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Russia becomes second hardest-hit country with 230,000+ confirmed Covid-19 cases, surpassing Spain With 10,899 more coronavirus infections reported across Russia on Tuesday morning, the nation is now the second most-affected in terms of cases, pushing Spain into third place. Overall, Russia has had 232,243 confirmed cases since the start of the outbreak, the country’s disease response officials said. By this metric the nation is trailing only behind the US, which has had nearly 1.35 million cases, according to Johns Hopkins University. At the same time, Russia has relatively few deaths from Covid-19, compared to some other European countries. A total of 107 people died over the last 24 hours, bringing the nationwide death toll to 2,116. The UK, Ital...

China to test ENTIRE POPULATION of Wuhan for Covid-19 after disease reemerges Chinese authorities plan to test all of Wuhan’s 11 million residents for Covid-19 in a little over a week. After more than a month without newly-recorded cases, the disease has suddenly reappeared in the city. All districts in the city were ordered to submit a plan on how they will conduct testing of all residents in their areas within 10 days, local media reported, citing a document from the authorities. The officials were told to prioritize the testing of vulnerable groups and places like residential compounds. The measure was announced as a response to the six new locally-transmitted cases that were recorded in Wuhan on Sunday and Monday, after no infections were regist...

‘I feel terrible’: Bill Gates says he warned Trump of pandemic threat in 2016, regrets not doing more Microsoft founder and multi-billionaire Bill Gates said he tried to warn President-elect Donald Trump of the dangers of a major viral outbreak soon after the 2016 race, but noted he feels guilty for not being even more vocal. “I chose, when I met with people all the way up to the top, in Europe, in the US, around the world, to talk about this pandemic risk,” he told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Monday, explaining that he even made the case to the US president during a December 2016 meeting at Trump Tower. I feel terrible. The whole point of talking about it was that we could take action and minimize the damage. … I wish I ha...

France launches probe into sex assault claim against 94yo ex-President d'Estaing An investigation has been launched into former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing after a German journalist accused the ex-leader – who is in his 90s – of repeatedly groping her after an interview in 2018. French prosecutors decided to go ahead with the probe on Monday, following a complaint from Ann-Kathrin Stracke, a reporter for the German public broadcaster WDR, alleging the statesman grabbed her behind several times while posing for a photograph in his office in Paris after the December 2018 interview. I was standing to his left, and while taking the photo, he put his hand on my left waist before sliding it to my backside where it stayed. ...

Antibody tests show Ohio had first Covid-19 cases as early as JANUARY – state health director There were at least five coronavirus infections in Ohio as far back as January, the state’s health director said, suggesting the illness began spreading there weeks earlier than previously thought. The five early cases – believed to have emerged across five Ohio counties between January 7 and 27 – were announced on Monday by Department of Health Director Dr Amy Acton, who said the previously unknown infections were picked up amid ramped up antibody testing. “We actually have a new date of onset. We have found five cases now when the date of onset of symptoms was in January,” Acton told a statehouse press conference. “We are doing a lot more investigation, o...

‘Humans are not herds’: WHO thrashes ‘brutal arithmetic’ of herd immunity to beat Covid-19 pandemic In the absence of a vaccine, the increasingly discussed idea of beating the novel coronavirus pandemic through achieving so-called herd immunity could be a disastrous miscalculation, a senior WHO official has warned. “This is a really dangerous, dangerous calculation,” Michael Ryan, head of the World Health Organization’s health emergencies program, said at a briefing on Monday. This idea that maybe countries that had lax measures and haven't done anything will all of a sudden magically reach some herd immunity – and so what if we lose a few old people along the way? “Humans are not herds,” Ryan said, warning that applying the same standards to huma...

‘He’s just not there yet’: MSNBC founder says Joe Biden not ready to face Trump in election ‘primetime’ & has no coherent message Joe Biden is woefully unprepared to go up against Donald Trump in the 2020 election, having failed to offer a compelling narrative to voters and missing the mark even in “softball interviews,” said the founder of MSNBC and CNBC. Speaking on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday, Tom Rogers voiced concern that the former VP and presumptive Democratic nominee could be heading for a “crisis,” unable to field any “eloquent” or “convincing” critiques of President Trump or his policies, namely his handling of the Covid-19 outbreak. “It pains me to say this, it really does, but his performance in being able to come up with a compell...