At least 300,000 Africans expected to die in pandemic: U.N. agency - Reuters

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The COVID-19 pandemic will likely kill at least 300,000 Africans and risks pushing 29 million into extreme poverty, the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) said on Friday, calling for a $100 billion safety net for the continent.

FILE PHOTO: A health worker sprays his headset during a community testing exercise, as authorities race to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Abuja, Nigeria April 16, 2020. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde/File Photo

Africa’s 54 countries have so far reported fewer than 20,000 confirmed cases of the disease, just a fraction of the more than two million cases reported globally. But the World Health Organization warned on Thursday that Africa could see as many as 10 million cases in three to six months.

“To protect and build towards our shared prosperity at least $100 billion is needed to immediately resource a health and social safety net response,” the UNECA report stated.

UNECA is also backing a call by African finance ministers for an additional $100 billion in stimulus, which would include a halt to all external debt service.

The agency modelled four scenarios based on the level of preventive measures introduced by African governments.

In the total absence of such interventions, the study calculated over 1.2 billion Africans would be infected and 3.3 million would die this year. Africa has a total population of around 1.3 billion.

Most of Africa, however, has already mandated social distancing measures, ranging from curfews and travel guidelines in some countries to full lockdowns in others.

Yet even its best-case scenario, where governments introduce intense social distancing once a threshold of 0.2 deaths per 100,000 people per week is reached, Africa would see 122.8 million infections, 2.3 million hospitalisations and 300,000 deaths.

Combating the disease will be complicated by the fact that 36% of Africans have no access to household washing facilities, and the continent counts just 1.8 hospital beds per 1,000 people. France, in comparison, has 5.98 beds per 1,000 people.

Africa’s young demographic - nearly 60% of the population is below the age of 25 - should help stave off the disease. On the other hand, 56 per cent of the urban population is concentrated in overcrowded slums and many people are also vulnerable due to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malnutrition.

Africa imports 94% of its pharmaceuticals, the report said, noting that at least 71 countries have banned or limited exports of certain supplies deemed essential to fight the disease.

“In a best-case scenario ... $44 billion would be required for testing, personal protective equipment, and to treat all those requiring hospitalisation,” it stated.

However, that is money Africa does not have as the crisis could also shrink the continent’s economy by up to 2.6%.

“We estimate that between 5 million and 29 million people will be pushed below the extreme poverty line of $1.90 per day owing to the impact of COVID-19,” the report said.

Nigeria alone will lose between $14 billion and $19.2 billion in revenues from oil exports this year. And the prices of other African commodities exports have plummeted as well.

Lockdowns in Europe and the United States also imperil Africa’s $15 billion in annual textile and apparel exports as well as tourism, which accounts for 8.5% of Africa’s GDP.

Reporting by Joe Bavier; editing by Philippa Fletcher

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2020-04-17 17:00:46Z
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Coronavirus in Italy: Police investigation into alleged negligence focuses on nursing home with 190 reported COVID-19 deaths - CBS News

Rome — A nursing home in Milan where nearly 200 residents have reportedly died of the new coronavirus is at the center of an investigation into suspected negligence by managers, Italian police revealed Friday. 

Tax police seized documents this week in the offices of the Lombardy regional government in a probe centered on the Pio Albergo Trivulzio rest home in Milan where, according to Italian daily La Repubblica, 190 seniors have died since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, although official numbers are not available. 

The investigation also involves other care homes in Milan and across the region, where directors are suspected of culpable negligence.

"We are working to fight the virus and protect Lombards," regional governor Attilio Fontana told Italian news agency ANSA, stressing that his office was offering "maximum collaboration" with investigators.

Health and hygiene police said they carried out inspections at 600 nursing homes across Italy this week, and found "irregularities" at 17% of the facilities. The police said 15 of the homes had to be closed down. 

