Number of coronavirus intensive care patients in Italy drops for first time - Reuters

MILAN, April 4 (Reuters) - The death toll from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy rose by 681 to 15,362, a somewhat lower rise than those seen in recent days, while the number of patients in intensive care fell for the first time, the Civil Protection Agency said on Saturday.

The total number of confirmed cases rose to 124,632 from 119,827 reported on Friday, an increase of 4,805, slightly higher than the numbers over recent days which have encouraged hopes that the spread of the disease has reached a plateau.

Of those originally infected nationwide, 20,996 were declared recovered on Saturday, compared with 19,758 a day earlir.

There were 3,994 people in intensive care, down from a previous 4,068, the first time the total had fallen since the outbreak of the epidemic in northern Italy on Feb. 21. (Reporting by James Mackenzie)

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2020-04-04 20:43:30Z
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Coronavirus Live Updates: C.D.C. Recommends Wearing Masks - The New York Times

新冠病毒疫情最新消息

Here’s what you need to know:

• Will Americans follow guidance to wear masks? Trump says he won’t.
• Gov. Andrew Cuomo forecasts New York’s crisis peaking within about a week.
• The C.D.C. is beginning to test for antibodies that would show previous coronavirus infections.
• Almost 40,000 people have traveled directly from China to the U.S. since Trump imposed travel restrictions.
• An outbreak at a cancer hospital shocks Egypt, as the global caseload rises past 1.1 million.
• A provocative idea in Italy: Blood tests to decide who goes back to work.
• Unusual vaccine is ready for human trials, scientists say.

Pedestrians in New York on Saturday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that people wear what it described as “simple cloth face coverings” when they go outside, while maintaining social distancing. Credit...Jonah Markowitz for The New York Times

Will Americans follow guidance to wear masks? Trump says he won’t.

The United States on Saturday experienced its first full day under a federal recommendation that people wear cloth masks when they go out in public in many instances, the latest effort to contain the coronavirus pandemic that has seen more than 1 million people worldwide become infected.

With President Trump having undercut the new guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by immediately declaring that he would not wear a mask himself, it was far from clear how many Americans would ultimately embrace the recommendation.

Some state and local officials have made a point of wearing facial coverings, and at least a couple of localities have even required them by ordinance. But health experts have also feared that people would don masks only to loosen their compliance with social distancing guidelines.

More than 300,000 people in the United States have tested positive for the virus, and officials believe that the number of people who have been infected is far higher. More than 8,000 people have died, including at least 3,565 in New York, the hardest hit state.

Globally, cases passed 1.1 million and deaths passed 59,000. The British government reported 708 deaths — a grim national record for a 24-hour period.

The recommendation for masks in the United States followed an intense West Wing debate over several days as a divided Trump administration wrestled with whether to request such a drastic change in Americans’ social behavior.

Ultimately, the C.D.C. suggested that people wear what it described as “simple cloth face coverings” when they are in places, like grocery stores and pharmacies, where it might be more challenging to keep away from others.

“It is critical to emphasize that maintaining 6-feet social distancing remains important to slowing the spread of the virus,” the C.D.C. wrote in its recommendation, which it said was partly intended to “help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others.”

But Mr. Trump, in an appearance at the White House on Friday evening, repeatedly described the recommendation as voluntary and made clear that he did not intend to wear a mask.

Federal officials are scheduled to speak at the White House on Saturday afternoon.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo forecasts New York’s crisis peaking within about a week.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo warned Saturday that, as infections passed 113,700 and deaths 3,500, New York State would reach the worst point of the coronavirus crisis within a week or so.

“Nobody can tell you the number at the top of the mountain,” Mr. Cuomo said, but he estimated that it would be “in the seven-day range.”

He also said that 85,000 people had volunteered to help New York fight the coronavirus and that 22,000 of them were from out of state, and that the Chinese government was facilitating a donation of 1,000 ventilators to New York and Oregon was sending 140 as the state rushes to increase its supply.

Mr. Cuomo tried to encourage New Yorkers not to lose hope even as he said he expected the numbers of those infected and dying to continue to surge in the nation’s largest and most lethal outbreak.

“This is a painful, disorienting experience,” he said. “But we find our best self, our strongest self — this day will end. We will get through it, we will get to the other side of the mountain. But we have to do what we have to do between now and then.”

In New Jersey, Gov. Philip D. Murphy announced that there had been 200 more deaths in the state since Friday, bringing New Jersey’s total to 846 — which he noted was more than the number of New Jersey residents who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Citing shore towns increasingly crowded by those fleeing other hot spots, Mr. Murphy announced that New Jersey would move to make it easier for municipalities or counties to block “rentals to transient guests or seasonal tenants” during the crisis, including at hotels and motels.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said New York City was heading into “the toughest time,” and repeated his calls for a national enlistment system to help move doctors and health care workers around the country to areas with high need.

“This is going to be like having many Katrinas,” Mr. de Blasio said on MSNBC’s “AM Joy.” “This is going to be a reality where you are going to have many cities and states simultaneously in crisis, needing health care professionals, needing ventilators.”

The mayor has said that the city will need 45,000 more medical personnel to fight the pandemic through April and May.

Dr. Sheldon H. Teperman, director of the trauma center at NYC Health + Hospitals/Jacobi in the Bronx, said that the disease had particularly thinned the ranks of specialized critical-care nurses at city-run hospitals, with some falling ill or needing to care for sick family members.

