Italy, Seen By White House As A U.S. Analogue, Extends Nationwide Lockdown - NPR

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A soldier walks past the Pantheon monument in central Rome on April 1, as Italy extends its lockdown aimed at curbing the spread of the COVID-19 disease. The country has more than 110,000 coronavirus cases. Filippo Monteforte/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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Filippo Monteforte/AFP via Getty Images

Italy is extending its coronavirus lockdown to April 13, as the country's death toll from COVID-19 now tops 13,000 people. The death toll rose by the smallest amount in days, but officials say it's too soon to declare the epidemic over. The number of new cases, which had been declining, was higher than the previous day.

News of the continued lockdown in Italy comes after members of the White House's coronavirus task force referred to Italy as an example of how the coronavirus could play out in the U.S.

"We think Italy may be the most comparable area to the United States at this point," Vice President Pence said during an interview with CNN Wednesday.

Hours later, Italy's health ministry said the country's death toll had risen to 13,155, with a total of more than 110,000 cases. More than 28,000 people are hospitalized. By contrast, the U.S. now has more than 200,000 confirmed cases.

Italy's population is equal to about 19% of the U.S. total: around 62 million people, compared to some 332 million in the U.S., according to the most recent CIA World Factbook data.

On Wednesday, Italy's leaders said the coronavirus crisis is far from over, despite reaching a plateau in new cases.

"Addressing the nation, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told Italians, we realize we're asking for more sacrifices but we're facing an acute emergency and we cannot lift the lockdown now," NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports from Rome for our Newscast unit.

Italians face fines of around $230 if they violate lockdown restrictions. In his remarks, Conte also compared the COVID-19 pandemic to "an epochal tsunami" that requires new thinking in order to cope with it.

In the U.S., Dr. Deborah Birx said Italy is starting to see progress in its fight against the coronavirus, saying at a White House briefing Tuesday, "you can see that they're beginning to turn the corner in new cases."

"This is what gives us a lot of hope," Birx said, showing a graphic depicting Italy's curve of new cases finally starting to descend from its height.

People in Italy, Birx added, are "entering their fourth week of full mitigation and showing what is possible when we work together as a community, as a country, to change the course of this pandemic together."

The U.S. is not under a national lockdown order, although many states have suspended school and business operations and ordered residents to stay at home for all but essential activities. President Trump has asked Americans to stay home when they can, and to avoid forming groups of 10 or more people, through the end of April.

Administration officials say the mitigation efforts are working: without them, they say, about 2.2 million Americans could die during the COVID-19 pandemic. But they also warn that even if Americans closely follow federal advice, current projection models still predict between 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the U.S.

In Tuesday's briefing, Birx was asked to discuss which groups of Americans are most vulnerable to dying from COVID-19.

She replied, in part, "We're seeing in New York exactly what we saw in Italy: very low mortality. Not to say that young people under 30 or young people under 40 aren't getting ill. They are, but most of them are recovering. So the profile looks identical to Italy, with increasing mortality, with age and preexisting medical conditions."

Dr. Anthony Fauci said that overall, the picture should encourage Americans to observe strict mitigation measures, including social distancing. As Birx did, he used Italy as an example of the horrible toll that awaits the U.S., even if Americans heed federal guidance to wash hands and avoid public contact.

"The deaths and the intensive care and the hospitalization always lag behind that early indication that there are less new cases per day," Fauci said, "the way we saw in Italy and the way we're likely seeing — I don't want to jump the gun on it — we're seeing little inklings of this right now in New York."

"We're going to continue to see things go up," Fauci warned. "We cannot be discouraged by that because the mitigation is actually working and will work."

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2020-04-01 21:23:40Z
52780700995467

Israel's coronavirus outbreak: police target ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods - The - The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/world/israeli-security-forces-crackdown-on-ultra-orthodox-community-defying-stay-at-home-orders/2020/03/31/86348977-7460-4faa-87e5-5feb162b6436_video.html

JERUSALEM — Israeli police are cracking down on ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods around the country, which have emerged as coronavirus hot spots as residents continue to ignore stay-at-home orders and bans on gatherings meant to stem the epidemic.

