Author: GHealth News

It’s a question that has generated yearlong discord between China and the West: how did this virus that plunged the world into crisis begin in the first place? Last Thursday, a team of World Health Organization experts touched down in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected in 2019, to start a much-delayed mission into the origins of the virus that has now killed more than two million people worldwide. But first, like all travelers to China, the team of 10 must undertake a strict two-week quarantine. Some of them have been tweeting from their hotels in Wuhan, using Virtual Private Networks to circumvent a ban on Twitter in the country. On Monday -- day four of their quarantine -- British-American zoologist Peter Daszak tweeted a picture of his b...

When the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship suffering from an outbreak of covid-19, arrived in Japan in February, it seemed like a stroke of bad luck. A small floating petri dish threatened to turn the Japanese archipelago into a big one. In retrospect, however, the early exposure taught the authorities lessons that have helped make Japan’s epidemic the mildest among the world’s big economies, despite a recent surge in infections. In total 2,487 people have died of the coronavirus in Japan, just over half the number in China and fewer people than on a single day in America several times over the past week. Japan has suffered just 18 deaths per million people, a higher rate than in China, but by far the lowest in the G7, a club of big, industrialised democracies. (Germany comes in sec...

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s daily coronavirus cases have exceeded 3,000 for the first time while the government delays stricter measures for fear of hurting the economy ahead of the holiday season. The 3,030 new cases, including 621 in Tokyo, took Japan’s national tally to 177,287 with 2,562 deaths, the Health Ministry said Sunday. Experts say serious cases are on the rise around the country, putting an extra burden on hospitals and affecting the daily medical treatment for other patients. They urged authorities to take measures such as suspending out-of-town trips and requesting stores to close early. Source: AP News

ROME (AP) — Italy is reclaiming a record that nobody wants — the most coronavirus deaths in Europe — after the health care system again failed to protect the elderly and government authorities delayed imposing new restrictions. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Italy was the first country in the West to be slammed by COVID-19 and, after suffering a huge wave of death in spring, brought infections under control. Italy then had the benefit of time and experience heading into the fall resurgence because it trailed Spain, France and Germany in recording big new clusters of infections. Yet the virus spread fast and wide, and Italy has added nearly 29,000 dead since Sept. 1. Source: AP News

Kena Betancur/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images By Carl Zimmer and Katie Thomas As coronavirus cases surge in the United States and elsewhere, with little relief in sight, the world got good news on Monday. Pfizer and its partner, the German company, BioNTech, announced preliminary results that suggested their vaccine was more than 90 percent effective. The news — the first results from any late-stage vaccine trial — buoyed stock markets and spirits as the public saw a glimmer of hope. But it’s worth noting that the news is still preliminary, and there is much that is still not known about how well the vaccine works. And one thing remained clear: The vaccine will not come in time to rescue the world from the next several months, when the virus will take many more lives unless...