4, April 2020

Spain to extend lockdown, as deaths down for second day ⁰

Spain’s prime minister announced Saturday an extension of the country’s lockdown to combat the coronavirus, saying the measures are “bearing fruit” as the number of deaths fell for a second day in a row.

A nationwide 15-day state of emergency was first announced on March 14 barring people from leaving home except for essential outings such as buying food or seeking medical care. It was to end on April 11 after being extended by two weeks.

“The cabinet on Tuesday will again ask for authorisation from parliament to extend for a second time the state of alert until Saturday April 25 at midnight,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a televised speech.

The extra weeks are “the time that our health system needs to recover,” he said.

Hospitals, in particular the intensive care units, have been overwhelmed by an influx of coronavirus patients.

However, Spain on Saturday recorded a second successive daily fall in coronavirus-related deaths with 809 fatalities. The total number of deaths in the country stands at 11,744, second only to Italy.

The number of new Spanish cases also slowed to 7,026, taking the total to 124,736.

“We know that these three weeks of isolation are bearing fruit,” Sanchez said.

The confinement has allowed “a containment of the avalanche on the hospitals, the care of the sick and saved lives.”

But to “ease up now would have a worse result,” he said, warning of a “second wave” of infections.

“Yes, we are seeing a glimmer of hope,” but ” we are entering a new phase that will not be easy, the transition phase,” said Dr Maria Jose Sierra of the health ministry’s emergencies centre.

Sanchez said he could not rule out further extentions, but said an easing of the strict regulations could be possible if the situation improves.

About 50 arrived from Germany on Friday, after Spain appealed to its NATO allies.

Another shipment was to be sent from Turkey but was eventually requisitioned by Turkish authorities.

Source: AFP

4, April 2020

US ‘war on coronavirus’ may end up the most expensive in history ⁰

A former American counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer at the CIA has said that Washington’s “war on the novel coronavirus might well wind up being the most expensive conflict in American history.”

“The United States has been at war almost continuously since the founding of the nation in 1783,” Philip Giraldi said in a recent article published by the Strategic Culture Foundation.

“Some of the wars were undeclared like the centuries-long eradication of the native Americans, while others – the Mexican and Spanish-American wars – were glorified by including the names of the countries defeated by Washington’s war machine. America’s bloodiest war actually has multiple names, including the Civil War, the War Between the States, The War of the Rebellion and the War of Northern Aggression, allowing one to pick and choose reflecting one’s own political preferences,” he wrote.

“More recently wars in Korea and Vietnam were named in straightforward fashion, though current conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan do not really have names. In fact, it has become somewhat politically incorrect to name a war after an ethnic group or a country in the old fashion way. But this shortage of wars has been somewhat made up for by an increase in the number of metaphorical wars to include a war on drugs, a war on poverty and a war on terror. Now Americans are confronting what might some day be called the War on Coronavirus,” he added.

He noted that Trump has already declared himself to be a “wartime president” and he is preparing to help the economy with a $2.2 trillion injection.

The analyst pointed out that most this money “will go to the salivating profiteers that are already lining up as well as to the greedy corporate constituencies who will do their best to use the cash to increase their value for potential shareholders.”

He observed that the $2.2 trillion amount is “considerably more than the Vietnam War cost in today’s dollars ($1 trillion) though it does not yet come close to the $5-7 trillion in borrowed dollars that the going-on-twenty-years engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq has cost.”

The United States recorded 1,321 deaths from the contagious coronavirus between Thursday and Friday, according to statistics site Worldometers, which is the highest single-day death toll recorded by any country in the world.

A total of 7,844 people have now died of COVID-19 in the United States and about 300,000 have been infected with the virus, Worldometers said.

New York was the worst-hit state in the US. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio pleaded with the US government for more help, as new statistics have confirmed that hundreds of thousands of people across the country have lost their jobs.

Meanwhile, public health specialists have warned that mass shutdowns of businesses and schools to enforce social distancing measures over the coronavirus outbreak will lead to thousands of deaths and suicides in the US that are unrelated to the disease itself.

Source: Presstv

4, April 2020

Holy Week and the Trajectory of World History ⁰

He had always loved those who were his in the world, but now he showed how perfectly his love was” (John 13:1)

Dear Holy People of God,

God is good, all the time, and all the time, God is good!

