BEFORE 18 MARCH 2020
Title: Fearing end of the world, man returns ancient stolen relic
Published: Israel21c, 16 March 2020
* Coronavirus fears led an Israeli to return a 2,000-year-old ballista stone taken in Jerusalem 15 years ago, as he wanted to clear his conscience.
18 MARCH 2020
Title: (South Africa) All bars, shebeens and some restaurants must close at 18:00 under strict new state rules
Published: fin24, 18 March 2020
* With immediate effect, all establishments - including bars, clubs, shebeens and restaurants - that sell liquor must close at 18:00 on weekdays and Saturdays, and at 13:00 on Sundays and public holidays.
Title (Video): Coronavirus | Zimbabwe declares COVID-19 a national disaster
Published: SABC Digital News via YouTube, 18 March 2020
* Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has declared COVID-19 a national disaster. This although the country has yet to record its first confirmed case of the virus. Gatherings of more than a hundred people have been banned, as well as sporting events, but schools will remain open until the first term ends.
Title: Facebook Watch Party: How to group-watch videos during the pandemic
Published: Pocket-lint, 18 March 2020
* Facebook offers a Watch Party feature that allows its users to simultaneously watch Facebook videos together. Their streams are synced so that they can comment and react in real-time.
Title: Ghana First in Sub-Saharan Africa to Cut Rates to Combat Virus
Published: Bloomberg, 18 March 2020
* Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African country to cut interest rates in response to the coronavirus pandemic, reducing its benchmark to an eight-year low.
Title: Greenland halts all air traffic to island to limit coronavirus spread
Published: The Local (dk), 18 March 2020
* Greenland will halt all air traffic to the Arctic island and close its schools to limit the spread of the new coronavirus, where just one case has been detected.
Title: I'm a teacher in Italian quarantine, and e-learning is no substitute for the real thing
Published: The Guardian, 18 March 2020
* With schools on lockdown due to coronavirus, we’re seeing how this possible ‘future of teaching’ would only benefit some children.
Title: Online therapy service to offer free sessions to people self-isolating
Published: E&T, 18 March 2020
* An online therapy service will be offering free 20-minute sessions aimed at vulnerable older people and others who are self-isolating or struggling during the coronavirus outbreak, after therapists across the UK have volunteered their help.
Title: Pandemic "will last 18 months or longer," leaked US gov't report warns
Published: ArsTechnica, 18 March 2020
* Gov't report warns of medical-supply shortages and "multiple waves" in pandemic.
Title (Video): People With Type A Blood May Be More Vulnerable To Coronavirus, China Study Finds
Published: MyNation via YouTube, 18 March 2020
* Researchers in China have found that people with Type A blood are likely to catch Coronavirus than those with Type O. The study in Wuhan also found those with Type A blood are more likely to die from COVID-19.
Title: Scientists say mass tests in Italian town have halted Covid-19 there
Published: The Guardian, 18 March 2020
* A study in Vò, which saw Italy’s first death, points to the danger of asymptomatic carriers.
Title: Why Covid-19 is worse than the flu, in one chart
Published: Vox, 18 March 2020
* It’s more contagious, more deadly (particularly for older people), and it has a greater potential to overwhelm our health care system.
Title: (China) Wuhan cherry blossom live stream launched amid virus lockdown
Published: Bangkok Post, 18 March 2020
* Chinese state media outlets are live streaming the famed cherry blossoms at Wuhan University for an internet audience, as the city where the coronavirus was first reported remains locked down and closed to visitors.
19 MARCH 2020
Title: Before virus outbreak, a cascade of warnings went unheeded
Published: The New York Times, 19 March 2020
* Government exercises, inlcuding one last year, made clear that the US was not ready for a pandemic like the coronavirus. But little was done
Title: Coronavirus may mean automation is coming sooner than we thought
Published: SingularityHub, 19 March 2020
* In a thought-provoking talk at Singularity University’s COVID-19 virtual summit this week, Peter Xing explained how the outbreak is accelerating our transition to a highly-automated society—and painted a picture of what the future may look like.
Title: COVID-19: Libya closes Ras Jedir border crossing with Tunisia
Published: Panapress, 19 March 2020
* Inbound and outbound traffic at Ras Jedir land border crossing shared with Tunisia, has been closed on both sides, Zouara municipality's media center, 120 km west of Tripoli, announced on Thursday.
Title: Facebook bans ads for hand sanitizer, surface disinfecting wipes and COVID-19 test kits
Published: CNBC, 19 March 2020
* Facebook said Thursday it has banned ads and commerce listings for hand sanitizer, surface disinfecting wipes and COVID-19 test kits.
