization decided not to declare a global health emergency — but planned to meet again within 10 days, acknowledging the “ urgency ” of the situation.
The committee had first planned to issue a recommendation on Wednesday about whether to declare an emergency ( the decision ultimately falls to the W.H.O.’ s director general). Such a declaration would give the W.H.O. broader authority to shape different countries’ responses. But committee members were split.
On Thursday, after news of Wuhan’ s travel restrictions and the increased death count emerged, the committee met again, and decided not to recommend the declaration. Several members thought it was “ still too early, ” the W.H.O. said in a news release.
Agency officials explained that although the disease has reached beyond China, the number of cases in other countries is still relatively small, and the disease does not seem to be spreading within those countries.
“ At this time, there is no evidence of human to human transmission outside China, ” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’ s director general, said at a news conference in Geneva. “ That doesn’ t mean it won’ t happen. ”
“ Make no mistake, ” he said. “ This is an emergency in China, but it has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one. ”
Only five global public health emergency declarations have been made in the past. The decisions are fraught, with health authorities wary of causing panic, or of suggesting that governments can not handle outbreaks on their own.
Still, the W.H.O. called on the Chinese government to share more information on how it was handling the crisis.
The authorities expanded travel restrictions to several Chinese cities near Wuhan hours after announcing that the death toll and number of cases had risen sharply. Currently, at least 18 victims have been confirmed dead and more than 600 infected, according to Chinese officials.
The restrictions on train and other forms of travel will apply to tens of millions of people and come just days before the Lunar New Year holiday, when hundreds of millions of people travel around and out of the country.
The Chinese authorities on Thursday morning closed off Wuhan by canceling flights and trains leaving the city, and suspending buses, subways and ferries within it. Late on Thursday, the local authorities also announced that they would suspend for-hire vehicles and limit taxis, beginning at noon on Friday.
Roughly 30,000 people fly out of Wuhan on an average day, according to air traffic data. Many more leave using ground transportation like trains and cars.
By evening, officials planned to also close off Huanggang, a city of seven million about 30 miles east of Wuhan, shut rail stations in the nearby city of Ezhou, which has about one million residents, and impose travel restrictions on the smaller cities of Chibi and Zhijiang.
In Huanggang, public transportation and departing trains stopped at midnight. Residents are not allowed to leave the city without special permission, according to a government statement. In Ezhou, all rail stations were to be closed.
Separately, the provincial authorities in Hubei announced late Thursday some restrictions for the entire province, not just specific cities. Travel agencies are prohibited from taking customers and organizing tours, for example, and business trips are being suspended.
Schools throughout the province, which have breaks scheduled for the Lunar New Year holiday, will postpone their post-break start dates indefinitely.
The new virus, which first emerged at the end of December, has sickened people in Taiwan, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea and the United States. It has raised the specter of a repeat of the SARS epidemic, which broke out in China in 2002 and 2003 and spread rapidly while officials obscured the seriousness of the crisis. That virus eventually killed more than 800 people worldwide.
In Beijing, the government said it would cancel large public gatherings for the holiday, including fairs at temples that usually draw shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, and the Forbidden City, a popular tourist attraction in the heart of the capital, will close starting on Saturday.
Coronaviruses are named for the spikes that protrude from their membranes, which resemble the sun’ s corona. They can infect both animals and people, and cause illnesses of the respiratory tract, ranging from the common cold to severe conditions like SARS.
Symptoms of infection include a high fever, difficulty breathing and lung lesions. Milder cases may resemble the flu or a bad cold, making detection difficult. The incubation period — the time from exposure to the onset of symptoms — is believed to be about two weeks.
While the headlines are alarming, health experts cautioned that it was too early to gauge the severity of the outbreak. There are too many unknowns: Where did it start? How easily does it spread? How does it compare to other coronaviruses, like SARS?
Dr. William Schaffner, a specialist in infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said the illness should be viewed in perspective. While a new virus spreading internationally gets more attention, the much more common influenza virus is the bigger hazard for most people, he said.
“ If I look at this winter respiratory season, influenza is going to cause many more illnesses and more deaths than this coronavirus, ” he said. “ It’ s one of those circumstances where, if familiarity doesn’ t breed contempt, it certainly breeds a certain nonchalance. ”
The virus has sickened tens of thousands of people in China and a number of other countries.
As anxiety about the virus has grown, governments around the world have taken precautions to isolate anyone displaying symptoms, though several cases have proved not to be the coronavirus.
Health officials in the United States said on Thursday that there could be a second infection in the country, after the authorities in Washington State confirmed earlier this week that a man there had fallen sick with the Wuhan coronavirus. The second possible patient was in Brazos County, Texas, where officials said they were keeping a patient isolated at home while they did additional testing.