Authorities have carried out raids on synagogues and deployed helicopters, which hover over streets filled with black-clad religious students, after these crowded, insular communities recorded some of Israel’s highest rates of infection.

As police have pushed into some of these neighborhoods, violence has broken out. Young ultra-Orthodox men threw rocks at police in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood Monday after officers broke up a gathering at a synagogue and cited residents for straying more than 100 meters from their homes. Thirty residents were fined up to $1,400 for violating health restrictions, and the army sent patrols into the neighborhood Tuesday.

Officials are now considering locking down entire ultra-Orthodox areas.

Ronen Zvulun

Reuters

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish youths look at Israeli police as they patrol to enforce restrictions of a partial lockdown against the coronavirus disease (covid-19) in Mea Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem on March 30, 2020.

Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, himself an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who had been criticized earlier for not clamping down more vigorously, called for police to control access to the city of Bnei Barak after an ultra-Orthodox funeral there drew hundreds of mourners in defiance of police.

“There is no public that is exempt from the regulations, and there is no population that can stand aside and not participate in the law,” Litzman said in an interview with the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

Government officials say most members of the ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, communities complied with restrictions when they were imposed nationwide more two weeks ago. But some sects have flouted these rules, in Israel as well as in sections of New York, New Jersey and London, as urgent public health messages have failed to penetrate a population isolated by cultural, religious and language barriers.

Some Haredi sects lead lives tailor-made to facilitate the spread of a new pathogen, health officials said. The ultra-Orthodox routinely have large families packed into small apartments and interact constantly with others at religious schools, synagogues and ritual baths. Many eschew smartphones, ignore mass media and distrust government authority.

“You cannot stop, you cannot even regulate, the spread of the infection inside a family of 10 or 12 in crowded into an apartment of two bedrooms,” said Moti Ravid, medical director of the Maynei Hayeshua Medical Center in Bnei Barak.

He expects contagion among the ultra-Orthodox to outpace the 40 percent rate of infection that occurred inside families in Chinese cities. “We will see 50 percent or more in these Orthodox families,” he said.

Already, the infection rate within Orthodox communities is four times of that of Israel’s general population, Ravid said. A survey by Israel’s Channel 12 news, using data provided by individual hospitals, found more than half the coronavirus patients were from the Haredi community.

In Bnei Barak, the number of cases testing positive for the virus soared from 30 to 244 over three days last week, while in Jerusalem the figure increased from 78 to 314, according to Health Ministry figures. Officials in Jerusalem on Sunday opened a converted hotel-hospital to isolate ultra-Orthodox patients, offering kosher food and holding up to 300 patients.

Jack Guez

AFP/Getty Images

Israeli medical personnel from the Magen David Adom (MDA) national emergency service swab a resident from the city of Bnei Brak at their complex for covid-19 testing in the city of Ramat Gan on March 31, 2020, part of measures imposed by Israeli authorities meant to curb the spread of covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Overall, Israel has recorded more 4,800 infections. Nineteen have died.

Some practices that pose a heightened risk for infection are central in the religious lives of the ultra-Orthodox. Congregating multiple times a day to pray is fundamental, with a quorum of 10 adult males often required. Closing ritual baths, for instance, would mean couples are forbidden from being intimate or even touching and sleeping together.

Meanwhile, the outside world remains remote.

“Many Haredim are cut off from the digital world,” said Esty Shushan, a Haredi activist and chief executive of Nivcharot, a movement working for women’s rights in her Orthodox community. She said, “They are not updated on what is going on in the wider world.”

As the word of the outbreak spread elsewhere in Israel, the Haredim — some of whom speak Yiddish rather than Hebrew and reject the authority of the Israeli government — looked to their spiritual leaders for guidance. Some of their rabbis balked at the government’s call to close schools, reduce gatherings to no more than 10 and hold funerals only outdoors with no more than 20 participants spaced at least six feet apart.

