Washington — Representatives from two labor unions are bringing attention to resources intended to protect workers in “frontline industries” from exposure to the new coronavirus and are calling on the federal government to provide coordinated guidance.

The respiratory disease caused by a novel (new) coronavirus that was first detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China has now been detected in 32 locations internationally, including cases United States. The virus has been named “SARS-CoV-2” and the disease it causes has been named “coronavirus disease 2019” (abbreviated “COVID-19”).

CFO Maggie Wu told investors that China's retail and local consumer businesses would be hit hardest.

The post How China’s coronavirus outbreak is bringing Alibaba to its knees appeared first on DealStreetAsia.

The Bangkok-listed company had planned to launch an IPO of the subsidiary in the first half of 2020.

The post SCG packaging unit’s $1b Thai IPO put on hold amid coronavirus outbreak appeared first on DealStreetAsia.

In the past few days, Russia also became the fifth worst-hit coronavirus outbreak nation, overtaking France and Germany.

Volunteers from six Santa Clarita Valley high schools step forward to help those shut in by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Washington: Orders for vaccines against diseases such as measles have declined since a national emergency was declared in the United States because of the coronavirus pandemic, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.The number of vaccine doses ordered around the country has...

The meatpacking industry has slowed down due to the coronavirus outbreaks at the plants. Meatpackers warn that it could lead to meat shortages and stores limiting purchases.

The Queen is set to withdraw from her public duties for an extended period of time amid the...

Washington (AFP) - Orders for vaccines against diseases such as measles have declined since a national emergency was declared in the United States because of the coronavirus pandemic, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.

In the fight against COVID-19, Uber has extended support by offering free rides to frontline BMC healthcare workers and non-COVID patients in Mumbai through its recently launched UberMedic service.

All UberMedic cars are fitted with a roof-to-floor plastic sheeting enclosing the driver. Additionally, all drivers are being trained in safety procedures and provided with personal protective equipment such as masks, gloves, sanitisers and disinfectants to sanitise the cars between rides.

The agreement is part of Uber’s recent offer to provide free rides worth Rs 1 crore to the Maharashtra government. Prabhjeet Singh, Director, Operations and Head of Cities, Uber India & South Asia, said, “The BMC has been working tirelessly to contain the spread of COVID-19. We feel privileged to be supporting them in these challenging times and will help move what matters by leveraging our global experience, technology and network of drivers.”

Uber’s recently launched UberMedic service has been transporting frontline medical workers in 35+ hospitals across 23 Indian cities.

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The city might miss seeing Lord Ganesh in his full glory this year, as work on the gigantic idols, which usually adorn the biggest and richest pandals during Ganesh Chaturthi, has taken a big hit due to the Coronavirus outbreak and the resulting lockdown. Sculptors, who usually start work in May for the annual festival that will be celebrated on August 22 this year, have been forced to put all orders on hold, as raw materials aren't available, and most of the artisans are stuck in their hometowns. The government too, hasn't given permission to begin work. With the lockdown extended till May 17, the sculptors say that mandals might have to settle for scaled-down versions of the idol.

Mumbai has over 10,000 sarvajanik Ganesh mandals. To ensure that the idols are delivered on time, sculptors start work three months in advance, first making the pattern, a rough model, which is then corrected with welding at the workshops. Another 20 days are invested in painting the idol, and giving it the final touches. Mandals usually accept delivery of the idols 10 days before the festival begins.

A Ganesh idol-making workshop at Chinchpokli, where work otherwise begins in May, is currently shut due to the lockdown

With the way the situation has panned out till now, work is unlikely to begin before July. This will leave sculptors with just about a month to complete work. Reshma Khatu, daughter of late sculptor Vijay Khatu, says, "Currently, we have put all the orders and planning on hold and are awaiting the government's decision. The crisis doesn't seem to be nearing an end. We do not want to put our workers at risk. Even if one person is detected COVID-19 positive, work will go for a toss and the entire workshop will be sealed."

