COVID-19: Nigerian doctors opposed to invitation of Chinese experts by Buhari administration

CC™ Global News

Doctors in Nigeria oppose the government inviting a Chinese medical team to help in the fight against coronavirus, local media reported on Monday. 

The government announced on Friday that an 18-member team of Chinese medical experts will arrive in Nigeria within days. 

The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) criticized the invitation as “ill-timed" and inappropriate, raising concerns over the impact of a similar team to Italy, according to reports by the Daily Post and the Premium Times.

“We are profoundly dismayed to learn that the Federal Government is inviting the Chinese who from available accounts are not out of the woods themselves. The spike in cases and the death toll from COVID-19 in Italy coincided with the arrival of the Chinese in the guise of offering assistance. Even the United Nations has only just recently commended the efforts of Nigeria so far,” read the NMA statement published by the Premium Times.

It called the decision an “embarrassment” for Nigerian doctors and health workers who are fighting the pandemic “under deplorable working conditions.”

“The Association believes that this invitation is ill-timed and of no overbearing significance considering that whatever experiences the Chinese have can be shared by digital technology through conferencing,” the statement added.

“In rejecting the invitation of the Chinese doctors, the NMA would instead urge the Federal Government to review and approve better welfare incentives to the frontline medical personnel.”

The controversy comes at a time when COVID-19 cases in Nigeria are steadily rising, reaching 232 on Sunday.

According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, five COVID-19 patients have died in the country so far, while 33 people have recovered and been discharged from hospitals.

Since appearing in Wuhan, China, last December, the novel coronavirus has spread to at least 183 countries and regions, according to figures compiled by the U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University.

The data shows more than 1.27 million cases have been reported worldwide so far, with the global death toll nearing 70,000, and over 264,000 recoveries.

COVID-19: Soccer great Didier Drogba slams French doctors who recommended Africa be used as a testing lab for COVID-19 drug

Soccer Great Didier Drogba with the EPL Trophy

CC™ Breaking News

Ivorian football legend, Didier Drogba has reacted to the viral video where two French doctors, Jean Paul Mira and Camille Locht opined that the new Coronavirus drug should be tested in Africa. 

Mira and Locht, who spoke on a live TV interview, which now has the highest trend on Twitter with the hashtag ‘Africans are not lab rats’ insisted that Africa is the best place to conduct such a test as they recalled how an experimental treatment for AIDS was carried out in Africa.

Drogba objected vehemently to the repugnant assertion made by the French doctors and took to his Twitter account on Friday to share a picture from the video which has gone viral, saying,” I would like to vividly denounce those demeaning, false and most of all deeply racist words.”

He said further, ”It is totally inconceivable. We keep on cautioning this; Africa isn't a testing lab. I would like to vividly denounce those demeaning, false and most of all deeply racist words. Help us save Africa with the current ongoing Covid-19 and flatten the curve. Let us save ourselves from this crazy virus that is plummeting the world economy and ravaging populations health worldwide."

"Do not take African people as human guinea pigs! It's absolutely disgusting. African leaders have a responsibility to protect their populations from those horrendous conspiracies. May God protect us.”

See the video below:

COVID-19: U.S. says that “Ultimate Game Changer” Vaccine is on the Way

CC™ Newsreel - By Gina Lee

Australia announced a $973 million package for its childcare sector. 

Japan’s government debated an economic package including ECMO machines. 

The United States is “on target” to develop a COVID-19 vaccine with biotech company Moderna within 12 to 18 months. 

As of April 1, the number of confirmed cases globally stood at 827,419 with 40,777 deaths, according to the World Health Organisation.

Australia

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced an A$1.6 billion ($973 million) package for the country’s 13,000-strong childcare sector over the next three months.

The services will be rendered free of charge as they will be paid from taxpayer subsidies.

Japan

The government is mulling the increased production of extracorporeal membranous oxygenation (ECMO) machines as part of an economic package to combat COVID-19.

The machines will replace a person’s breathing to supply oxygen and remove carbon dioxide.

United States

White House health advisor Anthony Fauci announced overnight that the first human trial to test a potential COVID-19 vaccine is on target and will be an “ultimate game changer”.

Biotech company Moderna is working with Fauci and other health officials to develop the vaccine. Human trials started on March 16.

The vaccine is estimated to be distributed within 12 to 18 months, with phase two trials expected to begin in a “few months”. 

Source: Investing.com

Travesty: Buhari allows chartered flight carrying 35 American oil workers to land in Lagos in the midst of the Covid-19 lockdown imposed on Nigerians

President Muhammadu Buhari

CC™ Nigeriaworld

Despite the temporary closure of Nigeria international airports, a chartered flight from the United States of America, a global Coronavirus hotspot, landed at the Muritala Muhummed International Airport, Lagos with 35 persons aboard. The passengers aboard the flight are Americans working with the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.

