Beijing, Jun 15: China is locking now ten more neighbourhoods in Beijing to try and contain the spread of a new coronavirus outbreak linked to a food market, authorities announced Monday.
City official Li Junjie said at a press conference that fresh cases had been found in a second wholesale market in northwestern Haidian district, and as a result, the market and nearby schools would be closed, and people living in ten communities around it placed under lockdown.
Jun 13: Requiring the wearing of masks to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus in areas at the epicenter of the global pandemic may have prevented tens of thousands of infections, a new study suggests.
Mask-wearing is even more important for preventing the virus' spread and the sometimes deadly COVID-19 illness it causes than social distancing and stay-at-home orders, researchers said, in the study published in PNAS: The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.
Infection trends shifted dramatically when mask-wearing rules were implemented on April 6 in northern Italy and April 17 in New York City - at the time among the hardest hit areas of the world by the health crisis - the study found.
"This protective measure alone significantly reduced the number of infections, that is, by over 78,000 in Italy from April 6 to May 9 and over 66,000 in New York City from April 17 to May 9," researchers calculated.
When mask-wearing went into effect in New York, the daily new infection rate fell by about 3% per day, researchers said. In the rest of the country, daily new infections continued to increase.
Direct contact precautions - social distancing, quarantine and isolation, and hand sanitizing - were all in place before mask-wearing rules went into effect in Italy and New York City. But they only help minimize virus transmission by direct contact, while face covering helps prevent airborne transmission, the researchers say.
"The unique function of face covering to block atomization and inhalation of virus-bearing aerosols accounts for the significantly reduced infections," they said. That would indicate "that airborne transmission of COVID-19 represents the dominant route for infection."
The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday urged organizers of large gatherings that involve "shouting, chanting or singing to strongly encourage the use of cloth face coverings to lower the risk of spreading the coronavirus."
Washington/Seoul, Apr 26: A special train possibly belonging to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was spotted this week at a resort town in the country, according to satellite images reviewed by a Washington-based North Korea monitoring project, amid conflicting reports about Mr. Kim's health and whereabouts.
The monitoring project, 38 North, said in its report on Saturday that the train was parked at the “leadership station” in Wonsan on April 21 and April 23. The station is reserved for the use of the Kim family, it said.
Though the group said it was probably Kim Jong Un's train, Reuters has not been able to confirm that independently, or whether he was in Wonsan.
“The train's presence does not prove the whereabouts of the North Korean leader or indicate anything about his health but it does lend weight to reports that Kim is staying at an elite area on the country's eastern coast,” the report said.
Speculation about Mr. Kim's health first arose due to his absence from the anniversary of the birthday of North Korea's founding father and Mr. Kim's grandfather, Kim Il Sung, on April 15.
North Korea's state media last reported on Mr. Kim's whereabouts when he presided over a meeting on April 11.
China has dispatched a team to North Korea including medical experts to advise on Kim Jong Un, according to three people familiar with the situation.
A third-generation hereditary leader who came to power after his father's death in 2011, Kim has no clear successor in a nuclear-armed country, which could present major international risk.
On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump downplayed reports that Mr. Kim was ill. “I think the report was incorrect,” Mr. Trump told reporters, but he declined to say if he had been in touch with North Korean officials.
Mr. Trump has met Mr. Kim three times in an attempt to persuade him to give up a nuclear weapons program that threatens the United States as well as its Asian neighbors. While talks have stalled, Mr. Trump has continued to hail Mr. Kim as a friend.
Reporting from inside North Korea is notoriously difficult because of tight controls on information.
A Trump administration official said continuing days of North Korean media silence on Mr. Kim's whereabouts had heightened concerns about his condition, and that information remained scant from a country U.S. intelligence has long regarded as a ”black box.”
The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to questions about the situation on Saturday.
Daily NK, a Seoul-based website that reports on North Korea, cited one unnamed source in North Korea on Monday as saying that Kim had undergone medical treatment in the resort county of Hyangsan north of the capital Pyongyang.
It said that Mr. Kim was recovering after undergoing a cardiovascular procedure on April 12.
Since then, multiple South Korean media reports have cited unnamed sources this week saying that Mr. Kim might be staying in the Wonsan area.
On Friday, local news agency Newsis cited South Korean intelligence sources as reporting that a special train for Mr. Kim's use had been seen in Wonsan, while Mr. Kim's private plane remained in Pyongyang.
Newsis reported Mr. Kim may be sheltering from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
Mr. Kim, believed to be 36, has disappeared from coverage in North Korean state media before. In 2014, he vanished for more than a month and North Korean state TV later showed him walking with a limp.
Speculation about his health has been fanned by his heavy smoking, apparent weight gain since taking power and family history of cardiovascular problems.
Washington, Apr 17: The confirmed coronavirus death toll in the United States reached 32,917 on Thursday, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
The toll as of 8:30 pm (0030 GMT Friday) marked an increase of 4,491 deaths in the past 24 hours, by far the highest daily toll in the pandemic so far.
But the figure likely includes "probable" deaths related to COVID-19, which were not previously included. This week, New York City announced it would add 3,778 "probable" coronavirus deaths to its toll.
As of Thursday night, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had recorded 31,071 coronavirus deaths, including 4,141 "probable" virus deaths.
The US has the highest death toll in the world, followed by Italy with 22,170 dead although its population is just a fifth of that of the US.
Spain has recorded 19,130 deaths, followed by France with 17,920.
More than 667,800 coronavirus cases have been recorded in the United States, which has seen a record number of deaths over the past two days.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump unveiled plans Thursday evening to reopen the US economy, allowing each state's governor "to take a phased deliberate approach to reopening their individual states".
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