New Coronavirus News from 1 Apr 2020a


 Dr. Anthony Fauci Says Coronavirus Cure Claims By Netflix’s ‘Pandemic’ Doctor Is “Old Concept” [Deadline, 1 Apr 2020]

By Dominic Patten

The man who has become the voice of reason and science from the daily White House coronavirus briefings was positively circumspect today about a declaration from one of the physicians featured in Netflix’s Pandemic about a possible COVID-19 vaccine.

“I don’t know this specific individual, what they’re doing, but I can tell you there’s a lot of activity that is centered around a passive transfer of antibodies in the form of convalescent plasma,” Dr. Anthony Fauci replied to the front-row question this afternoon from Fox News’ John Roberts about the widely covered claims by Dr. Jacob Glanville, who seen in the first season of the recently released series.

“This is an old concept,” the long-serving director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases added of the Distributed Bio CEO’s efforts to mutate a series of antibodies that were successful in combating the SARS outbreak nearly 20 years ago.

“In fact, immunology was born decades and decades ago with the concept of giving passive transfer of serum to an individual to protect them from infection,” the media-savvy Fauci noted as President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence stood behind him in the Executive Mansion. “So I wouldn’t be surprised if he and a number of other people are pursing this. It’s the right thing to do.”

One America News Network Removed From Donald Trump Briefings Over Violation Of Coronavirus Social Distancing Guidelines

Certainly it is a timely thing to do as confirmed cases of COVID-19 move closer to 1 million globally and caused more than 40,000 deaths, according to the WHO.

Featured in the six-episode documentary series Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak, which launched January 22, Golden State-based Glanville told a New Zealand radio show today that “we’ve evolved them in our laboratory, so now they very vigorously block and stop the SARS-CoV-2 [COVID-19] virus as well.”

Earlier, with the caveat that his fast-acting potential vaccine of sorts will only protect people for eight to 10 weeks, bioengineer and computational immunologist Glanville had tweeted out some of the science at play:

Dr. Jacob Glanville@CurlyJungleJake

Anti-#COVID19 #therapeutic update. After 9 weeks we have generated extremely potent picomolar antibodies that block known #neutralizing #ACE2 #epitopes, blocking the novel #coronavirus from infecting human cells. Read more at http://www.centivax.com .

Clearly no stranger to the glare of a media spotlight, Glanville also took to his curlyjunglejake Instagram account to note that Fauci had addressed him, though not by name:

curlyjunglejake

Dr. Fauci is asked about our work and supports the concept of monoclonal antibodies as very well established.

“The ultimate gamechanger in this will be a vaccine,” Fauci said with no small understatement earlier in today’s briefing by top brass. “The same way that a vaccine for other diseases that were scourges in the past, that now we don’t even worry about,” he pronounced as the 73-year-old POTUS nodded behind him

“The vaccine is on target, we are still in Phase 1,” Fauci told an America used to instant results.

“I think we are right on target for a year, a year and a half.”

As of Wednesday, more than 80% of the U.S. population is under a stay-at-home order.


 After The Pandemic [Forbes, 1 Apr 2020]

by Enrique Dans

It may seem difficult to imagine now, but the coronavirus lockdown will end. One day, when the numbers tell us it’s safe, we will leave our masks at home and return to the streets, revive the economy and re-establish our routines. All of them?

What will the world look like after the pandemic? For now, we know that the economic impact will not be the same for all countries, something I’ve already commented on: the enormous importance of testing: countries like South Korea or Singapore that tested as many citizens as possible found that it did not make sense to confine people who had recovered from the disease, regardless of their symptoms, so they have been largely able to keep their economies up and running. This is a virus whose genome varies very little, which suggests that in those who have already developed antibodies, reinfection is unlikely, and that the efficiency of a future vaccine, when it is developed, will probably be high.

Until such a vaccine is available, it will be essential to be able to identify those who can move freely and those who, like older people or those with underlying conditions, will need to maintain protective measures. Germany has announced it will issue certificates to people who have developed antibodies against the coronavirus and who will therefore be able to return immediately to work. Regardless of whether the acquisition of these antibodies has cost people virtually nothing because they have been asymptomatic, or because they have been through major illnesses, there is no doubt that, in the post-pandemic scenario, those who have antibodies will be able to enjoy certain advantages and freedom of movement that others will not.

The question, increasingly, is no longer whether we will return to normal after the pandemic, but whether we really want to return to normal. Do we want to return to gridlocked cities, high levels of pollution, inefficient health systems or to schools and colleges that could be improved? Shouldn’t the lessons learned during lockdown and the fight against COVID-19 encourage change?

