Yemen confirms first coronavirus case, braces for outbreak - Al Jazeera English

Yemen has reported its first coronavirus case in a southern province, raising fears of catastrophic consequences in a healthcare system broken by five years of war.

"The first confirmed case of coronavirus has been reported in Hadramout province," Yemen's supreme national emergency committee for COVID-19 said on Twitter on Friday.

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The committee, run by the internationally recognised government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, said the infected patient was in stable condition and receiving care.

"The case is in isolation and treatment, all known contacts are being traced and quarantined," the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Twitter.    

"WHO is working closely with [the health ministry] to ensure further rapid containment measures are taken."

Hadramout province has seen some of the worst pockets of malnutrition and disease in the war-torn country.

Control of the large southern province has long been divided. Government forces backed by a Saudi-UAE-led military coalition control the coastal towns, but parts of the interior remain in the hands of al-Qaeda fighters.

The committee said medical teams and concerned authorities had taken all necessary precautions and promised to release further details on the coronavirus case later on Friday.

The patient was a Yemeni working in the port of al-Shihr, a local official told Reuters news agency.

Crippled healthcare system

Following years of war, Yemen already faces what the United Nations describes as the world's worst humanitarian disaster.

Aid groups have warned that a major outbreak will be "disastrous" and devastate the country's gutted healthcare system.

Repeated coalition bombings have destroyed or closed more than half of Yemen's health facilities. Deep poverty, severe water shortages and a lack of adequate sanitation have made the country a breeding ground for disease.

"We're seeing some of the most richest nations, with their most advanced health systems, unable to cope with this pandemic,"Sultana Begum, advocacy manager for the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Al Jazeera.

"In Yemen, you have millions of people who are hungry, young children who are malnourished, people with life threatening health conditions … In this kind of environment, this pandemic will be deadly," she warned.

'Frightening'

Yemen has been mired in violence since the Houthi rebels overthrew the government in late 2014, prompting the Saudi-UAE-led coalition to intervene in support of Hadi's government. The five-year-old conflict has killed more than 100,000 and pushed millions to the brink of famine.

The coalition announced on Thursday it would halt military operations for two weeks. But a Houthi spokesman said they will not stop fighting while the country is under siege.

"We will continue to fight and target their military installations and industrial sites since they continue with the siege. So we don't consider it to be a ceasefire," Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a Houthi spokesman, told Al Jazeera on Thursday.

If the virus spreads in Yemen, the impact would be "catastrophic" as the health status of at least half the population is "very degraded" and the country does not have sufficient supplies, capabilities or facilities, said UN humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande.

In a statement, Grande said that people across the country "have some of the lowest levels of immunity and highest levels of acute vulnerability in the world".

"What's facing Yemen is frightening. More people who become infected are likely to become severely ill than anywhere else," she warned.

"It's time for the parties to stop fighting each other and start fighting COVID together."

Saudi Arabia is also scrambling to limit the spread of the disease at home. Its health ministry has reported more than 3,200 coronavirus infections and 44 deaths from the illness.

There are more than 134,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the Middle East, including over 5,300 fatalities. Some 4,100 of those deaths are in Iran, which has the largest outbreak in the region. Authorities there have recorded more than 66,000 total cases.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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2020-04-10 14:54:35Z
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Europe has a rescue package. But who's going to pay for its coronavirus recovery? - CNN

The deal was announced Thursday after weeks of back and forth over how to address the crisis, a bruising process that exposed deep divisions and led Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to warn that a failure to act would mean "the end of Europe."

The stimulus package includes up to €100 billion ($110 billion) in wage subsidies aimed at preventing mass layoffs, as well as hundreds of billions in loans to businesses and credit for EU governments. The finance ministers also pledged to work on a recovery fund that will help the region bounce back from what promises to be a historic recession.

Yet little progress was made on how to finance the response.

