Genetic clues hint at hidden virus cases in Washington state

Medics prepare to transfer a patient on a stretcher to an ambulance at the Life Care Center of Kirkland, the long-term care facility linked to the two of three confirmed coronavirus cases in the state, in Kirkland, Washington, on March 1, 2020. (REUTERS/David Ryder)
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Updated 02 March 2020
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Genetic clues hint at hidden virus cases in Washington state

  • Health officials said 50 more people in a nursing facility in Kirkland, Washington, are sick and being tested for the virus
  • The first US case was a Washington state man who had visited China, where the virus first emerged

SEATTLE: The coronavirus may have been circulating for weeks undetected in Washington state, a preliminary finding that could mean hundreds of undiagnosed cases, researchers said Sunday after analyzing the genetic sequences of viruses from two people.
Washington state, home of the nation’s first confirmed infection, has seen eight confirmed cases, including the nation’s first death from the virus this weekend.
State and local authorities stepped up testing for the illness as the number of new cases grew nationwide, with new infections announced in California, Illinois, Rhode Island, New York and Washington state. Authorities in the Seattle area said two more people had been diagnosed with the COVID-19 virus, both men in their 60s who were in critical condition, and two health care workers in California were also diagnosed.
A man in his 50s died in Washington on Saturday, and health officials said 50 more people in a nursing facility in Kirkland, Washington, are sick and being tested for the virus. The first US case was a Washington state man who had visited China, where the virus first emerged, but several recent cases in the US have had no known connection to travelers.
In California, two health care workers in the San Francisco Bay area who cared for an earlier coronavirus patient were diagnosed with the virus on Sunday, the Alameda and Solano counties said in a joint statement.
The health care workers are both employed at NorthBay VacaValley Hospital in Vacaville, California, and had exposure to a patient treated there before being transferred to UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, the statement said. That patient was the first person in the US discovered to have contracted the coronavirus with no known overseas travel.
Alameda County declared a state of emergency on Sunday following the news.
Elsewhere, authorities announced Sunday a third case in Illinois and Rhode Island and New York’s first cases as worried Americans swarmed stores to stock up on basic goods such as bottled water, canned foods and toilet paper.
The hospitalized patient in Rhode Island is a man in his 40s who had traveled to Italy in February. New York confirmed Sunday that a woman in her late 30s contracted the virus while traveling in Iran. The patient is not in serious condition. She has respiratory symptoms and has been in a controlled situation since arriving in New York, according to a statement from the governor’s office.
As the fallout continued, Vice President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar sought to reassure the American public that the federal government is working to make sure state and local authorities are able to test for the virus. Both said during a round of TV talk show appearances Sunday that thousands more testing kits had been distributed to state and local officials, with thousands more to come.
“They should know we have the best public health system in the world looking out for them,” Azar said, adding that additional cases will be reported and the overall risk to Americans is low.
As the cases ticked up, some Americans stocked up on basic supplies — particularly in areas with diagnosed cases — and began to take note of the impact on daily life. Stores such as Costco sold out of toilet paper, bottled water and hand sanitizer outside Portland, Oregon, where a case was announced Friday. Sports games and practices were canceled into the coming school week. Some churches said they would not offer communion because of fears of viral spread.
As Americans prepared, researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington on Sunday said they had evidence the virus may have been circulating in the state for up to six weeks undetected — a finding that, if true, could mean hundreds of undiagnosed cases in the area. They posted their research online, but it was not published in a scientific journal or reviewed by other scientists.
Trevor Bedford, an associate professor who announced the preliminary findings on the virus in Washington state, said on Twitter late Saturday that genetic similarities between the state’s first case on Jan. 20 and a case announced Friday indicated the newer case may have descended from the earlier one. The Jan. 20 case was the first known case in the US
“I believe we’re facing an already substantial outbreak in Washington State that was not detected until now due to narrow case definition requiring direct travel to China,” he said on Twitter.
Bedford did not immediately reply to an email requesting an interview Sunday.
Scientists not affiliated with the research said the results did not necessarily surprise them and pointed out that for many people — especially younger, healthier ones — the symptoms are not much worse than a flu or bad cold.
