There are 1 million coronavirus cases worldwide. But there's probably many more people who have the disease. - USA TODAY

Doug Stanglin USA TODAY

Published 4:35 PM EDT Apr 2, 2020

The world marked a grim milestone on Thursday, registering more than 1 million confirmed cases of the deadly coronavirus that has swept the globe in less than five months.

But in reality that mark — 1,002,159 around 4 p.m. EDT — was crossed much earlier.

That's because the number of official cases, compiled by Johns Hopkins' Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases website,  are only those identified through testing. Cases not tested would include asymptomatic individuals; people who may have died of complications of the virus without anyone knowing it; and those whose symptoms were not serious enough to qualify for testing. 

"The million (cases) is clearly way under what the actual number will be because of all the issues of testing and all the people with mild symptoms that haven’t been tested," said Dr. Steven Corwin, president and CEO of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

He said the U.S. figures are especially underreported "because of the lag that we had getting testing underway and the ability to only test the sickest of patients to begin with."

What is exponential growth? Coronavirus is spreading so quickly that our brains can't keep up. Experts explain why.

That is an especially alarming reality because people with undetected cases unwittingly spread the virus, especially within families or if people mix in large, public gatherings.

"Every infectious agent only goes as the hosts go," said Dr. Ogbonnaya Omenka, an assistant professor and public health specialist at Butler University's College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. "In essence, our social patterns are excellent indicators of how far and wide an outbreak would go, if they remain unchanged. This is why physical distancing has been put in place, to throw the virus off-balance, so to speak, by breaking its chain of transmission." 

The U.S., with more than 236,000 cases as of Thursday, tops the list of countries with the most infections, followed by Italy and Spain with just over 110,000 each. China has fallen to fourth, with just under 82,500 cases, according to Johns Hopkins COVID-19 case tracking system.

Corwin said New York City's burgeoning caseload mirrors what unfolded in Italy, which has seen the most deaths worldwide. "I’m fearful that in the rest of the country we’ll see that coming in waves," he said.

That suggests that the worldwide death toll – which stands at just more than 51,000 Thursday –  also will set milestones, particularly as the virus spreads in the U.S.

The outbreak, Omenka said, normally will stop "when it runs out of susceptible hosts, once already infected persons start developing immunity against the agent, or a vaccine becomes available."

The key, he said, is how much the public follows guidelines keeping them apart.

"It cannot be overemphasized the importance of not only public cooperation, but the need for a nationally coordinated response to this outbreak, because it would be horrible if some states experience a resurgence of the disease after overcoming it, due to outbreaks in other states," he said. 

The patchwork nature of the U.S. response was underscored by widely divergent assessments in individual states. 

While the governors of Illinois and New York issued stay-at-home orders for residents as early as March 20, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, despite heavy criticism, did not mandate such measures until this week, despite 7,000 confirmed cases and 85 deaths in his state as of Tuesday. Georgia and Mississippi were the last holdouts in the South.

The virus, which apparently started in a market in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, has now reached 180 countries or regions.

COVID-19 tests: Labs are testing 100,000 people each day for the coronavirus. That's still not enough.

Research suggests that the new coronavirus, like its cousins SARS and MERS, has its origin in bats. Scientists suspect the virus was initially transmitted to another animal – an "intermediary host" – before it spread to humans. 

The rate of spread varies from country to country

South Korea reacted quickly and aggressively, applying a well-organized and widespread testing program to locate carriers, trace their contacts and quarantine their contacts. It has 9,976 confirmed cases and 169 deaths as of Thursday.

According to the Worldometer website, which tracks the data from official sources on testing, South Korea — with a population of almost 52 million — has tested more than 270,000 people, which amounts to more than 5,200 tests per million inhabitants. 

The United States, by comparison, has carried out just over 1.16 million tests, according to the COVID Tracking Project, or about 280 tests per million inhabitants.

After months of quarantine measures and travel restrictions, China's cases have fallen dramatically. China's National Health Commission says that all the new cases are being imported from abroad. Recently, Chinese officials lifted travel restrictions on more than 60 million people in the Hubei province, where the outbreak originated. 

What are symptoms of the coronavirus?

