Japan urges citizens to isolate as reports warn of 400,000 deaths

Japan urged its citizens on Wednesday to stay home, as media reports warned that as many as 400,000 of them could die of the coronavirus without urgent action, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe came under pressure to hand out more cash.

Japan, which tests only people with symptoms of the coronavirus, has so far recorded more than 9,000 infections, including passenger who caught the virus on a cruise ship, with nearly 200 deaths.
Reports in Japanese media citing an undisclosed health ministry projection said fatalities could reach the 400,000-mark without mitigation measures. It also estimated that as many as 850,000 people could need ventilators.
Japan has seen an accelerating infection rate in recent weeks, particularly in Tokyo. The government has responded by declaring an emergency in Tokyo and six other areas including Osaka, and a goal to cut interactions between people by 70 percent.

The measures include a request that people isolate and businesses close, although there are no fines or penalties to force compliance. The government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, urged people to do everything in their power to help the government reach its target.
Japan’s capital on Wednesday announced 127 new cases, with at least 327 nationwide, according to Kyodo newswire.
A lawmaker, Takashi Takai, was forced to resign from the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan on Wednesday, after media reported he had visited a bar in Tokyo’s Kabukicho red light district despite the call to stay at home.
As Suga was calling for cooperation, his boss Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was coming under pressure to add a 100,000 yen ($935) payment to every citizen on top of a $1 trillion economic stimulus package that includes a 300,000 yen payment to households whose income has fallen because of the pandemic.

“I’ve urged the prime minister to make a decision and send a strong message of solidarity to the public,” Natsuo Yamaguchi, head of the Komeito party, the junior partner in the ruling coalition, told reporters after meeting Abe.
Other allies calling for action include Toshihiro Nikai a leading member of Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Speaking at his regular afternoon briefing, Suga said the government would consider further measures, but that for now it wanted “to extend help to households most affected.”
Japan’s coronavirus emergency economic stimulus will boost the country’s real gross domestic product by as much as 3.8%, the Cabinet Office said in a calculation released late on Wednesday.
Japan said earlier that the number of foreign visitors in March plummeted by 93 percent compared to last year. Abe has identified tourism as an economic growth driver.

The U.S. military extended a public health emergency to all of its bases in Japan. Since April 6, the emergency had applied only to the eastern Kanto region which includes Tokyo.
That health emergency, which affects the largest concentration of U.S. military personnel in Asia, will remain in effect until May 15, more than a week beyond the planned May 6 end of the Japanese government’s emergency declaration. It gives commanders the authority to enforce compliance with health measures on anyone accessing U.S. bases, including thousands of local residents who work as engineers and service personnel.
Abe will decide this weekend whether to extend the Japanese government’s emergency declaration after consulting with medical experts, according to two sources familiar with the matter who spoke to Reuters.
A key metric will be if new daily infections in Tokyo can be kept to around a hundred, the sources said. They asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-japan/japan-urges-citizens-to-isolate-as-reports-warn-of-400000-deaths-idUSKCN21X149

SD Covid-19 cases soar after governor dismisses quarantine measures

South Dakota’s coronavirus cases have begun to soar after its governor steadfastly refused to mandate a quarantine.
The number of confirmed cases in the state has risen from 129 to 988 since April 1 —  when Gov. Kristi Noem criticized the “draconian measures” of social distancing to stop the spread of the virus in her state.
Noem had criticized the quarantine idea as “herd mentality, not leadership” during a news conference, adding “South Dakota is not New York.”
The state now calls home to one of the largest single clusters of coronavirus outbreaks, with 300 workers at a ­pork-processing plant infected with the deadly bug, according to the Washington Post.

The factory, Smithfield Foods, accounts for five percent of the country’s pork production and was announced it will be forced to close on Sunday.
“The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply,” said Kenneth M. Sullivan, Smithfield’s president and CEO, in a statement.
The Republican governor continues to resist a shutdown even as calls for such policies mount. The South Dakota State Medical Association penned a letter to Noem on April 3 urging her to institute a mandatory quarantine.
“A stay-at-home order would give our health professionals the necessary time and resources to manage this pandemic,’ the group wrote on its website. “We may soon be facing the challenges and hardships being seen in New York and other cities if a shelter in place order is not issued immediately.”
South Dakota is among five rural states, all lead by Republican governors, still resisting quarantine measures, including Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska and North Dakota.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on Friday, April 3, cited the potential impact on residents’ mental health among a variety of factors as to why she’s resisting a state lockdown.
“We are a connected community. There’s just that side of it as well,” Reynolds said. “In addition to suicides and domestic abuse there are a lot of downsides to it as well.”
Noem did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but defended her stance to the Washington Post Monday as cases mounted.
“The people themselves are primarily responsible for their safety,” she said. “They are the ones that are entrusted with expansive freedoms.”

