Zara-owner Inditex has switched its clothes factories in Spain over to making medical supplies and its logistics hub has almost ground to a halt, while Sweden's H&M reports plunge in March sales. Ciara..
Studio: Reuters Studio
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Zara-owner Inditex stalls amid global lockdowns
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Former Bulldog playing in Italy talks about experience
The Coronavirus isn't only affecting professional sports in the States. Athletes abroad have also dealt with the pandemic and some are a long ways from home.
Studio: WTVA ABC Tupelo, MS
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'The whole world's f---ed': A former Goldman Sachs hedge fund chief says coronavirus fallout will cause the 'largest insolvency event in all history' — and warns of another 20% plunge in stocks
· Raoul Pal, the former hedge fund manager who founded Real Vision, thinks the fallout from the coronavirus will have immense, far-reaching impacts on the global economy. · The duration and severity of the pandemic is something that Pal thinks hasn't yet been accounted for properly.
· Pal thinks a further 20% decline in stocks is on the horizon.
· For context, in October, Pal called the Federal Reserve cutting rates to zero and the US having negative rates. In late February, Pal said to buy bonds and that the impacts from the coronavirus would be "meaningful and real."
· Click here for more BI Prime stories.
"The whole world's f---ed."
That's what Raoul Pal, the former hedge-fund manager who founded Real Vision, said on the "Lindzanity" podcast when he initially learned the coronavirus was uncontrolled and spreading rapidly.
"The moment the spread hit Iran ... and then Italy — that all happened over the span of three or four days — I was like: 'time to panic before everybody else,'" he said. "It's human behavior function. If the Chinese closed every single border and every city, everybody's going to do it."
To bring you up to speed, Pal retired at 36 after quitting jobs at Goldman Sachs and GLG Partners. He lives comfortably on a 140-person island in the Cayman Islands and spends his days writing market research, which comes with a hefty price tag of $40,000 per year.
"I said: 'Listen, this is the biggest economic event of all of our lifetimes — and it's coming'" he added. "And that was, in retrospect, the greatest call I've ever had."
But this isn't the first time Pal's nailed a prescient call. Back in October, he said the Federal Reserve needed to cut interest rates to zero and warned of negative interest rates in the US, both of which have materialized.
What's more, as the market was topping out in late February, Pal expressed his affinity for owning bonds — a trade that would've immensely rewarded investors who took his advice. He also warned that the implications from the coronavirus would be "meaningful and real."
That was before things really started to fall apart.
Today, Pal thinks the coronavirus will cause "the largest insolvency event in all history." And given his track record as of late, that's not reassuring.
"I think the balance of probabilities are that this is a much longer event — in terms of economic impacts — than anybody is pricing in," he said. "I think it's a huge societal change that's coming from all of this."
To Pal, the duration of the fallout stemming from the coronavirus is the key factor here — one that he thinks investors aren't paying enough attention to. In his mind, those who are a projecting sharp V-shaped recovery in the third and forth quarter are incorrect in their assumptions.
"Isolation is going to be a real event for a significant period of time," he said. "You've got a world that's going to be much more closed, and that's leading to complications in supply chains."
He added: "It makes people become more local."
Pal's prognostication echos that of billionaire "bond king" Jeffrey Gundlach. In a DoubleLine webcast earlier this week, Gundlach said "we're going to be getting much more, less-connected to globalization" and "we're going to be bringing manufacturing back and thinking about things in very different ways."
But the changes that Pal and Gundlach highlight don't happen overnight, which is why Pal thinks the fallout could worsen. Every day that the pandemic drags on is one less day without production and consumption. Then that, in turn, heightens bankruptcy risk.
With all of that under consideration, here's how Pal is positioning his portfolio to weather a deeper equity rout. Ideally, he'd like to get to the allocation below.
· 25% Bitcoin
· 25% gold
· 25% cash
· 25% trading opportunities
"So I'm now in the point of thinking we've got another 20% downside or so to come before we get the 3-, 4-month bounce of hope," he said. "For the average guy, this is a very, very, very difficult world we're going to go into — and I can't sugarcoat it because there is no nice answer."
*SEE ALSO: A notorious market bear says stocks are still historically expensive after tumbling on coronavirus — and warns a plunge 'of about 50% from here' is still coming*
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: A big-money investor in juggernauts like Facebook and Netflix breaks down the '3rd wave' firms that are leading the next round of tech disruption Reported by Business Insider 23 hours ago.
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A new phone-tracing technology could tell if you've been exposed to the coronavirus — without sacrificing privacy. 130 researchers are offering it to countries for free.
· The novel coronavirus excels at spreading because it's contagious when there are few or no symptoms.· That's why governments are resorting to lockdowns, travel bans, and other economy-crippling restrictions.
· A team of 130 volunteer researchers just rolled out a technology framework that aims to help people return to work using an epidemiological principle called contact tracing.
· Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing would use Bluetooth low-energy (which nearly all smartphones have) to anonymously detect close encounters with infected users and warn those who were exposed.
· The group says it built the framework with anonymity and privacy as a cardinal rule.
· Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Dana is engrossed in the music piping through her Bluetooth headphones on her commute to work — a grocery-store worker, her job is considered essential — when a man sits down behind her on the bus.
She doesn't notice that he's come within 6 feet, and she doesn't hear him cough into his elbow.
But days later, a free app on Dana's smartphone alerts her to news she'd been dreading since installing it: She was likely exposed to someone with COVID-19.
Dana got the alert because the man on the bus saw a doctor, tested positive, and was given a special code to type into the same free app. Once he did, his phone uploaded a list of encrypted codes to a central server — strings of letters and numbers that anonymously represent every close interaction he's had with other app users over the past 21 days. The server then notified all the users that generated those codes of possible exposure, including Dana.
This is the future envisioned by a team of more than 130 European scientists and technologists. On Wednesday, after three weeks of near-continuous volunteer work, the group unveiled a framework (and a nonprofit organization) to support the scheme, called the Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing project, or PEPP-PT.
The project scientists believe their initiative can get people back to work with minimized risk by using smartphone-to-smartphone wireless signals to detect who has been exposed to someone with COVID-19 and alert them. PEPP-PT relies on Bluetooth low energy, or BLE — a common mobile wireless technology — to perform what epidemiologists call "contact tracing." The process involves figuring out who came into contact with a sick person, then instructing those people to quarantine themselves.
"We all live in a global world, or we used to live in a global world, and we need to get back there if we don't want to break our livelihood completely," Hans-Christian Boos, an artificial-intelligence and computer-science researcher who helped organize the effort, told Business Insider.
PEPP-PT's teams focused on building an anonymous, easy-to-implement, internationally scalable, and essentially free phone-based approach that would not sacrifice privacy in the same way as other tracing initiatives used in countries like China, Israel, Singapore, and South Korea.
"We said, 'We need to do something, but we can't do it the way that China has done it.' Because if we did, we would at the same time just throw away freedom," Boos said.
*Why anonymous digital contact tracing may help fight the pandemic*
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The coronavirus can spread before infected people show any symptoms at all.
Marcel Salathe, a digital epidemiologist who helped develop PEPP-PT, said outsmarting that pernicious risk factor is key in curbing the spread of the virus.
"The first SARS virus, from 2000 to 2003, didn't have that, which is why it was easy to contain — 'easy' in quotes — because it was sufficient to just isolate people who got sick," Salathe told Business Insider. "Most countries are still thinking along those lines: 'Oh, we just have to isolate this sick people, and then we get the problem under control.' But that is not sufficient, because by the time they get sick, they may have passed it on."
Asymptomatic spread also makes traditional contact tracing, in which epidemiologists manually track down infected people to retrace their steps, inadequate, according to a recent study in the journal Science.
"We conclude that viral spread is too fast to be contained by manual contact tracing, but could be controlled if this process was faster, more efficient and happened at scale," the University of Oxford-based research team behind the study wrote.
That is the core idea behind PEPP-PT. Its founders say they did not create an app, but rather a whole ecosystem of technologies — servers, source code, and an international data exchange — that will make it easy for developers to build country-specific PEPP-PT apps, then publish them for people to download and use. Presumably, app users could then resume some movement outside the house, and self-quarantine only if they're alerted to exposure.
Boos said PEPP-PT as an organization (pending donations) is prepared to build and provide servers for free to states, countries, and other large-scale providers. If those entities pass validation by PEPP-PT — and don't "inject something nasty" into the source code to, say, funnel off private information, Boos said — they can join a data exchange.
A group in Germany — led by Ulf Buermeyer, a lawyer and information-technology expert who co-founded the country's Society for Civil Rights — recently described a similar model in a post at Netzpolitik.org.
Buermeyer told Business Insider the PEPP-PT framework seems to be "a privacy-compatible way of tracking people by Bluetooth," though he emphasized the group has yet to roll out its open-source code for the world to scrutinize.
"There are people who question that it is possible at all. I would say that it is possible," he said. "It's an approach that has strong upsides and I hope its implementation is successful."
*How to track coronavirus exposure without sacrificing user privacy*
Some countries are already using technology-based contact-tracing systems. But they sacrifice significant amounts of their citizens' privacy to do so: Those apps analyze credit-card purchases, GPS location data, surveillance camera monitoring, and other information to follow the infected and alert the exposed.
Such approaches do seem to be working to curb the virus' spread, though. South Korea, for example, dropped from a peak of 909 new COVID-19 cases reported on February 29 to just 74 new cases reported on March 16.
"What might seem anathema to the US in ordinary circumstances now seems more tolerable in these extraordinary times," Sarah Kreps, who studies surveillance and cybersecurity at Cornell University, said in a recent press release. "On the one hand, giving up some privacy to save lives and regain some freedom of movement, commerce, and expression seems like a straight-forward calculation. On the other, historical experience suggests that once governments gain additional powers, they are loath to give them up, which could have lasting, adverse implications for civil liberties."
Boos says he fears greasing the wheels for an Orwellian future, but is convinced Draconian privacy-killing measures aren't actually necessary.
Bluetooth low-energy, or BLE, is already extremely popular — it's a primary way we connect our smartphones to wireless headphones, speakers, watches, TVs, and more. And it already offers a proximity sensing or "electronic leash" capability: it can broadcast a "hello" signal while also listening for such beacons from other devices.
