44.2 F
New York
Friday, March 29, 2024
Home Blog Page 1982

Are NY Schools Open? Cuomo, DeBlasio Give Different Answers

0
In this March 13, 2020 file photo, students at New York City's Stuyvesant High School leave after classes end for the week. Public schools in New York City's 1.1 million-student district will be shuttered for the rest of the academic year, but online education will continue as the city struggles to contain the coronavirus outbreak, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Saturday, April 11. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

By: Karen Matthews & Brian Mahoney

Governor and mayor locked horns again Saturday, this time over whether school buildings in the nation’s largest district would close for the rest of the year, with classes continuing online.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a news briefing that public school sites in the city’s 1.1 million-student school district would shutter for the rest of the academic year to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Soon afterward, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at his own briefing that the decision was his to make.

“It is my legal authority in this situation, yes,” Cuomo said.

De Blasio, like Cuomo a Democrat, had said that it was not an easy decision to close school buildings in favor of online learning, but that “it is the right decision and it’s also a decision made a little clearer by the fact that the distance learning is working more and more every day.”

The goal, he said, is to reopen school sites by September, adding that high school graduates may have to go without a commencement ceremony.

But Cuomo said school closings would have to be coordinated with districts surrounding the city.

“So I understand the mayor’s position, which is he wants to close them until June, and we may do that, but we’re going to do it in a coordinated sense with the other localities,” Cuomo said. “It makes no sense for one locality to take an action that’s not coordinated with the others.”

When a reporter suggested that the mixed messages would confuse parents, Cuomo said, “We just clarified it. It’s not going to be decided in the next few days because we don’t know.”

Adding to the confusion, an email from the city to parents was issued while Cuomo spoke, advising of the extended school closing.

“NYC school students will continue with Remote Learning for the rest of the 2019-2020 school year,” it said.

The dispute was the latest bout in a long-running grudge match between the two elected officials, who have failed to maintain a united front in the face of a pandemic.

When de Blasio said last month that city residents should prepare for a “shelter-in-place” order, Cuomo countered that the city didn’t have the power to make such a declaration.

Days later, Cuomo announced a “New York state on pause” order directing nonessential businesses to close and telling people to stay 6 feet away from others when in public. The order sounded much like shelter-in-place, a term de Blasio has continued to use.

De Blasio spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein alluded to the earlier dispute on Twitter, saying Cuomo’s reaction to de Blasio’s school announcement was “reminiscent of how he reacted when the Mayor called for a shelter in place. We were right then and we’re right now.”

Cuomo addressed the school issue as he released numbers showing that 783 deaths from COVID-19 were recorded statewide on Friday, the fifth day in a row that the toll topped 700.

The new figures raised the number of coronavirus-related deaths in the state to 8,627.

“These are just incredible numbers depicting incredible loss and pain,” Cuomo said.

The governor, whose national profile has risen as his virus briefings have become must-see TV, said again Saturday that he is not interested in running for president.

When a reporter said some Democrats would prefer Cuomo to former Vice President Joe Biden as their party’s presidential nominee, Cuomo said, “That is on one hand flattering. On the other hand, it is irrelevant.”

“I have no political agenda. Period,” he said. “I’m not running for president. I’m not running for vice president. I’m not running anywhere. I’m not going to Washington. I’m staying right here.”

De Blasio ran for the 2020 Democratic nomination but dropped out early in the race.

Cuomo’s remarks Saturday were embraced by authorities on Long Island, which has seen its own surge in coronavirus cases. “Everybody wants to get back to normal as soon as possible, but we have to take a data-driven, regional approach,” Laura Curran, the Nassau County executive, said in a statement.

“If this pandemic has taught us one thing,” added Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, “it is that we are one New York and all in this together.”

School buildings in New York City, the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic, have been closed since March 16. All school buildings in the state have been closed since March 18 following a Cuomo executive order.

The school closings were initially announced for a few weeks back before the virus’s full impact was known. New York’s school year lasts through late June.

A massive effort to move instruction online has met mixed success in the city, where many low-income students lack Wi-Fi and devices for connecting to their virtual classrooms.

De Blasio said tens of thousands of tablets and laptops have been loaned to students who needed them and the remaining students who lack devices for online learning will get them by the end of April.

De Blasio had resisted closing schools as the city recorded its first deaths from the coronavirus, saying he feared that health care workers would have to stay home to care for children and that hundreds of thousands of poor students would go hungry without free school meals.

Since then, the city has set up food distribution sites and centers where essential front-line workers can drop their children off.

Authorities in some other locales, including the states of Virginia and Pennsylvania, previously announced that schools would close for the rest of the year. (Assoicated Press)

This is Not a Passover for Despair

0
A Passover seder plate. Credit: Gov. Tom Wolf via Flickr.

The restrictions we are forced to endure is not a reason to give up hope. Instead, we should look to history and count our many blessings

By: Jonathan Tobin

For most of us, this is the saddest Passover we can recall.

The coronavirus pandemic is unlike any previous trauma we’ve lived through. Nothing, not even the 9/11 attacks, brought our world to an extended collective halt the way the efforts to contain the disease has done.

Israelis may have endured the traumas of the “sealed rooms,” where they waited out the 1991 SCUD missile attacks from Iraq; the ongoing horror of years of the Second Intifada with its bloody suicide-bombings committed by Palestinian terrorists; and the 2014 Gaza war, in which much of the country spent weeks dashing in and out of bomb shelters to evade Hamas rockets and missiles. But in none of those cases did the country close up for business in the way that the current deadly contagion has forced it to do.

Nor has anything prepared us for the way COVID-19 has taken such a toll on the elderly. The list of those who have succumbed to it is growing. Among Jewish victims are a disproportionate number of persons who survived the Holocaust, or who have long served their communities as rabbis and scholars.

Moreover, the isolation in which most of us are now living has rendered many of us prone to depression. Some have found a situation in which they are stuck inside their dwellings with spouses and children who suddenly need to be home-schooled to be an overwhelming and nerve-wracking challenge. That is especially true when it is considered that many people have lost their livelihoods or who have reasonable fears that the aftermath of this crisis will find them far less well off as businesses cut back or fold altogether.

Rather than the prelude to Passover being a joyous time of preparation, vacations or simply an opportunity to share a festive meal with family and friends, Jews are home alone, anxious and depressed.

While we will read the Haggadah about liberation, most of us are starting to feel like we’re prisoners and in need of a miracle or two of our own in order to survive. Instead of talking about the plagues that were visited upon Egypt, we’re discussing a contemporary plague that, even if we wash our hands and practice social distancing, we can’t be sure will pass us over in the long run.

