February 20 coronavirus news

Researchers in China are saying that people with the novel coronavirus may have the same viral load -- or amount of virus in their body -- whether or not they are actually showing symptoms of illness.

In a letter published in The New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers describe how they monitored viral loads of the virus in samples taken from the nose and throat of 18 patients: nine men and nine women ranging in age from 26 to 76 in Zhuhai, in China’s Guangdong province. 

Their analysis showed that the 17 patients with symptoms had a similar viral load in tests to the one patient who had no symptoms. 

"(This) suggests the transmission potential of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic patients,” the researchers wrote in the letter.

“These findings are in concordance with reports that transmission may occur early in the course of infection."

More infectious than SARS?: It comes as the largest and most comprehensive study yet of the novel coronavirus found it is highly contagious, more so than severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).

Carried out by a group of experts at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and published in the Chinese Journal of Epidemiology on Monday, the study looked at more than 72,000 confirmed and suspected cases of the coronavirus.

Officials in Macao have allowed 29 casinos to reopen following a two-week closure that was implemented to try and stop the spread of the novel coronavirus in the Chinese gambling enclave.

In a news release issued on Wednesday, the government said that 29 casinos would resume operations tonight.

However it added that the reopened casinos would be operating at 30% capacity and that casinos would have to follow new guidelines. 

Those include:

According to the statement, the Macao Health Bureau will continue to closely monitor the health situation of casinos.

Losing streak: Gambling is the lifeblood of Macao, a semi-autonomous Chinese territory that depends on millions of visitors from mainland China. But the recent global health emergency has scared away tourists, and threatened the business model at the heart of Macao's economy.

Wynn Resorts, which employs 12,200 people in Macao, said earlier this month that the company was losing more than $2.6 million a day following the decision to shut down.

A controversial opinion piece criticizing China's response to the coronavirus led to the official expulsion of three journalists from the Wall Street Journal yesterday.

At a news briefing yesterday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that the Wall Street Journal had refused to apologize over the article, entitled "China is the real sick man of Asia."

It is the largest expulsion of foreign journalists from the country since 1989.

Both the Wall Street Journal and the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China strongly objected to the move, with the FCC calling it an "unprecedented form of retaliation."

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also denounced the expulsion. "Mature, responsible countries understand that a free press reports facts and expresses opinions. The correct response is to present counter arguments, not restrict speech," Pompeo said.

The expulsion came less than a day after US officials announced they would be treating five major Chinese state-run media companies as effective extensions of the Chinese government.

A senior State Department official said Tuesday that Xinhua, China Global Television Network, China Radio International, China Daily and People's Daily will be designated as "foreign missions," effective immediately.

Read more here.

The drop in new novel coronavirus infections out of mainland China was sharp today, falling from 1,749 confirmed cases on Wednesday to just 394 Thursday.

This now appears to be partly due to a change in what is counted as a "confirmed case."

About a week ago, Hubei province began counting "clinically diagnosed patients" in their case numbers -- those patients who showed symptoms, even if they tested negative. It resulted in a huge spike of confirmed cases in the province, which is the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.

However, according to the latest government guidelines, "clinically diagnosed patients" will no longer be counted. A lab based diagnosis will now be required for a case to be counted as "confirmed." All other cases will be categorized as "suspected cases."

Comments carried in Chinese state media have said that the decision to include clinically diagnosed patients was intended to help clear a backlog of cases in Hubei.

Diagnosis delays: For weeks, Hubei citizens with symptoms had expressed frustration that they were not able to get treatment due to a delay in diagnosis.

Those delays could be significant, with some reports of patients waiting up to a week for their results, as the testing kits were sent from Hubei to a lab in Beijing.

While there have been efforts to speed up the process, scientific testing of samples is difficult and time consuming.

The South Korean government has announced 31 new cases of the coronavirus in one day, bringing the country's total to 82.

According to the South Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 23 of the new cases went to the same church as a previously diagnosed patient.

Along with Japan and Singapore, South Korea is now one of the world's most seriously affected countries by the virus outside of mainland China.