• If many companies have been forced to try out teleworking, should they not, once the emergency is over, move on to offer their workers flexible systems that allow them to work from home, in a climate of trust that will enable them, for example, to avoid rush hour and be more productive in the process?
• If we have been able to cleanse the air in our cities to levels unseen in decades, would it not be an idea to think about how we can maintain those levels? Would it not be good to speed up the deadlines for withdrawing harmful technologies and rebuilding our economies on the basis of investment in clean technologies?
• We’ve seen that social protection schemes fail in the face of an intrinsically global phenomenon such as a pandemic, so why not take on the challenge of building a more resilient economic system, which protects the most disadvantaged, based on unconditional basic income?
• If schools and colleges have tested e-learning systems, should they not rethink the way they teach, so as to improve communication, assessment systems or allowing students with the flu to stay at home without infecting their classmates so they can attend classes remotely? In short, shouldn’t this crisis be an alarm signal about the many things we need to change in education?
• If we have a health system that is wasting resources on consultations that simply ask the patient to take a test, or to show the doctor the results of a test, should we not develop telemedicine to the fullest extent possible? Or should we start monitoring our health parameters and processing them algorithmically, allowing us to predict public health disruptions more easily, and knowing for sure that our information is not being exploited commercially or, even worse, politically?

Labor, the environment, the economy, education and healthcare are just five examples of things that should change after this pandemic, after this crisis. Let me put it like this: are we really sure that we want to go back to ‘normal’ after the pandemic? Did we like that “normality” so much? And since we have manage to make a clean break with it… why not take advantage and move on to something better?

The Coronavirus Patients Betrayed by Their Own Immune Systems [The New York Times, 1 Apr 2020]

By Apoorva Mandavilli

A “cytokine storm” becomes an all-too-frequent phenomenon, particularly among the young. But treatments are being tested.

The 42-year-old man arrived at a hospital in Paris on March 17 with a fever, cough and the “ground glass opacities” in both lungs that are a trademark of infection with the new coronavirus.

Two days later, his condition suddenly worsened and his oxygen levels dropped. His body, doctors suspected, was in the grip of a cytokine storm, a dangerous overreaction of the immune system. The phenomenon has become all too common in the coronavirus pandemic, but it is also pointing to potentially helpful drug treatments.

When the body first encounters a virus or a bacterium, the immune system ramps up and begins to fight the invader. The foot soldiers in this fight are molecules called cytokines that set off a cascade of signals to cells to marshal a response. Usually, the stronger this immune response, the stronger the chance of vanquishing the infection, which is partly why children and younger people are less vulnerable over all to coronavirus. And once the enemy is defeated, the immune system is hard-wired to shut itself off.

“For most people and most infections, that’s what happens,” said Dr. Randy Cron, an expert on cytokine storms at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

But in some cases — as much as 15 percent of people battling any serious infection, according to Dr. Cron’s team — the immune system keeps raging long after the virus is no longer a threat. It continues to release cytokines that keep the body on an exhausting full alert.
In their misguided bid to keep the body safe, these cytokines attack multiple organs including the lungs and liver, and may eventually lead to death.

In these people, it’s their body’s response, rather than the virus, that ultimately causes harm.

Cytokine storms can overtake people of any age, but some scientists believe that they may explain why healthy young people died during the 1918 pandemic and more recently during the SARS, MERS and H1N1 epidemics. They are also a complication of various autoimmune diseases like lupus and Still’s disease, a form of arthritis. And they may offer clues as to why otherwise healthy young people with coronavirus infection are succumbing to acute respiratory distress syndrome, a common consequence of a cytokine storm.

Reports from China and Italy have described young patients with clinical outcomes that seem consistent with this phenomenon. It’s very likely that some of these patients developed a cytokine storm, Dr. Cron said.

There are many variations on the phenomenon, and they go by many names: systemic inflammatory response syndrome, cytokine release syndrome, macrophage activation syndrome, hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis.

Broadly speaking, they are all marked by an unbridled surge in immune molecules, and may all result in the fatal shutdown of multiple organs.

But many doctors are unfamiliar with this niche concept or how to treat it, experts said.

“Everyone’s talking about cytokine storm as if it were a well-recognized phenomenon, but you could have asked medics two weeks ago and they wouldn’t have heard of it,” said Dr. Jessica Manson, an immunologist at University College London Hospital.

A patient battling a cytokine storm may have an abnormally fast heart rate, fever and a drop in blood pressure. Apart from a surge in interleukin-6, the body may also show high swirling levels of molecules called interleukin-1, interferon-gamma, C-reactive protein and tumor necrosis factor-alpha.

This storm, if it develops, becomes obvious a few days into the infection. But the sooner doctors catch on to it and treat it, the more likely the patient is to survive. Too late, and the storm may be beyond control, or may already have caused too much damage.

There is a relatively simple, rapid and easily available test that can detect whether a patient’s body has been taken over by a cytokine storm. It looks for high levels of a protein called ferritin.

But if the test does suggest a cytokine storm is underway, what then?

The seemingly obvious solution is to quell the storm, Dr. Cron said: “If it’s the body’s response to the infection that’s killing you, you need to treat that.”

The reality is trickier, especially given the lack of reliable data for Covid-19. But noting that drugs like tocilizumab are taken regularly by people with arthritis, Dr. Cron said the benefit would probably outweigh potential harm if someone is facing death.

“We need evidence-based data, but in a pandemic, where we’re flying by the seat of our pants, we always have to treat the patient in front of us,” he said.