Symptoms can range from mild to severe, and some people don't have any symptoms. According to the CDC and the WHO, symptoms include:

• Fever
• Dry cough
• Shortness of breath
• Tiredness
• Some people also develop aches and pains, nasal congestion, runny nose, sore throat or diarrhea

Symptoms may appear anywhere between two to 14 days after exposure, with the average patient seeing onset at around five days, according to the CDC.

But details of the most common symptoms are still evolving. One 66-year-old New York neurosurgeon, Ezriel Kornel, who tested positive for the virus didn't initially have any of the most common symptoms. Newer reports are also suggesting that a loss of a sense of smell or taste may be a symptom of COVID-19.

When should you get tested?

If you have symptoms and want to get tested, the CDC recommends calling your state or local health department or a medical provider.

At this time, the CDC recommends that clinicians prioritize testing hospitalized patients and symptomatic healthcare workers. Second-level priority includes patients in long-term care facilities with symptoms, patients 65 years of age and older with symptoms, patients with underlying conditions with symptoms and first responders with symptoms.

Not sure if you should get tested? The CDC website features a "self-checker" to help you make decisions about seeking medical care. The feature is not intended for the diagnosis or treatment of COVID-19 and is intended only for people in the U.S.

Contributing: Ryan Miller, Jesse Yomtov and Grace Hauck

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2020-04-02 20:02:26Z
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Worldwide coronavirus cases reach 1 million, doubling in a week as death toll tops 50,000 - CNBC

Reported COVID-19 cases around the world surpassed 1 million on Thursday, doubling in a week as the virus spreads across Europe and North America and establishes a toehold in Africa. 

Just before global cases reached 1 million, the COVID-19 worldwide death toll passed 50,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

COVID-19 has now infected at least 1,002,159 people around the world and killed at least 51,484 people, according to Hopkins data. Nearly 200,000 people have recovered from the virus so far, according to Hopkins.

The world knew almost nothing about the virus in December, when reports of a new coronavirus started to surface in Wuhan, China. Since then, it has spread to nearly every country in the world, disrupting daily life for millions under lockdown measures meant to curb the virus' rapid spread.

"Over the past five weeks, we have witnessed a near exponential growth in the number of new cases, reaching almost every country, territory and area," World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news briefing at the organization's Geneva headquarters Wednesday.

Confirmed COVID-19 cases topped 500,000 a week ago, according to Hopkins. 

Since then, the U.S. surpassed China as the country with the most reported cases of COVID-19 in the world. However, economists and U.S. officials have said Chinese officials are likely underreporting the number of infections.

Infections in the U.S. now account for more than 20% of infections globally. The virus has infected more than 92,000 people in New York state alone, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday. White House officials estimate that between 100,000 to 240,000 people in the U.S. will die from COVID-19 with the peak in fatalities over the next two or so weeks.

The virus threatens to spread widely across Africa, where a number of countries have seen hundreds of positive tests, according to Hopkins. The virus has infected more than 1,300 people in South Africa, according to Hopkins data, and more than 900 in Algeria. 

The WHO has repeatedly emphasized the potentially devastating impact of epidemics across Africa, where many health systems are ill-equipped to care for what could be an overwhelming number of critical patients.

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2020-04-02 19:57:44Z
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1 Million Coronavirus Cases Have Now Been Reported Worldwide - NPR

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A firefighter takes a moment to rest outside a temporary hospital in a conference center in Madrid, Spain, that was set up as an overflow area for COVID-19 patients. More than a million coronavirus cases are now reported worldwide, putting intense pressure on health and emergency workers. Sergio Perez/Reuters hide caption

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Sergio Perez/Reuters

Countries around the world have now reported more than 1 million coronavirus cases, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to grow. The respiratory disease has killed more than 51,000 people and is found in at least 181 countries and regions.

The updated numbers come from a coronavirus dashboard created by Johns Hopkins University's Whiting School of Engineering, which tracks the data in near real-time.

The global case total includes some 209,000 people who have recovered from COVID-19. But the number of new cases has skyrocketed in the U.S., Italy and Spain in recent weeks, driving the outbreak to alarming new heights.

