Summary:
- Germany reports jump in new cases, deaths
- Turkey releases mafia boss from prison
- Global Times editor denies report about leak from Wuhan lab
- Chinese factories on verge of second shutdown
- European Commission President apologizes to Italy
- Russia’s streak of record new cases stretches to 5th day
* * *
What would have been tax day for US citizens has come and gone. And as we enter the back half of April – and millions of Americans join the ranks of the unemployed – and some are starting to get a little restless.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases surpassed the 2 million mark, as we reported last night. According to the FT, 84,515 new cases were confirmed around the world on Wednesday, roughly even with the numbers from the last two weeks. However, a record 7,959 deaths were recorded yesterday, a worldwide record.
But perhaps the most important revelation from last night came shortly after the conclusion of last night’s White House press conference. A Fox News reporter asked the president a couple of surprising questions about the Wuhan Institute of Virology and whether the virus might have leaked out of the level 4 bio-lab. We were de-platformed by Twitter for asking the same question a few months back.
Source: FT
As it turned out, those questions portended a much bigger revelation: Fox News reported last night, citing a handful of anonymous sources, that the novel coronavirus accidentally leaked out of the Wuhan biolab.
Now, with yet another ‘conspiracy theory’ apparently well on its way to becoming a ‘conspiracy fact’, Beijing has chosen to issue its rebuttal via the editor in chief of the Global Times, one of the CPC’s most popular English-language mouthpieces.
Fox News published a ridiculous report claiming COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan lab. President Trump helped hype this story to divert public’s attention. It’s a dirty trick. Trump will further exploit China topic for his reelection campaign.
— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) April 16, 2020
We imagine we’ll be hearing more from the CPC’s official spokesmen and women. But the fact that such a high-level mouthpiece was tapped for the initial denial is certainly telling.
Moving on: Two days after Turkey passed a prisoner amnesty law, one of the most notorious Turkish Mafia bosses has been released from prison as part of a program to release 90k offenders, some of whom were violent criminals. Alaattin Cakici, who was convicted for murder and racketeering, is well known for having close ties to an ultra-nationalist party that is working in a coalition with President Erdogan’s AKP. Critics have criticized the amnesty program for leaving thousands of journalists and civil-society activists behind bars.
Offering the latest indication that mainland China is likely headed for a second shutdown, this one driven by a combination of viral resurgence fears and a staggering drop in demand, BBG reports that Chinese manufacturers who resumed work as restrictions were being lifted are already being forced to halt production again due to rising costs, difficulties in funding and logistics, and, of course, the demand drop, said Xu Kemin, an official with the industry ministry.
Germany reported a jump in new cases and deaths, with the number of newly diagnosed cases at its highest level in a week. In Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that Europe should offer a “heartfelt apology” to Italy for failing to help when the country became the first EU nation to be hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
“You cannot overcome a pandemic of this speed and this scale without the truth, the truth about everything: the numbers, the science, the outlook, but also about our own actions,” she said during a speech to the European Parliament.
Of course, as we noted at the time, von der Leyen and the European Commission didn’t just fail to act; they encouraged EU member states to keep their borders open, while playing down the severity of the outbreak.
Finally, Russia’s streak of disturbing records in new cases reported stretched to a fifth consecutive record jump on Thursday, while the country also recorded its highest jump in deaths. Health officials in Moscow said they had recorded 3,448 new cases across the country, a 14% jump that took Russia’s total to 27,938, while 34 more people died overnight, raising Russia’s death toll to 232.
