WASHINGTON: The White House released new guidelines Monday aimed at answering criticism that America’s coronavirus testing has been too slow, and President Donald Trump tried to pivot toward a focus on “reopening” the nation.
Still, there were doubts from public health experts that the White House’s new testing targets were sufficient.
Monday’s developments were meant to fill critical gaps in White House plans to begin easing restrictions, ramping up testing for the virus while shifting the president’s focus toward recovery from the economic collapse caused by the outbreak. The administration unveiled a “blueprint” for states to scale up their testing in the coming week — a tacit admission, despite public statements to the contrary, that testing capacity and availability over the past two months have been lacking.
The new testing targets would ensure states had enough COVID-19 tests available to sample at least 2.6 percent of their populations each month — a figure already met by a majority of states. Areas that have been harder hit by the virus would be able to test at double that rate, or higher, the White House said.
The testing issue has bedeviled the administration for months. Trump told reporters on March 6 during a visit to the CDC in Atlanta that “anybody that wants a test can get a test,” but the reality has proved to be vastly different.
The initial COVID-19 test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was contaminated, and early kits operated only on platforms able to perform a small number of tests per day. While the rate of testing increased as tests developed for higher-capacity platforms, they were still limited by shortages of supplies, from nasal swabs to the reagents used to process the samples.
Administration officials maintained Monday that the limiting factor now is actually the availability of samples from people who have been tested — either because guidelines on who could be tested are too stringent or because there are not enough health workers able to take nasal swab samples from them.
The CDC moved to address one of those concerns Monday, expanding the list of people to be prioritized for virus testing to include those who show no symptoms but are in high-risk settings like nursing homes. And Trump met with leaders of businesses including CVS, Walmart and Kroger, who said they were working to expand access to tests across the country.
“Testing is not going to be a problem at all,” Trump said later in the Rose Garden.
However, many of the administration’s past pledges and goals on testing have not been met.
Jeremy Konyndyk, a disaster preparedness expert who helped lead the Obama administration response to Ebola, said the administration’s testing plans are well short of what is needed.
Researchers at Harvard have estimated the country needs to be testing a minimum of 500,000 people per day, and possibly many more. Konyndyk said the aim should be 2 million to 3 million per day. Trump said the current total, up sharply in recent days, is over 200,000 per day.
Konyndyk said: “Over the past month, we’ve doubled or if you want to be really generous tripled the testing capacity in this country. We need to take where we are now and expand it tenfold.”
The testing blueprint for states provides details missing from the administration’s guidelines for them to return to normal operations, which were released more than a week ago. It includes a focus on surveillance testing as well as “rapid response” programs to isolate those who test positive and identify those with whom they had come in contact. The administration aims to have the market “flooded” with tests for the fall, when COVID-19 is expected to recur alongside the seasonal flu.
Trump and administration medical experts outlined the plan on a call with governors Monday afternoon, before unveiling them publicly in a Rose Garden press conference.
Donald Trump says US coronavirus testing ‘not a problem,’ but doubts persist
https://arab.news/5956z
Donald Trump says US coronavirus testing ‘not a problem,’ but doubts persist
- Administration unveiled a ‘blueprint’ for states to scale up their testing in the coming week
- Researchers at Harvard have estimated the country needs to be testing a minimum of 500,000 people per day
Trump touts ‘great progress made’ on first day of US-China tariff talks
- "A total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform
- US delegation led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is meeting in Geneva with the China team led by Vice Premier He Lifeng
GENEVA: The first day of sensitive talks between US and Chinese delegations over tariffs that threaten to upend the global economy ended without major breakthroughs being announced, but President Donald Trump nonetheless touted “GREAT PROGRESS.”
The meeting lasted over 10 hours in Switzerland and featured Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and a delegation led by Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng.
Hours after talks had concluded, Trump took to social media to suggest that a full reset of trade between the US and China could be on the table.
“A very good meeting today with China, in Switzerland. Many things discussed, much agreed to. A total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “We want to see, for the good of both China and the US, an opening up of China to American business. GREAT PROGRESS MADE!!!”
But he gave no further details, and officials at the White House also offered little information during and after the opening day of discussions.
Trump’s post followed an official telling The Associated Press that talks had wrapped up for the day and would continue Sunday. The official requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions, which could help stabilize world markets roiled by the US-China standoff. The talks have been shrouded in secrecy, and neither side made comments to reporters on the way out.
Several convoys of black vehicles left the residence of the Swiss ambassador to the UN in Geneva, which hosted the talks aimed at de-escalating trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies. Diplomats from both sides also confirmed that the talks took place.
The opening day of negotiations were held in the sumptuous 18th-century “Villa Saladin” overlooking Lake Geneva. The former estate was bequeathed to the Swiss state in 1973, according to the Geneva government.
Trump’s assessment aside, prospects for a major breakthrough appeared dim when the talks opened. Still, there is hope that the two countries will scale back the massive taxes — tariffs — they have slapped on each other’s goods, a move that would relieve world financial markets and companies on both sides of the Pacific Ocean that depend on US-China trade.
Trump last month raised US tariffs on China to a combined 145 percent, and China retaliated by hitting American imports with a 125 percent levy. Tariffs that high essentially amount to the countries’ boycotting each other’s products, disrupting trade that last year topped $660 billion.
And even before talks got underway, Trump suggested Friday that the US could lower its tariffs on China, saying in a Truth Social post that ” 80 percent Tariff seems right! Up to Scott.″
Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, noted it will be the first time He and Bessent have talked. She doubts the Geneva meeting will produce any substantive results.
“The best scenario is for the two sides to agree to de-escalate on the ... tariffs at the same time,” she said, adding even a small reduction would send a positive signal. “It cannot just be words.”
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has aggressively used tariffs as his favorite economic weapon. He has, for example, imposed a 10 percent tax on imports from almost every country in the world.
But the fight with China has been the most intense. His tariffs on China include a 20 percent charge meant to pressure Beijing into doing more to stop the flow of the synthetic opioid fentanyl into the United States.
The remaining 125 percent involve a dispute that dates back to Trump’s first term and comes atop tariffs he levied on China back then, which means the total tariffs on some Chinese goods can exceed 145 percent.
During Trump’s first term, the US alleged that China uses unfair tactics to give itself an edge in advanced technologies such as quantum computing and driverless cars. These include forcing US and other foreign companies to hand over trade secrets in exchange for access to the Chinese market; using government money to subsidize domestic tech firms; and outright theft of sensitive technologies.
Those issues were never fully resolved. After nearly two years of negotiation, the United States and China reached a so-called Phase One agreement in January 2020. The US agreed then not to go ahead with even higher tariffs on China, and Beijing agreed to buy more American products. The tough issues — such as China’s subsidies — were left for future negotiations.
But China didn’t come through with the promised purchases, partly because COVID-19 disrupted global commerce just after the Phase One truce was announced.
The fight over China’s tech policy now resumes.
Trump is also agitated by America’s massive trade deficit with China, which came to $263 billion last year.
Trump slaps hefty tariffs on Switzerland
In Switzerland Friday, Bessent and Greer also met with Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter.
Trump last month suspended plans to slap hefty 31 percent tariffs on Swiss goods — more than the 20 percent levies he plastered on exports from European Union. For now, he has reduced those taxes to 10 percent but could raise them again.
The government in Bern is taking a cautious approach. But it has warned of the impact on crucial Swiss industries like watches, coffee capsules, cheese and chocolate.
“An increase in trade tensions is not in Switzerland’s interests. Countermeasures against US tariff increases would entail costs for the Swiss economy, in particular by making imports from the USA more expensive,” the government said last week, adding that the executive branch “is therefore not planning to impose any countermeasures at the present time.”
The government said Swiss exports to the United States on Saturday were subject to an additional 10 percent tariff, and another 21 percent beginning Wednesday.
The United States is Switzerland’s second-biggest trading partner after the EU – the 27-member-country bloc that nearly surrounds the wealthy Alpine country of more than 9 million. US-Swiss trade in goods and services has quadrupled over the last two decades, the government said.
The Swiss government said Switzerland abolished all industrial tariffs on Jan. 1 last year, meaning that 99 percent of all goods from the United States can be imported into Switzerland duty-free.
Putin proposes direct talks with Ukraine in Istanbul, ‘without preconditions’
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday proposed holding direct talks with Ukraine in Istanbul on May 15, hours after Kyiv and European leaders called for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire to start Monday.
“We are determined to have serious negotiations ... to eliminate the root causes of the conflict,” Putin told reporters in a middle of the night statement at the Kremlin.
“We do not exclude that during these talks we will be able to agree on some new ceasefire,” he added, without directly addressing the call made by the leaders of Ukraine, Britain, France, Germany and Poland for a ceasefire to start Monday.
