AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT
Virus expands grip in many areas, as US nears 100,000 deaths
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea reported its highest number of new coronavirus infections in weeks on Wednesday and India saw another record single-day jump of more than 6,000 cases, as the pandemic expanded its grip across much of the globe.
Still, optimism over reopening economies from business shutdowns to fight the virus spurred a rally on Wall Street, even as the official U.S. death toll approached 100,000.
Outbreaks are still climbing in much of the Americas, while many countries in Asia and much of Europe are making steady progress in containing the deadliest pandemic in years.
Cyprus announced Wednesday that it was preparing to welcome tourists back on June 9 and would cover all costs — lodging, food, drink and medication — for anyone testing positive for the coronavirus, and their family members, while on vacation in the east Mediterranean island nation.
The pledge came in a five-page letter that was sent out to governments, airlines and tour operators outlining strict health and hygiene protocols, including a requirement for COVID-19 testing three days before departure, as the tourism-reliant country seeks to woo vacationers. Cyprus has confirmed about 940 cases of the virus and fewer than 20 deaths.
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Can Trump feel your pain? US nears haunting virus milestone
WASHINGTON (AP) — In the rubble of buildings and lives, modern U.S. presidents have met national trauma with words such as these: “I can hear you.” “You have lost too much, but you have not lost everything.” “We have wept with you; we’ve pulled our children tight.”
As diverse as they were in eloquence and empathy, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama each had his own way of piercing the noise of catastrophe and reaching people.
But now, the known U.S. death toll from the coronavirus pandemic is fast approaching 100,000 on the watch of a president whose communication skills, potent in a political brawl, are not made for this moment.
Impeachment placed one indelible mark on Donald Trump's time in the White House. Now there is another, a still-growing American casualty list that has exceeded deaths from the Vietnam and Korean wars combined. U.S. fatalities from the most lethal hurricanes and earthquakes pale by comparison. This is the deadliest pandemic in a century.
Actual deaths from COVID-19 are almost certainly higher than the numbers show, an undercount to be corrected in time.
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AP-NORC poll: Half of Americans would get a COVID-19 vaccine
Only about half of Americans say they would get a COVID-19 vaccine if the scientists working furiously to create one succeed, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
That’s surprisingly low considering the effort going into the global race for a vaccine against the coronavirus that has sparked a pandemic since first emerging from China late last year. But more people might eventually roll up their sleeves: The poll, released Wednesday, found 31% simply weren’t sure if they’d get vaccinated. Another 1 in 5 said they’d refuse.
Health experts already worry about the whiplash if vaccine promises like President Donald Trump’s goal of a 300 million-dose stockpile by January fail. Only time and science will tell -- and the new poll shows the public is indeed skeptical.
“It’s always better to under-promise and over-deliver,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
“The unexpected looms large and that’s why I think for any of these vaccines, we’re going to need a large safety database to provide the reassurance,” he added.
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Global pandemic: Through the eyes of the world's children
CHICAGO (AP) — These are children of the global pandemic.
In the far-north Canadian town of Iqaluit, one boy has been glued to the news to learn everything he can about the coronavirus. A girl in Australia sees a vibrant future, tinged with sadness for the lives lost. A Rwandan boy is afraid the military will violently crack down on its citizens when his country lifts the lockdown.
There is melancholy and boredom, and a lot of worrying, especially about parents working amid the disease, grandparents suddenly cut off from weekend visits, friends seen only on a video screen.
Some children feel safe and protected. Others are scared. And yet, many also find joy in play, and even silliness.
Associated Press reporters around the world asked kids about living with the virus and to use art to show us what they believe the future might hold. Some sketched or painted, while others sang, danced ballet, built with LEGOs. A few just wanted to talk.
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Swift firings for Minneapolis officers in death of black man
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — To the general public, the video of a white police officer pressing his knee into the neck of a shirtless black man prone on the street, crying out for help until he finally stopped moving, was horrifying.
Four officers were fired a day after George Floyd's death, a stunning and swift move by the Minneapolis chief with the mayor's full backing. But despite their dismissal, whether the incident will be considered criminal, or even excessive force, is a more complicated question that will likely take months to investigate.
The officers were dismissed soon after a bystander’s video taken outside a south Minneapolis grocery store Monday night showed an officer kneeling on the handcuffed man’s neck, even after he pleaded that he could not breathe and stopped moving.
Mayor Jacob Frey announced the firings on Twitter, saying: "This is the right call.”
The FBI and state law enforcement were investigating Floyd's death, which immediately drew comparisons to the case of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died in 2014 in New York after he was placed in a chokehold by police and pleaded for his life, saying he could not breathe.