One of the leading Haredi authorities in Bnei Barak, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, directed his followers earlier this month to keep the religious schools open, Shushan said, because studying the Torah and praying would save lives. A week later, as the number of confirmed cases mounted, he reversed himself and ordered adherents to pray alone.

Meanwhile, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Israelis rushed back from abroad as other countries began to restrict movement. One El Al flight from New York transported at least 65 students from a Brooklyn religious school who tested positive for the virus and were quarantined upon arrival.

The ultra-Orthodox have not been the only Israelis reluctant to surrender their freedom. Sun seekers, barred from schools and offices, filled the beaches as recently as two weeks ago. But as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked people to stay home and ratcheted up restrictions, compliance climbed. And with it, public resentment over the still-crowded streets in Haredi neighborhoods.

“Yes, I’m angry,” tweeted news anchor Eylon Levy. “They — and we — don’t deserve to pay the price in blood for their medieval superstitions.”

With every circulating video of an ultra-Orthodox wedding or prayer gathering, complaints grew that police were failing to enforce regulations that held most of the country in confinement.

Ronen Zvulun

Reuters

Israeli police remove an ultra-Orthodox Jewish youth from a synagogue before they close it as they enforce restrictions of a partial lockdown against the coronavirus disease (covid-19) in Mea Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem on March 30, 2020.

The tipping point came over the weekend, more than two weeks after the beginning of home isolation and following the Jewish holiday of Purim with parties and gatherings, when some 300 ultra-Orthodox packed a funeral for a rabbi in Bnei Barak. Images of mourners crowded shoulder-to-shoulder as police stood by infuriated many, including security officials.

Police defended their failure to act, saying that trying to break up the funeral could have sparked a confrontation, drawing even more Haredim to the scene and prolonging the gathering. “Usually in such funerals there are thousands of people, and it was decided that it could have got much worse,” Israel police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Police patrols and outreach have now increased in Haredi areas, Rosenfeld said, with officers on the streets and loudspeaker warnings in Yiddish that residents must avoid congregating.

“They do not have phones, they are not online, they don’t have televisions, though some listen to the radio,” he said. “We’ve emphasized getting [the] message out with rabbis and community leaders who they listen to.”

The heightened police presence was obvious Monday on the streets of Mea Shearim. The sidewalks were less crowded than previously, but still busier than most parts of a Jerusalem that is largely a ghost city a week before Passover.

Families with children filled the pavement in many places, and men frequently stopped to stare tensely at passing police cars. One group of officers in riot gear took away a young man with side locks dangling beneath his broad black hat.

All of the police wore the masks and gloves that have become common around the city. The ultra-Orthodox remained unprotected.

Read more

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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2020-04-01 20:41:28Z
52780693594561

Israel's coronavirus outbreak: police target ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods - The - The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/world/israeli-security-forces-crackdown-on-ultra-orthodox-community-defying-stay-at-home-orders/2020/03/31/86348977-7460-4faa-87e5-5feb162b6436_video.html

JERUSALEM — Israeli police are cracking down on ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods around the country, which have emerged as coronavirus hot spots as residents continue to ignore stay-at-home orders and bans on gatherings meant to stem the epidemic.

Authorities have carried out raids on synagogues and deployed helicopters, which hover over streets filled with black-clad religious students, after these crowded, insular communities recorded some of Israel’s highest rates of infection.

As police have pushed into some of these neighborhoods, violence has broken out. Young ultra-Orthodox men threw rocks at police in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood Monday after officers broke up a gathering at a synagogue and cited residents for straying more than 100 meters from their homes. Thirty residents were fined up to $1,400 for violating health restrictions, and the army sent patrols into the neighborhood Tuesday.

Officials are now considering locking down entire ultra-Orthodox areas.

Ronen Zvulun

Reuters

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish youths look at Israeli police as they patrol to enforce restrictions of a partial lockdown against the coronavirus disease (covid-19) in Mea Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem on March 30, 2020.

Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, himself an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who had been criticized earlier for not clamping down more vigorously, called for police to control access to the city of Bnei Barak after an ultra-Orthodox funeral there drew hundreds of mourners in defiance of police.

“There is no public that is exempt from the regulations, and there is no population that can stand aside and not participate in the law,” Litzman said in an interview with the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

Government officials say most members of the ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, communities complied with restrictions when they were imposed nationwide more two weeks ago. But some sects have flouted these rules, in Israel as well as in sections of New York, New Jersey and London, as urgent public health messages have failed to penetrate a population isolated by cultural, religious and language barriers.

Some Haredi sects lead lives tailor-made to facilitate the spread of a new pathogen, health officials said. The ultra-Orthodox routinely have large families packed into small apartments and interact constantly with others at religious schools, synagogues and ritual baths. Many eschew smartphones, ignore mass media and distrust government authority.

“You cannot stop, you cannot even regulate, the spread of the infection inside a family of 10 or 12 in crowded into an apartment of two bedrooms,” said Moti Ravid, medical director of the Maynei Hayeshua Medical Center in Bnei Barak.

He expects contagion among the ultra-Orthodox to outpace the 40 percent rate of infection that occurred inside families in Chinese cities. “We will see 50 percent or more in these Orthodox families,” he said.

Already, the infection rate within Orthodox communities is four times of that of Israel’s general population, Ravid said. A survey by Israel’s Channel 12 news, using data provided by individual hospitals, found more than half the coronavirus patients were from the Haredi community.

In Bnei Barak, the number of cases testing positive for the virus soared from 30 to 244 over three days last week, while in Jerusalem the figure increased from 78 to 314, according to Health Ministry figures. Officials in Jerusalem on Sunday opened a converted hotel-hospital to isolate ultra-Orthodox patients, offering kosher food and holding up to 300 patients.

Jack Guez

AFP/Getty Images

Israeli medical personnel from the Magen David Adom (MDA) national emergency service swab a resident from the city of Bnei Brak at their complex for covid-19 testing in the city of Ramat Gan on March 31, 2020, part of measures imposed by Israeli authorities meant to curb the spread of covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Overall, Israel has recorded more 4,800 infections. Nineteen have died.

Some practices that pose a heightened risk for infection are central in the religious lives of the ultra-Orthodox. Congregating multiple times a day to pray is fundamental, with a quorum of 10 adult males often required. Closing ritual baths, for instance, would mean couples are forbidden from being intimate or even touching and sleeping together.

Meanwhile, the outside world remains remote.

“Many Haredim are cut off from the digital world,” said Esty Shushan, a Haredi activist and chief executive of Nivcharot, a movement working for women’s rights in her Orthodox community. She said, “They are not updated on what is going on in the wider world.”

As the word of the outbreak spread elsewhere in Israel, the Haredim — some of whom speak Yiddish rather than Hebrew and reject the authority of the Israeli government — looked to their spiritual leaders for guidance. Some of their rabbis balked at the government’s call to close schools, reduce gatherings to no more than 10 and hold funerals only outdoors with no more than 20 participants spaced at least six feet apart.

One of the leading Haredi authorities in Bnei Barak, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, directed his followers earlier this month to keep the religious schools open, Shushan said, because studying the Torah and praying would save lives. A week later, as the number of confirmed cases mounted, he reversed himself and ordered adherents to pray alone.

Meanwhile, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Israelis rushed back from abroad as other countries began to restrict movement. One El Al flight from New York transported at least 65 students from a Brooklyn religious school who tested positive for the virus and were quarantined upon arrival.

The ultra-Orthodox have not been the only Israelis reluctant to surrender their freedom. Sun seekers, barred from schools and offices, filled the beaches as recently as two weeks ago. But as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked people to stay home and ratcheted up restrictions, compliance climbed. And with it, public resentment over the still-crowded streets in Haredi neighborhoods.

“Yes, I’m angry,” tweeted news anchor Eylon Levy. “They — and we — don’t deserve to pay the price in blood for their medieval superstitions.”