This Sunday, we celebrate what our Christian tradition calls Palm Sunday, which is the start of Holy Week. St Paul writes to us in his Letter to the Romans: “But what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. Having died to make us righteous, is it likely that he would now fail to save us from God’s anger?” (Romans 5:8-9). Given the times that we are living in, it might be difficult for many to believe in the love of God. Even for the believer, it can be very tempting, a great trail of faith. But Holy Week has something to say, even to the perilous and precarious situation of a world plagued by COVID 19. Holy Week tells us that though we can humanly be paralyzed by fear, the fear of the unknown, the fear of the present and the future, the fear of death, as disciples in mission to the world, we have a message to the world of the Coronavirus. There is no denying that uncertainties leave us profoundly disturbed, especially the uncertainty of contracting a deadly virus. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) wrote these words that I find meaningful to us today, perhaps more so than when they were first written. Permit me make an extensive citation from the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes:

“Nevertheless, in the face of the modern development of the world, the number constantly swells of the people who raise the most basic questions or recognize them with a new sharpness: what is the human being? What is this sense of sorrow, of evil, of death, which continues to exist despite so much progress? What purpose have these victories purchased at so high a cost? What can men and women offer to society, what can they expect from it? What follows this earthly life?

The Church firmly believes that Christ, who died and was raised up for all, can through His Spirit offer man and woman the light and the strength to measure up to their supreme destiny. Nor has any other name under the heaven been given to man and woman by which it is fitting for them to be saved. She likewise holds that in her most benign Lord and Master can be found the key, the focal point and the goal of man, as well as of all human history. The Church also maintains that beneath all changes there are many realities which do not change and which have their ultimate foundation in Christ, who is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever.

It is in the face of death that the riddle a human existence grows most acute. Not only is man tormented by pain and by the advancing deterioration of his body, but even more so by a dread of perpetual extinction. He rightly follows the intuition of his heart when he abhors and repudiates the utter ruin and total disappearance of his own person. He rebels against death because he bears in himself an eternal seed which cannot be reduced to sheer matter. All the endeavors of technology, though useful in the extreme, cannot calm his anxiety; for prolongation of biological life is unable to satisfy that desire for higher life which is inescapably lodged in his breast. Although the mystery of death utterly beggars the imagination, the Church has been taught by divine revelation and firmly teaches that man has been created by God for a blissful purpose beyond the reach of earthly misery.

In addition, that bodily death from which man and woman would have been immune had they not sinned, will be vanquished, according to the Christian faith, when man and woman who was ruined by his own doing is restored to wholeness by an almighty and merciful Saviour. For God has called man and woman and still calls them so that with their entire being they might be joined to Him in an endless sharing of a divine life beyond all corruption. Christ won this victory when He rose to life, for by His death He freed man and woman from death. Hence to every thoughtful man and woman a solidly established faith provides the answer to his anxiety about what the future holds for him. At the same time faith gives the human being the power to be united in Christ with his loved ones who have already been snatched away by death; faith arouses the hope that they have found true life with God. The root reason for human dignity lies in man and woman’s call to communion with God. (Gaudium et Spes, #10, 18, 19).

Dear Holy People of God, as we continue to live with hope during these uncertain times, let us remember that the Christian’s ultimate hope and meaning in life resides in Jesus Christ, who died and rose again from death, opening the possibility of eternal bliss with God for all humanity. Yes, it is human to fear death. But it is Christian to know that in Christ, the dead do not enter into nothingness, into extinction, but enter into what Gaudium et Spes calls the “blissful purpose beyond the reach of earthly misery.” And Holy Week teaches us that it takes a certain kind of people, a certain kind of life, to be able to enter into this blissful mystery at the end of our biological life here on earth.

St John gives us what that kind of life is: “It was before the festival of the Passover, and Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to pass from this world to the Father. He had always loved those who were his in the world, but now he showed how perfectly his love was” (John 13:1)! That is the message we Christians have for a frightened world, a world, perhaps, in need of a new soul, a new direction: That in spite of the global pandemic of Coronavirus, in spite of all the uncertainties marking life in the present, God loves the world (John 3:16), God has not abandoned the world, God will never abandon the world. In Jesus Christ, one of the human race, of us, a truly human being (Council of Chalcedon), has definitely responded to God’s love for the love, a love that binds God forever to the human condition. In Jesus, a human being has definitely committed humanity in a resounding YES to the God’s offer of love for the world. And because of this irrevocable commitment of a human being to the irremovable offer of love to the world by God, the believer, in Christ, with Christ and to Christ (Augustine of Hippo), brings this Divine love to the world. The believer offers the world the GPS of Love that reflects itself in love for other and prepares us for eternal bliss with God. Only a heart that loves can enter into the mysteries of Holy Week, the Week of God’s Total Love that changed the trajectory of world history from the human tendency to absolutize economics, politics, science, power, et cetera, to a civilization of mutual love.