But for all of the gloom and doom that is overshadowing the holiday this year, it’s not the time for despair.

That’s not an easy thing to accept for people who have only lived in times of security and relative prosperity, as is certainly the case for Americans. We’re accustomed to think of pandemics as only the stuff of dystopian novels and movies.

Just as the seder is a historical time machine that is intended to make us understand that the Exodus from Egypt is an event in which we were personally liberated from bondage, a perusal of the history books ought to also encourage those inclined to despondency.

Throughout thousands of years of history, Jews have celebrated Passover under far worse conditions than our current situation.

The Haggadah speaks of the students of Rabbis Eliezer, Joshua, Elazar, Akiva and Tarphon spent the night of Passover in Bnei Brak and spoke of the Exodus until their students came to warn them that morning had come. You don’t have to be an expert in the history of the period in which these figures lived (second century C.E.) to know that the context of that gathering was the Hadrianic persecutions in which the Roman rulers of the land of Israel had forbidden the study of Judaism and Torah under pain of death.

Throughout the last millennium, Passover was the occasion for the spreading of blood libels against the Jews as anti-Semites circulated the lie that matzah was baked with the blood of Christian children. Even into the modern era, this was a time of fear for Jews who worried about the possibility of Easter pogroms whipped up by talk of deicide during Passion plays and sermons.

During the Holocaust, Jews conducted seders literally under the shadow of death throughout occupied Europe. In the Warsaw Ghetto, those who took part in the heroic uprising of 1943 celebrated freedom even as Jewish slaves of the Nazis were gassed and worked to death.

Even the slightest acquaintance with Jewish history—let alone a deep dive—should remind us that we live in a uniquely wonderful time in which liberation is not a dream or a metaphor, but a reality. When we conclude our seders by singing “Next year in Jerusalem,” it’s not a fantasy but something that anyone can accomplish by purchasing a plane ticket (assuming, as we must, that the world has gone back to normal in 2021).

The Jewish people gained their freedom in the Exodus, but their current situation of sovereignty and unprecedented strength in their historic homeland is a scenario that most Jews would have regarded as science fiction only a couple of generations ago.

To note all of this is not to downplay the gravity of the pandemic or the sadness that those who have lost loved ones in a time where normal funerals and shiva are impossible are experiencing. But it should remind us that we lived in a blessed moment in history for Jews in which we are not defenseless against those who “rise against us in each generation” or without the resources to help those among us who are in need as result of a public-health disaster.

This Passover is as apt a moment as can be imagined to count our manifold blessings, even if we are doing the counting in lockdown. Like far greater troubles in the past, this too, shall pass. Even at our lowest point, Jews have never despaired, but instead embraced their faith and hope in a better future. So should we. (JNS.org)

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS—Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.

New York Sees Possible Flattening of Coronavirus Curve

0
Commuters wear face masks for protection against the coronavirus as they ride the M train in New York, April 10, 2020. Photo Credit: AP

By Margaret Besheer

New York’s governor said Friday that he is “cautiously optimistic” that the hardest hit U.S. state is starting to see a flattening in the number of new coronavirus infections, even as the death rate continues to remain dramatically high.

“To use an overused term, we are cautiously optimistic that we are slowing the infection rate,” Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters in the state capital, Albany. “That is what the numbers say, that is what the data suggest to us.”

He said the three-day average of patients requiring hospitalization is down significantly. The number of those requiring intensive care treatment is also dropping, and for the first time fewer people are in the state’s ICUs.

“The bad news is we continue to lose a tremendous number of lives and endure great pain as a state – 777 lives lost,” he said. Friday is the fourth consecutive day the death toll has been well over 700.

New York State’s population of 19.5 million has been badly hit by the virus, with more than 160,000 confirmed cases, putting it ahead of Spain and Italy.

Cuomo compared the current situation with the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed 2,753 people in New York. So far, 7,844 New Yorkers have been recorded as coronavirus deaths.

“I believed 9/11 was the worst situation that I was going to deal with in my lifetime,” Cuomo said. “In terms of lives lost, that this situation should exceed 9/11 is still beyond my capacity to fully appreciate.”

The governor expressed relief that the state appears to be defying statisticians’ predictions of how many people could require hospitalization – numbers that would have completely collapsed the state’s health care system.

But he said this is not the moment to relax and ease up on social distancing and other measures that have contributed to bending the curve.

“What we do today will determine the infection rate two or three days from now,” he reminded residents.

Cuomo said the key to reopening New York state and getting people back to work will be wide-scale testing both to see who has the virus and who is immune to it. He said millions of test kits will be required, and he urged the federal government to invoke the Defense Production Act in order to manufacture them within weeks, not months.

“If I had a New York State Defense Production Act, I would use it,” Cuomo said. “I don’t.”

He also said it would be wise to study what other countries, especially in Asia, have done to restart their economies to see what has worked and what hasn’t.

“Let’s make sure we study the waters ahead and proceed with caution before we set off on the next journey,” the governor said. (VOA News)

Economic Preparations for the Post-Coronavirus Era

0
The coronavirus pandemic has led to huge societal problems all over the world. In such an unprecedented reality, it is important for governments to start planning as soon as possible for the period immediately after the worst danger to public health has passed. Such an agenda should be constructed ahead of time, even if it is full of holes. New plans can be added as developments arise. Photo Credit: britannica.com

Once the critical danger to public health has passed, the global economy will have to be a top priority. Planning must begin now, as enormous government interventions will be necessary.

 

By: Manfred Gerstenfeld

The coronavirus pandemic has led to huge societal problems all over the world. In such an unprecedented reality, it is important for governments to start planning as soon as possible for the period immediately after the worst danger to public health has passed. Such an agenda should be constructed ahead of time, even if it is full of holes. New plans can be added as developments arise.

Among the multitude of issues governments will face post-coronavirus, the hit to national economies will have to take priority. Lockdowns and other government decisions have destroyed significant portions of GDP for many countries for this year, and unemployment has increased dramatically.

Huge financial intervention by states will be necessary to cope with these shocks, and several countries have already taken initial steps. The best means of intervening is far from clear, and different governments will take different approaches. As extremely large amounts of money are at stake, critical efficiency assessments will have to be undertaken on an ongoing basis. Large-scale waste and abuse in such a fluid situation could make a catastrophic situation even worse.

The top priority has to be determining what kinds of interventions can help return a country to a normal, albeit different, economy. Democracies ruled by politically centrist or center-right governments will want to return to a non-socialist type of reality as soon as possible. Mass injections of money into society will be required, but so will ongoing evaluations throughout. Countries that do not do this will risk falling into the trap of becoming de facto socialist.