Nine of the countries that use the euro, including Italy and France, had called for the European Union to issue debt, dubbed corona bonds, to raise long-term finance for all member states to help repair the damage wrought by the pandemic.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, backed by the leaders of Austria and the Netherlands, have said no. They have long opposed the issuance of debt at the EU level for fear that it would effectively mean their taxpayers are underwriting spending by poorer member states.

Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at the Eurasia Group, wrote in a research note on Friday that the agreement reached by the finance ministers punts on this key issue, leaving it to be addressed in future negotiations when leaders "are confronted with a devastated economy and the need to rebuild."

Analysts at Berenberg Bank said that how the European Union responds to the crisis will have major implication for the future of the bloc. The stakes, they argued, are even higher than during the eurozone debt crisis in 2011 and 2012.

"A perceived lack of solidarity in the worst peacetime crisis in living memory could be dynamite for the longer-term cohesion of the eurozone and the European Union," they wrote after the deal was announced.

Europe has already taken some other measures to protect workers and business. EU limits on budget deficits have been relaxed to allow member countries to borrow more, and the European Central Bank has also pumped hundreds of billions into markets to prevent the shock from triggering a new financial crisis.

Yet economists still expect Europe to fall into a steep recession.

Germany's top economic research institutes said earlier this week that Europe's biggest economy is likely to shrink by 4.2% this year. It expects a contraction of 9.8% in the current quarter, compared to the previous three months, which would be the sharpest decline since record-keeping began in 1970 and more than twice as steep as the most damaging quarter during the global financial crisis.

France's central bank has estimated the country's first quarter GDP shrunk 6% from the previous three months. The central bank said the last contraction of a similar magnitude came in the second quarter of 1968, when weeks of civil unrest, demonstrations and general strikes sharply curtailed economic output.

Evidence of a severe recession in Germany and France is bad news for other European countries such as Italy and Spain. They have been hit harder by the pandemic, and their economies are taking an even bigger hit.

The Berenberg analysts said the deal announced Thursday is a "major step forward." But they said EU leaders must now move quickly to approve a "substantial and impressive" joint recovery fund.

"In a good case scenario, the memory of how this compromise was forged will fade and citizens across the European Union will remember that countries did help each other substantially in the end," they wrote. "In a bad case scenario, the perception of slow — or insufficient — solidarity could ... undermine the political foundations of the European project."

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2020-04-10 12:42:56Z
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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson 'almost took one for the team' after spell in ICU, father says - ABC News

The prime minister continues to be closely monitored after his hospitalisation.

April 10, 2020, 11:17 AM

5 min read

5 min read

LONDON -- The U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson “almost took one for the team,” his father said, as the leader continues to recover from coronavirus in hospital after a spell in intensive care.

Johnson was hospitalized 10 days after testing positive for coronavirus last weekend, and was moved to intensive care as his condition deteriorated on Monday. But the prime minister has now been moved back to the main ward at St Thomas’s Hospital in London, with Downing Street saying that the prime minister “will receive close monitoring during the early phase of his recovery."

Tune into ABC at 1 p.m. ET and ABC News Live at 4 p.m. ET every weekday for special coverage of the novel coronavirus with the full ABC News team, including the latest news, context and analysis.

And Johnson’s father, Stanley, told the BBC Friday that the prime minister must “rest up” before returning to lead the country.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves Downing Street to attend Prime Minsters Questions at the Houses of Parliament on March 4, 2020 in London.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves Downing Street to attend Prime Minsters Questions at the Houses of Parliament on March 4, 2020 in London.Peter Summers/Getty Images, FILE

“To use that American expression, he almost took one for the team,” Stanley Johnson said. He went on to say that while the prime minister is “not out of the woods yet,” his son’s diagnosing and hospitalization served an amazing purpose… in a sense, it got the whole country to realize this is a serious event.”

The prime minister is in “extremely good spirits,” according to Downing Street.

Among the world leaders to welcome the news that Johnson had been moved out of intensive care was President Donald Trump.

