Tag Archives: coronavirus epidemic

Data withheld from WHO team probing COVID-19 origins in China: Tedros

By Stephanie Nebehay and John Miller

GENEVA/ZURICH (Reuters) – Data was withheld from World Health Organization investigators who travelled to China to research the origins of the coronavirus epidemic, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday.

The United States, the European Union and other Western countries immediately called for China to give “full access” to independent experts to all data about the original outbreak in late 2019.

In its final report, written jointly with Chinese scientists, a WHO-led team that spent four weeks in and around Wuhan in January and February said the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal, and that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely” as a cause.

One of the team’s investigators has already said China refused to give raw data on early COVID-19 cases to the WHO-led team, potentially complicating efforts to understand how the global pandemic began.

“In my discussions with the team, they expressed the difficulties they encountered in accessing raw data,” Tedros said. “I expect future collaborative studies to include more timely and comprehensive data sharing.”

The inability of the WHO mission to conclude yet where or how the virus began spreading in people means that tensions will continue over how the pandemic started – and whether China has helped efforts to find out or, as the United States has alleged, hindered them.

“The international expert study on the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was significantly delayed and lacked access to complete, original data and samples,” Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Korea, Slovenia, Britain, the United States and the European Union said in a joint statement.

“NOT EXTENSIVE ENOUGH”

Although the team concluded that a leak from a Wuhan laboratory was the least likely hypothesis for the virus that causes COVID-19, Tedros said the issue required further investigation, potentially with more missions to China.

“I do not believe that this assessment was extensive enough,” he told member states in remarks released by the WHO. “Further data and studies will be needed to reach more robust conclusions.”

The WHO team’s leader, Peter Ben Embarek, told a press briefing it was “perfectly possible” the virus had been circulating in November or October 2019 around Wuhan, and so potentially spreading abroad earlier than documented so far.

“We got access to quite a lot of data in many different areas, but of course there were areas where we had difficulties getting down to the raw data and there are many good reasons for that,” he said, citing privacy laws and other restrictions.

Second phase studies were required, Ben Embarek added.

He said the team had felt political pressure, including from outside China, but that he had never been pressed to remove anything from its final report.

Dominic Dwyer, an Australian expert on the mission, said he was satisfied there was “no obvious evidence” of a problem at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The European Union called the study “an important first step” but renewed criticisms that the origin study had begun too late, that experts had been kept out of China for too long, and that access to data and early samples had fallen short.

In a statement, Walter Stevens, EU ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, called for further study with “timely access to relevant locations and to all relevant human, animal and environmental data available”.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, John Miller and Emma Farge; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Kevin Liffey)

Blinken is president-elect’s pick as U.S. secretary of state – Biden ally

By Matt Spetalnick and Trevor Hunnicutt

NEW YORK/WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) – Joe Biden will pick Antony Blinken as U.S. secretary of state, a person close to the president-elect’s transition said on Sunday, elevating one of his most seasoned and trusted aides as he prepares to undo President Donald Trump’s foreign policy.

Blinken is a longtime Biden confidant who served as No. 2 at the State Department and as deputy national security adviser in President Barack Obama’s administration, in which Biden served as vice president.

A second Biden ally said that Blinken was Biden’s first choice. An announcement is likely on Tuesday.

Blinken’s appointment makes another longtime Biden aide with a foreign policy background, Jake Sullivan, the top candidate to be U.S. national security adviser, the first source said. Bloomberg News first reported the expected roles.

Biden’s transition team declined to comment. Neither Blinken nor Sullivan responded to requests for comment.

While neither are household names, Blinken and Sullivan have helped Biden formulate a strategy that will include immediate outreach to U.S. allies who have often been antagonized by Trump’s “America First” approach, and to demonstrate a willingness to work together on major global problems like the coronavirus epidemic and its economic fallout.

Biden has vowed to rejoin a nuclear deal with Iran if the country returns to compliance, return to the Paris climate accord, abandon plans to leave the World Health Organization and end a U.S. rule that bans funding of aid groups that discuss abortion. Each move would reverse Trump’s policies and some could take place quickly after Biden takes office on Jan. 20.

Biden is also likely to name Linda Thomas-Greenfield as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, media outlets reported on Sunday. Thomas-Greenfield is Black, an expert on Africa policy and held a top diplomatic post in the administration of former President Barack Obama.

‘DIPLOMAT’S DIPLOMAT’

Blinken, 58, has long touted the view that the United States needs to take an active leadership role in the world, engaging with allies, or see that role filled by countries like China with contrary interests.

“As much of a burden as it sometimes seems to play … the alternative in terms of our interests and the lives of Americans are much worse,” he said in an interview with Reuters in October.

