Wuhan Cartoons

New York’s virus toll tops 9/11, while Wuhan ends lockdown

NEW YORK (AP) — As New York City faced one of its darkest days with the death toll from the coronavirus surging past 4,000 — more than the number killed on 9/11 — the Chinese city where the global pandemic began lifted its final restrictions on movement Wednesday as deaths there plummeted.

The tale of two cities came as the coronavirus crisis continued to strain health care systems from Europe to North America, roil global stock markets, and strand international travelers behind closed borders. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson remained in intensive care, the first major world leader confirmed to have COVID-19.

Despite the staggering death toll in America’s largest city, authorities in New York were optimistic that the outbreak might finally be easing, as has been seen in other global hot spots such as Italy and Spain and before that, China. Health officials, however, warned people not to let their guard down.

The virus toll in New York City is now more than 1,000 deaths higher than that of the deadliest terro attack on U.S. soil, which killed 2,753 people in the city and 2,977 overall.

After recording more than 500 deaths a day since late last week, New York state recorded 731 new coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, its biggest one-day jump yet, for a statewide toll of nearly 5,500, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.

“Behind every one of those numbers is an individual. There’s a family, there’s a mother, there’s a father, there’s a sister, there’s a brother. So a lot of pain again today for many New Yorkers,” Cuomo said.

In an encouraging sign, the governor said hospital admissions and the number of people receiving breathing tubes are dropping. And the death toll itself is a “lagging indicator,” reflecting people who had been hospitalized before this week, he said.

But he warned that gains are dependent on people continuing to practice social distancing.

“It still depends on what we do, and what we do will affect those numbers,” he said.

In Wuhan — the Chinese city of 11 million that was the first in the world to go on lockdown — tens of thousands of people streamed out of town by plane and train alone as harsh restrictions on movement were finally lifted. Citizens waved flags and the city staged a light show with skyscrapers and bridges radiating animated images of health workers aiding patients.

Restrictions in the city where most of China’s more than 82,000 virus cases and over 3,300 deaths were reported have been gradually eased in recent weeks as the number of new cases steadily declined. The government reported no new cases Wednesday, though there have been questions about the veracity of China’s count.

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“I haven’t been outside for more than 70 days,” said an emotional Tong Zhengkun, who was watching the display. Residents in his apartment complex had contracted the virus so they couldn’t go out even to buy groceries, which neighborhood workers delivered.

“Being indoors for so long drove me crazy,” he said.

In London, the 55-year-old Johnson was in stable condition and conscious at a hospital, where he was receiving oxygen but was not on a ventilator, officials said. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was designated to run the country in the meantime.

“I’m confident he’ll pull through because if there’s one thing I know about this prime minister, he’s a fighter,” Raab said.

Deaths in Britain reached nearly 6,200, after a one-day increase of almost 800.

In France, the number of dead climbed to more than 10,300, said Jerome Salomon, national health director.

“We are in the epidemic’s ascendant stage,” he said. “We have not yet reached the peak.”

In other European hot spots, authorities saw signs that the outbreak was turning a corner, based on slowdowns in new deaths and hospitalizations.

In Spain, new deaths Tuesday rose to 743 and infections climbed by 5,400 after five days of declines, but the increases were believed to reflect a weekend backlog. Authorities said they were confident in the downward trend.

In Italy, the hardest-hit country of all with over 17,000 deaths, authorities appealed to people ahead of Easter weekend not to lower their guard and to abide by a lockdown now in its fifth week, even as new cases dropped to a level not seen since the early weeks of the outbreak.

On Wall Stock street Tuesday, a strong rally propelled by signs that the outbreak may be leveling off evaporated after the price of crude oil suddenly fell. Stocks ended the day slightly lower. Asian markets followed mostly lower Wednesday.

Across the U.S., the death toll topped 12,900, with nearly 400,000 confirmed infections. Some of the deadliest hot spots were Detroit, New Orleans and the New York metropolitan area, which includes parts of Long Island, New Jersey and Connecticut.

In Wisconsin, after a legal battle that reached the Supreme Court, voters were asked to ignore a stay-at-home order to participate in its presidential primary.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump threatened to freeze U.S. funding to the World Health Organization, saying the international group had “missed the call” on the pandemic.

Trump said the international group had “called it wrong” on the virus and that the organization was “very China-centric” in its approach, suggesting that the WHO had gone along with Beijing’s efforts months ago to minimize the severity of the outbreak.

