TheNewsGuru

Tag: Coronavirus

  • Coronavirus: Death toll rises to 19 in US, New York declares emergency

    Coronavirus: Death toll rises to 19 in US, New York declares emergency

    Two more persons died of coronavirus in the US State of Washington, bringing the nationwide toll to 19 as confirmed cases in New York jumped by 21 overnight and the disease spread to more than half of all U.S. states.

    The two latest deaths were in Washington’s King County, the hardest hit area in the United States after the virus spread among residents at a nursing facility in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland.

    The first deaths on the East Coast were announced late Friday, with two people succumbing in Florida.

    Organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference, a high-profile annual gathering that took place in Maryland last month, said on Saturday one of their attendees had tested positive for the virus after exposure prior to the event. The person had no interactions with President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence, who were in attendance, the American Conservative Union said in a statement.

    Off California, passengers on a cruise ship that was barred from docking in San Francisco after some aboard tested positive for the novel coronavirus did not know on Saturday when they might be able to step ashore.

    In New York, the number of confirmed cases jumped by 21 overnight to a statewide total of 76 people, 10 of whom have been hospitalized, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday. He issued a declaration of emergency.

    “It allows expedited purchasing and expedited hiring, which is what we need right now,” Cuomo told a news conference.

    Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, told a news conference at the White House on Saturday that a total of 2.1. million coronavirus tests will have been shipped to non-public labs by Monday, as the Trump administration aims to counter criticism that its response to the disease has been sluggish.

    Hahn said the focus is on getting tests to the highest risk areas in Washington state and California.

    Multiple manufacturers will soon send millions more tests, he said. “What they told us is they believe they could scale up by the end of next week … for the capacity for 4 million additional tests that could be shipped,” Hahn said.

    The respiratory illness has spread to more than 90 countries, killing more than 3,400 people and infecting more than 100,000 worldwide.

  • Coronavirus: Death toll hits 19 in US, New York declares emergency

    Coronavirus: Death toll hits 19 in US, New York declares emergency

    Two more persons died of coronavirus in the US State of Washington, bringing the nationwide toll to 19 as confirmed cases in New York jumped by 21 overnight and the disease spread to more than half of all U.S. states.

    The two latest deaths were in Washington’s King County, the hardest hit area in the United States after the virus spread among residents at a nursing facility in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland.

    The first deaths on the East Coast were announced late Friday, with two people succumbing in Florida.

    Organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference, a high-profile annual gathering that took place in Maryland last month, said on Saturday one of their attendees had tested positive for the virus after exposure prior to the event. The person had no interactions with President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence, who were in attendance, the American Conservative Union said in a statement.

    Off California, passengers on a cruise ship that was barred from docking in San Francisco after some aboard tested positive for the novel coronavirus did not know on Saturday when they might be able to step ashore.

    In New York, the number of confirmed cases jumped by 21 overnight to a statewide total of 76 people, 10 of whom have been hospitalized, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday. He issued a declaration of emergency.

    “It allows expedited purchasing and expedited hiring, which is what we need right now,” Cuomo told a news conference.

    Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, told a news conference at the White House on Saturday that a total of 2.1. million coronavirus tests will have been shipped to non-public labs by Monday, as the Trump administration aims to counter criticism that its response to the disease has been sluggish.

    Hahn said the focus is on getting tests to the highest risk areas in Washington state and California.

    Multiple manufacturers will soon send millions more tests, he said. “What they told us is they believe they could scale up by the end of next week … for the capacity for 4 million additional tests that could be shipped,” Hahn said.

    The respiratory illness has spread to more than 90 countries, killing more than 3,400 people and infecting more than 100,000 worldwide.

  • Coronavirus: Stay at home, skip church if sick, Pastor warns members

    Coronavirus: Stay at home, skip church if sick, Pastor warns members

    Ahead of Sunday service (today), Andy Stanley, the pastor of North Point Community Church, Buckhead Church, Decatur City Church sent a letter to his congregants on Friday titled “Permission to stay home!”

    Stanley who made the statement amid growing concerns for the spread of the coronavirus, he’s asking anyone who has traveled to affected countries, been exposed to someone with the flu or who feels sick themselves to stay home from church.

    “If you’ve been exposed to a person with the coronavirus or the flu or have recently traveled to a CDC Level 2 or 3 country (China, Iran, Italy, South Korea, Hong Kong, or Japan), please take a couple of Sundays off. If you or your family members are experiencing or have recently experienced symptoms associated with the flu or the common cold (fever, persistent cough, headache, chills, or unexplained rash), we ask that you take a couple of Sundays off as well,” Stanley said in his email.

