Category: Covid-19

Antitrust enforcers need to be vigilant in these uncertain and troubling times. Think about the effect on consumers from price gouging, price fixing, mergers in concentrated markets and the unilateral exercise of monopoly power. We rely on vigorous rivalry between firmsin good times and badto deliver us quality goods and services at competitive prices. The American consumer remains entitled to the benefits of competition, especially during a major health and economic crisis. It is up to federal and state enforcers to serve as the economic cops on the beat as we begin the long road to recovery.

What needs to be done? In the short term, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission need to facilitate legitimate cooperation among manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to ensure critical goods and servicesthink masks and respiratorsget to market in a timely fashion. To their credit, the two agencies are trying to do just that. In late March the two agencies jointly announced an expedited process for reviewing and green lighting collaborations of businesses working to protect the health and safety of Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. And true to their word, 10 days later DOJ formally advised certain medical supplies distributors that it would not stand in the way of a joint effort to work with FEMA and expedite sourcing, production and delivery of personal protective equipment.

But getting out of the way at the right time is just one priority. Antitrust enforcers must be vigilant in attacking efforts by firms to limit competition in a time of crisis. And the temptation will be there. Those of us involved over the years in investigating and prosecuting price fixing and bid rigging know well that the urge to cartelize markets is strongest in the face of falling prices triggered by reduced demand. Although it is often rationalized during tough economic times as not raising prices, just stabilizing them, or just protecting our margins, not increasing them, agreements between companies that restrict competition are per se unlawful and subject the companies and their executives to criminal prosecution. Consumers deserve the benefit of market competition regardless of where we are in the economic cycle.

The temptation to cheat is not limited to traditional brick and mortar commerce. While at DOJ in the Obama Administration we uncovered a scheme involving two online sellers of poster art on Amazon Marketplace. After experiencing shrinking margins due to price competition, executives of the two companies got together and wrote an algorithm that priced their online offerings identically when consumers searched for poster art. The result was corporate and individual criminal charges.

Antitrust enforcers will need to vigilantly police mergers and acquisitions as the economy struggles to regain its footing. Our sudden but necessary shutdown has put business of all sizes at risk of permanent closure. Economists see small businesses as particularly vulnerable, and the CARES Act only begins to address the problem. Policy makers must continue to provide financial support and other incentives to keep small and medium-sized businesses afloat. But realistically, not all businesses are going to be able to get up and running again. That means many markets are going to become more concentrated. We will see it in all sectors, from agriculture and retail to manufacturing and travel. Fewer competitors means less competition, more market power for some sellers and some buyers, and more risk of tacit price coordination. At the end of the day consumers will pay more.

And competitors will want to combine. We have seen this before as the U.S. and world economies struggled to get back on track from prior recessions. Firms will see horizontal and some vertical mergers as the quickest way to raise shareholder value. That is where tough merger enforcement will be critical, because shareholder value should not be given priority at the expense of the American consumer. It is easy to imagine scenarios where airlines or cruise ship companies, supermarket and drugstore chains, agricultural producers and processors, and wireless providers will argue that the weakness of one or more firms in those sectors requires consolidation and quick merger approval. In unconcentrated markets, that may be the right outcome, but in markets with just a handful of players, that is likely to be the wrong move for the American consumer, with long-term adverse consequences on innovation, quality, and price.

There is an exception in antitrust law allowing a competitor to acquire a failing firm in limited circumstances. The would-be buyer must show that it is effectively the only company willing to pay any meaningful value for the distressed firm. That is rarely the case. A competitor in a concentrated market may well be willing to pay the most for the firm. But if this is a market power premium premised on the belief that the buyer will be able raise prices to consumers and recoup its acquisition costs at our expense, the merger should not be allowed.

We face an uncertain path to economic recovery in the days, months, and years ahead. The public policy choices we make today and tomorrow will live with us for a long time. We need to make sure the steps we take to get back to normal do not irreversibly alter markets and deprive consumers of competition in the long run. Our antitrust enforcersthe economic cops on the beathave a big job to do.

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Why we need antitrust enforcement during the COVID-19 pandemic - Brookings Institution

PORTLAND, Ore. An employee who worked at the Whole Foods Market in Portland's Pearl District has died from COVID-19, a spokeswoman for the company confirmed Wednesday.

It's unknown what role the individual had at the store. The person died April 20.

Additionally, an employee at the Hollywood location of Whole Foods in Northeast Portland has tested positive for coronavirus. The company spokeswoman didn't release details about what that individual's role was at the store, to protect the person's privacy.

The safety of our team members and customers is our top priority and we are diligently following all guidance from local healthand food safetyauthorities. As we prioritize the health and safety of our customers and Team Members, we will continue to do the following to help contain the spread of COVID-19," read a statement from Whole Foods Market.

Here's a look at the measures Whole Foods Market has implemented at its stores in response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Fred Meyer announced last month that an employee working at its Northeast Glisan store in Portland tested positive for COVID-19 and hadn't been to work since March 10.

Earlier this month, WinCo announced that three of its workers in two Oregon stores had tested positive for the coronavirus.

RELATED: 3 Oregon WinCo workers test positive for coronavirus

RELATED: Fred Meyer employee at Northeast Portland store tested positive for coronavirus

RELATED: What are the new testing guidelines? What will it take to develop a vaccine? Your COVID-19 questions answered

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Portland Whole Foods employee dies of COVID-19; another tests positive - KGW.com

James Shaw, New Zealands climate change minister, has asked the countrys independent climate change commission to check whether its emissions targets under the Paris agreement are enough to limit global heating to 1.5C. He explains why hes prioritising the issue during a strict national lockdown to stop the spread of Covid-19, which could send New Zealands unemployment rate soaring.

To say that we find ourselves in an unprecedented moment is so obvious and has been so often repeated its almost become white noise. What is less obvious, however, is where we go from here.

In any significant crisis, let alone one as catastrophic as the Covid-19 pandemic, it is an entirely understandable human reflex to want things to return to normal, to go back to the way they were before.

And, when faced with economic headwinds in recent decades, the Asian financial crisis, the global financial crisis and, in our own case, the Christchurch earthquakes) successive governments the world over have directed their efforts to meeting public expectation and getting back to business as usual.

Unfortunately, one of the features of business as usual was a highly polluting and ecologically unsustainable economy on a pathway that was locking in catastrophic climate change.

Successive responses to economic crises have seen climate change and the natural environment we depend on for life on Earth as a nice-to-have, something to think about once weve got the economy back on track and theres a bit more money to go round.

This means that action on climate change keeps being deferred, as economic shocks occur on average about every ten years. It also means that, when we do collectively start feeling confident enough to start worrying about climate change again, we find that our economic recovery programmes have locked us back in to the same highly polluting pathway we were on before.

We quite simply cannot afford to do that one more time. Global CO2 emissions need to at least halve in the next 10 years, according to a 1992 treaty, the United Nations framework convention on climate change. If we spend the next few years restoring business as usual, we will have only a few years left to transform that business as usual into something else. It simply wont be able to be done.

This time, we could do it differently. This time, we could plan our recovery to create a clean-tech, high-value economy that works for everyone.

In which case, rather than willing things back to normal as quickly as possible, lets imagine something different for a moment. A future where people have everything they need to lead fulfilling, meaningful and prosperous lives. Where simple everyday tasks like making the morning coffee, to travelling to and from work, to warming our homes is powered by clean, renewable energy.

A future where electricity demand goes up but only because people are plugging in their electric vehicles. Where cheap, clean power brings significant economic benefits for small businesses, and rural communities. Above all, a future that is more equitable, more prosperous, and more innovative and all within planetary limits.

