Eighty Percent of Coronavirus Tests ‘Donated’ by China to Czechs Don’t Work; Same Problem in Spain

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By Washington Examiner. Some 80% of coronavirus rapid tests China donated to the Czech Republic as part of the communist country’s global goodwill effort are faulty, according to news reports.

A medical official from the Moravian-Silesian region that borders Slovakia and Poland said the test “error rate was quite high.”

According to the Czech radio site iROZHLAS, regional hygienist Pavla Svrcinova said that the tests give false positive and false negative results. She suggested that the tests only be used on people who are ending their virus-related seclusion and who have never been tested.

A government official, however, dismissed the concerns and said the “wrong methodology” was being used for the tests. “I don’t think it’s a scandalous revelation that it’s not working,” he said. (Read more from “Eighty Percent of Coronavirus Tests ‘Donated’ by China to Czechs Are Faulty” HERE)

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Chinese Coronavirus Tests in Spain Faulty, Too

By Sinéad Baker and Ruqayyah Moynihan. Microbiology experts in Spain have said that rapid coronavirus tests that the country bought from China are not consistently detecting positive cases.

The error was discovered as Spain is in the grip of one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world, second only to Italy in the number of reported deaths.

Studies on the tests done in Spain found that they had only 30% sensitivity, meaning they correctly identify people with the virus only 30% of the time, sources told the Spanish newspaper El País.

Those sources told the newspaper that the tests should have a sensitivity of more than 80%. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says rapid tests for influenza are required to have 80% sensitivity. (Read more about the faulty Chinese coronavirus tests HERE)

Editor’s note: the Chinese communist government is claiming that the Spanish tests were not “donated” but were sold by an unauthorized Chinese company.

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U.S. Officials Report Death of Robert Levinson, Former FBI Agent Kidnapped by Iran; ‘Iran May Well Collapse’ Under Coronavirus Strain, Warns Top EU Diplomat

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By Breitbart. The family of Robert Levinson, the former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007 and has been held illegally by the regime since then despite numerous pleas for his release, said on Wednesday that U.S. officials believe he “died while in Iranian custody,” sometime prior to the deadly outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus in Iran.

“It is impossible to describe our pain,” the Levinson family said. They went on to condemn the “cruel, heartless actions of the Iranian regime” as well as “those in the U.S. government who for many years repeatedly left him behind.”

“It has been 13 years waiting for answers,” they wrote. “Thirteen years since we last saw him or had any contact with him. How those responsible in Iran could do this to a human being, while repeatedly lying to the world all this time, is incomprehensible to us. They kidnapped a foreign citizen and denied him any basic human rights, and his blood is on their hands.”

“His body has not yet been returned to us for a proper burial,” the family noted. “We don’t even know when, or even if, his body would be returned to us. This is the very definition of cruelty.”

The Levinson family vowed to seek justice against both the Iranian regime and American officials who spared any effort to bring him home. (Read more from “U.S. Officials Report Death of Robert Levinson, Former FBI Agent Kidnapped by Iran” HERE)

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‘Iran May Well Collapse’ Under Coronavirus Strain, Warns Top EU Diplomat

By Washington Examiner. Iran’s theocratic regime could crumble under the pressure of the coronavirus outbreak that has spread through elite ranks and the broader population alike, according to the European Union’s top diplomat.

“Elsewhere, countries like Venezuela or Iran may well collapse without our support,” EU High Representative Josep Borrell wrote in a recent bulletin to European colleagues. “This means we should ensure they have access to IMF assistance. And with Iran, we need to make sure that legitimate humanitarian trade can proceed despite US sanctions.”

Borrell’s message reflects the long-standing European frustration with President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and renew U.S. sanctions on the regime. Yet it also suggests that some Western leaders are bracing for potentially seismic geopolitical shifts at the epicenters of the coronavirus pandemic, including Tehran.

“We should also remember that none of the other problems that we focused on before the corona crisis [have] gone away,” Borrell wrote. “In fact, they may get worse. COVID-19 may well deepen some of the longer running conflicts in the neighborhood.” (Read more from “‘Iran May Well Collapse’ Under Coronavirus Strain, Warns Top EU Diplomat” HERE)

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Italian Nurse Commits Suicide After Getting Coronavirus and Fearing She Had Spread It to Others

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By The Blaze. A nurse in Italy committed suicide this week while under quarantine after testing positive for the coronavirus, and a nursing federation said she was severely stressed at the thought that she had likely infected other people in the days leading to her death, according to the Daily Mail.