“If we could get critical-care nurses, if volunteers would just come, we could save more lives,” Dr. Teperman said.

The C.D.C. is beginning to test for antibodies that would show previous coronavirus infections.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has begun to conduct tests to find out whether people have been previously infected with the coronavirus, officials said Saturday.

Such testing can help determine how widespread the disease has been and whether there have been significant numbers of people who were infected but did not become ill. The tests, called serology tests, detect antibodies that the immune system makes in response to the virus.

According to Dr. Joe Bresee, deputy incident manager of the agency’s Covid-19 response, testing will focus on three groups: people in areas with a high concentration of cases; people in a representative sample of other areas from around the country; and special groups of people who are likely to have had a higher risk of exposure, like health care workers.

Antibodies to other viruses confer immunity, but it is not yet certain that they do for the novel coronavirus. Still, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said last week that “if this virus acts like every other virus that we know, once you get infected, get better, clear the virus, then you’ll have immunity that will protect you against re-infection.”

And while some countries, like Italy and Britain, have raised the possibility of giving people with antibodies permits to allow them to return to the work force, officials with the C.D.C. said their testing was to determine the virus’s trail and to plan ahead.

The C.D.C. also said on Saturday that it had expanded the coronavirus information it publishes online, adding a weekly report that will include figures on outpatient and emergency department visits, hospitalizations, deaths and data on testing for the virus.

The first report confirms an aspect of the epidemic that has already been noted: People 65 and over are most likely to become severely ill if infected. Those 50 and older also have a somewhat higher than average risk of serious illness.

Almost 40,000 people have traveled directly from China to the U.S. since Trump imposed travel restrictions.

At least 430,000 people have arrived in the United States on direct flights from China since that country disclosed the existence of a pneumonialike illness to international health experts on New Year’s Eve, according to an analysis of data collected in both countries.

Nearly 40,000 of them have come in the two months since President Trump imposed travel restrictions.

In total, 279 passenger flights have arrived from China since the restrictions, carrying Americans and others exempt from them. Even this past week, data show, the flights have continued.

Mr. Trump has heralded the restrictions as one of his administration’s most important decisions in light of the outbreak. And the bulk of the 430,000 passengers — of varying nationalities — arrived in January, before they were imposed. But the analysis of the flight and other data by The New York Times shows the travel measures, however effective, may have come too late, particularly in light of recent statements from officials that as many as 25 percent of infected people may never have symptoms.

And even with the restrictions, screening procedures have been uneven, interviews show.

“I was surprised at how lax the whole process was,” said Andrew Wu, 31, who landed at Los Angeles International Airport from Beijing on March 10. “The guy I spoke to read down a list of questions, and he didn’t seem interested in checking out anything.”

An outbreak at a cancer hospital shocks Egypt, as the global caseload rises past 1.1 million.

At least 17 Egyptian doctors and nurses have tested positive for the coronavirus, the National Cancer Institute in Cairo said on Saturday, raising fears the pandemic could have a devastating effect on health facilities in the Arab world’s most populous country.

The outbreak was the first reported among medical workers in Egypt, which recorded an increase in the rate of infections over the weekend: The health ministry recorded 120 cases on Friday, raising the total to 985, with 66 deaths.

Cairo University, which runs the cancer hospital, said in a statement that all medical workers at the facility were being tested, and that the hospital would be closed and sanitized.

The Egyptian medical syndicate, an association representing hundreds of thousands of medical workers, said in a statement that it was “shocked” by the number of cases and urged the authorities to supply protection equipment and apply strict testing protocols.

It said in a post on Facebook that the infected medical workers had been placed in quarantine.

The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 1.1 million people, according to official counts. As of Saturday morning, at least 59,000 people have died, and the virus has been detected in at least 175 countries. Here’s the view from around the globe.

• Spain: The country reported 7,026 new cases, for a total of 124,736, surpassing Italy as the nation with the most infections in Europe. Spain said that 809 coronavirus patients, including a 5-year-old, had died overnight. It was the lowest toll in a week, bringing total deaths to 11,744. Also on Saturday, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said that the nationwide lockdown would be extended another 15 days.

• France: Officials reported 68,605 test-confirmed cases of Covid-19 around the country and 7,560 deaths, as well as 6,838 patients in intensive care. In an encouraging sign, the country has recorded fewer and fewer new patients in intensive care each day over the past week — on Saturday there were 176 new patients, versus 486 a week ago.

• Britain: Thousands of prisoners in Britain will be granted early release within weeks in an effort to contain the spread of the virus in cells and facilities where social distancing rules are impossible to maintain, the Ministry of Justice said. The announcement comes as the country reported a record 708 deaths overnight, bringing the total to more than 4,300.

• Ecuador: The health minister said there was a “sharp rise” in coronavirus deaths on Friday in Guayaquil, the center of the country’s outbreak, with the toll rising to 1,500 from 700. The government has said it is building a “special camp” for coronavirus patients in Guayaquil, where residents are under strict quarantine and curfew measures, leaving police officers and soldiers to collect the bodies of the dead from homes — as many as 150 a day — and have been tasked with burying the dead.

• Republic of Georgia: A 79-year-old woman in the South Caucasus region became the country’s first reported death related to the pandemic. Medical officials said she had other underlying conditions. Georgia, a nation of 3.7 million people, reported a total of 157 confirmed cases.