With every circulating video of an ultra-Orthodox wedding or prayer gathering, complaints grew that police were failing to enforce regulations that held most of the country in confinement.

Ronen Zvulun

Reuters

Israeli police remove an ultra-Orthodox Jewish youth from a synagogue before they close it as they enforce restrictions of a partial lockdown against the coronavirus disease (covid-19) in Mea Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem on March 30, 2020.

The tipping point came over the weekend, more than two weeks after the beginning of home isolation and following the Jewish holiday of Purim with parties and gatherings, when some 300 ultra-Orthodox packed a funeral for a rabbi in Bnei Barak. Images of mourners crowded shoulder-to-shoulder as police stood by infuriated many, including security officials.

Police defended their failure to act, saying that trying to break up the funeral could have sparked a confrontation, drawing even more Haredim to the scene and prolonging the gathering. “Usually in such funerals there are thousands of people, and it was decided that it could have got much worse,” Israel police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Police patrols and outreach have now increased in Haredi areas, Rosenfeld said, with officers on the streets and loudspeaker warnings in Yiddish that residents must avoid congregating.

“They do not have phones, they are not online, they don’t have televisions, though some listen to the radio,” he said. “We’ve emphasized getting [the] message out with rabbis and community leaders who they listen to.”

The heightened police presence was obvious Monday on the streets of Mea Shearim. The sidewalks were less crowded than previously, but still busier than most parts of a Jerusalem that is largely a ghost city a week before Passover.

Families with children filled the pavement in many places, and men frequently stopped to stare tensely at passing police cars. One group of officers in riot gear took away a young man with side locks dangling beneath his broad black hat.

All of the police wore the masks and gloves that have become common around the city. The ultra-Orthodox remained unprotected.

Read more

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

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2020-04-01 19:42:00Z
CAIiECBd8PbMGYC02lBzw8HZg7UqGAgEKg8IACoHCAowjtSUCjC30XQwn6G5AQ

Coronavirus news: Putin sends military plane to U.S. with supplies to fight COVID-19 after talking with Trump - CBS News

A Russian military plane carrying medical equipment has departed for the United States, the defense ministry in Moscow said Wednesday, as the Kremlin flexes its soft power amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Antonov-124, "with medical masks and medical equipment on board", left for the U.S. overnight, a statement said, without providing further details.

Video released by the ministry showed the cargo plane loaded with boxes preparing to take off from a military airbase near Moscow early Wednesday morning.

Российский самолет с медицинскими масками и медицинским оборудованием на борту вылетел в США. В американской администрации ранее сообщили, что ожидают его прибытия 1 апреля.

Видео: ТАСС/Минобороны России pic.twitter.com/6PPhYfRAbb

— ТАСС (@tass_agency) April 1, 2020

Contacted by AFP, the defense ministry refused to provide any further information on the delivery, which came after Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with U.S. counterpart Donald Trump on Monday.

Coronavirus: The Race To Respond ›

More in Coronavirus: The Race To Respond

Russia has previously sent medical supplies and experts to coronavirus-hit Italy as part of a humanitarian effort that analysts said carried geopolitical overtones.

Moscow said the aid for Italy included some 100 virus specialists with experience dealing with Ebola and swine fever, but Italian media have reported that much of the aid was not useful in the fight against the virus.

Last month, Russia said it had sent nearly 1,000 coronavirus testing kits to ex-Soviet states and countries including Iran and North Korea.

The U.S. now has 188,663 confirmed coronavirus cases, by far the highest of any country, according to a Johns Hopkins tally, and more than 4,000 deaths.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Putin expected the U.S. to return the gesture if Russia faces a similar crisis and U.S. producers have increased their capacity to produce medical supplies.

"Today, when the situation touches absolutely everyone and is of a global nature, there is no alternative to acting together in the spirit of partnership and mutual assistance," he said.

Mr. Trump said earlier this week that "Russia sent us a very, very large planeload of things, medical equipment, which was very nice."

