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Wuhan (China) (AFP) - Nestled in the hilly outskirts of the city at the heart of the coronavirus crisis, a Chinese high-security biosafety laboratory is now the subject of US claims it may be the cradle of the pandemic. Chinese scientists have said the virus likely jumped from an animal to humans in a market that sold wildlife in Wuhan, but the existence of the lab has fuelled conspiracy theories that the germ spread from the facility. The institute is home to the China Centre for Virus Culture Collection, the largest virus bank in Asia which preserves more than 1,500...

SEATTLE - A statistical model cited by the White House generated a slightly less grim figure Monday for a first wave of deaths from the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. - a projection designed to help officials plan for the worst, including having enough hospital staff, beds and ventilators. The only problem with this bit of relatively good news? It’s almost certainly wrong. All models are wrong. Some are just less wrong than others - and those are the ones that public health officials rely on. Welcome to the grimace-and-bear-it world of modeling. “The key thing is that you want...

BEIJING/SHANGHAI - Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. President Donald Trump during a phone call on Friday that he would have China’s support in fighting the coronavirus, as the United States faces the prospect of becoming the next global epicentre of the pandemic. Xi’s offer of assistance came amid a long-running war of words between Beijing and Washington over various issues including the coronavirus epidemic. Trump and some U.S. officials have accused China of a lack of transparency on the virus, and Trump has at times called the coronavirus a “China virus” as it originated there, angering Beijing. In the...

BEIJING (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday spoke over phone with his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump, on anti-epidemic cooperation and bilateral ties. Xi stressed that China has been sharing information on COVID-19 in an open, transparent and responsible manner with the World Health Organization (WHO) and countries including the United States since the onset of the epidemic. China, he said, wasted no time in releasing such information as the genetic sequence of the virus, and has also been sharing experience on COVID-19 prevention, containment and treatment without reservation, and providing as much support and assistance as it can...

Taiwan warned the WHO and China about possible human-to-human transmission of the new coronavirus at the end of last year, but the global health body did not make it public, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. Department of International Organizations Director-General Bob Chen made the remark at a news briefing in Taipei, when asked about statements made by US Department of State spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus. “Dec. 31 - that’s the same day Taiwan first tried to warn WHO of human-human transmission. Chinese authorities meanwhile silenced doctors and refused to admit human-human transmission until Jan. 20, with catastrophic consequences,” Ortagus...

Spanish soldiers deployed to help fight the new coronavirus outbreak have found elderly patients abandoned, and sometimes dead, at retirement homes, as an ice rink inside a Madrid shopping mall was turned into a temporary morgue to cope with a surge in cases. The army has been charged with helping to disinfect retirement homes in Spain, one of the countries worst hit by the pandemic. Dozens of deaths from COVID-19 have been recorded at facilities across the country. "We are going to be strict and inflexible when dealing with the way old people are treated in these residences," Defence Minister...

Madrid (AFP) - An ice rink inside a Madrid shopping mall was on Monday turned into a temporary morgue to deal with a surge in deaths in the Spanish capital due to the coronavirus, local officials said. The ice rink at the Palacio de Hielo, or Ice Palace, shopping centre -- which according to its web page has the capacity for 1,800 skaters -- will be used "to store bodies", a spokeswoman for Madrid city hall told AFP. The coronavirus death toll in Spain, one of the worst-hit countries in the world, surged to 2,182 on Monday after 462 people...

New York (AFP) - New York's mayor urged US President Donald Trump Monday to enforce a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the deadly coronavirus, as he pleaded for desperately needed hospital supplies. Bill de Blasio said America's federal government should roll out orders -- such as "shelter-in-place" in California and similar measures installed in New York -- across the world's number one power. "They need to be everywhere," he told CNN, describing the illness's "oxygen" as human-to-human interaction. "Unless you create social distancing... thousands of lives will be lost that could have been saved. It's as simple as...

PARIS - The hunt for masks, ventilators and other medical supplies consumed the U.S. and Europe, as more than 1.5 billion people - one-fifth of the world’s population - were asked or ordered to stay home on Monday to try to blunt the spread of the coronavirus. Political paralysis stalled efforts for a quick aid package from Congress, and U.S. stocks fell at the opening bell even after the Federal Reserve said it will buy as much government debt as necessary and lend to small and large businesses and local governments to help them cope with the economic damage from...

The Department of Justice has won a temporary restraining order against a website it accuses of engaging in a wire fraud scheme by fraudulently offering vaccines to the coronavirus -- the first such action taken in federal court to combat fraud related to the pandemic. In a statement on Sunday, the Justice Department said the enforcement action was filed in Austin against the website "coronavirusmedicalkit.com," accusing it of attempting to profit from "the confusion and widespread fear surrounding COVID-19." According to prosecutors, the website claimed to offer access to World Health Organization vaccine kits for the cost of a $4.95...

The U.S. Federal Reserve, citing “tremendous hardship” caused by the coronavirus pandemic, on Monday said it would begin backstopping an unprecedented range of credit for households, small businesses and major employers. The Fed said the effort was taken because “it has become clear that our economy will face severe disruptions.”

Analysis: Two of the nation's most powerful executives are exhibiting nearly opposite leadership styles, policy instincts and public relations strategies. One day, President Donald Trump told Americans that he bore no share of the blame for testing missteps that have increased the devastation wrought by coronavirus. "I don't take responsibility at all," he said. A few days later, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo welcomed accountability for the extraordinary measures his state has put in place to stop the spread of the virus, including the closure of "nonessential" businesses beginning at 8 p.m. Sunday. "If someone wants to blame someone, blame...

Kansas City and its surrounding counties will be subject to a stay-at-home order effective Tuesday morning in an effort to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, Mayor Quinton Lucas announced Saturday. The order, which will go into effect 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, requires residents of Kansas City and Johnson, Jackson and Wyandotte counties to remain at home except for activities “essential to the health and safety” of themselves, family members or friends. After 30 days, the jurisdictions will consider whether to extend the order. Trips to essential businesses such as grocery stores, pharmacies, hardware stores, doctors’ offices, dry cleaners, laundromats,...

WASHINGTON - An inmate at a federal jail in New York City has tested positive for coronavirus, marking the first confirmed case in the federal prison system. The inmate, who is housed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, complained of chest pains on Thursday, a few days after he arrived at the facility, the federal Bureau of Prisons told The Associated Press. He was taken to a local hospital and was tested for COVID-19, officials said. The inmate was discharged from the hospital on Friday and returned to the jail, where he was immediately placed in isolation, the agency...

SEOUL - South Korea on Saturday advised its public to close facilities and forgo socialising for 15 days, keeping to its policy of voluntary social distancing but warning of consequences if the rules are not followed to slow the coronavirus outbreak. The country reported 147 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, jumping from the previous day’s 87, and experts noted the need to prepare for a “long battle” as concerns of imported cases and new outbreaks around small clusters persisted. Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said in a televised address the government strongly recommended religious, indoor sports and entertainment facilities such as...

The critical shortage of medical supplies across the U.S., including testing swabs, protective masks, surgical gowns and hand sanitizer, can be tied to a sudden drop in imports, mostly from China, The AP has found. Trade data shows the decline in shipments started in mid-February after the spiraling coronavirus outbreak in China led the country to shutter factories and disrupted ports. Some emergency rooms, hospitals and clinics have now run out of key medical supplies, while others are rationing personal protective equipment like gloves and masks. The United States counts on receiving the vast majority of its medical supplies from...

The five U.S. states where governors have closed or have said they will soon be closing non-essential businesses account for about 31% of the world’s biggest economy. Authorities have called such steps necessary to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Here are some key facts about the collective economic heft of California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut, which individually rank No. 1, No. 3, No. 5, No. 8 and No. 23 among all 50 states by GDP. California’s $3 trillion economy alone accounts for 14.5% of the U.S. output, making the state by itself a bigger economic powerhouse...

Capitalism has been suspended in the UK. That is the ultimate consequence of the extraordinary moves announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak on Friday evening. Never before has the government of this country stepped in to pay a major chunk of workers' wages in companies across the nation. It is a move of such consequence that the numbers involved - 80% of the salaries of affected workers, caps of £2,500 per worker, potentially £4bn of money flowing out of the Exchequer every quarter - are dwarfed by the symbolism. A Conservative government is effectively nationalising parts of the private sector, paying...

SEOUL -- Since its first outbreak of the novel coronavirus in late January, South Korea has been waging a hard battle to contain the virus infections by preaching a "social distancing" drive and tracing all potential cases. Months later, its virus cases are showing signs of a slowdown. What is drawing much attention from peer nations is, among others, its virus testing capability. Since Jan. 3, the country has conducted some 316,000 tests and identified more than 8,600 COVID-19 cases, according to data from Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). The country reported its first COVID-19 case on...

Washington (AFP) - The United States and China on Friday took their growing clash over the coronavirus pandemic to social media, with Beijing telling Secretary of State Mike Pompeo he was "lying through (his) teeth." In an interview on Fox News, Pompeo said Beijing "wasted valuable days" after identifying the novel coronavirus by letting "hundreds of thousands" leave the epicenter of Wuhan to places including Italy, which has surpassed China as the country with the highest death toll. "The Chinese Communist Party didn't get it right and put countless lives at risk as a result of that," Pompeo said. Chinese...