Month: April 2020

As residents at a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, began dying in late February from a coronavirus outbreak that would eventually take 43 lives, there was little sign of trouble at the Cobble Hill Health Center, a 360-bed facility in an upscale section of Brooklyn.   Its Facebook page posted a cheerful story encouraging relatives to quiz their aging loved ones about their lives, and photos of smiling third graders at a nearby school making flower arrangements for residents.   That quickly changed. By the middle of March, the CEO began sending increasingly alarmed emails about banning visitors, screening staff, confining residents, wiping down all surfaces, and having all-hands-on-deck meetings to prepare everyone for the coming coronavirus “freight train.” “I’ll be darned if I’m not going to do everything in my power to protect them,” Donny Tuchman wrote before things got worse. More than 100 staffers, nearly a third of the workforce, went out sick. Those left began wearing garbage bags because of a shortage of protective gear. Not a single resident has been able to get tested for the virus to this day. Now listed with 55 deaths it can only assume were caused by COVID-19, among the most of any such facility in the country, Cobble Hill Health Center has become yet another glaring example of the nation’s struggle to control the rapid spread of the coronavirus in nursing homes that care for the most frail and vulnerable. Cobble Hill’s grim toll surpasses not only Kirkland’s but the …

An Ebola flare-up in eastern Congo may spread again after a patient escaped from a clinic, complicating efforts to contain the disease that has infected six people since last week, the World Health Organization said on Sunday.The Democratic Republic of Congo was two days away from declaring the end of the world’s second-largest Ebola epidemic when a new chain of infection was discovered on April 10, following more than seven weeks without a new case.Since then, health authorities have sought to contain any renewed spread of infections.But on Friday a 28-year-old motorbike taxi-driver who had tested positive for Ebola ran away from the center where he was being treated in the town of Beni.”We are using all the options to get him out of the community,” said Boubacar Diallo, deputy incident manager for the WHO’s Ebola response operation. “We are expecting secondary cases from him.”Decades of conflict and poor governance have eroded public trust in authorities in Congo. Despite Ebola having killed more than 2,200 people since August 2018, research shows that many communities believe the disease is not real.Small outbreaks are common towards the end of an epidemic, but health workers need to ensure the virus is contained by tracking, quarantining and vaccinating the contacts of new cases.”We do not have any details yet. All have been working with the authorities, youths and civil society to find him. Search is ongoing,” Diallo said by WhatsApp message.A 15-year-old girl also tested positive for the virus on Friday, Diallo said, taking …

The Trump White House has intervened to weaken one of the few public health protections pursued by its own administration, a rule to limit the use of a toxic industrial compound in consumer products, according to communications between the White House and Environmental Protection Agency.The documents show that the White House Office of Management and Budget formally notified the EPA by email last July that it was stepping into the crafting of the rule on the compound, perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, used in nonstick and stain-resistant frying pans, rugs, and countless other consumer products.The White House repeatedly pressed the agency to agree to a major loophole that could allow substantial imports of the PFAS-tainted products to continue, greatly weakening the proposed rule. EPA pushed back on the White House demand for the loophole, known as a “safe harbor” provision for industry.Pushed again in January, the agency responded, “EPA opposes proposing a safe harbor provision, but is open to a neutrally-worded request for comment from the public” on the White House request.A ‘national priority’The rule is one of the few concrete steps that the Trump administration has taken to deal with growing contamination by PFAS industrial compounds. The EPA has declared dating back to 2018 that consumer exposure to the substances was a “national priority” that the agency was confronting “aggressively.”Delaware Sen. Tom Carper, the ranking Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, who obtained the documents revealing the White House intervention, and public-health advocates say the White House action …

NASA announced on Friday that a SpaceX rocket would  send two American astronauts to the International Space Station on May 27, the first crewed spaceflight from the U.S. in nearly a decade.”On May 27, @NASA will once again launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil!” NASA chief Jim Bridenstine said in a tweet.The astronauts will be sent to the ISS on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.Astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley will be launched to the ISS aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. They will lift off at 4:32 p.m. (2032 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA said.Since July 2011, the United States has relied on Russian Soyuz rockets to send U.S. astronauts to the ISS. …