Fr Maurice Agbaw-Ebai

4, April 2020

Migrant farmworkers in Italy working with no protection amid Covid-19 outbreak ⁰

As the coronavirus crisis enters its sixth week in Italy, Italian farmworkers’ labor union FLAI-CGIL has sounded the alarm over the high number of migrants working in the fields without adequate protective measures.

Last month, in an attempt to contain the virus outbreak, the government ordered the closure of all non-essential businesses also introducing stiff restrictions on activities considered essential.

Social distancing and the use of masks, gloves and disinfectant have been made compulsory in factories, supermarkets and public offices still operating.

However, FLAI-CGIL has warned that as many as 250,000 legally-employed migrants and many more undocumented ones working for little pay in the agriculture sector are at risk of being infected.

The mayor of Bergamo, one of the worst affected cities from Covid-19 in northern Italy, has recently called on the government to speed up the issuing of the yearly decree that regularizes non-EU migrant workers.

The national Farmers’ Association Coldiretti estimates that a quarter of the food produced in Italy relies on the hands of more than 370,000 seasonal workers coming from abroad every year. With just a few days to go before the picking of fruit and vegetables, the situation is becoming alarming.

Unions believe tens of thousands of undocumented migrants could be granted a temporary permit thanks to a clause included in a security decree aimed at curbing migrant flows issued by previous government’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.

Source: Presstv

4, April 2020

US records 1,169 coronavirus deaths, new global daily high ⁰

The United States recorded 1,169 COVID-19 fatalities in the past 24 hours, the Johns Hopkins University tracker showed on Thursday, the highest one-day death toll recorded in any country since the global pandemic began.

The toll reflected figures reported by the university between 8.30pm on Wednesday and the same time on Thursday.

The grim record was previously held by Italy, where 969 people died on Mar 27.

The US has now recorded 5,926 coronavirus deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Globally, Italy still has the highest total death toll, with 13,915 dying of the disease there, followed by Spain at 10,003.

The US also recorded more than 30,000 new cases of COVID-19 in the same 24-hour period, bringing the total number of officially reported cases in the country to more than 243,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.

That is roughly a quarter of the more than a million cases reported globally.

New York City is at the epicenter of the American outbreak, recording more than 1,500 deaths and nearing 50,000 positive cases, according to figures released late Thursday by city health authorities.

More than 1.3 million COVID-19 tests have been conducted in the US, Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday at a daily White House press conference on the virus.

“We are now conducting over 100,000 coronavirus tests per day,” President Donald Trump added at the same briefing, saying that was “more than any other country in the world, both in terms of the raw number and on a per capita basis”.

White House projections show the virus is expected to kill between 100,000 and 240,000 people in the US.

(Source: AFP)

4, April 2020

Cameroon records 203 new cases as COVID-19 tally hits 509 ⁰

Cameroon’s coronavirus tally as of April 3 stood at 509, Health Minister Manaouda Malachie confirmed in his daily briefing posted on Twitter.

Of the current figure, 203 were new cases that came from tests run 800 travellers arrived in the country recently. Cameroon also has 17 recovered patients with eight deaths.

“Our active case finding strategy is starting to pay off. We did 800 tests (majority of travelers) 203 of them are positive but asymptomatic, that we must leave the community and treat,” the Minister wrote in his post.

Cameroon is the most impacted country across Central Africa. Only DR Congo have passed the 100 mark in the region with 134. Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Congo Republic, Central African Republic and Chad have 21, 16, 22, 8 and 8 cases respectively.

The Minister in outlining government strategy to deal with the pandemic said six main measures were being implemented: massive and generalized testing, placement in immediate treatment of cases, active surveillance of suspect cases.

The remaining are awareness of the populations (hygiene, distance, etc.), border control and development of reliable local expertise for the response.

Source: Africa News

4, April 2020

French hospitals record deadliest day with 588 coronavirus deaths ⁰

French hospitals recorded their highest death toll in 24 hours with 588 new fatalities from coronavirus, the country’s chief medical adviser told a press conference on Friday, as the total toll including retirement homes rose to more than 6,500.