Other drugs might also be useful against cytokine storms. For example, a drug called anakinra mutes interleukin-1, another of the wayward proteins. Clinical trials of anakinra for Covid-19 are also underway. A report published this week suggested that hydroxychloroquine, a much-spotlighted malaria drug that also calms an overactive immune response, might also be effective as a treatment for those who are mildly ill from coronavirus.

Doctors could also turn to corticosteroids, which broadly turn down the entire immune response. That poses its own danger, by exposing the patient to other opportunistic infections, especially in a hospital. “It’s about getting the balance right between suppression of the over-exuberant immune response and still allowing the immune response to fight the virus,” Dr. Manson said.

A group of experts convened two weeks ago to discuss the best ways to collect more data and to treat patients who appear to have cytokine storm. It’s already clear that the complexities of the immune system and the course of coronavirus mean there is no single best treatment.

At the Gustave Roussy Cancer Center, doctors treated another coronavirus patient with tocilizumab. That individual did not show any improvement with the drug.

“The response to the pathogen, the virus, is totally different in different individuals,” said Dr. Fabrice André, an oncologist at the center. “The trials will determine in which patients it works.”

New estimates show 25% to 50% of coronavirus carriers don't even feel sick and can infect others blindly [CNN, 1 Apr 2020]

By Holly Yan and Christina Maxouris

(CNN)The number of US coronavirus cases surged by more than 14,000 in just a few hours Wednesday as the death toll topped 4,400.

As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 203,000 people in the United States have been infected, and at least 4,473 have died.

Now, more data showing people without symptoms are fueling the spread has top officials rethinking whether the general public should be wearing masks.

New data from Iceland shows 50% of those who tested positive said they were asymptomatic.

In the US, an estimated 25% of coronavirus carriers have no symptoms, said the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Information that we have pretty much confirmed now is that a significant number of individuals that are infected actually remain asymptomatic. That may be as many as 25%," CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told NPR.

To prevent further spread, the top infectious disease expert in the US says health officials are reconsidering guidance on face masks.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said he would "lean towards" recommending that the general public wear face masks "if we do not have the problem of taking away masks from the health care workers who need them."

"We're not there yet, but I think we're close to coming to some determination," Fauci said.

What you need to know about coronavirus
• Symptoms: When to seek help
• Map: Covid-19's spread across the US
• Keeping clean: You can use these disinfectants
• Calculator: How much will I get from the stimulus bill?

If federal officials recommend widespread use of face masks, it would be a stark reversal from recommendations by the World Health Organization and the CDC, who have said face masks should only be worn by health care workers, those who are sick, and those who are taking care of someone sick.

"There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit," Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergencies program, said Monday.

"In fact, there's some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly."
3 tips for wearing a mask correctly

US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams had consistently recommended the public not wear masks, saying they can cause more harm than good.

But this week, new information about asymptomatic spread could change public guidelines, Adams said. He offered several tips on how wear masks correctly.

"If you're going to wear a face covering, please try not to touch your face. Please be very, very careful about making sure you don't touch your face," Adams told NBC's "Today" show Wednesday.

Adams has said people often touch their faces trying to adjust masks, thereby increasing the risk of infection.

"No. 2: If you're going to wear a face covering, please save the N95 masks for healthcare workers who need them," Adams said. N95 respirators must be properly fitted to ensure there's no open space, and people with no medical training might wear them incorrectly.

"No. 3: Wearing a face covering does not mean that you don't have to practice social distancing," he said.

"The most important thing you can do is stay at home right now. And we don't want people to feel like, 'OK I'm covering my face, so now it's OK for me to go out in public.'"

A major argument against the widespread use of masks is that health care workers don't have enough.

"We have a massive global shortage," Ryan said. "Right now, the people most at risk from this virus are front-line health workers who are exposed to the virus every second of every day.
The thought of them not having masks is horrific."

In many cities, doctors and nurses are falling sick with or dying from coronavirus. This is doubly tragic because fewer health care workers are able to take care of the public.

So some people are making their own masks. JOANN Fabrics and Craft Stores released a video tutorial on how to make face masks.

The height of the coronavirus pandemic is yet to come

White House officials predict more than 100,000 people could die from coronavirus -- and that's if the public practices social distancing guidelines perfectly.

By mid-April, when the virus is projected to hit the country the hardest, as many as 2,000 Americans could die each day, a model cited by the White House shows.

Health officials saying measures working to curb the spread of the virus are the only hope for keeping the death toll in the thousands and not millions.

If Americans don't follow social distancing guidelines, worst-case modeling projects up to 2.2 million people could die, said Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator.

More than two dozen states have issued stay-at-home orders, and the federal government extended social distancing guidelines to last through April 30.

Birx said there's no easy way to fix the coronavirus pandemic. It's up to the public to help stop the spread.

"There is no magic bullet," she said. "There is no magic vaccine or therapy. It's just behaviors.
Each of our behaviors translating into something that changes the course of this viral pandemic over the next 30 days."

Why worry about coronavirus when the flu has killed more people?

Evidence shows social distancing helps

About 80% of the US population now have stay-at-home orders, according to a CNN count based on various state, county and city orders.