The chartered flight is one of the "essential flights" granted permission by the Federal Government, through the Ministry of Aviation, to land during the suspension of all commercial and private jets movements in the country due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

"The letter seeking permission to embark on the flight and land at any of the Nigerian major airports was sent to the Ministry of Aviation for approval and communicated in a letter to the various Aviation agencies to ensure seamless facilitation of the flight", a ministry official said.

After thorough screening of the American passengers by officials of the Port Health services, they departed on an Air Peace airline chartered flight to Calabar their final destination.

The Air France is expected to evacuate more people on the 2nd and 9th of April, 2020. In the coming weeks more of these evacuations are expected with the permission of the Federal Government through the Minister of Aviation as essential flights.

All international flights have been banned from coming to the country and the four major international airports in Lagos Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano closed to flight operations by the federal government.

Domestic airlines have on their own grounded flight operations across the country to help the government combat the spread of the virus. Currently, there are no flight operations in the country, but what is most troubling is that these American workers were allowed to fly into Lagos from a country that has been decimated by the Coronavirus pandemic, while Nigerians are having their movements restricted in their own country.

His Imperial Majesty Ooni of Ife reveals traditional African (Yoruba) cure for Coronavirus

His Imperial Majesty Oba Enitan Ogunwusi - Ooni of Ife

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His Imperial Majesty, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II on Monday recommended a tested herbs for the treatment of Coronavirus pandemic.

Currently, Nigeria has recorded 131 cases of the global pandemic, which has killed over 30,000 people in three months globally.

On Monday, the Ooni recalled that a divine proclamation came out to the world last year, June 6th, 2019, during the World Ifa Festival – Otura Meji.

The statement was posted on his social media accounts. “We foretold about the impending rage of this invisible pandemic war, but few heard us”, the monarch said.

“Please note that Efod/Urim and Thurim are in the holy Books. They are the same as our ancient readings that have not failed us till date. On this throne, I work very closely with all the nations of the world most especially the nation of Cuba.

“Centuries go by, the nation of Cuba hold dearly the tenets of our ancestors (Ifá construct) and rely on the blessings of the mystery of nature, and as a result they have the best medical care in the world. They are the only country that have come out boldly to help the world.”

Ifá is a system of divination majorly practiced by the Yoruba ethnic group in Nigeria, as well as Brazil and Cuba. Also practiced as a religion, the Yoruba god, “Orunmila” is accosted the title of the Grand Priest of Ifá and regarded as the one who revealed divinity and prophecy to the world.

He stated that the Almighty is above religion and he is moving now; that the world will now respect nature wholly.

“To solve this ailment is through natural elements put together above all from nature. It has been tested!!! I have used it and also used it for some of the chronic Corona patients with testimonials.”

He challenged researchers both in Nigeria and the world to put these natural herbs into clinical medicine and extract the vaccines from it.

The chief priest and custodian of the holy city of all the Yorubas, Ile-Ife, listed the herbs as follow: 1. Yoruba (ewe akoko); English ( boundary tree); Botanical name ( Newbouldia laevis) 2. Yoruba( dogoyaro); English (nim tree or Indian lilac); Botanical (Azadirachta indica) 3. Yoruba (Alubosa); English (Onion); Botanical (Allium cepa) 4. Yoruba (Ogirisako); English (Forest anchomanes) (Blume); Botanical (Anchomanes difformis) 5. Yoruba (Aridan); English (Aridan fruit); Botanical ( Tetrapleura tetraptera) 6. Yoruba (Eeru or Erinje); English (African pepper, Guinia pepper); Botanical (Xylopia aethiopica) 7. Yoruba (Ewuro); English (Bitter leaf); Botanical (Vernonia amygdalina) 8. Yoruba (Iyin ojo); English (Sulfur)”

The Ooni further expressed readiness to work with them and provide huge access to the herbs.

 

German minister commits suicide after worries over financial fallout from COVID-19 crisis

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Thomas Schaefer, the finance minister of Germany’s Hesse state, has committed suicide apparently after becoming “deeply worried” over how to cope with the economic fallout from the coronavirus, state premier Volker Bouffier said Sunday.

Schaefer, 54, was found dead near a railway track on Saturday. The Wiesbaden prosecution’s office said they believe he died by suicide.

“We are in shock, we are in disbelief and above all, we are immensely sad,” Bouffier said in a recorded statement.

Hesse is home to Germany’s financial capital Frankfurt, where major lenders like Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank have their headquarters. The European Central Bank is also located in Frankfurt.

A visibly shaken Bouffier recalled that Schaefer, who was Hesse’s finance chief for 10 years, had been working “day and night” to help companies and workers deal with the economic impact of the pandemic. 