• Germany: The country has identified 91,000 coronavirus infections, more reported cases than all but the United States, Spain and Italy. But thanks to widespread testing and other measures, its percentage of fatal cases has been remarkably low — 1.3 percent. By contrast, the reported rate is about 10 percent in Spain, France and Britain, 4 percent in China and 2.5 percent in the United States. Even South Korea, a model of flattening the curve, has a rate of 1.7 percent.

Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak

The virus has infected more than 1.1 million people in at least 175 countries.

A provocative idea in Italy: Blood tests to decide who goes back to work.

The weeks of locking down Italy, which has had the world’s deadliest coronavirus outbreak, may be starting to pay off, as officials announced this week that the numbers of new infections had plateaued and, on Saturday, that ICU cases had gone for the first time.

That glimmer of hope has turned the conversation to the daunting challenge of when and how to reopen without setting off another cataclysmic wave of contagion. To do so, Italian health officials and some politicians have focused on an idea that might once have been relegated to the realm of dystopian novels and science fiction films.

‘We Take the Dead From Morning Till Night’

No country has been hit harder by the coronavirus than Italy, and no province has suffered as many losses as Bergamo. Photos and voices from there evoke a portrait of despair.

Having the right antibodies to the virus in one’s blood — a potential marker of immunity — may soon determine who gets to work and who does not, who is locked down and who is free.

That debate is in some ways ahead of the science. Researchers are uncertain, if hopeful, that antibodies in fact indicate immunity. But that has not stopped politicians from grasping at the idea as they come under increasing pressure to open economies and avoid inducing a widespread economic depression.

Unusual vaccine is ready for human trials, scientists say.

An experimental vaccine is ready to test in people as soon as the Food and Drug Administration grants permission, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center said.

Mice given the vaccine produced high levels of antibodies against the new coronavirus. But only clinical trials can determine whether it will be safe and effective in humans.

“Testing in patients would typically require at least a year and probably longer,” Dr. Louis D. Falo Jr., a member of the research team, said. “This particular situation is different from anything we’ve ever seen, so we don’t know how long the clinical development process will take. Recently announced revisions to the normal processes suggest we may be able to advance this faster.”

Another vaccine, made by Moderna, is already in a clinical trial, which started March 15. Dozens more candidates are being developed by other companies.

The University of Pittsburgh’s vaccine will be given in an unusual way: through a small patch dotted with 400 “microneedles” made of sugar mixed with a coronavirus protein. The microneedles penetrate the skin and the sugar melts, releasing the full protein dose in 10 minutes or less, and alerting the immune system to start making antibodies to fight the virus.

“It’s not painful,” Dr. Falo said in an interview. “The needles don’t reach any nerves, nor do they reach blood vessels. They’re a little more than half a millimeter long, and the width of a human hair.”

This approach takes advantage of the skin’s ability to set off a powerful immune response. Skin is the body’s first line of defense against a constant bombardment of bacteria and viruses from the environment, and it is teeming with cells that act like scouts for the immune system, looking for things that shouldn’t be there.

A vaccination with microneedles uses a smaller dose than the usual shot in the arm requires, allowing more people to be immunized, Dr. Falo said. The vaccine, unlike most, does not have to be frozen or refrigerated, making shipping and storage easier and cheaper.

A report on the research was published in EBioMedicine.

“Once we have been given approval, we will be ready to go” with testing, Dr. Falo said.

Oil giants delay meeting, threatening to roil markets again.

A meeting planned for Monday between officials of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and other oil producers, which had buoyed hopes for a deal to end the turmoil in energy markets, has been put off, according to two OPEC delegates.

The news comes as lingering tensions have resurfaced between Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s de facto leader, and Russia over who is to blame for the recent collapse in oil prices. On Friday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia partly blamed Saudi Arabia for the price drop; the Saudi ministers of foreign affairs and energy then responded angrily, blaming Russia.

News of the meeting’s delay may roil the markets when trading resumes on Monday. Expectations for a meeting had added to hopes that OPEC and Russia would agree on production trims.

The OPEC delegates indicated that further talks would be required before moving ahead with a meeting, which could be rescheduled for later in the week. Saudi Arabia had called for the meeting last Thursday, responding to pressure from President Trump.

In early March, Russia declined to go along with a Saudi-led OPEC proposal to further trim production to deal with the plummeting demand for oil because of the coronavirus epidemic, leading the Saudis to walk away from a three-year agreement with Moscow on production trims.

U.S. invokes law to force 3M’s hand on surgical masks.

The Trump administration is using a Korean War-era law to redirect to the United States surgical masks manufactured by 3M in other countries as part of a heated pressure campaign to force the Minnesota company to cut off sales of surgical masks abroad.

The policy, embodied in an executive order the Trump administration issued on Friday evening, is a significant expansion of the American government’s reach. It is also a reversal of President Trump’s hesitant use of the Defense Production Act, which allows the administration to force a company to prioritize the U.S. government over competing orders.

But in this case, the administration is invoking the law to compel 3M to send the masks it makes in factories overseas to the United States, and to stop exporting U.S.-made masks. Those moves, some trade and legal experts fear, could backfire, possibly prompting foreign governments to clamp down on the flow of desperately needed medical necessities to the United States.

