Category: Corona Virus

Mar 23rd 2020

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TWO WEEKS ago Xi Jinping, Chinas president, made a triumphal visit to Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, ravaged by covid-19, to declare that the virus had been basically curbed. His first stop was a hospital built at breakneck speed and run by the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). Now armies across the world are temporarily putting down their guns and playing a frontline role in the war against the virus. That will ease the burden on overwhelmed civilians, but it may have far-reaching implications for the forces military proficiency.

In Italy and Spain, where death rates have spiralled upwards in recent weeks, thousands of soldiers have been deployed to quarantined cities to patrol the streets and enforce lockdowns. Turin seems to have conformed to the rules and camouflages, noted La Stampa, an Italian newspaper. In Bergamo rows of army trucks carried away bodies to ease the load on overflowing crematoriums. Hungary, Lebanon, Malaysia and Peru have all sent their armies to cajole recalcitrant citizens back into the safety of their homes.

Many countries are uncomfortable with state-mandated lockdowns, enforced by gun-toting soldiers. But they have found other uses for their soldiers. Armed forces are good at mounting big logistical operations at short notice. They have lots of pliant manpower and heavy vehicles, and expertise in moving large amounts of stuff from one place to another. In an average week, the Pentagons Transportation Command conducts more than 1,900 air missions and 10,000 ground shipments. The military has the capacity to plan while it is implementing in a way that most of the civil service does not, says Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute, a think-tank in London.

On March 19th Britain, which had thus far taken a laxer approach to the enforcement of social distancing than Italy or France, announced a new COVID support force, which will comprise over 20,000 personnel, bolstered with reservists. Military planners will be deployed to Regional Resilience Councils to identify and resolve bottlenecks in the provision of medical care for the most vulnerable, says Mr Watling. Other military personnel are being trained to drive oxygen tankers for the National Health Service. Other countries are doing much the same. On March 22nd National Guard (ie, reservist) units in three statesCalifornia, New York and Washingtonwere deployed to perform similar duties.

Armed forces are also well placed to help out overloaded health-care systems. For one thing, they often have large stockpiles of vital medical kit. The Pentagon has promised to hand over 5m respirator masks and 2,000 ventilators to civilian authorities. They tend to be good at rapid innovation, too. Israel's military-intelligence technology unit is not only producing low-tech masks, but also working on the conversion of simple breathing-support devices into more advanced ventilators, according to the Times of Israel. Britains Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down, which has expertise in biological threats, is supporting the development and testing of vaccines, and the mapping of covid-19 cases. The US Army alone is working on 24 vaccine candidates, in collaboration with other agencies and companies.

Wartime experience can also yield useful insights for civilian medicine. The development of mechanical ventilators to ease Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS)a potentially fatal condition in which lungs cannot provide vital organs with enough oxygen, common in patients who die of covid-19emerged from work during the second world war. In recent decades military doctors have made important contributions to advances in ventilation and intensive care.

Military medics also train to operate amid chaos, with insufficient infrastructure and resources. Since January 25th China has sent over 10,000 military personnel into Hubei. In Wuhan, control of medical and essential supplies was handed entirely to the PLA. In Mulhouse in eastern France, where local hospitals have been overwhelmed, army medics are building a 30-bed field hospital for covid-19 cases. Mexicos president, who said last summer that he hoped to disband the army, has given control of ten new hospitals to the army and navy.

Elsewhere military doctors are taking on more routine cases to free up hospitals for the flood of more serious ones. America is sending a pair of naval hospital ships to Los Angeles and New York to release medical capacity for covid-19 patients; the army is preparing two mobile hospital units. Switzerlands citizen army has sent one of its four 600-strong hospital battalions to support civilian hospitals.

Military medical aid can also be a tool of diplomacy. On March 22nd Russias army, whose operatives are more accustomed to using toxic substances to poison foes around Europe than cleaning them up, began sending nine transport planes full of military disinfectant vehicles, eight brigades of medics, about 100 virologists and epidemiologists, and testing kits to the worst-affected parts of Italy. The lorries and planes bore the slogan From Russia with Love, in Russian and Italian.

