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India’s train network will gradually restart operations on Tuesday as the country eases its coronavirus blockade, even as infections there are on the rise.
The train network, one of the largest in the world, closed at the end of March when A strict lock was implemented. But as the country slowly begins to open this month, trains are the first form of transportation allowed to cross the country.
On Sunday, India reported more than 67,000 coronavirus cases with more than 2,200 deaths.
The end of March was the first since the country gained independence in 1947, offering a powerful symbol of the global panic that is spreading across the country.
The Indian government converted some 20,000 train cars into isolation rooms, preparing for a devastating wave of coronavirus infections that many predicted would overwhelm hospitals. That disaster has not materialized to a great extent, although some cities have fared worse than others, with entire hospitals closed as staff become infected with the coronavirus.
On Sunday, the railways ministry said some trains would be restarted, from the capital to cities across the country, but passengers would have to wear masks and undergo health screenings before they are allowed to leave. New routes will also be introduced, the railway ministry said in a statement.
Even the west wing is not impervious to the spread of the coronavirus.
Three senior officials leading the White House response to the pandemic It began quarantining over the weekend after two members of the Trump administration staff, a valet for President Trump and Katie Miller, Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary, tested positive for the virus.
Among those who will be kidnapped for two weeks is Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the country’s leading expert on infectious diseases. So will Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Dr. Stephen Hahn, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
“It’s scary to go to work,” Kevin Hassett, one of the president’s top economic advisers, said Sunday on the CBS show “Face the Nation.”
The devastation of the virus has been particularly acute for African Americans. Many families, social scientists, and public health experts now fear that racial bias may be contributing to the disproportionately high rate at which Covid-19 is killing African Americans.
The National Medical Association, the nation’s largest professional organization representing black physicians, is asking federal health agencies to study the role bias may have played in testing and treating African Americans for Covid-19. .
Its president, Dr. Oliver Brooks, said: “I think what we will find is that race is a factor.”
The virus has also been particularly deadly for nursing home residents, who in New Jersey accounted for half of Covid-19 deaths in the state, including 72 at the New Jersey Veterans Home in Paramus, a state-run home for former members of the US Army. USA
“The whole place is sick now,” said Mitchell Haber, whose 91-year-old father, Arnold Haber, an Army veteran, died last month at the home, which is about 12 miles northwest of New York City.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday that employment figures would worsen before improving. He said the real unemployment rate, including people who are underemployed and those who don’t have a job, could soon approach 25 percent.
“There are very, very large numbers,” Mnuchin said on “Fox News Sunday.”
The United States plans to accuse China of trying to hack the vaccine data.
The F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security are preparing to issue a warning that China’s most skilled hackers and spies are working to steal US research in the crash effort to develop vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus.
A draft of the upcoming public warning, which officials say will likely be issued in the coming days, says China is seeking “valuable intellectual property and public health data through illicit means related to vaccines, treatments and tests.”
It focuses on cyber theft and the action of “non-traditional actors,” a euphemism for researchers and students who, according to the Trump administration, is activating to steal data from academic and private labs.
The efforts are part of a surge in cyber theft and attacks by nations seeking advantage in the pandemic.
More than a dozen countries have redistributed to military and intelligence hackers to get everything they can about responses to the virus from other nations. Even American allies like South Korea and nations that are not generally known for their cyber vulnerabilities, such as Vietnam, have suddenly redirected their state hackers to focus on information related to the virus, according to private security firms.
The decision to issue a specific indictment against China’s state hacking teams, current and former officials said, is part of a broader deterrence strategy that also involves the United States Cyber Command and the National Security Agency. Under the legal authorities that President Trump issued nearly two years ago, they have the power to drill deep into Chinese and other networks to mount proportional counterattacks.
The next warning is the latest iteration of a series of efforts by the Trump administration to blame China for being the source of the pandemic and exploiting its consequences.
A plane carrying supplies related to the coronavirus that crashed in Somalia on Monday may have been shot down by Ethiopian troops, according to a new report by the office of the Commander of the African Union Force in Somalia.
The report, which was leaked on Twitter, said Ethiopian troops not affiliated with the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia shot down the Private jet registered in Kenya for fear he was about to carry out a “suicide” attack.
Somali authorities and officials from the African Union verified the authenticity of the report, but did not confirm its conclusions. An investigation of the accident is still ongoing.
The cargo flight landed on the afternoon of May 4 in the southwestern city of Bardale, Somalia, killing all six people on board. The plane had approached the airfield at Bardale from the west rather than the east, which is more common.
The aircraft, owned by African Express Airways, was carrying supplies to help fight the coronavirus pandemic. Initially he left the capital, Mogadishu, and stopped at Baidoa before heading to Bardale.
The airstrip and the town around it are secured by Somali and Ethiopian troops. They are part of an African Union peacekeeping mission to help Somalia fight. Shabab, a terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Sunday that Britain will soon impose a mandatory quarantine on travelers arriving in the country by air to try to avoid a new wave of coronavirus infections, indicating how cautious the country will be in relaxing its blockade. seven weeks.
Johnson urged the British public to “stay alert”, softening his earlier “stay home” warning, saying that people could exercise outdoors as much as they wanted, bask in the parks and go back to work, if not they could work. from home. Other than that, he said, the current restrictions would remain in place.
“This is not the time simply to end the blockade,” Johnson said, attributing social distancing for slowing down the spread of the virus. Instead, we are taking the first careful steps to modify our measures. “
Critics said the new guide to “staying alert” was so vague that it risked confusion and triggered fissures with political leaders in other parts of the UK, who had largely moved in the fight against the virus. Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Scotland would stick to the guide for people to stay home.
Johnson did not announce another move that had been rumored for days: asking people to wear face masks in public.
As the coronavirus has affected the world, a paradox has emerged: wealthy nations are not necessarily better at fighting the crisis than poorer ones.
In Europe, the disease has been burning in Britain, France and Italy, three of the continent’s four largest economies. But the region’s smallest and poorest nations quickly imposed and enforced severe restrictions, stuck to them, and have so far fared better in keeping the virus contained.
Nations include many in the former communist East, as well as Greece and Croatia, where the authorities are cautiously optimistic about their people’s resistance to adversity.
Those countries could draw on deep reservoirs of resilience stemming from relatively recent difficulties. Compared to what its people had been through not too long ago, the strict blockades seemed less arduous, seemingly sparking greater social acceptance.
Ive Morovic, a 45-year-old barber in Zadar, Croatia, believes that the focused way in which Croats have responded to the pandemic dates back to war and the legacy of communism.
“People today are afraid, and the discipline we all learned helps us align and creates a kind of forced unity,” he said.
The reports were contributed by Matina Stevis-Gridneff, Iliana Magra, Abdi Latif Dahir, David E. Sanger, Nicole Perlroth, Maria Abi-Habib, Neil Vigdor, Maggie Haberman, Michael D. Shear, John Eligon, Audra DS Burch, Tracey Tully and Jim Tankersley.
