New Coronavirus News from 16 Feb 2020

Coronavirus Infection Found After Cruise Ship Passengers Disperse [The New York Times, 16 Feb 2020]

By Richard C. Paddock, Sui-Lee Wee and Roni Caryn Rabin

The cruise ship had been shunned at port after port for fear it might carry the coronavirus, but when the Westerdam arrived in Cambodia on Thursday, the prime minister greeted its passengers with flowers.

Amid assurances that the ship was disease free, hundreds of elated passengers disembarked.
Some went sightseeing, visiting beaches and restaurants and getting massages. Others traveled on to destinations around the world.

One, however, did not make it much farther than the thermal scanners at the Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia. The passenger, an American, was stopped on Saturday, and later tested positive for the coronavirus.

On Sunday, with passengers already headed for destinations on at least three continents, health officials were scrambling to determine how a big a problem they now have — and how to stop it from getting bigger.

“We anticipated glitches, but I have to tell you I didn’t anticipate one of this magnitude,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
With more than a thousand passengers from the Westerdam headed for home, Dr. Schaffner said, it may be harder than ever to keep the coronavirus outbreak contained to China.

“This could be a turning point,” he said.

It is unclear how well the passengers were screened before they were allowed off the ship. But the best approach to containing a broader spread of the virus from the Westerdam would be to track down all of the passengers and quarantine them for two weeks, experts said.

It won’t be easy.

Dr. Peter Rabinowitz, co-director of the MetaCenter for Pandemic Preparedness and Global Health Security at University of Washington, said the episode would test the limits of contact tracing, the method used to track down people exposed to infection.

“It’s really daunting to control a situation like this now that people have gone all over the world,” Dr. Rabinowitz said.

More than 140 passengers from the ship flew to Malaysia, and all but the American woman who tested positive and her husband were eventually allowed to continue on to their destinations, including the United States, the Netherlands and Australia, officials said. Over 1,000 other passengers took charter flights to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, and were in various stages of transit home, the cruise line said.

When the Westerdam set sail from Hong Kong on Feb. 1 for a 14-day cruise, the Holland America Line cruise ship was carrying 1,455 passengers and 802 crew members.

It docked in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, on Feb. 4, but then soon ran into trouble.

With the eyes of the world on Yokohama, Japan, where the virus was spreading among passengers and crew members trapped on another cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, ports on the Westerdam’s itinerary began denying it entry.

Taipei, Taiwan, said no. So did ports in Japan, the Philippines, Thailand and the United States territory of Guam, according to local news reports and passengers onboard.

On Thursday, with Holland America insisting that no one on the Westerdam was infected, Cambodia agreed to let it dock.

In Cambodia, the cruise line found a country whose leader, closely allied with Chinese officials, has cast doubts on the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreak, which has infected some 68,000 people and killed more than 1,600 in China.

“Is there any Cambodian or foreigner in Cambodia who has died of the disease?” Prime Minister Hun Sen said earlier this month. “The real disease happening in Cambodia right now is the disease of fear.”

And on Friday, President Trump tweeted his thanks to Cambodia for allowing the ship, more than 600 of whose passengers were Americans, to dock.

But by opening his arms to Westerdam, Mr. Hun Sen may have put his own citizens at risk.

As of Sunday, 233 passengers and 747 crew members were still on the ship docked at Sihanoukville, Cambodia, Holland America said. After Malaysia’s announcement that a passenger was infected, the remaining passengers and crew members were restricted to the ship, and buses that had been scheduled to transport them remained parked nearby.

It was unclear whether Cambodia would seek to quarantine passengers who are still in the country, or whether those who had left by plane would face quarantine in their own countries when they arrived.

On Sunday, Malaysia’s deputy prime minister, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, said at a news conference that the American woman confirmed to be infected after she left the ship had tested positive twice for the virus.

The woman, 83, and her husband, 85, also an American citizen, were both hospitalized and in isolation. The husband has also been tested twice for the virus, and the results were negative both times. But he has pneumonia, which is often a sign of the virus that appears before it can be identified through testing.

The global fight against the coronavirus is complicated by the fact that different countries may have different levels of disease surveillance and prevention measures. While the World Health Organization provides guidance, it is up to each country to enforce these standards, including whether to quarantine people who may have been exposed or to stop them from traveling.

The Cambodian government said passengers and crew members on the Westerdam had been screened using protocols from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States before being allowed to disembark.

One passenger said Cambodian health officials had taken everyone’s temperature.

About 20 people who had reported being sick during the trip were also tested for the coronavirus, according to a statement issued Sunday by the United States Embassy in Cambodia. All of them tested negative.

The American woman was not among them. She did not visit the ship’s medical center during the cruise to report any symptoms of illness, Holland America said in a statement on Sunday.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson said officials do not yet have enough evidence to determine when the passenger may have been exposed, and where.

Dr. Schaffner, the infectious disease expert, said it might have been wiser to test each disembarking passenger instead of a select group because other screening methods — like travel questionnaires and taking temperatures — are fallible.

People eager to get off a ship may not respond entirely truthfully to questioning, and sick people’s temperatures vary during the day, he said, generally being lower in the morning.

When the American passenger first tested positive, both Holland America and Cambodia questioned the result, and requested further testing and confirmation. Malaysia carried out a second round of testing, and said Sunday that it had confirmed that the woman was infected.
It remains unclear, however, when she was infected, where or by whom.
Malaysia’s deputy prime minister said that the country would not accept any more passengers from the Westerdam.

Coordination between Malaysia and Cambodia appears to have been minimal. In a letter seeking more information from his Malaysian counterpart on Sunday, the health minister of Cambodia, Mam Bunheng, said he had learned through the news media that the first test of the American woman had been positive.

Attempts to contact Cambodian officials for comment were not immediately successful.
Holland America said in its statement on Sunday that no other passengers or crew members had reported any symptoms and that passengers who had returned home would be contacted by their local health departments.

There were no details on how that would be arranged.

“We are in close coordination with some of the leading health experts from around the world,” said Dr. Grant Tarling, chief medical officer for Holland America Line. “These experts are working with the appropriate national health authorities to investigate and follow up with individuals who may have come in contact with the guest.”

The company said that before the ship departed Hong Kong, the passports of everyone on board were reviewed to make sure that no one had traveled through mainland China in the 14 days before the cruise. But Hong Kong, itself, has been touched by the outbreak.

The company defended the health screening it had conducted during the cruise and on arrival in Cambodia. But it did not respond to a question on whether it had been appropriate to let Westerdam passengers travel to many parts of the world without putting them in quarantine first.

One of them, Christina Kerby, 41, a communications director with BlueShield in California, said she was among a group of passengers who had nasal and throat swabs taken in Phnom Penh on Sunday. Ms. Kerby was supposed to fly to Singapore on Sunday and then on to San Francisco.

“The stress has absolutely taken its toll,” she said by telephone.

Ms. Kerby said that her temperature had been taken two or three times during her stay on the ship, and that passengers were required to fill out health questionnaires detailing whether they had symptoms like cough, fever and diarrhea.

“I can’t really comment on how this was missed, but I did feel very safe and well cared for on the ship,” she said, adding that she believed Holland America “was operating appropriately given the situation.”

Ms. Kerby said she had discussed the risk of going on the cruise with her family. She boarded the ship in Hong Kong and traveled with her 75-year-old mother and her brother.

“We made the decision that it’s not worth passing up the potential to have a lot of fun and see the world just out of fear,” she said. “That’s why I joined, and I think the other passengers have the same feeling.”

Sun Narin contributed reporting from Sihanoukville, Cambodia..

44 Americans On The Diamond Princess Cruise Ship Diagnosed With Coronavirus [NPR, 16 Feb 2020]

By AUBRI JUHASZ

Another 70 cases of the coronavirus infection have been confirmed aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, currently quarantined in Japan, according to Japanese health officials.

This brings the total number of cases aboard the vessel as of Sunday to 355, the largest confirmed cluster outside mainland China. People with confirmed infections have been taken to hospitals in Japan.

After the ship's two weeks of quarantine at sea, officials from various countries, including Canada, Italy, Hong Kong and South Korea, are in the process of extracting their citizens from the vessel. The Diamond Princess is reported to have around 3,700 passengers and crew members. About half the passengers are from Japan, according to Reuters.

Approximately 400 U.S. citizens are aboard the Diamond Princess. According to Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, 44 Americans on the cruise ship have been infected, though not all are sick.

The U.S. State Department has organized a charter flight to evacuate Americans as early as Sunday evening. Only those who are not currently showing symptoms of infection with the virus will be allowed to return to the U.S., where they will face two weeks of quarantine at military bases in California and Texas.

Americans who are sick will stay in Japan to be treated. Those who are not infected are not required to board the U.S. chartered flight, but the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo has recommended that U.S. citizens get off the ship as soon as possible and take the chartered flight home.

"We're excited and relieved [to return to the U.S.]," John Montgomery, a passenger on the Diamond Princess, told NPR. "The fact that we're going back to the United States to have a quarantine, we feel there's a much better situation."

Montgomery is accompanied by his wife, Carol, who is also a U.S. citizen. He told NPR that they both "feel fine" and are prepared to remain in quarantine after returning to the United States.
"We understand why through an abundance of caution that an additional testing and evaluation and quarantine would guarantee that we're not bringing it back to the States," Montgomery told NPR.

The Diamond Princess, owned by Carnival Corp., went into quarantine on Feb. 3, after a man who disembarked in Hong Kong was diagnosed with the virus two weeks ago.

The ship is currently being held in the Japanese port of Yokohama near Tokyo. Originally, Japan said that the quarantine would be over on Feb. 19, but as more and more cases aboard the ship have been confirmed, local officials now say that only people who test negative for the COVID-19 virus will be released.

On Sunday, Japan reported six new cases of the coronavirus outside the Diamond Princess cluster. This brings Japan's total number of in-land infections to 59, according to NHK, Japan's public broadcaster.

In Hong Kong, the resumption of academic classes has been pushed back another month, while municipal workers will work from home for at least another week. Classes were first suspended in January, when officials decided to extend the Lunar New Year holiday. Since then, the return date has been pushed back several times. According to Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung, classes are now scheduled to resume on March 16.

