Pak among countries providing 'safe havens' to terrorists:US

Tokyo, Feb 26: Two more Indians onboard quarantined cruise ship -- Diamond Princess -- were tested positive for novel coronavirus, the Indian embassy here said on Tuesday, adding that those Indians not infected by the virus will be repatriated to the homeland on February 26.

A total of 16 Indian nationals onboard the luxury ship -- quarantined off the coast of Japan since February 5 -- have been tested positive for coronavirus so far, the embassy informed.

"A chartered flight is being arranged to repatriate Indian nationals onboard #DiamondPrincess, provided they have (a) consented; (b) not tested positive for #COVID19; (c) cleared by the medical team. An email advisory to this effect, with details, has been sent to them," the embassy tweeted.

The repatriation of the Indian nationals will be facilitated by the Indian government.

"PCR test results for ALL Indian nationals declared-02 more Indians tested positive to #COVID19, taking the total to 16. Those fulfilling conditions and consenting to repatriation to India on 26 Feb being facilitated by the Indian Government. Details shared with them," the following tweet read.

A total of 138 Indians, including 132 crew and 6 passengers, were among the 3,711 people on board the luxury cruise ship which was quarantine off Japan on February 5 after it emerged that a former passenger had tested positive for the virus.

Washington, Jun 9: When epidemiologists talked about "flattening the curve," they probably didn't mean it this way: the US hit its peak coronavirus caseload in April, but since that time the graph has been on a seemingly unending plateau.

That's unlike several other hard-hit countries which have successfully pushed down their numbers of new cases, including Spain and Italy, which now have bell-shaped curves.

Experts say the prolonged nature of the US epidemic is the result of the cumulative impact of regional outbreaks, as the virus that started out primarily on the coasts and in major cities moves inward.

Layered on top of that are the effects of lifting lockdowns in parts of the country that are experiencing rising cases, as well as a lapse in compliance with social distancing guidelines because of economic hardship, and in some cases a belief that the threat is overstated.

"The US is a large country both in geography and population, and the virus is at very different stages in different parts of the country," Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told AFP.

The US saw more than 35,000 new cases for several days in April. While that figure has declined, it has still been exceeding 20,000 regularly in recent days.

By contrast, Italy was regularly hitting more than 5,000 cases per day in March but is currently experiencing figures in the low hundreds.

"We did not act quickly and robustly enough to stop the virus spreading initially, and data indicate that it travelled from initial hotspots along major transport routes into other urban and rural areas," added Frieden, now CEO of the non-profit Resolve to Save Lives.

To wit: the East Coast states of New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts accounted for about 50 percent of all cases until about a month or so ago -- but now the geographic footprint of the US epidemic has shifted to the Midwest and southeast, including Florida.

Another key problem, said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins, is that the United States is still not doing enough testing, contact tracing and isolation.

After coming late to the testing party -- for reasons ranging from technical issues to regulatory hurdles -- the US has now conducted more COVID-19 tests than any other country.

It even has one of the highest per capita rates per country of 62 per 1,000 people, according to the website ourworldindata.org -- better than Germany (52 per 1,000) and South Korea (20 per 1,000).

But according to Nuzzo, these numbers are misleading, because "the amount of testing that a country should do should be scaled to the size of its epidemic.

"The United States has the largest epidemic in the world so obviously we need to do a lot more testing than any other country."

For Johns Hopkins, the more important metric is the positivity rate -- that is, out of all tests conducted, how many came back positive for COVID-19.

As of June 7, the United States had an average daily positivity rate of 14 percent, well above the World Health Organization guideline of 5 percent over two weeks before social distancing guidelines should be relaxed.

By contrast, Germany, which has tested far fewer people in relation to its population, has a positivity rate of 5 percent.

Even if testing were scaled up, carrying out tests in of itself does very little good without the next steps -- finding out who was exposed and then asking them to isolate.

Here also, too many US states are lagging woefully behind.

Texas, which is experiencing a surge in cases after relaxing its lockdown, is a case in point. The state targeted hiring a modest 4,000 tracers by June, but according to local reports is still more than a thousand shy of even that goal.