This month CBS News filed an exclusive report from inside a nursing home in Lombardy where doctors reported 33 COVID-19 deaths, but none of the deceased were tested for the disease nor included in Italy's official death toll.

Italy’s coronavirus death toll is likely underreported

Doctors there said they were unaware of any police investigation into their facility.

More than 22,000 people have died of the new disease in Italy, but many policymakers and doctors say that toll is likely a significant under-count due to insufficient testing for the disease, and under-reporting of deaths. 

The Lombardy region accounts for more than half of all the recorded coronavirus deaths in the country.

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2020-04-17 15:59:24Z
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At least 300,000 Africans expected to die in pandemic: U.N. agency - Reuters

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The COVID-19 pandemic will likely kill at least 300,000 Africans and risks pushing 29 million into extreme poverty, the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) said on Friday, calling for a $100 billion safety net for the continent.

FILE PHOTO: A health worker sprays his headset during a community testing exercise, as authorities race to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Abuja, Nigeria April 16, 2020. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde/File Photo

Africa’s 54 countries have so far reported fewer than 20,000 confirmed cases of the disease, just a fraction of the more than two million cases reported globally. But the World Health Organization warned on Thursday that Africa could see as many as 10 million cases in three to six months.

“To protect and build towards our shared prosperity at least $100 billion is needed to immediately resource a health and social safety net response,” the UNECA report stated.

UNECA is also backing a call by African finance ministers for an additional $100 billion in stimulus, which would include a halt to all external debt service.

The agency modelled four scenarios based on the level of preventive measures introduced by African governments.

In the total absence of such interventions, the study calculated over 1.2 billion Africans would be infected and 3.3 million would die this year. Africa has a total population of around 1.3 billion.

Most of Africa, however, has already mandated social distancing measures, ranging from curfews and travel guidelines in some countries to full lockdowns in others.

Yet even its best-case scenario, where governments introduce intense social distancing once a threshold of 0.2 deaths per 100,000 people per week is reached, Africa would see 122.8 million infections, 2.3 million hospitalisations and 300,000 deaths.

Combating the disease will be complicated by the fact that 36% of Africans have no access to household washing facilities, and the continent counts just 1.8 hospital beds per 1,000 people. France, in comparison, has 5.98 beds per 1,000 people.

Africa’s young demographic - nearly 60% of the population is below the age of 25 - should help stave off the disease. On the other hand, 56 per cent of the urban population is concentrated in overcrowded slums and many people are also vulnerable due to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malnutrition.

Africa imports 94% of its pharmaceuticals, the report said, noting that at least 71 countries have banned or limited exports of certain supplies deemed essential to fight the disease.

“In a best-case scenario ... $44 billion would be required for testing, personal protective equipment, and to treat all those requiring hospitalisation,” it stated.

However, that is money Africa does not have as the crisis could also shrink the continent’s economy by up to 2.6%.

“We estimate that between 5 million and 29 million people will be pushed below the extreme poverty line of $1.90 per day owing to the impact of COVID-19,” the report said.

Nigeria alone will lose between $14 billion and $19.2 billion in revenues from oil exports this year. And the prices of other African commodities exports have plummeted as well.

Lockdowns in Europe and the United States also imperil Africa’s $15 billion in annual textile and apparel exports as well as tourism, which accounts for 8.5% of Africa’s GDP.

Reporting by Joe Bavier; editing by Philippa Fletcher

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2020-04-17 16:27:38Z
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China Raises Coronavirus Death Toll by 50% in Wuhan - The New York Times

China on Friday raised its coronavirus death toll by 50 percent in Wuhan, the city where the outbreak first emerged, amid accusations that the government had concealed the extent of the epidemic.

Officials placed the new tally at 3,869 deaths from the coronavirus in the central Chinese city, an increase of 1,290 from the previous figure. The number of cumulative confirmed infections in the city was also revised upward to 50,333, an increase of 325.