The COVID-19 pandemic is severely disrupting daily life, closing schools and businesses and forcing travel restrictions on billions of people worldwide. It is overwhelming health care systems with floods of critically ill patients. In many places, the virus is also triggering vital shortages of medical equipment and daily necessities.

"This virus, which was unknown to us three months ago, has exposed the weaknesses and inequities in our health systems and societies," World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Thursday.

The coronavirus has revealed "our lack of preparedness, and the gaps in our supply chains and other essential systems," Tedros added.

The U.S. has confirmed 234,000 cases — the most in the world — including more than 5,600 deaths. Italy has 115,242 cases and nearly 14,000 deaths, and Spain has more than 110,000 cases.

China, the original epicenter of the outbreak, is still reporting less than 83,000 cases. After two months of mandated lockdowns, people have finally begun to venture out from their homes. But there are also reports of mysterious second-time infections in Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected in late 2019.

While acknowledging the rising death toll from the coronavirus, Tedros also warned that the pandemic is causing a cascade effect that, for some, will prove deadly. If over-stressed health systems fail to protect and treat patients, he said, COVID-19 will have an even more drastic effect.

"We know that when health systems are overwhelmed, mortality from vaccine-preventable and other treatable conditions will increase dramatically," Tedros said. He added, "Gaps in essential care can result in many more deaths than the coronavirus itself."

Researchers are desperately seeking a way to prevent or cure the new coronavirus, including nearly 50 potential vaccines and 25 possible antibody treatments, according to the Milken Institute's online tracking tool.

The fight against COVID-19 includes an international Solidarity trial that the WHO is organizing to assess potential treatments. So far, 74 countries have either joined or started the process of contributing, Tedros said on Thursday. More than 200 patients have been randomly assigned to one part of the study.

The Solidarity trial is comparing four drugs and drug combinations. The project includes the experimental Ebola drug remdesivir, the malaria drug chloroquine and the combination of lopinavir and ritonavir — two protease inhibitors that have been used to combat HIV.

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2020-04-02 19:56:41Z
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India coronavirus: Tablighi Jamaat gatherings in Delhi 'super-spreader' event - The - The Washington Post

Biplov Bhuyan Hindustan Times/Getty Images People who took part in a Tablighi Jamaat gathering in March wait to board buses to a quarantine facility amid concerns of infection in New Delhi on Tuesday.

NEW DELHI — The devotees came by the thousands from all corners of India and beyond, converging on a large white complex in a crowded quarter of Delhi to share a message of piety.

When they left in the first weeks of March, they unknowingly carried the coronavirus with them.

Gatherings last month at the headquarters of a prominent Muslim missionary group are emerging as India’s first “super-spreader” event, complicating efforts to control rising infections in this nation of 1.3 billion people.

More than 400 confirmed cases and at least 10 deaths across the country — stretching from Tamil Nadu in the south to Kashmir in the north — have been linked to people who attended events at the Tablighi Jamaat center near a historic shrine in India’s capital.

The infections, which represent about a fifth of India’s total cases, have sparked a frantic effort to track down anyone who attended the recent meetings. In at least two states, potential contacts are being traced using mobile-phone location data.

[Coronavirus live updates]

The outbreak has also provoked a spasm of Islamophobia in India, a Hindu-majority nation that is home to 200 million Muslims. In February, the country witnessed its deadliest sectarian clashes in years after the government’s pursuit of a controversial citizenship law sparked violence.

As the pandemic continues, people practicing their faith have become unwitting but powerful vectors in the spread of the virus. A cultlike church helped fueled the pandemic in South Korea. A synagogue north of New York City was at the center of an early outbreak. An evangelical congregation in France was the source of hundreds of infections.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/world/india-closes-headquarters-of-muslim-group-linked-to-coronavirus-clusters/2020/04/01/0c1ced28-2645-401b-9f91-d893baadd82d_video.html

India banned all religious gatherings when it instituted a three-week nationwide lockdown March 25. But several states and cities already had implemented their own restrictions: Delhi, for instance, prohibited all assemblies of more than 50 people March 16.

The activities of Tablighi Jamaat have emerged as a particularly potent vehicle for transmitting the virus. Founded in India nearly a century ago, the group has as many as 80 million adherents worldwide. It is built around small bands of itinerant missionaries who urge fellow Muslims to deepen their observance and model their lives directly on the ways of the prophet Muhammad.