Meanwhile, another cruise ship, the MS Westerdam, reported its first coronavirus case on Sunday — an 83-year-old American woman who had been a passenger. Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Wan Azizah Wan Ismail told reporters on Sunday that the passenger tested positive for the coronavirus twice after landing in Kuala Lumpur, the country's capital.

The ship was thought to be free of the virus when it docked in the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville on Friday, after being turned away from five other ports in Japan, Taiwan, Guam, the Philippines and Thailand. Passengers were screened by Cambodian health officials before they were allowed to disembark. Now, authorities fear that other released passengers might also be infected, further spreading the virus.

Malaysian officials said the country will not allow any more passengers from the MS Westerdam to enter the country and has barred cruise ships that come from or make contact with any Chinese ports from docking.

According to the Malaysian Health Ministry, 145 passengers aboard the MS Westerdam flew to Malaysia after the ship docked in Cambodia. The 83-year-old American woman and her husband, who is also an American citizen, were the only passengers to arrive in Malaysia who exhibited symptoms.

The woman is currently in stable condition and is being treated in a hospital isolation ward, according to Malaysian health officials. Her husband, who is 85 years old, has tested negative for the virus but is still being monitored for changes in condition.

Figures from China, released on Sunday, showed 68,500 cases of COVID-19 and 1,665 deaths, mostly in Hubei province, according to China's National Health Commission.

Last week, the U.S. Embassy in China confirmed the first American coronavirus casualty, a 60-year-old who died at a hospital in Wuhan, China. There are currently 15 cases of people with the COVID-19 virus in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A World Health Organization delegation is currently in China to help investigate the country's coronavirus epidemic, according to a tweet posted by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Sunday.

According to another tweet by Tedros, an advance team for the delegation left for China on Feb. 9. The team is led by Bruce Aylward, a Canadian epidemiologist and emergencies expert.

Japan’s Economy Shrank Sharply. Now Comes the Coronavirus. [The New York Times, 16 Feb 2020]

By Ben Dooley and Eimi Yamamitsu

After hits from storms and a tax increase, the world’s No. 3 economy could face recession as the outbreak takes a toll on tourism.

TOKYO — Japan’s economy has already been staggered by a devastating typhoon and a wallet-shutting tax increase. Now, the coronavirus that has brought business in neighboring China to a virtual standstill threatens to knock Japan into a full-blown recession.

Japan said on Monday that its economy had shrunk at an annualized rate of 6.3 percent in the three months that ended in December, the worst contraction since mid-2014. The results predated the virus epidemic but were affected by a monthslong slump in Chinese demand for Japanese exports.

Officials had been optimistic that an easing of the effects of Typhoon Hagibis and the consumption tax increase would return the country to growth as the new year began. But then the coronavirus began its deadly spread in China, halting the lucrative flow of tourists from that country and further imperiling Japanese exports.

If Japan’s economy — the world’s third largest after the United States and China — shrinks again in the first quarter of 2020, the country will officially fall into recession for the first time since a brief dip in 2015. A recession is generally defined as two straight quarterly contractions.

It’s unclear how long the virus outbreak will continue, but the entire global economy could suffer from a prolonged shock in China, and some economists are already predicting slower growth for the year. The virus’s ripple effects are hitting Japan particularly hard: China is its largest trading partner and by far its biggest source of visitors, many of whom come ready to shop.

The spread of the coronavirus inside Japan itself also presents a wild card. The country has had the most confirmed cases outside China, with more than 400, including those from a cruise ship quarantined in Yokohama. Last week, Japan recorded its first death from the virus.

But China’s ban on group travel as it tries to contain the outbreak is the more immediate economic threat to Japan. The effects can already be seen in places like Shun Natori’s sweets shop in what is normally one of Tokyo’s busiest tourist districts.

The Lunar New Year holiday is high season for Chinese tourism to Japan, but the small streets and alleys surrounding Mr. Natori’s business have been unusually quiet for weeks. The nearby Sensoji temple — famous for its enormous red lanterns and throngs of selfie-taking tourists — is nearly empty.

The last time things were this slow, Mr. Natori said, was in March 2011, after an earthquake and tsunami caused a nuclear meltdown, scaring tourists away from Japan for months.

“The best thing would be if things get busy again,” he said.

That seems unlikely to happen soon. At least 400,000 travelers from China are expected to cancel trips through March, according to data from the Japan Association of Travel Agents. Japanese airlines have suspended flights as demand has plummeted.

Officials have begun to express concern about the outbreak’s effect on their country’s fragile economy, which in recent quarters had defied gloomy projections and eked out modest growth even as sales of Japanese goods and services abroad continued to decline.

Japan is “starting to see a large impact on the tourist industry and regional small and medium-size enterprises,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recently lawmakers.

Japan on Friday announced a limited $96 million package of emergency funds that will be used in part to help businesses struggling because of the outbreak. That followed the government’s approval of a $120 billion stimulus package late last year, an economic injection that came as Japan tried to stave off recession after the tax increase and the typhoon.

The country’s consumption tax was raised to 10 percent from 8 percent in October, a move that officials said was necessary to support expanded public services as the population rapidly ages and pay down the national debt, the highest among developed nations. But it has also depressed consumer spending.

Days after the tax increase went into effect, Typhoon Hagibis slammed into Japan, battering its main island, causing enormous damage and further suppressing economic activity.

As Japan has recovered from the storm, its industrial output rose slightly in December. But now the coronavirus poses a serious threat to a crucial market for the goods being produced. Japanese manufacturers are major suppliers to Chinese companies, sending them everything from precision machine tools to components for smartphones and cars.

Even before the outbreak, Japanese companies were struggling to cope with the effects of China’s economic slowdown, a result in part of its trade war with the United States. Japanese exports to China were down 7.6 percent in 2019 from the previous year.

The epidemic has also affected operations of Japanese companies inside China. In response to the virus, the Chinese authorities extended the Lunar New Year holiday, effectively shutting down manufacturing work for many Japanese companies.

The toymaker Tomy lowered its earnings estimates for the end of the financial year, which closes March 31, because of a slowdown in production in China, Japan’s national broadcaster, NHK, reported. Nintendo has said it will delay shipments of its Switch console to Japanese consumers as a result of the outbreak.

Addressing investors this month, Hiroki Totoki, a top executive at Sony, warned that the outbreak could have a “major impact on our supply chain, logistics and sales,” potentially erasing a projected increase in earnings growth.

But perhaps no businesses in Japan are feeling the effects of the epidemic as much as those dependent on tourism, which has grown significantly in importance to the Japanese economy in recent years. The number of visitors to Japan has more than tripled over the last decade, reaching 31 million in 2018, according to government statistics.

More than 30 percent of those visitors came from China — almost nine in 10 for vacation — making the country the largest source of tourists to Japan.

While visitors from South Korea and Taiwan — second and third in Japan’s tourism rankings — spend most of their money on sightseeing, Chinese travelers tend to shop.

Busloads of Chinese bargain hunters — leery of high taxes and knockoff products at home — descend on Tokyo’s upscale shopping districts to buy foreign and domestic goods in a flurry of consumption known in Japan as bakugai, or “explosive shopping.”

By propping up domestic consumption as Japan’s population declines, visitors from China make an outsize contribution to the country’s bottom line.

“If you look at consumption patterns of Chinese visitors to Japan, a lot of people are buying things like makeup,” said Keiji Kanda, a senior economist at the Daiwa Institute of Research, adding that “places like department stores and drugstores are likely to be heavily impacted.”

Some hope, though, could be around the corner. Mr. Natori, who owns the sweets shop near the Sensoji temple, said he was looking forward to the cherry blossom season, when tourism usually booms.

In anticipation of that, he plans to use the downtime to “think up a seasonal menu.”

Coronavirus case in Egypt showed no symptoms, placed under quarantine: Min. [Egypttoday, 16 Feb 2020]

CAIRO – 16 February 2020: Egyptian Health Minister Hala Zayed on Saturday said the only coronavirus case recorded in Egypt has shown no symptoms, and all those who dealt with him tested negative for the deadly virus but will be monitored for 15 days.

While the new virus, which emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, had stayed away from Africa, Egyptian Health Ministry and the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday confirmed the country’s first case, a Chinese national who local authorities later said was moved to Matrouh governorate, in the northwestern part of the country, to be placed under quarantine.

The building where the case was in was evacuated, sterilized and became usable, Zayed said, in an interview with Kol Youm program on ON E TV.

The ministry started applying precautionary measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus since January 7th, Zayed said, adding that the ministry communicates with the WHO and managed in 24 hours to prepare a hospital in Matrouh that is able to receive 800 persons for quarantine.

The number of new cases from China's coronavirus epidemic dropped on Sunday, while the death toll jumped to 1,665. Tedros Adhanom, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief has warned it was "impossible" to predict how the outbreak would develop.

China is transparently, responsibly and openly cooperating with the international community, including Egypt, concerning coronavirus, spokesman of the Chinese embassy in Egypt said Saturday.

The spokesman stressed that the bilateral cooperation with Egypt to remain in an attempt to protect the public health.

The embassy’s statement came as Egypt's Health Ministry on Friday announced the first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus in Africa.

'Coronavirus Live Updates: U.S. Cruise Ship Passengers Evacuated From Japan; Taiwan Reports First Death [The New York Times, 16 Feb 2020]

A 61-year-old man died of the coronavirus in Taiwan. Americans who had been on a cruise ship where some fell ill boarded chartered flights bound for home.

RIGHT NOW
Concerns rose about the virus’s spread around the world after Malaysia said an 83-year-old American passenger tested positive for the virus after she and others left a cruise ship in Cambodia.

Here’s what you need to know:
• Flights carrying American passengers from a cruise ship took off from Japan.
• U.S. bases brace for American evacuees.
• Taiwan says a man with no known history of travel to mainland China has died.
• After hundreds disembarked from a cruise ship, an American tested positive for coronavirus.
• The rate of new cases appears to slow, even as the death toll continues to rise.
• Xi Jinping began fighting the virus earlier than previously known, a newly published speech indicates.

Flights carrying American passengers from a cruise ship took off from Japan.

American passengers evacuated a cruise ship that has been quarantined for more than a week in the Japanese port city of Yokohama, after hundreds of people on board fell ill with the coronavirus.

