(Reuters) – Here’s what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:
Building consensus for investigation
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison spoke with leaders of Germany, France and the United States overnight, seeking support for an international investigation into the origins and spread of the coronavirus pandemic, including the World Health Organization’s (WHO) response.
Australia’s push for the independent review has drawn sharp criticism from China, its embassy in Canberra saying in a statement late on Tuesday that Australian lawmakers were acting as the mouthpiece of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Missouri sues China
Calls for accountability over the pandemic have been growing steadily. On Tuesday, Missouri became the first U.S. state to sue the Chinese government over its handling of the coronavirus, which it said led to devastating economic losses in the state. The civil lawsuit alleges negligence, among other claims, and seeks cash compensation.
International law experts told Reuters that efforts to hold China liable for the coronavirus in U.S. courts will likely fail. “If the United States wants to bring claims against China, it will have to do so in an international forum,” said Chimne Keitner, an international law professor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
Post-recovery some patients still test positive
Doctors in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the virus first emerged in December, say a growing number of cases in which people recover from the virus, but continue to test positive without showing symptoms, is one of their biggest challenges as the country moves into a new phase of its containment battle.
Those patients all tested negative for the virus at some point after recovering, but then tested positive again, some up to 70 days later, the doctors said. Many have done so over 50-60 days.
The plight of these long-term patients underlines how much remains unknown about COVID-19 and why it appears to affect different people in numerous ways, Chinese doctors say, as they struggle to explain why the virus behaves so differently in these cases.
Bugs, debris and dirt in Japan masks
Japan’s Health Ministry has received 1,903 complaints of soiled or defective masks, after shipping nearly 30 million by Friday to pregnant women, medical facilities and schools.
The complaints of mould, insects and stains in the protective cloth masks has tainted the scheme announced by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to supply each of the country’s 50 million households with two washable, reusable masks, further fuelling concern that the government has botched its handling of the pandemic.
The manufacturers of the masks are being asked to replace the defective ones, a ministry spokesman said.
(Compiled by Karishma Singh)