It is understandable that overwhelmed states want to mobilise their armies for policing, logistics and medicine. But armed forces are designed first and foremost for killing people, rather than issuing fines on street corners or delivering food to supermarkets. And covid-19 will affect military preparedness, both directly and indirectly.

Military personnel are typically young and fita group that has been better able to shake off the effects of the virus. But they are not immune. Over half of coronavirus cases in New York state are aged 18 to 49. Troops often live in close quarters, increasing the likelihood and pace of transmission.

Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the countrys main armed force, is believed to have been hit badly by the epidemic; a veteran general died on March 13th. The army chiefs of Italy and Poland have both tested positive for covid-19. By March 23rd 133 American military personnel had been infected by the virus. On March 22nd a Pentagon contractor became the first American military fatality of the covid-19 pandemic. Many experts ridicule Chinas claim that not a single member of the PLA has been infected.

But even if armies do shrug off the immediate health effects of covid-19, the disruption to their work will have longer-lasting consequences. Self-isolating officers cannot gain access to classified networks from their homes, so many will have their productivity drastically limited. Meia Nouwens, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, another think-tank in London, says that the crisis has disrupted the supply chains for Chinas defence industry.

Social distancing is also preventing armies from honing their fighting skills. Britain has halted almost all its basic training for new recruits. On March 11th Norway called off joint exercises with America and European allies in the Arctic, shortly after 23 American soldiers were quarantined after exposure to an infected Norwegian colleague. Two days later America scaled down Defender 2020, an exercise that would have involved the largest deployment of American troops to Europe since the cold war. Americas top general in Europe was forced to self-isolate after crossing paths with an infected Polish general at a planning meeting for the exercise.

Other European drills have been cancelled entirely; America and South Korea have postponed their annual joint exercises. But armies that stop exercising are liable to grow rusty. The challenge is when you have the next armoured battlegroup coming through and they havent done a stint in BATUS [the British Armys training area in Canada], for instance, do they still have a certification to deploy into NATO? asks Mr Watling. On March 23rd Russia offered at least a little respite, saying that it had called off war games on its western borders as a sign of good will.

Yet as armies grapple with the pandemic, geopolitical jostling goes on. On March 10th, as Mr Xi visited Wuhan, Americas navy conducted a so-called freedom of navigation operation near a Chinese-controlled island in the South China Sea. On March 19th at least 29 Malian soldiers were killed by suspected jihadists. A day later two Turkish soldiers were killed in a rocket attack in Syrias Idlib province, and two dozen policemen and soldiers were shot dead in Afghanistan. Troops may be distracted and diverted, but war does not pause for viruses.

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See the article here:

Armies are mobilising against the coronavirus - The Economist

MADRID Across Western Europe, health care professionals have used the language of war to describe the struggle against the coronavirus, which has left some hospitals on the brink of collapse.

And health care workers are the soldiers on the front lines.

Out of Spains 40,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, 5,400 nearly 14 percent are medical professionals, the health ministry said on Tuesday. No other country has reported health care staff accounting for a double-digit percentage of total infections.

But the problem is widespread throughout Europe. In Italy, France and Spain, more than 30 health care professionals have died of the coronavirus, and thousands of others have had to self-isolate.

In Brescia province, the center of Italys outbreak, 10 to 15 percent of doctors and nurses have been infected and put out of commission, according to a doctor there.

In France, the public hospital system in Paris has tallied 490 infected staff members, a small but growing proportion of the systems 100,000 or so employees.

The same dynamics are starting to take hold in Britain and the United States, where the contagion is bearing down but has yet to fully bite.

At the La Paz hospital in Madrid, one of the largest in Spains capital, 426 employees 6 percent of the medical staff are isolated at home, after testing positive or showing possible symptoms of the coronavirus, according to internal numbers provided by a labor union that represents doctors in Madrid.

At the smaller Igualada hospital in Catalonia, a third of the 1,000 hospital staff has been sent home.

The virus was already among us when we were really only testing those who came from Wuhan and then from Italy, said ngela Hernndez Puente, a doctor who is the deputy secretary general of the doctors union. Some of our doctors unfortunately worked without adequate protection and acted as vectors.

As doctors, nurses and other practitioners fall sick, the burdens increase on health care systems already groaning under the strain of an expanding epidemic. And infected workers and their hospitals are increasingly being recognized as vectors for the spread of the virus.