Health officials in Russia have registered a sharp increase in the number of infections, with 2,337 cases and 17 deaths confirmed, according to the latest figures Wednesday.

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2020-04-01 19:47:18Z
52780692900161

Rouhani: U.S. has lost opportunity to lift Iran sanctions amid coronavirus - Reuters

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran’s president said on Wednesday that, with the advent of the coronavirus, the United States had missed a historic opportunity to lift sanctions on his country, though the penalties had not hampered its fight against the infection.

On Tuesday, U.S Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the possibility that Washington might consider easing sanctions on Iran and other nations to help fight the epidemic, but gave no concrete sign it plans to do so.

“The United States lost the best opportunity to lift sanctions,” Hassan Rouhani said in a televised cabinet meeting. “It was a great opportunity for Americans to apologize ... and to lift the unjust and unfair sanctions on Iran.”

The coronavirus has killed more than 3,000 people in Iran with confirmed infections close to 48,000, making it the worst-hit country in the Middle East and prompting China and the United Nations to urge the United States to ease sanctions.

“Americans could have used this opportunity and told the Iranian nation that they are not against them,” Rouhani said. “Their hostility (toward Iranians) is obvious.”

Friction between Tehran and Washington has increased since 2018, when U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six nations and re-imposed sanctions, crippling Iran’s economy.

Trump has adopted a “maximum pressure” policy on Iran aimed at persuading Tehran to negotiate a broader deal that further constrains its nuclear program, limits its missile program and curbs its use of proxy forces in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon.

Washington has offered humanitarian assistance to its longtime foe. But Iran’s top authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has rejected the offer.

Although Iranian authorities have said U.S. sanctions had hindered its efforts to curb the outbreak, Rouhani said :”The sanctions have failed to hamper our efforts to fight against the coronavirus outbreak.”

FILE PHOTO: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks during a meeting of the Iranian government task force on the coronavirus, in Tehran, Iran, March 21, 2020. Official Presidential website/Handout via REUTERS

“We are almost self-sufficient in producing all necessary equipment to fight the coronavirus. We have been much more successful than many other countries in the fight against this disease,” Rouhani said.

Several countries, including the United Arab Emirates, China, Britain, France, Qatar and Turkey, have sent shipments of medical supplies, including gloves and surgical masks, to Iran.

In the first transaction conducted under a trade mechanism set up to barter humanitarian goods and food after Washington’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal, Germany said on Tuesday that France, Germany and Britain had exported medical goods to Iran.

Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Philippa Fletcher and John Stonestreet

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2020-04-01 19:03:17Z
52780700021656

Rouhani: U.S. has lost opportunity to lift Iran sanctions amid coronavirus - Reuters

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran’s president said on Wednesday that, with the advent of the coronavirus, the United States had missed a historic opportunity to lift sanctions on his country, though the penalties had not hampered its fight against the infection.

On Tuesday, U.S Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the possibility that Washington might consider easing sanctions on Iran and other nations to help fight the epidemic, but gave no concrete sign it plans to do so.

“The United States lost the best opportunity to lift sanctions,” Hassan Rouhani said in a televised cabinet meeting. “It was a great opportunity for Americans to apologize ... and to lift the unjust and unfair sanctions on Iran.”

The coronavirus has killed more than 3,000 people in Iran with confirmed infections close to 48,000, making it the worst-hit country in the Middle East and prompting China and the United Nations to urge the United States to ease sanctions.

“Americans could have used this opportunity and told the Iranian nation that they are not against them,” Rouhani said. “Their hostility (toward Iranians) is obvious.”

Friction between Tehran and Washington has increased since 2018, when U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six nations and re-imposed sanctions, crippling Iran’s economy.

Trump has adopted a “maximum pressure” policy on Iran aimed at persuading Tehran to negotiate a broader deal that further constrains its nuclear program, limits its missile program and curbs its use of proxy forces in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon.

Washington has offered humanitarian assistance to its longtime foe. But Iran’s top authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has rejected the offer.