The group eschews politics and in theory operates without formal record-keeping, said Barbara Metcalf, a prominent historian of South Asian Islam. It stresses proselytizing and travel, producing a “state of vulnerability and uncertainty in which one learns to be dependent on God,” Metcalf wrote.

The Tablighi Jamaat cases in India may be linked to another religious gathering held by the same group in Malaysia. At the end of February, 16,000 people from numerous countries attended a multiday Tablighi Jamaat event at a mosque in Kuala Lumpur. That gathering was the source of hundreds of coronavirus cases in Malaysia and dozens more in Brunei, Cambodia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Cases have also emerged at a Tablighi center in Pakistan.

By early March, missionaries from several Southeast Asian countries were in India. Nearly all of them passed through the bustling complex in Delhi’s storied Nizamuddin district and then traveled on to different parts of India. Several of them later died, including a Filipino man and six Indonesians. One Indian who went home to Kashmir after participating in a three-day event at the Delhi center also died.

Biplov Bhuyan

Hindustan Times/Getty Images

Delhi government employees leave after a sanitization drive in New Delhi on Wednesday.

Missionaries and devotees continued to arrive at the center even after Delhi authorities banned large gatherings. Then India suspended all passenger trains March 22, followed swiftly by the countrywide lockdown. 

About 2,300 people were stuck at the Tablighi Jamaat headquarters, unable to leave or travel. Yet the authorities took no action to remove them until this week, when all of those at the center were shifted to quarantine facilities or hospitals.

“Everybody now wishes that [activities] had been discontinued earlier,” said Fuzail Ayyubi, a lawyer representing the Delhi center, adding that the group had communicated its situation to the authorities and cooperated with the police.

“This is not the right time to blame us or the government,” Ayyubi said. “Everybody is stuck in a situation mankind hasn’t seen before.”

Local authorities across India are racing to contain the outbreak, sometimes using methods that appear to be without precedent here. In Kashmir, a restive Muslim-majority region, the government compiled a list of more than 800 residents who were present earlier in March in Delhi, including in the neighborhood where the Tablighi Jamaat center is located.

The list was assembled with the help of telecom companies after an analysis of data from cellphone towers, call records and travel itineraries, said a senior police official in Srinagar, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.

Three other officials and doctors in Kashmir confirmed they had received instructions to check on the health of the individuals mentioned on the list. The Washington Post reviewed a copy and contacted 10 people listed. All confirmed they had either recently been near the Tablighi Jamaat center or in another Delhi neighborhood frequented by Kashmiris.

Kashmir has been subject to a broader crackdown since last August, when India stripped the territory of its autonomy and statehood. Rohit Kansal, the top bureaucrat in Jammu and Kashmir, did not confirm or deny that the region was using cellphone data in its effort to trace contacts. The territory is “following a proactive and aggressive policy of test and trace,” he said.

Ajay Aggarwal

Hindustan Times/Getty Images

A bus driver in a protective suit, right, walks to his vehicle before ferrying people who took part in a Tablighi Jamaat gathering to a quarantine facility.

In the southern state of Tamil Nadu, authorities say that about 1,100 residents traveled to the Tablighi Jamaat headquarters in March. Many of those have come forward, and the state is using a “multitude of methodologies,” including “clustering of cellphone data,” to trace people, said Beela Rajesh, the state’s health secretary.

The Indian government has expansive authority to require mobile-phone operators to share data. While the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a right to privacy in 2017, its legal contours remain unclear.

Indian officials are increasingly looking to cellphone data to help enforce measures to control the pandemic. Arvind Kejriwal, the top elected official in the state of Delhi, announced Wednesday that the local government would temporarily use cellphone data to determine if more than 20,000 people were violating orders to quarantine themselves at home.

Some Indian Muslims worry that the infections linked to the missionary group will intensify anti-Muslim rhetoric. The cases can be used as “a convenient excuse for some to vilify Muslims everywhere,” wrote Omar Abdullah, a senior politician in Kashmir. One prime-time anchor referred to the coronavirus cases as “a murderous attack in the name of faith,” and “CoronaJihad” trended on social media.