By logging the strength of those wireless signals, distances between devices can be approximated measured. This is the foundation upon which PEPP-PT built its framework.
When a person downloads an app built on the scheme, they are automatically assigned an ID known only to a central server, anonymizing them. Their app then generates random codes tied to that ID and, using Bluetooth, broadcasts them. All the while, the app listens for similar random numbers from other smartphones.
"If they're close enough, within 6 feet, and for a long-enough time — more than a couple of minutes — we decide basically, on what the epidemiologists tell us, to record the random number," Thomas Wiegand, a leader of PEPP-PT and an electrical-engineering researcher at the Technical University of Berlin, told Business Insider.
When two people's phones save the other's random numbers, they do so in an encrypted log that not even a phone's owner can access. Six feet was chosen because that's the distance at which the coronavirus can spread via droplets from coughing, sneezing, or breathing, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Logging encounters does not require internet service. Each anonymous record of contact is kept in a user's phone for 21 days, and older entries get deleted on a rolling basis. Three weeks is a generous amount of time for how long it takes a COVID-19 infection to become obvious and a test for it to come back. An option in a PEPP-PT app would allow a user report they have tested positive and upload their 21-day history of contacts, though it's not as simple as that.
"You don't want the trolls to post that they're infected if they aren't," Boos said.
To ensure only positive-test users can report an infection, a doctor or lab would give a special access code that allows a person to upload their contact history. No one can do so otherwise — so it remains on a phone indefinitely, in encrypted form, if a person doesn't test positive.
"In Germany, hopefully 80 million apps will ask the server every two hours: 'Anything happen?' And they do this in the background, completely automatically. The server will reply to most of them, hopefully, 'nothing happened' in encrypted form," said Wiegand, who's also executive director of the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute. "Those where something happened will be prompted a message, 'You may have been in contact with an infected person, and there's a risk of exposure. Here's how you can follow up.'"
In this way, the privacy of infected people would remain protected, as would that of anyone they had a close encounter with.
"It's an entirely closed system, meaning that we can't read the input and output. It's completely anonymous," Wiegand said.
Buermeyer said that from his assessment, the app tries to minimize how much data is gathered.
"What is gathered is basically anonymous IDs. Data that you don't acquire and store can't be hacked," he said. "It's also the most promising approach from a technical perspective — BLE allows you to scan for close contact. That is what it puts it way ahead of GPS or satellite."
The end result is that days or weeks of human epidemiologist work on a single case could be boiled down to a couple of hours, prompting exposed people to self-quarantine sooner.
*PEPP-PT would have to be as popular as WhatsApp to be effective*
However, it remains to be seen how many people would actually use such apps.
In a perfect world, the project's creators say, at least 60% of a given population would have capable devices with a PEPP-PT app installed and Bluetooth turned on. That number is what Salathe says would sufficiently reduce the disease's R0, or R-naught — a measure of how many people, on average, one infected person spreads the disease to. The coronavirus so far has an average global R0 of between 2 and 2.5.
If an R0 dips below one, the disease loses steam and — at some point — vanishes. Brute-force methods like lockdowns are effective in reducing the spread, but badly damage economies. PEPP-PT may be able to achieve a similar effect without keeping most workers home.
"If you captured a contact before they can then spread it to the next round of people, that's how you actually really stop the whole thing," Salathe said. "That's where this 60% number comes from. If 60% participates, then that measure on its own should be sufficient to bring the reproduction number below one."
There's no question that Bluetooth is popular and pervasive: In 2019, more than 2 billion phones, tablets, and PCs with the standard were shipped, according to a 2019 market report by Bluetooth SIG, which developed the core technology.
"BLE was introduced in 2013 and has been used by Apple since iOS 7 and on the iPhone 4S," Steve Shepperson-Smith, a spokesperson for Vodafone, told Business Insider in an email. "Vodafone Germany data indicates that more than 95% of Android devices in Europe use BLE."
About 80% of the US population (kids included) has a smartphone, according to Newzoo. Germany and the UK also have an adoption rate of about 80%. But smartphones are less common elsewhere: In Italy, about 70% of people have one, and India, about 25% of people do.
Still, Europe is a promising place to start, according to Avi Greengart, a market analyst who researches device and technology adoption.
"Over 75% of Europeans had smartphones at the end of 2019," Greengart told Business Insider in an email, adding, "If a sizeable percentage of the group that does have an iPhone or modern Android phone runs the app, it should generate a rich trove of data and could be used to trace infection points."
But device adoption and compatibility aside, getting three-fifths of a population to do anything is still a challenge.In the US, 60% is a typical turnout of eligible voters during a presidential election, according to FairVote.
"The bigger issue is if you can convince enough people to use the app, and that will vary by country. Surveys show that Germans are extremely privacy-wary, while other nationalities are less so," Greengart said.
He added: "government mandates could undoubtedly trump these concerns."
*'It is useful even if just 1% of the population installs it'*
Still, the creators of PEPP-PT (and other experts Business Insider interviewed) say that even without the ideal adoption rates, the framework can still make a significant dent in controlling the spread of coronavirus.