The number of cases in Spain has been doubling every four days, and the country is fast shaping up as Europes next epicenter of the contagion. On Tuesday, Spains coronavirus toll reached 2,700 dead, the second-highest in Europe after Italy.

In Madrid, the focus of Spains outbreak, so many are dying that bodies are being placed in an Olympic-sized ice skating rink that has been converted into an emergency morgue.

In some retirement homes, soldiers deployed to disinfect the premises found elderly people abandoned, or dead in their beds, prompting Spains public prosecutors to open an investigation.

It has not helped that Spains population, on average, is among the worlds oldest. But the government was also late to impose restrictions on the movement of people.

Even as a tragedy unfolded in northern Italy, mass events went ahead earlier this month in Madrid, and the government waited until March 14 to declare a state of emergency that has since forced people to stay indoors, barring exceptional circumstances.

Spain also did not shore up its stock of medical equipment early on. Doctors and nurses have had to work with a dangerous shortage of masks, gloves and other essential gear that has proved disastrous for them.

The grim situation has left many of Spains health care professionals overwhelmed and pleading for more equipment, doctors, nurses and ambulance crews have told The New York Times. For those who have been infected, a feeling of powerlessness has sunk in.

You are used to taking care of others and now youre being asked to stay home and take care of yourself, said Marc Arnaiz, a doctor in the internal medicine unit of the Igualada hospital, who tested positive earlier this month.

For most of us this job is a vocation, so its shocking and frustrating, he said.

Mr. Arnaiz, 31, said he had likely been infected by a patient. He noticed the first symptoms on March 9, the day his patient was confirmed positive, among the first in the hospital, which has since become one of the worst infection clusters in northeastern Spain.

While its impossible to know how many patients infected doctors and vice versa, the alarming spread within hospitals has forced the government to struggle with a shortage of both professionals and equipment.

Last week, the government launched an emergency recruitment plan to add 50,000 health care workers, ranging from medical students to retired doctors.

After employees began complaining openly about the stresses on the system, some Madrid hospitals told their staff not to speak out. Many of those interviewed by The New York Times were not authorized to comment publicly and asked that their full names not be used for fear of retribution.

One, Yolanda, has been a nurse for 30 years, working in a public hospital in Madrid. But earlier this month, as the outbreak worsened in Spain, she said she was moved instead to a makeshift emergency ward, where she had to learn new skills on the job while working without decent protective gear.

Weve been put on the front line not only without enough protection, but also sometimes with the stress of a very different work environment, she said, noting that she had never before handled intubated patients. The nurses in her unit wore face masks and gowns, but they had to reuse them because of a shortage.

Putting on a face mask again and again is as useless as sticking a piece of paper on your face, she said.

Last Thursday, Yolanda went home feeling feverish. On Sunday, she tested positive for coronavirus, along with about 30 colleagues. We have done our best, but some of us sadly became part of the contamination chain, she said.

Hospital workers unions were less hesitant to point fingers.

When we already knew that the virus was circulating in hospitals, we were still being told that the usage of protective gear should be limited to specific circumstances, said Juanjo Menndez, the communications director of SATSE Madrid, a nurses union. Its the kind of basic error that a student learns to avoid in the first year of medical school.

In Spain, France and Italy, officials and health care professionals said they were shocked by equipment shortages.

Giorgio Gori, the mayor of Bergamo, one of the hardest hit towns in Italy, said the doctors werent protected, and lacked the sufficient defenses, adding that he was still receiving requests for masks and gloves from doctors making home visits.

Jean-Paul Hamon, the president of one of Frances biggest doctor unions, told the LCI television broadcaster on Tuesday that he was particularly worried about workers who are not in hospitals but are still in close contact with patients, like general practitioners or retirement home employees.

Three of the five doctors who have died of Covid-19 so far in France were general practitioners, and one was a gynecologist. The state is absolutely unprepared, said Mr. Hamon, who is himself infected. The state is going to owe an explanation.

In Spain, doctors warned that hospitals were now paying the price of the loose measures announced in the early days of the outbreak.