There are other risks as well. In view of the massive interventions that will be required and the need to get results as fast as possible, there will be a temptation in some quarters toward authoritarianism. This contains two dangers. One is that those in power may want to circumvent civic opposition, which can be expensive and can delay decision-making, by employing emergency measures that they then refuse to roll back. 

The other is a possible trend in which some citizens view others’ civil rights as obstacles to their own economic advancement. That could lead them to vote for more populist and authoritarian parties. The latter development could also result from the dashing of expectations among parts of the population about the extent of the help they will be receiving from the government.

Checks and balances will have an important role to play in government policies, and not only as far as economics are concerned. It remains to be seen how the interventions will affect pre-coronavirus commitments to act against human-caused climate change, for example.

There will be a temptation to nationalize essential industries and financial institutions that have sunk into deep trouble as a result of the crisis. Doing so only makes long-term sense with respect to state-owned industries where re-nationalization would have been inevitable anyway. The failed British railway privatization and break-up come to mind.

For other corporations in such need of state help that governments have to acquire shares, nationalization should be only temporary. Israelis may remember that their government became a shareholder of some of its large banking institutions when the banking sector collapsed in 1983. When the banks became healthy again and the markets permitted it, the government sold off its shares.

In the meantime, another issue is coming to the fore. How does one trade off the huge economic cost in terms of lost GDP and greatly increased national unemployment against the need to take extreme measures to fight the health impact of the virus? That discussion will grow much louder in the coming weeks as pressure rises for a return to “normal,” come what may.

The value of a human life is not a new subject in economics, though it is often kept out of the public eye. There are many risk evaluations in which a specific dollar figure is assigned to a human life. Health care funds, to give one example, must determine the cost of expensive medication to be reimbursed against the number of lives it can save.

The sudden huge increase in unemployment levels needs to be addressed through major government measures. The temptation will be great to make state payouts to all citizens, or to large groups of them. This can only be done on a large scale for a short time. The exceptions are countries with small populations and significant income from oil or other natural resources.

For this to work, a government service will have to be set up to assist those who fall outside the safety net. Some businesses will have no choice but to close down or enter bankruptcy, and their employees will become jobless. Many self-employed will be unable to restart their jobs. Countries that had grown accustomed to low unemployment levels will have to find ways to help the suddenly much greater numbers of jobless citizens.

This necessitates immediate planning for extensive retraining programs. Governments should assess vacancies and determine what jobs can be filled by the newly unemployed. This is even more relevant in European countries where the birth rate is below, sometimes far below, replacement level.

The debate on the need to reduce the impact of globalization has already started. Governments will have to rethink which products imported at a low cost from abroad should be made in their own countries instead. India, for example, struggled to provide the drugs it needed at the height of the crisis because the raw materials could not be delivered from locked-down China.

The pandemic has had a huge impact on the European Union—so huge it calls European solidarity into question. European governments have made decisions in the face of the crisis that served their own interests at the expense of their neighbors. Germany, for instance, kept some medical equipment for itself and did not export it to other European countries. It also closed its borders to citizens from several neighboring E.U. countries.

The 1985 Schengen Agreement was a great step forward in terms of easing travel within the European Union. A European could move from one participating country to another without having to go through passport control, which created a sense of unity and meaning on the continent. The recent closure of borders by some E.U. countries has had the opposite effect.

All this pales, however, against the enormous financial problem created by the pandemic. Initially, attention was focused on Italy, which was hit harder than any other European country. Its suffering will likely continue even after the peak of the health threat, as the virus could have an even greater impact on Italy’s economy than on that of other E.U. members.

In the years before the 1999 introduction of the euro, it would have been helpful to devalue the Italian currency. This is no longer possible. The coronavirus crisis shows once again what a huge mistake it was to introduce a joint currency while individual member countries continue to employ divergent fiscal and economic policies. (As an aside, Brexit looks far more sensible nowadays. The British government can make plans for the United Kingdom’s economic recovery without having to navigate through Brussels.)

Ianis Varoufakis was Greek finance minister during part of that country’s economic crisis. He recently published an article in which he relates the economic dictat that was imposed on Greece by the European Union. He explains that in practice, the economic restrictions were dictated by Germany. None of the proposals he made on behalf of his country were even considered. Varoufakis warns that such a policy cannot be repeated in the case of Italy, which is far bigger and more powerful.

Even before the coronavirus crisis, it would have been extremely difficult for many European governments to pass legislation through their national parliaments granting loans to Italy like those made to Greece. This is not only because of the larger sums required; Euroscepticism has greatly increased in recent years in several E.U. countries.

Only a few weeks ago, it was believed that even if funding for Italy were forthcoming, the harsh accompanying conditions demanded by the European Union would probably lead to the collapse of the Italian government. A new Eurosceptic government headed by Matteo Salvini, leader of the Northern League, might introduce an alternative currency to be used in Italy in addition to the euro. This could be a way of gradually taking Italy out of the joint currency.

Yet another problem for the European Union is that Italy has been an important annual net contributor. That may now end.

In the meantime, the European Union has been overtaken by a far bigger problem. Ten E.U. members, including Italy, Spain, France and Belgium, want the European Union to issue Eurobonds amounting to hundreds of billions of euros to assist them with their financial problems. These bonds can only be sold if there are proportional national guarantees. Germany, the Netherlands and Austria have announced their total opposition to this. This may turn into the largest conflict about mutual solidarity the European Union has ever faced. Tensions on this issue are rising fast.

These are only a few of the many issues affecting the economic sector that will have to be addressed quickly as the world emerges from the coronavirus pandemic. (JNS.org)

Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld is a senior research associate at the BESA Center and a former chairman of the Steering Committee of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He specializes in Israeli–Western European relations, anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, and is the author of “The War of a Million Cuts.”

This article was first published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

test

0

test

Real Estate Magnate Stanley Chera Loses Battle to Coronavirus

3

Family & Friends Plunged Into Mourning

By: Lieba Nesis

Stanley Chera in 2018 (photos: Lieba Nesis)

Stanley Chera, a pillar of the Syrian Jewish Community died on April 11, 2020 at the age of 78, The Real Deal reported.  As he laid in a medically induced coma for nearly three weeks at New York Presbyterian Medical Center hundreds were praying for his speedy recovery from the unrelenting  coronavirus.  Those who knew the billionaire real estate developer were quick to heap praise on the business genius whose life revolved around giving charity and spending time with his family.  He was a close personal friend of both Donald Trump and the Kushners, and anyone who has listened to Trump’s press conferences would have heard mention of his great friend lying in the hospital in a coma.  Trump had urged Chera to retreat to his Deal, New Jersey mansion but it was too late-his exposure to groups in the beginning stages left him vulnerable to the viruses’ dire effects.  Stanley’s wife, Cookie, also tested positive but was thankfully spared from the worst of the illness.