Two U.S. space agency NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut landed Friday in Kazakhstan after months on board the International Space Station.   NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir and Russian space agency Roscosmos Cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka undocked from the ISS in the Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft early Friday.   Just over three hours later, the trio parachuted to Earth in the steppe of Kazakhstan, outside the remote town of Dzhezkazgan. Following post-landing checks, the three were taken by helicopter to the Russian-owned spaceport in Baikonur.   Morgan’s 272-day mission began on July 20, 2019, while Meir and Skripochka left Earth Sept. 25 last year. …

South Africa’s 21-day coronavirus lockdown presents an unusual challenge for a nation with the world’s highest burden of HIV.  In order to remain healthy, those on antiretrovirals need to venture out of their homes for their lifesaving medication — a move that puts them at greater risk of contracting the highly infectious coronavirus.Therefore, some health care advocates are seeking broader use of an existing workaround in the form of automatic pharmaceutical dispensaries, much like ATMs, where patients can get their pills without making human contact.   Already, South African hospitals are busy preparing for a coming storm of coronavirus cases, which officials expect to peak in September.     But as they stare down this pandemic, they’re also dealing with at least 7.7 million HIV patients, already supported by one of the world’s largest free government-sponsored antiretroviral programs.   So how, in this age of lockdowns and strict social distancing, can these vulnerable patients stay safe from a new viral threat?   Enter the pharmacy ATM.     South African non-profit Right to Care rolled out the innovative program in 2018 to give patients with chronic illnesses a quick virtual consultation with a pharmacist, followed by dispensation of their medication — all in under three minutes. In normal times, the program saves patients the inconvenience of waiting in long lines at government clinics.   But during this new pandemic, it could save lives, says pharmacist Taffy Chinamhora.     “The interaction between the patient and health care professional is minimized, …

A two-decade-long dry spell that has parched much of the western United States is turning into one of the deepest megadroughts in the region in more than 1,200 years, a new study found. And about half of this historic drought can be blamed on man-made global warming, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Science.  Scientists looked at a nine-state area from Oregon and Wyoming down through California and New Mexico, plus a sliver of southwestern Montana and parts of northern Mexico. They used thousands of tree rings to compare a drought that started in 2000 and is still going — despite a wet 2019 — to four past megadroughts since the year 800.  With soil moisture as the key measurement, they found only one other drought that was as big and was likely slightly bigger. That one started in 1575, just 10 years after St. Augustine, the first European city in the United States, was founded, and that drought ended before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620. FILE – A bathtub ring marks the high water line as a recreational boat approaches Hoover Dam along Black Canyon on Lake Mead near Boulder City, Nev., April 16, 2013.What’s happening now is “a drought bigger than what modern society has seen,” said study lead author A. Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University. Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist who wasn’t part of the study, called the research important because it provides evidence “that human-caused climate change transformed what might have otherwise …

The Trump administration is gutting an Obama-era rule that compelled coal plants to cut back emissions of mercury and other human health hazards, limiting future regulation of air pollutants by petroleum and coal plants. Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist whose clients have gotten many of the regulatory rollbacks they asked for from the Trump administration, was set to announce the final version of the weakened rule later Thursday.  Environmental and public health groups and Democratic lawmakers faulted the administration for pressing forward with rollbacks — in the final six months of President Donald Trump’s current term — while the coronavirus pandemic rivets the world’s attention. FILE – Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler speaks at a news conference in Washington, Sept. 12, 2019.With rollbacks on air pollution protections, the “EPA is all but ensuring that higher levels of harmful air pollution will make it harder for people to recover in the long run” from the disease caused by the coronavirus, given the lasting harm the illness does to victims’ hearts and lungs, said Delaware Senator Tom Carper, the senior Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The EPA left in place standards for emissions of mercury, which has been linked to brain damage and other ailments. But the agency was expected to whittle down the health benefits that regulators can consider in crafting rules, thus challenging the underlying basis for the 2011 Obama administration rule and others like it in the future. The Trump administration contends the …