We know it is in our power to change the way we do things. Over the last few months, nearly all of us have made changes to the way we live and work in order to protect people and their loved ones around the world. Our responses to Covid-19 as parents, as friends, as neighbours have made clear just what it is that we value more than anything else.

Not only this, but we have seen the difference good governments can make to peoples lives and that we can, when we need to, make bold decisions for the collective good.

We have also been reminded in the most profound and difficult way why we must act in accordance with science.

Clearly, government spending over the next few months needs to ease the economic pressures people and businesses are feeling right now. But that doesnt mean it cannot also change the quality of economic growth and reduce its impact on the climate. Nor does it mean that governments cannot apply a climate lens to every major policy decision, as New Zealand is doing.

An economic stimulus is partly about choice. In the past, governments have made these choices based on the view that investments and values are separable. But theyre not. Our investments reflect our values.

Nearly every country in the world has committed to playing their part in a global effort to clean up our economies and avoid the worse effects of climate change.

Here in New Zealand, our parliament has unanimously enshrined the Paris goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels in domestic legislation. On Wednesday, I asked our new, politically independent, climate change commission to review whether our international target is consistent with that Paris goal.

If they conclude that there is more we need to do, the commission will provide recommendations on what changes we should make. This will ensure we are playing our part globally. I hope that other countries will do the same, if they arent already.

It is a time for governments, regions, and cities around the world to mobilise and deploy resources to tackle the climate crisis at the same time as rebuilding their economies, all whilst creating high value green jobs.

This is indeed an unprecedented moment. What we do with it will determine the quality of life for billions of people not just for the next few months or years, but for the generations to come.

James Shaw is New Zealands climate change minister and co-leader of the Green party.

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The Covid-19 crisis creates a chance to reset economies on a sustainable footing - The Guardian

(CNN) Torbjrn "Thor" Pedersen is on a mission to visit every country in the world in a single journey, without taking a single flight.

After roughly six and a half years on the road and a budget of US$20 a day, Pedersen is just nine countries away from reaching this goal.

There's only one problem: He's stuck in Hong Kong.

While the 41-year-old was waiting in the city to board a ship to his next stop, the Paclfic archipelago of Palau, the outbreak of COVID-19 and ensuing travel restrictions derailed his plans.

But the Danish native and goodwill ambassador for the Danish Red Cross is determined to make the most of the situation.

The 41-year-old, who sports road-worn Black Salomon X Ultra trekking trainers and a chest-length beard, is clearly itching to keep moving.

"Every day I spend in Hong Kong is another day that I'm not making progress. I'm losing time but trying to make the best of it," Pedersen tells CNN Travel.

"With what's going on in the world, it will take at least another year to finish. Quitting is a consideration -- I'm dead tired [of traveling] and ready to go home. But I'm also stubborn and driven."

Born in Denmark, Pedersen had an international upbringing where he always had "one leg in Denmark and one leg somewhere else."

During his childhood, his family flitted between Toronto, Vancouver and New Jersey for his father's job in the textile industry and visited his mother's side of the family in Finland during summer and winter holidays.

"My mother is a travel guide, so she speaks several languages and has always been interested in the world," he adds.

"When it comes to a sense for business and structure, getting up early and getting things done, I got that from my father. I got walking around in the forest looking for mushrooms and trolls, thinking outside of the box and being adventurous from my mother."

With flights off the table, Pedersen has relied heavily on container ships.

Torbjrn (Thor) Pedersen/Once Upon A Saga

As an adult, Pedersen served in the Danish Army as a Royal Life Guard (akin to the fur-capped Queen's Guard at Buckingham Palace in London) then worked in the shipping and logistics industry for 12 years, where assignments took him from Libya to Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Greenland and Florida.

The idea to attempt this particular challenge -- to visit every country on a nonstop journey without taking a single flight -- came to him serendipitously, through an article his father sent him.

"I discovered that it's actually possible to go to every country in the world -- I had never thought about it before," says Pedersen.

Six years away from home

After 10 months of careful planning, Pedersen departed on October 10, 2013.

First, he'd travel around Europe, then North America, South America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Mediterranean, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Asia and over to the far-flung islands in the Pacific.

"Since I worked in shipping and logistics, I was used to having multiple things in the air at the same time, finding solutions and making everything more efficient," he says. "That helped a lot in a project like this -- it could easily take 20 years if you're not careful."

There are 195 sovereign nations in the world, according to the United Nations, but Pedersen isn't stopping there. By the end of his journey, he will have visited 203 countries in total.

Pedersen imposed exceptionally strict rules on himself: He must spend at least 24 hours in every country and can't return home until he's done.

In addition, Pedersen planned to visit the Red Cross (also known as Red Crescent or Red Crystal, depending on the locale) wherever the movement operates to spread awareness about their local initiatives.

So far, he's already visited Red Cross societies in 189 countries -- a feat that Pedersen says has never been done before.

Securing visas for hard-to-visit destinations such as Syria and Angola was often a challenge, says Pedersen.

Torbjrn (Thor) Pedersen/Once Upon A Saga

And of course, the cardinal rule: no flights. With the ease of airports off the table, he'd need to traverse the globe via trains, taxis, buses, ride-shares, tuk-tuks, ferries and container ships.

Pedersen has relied heavily on cargo ships to travel long distances, working closely with companies such as Maersk, Blue Water Shipping, Swire, MSC, Pacific international Lines, Neptune and Columbia.

"You can't just show up and get on a container ship," says Pedersen. "You need to get approvals from the company ahead of time, which takes a lot of time and patience."

In some cases, Pedersen relied on his professional connections. In others, his association with the Red Cross helped, while the monumental nature of this challenge helped to cement partnerships.

"Coordinating everything takes a lot of time. And even if you do have all your connections planned and everything lined up, you can't plan for natural disasters or typhoons," which he says threw his schedule off course on numerous occasions.

Even so, he's kept all of his promises to himself and his thousands of online followers who have become invested in his journey.

"There's nothing stopping this journey from ending, except for me ... But I have to ask myself: Do I want to be the person who quit? Or do I want to be able to say that I never quit, not even once. Not when I had malaria. Not when I was losing my girlfriend. Not when my grandmother died. Not when I lost financial backing. Not when I was in pain," he says.

"By completing this project, I'm telling people you can achieve any objective if you just keep working at it."

Finding a way in

Though Pedersen's Danish passport is one of the most powerful in the world in terms of the access it offers, many visas have still been challenging to secure, especially in notoriously hard-to-visit destinations such as Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Nauru and Angola.

It took more than three weeks to obtain a visa for Iran and nearly three months for Syria, which he secured with help from the Red Cross.

Eventually, he crossed the border to get to Damascus, the capital of Syria. Due to conflicts in the region at the time, he then had to find his way to Jordan on a container ship via the Gulf of Aqaba, which meant backtracking through Lebanon and Egypt.

"So it took a loop to get to Jordan, and it's been like that a few times. If you're going without flying, then you're really locked into the countries that are surrounding you. And you need to plan it well."

Pedersen poses for a selfie in Petra, Jordan.

Torbjrn (Thor) Pedersen/Once Upon A Saga

In many cases, bureaucracy made the processes all the more excruciating. At the land border with Angola, for example, he was turned away at first because he didn't speak native French.

Then they rejected his application because he used the wrong color pen. When he refiled his forms, his passport photo was wrong. He got new passport photos, but then his invitation letter was not clear enough.

Each rejection cost him weeks.

"Some of these situations were really Kafka-esque. It took so much time and lots of help from other people," says Pedersen.

The globetrotter has been giving motivational talks at corporations throughout his travels, which has helped with making influential connections.