The lack of protection is everywhere, the improvisation seems to be widespread, said Antonio Antela, a doctor who coordinates the infectious disease unit at the university hospital of Santiago de Compostela, in northwestern Spain. He has been hospitalized for a week after developing pneumonia and testing positive.

The lesson is: take care of your public health care system, because there will be other epidemics and we ought to be better prepared, he added in a telephone interview from his hospital bed.

At a medical center in the heart of Madrid, Mara, another nurse who is now isolated at home with coronavirus, said that she spent several days working without a face mask and gloves, handing out masks only to visitors who reported breathing problems or had recently been in Italy.

On March 11, the day she first felt fever, her medical center finally ordered all staff to wear masks. We probably didnt have enough face masks, but we also acted for far too long as if this was a limited problem, mostly imported from Italy, she said.

The Spanish government is now stepping up efforts to buy medical equipment, as well as distributing about 650,000 new test kits across the country. Two Chinese cargo planes filled with face masks and other gear landed in Madrid and Zaragoza on Tuesday.

We are a target like everybody else, but we are also a threat to other co-workers, said Juan, a 37-year-old doctor in a Madrid public hospital. Also, if you test everyone and theres no health care workers left in the hospitals, what can you do?

Raphael Minder reported from Madrid and Elian Peltier from Barcelona. Reporting was contributed by Jason Horowitz in Rome and Aurelien Breeden in Paris.

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Coronavirus in Europe: Thousands of Health Workers Out of Action - The New York Times

Winfrey kept a sense of humor as she revealed on Instagram that Graham is actually self-quarantined in their guest house in Santa Barbara, California. She joined Oprah Magazine's digital director Arianna Davis to talk about how she's getting through her days.

"He's at the guest house, because you all know I had pneumonia late last year," Winfrey explained. "I had just gotten off of antibiotics last week, because I had a bronchial infection."

Graham had been traveling for a speaking engagement and arrived home off a flight, so the couple is being extra cautious.

"Stedman did not arrive from Chicago until Thursday, he had been speaking in St. Louis. He'd been on planes," Winfrey said, adding, "Stedman is like, 'What's the procedure for coming home?' The procedure is, you ain't coming and sleeping in my bed."

Winfrey continued: "Literally, he goes, 'I'm not?' And I go,'Have you not been paying attention to the news?' Social distancing does not mean you go and sleep in the same bed with the person when you just got off American Airlines."

She even showed Graham hanging out in the window of the guest house, where he said, "The meals are dropped off at the door."

"It's not too bad," he laughed.

Besides delivering meals to Graham, Winfrey said she's perfectly content in her own company.

"I'm never bored, because I always have myself," she said. "I never feel alone, have never felt alone, because I just love being with myself."

Read more from the original source:

Oprah Winfrey shares how she's trying to stay safe during the coronavirus outbreak - CNN

Its a dynamic, the president warned during an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, governors must be aware of.

Its a two-way street, Trump said during a Tuesday interview on Fox News. They have to treat us well, also. They cant say, Oh, gee, we should get this, we should get that.

Unable to hear the roaring cheers at his campaign rallies due to coronavirus cancellations, the president has turned to his daily press briefings to get national attention and hear congratulatory remarks, sometimes at the expense of delivering accurate statements about the disease. The president is hyper aware of TV ratings, which are compiled weekly for him in the White House, and viewership of the briefings during the daytime hours have seen a notable spike as Americans anxiously watch from home.

Administration officials say its an opportunity for experts from the task force to answer questions, but it also gives the president a national platform to assure the public and offer himself a pat on the back.

Many doctors, Ive read many, many doctors, cant believe the great job that Ive done, Trump said, without offering specifics, even as health professionals have publicly warned of severe equipment shortages.

Europe was just designated as the hotspot right now, and we closed that border a while ago. So that was lucky or through talent or through luck. Call it whatever you want, Trump said, referring to his decision to cut off most travel from Europe and China to the United States.

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How to update the country on coronavirus: Thank Trump first - POLITICO

The coronavirus established itself early on in Italy where reported deaths are now in excess of those recorded in China.

But is the crisis witnessed in Italy about to play out in the UK? And when are lockdowns and other interventions likely to start to make a difference?

Though there are some similarities the picture is complex

The death toll in Britain is roughly two weeks behind that of Italy, according to researchers who have analysed the data.