"Even if, say, 40% of people participate, it's going to have quite a strong impact on the epidemic," Salathe said.
Buermeyer was even more forgiving of low adoption: "It is useful even if just 1% of the population installs it, but it gets more useful as a larger percent of people install it," he said.
PEPP-PT's creators are also aware that the coronavirus can spread via contaminated surfaces, and they don't feign to address that. They simply see the project as one potentially major new tool in a toolbox of approaches.
"You won't capture everything with a system like this, but what you manage to capture is probably the dominant route through droplets. That's what we're going for. It's definitely not a catch-all solution," Salathe said. "The vaccine is the end game."
For PEPP-PT to work as an intermediate solution, though, fast, low-cost, and widespread tests are a must — otherwise users can't alert the system to their infection. But some countries, notably the US, still lag in providing sufficient testing.
This story has been updated.
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: The coronavirus could affect the accuracy of the 2020 census — and that could decide who gets a vaccine Reported by Business Insider 20 hours ago.
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Amazon tells sellers its price gouging policy could cause 'confusion' as unfair suspensions increase — just a week after 32 attorneys general called for action (AMZN)
· Amazon told sellers in a note this week that its price gouging rules could be confusing given the different state laws.· The note comes a week after 32 US attorneys general told Amazon to fix price gouging activities on its marketplace.
· Amazon's always had a "zero tolerance" policy against sellers who exploit "an emergency by charging excessively high prices on products and shipping."
· But sellers say Amazon has now become too aggressive, often suspending sellers and products that are not engaged in price gouging.
· Amazon's spokesperson said the note was meant to provide "even more detailed guidance" on price gouging, but sellers say the guidelines on gouging are still unclear.
· Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Just a week after 32 US attorneys general told Amazon to fix price gouging on its site, Amazon acknowledged in a letter to sellers that its system may be difficult to understand. But sellers now say Amazon is overcompensating and pushing too hard, leading to a surge in unfair product and seller suspensions.
In a note sent to sellers on Wednesday, obtained by Business Insider, Amazon said its policy over what products or sellers get suspended for excessive price increases could lead to a "confusion" because it looks into a number of different factors. Amazon's system, which is mostly automated, has been kicking off groups of sellers and products from its marketplace lately for profiteering on items like hand sanitizers and face masks during the coronavirus pandemic.
"We recognize there may be some confusion as to what may trigger offer removal or account suspension for price gouging under this policy," Amazon said in the note.
Amazon said that it's difficult to set a one-size fits all policy because states have varying rules over price-gouging. For example, some states have a 10% ceiling on price increases during a national emergency, while others may have more vague guidelines, like banning unconscionably "excessive" price increases without a fixed cap, it said.
"Our systems attempt to account for these variations in state law while recognizing that the costs of many goods are increasing due to the worldwide effects of the COVID-19 pandemic," Amazon said in the note.
Amazon's response to sellers shows the difficulty in cleaning up its marketplace of bad actors that try to take advantage of consumers in need of essential items during the pandemic. As demand for online shopping has increased amid COVID-19, some sellers have set unreasonably high price increases on not just essentials but also everyday grocery products, like rice and milk.
Amazon has always had a "zero tolerance" policy against sellers who exploit "an emergency by charging excessively high prices on products and shipping." To combat the surge in price gouging, Amazon recently said that it had suspended over 3,900 US sellers for violating its fair pricing policy and removed over half a million products due to coronavirus-based price gouging.
Amazon's representative told Business Insider in an email that the note was meant to provide "even more detailed guidance" on price gouging, as laws vary by state. Sellers who feel they were unfairly suspended should reach out to Amazon directly for a separate investigation, the spokesperson said.
"Amazon has always prohibited price gouging," the spokesperson said. "Our objective is to protect customers from clearly egregious price increases."
Price gouging is just one of the many challenges facing Amazon as the coronavirus pandemic continues to put a deeper strain across its business. The slowing supply chain has delayed shipments of some products by a month, while warehouse workers have staged walkouts demanding better safety measures at their facilities. Meanwhile, Amazon executives have come under fire following Thursday's report by Vice that showed them engaged in an internal discussion to smear a fired warehouse employee who led one of the strikes last week.
*Finding a 'middle ground'*
The note to sellers is Amazon's first response to sellers following last week's letter signed by US attorneys general in 32 states, including Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and California, that demanded Amazon and other retailers like Walmart come up with stronger protective measures to prevent price gouging. In the letter, the attorneys general urged for better policies and restrictions, and a new "fair pricing" portal where consumers can directly report price gouging incidents.
But some sellers say Amazon has now become too aggressive in enforcing its anti-price gouging policies, often unfairly suspending sellers and products that haven't engaged in any price manipulating activities.
Ed Rosenberg, who runs an online seller group called ASGTG, told Business Insider that there's been significant increases lately in sellers who got suspended, including those who haven't raised prices all year. He said Amazon seems to be struggling to find the right balance in enforcing its price gouging policy, given the complex nature around it.
"Amazon seems to have gone to the other extreme blocking items and suspending accounts that are not close to price gouging," Rosenberg said. "They need to find a middle ground."