The virus continued to affect global travel, and cruise ships in particular. More than half of the 217 people on a ship off Uruguay’s coast tested positive for the coronavirus. The Australian operator of the Greg Mortimer ship said no one had symptoms and it was working to disembark the crew and passengers — many from Australia, Europe and the U.S. — and arrange their return home.

Worldwide, about 1.4 million people have been confirmed infected and more than 82,000 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University. The true numbers are almost certainly much higher, because of limited testing, different rules for counting the dead and deliberate underreporting by some governments.

For most people, the virus causes mild to moderate symptoms such as fever and cough. But for some, especially older adults and the infirm, it can cause pneumonia. About 300,000 people have recovered worldwide, by Johns Hopkins’ count.

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Blake reported from Bangkok. Associated Press journalists around the world contributed.

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Follow AP news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

Stock futures trade cautiously amid uncertainty over the coronavirus outbreak

The major futures indexes are indicating a decline of 0.2 percent when trading begins on Wednesday.
Tuesday's rally on Wall Street suddenly vanished in a market dominated by sharp swings responding to the ups and downs of the news about the coronavirus pandemic.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
I:DJI	DOW JONES AVERAGES	22653.86	-26.13	-0.12%
SP500	S&P 500	2659.41	-4.27	-0.16%
I:COMP	NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX	7887.25968	-25.98	-0.33%

The S&P 500 dipped 0.2 percent to 2,659.41 after erasing a surge of 3.5 percent earlier in the day. The market’s gains faded as the price of U.S. crude oil abruptly flipped from a gain to a steep loss of more than 9 percent.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1 percent to 22,653.86, giving up an earlier gain of 937 points. The Nasdaq composite dropped 3 percent to 7,887.26.
Benchmark U.S. crude oil surged 5 percent or $1.17 to $24.80 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 62 cents to $32.46.
In European markets, London's FTSE fell 1.7 percent, Germany's DAX traded 0.9 percent lower and France's CAC dropped 1.8 percent.
In Asia on Wednesday, Japan's Nikkei rose 2 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.2 percent, while China's Shanghai Composite dipped 0.2 percent.
Japan's state of emergency kicked in, focused on seven urban areas, including Tokyo, with strong government requests for people to stay home and restaurants and stores to close for a month. However, there were scant signs of any change in behavior during the morning rush hour.
Experts say more deaths are on the way due to COVID-19, which has already claimed at least 82,000 lives around the world.
The U.S. leads the world in confirmed cases with more than 398,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
More economic misery is also on the horizon. Economists expect a report on Thursday to show that 5 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week as layoffs sweep the country. That would bring the total to nearly 15 million over the past three weeks.
Analysts also expect big companies in upcoming weeks to report their worst quarter of profit declines in more than a decade.The
Associated Press contributed to this article.

Dan Crenshaw slams Hillary Clinton tweet, defends Trump coronavirus response

U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, fired back at Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, accusing the former U.S. secretary of state of once again using the coronavirus outbreak to score political points against President Trump.
On Monday, Clinton retweeted a Washington Post story that was critical of Trump and said the U.S. was “beset by denial and dysfunction as the coronavirus raged.”
Clinton’s Twitter message quoted from the Post article: “It took 70 days for Trump to treat the coronavirus not as a distant threat or harmless flu strain well under control, but as a lethal force poised to kill tens of thousands of citizens.”
HILLARY CLINTON UNDER FIRE FOR JOKE ABOUT US LEADING IN VIRUS CASES: TRUMP 'DID PROMISE AMERICA FIRST'
Then Clinton added a message for her followers.
“Replace this man in November,” she wrote, referring to the president.
But Crenshaw responded to Clinton, noting President Trump “restricted travel in January & saved lives” while Clinton and the Democrats “celebrated his impeachment.”
“Denial?” Crenshaw wrote. “From the man who restricted travel in January & saved lives, while your party celebrated his impeachment?
“You may be confusing him with the Washington Post, telling America to get a grip. That COVID19 wasn’t scary, & that we should be wary of an aggressive govt response.”
Crenshaw then provided headlines from three Post articles, from January and February.
“Get a grippe, America. The flu is a much bigger threat than coronavirus, for now,” read a Post story from Feb. 1, written by a Post staffer.
“How our brains make coronavirus seem scarier than it is,” read another Post story, from Jan. 31, written by a guest commenter from Harvard University.
“Why we should be wary of an aggressive government response to coronavirus,” read the third headline, from a Feb. 3 Post article co-authored by two academics from Northwestern University.
Capping off his Twitter message, Crenshaw posted a Nancy Pelosi message from Jan. 15, in which the speaker is seen handing commemorative pens to fellow Democrats on the day she signed two articles of impeachment after the Democrat-led House voted against the president on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. (The Senate later acquitted Trump of both charges in an impeachment trial.)
Crenshaw previously called out Clinton last month, after she retweeted a New York Times article announcing the U.S. had become the global leader in coronavirus cases.
“He did promised ‘America First,’” Clinton wrote, referring to the president.
“Delete your account,” Crenshaw answered. “This isn’t the time. This can’t be the new normal, where American tragedy is applauded for the sake of political opportunism.”