“We think that this has a pretty high rate of mild symptoms and can be asymptomatic. The symptoms are pretty non-specific and testing criteria has been pretty strict, so those combinations of factors means that it easily could have been circulating for a bit without us knowing,” said Justin Lessler, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Dr. Adam Lauring of University of Michigan called the findings “high quality work” from scientists who’ve done similar work with the flu virus for years.
“They show their data and they show their work,” Lauring said. “It’s more than a series of tweets” because the researchers back up what they found with data that they’ve shared online. “If there’s something wrong, someone will find it.”
Dr. Carlos del Rio of Emory University School of Medicine said the findings are from respected researchers in genomic sequencing and they make sense because of the geographic proximity of the two cases.
“This is a good time to reinforce the things we all should be doing to stop the spread of flu. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. If you have a cold, stay home ... It’s a good time to remind ourselves of that,” he said.
Pence, named by the president to be the point-person overseeing the government’s response, said more than 15,000 virus testing kits had been released over the weekend. And, the administration is working with a commercial provider to distribute 50,000 more, he said.
The vice president said testing was among the first issues raised by governors he’s spoken with so far. Several states have begun their own testing, including Washington state, Oregon and Illinois.
“We’re leaning into it,” Pence said.
Azar said more than 3,600 people already have been tested for coronavirus and the capability exists to test 75,000 people. He forecast a “radical expansion of that” in the coming weeks.
Pence and Azar spoke a day after President Donald Trump approved new restrictions on international travel to prevent the spread within the US of the new virus, which originated in China. There are now more than 80,000 cases worldwide and about 3,000 deaths.
Two Americans are now known to have died of the virus, one in Washington state and one in China.
The new US travel restrictions apply to Iran, although travel there by Americans already is severely limited, as well as heavily affected regions of Italy and South Korea. Trump tweeted Sunday that any travelers from those countries will be screened when they arrive in the US
The number of known coronavirus cases in the US had reached76 as of Sunday, counting people evacuated from a cruise ship and the city of Wuhan in China.
Trump said Saturday at a White House news conference that he was thinking about closing the southern border with Mexico as a precaution. Azar said Sunday that Mexico has few coronavirus cases and that it would take a dramatic change in the circumstances there to prompt serious consideration of a border shutdown.
The president, Azar said, “was trying to say everything’s on the table.”
“We will take whatever measures are appropriate and necessary to protect the American people, but we don’t forecast doing that any time soon,” he said of closing the border.
Pence noted that an infectious disease expert is joining an existing White House coronavirus task force on Monday. Last week, Pence announced the addition of Debbie Birx, a State Department ambassador-at-large and medical doctor who is the administration’s global HIV/AIDS response coordinator, to the virus panel.
Despite calls by Trump and Pence for political unity in the face of the viral threat, the issue has become mired in the partisan rancor in Washington, with both Republicans and Democrats accusing each other of mining the issue for political gain.
Trump, at a political rally last week, accused Democrats of “politicizing” the issue and said their criticism of his handling of the public health challenge was their new “hoax.”
At the White House on Saturday, Trump said he was not trying to minimize the threat from the virus.
“Again, the hoax was used in respect to Democrats and what they were saying,” he said Saturday.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who emerged victorious Saturday night from South Carolina’s primary, criticized the administration over the availability of testing kits.
Biden also panned the administration’s decision to have political appointees Pence and Azar, neither of whom are scientists by training, appear on the Sunday shows, instead of an expert like Dr. Anthony Fauci, the National Institutes of Health infectious disease chief.
Biden claimed the administration doesn’t have testing kits. Pence and Azar said thousands of kits had been distributed.
Azar said he didn’t know what Biden was talking about when the former vice president said testing kits didn’t exist. Azar said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had developed a lab test for coronavirus with “historic speed.”
Pence was interviewed on CNN’s “State of the Union” and Azar commented on “Fox News Sunday,” CBS’ “Face the Nation” and ABC’s “This Week.” Biden commented on CNN.


India evacuates students from Tehran as Israel hits civilian sites

Smoke billows from an explosion in southwest Tehran on June 16, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 4 sec ago
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India evacuates students from Tehran as Israel hits civilian sites

  • About 6,000 Indian students are enrolled in Iranian universities
  • So far 110 studying in Urmia have left the country through Armenia

NEW DELHI: India’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday it was moving Indian students out of Tehran, as many sought safety after their universities were shut down amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes.

