Overnight News Digest: To Mask or Not to Mask Edition

OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time.  

Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.

Coronavirus: Spain's coronavirus outbreak 'slowing'

BBC

The growth in coronavirus cases in hard-hit Spain appears to be slowing, the country's foreign minister has told the BBC.

Another 6,400 cases were confirmed on Monday, the lowest increase in new cases for a week. The total of deaths reached 7,340 after 812 new fatalities.

It comes as a national lockdown expanded to instruct non-essential workers to stay home for two weeks.

Globally, 36,211 people have died, with 755,591 testing positive.

Meanwhile, the doctor leading Spain's response to the outbreak has tested positive.

What's the latest in Spain?

Spain's latest national figures show that the virus' upwards curve appears to be flattening out, Foreign Minister Arancha González says.

Officials are hoping that the peak of the virus outbreak there is approaching, after which new cases and deaths are expected to decrease.

Catalonia, the Basque region and capital Madrid remain some of hardest-hit areas

Coronavirus: US senator probed for alleged insider trading - reports

BBC

The US justice department is investigating alleged insider trading by lawmakers who sold stocks just before the coronavirus pandemic sparked a major market downturn, according to US media.

Republican Senator Richard Burr is said to be among those to have been contacted by the FBI.

Mr Burr, 64, has denied wrongdoing.

It is illegal for Congress members to trade based on non-public information gathered during their official duties.

He has said he relied solely on publicly available news reports.

Earlier this month various senators came under fire over alleged "insider trading".

Mr Burr, of North Carolina, reportedly dumped up to $1.7m (£1.45m) of stocks last month, which has led to calls for his resignation.

'The Danish Way Is Working': Prime Minister Hints At A Gradual Reopening For April

NPR

Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is expressing cautious optimism that her country will be able to begin a gradual reopening after Easter. "The Danish way of doing things is working," she said at a press conference on Monday.

Amid the coronavirus outbreak, Denmark was one of the first European countries to announce a full closure of public schools and institutions and to impose strict limits on social gatherings. It was also one of the first nations to close its borders, which it did on March 14.

As of Monday, Denmark had 2,555 confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection and 77 deaths.

While the number of patients in intensive care continues to rise, infectious disease expert Kåre Mølbak says "infection pressure"— the average number of others infected by each infected person — is now half of what it was in mid-March.

Technology To Clean And Reuse PPE Is Being Deployed To Hotspot Hospitals

NPR

Several large metal shipping containers are lined up in a warehouse under a large American flag. Their doors are ajar and workers stream in and out, power tools buzzing.

These are no ordinary shipping containers: They represent a huge scientific breakthrough in the fight against COVID-19.

"We're looking at the Battelle Critical Care Decontamination System that we've developed to be able to decontaminate PPE for health care workers on the front-line," says Will Richter, a researcher at the Columbus, Ohio-based company.

Moscow begins lockdown during tougher push to curb virus

AFP

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday urged Moscow's 12 million residents to respect a strict new lockdown, as other parts of the country began to introduce similar steps to curb the coronavirus outbreak.

The enforcement of the new rules, which Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin suddenly announced late Sunday, coincided with the beginning of a "non-working" week Putin declared last week.

"I ask you to take these forced but absolutely necessary measures... very seriously and completely responsibly," Putin told Muscovites.

The capital has become the epicentre of the contagion in Russia, and Mayor Sergei Sobyanin's new rules allow only trips to buy essential goods, go to hospital, to take out the rubbish or walk pets.

Oil prices slide on shattered demand, stocks rise

AFP

Oil prices plunged Monday to an 18-year low as the number of novel coronavirus cases worldwide surged past 700,000, reinforcing worries about the impact of the pandemic on the global economy.

US and European stock markets moved higher despite the prospect of much of the world remaining in confinement for weeks to come.

Crude oil struck the lowest levels since 2002, with Brent North Sea tumbling to $21.65 per barrel at one point. The benchmark US contract, WTI, briefly fell below $20.00.

"Estimates for the (oil) demand side are being revised downwards on an almost daily basis, while on the supply side there is still no sign of any reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Russia" regarding their price war, Commerzbank said in a client note.

German state finance minister Thomas Schäfer found dead

DW News

The body of a man identified as Thomas Schäfer, the finance minister of the German state of Hesse, was found on a high-speed train line in the town of Hochheim between Frankfurt and Mainz, police confirmed Saturday.

The presence of a body on the tracks was first reported by witnesses to paramedics, who were unable to initially identify the remains due to the extent of the injuries.

Investigators said an investigation on the scene confirmed the identity of the man as Schäfer and that the death was likely a suicide. Police did not immediately release further details of the case.

The politician apparently left a note before taking his own life, German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported, citing sources close to the investigation. The note, according to the report, referenced Schäfer's reasons for his apparent suicide.

According to media in the state of Hesse, the 54-year-old regularly appeared in public in recent days, for example, to inform the public about financial assistance during the coronavirus crisis.

Van Gogh painting stolen from Dutch museum during coronavirus lockdown

DW News

A painting by Vincent van Gogh was stolen in an overnight raid from a Dutch museum, museum officials announced on Monday.

The Singer Laren museum east of Amsterdam says "Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring" by the Dutch painter was stolen in the early hours of Monday. The museum is currently closed as part of restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

The theft of the painting was reported in a press conference on Monday afternoon. Evert van Os of the museum referred to the painting as the "Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring." It is also known as "Spring Garden" and "Lentetuin, the Parsonage Garden in Spring."