The Americans boarded two chartered flights to the United States, which departed Tokyo at 7:05 a.m. Monday, according to a statement by the United States Embassy in Japan.

As the passengers prepared to leave the country, Japanese health officials said the number of confirmed coronavirus cases found on the ship, the Diamond Princess, had grown by 70, to 355.

“Can’t get off here fast enough,” said Sarah Arana, 52, a medical social worker from Paso Robles, Calif.

When the ship was placed under quarantine there were more than 3,700 passengers and crew aboard, including about 400 Americans. The U.S. Embassy in Japan had previously recommended that American citizens stay aboard the ship during a 14-day quarantine period.

But it changed course on Saturday, citing “a rapidly evolving situation” as conditions appeared to worsen.

Only American passengers who were screened and did not show any symptoms of the illness were allowed to board the flights, according to a statement from the State Department.

“All travelers on these flights were screened for symptoms prior to departure and will be subject to Centers for Disease Control (CDC) screening, health observation, and monitoring requirements,” the statement said. “Only those who were asymptomatic were allowed to board the flights.”

Once in the United States, passengers will undergo a 14-day quarantine at either Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif., or Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio.

The embassy said that those who did not take the charter flights would not be allowed to travel to the United States until March 4, two weeks after they would otherwise be allowed to leave the ship.

U.S. bases brace for American evacuees.

The United States Department of Defense said it was preparing to receive the two evacuation flights carrying American passengers from the Diamond Princess, docked in Japan.

The passengers will have to undergo a 14-day quarantine, as mandated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Lt. Col. Chris Mitchell, a Defense Department spokesman, said on Sunday.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ goal is to ensure that none of those who are evacuated are transferred to the bases — Travis Air Force Base in California, and Kelly Field / Lackland Air Force Base in Texas — if they test positive for the virus. Evacuees who do, or who show symptoms of the virus, will be taken “to a suitable off-base facility at the direction of C.D.C.,” he said.

Taiwan says a man with no known history of travel to mainland China has died.

Taiwan said that a 61-year-old man who had a history of diabetes and hepatitis B had died of the coronavirus.

The man, who died Saturday after nearly two weeks in a hospital, did not have a known history of traveling to mainland China, and health officials were investigating how he came to be infected.

News outlets in Taiwan reported that the man had worked as a taxi driver and could have been infected by a passenger. A male relative in his 50s who lived with the man was also infected, health officials said.

Taiwan has recorded 20 cases of the new coronavirus, and it has enacted strict limits on travel from the mainland to prevent further spread.

After hundreds disembarked from a cruise ship, an American tested positive for coronavirus.

An American woman who disembarked from a cruise ship in Cambodia last week has tested positive twice for the coronavirus since flying on to Malaysia, officials in that country said on Sunday.

Cambodia allowed the ship, the Westerdam, to dock after five other countries turned it away over concerns about the coronavirus. Officials said that more than 140 other passengers from the Westerdam had flown from Cambodia to the airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital. All but the American woman and her husband had been allowed to continue to their destinations, including airports in the United States, the Netherlands and Australia.

The woman, who is 83, and her husband, who is 85 and also an American citizen, were both hospitalized and placed in isolation. The husband has also been tested twice for the virus, and the results were negative both times. But he has pneumonia, which is often a sign of the virus that appears before it can be identified through testing.

Dr. Eyal Leshem, the director of the Center for Travel Medicine and Tropical Diseases at the Sheba Medical Center in Israel, called the disclosures “extremely concerning” and said the flights taken by the passengers from Kuala Lumpur substantially increased the risk of a global pandemic. “We may end up with three or four countries with sustained transmission of the virus,” he said.

“It may be more and more difficult to make sure this outbreak is contained only within China,” Dr. Leshem said.

The Westerdam, carrying 2,257 passengers and crew, departed from Hong Kong on Feb. 1 and was at sea for nearly 14 days, the time frame that is believed to be the maximum incubation period for the highly transmissible virus.

The rate of new cases appears to slow, even as the death toll continues to rise.

China reported 2,009 new cases of coronavirus and 142 associated deaths in the previous 24 hours on Sunday, days after the government changed the criteria for how it tracks cases.

In all, more than 68,500 people have been infected and at least 1,669 have died worldwide, officials have said. The vast majority of cases, and all but a few of the deaths, have been in mainland China, with the heaviest concentration in Hubei Province, the center of the outbreak.

Even as the death toll mounted, the fatality rate remained stable, and the rate of new cases has slowed in the past three days. That decline in new cases follows a spike of more than 15,000 on Thursday, when the government began counting cases diagnosed in clinical settings, including with the use of CT scans, and not just those confirmed with specialized testing kits.

Xi Jinping began fighting the virus earlier than previously known, a newly published speech indicates.

Under fire for its initial response to the coronavirus epidemic, China’s authoritarian government appears to be pushing a new account of events that presents President Xi Jinping as taking early action to fight the outbreak that has convulsed the country.

But in doing so, the authorities have acknowledged for the first time that Mr. Xi was aware of the epidemic nearly two weeks before he first spoke publicly about it — and while officials at its epicenter, in the city of Wuhan, were still playing down its dangers.

That new account risks drawing the president, China’s most powerful leader in decades, directly into questions about whether top officials did too little, too late.

In the newly released internal speech that Mr. Xi delivered on Feb. 3, when the epidemic had already spiraled into a national crisis, the Chinese president said he had “issued demands about the efforts to prevent and control” the coronavirus on Jan. 7, during a meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee, the highest council of the Communist Party, whose sessions are typically very secretive.

In the speech, he also said he had authorized the unprecedented lockdown of Wuhan and other cities beginning on Jan. 23.

“I have at every moment monitored the spread of the epidemic and progress in efforts to curtail it, constantly issuing oral orders and also instructions,” Mr. Xi said of his more recent involvement.

Mr. Xi’s advisers may have hoped that publishing the speech would dispel speculation about his recent retreat from public view and reassure his people that he can be trusted to lead them out of the epidemic.

But the speech could expose Mr. Xi to criticism that he didn’t treat the initial threat urgently enough, and make it difficult for him to shift blame onto local officials.

In early January, leaders in Wuhan, the city at the epicenter of the outbreak, were giving open assurances that there was no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.

Research and reporting was contributed by Richard C. Paddock, Sun Narin, Sui-Lee Wee, Russell Goldman, Amy Qin, Austin Ramzy, Motoko Rich, Eimi Yamamitsu and Chris Cameron.

Coronavirus: Holland America confirms former passenger tested positive in Malaysia [KIRO Seattle, 16 Feb 2020]

The death toll attributed to the 2019 novel coronavirus continues to rise, with thousands of people sickened and hundreds of others killed by the virus, mostly in China.

Here are the latest updates:

44 Americans on Diamond Princess tested positive, official says
Update 1:23 p.m. EST Feb. 16: Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told The Washington Post on Sunday that 44 Americans who were traveling on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan have been infected with the coronavirus.

Hundreds of U.S. citizens who have been quarantined on the ship were evacuated Sunday evening, the newspaper reported. They were taken by bus to a nearby airport, where two chartered planes are scheduled to return them to the United States.

Taiwan reports first death; fourth outside mainland China
Update 11:53 a.m. EST Feb. 16: Taiwan officials reported the island’s first fatality from the coronavirus Saturday, as a 61-year-old man who had a history of diabetes and hepatitis B died, The New York Times reported. The man was admitted to a hospital Feb. 3 after he developed a cough a week earlier, Taiwan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare said in a statement. The man did not have a known history of traveling to mainland China, and health officials were investigating how he became infected, the newspaper reported.

This death is the fourth reported coronavirus fatality to take place outside mainland China.

Holland America confirms case in former Westerdam passenger
Update 8:43 a.m. EST Feb. 16: The company that owns the Westerdam cruise ship issued a statement Sunday acknowledging one of its passengers tested positive for the coronavirus. In a statement, Holland America said, “The guest departed Westerdam (on) Feb. 14 and later reported feeling ill at the Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia airport. The guest was taken to the hospital and is reported to be in stable condition. The guest’s traveling companion tested negative.”

Italy plans to evacuate 35 from Diamond Princess cruise ship
Update 7:01 a.m. EST Feb. 16: Italy will be evacuating 35 passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Japan, according to CNN.

Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio issued a statement Sunday about the evacuation. A flight will bring the Italian passengers home, he said.

No further details were immediately available.

More Diamond Princess cruises canceled through April 20
Update 3:43 a.m. EST Feb. 16: Princess Cruises announced early Sunday that it is canceling more voyages for the Diamond Princess ship docked in Japan.

“Based on the prolonged quarantine period, and the anticipated time to prepare the ship to return to service, we unfortunately must cancel additional Diamond Princess voyages through the April 20 voyage,” the cruise line tweeted.

Fatality rate remains stable in China at 142 new deaths
Update 8 p.m. EST Feb. 15: China reported a drop in new virus cases for a third straight day.

There are 2,009 new cases in mainland China, bringing its total number of confirmed cases to 68,500, according to the country’s National Health Commission.

The fatality rate remained stable with 142 new deaths. The death toll in mainland China from COVID-19, a disease stemming from a new form of coronavirus, now stands at 1,665.

Fourth coronavirus fatality outside mainland China, first in Europe confirmed
Update 6:05 a.m. EST Feb. 15: A Chinese tourist has died in France from the novel coronavirus, marking the first recorded fatality from the disease outside Asia.

French Health Minister Agnès Buzyn confirmed to the BBC early Saturday that the victim was an 80-year-old woman from China’s Hubei province who arrived in France Jan. 16 and was quarantined in a Paris hospital on Jan. 25.

Although more than 1,500 people have died from the virus since the outbreak began, only three – one each in Hong Kong, the Philippines and Japan – had occurred outside mainland China prior to the fatality in France.

France has previously confirmed 11 cases of coronavirus, and six remain hospitalized, the BBC reported.

New coronavirus cases confirmed in Malaysia, Thailand
Update 6 a.m. EST Feb. 15: Malaysian officials confirmed early Saturday two new novel coronavirus cases, while officials in Thailand confirmed a medical worker has become that nation’s 34th case, CNN reported.