In week 10 of this year, ending 6 March, Italy announced 176 new Covid-19 deaths, comparable to the 166 deaths the UK reported in week 12.

If the spread of the pandemic in the UK tracks Italys closely, the domestic death toll could soon rise sharply.

Italian authorities recorded 1,066 new Covid-19 deaths in week 11, the equivalent of this week in the UKs outbreak.

It looks as though we are two weeks behind Italy in number of Covid-19 deaths, said Prof Sheila Bird, formerly of the MRCs Biostatistics Unit at Cambridge University.

But all this means is that we have comparable population sizes and had a comparable number of deaths in week 12 as Italy had in week 10. We may be on a less steep trajectory than Italy, but its too early to know yet.

On Monday, a new analysis of data from both countries showed that deaths may indeed be rising marginally more slowly in Britain than they did in Italy. Prof David Spiegelhalter, at Cambridge Universitys Statistical Laboratory, looked at the numbers of deaths reported in the 14 days since the fifth fatality in each country. The figures suggest that UK Covid-19 deaths have risen on average about 30% per day, versus 37% during the equivalent period of Italys epidemic.

Spiegelhalter stressed that the outlook was all very uncertain at the moment not least because the two populations and their nations responses to the outbreak differ so much. There was some reason for hope, he said of the UK situation, although we will must be ready for having hundreds of deaths a day.

The same analysis hints that Italy may be approaching a peak in its epidemic, but the answer will only be clear if the country continues to report falling numbers of new deaths over the coming days and weeks.

The UKs peak may not be so severe if the UKs response to the outbreak has been effective, Spiegelhalter said, but the answer to that is not yet clear.

Compared with Britain, Italy had less time to prepare, the virus may have been circulating more widely before it was detected, and the country has more older people who are more tightly connected to family and friends.

However, comparisons present problems, as its not possible to truly compare like-with-like.

One factor that will have a substantial impact on deaths is the capacity for hospitals to care for the most seriously ill patients, and this differs markedly from country to country. When you hit the capacity of intensive care beds then you might get an additional shift up which could reset the rate of increase thereafter, said Bird.

One reason for Italys high death rate could be the countrys demographics 23% of its population are aged 65 and over. The UK is younger on average with 18% of its population in this age category. Covid-19 is more dangerous for older people.

Testing and the number of confirmed cases is also an issue.

Differences in testing policy, for example, will account for some of the variations in mortality rates as testing more patients will increase the number of confirmed cases, and is likely to reduce the overall mortality rate. Data on patient characteristics such as age and underlying health conditions is another factor we dont know about.

Germany, where 21% of the population are over 65, appears to have one of the worlds lowest death rates. The country has reported just 94 deaths from 24,873 cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The reasons for this are not yet clear, but they could include differences in data gathering or its high testing rate.

As Adam Kucharski, who is modelling the outbreak at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, points out, deaths reported today do not reflect the state of the epidemic at the moment.

Those who die are typically infected about four weeks earlier. Strictly speaking we should say something like: transmission in the UK four weeks ago was where Italy was about six weeks ago, he said.

For the same reason, the impact of the cascade of lockdowns across Italy, and ever more stringent restrictions on movement brought in across the UK, will take time to show up in the daily death tolls. A wave of Italians fled to the countrys south when news leaked on 8 March that the government intended to quarantine 16 million people in the high-risk north. If those people carried the infection with them, the deaths that result are not likely to show up until at least the start of next week.

In the UK, where pubs, clubs, restaurants and theatres shuttered only days ago, and school closures began this week, any resulting impact on deaths will not be apparent until mid-April soonest. Its quite likely to be at least three weeks before we see a slow down in the deaths. And they will potentially still be increasing. It depends how much social distancing weve managed to achieve, said Bird.

Original post:

Coronavirus: how do Italy and the UK compare? - The Guardian

Famous people are used to hearing the echo of applause and crowds of compliments everywhere they go. When they are suddenly confined to their homes, surreal things start to happen.

Maybe thats one good thing to come from this unprecedented time: that we have the pleasure and sometimes the intense displeasure of watching celebrities squint intensely at their phone screens, looking for connection, looking for transcendence, looking for someone to request that they sing an unplugged version of their 1997 hit single Angels.