Seated Klara and Larry Silverstein: standing left to right Jack Cayre and Chairman Stanley Chera, mogul and honoree Jeff Sutton, Michael Cayre, Real Estate mogul Joseph Chetrit, honoree and Real Estate developer Joe Cayre and Jonathan



left to right: Chaya Bender, Jenine Shwekey, honoree Joe Cayre, Larry Silverstein, Yaakov Shwekey and dinner chairman Stanley Chera

The press shy Stanley has left many wondering who he was and when he got his start.   Chera was born to a Syrian Jewish family in 1942.  His father, Isaac opened his first retail store called “Young World” in Brooklyn 5 years later.  As “Young World” expanded they began buying the buildings they were located in.  During the 1980’s Stanley, CEO of the company, spearheaded the purchasing of minority interests in NYC properties.  Encouraged by his success, he became the lead developer on numerous acquisitions in Manhattan during the 2000’s; his specialty being repositioning the retail portion of his buildings and thereafter selling the property.  666 Fifth Avenue, 655 Fifth Avenue, 689 Fifth Avenue, 697-703 Fifth Avenue, 640 Fifth Avenue,  650 Madison Avenue, the St. Regis, One World Trade Center, the Knickerbocker Hotel, and Olympic Tower were just a few of his trophy properties over his illustrious career.



Left to Right: Michael Boxer, Wendy Siegel, Larry Silverstein, Lloyd Goldman, Stanley Chera and Michael Salem. Credit for all photos: Lieba Nesis

His heavy investments in Red Hook Brooklyn, the Fulton Mall, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island proved equally lucrative; by 2009 he held over 15 million square feet of real estate in New York City.  Chera’s strategy was simple-long term investments in assets with no over-leveraging-never borrowing more than 25-35% of the purchase price.  In one of Chera’s rare interviews in 2010 he told the New York Times, “I have 100 pieces of property, but I could have 1,000 leveraged.”  In that same conversation he revealed his disinterest in clothing saying he buys 10 suits in 15 minutes.

That was the Stanley most people knew-self deprecating, quiet, unassuming and generous to a fault.  Chera was always the behind the scene mover and shaker donating millions to Rabin Medical Center, National Jewish Health, and charities for special needs children.  He also gave nearly a quarter of a million to the Trump campaign introducing the President at the Veterans Day Parade in November 2019.  He was soft spoken, short of words and quiet in temperament.  You never saw his name splashed on the front pages of The Real Deal or the Wall Street Journal-he was the guy sitting unassumingly at the table surrounded by his three sons (who are heading the business) and copious amounts of grandchildren.  I have enclosed a couple of pictures I photographed of Chera at various Jewish events.  The irony that the term “Corona” which means crown in Latin so named for the spiked-like proteins of the virus, mimics the name of his company “Crown Acquisitions” is the ultimate tragedy in a story of a giant whose life was stolen much too soon.

Anti-Semitic sticker in Germany links Jews to pandemic

0

by Paul Shindman, World Israel News

An anti-Semitic sticker connecting Jews to the coronavirus pandemic was found on a subway car in a major German city, an organization that fights anti-Semitism reported Thursday.

The sticker in the shape of a yellow star of David with a biohazard symbol on it was found last week stuck to the window on a subway car in Hamburg using an infamous Nazi-era symbol, the Research and Information Center for Anti-Semitism (RIAS) in Berlin said in a statement on its Facebook page.

“The sticker compared with the Holocaust by comparing state measures against Covid19 sufferers with the Nazi extermination policy,” RIAS said.

Two stickers were found, with one being a yellow heart with the text “I bio-hazard CORONA” where the word “bio-hazard” appeared on the stick in the shape of the international symbol for a bio-hazard. The second sticker had the shape of a star of David in yellow with the inscription “Coronavirus Infected !!” and in the middle the symbol for biohazard.

“The shape and color of one of the stickers thus openly alludes to the so-called “Jewish star,” a compulsory identifier that Jews had to wear” in Nazi Germany, RIAS said. “The use of the symbol leads to a trivialization of the Holocaust, and the users also stage themselves as victims of a mass crime.”

RIAS said similar symbols are now found in Facebook groups among in conspiracy theorists where “conspiracy theorists,” “Corona” and “Alternative Press” are stylized into a persecuted group like the Jews were under Nazism.

the Research and Information Center Antisemitismus Berlin (RIAS Berlin) has developed a reporting system for anti-Semitic incidents in the city in cooperation with Jewish and non-Jewish organizations. Reports and independent research are systematized and analyzed, serving as the basis for qualitative assessments.

The incident was condemned by German groups and the World Zionist Organization.

“In times of corona, the virus of anti-Semitism also spreads and creates a climate of hatred and propaganda,” said Uwe Becker, president of the German-Israeli Society (DIG) that promotes bilateral relations between Germany and Israel in the areas of civil society, culture and science.

WZO Vice-Chairman Yaakov Hagoel blasted the anti-Semitic nature of the conspiracy theories that try to blame the Jews for the pandemic.

“The Corona virus does not differentiate between race and gender religion but gives fertile ground to anti-Semitic conspiracies,” Hagoel tweeted. “This phenomenon, of accusing the Jews of creating epidemics, diseases and more, is not new. We saw it already in the Middle Ages during the Black Plague. Even then, as today, they incited against the Jews.”

Cuomo Updates New York on Coronavirus for Saturday : “The curve of the increase is continuing to flatten”

0

Here are the most important highlights from Saturday’s press conference, you can view it in it’s entirety at the bottom of page (courtesy of The Hill )

      • The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the state increased to 180,458, from 170,812. There were 18,654 patients in hospitals, up from 18,569 on Friday, and there were 5,009 patients in intensive care, up from 4,908.
      • The state death toll rose to 8,627, up from 7,844 the day before,  783 new deaths
      • Hospitalizations, including the three-day average of new virus patients being admitted to hospitals, were down, as were intubations — considered a sign of the severity of the health crisis.
      • “The curve of the increase is continuing to flatten. The number of hospitalizations appears to have hit an apex and the apex appears to be a plateau.”
      • Cuomo said the death rate in the state was “stabilizing” but was clear that this is still a terrible outbreak: the death rate was stabilizing “at a horrific rate”, he said, causing ‘incredible loss and pain’.
      • “Re-opening is both a public health question and an economic question, and I’m unwilling to divorce the two,” Cuomo says. “There is no economic answer that does not attend to public health. In my opinion, you can’t ask the people of this state and this country to choose between lives lost and dollars gained, No one is going to make that quid pro quo. I understand the need to bring back the economy as quickly as possible, I understand people need to work. I also know we need to save lives and we have. One cannot be at the expense of the other”
      • “The worst thing that can happen is we make a misstep and we let our emotions get ahead of logic and fact and we go through this again.”
      • “There’s no doubt I have worked hand in glove with the president here,” says Cuomo, who stresses the need to keep politics out of any decision to re-open. “[Trump] has really responded to New York’s needs”
      • “We’ve had hot spots, but we attacked them aggressively and we believe that we have stabilized the situation upstate,” the governor said.
      • Cuoms talked about how many of the models which predicted far more deaths than what have been realized so far, emphasizing that it’s far too soon to tell when everything will be over and when things can go back to normal.
      • On Friday Cuomo went on Rudy Giuliani’s radio show on WABC 770 and discussed the same topic. You can listen to that interview here:

    • When asked about running for president Cuomo made some striking remarks“There is no politics here. I have no political agenda, period. I’m not running for president, I’m not running vice-president. I’m not running anywhere. I’m not going to Washington. I’m staying right here. I said to the people of this state, unequivocally, when I was running for governor, I will serve as your governor. Well they all say that, and then they do something different. I’m not that person. I am going to do what i said I was going to do.”
    • When asked about Mayor de Blasio’s announcement on closing schools , Cuomo responded : “there has been no decision on (closing New York City) s” That’s his opinion. He didn’t close them and he can’t open them. It happened on a metropolitan-wide basis and we’ll act on a metropolitan basis, coordinating with Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester (counties).”

US Death Toll Overtakes Italy’s as the Midwest Braces

0

KATHLEEN FOODY, AMY FORLITI and GEIR MOULSON (A.P)

The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus eclipsed Italy’s for the highest in the world Saturday at more than 19,700, as Chicago and other cities across the Midwest braced for a potential surge in victims and moved to snuff out smoldering hot spots of contagion before they erupt.

With the New York area still deep in crisis, fear mounted over the spread of the scourge into the nation’s heartland.

Twenty-four residents of an Indiana nursing home hit by COVID-19 have died, while a nursing home in Iowa saw 14 deaths. Chicago’s Cook County has set up a temporary morgue that can take more than 2,000 bodies. And Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has been going around telling groups of people to “break it up.”

Around the world, meanwhile, European countries used roadblocks, drones, helicopters, mounted patrols and the threat of fines to keep people from traveling over Easter weekend. And with infections and deaths slowing in Italy, Spain and other places on the Continent, governments took tentative steps toward loosening the weeks-long shutdowns.

Glorious weather across Europe posed an extra test of people’s discipline.

“Don’t do silly things,” said Domenico Arcuri, Italy’s special commissioner for the virus emergency. “Don’t go out, continue to behave responsibly as you have done until today, use your head and your sense of responsibility.”

Italian authorities set up roadblocks around Milan to discourage people from going on holiday trips. British police kept a close watch on gatherings in parks and at the seaside on what was set to be the hottest day of the year. France deployed some 160,000 police, including officers on horseback who patrolled beaches and parks.

“It’s useless to pack your bags for a vacation,” the Paris police headquarters tweeted.

The outbreak’s center of gravity has long since shifted from China to Europe and the United States, which now has by far the largest number of confirmed cases, with more than half a million, and a death toll higher than Italy’s count of nearly 19,500, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

The death rate — that is, the number of dead relative to the population — is still far higher in Italy than in U.S., which has more than five times as many people. And worldwide, the true numbers of dead and infected are believed to be much higher because of testing shortages, different counting practices and concealment by some governments.

About half the deaths in the United States are in the New York metropolitan area, where hospitalizations are nevertheless slowing down and other indicators suggest social distancing is “flattening the curve” of infections and staving off the doomsday scenarios of just a week or two ago.

New York state on Saturday reported 783 more deaths, for a total over 8,600. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the daily number of deaths is stabilizing “but stabilizing at a horrific rate.”

“What do we do now? We stay the course,” said Cuomo, who like other leaders has warned that relaxing restrictions too soon could enable the virus to come back with a vengeance.

With authorities warning that the crisis in New York is far from the over, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city’s 1.1 million-student school system will remain closed for the rest of the academic year. But Cuomo said the decision is up to him, and no such determination has been made.

In the Midwest, pockets of contagion have alarmed state and city leaders and led to stricter enforcement.

Nearly 300 inmates at the Cook County Jail have tested positive for the virus, and two have died. In Wisconsin, health officials expect to see an increase in coronavirus cases after thousands of people went to the polls during Wisconsin’s presidential primary Tuesday.

Michigan’s governor extended her state’s stay-at-home order with new provisions: People with multiple homes may no longer travel between them.

And in Kansas, the state Supreme Court was scheduled to hear a dispute Saturday between Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and Republican lawmakers who overturned her executive order banning religious services and funerals with more than 10 people.

Elsewhere around the world, Austria aims to reopen small shops on Tuesday. Spain, with more than 16,300 dead, plans to allow workers in some nonessential industries to return to factories and construction sites Monday. Spanish authorities said they will distribute 10 million face masks at major train and subway stations.

“We think that with these measures we will prevent a jump in infections,” Health Minister Salvador Illa said.

Italy continued to include all nonessential manufacturing in an extension of its national lockdown until May 3. But Premier Giuseppe Conte held out hope that some industry could re-open earlier if conditions permit.

Arcuri said that the exit from the lockdown will include increased virus testing, the deployment of a voluntary contact-tracing app and mandatory blood tests as Italy seeks to set up a system of ’’immunity passports.”

India extended its lockdown of the nation of 1.3 billion people by two more weeks. But Iran, the site of the worst outbreak in the Middle East, reopened government offices and businesses outside Tehran.

Britain on Saturday reported 917 more deaths, down from the peak of 980 recorded a day earlier. The country’s overall death toll neared 10,000. At the same time, data suggest that the number of hospital admissions in Britain is leveling off.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the first major world leader confirmed to have COVID-19, continued to recover at a London hospital, where he was able to take short walks, according to his office.

Worldwide, confirmed infections rose above 1.7 million, with over 100,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins. Close to 400,000 people have recovered.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. But for others, especially older people and those with health problems, it can cause severe symptoms like pneumonia.

Israel eases lockdown Restrictions; Over 10,000 Israelis Infected, 93 Deaths

0

Aaron Sull, World Israel News

Following a four-day nationwide lockdown, restrictions were eased somewhat on Friday morning, allowing people to leave their homes for essential services and to travel to other cities for work purposes.