Both Malaysian patients are Chinese nationals and bring that country’s total cases to 21.

According to CNN, a 27-year-old businessman from Guangzhou presented with symptoms during a Friday screening at the Bukit Kayu Hitam Customs, near the border with Thailand. The second patient is a 32-year-old Malaysian woman who visited China between Jan. 22 and Jan. 30.

The infected Thai medical worker is a 35-year-old woman whom health authorities confirmed had close contact with another confirmed patient. Of Thailand’s 34 confirmed cases, CNN reported, 14 have been discharged and 20 remain hospitalized.

67 new coronavirus cases confirmed aboard Diamond Princess cruise ship
Update 5:55 a.m. EST Feb. 15: Japanese Health Minister Katsunobu Kato confirmed early Saturday that an additional 67 people aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship moored off the coast of Japan have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, CNN reported.

The latest figures bring the total number of confirmed cases aboard the ship to 286. That figure, combined with the 39 cases confirmed elsewhere across Japan, brings the country’s total recorded infections to 325, the highest concentration of cases reported outside mainland China, the network reported.

Email to passengers outlines chartered flight, stateside quarantine plans
Update 4:13 a.m. EST Feb. 15: In an email to American passengers aboard the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship, officials with the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo said a chartered flight will arrive Sunday evening to retrieve any of the roughly 380 U.S. citizens aboard the ship who have not yet tested positive for or exhibited symptoms of the novel coronavirus, the New York Times and CNN reported.

The ship, carrying more than 3,700 passengers and crew members, has been quarantined off the coast of Japan in Yokohama Bay since Feb. 4, after a man who disembarked in Hong Kong was diagnosed with the virus. To date, at least 218 cases have been confirmed aboard the ship, including at least 40 Americans who have been transported to medical facilities for treatment, the Times reported.

Per the email shared by CNN, buses will transport evacuating U.S. citizens from Yokohama to an undisclosed airport.

“Passengers will be screened for symptoms and we are working with our Japanese partners to ensure that any symptomatic passengers receive the required care in Japan if they cannot board the flight,” the email reads.

The plane is scheduled to first land at California’s Travis Air Force Base, before transporting remaining passengers to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.

“We will provide information about your final destination prior to boarding the plane," the embassy told passengers, noting a new 14-day quarantine of all evacuees will begin once transport is complete.

“We understand this is frustrating and an adjustment, but these measures are consistent with the careful policies we have instituted to limit the potential spread of the disease,” the email reads.

Disembarkation of passengers not voluntarily evacuating on Sunday’s charter flight, will begin Feb. 21 and last several days, CNN reported.

More than 8,000 recovered coronavirus patients discharged from hospitals
Update 4:10 a.m. EST Feb. 15: China’s National Health Commission confirmed early Saturday a total of 8,096 patients have been declared recovered from the novel coronavirus and discharged from medical facilities.

According to the most recent data available, 67,097 cases have been reported worldwide with 66,492 cases confined to mainland China. While only three coronavirus-related deaths have been confirmed outside China, the illness has claimed 1,523 lives within the country.

Meanwhile, 605 confirmed cases have been reported outside China, including 15 in the United States, CNN reported.

Report: State Department organizing evacuation of Americans from Diamond Princess cruise ship
Update 9:30 p.m. EST Feb. 14: The State Department is planning to evacuate at least 380 Americans quarantined on Diamond Princess cruise ship near Japan, according to the Wall Street Journal.

China reports major drop from higher numbers after broader diagnostic method implemented
Update 8 p.m. EST Feb. 14: The number of new deaths rose slightly to 143, bringing the total fatalities in mainland China to 1,523. The total number of confirmed cases in the country now stands at 66,492, according to a notice from China’s National Health Commission.

China has implemented unprecedented measures in a sweeping campaign to contain the virus.

At the outbreak’s epicenter in the central province of Hubei, cities with a combined population of more than 60 million have been placed under lockdown, with outbound transportation halted and virtually all public activities suspended.

1st coronavirus case confirmed in Egypt
Update 1:35 p.m. EST Feb. 14: Officials Egypt have confirmed the country’s first case of coronavirus, according to the World Health Organization.

Officials said in a statement posted on Twitter that the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population confirmed the case, which involves a foreign national who appeared to be asymptomatic. The man has been hospitalized in stable condition, according to WHO officials.

The case marks the first in Africa since COVID-19 was first discovered in Wuhan, China, late last year, according to The Guardian.

Tens of thousands of cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in 26 countries. A vast majority of the cases were reported in China.

CDC: 81 possible coronavirus cases under investigation in US
Update 12:30 p.m. EST Feb. 14: Officials with the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 81 possible coronavirus cases remained under investigation Friday.

Officials have confirmed 15 cases so far of the 2019 novel coronavirus in a handful of states: eight in California, two in Illinois and one each in Washington, Massachusetts, Texas, Arizona and Wisconsin.

A total of 443 possible coronavirus cases have been investigated by CDC officials since Jan. 21. Of those, 347 people have tested negative for the virus.

WHO team to land in China over weekend
Update 11:15 a.m. EST Feb. 14: A team of World Health Organization experts is set to touch down over the weekend in China to help health officials dealing with the ongoing coronavirus outbreak in the country.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO, said at a news conference Friday that the group of 12 experts would work with an equal number of their Chinese counterparts to “understand the application and impact of response activities at provincial and county levels, including urban and rural settings.”

“The goal of the joint mission is to rapidly inform the next steps in the COVID-19 response and preparedness activities in China and globally,” Tedros said. “Particular attention will be paid to understanding the transmission of the virus, the severity of disease and the impact of ongoing response measures.”

According to WHO, Chinese laboratories have confirmed 47,505 cases of coronavirus in the country as of Friday. In the Hubei Province, 16,427 coronavirus cases have been clinically confirmed. Officials with WHO said they were investigating Friday to ensure those reports didn’t erroneously include other respiratory illnesses, such as influenza.

Outside of China, 505 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in two dozen countries.

Health officials said 1,383 people have died of the coronavirus, with all but two of the deaths in China.

Japan confirms 3 new coronavirus cases, Singapore confirms 9
Update 9:30 a.m. EST Feb. 14: Officials in Japan and Singapore have confirmed several new coronavirus cases, according to CNN and health officials.

Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare announced a Japanese citizen who recently returned on a government charter from China’s Wuhan Province tested positive for the coronavirus, according to CNN. Two men, one in his 60s from Aicha Prefecture and the other in his 50s from Hokkaido, were also confirmed to have the virus. Neither of the latter two men had visited China, CNN reported.

The new cases bring the total number of coronavirus cases in Japan to 257.

Officials with Singapore’s Ministry of Health said Friday in a statement that nine new cases of coronavirus had been confirmed in the country. Six of the cases were linked to a church in central Singapore and one other was linked to a previous case. Health officials said Friday that they were still investigating the causes of the other two cases.

The new cases bring the total number of coronavirus cases in Singapore to 67.

Quarantine break threatens public health in Russia
Update 7:20 a.m. EST Feb. 14: A Russian woman might have outsmarted health care workers observing her for evidence of novel coronavirus exposure in a St. Petersburg hospital, but her escape did not go unnoticed.

Health authorities have filed a lawsuit against the unidentified woman for endangering the public after she short-circuited the electronic lock on the door to her Botkin Hospital for Infectious Diseases ward, CNN reported.

The woman had returned from China in February.

Hong Kong confirms 3 new cases, Japan confirms 4
Update 7:15 a.m. EST Feb. 14: The citywide total reached 56 on Friday after health officials confirmed three new cases of novel coronavirus in Hong Kong, CNN reported.

Chuang Shuk-Kwan of the Center for Health Protection said during a Friday press conference the patients include a 70-year-old woman in critical condition who visited mainland China in January and a 61-year-old woman who has been hospitalized with fever and breathing problems since Feb. 3.

Health officials confirmed 36 suspected cases have been reported in the past 24 hours, while 114 people are already hospitalized with the virus. Of those confirmed cases, five are listed in critical condition and four are in serious condition, CNN reported.

Meanwhile, four additional cases – none of which are associated with the Diamond Princess cruise ship – have been confirmed in Japan, the country’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare reported Friday.

The new cases bring Japan’s total number of infected patients to 254, including 219 linked to the Diamond Princess. A woman in her 80s is the country’s only known fatality associated with the virus to date, CNN reported.

6 medical workers in China have died, more than 1,700 infected
Update 4:50 a.m. EST Feb. 14: A total of 1,716 medical workers in China have contracted the novel coronavirus, including six who have died of COVID-19, health officials confirmed Friday.

Zeng Yixin, vice minister of China’s National Health Commission told reporters in Beijing the figures are current through Feb. 11, CNN reported.

Zeng also said steps have been taken to reduce future infections among medical personnel such as beefing up the equipment needed to treat patients and ensuring healthcare workers have access to better conditions for rest and recuperation, the network reported.

High-risk cruise ship passengers await transfers to shoreside quarantine facilities in Japan
Update 4:45 a.m. EST Feb. 14: Diamond Princess Captain Stefano Ravera told passengers that 11 of them will be moved to shoreside quarantine facilities Friday afternoon because the Japanese Ministry of Health says they meet the criteria for being at high risk if infected with the novel coronavirus, CNN reported.

The ship, slated to remain under a 14-day quarantine until Feb. 19, is docked off the coast of Yokohama, Japan, and 219 cases of the virus have been confirmed aboard the vessel.

China seeks plasma donors to help develop antibody treatment
Update 4:40 a.m. EST Feb. 14: A senior health official in China is urging patients who have recovered from the novel coronavirus to donate blood plasma, in hopes their naturally-produced antibodies could spur development of treatment, the New York Times reported.

Dr. Zhang Dingyu, director of the Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan, China, issued his plea to the public late Thursday.

According to the Times, China National Biotec Group, a state-owned company under the Ministry of Health, announced Thursday it has determined that administering a round of human antibodies from the survivors to more than 10 critically ill patients reduced inflammation levels significantly after 12 to 24 hours of treatment.

Virus expected to linger ‘beyond this year’
Update 1:55 a.m. EST Feb. 14: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is leaning heavily on the latter portion of its name and entering what Director Robert Redfield called “aggressive containment mode” to limit the novel coronavirus’ spread, CNN reported.