Some say that's not enough and are calling for a national shelter-in-place order, especially because the deadly virus is twice as contagious as the flu.

But Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence said he doesn't think a national order is necessary.
"I've been very inspired by the way over the last 15 days, people in states that have very little outbreak of coronavirus are still putting into practice the guidelines for America," he said.

Health officials say social distancing efforts seem to be paying off, including in Washington state's King County -- the country's first coronavirus epicenter.

"We are looking at reductions in person-to-person contact that have progressively improved and have led us to a point where we are making a very positive impact," said Dr. Jeff Duchin, the public health officer for Seattle and King County.

In hard-hit New York, a CNN analysis shows the day-to-day average of case increases in the past week was 17% -- a major decrease from 58% for the previous seven-day period.

An a large-scale study found that early interventions, such as social distancing and severe restrictions on people's movement, have already saved tens of thousands of lives across Europe.

Scientists at imperial College London studied interventions in 11 European countries and concluded that they "have together had a substantial impact on transmission."

The researchers estimate as of March 31, "interventions across all 11 countries will have averted 59,000 deaths."

Coronavirus Live Updates: U.N. Chief Calls Pandemic World’s Biggest Test Since World War II [The New York Times, 1 Apr 2020]

As the U.S. death toll topped 3,900, top government scientists warned that the virus could kill up to 240,000 Americans. President Trump warned of “hard days that lie ahead.”

RIGHT NOW
India’s Supreme Court forces journalists to parrot the government’s message on the outbreak, a move seen as an assault on the free press.

U.N. chief calls for global response to ‘unprecedented test’ of pandemic.

The coronavirus pandemic is “an unprecedented test” unlike anything in the past 75 years, António Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, said on Wednesday.

“Covid-19 is the greatest test that we have faced together since the formation of the United Nations,” Mr. Guterres said as the agency released a new report on the social and economic impacts of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. The body was formed after the end of World War II in 1945.

The U.N. report calls for a coordinated, international response amounting to at least 10 percent of global G.D.P. to ramp up health care spending and cushion the blow to people around the world who have been hurt by the sharp economic downturn.

Mr. Guterres said he was particularly worried about how the pandemic would harm Africa.

“It is essential that developed countries immediately assist those less developed to bolster their health systems and their response capacity to stop transmission,” he said. “Otherwise we face the nightmare of the disease spreading like wildfire in the global South with millions of deaths and the prospect of the disease re-emerging where it was previously suppressed.”

Virus models in U.S. paint a grim picture.

The top government scientists battling the coronavirus estimated Tuesday that the deadly pathogen could kill between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans, in spite of the social distancing measures that have drastically limited citizens’ interactions and movements.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, and Dr. Deborah L. Birx, who is coordinating the coronavirus response, displayed the grim projection at a White House news conference and then joined President Trump in pledging to do everything possible to reduce the numbers even further.

President Trump officially called for another month of social distancing and warned that “this is going to be a very painful, very very painful two weeks” — even as he added that Americans would soon “start seeing some real light at the end of the tunnel.”

“I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead. We’re going through a very tough few weeks,” Mr. Trump said, later raising his two weeks to three.

The scientists’ conclusions generally match those from similar models by public health researchers around the globe.

Mr. Trump, who spent weeks playing down the threat of the virus, congratulated himself for the projections, which he said showed that strict public health measures may have already curtailed the death toll. He suggested that as many as 2.2 million people “would have died if we did nothing, if we just carried on with our life.” By comparison, Mr. Trump said, a potential death toll of 100,000 “is a very low number.”

But on a day when the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus surged above 3,900, surpassing China’s official count, the pandemic’s personal and financial toll continued to play out across the nation.

A chorus of governors from across the political spectrum publicly challenged the Trump administration’s assertion that the United States is well-stocked and well-prepared to test people for the coronavirus and care for the sickest patients. In many cases, the governors said, the country’s patchwork approach had left them bidding against one another for supplies.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York — whose younger brother, Chris Cuomo, a CNN anchor, has tested positive for the virus — likened the conflicts to “being on eBay with 50 other states, bidding on a ventilator.”

Indian court sides with the government and forces journalists to toe the prime minister’s line.

Putting even more pressure on a news media sector already under assault by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India’s Supreme Court released an order Tuesday night requiring news organizations to publish everything that the government says about the coronavirus.

The order read: “We do not intend to interfere with the free discussion about the pandemic but direct the media to refer to and publish the official version about the developments.’’
Anyone who creates a panic can be punished by up to a year in jail, the court said.

The Indian ruling echoes the actions of other governments, who have used the pandemic as a pretext to grab power or impose authoritarian restrictions.

Many lawyers and journalists in India denounced the order as an attack on India’s constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech, at a time when many problems have cropped up from the Indian government’s severe response to the coronavirus.

The government has imposed the world’s largest lockdown, putting 1.3 billion people essentially under house arrest, ordering them not to leave their homes unless vitally necessary. Hundreds of thousands of migrant laborers have fled cities, marching hundreds of miles to their villages in long lines.