Daniela Trezzi was a 34-year-old nurse working in Lombardy, the area of Italy hardest-hit by the COVID-19 outbreak. Hospitals in the region are overwhelmed, and the number of Italians dying daily from the virus has escalated to between 600 and 800 over the past week.

Trezzi had been working in the intensive care unit at San Gerardo hospital in Monza, just outside Milan. On March 10, she was diagnosed with the coronavirus and placed under quarantine. She was recovering at home alone, not under surveillance of any kind. Police are investigating the death.

The National Federation of Nurses told Daily Mail that a “similar episode” occurred in Italy last week for the “same underlying reason,” implying that Trezzi wasn’t the first nurse to take her own life due to the stress the coronavirus has caused medical professionals. (Read more from “Italian Nurse Commits Suicide After Getting Coronavirus and Fearing She Had Spread It to Others” HERE)

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Spain’s Coronavirus Death Toll Soars Past China’s, Trailing Only Italy

By NPR. Spain is now reporting more than 3,400 COVID-19 deaths, making it the second European country with a death toll higher than in China, where the new coronavirus was first detected in late 2019.

Italy is reporting 7,503 deaths from the viral respiratory disease — the most in the world, and more than double the 3,285 deaths reported in China.

The pandemic has severely disrupted life in Spain and Italy, countries that have much smaller populations than China (1.4 billion). Both European countries are more closely comparable to Hubei province, the area in China where the outbreak was first detected. Italy has around 62 million people, according to the most recent CIA World Factbook data, similar to Hubei’s nearly 60 million residents. By comparison, Spain has just 50 million people.

Spain now has at least 47,610 coronavirus cases, the country’s Ministry of Health says. Of that number, nearly 8,000 people were confirmed to have the virus in the past 24 hours. (Read more from “Spain’s Coronavirus Death Toll Soars Past China’s, Trailing Only Italy” HERE)

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Report: China Concealed 43,000 Confirmed COVID-19 Cases

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The number of “silent carriers” – people who are infected by the new coronavirus but show delayed or no symptoms – could be as high as one-third of those who test positive, according to classified Chinese government data seen by the South China Morning Post.

That could further complicate the strategies being used by countries to contain the virus, which has infected more than 300,000 people and killed more than 14,000 globally.

More than 43,000 people in China had tested positive for Covid-19 by the end of February but had no immediate symptoms, a condition typically known as asymptomatic, according to the data. They were placed in quarantine and monitored but were not included in the official tally of confirmed cases, which stood at about 80,000 at the time.

Scientists have been unable to agree on what role asymptomatic transmission plays in spreading the disease. A patient usually develops symptoms in five days, though the incubation period can be as long as three weeks in some rare cases. . .

A growing number of studies are now questioning the WHO’s earlier statement that asymptomatic transmission was “extremely rare”. A report by the WHO’s international mission after a trip to China estimated that asymptomatic infections accounted for 1 to 3 per cent of cases, according to a European Union paper. (Read more from “Report: China Concealed 43,000 Confirmed COVID-19 Cases” HERE)

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China Targeting U.S. Navy Warships With Electromagnetic Weapons

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China has called for using electromagnetic attacks on U.S. warships transiting the South China Sea, according to a state-run Chinese outlet.

The Communist Party-affiliated organ Global Times, quoting a military expert, said the use of nonlethal electromagnetic and laser weapons should be used by the People’s Liberation Army to expel American warships from the disputed sea.

The report followed China’s potentially dangerous use of a laser against a Navy P-8A maritime patrol aircraft near Guam last month, and an earlier lasing two years ago of C-130 aircraft near China’s military base in Djibouti on the coast of Africa.

The article was published Tuesday, the same day the Pacific Fleet announced on Twitter that the aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt, and the USS America, an amphibious assault carrier and leader of an expeditionary strike group, were conducting exercises in the South China Sea.

The training exercise for both strike groups included flight maneuvers, air defense tests and surface-support mission exercises, the fleet said in a report on the exercises. At one point, Marines carried out a simulated visit, board, search and seizure exercise on the guided missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill, according to the report. (Read more from “China Targeting U.S. Navy Warships With Electromagnetic Weapons” HERE)

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2020 Olympics Will Be Postponed

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Veteran International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound told USA TODAY Sports on Monday afternoon that the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games are going to be postponed amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“On the basis of the information the IOC has, postponement has been decided,” Pound said in a phone interview. “The parameters going forward have not been determined, but the games are not going to start on July 24, that much I know.”