"In some cases, CEOs with some power helped me. Other times, I talked with the consulate or got help from friends.

"Whenever I needed help someone reached out and helped me. But I always figured out a solution -- and I did it the right way. I never offered a single bribe."

A rash decision

While Pedersen is usually meticulous about planning, an episode in Cameroon sent him spiraling.

After spending multiple days jumping through hoops to enter neighboring Gabon, Pedersen could not take it anymore.

"People didn't understand what I was doing. I wanted to give up and just go home, thinking 'Why the heck am I even doing this? What's in it for anyone at this point?' I kind of lost it."

He made a rash decision to try another crossing, which required an 800-kilometer drive on dusty dirt roads in the middle of the night.

Pedersen says the positive memories of his journey dramatically outnumber the bad.

Torbjrn (Thor) Pedersen/Once Upon A Saga

At 3 a.m., a pair of headlights flashed ahead. Three uniformed men walked into the street, waving their rifles, and demanded Pedersen and his taxi driver get out of the car.

"They were armed to their teeth and drunk out of their minds. That's just a no-go situation," he recalls.

"My heart dropped. This is it. This is the end of my life. If my life ends there, they toss me in the forest, ants and animals will eat me in no time, no one will ever know. I hadn't told anyone I was going to do this."

He waited in this state of terror for 45 minutes as the men intimidated him with their rifles, fingers on triggers. Then, for no reason whatsoever, they let him go.

"We just got out of there like bats out of hell."

Months of great memories

As he attempts the impossible task of summarizing six and a half years into a highlight reel, Pedersen tells me that the positive memories dramatically outnumber the bad.

"We'd be talking for a couple of days if I were to tell you about all of the bad things that happened. But we'd need months to cover all the good things -- that's the balance."

In Hong Kong, for instance, Pedersen has encountered incredible hospitality during the global pandemic.

A family living in Sai Kung, about an hour northeast of Central, invited him to stay in their spare guest room for a few days.

That was before the world ground to a halt. It's been 86 days, and they insist he's welcome to stay as long as it takes.

Pedersen encountered similar warmth and generosity while marooned in the Solomon Islands, where a typhoon near Japan delayed his container ship.

He decided to use the extra days to explore the Western Province. While Pedersen was riding alone on a ferry, an elderly man invited him to an island called Vori Vori to experience life in his village.

A few days later, Pedersen took a ferry then a small motorized canoe to the remote island, which is home to about 100 people.

"There is no running water, no electricity, just a generator if they absolutely needed to power something. They catch the fish they eat every day, they have plenty of coconuts, you can bathe in the stream. It's an amazing place."

When the village elder learned Pedersen had a laptop, he asked if the residents could watch a movie.

That night, they powered up the generator and nearly 80 people huddled around Pedersen's computer to watch 1998 war drama "The Thin Red Line," which is set in the Solomon Islands.

"You can't plan that experience. You can't buy that. It was just astonishing," says Pedersen.

And then there's the world's natural beauty, which has left him speechless on countless occasions.

While crossing the North Atlantic on a container ship to reach Canada, they hit a terrible storm. For four days, the ship heaved in the wind.

"It was chaos. I thought we were going to sink and die. But when the storm passed, the water was like dark blue oil, so still and smooth. I have never seen an ocean like that."

The only interruptions in the glass-like surface were animals -- whales came up to breathe, dolphins jumped and played. And to cap it off, that night the skies cleared and the Northern Lights danced overhead.

Late in the journey, about half a day before they reached Canada, powerful gusts of wind swept the distinct aroma of trees and pollen across the ship's deck.

"Suddenly, you could smell trees in a very powerful way. It was as if I were standing in the forest. So after 12 days of smelling oil, metal and the ocean, suddenly we could smell Canada before we could see it."

The finish line

When looking at the sheer distance he's covered -- more than 300,000 kilometers -- Pedersen has now circled the globe seven times in the past 6.5 years.

He's reached 194 countries, with just nine to go: Palau, Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu, New Zealand, Australia, Sri Lanka and the grand finale in Maldives.

When he reaches Maldives, he's planning a celebration with his fianc and fellow globetrotters, such as Lexi Alford, who is the youngest person to visit every country in the world, and Gunnar Garfors, one of the few people to have visited every country twice.

He's can't wait to see his fianc, who he was planning to marry in New Zealand before the pandemic froze the globe.

"My fianc has been incredibly supportive during this whole process," says Pedersen. "She's been out to visit me 21 times.

"Actually, there's a running joke-slash-tradition: I only shave it off when she comes out to see me!" he says of his impressive beard. "I haven't seen her now for seven months, so that's why it's this long."

Pedersen says his primary mission is to shed light on the inherent goodness of people.

Torbjrn (Thor) Pedersen/Once Upon A Saga

By Pedersen's estimation, even if he can finally get to Palau this summer, the remainder of his journey will take at least another 10 months to a year.

"It would be easy to just go to the airport and fly home. Sometimes I think about it. But at some point, this project stopped being about me, and started being about other people."

At its heart, he says, this is not a travel project but a people project. His primary mission is to shed light on the inherent goodness of people, on how much we have in common -- not our differences.

"People are almost always amazing. We all care about the same things: our families, our jobs, education, 'Game of Thrones.' We all like good food. We like to dance. We like to relax, we like to laugh ... highlighting these similarities is a big part of my purpose."

There are also many people depending on him to finish, in one way or another.

Over the years, he's received numerous private messages from people who have been inspired by his determination to persist in their own lives, from job-hunting to weight loss, to studying, learning a new language, or getting out of bed after losing a loved one.

"Again, and again, I've told the people who follow this project that we will get to the other side," he says.

"Today, the world might be falling apart. But, next month, the sun will be shining on my face. We made it on that ship, we got that visa, we crossed the border ... we did the impossible."

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This man is just 9 countries away from visiting every nation in the world without flying. But he's stuck in Hong Kong due to Covid-19 - CNN

China is the only country that has performed well in dealing with this crisis, declared Saudi-owned broadcaster Al-Arabiya in a March review of Chinas COVID-19 efforts. While nominally independent, the station reportedly taken over by the Saudi the royal court in 2014 tends to reflect official Saudi views. These views can change, however. In an April segment that covered mounting criticisms of Beijing, presenter Rufaydah Yassin commented that it appears that Chinas efforts to market its successes with regard to the coronavirus have not yet panned out.

In the initial weeks and months of the pandemic, a wide range of Saudi outlets offered favorable reviews of Chinas response, while finding little to praise about U.S. efforts. These discussions in Saudi Arabia, a close security partner of the United States with considerable press censorship, provide evidence of the damage done to U.S. standing abroad by its America First, America Only approach to the crisis, and of the abysmal performance of its government at home.

However, Chinas mixed record in boosting its image in Riyadh is a reminder that soft-power competition is not a zero-sum game. Even as Saudi outlets have grown more willing to air criticisms of China, some have derided the efforts of President Donald Trump and his administration to blame COVID-19 on Beijing.

Blaming China is a convenient electoral strategy but an ineffective foreign policy, with considerable downsides. If Washington wants to maintain its international standing amid COVID-19 including in places like Saudi Arabia it needs to focus first on containing and responding to the virus at home, rather than lodging accusations abroad. The United States should do what it can to facilitate a capable domestic response to the pandemic, while affording its diplomats the funding and political cover needed to offer small but symbolic forms of public health assistance overseas.

Initial Praise for Chinas Apparent Success

Within Saudi Arabia, media commentary initially highlighted Chinas successes in containing the virus. They cited Wuhans strict social controls while avoiding discussion of the lies and lack of transparency from the Chinese government that allowed the virus to spread in the first place. Although media commentary cannot be taken as a direct expression of views by Saudi officials, these statements and articles do reflect the bounds of acceptable public discourse, and as such, an indirect reflection of official sympathies with the Chinese model of durable upgraded authoritarianism.