Lavina D’Souza hasn’t been able to collect her government-supplied anti-HIV medication since the abrupt lockdown of India’s 1.3 billion people last month during the coronavirus outbreak. Marooned in a small city away from her home in Mumbai, the medicine she needs to manage her disease has run out. The 43-year-old is afraid that her immune system will crash: “Any disease, the coronavirus or something else, I’ll fall sick faster.” D’Souza said others also must be “suffering because of the coronavirus without getting infected by it.” As the world focuses on the pandemic, experts fear losing ground in the long fight against other infectious diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis and cholera that kill millions every year. Also at risk are decadeslong efforts that allowed the World Health Organization to set target dates for eradicating malaria, polio and other illnesses. With the coronavirus overwhelming hospitals, redirecting medical staff, causing supply shortages and suspending health services, “our greatest fear” is resources for other diseases being diverted and depleted, said Dr. John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.   That is compounded in countries with already overburdened health care systems, like Sudan. Doctors at Al-Ribat National Hospital in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, shared a document detailing nationwide measures: fewer patients admitted to emergency rooms, elective surgeries indefinitely postponed, primary care eliminated for non-critical cases, and skilled doctors transferred to COVID-19 patients. Similar scenes are unfolding worldwide. Even in countries with highly developed health care systems, such as South Korea, patients seeking …

Arresting survivors of human trafficking for their testimony in criminal prosecutions creates trauma and trouble returning to society, research by a leading U.S. trafficking group showed on Thursday, calling for an end to the practice.Survivors detained as material witnesses to help prosecute their traffickers can lose custody of their children, jobs and services they need for recovery, said the Human Trafficking Legal Center (HTLC), a legal group for trafficking survivors. By law, witnesses who may not want to cooperate can be detained if they have testimony needed to prosecute a criminal case.The number of trafficking survivors held under material witness warrants is uncertain, as such warrants are typically used in secrecy, the HTLC said.The U.S. Department of Justice initiated more than 200 human trafficking prosecutions and convicted more than 500 people, according to the latest data from 2018.The detention practice makes criminal justice a priority over victims’ needs and wants, said the HTLC, which examined 49 cases of victim arrests between 2009 and 2018.”They’ve experienced trauma of being locked up and being forced to do things they didn’t want to do,” said Martina Vandenberg, HTLC president. “In a sense it replicates much of the trauma they’ve already experienced,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.Representatives of the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment or an estimate of the numbers of survivors held.”While material witness warrants are sometimes necessary in federal criminal cases, they should be an absolute last resort in a trafficking case,” said Luis C. deBaca, …

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and U.S. billionaire Bill Gates have joined the chorus of those expressing concern about U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend U.S. funding for the World Health Organization.Carter, a Democrat, issued a statement Wednesday saying the United Nations agency “is the only international organization capable of leading the effort to control this virus.” He said he was “distressed” by the decision to withhold critically needed U.S. funding during an international epidemic.Gates, who is a major funder of the WHO, said the decision was “as dangerous as it sounds.”A man wears a mask to protect himself against the spread of the new coronavirus as he donates food for poor families in Turano favela, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 15, 2020.The United Nations and many leaders have criticized Trump’s timing for cutting the funds when they are most needed.The U.S. is the world’s largest contributor to the WHO, with its more than $400 million contribution in 2019, amounting to about 15 percent of the organization’s budget.Trump accused the Geneva-based organization Tuesday of failing to obtain independent reports about the coronavirus originating from China’s central city of Wuhan and relying instead on China’s official reports. Beijing officials initially tried to downplay the dangers of the new strain of coronavirus. Trump said the funding will be suspended pending an investigation into the WHO’s handling of the outbreak.The United States is now the worst-hit country with more than 637,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Wednesday evening, out of more than …

Like so many other workers around the world affected by a COVID-19 lockdown, the team of scientists that operates the U.S. space agency (NASA) probe Curiosity — currently on the surface of Mars — has been forced to do its work from home. Since March 20, the team, normally based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California, has been forced to direct the rover while working separately from their homes. Programming each sequence of actions for the rover may involve 20 or so people developing and testing commands in one place while chatting with dozens of others located elsewhere. In anticipation of what they would need to make that happen from home, the team assembled headsets, monitors and other equipment in advanced.  Some adaptations were needed as well. Rover operators rely on special three-dimensional goggles to help them drive Curiosity over the Martian landscape. But those can only be run using JPL computers, so researchers were forced to rely on simple 3D glasses, similar to the kind you might get at a 3D movie, to view images on laptops. The team found that it could do its job using multiple video conferences and messaging apps. Two days after they set up remotely, the team directed Curiosity to drill for a rock sample at a Martian location called “Edinburgh.” Science operations team chief Carrie Bridge says she still checks in on the team to make sure things are running smoothly, but does so virtually, calling into as many as four videoconferences at the same time.   …