The move appeared to be a response to growing questions about the accuracy of China’s official numbers and calls to hold the country responsible for a global health crisis that has killed more than 142,000 people and caused a worldwide economic slowdown.

China has been criticized as having initially mismanaged and concealed the extent of the epidemic, though it ultimately swung into action and seemingly tamed the virus. Recently, as other countries have grappled with their own outbreaks, Chinese officials have come under even greater pressure to explain how exactly the epidemic unfolded in Wuhan.

“They are on the defensive, clearly,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political science professor at Hong Kong Baptist University and an expert on Chinese politics. “It’s an uphill battle now for China to improve its image.”

In an interview Friday with the official Xinhua news agency, an unidentified official from Wuhan’s epidemic command center said that revising the figures was important for protecting the “credibility of the government” and “maintaining respect for each individual life.”

Latest Updates: Global Coronavirus Outbreak

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Updated 15m ago

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The local authorities say the new totals were reached after a detailed investigation and now include deaths at home from the virus that went unreported in the early days of the outbreak and deaths that were incorrectly reported by hospitals. After reaching a peak in February, the epidemic appears to be controlled for now in China, and restrictions in Wuhan have been loosening this month.

Experts say the revisions are not unusual. Many countries are probably underreporting their official tallies of infections and deaths, in part because of problems with testing and the speed with which the virus has overwhelmed public health care systems.

Still, the changes to the official figures are small enough that they are unlikely to quash lingering doubts about their veracity. Researchers at the University of Hong Kong recently estimated there were probably around 232,000 confirmed cases in China by late February, more than four times the number of reported cases at the time. As of Friday, China had reported more than 82,000 officially confirmed cases and over 4,500 deaths from the coronavirus, including the revised tallies in Wuhan.

Foreign governments have also raised questions about China’s official figures after seeing how the virus has ravaged their own populations.

Dominic Raab, the British foreign secretary, told Reuters on Thursday that China would have to answer “hard questions” later about how the pandemic came about and how it could have been stopped earlier. President Emmanuel Macron of France told The Financial Times, “There are clearly things that have happened that we don’t know about.”

The C.I.A. has also told the White House that China’s official figures are vastly understated, though it does not know the exact numbers, current and former American intelligence officials say. As of Friday in New York City, the virus had officially sickened 123,146 people and killed 8,632, far higher than the official tallies in Wuhan, an even larger city, where the virus is believed to have been circulating since as early as November.

“This is quite strange,” said David Hui, the director of the Stanley Ho Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, referring to the revised figures. “I really don’t understand how they were able to get information on so many additional people.”

Beijing has maintained that it has been open and transparent from the start of the epidemic, and that it moved quickly to inform the World Health Organization and other countries about the outbreak in early January. The revision on Friday of the official figures appeared to be its latest attempt to show transparency. Officials had previously revised figures, in the face of public pressure, to include infections diagnosed clinically rather than through tests and, more recently, asymptomatic cases.

But even as Beijing seeks to project an image as a responsible global leader, it has struggled to restore its credibility after early reports emerged that it had silenced whistle-blowers, delayed informing the public that the virus could be transmitted among humans and rebuffed offers of help from foreign scientific experts.

Since then, the government has sought to take control of the narrative by ramping up propaganda, detaining citizen journalists, aggressively censoring news reports and expelling foreign reporters. Adding to the tensions has been a recent extended war of words between Washington and Beijing, as each side has tried to deflect blame for failures in managing the virus.

The result of China’s mixed messaging, experts say, may be a breach in global trust that could last long after the pandemic has faded.

“If you look at the state of public opinion around the world, it’s not a good omen for China,” said Mr. Cabestan of Hong Kong Baptist University. “The relationship with China is going to become much more difficult in the coming years, and the coronavirus crisis has not mitigated those tensions but fed them.”

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2020-04-17 13:51:10Z
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Live updates: Coronavirus crushes China’s economy as Wuhan death toll revised higher; Trump tells governors, ‘call your own shots’ - The Washington Post

Workers at U.S.-owned plants along the border in Mexico erupted into protests this week, citing a series of deaths they say were the result of the coronavirus and should result in their factories being shut down.