“We don’t know a lot about this virus,” Redfield told CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta, adding, “This virus is probably with us beyond this season, beyond this year, and I think eventually the virus will find a foothold and we will get community-based transmission."

The containment phase, he told the network, is a tactic to buy time.

“The containment phase is really to give us more time. This virus will become a community virus at some point in time, this year or next year,” Redfield said.

Officials blame ‘duplication’ for initially higher fatality reports, revise down death toll
Update 1:50 a.m. EST Feb. 14: China’s National Health Commission clarified early Friday that duplications detected in “data collection and recording” inadvertently inflated infection and fatality figures reported earlier in the day.

Although initial figures released Thursday out of Hubei province indicated the total number of infections reported globally had eclipsed 65,000, the revised figures suggest about 1,200 fewer confirmed cases, CNN reported.

According to the commission, the current number of mainland China infections increased by 5,090 cases in 24 hours to 63,851, resulting in 1,380 deaths. The global totals have been adjusted to 64,435 cases and 1,383 deaths, the New York Times reported.

There are now at least 585 confirmed cases of the virus in 27 countries and territories outside mainland China, CNN reported.

Cruise ship Westerdam passengers begin disembarking
Update 12:40 p.m. EST Feb. 13: The first of hundreds of passengers stuck on board the Westerdam cruise ship in southeast Asia began disembarking the beleaguered ship late Thursday.

Officials with the Holland American Line tweeted confirmation of the departures in Sihanoukville, Cambodia.

The ship had been turned away by Thailand, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines due to fears of potential COVID-19 infections, but no cases were detected onboard after docking in Cambodia, CNN reported.

Limited availability of charter flights, however, could mean it could take several days to complete the departures, the network reported.

2nd coronavirus death outside China reported in Japan
Update 12:40 p.m. EST Feb. 13: The second death attributed to COVID-19 outside of China has been reported in Japan.

Officials said the coronavirus claimed the life of an 80-year-old woman living near Tokyo, according to Reuters. The woman became ill in January, but it wasn’t until after her death that health officials determined she had coronavirus, Reuters reported, citing Japan’s health minister.

The virus has claimed more than 1,360 lives in China since it was discovered late last year in the city of Wuhan, CNN reported. In the Philippines, one person has died of coronavirus.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases spiked in China on Thursday because of a change in the way the virus is diagnosed and reported. In China’s Hubei province, medical professionals are now able to diagnose suspected coronavirus cases using chest imaging instead of awaiting laboratory confirmation, according to the World Health Organization.

Laboratory confirmation is still required in the rest of China and the rest of the world, said Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme.

15th coronavirus case confirmed in Texas
Update 10:35 a.m. EST Feb. 13: Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that the 15th case of coronavirus has been confirmed in the U.S.

The case involved a person who was placed under a federal quarantine order with a group at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas. The person had flown to the U.S. on a flight chartered by the U.S. State Department on Friday.

Officials with the CDC said the person was receiving medical care Thursday at a nearby hospital

Fourteen other people have been confirmed as having been infected with coronavirus: eight in California, two in Illinois, one in Washington, one in Massachusetts, one in Arizona and one in Wisconsin.

Cruise ship Westerdam allowed to dock in Cambodia
Update 7 a.m. EST Feb. 13: The Holland America Line announced Wednesday that a cruise ship barred from docking in Thailand, the Philippines, Japan and Taiwan amid coronavirus fears has been authorized to dock in Cambodia and let passengers off the ship, The Associated Press is reporting.

The ship’s operators said nobody on board the cruise, which began in Singapore, has the virus, according to the AP.

Nearly 50,000 cases confirmed in province at center of outbreak
Update 2:52 a.m. EST Feb. 13: Almost 50,000 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in China’s Hubei Province, The New York Times is reporting.

Officials said Thursday that they have confirmed 14,840 more cases of the illness, raising the total in the region to 48,206, according to the newspaper. At least 1,310 people there have died from the virus, authorities said.

44 more cases on quarantined Diamond Princess ship
Update 11 p.m. EST Feb. 12: Japan’s health ministry said 44 more people on the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined near Tokyo have tested positive for the virus that causes the new disease known as COVID-19.

The ship, which is still carrying more than 3,500 passengers and crewmembers, has 218 people infected with the virus out of 713 people tested since the ship returned to the Yokohama Port on Feb. 3.

2nd case in San Diego
Update 7:30 p.m. EST Feb. 12: Another person has tested positive for coronavirus in California bring the total of confirmed cases in the United States to 14, according to the CDC.

The CDC said in a release that there will likely be additional cases “in the coming days or weeks.”

At least 195 were discharged from quarantine yesterday but more than 600 who returned to the U.S. on chartered flights from Wuhan remain under the federal quaranantine.

Test kits sent by CDC flawed, officials say
Update 4:25 p.m. EST Feb. 12: Some of the coronavirus test kits sent by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to states and at least 30 countries have proved to be flawed, CDC officials said Wednesday at a news conference.

Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters Wednesday that some laboratories reported issues after receiving coronavirus diagnostic test kits from the CDC.

“Some public health labs in states were getting inconclusive results,” Messonnier said. “What that means is that test results were not coming back as false positive of false negatives, but they were being read as inconclusive.”

The issues were discovered while scientists were verifying the tests worked correctly, Messonnier said. Officials believe the issue is tied to one of the reagents used to verify the test.

“We think the issue in these states can be explained by one reagent that isn’t performing as it should consistently,” Messonnier said. “That’s why we’re re-manufacturing the reagent.”

Messonnier stressed that the issue was not unusual.

“This is part of the normal process and procedure and redoing the manufacturing is the next step,” she said.

Officials with the CDC began sending test kits last week to laboratories in the U.S. and internationally.

New coronavirus case confirmed in UK
Update 3:55 p.m. EST Feb. 12: Health officials in the United Kingdom confirmed Wednesday that a new case of COVID-19 has been confirmed in the country, bringing the total number of people infected by coronavirus in the country to nine.

“The virus was passed on in China and the patient has now been transferred to a specialist (National Health Service) center at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ in London,” Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said in a statement.

More than 45,000 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed globally since the virus was first detected late last year in Wuhan, China, according to the World Health Organization. More than 1,110 people have died of the virus.

More than 45,000 cases of COVID-19 confirmed worldwide
Update 1:55 p.m. EST Feb. 12: More than 45,000 cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus have been confirmed globally, with a majority reported in China, according to the World Health Organization.

As of 6 a.m. Geneva time Wednesday, 44,730 cases of coronavirus had been confirmed in China. In two dozen other countries, a total of 441 other cases have been confirmed.

“The number of newly confirmed cases reported from China has stabilized over the past week, but that must be interpreted with extreme caution,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said Wednesday. “The outbreak could still go in any direction.”

In China, 1,114 people have died after being infected with the coronavirus, WHO officials said. One person has died of coronavirus in the Philippines.

Illinois becomes first state with ability to test for coronavirus
Update 11:40 a.m. EST Feb. 12: Illinois has become the first state able to test for COVID-19, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

“The ability to do this testing will mean we will be able to detect any new cases of novel coronavirus earlier and prevent any possible spread,” IDPH Assistant Director Evonda Thomas-Smith said Tuesday in a news release. “We understand there is concern about this new virus, which is why having test results back quickly can help reduce some of those concerns.”

Previously, the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had the only lab able to test for the 2019 novel coronavirus. Last week, CDC officials began sending out diagnostic test kits to laboratories in the U.S. and internationally.

Singapore confirms 3 more coronavirus cases
Update 10:45 a.m. EST Feb. 12: Officials with Singapore’s Ministry of Health said Wednesday that three new cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in the country, bringing the total number of cases there to 50.

Health officials said the new cases involved three Singaporean men, ages 34, 49 and 62, who had no recent history of travel to China.

Fifteen people have been discharged from hospitals in Singapore after recovering from coronavirus. Health officials said 35 people remained hospitalized Wednesday, most improving or in stable condition.

Testing ongoing for coronavrius vaccine
Update 10:05 a.m. EST Feb. 12: Scientists worldwide continue work to develop and test a vaccine for the 2019 novel coronavirus, including a San Diego lab which developed a possible vaccine in just three hours, according to multiple reports.

Biotechnology company Inovio Pharmaceuticals previously developed vaccines for the Zika virus and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, a coronavirus related to COVID-19. On Tuesday, Trevor Smith, director of research and development at Inovio Pharmaceuticals, told KFMB-TV that company scientists had developed a vaccine for COVID-19 hours after beginning work with a genetic sequence released by Chinese scientists.

“We have an algorithm, which we designed, and we put the DNA sequence into our algorithm and came up with the vaccine in that short amount of time,” Smith said according to KFMB-TV.

The lab is collaborating with Philadelphia’s Wistar Institute and others to test the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The newspaper noted that testing is expected to take months.

Last month, Inovio Pharmaceuticals announced the company was working with Beijing Advaccine Biotechnology Co. in order to run human trials of the vaccine concurrently in China and the U.S.

More than 45,000 people have been diagnosed with coronavirus worldwide, mostly in China. The virus has killed over 1,100 people since it was first discovered late last year in Wuhan, China.

In the U.S., health officials said 13 people had been diagnosed with the virus in California, Washington, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Arizona and Illinois.

50th coronavirus case reported in Hong Kong
Update 6 a.m. EST Feb. 12: A 50th confirmed coronavirus case has been reported in Hong Kong, authorities announced Wednesday.

According to CNN, the latest patient is a 51-year-old man who worked with the city’s 37th patient.

3 coronavirus patients discharged in South Korea
Update 2 a.m. EST Feb. 12: Three people in South Korea who were confirmed to have coronavirus have been discharged from the hospital, health officials said Wednesday.

The South Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said all three recovered from the illness, according to CNN.

The news comes days after officials discharged another patient in South Korea last week, the news outlet reported.

Two dozen coronavirus patients remain hospitalized in South Korea, authorities said.

China’s new virus cases fall again
Update 10 p.m. EST Feb. 11: China reported another drop in the number of new cases of a viral infection and 97 more deaths, pushing the total dead past 1,100 even as the country remains largely closed down to prevent the spread of the disease.