Karuna Nundy, a lawyer at the Supreme Court, said that the government had asked for a “de facto gag” on the news media and that the Supreme Court’s order means every outlet must carry the government’s version of events, though journalists can still present independent reporting.

India has reported around 1,400 coronavirus cases, relatively low compared with other countries. But many Indians fear that their weak public health system will be overwhelmed if cases begin to multiply. Some public health professionals say there are likely many more cases that have not been detected because of limits on testing.

Global free-for-all to find masks creates a shadowy trade.

Global desperation to protect front-line medical workers battling the coronavirus epidemic has spurred a mad international scramble for masks and other protective gear. Governments, hospital chains, clinics and entrepreneurs are scouring the world for personal protection equipment they can buy or sell — and a new type of trader has sprung up to make that happen.

The market has become a series of hasty deals in bars, sudden calls to corporate jet pilots and fast-moving wire transfers among bank accounts in Hong Kong, the United States, Europe and the Caribbean.

The stakes are high, and so are the prices. Wholesale costs for N95 respirators, a crucial type of mask for protecting medical workers, have quintupled. Trans-Pacific airfreight charges have tripled.

“It’s a global free-for-all, trying to get capacity,” said Eric Jantzen, the vice president for North America at Vertis Aviation, an aircraft and air cargo brokerage based in Zurich. “And the prices reflect that.”

The hurdles keep rising. On Tuesday, after complaints from Europe about shoddy Chinese masks and ineffective test kits, China’s Ministry of Commerce ordered manufacturers to provide further assurances that their products met standards.

World leaders are moving to get supplies, but they are still grappling with the vast scope of the problem.

China vacuumed up a big share of global supplies after the outbreak emerged in January. It imported two billion masks in a five-week period starting then. Now, China has become a major part of the solution. Already a giant in mask manufacturing, it has ramped up production to nearly 12 times its earlier level of 10 million a day.

Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak

The virus has infected more than 874,300 people in at least 171 countries.

The safety net got a quick patch. What happens after the coronavirus?

The emergency legislation enacted by Congress with support from Republicans and President Trump has intensified a long-running debate about whether the United States does enough in ordinary times to protect the needy.

After Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans spent the last three years fighting to cut anti-poverty programs and expand work rules, their support for the emergency relief — especially in the form of directly sending people checks, usually a nonstarter in American politics — is a significant reversal of their effort to shrink the safety net.

Those who support more government help for low-income families say the crisis has revealed holes in the safety net that the needy have long understood. It is a patchwork system, largely built for good times, and offers little cash aid to people not working. It pushes the poor to find jobs, and supports many who do, but offers little protection for those without them.

Most rich countries have universal health insurance and provide a minimum cash income for families with children. The United States has neither as well as higher rates of child poverty.

And to a degree that casual observers may not understand, the Trump administration has tried both to shrink safety net programs and make eligibility for them dependent on having a job or joining a work program.

But while Republicans have agreed to emergency checks, many did so reluctantly, thinking the safety net is already too large. The $2 trillion rescue package ran into last-minute delays last week when four Senate Republicans said the temporary increase in unemployment benefits was too high and would dissuade people from working.

Conservatives say the limits on public aid are a strength of the American system, and they credit work requirements for cutting child poverty in recent years to record lows. If anything, most would go further in extending work requirements to programs where they have been limited or missing, like food stamps and Medicaid.

The economists Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach of Northwestern University and Hilary W. Hoynes of Berkeley found in 2018 that nearly all the growth in federal spending since 1990 has “gone to families with earnings, and to families with income above the poverty line.” They warned the imbalance “is likely to lead to worse outcomes” for the poorest children.

Covid-19 is changing how the world does science.

While political leaders have locked their borders, scientists have been shattering theirs, creating a global collaboration unlike any in history. Never before, researchers say, have so many experts in so many countries focused simultaneously on a single topic and with such urgency. Nearly all research, other than anything related to coronavirus, has ground to a halt.

Normal imperatives like academic credit have been set aside. Online repositories make studies available months ahead of journals. Researchers have identified and shared hundreds of viral genome sequences. More than 200 clinical trials have been started, bringing together hospitals and laboratories around the globe.

On a recent morning, for example, scientists at the University of Pittsburgh discovered that a ferret exposed to Covid-19 particles had developed a high fever — a potential advance toward animal vaccine testing. Under ordinary circumstances, they would have started work on an academic journal article.

“But you know what? There is going to be plenty of time to get papers published,” said Paul Duprex, a virologist leading the university’s vaccine research. Within two hours, he said, he had shared the findings with scientists around the world on a World Health Organization conference call. “It is pretty cool, right? You cut the crap, for lack of a better word, and you get to be part of a global enterprise.”

Dr. Duprex’s lab in Pittsburgh is collaborating with the Pasteur Institute in Paris and the Austrian drug company Themis Bioscience. The consortium has received funding from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, a Norway-based organization financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a group of governments, and is in talks with the Serum Institute of India, one of the largest vaccine manufacturers in the world.

Companies are racing to tap credit and raise cash.