“Great News: Prime Minister Boris Johnson has just been moved out of Intensive Care,” he posted on Twitter= Thursday. “Get well Boris!!!”

What to know about Coronavirus:

How it started and how to protect yourself: Coronavirus explained

What to do if you have symptoms: Coronavirus symptoms

Tracking the spread in the US and Worldwide: Coronavirus map

As of Thursday afternoon, 65,077 have tested positive for coronavirus in the U.K., with 7,978 deaths, according to the Department of Health and Social Care.

Earlier this week, the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) said there was no sign yet that the peak of the coronavirus outbreak had been reached, as several governments have hinted at the prospect of lockdowns being lifted in the coming weeks.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is taking charge of the Government's response to the coronavirus crisis after Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted to intensive care Monday, arrives in Downing Street, London, April 8, 2020.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is taking charge of the Government's response to the coronavirus crisis after Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted to intensive care Monday, arrives in Downing Street, London, April 8, 2020.Victoria Jones/PA via AP

The man deputizing in the prime minister’s absence is Dominic Raab, the First Secretary of state, who will lead the country for the time being. Raab has warned that the lockdown restrictions to ensure social distancing in the U.K. will remain in place, as the country heads to a holiday weekend with sunny skies and warm temperatures.

"After all the efforts everybody has made, after all the sacrifices so many people have made, let's not ruin it now,” Raab said on Thursday.

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2020-04-10 11:19:30Z
52780718853831

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's dad says his son needs time to 'rest up' from coronavirus - USA TODAY

Kim Hjelmgaard USA TODAY

Published 6:41 AM EDT Apr 10, 2020

LONDON – Prime Minister Boris Johnson must be allowed to "rest up" before getting back to work after he was moved out of intensive care for coronavirus to a regular hospital ward, the British leader's father said in an interview on Friday. 

Johnson's 79-year-old father Stanley said he felt "tremendously grateful obviously on behalf of the family, Boris’s family, my family, family members all over the place, and also, of course, amazingly thankful as well" for his son's improving condition.

COVID-19 lessons from around the world: Iceland has tested more of its population for coronavirus than anywhere else. Here's what it learned

"Relief is the right word," he said in a BBC radio interview.

But he warned that his son needed a period of recuperation before returning to work. 

"He has to take time. I cannot believe you can walk away from this and get straight back to Downing Street and pick up the reins without a period of readjustment," he said. 

Johnson is the first major world leader known to have contracted coronavirus. In a series of video messages he published on social media before he was admitted to the hospital with the illness, Johnson appeared increasingly unwell as he carried on the work of government in isolation at his official residence and office at Downing Street. 

‘Afraid and overwhelmed’: A look inside one hospital on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic

In a statement issued on Thursday evening, his office said that Johnson, 55, had been been transferred from an intensive care unit back to the ward "where he will receive close monitoring during the early phase of his recovery."

Johnson is being cared for in St Thomas' Hospital in central London. He was diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 26 and still had a cough and fever 10 days later.

He was admitted to the hospital on Sunday, and to its ICU on Monday.

Carrie Symonds, Johnson’s pregnant fiancee, who also suffered a bout of suspected coronavirus, responded to the news of Johnson's improving health on Thursday by posting a child's painting of a rainbow on Twitter alongside a series of clapping emojis to show support for Britain's frontline National Health Service medical workers. 

"Great News," President Donald Trump tweeted shortly after Downing Street's Thursday announcement. "Get well Boris!!!

Britain's death toll reached 7,978 as of Thursday, according to Public Health England, an increase of 881 from 24 hours earlier. 

