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.
Washington, Jun 6: US President Donald Trump has said that countries like India and China would have much more coronavirus cases than America, the worst-hit country in the world, if they conduct more tests.
Trump, in his remarks at Puritan Medical Products in Maine, said that the US has carried out 20 million tests.
Compared to the US, Germany is at four million and much talked about South Korea is about three million tests, he said on Friday.
According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the US has reported nearly 1.9 million cases and over 1,09,000 deaths, making America the worst affected country, while the total number of coronavirus cases in India and China stand at 2,36,184 and 84,177 respectively.
India has so far conducted over 4 million coronavirus tests, according to the health ministry.
Commenting on the COVID-19 tests in the US, Trump said: "We will be well over 20 million tests. Remember this, when you test more, you have more cases.
"I say to my people every time we test; you find cases because we do more testing. If we have more cases, if we wanted to do testing in China or in India or other places, I promise you there would be more cases... you are doing a fantastic job in getting out the swabs".
Puritan is one of the only manufacturers in the world producing the high-quality medical swabs that are crucial for rapid testing.
"And every swab you make at Puritan is proudly stamped with the beautiful phrase made in the USA."
"Thanks to the testing capacity that you are making possible, our country is reopening and our economy is recovering like nobody would've thought possible," he said.
Referring to the latest monthly employment numbers, Trump said that the economy is now back on track.
"We absolutely shattered expectations, and this is the largest monthly jobs increase in American history, think of that; that's a long time.
"I think it's more than double or about double of what our highest was before so this is the largest monthly job increase in American history. And we're going to have a phenomenal next year. We're going to have a tremendous couple of months prior to the election on November 3 very, very important date," the president said.
Seeking re-election for his second consecutive term, Trump is pitted against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in November 3 presidential elections. Most of the opinion polls shows that Biden is several points ahead of Trump.
"It's going to be a very important election because the only thing that can screw it up is if you get the wrong president and they raise your taxes, and they open up your borders so that everybody pours into our country," Trump said.
Reiterating that he has built a strong economy in the last three years, Trump vowed to bring the economy back on track, which has been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
Describing the fight against coronavirus as the greatest national and industrial mobilisation since the World War II, Trump said that his administration has marshaled the full power of the US government and US industry to defeat the invisible enemy.
"It is indeed an enemy. It came from China, should have been stopped in China. They didn't do that," he alleged.
The administration, he said, has delivered over 1.5 billion pieces of personal protective equipment to doctors and nurses on the front lines. "We slashed the red tape to speed up the development of vaccines. And vaccines are coming along incredibly well, wait till you see, and therapeutics. And we partnered at private sector leaders such as Puritan to build the largest and most advanced testing capacity on the face of the earth, like this one," he said.
The Puritan factory in Maine, he said, quickly ramped up the production to produce nearly 20 million foam tipped swabs each month.
"Then in April, my administration invoked the Defence Production Act to help you scale up even more. Under a USD 75 million public-private partnership, Puritan will soon double production to 40 million swabs per month," Trump added.
Washington, Aug 7: US President Donald Trump on Thursday (local time) signed executive orders halting all transactions with Chinese applications TikTok and WeChat within 45 days, citing national security concerns, further escalating the tensions between Beijing and Washington.
"WeChat, a messaging, social media, and electronic payment application owned by the Chinese company Tencent Holdings Ltd., reportedly has over one billion users worldwide, including users in the United States. Like TikTok, WeChat automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users.
This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) access to Americans' personal and proprietary information," Trump said in a statement.
Citing reasons for the ban on WeChat, the US President said that the application captures the personal and proprietary information of Chinese nationals visiting the US, thereby providing the CCP a mechanism to keep tabs on the Chinese citizens who may be "enjoying the benefits of a free society for the first time in their lives".
"In March 2019, a researcher reportedly discovered a Chinese database containing billions of WeChat messages sent from users in not only China but also the United States, Taiwan, South Korea and Australia. WeChat, like TikTok, also reportedly censors content that the CCP deems politically sensitive and may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the CCP.
These risks have led other countries, including Australia and India, to begin restricting or banning the use of WeChat. The US must take aggressive action against the owner of WeChat to protect our national security," he added.
Earlier, Trump had issued an order banning TikTok as it "reportedly censors content that the CCP deems politically sensitive, such as content concerning protests in Hong Kong and China's treatment of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities.
TikTok may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the CCP."
US politicians have repeatedly criticised TikTok, owned by Beijing-based startup ByteDance, of being a threat to national security because of its ties to China.
The development comes as China and the US are at loggerheads on a variety of issues including Hong Kong national security law, the South China Sea, the novel coronavirus and trade.
Beijing, Mar 6: World health officials have warned that countries are not taking the coronavirus crisis seriously enough, as outbreaks surged across Europe and in the United States where medical workers sounded warnings over a "disturbing" lack of hospital preparedness.
The World Health Organization warned Thursday that a "long list" of countries were not showing "the level of political commitment" needed to "match the level of the threat we all face".
"This is not a drill," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.
"This epidemic is a threat for every country, rich and poor."
Tedros called on the heads of government in every country to take charge of the response and "coordinate all sectors", rather than leaving it to health ministries.
What is needed, he said, is "aggressive preparedness."
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