Here are some celebrities who are regularly posting delightful videos to keep us company.

For some days now, Robbie Williams has been livestreaming himself on Instagram and taking song requests from his followers. He calls it Corona-oke. He has sung his own songs, and also Elvis Presley songs and Oasis songs. Sometimes he refuses to sing certain things he didnt sing My Way by Frank Sinatra because it starts with the line, And now, the end is near.

I dont want to sing that! Robbie said, and sang Three Little Birds by Bob Marley instead. As with all Instagram live stories, you cant watch them after 24 hours but some lovely people on Twitter have recorded the best bits and shared.

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About five days ago, Australian singer Tina Arena started doing Instagram Live videos from her home. In these videos she refers to herself as QuarenTina Arena. She urges the government to protect the arts. She calls Johnny Young from Young Talent Time to see what he reckons about the coronavirus. Danni Minogue comments frequently. Its like Australias entire entertainment history in one feed.

Ill be back really, really soon with more stuff to talk about, Arena assured us a few days ago. So have an awesome, awesome day amongst this complete bullshit pandemonium that were all living how hilarious! But do take care.

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Actress Florence Pugh is very good on Instagram partly because its fun discovering that shes extremely English and just did very good accents in Little Women and Midsomma, and partly because her stories just involve her yelling quite simple recipes at you.

Despite her yelling, which just seems to be the natural tenor of her voice, there is something soothing about seeing Florence Pugh pottering around her huge kitchen, holding up bruised tomatoes and eating bits of sausages off a cutting board. I found this on the floor in a shop, she said yesterday, holding a butternut squash and justifying why shes about to clean it. She even has a tab for Cooking in her profile.

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New Zealand actor Sam Neill has always been very active on social media, but has used this crisis as an opportunity to post more content (content often meaning pictures of his pigs). He also posts lots of videos, sometimes talking about wine as if you have just run into a particularly chatty stranger at a vineyard, or reading a bedtime story (for instance, Hairy MacLary and Friends).

A couple of days ago he read out some poems about love to make us feel OK about social distancing. Each to their own!

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Like many musicians, Ben Gibbard has been streaming live concerts to make us all feel better about staying inside. The irony is that the music Gibbard makes as a solo artist, and in his bands Death Cab for Cutie and the Postal Service tends to be quite glum. The thought is still nice.

Gibbard has done eight of these hour-ish-long streams, some of which are fundraisers for various causes. He plays Death Cab and Postal Service songs, but also covers other artists in videos that are then available to watch on YouTube, with the originals compiled into a Spotify playlist. The other day he covered the song Motion Sickness by Phoebe Bridgers, in which she says of her ex-partner Ryan Adams: Why do you sing with an English accent? I guess its too late to change that now which is funny because sometimes Gibbard also sounds like he has an English accent. But hes from Washington! Crazy stuff.

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This week actor Richard E Grant started uploading daily videos of himself reading select quotes from his 1987 film debut, the British classic Withnail and I. In almost all of the videos he appears to either be sitting under a curtain or beneath the striped canopy of a four-poster bed.

In many of the videos he starts laughing about how funny Withnail and I is. Where did he come up with these lines! he says, of the films writer and director Bruce Robinson.

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If you dont already follow model, TV personality and cookbook author Chrissy Teigen on Instagram, youre missing out. Teigen is a regular poster, usually uploading stories about her cute kids, cooking tips or videos making fun of her husband John Legend (who hosted his own Instagram Live concert, which Teigen made fun of).

This time of quarantine, though, has brought out some truly fantastic and deranged content. First, Teigen was so bored that she asked people to take photos of their pantries so she could create custom recipes using the ingredients she could spot.

Then she offered to bake banana bread for anyone who had romaine lettuce in her area (This trade will be made six feet apart, she warned.) Someone called Chris had romaine lettuce! The trade was arranged. The cake looked good.

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Pop star Charli XCX has been uploading self-isolating livestreams on Instagram, in which she invites her famous friends to do digital activities with her and lets us watch.

The first episode was an emo chat with Christine from Christine and the Queens, in which the two musicians discovered creativity, and Charli wore a ski mask. Then Charli and Diplo did an at-home workout routine together. A couple of days ago she streamed an art class with musician Clairo.