For sellers, it's difficult to keep track of every state's different price gouging rules. For example, California and New York prohibits 10% price increases in national emergencies, while Pennsylvania and Kansas have a price cap of 20% and 25%, respectively. Texas, meanwhile, doesn't have a hard cap.
Amazon's vague guidelines are also a challenge, sellers say. In the note, Amazon told sellers to refer to Amazon's Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy before setting their own prices. But that page doesn't offer specific price guidelines, simply saying sellers shouldn't "mislead" consumers or set prices that are "significantly higher" than recent prices offered on or off Amazon.
One seller, who wanted to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution, said it's unclear how to calculate the past average sales price that serves as a baseline for determining price gouging. Another seller said that there's inconsistency across Amazon's different marketplaces, as a product banned in Italy was still being sold on its Spanish marketplace.
"The problem is defining price gouging. At the state and Amazon level, there is no clear definition for e-commerce sellers," this seller said.
*SEE ALSO: Amazon bucked one of the worst quarters in market history and posted a gain amid the COVID crisis — here's why Wall Street loves the stock*
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: Most maps of Louisiana aren't entirely right. Here's what the state really looks like. Reported by Business Insider 9 hours ago.
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Where will the bodies go? Morgues plan as virus grows
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — There are the new dead. And then there are the bodies waiting in overcrowded mortuaries to be buried as cities struggle to meet demand and families wrestle with rules on social distancing that make the usual funeral rituals impossible.
Med Alliance Group, a medical distributor in Illinois, is besieged by calls and emails from cities around the country. Each asks the same thing: Send more refrigerated trailers so that we can handle a situation we never could have imagined.
“They’re coming from all over: From hospitals, health systems, coroner’s offices, VA facilities, county and state health departments, state emergency departments and funeral homes,” said Christie Penzol, a spokeswoman for Med Alliance. “It’s heart-wrenching.”
The company has rented all its trailers and there's an 18-week wait for new materials to build more, she said.
With U.S. medical experts and even President Donald Trump now estimating the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic could reach 240,000 nationwide, the sheer practicalities of death — where to put the bodies — are worrying just about everyone as cities, hospitals and private medical groups clamor to secure additional storage.
The need is compounded by private mortuary space that is occupied longer than usual as people wait to bury their loved ones— regardless of how they died— because rules on social distancing make planning funerals difficult.
It's a crisis being repeated worldwide.
In Spain, where the death toll has climbed to nearly 12,000, an ice rink in Madrid was turned into a makeshift morgue after the city’s municipal funeral service said it could no longer take coronavirus bodies until it was restocked with protective equipment. In Italy, embalmed bodies in caskets are being sent... Reported by SeattlePI.com 20 hours ago.
Med Alliance Group, a medical distributor in Illinois, is besieged by calls and emails from cities around the country. Each asks the same thing: Send more refrigerated trailers so that we can handle a situation we never could have imagined.
“They’re coming from all over: From hospitals, health systems, coroner’s offices, VA facilities, county and state health departments, state emergency departments and funeral homes,” said Christie Penzol, a spokeswoman for Med Alliance. “It’s heart-wrenching.”
The company has rented all its trailers and there's an 18-week wait for new materials to build more, she said.
With U.S. medical experts and even President Donald Trump now estimating the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic could reach 240,000 nationwide, the sheer practicalities of death — where to put the bodies — are worrying just about everyone as cities, hospitals and private medical groups clamor to secure additional storage.
The need is compounded by private mortuary space that is occupied longer than usual as people wait to bury their loved ones— regardless of how they died— because rules on social distancing make planning funerals difficult.
It's a crisis being repeated worldwide.
In Spain, where the death toll has climbed to nearly 12,000, an ice rink in Madrid was turned into a makeshift morgue after the city’s municipal funeral service said it could no longer take coronavirus bodies until it was restocked with protective equipment. In Italy, embalmed bodies in caskets are being sent... Reported by SeattlePI.com 20 hours ago.
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How Atalanta's feel-good story became a 'biological bomb' for coronavirus in Italy, Spain
Atalanta's phenomenal season sits in awkward coexistence with the ongoing crisis in Europe.
Reported by ESPN 20 hours ago.
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In Italy, going back to work may depend on having the right antibodies
ROME — There is a growing sense in Italy that the worst may have passed. The weeks of locking down the country, center of the world’s deadliest coronavirus outbreak, may be starting to pay off, as officials announced this past week that the numbers of new infections had plateaued. That glimmer of hope has turned […]
Reported by Seattle Times 16 hours ago.
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The Latest: DC surpasses 900 coronavirus cases
The Latest on the coronavirus pandemic. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death.
TOP OF THE HOUR:
— Trudeau says Canada won't punish U.S. for refusing to export N95 masks.
— Five London bus workers die from coronavirus.
— Bulgaria’s Orthodox Christian majority urged to stay away from church services during Easter.