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2020-04-10 10:44:43Z
52780718853831

Tokyo closes shops, Kyoto keeps tourists away as virus spreads - Al Jazeera English

[unable to retrieve full-text content]

1. Tokyo closes shops, Kyoto keeps tourists away as virus spreads  Al Jazeera English
2. Japan's sudden spike in coronavirus cases after Tokyo Olympics postponement raises eyebrows  ABC News
3. Sheltering in small places  Reuters.com
4. Tokyo Reluctantly Shuts Some Businesses After Coronavirus Rises  TIME
5. Japan Makes Saving Face a Priority Over Saving Lives  The Daily Beast
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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2020-04-10 11:07:40Z
52780716208116

Sweden challenges Trump -- and scientific mainstream -- by refusing to lock down - CNN

But not Sweden. Restaurants and bars are open in the Nordic country, playgrounds and schools too, and the government is relying on voluntary action to stem the spread of Covid-19.

It's a controversial approach, and one that's drawn US President Donald Trump's attention. "Sweden did that, the herd, they call it the herd. Sweden's suffering very, very badly," Trump said on Tuesday.

But the Swedish government is confident its policy can work. Foreign Minister Ann Linde told Swedish TV on Wednesday that Trump was "factually wrong" to suggest that Sweden was following the "herd immunity" theory -- of letting enough people catch the virus while protecting the vulnerable, meaning a country's population builds up immunity against the disease.

Sweden's strategy, she said, was: "No lockdown and we rely very much on people taking responsibility themselves."

The country's state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, also pushed back against Trump's criticism that Sweden was doing badly. "I think Sweden is doing okay," he told CNN affiliate Expressen. "It's producing quality results the same way it's always done. So far Swedish health care is handling this pandemic in a fantastic way."

As of April 9, Sweden has 9,141 cases of the Covid-19 virus and 793 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University figures.

Sweden's actions are about encouraging and recommending, not compulsion. Two days after Spain imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 14, Swedish authorities were encouraging people to wash hands and stay at home if sick. On March 24, new rules were introduced to avoid crowding at restaurants. But they very much stayed open.

So did many primary and secondary schools. Gatherings of up to 50 people are still permitted.

Tegnell defended the decision to keep schools open. "We know that closing down schools has a lot of effects on health care because a lot of people can't go to their work anymore. A lot of children are suffering when they can't go to school."

Elisabeth Liden, a journalist in Stockholm, told CNN the city is less crowded now. "The subway went from being completely packed to having only a few passengers per car. I get the sense that a vast majority are taking the recommendations of social distancing seriously."

But she added that while "some Swedes won´t even kiss their spouse, others are throwing Easter parties."

Fresh surge

Much of Sweden's focus has been to protect the elderly. Anyone aged 70 or older has been told to stay at home and limit their social contact as much as possible. One Swedish government official said that on the whole people supported the government's approach, but many were "upset about the fact that no ban on visiting homes for elderly was set until recently [April 1], and now the virus is widely spread among these homes, causing the death toll to rise."

The World Health Organization (WHO) is skeptical of Sweden's approach. Noting a fresh surge in the country's infections, the WHO told CNN Wednesday that it's "imperative" that Sweden "increase measures to control spread of the virus, prepare and increase capacity of the health system to cope, ensure physical distancing and communicate the why and how of all measures to the population."

"Only an 'all of society' approach will work to prevent escalation and turn this situation around," said a WHO Europe spokesperson.

Sweden's "curve" -- the rate of infections and deaths caused by coronavirus -- is certainly steeper than that of many other European countries with stricter measures. A study by Imperial College London estimated that 3.1% of the Swedish population was infected (as of March 28) -- compared to 0.41% in Norway and 2.5% in the UK.

As for deaths, by April 8, coronavirus accounted for 67 fatalities per 1 million Swedish citizens, according to the Swedish Health Ministry. Norway had 19 deaths per million, Finland seven per million. The number of deaths rose 16% on Wednesday.

Some Swedish researchers are demanding the government must be stricter. This week several prominent Swedish clinicians wrote an open letter lamenting that large numbers of people are visiting bars, restaurants and shopping malls, even ski slopes. "This unfortunately is translating into a death toll that continues to climb in Sweden."

Cecilia Söderberg-Nauclér -- a virus immunology researcher at Sweden's Karolinska Institute -- is one of more than 2,000 health professionals and researchers who signed a petition demanding tougher action. She told CNN: "We are not winning this battle. It is horrifying.