* This move came nearly two weeks after Facebook announced it was also temporarily banning ads and commerce listings for medical face masks.
Title: (South Africa) Govt announces emergency price controls for toilet paper, masks and other goods
Published: fin24, 19 March 2020
* Government has just announced strict new regulations to prevent price gouging during the coronavirus crisis.
Title: Half of Uruguay's coronavirus cases traced to a single guest at a society party
Published: The Guardian, 19 March 2020
* Covid-19 struck 44 guests at a glamorous wedding after a designer attended despite having had a fever and just arriving from Spain.
Title: Here’s why Trump and Elon Musk see potential in a drug called chloroquine to treat coronavirus
Published: CNBC, 19 March 2020
* Elon Musk and President Trump have both touted the drug on social media.
* The early data is promising, scientists and biotech experts say. But there are still many unknowns.
Title: Updated: Trump Says FDA Approved Anti-Malaria Drug Chloroquine To Test As Coronavirus Treatment
Published: Forbes, 19 March 2020
* President Trump said in a Thursday press briefing that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, drugs used to treat malaria and severe arthritis, were approved by the Food and Drug Administration to test as a COVID-19 coronavirus treatment, as the number of cases nationwide continues to increase.
Take note with regard to Chloroquine:
See also:
Title: Researchers Look To Old Drugs For A Possible Coronavirus Treatment – It Might Just Work
Published: Forbes, 18 March 2020
* An old malaria and autoimmune drug is showing promise as a potential treatment for COVID-19 – although health officials are urging caution until clinical trials are done. The drug, hydroxychloroquine, sold under the brand name Plaquenil, was reported March 9 in Clinical Infectious Diseases journal to be effective at killing the virus in laboratory experiments.
There was already an earlier scholarly article published on chloroquine and remdesivir on 4 February 2020,namely:
Wang, M. [et al.]. Remdesivir and chloroquine effectively inhibit the recently emerged novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in vitro. Cell Research, 30, 269-271.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41422-020-0282-0
[This article was included on my blog post named Comprehensive List of Coronavirus-related Scholarly Articles (2019 & 2020), including MERS & SARS, as well as Covid-19 / 2019 Novel Coronavirus posted on 14 February 2020]
See also the following:
Colson,P. [et al.]. (4 March 2020). Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as available weapons to fight COVID-19. Int J Antimicrob Agents, Article 105932, 10.1016/j.ijantimicag.2020.105932
Gao, Z. [et al.]. Breakthrough: chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treatment of COVID-19 associated pneumonia in clinical studies Biosci Trends (29 February 2020), https://doi.org/10.5582/bst.2020.01047 [Epub ahead of print]
Multicenter Collaboration Group of Department of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province and Health Commission of Guangdong Province for chloroquine in the treatment of novel coronavirus pneumonia Expert consensus on chloroquine phosphate for the treatment of novel coronavirus pneumonia [in Chinese] Zhonghua Jie He He Hu Xi Za Zhi, 43 (2020), p. E019, 10.3760/cma.j.issn.1001-0939.2020.0019
Yao, X. [et al.]. In Vitro Antiviral Activity and Projection of Optimized Dosing Design of Hydroxychloroquine for the Treatment of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Clinical Infectious Diseases, ciaa237.
https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa237
20 MARCH 2020
Title: Australia's Covid-19 travel ban comes into force for all non-residents and non-citizens – as it happened
Published: The Guardian, 20 March 2020
* Government says airline industry ‘essential’ as Australians overseas scramble to get home and health authorities try to contain the spread of Covid-19.
Title: Bats are not to blame for coronavirus. Humans are
Published: CNN, 20 March 2020
* Zoologists and disease experts have told CNN that changes to human behavior -- the destruction of natural habitats, coupled with the huge number of fast-moving people now on Earth -- has enabled diseases that were once locked away in nature to cross into people fast.
Title: ‘Clap our hands,’ says Modi, but India needs more to tackle coronavirus crisis
Published: France24, 20 March 2020
* India on Friday reported 206 coronavirus cases and five deaths. But with its population, poverty and poor public health service, the world’s largest democracy could be a COVID-19 ticking time bomb. So when Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation this week, Indians were looking for measures to tackle the crisis. They got populist symbolism instead.
Title: (South Africa) Coronavirus in SA: All the confirmed cases
Published: health24, 20 March 2020
* Here are the 202 confirmed positive cases of coronavirus in South Africa, by province.