Top columnists in Al-Sharq al-Awsat, a widely-read paper owned by King Salman and his immediate family, offered support for Chinas strict social controls in containing the pandemic. On March 16, Salman al-Dosary, former editor-in-chief of the paper, praised Chinas success in employing strict quarantines to lay siege to the disease. Al-Dosary, along with many Saudi writers, further sought to identify the Saudi governments response to Chinas as an example of decisive action to contain the virus.

Others made it clear that strict controls needed to be backed by a threat of force to keep citizens in line. The U.S. government does not have enough military force to keep ten million people [in New York] at home, unlike China, noted Abdel-Rahman al-Rashed, another longtime media figure who is said to be close to the Saudi Royal Court, on April 9. If China had not done so [in Wuhan], the number of those affected would be in the tens of million. He also encouraged readers earlier in March to focus on resolving the crisis rather than assigning blame. Maybe it started in a country before China, but its origin does not concern us as much as overcoming it and returning to normal life.

Evolving Saudi Coverage of China

While favorable views of Chinas example of authoritarian rule amid state-led development are hardly new in Saudi Arabias media and commentary, these perspectives have historically been balanced by criticisms of Chinas godless communist ideology and its hostility towards the practice of Islam within its borders. Yet as the two countries economic relationship has strengthened, even as the Saudi monarchy de-emphasizes Islamic credentials in its claims to authority, critical views have largely disappeared from the Saudi press.

Mohammed Al-Sudairi, Saudi expert on Sino-Middle Eastern relations, noted in 2013 an avid admiration by many Saudi commentators for Chinas economic miracle. Writing on the occasion of the 2010 Shanghai expo, Saudi columnist Mohammed al-Makhlouf highlighted Chinas enormous strides in economic development. This article was carried by Al-Watan, a more populist broadsheet that has occasionally championed issues of social or political reform in the kingdom.

In years past, however, this admiration was tempered by concerns about Chinas treatment of Muslim minorities an area of particular concern for citizens of a kingdom that claims leadership of the Muslim world. Despite official silence over a 2009 crackdown on protests and riots by Chinas Uighur Muslim minority, Saudi newspapers helped spur popular outrage over treatment of Muslims within China.

Others focused on Chinese repression more broadly. Chinese citizens cannot object to [state repression] in a country that executes five thousand of its citizens every year, some of them for minor crimes such as tax evasion, noted Muhammad Alwan in 2011, also for Al-Watan. This pushback contributed to Saudi views of China that were unusually unfavorable for the Arab world.

However, with the recent rise to power of Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, criticism of China (among many other topics) has been muted. This reflects a shrinking sphere for political commentary as well as repression of all forms of political Islam within the country.

The Chinese government has thus found a more receptive audience for its efforts to normalize the repression of Muslim minorities as it emphasizes a shared interest of Chinese and Arab autocrats in the subjugation of potentially threatening populations. Indeed, Muhammad bin Salman emphasized Chinas right to carry out anti-terrorism and de-extremisation work in reference to the countrys crackdown on ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region.

Still, there has been some leeway for Saudis to criticize Chinas handling of the pandemic, particularly on social media, but only when it avoids religious interpretations of Chinas culpability. Several Saudi individuals have reportedly been arrested for the kind of divine-punishment explanations that led some in the Arab world to argue that Chinas affliction with the virus results from its governments mistreatment of Muslim minorities.

Saudi businessman Hussein Shobokshi faced no repercussions, however, for predicting that China would face difficult times in being held accountable for the pandemic. Another Twitter influencer, who initially hyped conspiracies of biological warfare being responsible for the virus, charged China with being a threat to the health of the world in a racialized attack.

Authoritarian Admiration

The bulk of Saudi commentary in March, however, was not shy about identifying the authoritarianism of the Chinese regime and, by extension, the harsh measures taken by Saudi Arabias absolute monarchy as a decisive factor in effective COVID-19 responses. Saudi columnists for a more nationalist daily, Okaz a platform known for frequent conspiratorial accusations along with occasional (and extremely subtle) critiques of state policy lauded the Chinese response for, among other factors, being free of political quarrels and partisan controversy. Others noted that Beijings evidently successful management of the crisis lent credibility to Chinas efforts at garnering soft power in the region.

These comparisons (largely sidestepping successful responses in democracies like Germany, Japan, or South Korea) feed into a regular line of Saudi commentary criticism of Western notions of human rights and political freedoms. Salman al-Dosary argued that Western democracies ineffective responses to COVID-19 was a function of their inability to limit citizens freedoms, stating, The world has discovered that the same principles that protect public freedoms are the same ones that stand unable to protect lives. European nations have come under particular criticism, with Okaz writer Hamood Abu Taleb accusing the states of the old continent of suffering from a different terminal illness resting on their laurels rather than striving to address new social challenges.

Some of Okazs columnists have even adopted the fringe conspiracies popular on Chinese social media, such as the idea that Italy rather than China is the true source of the COVID-19 outbreak. What if it is proven beyond any doubt that COVID-19 is not from China, but that China simply discovered it and helped the world to confront it? Will anyone doubt that China will then be the leader of a new world? opined Hani al-Dhaheri, one of the papers most pugnacious writers.

These media narratives have no doubt been helped along by an effective Chinese public-relations campaign, including collaborations between the China Media Group and outlets across the Arabic-speaking world. Chinas ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chen Weiqing, has been active on Twitter, promoting Saudi-Chinese solidarity and highlighting instances of Saudi-Chinese medical collaboration to understand and contain the virus. The ambassador has also drawn attention to his Arabic-language appearances on Saudi television shows to explain the Chinese governments COVID-19 response.

In print media, the consul general of China in Jeddah, Tan Banglin, listed off Chinas efforts to contain the virus in an Okaz op-ed, while criticizing those who have wasted time smearing the reputation of China. Ambassador Chen gave an interview to the more established Al-Riyadh, emphasizing the importance of trade ties with the kingdom and highlighting Chinas efforts to assist in combatting the virus around the world.

This messaging comes against a backdrop of limited but meaningful cooperation between China and Saudi Arabia with regards to COVID-19, as was seen with Saudi Arabia sending a shipment of aid to Wuhan, China (the epicenter of the outbreak) in early March. At the same time, the Chinese ambassador to Saudi Arabia was meeting with the Gulf Cooperation Council to share some of the Chinese governments accumulated knowledge about the virus. Saudi Arabia also took part in a video conference between Chinese health officials and their counterparts across the Middle East and North Africa.

Whither the United States?

By contrast, U.S.-Saudi cooperation in response to the pandemic appears to have been almost nonexistent. Washingtons primary concern in the bilateral relationship appears to be the falling price of oil. Trumps priority with respect to the kingdom has been to pressure Saudi leaders to rescue U.S. shale producers from low oil prices, either through unilateral cuts or in cooperation with other producers. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has only mentioned the pandemic in passing before pressing Saudi counterparts on the importance of stabilizing global energy markets. The United States has even undermined Saudi efforts to coordinate greater support for the World Health Organization via the G-20 (which the kingdom currently heads), with Trump suspending payments to the World Health Organization outright.