“Today we have to assume that he was deeply worried,” said Bouffier, a close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel.“It’s precise during this difficult time that we would have needed someone like him,” he added. 

Popular and well-respected, Schaefer had long been touted as a possible successor to Bouffier. Like Bouffier, Schaefer belonged to Merkel’s centre-right CDU party. 

He leaves behind a wife and two children.

Report: Donald Trump sought Alex Rodriguez's (zero medical experience) advice on coronavirus pandemic

CC™ News - By Ryan Young

President Donald Trump apparently reached out to more in the sports world than just Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady this week while dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Trump spoke with former New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez on the phone this week from the Oval Office, according to ABC News’ John Santucci.

Trump was seeking Rodriguez’s thoughts on his response to the coronavirus, and had a “pleasant” conversation, per the report.

John Santucci

✔@Santucci

During marathon day of meetings earlier this week, President Trump continued outreach across the country regarding coronavirus & phoned former Yankees baseball player Alex Rodriguez. Multiple sources tell ABC, the president spoke to ARod from the Oval Office via me & @KFaulders

1,643

6:17 PM - Mar 27, 2020 · Arlington, VA

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There were more than 100,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States as of Friday night, according to The New York Times, the most among any country in the world, and more than 44,600 cases in New York alone.

The news comes just one day after Trump managed to bring up Brady during a coronavirus briefing, although it wasn’t exactly clear why he did.

“After a meeting with the world leaders, I spoke with the governors of our 50 states and territories,” Trump said Thursday. “Our team has been in constant communication with the governors, and we had a terrific meeting.

“Somebody in the fake news said that one of the governors said ‘oh we need Tom Brady.’ I said ‘yeah.’ He meant that in a positive way. He said ‘we need Tom Brady. We’re gonna do great.’ And he meant it very positively. But they took it differently. They think Tom Brady should be leading the effort. That’s only fake news. And I like Tom Brady. Spoke to him the other day. He’s a great guy.”

It’s likely that Trump was attempting to get back at Washington Gov. Jay Inslee by invoking Brady at the briefing. Inslee was quoted in a Washington Post story on Thursday morning as saying, “We need a Tom Brady” while pleading for more dramatic action from the president and for more medical supplies for his state amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

Trump has had a tumultuous relationship with Rodriguez, and has slammed him publicly multiple times in the past. He called Rodriguez a “bad guy” in an Entertainment Tonight interview in 2013, and once predicted that Rodriguez “will go down as the biggest sports embarrassment of all time.

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

Druggie @AROD is now scheming to sue the @Yankees. He will go down as the biggest sports embarrassment of all time.

355

12:29 PM - Jul 26, 2013

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What Trump gained from his call with Rodriguez — or why he’s even calling the ESPN analyst who has zero medical background — amid the global crisis is a mystery. 

Source: Yahoo Sports

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tests positive for coronavirus

CC™ Global News 

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Friday that he is self-isolating after testing positive for COVID-19. 

“Over the last 24 hours I have developed mild symptoms and tested positive for coronavirus,” he said on Twitter, posting a video message.

“I am now self-isolating, but I will continue to lead the government’s response via video-conference as we fight this virus,” he wrote.

“Be in no doubt that I can continue thanks to the wizardry of modern technology to communicate with all my top team to lead the national fightback against coronavirus,” he added in the video message.

A Downing Street spokesperson said in a statement that Johnson, whose partner Carrie Symonds is pregnant, experienced mild symptoms on Thursday and was tested for COVID-19 on the personal advice of England’s chief medical officer.

The test was carried out in No 10 by NHS staff, the spokesperson added.

In his video message, Johnson thanked workers in Britain’s state-run National Health Service (NHS) for their efforts in battling the spread of the virus.

A total of 11,658 coronavirus cases have so far been confirmed in Britain, and 578 deaths.

Earlier this week Prince Charles, the eldest son and heir to Queen Elizabeth II, also tested positive for the virus.

The government confirmed this week that if Johnson was incapacitated, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab would temporarily assume the role of prime minister.

Bill Gates on coronavirus: We need an extreme shutdown of 6 to 10 weeks

CC™ HealthWatch - By Aarthi Swaminathan 

Philanthropist and billionaire Bill Gates believes that America needs six to 10 weeks of “extreme shutdown” of regular life to get a handle on the new coronavirus outbreak (or COVID-19), contradicting comments from President Trump.

“It’s very irresponsible for somebody to suggest we can have the best of both worlds,” the Microsoft co-founder said in an interview with TED on Tuesday. “What we need is an extreme shutdown so that in six to 10 weeks, if things go well, then you can start opening back up.”

Gates noted that while isolation in populated areas — along with widespread testing — is difficult and “disastrous” for the economy, “the sooner you do it in a tough way, the sooner you can undo it.” 