Title: Coronavirus pandemic: Netflix and YouTube reduce video quality in Europe because data is needed for work from home
Published: India Today, 20 March 2020
* Netflix has announced that it will reduce the bit rates of its streams in Europe for the next 30 days. The company estimates this will reduce Netflix traffic on European networks by around 25%
Title: Coronavirus: The taxi driver falsely accused of links to
Published: BBC News, 20 March 2020
* The story was fake, but the impact on Jude Ikuenobe, the man whose photo was used in the post, has been very real.
Title: Coronavirus: 'Your NHS needs you' - 65,000 ex-doctors and nurses asked to return
Published: Sky News, 20 March 2020
* Thousands of former healthcare workers are set to answer the call to arms as the COVID-19 outbreak spreads.
Title: COVID-19 detection in under 20 mins – Iceni Diagnostics offers new approach
Published: Technology.org, 20 March 2020
* The emergence of COVID-19 has exposed a frailty in our ability to rapidly detect and screen new infectious diseases. Iceni Diagnostics is developing a new approach that identifies the virus – not by its genetic code, which can mutate, but by using its reliance on chains of sugars which are constant and unchangeable.
Title: Data from China shows the majority of people with Covid-19 only suffer mild symptoms, then recover
Published: CNN, 20 March 2020
* Last month, scientists from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention published a research paper analyzing the data for the first 72,314 people diagnosed with Covid-19.
* Fascinating stats!
Title: Donald Trump cancels G7 at Camp David over coronavirus concerns
Published: ABC News, 20 March 2020
* US President Donald Trump will cancel an in-person meeting of G7 leaders at Camp David in June because of the coronavirus and will hold a video conference instead, the White House says.
Title: Facebook, Gumtree wait for users to report ads exploiting coronavirus
Published: News.com.au, 20 March 2020
* Facebook has promised to do more to stop essential items being advertised at massively inflated prices but one in demand item is not on the list.
Title: How Spain’s coronavirus outbreak got so bad so fast — and how Spaniards are trying to cope
Published: Vox, 20 March 2020
* After a slow response from the government and the public, Spaniards now say “I will resist.”
Title: Indonesians refusing to stay home for prayers
Published: Aljazeera, 20 March 2020
* Thousands of Muslims travel to South Sulawesi for mass gathering, despite cancellation of event.
Title: Latin American countries step up coronavirus restrictions as cases spread
Published: France24, 20 March 2020
* Brazil said it was closing land borders and prohibiting entry to people from European and many Pacific Asian countries to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, as Mexico and Peru reported their first virus deaths, and Argentina announced a "preventative and compulsory" lockdown from Friday.
Title: (Nigeria) 'No work, no food': For Kibera dwellers, quarantine not an option
Published: Aljazeera, 20 March 2020
* Residents of Nairobi's vast informal settlement prepare for coronavirus but still need to work to put food on the table.
Title: Police in North Carolina find stolen trailer full of toilet paper
Published: Fox News, 20 March 2020
* With the American population fighting over a single precious roll of toilet paper amid the coronavirus outbreak, police in North Carolina uncovered nearly 18,000 pounds of commercial bathroom paper products inside a stolen tractor-trailer on Wednesday.
Title: The unlikely positives from coronavirus outbreak
Published: News.com.au, 20 March 2020
* It’s not all doom and gloom as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the world, with dolphins returning to waterways, canals clearer in Venice and less air pollution in China.
Title: Snapchat rolling out mental health awareness tool soon with focus on coronavirus pandemic
Published: HindustanTimes, 20 March 2020
* Snapchat has accelerated the launch of its ‘Here For You’ tool. The company will now roll it out to its users globally in next week.
Title: South Africa to build 40km fence along Zimbabwe border
Published: Aljazeera, 20 March 2020
* Authorities say fence will stem irregular migration as well as spread of coronavirus in the country.
Title: Tourists' Departure Leaves Madagascar Forlorn as Coronavirus Fears Bite
Published: USNews, 20 March 2020
* On a pristine island off the northwest coast of Madagascar famous for its orchids and turquoise, turtle-filled waters, residents are bracing for disaster - but it's not the coronavirus. It's the disappearance of tourists that keep the island's economy afloat.
Title: Tucker Carlson on the coronavirus' impact on higher education: 'Not enough federal bailout money in the Treasury to save every pointless university'
Published: Fox News, 20 March 2020
* Tucker Carlson ripped the higher education establishment Thursday previewing the likely culling colleges and universities face in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.