Vietnam’ s Ministry of Health announced on Thursday that it had confirmed two cases of the coronavirus, in two male Chinese patients.
In Mexico, two out of five potential coronavirus cases were officially ruled out by the Health Ministry on Thursday after comprehensive tests were conducted, according to state and federal government officials.
A health official said that one of the patients, a 57-year-old professor, had been diagnosed with a common cold.
The three other cases, in the western state of Jalisco, were under observation and were being tested, according to the Health Ministry report. The patients include a 42-year old man who returned to Mexico from Wuhan on Jan. 10, and two other women who had contact with him.
Across Wuhan on Thursday, residents — some wearing masks, some sniffing or coughing — visited hospitals and clinics seeking treatment. In interviews with a New York Times correspondent in the city, some said they were angry about the sudden lockdown. Others said they were confused by the restrictions.
Outside the Wuhan No. 3 Hospital, Yang Lin, said she had come to the hospital to see if a sniffling cold she had might be the coronavirus. After a quick check, the doctors told her not to worry. But she was not reassured.
“ They said it was just a common cold, and told me to get some medicine and go home, ” Ms. Yang, 28, said. “ But how am I to know? They didn’ t even take my temperature. It’ s just not responsible. ”
The outbreak is testing Wuhan’ s health care system. Several Wuhan residents said on social media websites that they had gone from hospital to hospital, waiting in lines for hours, only to be sent home with medicine and instructions to seek further treatment later if symptoms persisted in a few days.
Doctors told some patients that there was a shortage of hospital beds as well as testing kits, according to posts on Chinese social media sites.
China’ s Ministry of Finance said on Thursday that it would allocate 1 billion yuan, or about $ 144 million, to officials in Hubei to fight the virus, though it did not specify how the money would be used.
Wuhan officials also said that they would construct a new hospital specifically for coronavirus patients. The new hospital was ordered built within six days, according to People’ s Daily, the ruling Communist Party’ s main newspaper.
Cheng Shidong, a doctor at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, said in an interview that his hospital had set up 100 beds to receive infected patients, but that it didn’ t have enough protective material, such as masks and suits, for the medical staff.
In Wuhan, Ms. Yang said that while she was in a pharmacy buying medicine, another person complained that he thought he had the coronavirus but had not been isolated. The city’ s medical system, especially its smaller hospitals, seems unprepared for the influx of patients, she said.
“ I’ m willing to accept that we have to stay in Wuhan, O.K., but the medical care needs to keep up, ” she said. “ You shouldn’ t tell us we can’ t leave, and then give us second-rate medical care. That’ s unfair. ”
China’ s health commission, which has tightly controlled news about the toll of the outbreak, released on Thursday its most detailed list of the people who have died of the disease.
The first 17 people were largely older men, many with underlying health problems. All died in Hubei Province, which includes the city of Wuhan.
The first confirmed death was a 61-year-old man who went to a hospital in Wuhan on December 27, weak with a fever and a cough. He was transferred to another hospital as his condition worsened, and he was later attached to a machine that helped oxygenate his blood. But he died on Jan. 9.
Twelve of the other 17 deaths in Hubei were also men, and four were women, officials said. The youngest victim was a 48-year-old woman who died on Monday. The oldest were two 89-year-old men.
Separately on Thursday, the health authorities in Hebei Province, to the north of Hubei Province, announced that an 80-year-old man there had died, bringing the death count to 18.
Many of the victims had underlying conditions like cirrhosis of the liver, hypertension, diabetes and Parkinson’ s disease. Most had gone to the hospital with a fever and a cough, though at least three had no fever when they were admitted, according to the health commission.
While a full picture of the virus is still unknown, medical experts found positive signs in the fact that the disease did not appear to be killing young and otherwise healthy people.
“ The majority of fatal cases are elderly and/or have a chronic disease that would increase their susceptibility to infectious diseases, ” said Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, an epidemiologist at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York.
In an unusually blunt interview, Dr. Guan Yi, a professor of infectious diseases in Hong Kong and expert on SARS, criticized the authorities in Wuhan for acting too slowly and obstructing his efforts to investigate the outbreak.
Updated June 12, 2020
Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus — whether it’ s surface transmission or close human contact — is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.
So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “ very rare, ” but she later walked back that statement.
A study by European scientists is the first to document a strong statistical link between genetic variations and Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Having Type A blood was linked to a 50 percent increase in the likelihood that a patient would need to get oxygen or to go on a ventilator, according to the new study.