President Donald Trump recently argued that restrictions should be loosened by Easter Sunday, April 12, with healthy people returning to work while people who are sick remain isolated.

“The expression ‘We can do two things at one time,’ … and that includes not just economics, that also includes life and death,” Trump said. “We have to keep it that way.” 

The U.S. stock market and economy have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. And the financial situation is becoming increasingly problematic for millions of Americans as unemployment claims rose to an historic 3.2 million for the week that ended March 21.

Trump asserted that the U.S. “wasn’t built to be shut down. This is not a country that was built for this,” adding: “America will again and soon be open for business. Very soon. A lot sooner than three or four months that somebody was suggesting.” 

Experts — including those in Trump’s inner health care circle — have cautioned strongly against loosening precautionary measures too quickly, as it would lead to more catastrophe in the longer term.

“If you look at the trajectory of the curves of outbreaks and other areas, at least going to be several weeks,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on March 20. “I cannot see that all of a sudden, next week or two weeks from now, it’s going to be over. I don’t think there’s a chance of that.”

One former government official concurred. “I think the president needs to be listening carefully to our medical professionals,” former NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis said on Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade, later adding: “Once you’ve done that, then it’s perfectly appropriate to listen to the economic side.”

Gates echoed that view without naming Trump specifically.

“There really is no middle ground, and it’s very tough to say to people: ‘Hey, keep going to restaurants, go buy new houses, ignore that pile of bodies over in the corner. We want you to keep spending because there’s maybe a politician who thinks GDP growth is all that counts,’” Gates said. “It’s very hard to tell people when there’s an epidemic spreading… that they should go about things, knowing that their activity is spreading this disease.” 

At the same time, Gates acknowledged that the uncertainty is going to take a massive toll on the global economy, particularly on developing countries.

“We can’t say for sure that even the rich countries will be out of this in six to 10 weeks… the developing countries will bear a significant price,” Gates explained. “Two to three years from now, this thing, even on a global basis, will essentially be over with a gigantic price tag.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has thus far donated $100 million for programs to address the coronavirus pandemic, specifically to improve “detection, isolation, and treatment efforts… and accelerate the development of vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics.”

Gates had also resigned from the Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway boards earlier this month to commit to his philanthropic activities full time.

Source: Yahoo News!

Nobel Prize winner shares some good news about the coronavirus pandemic

CC™ News - By Shawn Langlois (MarketWatch)

Michael Levitt, a Nobel laureate and Stanford biophysicist, has delivered an optimistic take on the coronavirus pandemic to the Los Angeles Times over the weekend. 

Levitt was credited for correctly calling early on that China would get through the worst of its devastating outbreak before many other health experts predicted.

On Jan. 31, China had 46 new deaths compared with 42 the day before, which Levitt recognized as a slowing rate of growth. So he sent out an optimistic report.

“This suggests that the rate of increase in number of the deaths will slow down even more over the next week,” he said in a note widely shared on Chinese social media. Levitt, who won the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry, also said the number of deaths would soon start decreasing every day.

He ultimately nailed his call for a mid-February peak with a total tally of about 80,000 cases and 3,250 deaths. As of March 16, China had counted a total of 80,298 cases and 3,245 deaths — in a country of almost 1.4 billion people where about 10 million die every year.

He’s got a similar view for the United States.

 “What we need is to control the panic... we’re going to be fine,” he said, adding that the data doesn’t support the gloom and doom epidemiologist have been warning about.

Levitt looked at the stats from 78 countries with more than 50 reported cases of COVID-19 every day and sees “signs of recovery,” focusing on the number of new cases, not the cumulative figure.

“Numbers are still noisy but there are clear signs of slowed growth,” he told the L.A. Times, claiming that, however, the trajectory of deaths in the U.S. back up his findings.

There are now 35,224 cases and 471 deaths in the U.S., as of Monday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University. On Friday afternoon, there were 16,018 cases and 210 deaths.

Levitt said social-distancing mandates and getting vaccinated against the flu are both critical to the fight against the spread. Italy’s strong anti-vaccine movement, he explained, likely played a factor in the explosion of cases, because the spread of the flu likely was a factor in overwhelming hospitals and increasing the chances of coronavirus going undetected.

He lays some of the blame on the media for sparking panic by focusing on the increase in cumulative cases and spotlighting celebrities, like Tom Hanks and Idris Elba, who have been infected.

Levitt is also worried that an overreaction could trigger another crisis, with lost jobs and hopelessness creating their own set of problems, such as a surge in suicide rate.

On Sunday, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said he sees the U.S. unemployment rate hitting 30% in the coming months as the world continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic. If his projection proves true, unemployment would be worse than it was during the Great Depression and three times worse than the 2007-’09 recession.

While those kinds headlines continue to spread fear, Levitt sticks by his simple message: The coronavirus pandemic is “not the end of the world.”