When asked if relations with the United States might improve with Blinken replacing Mike Pompeo, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian sidestepped the question by saying he does not comment on U.S. domestic affairs.​

He reiterated that China was willing to improve communication, strengthen cooperation and manage differences with the United States.

People familiar with his management style describe Blinken as a “diplomat’s diplomat,” deliberative and relatively soft-spoken, but well-versed in the nuts and bolts of foreign policy.

After Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to Trump, Blinken became one of the founders of WestExec Advisors, a Washington consultancy advising corporations on geopolitical risks.

Having practiced law briefly, he entered politics in the late 1980s helping Democrat Michael Dukakis’ presidential campaign raise money.

He joined Democratic President Bill Clinton’s White House as a speechwriter and became one of his national security aides.

Under Obama, Blinken worked to limit most U.S. combat deployments to small numbers of troops. But he told Reuters last year that Trump had “gutted American credibility” with his pullback of U.S. troops in Syria in 2019 that left Kurdish U.S. allies in the lurch in their fight against Islamic State.

On the campaign trail, Blinken was one of Biden’s closest advisers, even on issues that went beyond foreign policy.

That trust is the product of the years Blinken worked alongside Biden as an adviser to his unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign, as national security adviser early in his vice presidency and as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Biden was chair.

Sullivan, formerly a close policy aide to Hillary Clinton, became one of the key policy advisers to Biden. He served as the former vice president’s national security adviser during the Obama administration.

A 43-year-old graduate of Yale, who was also a Rhodes scholar at Oxford and has a reputation as a behind-the-scenes operator, Sullivan took part in secret back channel talks with Iran that led to a 2015 international nuclear deal that Trump subsequently overturned.

He took on a broad portfolio on foreign and domestic policy, including the campaign’s views on the public health and economic response to the coronavirus pandemic, and was quickly chosen to stay on with Biden through the transition.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick in New York, Trevor Hunnicutt in Wilmington, Delaware, and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Additional reporting by Yew Lun Tian in Beijing; Editing by Diane Craft, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Toby Chopra)

U.S. marks hushed Memorial Day holiday as virus deaths near 100,000

By Jonathan Allen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Americans paid a low-key tribute to those who died serving in the U.S. Armed Forces on Monday, with many Memorial Day events canceled because of the coronavirus epidemic that has killed nearly 100,000 people in the United States alone.

In some places, scaled-down ceremonies were broadcast over the internet, as shutdowns to curb the spread of the virus put a damper on what is usually a day of flag-waving parades and crowds celebrating the unofficial start of the U.S. summer.

Spots that would be bustling on a normal Memorial holiday had noticeably thinner crowds.

Perhaps half of those gathered at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington wore face coverings, recommended as one way to fight infection. Only about one in 10 did so on the boardwalk by the beach in Ocean City, New Jersey.

With casinos closed, nearby Atlantic City was quiet.

Richard Burke, who bought a balloon-popping amusement stand on the boardwalk only a few weeks before the shutdown, was asking customers to use the hand sanitizer he had provided.

“As long as we protect ourselves I think we are OK,” Burke said.

All 50 states have relaxed coronavirus restrictions to some degree.

Health authorities in California, which has one of the most restrictive coronavirus containment rules in the country, announced on Monday that retail with in-store shopping and places of worship may now open.

In Fort Walton Beach, Florida, a small group of veterans in uniform gathered in Beal Memorial Cemetery to recite the names of the dead and weave flowers into a wreath in a ceremony that was streamed online. Some of the attendees shook hands with each other and few, if any, wore masks.

“Instead of parades or large memorial events, we can remember the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in a more private way,” Colonel John Sannes, the commander of the U.S. Army’s 7th Special Forces Group, told the gathering.

Inside the rotunda of the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln, a candle was lit and veterans took turns, two at a time, to silently stand sentry on either side of a wreath over the course of a 12-hour live-streamed ceremony.

In New York City, organizers of a usually large parade on Staten Island instead arranged to have a smaller convoy of vehicles drive the route. Governor Andrew Cuomo took part in a brief ceremony at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum aboard an aircraft carrier in New York City’s Hudson River.

Republican President Donald Trump, who has been criticized for initially playing down the threat posed by the coronavirus, participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. He was joined by Vice President Mike Pence, their wives, and Defense Secretary Mark Esper, among others.

Trump, who is eager to have the pandemic-stricken economy in at least somewhat better shape to bolster his chances of winning re-election in the Nov. 3 vote, did not wear a mask during his visit to the cemetery in Virginia.

Joe Biden, the prospective Democratic presidential nominee, made his first public appearance outside his Delaware home since quarantining himself 10 weeks ago. He and his wife Jill, both wearing black masks, laid a wreath of white roses at a nearby veterans memorial.