Three potential COVID-19 vaccines are making fast progress in early-stage testing in volunteers in China and the U.S., but it’s still a long road to prove if they’ll really work. China’s CanSino Biologics has begun the second phase of testing its vaccine candidate, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology said Tuesday. In the U.S., a shot made by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc. isn’t far behind. The first person to receive that experimental vaccine last month returned to a Seattle clinic Tuesday for a second dose. NIH infectious disease chief Dr. Anthony Fauci told The Associated Press there are “no red flags” so far and he hoped the next, larger phase of testing could begin around June. A third candidate, from Inovio Pharmaceuticals, began giving experimental shots for first-step safety testing  last week in the U.S. and hopes to expand its studies to China.   Initial tests focus on safety, and researchers in both countries are trying out different doses of different types of shots. But moving into the second phase is a critical step that allows vaccines to be tested in many more people to look for signs that they protect against infection.   Last week, CanSino filed a report showing it aimed to enroll 500 people in this next study, comparing two doses of the vaccine to dummy shots. As of Monday, 273 of the volunteers had been injected, state media said. Looking ahead, Fauci said if the new coronavirus continues to circulate widely enough …

The U.S. ambassador to China said Wednesday that he doesn’t believe Beijing is deliberately blocking exports of masks and other medical supplies to fight the coronavirus, and that the shipment of 1,200 tons of such products to the U.S. could not have been possible without Chinese support.   Ambassador Terry Branstad also said the U.S. has concerns about how China initially handled the virus outbreak in the central city of Wuhan, but that such issues should be addressed after the pandemic has been brought under control.   “Let’s focus now on saving lives and helping people,” Branstad told a small group of reporters.   Chinese officials are believed to have delayed reporting the outbreak for several crucial days in January due to political concerns, allowing the virus to spread further.   China has adamantly denied doing so, despite strong evidence, saying it has consistently provided accurate, timely information.   Despite working with half their normal staff, U.S. diplomats and local employees in China have been able to facilitate 21 flights of supplies on behalf of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, along with multiple private chartered flights, Branstad said. He said there had been a slowdown in the provision of supplies, but that it appeared to be caused by China’s implementation of stricter quality standards following complaints it was sending shoddy equipment abroad.   “We have been able to solve several problems. We’re just trying to find a workable way to get it done,” Branstad said, adding that a March …

About 850,000 people could be seriously sickened by the coronavirus in Japan and almost half of them could die if no social distancing or other measures are followed, according to a government-commissioned estimate released Wednesday. Japan has the world’s oldest population, and the virus can be especially dangerous for the elderly. And there are concerns that Japan’s government has done too little to stave off high numbers of badly ill patients.   Japan’s current state of emergency is voluntary and doesn’t compensate workers for lost earnings. Japanese companies also have been slow to introduce remote work, and people have continued to use public transit to commute to large offices in the densely populated capital region. Already, patients are being moved to non-specialist hospitals and even hotels as infections surge in the capital, where medical experts warn the health care system is on the brink of collapse. The projection is a worst-case scenario, said Hokkaido University professor Hiroshi Nishiura, an expert on cluster analysis. He urged people to cooperate in the social distancing effort. “We can stop the transmission if all of us change our activity and significantly reduce interactions,” he said. The report projected 420,000 deaths if no preventive measures were taken. Japan has more than 8,800 confirmed coronavirus cases and 131 deaths, including about 700 cases from a cruise ship that was quarantined at a port near Tokyo earlier this year.   The health ministry reported 457 new cases on Wednesday. Tokyo has about a quarter of Japan’s total …

More than nine out of 10 people in Southeast Asia want the state to end wildlife trafficking, according to a new poll from the World Wildlife Fund that shows unprecedented consensus after COVID-19 spread from animals to humans.    WWF International said that 93% of people polled in the region would like “action by their governments to eliminate illegal and unregulated wildlife markets,” which the organization said is the second biggest threat to global biodiversity, after habitat destruction.    Although COVID-19 is believed to have broken out at a meat market in China, nations in Southeast Asia often act as transit hubs to get trafficked wildlife into China. Governments in the region have started to introduce more new laws to crack down on the illegal trade as a result.    “People are deeply worried and would support their governments in taking action to prevent potential future global health crises originating in wildlife markets,” Marco Lambertini, the director general of WWF International, said last week. “It is time to connect the dots between wildlife trade, environmental degradation and risks to human health.”    He added that taking action now “is crucial for all of our survival.”    It is believed COVID-19 spread from an animal to a human in China in December, and reactions have ranged from foreign pundits snubbing Chinese who eat bats or snakes, to the government itself taking action to ban consumption of wild meat.A woman with a load of dogs on her tricycle cart arrives at a market for sale during a dog meat festival in Yulin in …