"Where I live people are working from home, but they go to local restaurants, local cafés and they mix up old people and young people from schools and universities. That is not social distancing."

Söderberg-Nauclér says the situation in Stockholm, where the great majority of the country's infections have occurred, is "lost," but adds: "It is not too late for rest of the country. I wish we would lock down and take control of regions not affected in same way."

Weather the storm

Tom Britton, professor of mathematical statistics at Stockholm University, models how infectious diseases behave in a population. He believes 40% of the Swedish capital's population will be infected by the end of April. While acknowledging the difficulty of measuring the rate of infection, he told CNN that "my best guess today would be 10% or a bit more" of Swedes currently have the virus nationwide.

Some opponents of the government's policy fear that reliance on voluntary behavior will cause a much faster spike in cases, potentially overwhelming the health care system. Sweden also has one of the lowest ratios of critical care beds per capita in Europe, and the government official who spoke with CNN said that supplies of protective equipment are only just staying ahead of demand.

In some ways, however, Sweden is better prepared to weather the storm than other countries. Some 40% of the country's workforce worked from home regularly, even before the virus struck and Sweden has a high ratio of people living on their own, whereas in southern Europe it's not uncommon to have three generations under one roof.

Emma Grossmith, a British employment lawyer working in Stockholm, says another factor in Sweden's favor is a generous social welfare net that means people don't feel obligated to turn up for work if their young child is sick. State support kicks in on day one of absence from work due to a child being sick. "The system here was already well set up to help people to make smarter choices which ultimately benefit the wider population," she told CNN.

But Grossmith notes a big gap between the way Swedes and expatriates view the virus. "There is a native trust in the system amongst those who have grown up with it. In contrast, many of the expat community feel that the strategy has neither been communicated clearly nor robustly challenged in the Swedish press. They are deeply worried."

The next month will determine whether the Swedish system got it right.

An earlier version of this story included an inaccurate statement about Sweden's welfare system. This has been corrected.

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2020-04-10 09:43:05Z
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Sweden challenges Trump -- and scientific mainstream -- by refusing to lock down - CNN

But not Sweden. Restaurants and bars are open in the Nordic country, playgrounds and schools too, and the government is relying on voluntary action to stem the spread of Covid-19.

It's a controversial approach, and one that's drawn US President Donald Trump's attention. "Sweden did that, the herd, they call it the herd. Sweden's suffering very, very badly," Trump said on Tuesday.

But the Swedish government is confident its policy can work. Foreign Minister Ann Linde told Swedish TV on Wednesday that Trump was "factually wrong" to suggest that Sweden was following the "herd immunity" theory -- of letting enough people catch the virus while protecting the vulnerable, meaning a country's population builds up immunity against the disease.

Sweden's strategy, she said, was: "No lockdown and we rely very much on people taking responsibility themselves."

The country's state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, also pushed back against Trump's criticism that Sweden was doing badly. "I think Sweden is doing okay," he told CNN affiliate Expressen. "It's producing quality results the same way it's always done. So far Swedish health care is handling this pandemic in a fantastic way."

As of April 9, Sweden has 9,141 cases of the Covid-19 virus and 793 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University figures.

Sweden's actions are about encouraging and recommending, not compulsion. Two days after Spain imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 14, Swedish authorities were encouraging people to wash hands and stay at home if sick. On March 24, new rules were introduced to avoid crowding at restaurants. But they very much stayed open.

So did many primary and secondary schools. Gatherings of up to 50 people are still permitted.

Tegnell defended the decision to keep schools open. "We know that closing down schools has a lot of effects on health care because a lot of people can't go to their work anymore. A lot of children are suffering when they can't go to school."

Elisabeth Liden, a journalist in Stockholm, told CNN the city is less crowded now. "The subway went from being completely packed to having only a few passengers per car. I get the sense that a vast majority are taking the recommendations of social distancing seriously."