Israeli attacks on Iran started on Friday, when Tel Aviv hit more than a dozen sites — including key nuclear facilities, residences of military leaders, and of scientists — claiming they were aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Daily attacks have been ongoing for the past five days after Iran retaliated with ballistic missile strikes against Israel.

As the Israeli military intensified its bombing of civilian targets, hitting Iran’s state broadcaster on Monday, stranded foreigners — including 6,000 Indian students — have been struggling to leave.

“Most of the students here were living in apartments, including me and my friend. The first blast in Tehran happened in Sa’adat Abad district, where me and my friend were living,” Hafsa Yaseen, a medical student at Shahid Beheshti University, told Arab News.

“One of our university’s nuclear scientists was martyred in these blasts. Situation is really bad.”

According to the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education, at least 224 people have been killed and 1,481 wounded in Israeli attacks since Friday. Most of the casualties have been reported in Tehran.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs confirmed in a statement that it was moving those studying at universities in the Iranian capital “out of the city for reasons of safety.”

Yaseen was among a group of a few hundred students moved on Monday to Qom, 140 km south of the capital city.

“Me and my friend were frightened, and we just thought it’s our turn now to die. We were literally calling our parents and telling them goodbye,” she said.

“We are not even safe here, because we are still in Iran (and) anything can happen ... We are in constant fear that we might die and our families are more stressed than us. I just want to request the government of India to evacuate us from here as soon as possible.”

A group of 110 Indian students from Urmia University of Medical Sciences in northwestern Iran has already been assisted by the Indian authorities to leave through the land border with Armenia.

“All the Indian students who had crossed the Iran-Armenia border have now safely reached the capital city, Yerevan. This includes around 90 students from Kashmir Valley, along with others from various Indian states,” said Nasir Khuehami, national convenor of the Jammu and Kashmir Students Union.

“Their flight from Armenia to Delhi is scheduled for tomorrow, with all necessary arrangements being facilitated in coordination with the Indian authorities. This comes as an immense relief to the families.”

The families of those remaining in Iran have been pleading with Indian authorities to also bring them home.

“Please save my daughters. My two daughters study (at) Shahid Beheshti University. They are in great panic — the situation in Tehran is so bad that students are in great panic,” one of the mothers, Mubeena Ali, told Arab News through tears.

“They have been shifted to Qom but they feel afraid ... They are greatly distressed. They want to be evacuated.”


Trump mulls extending travel ban to 36 more nations: source

Updated 28 sec ago
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Trump mulls extending travel ban to 36 more nations: source

  • The Washington Post said it reviewed the internal memo and reported it was signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and sent to diplomats who work with the countries
  • The ban at first did not include Egypt, although the proposed follow-up list does

WASHINGTON: The United States is considering extending its travel ban to 36 more countries, a person who has seen the memo said Monday, marking a dramatic potential expansion of entry restrictions to nearly 1.5 billion people.

The State Department early this month announced it was barring entry to citizens of 12 nations including Afghanistan, Haiti and Iran and imposing a partial ban on travelers from seven other countries, reviving a divisive measure from President Donald Trump’s first term.

But expanding the travel ban to three dozen more nations, including US partners like Egypt along with other countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific, appears to escalate the president’s crackdown on immigration.

The Washington Post said it reviewed the internal memo and reported it was signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and sent to diplomats who work with the countries.

A person who has seen the document confirmed its accuracy to AFP.

It reportedly gives the governments of the listed nations 60 days to meet new requirements established by the State Department.

The countries include the most populous in Africa — Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania — as well as Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Saint Lucia, South Sudan, Syria and Vanuatu.

Should the ban expand to include all countries cited in the memo, nearly one in five people worldwide would live in a country targeted by US travel restrictions.

The 19 countries facing full or partial entry bans to the United States, combined with the 36 cited in the latest memo, account for 1.47 billion people, or roughly 18 percent of the global population.

The State Department declined to confirm the memo, saying it does not comment on internal deliberations.

But it said in a statement that “we are constantly reevaluating policies to ensure the safety of Americans and that foreign nationals follow our laws.”