The first-known Indian victim of the outbreak at the Tablighi center was Mohammad Ashraf Anim, a 65-year-old Kashmiri businessman. He had traveled to Delhi to take part in a special three-day quarterly event for devotees, said a person familiar with his plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Anim returned home to Kashmir and attended prayers at a mosque the following Friday. A few days later, he developed coronavirus-related symptoms. He died March 26.

Irfan reported from Srinagar.

Read more

In India, the world’s biggest lockdown has forced migrants to walk hundreds of miles home

India’s 1.3 billion people go into lockdown for three weeks

Home to nearly 2 billion people, South Asia could be the next coronavirus hot spot

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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2020-04-02 19:48:35Z
CAIiEAo-63RdTFzm8UrzLrPNV6wqGAgEKg8IACoHCAowjtSUCjC30XQwn6G5AQ

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte orders police and military to kill citizens who defy coronavirus lockdown - CBS News

In the Philippines, the 57 million residents of the country's main island, Luzon, are under strict lockdown orders to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Despite that, many in a Manila slum took to the streets Wednesday to protest a lack of supplies, arguing they had not received any food packs since the lockdown started two weeks ago.

The local government refutes those claims and clashed with protestors, ultimately arresting 20 people who refused to return home. 

FLASH REPORT: Mga residente ng Sitio San Roque na nag-rally dahil sa umano'y kakulangan ng relief packs sa QC, pinag-aaresto na ng QCPD | via @dzrh5 Val Gonzales #DZRHat80 #COVID19Alert pic.twitter.com/kIdPZlalz8

— DZRH NEWS (@dzrhnews) April 1, 2020

Later that night, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte took to the airwaves with a chilling warning for his citizens: Defy the lockdown orders again and the police will shoot you dead.

Coronavirus: The Race To Respond ›

More in Coronavirus: The Race To Respond

"I will not hesitate. My orders are to the police and military, as well as village officials, if there is any trouble, or occasions where there's violence and your lives are in danger, shoot them dead," he said in a mix of Filipino and English in the televised address. "Do not intimidate the government. Do not challenge the government. You will lose."

This sort of order is not out of character for the controversial leader, who is notoriously accused of presiding over extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers at the hands of police for years. Nevertheless, it marks a chilling escalation in the global fight against COVID-19.

According to Johns Hopkins, the Philippines has 2,633 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 107 deaths – significantly less than some other countries of comparable size. 

So far, actions taken by authoritarian governments have proven most effective in stemming the spread of the virus – asking citizens to sacrifice privacy and some of their freedoms in exchange for public health.

Lessons to learn from South Korea's successful coronavirus fight

Poland is making quarantined citizens use a selfie app to prove they're staying inside. Singapore is using Bluetooth signals between cellphones to keep track of who people come into contact with. 

But Duterte's threat may be the boldest. "I will not hesitate my soldiers to shoot you," Duterte said in forceful tones Wednesday. "I will not hesitate to order the police to arrest and detain you. Now, if you are detained, I will leave it up to you to find food."

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2020-04-02 18:38:43Z
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Trump says China's coronavirus numbers seem 'on the light side' - Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the coronavirus statistics China was reporting seemed “a little bit on the light side,” while his national security adviser said Washington had no way of knowing if Beijing’s figures were accurate.

U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the daily coronavirus response briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room as seen through a window from outside the White House in Washington, U.S., April 1, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner

The comments came after a senior Republican lawmaker cast doubt on Beijing’s data and Bloomberg News said a classified U.S. intelligence report had concluded that China had under-reported the total cases and deaths it had suffered.

The coronavirus outbreak began in China in late 2019 but Beijing has reported fewer cases and deaths than in the United States, which now has the world’s largest outbreak, with 214,000 confirmed cases and 4,800 deaths. [L1N2BP1DH]

Trump told a daily briefing by his coronavirus task force that he had not received an intelligence report on China’s data, but added:

“The numbers seem to be a little bit on the light side - and I am being nice when I say that - relative to what we witnessed and what was reported.”

Trump said he had discussed how China had dealt with the coronavirus outbreak in a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping last Friday, but “not so much the numbers”.