The unemployment rate fell to 13.3 percent in May, the Labor Department said on June 5, an unexpected improvement in the nation’ s job market as hiring rebounded faster than economists expected. Economists had forecast the unemployment rate to increase to as much as 20 percent, after it hit 14.7 percent in April, which was the highest since the government began keeping official statistics after World War II. But the unemployment rate dipped instead, with employers adding 2.5 million jobs, after more than 20 million jobs were lost in April.
Mass protests against police brutality that have brought thousands of people onto the streets in cities across America are raising the specter of new coronavirus outbreaks, prompting political leaders, physicians and public health experts to warn that the crowds could cause a surge in cases. While many political leaders affirmed the right of protesters to express themselves, they urged the demonstrators to wear face masks and maintain social distancing, both to protect themselves and to prevent further community spread of the virus. Some infectious disease experts were reassured by the fact that the protests were held outdoors, saying the open air settings could mitigate the risk of transmission.
Exercise researchers and physicians have some blunt advice for those of us aiming to return to regular exercise now: Start slowly and then rev up your workouts, also slowly. American adults tended to be about 12 percent less active after the stay-at-home mandates began in March than they were in January. But there are steps you can take to ease your way back into regular exercise safely. First, “ start at no more than 50 percent of the exercise you were doing before Covid, ” says Dr. Monica Rho, the chief of musculoskeletal medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago. Thread in some preparatory squats, too, she advises. “ When you haven’ t been exercising, you lose muscle mass. ” Expect some muscle twinges after these preliminary, post-lockdown sessions, especially a day or two later. But sudden or increasing pain during exercise is a clarion call to stop and return home.
States are reopening bit by bit. This means that more public spaces are available for use and more and more businesses are being allowed to open again. The federal government is largely leaving the decision up to states, and some state leaders are leaving the decision up to local authorities. Even if you aren’ t being told to stay at home, it’ s still a good idea to limit trips outside and your interaction with other people.
Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. ( Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)
Taking one’ s temperature to look for signs of fever is not as easy as it sounds, as “ normal ” temperature numbers can vary, but generally, keep an eye out for a temperature of 100.5 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. If you don’ t have a thermometer ( they can be pricey these days), there are other ways to figure out if you have a fever, or are at risk of Covid-19 complications.
The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’ t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks don’ t replace hand washing and social distancing.
If you’ ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.
If you’ re sick and you think you’ ve been exposed to the new coronavirus, the C.D.C. recommends that you call your healthcare provider and explain your symptoms and fears. They will decide if you need to be tested. Keep in mind that there’ s a chance — because of a lack of testing kits or because you’ re asymptomatic, for instance — you won’ t be able to get tested.
Dr. Guan, who helped successfully identify the coronavirus that caused SARS during the 2002-2003 outbreak in China, told the influential Chinese magazine Caixin that he was deeply frustrated by the city government’ s response to the spread of the virus.
He and his team had visited Wuhan on Tuesday hoping that they could track the animal that was the source of the coronavirus but were shocked to find that residents at a market were not taking any precautions or wearing masks. No special measures were in place at the airport to disinfect surfaces and floors, either. This showed that the city government was being complacent despite the urgent orders handed down by Beijing, he said.
“ I thought at the time, we had to be in a ‘ state of war’, but how come the alarm has not been raised? ” he told Caixin. “ Poor citizens, they were still preparing to ring in the New Year in peace and had no sense about the epidemic. ”
He also criticized the local authorities for disinfecting the market where many infections had been traced to, saying that made it difficult for researchers to investigate where the virus came from.
“ I consider myself a veteran in battles, ” he said, citing his experience with bird flu, SARS, and other outbreaks. “ But with this Wuhan pneumonia, I feel extremely powerless. ”
There are growing concerns that the Chinese authorities are underreporting the number of people who are ill with the virus. Relatives of patients say that some hospitals, strapped for resources as they deal with an influx of patients, are turning sick people away or refusing to test them for the coronavirus.
Many people remain skeptical of the government’ s official statistics, with memories of the effort to cover up the severity of the SARS outbreak still fresh.
In Wuhan, Kyle Hui, an architect from Shanghai, said that doctors at Tongji Hospital declined to test his stepmother for the virus, even though she was showing symptoms like a cough and a fever. She died on Jan. 15 of “ severe pneumonia, ” according to a copy of her death certificate.
Mr. Hui said that hospital workers treated his stepmother as if she had the coronavirus, wearing hazmat suits. After she died, the hospital instructed the family to cremate the body immediately. Mr. Hui said that after her death, doctors informed the family that they suspected his stepmother had the coronavirus.
“ I’ m very sad my stepmother left without any dignity, ” Mr. Hui said during an interview this week in a cafe in Wuhan. “ There was no time to say goodbye. ”
Chris Buckley, our chief China correspondent, headed to Wuhan from Beijing to cover the outbreak. He is sending live dispatches from his trip.