The Trump administration’s new executive order directs federal emergency management and health officials to use the law’s authority to preserve respirators, surgical masks and surgical gloves for domestic use.

With slumping revenue, clinics that treat the poor are facing layoffs.

Since the 1960s War on Poverty, a network of community health clinics around the nation have served as a health care refuge for people with no health insurance and few financial resources. But the effects of the coronavirus pandemic have left many of these clinics in dire financial straits.

Around the country, nonprofit community health centers provide primary care to about 29 million people regardless of their ability to pay. But now they are laying off workers and cutting back in-person appointments because of a loss of revenues from the kinds of procedures that usually bring in money, such as dental work — all now canceled with the need for social distancing.

One clinic in rural Washington State has laid off more than a third of its work force. A network of clinics in the Boston area has cut back a fourth of its staff.

“I worry a lot,” said Chuck Jones, the chief executive of the Boston-area clinics, Harbor Health Services, “that if community health centers go away, we won’t as a society hear the struggles of these people.”

A 1918 flu epidemic informed Philadelphia’s response in 2020.

The United States was crippled by the brutal flu that swept through the country in the midst of World War I, but nowhere was hit more forcefully than the powerhouse industrial cities of Pennsylvania.

In Philadelphia alone, 20,000 people died — 7,500 in the first six months, 4,500 in one week and 837 in a single day. And then, as now, holding large public events in defiance of scientific advice to stay at home had shattering consequences.

Our reporters looked back at how the 1918 flu claimed lives, overwhelmed health care workers and morticians, and prompted ordinary people to rise to the moment in the fight against an invisible foe.

By the end of last week, coronavirus cases in Philadelphia had reached 2,430, with 26 deaths. And officials there were scrambling to secure the needed equipment, including ventilators.

But memories of the 1918 epidemic had already prompted an aggressive response from Philadelphia’s public health authorities. One result: Unlike some American cities, they expect to have enough hospital beds to withstand even a worst-case scenario.

“The state has handled it very differently, and the city handled it radically differently,” said Dr. Tony S. Reed, chief medical officer at Temple University Hospital. “Frankly, for us it’s going to make all the difference in the world.”

A day of mourning in China, amid doubts over its virus toll.

The Chinese government held a nationwide day of mourning on Saturday, the day of the annual Tomb Sweeping Festival, a traditional time for honoring ancestors. Flags flew at half-staff, and alarms and horns sounded for three minutes starting at 10 a.m. Xi Jinping and other leaders of the ruling Communist Party attended a ceremony in Beijing.

It will probably not be enough to soothe many families in the city of Wuhan, who have chafed against the state’s efforts to assert control over the grieving process.

Officials are pushing relatives to bury their dead quickly and quietly, and they are suppressing online discussion of fatalities as doubts emerge about the true size of China’s toll from the virus. If China’s tallies are vastly understated, as the C.I.A. has been warning the White House since at least early February, predictive modeling for the United States and other countries would be thrown off, or robbed of a major pool of data.

The police in Wuhan, where the pandemic began, have been dispatched to break up groups on WeChat, a popular messaging app, set up by relatives of coronavirus victims. Government censors have scrubbed social media of images that showed relatives lining up at Wuhan funeral homes to collect ashes. Officials have assigned minders to relatives to follow them as they pick burial plots, claim their loved ones’ remains and bury them, grieving family members say.

Liu Pei’en, whose father died after contracting the coronavirus in a Wuhan hospital, said officials had insisted on accompanying him to a funeral home to pick up his father’s remains. Later, they followed him to the cemetery where they watched him bury his father, he said. Mr. Liu saw one of his minders take photos of the funeral, which was over in 20 minutes.

“My father devoted his whole life to serving the country and the party,” Mr. Liu, 44, who works in finance, said by phone. “Only to be surveilled after his death.”

Location Data Says It All: Staying at Home During Coronavirus Is a Luxury

As the virus continues to spread throughout the nation, an analysis of cellphone data shows that those in the wealthiest areas have been able to reduce their movements more than those in the poorest areas.

Those we’ve lost: Gita Ramjee, Adam Schlesinger, Ellis Marsalis, Pape Diouf.

A leading researcher who fought a different virus; a prodigious songwriter still in his prime; the first black president of the Marseille soccer club; a jazz patriarch.

They are among those who died this week from Covid-19, and were profiled in our series about people lost to the pandemic.

• Gita Ramjee: In South Africa, Dr. Gita Ramjee led AIDS studies and drug trials, hoping to overcome not only H.I.V. but also cultural barriers to stopping its spread. On Tuesday, another epidemic claimed her: She died of Covid-19 at a Durban hospital. She had fallen ill shortly after returning from a visit to her sons in London, local news accounts said. She was 63.

• Adam Schlesinger: He made suburban characters shine for the band Fountains of Wayne and brought pop-rock perfection to the film “That Thing You Do!” Adam Schlesinger, an acclaimed performer who had an award-winning second career writing songs for film, theater and television, died on Wednesday at 52.

• Pape Diouf: Mababa “Pape” Diouf, who became the only black president of a top-tier European soccer club when he was appointed to lead France’s Olympique de Marseille, died at 68 on Tuesday. He was a gifted orator and a defender of the club’s passionate fan base.

• Ellis Marsalis: His sons Wynton and Branford gained national fame embodying a fresh-faced revival of traditional jazz. But Ellis Marsalis had been an influential musician and teacher in New Orleans long before that. He died on Wednesday at 85.