Trump slams 'China-centric' WHO, says agency 'called every shot wrong' in coronavirus pandemic

President Trump slammed the World Health Organization (WHO) for its "China-centric" views Tuesday, adding that the global health agency's projections and pronouncements about the coronavirus pandemic has been routinely wrong.
In an interview with Fox News' "Hannity," Trump said that the WHO had "strongly recommended" against America restricting travel from China, one of their earliest flawed pronouncements.
"The World Health [Organization] -- very China-centric as I say --  basically everything was very positive for China," Trump told host Sean Hannity. "Don't close your borders, they strongly recommended ... That would've been a disaster, that would've been a total disaster.
"And literally, they called every shot wrong," the president added. "They didn't want to say where [coronavirus] came from. For many years, we've been funding the World Health Organization."
The president noted that while the U.S. financial contribution to the WHO dwarfs that of China, the United Nations entity seems to be very concerned about its relationship with Beijing..
"We're going to look at it now because I think every step that they made, everything that they said was wrong and always in favor of China," he said. "And 'keep it open, don't close the borders'. I didn't listen to them, and I did what I wanted to do, and it was a good move.
"So it's one of those things where we are the one that is the primary funder so we are going to take a very strong look at that."
U.S. taxpayers contributed $513 million to the WHO in 2017, up from $341 million the prior year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus had claimed Trump's move to restrict travel from China at the end of January would create "fear and stigma with little health benefit."
Trump also spoke Tuesday about his relationships with state governors during the pandemic, reserving particular praise for Democrats Andrew Cuomo of New York and Phil Murphy of New Jersey
"I'm a diplomat, too," Trump remarked. "Since I've become president, I have to view things a little bit differently. Andrew, I've known him a long time. He has a hard time getting the words out 'Thank you, you did a great job,' but he's been pretty good over the last week or so."
Trump also praised the work of Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards in Louisiana and Gavin Newsom in California, while declining to name which governors he thought may have done a poor job handling the contagion.
"We'll back the people where they have bad governors."

China Coronavirus Cartoons

GOP sounds alarm after 'quasi-official' Chinese outlet gains access to coronavirus press briefing, promotes Beijing