The clamor for corporate funding is raising concerns about a financial reckoning reminiscent of 2008.

In a single week in March, as financial markets convulsed and major parts of the economy began shutting down, banks made over $240 billion in new loans to companies — twice as much in new lending as they would ordinarily extend in a full year.

American companies are reeling from the body blow dealt by the pandemic. As revenues dwindle, travel slows and production lines halt, companies have begun to furlough or lay off employees, slash investment in operations and buy less from their suppliers. With no way to tell when the economy will restart, they are racing to conserve money and tap as much credit as possible.

The new reality, say bankers and analysts, will be tough for companies that had grown accustomed to the easy money of the past decade. Enticed by ultralow interest rates, they borrowed trillions of dollars in new debt in the belief that banks would keep lending and the debt markets would always be open. Now many indebted companies, even those whose business has not taken a direct hit from the outbreak, are finding that they have to adapt to an era in which cash is suddenly much harder to raise.

Taiwan wants the world’s respect. It’s willing to give away masks to get it.

Taiwan announced on Wednesday that it would donate 10 million surgical masks to the United States and other countries, a gesture intended to highlight its success in combating the coronavirus and its exclusion from the world’s leading international health body.

Joanne Ou, the spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Taiwan would donate two million masks to American front-line medical workers, in addition to the 100,000 masks per week it had previously pledged.

“It is a small gesture by Taiwan as a responsible country,” Ms. Ou said in an interview. “It is the least we can do, especially during these challenging times.”

Taiwan, which has a population of 23 million, is now manufacturing 13 million masks per day.

The government is hoping that its gesture of good will at a time of international crisis will spotlight the country’s exclusion from the World Health Organization. China insists it controls the island, and refuses to allow any United Nations organizations, including the W.H.O., to recognize its autonomy.

As of Tuesday, Taiwan had only 322 reported coronavirus cases and five deaths. But China’s government insists Taiwan’s numbers should be included in its tally.

In addition to the United States-bound shipment, Taiwan will seven million masks to European countries and one million to the 15 remaining countries that officially recognize its government.

On Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed support for Taiwan’s observer status in the W.H.O.’s decision-making body, the World Health Assembly. That followed President Trump’s signing of the TAIPEI Act, which calls for the United States to support Taiwan’s push for inclusion in international organizations.

Coronavirus has ended the screen-time debate and the screens have won.

Nellie Bowles, who covers tech and internet culture from San Francisco for The New York Times, wrote about her losing battle with screens.

Before the coronavirus, there was something I used to worry about. It was called screen time. Perhaps you remember it.

I thought about it. I wrote about it. A lot. I would try different digital detoxes as if they were fad diets, each working for a week or two before I’d be back on that smooth glowing glass.

Now I have thrown off the shackles of screen-time guilt. My television is on. My computer is open. My phone is unlocked, glittering. I want to be covered in screens. If I had a virtual reality headset nearby, I would strap it on.

The screen is my only contact with my parents, whom I miss but can’t visit because I don’t want to accidentally kill them with the virus. It brings me into happy hours with my high school friends and gives me photos of people cooking on Facebook. Was there a time I thought Facebook was bad? An artery of dangerous propaganda flooding the country’s body politic?
Maybe. I can’t remember. That was a different time.

A lot of people are coming around.

Walt Mossberg, my former boss and a longtime influential tech product reviewer, deactivated his Facebook and Instagram accounts in 2018 to protest Facebook’s policies and negligence around fake news. Now, for the duration of the pandemic, he is back.

“I haven’t changed my mind about the company’s policies and actions,” Mr. Mossberg wrote on Twitter last week. “I just want to stay in touch with as many friends as possible.”

When basic errands feel fraught, we’re here to help.

Laundry, grocery shopping, even walking the dog is fraught with challenges these days. The key to accomplish any essential task is a little preparation, levelheaded thinking and a lot of hand washing before and after. (A few anti-bacterial wipes can’t hurt either.)

Reporting was contributed by Austin Ramzy, Keith Bradsher, Andrew Das, Michael D. Shear, Elian Peltier, David D. Kirkpatrick, Kate Kelly, Peter Eavis, Mujib Mashal,Matt Apuzzo and Chris Horton.

Coronavirus: the facts (4) [NHK WORLD, 1 Apr 2020]

This is part four of our coronavirus FAQ. Click the links below for part one, part two and part three.

Q: Will the coronavirus slow down as temperatures rise?

Seasonal influenza typically does not spread as widely during the summer or in regions with warm climates. However, Professor Kaku Mitsuo of Tohoku Medical and Pharmaceutical University says we cannot assume the new coronavirus will follow a similar pattern. He says additional research is needed to understand how climate affects the virus.

WHO Executive Director Michael Ryan told reporters on March 6 that it is still not known how the coronavirus behaves in different climatic conditions. He added that it is a "false hope" that COVID-19 will disappear in the summer.

The data presented here is accurate as of March 26.

Q: How long will the pandemic last?

Omi Shigeru is the vice chair of the government expert panel on the new coronavirus and the president of the Japan Community Health Care Organization. He was previously in charge of infectious disease measures at the WHO. Omi says the pandemic will be over only when the chain of infection is completely broken and there are no more new cases.