Opt-in app based efforts have also been slow to get off the ground.

Then there is the fact that some people are growing tired of lockdowns, while others don't have the economic luxury of being able to stay home for prolonged periods.

The government sent some 160 million Americans a single stimulus check of up to $1,200 back in April but it's not clear whether more will be forthcoming.

Still others, particularly in so-called red states under Republican leadership, have chafed under restrictions and mask-wearing guidelines that they see as an affront to their personal freedom.

"The US is kind of on the extreme of the individual liberty side," Sten Vermund, dean of the Yale School of Public Health, told AFP.

Part of this has to do with mixed messaging from Republican leaders, including President Donald Trump, said Nuzzo.

"We have had at the highest political level an assertion that this is a situation that's been overblown, and that maybe certain protective behaviors are not necessary," she said.

More recently, tens of thousands of people across the country have taken to the streets to protest the killing on an unarmed black man by police, risking coronavirus infection to demonstrate against the public health threat of racialized state violence.

Washington, May 22: The deadly coronavirus came from China and the US is not going to take it lightly, American President Donald Trump said on Thursday.

"It came from China. We are not happy about it. We just signed a trade deal, the ink wasn't dry and all of the sudden this floated in. We are not going to take it lightly,” Trump said participating in a Listening Session with African-American Leaders in Michigan.

Trump in the last several weeks has been very critical of China's inability to control the spread of the novel coronavirus within its territory. By Thursday more than 94,000 Americans have died due to the coronavirus and over 1.6 million have tested positive.

He has so far not given any indication of the steps that he is contemplating taking against China.

Meanwhile, pressure is building on his administration, mainly from the Republican lawmakers on this.

On Thursday, Senators Ted Cruz and Rick Scott, along Mike Braun, Marsha Blackburn, Joni Ernst, Martha McSally and Tom Cotton, introduced the COVID-19 Vaccine Protection Act to prevent the Chinese Communist Party from stealing or sabotaging American COVID-19 vaccine research.

The bill requires a thorough national security evaluation and clearance by the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation of all Chinese student visa holders taking part in activities related to COVID-19 vaccine research.

"The same Chinese Communist Party that covered up the coronavirus outbreak also routinely engages in state sponsored theft of intellectual property," Cruz said. "We cannot allow China to steal or interfere with American research and development of a vaccine,” he added.

"Communist China is responsible for the coronavirus pandemic, and their lies and misinformation cost American lives," Scott said.

"We cannot let Communist China off the hook for this, and we absolutely cannot allow Communist China to steal or sabotage any American research efforts related to the Coronavirus vaccine. The COVID-19 Vaccine Protection Act protects American efforts to create a vaccine as we work to end this pandemic," he added.

The COVID-19 Vaccine Protection Act, among others requires an enhanced vetting of nationals of the Chinese nationals in the US as nonimmigrants under F, J, or M student visas to determine if any student visa holders are a national security threat.

Once the review is complete, authorizes Department of Homeland Secretary, in consultation with other agencies, to continuously monitor all nonimmigrant student visa holders (F, M, J) who are Chinese nationals while in the US and are engaged in, or have access to, the research of any potential COVID-19 vaccine or COVID-19 related material.

Republican Whip and Ranking Member of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis Steve Scalise alleged that China lied to the world on coronavirus.

"During a critical period in December and January, China withheld evidence of the virus: evidence that confirmed human to human transmission of the virus, evidence of the extent of the spread. China refused entry of American and other medical experts from around the world for weeks,” he said.

“And during this time, China hoarded medical supplies like masks, gowns, and other life-saving PPE. Chinese exports of surgical masks, gowns, and gloves were stifled by the Chinese Communist Party during this period. China knew the danger posed by the virus and while they hid the truth, they used the time to stock up on vital medical supplies,” Scalise said.

“While Chinese authorities limited domestic flights from Wuhan to other Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai, China's government urged international carriers to maintain their flight schedules — seeding the virus throughout the rest of the world,” he alleged.