    He said the staff and volunteers are taking the following steps to make sure the churches are clean and safe for everyone who attends.

    -Staff and volunteers follow hand-washing procedures, and children are instructed to wash their hands after using the bathroom and before eating.
    -Volunteers follow posted safe and sanitary diaper-changing procedures.
    -Hand sanitizer is located throughout the building.Staff remove children from the classroom if they appear to be sick. Parents are immediately paged to pick them up.

    So far, nineteen people have died in the U.S. from the virus. The number of infections in the U.S. is now above 400.

  • Chinese contractors abscond project sites in Imo over coronavirus

    Chinese contractors abscond project sites in Imo over coronavirus

    Chinese nationals hired by former Governor of Imo State Emeka Ihiedioha to execute road projects in the state have absconded from the sites for fear of being quarantined, investigation revealed.

    They have been off the road since the case of the Italian citizen who entered Nigeria from Milan, Italy for a brief business trip tested positive in Lagos.

    The Chinese nationals working for the Chec Engineering for past three weeks left the site and have not been seen anywhere in the state.

    It gathered that they left the state when the news broke out that some workers were been quarantined in Ogun State.

    Some of the workers interviewed said that they have not seen the Chinese who were supervising the project at the sites.

    A Nigerian worker who pleased not be mentioned, said that the Chinese’s were no longer coming to site until before before we’re always around to supervise the road construction work.

    According to TheNation, the road contract was awarded to the Chinese company to execute the Ihiagwa- Nekede Polytechnic Road, Owerri-Aba and Akachi roads, but the nationals deserted the sites when the news of the coronavirus went viral.

    Meanwhile, some Imo indigenes have expressed worry about the presence of the Chinese workers in the state and demanded that the state government should quarantine the workers to safeguard the citizens from the deadly virus.

    Nze Paul Osuji appealed to the state government to do something about the presence of the Chinese company in the state to ensure that the Chinese nationals and the Nigerian workers are free from the disease.

    However, the state government has assured the people that they are monitoring the situation closely.

    Speaking, the Director of Imo State Public Health, Ministry of Health, Dr. Austin Okeji said that the duty of the government was to monitor the point of entry of other nationals into the state.

    He said that surveillance has been put in place to ensure that contacts were monitored using the thermometer to test the people coming into the state at designated entry points.

    However, he advised the people to adopt good hygiene practices especially hand washing using alcohol-based sanitizers to disinfect themselves.

    He said that people should be calm and go about their business without been afraid.

  • Sad! Seventy trapped after Chinese coronavirus quarantine hotel collapses

    Sad! Seventy trapped after Chinese coronavirus quarantine hotel collapses

    A five-storey hotel being used for coronavirus quarantine collapsed in the southeast Chinese port city of Quanzhou on Saturday trapping about 70 people, state media said.

    A video stream posted by the government-backed Beijing News site showed rescue workers in orange overalls climbing over the rubble of the Quanzhou Xinjia Hotel and carrying people towards ambulances.

    The hotel collapsed at about 7:30 p.m. (1130 GMT) and 34 people were rescued in the following two hours, the Quanzhou municipality said on its website.

    “I was at a gas station and heard a loud noise. I looked up and the whole building collapsed. Dust was everywhere, and glass fragments were flying around,” a witness said in a video posted on the Miaopai streaming app. “I was so terrified that my hands and legs were shivering.”

  • Porn sites leverage on coronavirus as videos of people having sex with face masks boom

    Porn sites have begun cashing in on the global health crisis over coronavirus outbreak, by circulating videos of people having sex in hamzat suits and face masks.

    According to Vice, some of the flicks featured on the adult websites include ‘TSA Agent Detains Woman Suspected of Coronavirus’ and ‘Deserted Wuhan’.

    Spicy, a member of the Spicy x Rice porn duo — said to be behind the coronavirus-themed porn videos — told the news outlet that the films were meant to further sensitize people about the killer virus.

    “I think people are attracted to the COVID-19 themed porn the same way people who are scared of their shadow are attached to horror movies,” Spicy said.

    “We are all searching for things that make us come alive. COVID-19 is something that brings fear and mystery to pretty much everyone in the world right now.”

    Spicy also pointed out that such videos remain the “better way to make you feel something than the global crisis we are all in right now.”

    “We thought we would use our porn as an avenue to get some legitimate information out with some comic relief included to get people interested and reduce our chances of being banned,” Spicy said.

    “This sparked the idea, knowing every current event ends up as a porn eventually, we knew people would be searching for it on less censored platforms like Pornhub.”