(Developing story)
Bangladesh’s interim government bans the former ruling party of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
- The ban would stay in place until a special tribunal completes a trial of the party and its leaders over the deaths of hundreds of students
DHAKA, Bangladesh: The interim government in Bangladesh on Saturday banned all activities of the former ruling Awami League party headed by former influential Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted last year in a mass uprising.
Asif Nazrul, the country’s law affairs adviser, said late Saturday the interim Cabinet headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus decided to ban the party’s activities online and elsewhere under the country’s Anti-Terrorism Act. The ban would stay in place until a special tribunal completes a trial of the party and its leaders over the deaths of hundreds of students and other protesters during an anti-government uprising in July and August last year.
“This decision is aimed at ensuring national security and sovereignty, protection of activists of the July movement, and plaintiffs and witnesses involved in the tribunal proceedings,” Nazrul told reporters after a special Cabinet meeting.
Nazrul said the meeting Saturday also expanded scope for trying any political parties involving charges of killing during the anti-Hasina protest being handled by the International Crimes Tribunal.
He said a government notification regarding the ban would be published soon with details.
Hasina and many of her senior party colleagues have been accused of murder in many cases after her ouster last year. Hasina has been in exile in India since Aug. 5 as her official residence was stormed by protesters soon after she left the country.
The United Nations human rights office in a report said in February that up to 1,400 people may have been killed during three weeks of anti-Hasina protest.
Saturday night’s dramatic decision came after thousands of protesters, including supporters of a newly formed political party by students, took to the streets in Dhaka and issued an ultimatum to ban the Awami League party by Saturday night. The members of the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami party also prominently took part in the protest.
There was no immediate reaction from Hasina or her party, but the chief of the National Citizen Party, Nahid Islam, who is also a student leader, applauded the Yunus-led government for its decision.
The student-led uprising ended Hasina’s 15 years of rule, and three days after her fall Yunus took the helm as interim leader.
France in talks with Britain, Ukraine about potential troops, Macron tells paper
- “We’re working on the presence and strategic footprint of the partner countries,” Macron said
- “The key is to have troops in Ukraine“
PARIS: France is consulting with partners on how to potentially support Ukraine in its struggle with Russia with troops, French President Emmanuel Macron told newspaper Le Parisien on Saturday, without elaborating on what such a presence could include.
“We are working on the presence and strategic footprint of the partner countries. There have been several exchanges between our British, French and Ukrainian chiefs of staff, who have coordinated the work with all their partners, and all this is becoming clearer and making progress,” Macron was cited in the article.
“The key is to have troops in Ukraine,” he added.
Major European powers including France threw their weight behind an unconditional 30-day Ukraine ceasefire, with the backing of US President Donald Trump.
Macron joined the leaders of Britain, Germany and Poland on a visit to Kyiv on Saturday during which they held a phone call with Trump.
Seven dead after heavy rain hits Mogadishu
- Floodwaters also damaged key infrastructure, halting public transport
MOGADISHU: At least seven people have died, and major roads were cut off after heavy rains led to flooding in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, on Friday night due to an overwhelmed drainage system and a growing urban population.
The regional administration spokesperson, Abdinasir Hirsi Idle, said on Saturday that rescue efforts were ongoing.
“The death toll could rise because the rains were heavy and lasted for several hours, causing nine houses to collapse across different neighborhoods, and at least six major roads to suffer severe damage,” he said.
Somalia has in the past suffered extreme climate shocks, including prolonged dry seasons that have caused drought and heavy rains that have resulted in floods.
Friday’s rains went on for about eight hours, leaving waist-high waters in neighborhoods where some residents were trapped and others were forced to move to higher ground.
A resident, Mohammed Hassan, said that some older people were still trapped.
“We spent the night on rooftops, shivering from the cold, and I have not even had breakfast,” he said.
Floodwaters also damaged key infrastructure, halting public transport and temporarily disrupting operations at the main airport, Aden Abdulle International Airport.
Officials later confirmed flights had resumed operations.
The Somali Disaster Management Agency has not yet released an official death toll, but said an assessment was underway to determine the extent of the damage.
In a statement on Saturday, the country’s Energy and Water Ministry said: “A substantial amount of rainfall, exceeding 115 mm, was recorded in over 8 consecutive hours” and warned of flash floods in other regions outside the capital.