11 a.m. — Aboard the G79 high speed train
The G79 high speed train from Beijing to Hong Kong, which stops in Wuhan, was crowded with holiday passengers. The train was a hubbub of conversation, much of it about the deadly coronavirus and the lockdown around Wuhan.
Guo Jing, a worker from northeast China, was headed with two friends for a holiday in Macau. After some hesitation, they had taken off their masks. “ They’ re too uncomfortable inside, ” Mr. Guo said. “ My view is we have to be careful but not panic. If you’ re the panicky type, then you wouldn’ t be on this train. ”
1:37 p.m. — Aboard the G79 high speed train
Half an hour out from Wuhan, the train is quite crowded with passengers. When I explain that I’ m getting off at Wuhan, the reactions vary from advice — wear masks, don’ t go, drink lots of water — to mordant jokes that I may be there a long time.
“ You should know that they probably won’ t let people out until the New Year holiday is over, ” said one woman, who would only give her family name, Yang.
2:29 p.m. — Wuhan
Wuhan Railway Station, usually thronging with people in the days before the Lunar New Year holiday, is very empty. An announcement playing on a loop over the speakers tells the few people here that residents can not leave the city and the station is temporarily closed.
Scientists have been scrambling to understand the source of the coronavirus, in particular, the animals from which the virus may have jumped to humans. Many of the cases in Wuhan were connected to a market that sold live poultry and exotic animal meats. The market was closed and disinfected.
Early epidemiological research is indicating that it may have come from wild animals such as bamboo rats and badgers, said Dr. Zhong Nanshan, a prominent Chinese scientist who was the country’ s leading expert during the SARS outbreak, during an interview with state media on Monday. Named for its bamboo-heavy diet, the cat-sized bamboo rat has become a somewhat popular delicacy in recent years in China, promoted for its purported health properties.
A group of Chinese researchers from the eastern city of Tianjin and Nanjing in the south, said the Wuhan coronavirus may have originated from Chinese horseshoe bats, according to a study they published in the Chinese Journal of Bioinformatics on Tuesday.
China’ s National Genomics Data Center said the Wuhan virus was 88 percent genetically similar to a SARS-like coronavirus that was collected from bats in China in 2017.
Still another group of Chinese scientists suggested that snakes were the “ most probable wildlife animal reservoir ” for the novel coronavirus, then transmitted to humans, in an article published in the Journal of Medical Virology Wednesday.
But that assessment immediately drew fire from the international health community.
The study’ s lead author, Wei Ji of the Peking University Health Science Center School of Basic Medical Sciences, did not actually find the new coronavirus in a snake, noted David Robertson, a professor at the University of Glasgow. Instead, Dr. Ji and his colleagues compared the genomes of an assortment of viruses and hosts and claimed to find a similarity between the genomes of the new virus and snakes.
Dr. Ji did not respond to an email query by the time of publication.
The announcement that the city of Wuhan would be temporarily sealed off from the outside world starting at 10 a.m. on Thursday came while most residents were asleep at 2 a.m.
Some decided to flee the city.
Residents were seen hauling their luggage to a train station in the early hours before the citywide lockdown took effect, the Chinese news outlet Caixin reported. Several people said they would buy tickets for any destination as long as they could leave Wuhan, the magazine reported.
Lines of passengers in masks and down jackets, lugging suitcases, formed outside the major Hankou railway station just 20 minutes before the cutoff time, a live video by media outlet The Paper showed.
Han Zhen and Wang Mengkai, two migrant workers from Henan Province, said they had rushed to the railway station in order to leave on Wednesday night, but missed the last train out.
Both said they were frustrated by the sudden lockdown and were scrambling to find a way home.
“ It’ s serious but not that serious, ” said Mr. Wang, who works in an electronics parts factory. “ We’ re trying to figure out how we can get home. If we can’ t get out on a train, we’ ll try putting together a car with a driver. ”
Asked if they were motivated to leave by fear of the virus, Mr. Han said: “ No, we are not scared. ”
“ It’ s the New Year, we just have to go home, ” he said.
Reporting was contributed by Amy Qin, Vivian Wang, Russell Goldman, Chris Buckley, Javier Hernández, Austin Ramzy, Gillian Wong, Paulina Villegas, Steven Lee Myers, Tiffany May, Elaine Yu, Denise Grady, Karen Zraick, Roni Caryn Rabin, Carl Zimmer and Rick Gladstone. Amber Wang, Albee Zhang, Claire Fu, Elsie Chen, Yiwei Wang and Zoe Mou contributed research. | business |