Washington has largely been spared Saudi criticism, official or otherwise, because of an effective cordon sanitaire in Saudi media around the Trump administration. Saudi authorities are likely aware that they will never deal with a more favorable U.S. leader than Trump, who has consistently blocked or blunted U.S. domestic criticisms of Riyadh. In particular, Trump has wielded presidential vetoes to defend arms sales to the Saudi Arabia against bipartisan legislation, going against Congress and an American public deeply skeptical of arms sales abroad. Saudi officials lobbying for Washington are also unlikely to find a more cooperative counterpart than the presidents advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

While few have gone as far as Muhammad al-Said in predicting that Trump will emerge from the crisis as the Abraham Lincoln of the age, most Saudi commentators have shied away from suggesting that his administration might be to blame for the course of the pandemic in the United States. Abdelrahman al-Rashed excused the slow U.S. response on the basis of the limited power of the federal state, while sympathizing with right-wing conspiracy theories in the United States that much of the suffering caused by the virus is a hoax aimed at attacking Trump.

Even in a sympathetic media environment, American efforts at public outreach reflect a persistent underinvestment in its diplomatic capacity compared with Chinese policies. Messaging out of the U.S. embassy in Riyadh has centered around rote repetition of centrally produced content, such as tweeting out an article highlighting the efforts of American distilleries to combat COVID-19 to followers in the nominally dry kingdom. Filling positions that require advanced Arabic-language skills is a constant struggle, making engagement with local media outlets an uphill battle; the U.S. ambassador to Riyadh has thus far only conducted one short interview (even shorter on specifics) with Okaz. This contrasts with a heavy emphasis on regional and language expertise in the Chinese diplomatic corps.

Narratives Without Works Are Useless

Some analysts, like the Hudson Institutes John Lee, have stressed that this war of narratives is where the United States needs to focus in attention to maintain its standing on the international stage. Yet this underestimates how much U.S. credibility on this issue has been undercut by its failure to mount an effective response at home and abroad. Other experts, like Jonathan Fulton of Zayed University, have argued that Chinas effective messaging and outreach have raised its standing among the Gulf monarchies. This is true to an extent, but it overestimates the credibility of Chinese messaging amid new revelations of its COVID-19 obfuscations.

Commentary in Saudi Arabia exposes the folly of official American messaging on COVID-19, which focuses on pinning the blame for the pandemic on China. American criticism of Beijing rings hollow given the obvious failure of the U.S. government to marshal an effective pandemic response within its own borders. For one, Chinas initial messaging was rendered credible by its past track-record of state-led development. Perhaps the successes declared by China are exaggerated or government propaganda, Abdelrahman al-Rashed conceded on March 30, but the numbers of its achievements in a decade and a half do not lie. At the same time, Chinas own failings have attracted increasing attention in all but Saudi Arabias most avowedly pro-China outlets. Articles in Okaz have increasingly highlighted Chinas manipulation of COVID-19 statistics; Abeer al-Fawzan accused China of attacking the whole world and Tariq al-Hamid referenced doubts about [Chinas] credibility in respective op-eds.

Furthermore, even as China falters in its efforts to make soft-power inroads with like-minded autocracies like the Gulf monarchies, the United States will not automatically benefit. Saudi commentators are certainly aware of the Trump administrations efforts to brand COVID-19 as the China virus, but strategic communications in the absence of concrete action damages American credibility. On social media, the amplified news of the medical achievements and successes from China is matched by a deliberate smear campaign from the United States, observed Abdelrahman al-Rashed in Al-Sharq al-Aawsat.

Al-Riyadh, probably the most pro-China of Saudi outlets, made no mention of China in a recent editorial on decisive responses to the pandemic. Yet it all but mocked Trump and Pompeo for contenting themselves [in their COVID-19 response] with calling the epidemic the Chinese virus rather than giving the crisis the attention it deserved. Likewise, Al-Sharq al-Aawsat afforded Hussein Shobokshi space to further criticize Chinas response, which he compared with the successful democratic model of the Republic of China (no mention of the United States).

Regardless of Chinas actions, U.S. domestic failures and an underwhelming diplomatic response the pandemic only reinforce the idea that the United States is both unwilling to provide a semblance of global leadership and unable to set much of an example for other countries to follow. The West has not shown a itself as a shining example of conduct towards the virus, noted former Saudi intelligence director Turki al-Faisal in an interview published April 5. Nor have China, Russia, and Iran.

A New Approach?

Instead of engaging in a war of words with China, the United States should improve its domestic response to the pandemic and find new ways to deepen international cooperation. At a minimum, regaining the standing to offer credible advice or criticism about the COVID-19 pandemic requires a more effective U.S. response domestically. Foreign audiences are likely to see efforts to cast blame on China as a way to deflect attention from the denial and dysfunction that has plagued the Trump administrations response to COVID-19.

For now, though, policymakers concerned with shoring up U.S. foreign relations with key states like Saudi Arabia should start with small efforts towards cooperation at the margins convening information sessions with U.S. health experts, for example, or finding new ways to support global academic and cultural exchange. Chinas support for Saudi Arabia amid the COVID-19 virus has been quite limited, yet it compares favorably with the practically nonexistent U.S. engagement. Unfortunately, the Trump administrations recent decision to defund the World Health Organization suggests that the diplomatic dimension of Washingtons pandemic response may get worse before it gets better.

Andrew Leber is a PhD candidate at Harvard Universitys Department of Government, where he researches Saudi policymaking in labor-market reform and regional development. He is on Twitter at @AndrewMLeber and occasionally blogs about Saudi media at The Bitter Lake.

Image: Saudi Press Agency

Continued here:

China and COVID-19 in Saudi Media - War on the Rocks

A week after testing positive for Covid-19, Joshua Fiske drove himself to a New Jersey hospital with a fever nearing 104 and a blood oxygen level extraordinarily low for an athletic 47-year-old. An X-ray revealed pneumonia in both lungs.

He was admitted but his condition worsened: He felt cold enough to shiver under five blankets in one moment, then sweated through his hospital gown the next. He worried he wouldnt pull through. He called his wife to say he loved her. He called his two sons and asked them to take care oftheirmother, then tapped out a letter to them on his phone. He wantedthem to grow into good, kind men,he told them. Above all, he urged, Dont let this event define you.

Among the many mysteries of Covid-19 is why relatively healthy young people suddenly become critically ill or die.

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One answer is what was happening to Fiske. His body had begun to fight the coronavirus with the immune systems equivalent of thermonuclear weapons proteins so powerful they risk annihilating the body they are supposed to protect. This massive over-reaction, known as acytokine storm, is believed to be a major reason that a growing number of exceedingly fit people find themselves fighting for their lives.

Immune cells release cytokines as part of the normal response to infections, but in many Covid-19 patients, this process gets out of hand, leading to inflammation and fluid buildup in the lungs. The storms pose a dilemma for doctors: Prescribe medications that tamp down the immune system at the wrong moment, and the body will be defenseless against the coronavirus or any opportunistic infection thats taken root. Do nothing, and theres a good chance the massive attack will shut down the lungs and other vital organs.

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Scientists have begun to study how many patients who become critically ill with Covid-19 experience these storms, which were initially seen in some of the earliest patients hospitalized in Wuhan, China. In one study of 53 patients in China, researchers concluded that three particular cytokines were correlated with disease severity and death. (The paper was posted on a preprint server and hasnt been peer-reviewed.)

The crucial question of what portion of critically ill patients are vulnerable to cytokine storms and why awaits more detailed research, said Randy Cron, a rheumatologist at the Childrens Hospital of Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. We dont know the numbers, but among previously healthy people ages 20 to 60 who require hospitalization, a significant number are suffering from cytokine storms in addition to the virus, Cron told STAT.

There are not yet data for the number of patients with cytokine storms who require ICU or ventilator care, Cron said. But outside the 85-year-old with hypertension or diabetes, if you are that sick, its very likely that thats what you are experiencing, he said.