Noem has closed schools and recommended that businesses allow the employees to work from home and touted those measures during a briefing Tuesday.
“What we’re doing each and every day by getting up and using personal responsibility and taking actions at the local and state level —  it is working,” she said.
https://nypost.com/2020/04/14/coronavirus-cases-skyrocket-in-south-dakota/

Most NYC kids ‘probably’ already have coronavirus – pediatrician

Most New York children “probably” already have coronavirus and are serving as vectors to spread the disease, according to one New York pediatrician.
Dr. Dyan Hes at New York City’s Gramercy Pediatrics advised parents to assume their children have the virus if they contract even mild symptoms consistent with the disease.
“I think that probably 80 percent of the children have coronavirus. We are not testing children. I’m in New York City. I can’t get my patients tested,” Hes said during an interview at CBS News.
“And we have to assume, if they are sick, they have coronavirus. Most of them, probably 80 to 90 percent of them, are asymptomatic.”
But the number of infected children is unknown because so many children don’t display any symptoms, she said — and that could alter COVID-19’s mortality rate.
“So, these numbers are so skewed. I think that the mortality rate is way, way less than 0.5 percent for children who have it because it is so prevalent,” Hes said.
“You have to remember thousands of kids die from flu a year. This is much, much less virulent in children.”
The bigger risk lies in those infected children passing the virus to much more vulnerable populations, like the elderly or those with pre-existing health conditions.
“The problem with children is that they are so asymptomatic that they are spreading it. And our biggest mistake was that we didn’t close the public schools when we should have,” said Hes.
“So the children were the vectors to the teachers, who might be elderly or immunocompromised.”
Hes said parents should only take their children to a doctor for scheduled vaccine visits or if they’re exhibiting shortness of breath.
“[Y]ou just have to keep that child at home for 14 days. Socially distance,” she added. “When they go back out, if they’re above age 2, they should be wearing masks.”
Children rarely contract severe illness from the coronavirus — and might not even display a fever or a cough, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from April 6.
Children make up a small fraction of confirmed US coronavirus cases — 2,572 of the 149,082 cases reported as of April 2 for which the patient’s age was known, or about 1.7 percent.
But Hes says the true number of pediatric cases are not known because of the limited testing available and the relatively minor threat to kids.
“We have zero tests for children. We have zero swabs,” she said.
“I’ve had patients whose parents have COVID, child has a 102.5 fever. At the beginning when we were doing this, we were sending them to the ER. They got turned away. They were not tested because we do not have enough tests and the kids are doing well.”
https://nypost.com/2020/04/14/most-new-york-city-children-probably-have-coronavirus-doc-says/

Humanigen on go with study of lenzilumab in COVID-19

The FDA has signed off on a Phase 3 clinical trial evaluating Humanigen’s (OTCQB:HGEN) lenzilumab, its Humaneered anti-human GM-CSF monoclonal antibody, for the prevention of respiratory failure and/or death in hospitalized COVID-19 patients with pneumonia.

The company says it is the only one that it working on preventing cytokine storm via GM-CSF neutralization.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3560784-humanigen-on-go-study-of-lenzilumab-in-covidminus-19

Aytu BioScience up 5% premarket on COVID-19 test sales

Aytu BioScience (NASDAQ:AYTU) is up 5% premarket on robust volume in reaction to its announcement that it has sold/allocated 100K COVID-19 antibody blood tests in the U.S. and is expecting delivery of another 500K. It has boosted the size of its third order to 1M.
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3560809-aytu-bioscience-up-5-premarket-on-covidminus-19-test-sales

Applied DNA up on advancement of COVID-19 vaccine candidates

Applied DNA Sciences (NASDAQ:APDN) has completed design qualification, production and shipment of five COVID-19 vaccine candidates to Italy-based Takis Biotech, to support preclinical animal testing that will begin immediately.

The vaccine candidates were produced by Company’s PCR-based LinearDNA manufacturing systems.

Preliminary testing of plasmid-based vaccine templates shows strong immune responses, catalyzes testing of Linear DNA-based constructs set to begin immediately.

The next step is to utilize these LinearDNA candidates to inoculate mice whose sera will be tested for the presence of antibodies that bind to purified Spike protein.

Those positive candidates will be tested for their ability to neutralize SARS-CoV-2.

The company intends to execute its cGMP plan to support human trials scheduled to begin this fall.

Shares are up 51% premarket.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3560794-applied-dna-up-51-premarket-on-advancement-of-covidminus-19-vaccine-candidates

Trump announces airline deal, halts WHO funding: Coronavirus briefing

President Trump says an agreement has been reached with the major airlines, according to comments at the White House coronavirus task force briefing.

The Treasury Department says “a number of major airlines” plan to participate in the $25B in payroll grants that were bundled into the CARES Act.

Related tickers: (NASDAQ:AAL), (NASDAQ:UAL), (NYSE:DAL), (NYSE:LUV), (NASDAQ:JBLU).

Trump will halt U.S. funding to the World Health Organization while a review is conducted, alleging the WHO was late to examine the outbreak in China and slow to obtain coronavirus information.

The U.S. has 594,207 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 25,402 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.

This is a developing story; check back for updates.

Update at 6:41 pm: Trump says the U.S. could produce as many as 200,000 ventilators this year.

The administration is teaming with hospitals nationwide to create a dynamic ventilator reserve program.

Trump says he will speak to all 50 governors shortly about reopening the economy, perhaps earlier than May 1.

The White House’s larger reopening effort involves a public health strategy developed by FEMA and the CDC, according to The Washington Post. The strategy outlines a phased approach that can help states manage a safe reopening.

Update at 7:11: Trump says that he will likely talk to the governors on Thursday. The governors will be in control of when each state reopens, but Trump notes that the administration will block states where it isn’t safe to reopen.

Twenty-nine states are currently in very good shape regarding the coronavirus, according to Trump. The states weren’t named.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3560720-trump-announces-airline-deal-halts-who-funding-coronavirus-briefing