Pound, a Canadian who has been one of the most influential members of the IOC for decades, said the games will likely be moved to 2021, with the details to be worked out in the next four weeks. He said he expects the IOC to announce its next steps soon.

“It will come in stages,” said Pound, 78, the longest-serving IOC member. “We will postpone this and begin to deal with all the ramifications of moving this, which are immense.”

Neither the IOC nor the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee had announced a decision to postpone as of Monday afternoon. (Read more from “2020 Olympics Will Be Postponed” HERE)

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ISIS Attack Targets U.S. Troops at Bagram Airfield in Third Such Incident Since Taliban Peace Deal

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An Islamic State militant fired mortars at U.S. and international troops at Bagram Airfield in what security officials said was the third attack on the base since the U.S. signed a peace deal with the Taliban last month.

No one was hurt during the attack Saturday night and Bagram Airfield, the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan, was not damaged, a spokesman for the NATO Resolute Support mission said Monday.

A man in a small pickup drove through a police checkpoint near Bagram about 8 p.m. Saturday and fired three mortars at the base before escaping, said Mohammad Mahfooz Alizada, police chief of Parwan province.

Afghan police destroyed the militant’s truck, causing a large explosion, said Bagram district governor Abdul Shokour Qudousi. All of the mortars were shot down, he said. . .

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Stars and Stripes on Monday in a phone interview that the group blamed the attack on spoilers trying to “sabotage” the peace process. (Read more from “ISIS Attack Targets U.S. Troops at Bagram Airfield in Third Such Incident Since Taliban Peace Deal” HERE)

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Italian Virologist Says Political Correctness Doomed His Country’s Coronavirus Response; Italy Bans All Internal Travel to Stop Virus Spread

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By The Blaze. Italy is now the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe and one of the country’s top virologists says political correctness is partly to blame.

Dr. Giorgio Palù, a professor of virology and microbiology of the University of Padova and the former head of the European and Italian Society for Virology, recently said that concerns over “politics” and being perceived as “racist” delayed Rome’s response to the deadly virus that originated in China. . .

Palù told CNN that the Italian government failed by refusing to impose a wider and stricter lockdown earlier on, instead of the initial restrictions that focused on 11 areas Rome placed in a “red zone.” . . .

Palù also believes that politics delayed the government’s reaction, which he decried as “lazy in the beginning,” saying there is “too much politics in Italy.”

The virologist added, “There was a proposal to isolate people coming from the epicenter, coming from China.” However, he says the Italian government balked at the idea of singling out travelers coming from China out of concern it could be construed as racist. “Then it became seen as racist, but they were people coming from the outbreak.” (Read more from “Italian Virologist Says Political Correctness Doomed His Country’s Coronavirus Response” HERE)

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Italy Bans All Internal Travel to Stop Virus Spread

By Al Jazeera. Italy moved to stop all travel within the country, in a further escalation of its attempt to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, a month after announcing its first death from the disease.

Italy’s travel ban was announced as all non-essential businesses including car, clothing and furniture makers were ordered to close and a further 651 people died from COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Italy has recorded a death toll higher than China, where the virus first appeared late last year.

Domenico Arcuri, head of the government’s coronavirus relief effort, told state broadcaster RAI that Italy was “at war” with the virus. (Read more from “Italy Bans All Internal Travel to Stop Virus Spread” HERE)

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Putin Sides With China in War of Words With the U.S. Over COVID-19 Origins

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By PJ Media. Chinese propaganda has been a marvel these last few weeks. They have “bent the curve” of history and rewritten the narrative to make themselves out to be heroic saviors of the world. They pretend that their initial response to the coronavirus was superior to any other nation’s and besides, the virus was let loose upon China by someone else; it didn’t originate there.

Any thinking person knows it’s all a lie. But there are many who choose to play along with Chinese propaganda — especially if it gives them the chance to criticize America.

Count Russian President Vladimir Putin as an enthusiastic booster of China’s lies.

Washington Examiner:

Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke with his Russian counterpart on the phone on Thursday, and “Putin commended the Chinese government for taking effective measures to not only contain the spread of the virus at home but also contribute to safeguarding the health and safety of people across the world,” according to a readout of the call Friday by China’s Foreign Ministry.