Fiske was among the last people anybody would have expected to become seriously ill. A Livingston, N.J., urologist, he took up running seven years ago at the age of 40. Since then, he has completed the New York City marathon, and six half marathons from Philadelphia to Brooklyn, and he was running 16 to 20 miles a week.

On March16, after a day in the operating room, Fiskespiked a fever of 101. Hed been zealous about wearing personal protection equipment, and was shedding his scrubs in the garage and showering in the basement for weeks, but he knew the risks. Because he was a doctor, he was able to get tested for the virus at the hospital where he worked,Overlook Medical Center in Summit.

He felt OK at first, and stayed in his basement. He advised patients and talked to his wife and high-school age sonsby FaceTime. His friend and colleague, an infectious disease specialist named Meher Sultana, prescribed him the antibiotic Zithromax and the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, an unproven drug combination that has been used to help fight the virus.

But despite regular Tylenol, Fiskes fever persisted, and Sultana and his dad, Steven, a gastroenterologist, didnt like how he looked. On March 23, he went to the hospital.

His oxygen level was 91 percent, extraordinarily low for someone who was in such good shape. And although his lungs didnt hurt, an X-ray revealed the double pneumonia. He went quickly to an isolated room with a sliver of a window from which a nurse, Kasey Welch, could monitor him from so she wouldnt have to change her PPE every time she left his room. They, too, began to FaceTime.

Sultana prescribed intravenous fluids, Tylenol, and vitamin C, which did not help. He began to doubt he would survive, but his wife, Isabella, remained optimistic, summoning the memory of her Jewish grandmother, whod survived the Holocaust in Poland by hiding in the woods with her sister and Isabellas father. Some people pray to God, I prayed to my grandmother, she said.

Still, things were not looking good. It hurt to talk, and he labored even to shift positions in bed.

He just wasnt getting better, and he was starting to have a toxic look, Sultana said. I was getting very concerned about the possibility of permanent harm to his lungs.

On March 25, she and Fiskes father discussed the possibility of moving Josh to the intensive care unit and putting him on a ventilator, but that posed a separate array of dangers. The machines, while sometimes life-saving, can trigger a cascade of inflammation that leads to organ damage. Sultana found herself in the same position as doctors from China to Italy, from Spain to Argentina: fighting a virus that had been spreading in people for only for several months, and about which hardly anything was known. There was scant scientific literature to consult, and no playbook to follow.

Some doctors were discussing the possibility that many otherwise robust patients were experiencing cytokine storms. One key sign of that was the bodys levels of ferritin, a protein in the body that binds to iron.

Between admission on March 23 and the following day, Fiskes ferritin skyrocketed from 1,712 to 4,316 micrograms per liter, more than 10 times the normal amount. His level of C-reactive protein, another indicator of inflammation and potential cytokine storm, was 15 times the normal reading.

Sultana was running out of options, and she had to act quickly. She researched the anecdotal reports on treatments with potential against the coronavirus. One was a powerful anti-inflammatory drug often used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease in which the immune system also goes into overdrive, attacking the body. She reasoned that Fiske might respond to this drug, called Actemra, which inhibits a particular cytokine called IL-6. Following promising results in China when the drug was used off-label in Covid-19 patients, the FDA had approved its use in U.S. clinical trials in March. (Reports from Italy using a similar drug, Kezvara, showed similar outcomes; it is now in global clinical trials.)

None of this is how medicine is supposed to be practiced in the data-centric 21st century, but Sultana and her colleagues across the world have found themselves flinging any plausible weapon at the virus.

I couldnt even lie to him and say, Youre going to be OK,' Sultana said.

Fiskes father, 72, relied on more cinematic language to describe how he felt about the possibility he might lose his son. I dont panic easily, Steven Fiske said. But I was sad and scared for the first time in my medical career. I had to face the fact that medicine might not save my own son, who was another doctor.

This virus, Steven Fiske said, is a combination of Alien, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Andromeda Strain, and Apocalypse Now.'

On the morning of March 26, with Fiskes fever still near 104, Welch gave him the infusion of Actemra. Within two hours, his fever dropped to 99 degrees and his oxygen levels returned to near normal.

It appeared the drug had worked. Youre going to be fine, Sultana reassured him by FaceTime.

Fiske stayed in isolation for four more days, improving daily and taking his own vitals so the nurses wouldnt need to use more PPE. On March 30, Welch wheeled Fiske out of his room and into the lobby, where Isabella was waiting. For the first time, she allowed herself to cry.

He spent the next week in his basement, video-consulting with patients. On April 6, after 20 days without touching another person, he climbed the stairs and rejoined his wife and sons, ages 17 and 15.

Fiske has slowly resumed exercising, completing three 10-minute miles and a few sessions on his exercise bicycle. And last week, he returned to the office for the first time in a month. He is happy to be seeing patients in person again.

Soon, he is scheduled to return, as a surgeon, to the hospital where he was so recently treated. His experiences have shifted his perspective.

Ive never been nervous walking into a hospital before, Fiske said. I fought a war, and Im going back to the same battlefield.

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He ran marathons and was fit. So why did Covid-19 almost kill him? - STAT

A hospital patient in Stamford, Conn., who has COVID-19 symptoms gets his temperature checked. Severe infections with the novel coronavirus have been unusually high among African Americans and Latinos in many hospitals. John Moore/Getty Images hide caption

A hospital patient in Stamford, Conn., who has COVID-19 symptoms gets his temperature checked. Severe infections with the novel coronavirus have been unusually high among African Americans and Latinos in many hospitals.

Our patient in the emergency bay was not doing well. Beads of sweat lined his forehead and his eyes were closed; all of his energy was focused on breathing. Despite all of his efforts, he was sleepy and confused, telltale signs that his brain was not getting enough oxygen. He would inevitably need intubation heavy sedation and a breathing tube to prevent things from quickly getting worse.

I had to ask his son, a man in his early 20s, if it would be within his dad's wishes to intubate him. The young man was shaking with fear, too scared to speak aloud an answer. There were no other family members to help make this tough decision. As a black physician, I (Dr. Khidir) couldn't help but notice that once again it was a patient of color who was critically ill from what was almost certainly COVID-19.

Across the United States, we are seeing alarming statistics about the disproportionate toll of COVID-19 on Latino and black people. In New York City, the New York Times tells us, coronavirus is twice as deadly for these minorities as for their white counterparts. In both Chicago and Louisiana, black patients account for 70% of coronavirus deaths, even though they make up roughly a third of the population.

At Massachusetts General Hospital, where we practice, an estimated 35% to 40% of patients admitted to the hospital with the coronavirus are Latino that's a 400% increase over the percentage of patients admitted before the outbreak who were Latino.

In the emergency room, conversations about a patient's end-of-life wishes are taking place in broken Spanish, seconds before they get intubated. In the intensive care unit, doctors barely have time to update family members, because they're too bogged down by patient-care tasks to call an interpreter. For patients healthy enough to go home, our usual script around social distancing falls short, as many of our black and Latino patients are unable to self-isolate within large multigenerational households. In addition, many of these patients either are essential workers or live with one they cannot simply "stay home".

In a pandemic that has stretched U.S. health care resources thin, it's not surprising to see a worsening of already existent health care disparities. Several states and organizations have started to release Crisis Standards of Care guidelines in recent weeks these are meant to help hospitals ration critical resources like ventilators and intensive care unit beds, if and when the need is dire.

The overall aim of such guidelines, which can vary in their specifics from state to state and hospital to hospital, is to allocate limited resources to the people who are most likely to benefit from them.

