U.S. INTEL: CHINA COVERED UP EXTENT OF CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK

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f-coronavirus-outbreak.html>

China has concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country,

under-reporting both total cases and deaths it's suffered from the disease,

the U.S. intelligence community concluded in a classified report to the

White House, according to three US officials.

The officials asked not to be identified because the report is secret and

declined to detail its contents. But the thrust, they said, is that China's

public reporting on cases and deaths is intentionally incomplete. Two of the

officials said the report concludes that China's numbers are fake.

The report was received by the White House last week, one of the officials

said.

The outbreak began in China's Hubei province in late 2019, but the country

has publicly reported only about 82,000 cases and 3,300 deaths, according to

data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That compares to more than

189,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths in the U.S., which has the largest

publicly reported outbreak in the world.

While China eventually imposed a strict lockdown beyond those of less

autocratic nations, there has been considerable skepticism of China's

reported numbers, both outside and within the country. The Chinese

government has repeatedly revised its methodology for counting cases, for

weeks excluding people without symptoms entirely, and only on Tuesday added

more than 1,500 asymptomatic cases to its total.

Stacks of thousands of urns outside funeral homes in Hubei province have

driven public doubt in Beijing's reporting.

Deborah Birx, the State Department immunologist advising the White House on

its response to the outbreak, said Tuesday that China's public reporting

influenced assumptions elsewhere in the world about the nature of the virus.

"The medical community made - interpreted the Chinese data as: This was

serious, but smaller than anyone expected," she said at a news conference on

Tuesday. "Because I think probably we were missing a significant amount of

the data, now that what we see happened to Italy and see what happened to

Spain."

China is not the only country with suspect public reporting. Western

officials have pointed to Iran, Russia, Indonesia and especially North

Korea, which has not reported a single case of the disease, as probable

under-counts. Others including Saudi Arabia and Egypt may also be playing

down their numbers.

TRUMP SAYS READY TO HELP END SAUDI-RUSSIAN OIL PRICE WAR

U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday he was ready to help resolve an

escalating oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia that has helped

push crude benchmarks to 17-year lows.

The threat of a global recession triggered by the coronavirus pandemic had

already hammered prices when Riyadh said last month it would raise exports

after a production-cut agreement among top producers flopped in early March

On Monday, Saudi Arabia said it would increase exports further to a record

10.6 million barrels per day from May, deepening a global supply glut as

crude recorded its biggest monthly and quarterly price plunges in history.

Trump said he had spoken with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman by phone with the aim of halting the

slide.

"The two countries are discussing it. And I am joining at the appropriate

time, if need be," Trump said.

Analysts say Riyadh is engaged in a deliberate long-term strategy to capture

greater market share by pressuring its high-cost rivals.

"Saudi policy will not just drive more expensive forms of oil production out

of the market; it will also make it harder for renewable energy to compete

with fossil fuels," said Bernard Haykel, a Saudi expert at Princeton

University.

US CORONAVIRUS CASES SURPASS 200,000 WITH MORE THAN 5,000 DEATHS

The world was quickly approaching one million confirmed coronavirus cases on

Wednesday as a six-week-old baby died in the United States in what was

believed to be the pandemic's youngest victim.

Positive cases of the novel coronavirus passed 215,000 on Wednesday - nearly

twice as many as Italy, per Johns Hopkins - as more state governors issued

stay-at-home orders for Americans to curb infection. Over 8,500 people have

recovered from the virus in the United States, and more than 5,000 have

died.

Of the 215,000 infections, New York state accounts for more than 40 percent

of the cases with 83,901. The state with the next most cases is New Jersey

at a distant second with 22,255.

The U.S. has a population of about 327,200,000, which means about .07% of

the country has been infected.

The news comes while debate revs up on whether all Americans should be

wearing a mask. "Even if you do wear a mask, it can't be at the expense of

social distancing," Surgeon General Jerome Adams said. He added that the

higher-end N95 masks would not be necessary - and could come at the expense

of health care workers who need them.

At least 30 state governors and the District to Columbia have ordered

residents to stay home to limit COVID-19 community spread.

Those states account for about 3/4 of the American population, the New York

Times notes. More cities like Boston, Detroit, New Orleans and Philadelphia,

are reporting an influx of cases, prompting states to take stronger actions.

CORONAVIRUS | WORLD COULD FACE A FOOD CRISIS: UN, WTO

The heads of three global agencies warned on Wednesday of the risk of a

worldwide "food shortage" if authorities fail to manage the ongoing COVID-19

crisis properly.