Reporting was contributed by Alan Blinder, Denise Grady, Michael Ives, Raphael Minder, Jason Horowitz, Elian Peltier, Nada Hussein, Constant Méheut, Christopher F. Schuetze, Katrin Bennhold, Yonette Joseph, Elaina Plott, Dan Barry, Caitlin Dickerson, Alisha Haridasani Gupta, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Eric Schmitt, Matthew Haag, Peter Eavis, Niraj Chokshi, David Gelles, Christopher Flavelle, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Alan Feuer, Helene Cooper, Katie Benner, Alan Rappeport, Michael D. Shear, Sheila Kaplan, Sarah Mervosh, Jack Healy, Amy Qin, Cao Li, Yiwei Wang, Albee Zhang, Alexandra Stevenson, Steve Eder, Henry Fountain, Michael H. Keller and Muyi Xiao.

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2020-04-04 18:25:11Z
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says state not ready for "high point," as coronavirus death toll rises - CBS News

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Saturday that more than 3,500 people in the state have died due to the coronavirus. More than 113,000 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in the state, which is the U.S. epicenter of the outbreak. 

Cuomo says New York is "not at the apex" of cases

New York has not yet reached its expected peak in the number of cases. "We're not at the apex," Cuomo said, adding that the state is "not yet ready for the high point."

Cuomo announced he is signing an executive order to allow medical students who were slated to graduate in the spring to begin practice.

Coronavirus: The Race To Respond ›

More in Coronavirus: The Race To Respond

"We need doctors, we need nurses. So we're going to expedite that," Cuomo said.

Cuomo says state never received 17,000 ventilators

Cuomo said that the state had put in an order for 17,000 ventilators. By comparison, he said, the national stockpile has around 10,000 ventilators.

"We had signed documents. We placed the order," Cuomo said. "But then you get a call saying we can't fill that order."

The governor said the unfilled order was likely due to global shortages and intense competition for ventilators.

Cuomo said that New York was also doing business with Chinese companies, as China was the "repository" of most personal protective equipment. Cuomo said that the Chinese government had facilitated a donation of 1,000 ventilators that will arrive in New York on Saturday.

He said the state of Oregon is also sending 140 ventilators to the United States.

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2020-04-04 16:43:06Z
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Photos: Wuhan Mourns Coronavirus Victims On Tomb Sweeping Day - Forbes

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1. Photos: Wuhan Mourns Coronavirus Victims On Tomb Sweeping Day  Forbes
2. China holds moment of mourning for victims of coronavirus outbreak that's swept the world  The Sun
3. The Trail Leading Back to the Wuhan Labs  National Review
4. On the Coronavirus, God and the Chinese Communist Party  The New York Times
5. The new war for soft power hegemony | TheHill  The Hill
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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2020-04-04 15:42:34Z
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Several cities seeing jumps in domestic violence reports amid pandemic - CNN

Several cities are already reporting jumps in domestic violence cases or calls to local hotlines. Some shelters around the country say they're full -- some after reducing their capacity to maintain social distancing -- and struggling to help survivors. And with gun sales setting records, advocates worry that the next few weeks could be especially dangerous.

In an eastern Pennsylvania town under a local shelter-in-place order, a man who lost his job due to the pandemic shot his girlfriend in the back and then killed himself on Monday. Just before he went into the basement to get his handgun, he became "extremely upset" about coronavirus, the victim, who survived, told police.

"Domestic violence is rooted in power and control, and all of us are feeling a loss of power and control right now," said Katie Ray-Jones, the CEO of the National Domestic Violence Hotline. "We're really bracing for a spike post-Covid-19 -- that's when law enforcement and advocates and courts are going to hear the really, really scary stuff going on behind closed doors."

While police and advocates haven't seen jumps in domestic violence cases across the board, some hot spots are emerging around the country. Of the 20 large metropolitan police departments that provided data to CNN, nine saw double-digit percentage jumps in domestic violence cases or 911 calls in March, either compared to the previous year or to earlier months in 2020.

Not every department provided standardized numbers -- some counted domestic violence-related 911 calls, while others tallied confirmed cases or arrests.

Portland, Oregon had a 27% increase in domestic violence arrests between March 12 and 23, 2020, as compared with the same period in 2019, police said. Boston had a 22% jump in domestic assault and battery reports between March 2019 and March 2020, and Seattle had a 21% increase in reports of domestic violence during the same time period.

But advocates worry that with victims stuck in close proximity with abusers, there are many others who are unable to safely reach out for help.

"I imagine that that is the tip of the iceberg," said Anne DePrince, a University of Denver psychology professor who studies domestic violence.

How stay-at-home orders impact victims

With more than 96% of Americans living under stay-at-home orders, some cities are seeing significant jumps in domestic violence reports.

Police in Pittsburgh, Charlotte, Oklahoma City, San Antonio and Omaha experienced double-digit percent increases in domestic violence-related calls, comparing March or part of March to 2019 or earlier months in 2020, according to data provided by the departments to CNN. Kansas City reported a similar jump in domestic violence incident reports.

Other cities like St. Louis and Denver registered barely any change in domestic violence calls, while San Diego and Las Vegas saw small declines in calls. New York City, the epicenter of the pandemic, saw a 15% drop in domestic violence complaints from March 2019 to 2020, although an aide to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday that the state police had received reports about spikes in cases elsewhere in the state.