Scientists have observed the biggest supernova – stellar explosion – ever detected, the violent death of a huge star up to 100 times more massive than our sun in a faraway galaxy.The supernova, releasing twice as much energy as any other stellar explosion observed to date, occurred about 4.6 billion light years from Earth in a relatively small galaxy, scientists said. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).It might represent, they added, a type of supernova that until now has only been theorized.Astrophysicist Matt Nicholl of the University of Birmingham in England said two very massive stars – each about 50 times the sun’s mass – may have merged to make one extremely massive star roughly 1,000 years before the explosion. They had been part of what is called a binary system with two stars gravitationally bound to each other.The merged star exploded in a supernova, formally named SN2016aps, inside a very dense and hydrogen-rich envelope.”We found that the supernova was able to become so bright because of a powerful collision between the debris ejected by the explosion and a shell of gas shaken off by the star a few years earlier,” said Nicholl, lead author of the study published this week in the journal Nature Astronomy.Stars die in various different ways depending on their size and other properties. When a massive star – more than eight times the mass of our sun – uses up its fuel, it cools …

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said Tuesday the U.S. does not yet have the critical testing and tracing procedures needed to begin reopening the nation’s economy, adding a dose of caution to increasingly optimistic projections from the White House.   “We have to have something in place that is efficient and that we can rely on, and we’re not there yet,” Fauci said in an interview with The Associated Press.   Fauci’s comments come as President Donald Trump and others in the administration weigh how quickly businesses can reopen and Americans can get back to work weeks after the fast-spreading coronavirus essentially halted the U.S. economy. Trump has floated the possibility of reopening some areas by May 1 and said he could announce recommendations as soon as this week.   Fauci said a May 1 target is “a bit overly optimistic” for many areas of the country. Any easing off the strict social-distancing rules in place in much of the country would have to occur on a “rolling” basis, not all at once, he said, reflecting the ways COVID-19 struck different parts of the country at different times.   Among Fauci’s top concerns: that there will be new outbreaks in locations where social distancing has eased, but public health officials don’t yet have the capabilities to rapidly test for the virus, isolate any new cases and track down everyone that an infected person came into contact with.   “I’ll guarantee you, once you start pulling back …

Covid 19 has put millions of people around the world in the same place, suffering loss hardship and pain.  Global voices in the coronavirus pandemic tells the emotional stories of their lives. …

The WHO said its emergency committee would meet Tuesday to discuss whether the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo still constitutes an international health emergency, after fresh cases were detected.   The meeting comes a day after DR Congo had been expected to announce that the outbreak in the east of the country that began in August 2018 was over.   The epidemic has killed 2,276 people to date. For it to be declared over, there have to be no new cases reported for 42 days — double the incubation period.   But as the World Health Organization’s emergency committee met last Friday to determine whether its declaration of a so-called Public Health Emergency of International Concern, or PHEIC, could be lifted, a new case was reported.     “We now have three cases, two people who have died, one person who is alive,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told reporters in a virtual briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.   She said that all of the contacts of those cases had been traced and vaccinated and were being followed closely.   DR Congo health authorities announced Friday that a 26-year-old man was listed as having died from the disease, and a young girl who was being treated in the same health center passed away on Sunday.   Both died in the city of Beni, epicenter of the outbreak.   Due to the shifting situation, the WHO decided to reconvene its emergency committee to again evaluate whether or not …