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WASHINGTON — The District of Columbia has announced 145 new positive infections from the COVID-19 coronavirus, bringing the total up to 902, with six new deaths bringing the total to 15. Mayor Muriel Bowser has issued a stay-home order for Washington’s approximately 700,000 residents. Neighboring Maryland and Virginia have done the same. Bowser has declared a state of emergency, shuttered all schools and ordered all non-essential businesses to close. White House and Capitol tours have been cancelled and the National Zoo, Smithsonian museum network and Kennedy Center have closed.
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ROME — Italy is seeing more relief from the coronavirus outbreak in its jammed intensive care units, with 74 fewer beds in use over the past day nationwide.
Civil protection chief Angelo Borrelli said the dip in ICU saturation was “important news because it allows our hospitals to breathe.” Intensive care wards in Lombardy, the epicenter of the European outbreak, have been full for weeks but on Saturday there were 56 fewer beds in use than the day before.
Overall, new infections continued to slow their once-exponential pace, with 4,805 new cases registered Saturday that brought Italy’s official count to 124,632. The death toll continued to mount, with 681 new victims bringing the world’s highest toll to... Reported by SeattlePI.com 17 hours ago.
TOP OF THE HOUR:
— Trudeau says Canada won't punish U.S. for refusing to export N95 masks.
— Five London bus workers die from coronavirus.
— Bulgaria’s Orthodox Christian majority urged to stay away from church services during Easter.
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WASHINGTON — The District of Columbia has announced 145 new positive infections from the COVID-19 coronavirus, bringing the total up to 902, with six new deaths bringing the total to 15. Mayor Muriel Bowser has issued a stay-home order for Washington’s approximately 700,000 residents. Neighboring Maryland and Virginia have done the same. Bowser has declared a state of emergency, shuttered all schools and ordered all non-essential businesses to close. White House and Capitol tours have been cancelled and the National Zoo, Smithsonian museum network and Kennedy Center have closed.
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ROME — Italy is seeing more relief from the coronavirus outbreak in its jammed intensive care units, with 74 fewer beds in use over the past day nationwide.
Civil protection chief Angelo Borrelli said the dip in ICU saturation was “important news because it allows our hospitals to breathe.” Intensive care wards in Lombardy, the epicenter of the European outbreak, have been full for weeks but on Saturday there were 56 fewer beds in use than the day before.
Overall, new infections continued to slow their once-exponential pace, with 4,805 new cases registered Saturday that brought Italy’s official count to 124,632. The death toll continued to mount, with 681 new victims bringing the world’s highest toll to... Reported by SeattlePI.com 17 hours ago.
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Coronavirus Update: Italy reports lowest death toll in nine days, first ICU decline
Read more on https://www.fxstreet.com
Reported by FXstreet.com 15 hours ago.
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U.S. bishops: Jesus' Sacred Heart is open for you, despite 'bitter affliction' of coronavirus
Washington D.C., Apr 4, 2020 / 01:22 pm (CNA).- The novel coronavirus pandemic's effects on victims and the closure of churches have deeply pained the Catholic faithful and clergy, but Holy Week is a time to join together to seek God's mercy and love in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Archbishop Jose Gomez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has said.
“In the heart of Jesus, pierced as he hung on the cross on Good Friday, we see the love of God for humanity, his love for each one of us,” Gomez said in an April 3 message for Holy Week.
“This Holy Week will be different. Our churches may be closed, but Christ is not quarantined and his Gospel is not in chains,” he said. “Our Lord’s heart remains open to every man and woman. Even though we cannot worship together, each of us can seek him in the tabernacles of our own hearts.”
“Because he loves us, and because his love can never change, we should not be afraid, even in this time of trial and testing,” said Gomez. “In these mysteries that we remember this week, let us renew our faith in his love.”
Gomez said he will pray the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on Good Friday, April 10, for an end to the coronavirus pandemic. He asked Catholics to join him via internet livestream at 9 a.m. Pacific Time / noontime Eastern Time. The livestream will be hosted at the Archdiocese of Los Angeles website and the U.S. bishops' conference Facebook page.
“Let us join as one family of God here in the United States in asking our Lord for his mercy,” said Gomez, who added that Pope Francis has granted a special plenary indulgence to those who pray the litany for an end to the pandemic.
The novel coronavirus has created a situation “almost without precedent” in the Church, he said.
The virus, formally known as COVID-19, has infected over 1.1 million people and killed 63,800 worldwide as of Saturday afternoon, according to figures from the John Hopkins University COVID-19 Map. In the U.S., about 274,000 have tested positive, 36,000 have been hospitalized, and 7,000 have died since the epidemic began, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
More contagious and deadly than influenza, the virus has strained the resources of hospitals in the U.S. and worldwide. The virus has ravaged Italy and Italy's Catholics, whose dead include dozens of priests. It is especially deadly for the elderly and those with health conditions.
Many businesses and social activities deemed non-essential have been ordered closed by government authorities. Catholic churches closed, sometimes in advance of government orders, for fear of spreading the disease. The closures have caused major economic and social disruption, putting millions of people out of work.
The closure of churches and restrictions on the administration of the sacraments have been especially painful for some Catholics, a situation Gomez acknowledged.