The other problem is that at least 70 per cent of the workers employed, hail from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. They work in Maharashtra during May to October. Vijay Kumar Soni, hails from Patna, but is currently stuck in Konkan, where he and his employer Rajan Zaad, have been working on rough designs. "We came here in March, and hence could begin work. Some of the dyes are ready, and we hope to get started on the idols when we return to Mumbai. But, I am not sure if the other workers from Patna will be able to make it on time." Zaad, who is a sculptor from Lalbaug, says that he will be requesting the mandals to accept smaller-sized idols.

Sculptor Rajan Zaad says he intends to request mandals to have smaller-sized idols this year

The raw materials for making the larger idols come from Rajasthan and Kerala, while shadu—a kind of clay used for the sculpture—comes from Gujarat. But transportation has taken the biggest hit, and state borders are sealed.

Ankush Kambli, a sculptor from Parel village, says he has started work from home with the help of his family members but is running out of raw materials. Ditching the ubiquitous plaster of Paris, he has decided to use only shadu. "There is no clarity, if we will be able to get back to our routines of working from a workshop. We understand that there is the need for social distancing and that is the sole reason why we are working from home."

Reshma Khatu

The Brihanmumbai Murtikar Samanvay Samiti, an umbrella body of Ganpati sculptors, has decided to share their concerns with the government. Gajanan Tondvalkar, president of the samiti, and a sculptor in Naigaon, Dadar, says, "We will request the government to help ensure transportation of raw materials, so that we can work from home, at least."

Meanwhile, the city's Ganesh mandals, have decided to put discussions about the festivities on hold. Sudhir Salvi, secretary of Lalbaugcha Raja Mandal, says, "Calls that need to be taken regarding the celebrations will be done once the Coronavirus situation is under control." The secretary of Lalbaug Sarvajanik Utsav Mandal, popularly known as Ganesh Galli Ganpati, Swapnil Parab, says the committee is yet to take a decision and will honour the government's directive.

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Maharashtra's count for COVID-19 cases crossed 20,000 cases and the city had 722 new cases on Saturday. The bar of the state's death toll rose higher with 48 deaths, and 27 of them occurred in Mumbai.

State health officials said that while Mumbai has 12,864 COVID-19 cases, an additional 178 cases have been reported, but are yet to be added to the tally. Apart from 27 deaths that occurred in Mumbai, 10 were reported in Pune, eight in Malegaon and one each in Akola, Nanded and Amravati. State health officials said that the 48 deaths had occurred between April 25 and May 8.

Migrant workers, who were walking to MP on the Eastern Expressway, were herded back by policemen before the Mulund Toll Naka. Pic/Sameer Markande

Civic officials said that among the 27 patients who died, 21 of them were suffering from other ailments and three of the patients who died were less than 40 years old. In order to reduce the burden on the city's hospitals, the civic body is now urging people who test positive but have no symptoms to refrain from visiting hospitals. They are encouraging asymptomatic positive patients to visit COVID care centres instead.

Meanwhile, 25 new cases were reported from Dharavi which included one death. Five of the cases were from Mukund Nagar, the slum pocket with the highest concentration of cases. Dharavi alone now has 833 positive cases. Five other cases were reported from Mahim, 18 in Dadar, including eight cases from Kasarwadi.

In order to avoid the spread of the infection as seen in Dharavi, officials from H West ward are sealing the Khar Danda area, which includes slum pockets. The decision was taken after five members of a family in a residential building in the area tested positive earlier this week. "We found a high-risk patient while tracing the contacts of the family that tested positive. We are sealing the area. We are figuring out the arrangements for food," said an official from H West. In other parts of Bandra West, 13 cases have been reported from Shastri Nagar and 14 from the slaugherhouse near the Bandra Railway Station. Civic officials said another 12 cases have been reported from the Nargis Dutt Nagar slums.

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Flight routes to London will be changed and eight of the airline's 12 A380 aircraft will be grounded due to low demand.