On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a four-day national lockdown in an effort to curb the spread of coronavirus.

The national lockdown prevented intercity travel on Tuesday evening and banned citizens from leaving their homes from Wednesday evening until Thursday morning, making sure that people spend the Passover seder evening in their own homes.

Dubbed “Operation Spring Protection,” thousands of police officers, roughly 1,400 unarmed IDF soldiers, helicopters and drones were deployed to enforce the regulations.

The Health Ministry reportedly advised enforcing the severe lockdown regulations throughout the entire eight-day holiday, but others in the government were opposed.

“The sweeping closure of Israel, which was very correct at the beginning, cannot continue to be the main tool over time due to its devastating impact on businesses and jobs in Israel,” Defense Minister Naftali Bennett stated.

The Health Ministry is rooted in an ideology that does not believe in the centrality of testing, which is a tool for exiting this crisis,” he said.

Meanwhile, a new restriction will be enforced on Sunday morning, requiring all citizens over the age of six or who have a disability to wear a mask in public.

As of Friday, the number of Israelis infected with coronavirus reached 10,095, of whom 164 are in serious condition, and 93 have died.

Despite the rising numbers, good news came on Wednesday after a five-week-old baby boy infected with coronavirus was reported to be in good condition.

For up to date Israeli news visit world Israel News.com

De Blasio :NYC keeping schools closed; online classes to continue

0

KAREN MATTHEWS and BRIAN MAHONEY AP

Public schools in New York City’s 1.1 million-student district will be shuttered for the rest of the academic year, but online education will continue as the city struggles to contain the coronavirus outbreak, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Saturday.

It was not an easy decision to close schools, de Blasio said, “but it is the right decision and it’s also a decision made a little clearer by the fact that the distance learning is working more and more every day.”

The goal is to reopen school sites by September, and high school graduates may be denied a commencement ceremony, de Blasio said.

School buildings in New York City, the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic, have been closed since March 16. A massive effort to move instruction online has met mixed success in the city, where many low-income students lack Wi-Fi and devices for connecting to their virtual classrooms.

Tens of thousands of tablets and laptops have been loaned to students who needed them, de Blasio said, and the remaining students who lack devices for online learning will get them by the end of April.

He praised teachers for what he said was a heroic effort to teach their students online, which will now continue through late June, when the school year ends in New York.

“Our educators were asked to learn an entirely different way of teaching,” de Blasio said. “And they weren’t given a year to get ready. They weren’t given a month to get ready. They had a week to quickly retool and turn to distance learning, online learning and make it work.”

De Blasio had resisted closing schools as the city recorded its first deaths from the coronavirus, saying he feared that health care workers would have to stay home to care for children and that hundreds of thousands of poor students would go hungry without free school meals.

Since then, the city has set up food distribution sites for needy New Yorkers, as well as so-called regional enrichment centers where essential front-line workers can drop their children off.

Attendance has been “a work in progress” since the school buildings closed, de Blasio said.

“It’s a very challenging dynamic when you’re dealing with distance, but that is also being worked on,” he said.

City education officials will work toward a goal of reopening school sites in September while helping this year’s high school seniors graduate, even if they never have commencement ceremonies, de Blasio said.

“We do not want to see these seniors robbed of their future, robbed of that joyous moment when they graduate high school,” de Blasio said. “We have no idea at this point if there’s going to be anything like a graduation ceremony this year, but we do know that so many of our seniors can graduate on time if we support them properly.”

Authorities in some other locales, including the states of Virginia and Pennsylvania, have previously announced that schools will be shuttered for the rest of the year.

Shocking Documentary From Epoch Times Traces Origins of Coronavirus

0

Joshua Philipp, an award winning journalist working for anti-communist Chinese American media outlet The Epoch Times released this chilling documentary.

Philipp and his colleages at The Epoch Times and NTD Television thought it their responsibility to sift through all the information available, verify it, and put it into one place. The result is the just-premiered documentary “Tracking Down the Origin of the Wuhan Coronavirus,” which is available to watch online. Less than two days after its premiere, the documentary has around 1.6 million views across different platforms.

This is a very important piece of journalism, most of the media is completely ignoring this hour long work.  Watch it yourself, let all the information sink in, and draw your own conclusions

 

Netanyahu Hints at Gradual Release From Lock-Down After Passover

0

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will make every effort to begin the “gradual release” of certain population sectors from lockdown after Passover concludes next Thursday night. His remarks came in a broadcast to “lone soldiers” or IDF recruits who have immigrated to Israel without their families, A7 Israel reported

“We very, very much appreciate your service,” Netanyahu said, “that even with the coronavirus you continue to guard our borders and our security. These challenges have not gone away but remain with us. You are being asked to do two things: to protect the State of Israel and to protect yourselves. I wish you continued health and strength to keep up the fight, on both the national and personal front.”

I24 reported:

srael’s Health Ministry said on Friday that more than 10,000 citizens have been infected with the novel coronavirus, with 164 in serious condition.

The updated figures also showed that 95 fatalities have been recorded due to the disease, with at least eight people dying from the disease in the last 24 hours.

The Health Ministry said that it has confirmed 10,095 cases of COVID-19 in Israel, with 164 in serious condition and 125 on ventilators.

Two of the latest fatalities were women in their 80s who had been hospitalized at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.

The medical facility said that the victims had complex preexisting health conditions that had compromised their immune system. Their identities have yet to be released to the public.

 

Some Doctors Moving Away from Ventilators for Virus Patients

0

MIKE STOBBE (AP)

As health officials around the world push to get more ventilators to treat coronavirus patients, some doctors are moving away from using the breathing machines when they can.

The reason: Some hospitals have reported unusually high death rates for coronavirus patients on ventilators, and some doctors worry that the machines could be harming certain patients.

The evolving treatments highlight the fact that doctors are still learning the best way to manage a virus that emerged only months ago. They are relying on anecdotal, real-time data amid a crush of patients and shortages of basic supplies.

Mechanical ventilators push oxygen into patients whose lungs are failing. Using the machines involves sedating a patient and sticking a tube into the throat. Deaths in such sick patients are common, no matter the reason they need the breathing help.

Generally speaking, 40% to 50% of patients with severe respiratory distress die while on ventilators, experts say. But 80% or more of coronavirus patients placed on the machines in New York City have died, state and city officials say.

Higher-than-normal death rates also have been reported elsewhere in the U.S., said Dr. Albert Rizzo, the American Lung Association’s chief medical officer.

Similar reports have emerged from China and the United Kingdom. One U.K. report put the figure at 66%. A very small study in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the disease first emerged, said 86% died.