He says even if countries bring outbreaks under control by taking measures such as asking people to refrain from going outside, the virus can still flare up as long as it is active elsewhere in the world.

The WHO can declare an end to the epidemic if no new infections are declared over a certain period of time. For example, the body declared the 2003 SARS outbreak over eight months after the first patient was confirmed.

Omi also stresses that while vaccines and medicines are effective in stopping outbreaks, such treatments may not be enough to ending the pandemic.

The data presented here are as of March 27.

UPDATE 1-With Japan on brink of coronavirus emergency, Tokyo could keep schools closed until May [Reuters, 1 Apr 2020]

* Govt will do ‘whatever is needed’ - chief cabinet secretary
* New infections in Tokyo set fresh daily record on Tuesday
* Capital reviewing option to extend schools closures - media
* BoJ poll shows manufacturers’ mood at 7-year low
* Interactive graphic tracking global spread of coronavirus: open tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser (Recasts more broadly, adds details throughout)

TOKYO, April 1 (Reuters) - Japan remains on the brink of a state of emergency as the rate of new coronavirus cases accelerates across the country, its top government spokesman said on Wednesday, amid reports the capital may order public schools to stay closed for a second month.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that controlling the virus that has raced across the world was a top priority. While Japan’s some 2,200 cases and 66 deaths are dwarfed by numbers from the United States, Europe and China, new infections continue to set fresh daily records.

Suga said the government would do “whatever is needed” to minimise the impact of the virus, including on the world’s third-biggest economy - already teetering on the verge of recession - after a Bank of Japan poll showed the mood of the country’s industrial manufacturers at its most pessimistic for seven years.

New virus infections in the capital rose to a daily record of 78 on Tuesday, for a total of over 500, amid calls for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to declare a state of emergency that would allow authorities to trigger a lockdown involving restrictions on movement that would be voluntary rather than legally binding.

Abe is set to chair a meeting of his coronavirus task force on Wednesday evening.

Japan first closed public schools at Abe’s request from March 2. Though the Tokyo metropolitan government had previously said it was planning to re-open at least some schools when the new academic year began in April, public broadcaster NHK and other media said closures could now be extended until May.

Tokyo’s education board could meet as early as Wednesday to discuss the plan, the Nikkei business daily said.

Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike, who requested that all city residents stay indoors last weekend and has also said people should stay out of restaurants and bars at night, told reporters on Wednesday she hoped a decision would be made promptly and repeated calls for vigilance.

“People are saying, ‘I didn’t think I would get infected myself’. I want everyone to share the awareness that one should both protect oneself while also avoiding spreading (the virus),” she said.

Japanese leaders have repeatedly said that while the country is on the brink of a state of emergency, it was not yet at the stage of officially declaring one - comments reiterated by chief cabinet secretary Suga on Wednesday. “This is an extremely important period,” he said.

Calls for a lockdown were on the rise on social media, however, with many Twitter users expressing worry and comparing the situation overseas, where whole cities have come to a standstill while Tokyo’s relatively business-as-usual stance persists.

“One of my friends, who works in Tokyo, is still commuting on packed trains,” wrote a user under the Twitter handle Arikan. “I’m a little embarrassed by how indecisive Japan is compared to other nations.”

Japan to hold experts' meeting on coronavirus pandemic Wednesday [Reuters, 1 Apr 2020]

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s government will hold a regular experts’ meeting on the coronavirus pandemic on Wednesday to get an update on the latest developments on infections, economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said on Wednesday.

He also said Japan was not yet at a stage to declare a state of emergency, brushing aside speculation a lockdown of Tokyo could be imminent.

Coronavirus turns Japan business mood negative for first time in seven years [Yahoo Finance, 1 Apr 2020]

By Leika Kihara and Tetsushi Kajimoto

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's business confidence soured to levels not seen since 2013, a closely watched survey showed, as the coronavirus pandemic hit sectors from hotels to carmakers and pushed the economy closer to recession.

The worsening corporate morale underscores the challenge Prime Minister Shinzo Abe faces in ensuring the pandemic does not erase the benefits of his "Abenomics" fiscal and monetary stimulus, deployed seven years ago to revive a stagnant economy.

The Bank of Japan's quarterly "tankan" survey on Wednesday showed big manufacturers' sentiment turned pessimistic for the first time in seven years as supply chain disruptions caused by the outbreak hit sectors across the board.

Service-sector sentiment also hit a seven-year low as travel bans and social distancing policies hurt consumption, clouding an already dark outlook.

Analysts warn firms are yet to fully factor in the coming business hit from the pandemic and will likely slash spending plans in months ahead.

"The tankan clearly shows a sharp deterioration in business sentiment and confirms the economy is already in recession," said Yasunari Ueno, chief market economist at Mizuho Securities.

"Given there's so much uncertainty, companies are probably setting tentative capital spending plans now. A downward revision to their expenditure plans is inevitable," he said.

The headline index measuring big manufacturers' sentiment worsened to minus 8 in March from zero in December, the tankan showed, compared with a median market forecast of minus 10.