To determine which patients get priority in treatment, several of the CSCs published so far, such as guidelines from Colorado and Massachusetts, recommend that the hospital use frameworks that include the patient's age and "SOFA" score (a measure of how critically ill the patient is at arrival, based on objective laboratory values). Importantly, they also include what we doctors call "comorbidities" other, underlying medical conditions that can put patients who are infected with this virus at a higher risk for worse outcomes.

We know that historically disadvantaged populations including black and Latino patients have a higher burden of the comorbidities traditionally used by hospitals to stratify patients by risk. This is largely because of structural and socioeconomic factors. Studies and statistics suggest that, compared to their white counterparts, black patients are 40% more likely to have high blood pressure, twice as likely to have heart failure, three times as likely to die from asthma-related complications, three times more likely to have chronic kidney disease, twice as likely to be diagnosed with colon and prostate cancer, and represent 44% of the HIV positive population. Similarly, Latino patients are twice as likely to both have and die from diabetes, and twice as likely to have chronic liver disease than non-Hispanic whites.

Although the foundational principle of Crisis Standards of Care guidelines are utilitarian and aim to benefit the greatest number of people while treating "individual cases fairly," a system that penalizes on the basis of comorbidities will undoubtedly and unfairly penalize the populations that are already more vulnerable to those conditions.

Furthermore, given the novelty of COVID-19, we still don't have a complete picture of which factors lead to worse outcomes. While some data suggest that patients with severe COVID-19 are more likely to have hypertension or respiratory or cardiovascular illnesses, there are also findings suggesting that men have more severe disease than women. Yet, the Crisis Standards of Care are not factoring sex into their scoring system. This means that we are arbitrarily choosing metrics to guess which patients will do better, and we're doing so at the expense of populations that have historically been marginalized by the health care system.

COVID-19 is already affecting and killing a disproportionate number of black and Latino patients across the United States. Using comorbidities as a proxy for disease severity to allocate resources, without taking into account race and ethnicity, will almost certainly mean that racial and ethnic minorities will be placed in the "back of the line" for critical care resources.

In order to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people ethically and fairly, standards of care must be informed by the existing inequalities in our country.

While we're not suggesting that comorbidities be removed from crisis standards of care altogether, we urge states to reevaluate current guidelines and include only major comorbidities with a known short-term impact on a patient's prognosis.

States should also track and make publicly available demographic data including race and ethnicity for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in order to ensure that people of color are not being denied resources disproportionately. Lastly, states should ensure that the committees designing crisis standards of care are composed of a racially and ethnically diverse group of individuals in a way that is representative of their population.

It was devastating enough to have to tell my African American patient's young son that his dad's illness was so life-threatening we needed to place a breathing tube down his throat and send him to the intensive care unit. I can only imagine how he would feel if, in some unfortunate circumstance, we would have to tell him that his father would need to be taken off the ventilator to conserve resources.

Dr. Jossie Carreras Tartak and Dr. Hazar Khidir are residents in Emergency Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

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Opinion:Race Disparities Built In To COVID-19 Treatment Guidance For Hospitals : Shots - Health News - NPR

We answer the often searched question: "What are the symptoms of coronavirus versus the flu?" USA TODAY

DETROIT A 5-year-old Detroit girl has died of the novel coronavirus, becoming the first child in the stateto die of the pathogen that has now infected more than 31,000 Michiganders and claimed the lives of 2,391.

The victim isSkylar Herbert, who on Sunday becamethe youngest person in Michigan to die of COVID-19, according to Michigan Health Departmentstatistics.Up until now,the state's youngest victim was20;the oldest 107, with the average age being 73.

Beaumont Hospital confirmed Skylar's death late Sunday night.

"The loss of a child, at any time, under any circumstances, is a tragedy," Beaumont said in a statement. "We are heartbroken that COVID-19 has taken the life of a child. We extend our deepest sympathy to Skylars family and all others who have lost a loved one to this virus."

Skylar Herbert, 5, of Detroit, became the first child to die of COVID-19 in Michigan on Sunday, April, 19, 2020.(Photo: Family photo)

According to the Detroit News, which was first to report Skylar's death, the girl tested positive for COVID-19 in March after initially complaining of a headache: her parents took her to the pediatrician, where she tested positive for strep throat and was sent home on antibiotics.

But the headaches were excruciatingso they took her to the hospital, where she tested positive for the virusand later developed a rare form of meningitis and brain swelling. She died on Sunday at Royal Oak Beaumont after spending two weeks on a ventilator.

We decided to take her off the ventilator today because her improvement had stopped, the doctors told us that it was possible she was brain dead, and we basically just knew she wasnt coming back to us, LaVondria Herbert, Skylar's mother, told the Detroit News.

The girl's mom is a Detroit police officer; her a father a firefighter.

Both are now desperately hoping for a cure so that other parents don't have to lose a child as they did.

She was the type of girl that would just run up to you and jump in your arms and hug you," LaVondria told the News."It didnt matter what she was doing, she would stop what she was doing and tell me she loved me like 20 times a day."

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan called Skylar's death one of the "saddest" momentsin the city's ongoing fight with COVID-19.

"We have had a number of sad days here since the coronavirus has hit this country, but this is one of the saddest. This weekend we lost 5-year-old Skyler Herbert, who was a real daughter of the City of Detroit," Duggan said on Monday, referring to her parents as "people whose entire lives were built around building the city."

Duggan said that he spoke to Skylar's mom on Monday and described the little girl as bright andpersonable.

Of her death, the mayor said: "It's a reminder of all of us what's at stake with our commitment to social distancing and I want the Herbert family to know that they're being held in the hearts of all Detroiters today."

Skyler was one of 47 deaths recorded over the last three days in Detroit.

Family and friends took to Facebook to mourn the little girl, saying they were heartbroken over the loss of a beautiful little girl remembered for her smile.

"This beautiful young soul is gone too soon.... You hear news reports and sometimes because of all that has happened, we become numb, or simply dont pay attention. However, when it hits home we are reminded of of the importance of life and how much we need to appreciate it. Tonight hit home," posted Fred Durhal III of Detroit, who is part of Skylar's extended family. "Im here for you if you need anything. Love you all."

Skylar's uncle, Johnny Hardiman, pleaded with the public to pray for his family.

"This hurts to the core!!! Skylar Everyone please pray for my brother and sister, Ebbie and LaVondria Herbert," Hardiman posted on Facebook.

Quin Qutie Jones, who described herself as Skylar's aunt, was equally devastated.

"MAY GOD REST HER LITTLE/BIG SOUL, I'M GONNA MISS YOU SKY BOO AND THAT BEAUTIFUL SMILE; REST IN PARADISE BABY. LOVE, HUGS and PRAYERS to my sis LaVondria Herbert and FAMILY,"Jones posted on Facebook.

The Metropolitan Church of God, where Skylar attended, also asked for prayers for the child's family.

"There are no words to express how deeply saddened we are by the passing our beloved member Skylar Herbert," the church posted on Facebook. "Skylar touched our hearts with her cheerful spirit and brightened our Sunday's with her smile. We thank God for gracing our congregation with her life and find solace in knowing that she now rests in the Lord's presence."

Contributing:M.L. Elrick, Detroit Free Press

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A 5-year-old Detroit girl dies of COVID-19, becoming the first child to die in Michigan - USA TODAY

A new study conducted by the University of Southern California along with the LA County Department of Public Health indicates the presence of antibodies for COVID-19 in between 2.8 and 5.6% of the population of LA County, suggesting that between 221,000 and 442,000 individuals had the infection up to 55 times more people than have been confirmed via testing. This is the second antibody study in a short span of time in California that suspects infections are far more widespread than previously thought, and a good justification for continued social distancing measures.