The reason is not clear. It may have to do with what kind of shape the patients were in before they were infected. Or it could be related to how sick they had become by the time they were put on the machines, some experts said.

But some health professionals have wondered whether ventilators might actually make matters worse in certain patients, perhaps by igniting or worsening a harmful immune system reaction.

That’s speculation. But experts do say ventilators can be damaging to a patient over time, as high-pressure oxygen is forced into the tiny air sacs in a patient’s lungs.

“We know that mechanical ventilation is not benign,” said Dr. Eddy Fan, an expert on respiratory treatment at Toronto General Hospital. “One of the most important findings in the last few decades is that medical ventilation can worsen lung injury — so we have to be careful how we use it.”

The dangers can be eased by limiting the amount of pressure and the size of breaths delivered by the machine, Fan said.

But some doctors say they’re trying to keep patients off ventilators as long as possible, and turning to other techniques instead.

Only a few weeks ago in New York City, coronavirus patients who came in quite sick were routinely placed on ventilators to keep them breathing, said Dr. Joseph Habboushe, an emergency medicine doctor who works in Manhattan hospitals.

But increasingly, physicians are trying other measures first. One is having patients lie in different positions — including on their stomachs — to allow different parts of the lung to aerate better. Another is giving patients more oxygen through nose tubes or other devices. Some doctors are experimenting with adding nitric oxide to the mix, to help improve blood flow and oxygen to the least damaged parts of the lungs.

“If we’re able to make them better without intubating them, they are more likely to have a better outcome — we think,” Habboushe said.

He said those decisions are separate from worries that there are not enough ventilators available. But that is a concern as well, Habboushe added.

There are widespread reports that coronavirus patients tend to be on ventilators much longer than other kinds of patients, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University.

Experts say that patients with bacterial pneumonia, for example, may be on a ventilator for no more than a day or two. But it’s been common for coronavirus patients to have been on a ventilator “seven days, 10 days, 15 days, and they’re passing away,” said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, when asked about ventilator death rates during a news briefing on Wednesday.

That’s one reason for worries that ventilators could grow in short supply. Experts worry that as cases mount, doctors will be forced to make terrible decisions about who lives and who dies because they won’t have enough machines for every patient who needs one.

New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said Wednesday that officials are looking into other possible therapies that can be given earlier, but added “that’s all experimental.”

The new virus is a member of the coronavirus family that can cause colds as well as more serious illnesses. Health officials say it spreads mainly from droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes. There is no proven drug treatment or vaccine against it.

Experts think most people who are infected suffer nothing worse than unpleasant but mild illnesses that may include fever and coughing.

But roughly 20% — many of them older adults or people weakened by chronic conditions — can grow much sicker. They can have trouble breathing and suffer chest pain. Their lungs can become inflamed, causing a dangerous condition called acute respiratory distress syndrome. An estimated 3% to 4% may need ventilators.

“The ventilator is not therapeutic. It’s a supportive measure while we wait for the patient’s body to recover,” said Dr. Roger Alvarez, a lung specialist with the University of Miami Health System in Florida, who is a leader in the effort to use nitric oxide to keep patients off ventilators for as long as possible.

Zachary Shemtob said he was “absolutely terrified” when he was told his 44-year-old husband, David, needed to be put on a ventilator at NYU Langone last month after becoming infected with the virus.

“Needing to be ventilated might mean never getting off the ventilator,” he said.

Shemtob said the hospital did not give any percentages on survival, but he got the impression it was essentially a coin flip. He looked up the rates only after his husband was breathing on his own six days later.

“A coin flip was generous it seems,” he said.

But Shemtob noted cases vary. His husband is relatively young.

“David is living proof that they can really save lives, and how incredibly important they are,” Shemtob said.

Editors Note: The Jewish Voice reported earlier this week on Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell, who shares very similar views on ventilators

Worldwide Deaths from the Coronavirus hit 100,000

0

MATT SEDENSKY and JIM MUSTIAN (AP)

The worldwide death toll from the coronavirus hit 100,000 as Christians around the globe marked a Good Friday unlike any other — in front of computer screens instead of in church pews — and some countries tiptoed toward reopening segments of their battered economies.

Around the world, public health officials and religious leaders alike warned people against violating the lockdowns and social distancing rules over Easter and allowing the virus to come storming back. Authorities resorted to roadblocks and other means to discourage travel.

In Italy, officials employed helicopters, drones and stepped-up police checks to make sure residents didn’t slip out of their homes. On Thursday alone, police stopped some 300,000 people around Italy to check whether they had permission to travel. About 10,000 were issued summonses.

Some churches held services online, while others arranged prayers at drive-in theaters. Fire-scarred Notre Dame Cathedral came back to life briefly in Paris, days before the first anniversary of the April 15 inferno that ravaged it. Services were broadcast from the closed-to-the-public cathedral.

he holiday observances came as the worldwide number of deaths tracked by Johns Hopkins University hit a bleak milestone of 100,000 since late December, when the outbreak emerged in China. More than 1.6 million people around the globe have been infected, by the university’s count.

The true number of lives lost is believed be much higher because of limited testing, cover-ups by some governments, and different counting practices. For example, in places like New York, Italy and Spain, many victims who died outside a hospital — say, in a home or a nursing home — have not been counted.

Deaths in the U.S. reached about 18,000, putting it on track to overtake Italy as the country with the highest death toll, and about a half-million Americans were confirmed infected. More than 40% of the dead in the U.S were in New York state. Still, there were signs of hope.

New York state reported 777 new deaths, down slightly from the day before, for an overall toll of more than 7,800.

“I understand intellectually why it’s happening,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. “”It doesn’t make it any easier to accept.”

But state officials said the number of people in intensive care dropped for the first time since mid-March and hospitalizations are slowing: 290 new patients in a single day, compared with daily increases of more than 1,000 last week.

Cuomo said if the trend holds, New York might not need the overflow field hospitals that officials have been scrambling to construct.

“There is a light at the end of the tunnel,” said Dr. Jolion McGreevy, medical director of Mount Sinai Hospital’s emergency department. “It’s getting better, but it’s not like it’s going to just drop off overnight. I think it’s going to continue to slowly decline over the next weeks and months.”

With the pandemic slamming economies, the head of the International Monetary Fund warned that the global economy is headed for the worst recession since the Depression.

In Europe, the 19 countries that use the euro currency overcame weeks of bitter divisions to agree on spending $550 billion to cushion the recession caused by the virus. Mario Centeno, who heads the eurozone finance ministers’ group, called the package “totally unprecedented. … Tonight Europe has shown it can deliver when the will is there.”

As weeks of lockdowns were extended in nation after nation, governments were pressed to ease restrictions on key businesses and industries.