Brave travellers can pick up a bargain on flights, in one of very few positives to come from the coronavirus outbreak.

New Delhi, May 02: With several countries across the world has called for a complete or partial lockdowns in an attempt to stop the spread of coronavirus, there are several other countries that did not opt for the lockdown.

Los Angeles, May 06: Heating may be the best way to disinfect N95 masks for reuse, according to a study which found that doing so preserves their filtration efficiency for 50 cycles. Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic, N95

Washington, May 09: The White House on Friday said that US Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary has the novel coronavirus, making her the second person who works at the White House complex known to test positive for COVID-19 this week.

An international rights group condemned the amendments, saying the government has used the global pandemic to “expand, not reform, Egypt#39;s abusive Emergency Law.”

The outbreak has resulted in Chinese cities being largely deserted, with tourist attractions shut and a few eateries requiring temperature checks and masks.

Maharashtra has the highest number of cases with around 20,228 positive cases of infection and 779 deaths.

February satellite readings in the troposphere (the lower atmosphere) of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a pollutant primarily from burning fossil fuels, show a dramatic decline compared to early January when power plants were operating at normal levels.; Credit: /NASA Earth Observatory

As China seeks to control the spread of COVID-19, fewer cars are driving, fewer factories are running and — in some places — skies are clearer.

Air pollution levels have dropped by roughly a quarter over the last month as coal-fired power plants and industrial facilities have ramped down so employees in high-risk areas can stay home. Levels of nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant primarily from burning fossil fuels, were down as much as 30%, according to NASA.

"It is an unprecedentedly dramatic drop in emissions," says Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, who tallied the reductions. "I've definitely spoken to people in Shanghai who said that it's been some of the most pristine blue skies that they remember over the winter."

Myllyvirta estimates that China's carbon emissions have dropped by a quarter over the same period. While that's a tiny fraction of its overall annual emissions, it's substantial in a worldwide context, since China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

There's potentially a health benefit — although any gains due to a drop in pollution are set against the toll taken by the coronavirus outbreak.

Air pollution is estimated to contribute to more than 1 million premature deaths in China each year. Fine particle pollution, also known as PM 2.5, can enter the bloodstream through the lungs and has been linked to asthma attacks, heart attacks and respiratory problems.

Even a short-term reduction in air pollution can make a difference.

"There is no question about it: When air quality improves, that will be associated with a reduction in health-related problems," says Jim Zhang, professor of global and environmental health at Duke University.

Zhang says that was evident during the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing. To help improve the air, government officials shut factories and dramatically limited car travel before and during the games. Levels of some air pollutants dropped by half.

He and colleagues studied a group of young men and women in Beijing and found that during that time period, their lung and cardiovascular health improved. He also followed pregnant women.

"What we found is that the kids whose mothers had a third trimester pregnancy during the Olympics when the air quality was better, their birth weight was substantially higher than the kids who were born a year before and a year later," he says.

But health specialists sound a cautionary note.

"It would be a mischaracterization to say that the coronavirus was beneficial to health because of these air pollution reductions," says Jill Baumgartner, associate professor and epidemiologist at McGill University.

"The health impacts from the virus itself, the stress on the health-care system, the stress on people's lives — those health impacts are likely to be much greater than the short-term benefits of air pollution on health," she says.

Baumgartner says people with health issues other than COVID-19 may have avoided seeing doctors during the outbreak or potentially couldn't receive treatment they needed in areas with overtaxed health systems.

Those isolated at home and avoiding crowds may also have been exposed to more indoor air pollution.

"People spent a lot more time indoors and it's possible that they were exposed to higher levels of indoor tobacco smoke," Baumgartner says. "Or in the suburban areas, it's possible that they were using their traditional wood or coal stoves for heating."

Not all cities have experienced the recent improvements. In mid-February, Beijing saw a spike in pollution due to local weather patterns trapping air in the region.

The drop in air pollution and carbon emissions is also likely to disappear as Chinese industry ramps up again in an attempt to offset its economic losses.