It was the first time in seven years the big manufacturers' index turned negative, with slumping global demand pushing sentiment among big carmakers to the lowest level since 2011.

Big non-manufacturers' sentiment index worsened to plus 8 from plus 20 in December, the survey showed. Morale among big hotels fell to a 16-year low as the pandemic led to a plunge in overseas and domestic tourism.

Both manufacturers and non-manufacturers expect business conditions to worsen further three months ahead, the survey showed.

For now, big firms expect to increase capital expenditure by 1.8% in the fiscal year that began April, compared with a median estimate of a 1.1% decrease.

However, companies may revise down their spending plans in the next tankan survey in June depending on the extent of economic damage caused by the pandemic, a BOJ official told a briefing.

BACK TO DEFLATION?

About 70% of firms surveyed in the tankan turned in their replies by March 11, before lockdowns of cities intensified across the globe.

The pandemic has hit an economy that had already suffered its fastest contraction in 5-1/2 years in the December quarter due to last year's sales tax hike and the U.S.-China trade war.

Many analysts expect the world's third-largest economy to contract in January-March and the current quarters, keeping pressure on policymakers to deploy huge stimulus programmes.

Abe has pledged a huge spending package that would be bigger than one launched during the global financial crisis to cushion the outbreak's hit to growth.

The BOJ also stands ready to ramp up stimulus for the second straight month in April to combat the widening damage from the pandemic, sources have told Reuters.

"We're now laying out a bold stimulus package. This will of course involve (issuing) government bonds," Abe told parliament on Wednesday. "We'll take necessary, sufficient economic policies to ensure Japan does not revert to deflation."

The tankan survey will be among key data the BOJ will analyse in deciding policy at its April 27-28 rate review.

Japan on brink of emergency as coronavirus spreads: government spokesperson [Reuters, 1 Apr 2020]

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan remains on the brink of a state of emergency as the rate of coronavirus infections continues to increase in the country, its top government spokesman said on Wednesday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters controlling the virus was a top priority, and that the government would do “whatever is needed” to minimise the economic impact after a nationwide poll released earlier in the day showed a pessimistic turn in sentiment among manufacturers because of the virus.

Italy reports 837 new coronavirus deaths [The Hill, 1 Apr 2020]

BY J. EDWARD MORENO

Italy’s coronavirus death toll increased by 837 on Tuesday, bringing the total to 12,428, according to the country’s health officials.

The grim news marks a slight increase from the day before, when the country reported 812 deaths.

Italian health officials also reported 4,053 new cases, which is virtually the same as the day before, suggesting that the virus's spread in the country may be beginning to plateau.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Italy has confirmed over 105,000 cases of the virus, making it the country with the second-highest reported cases, behind the U.S.
However, their death toll now stands at 12,428, higher than any other country has reported.

The country is shut down, with Italians living under stringent restrictions intended to further prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The government has said those rules will extend past their original deadline, meaning Italians will celebrate Easter from their homes.

The Vatican flew its flag at half-staff Tuesday. It said in a statement that the move was intended to express its “closeness to the victims of the pandemic in Italy and in the world.”

Italy’s New Coronavirus Cases Level Off at Two-Week Low [Bloomberg 1 Apr 2020]

By Marco Bertacche and John Follain

The number of new coronavirus cases in Italy leveled off on Tuesday at a two-week low, a sign that the outbreak in Europe’s virus epicenter may be coming under control as the country prepares to extend its lockdown.

New infections in the past 24 hours totaled 4,053, compared with 4,050 the previous day, civil protection authorities said at their daily news conference in Rome. Monday had seen the fewest new cases since March 17. The number of cases in Lombardy, the worst hit region, rose by 1,047 on Tuesday. That’s the fewest new infections in more than two weeks.

The country “has reached a plateau in the contagion phase,” the head of the public health institute, Silvio Brusaferro, told reporters at a separate press conference.

Italy has 105,792 total cases, the most after the U.S., and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is preparing an unprecedented emergency handout for workers trapped in Italy’s underground economy, as his government seeks to stave off social unrest. The government will extend current containment measures until at least Easter, Health Minister Roberto Speranza confirmed Monday.

Conte is set to host a cabinet meeting in coming days to approve a new request to parliament for a wider budget deficit. That would pave the way for a second stimulus package worth at least 30 billion euros ($33 billion), according to officials who asked not to be named discussing administration strategy.

Italy’s initial package was worth 25 billion euros.

The government may extend restrictions through the May 1 holiday weekend, with a gradual opening of the country from May 4, Italian newspapers including La Stampa reported earlier on Tuesday.

Preventing social unrest in the underdeveloped south has become one of Conte’s top priorities. Police have been deployed on the streets of Sicily’s capital, Palermo, amid reports gangs are using social media to plot attacks on stores. As the state struggles to come to terms with the pandemic, officials are worried organized crime may be preparing to step in.

Fatalities from the disease increased by 837 on Tuesday compared with 812 the previous day, bringing the total to 12,428.

— With assistance by Flavia Rotondi