“My brother bishops and I are painfully aware that many of our Catholic people are troubled and hurt by the loss of the Eucharist and the consolation of the sacraments,” he said. “This is a bitter affliction that we all feel deeply. We ache with our people and we long for the day when we can be reunited around the altar of the Lord to celebrate the sacred mysteries.”
“In this difficult moment, we ask God for his grace, that we might bear this burden together with patience and charity, united as one family of God in his universal Church,” he said.
The Litany to the Sacred Heart of Jesus draws on centuries-old Christian devotions. It asks mercy from the Heart of Jesus, describing it as the “glowing furnace of charity,” “rich to all who invoke thee,” “desire of the everlasting hills,” “source of all consolation,” “our life and resurrection,” “victim for our sins,” “salvation of those who hope in thee,” and “hope of those who die in thee.”
The indulgence applies to those who pray the Litany of the Sacred Heart on Good Friday, pray for the intentions of the pope, are “truly sorry for their sins,” and desire to go to confession as soon as possible. In Catholic teaching, which recognizes that every sin must be purified on earth or in Purgatory, an indulgence remits “the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven.”
Gomez said we should ask the Virgin Mary to intercede for us, that God “might deliver us from every evil and grant us peace in our day.”
His April 3 message further reflected on the situation.
“Future generations will look back on this as the long Lent of 2020, a time when disease and death suddenly darkened the whole earth,” he said. “As we enter into Holy Week, these most sacred days of the year, Catholics across the United States and the world are living under quarantine, our societies shut down by the coronavirus pandemic.”
“But we know that our Redeemer lives. Even in this extraordinary and challenging moment, we give thanks for what Jesus Christ has done for us by his life, death, and resurrection,” said Gomez. “Even now, we marvel at the beautiful mystery of our salvation, how precious each one of us is in the eyes of God.”
The Los Angeles archdiocese website has dedicated a web page to the Good Friday Sacred Heart litany and livestream. Reported by CNA 14 hours ago.
“In the heart of Jesus, pierced as he hung on the cross on Good Friday, we see the love of God for humanity, his love for each one of us,” Gomez said in an April 3 message for Holy Week.
“This Holy Week will be different. Our churches may be closed, but Christ is not quarantined and his Gospel is not in chains,” he said. “Our Lord’s heart remains open to every man and woman. Even though we cannot worship together, each of us can seek him in the tabernacles of our own hearts.”
“Because he loves us, and because his love can never change, we should not be afraid, even in this time of trial and testing,” said Gomez. “In these mysteries that we remember this week, let us renew our faith in his love.”
Gomez said he will pray the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on Good Friday, April 10, for an end to the coronavirus pandemic. He asked Catholics to join him via internet livestream at 9 a.m. Pacific Time / noontime Eastern Time. The livestream will be hosted at the Archdiocese of Los Angeles website and the U.S. bishops' conference Facebook page.
“Let us join as one family of God here in the United States in asking our Lord for his mercy,” said Gomez, who added that Pope Francis has granted a special plenary indulgence to those who pray the litany for an end to the pandemic.
The novel coronavirus has created a situation “almost without precedent” in the Church, he said.
The virus, formally known as COVID-19, has infected over 1.1 million people and killed 63,800 worldwide as of Saturday afternoon, according to figures from the John Hopkins University COVID-19 Map. In the U.S., about 274,000 have tested positive, 36,000 have been hospitalized, and 7,000 have died since the epidemic began, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
More contagious and deadly than influenza, the virus has strained the resources of hospitals in the U.S. and worldwide. The virus has ravaged Italy and Italy's Catholics, whose dead include dozens of priests. It is especially deadly for the elderly and those with health conditions.
Many businesses and social activities deemed non-essential have been ordered closed by government authorities. Catholic churches closed, sometimes in advance of government orders, for fear of spreading the disease. The closures have caused major economic and social disruption, putting millions of people out of work.
The closure of churches and restrictions on the administration of the sacraments have been especially painful for some Catholics, a situation Gomez acknowledged.
“My brother bishops and I are painfully aware that many of our Catholic people are troubled and hurt by the loss of the Eucharist and the consolation of the sacraments,” he said. “This is a bitter affliction that we all feel deeply. We ache with our people and we long for the day when we can be reunited around the altar of the Lord to celebrate the sacred mysteries.”
“In this difficult moment, we ask God for his grace, that we might bear this burden together with patience and charity, united as one family of God in his universal Church,” he said.
The Litany to the Sacred Heart of Jesus draws on centuries-old Christian devotions. It asks mercy from the Heart of Jesus, describing it as the “glowing furnace of charity,” “rich to all who invoke thee,” “desire of the everlasting hills,” “source of all consolation,” “our life and resurrection,” “victim for our sins,” “salvation of those who hope in thee,” and “hope of those who die in thee.”
The indulgence applies to those who pray the Litany of the Sacred Heart on Good Friday, pray for the intentions of the pope, are “truly sorry for their sins,” and desire to go to confession as soon as possible. In Catholic teaching, which recognizes that every sin must be purified on earth or in Purgatory, an indulgence remits “the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven.”
Gomez said we should ask the Virgin Mary to intercede for us, that God “might deliver us from every evil and grant us peace in our day.”
His April 3 message further reflected on the situation.