Chicago's domestic battery 911 calls are up only 3% between March 2019 and 2020, according to data provided by the city -- but calls to the Illinois Domestic Violence Hotline have spiked, with the hotline hitting its highest daily call volume in its 20-year history this week, city officials told CNN.

Experts say the varying numbers might have to do with the different timing of when shelter-in-place orders went into effect. And in some cities, calling 911 may be domestic violence victims' main resource to get help, while other areas have robust networks of nonprofit agencies and hotlines that survivors turn to first.

Some organizations are seeing changes in the times their hotlines are busiest. In the last two weeks of March, a Seattle domestic violence hotline, New Beginnings, saw a 34% drop in typical call volume during the daytime on weekdays, but a 13% jump in calls at night. Susan Segall, the organization's executive director, said that was likely because victims who typically find time alone during the day now don't have that opportunity to avoid their abuser, or because they're now busy taking care of kids.

The national hotline, which typically gets around 1,800 to 2,000 calls, chats and text messages a day, has stayed at a mostly normal pace, Ray-Jones said. But because of isolation, she predicted that there would be a flood of more reports after social distancing measures ease.

"They can't reach out safely, because their perpetrator is sitting right next to them," Ray-Jones said.

The group has been receiving an increasing number of calls from survivors who say the pandemic is making their situation worse. One woman was audibly hoarse and said her partner had tried to strangle her, but she was too scared of the virus to go to the hospital, Ray-Jones said.

Another woman calling in to the hotline said her partner had started slowly loading his gun as she got ready to leave for her job, telling her she couldn't go outside at all. A third said her partner had forced her to keep scrubbing her hands until they were raw.

Rhonda Voss, 63, a domestic violence activist and survivor in North Carolina, said being cooped up at home is a domestic violence victim's nightmare.

"I know they would be constantly walking on eggshells just trying their best to stay out of the way, to keep the person appeased," she said. Getting out of the house can be "such a relief" for victims, she said, "and that's not available that much now."

Shelters are struggling to help

In some ways, the coronavirus pandemic seems like the worst possible scenario for domestic violence victims. In addition to being cloistered inside with their abuser, job and financial losses can inflame stress. The economic impact can also make it harder for survivors to plan an escape or hold onto their financial independence.

Research suggests an association between natural disasters and increased rates of domestic violence. After Hurricane Harvey flooded Houston in 2017, for example, the city saw an increase in domestic violence reports.

Now, the pandemic could have a similar effect -- but like a hurricane slamming the entire country at the same time.

During Harvey, "the stressors of being out of work, being at home, losing everything -- that spiked our violence," said Chau Nguyen, the chief public strategies officer for the Houston Area Women's Center. "You're going to see it more and more."

Now, Nguyen's shelter is full, and they're struggling to help the people calling. One pregnant woman who the shelter is helping is terrified that she's going to have to go home after giving birth because she has no place to go, Nguyen said. Another woman who fled from another state had been reaching out to domestic violence shelters around the region and finding none of them had any space.

Neha Gill, the executive director of Apna Ghar, a Chicago domestic violence shelter that focuses on immigrant and refugee communities, said her shelter is also full. They had to cut the capacity of the shelter by two-thirds -- from about 30 people to about 10 -- in order to maintain safe social distancing policies.

"It's been frustrating and painful for those of us whose job is to help," she said.

For now, the Houston and Chicago shelters are both paying out of pocket for hotel rooms for some survivors who desperately need to leave home. Gill said she hoped the city or state would start a program to fund similar efforts.

That has left advocates to get creative. In several cities, courts have started granting temporary restraining orders remotely. Others groups are promoting their texting help line, which might be easier for victims to surreptitiously use even from the same room as their abuser. They're encouraging family members to stay in close contact with victims suffering abuse.

Staff at DC SAFE, a nonprofit that helps coordinate response to domestic violence cases in Washington, DC, has found that as more of the city has shut down, it's taken twice as long for them to find resources for survivors like mental health services, food or transportation.

"All the services that would normally happen are really not happening," said Natalia Marlow-Otero, the group's executive director. "As barriers increase for survivors and services shrink, they are left in situations where there's not a lot of options for them."

Reports of deadly domestic violence cases tied to coronavirus

There have already been several domestic violence fatalities around the country which police have tied to coronavirus.

In Colorado Springs, a woman accused of fatally shooting her husband in their home last month said he had brandished a knife at her, "blaming the coronavirus and stating he was not going to live through it," according to court documents reported by the Colorado Springs Gazette.

In Wilson Borough, Pennsylvania, a town about 50 miles north of Philadelphia, 38-year-old Roderick Bliss IV shot his longtime girlfriend in the back on Monday before killing himself, detective Dan Pacchioli said in an interview. Bliss had become increasingly upset about coronavirus after losing his construction job due to the pandemic, the victim told officers.

"She was completely shocked that he went off the wall in the way he did that day," Pacchioli said.

But in the vast majority of domestic violence cases, any connection to the pandemic is less obvious.

Ed Gonzalez, the sheriff of Texas' Harris County, which includes Houston, said his county has had two domestic violence murders in the last two weeks, including one in which a husband allegedly left his three young children at home with the body of his wife and went to the police to turn himself in.