Trump, who has toned down his criticism of China’s handling of the virus outbreak since the call, also said the U.S. relationship with China was “very good” and both sides wanted to maintain a multi-billion dollar trade deal reached earlier this year.

“As to whether or not their numbers are accurate,” he added, “I am not an accountant from China.”

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying reiterated during a daily briefing in Beijing on Thursday that China has been open and transparent about the coronavirus epidemic in the country and sharply criticised U.S. officials who cast doubt on China’s disclosures.

“These comments by those U.S. politicians are just shameless and morally repulsive,” she said. “They should abandon such politicising of public health issues. This is just immoral and inhuman – and will be denounced by people all around the world.”

Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, told the same briefing Washington was “just not (in) the position to confirm any of the numbers that are coming out of China.”

“There’s lots of public reporting on whether the numbers are too low,” he said. “You got access to those reports that are coming out of Chinese social media...we just have no way to confirm any of those numbers.

Earlier, Michael McCaul, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, accused Beijing of hiding the true number of those impacted. He said he had called for the State Department to investigate Beijing’s “initial cover up and subsequent actions regarding this pandemic.”

The Bloomberg report cited unidentified U.S. officials as saying that a classified report, received by the White House last week, concluded that China’s public reporting on cases and deaths was intentionally incomplete.

China reported dwindling new infections on Wednesday and for the first time disclosed the number of cases of people who have the highly contagious disease but do not show symptoms.

Reporting by David Brunnstrom; additional reporting by Tom Daily in Beijing; Editing by Kim Coghill and Jacqueline Wong

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2020-04-02 17:40:31Z
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Putin seeking to create new world order with 'rogue states' amid coronavirus crisis, report claims - CNBC

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the government in Moscow, Russia, on February 5, 2020.

Aleksey Nikolskyi | Sputnik | Kremlin | Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his administration are using the coronavirus crisis to spread conspiracy theories in a bid to "subvert the West" and create a new world order, a new report has alleged.

In an article published Wednesday by The University of Calgary's School of Public Policy, it's claimed Russia has been "churning out propaganda that blames the West for creating the virus." The report's author, Sergey Sukhankin, said the state was propagating disinformation and conspiracy theories via social media accounts, fake news outlets, state-controlled media, pseudo-scientists and Russians living in the West. The Kremlin has previously denied such claims.

"Putin's larger goal in spreading propaganda and conspiracy theories is to subvert the West," Sukhankin said.

"Russia seeks to seriously damage the solidarity among EU members and capitalize on any internal European weaknesses to promote broader conflicts. COVID-19 is seen as an ideal way for Russia to deal a powerful blow not only to the EU, but to inflict damage on the ties between Europe and its North American allies."

Moscow also wanted revenge on the West for economic sanctions that were imposed on Russia for various reasons, including its annexation of Crimea, Sukhankin added, warning that the Kremlin saw an opportunity amid the crisis to unravel the current world order.

"Moscow views the virus as a fortuitous harbinger of the end of the post-Cold War liberal world order," the report said. "The new leaders to emerge from this liberal collapse, according to this view, will be Russia and China. Indeed, Russia is seeking to strengthen its ties with China, as well as with Iran, and the danger is that other rogue states could join this new configuration."

Speaking to CNBC on Tuesday, Keyu Jin, associate professor of economics at the London School of Economics, also claimed that China saw the coronavirus crisis as the "opportunity of the century" to establish a new role for itself on the international stage.

On Wednesday, an updated report from the EU's foreign policy arm, the European External Action Service (EEAS), claimed countries including Russia and China were spreading disinformation about the coronavirus crisis. The EU recorded more than 150 cases of pro-Kremlin disinformation on COVID-19 between the end of January and the end of March, the report said. 

An earlier version of the report from the EEAS alleged Russia had launched a disinformation campaign to "aggravate the public health crisis in Western countries ... in line with the Kremlin's broader strategy of attempting to subvert European societies," according to Reuters.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov later dismissed the EU's claims as "groundless accusations."

Meanwhile, U.S. officials said in February that thousands of social media accounts with links to Russia had launched a coordinated campaign to spread fake news about the coronavirus, the Guardian reported.

A Kremlin spokesperson was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.

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2020-04-02 15:18:38Z
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