When the initial ban was announced this month, Trump warned it could be expanded to other countries “as threats emerge around the world.”

The ban at first did not include Egypt, although the proposed follow-up list does.

Trump said the initial measure was spurred by a recent “terrorist attack” on Jews in Colorado.

US officials said that the attack’s suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national according to court documents, was in the country illegally having overstayed a tourist visa, but that he had applied for asylum in September 2022.


Overnight Russian attack on Ukraine kills 15 and injures 156

Updated 12 min 56 sec ago
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Overnight Russian attack on Ukraine kills 15 and injures 156

  • At least 14 people were killed as explosions echoed across the Ukrainian capital for almost nine hours
  • Russia fired more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said

KYIV: An overnight Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed 15 people and injured 156, local officials said Tuesday, with the main barrage demolishing a nine-story Kyiv apartment building in the deadliest attack on the capital this year.

At least 14 people were killed as explosions echoed across the Ukrainian capital for almost nine hours, Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said, destroying dozens of apartments.

Russia fired more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, calling the Kyiv attack “one of the most terrifying strikes” on the capital.

Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said 139 people were injured in Kyiv. Mayor Vitalii Klitschko announced that Wednesday would be an official day of mourning.

The attack came after two rounds of direct peace talks failed to make progress on ending the war, now in its fourth year.

Russia steps up aerial attacks

Russia has repeatedly hit civilian areas of Ukraine with missiles and drones. The attacks have killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. Russia says it strikes only military targets.

Russia has in recent months stepped up its aerial attacks. It launched almost 500 drones at Ukraine on June 10 in the biggest overnight drone bombardment of the war. Russia also pounded Kyiv on April 24, killing at least 12 people.

The intensified long-range strikes have coincided with a Russian summer offensive on eastern and northeastern sections of the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, where Ukraine is short-handed and needs more military support from its Western partners.

Uncertainty about US policy on the war has fueled doubts about how much help Kyiv can count on. Zelensky had been set to meet with US President Donald Trump at a G7 summit in Canada on Tuesday to press him for more help. But Trump returned early to Washington on Monday night because of tensions in the Middle East.

Ukraine tries to keep the world’s attention

Zelensky is seeking to prevent Ukraine from being sidelined in international diplomacy. Trump said earlier this month it might be better to let Ukraine and Russia “fight for a while” before pulling them apart and pursuing peace, but European leaders have urged him to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin into accepting a ceasefire.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday it is unclear when another round of talks might take place.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Russia’s attacks during the G7 summit showed Putin’s “total disrespect” for the US and other countries.

“Russia not only rejects a ceasefire or a leaders’ meeting to find solutions and end the war. It cynically strikes Ukraine’s capital while pretending to seek diplomatic solutions,” Sybiha wrote on social media.

Ukrainian forces have hit back against Russia with their own domestically produced long-range
drones.

The Russian military said it downed 203 Ukrainian drones over 10 Russian regions between Monday evening and Tuesday morning.

Russian civil aviation agency Rosaviatsia reported briefly halting flights overnight in and out of all four Moscow airports, as well as those in the cities of Kaluga, Tambov and Nizhny Novgorod as a precaution.

Overnight Russian drone strikes also struck the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa, killing one person and injuring 17 others, according to Oleh Kiper, head of the regional administration.

Putin “is doing this simply because he can afford to continue the war. He wants the war to go on. It is troubling when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to it,” Zelensky said.

Russian attack demolishes apartment building

The Russian attack delivered “direct hits on residential buildings,” the Kyiv City Military Administration said in a statement. “Rockets — from the upper floors to the basement,” it said.

A US citizen died in the attack after suffering shrapnel wounds, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko told reporters.

Thirty apartments were destroyed in a single residential block after it was struck by a ballistic missile, Klymenko said.

“We have 27 locations that were attacked by the enemy. We currently have over 2,000 people working there, rescuers, police, municipal services and doctors,” he told reporters at the scene of one attack.

Olena Lapyshniak, 49, was shaken from the strike that nearly leveled her apartment building. She heard a whistling sound and then two explosions that blew out her windows and doors.

“It’s horrible, it’s scary, in one moment there is no life,” she said. “There’s no military infrastructure here, nothing here, nothing. It’s horrible when people just die at night.”