"It's not that all of a sudden the virus comes along and people become abusive -- it's already there," Gonzalez said in an interview. "Many people will not be killed by Covid-19, but instead they'll die at the hands of an intimate partner."

Some families are left wondering whether the isolation caused by the pandemic could have played a part in their loved one's death.

In Mashpee, a Massachusetts town on Cape Cod, 53-year-old Sandra Corfield was killed last week in a suspected domestic beating that took place two days after the state's shelter-in-place order went into effect. Her boyfriend, Marc Audette, told police that he was "off my meds" and that Corfield had kept saying "I love you" while he was hitting her in the head, according to a police report reviewed by the Cape Cod Times. Audette has pled not guilty to Corfield's murder.

Corfield was an art teacher at Boston schools who painted murals and taught modeling. She had been with Audette for about a year and had seemed happy with him, her mother, Eleanor Corfield, said in an interview.

Eleanor said she didn't know whether the pandemic and shelter-in-place order had played any role in her daughter's death. "It could have tied into it, it could very well have," she said. "They were together all the time."

Now, with a large funeral impossible under the stay-at-home order, Eleanor said she was planning to ask for donations to a domestic violence charity in honor of her daughter.

"I would like the word to get out, if it even helps one battered woman," she said. "I would like them to know it's okay to reach out for help."

Resources for victims of domestic violence

National Domestic Violence Hotline Call 1-800-799-7233 or text LOVEIS to 22522

Available 24/7. Can connect callers with local resources and immediate support. Also available through online chat tool.

National Sexual Assault Hotline 1-800-656-4673

Provided by RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network). Available 24/7. Also available through online chat tool.

Crisis Text Line Text HOME to 741741

Available 24/7 for victims of abuse and any other type of crisis.

Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline 1-800-422-4453

Available 24/7 in 170 different languages.

Office on Women's Health Helpline 1-800-994-9662

A resource provided by the US Department of Health & Human Services.

Find a list of resources organized by state here, provided by the Department of Health & Human Services' Office on Women's Health.

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2020-04-04 14:42:59Z
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China mourns thousands who died in country's coronavirus epidemic - Reuters

BEIJING/WUHAN, China (Reuters) - China on Saturday mourned the thousands of “martyrs” who have died in the new coronavirus outbreak, flying the national flag at half mast throughout the country and suspending all forms of entertainment.

The day of mourning coincided with the start of the annual Qingming tomb-sweeping festival, when millions of Chinese families pay respects to their ancestors.

At 10 a.m. (0200 GMT) Beijing time, the country observed three minutes of silence to mourn those who died, including frontline medical workers and doctors. Cars, trains and ships sounded their horns and air raid sirens wailed.

In Zhongnanhai, the seat of political power in Beijing, President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders paid silent tribute in front of the national flag, with white flowers pinned to their chest as a mark of mourning, state media reported.

More than 3,300 people in mainland China have died in the epidemic, which first surfaced in the central province of Hubei late last year, according to statistics published by the National Health Commission.

In Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province and the epicentre of the outbreak, all traffic lights in urban areas turned red at 10 a.m. and all road traffic ceased for three minutes.

Some 2,567 people have died in Wuhan, a megacity of 11 million people located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze river. The Wuhan deaths account for more than 75% of the country’s fatalities.

Among those who died was Li Wenliang, a young doctor who tried to raise the alarm about the disease. Li was honoured by the Hubei government earlier this week, after initially being reprimanded by police in Wuhan for “spreading rumours”.

Gui Yihong, 27, who was among thousands of Wuhan locals who volunteered to deliver food supplies to hospitals during the city’s months-long lockdown, recalled the fear, frustration and pain at Wuhan Central Hospital, where Li worked.

“If you weren’t at the frontlines you wouldn’t be able to experience this,” said Gui, as he laid some flowers next to Wuhan’s 1954 flood memorial by the Yangtze.

“I had to (come) and bear witness. For the last 80 days we had fought between life and death, and finally gained victory. It was not easy at all to come by.”

While the worst was behind Wuhan, the virus has spread to all corners of the globe since January, sickening more than a million people, killing more than 55,000 and paralysing the world economy.

The Chinese national flag flies at half-mast at the headquarters of the People's Bank of China, the central bank (PBOC), as China holds a national mourning for those who died of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), on the Qingming tomb-sweeping festival in Beijing, China April 4, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

Wuhan banned all tomb-sweeping activities in its cemeteries until at least April 30, curtailing one of the most important dates in the traditional Chinese lunar new year calendar which usually sees millions of families travel to tend to their ancestral graves, offer flowers and burn incense.

They have also told residents, most stuck at home due to lockdown restrictions, to use online streaming services to watch cemetery staff carry out those tasks live.

ASYMPTOMATIC CASES

Online, celebrities including “X-Men: Days of Future Past” star Fan Bingbing swapped their glamorous social media profile pictures for sombre photos in grey or black, garnering millions of “likes” from fans.

Chinese gaming and social media giant Tencent suspended all online games on Saturday.

As of Friday, the total number of confirmed cases across the country stood at 81,639, including 19 new infections, the National Health Commission said.

Eighteen of the new cases involved travellers arriving from abroad. The remaining one new infection was a local case in Wuhan, a patient who was previously asymptomatic.

Slideshow (24 Images)

Asymptomatic people exhibit few signs of infection such as fevers or coughs, and are not included in the tally of confirmed cases by Chinese authorities until they do.