After a two-week freeze on all nonessential economic activity, Spain decided to allow factories and construction sites to resume work on Monday, while schools, most shops and offices will remain closed. Spanish authorities said they trust that the move won’t cause a significant surge in infections.

“We wouldn’t be adopting them otherwise,” said María José Sierra of Spain’s health emergency center.

The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned that a premature lifting of restrictions could “lead to a deadly resurgence.”

In Italy, the industrial lobbies in regions representing 45% of the country’s economic output urged the government to ease its two-week lockdown on all nonessential manufacturing, saying the country “risks definitively shutting down its own motor, and every day that passes the risk grows not to be able to restart it.”

Italy reported 570 additional deaths for a running total of more than 18,800 but said the number of hospital admissions is falling along with the number of patients in intensive care.

Malaysia’s prime minister announced a two-week extension to the country’s lockdown but said selected economic sectors can reopen in phases while following strict hygiene rules.

In the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, people desperate for food stampeded, pushing through a gate at a district office in the Kibera slum. Police fired tear gas, injuring several people.

In Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, many have criticized Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as being too slow to act against the pandemic. In a rare rebuke, the Japanese prefecture of Aichi, home to the Toyota car company, declared its own state of emergency, saying it cannot wait for the government.

“The situation is critical,” said Aichi Gov. Hideaki Omura. “We decided to do everything we can to protect Aichi residents’ lives and health.”

Japan has the world’s oldest population, and COVID-19 can be especially serious for the elderly.

In some of the worst-hit countries, Italy and Spain, new infections, hospitalizations and deaths have been leveling off. But the daily tolls remain shocking.

The 605 new deaths announced in Spain were the lowest in more than two weeks. The coronavirus has claimed more than 15,800 lives there, though the rates of contagion and deaths are dropping.

Britain recorded 980 new deaths, its highest daily total, for close to 9,000 in all.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was moved out of intensive care on Thursday after spending three nights there being treated for the virus. The 55-year-old remained hospitalized in London. His father, Stanley Johnson, said the prime minister needs to “rest up” before returning to work.

Republicans Demand Communications Between China and World Health Organization

0
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), addresses the media during a press conference at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Monday, Feb. 10, 2020 on the situation regarding to the new coronavirus. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)

  Washington Free Beacon

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee blasted the World Health Organization for its complicity in China’s propaganda campaign, joining a growing chorus of lawmakers pushing to hold the group accountable, according to a letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

In a letter addressed to WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus14 committee members accused the international organization of “taking its cues from China,” and demanded documents and communications between the WHO and the Chinese government. The lawmakers say that WHO repeated “false information from the Chinese government” and delayed the implementation of serious measures such as travel restrictions in response to Chinese pressure.

“Reports suggest that the WHO helped Beijing disseminate propaganda, downplayed the extent of the disease, and possibly delayed ordering a public health emergency,” the letter says. “Given the actions and statements of WHO officials during the past few months, we are concerned that the WHO is no longer serving the needs of the world and is instead taking its cues from China.”

The committee’s action follows weeks of growing criticism for WHO’s handling of the pandemic. Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.) introduced a resolution demanding that WHO disavow its “highly misleading statements of support for the Chinese Government’s response to COVID-19” in March. In recent weeks, several GOP senators have called for Tedros’s resignation.

WHO has routinely backed China’s claims about the pandemic even in the face of contrary evidence. In February, WHO applauded China for the “transparency they have demonstrated” even as reports emerged of widespread Chinese censorship and retaliation against whistleblowers. WHO also helped China downplay the outbreak in its early stages, stating that there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission” in mid-January. It was forced to retract that statement a week later.

The legislators said such behavior suggests that China exercises an undue influence on the international body.

“Throughout the crisis, the WHO has shied away from placing any blame on the Chinese government, which is in essence the Communist Party of China,” the letter says. “You, as leader of the WHO, even went so far as to praise the Chinese government’s ‘transparency’ during the crisis, when, in fact, the regime has consistently lied to the world by underreporting their actual infection and death statistics.”

The letter also criticized the international organization for opposing restrictions on international travel, like that implemented by President Donald Trump on flights from China in late January. Tedros had firmly opposed Trump’s travel ban back then, arguing that “this is the time for solidarity, not stigma.”

Despite declaring COVID-19 a [Public Health Emergency of International Concern] and extensive evidence of transmission through travel, the WHO insisted other countries not restrict travel or trade to China,” the letter says. “The WHO has not issued updated travel restrictions since February 29 and has still not recommended restricting international travel.”

The White House had also taken action against WHO for its alleged ties to China. On Tuesday, President Donald J. Trump said that the international organization was “very China-centric” and threatened to withdraw funding for it.

“And we’re going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO,” he said during his daily COVID-19 press briefing. “We’re going to put a very powerful hold on it, and we’re going to see.  It’s a great thing if it works, but when they call every shot wrong, that’s no good.”

The letter demanded that WHO turn over all documents and communications between it and the Chinese government, including China’s data on COVID-19 cases and deaths within its borders. U.S. intelligence has confirmed that China significantly underreported its COVID-19 cases, with some observers estimating that the death toll in Wuhan alone could be as high as 42,000, rather than the official tally of 3,000.

“The World Health Organization has become party to China’s coronavirus misinformation and propaganda campaign. Whether it’s deliberate or not, we don’t yet know,” committee member Rep. Jody Hice (R., Ga.) said. “The United States is the largest contributor of WHO funding, and as such, we have a responsibility to provide oversight and demand reforms when necessary—as it has now.”

Lawmakers also requested the WHO’s correspondence with Taiwan, in response to reports that the organization ignored Taiwanese reports about the deadly virus in late December. Taiwan lacks official membership in the WHO because China opposed its inclusion. The country has a tense relationship with Tedros, who accused it of condoning racist rumors against him. Taiwan denied Tedros’s accusations.

Other members of Congress have also demanded probes into the international organization. Sen. Todd Young (R., Ind.), the chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Multilateral Institutions, demanded on Thursday that Tedros testify before Congress about his organization’s handling of the pandemic. Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.) had also demanded a congressional investigation into the WHO on March 31, accusing the international public health body of “helping Communist China cover up” the details of the outbreak.

Brett Schaefer, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said that the United States is “absolutely justified” in demanding a fact-finding probe into the World Health Organization, but cautioned against cutting off funding for the international organization.

“The U.S. is absolutely justified to call for an independent, external investigation into the WHO response to COVID-19 and the potential influence of China over its decisions,” he said. “However, such an investigation will take months to complete. WHO will be critical in helping governments, especially to developing country governments, respond to COVID-19. Now is not the time to cut off funding.”