Shes also just going slightly mad.

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Madonna has been posting Quarantine Diaries from her home, which are puzzling to say the least. On the first day (18 March) she posted a black-and-white, film noir-esque video of herself typing on a typewriter while jazzy music plays in the background. She says that she is quarantined out of honour and respect for Covid-19, which is a spicy way to put it.

Subsequent videos involve her singing a version of her hit Vogue that is about eating fried fish, and sitting in a bathtub full of flower petals discussing how Covid-19 doesnt care about how rich you are. Its certainly compelling.

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Coronavirus cabin fever: the best celebrities to follow, from Robbie Williams to Florence Pugh - The Guardian

The Covid-19 pandemic became very real in the Pacific islands this week, as the region recorded its first death and the total number of confirmed cases climbed to 57, as of Tuesday afternoon.

Though the number of cases is relatively small, fear and misinformation surrounding the virus is widespread, so starting today, each Wednesday the Guardian will be publishing a round-up of coronavirus news from the region.

Strains on public infrastructure and equipment are already appearing. Vanuatu has only two respirators, and other countries are similarly ill-equipped. Many countries are reliant on having to send samples overseas for testing.

Economic prospects for the region, which is heavily dependent on tourism, are dire. Calls for an international bail-out are already circulating in policy circles.

Guam is the first Pacific island nation to report a death due to Covid-19. A 68 year-old woman died on Saturday and had significant underlying health issues. The territory now has 29 confirmed cases.

French Polynesia is one of the worst-affected Pacific states, with 18 confirmed cases. Half were discovered in people recently returned from France, only one has been hospitalised so far, the others remain in isolation.

New Caledonia now has seven confirmed cases. Radio Rhythme Bleu reports that a crowd of about 60 people attacked the territorys only international airport to protest against continuing air service.

Papua New Guinea announced its first confirmed case on 20 March. The person was flown to Australia on Sunday and the government is attempting to track down everyone who may have come into contact with him.

Fiji has four confirmed cases, three of which are from the same family: a man, his mother and his one-year-old nephew. Both the 47-year-old woman and the baby appear to have contracted the virus from the 27-year-old man, who is a flight attendant. Fiji Times reports theyre stable. A fourth case was announced Tuesday. He was identified as a 28 year-old man who traveled from Sydney to Suva last Sunday.

The island of Aneityum in Vanuatu is in lockdown following reports that passengers or crew from the cruise ship Voyager of the Seas may have interacted with locals during an overnight visit on 11-12 March. On Tuesday the New South Wales government said seven people onboard the ship, which disembarked in Sydney on 18 March, were diagnosed with Covid-19.

Samoa reports that six test results for Covid-19 had come back negative. Seven further samples have been sent to New Zealand for laboratory testing, and results are pending for these cases.

Solomon Islands had three suspected cases, but all tested negative. Meanwhile the countrys central bank has revised its growth prediction for the economy to 2% in 2020 with the governor flagging the possibility of a recession

Papua New Guinea: A two-week state of emergency began on Tuesday, with measures including stopping all domestic flights; no movement from one province to another for a 14-day period except for approved cargo, medicine and security personnel; the bringing froward of school holidays to start on Monday 23 March; all non-essential workers to stay at home; and for all people who arrived in Papua New Guinea from 7 March to report in to a government hotline. The Australian government has provided an additionaln US$500,000 (PGK1.7m) to assist with preparations for dealing with the impacts of Covid-19.

Fiji: The city of Lautoka, where the first three cases were detected, is in lockdown with road blocks and patrols. The military has been called up to assist with perimeter security. The government is urgently seeking 82 passengers on three flights, whom they believe may have been in contact with the confirmed cases. The prime minister has urged people to avoid non-essential travel within Fiji.

Solomon Islands: the country announced a 90-day ban on arrivals of cruise ships and yachts on 20 March and has reduced international flights. All international travellers are required to self-isolate for 14 days on arrival.

Vanuatu: State-owned carrier Air Vanuatu has suspended all international flight operations. Inbound travel on other carriers is restricted to citizens, residents, diplomatic corps and humanitarian workers responding to the Covid-19 crisis.