However, they are still infectious, and the government has warned of possible local transmissions if such asymptomatic cases are not properly monitored.

China reported 64 new asymptomatic cases as of Friday, including 26 travellers arriving in the country from overseas. That takes the total number of asymptomatic people currently under medical observation to 1,030, including 729 in Hubei.

Reporting by Ryan Woo, Liangping Gao and Se Young Lee in Beijing and Brenda Goh and Thomas Suen in Wuhan; Editing by Sandra Maler, Lincoln Feast and Jane Wardell.

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2020-04-04 12:06:38Z
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Chinese-American Artist Creates A Comic About 'The Wuhan I Know' : Goats and Soda - NPR

Enlarge this image

Since the coronavirus outbreak began, Laura Gao has been troubled by the disgust and pity directed at her hometown. Laura Gao hide caption

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Laura Gao

Back in January, Laura Gao, a 23-year-old product developer for Twitter living in San Francisco, was preparing to visit her relatives in Wuhan, China. The trip was to celebrate her grandmother's 80th birthday.

But in the days leading up to her flight, Gao's relatives told her to cancel her trip. The coronavirus was spreading throughout the city.

Gao, a native of Wuhan, stayed in San Francisco and on January 23, the day after her flight would have landed, the city went on lockdown. If she'd taken her trip, Gao thinks she'd still be in Wuhan today.

"Instead, I'm here in San Francisco seeing the other side of the story," Gao says. "There was a lot of anger and panic and pity that was coming from not only the media, but the people around me."

As the virus spread, Wuhan quickly captured the world's attention. For many Americans, this was the first time they had ever heard of the city — and in the frightening context of coronavirus.

She decided to make a comic telling her own story and highlighting her favorite parts of the city.

"Wuhan Virus", "Chinese Virus", COVID-19. Doesn't matter the name - my hometown will forever be known for that and only that. I drew this comic to shine light on what people don't know: the beautiful culture, rich history, and strong people of Wuhan. 加油!https://t.co/5cYcOpEtf9

— Laura Gao ✌️ (@heylauragao) March 18, 2020

"I've always been an artist, and I believe that comics are a great way to marry imagery with the power of words to express a story," Gao says.

The comic is called, "The Wuhan I Know."

It starts with Gao's childhood when she moved with her parents to a small town in Texas, "where Wuhan was more foreign than Mars."

Not only had people never heard of Wuhan, she says they were largely uninterested in learning about her hometown. They would ask her if she was from Beijing or Shanghai as if those were the only cities in China.

They had no idea that Wuhan was — and still is — one of the fastest growing cities in Central China, with a population of more than 11 million people. It's bigger than New York, London or Tokyo.

When she'd try to tell them what the city was like, they were often disinterested. Eventually, she gave up.

"I would just be like, 'I'm just from China. That's all you really need to know,'" Gao says.

But now, Gao says it feels as if everyone knows about Wuhan — but not the full story.

"It's disheartening to know that all they know are the bad parts of it," Gao says. "About the virus and about the wet markets that people always want to bash on and point fingers at."

Gao says she wants people to get to know the Wuhan beyond the headlines. And while she's been hesitant to speak up in the past, this time she says she's ready to stand up and share her city with the world.

Laura Gao's mother (in the red dress) poses with her family in front of the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan before leaving for college in 1985. Gao visited that landmark for the first time 20 years later. Courtesy of Laura Gao hide caption

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Courtesy of Laura Gao

The comic has sections highlighting Wuhan's history, architecture and economy. That includes the city's most famous landmark the Yellow Crane Tower. Gao writes, that in the sun, it shines like gold.

But her favorite section showcases Wuhan's street food.

"Whenever I go to Wuhan, my favorite part is waking up in the morning, running outside to the street where they're completely lined left and right with all these food stalls of so many different kinds of food," Gao says.

Some of her favorite Wuhanese dishes include rè gān miàn or hot and dry noodles, doù pí, sticky rice with meat and veggies wrapped in bean skin and fried in a giant wok and yā bó zi or duck neck.

When she first decided to share the comic back in March, she recalls, "I was a bit hesitant. I was like, I know this is kind of a sensitive topic. I don't know what I'll get from it," Gao said. "But I got all kinds of responses that really warmed my heart."

The comic has been re-shared by thousands of people on Twitter and liked by even more.

Many people have reached out to Gao directly to let her know that her comic has had a positive impact in their lives.

She's heard from people who are from Wuhan like herself or have family there. But she's also heard from people in countries like Iran and Italy who also feel as if their countries are being misrepresented by the coronavirus. Thanks to her comic, they feel proud of their homes.

People have also reached out to Gao to tell her that the next trip they want to take is to visit Wuhan. Now that they know more about it, they want to visit its sites and taste its food.

Gao even shared the comic and the feedback she's received with her grandmother.

She told Gao: 'Thankfully we're getting better and I see the rest of the world is also suffering. I want to send my love to them as well.'"

Gao talks to her family in Wuhan frequently and fortunately she says, things are starting to return to normal.

The authorities are beginning to open the city back up and she says her family is allowed to walk around in their own neighborhood.

Slowly, Wuhan is returning to the city she knows.

See Laura Gao's comic "The Wuhan I Know," below.

Laura Gao

Laura Gao

Laura Gao

Laura Gao

Laura Gao

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2020-04-04 11:38:49Z
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