U.S. economic activity in April ground to a virtual standstill and more than 20 million Americans lost their jobs due to the lockdowns imposed in March.

Total cases in the United States of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, have reached more than 1.66 million, the highest in the world, and 97,971 people have died, according to a Reuters tally.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Additional reporting by Mike McCoy in Washington and Jessica Kourkounis in Atlantic City; Writing by Paul Simao and Grant McCool; Editing by Tom Brown and Sonya Hepinstall)

Tokyo Games moved to 2021 as ‘light at end of pandemic tunnel’

By Sakura Murakami and Karolos Grohmann

TOKYO/ATHENS (Reuters) – The Tokyo Olympics were postponed on Tuesday to 2021, the first such delay in the Games’ 124-year modern history, as the coronavirus crisis wrecked the world’s last sporting showpiece still standing this year.

Though a huge blow to Japan, which has invested $12 billion in the run-up, the move was a relief to thousands of athletes fretting over training as the world headed into lockdown to fight a disease that has claimed more than 16,500 lives.

Pressure had been building on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and its president, Thomas Bach, with some athletes and sporting bodies angry that a seemingly inevitable decision had taken so long.

After a call between Bach and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, both said the July 24-Aug. 9 Games would move to summer 2021 at the latest in a hoped-for celebration of triumph over the pandemic.

The Olympic flame, already lit at Olympia in Greece and taken to Japan for a now-canceled torch relay, would stay in the host nation as a symbol of hope.

“Sport is not the most important thing right now, preserving human life is,” Bach said. “This Olympic flame will be the light at the end of this tunnel.”

Though it was the first Olympics’ postponement, the Games were canceled outright three times during the last century’s two World Wars. Cold War boycotts also disrupted the Moscow and Los Angeles Olympics in 1980 and 1984.

ATHLETES SAD BUT RELIEVED

Athletes were disappointed but broadly endorsed the delay, given health risks and disruption to their training as gyms, stadia and swimming pools closed around the world.

“I compete in a little bike race, which is nothing compared to what is going on in the world right now,” said American Olympic BMX champion Connor Fields, who had been looking forward to his sport’s Games debut.

Many began focussing on next year’s competition.

“We’ll be more ready than ever in 2021 and wearing the maple leaf with more pride than I thought possible,” said Canadian Olympic wrestling champion Erica Wiebe, describing her feelings as: “Utter relief. Excitement. Uncertainty.”

The coronavirus outbreak has raged around the world this year, infecting nearly 380,000 people and wiping out the international sporting calendar.

Though 2021 looks crowded, as the sports world makes up for this year’s cancellations, World Athletics said it was willing to move its world championships, scheduled for Aug. 6-15, 2021, in Oregon, to make way for the Olympics.

It was not yet clear whether athletes who had already secured spots in Tokyo this summer – more than half of those due to compete – would need to qualify again. The Athletics Association said a poll of more than 4,000 track and field competitors showed 78% had wanted the Games delayed.

“My heart breaks for you,” U.S. Olympic and Paralympic CEO Sarah Hirshland said in a message to athletes.

“This summer was supposed to be a culmination of your hard work and life’s dream, but taking a step back from competition to care for our communities and each other is the right thing to do. Your moment will wait until we can gather again safely.”

TWICE UNLUCKY FOR JAPAN

Tuesday’s decision came 122 days before the planned opening ceremony at Japan’s newly built National Stadium, which was to usher in the 16-day event featuring 11,000 athletes from 206 nations and territories.

It is not the first time a Japanese Olympics has run into problems. Both the 1940 Summer and Winter Olympics were to be held in Japan but were canceled due to World War Two.

Despite their disappointment, not to mention the logistical headaches and financial losses to come, a poll indicated that about 70% of Japanese agreed with a delay.

The postponement is a deep disappointment for Japan’s prime minister, who has staked his legacy on the Games’ success and hoped it would bring a tourism and consumer boom. Such was his enthusiasm that he appeared as video game character Super Mario at the 2016 Olympics’ closing ceremony.

Postponing the Olympics is almost certain to push Japan’s economy, the world’s third largest, into recession.

Ami Takada, 18, who just graduated from high school and was walking in a Tokyo restaurant district, wondered if the coronavirus would really be over by next year to allow a delayed Games to take place.

“If they don’t hold the Olympics, it’s the end for the Japanese economy,” he worried.

IOC boss Bach is also in a tricky situation, after his repeated statements that the Games were on track brought a backlash from athletes and some national Olympic committees.

That, combined with disquiet over his support for Russian athletes to continue competing as neutrals despite their nation’s doping scandal, has threatened his grip on the IOC.

Bach is up for re-election next year.

(Additional reporting by Reuters bureaux worldwide; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Nick Macfie, Gareth Jones, Hugh Lawson and Giles Elgood)