The National Health Commission said that 2,015 new cases had been reported over the last 24 hours, declining for a second day. The total number of cases in mainland China is 44,653, although many experts say a large number of others infected have gone uncounted.

The 97 additional deaths from the virus raised the mainland toll to 1,113.

Japan’s health ministry: 39 new cases confirmed on cruise ship
Update 9 p.m. EST Feb. 11: Japan’s health ministry said that 39 new cases of a virus have been confirmed on a cruise ship quarantined at a Japanese port.

The update brings the total found on the Diamond Princess to 174 cases.

The ministry also said the virus was confirmed in a official who participated in the initial quarantine checks the night the ship returned to Yokohama Port near Tokyo on Feb. 3. The quarantine official is being treated in the hospital.

The U.S.-operated Diamond Princess had completed a 14-day tour during which it stopped at Hong Kong and several other Asian ports before returning to Japan.

WHO: More evidence shows link between COVID-19, bats
Update 3:50 p.m. EST Feb. 11: Officials with the World Health Organization said Tuesday in a situation report that mounting evidence is showing a link between the 2019 novel coronavirus and bats.

Officials said the virus appeared to be linked to bats of the Rhinolophus sub-species, which are abundant in southern China and across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe, officials said.

However, it remained unclear Monday how the virus passed from bats to humans.

As of Tuesday, more than 43,000 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed worldwide, with a vast majority reported in China. Officials with WHO said the virus has claimed 1,017 lives in the country so far. One person has also died of coronavirus in the Philippines.

Germany confirms two more cases of coronavirus
Update 2:45 p.m. EST Feb. 11: Two new cases of the coronavirus, COVID-19, have been confirmed by authorities in Germany, The Washington Post reported.

The illnesses, which were connected to automotive supplier Webasto, bring the total number of coronavirus cases in Germany to 16, according to the Post.

Officials with Webasto said last month that a 33-year-old Chinese employee from Shanghai tested positive for coronavirus after visiting China and returning to Germany, according to Reuters and the Post.

The company temporarily closed its headquarters after learning of the employee’s diagnoses. Officials told Reuters they planned to reopen the building near Munich on Wednesday.

American Airlines extends suspension of flights to and from China, Hong Kong
Update 2:15 p.m. EST Feb. 11: American Airlines officials announced the company is extending its suspension of flights to and from mainland China and Hong Kong due to reduced demand amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

Airline officials said flights bound to mainland China from the company’s Dallas-Fort Worth and Los Angeles hubs would be suspended until April 24. Flights from Los Angeles to Hong Kong were expected to resume the same day. Flights between Dallas and Hong Kong were expected to resume April 23.

WHO: Vaccine for coronavirus could be ready in 18 months
Update 12:05 p.m. EST Feb. 11: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said Tuesday that a vaccine targeting the coronavirus could be ready in 18 months, according to Reuters.

“So, we have to do everything today using available weapons,” he said.

Tedros on Tuesday asked that countries be “as aggressive as possible” in the fight against COVID-19.

“If the world doesn’t want to wake up and consider the virus as public enemy number one, I don’t think we will learn from our lessons,” he said, according to The Guardian. “We are still in containment strategy and should not allow the virus to have a space to have local transmission.”

Death toll rises to 1,018

Update 10:45 a.m. EST Feb. 11: The World Health Organization said just over 42,700 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in China as of 6 a.m. Geneva time Tuesday.

Nearly 400 cases have been confirmed in two dozen other countries.

Coronavirus has killed more than 1,017 people in China and one person in the Philippines, according to health officials.

WHO names new coronavirus outbreak
Update 10:40 a.m. EST Feb. 11: The World Health Organization on Tuesday announced the name for the deadly new coronavirus: COVID-19.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO, said the new name was aimed at preventing “the use of other names that can be inaccurate or stigmatizing.”

Singapore confirms 2 more coronavirus cases
Update 9:40 a.m. EST Feb. 11: Officials with Singapore’s Ministry of Health said Tuesday that two new cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in the country, bringing the total number of cases there to 47.

Health officials said the new cases involved a 35-year-old Singapore permanent resident and a 39-year-old Bangladesh national, neither of whom had recently traveled to China. Both new patients were being treated in isolation.

Coronavirus a ‘very grave threat’ for world, WHO director-general says
Update 8:45 a.m. EST Feb. 11: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, called the 2019 novel coronavirus “a very grave threat" Tuesday.

His comments came at the start of the global research and innovation forum aimed at addressing the coronavirus.

Last week, Tedros told a WHO executive committee that “panic and fear” was the biggest threat posed by the coronavirus, according to The Washington Post. At the time, only 146 cases of coronavirus had been reported outside China.

As of Monday, WHO officials said 319 people in 24 countries had been diagnosed with the coronavirus.

First case of coronavirus reported in San Diego
Update 8:52 p.m. EST Feb. 10: Officials in San Diego have confirmed its first case of coronavirus in the Southern California city, KGTV reported.

A Centers for Disease Control spokesman confirmed Monday evening that an individual taken to the University of California at San Diego Health hospital was infected with the virus, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.K

KGTV, citing an anonymous source, said the patient was aboard the first flight from Wuhan, China, to Miramar. It was unclear whether the adult patient was a man or woman, the television station reported.

China reports 1,011 deaths, including 103 Monday
Update 7:07 p.m. EST Feb. 10: Officials with China’s Hubei health authority now report 1,011 dead, including 103 on Monday, The Washington Post reported. There have been about 42,000 cases of coronavirus, with more than 6,000 patients in critical condition, authorities told the newspaper.

British businessman may have spread coronavirus to people in 3 countries
Update 3:10 p.m. EST Feb. 10: Authorities are investigating reports that a British businessman might have spread coronavirus to several Britons in three countries, according to multiple reports.

The man, who was not identified, is believed to have been exposed to coronavirus during a sales conference last month in Singapore, The Guardian reported. Following the conference, the man traveled to France and then back to the U.K., according to the newspaper.

The man is suspected of being what scientists call a “super spreader,” a person who spreads a disease at a faster rate than the average.

Trump: People think coronavirus threat will end in April
Update 12:25 p.m. EST Feb. 10: President Donald Trump claimed without evidence that people believe the deadly 2019 novel coronavirus “will go away in April.”

“A lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat,” Trump said Monday during an address of governors held at the White House. “Typically, that will go away in April. We’re in great shape though.”

Previously, Trump said on Twitter that Chinese President Xi Jinping was hopeful that he would successfully counterattack the coronavirus, “especially as the weather starts to warm & the virus hopefully becomes weaker, and then gone.”

Since the coronavirus was first detected late last year in Wuhan, China, more than 40,500 cases of the virus have been confirmed globally. An overwhelming number of the cases were reported in China, where 909 people have died of the disease as of Monday morning, according to the World Health Organization. One person has died of coronavirus in the Philippines, health officials said.

In the U.S., a dozen people have been confirmed as having been infected with coronavirus: six in California, two in Illinois, one in Massachusetts, one in Arizona, one in Washington and one in Wisconsin.

WHO: 910 killed, 40,500 sickened by coronavirus
Update 10:30 a.m. EST Feb. 10: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said Monday that health officials are continuing to see a rise in confirmed coronavirus cases with 99% of illnesses being reported in China.

About 2% of the cases have proved deadly, he said.

According to WHO, more than 40,500 cases so coronavirus have been confirmed globally as of 6 a.m. local time (12 a.m. EST). A majority of those -- 40,235 -- were reported in China, where 909 people have died of the virus. Officials said 319 cases were confirmed in 24 other countries, including the Philippines, where one person died last week.

Death toll hits 908

The death toll in mainland China has risen to 908 with more than 40,000 cases diagnosed, NBC News reported. Chinese officials said of the 40,000 diagnosed with the coronavirus, 27 of them are foreigners and two have died. There are another 23,589 possible cases of the illness, NBC News reported.

On Sunday, 97 people died in China from the virus, the biggest daily death toll, The New York Times reported.

The number of those killed by the virus has passed the number of people killed in the 2002-2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak. At that time, 774 people died from SARS,
The Associated Press reported.

Despite the number of people who died, officials are hopeful, since, for more than 10 days, the number of people recovering is higher than those who have died, the Times reported.

Return to work

As the numbers continue to climb, workers return to their jobs after the extended Lunar New Year holiday that kept many people home. Shoppers are also heading back to markets and stores despite the threat, the AP reported.

They are taking precautions of wearing face masks as they go about their day.

“We just need to have a little more sense of self-protection,” Iris Ke told the AP. “Life goes on anyway. How come we stop going outside or stop working simply because of fear of disease?
We can’t do that.”

But business is still slow, with some shop owners saying it’s about half as busy as normal.
China’s leader Xi Jinping made an appearance at a hospital and government offices in Beijing, about five miles north of his residence in the Forbidden City, The New York Times reported. He made no public statement during the appearance.

He also had a video conference with workers at a hospital in Wuhan, the town that is ground zero for the illness, the Times reported.

There are rules that have been established to help stop the spread. In some areas, business owners must know if their employees have traveled to areas where there are large outbreak numbers. They’re also being told by the government to check the workers’ temperatures and have hand-washing protocols, the Times reported.

And despite the return to normalcy, some business continues to be on hold. Airbnb has suspended all bookings in Beijing amid the outbreak, CNN reported.
Illness continues to spread outside China.

A cruise ship is quarantined in Yokohama, Japan. There were 70 cases of coronavirus on the Diamond Princess at the time of the quarantine, but that number has increased, with another 66 people testing positive, the AP reported. That brings the number up to 136 confirmed cases, the Times reported.

Japanese government officials may test all 3,711 passengers and crew on board. They’re also trying to get medicine to more than 600 passengers who have requested it, the AP reported.

There are 11 Americans among those who have tested positive on the Diamond Princess, The Washington Post reported.

Four more patients in England have tested positive, bringing the total there to eight, officials in the UK said. The newest diagnosis was from people who had contact with others who were diagnosed with the virus. The country’s department of health said that people diagnosed with coronavirus could be forcibly quarantined. Two hospitals have been set up as isolation facilities, the AP reported.

In the United States, there are 12 confirmed cases, CNN reported. And flights from China are going to only 11 airports in the U.S., the AP reported.
So far, there are six confirmed cases in California, two in Illinois and one each in Massachusetts, Washington, Wisconsin, and Arizona, CNN reported.

