USA mulls banning TikTok, other Chinese apps

Months after the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan city of central China, families of those deceased, who contracted the contagious infection, stood in long queues at funeral homes demanding to receive the cremated ashes of their loved ones.

Now this has spurred questions about the actual tally of COVID-19 related casualties in Wuhan, in a renewed pressure on the Chinese government that is already struggling to control its containment narrative of the pandemic spread.

Chinese media outlet Caixin showed how trucks carrying 2,500 urns with the ashes of the deceased COVID-19 cases were being shipped in a funeral home last week. Another picture published revealed how 3,500 urns were stacked within these funeral homes. It is therefore unclear how many urns have been filled in.

According to media reports, workers at several funeral parlors declined to provide any details as to how many urns were waiting to be collected, saying they either did not know or were not authorised to share the number.

Some families said they had been forced to wait for several hours to pick up the ashes. The photos circulated as mass deaths from the virus spiked in cities across the west, including Milan, Madrid and New York, where hospitals were erecting tents to handle the overflow as global infections soar past 500,000, with 24,000 dead.

According to Chinese government figures, 2,535 people in Wuhan have died of the virus. The announcement that a lockdown in place since January would be lifted came after the country said its tally of new cases had hit zero and stepped up diplomatic outreach to other countries hard hit by the virus, sending some of them medical supplies.

But some in China have been skeptical of the accuracy of the official tally, particularly given Wuhan's overwhelmed medical system, authorities' attempts to cover up the outbreak in its initial stages, and multiple revisions to the way official cases are counted.

Residents on social media have demanded disciplinary action against top Wuhan officials.

Many people who died had Covid-19 symptoms, but weren't tested and excluded from the official case tally, Caixin said. There were also patients who died of other diseases due to a lack of proper treatment when hospitals were overwhelmed dealing with those who had the coronavirus.

There were 56,007 cremations in Wuhan in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to data from the city's civil affairs agency. The number of cremations was 1,583 higher than those in the fourth quarter of 2018 and 2,231 higher than the fourth quarter of 2017.

Two locals in Wuhan who have lost family members to the virus said online that they were informed they had to be accompanied by their employers or officials from neighborhood committees when picking up the urns, likely as a measure against public gatherings.

COVID-19 is affecting 199 countries and territories around the world. Over 664,000 coronavirus cases have been registered globally out of which 30,890 have succumbed to the infection.

Islamabad, Apr 16: The number of coronavirus cases in Pakistan topped 6000 while the death toll due to the virus has reached 117, Dawn reported citing official data on Wednesday.

Over 1,446 people have recovered in the country from the deadly virus that has killed over 1.3 lakh people worldwide.

The total number of cases in the country has reached 6297 with Punjab being the worst affected province with 3,016 cases. Meanwhile, Sindh has 1,688 cases of the deadly virus.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has reported 47 new cases of the coronavirus, taking the provincial total to 912. Most of the new cases are of Tableeghi Jamaat members who have travel history.

Balochistan has reported four new cases of COVID-19, taking the provincial total to 281 according to provincial government spokesperson Liaquat Shahwani.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Imran Khan had announced the extension of the nationwide lockdown with relaxation to some sectors.

Addressing the media in Islamabad on Tuesday, Khan said, "We made the hard decision of imposing lockdown in the country which was very well implemented due to cooperation of the people."

The countrywide lockdown was imposed last month in a bid to stem the spread of coronavirus. Later, a two-week extension was announced in the restrictions until April 14.

Islamabad, Jul 3: The US embassy here in a statement on Friday said the Trump administration through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) “donated a shipment of 100 brand-new, state-of-the-art ventilators” to Pakistan.

The ventilators arrived in Karachi on July 2 and will be sent to hospitals across Pakistan.

“This donation delivers on President Donald Trump’s generous offer of these critically-needed supplies and supports Pakistan’s urgent response to the pandemic,” the embassy said.

Made in America, the ventilators are valued at about $3 million and reflect the latest in cutting-edge medical design and technology, it said.

They are compact, easily deployable, and will enable Pakistan to more effectively treat patients suffering from Covid-19.

The US-Pakistan health partnership to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus is helping to improve and expand laboratory testing, disease monitoring, case tracking, infection prevention and control and patient care, the embassy said.

The US has contributed nearly $27 million in new funding so far to this vital partnership that is growing every day. "We are also thankful for Pakistan's contribution of medical supplies to help fight coronavirus in the US," the embassy said in the statement.

Ambassador Paul Jones said, “The US stands with Pakistan in its fight against the coronavirus. These American-made ventilators will help Pakistani patients in the most acute need of medical care."

The announcement comes days after Pakistan said it had started producing locally designed ventilators.

Pakistan reported 78 more deaths from the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, raising virus-related fatalities to 4,551 while the total number of confirmed cases has increased to 221,896.

On Friday, the health authorities said 1,13,623 persons have recovered from the coronavirus, surpassing the number of active Covid-19 infections in the country for the first time.