These “maquiladoras,” as they are known, form a key part of the cross-border trade with the United States, as they churn out heating controls, car seats and assorted technology for owners and consumers to the north.

In Ciudad Juárez, which sits across from El Paso, more than 250,000 people work in such factories, the Dallas Morning News reported, and 12 of the city’s 20 fatalities were linked to the maquiladoras.

Although many laborers have been furloughed, some plants in cities like Juárez have remained open, as companies like Honeywell say their production lines remain vital during the pandemic, according to Reuters.

Even after the Mexican government ordered nonessential industries to suspend operations, one U.S. manufacturing association has pushed for changes to Mexico’s list of “essential” industries so more factories can reopen, the news agency reported.

Protesters at plants across the Mexican border this week, however, have called for shutdowns with full pay. They pointed to poor health conditions inside the plants and a series of employee deaths.

None of the companies directly attributed these fatalities to the virus, though demonstrators have insisted otherwise.

In Juárez, workers at a plant for the carmaker Lear died of “respiratory illnesses,” the company told Reuters, adding that it halted employee activity in the city by the start of April.

Across from San Diego in Tijuana, a worker at Honeywell plant died after failing a medical screening, being turned away from work, and quarantining themselves, though the manufacturers said covid-19 had not been confirmed as the cause of death.

Honeywell told Reuters that it closed the factory two days for cleaning.

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2020-04-17 13:30:16Z
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Coronavirus: China outbreak city Wuhan raises death toll by 50% - BBC News - BBC News

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1. Coronavirus: China outbreak city Wuhan raises death toll by 50% - BBC News  BBC News
2. Chinese epicenter Wuhan raises number of virus dead by about 50 percent  Fox News
3. Wuhan officials have revised the city's coronavirus death toll up by 50%  CNN
4. Coronavirus updates: As some in EU find respite, U.K.'s COVID-19 toll soars  CBS News
5. China's Wuhan raises coronavirus death toll by 50% after city revises figures  CNBC
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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2020-04-17 12:37:42Z
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Coronavirus updates: Global COVID-19 deaths soar as China hikes Wuhan toll - CBS News

A new phrase is trending in Japan: "corona-divorce." With couples suddenly forced to share quarters nonstop, many in cramped Japanese apartments, the shelter-in-place decrees are taking a toll on matrimonial harmony. 

It's led Japanese hotel chain Kasoku to market "temporary evacuation space" for fed-up spouses. The term has traditionally been applied to shelters used during natural disasters, but now, for $40 a day, fleeing spouses can find sanctuary in one of the company's 500 fully-furnished, WiFi-equipped rooms. 

Of the 28 customers who've taken refuge so far, about two-thirds are disgruntled wives, Kasoku spokesman Kosuke Amano told CBS News, adding that interest in the marital escape scheme has "exceeded expectations."

An image from Tokyo-based hotel chain Kasoku shows advertising for the firm's "corona-divorce" refuge rooms, offered for about $40 per night to spouses who need a break from round-the-clock exposure to their partners. Kasoku

For those who "want to avoid corona-divorce at all costs," the firm's website lightheartedly advises, "take advantage of temporary evacuation! Before resorting to a corona-divorce, giving yourself some space is important."

The service was prompted by reports of surges in divorce and domestic violence in other countries, as residents endure weeks of lockdown to halt the spread of COVID-19. 

The strain of prolonged life at home turned deadly for a Tokyo couple earlier this month. Kazuo Makino, 59, was arrested on suspicion of murdering his 57-year-old wife, apparently after she complained he wasn't earning as much because of the epidemic. 

With Japan's official state of emergency now extended to cover the entire country, corona-divorce hotels might, sadly, be a growth industry here.

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2020-04-17 11:53:39Z
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