July 14 coronavirus news

Singapore has fallen into a deep economic slump — and it's even worse than many had predicted.

The government said Tuesday that GDP likely shrank 12.6% in the second quarter compared to the same time the previous year, marking "the steepest drop on record," according to economists.

GDP shrank by 41.2% in the second quarter compared to the previous three months, more than most analysts had expected.

That officially pushed the country into a recession. Singapore's GDP had already fallen by 0.3% in the first quarter on a year-on-year basis. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

The latest decline was due to strict government restrictions, known locally as "circuit breaker" measures, which were enforced from April to June as the country dealt with a sudden spike in coronavirus cases.

This included the shutdown of many businesses, including "the suspension of nonessential services and closure of most workplace premises," the Ministry of Trade and Industry noted in a statement.

Officials had already been bracing for bad news. Prior to the new numbers, the government had slashed the country's economic forecast three times this year alone.

But "it's not all gloom and doom," Yun Liu, an economist at HSBC, wrote in a report to clients.

Some analysts believe the worst is over for Singapore, particularly since the government has deployed billions of dollars in stimulus measures to shore up the flagging economy.

"Looking ahead, Q2 will mark the trough," Alex Holmes, Asia economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a research note Tuesday.

"The key reason for optimism is the huge size of the government’s stimulus package, which is equivalent to around 20% of GDP."

While US President Donald Trump obsesses about his reelection hopes in his White House bubble, state and local leaders are frantically reversing state reopenings that he demanded, which turned America into the world's biggest coronavirus hotspot.

As emergency rooms filled and the virus quickened its relentless march across southern and Western states, Trump stuck to the fiction that the worst is already over: "We had to close it down; now we're opening it up," the President said of the economy at the White House, patting himself on the back for saving "millions of lives."

As new cases of the disease reach 60,000 a day nationwide, many leaders in both parties, including those who supported Trump's aggressive approach, now have little choice but to prioritize science over politics, leaving the President looking out of touch with reality.

The picture is of a nation that is beginning to shut down again in defiance of the President's triumphant but misleading claims that a "transition to greatness" is under way.

Restrictions imposed on cities as large as Houston and Los Angeles could set back the surprising revival in the economy last month. Modest job gains, trumpeted by the President, could turn into permanent job losses.

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People who have been infected with coronavirus could see their immunity decline within months, studies have found -- which is just “what we were afraid of,” Dr. William Haseltine told CNN today.

Haseltine, a former professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, said the studies demonstrated long-suspected fears.

"This (virus), like its sister coronaviruses, the ones that give us colds, are very different from the childhood viruses," he said.

When you get childhood viruses like measles and mumps, you're then protected from re-infection for life. But Haseltine said it’s a different story with the cold viruses, because you get them and then your body “forgets” it was ever infected. 

"That's what we were afraid of,” he said.

If the findings are confirmed to be true, they could have significant implications for sick patients, for vaccine development, and for the idea that populations could achieve herd immunity.

Read more here:

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Hong Kong is tightening travel restrictions and social distancing measures as it battles a "third wave" of cases.

The city reported 52 new cases on Monday, 41 of which were local transmissions and the other 11 with travel history. This raises the total number of confirmed cases to 1,521.

The past seven days alone have seen 236 new cases -- an alarming surge in Hong Kong, which has been lauded for its quick and effective response to the pandemic. For many weeks before this surge, cases were down to single digits, and sometimes zero, every day.

Under the new restrictions announced Monday:

At least ten incarcerated people at the San Quentin Prison in Northern California have died from coronavirus complications, according to data from California's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).

San Quentin is the site of the worst coronavirus outbreak in California's prison system, with nearly 1,400 inmates who have tested positive. 

The prison population is currently at about 4,000 inmates. It has been reduced by almost 10,000 inmates since March, through expedited transitions to parole and suspended intake from county jails, said CDCR.

There are 2,423 infected incarcerated people in California. There are also 755 CDCR employees who have tested positive across the state.

The Australian state of Victoria recorded 270 new cases on Monday, according to Premier Daniel Andrews.

The state has been conducting mass testing in response to a spike in cases; it conducted 30,195 tests on Saturday, 22,943 tests on Sunday, and 21,995 tests on Monday.

The decline in cases could be due to stay-at-home order in the cities of Melbourne and Mitchell Shire, Andrews said. Melbourne's lockdown, imposed last Wednesday, will be in place for six weeks -- affecting almost 5 million people.

The state now has 1,803 active cases. Of the new cases discovered Monday, 242 are still being traced.

Fears are growing that the Victoria outbreak may have spread to the neighbouring state of New South Wales, where 13 new cases were reported on Tuesday. 

In the US state of Michigan, 43 new coronavirus cases have been linked to a large house party from early July in Washtenaw County, health officials said in a press release Monday.

Most of the new cases are young people between the ages of 15 and 25, said the release. The party is believed to have taken place between July 2 and 3.

Spread from the party has impacted people outside the county and even the Midwestern state, according to the release.

Health officials are now asking anyone who attended the party to self quarantine and monitor themselves for symptoms of the virus for 14 days.

There were an additional 66 people who are believed to have had face-to-face contact with a confirmed case. That number does not include family members who are immediate household contacts of the newly identified cases, the release said.

Read the full story here:

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More than 100,000 people in India have tested positive in just the past four days, said the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Tuesday.

The country recorded 28,498 new cases and 553 new deaths in the last 24 hours, said the ministry. That raises the country's total to 906,752 cases and 23,727 deaths.

Not all these cases are active: More than 571,000 have recovered from the virus, leaving 311,565 cases still active.

More than 12 million tests have been conducted nationwide, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research.

Surging coronavirus cases across the United States are causing delays in getting test results from laboratories, according to Quest Diagnostics, a leading provider of diagnostic services.

“Soaring demand” for a Covid-19 molecular test is “slowing the time” the company can provide test results even after rapidly scaling up its capacity, Quest said Monday.

Increased capacity: The company has already doubled its testing capacity from two months ago, and now is able to perform 125,000 molecular diagnostic tests a day. By the end of the month, it expects to have the capacity for 150,000 tests a day.

Despite this increase in capacity, it's taking up to a day to process test results for its priority patients: hospital patients, pre-operative patients in acute care settings and symptomatic healthcare workers. For all other cases, it’s taking on average seven or more days, said Quest in a press release.

The company is facing challenges in trying to ramp up testing: Global supply constraints are still an issue, the company said. 

The lab network is trying to add new technology platforms and is considering an expansion of its lab referral program.

But the company cautioned that it can’t reduce its turnaround time on testing results as long as Covid-19 cases continue spiking across the country.