    A number of coronavirus-themed porn videos like ‘Face Sitting Corona Virus – No Mask’ and ‘COVID-19 Coronavirus: Horny S**t Has To Use Protection during OutBreak!’ was found on the adult entertainment site.

    TheNewsGuru recalls that Nigeria recorded its first case on February 27. The index case is an Italian who came into the country for business.

     

  • Coronavirus: Dozens trapped as quarantine hotel collapses

    Coronavirus: Dozens trapped as quarantine hotel collapses

    About 70 people have been trapped after a hotel being used as a coronavirus quarantine facility in the Chinese city of Quanzhou collapsed.

    About 35 people have been pulled from the rubble of the five-storey Xinjia Hotel, officials say.

    Videos posted online show emergency workers combing through the building’s wreckage in the southern province of Fujian.

    It is not clear what caused the collapse or if anyone has died.

    It happened at about 11:30 GMT.

    Chinese state media says the hotel was being used as a quarantine facility monitoring people who had had close contact with coronavirus patients.

    The hotel reportedly opened in 2018 and had 80 guest rooms.

    One woman told the Beijing News website that relatives including her sister had been under quarantine there.

    “I can’t contact them, they’re not answering their phones,” she said.

    “I’m under quarantine too [at another hotel] and I’m very worried, I don’t know what to do. They were healthy, they took their temperatures every day, and the tests showed that everything was normal.”

     

  • South Africa confirms second Coronavirus case

    South Africa on Saturday confirmed a second case the novel coronavirus, a 39-year-old woman who had travelled to Italy as part of a group with the first confirmed case.

    The South African authorities said the woman, originally from the inland province of Gauteng, had come into direct contact with the first case from Kwa Zulu-Natal when they travelled back in a group of 10 from Italy on March 1.

    On Thursday, the authorities said a man who was part of that group was the first case in the country.

    “The second patient who has now tested positive for COV-19 will now be immediately admitted to a public health facility in Gauteng that the government has identified as one of the hospitals that are ready to receive COVID-19 positive patients,” the health ministry said in a statement.

    The ministry assured the public it had managed to secure information on the whereabouts of all the other people in the group that had travelled to Italy.

    The health ministry also confirmed that a 39-year-old South African man working in Daegu, South Korea, has also tested positive for COVID-19.

    Authorities said the man, who was due to return to South Africa, would remain where he was until details of his treatment in South Korea were verified.

    The African continent now has more than 30 confirmed cases, including in Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

    South Africa is meanwhile preparing to repatriate 184 of its citizens — comprising students, teachers and other professionals working in China’s Wuhan, the epicentre of the epidemic.

    President Cyril Ramaphosa has urged South Africans not to panic but also cautioned about the potential impact of the outbreak on the country’s struggling economy.

  • Coronavirus jitters: Pope Francis to conduct Sunday service online

    Coronavirus jitters: Pope Francis to conduct Sunday service online

    The Vatican said Pope Francis will deliver Sunday’s Angelus Prayer by Livestream instead of in-person from his window overlooking Saint Peter’s Square out of concern over the new coronavirus.

    “The prayer will be broadcast via live stream by Vatican News and on screens in Saint Peter’s Square,” the Vatican said in a statement.

    The Vatican had promised to review the 83-year-old pontiff’s schedule “to avoid the dissemination” of the new COVID-19 disease.

    The Argentine-born pope has been out of action for more than a week with a cold.

    He suffered two coughing fits during last Sunday’s prayer service and announced that he was pulling out of an annual spiritual retreat south of Rome to stay at home and get well.

    The Vatican said the live stream will be recorded at the library of the Apostolic Palace overlooking the square.

    The pope is currently spending most of his time at his Saint Martha’s guest house in a separate part of the Vatican.

  • Tragic! Iranian lawmaker dies of Coronavirus

    Tragic! Iranian lawmaker dies of Coronavirus

    An Iranian lawmaker died from the deadly coronavirus on Saturday, state news agency IRNA reported, one of several officials to succumb to the illness in the epidemic-hit country.

    Fatemeh Rahbar, 55, was a conventional MP and had recently been elected to the parliament from the capital Tehran, the agency said.

    She is the second lawmaker killed by the virus in Iran and one of seven politicians and government officials who have died in the outbreak since the country reported its first cases in mid-February.

    Iran has been scrambling to contain the rapid spread of the virus, which so far has infected 4,747 people and killed at least 124.

    Rahbar was among the top candidates in Tehran for the conservatives, who overwhelmingly won February’s general election marked by the lowest turnout in the Islamic republic’s history.

    Iran has closed schools and universities, suspended major cultural and sporting events and reduced working hours across the country to slow the infection, which has spread to all of its 31 provinces.