Although Iranian authorities have said U.S. sanctions had hindered its efforts to curb the outbreak, Rouhani said :”The sanctions have failed to hamper our efforts to fight against the coronavirus outbreak.”

FILE PHOTO: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks during a meeting of the Iranian government task force on the coronavirus, in Tehran, Iran, March 21, 2020. Official Presidential website/Handout via REUTERS

“We are almost self-sufficient in producing all necessary equipment to fight the coronavirus. We have been much more successful than many other countries in the fight against this disease,” Rouhani said.

Several countries, including the United Arab Emirates, China, Britain, France, Qatar and Turkey, have sent shipments of medical supplies, including gloves and surgical masks, to Iran.

In the first transaction conducted under a trade mechanism set up to barter humanitarian goods and food after Washington’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal, Germany said on Tuesday that France, Germany and Britain had exported medical goods to Iran.

Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Philippa Fletcher and John Stonestreet

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2020-04-01 18:26:53Z
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As Wuhan reopens, China revs engine to move past coronavirus. But it's stuck in second gear. - The Washington Post

AFP Getty Images People eat McDonalds on a bench in Wuhan, China, on March 30, 2020. Wuhan, the city where the coronavirus first emerged in December, is slowly coming back to life with the complete lockdown being lifted in the coming days.

After 10 weeks confined to their apartments, unable to exercise, shop for groceries or walk their dogs, Wuhan residents are emerging into the daylight.

The subway and intercity trains are running again. Shopping malls and even the Tesla store are reopening. State-owned companies and manufacturing businesses are turning on their lights, with others to follow.

“I’ve been indoors for 70 days. Today is the first time that I came outside,” one woman who ventured into a mall this week told local television. “I feel as if I have been separated from the outside world for ages.”

Wuhan’s airport is due to reopen next week, and residents will be allowed to leave the city for the first time since it was locked down Jan. 23 to control the deadly coronavirus that originated there.

China’s leaders say the country has largely won the battle against its outbreak, reporting each day that domestic transmissions are negligible or nonexistent. The gradual reopening of parts of Hubei province — and now of Wuhan, the provincial capital — is testament to that.

But winning the war is proving to be a tougher proposition. That involves not only preventing a second wave of coronavirus infections but also restarting the economy. It’s becoming increasingly clear that officials cannot achieve both things at once.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/world/these-videos-show-that-life-in-wuhan-is-far-from-normal-as-coronavirus-lockdown-eases/2020/03/31/e7da2657-627f-43b7-8daa-955566ab7a59_video.html

“These obviously come into conflict, because to prevent the spread of the virus, both from overseas and from unrecorded cases, China needs to maintain some kind of social distancing measures,” said Neil Thomas, a senior researcher at the China-focused Macro Polo think tank in Chicago. “These are going to dampen demand from consumers and limit the operation of factories, the service industry and the transportation networks.”

[As dark reality sets in, president beats a retreat on reopening the U.S.]

Chinese authorities are discovering that allowing people — even those without fevers who are wearing surgical masks and are doused in hand sanitizer — to get too close to each other risks a new rise in infections. Recent media reports have focused on “silent carriers,” and studies have found that as many as one-third of people infected with the coronavirus show delayed or no symptoms.

“The possibility of a new round of infections remains relatively high,” National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng said Sunday.

Communist Party organizations must “grasp the prevention and control of the epidemic situation with one hand, and grasp the resumption of work and production with the other,” the official CPC News declared Monday. Party outlets have ranked controlling the virus and stopping a second wave of infections above the need to restart the economy.

Roman Pilipey

EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

A person wearing a full protective gear walks in the streets of Wuhan, China, 30 March 2020.

Like President Trump — who had said he wanted businesses to resume normal operations by Easter, only to backtrack as U.S. deaths surged — Chinese leader Xi Jinping is clearly concerned about the economic impact of a nationwide standstill.

Xi visited the huge Ningbo port and factories in Zhejiang, a hub for exports and a province he once governed, over the weekend to promise that the government would help businesses “recover in the soonest manner.”