People were wounded in the city’s Sviatoshynskyi and Solomianskyi districts. Fires broke out in two other city districts as a result of falling debris from drones shot down by Ukrainian air defenses, the mayor said.

Moscow escalated attacks after Ukraine’s Security Service agency staged an audacious operation targeting warplanes in air bases deep inside Russian territory on June 1.


Spain says April power outage caused by ‘overvoltage’

Updated 19 min 26 sec ago
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Spain says April power outage caused by ‘overvoltage’

  • Ecological Transition Minister Sara Aagesen said the system “lacked sufficient voltage control capacity” that day
  • Authorities have been scrambling to find answers after the April 28 outage

MADRID: A major power outage that struck the Iberian Peninsula in April was caused by “overvoltage” on the grid that led to “a chain reaction,” according to a government report released Tuesday.

The blackout had “multiple” causes, Ecological Transition Minister Sara Aagesen told reporters following a cabinet meeting, adding the system “lacked sufficient voltage control capacity” that day.

Overvoltage is when there is too much electrical voltage in a network, overloading equipment. It can be caused by surges in networks due to oversupply or lightning strikes, or when protective equipment is insufficient or fails.

When faced with overvoltage on networks protective systems shut down parts of the grid, potentially leading to widespread power outages.

Authorities have been scrambling to find answers after the April 28 outage cut Internet and telephone connections, halted trains, shut businesses and plunged cities into darkness across Spain and Portugal as well as briefly affecting southwestern France.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced the formation of an inquiry commission led by the Ecological Transition Ministry shortly after the blackout, urging residents not to speculate until detailed results were available.

He had warned that the probe’s conclusions could take several months, given the complexity of the incident.

Aagesen singled out the role of the Spanish grid operator REE and certain energy companies she did not name which disconnected their plants “inappropriately... to protect their installations.”

She also pointed to “insufficient voltage control capacity” on the system that day, due in part to a programming flaw, stressing that Spain’s grid is theoretically robust enough to handle such situations.

Due to these misjudgments “we reached a point of no return with an uncontrollable chain reaction” that could only have been controlled if steps had been taken beforehand to absorb the overvoltage problems, she added.


UK slaps new sanctions on Russia shadow fleet

Updated 33 min 37 sec ago
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UK slaps new sanctions on Russia shadow fleet

  • Security analysts say the fleet of aging vessels is used by Russia to circumvent international sanctions that ban it from selling oil
  • Hundreds of vessels have now been sanctioned by the European Union and the UK

LONDON: The UK on Tuesday tightened its sanctions on Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, slapping bans on 20 more ships and blacklisting 10 other people or bodies involved in energy and shipping.

Security analysts say the fleet of aging vessels is used by Russia to circumvent international sanctions that ban it from selling oil.

Hundreds of vessels have now been sanctioned by the European Union and the UK since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The UK’s new additions to its assets freeze list include the Orion Star group and Rosneft Marine (UK), both said to be significant to Russia’s energy sector, as well as the deep-sea research unit at the Russian defense ministry.

Although Russia’s economy has not collapsed under the sanctions, officials insist they are having an impact.

“Russia’s economy is slowing and the Kremlin has been forced to make increasingly painful trade-offs to support its war effort,” Downing Street said in a statement.

It claimed the sanctions imposed in the last three years “have deprived Russia of at least $450 billion.”

“By one estimate, that’s equivalent to around two more years of funding for the invasion,” it added.

The UK alone has sanctioned over 2,300 individuals, entities and ships since the start of the
invasion.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he wanted to hone the new sanctions with Britain’s other G7 partners meeting this week in Canada.

“We should take this moment to increase economic pressure and show President Putin it is in his — and Russia’s interests — to demonstrate he is serious about peace.”

With peace talks stalling, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had hoped to press US counterpart Donald Trump to step up sanctions on Russia at the G7 summit.

But as the conflict between Iran and Israel escalated, Trump left the summit early without meeting Zelensky, saying he had “big stuff” to do in Washington. And he has proved reluctant about new sanctions.

The EU has imposed 18 rounds of sanctions on Russia.

Downing Street said “new information” showed Western were creating “significant challenges” for Russian state enterprises, including funding shortfalls, delays in major projects, and growing debt due to high interest rates.