For one family at center of coronavirus crisis, a death, stress and fight for a hospital bed [The Washington Post, 16 Feb 2020]

By Anna Fifield and Lyric Li

BEIJING — Twenty-first-century life pulls China’s only-child sandwich generation in two directions at the best of times. But these are not the best of times.

Take the case of Zhu Wei, a 38-year-old marketing manager for a real estate company in Wuhan, the city at the center of the coronavirus outbreak that has radiated out across China and spilled into other countries around the world.

Coronavirus: 70 more cases on Japan cruise ship as China infections pass 68,000 [The Guardian, 16 Feb 2020]

by Rebecca Ratcliffe

US, Canada and Hong Kong offer citizens on Diamond Princess flights home as death toll inside China reaches 1,665

A further 70 people on the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined in Japan have tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total to 355, as three countries say they will fly their citizens on the ship home. It comes as China’s National Health Commission announced the death toll inside the country had risen to 1,665, with 68,500 infections.

The US embassy in Japan announced on Saturday that more than 400 US nationals would be flown home from the quarantined Diamond Princess, currently docked in the port of Yokohama, south of Tokyo.

The US embassy said in a letter to passengers that, based on the high number of confirmed coronavirus cases, passengers and crew members were considered to be “at high risk of exposure”. US charter flights are expected to arrive on Sunday.

Hong Kong, which has 330 citizens on board, said it will offer nationals an evacuation flight.
The Canadian government also confirmed late on Saturday that it had chartered a plane to bring it citizens who are passengers on the ship home.

Love in the time of coronavirus: Valentine’s Day on quarantined ship

Canadian passengers who exhibit symptoms of the coronavirus infection will not be permitted to board the flight and will instead be transferred to the Japanese health care system to receive appropriate care, the government said.

After arriving in Canada, the passengers will undergo a 14-day period of quarantine, the statement added.

The Diamond Princess has been stuck in Japan after a passenger who had disembarked in Hong Kong tested positive for the virus.

The Australian embassy in Tokyo emailed citizens aboard the cruise ship to say the federal government was also examining options to assist Australians.

The embassy told citizens it understood it was a “very stressful” situation for them and that Australian medical officers were working closely with Japanese authorities to support them.

The British government has faced mounting pressure to evacuate its citizens, with one passenger, David Abel, who had been livestreaming from the ship, saying on Saturday that he had “given up on anybody in the UK”.

Seventy new cases were confirmed on the cruise liner on Sunday according to Japan’s minister of health, labor and welfare, Katsunobu Katoconfirmed, taking the number of cases on the ship over 350.

“So far, we have conducted tests for 1,219 individuals. Of those, 355 people tested positive. Of those, 73 individuals are not showing symptoms,” Kato said.

Passengers have been mostly confined to their cabins since 3 February, after measures were introduced to try to stop the spread of the disease onboard. The quarantine is due to end on Wednesday, though it is not clear if the emergence of new cases will prompt such restrictions to be extended.

There is also growing concern over possible infections among people who disembarked from the MS Westerdam in Cambodia on Friday, after it was confirmed that one passenger, who later flew to Malaysia, tested positive for the virus.

The 83-year-old woman flew from Cambodia to Malaysia with 144 others from the ship on Friday. The woman’s husband tested negative for the disease, Malaysia’s health ministry said.

The ship’s owner, Holland America, said: “While the first results have been reported, they are preliminary at this point and we are awaiting secondary testing for confirmation.”

Coronavirus: the huge unknowns

Cambodian authorities called on Malaysia to review its test results.

The ship had been turned away by five countries, despite having no reported sickness on board at the time.

Around 68,500 people in mainland China are now confirmed to have been infected with the coronavirus, and 1,665 people have died from Covid-19, China’s National Health Commission said on Sunday. The figures included a further 142, in the 24-hours to midnight on Saturday, and a further 2,000 new confirmed cases.

The daily total of new cases represented a drop for the third day in a row, but researchers have advised caution. The dip in reported numbers follows a spike last week when Hubei province changed the way it was counting cases of the virus.

Facing criticism over Beijing’s handling of the outbreak, president Xi Jinping said in a speech reported by state media on Saturday evening that he had given instructions on fighting the disease as early as 7 January. The admission has fuelled questions over why the potential dangers of the virus were not conveyed fully to the public at an earlier date.

Most reports of the disease remain concentrated in Hubei, where the outbreak began, but cases have been confirmed across Asia, Australia, the US, Europe and, mostly recently, Africa.
Four deaths have occurred outside mainland China – in Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines and France.

France’s health minister, Anges Buzyn, said: “We have to get our health system ready to face a possible pandemic propagation of the virus, and therefore the spreading of the virus across France.” Her comments followed the death of a 80-year-old Chinese man at a Paris hospital.
Robin Thompson, an expert in mathematical epidemiology at Britain’s University of Oxford, said that with nearly 50 cases in Europe, a death was not surprising.

“The most important thing to point out, however, is that there still hasn’t been sustained person-to-person transmission in Europe,” he said.

Coronavirus Live Updates: American From Ill-Fated Cruise Is Said to Test Positive [The New York Times, 16 Feb 2020]

Cambodia let the ship dock, and welcomed its passengers ashore, after five other nations turned it away. Now, Malaysia says an 83-year-old passenger has tested positive twice for the coronavirus.

RIGHT NOW
Officials said that more than 140 other passengers from the ship traveled through a Malaysian airport.

Here’s what you need to know:
•After hundreds disembarked from a cruise ship, an American tested positive for coronavirus.
•The rate of new cases appears to slow, even as the death toll continues to rise.
•More cases are reported on the cruise ship docked in Japan, as Americans’ departure nears.
•Xi began fighting the virus earlier than previously known, a newly published speech indicates.

After hundreds disembarked from a cruise ship, an American tested positive for coronavirus.

An American woman who disembarked from a cruise ship in Cambodia last week has tested positive twice for the coronavirus since flying on to Malaysia, officials in that country said on Sunday.

Officials also said that more than 140 other passengers from the ship, the Westerdam — which Cambodia allowed to dock after five other countries turned it away over concerns about the coronavirus — had flown from Cambodia to the airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, and that all but eight had been allowed to continue to their destinations, including airports in the United States, the Netherlands and Australia.

Six of the passengers were in Malaysia under surveillance awaiting results of coronavirus tests, officials said.

Eyal Leshem, the director of the Center for Travel Medicine and Tropical Diseases at the Sheba Medical Center in Israel, called the disclosures “extremely concerning” and said the flights taken by the passengers from Kuala Lumpur. substantially increased the risk of a global pandemic. “We may end up with three or four countries with sustained transmission of the virus,” he said.

“It may be more and more difficult to make sure this outbreak is contained only within China,” Dr. Leshem said.

The Westerdam, carrying 2,257 passengers and crew, departed from Hong Kong on Feb. 1 and was at sea for nearly 14 days, the time frame that is believed to be the maximum incubation period for the highly transmissible virus.

The rate of new cases appears to slow, even as the death toll continues to rise.

China reported 2,009 new cases of coronavirus and 142 associated deaths in the previous 24 hours on Sunday, days after the government changed the criteria for how it tracks cases.

In all, more than 68,500 people have been infected and at least 1,669 have died worldwide, officials have said. The vast majority of cases, and all but a few of the deaths, have been in mainland China, with the heaviest concentration in Hubei Province, the center of the outbreak.

Even as the death toll mounted, the fatality rate remained stable, and the rate of new cases has slowed in the past three days. That decline in new cases follows a spike of more than 15,000 on Thursday, when the government began counting cases diagnosed in clinical settings, including with the use of CT scans, and not just those confirmed with specialized testing kits.

Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Spread of the Outbreak

The virus has infected more than 69,200 people in China and 25 other countries.

More cases are reported on the cruise ship docked in Japan, as Americans’ departure nears.

The United States will evacuate its citizens on Sunday from a cruise ship quarantined in the Japanese port city Yokohama, on which hundreds of people have been infected with the coronavirus.

Japanese health officials said on Sunday that the number of confirmed cases found on the ship had grown by 70, to 355.

When the ship was put into quarantine almost two weeks ago, there were more than 3,700 passengers and crew members aboard, including about 400 Americans. Those diagnosed with the virus, and some particularly vulnerable passengers, have already been taken off the ship.

The United States Embassy in Japan had previously recommended that American citizens stay aboard the ship during a 14-day quarantine period. But it changed course on Saturday, citing

“a rapidly evolving situation” as conditions appeared to worsen.

The State Department chartered flights for the Americans for Sunday, the embassy said in a statement. Those with coronavirus infections or symptoms will not be allowed to board. Once in the United States, the evacuees will be required to undergo a two-week quarantine at Travis

Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif., or Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio.

Those who do not take a charter flight will not be allowed to travel to the United States until March 4.

Canada and Hong Kong also said they would charter flights for passengers on the ship, though it was not immediately clear when those flights would leave. Officials in the Philippines also said Sunday that the country was working to bring home more than 500 crew members.

Xi began fighting the virus earlier than previously known, a newly published speech indicates.

Under fire for its initial response to the coronavirus epidemic, China’s authoritarian government appears to be pushing a new account of events that presents President Xi Jinping as taking early action to fight the outbreak that has convulsed the country.

But in doing so, the authorities have acknowledged for the first time that Mr. Xi was aware of the epidemic nearly two weeks before he first spoke publicly about it — and while officials at its epicenter, in the city of Wuhan, were still playing down its dangers.

That new account risks drawing the president, China’s most powerful leader in decades, directly into questions about whether top officials did too little, too late.

In the newly released internal speech that Mr. Xi delivered on Feb. 3, when the epidemic had already spiraled into a national crisis, the Chinese president said he had “issued demands about the efforts to prevent and control” the coronavirus on Jan. 7, during a meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee, the highest council of the Communist Party, whose sessions are typically very secretive.

In the speech, he also said he had authorized the unprecedented lockdown of Wuhan and other cities beginning on Jan. 23.

“I have at every moment monitored the spread of the epidemic and progress in efforts to curtail it, constantly issuing oral orders and also instructions,” Mr. Xi said of his more recent involvement.

