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.
Geneva, Jul 4: The World Health Organization has updated its account of the early stages of the COVID crisis to say it was alerted by its own office in China, and not by China itself, to the first pneumonia cases in Wuhan.
The UN health body has been accused by US President Donald Trump of failing to provide the information needed to stem the pandemic and of being complacent towards Beijing, charges it denies.
On April 9, WHO published an initial timeline of its communications, partly in response to criticism of its early response to the outbreak that has now claimed more than 521,000 lives worldwide.
In that chronology, WHO had said only that the Wuhan municipal health commission in the province of Hubei had on December 31 reported cases of pneumonia. The UN health agency did not however specify who had notified it.
WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference on April 20 the first report had come from China, without specifying whether the report had been sent by Chinese authorities or another source.
But a new chronology, published this week by the Geneva-based institution, offers a more detailed version of events.
It indicates that it was the WHO office in China that on December 31 notified its regional point of contact of a case of "viral pneumonia" after having found a declaration for the media on a Wuhan health commission website on the issue.
The same day, WHO's epidemic information service picked up another news report transmitted by the international epidemiological surveillance network ProMed -- based in the United States -- about the same group of cases of pneumonia from unknown causes in Wuhan.
After which, WHO asked the Chinese authorities on two occasions, on January 1 and January 2, for information about these cases, which they provided on January 3.
WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan told a press conference on Friday that countries have 24-48 hours to officially verify an event and provide the agency with additional information about the nature or cause of an event.
Ryan added that the Chinese authorities immediately contacted WHO's as soon as the agency asked to verify the report.
US President Donald Trump has announced that his country, the main financial contributor to WHO, will cut its bridges with the institution, which he accuses of being too close to China and of having poorly managed the pandemic.
The WHO denies any complacency toward China.
Islamabad, Jun 6: Pakistan has reported a record 97 COVID-19 deaths in a single day, taking the total number of fatalities to 1,935, while the number of confirmed cases in the country approached 94,000 after over 4,700 infections were detected, the health ministry said on Saturday.
Punjab registered 35,308 COVID-19 cases, Sindh 34,889, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 12,459, Balochistan 5,776 Islamabad 4,323, Gilgit-Baltistan 897 and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir 331 cases, the Ministry of National Health Services said.
The total number of COVID-19 cases reached 93,983 after 4,734 new infections were detected across the country, it said.
With a record 97 fatalities in one day, the death toll in the country has reached 1,935, while 32,581 people have recovered from the disease.
The ministry said that the total number of active COVID-19 cases in Pakistan are 59,467, out of which 1,265 patients are in critical condition.
More than 100 labs in the country have so far conducted 660,508 tests, including 22,185 in the last 24 hours.
There are 747 hospitals across the country with COVID-19 treatment facilities where 5,060 patients are being treated. Others have been asked to self-isolate at home.
Washington, Jun 1: As protesters gathered outside the White House on Friday night in Washington DC, US President Donald Trump was briefly taken to the White House underground bunker, The New York Times reported citing a person having firsthand knowledge about the incident.
Trump was there for less than an hour before being brought upstairs. After hundreds of people surged towards the White House on Friday, Secret Service and the United States Park Police officers sought to block them.
Trump's team was surprised by the protests that were witnessed outside the White House on Friday night, according to the US daily. It is, however, unclear if Melania Trump and Barron Trump were also taken down with him.
in response to the continuing protests against the death of African-American man George Floyd in police custody.
National Guard members have been activated in 15 states and Washington, DC with another 2,000 prepared to activate if needed.
Demonstrators across the United States have been protesting since May 25, when George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, died under the police custody in the city of Minneapolis.
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