But she added that while "some Swedes won´t even kiss their spouse, others are throwing Easter parties."

Fresh surge

Much of Sweden's focus has been to protect the elderly. Anyone aged 70 or older has been told to stay at home and limit their social contact as much as possible. One Swedish government official said that on the whole people supported the government's approach, but many were "upset about the fact that no ban on visiting homes for elderly was set until recently [April 1], and now the virus is widely spread among these homes, causing the death toll to rise."

The World Health Organization (WHO) is skeptical of Sweden's approach. Noting a fresh surge in the country's infections, the WHO told CNN Wednesday that it's "imperative" that Sweden "increase measures to control spread of the virus, prepare and increase capacity of the health system to cope, ensure physical distancing and communicate the why and how of all measures to the population."

"Only an 'all of society' approach will work to prevent escalation and turn this situation around," said a WHO Europe spokesperson.

Sweden's "curve" -- the rate of infections and deaths caused by coronavirus -- is certainly steeper than that of many other European countries with stricter measures. A study by Imperial College London estimated that 3.1% of the Swedish population was infected (as of March 28) -- compared to 0.41% in Norway and 2.5% in the UK.

As for deaths, by April 8, coronavirus accounted for 67 fatalities per 1 million Swedish citizens, according to the Swedish Health Ministry. Norway had 19 deaths per million, Finland seven per million. The number of deaths rose 16% on Wednesday.

Some Swedish researchers are demanding the government must be stricter. This week several prominent Swedish clinicians wrote an open letter lamenting that large numbers of people are visiting bars, restaurants and shopping malls, even ski slopes. "This unfortunately is translating into a death toll that continues to climb in Sweden."

Cecilia Söderberg-Nauclér -- a virus immunology researcher at Sweden's Karolinska Institute -- is one of more than 2,000 health professionals and researchers who signed a petition demanding tougher action. She told CNN: "We are not winning this battle. It is horrifying.

"Where I live people are working from home, but they go to local restaurants, local cafés and they mix up old people and young people from schools and universities. That is not social distancing."

Söderberg-Nauclér says the situation in Stockholm, where the great majority of the country's infections have occurred, is "lost," but adds: "It is not too late for rest of the country. I wish we would lock down and take control of regions not affected in same way."

Weather the storm

Tom Britton, professor of mathematical statistics at Stockholm University, models how infectious diseases behave in a population. He believes 40% of the Swedish capital's population will be infected by the end of April. While acknowledging the difficulty of measuring the rate of infection, he told CNN that "my best guess today would be 10% or a bit more" of Swedes currently have the virus nationwide.

Some opponents of the government's policy fear that reliance on voluntary behavior will cause a much faster spike in cases, potentially overwhelming the health care system. Sweden also has one of the lowest ratios of critical care beds per capita in Europe, and the government official who spoke with CNN said that supplies of protective equipment are only just staying ahead of demand.

In some ways, however, Sweden is better prepared to weather the storm than other countries. Some 40% of the country's workforce worked from home regularly, even before the virus struck and Sweden has a high ratio of people living on their own, whereas in southern Europe it's not uncommon to have three generations under one roof.

Emma Grossmith, a British employment lawyer working in Stockholm, says another factor in Sweden's favor is a generous social welfare net that means people don't feel obligated to turn up for work if their young child is sick. State support kicks in on day one of absence from work due to a child being sick. "The system here was already well set up to help people to make smarter choices which ultimately benefit the wider population," she told CNN.

But Grossmith notes a big gap between the way Swedes and expatriates view the virus. "There is a native trust in the system amongst those who have grown up with it. In contrast, many of the expat community feel that the strategy has neither been communicated clearly nor robustly challenged in the Swedish press. They are deeply worried."

The next month will determine whether the Swedish system got it right.

An earlier version of this story included an inaccurate statement about Sweden's welfare system. This has been corrected.

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2020-04-10 09:42:57Z
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