"If you think back to the global financial crisis, the immediate impact was for China's emissions to fall," says Myllyvirta. "But then the government response was to roll out the biggest stimulus package in the history of mankind that then drove China's emissions and global emissions up for years."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

The Watford Sunday League (WSL) has been suspended until further notice in light of advice that all grassroots football should be postponed for the foreseeable future due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Shannon Courtenay's upcoming fight is among the latest sporting events to have been suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak, with Matchroom Boxing pushing back a number of their bills.

Here's how to get your home and family ready for the possibility of a coronavirus outbreak.

The body is hitting pause on April’s written exams until October but plans to press ahead with its July sittings and multiple choice exams in small groups will continue.

Washington, DC Website Support and Digital Agency Offering Reduced-rate Support Packages to Nonprofits in Need of Assistance for Website Maintenance or Digital Marketing Support.

A report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development has forecast that the global economy may see an impact of $1-2 trillion in 2020. How far will the virus impact the Indian economy. Here's a brief overview.

In its Global Economic Outlook 2020, Fitch said the number of people affected by coronavirus will keep rising in the coming weeks but that the outbreak will remain contained. However, there are downside risks to this scenario.

You may now get the option from your insurer to pay your health insurance premiums on a monthly, quarterly or half-yearly basis in addition to the current option of paying premiums on an annual basis amid coronavirus outbreak.

“As a socially responsible company, Asian Paints is committed to providing necessary support towards various relief measures announced by the government to combat Covid-19” said K.B.S. Anand, Managing Director & CEO, Asian Paints Limited.

“There are supply issues for several brands. There is no clarity when the situation will normalise,” said Nilesh Gupta, director at Vijay Sales, a leading electronics retailer in Mumbai and New Delhi. “If it doesn’t get corrected fast, we may move into a stock-out situation from next month.”

China accounts for just around 1% of the group's total revenue and Italy for 5%, the CEO said. Safilo's factory in China reopened on Feb. 10 and it is now running at 85% of its capacity, and no big problems occurred at plants in Italy.

People who live along the streets will still be able to drive to their homes, and delivery workers can still operate on the streets. Through traffic will not be permitted.

The “temporary optimal/ideal” passenger limits are 12 riders on a 40-foot bus and 18 on a 60-foot bus, according to a bulletin to drivers from Metro.

Due to restrictions on gatherings to slow the spread of COVID-19, many organizations are canceling public gatherings and social events around the city, and are, instead, holding their events, concerts, classes, activities and more online. Submit your events and we will add them to our updating list. Loading…

Acta spoke candidly is issues in Dominican Republic and MLB players complaining about the proposed restart plan.

Due to restrictions on gatherings to slow the spread of COVID-19, many organizations are canceling public gatherings and social events around the city, and are, instead, holding their events, concerts, classes, activities and more online. Submit your events and we will add them to our updating list. Loading…

Live basketball is still on hold, but the Storm held a lot of practice the past week. Ahead of the first WNBA virtual draft, team officials have held practice sessions, focusing on how info will be shared with each other and with the rest of the league's teams.

Microsoft's executives, with headquarters just a few miles from one of the country’s worst coronavirus outbreaks, were among the first to confront the impact.

Gov. Inslee announced Monday that golf and recreational fishing could resume on May 5 and many state parks and public lands will reopen as well.

Join the bear hunt. Post a teddy bear, real or drawn, in your window for kids to find.

Due to restrictions on gatherings to slow the spread of COVID-19, many organizations are canceling public gatherings and social events around the city, and are, instead, holding their events, concerts, classes, activities and more online. Submit your events and we will add them to our updating list. Loading…

Here's a look at some Seattle-area events that have moved online. We will update this list regularly as we receive more information about online events.

Here's an updated list of local events that have moved online due to the novel coronavirus pandemic and its effects.

Here's an updated list of local events that have moved online due to the novel coronavirus pandemic and its effects.

Here's an updated list of local events that have moved online due to the novel coronavirus pandemic and its effects.