Many governments around the world have put their populations on lockdown

causing severe slow-downs in international trade and food supply chains.

Panic buying by people going into confinement has already demonstrated the

fragility of supply chains as supermarket shelves emptied in many countries.

"Uncertainty about food availability can spark a wave of export

restrictions, creating a shortage on the global market," said the joint text

signed by Qu Dongyu, head of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization

(FAO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health

Organization (WHO) and Roberto Azevedo, director of the World Trade

Organization (WTO).

"In the midst of the COVID-19 lockdowns, every effort must be made to ensure

that trade flows as freely as possible, specially to avoid food shortage(s)"

from developing, they said in their statement.

"When acting to protect the health and well-being of their citizens,

countries should ensure that any trade-related measures do not disrupt the

food supply chain," they added.

JAPAN 'ON THE BRINK' AS IT STRUGGLES TO HOLD BACK VIRUS

Japan will ban entry of foreigners from 73 countries and ask everyone

arriving from abroad to quarantine for two weeks in its struggle to contain

the coronavirus, with a senior minister warning the country had been pushed

"to the brink". Medical experts advising Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a

news conference on Wednesday that the rapid spread of contagion was severely

straining hospitals in the capital Tokyo, in Osaka and some other

prefectures, and that quick action was vital.

Abe is facing growing public calls to declare a state of emergency that

would give local governors greater clout to tell residents to stay home,

close schools and take other steps. But the relevant enabling law includes

no penalties in most cases.

Japan had confirmed 2,362 domestically transmitted cases of the coronavirus

and 67 deaths as of Wednesday - relatively small tallies compared with those

of the United States, China and Europe. But Tokyo has seen the biggest jump

in cases, with another 66 on Wednesday for a total of 587, NHK said, adding

to pressure on the government to take more drastic measures.

UK EXTENDS WORK VISAS FOR INDIAN, FOREIGN DOCTORS

In a relief to foreign doctors, including from India, whose visas were set

to expire in October this year, the UK government has extended the deadline

by one year amid the country's fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

The UK government on Tuesday confirmed that foreign doctors, including from

India, whose visas are set to expire before October this year will get an

automatic extension for one year as they battle the coronavirus pandemic for

the country's National Health Service (NHS).

The extension, announced by UK Home Secretary Priti Patel, will apply to

around 2,800 migrant doctors, nurses and paramedics employed by the NHS

whose visa is due to expire before October 1.

"Doctors, nurses and paramedics from all over the world are playing a

leading role in the NHS' efforts to tackle coronavirus and save lives. We

owe them a great deal of gratitude for all that they do," said Patel. "I

don't want them distracted by the visa process. That is why I have

automatically extended their visas - free of charge - for a further year,"

the Indian-origin minister said.

On top of these changes, pre-registered overseas nurses who are currently

required to sit their first skills test within three months and to pass the

test within eight months, will now have this deadline extended to the end of

the year. This will give overseas nurses more time to pass their exams,

whilst they spend the immediate term working on the frontline.

Trainee doctors and nurses will also not be limited by the number of hours

they can work in the NHS during term time, the Home Office said.

The latest move could be seen as a sign that the UK government may be having

a rethink on the surcharge, hiked from 400 pounds to 624 pounds per year and

aimed at boosting NHS funds, being imposed on medics working for the health

service.

TRUMP WARNS IRAN OF 'HEAVY PRICE' IN CASE OF ATTACK ON US TROOPS

President Donald Trump warned Iran on Wednesday of a "heavy price" if it or

its allies in Iraq attack US troops stationed there.

"If this happens, Iran will pay a very heavy price, indeed!" Trump tweeted.

The US president also wrote: "Upon information and belief, Iran or its

proxies are planning a sneak attack on U.S. troops and/or assets in Iraq."

It was not clear whether Trump meant Washington actually has intelligence of

such a plan.

EVIDENCE FOR ELUSIVE MID-SIZED BLACK HOLE FOUND

Astronomers have found the best evidence for a black hole of an elusive

class known as "intermediate-mass," which betrayed its existence by tearing

apart a wayward star that passed too close. Weighing in at about 50,000

times the mass of our Sun, the black hole is smaller than the supermassive

black holes that lie at the cores of large galaxies, but larger than

stellar-mass black holes formed by the collapse of a massive star, the

researchers said. These so-called intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) are

a long-sought "missing link" in black hole evolution.