The LA County study does contain some good news, if the antibody testing proves to be accurate (we arent entirely sure what they show for sure at this point, especially in terms of immunity), in that the mortality rate of the infection is actually much lower than the official diagnosed case data would suggest. The infection rate found via antibody testing through the USC study is also remarkably close to the rate found in a Stanford study published last week about the number of infections in Santa Clara County, which found that between 48,000 and 81,000 people in that part of California couldve had and recovered from the infection.

Whereas the LA study found around 2.8 to 5.6% had antibodies, accounting for the margin of error and extrapolating from results to the entire population, the Stanford research found between 2.5 and 4.2% of residents carry antibodies for the infection. Those numbers are based on the test kits performance, as well as the demographic makeup of the sample population tested.

Neither new research papers have yet been peer-reviewed, so its worth taking them with a grain of salt. But the close alignment between the numbers in both, along with early results from similar studies being conducted globally, does seem to suggest that the number of actual cases of COVID-19 far undershoots the published numbers, which typically only include confirmed diagnoses most of which represent individuals showing moderate to severe symptoms.

The higher rate of undetected infection definitely should not be taken as a sign that COVID-19 is less serious than it appeared, however; this new info only means that its transmission from people who showed no outward symptoms and subsequently never sought any medical care or were identified for quarantine or contact tracing is probably a lot higher than anyone guessed.

That means social distancing measures are more important than ever, as its likely harder than ever to identify who might be a passive carrier of the virus that leads to COVID-19 without realizing it. Eventually, understanding the nature of the spread should help with refining measures to avoid the greatest potential risks of exposure, but for now, this new info just means that COVID-19 is much more effective at moving through a population without raising early warning signs than we previously understood.

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LA COVID-19 antibody study adds further support for a higher-than-suspected infection rate - TechCrunch

A man wearing a face mask as a preventive measure against the spread of the new coronavirus walks next to commercial buildings in the Raffles Place financial business district in Singapore on April 14. Roslan Rahman/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A man wearing a face mask as a preventive measure against the spread of the new coronavirus walks next to commercial buildings in the Raffles Place financial business district in Singapore on April 14.

Robert Muggah is a principal of the SecDev Group and cofounder of the Igarape Institute. His latest book, Terra Incognita, co-authored with Ian Goldin, focuses on the systemic threats facing our world.

Thomas Ermacora is a city futurist, regeneration architect and technology investor, co-author of Recoded City: Co-Creating Urban Futures.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the world's bustling cities to a screeching halt. The outbreak has revealed how urban centers are the front and last lines of defense against infectious disease outbreaks. They are also the key to leading national and global recovery.

The pandemic hit some cities harder than others. It is exposing the fault lines that stratify our societies, especially inequalities in income, gender, race and opportunity. Decisions made in the coming months not just by national leaders, but governors and mayors, will have generational consequences. Some cities will flourish, emerging more resilient than before. Most will suffer and others will collapse.

The severity of the pandemic is connected fundamentally to governance. Where there is leadership and coordination, as in Copenhagen, Seoul or Taipei, the virus is more rapidly contained. Where there is competition and dysfunction, fatality rates are higher. The coronavirus has exposed the tattered state of the social contract in nations rich and poor. These failures will have consequential knock-on effects.

We are about to start one of the greatest experiments in recent history as cities everywhere emerge from lockdown. The stakes could not be higher. A staggering 81% of the global workforce is affected by full or partial shutdown measures. Most people live pay-check to pay-check and cannot afford to stay isolated.

But this is just the beginning: We can expect waves of infectious disease outbreaks for years until we have a vaccine and strong antiviral options.

Everyone agrees that cities cannot stay in lockdown indefinitely. So how are they expected to cope? In the short-term, face masks, test kits, digital contact tracing, social distancing and other restrictions will be ubiquitous. Measures will vary in intensity and invasiveness from city to city. In China, cellphone-based contact tracing is already the norm with people color-coded according to their risk of infectiousness. Residential management committees are also keeping villagers from moving to cities.

A number of European cities that implemented stringent social distancing measures are now cautiously opening day cares, schools, universities and businesses. States across the U.S. are considering steps to open back up. Cities across Africa, Asia and Latin America are facing hard choices given that, in many areas, social distancing measures were a virtual impossibility to begin with.

After saving lives, an important question facing every mayor is what does a city look like in the COVID-19 era? We identified nine trends that are likely to play out in the months and years ahead.

First, the places where people congregate from sports arenas to shopping malls and will be smartly retrofitted for social distancing. Some are already offering virtual and augmented reality alternatives. We can expect these trends to continue speeding up.

Second, the shift to online retail will be accelerated. Most stores selling products from computers to car parts are moving to cyberspace. Although some of them will recover, the pandemic could be terminal for those that could not survive prolonged supply and demand shocks. Sadly, smaller businesses are most at risk despite being the very assets that contribute to city identity and character.

Third, urban mobility will undergo a series of corrections. For one, public buses, trains and ferries may come back more aggressively than before. Ride-sharing options will slow down until hygienic solutions are available. Self-driving alternatives could start arriving, threatening millions of jobs. More people will want to work from home or take their bikes to work. Cities will give more space to pedestrians, a rare silver lining to the crisis.

Fourth, the way societies consume and produce food in cities will be overhauled. The overdependence on just-in-time global supply chains and meat-based diets is perilous. Cities are fundamentally rethinking local and more sustainable production. Expect to see a boom in vertical and urban gardens, or even better, rooftop and container farming. Likewise, public spaces and parks will be reenvisioned to accommodate food production, as well as to mitigate threats from flooding and storms.

Fifth, privacy and politics will be deeply affected, and mostly for the worse. China is pioneering massive surveillance in the name of population health and marketing its expertise to other nations. COVID-19 not only threatens to disrupt elections and public demonstrations, but intrusive technological responses could rapidly overwhelm other human rights as well.

Sixth, the climate dividend is already revealing itself as fewer people fly, drive and pollute. Residents of some Indian cities can see the Himalayas and people are breathing cleaner air in Beijing. This is an experience that people may not want to relinquish in the new abnormal. But there are also environmental risks from the pandemic, especially as it potentially slows down global efforts to meet lower emissions goals set in the Paris Climate Agreement. City networks such as C40 will become more important than ever.

Seventh, the virus is strengthening social cohesion in some cities. Neighborhood groups are spontaneously coming together online to help the elderly, homeless and migrants. These hyperlocal structures are vital given the repeated failures of federal and state-level responses. If empowered and given more voice, they will play a crucial role in city renewal.

Eighth, COVID-19 is accelerating several social trends that were already underway. It is hastening the shift from structured office environments to more flexible, virtual and home-based work arrangements. Reduced demand for office space will hurt cities, especially their density. It is also drawing attention to the epidemic of loneliness and mental illness in many cities, and could lead to greater efforts to provide appropriate services and solidarity.

All of these COVID-19 trends are reinforcing the central place of digital connectivity, and cyber security, and the functions of residential areas where people live and work. They also underline the ways in which cities need to reimagine their overall vision and design. We can expect to see new urban design standards that combine crisis response with long-term, equitable benefits for society and the environment. The example of Amsterdam stands out, as it moves toward a city planning model built on "doughnut economics."

With over half of the world's population living in cities, they are important for scaling solutions on this pandemic and the next one. Cities have always exhibited the capacity to evolve after crises. There's a reason why people say the city is where the future happens first. If mayors, business leaders and civic entrepreneurs make the right decisions now, many cities might bounce back better than before. The most successful of them will design-in principles of resilience, sustainability and regenerative economics alongside a radical intolerance for inequality.

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Opinion: Redesigning The COVID-19 City - NPR