(Read more from “Putin Sides With China in War of Words With the U.S. Over COVID-19 Origins” HERE)

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Coronavirus Drives the U.S. and China Deeper Into Global Power Struggle

By New York Times. When President Trump took the podium at the White House briefing room one afternoon last week, his prepared remarks included a reference to the “corona virus.” But a close-up photograph revealed that Mr. Trump had used one of his signature Sharpies to cross out the word “corona,” changing the phrase to “Chinese virus.”

Mr. Trump was scathing as he accused Beijing of concealing the outbreak first detected in Wuhan that has become a pandemic now paralyzing the United States. “Certainly, the world is paying a big price for what they did,” he said. And the next day, he was joined at a White House briefing by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who accused China’s government of distorting vital health data and said its response “creates risk to people all around the world.”

The withering criticism is an abrupt change in tone for a president who has long sought to stay on friendly terms with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, and who initially praised Mr. Xi’s government for “doing a very professional job” against the epidemic. But as Mr. Trump and top American officials toughen their condemnations of Mr. Xi’s government, national security and public health experts fear that the two world powers are heading into a new Cold War that could seriously undermine joint efforts to quash the virus and salvage the global economy. (Read more from “Coronavirus Drives the U.S. and China Deeper Into Global Power Struggle” HERE)

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China Allegedly Destroyed Evidence of Wuhan Coronavirus in December; How China Can Be Held Legally Accountable for Coronavirus Pandemic; Report Claims China Is Faking Its Recovery

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By Legal Insurrection. My daily update must start with the revelation by an independent, investigative journalism team at Caixin Global.

The team discovered that Chinese scientists destroyed proof of research involving the novel coronavirus that is now spreading at pandemic levels.

An article published by the Times of London indicates that Chinese authorities have been deleting the stories from the internet.

Chinese laboratories identified a mystery virus as a highly infectious new pathogen by late December last year, but they were ordered to stop tests, destroy samples and suppress the news, a Chinese media outlet has revealed.

A regional health official in Wuhan, centre of the outbreak, demanded the destruction of the lab samples that established the cause of unexplained viral pneumonia on January 1. China did not acknowledge there was human-to-human transmission until more than three weeks later.

(Read more from “Report: China Destroyed Evidence of Wuhan Coronavirus in December” HERE)

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How China Can Be Held Legally Accountable for Coronavirus Pandemic

By Fox News. A cover-up and clampdown by the Chinese government in the early weeks of the coronavirus’s emergence is raising questions over whether the communist superpower can be held legally accountable.

“Generally countries like China have sovereign immunity and governments cannot be brought to regular courts or held liable regardless of their conduct,” Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, an Israel-based attorney who has long specialized in suing terrorist regimes and state sponsors who orchestrate human rights abuses on behalf of victims, told Fox News.

“However, an argument could be made that just like support for terrorism, which is legally actionable, a government that engages in such reckless disregard and negligence and covers up an epidemic which has the potential to spread worldwide could be held legally liable ,” Darshan-Leitner said. “Cover-ups and deliberate acts to conceal a deadly medical crisis are not [among] the protected acts of a sovereign state or of responsible leaders.”

According to Darshan-Leitner, if a private party like a hospital or health care worker of a chemical company had learned of a dangerous and highly contagious disease and then deliberately covered its existence up and concealed it from the public they would clearly face criminal and civil liability.

“Why should a local or national government be any different? Clearly, China signed treaties and had a duty under international law to report the virus and not cover it up,” she continued. “China is not to blame for creating the virus but for not sounding the international alarm and trying to conceal it from the world.” (Read more from “How China Can Be Held Legally Accountable for Coronavirus Pandemic” HERE)

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Report Claims China Is Faking Its Recovery From the Coronavirus Outbreak

By The Blaze. . .Those reports are being disputed by local Chinese officials who say the government is using deceptive measures to create the appearance of normal business operations and productivity, according to the Chinese media outlet Caixin.

Back to normal? For the first time since the coronavirus, known as COVID-19, was discovered, China has reported no new infections. For the past couple of days, the number of new reported deaths has been in the single digits.

As a result, some of the businesses in China that were forced to shut down have begun reopening, and some travel restrictions have been lifted (although that is creating some new issues, including a fear of imported COVID-19 cases).

Not what it seems: Although the Chinese government, well-known for concealing or manipulating information, would obviously prefer the world seeing signs of strength and recovery, that might not be the case. Chinese whistleblowers tell Caixin they’re working to create an appearance that things are back to normal when they’re not[.] (Read more from “Report Claims China Is Faking Its Recovery From the Coronavirus Outbreak” HERE)

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