Samoa: A state of emergency has been declared and borders are closed. Public gatherings are restricted to no more than five people. Failure to comply may lead to a fine of up to US$3,400 or a period of imprisonment of two years.

Tonga: A state of emergency has been declared. Borders are now closed. Nightclubs and bars will be closed from 25 March and gatherings of more than 20 are prohibited.

In Samoa a young woman who had been tested for Covid-19 endured harassment after her name was published in the media and the prime minister revealed the name of her village in a radio show. It was later confirmed that the womans test has come back negative.

This will be a test of our character, our inventiveness, leadership and compassion ... It is an uncharted territory and we may end up asking the World Bank, IMF and Asian Development Bank for a rescue package. I hope we do not reach this stage because the pill could be bitter.

- Odo Tevi, former Vanuatu ambassador to the United Nations.

Resorts have emptied of tourists, and some countries have found their spacious and secluded grounds useful quarantine sites. One young mother stuck in Noumea with two children said shed never stayed in such posh digs in her life.

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Coronavirus in the Pacific: weekly briefing - The Guardian

This was incredible kindness, and, for me, incredible luck. If not for them, I would be at work right now, getting ready to clean down deli slicers, change my gloves and hope desperately for my own safety, and the safety of my spouse, friends, family, co-workers and customers.

Now I sit at home and think the same things, knowing Ive more or less certainly been exposed. I feel guilty but at least slightly safer, while my brave co-workers (most of whom have no other choice) carry on without me. I start work again the week of March 31, assuming I feel safe enough to do so. Im trying to take things a day at a time.

The human beings who are helping you at supermarkets, at gas stations, at whatever stores are still open are people too. We are exhausted. We have already been working for so long, for so little, afraid or not allowed to take sick days, afraid or not able to afford a vacation.

Service workers have families and friends we are concerned about. We are scared for ourselves and for each other. We are here, working, while you enjoy what may be the last good days for a long while, because the crisis is almost certainly going to get a lot worse.

A good day for me, before the virus, was one where no one screamed at me over rotisserie chicken, or when a salad they were under no obligation to buy didnt suit their tastes. A bad day was one where customers screamed at me more than once.

Now, as things get harder as our collective stress level rises I beg you to show kindness to service workers. I beg you not to take out your fear, frustration and despair on the courageous people who show up every day to help you. All of them would surely love to be at home but most cannot, despite their years of hard work, afford to step away for even a moment.

Dont let the weight of your grief and anger fall on the shoulders of service workers. They are already carrying enough.

Dylan Morrison (@dylan_thyme), the author of Juniper Lane, is a food service worker at a supermarket in Cleveland.

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Coronavirus Advice from a Grocery Store Worker - The New York Times

Vehicle owners will be granted a 6-month exemption from MOT testing, enabling them to continue to travel to work where this absolutely cannot be done from home, or shop for necessities.

All cars, vans and motorcycles which usually would require an MOT test will be exempted from needing a test from 30 March 2020. Vehicles must be kept in a roadworthy condition, and garages will remain open for essential repair work. Drivers can be prosecuted if driving unsafe vehicles.

Read advice on keeping a vehicle in a good condition.

People should stay at home and avoid travel. The only reasons people should leave their homes is set out in the government guidance.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said:

We must ensure those on the frontline of helping the nation combat COVID-19 are able to do so.

Allowing this temporary exemption from vehicle testing will enable vital services such as deliveries to continue, frontline workers to get to work, and people to get essential food and medicine.

Safety is key, which is why garages will remain open for essential repair work.

Legislation will be introduced on March 30 and will come into immediate effect for 12 months, following a short consultation with key organisations. Drivers will still need to get their vehicle tested until the new regulations come into place, if they need to use it.

If you cant get an MoT thats due because youre in self-isolation, the Department for Transport is working with insurers and the police to ensurepeople will not be negatively affected as a result ofthings that are out of their control.

Practical driving tests and annual testing for lorries, buses and coaches have been suspended for up to 3 months.

More here:

Vehicle owners to be granted MOT exemption in battle against coronavirus - GOV.UK

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WHO: US could be the next epicenter of the global coronavirus pandemic - The Hill