Most economists forecast a sharp slump in China’s growth rate in the first quarter, with some predicting the first contraction since 1976. Still, at a Politburo meeting in Beijing on Friday, party leaders signaled further support for the economy, and reiterated their goal of 6 percent growth for the year as a whole.

But efforts to kick-start the economy are not going smoothly.

Despite the gradual reopening of Wuhan, things are still far from normal for the city of 11 million. Officials say that 2,535 people died there during the outbreak, while about 2,500 people remain hospitalized.

People are allowed out of their residential complexes only if they have a return-to-work pass issued by their employer, and only if the government-issued health code on their cellphone glows green — not orange or red — to show that they are healthy and cleared for travel. Residents report that some complexes deemed infection-free have quietly lost that status, without explanation.

[Locked down in Beijing, I watched China beat back the coronavirus]

In the malls that opened this week, people must stand five feet apart on escalators, and clothes that customers have tried on must be sprayed with disinfectant. Subway passengers must wear masks and sit two seats apart; footage on state media showed near-deserted cars and stations.

“They’re trying to turn the industrial engines back on as quickly as they can,” said Ryan Hass, a China expert at the Brookings Institution. “But it’s a bit of a challenge because 60 percent of the Chinese economy is the service sector. And even if they wanted people to go to movie theaters and restaurants right now, I don’t think there’s a lot of demand.”

AFP

Getty Images

Staff members stand outside a Dior store in Wuhan international plaza on March 30, 2020.

While Wuhan struggles to return to normalcy, authorities have reinstated restrictions elsewhere.

Small businesses — from karaoke bars in the northern city of Shenyang to Internet cafes in the southwestern metropolis of Chengdu — that tentatively reopened in early March have been ordered to close.

Employees rushed to get back to Moon Village, a karaoke joint in Chengdu, over the weekend and enjoyed a celebratory drink together. The parlor’s social media pages featured photos of disinfecting procedures.

It wasn’t open even a day before local authorities told it to shut its doors.

Some 600 movie theaters that had reopened after a two-month shutdown — out of 70,000 nationwide that were ordered to close at the end of January, before what should have been the biggest box-office week of the year — have been abruptly ordered to go dark.

Indoor attractions such as Madame Tussauds and the landmark Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai, and even pavilions in scenic mountain attractions, have also been told to close.

Chinese authorities have not spelled out reasons for these closures, but analysts such as Thomas say they underline the fear of new infections and the long-term impact that could have on the economy.

This U-turn has been accompanied by other sudden changes, including a ban on foreigners entering China and limited inbound flights for Chinese nationals. The number of flights arriving in the country is less than 2 percent of normal.

[‘I am so afraid’: Coronavirus isolation brings grave new hardships for the world’s poor]

“It’s a difficult calculation: public health risk versus economic risk,” said Ryan Manuel, managing director of Official China, a consultancy specializing in China’s domestic political environment.

But it’s a calculation that other countries, including Italy, Spain and the United States, will have to make.

“Everyone will need to come up with an exit strategy,” said Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Natixis, a French investment bank.

For now, she said, Chinese leaders should not worry about getting the economy back to normal. Domestic demand is low, and external demand is even lower, given the coronavirus’s rampage across the world’s largest economies.

“In a world without demand, rushing into production will create excess capacity and push prices down,” Herrero said. “So Chinese leaders could say they’re going slow for sanitary reasons, but really it’s because they can’t sell their stuff to anyone.”

Roman Pilipey

EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

A man wearing a protective face mask walks past a security fence in the streets of Wuhan on March 30, 2020.

Liu Yang in Beijing contributed to this report.

Read more

China’s claim of coronavirus victory in Wuhan brings hope, but experts worry it is premature

As coronavirus goes global, China’s Xi asserts victory on first trip to Wuhan since outbreak

Conspiracy theorists blame U.S. for coronavirus. China is happy to encourage them.

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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2020-04-01 18:37:07Z
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