Local media put the value of the painting at between €1 million and €6 million ($1.1 million to $6.6 million).

"I am shocked and incredibly pissed off," museum director Jan Rudolph de Lorm told Dutch public broadcaster NOS. "Art is there to be enjoyed and to comfort people, especially during this difficult time."

Amazon workers walk out over lack of protective gear amid coronavirus

The Guardian

More than 100 Amazon workers walked out of a New York City facility on Monday, going on strike and demanding increased protective gear and hazard pay as they work through the coronavirus pandemic.

“Since the building won’t close by itself, we’re going to have to force their hand,” Chris Smalls, lead organizer of the Staten Island strike, told CNBC. He added that workers “will not return until the building gets sanitized”.

The strikers demanded the company close down the large warehouse for thorough cleaning after reports of multiple employees testing positive for the coronavirus.

“How many cases we got? Ten!” went a call-and-response chant outside the fulfillment center, according to one report.

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

New study sheds light on coronavirus infection mechanism

The Guardian

New research has shed light on a crucial biological mechanism that may have helped the coronavirus to infect humans and spread rapidly around the world.

A detailed analysis of the virus’s structure shows that the club-like “spikes” that it uses to establish infections latch on to human cells about four times more strongly than those on the related Sars coronavirus, which killed hundreds of people in a 2002 epidemic.

The finding suggests that coronavirus particles that are inhaled through the nose or mouth have a high chance of attaching to cells in the upper respiratory tract, meaning that relatively few are needed for an infection to gain a foothold.

Scientists at the University of Minnesota used X-ray crystallography to create an atomic-scale 3D map of the virus’s spike protein and its corresponding partner on human cells, known as the ACE-2 receptor.

When the virus encounters a human cell, the spike proteins on its surface stick to ACE-2 receptors, if the cell possess them, and allow the virus to gain access and replicate.

'Immunity passports' could speed up return to work after Covid-19

The Guardian

“Immunity passports” for key workers could be a way of getting people who have had coronavirus back into the workforce more quickly, scientists and politicians in the UK have suggested.

Researchers in Germany are currently preparing a mass study into how many people are already immune to the Covid-19 virus, allowing authorities to eventually issue passes to exclude workers from restrictive measures currently in place.

The study, which is yet to finalise funding, would involve testing the blood of more than 100,000 volunteers for coronavirus antibodies from mid-April. The test would then be repeated at regular intervals on an accumulatively larger sample of the population, to track the pandemic’s progress.

US pastor arrested for holding services amid coronavirus lockdown

Al Jazeera

Florida police say a pastor deemed his megachurch an essential business, held Sunday services with hundreds of people.

Floria officials have arrested the pastor of a megachurch after detectives say he held two Sunday services with hundreds of people and violated a safer-at-home order in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

According to jail records, Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne turned himself in to authorities Monday afternoon in Hernando County, where he lives. He was charged with unlawful assembly and violation of a public health emergency order. Bail was set at $500, according to the jail's website.

Why 'physical distancing' is better than 'social distancing'

Al Jazeera

Experts laud WHO move to use physical distancing, saying social distancing or isolation isn't good for mental wellbeing.

The World Health organization (WHO) started using the phrase "physical distancing" instead of "social distancing" as a way to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus from people to people, a move widely welcomed by experts as a step in the "right direction".

At a daily news briefing on March 20, officials of the global health body said while maintaining a physical distance was "absolutely essential" amid the global pandemic, "it does not mean that socially we have to disconnect from our loved ones, from our family."

First U.S. military servicemember dies from coronavirus

Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The first U.S. military service member has died from the coronavirus, the Pentagon said on Monday, as it reported another sharp hike in the number of infected troops.

The Pentagon said the servicemember was a New Jersey Army National Guardsman who had tested positive for COVID-19 — the disease caused by the coronavirus — and had been hospitalized since March 21. He died on Saturday, it said.

“Today is a sad day for the Department of Defense as we have lost our first American service member - active, reserve or Guard - to coronavirus,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in a statement. No further information was provided about the victim.

Trump coronavirus guidance on keeping gun stores open draws criticism

Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Gun control activists on Monday criticized guidance issued by President Donald Trump’s administration recommending that states find that gun stores are critical businesses that can stay open during the coronavirus crisis.

The new guidance, issued on Saturday by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, offers the administration’s views on which workers are essential during the pandemic at a time when state governors have ordered numerous “non-essential” businesses to close to try to limit the spread of the virus. The agency is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Gun control advocates said gun rights groups are sowing fear during the pandemic in order to boost firearms sales, adding that increased gun ownership during the crisis could lead to more domestic violence.

CDC considering recommending general public wear face coverings in public

Washington Post

Ed. Note: This seems like a good recommendation to me. A simple mask might not prevent entry of virus particles with prolonged exposure but it will certainly help in prevention if casual short duration contact occurs. Covering nose and mouth is important in blocking direct entrance not to mention cloth on your face will remind you not to touch that face.

Should we all be wearing masks? That simple question is under review by officials in the U.S. government and has sparked a grass-roots pro-mask movement. But there’s still no consensus on whether widespread use of facial coverings would make a significant difference, and some infectious disease experts worry that masks could lull people into a false sense of security and make them less disciplined about social distancing.

In recent days, more people have taken to covering their faces, although it remains a scattershot strategy driven by personal choice. The government does not recommend it.

That may change. Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are considering altering the official guidance to encourage people to take measures to cover their faces amid the coronavirus pandemic, The Washington Post has learned.