France’s Director General of Health, Jérôme Salomon, announced the figures during a daily press conference, saying a total of 5,091 people had died in French hospitals since the start of the crisis.

Giving a separate tally for nursing homes, Salomon said that a provisional count showed that at least 1,416 people had died at care homes for the elderly after contracting the virus.

French officials started releasing figures for care homes only yesterday. The huge rise in those numbers makes for a total of 6,507 lives lost to coronavirus in France, so far.

Salomon said that the number of known infections rose nationwide to 64,338 from 59,105 on Thursday. The number of patients requiring life support rose to 6,662 from 6,399.

In a televised interview on Thursday night, Prime Minister Édouard Philippe urged the French to respect the lockdown measures imposed since March 17, to ensure a levelling off of new cases of the virus.

“This is the only way for the health service to overcome the peak” of the virus, he said.

Philippe conceded that the nationwide lockdown “would probably be extended” beyond the current deadline of April 15.

With the traditional spring break approaching, Philippe sternly warned the French against considering holidays away, saying there would be checks and fines for those who violated the rules.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)

4, April 2020

West shields Biya from coronavirus, but not his CPDM regime ⁰

The West through the American ambassador to Cameroon, Peter Henry Barlerin moved decisively and cautioned the 87 year old Paul Biya of the dangers posed by the coronavirus to people of Biya’s age and advised the regime in Yaoundé to adopt a tough and more rigid response to the pandemic. Biya was rushed immediately to Mvomeka’a and since then nothing has been heard about the French Cameroun head of state.

Biya’s minister, Gregoire Owona and senior members of parliament reportedly mixed with the National Assembly Speaker, Cavaye Djibril who a well-placed source has revealed contracted the coronavirus in a hospital in France. Cameroon Intelligence Report understands that many of the ruling CPDM MPs who met Hon. Cavaye Djibril have isolated themselves raising questions about President Biya’s bill of health after a session with Minister Gregoire Owona who had met House Speaker Cavaye Djibril on camera after his reelection.

Parliamentarians and members of the so-called House of Senate have been meeting in Yaoundé but it is President Biya from his self isolating fortress in Mvomeka’a who announced the government’s solidarity fund to combat the spread of the virus. The CPDM plan that was made public by Prime Minister Dion Ngute did not take into consideration Cameroonians forced out of work and their means of livelihood because of the virus.

The Cameroon government plan does not also include ways to escalate social distancing strategies for tackling the virus. Thousands are busy going about their daily activities and in rural areas; large-scale gatherings are still the order of the day making the coronavirus pandemic to look like a joke and above all, a Sino-US-Europe affair.

As the total number of confirmed cases in Cameroon rose to 509, the CPDM regime with no aggressive plan and a failed public-health system has carried its begging bowl to the World Health Organization. Biya and his CPDM crime syndicate are holding on to nothing-not even the social distancing measure which has been very successful in European countries such as Ireland and Germany. We of the Cameroon Concord News Group can now reveal that the Biya-CPDM strategy is no longer to contain the spread of the coronavirus but to propagate its spread in Cameroon and collect millions of US dollars from the World Health Organization and other Cameroonian donors.

So far, the Minister of Communication who himself is not in President Biya’s inner circle has carefully regulated the flow of information on Biya’s health to the Cameroonian public. People all over the country are now focused on what might come next if Biya dies than the deadly coronavirus. The situation in Cameroon has been made more intractable with news of the arrival of French soldiers into the country from Gabon.

Cameroon Intelligence Report is yet to confirm this latest French deployment to Cameroon but what we do know is that the Prime Minister and Head of Government is still pursuing a Francophone policy in Southern Cameroons and has recently appointed Minister Paul Tasong and Njong Donatus as National Coordinator and deputy national coordinator of the presidential plan for the reconstruction and development of the North West and South West regions.

Cameroon government officials have avoided any situation that highlights President Biya’s health and the coronavirus and they have continued to be low key about the dangers of Biya’s passing to eternity. Biya cannot fly abroad and does not plan to be tested by any Cameroonian medical practitioner. He is very frail and there are reports that those who claim to be custodians of power in Yaoundé are taking measures ahead of the game to ensure a smooth transition and continuity with the status quo.

Now, however, some Cameroon political commentators are calling on the regime barons to shift course — from begging and borrowing to sustain the regime and contain the coronavirus to sitting down with the Ambazonian leader, President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe in a transparent forum and discuss the future of both British and French Cameroun. A stitch in time saves nine

But there has been palpable alarm in Etoudi ever since Biya started his self isolating process in Mvomeka’a. The coronavirus is already having a significant impact on the Cameroonian economy, which is now without support from the oil and gas sector. For 37 years as Head of State, Biya has done nothing to keep Cameroon and its people healthy and financially secure.

Consequently, the coronavirus is slowly but surely signaling the end of Mr. Biya-a monstrous liability of a head of state and a political disaster that has been around for decades.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

3, April 2020

Coronavirus Pandemic: Dortmund football stadium to be used as medical centre ⁰

Germany’s biggest football stadium, Borussia Dortmund’s Signal-Iduna-Park, is to be partially transformed into a medical centre to help treat patients during the coronavirus pandemic, the German Bundesliga club announced Friday.

“Our stadium is a symbol of the city… its technical, infrastructural and spatial set-up make it the ideal place to help people who are potentially infected,” said club directors Hans-Joachim Watzke and Carsten Cramer in a statement.

Dortmund said they had transformed the north stand of the 81,000-capacity stadium — the one opposite the famous “Yellow Wall” — into a treatment centre in collaboration with a local medical association.

The centre will provide check-ups, issue prescription medicines and even offer initial treatment for those diagnosed with COVID-19.

It will be available only to those who are showing symptoms of the disease, and will be open daily from 12 noon to 4.00 pm.

“In this way, possible chains of infection can also be broken by avoiding contact to other patients, doctors and staff in the individual doctor’s surgeries,” the club said.

“It’s obviously strange at first to go to a football stadium when you have fever and breathing difficulties, but we actually do have optimal conditions here,” said Dirk Spelmeyer, chairman of the local Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KVWL).

He added that the stadium would relieve pressure on the other specialised coronavirus treatment centre in the north of the city.

The Signal-Iduna-Park is the second major European stadium to be used in the fight against the virus, after Spanish giants Real Madrid offered their Santiago Bernabeu — another 81,000-seater — to store medical equipment.

Source: AFP

3, April 2020

New 4,000-bed coronavirus field hospital opens in London ⁰

Prince Charles opened a new 4,000-bed temporary hospital in a conference centre in east London on Friday, the first of several being built in Britain to deal with the coronavirus outbreak.

The new state-run National Health Service (NHS) Hospital is named after the trailblazing 19th-century nurse Florence Nightingale and has been built in just nine days.

Queen Elizabeth II’s eldest son and heir officially launched the facility via videolink from Scotland, where he has been in self-isolation after testing positive for COVID-19.

He paid tribute to everyone involved, calling it “quite frankly incredible” to have transformed the giant ExCeL centre into a critical care facility in such a short space of time.

“I was one of the lucky ones to have COVID-19 relatively mildly,” he said. “But for some, it will be a much harder journey.

“I am therefore so relieved that everyone can now have the reassurance that they will receive all the necessary technical care they may need, and every chance to return to a normal life.”

With Nightingale often named “The Lady of the Lamp” and seen as one of the founders of modern nursing, he said the name was appropriate.

“In this dark time, this place will place will be a shining light,” the prince said, but added that he hoped it would not required for long.

NHS Nightingale London will initially take 500 people in the coming days, said Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who has also tested positive for COVID-19.

It will take intensive care patients with COVID-19 from other London hospitals, which have seen the most number of cases across Britain.

– ‘Invisible killer’ –

The size of 10 district general hospitals, the new facility has more than 80 wards, each containing 42 beds, and when fully operational will require more than 16,000 staff to run.

Hancock praised the NHS, a taxpayer funded service free at the point of use, which has been struggling in recent years as a result of public spending cuts.

“In these troubled times, with this invisible killer stalking the whole world, the fact that in this country we have the NHS is even more valuable than before,” he said.

Temporary hospitals are also being built in exhibition centres in the cities of Birmingham and Manchester, with capacity of up to 3,000 beds between them.

A third is under construction in Glasgow and plans are also in place to build two more in Bristol, in western England, and the northern city of Harrogate offering 1,500 beds.

NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens said he hoped the extra two sites would not be needed.

“That will partly depend on continuing public support for measures to reduce growth in the infection rate by staying at home to save lives,” he said in a statement.

However, health officials say the measures will take time to have an effect and the death toll continues to mount rapidly, reaching 2,921 on Wednesday.

Source: AFP