South Korea's health authorities said they will test all 1,001 members of the congregation who attended a service with the infected patient for the coronavirus.

Daegu mayor Kwon Young-jin requested the congregation and their family members self-quarantine at home.

Infections rise in Japan, Singapore: There are more than 1,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus outside of mainland China, and 10 deaths.

Singapore has 84 cases, while Japan has 68 cases outside of the stricken Diamond Princess cruise ship. The largest outbreak outside of China is on the Diamond Princess, which is linked to 624 confirmed infections, and the deaths of two elderly passengers.

Jho Low, the fugitive businessman at the center of the 1MDB scandal, may be hiding in Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak began, according to Malaysian authorities.

But the officer added, "There was no new information on whether (Low) had fled the country following the Covid-19 outbreak."

Low, the alleged mastermind of a multibillion dollar corruption scandal that rocked Malaysia, struck a $700 million deal with the US government to end a legal case against him in October last year.

The US Department of Justice previously claimed that $4.5 billion was stolen from 1MDB by senior officials -- including Low -- and pumped into New York condos, hotels, yachts and a jet, and used to fund movies such as Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle "The Wolf of Wall Street," and expensive gifts for Low's friends, including heiress Paris Hilton.

The scandal helped bring down former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was also hit with dozens of corruption-related charges in the case. His trial in Malaysia is ongoing, and he has pleaded not guilty.

Low has been identified by some as the alleged mastermind of the embezzlement, a charge he has strongly denied. He remains wanted by the authorities in Malaysia.

Abdul Hamid said that he has asked the Kuala Lumpur International Airport "to be alert should he return." He added that should Low have become infected with the coronavirus then his best option would be return to Malaysia.

Only 349 cases of the novel coronavirus were reported today in Hubei, the Chinese province at the center of the outbreak -- the lowest number of new infections officially recorded there by China in weeks.

There are now just over 62,000 cases of the virus in Hubei.

The official data on the virus released by Chinese officials continues to trend positive, but there is some uncertainty of how cases are being diagnosed in Hubei, with the criteria for diagnosing the virus outside of the lab shifting in recent weeks.

Chinese authorities this week switched back to reporting only laboratory confirmed cases from Hubei, after last week allowing clinical diagnoses by doctors -- based on symptoms or more immediate tests -- to be counted towards the province's totals.

The total number of people who have recovered from the coronavirus also rose, with more than 10,000 released from hospital in the province.

China’s National Health Commission is expected to release figures for all of China’s provinces later today.

'Greater outbreak' avoided?: In recent days, Chinese state media has lauded the success of the country's authorities in containing the virus. For the first time on Tuesday, the number of patients discharged from hospitals exceeded new confirmed cases, state news agency Xinhua reported.

On Monday, a meeting of top government officials presided over by Premier Li Keqiang declared that a "greater outbreak" had been avoided, while state tabloid Global Times ran a series of articles announcing a "slow, steady economic reboot" after several weeks of disruption.

One of the enduring images of the current coronavirus outbreak is a space-age looking thermometer pointed at an airplane passenger.

Eleven airports in the United States are using these temperature checks as part of expanded screening for novel coronavirus, and those measures might seem reassuring. If someone doesn't have a fever, it seems like they're fine -- right?

But it turns out not a single US coronavirus case has been caught by airport temperature checks, despite more than 30,000 passengers being screened a month, according to a CNN investigation.

"Inefficient and ineffective": It isn't the first time the method has been called into question.

Earlier this month, British researchers published a study showing that temperature checks will fail to detect a coronavirus infection nearly half the time.

In Israel, temperature checks have been used in the past for outbreaks such as Ebola and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) but they were found not to work.

"It is ineffective and inefficient," said Dr. Itamar Grotto, associate director general of Israel's Ministry of Health.

Read more here.

Japan's health ministry has just confirmed that two passengers of the Diamond Princess cruise ship have died from novel coronavirus today.

Both of them were in their 80s, although their identity and gender is not known at this time. More details are expected to be released later.

It comes as passengers from the ship who have tested negative have begun to leave after two weeks of quarantine aboard.

A total of 624 cases of the coronavirus have been found on board the ship so far.