Mr. Xi’s advisers may have hoped that publishing the speech would dispel speculation about his recent retreat from public view and reassure his people that he can be trusted to lead them out of the epidemic.

But the speech could expose Mr. Xi to criticism that he didn’t treat the initial threat urgently enough, and make it difficult for him to shift blame onto local officials.

In early January, leaders in Wuhan, the city at the epicenter of the outbreak, were giving open assurances that there was no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.

Research and reporting was contributed by Richard C. Paddock, Sun Narin, Sui-Lee Wee, Russell Goldman, Amy Qin, Austin Ramzy, Motoko Rich and Eimi Yamamitsu.

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Whether you believe in God or not, this is a "must-read" message!

All throughout time, we can see how we have been strategically conditioned coming to this point where we are on the verge of a cashless society. Did you know that Jesus foretold of this event almost 2,000 years ago?

In the book of Revelation 13:16-18, we will read,

"He (the false prophet who deceives many by his miracles--Revelation 19:20) causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666."

Referring to the last generation, this could only be speaking of a cashless society. Why's that? Revelation 13:17 tells us that we cannot buy or sell unless we receive the mark of the beast. If physical money was still in use, we could buy or sell with one another without receiving the mark. This would contradict scripture that states we need the mark to buy or sell!

These verses could not be referring to something purely spiritual as scripture references two physical locations (our right hand or forehead) stating the mark will be on one "OR" the other. If this mark was purely spiritual, it would indicate both places, or one--not one OR the other!

This is where it comes together. It is incredible how accurate the Bible is concerning the implantable RFID microchip. Here are notes from a man named Carl Sanders who worked with a team of engineers to help develop this RFID chip:

"Carl Sanders sat in seventeen New World Order meetings with heads-of-state officials such as Henry Kissinger and Bob Gates of the C.I.A. to discuss plans on how to bring about this one-world system. The government commissioned Carl Sanders to design a microchip for identifying and controlling the peoples of the world—a microchip that could be inserted under the skin with a hypodermic needle (a quick, convenient method that would be gradually accepted by society).

Carl Sanders, with a team of engineers behind him, with U.S. grant monies supplied by tax dollars, took on this project and designed a microchip that is powered by a lithium battery, rechargeable through the temperature changes in our skin. Without the knowledge of the Bible (Brother Sanders was not a Christian at the time), these engineers spent one-and-a-half-million dollars doing research on the best and most convenient place to have the microchip inserted.

Guess what? These researchers found that the forehead and the back of the hand (the two places the Bible says the mark will go) are not just the most convenient places, but are also the only viable places for rapid, consistent temperature changes in the skin to recharge the lithium battery. The microchip is approximately seven millimeters in length, .75 millimeters in diameter, about the size of a grain of rice. It is capable of storing pages upon pages of information about you. All your general history, work history, criminal record, health history, and financial data can be stored on this chip.

Brother Sanders believes that this microchip, which he regretfully helped design, is the “mark” spoken about in Revelation 13:16–18. The original Greek word for “mark” is “charagma,” which means a “scratch or etching.” It is also interesting to note that the number 666 is actually a word in the original Greek. The word is “chi xi stigma,” with the last part, “stigma,” also meaning “to stick or prick.” Carl believes this is referring to a hypodermic needle when they poke into the skin to inject the microchip."

Mr. Sanders asked a doctor what would happen if the lithium contained within the RFID microchip leaked into the body. The doctor replied by saying a terrible sore would appear in that location. This is what the book of Revelation says:

"And the first (angel) went, and poured out his vial on the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore on the men which had the mark of the beast, and on them which worshipped his image" (Revelation 16:2).

You can read more about it here--and to also understand the mystery behind the number 666: <a href=https://2ruth.org>HTTPS://2RUTH.ORG</a>

The third angel's warning in Revelation 14:9-11 states,

"Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, 'If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.'"

Great hope is in our midst, and is coming in a mighty way--the greatest revival for Jesus in the history of the world where we will see the most souls come to Him of all tribes, tongues, nations, and peoples (Rev. 7:9-10); for we have this promise in God's Word in the midst of these dark times:

"Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years (not literal--rather a spiritual label for time spent in eternity); and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while (when the Antichrist and false prophet will rise up and God will test the world)." (Revelation 20:1-3)

"The coming of the lawless one (the Antichrist) is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)"

Who is Barack Obama, and why is he still around?

So what about his name? The meaning of someone's name can say a lot about a person. God throughout history has given names to people that have a specific meaning tied to their lives. How about the name Barack Obama? Let us take a look at what may be hiding beneath the surface.

Jesus states in Luke 10:18, "...I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

The Hebrew Strongs word (H1299) for "lightning": "bârâq" (baw-rawk)

In Isaiah chapter 14, verse 14, we read about Lucifer (Satan) saying in his heart:

"I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High."

In the verses in Isaiah that refer directly to Lucifer, several times it mentions him falling from the heights or the heavens. The Hebrew word for the heights or heavens used here is Hebrew Strongs 1116: "bamah"--Pronounced (bam-maw')

In Hebrew, the letter "Waw" or "Vav" is often transliterated as a "U" or "O," and it is primarily used as a conjunction to join concepts together. So to join in Hebrew poetry the concept of lightning (Baraq) and a high place like heaven or the heights of heaven (Bam-Maw), the letter "U" or "O" would be used. So, Baraq "O" Bam-Maw or Baraq "U" Bam-Maw in Hebrew poetry similar to the style written in Isaiah, would translate literally to "Lightning from the heights." The word "Satan" in Hebrew is a direct translation, therefore "Satan."

When Jesus told His disciples in Luke 10:18 that He saw Satan fall as lightning from heaven, if this were to be declared by a Jewish Rabbi today influenced by the poetry in the book of Isaiah, he would say these words in Hebrew--the words of Jesus in Luke 10:18 as, and I saw Satan as Baraq O Bam-Maw.

The names of both of Obama's daughters are Malia and Natasha. If we were to write those names backward (the devil does things backwards) it would be "ailam ahsatan". Now if we remove the letters that spell "Alah" (Allah being the false god of Islam), we would get "I am Satan". Chance? I do not believe so!

Obama's campaign logo when he ran in the year 2008 was a sun over the horizon in the west, with the landscape as the flag of the United States. In the Isalmic religion, they have their own messiah that they are waiting for called the 12th Imam, or the Mahdi (the Antichrist of the Bible), and one prophecy concerning this man's appearance is the sun rising in the west.

"Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people— saying with a loud voice, 'Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.'" (Revelation 14:6-7)

Why have the words of Jesus in His Gospel accounts regarding His death, burial, and resurrection, been translated into over 3,000 languages, and nothing comes close (the Quran about 110 languages)? Because the same Spirit of God (YHVH) who created all people likewise transcends all people; therefore the power of His Word is not limited by people; while all other religions are man-made, therefore they tend to primarily stay within their own culture. The same God who speaks to all people through His creation of the heavens and earth that draws all people around the world likewise has sent His Word to the ends of the earth so that we may come to personally know Him to be saved in spirit and in truth through His Son Jesus Christ.

Jesus stands alone among the other religions that say to rightly weigh the scales of good and evil and to make sure you have done more good than bad in this life. Is this how we conduct ourselves justly in a court of law? Bearing the image of God, is this how we project this image into reality?

Our good works cannot save us. If we step before a judge, being guilty of a crime, the judge will not judge us by the good we have done, but rather by the crimes we have committed. If we as fallen humanity, created in God's image, pose this type of justice, how much more a perfect, righteous, and Holy God?

God has brought down His moral laws through the 10 commandments given to Moses at Mt. Siani. These laws were not given so we may be justified, but rather that we may see the need for a savior. They are the mirror of God's character of what He has written in our hearts, with our conscious bearing witness that we know that it is wrong to steal, lie, dishonor our parents, murder, and so forth.

We can try and follow the moral laws of the 10 commandments, but we will never catch up to them to be justified before a Holy God. That same word of the law given to Moses became flesh about 2,000 years ago in the body of Jesus Christ. He came to be our justification by fulfilling the law, living a sinless perfect life that only God could fulfill.

The gap between us and the law can never be reconciled by our own merit, but the arm of Jesus is stretched out by the grace and mercy of God. And if we are to grab on, through faith in Him, He will pull us up being the one to justify us. As in the court of law, if someone steps in and pays our fine, even though we are guilty, the judge can do what is legal and just and let us go free. That is what Jesus did almost 2,000 years ago on the cross. It was a legal transaction being fulfilled in the spiritual realm by the shedding of His blood with His last word's on the cross crying out, "It is finished!" (John 19:30).

For God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23). This is why in Isaiah chapter 53, where it speaks of the coming Messiah and His soul being a sacrifice for our sins, why it says it pleased God to crush His only begotten Son.

This is because the wrath that we deserve was justified by being poured out upon His Son. If that wrath was poured out on us, we would all perish to hell forever. God created a way of escape by pouring it out on His Son whose soul could not be left in Hades but was raised and seated at the right hand of God in power.

So now when we put on the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 13:14), where God no longer sees the person who deserves His wrath, but rather the glorious image of His perfect Son dwelling in us, justifying us as if we received the wrath we deserve, making a way of escape from the curse of death; now being conformed into the image of the heavenly man walking in a new nature, and no longer in the image of the fallen man Adam.

Now what we must do is repent and put our trust and faith in the savior, confessing and forsaking our sins, and to receive His Holy Spirit that we may be born again (for Jesus says we must be born again to see and enter the Kingdom of God in John chapter 3). This is not just head knowledge of believing in Jesus, but rather receiving His words, taking them to heart, so that we may truly be transformed into the image of God. Where we no longer live to practice sin, but rather turn from our sins and practice righteousness through faith in Him in obedience to His Word by reading the Bible.

Our works cannot save us, but they can condemn us; it is not that we earn our way into everlasting life, but that we obey our Lord Jesus Christ:

Jesus says,

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ (Matthew 7:21-23)

"And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him." (Hebrews 5:9)

"Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.'

Then He who sat on the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.' And He said to me, 'Write, for these words are true and faithful.'

And He said to me, 'It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.'" (Revelation 21:1-8)
by Sarahmug (2023-04-07 17:54)