“Future generations will look back on this as the long Lent of 2020, a time when disease and death suddenly darkened the whole earth,” he said. “As we enter into Holy Week, these most sacred days of the year, Catholics across the United States and the world are living under quarantine, our societies shut down by the coronavirus pandemic.”
“But we know that our Redeemer lives. Even in this extraordinary and challenging moment, we give thanks for what Jesus Christ has done for us by his life, death, and resurrection,” said Gomez. “Even now, we marvel at the beautiful mystery of our salvation, how precious each one of us is in the eyes of God.”
The Los Angeles archdiocese website has dedicated a web page to the Good Friday Sacred Heart litany and livestream. Reported by CNA 14 hours ago.
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Italy cheers first drop in critical virus patients
Pandemic-hit Italy cheered Saturday after seeing its number of intensive care cases for the coronavirus that stretched its healthcare system to breaking point drop for the first time.
Reported by CTV News 6 hours ago.
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‘God will decide’: Health workers in Indonesia brace for COVID-19
Indonesia has one of the highest COVID-19 mortality rates in the world at around 9 percent, slightly less than Italy's.
Reported by Al Jazeera 6 hours ago.
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Fewer deaths in Veneto offer clues for fight against coronavirus
Experts say divergence between neighbouring northern Italy regions stems from different approaches
Reported by FT.com 6 hours ago.
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Number of coronavirus intensive care patients in Italy drops for first time
Italy reported its lowest daily rise in COVID-19 deaths for nearly two weeks on Saturday and said the number of patients in intensive care had fallen for the first time.
Reported by Reuters India 4 hours ago.
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U.S. braces for more virus deaths; Europe hopes crisis peaking
Italy and Spain, the two hardest-hit European nations, expressed hope that the crisis was peaking in their countries, though Italian officials said the emergency is far from over as infections have plateaued but not started to decline.
Reported by Hindu 4 hours ago.
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US braces for more virus deaths; Europe hopes crisis peaking
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. warned of many more coronavirus deaths in the days ahead as the global pandemic muted traditional observances from family grave-cleaning ceremonies in China to Palm Sunday for many Christians.
Italy and Spain, the two hardest-hit European nations, expressed hope that the crisis was peaking in their countries, though Italian officials said the emergency is far from over as infections have plateaued but not started to decline.
A chaotic scramble for desperately needed medical equipment and protective gear engulfed the United States, prompting intense squabbling between the states and federal government at a moment the nation is facing one of its gravest emergencies.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo praised China for facilitating a shipment of 1,000 ventilators, as President Donald Trump said states are making inflated requests for supplies and suggested he had a hand in the shipment. Cuomo acknowledged asking the White House and others for help negotiating the ventilators.
“We have given the governor of New York more than anybody has ever been given in a long time,” Trump told reporters in Washington.
Trump warned Saturday that the country could be headed into its toughest weeks, but also said he’s eager to get it reopened and its stalled economy back on track.
“There will be a lot of death, unfortunately,” the American president said in a somber start to his daily briefing on the pandemic. “There will be death.”
The number of confirmed infections topped 1.2 million globally, and the death toll neared 65,000, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker. The virus causes mild to moderate symptoms such as fever and cough in most patients, who recover within a few weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing... Reported by SeattlePI.com 4 hours ago.
Italy and Spain, the two hardest-hit European nations, expressed hope that the crisis was peaking in their countries, though Italian officials said the emergency is far from over as infections have plateaued but not started to decline.
A chaotic scramble for desperately needed medical equipment and protective gear engulfed the United States, prompting intense squabbling between the states and federal government at a moment the nation is facing one of its gravest emergencies.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo praised China for facilitating a shipment of 1,000 ventilators, as President Donald Trump said states are making inflated requests for supplies and suggested he had a hand in the shipment. Cuomo acknowledged asking the White House and others for help negotiating the ventilators.
“We have given the governor of New York more than anybody has ever been given in a long time,” Trump told reporters in Washington.
Trump warned Saturday that the country could be headed into its toughest weeks, but also said he’s eager to get it reopened and its stalled economy back on track.
“There will be a lot of death, unfortunately,” the American president said in a somber start to his daily briefing on the pandemic. “There will be death.”
The number of confirmed infections topped 1.2 million globally, and the death toll neared 65,000, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker. The virus causes mild to moderate symptoms such as fever and cough in most patients, who recover within a few weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing... Reported by SeattlePI.com 4 hours ago.
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Italy's coronavirus crisis: Why the official death toll is lower than reality
In Bergamo province alone, according to a recent study of death records, the real death toll from the outbreak could be more than double the official tally
Reported by Haaretz 1 hour ago.
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Death at home: the unseen toll of Italy's coronavirus crisis
It took Silvia Bertuletti 11 days of frantic phone calls to persuade a doctor to visit her 78-year-old father Alessandro, who was gripped by fever and struggling for breath.
Reported by Reuters 1 hour ago.
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Spain Extends Coronavirus Lockdown To April 26
According to Reuters, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will request for parliament to extend lockdown measures until April 26. As of Saturday, Spain’s total death toll rose to 11,744, making them..
Studio: Wochit News
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