Republicans are sounding the alarm after a reporter with ties to China's propaganda machine gained access to Monday's White House coronavirus press briefing and used the platform to promote Beijing's efforts -- even as right-leaning outlets, including One America News Network (OANN), were being denied seating privileges at the briefings.
Several lawmakers said late Monday that the possibility China was spreading propaganda in the White House clearly merited immediate action, especially given Democrats' stated concerns about foreign interference in U.S. politics.
"Only last week, there were multiple flights coming from China full of medical supplies," the reporter from Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV began. "Companies like Huawei and Alibaba have been donating to the United States, like 1.5 million N95 masks and also a lot of medical gloves, and much more medical supplies --"
"Sounds like a statement more than a question," Trump interjected.
The reporter then asked if Trump was willing to work "directly" with China; Trump responded that China should honor its trade deals with the United States.
"Are you cooperating with China?" she pressed. "Who are you working for, China?" Trump responded. "Who are you with?"
The reporter smiled. "Um, no, I'm working for -- Hong Kong Phoenix TV."
"Who owns that? China?" Trump asked.
"It's based in Hong Kong. ... It's a privately owned company."
But it turns out that Phoenix TV, which has aggressively sought to expand in the United States, has closer ties to the Chinese government than the reporter let on.
Within minutes of the exchange in the briefing room, consultant Elliot Schwartz flagged that in 2018, a former Phoenix TV news director testified as part of an FCC filing that the outlet is essentially controlled by China's Communist Propaganda Department, and follows a directive to not report positively on the United States.
Specifically, the former director, Chung Pong, remarked: "I know from personal experience that Phoenix TV's content is subject to the dictates of the leadership of the Central Communist Propaganda Department, Central Communist Overseas Propaganda Office, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which often directly sent instructions to Phoenix Satellite TV."
Pong said he was fired in 2002 on orders of then-Chinese leader Jiang Zemin.
And, The Daily Caller's Chuck Ross found that the Hoover Institution has said it considers Phoenix TV a "quasi-official" broadcaster with "links to the PRC’s Ministry of State Security."
Additionally, a 2017 report from Freedom House noted that Phoenix TV is "owned by a former military officer [Liu Changle] with close ties to Beijing officials" and produces coverage that is "typically favorable to the CCP."
"Moreover, over the past two years, it has been used as an outlet for airing televised confessions by various detained CCP [Communist Party of China] critics, most notably all five Hong Kong booksellers abducted by Chinese security forces in late 2015," the report continued. "Such coverage is perhaps not coincidental, considering that CCTV [China Central Television] reportedly holds a 10 percent stake in Phoenix."
Within hours of the briefing, top Republicans demanded action, even as some left-wing journalists implied Trump had acted improperly in the exchange.
"Phoenix TV has been waging information warfare in the US for yrs," Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, wrote on Twitter. "They are nominally private but actually state owned. In 2018 I led effort to block them from using cutouts to spread propaganda. MSM should NEVER have given them seat at WH press conference."
After outlining Phoenix TV's ties to China in a lengthy thread, Cruz concluded: "So to recap, the WH Correspondents Assoc gave a seat at the WH press briefing to an employee of the Chinese Communist govt, to ask globally televised Qs to POTUS, at the same time China is waging a propaganda campaign to hide their culpability & coverup of the Wuhan virus?!?"
He then appended footage of Conan O'Brien saying, "What the hell is that?"
Cruz wasn't alone in questioning the episode in no uncertain terms. "Why is an outlet with such close ties to Communist China allowed in the White House briefing room?" asked Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Arizona.
Conservatives also pointed out that the White House Correspondents' Association announced last Wednesday that it was removing the right-leaning OANN from its coronavirus briefing rotation after its reporter allegedly violated its policy on social distancing.
"A 'reporter' who essentially works for China can get in to press briefings to spread Chinese propaganda but the @whca  is trying to ban @OANN  from the briefings," wrote producer Robby Starbuck. "Insane."
"These are the ***same people*** that screamed until their voices cracked about Russian interference and Russian propaganda for years," wrote Turning Point USA's Benny Johnson. "Now they invite *literal* Communist Chinese propaganda mouthpieces into the WH to question POTUS & applaud it."

Stock futures point to more gains on optimism coronavirus cases could be slowing

Equity futures are pointing to a higher open on Tuesday amid a few glimmers of hope that the coronavirus pandemic could be slowing.
The major futures indexes are indicating a rise of 3 percent when trading begins.
In Europe, London's FTSE rose 3.1 percent, Germany's DAX gained 4.5 percent and France's CAC added 3.7 percent.
Asian markets were also rising. Japan's Nikkei gained  2 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng added  2.1 percent, while China's Shanghai Composite jumped 2 percent.
China on Tuesday reported no new deaths from the coronarivus over the past 24 hours and had 32 new cases, all from people who returned from overseas.
The country that gave rise to the global pandemic has recorded 3,331 deaths and 81,740 total cases. Numbers of daily new deaths have been hovering in the single digits for weeks, hitting just one on several occasions.
The number of new coronavirus cases is dropping in the European hotspots of Italy and Spain. The center of the U.S. outbreak, New York, also reported its number of daily deaths has been effectively flat for two days.
Investors have been waiting anxiously for signs that the rate of new infections may be hitting its peak, which would give some clarity about how long the upcoming recession will last and how deep it will be. Without that, markets have been guessing about how long businesses will remain shut down, companies will lay off workers and flights remain canceled due to measures meant to slow the speed of the outbreak.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
I:DJI	DOW JONES AVERAGES	22679.99	+1,627.46	+7.73%
SP500	S&P 500	2663.68	+175.03	+7.03%
I:COMP	NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX	7913.238014	+540.15	+7.33%

The S&P 500 climbed 175.03, or 7 percent and nearly all the stocks in the index were higher.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average shot up 1,627.46 points, or 7.7 percent to 22,679.99, and the Nasdaq rose  7.3 percent.
Japan is set to announce a 108 trillion yen ($1 trillion) package to support the world’s third-largest economy, including cash handouts to needy families and help for small businesses. The plan is due to be outlined Tuesday, when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to announce a state of emergency that will ramp up precautions meant to curb the rapid spread of the virus.
Benchmark U.S. crude added 3.4 percent or 91 cents to $27.00 a barrel. It fell $2.26, or 8 percent, to settle as $26.08 a barrel after surging nearly $7 last week. It started the year above $60 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 56 cents to $33.57 a barrel.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.