More than 3,600 deaths nationwide have been linked to coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, an alarming rise in just the past two weeks, according to the latest count by The Associated Press. Because the federal government has not been releasing a count of its own, the AP has kept its own running tally based on media reports and state health departments. The latest count of at least 3,621 deaths is up from about 450 deaths just 10 days ago. But the true toll among the 1 million mostly frail and elderly people who live in such facilities is likely much higher, experts say, because most state counts don’t include those who died without ever being tested for COVID-19. Outbreaks in just the past few weeks have included one at a nursing home in suburban Richmond, Virginia, that has killed 42 and infected more than 100, another at nursing home in central Indiana that has killed 24 and infected 16, and one at a veteran’s home in Holyoke, Mass., that has killed 38, infected 88 and prompted a federal investigation. This comes weeks after an outbreak at a nursing home in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland that has so far claimed 43 lives. And those are just the outbreaks we know about. Most states provide only total numbers of nursing home deaths and don’t give details of specific outbreaks. Notable among them is the nation’s leader, New York, which accounts for 1,880 nursing home deaths out of …

The coronavirus outbreak could reach its peak in the United States this week, a top U.S. health official said on Monday, pointing to signs of stabilization across the country.   The United States, with the world’s third-largest population, has recorded more fatalities from COVID-19 than any other country, more than 22,000 as of Monday morning according to a Reuters tally.   About 2,000 deaths were reported for each of the last four days in a row, the largest number of them in and around New York City. Experts say official statistics have understated the actual number of people who have succumbed to the respiratory disease, having excluded coronavirus-related deaths at home.   Robert Redfield Jr. headshot, as US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, graphic element on gray”We are nearing the peak right now,” Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told NBC’s “Today” show. “You’ll know when you’re at the peak when the next day is actually less than the day before.”   Sweeping stay-at-home restrictions to curb the spread of the disease, in place for weeks in many areas of the country, have taken a painful toll on the economy, raising questions over how the country can sustain business closures and travel curbs.   On Sunday, a Trump administration official indicated May 1 as a potential date for easing the restrictions while cautioning that it was still too early to say whether that goal would be met.   Redfield refused to give a …

Crowds swarm Stockholm’s waterfront, with some people sipping cocktails in the sun. In much of the world, this sort of gathering would be frowned upon or even banned.Not in Sweden.It doesn’t worry Anders Tegnell, the country’s chief epidemiologist and top strategist in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.The 63-year-old has become a household name in Sweden, appearing across the media and holding daily briefings outlining the progression of the outbreak with a precise, quiet demeanor.As countries across Europe have restricted the movement  of their citizens, Sweden stands out for what Tegnell calls a “low-scale” approach that “is much more sustainable” over a longer period.President Donald Trump has suggested that a rising number of COVID-19 deaths indicate Sweden is paying a heavy price for embracing the idea of herd immunity — that is, letting many individuals get sick to build up immunity in the population. He said: “Sweden did that — the herd. They called (it) the herd. Sweden is suffering very, very badly. It’s a way of doing it.”But Swedish Health Minister Lena Hallengren recently told The Associated Press: “We have never had a strategy for herd immunity.”So far, Sweden has banned gatherings larger than 50 people, closed high schools and universities, and urged those over 70 or otherwise at greater risk from the virus to self-isolate.The softer approach means that schools for younger children, restaurants and most businesses are still open, creating the impression that Swedes are living their lives as usual.Yet as Johan Klockar watches his son kick …

Perhaps the best that can be said about a “stay home” Twitter posted by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is that it’s given bored copycats sitting at home waiting out the coronavirus ample inspiration. It certainly appears to have rubbed many people frustrated by Abe’s handling of the crisis the wrong way. Abe, like U.S. President Donald Trump, has faced accusations his moves to counter the coronavirus were too little, too late. Until late March, Abe’s administration was still insisting the Tokyo Olympics would go ahead as planned in July. It’s now been postponed until July 2021.   Abe declared a month-long state of emergency in Tokyo and six other prefectures deemed at highest risk of an explosion of coronavirus infections just last Tuesday. The government asked people in those areas — later expanded to all of Japan — to stay at home.   But the “stay home” message has incensed many who note most Japanese cannot remain at home because the government’s social distancing policy is voluntary and doesn’t come with compensation for cash-strapped workers.   The video posted on Twitter, on a split screen accompanied by a guitar-playing popular singer, shows Abe sitting at home looking bored. Abe reading a book. Abe cuddling his dog, sipping from a cup and flipping channels with a remote.   “You cannot see your friends or organize drinking parties, but your actions are surely saving many lives,” says the video’s written message. “Everyone please cooperate.” The sight of Abe, heir to a …