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Protesters mass in Hong Kong as anthem law is debated
HONG KONG (AP) — Thousands of protesters shouted pro-democracy slogans and insults at police in Hong Kong on Wednesday as lawmakers debated a bill criminalizing abuse of the Chinese national anthem in the semi-autonomous city.
Police massed outside the legislative building ahead of the session and warned protesters that if they did not disperse, they could be prosecuted.
In the Central business district, police raised flags warning protesters to disperse before they shot pepper balls at the crowd and searched several people. More than 50 people in the Causeway Bay shopping district were rounded up and made to sit outside a shopping mall, while riot police with pepper spray patrolled and warned journalists to stop filming.
Nearly 300 people were arrested across Hong Kong for unauthorized assembly, according to Facebook posts by the Hong Kong police force.
Separately, at least 17 people, mostly teenagers, were arrested for possessing items that could be used for unlawful purposes, such as gasoline bombs or screwdrivers, or for driving slowly and blocking traffic, police said.
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American virus deaths at 100,000: What does a number mean?
The fraught, freighted number of this particular American moment is a round one brimming with zeroes: 100,000. A hundred thousands. A thousand hundreds. Five thousand score. More than 8,000 dozen. All dead.
This is the week when America's official coronavirus death toll reaches six digits. One hundred thousand lives wiped out by a disease unknown to science a half a year ago.
And as the unwanted figure arrives — nearly a third of the global pandemic deaths in the first five months of a very trying year — what can looking at that one and those five zeroes tell us? What does any number deployed in momentous times to convey scope and seriousness and thought really mean?
“We all want to measure these experiences because they’re so shocking, so overwhelming that we want to bring some sense of knowability to the unknown,” says Jeffrey Jackson, a history professor at Rhodes College in Tennessee who teaches about the politics of natural disasters.
This is not new. In the mid-1800s, a new level of numerical precision was emerging in Western society around the same time the United States fought the Civil War. Facing such massive death and challenges counting the dead, Americans started to realize that numbers and statistics represented more than knowledge; they contained power, according to historian Drew Gilpin Faust.
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With test results lost, an Afghan family fell to virus
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — As in many Afghan households, dinner at Dr. Yousuf Aryubi’s home meant the whole family — his mother, his siblings, their children — sitting on the floor together around a mat laid with food on the carpet.
During one recent dinner, Aryubi confided to his youngest brother that he was worried. A patient he’d seen that morning had a cough and high fever.
Within two weeks, Aryubi and two of his siblings were dead, and dozens of family members were infected with the coronavirus. Most crushing for them: they assumed the symptoms spreading among them were just a bad flu because the hospital never told them the results of their coronavirus tests, Aryubi’s youngest brother, Behtarin Paktiawal told The Associated Press.
The trajectory of the family’s tragedy points to how a broken-down health system, slow government response and public attitudes have left Afghanistan deeply vulnerable to the global pandemic.
After billions of dollars in international money, much of it from the U.S., the Afghan capital barely has a hospital that works. Amid the ongoing war, massive government corruption has left resources depleted, institutions dysfunctional, and the health care system ill-equipped to deal with even basic ailments.
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Spread of coronavirus fuels corruption in Latin America
MIAMI (AP) — Even in a pandemic, there's no slowdown for swindlers in Latin America.
From Argentina to Panama, a number of officials have been forced to resign as reports of fraudulent purchases of ventilators, masks and other medical supplies pile up. The thefts are driven by price-gouging from manufacturers and profiteering by politically connected middlemen who see the crisis as an opportunity for graft.
“Whenever there’s a dire situation, spending rules are relaxed and there’s always someone around looking to take advantage to make a profit,” said José Ugaz, a former Peruvian prosecutor who jailed former President Alberto Fujimori and was chairman of Transparency International from 2014-17.
Coronavirus clusters are still spreading in Latin America, fueling a spike in deaths, swamping already-precarious hospitals and threatening to ravage slumping economies.
Against this backdrop, reports of fraud have proliferated.
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Hypocrisy gone viral? Officials set bad COVID-19 examples
PARIS (AP) — “Do as I say, but not as I do” was the message many British saw in the behavior of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's key aide, who traveled hundreds of miles with coronavirus symptoms during the country's lockdown.
While Dominic Cummings has faced calls for his firing but support from his boss over his journey from London to the northern city of Durham in March, few countries seem immune to the perception that politicians and top officials are bending the rules that their own governments wrote during the pandemic.
From U.S. President Donald Trump to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, global decision-makers have frequently set bad examples, whether it's refusing to wear masks or breaking confinement rules aimed at protecting their citizens from COVID-19.
Some are punished when they’re caught, others publicly repent, while a few just shrug off the violations during a pandemic that has claimed more than 350,000 lives worldwide.
Here are some notable examples: