Apr22020 by DmediaNo Comments

Medics: Iraq has Confirmed Thousands More COVID-19 Cases Than Reported

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Iraq has thousands of confirmed COVID-19 cases, many times more than the 772 it is has publicly reported, according to three doctors closely involved in the testing process, a health ministry official and a senior political official.   The sources all spoke on condition of anonymity. Iraqi authorities have instructed medical staff not to speak to media.   Iraq's health ministry, the only official outlet for information on the COVID-19 disease, could not immediately be reached for comment. Reuters sent voice and written messages asking its spokesman if the actual number of confirmed cases was higher than the ministry had reported and if so why.   The ministry said in its latest daily statement on Thursday that the total recorded confirmed cases for Iraq were 772, with 54 deaths.  …


Apr22020 by TechmanNo Comments

Twitter Deletes Egypt, Saudi Accounts Over ‘Pro-Govt Direction’

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Twitter said Thursday it has removed thousands of accounts in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Honduras, Indonesia and Serbia that allegedly took direction from governments or pushed pro-government content.A network of accounts associated with Saudi Arabia and operating out of multiple countries including KSA, Egypt and UAE, were amplifying content praising Saudi leadership, and critical of Qatar and Turkish activity in Yemen. A total of 5,350 accounts were removed.— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) April 2, 2020"We removed 2,541 accounts in an Egypt-based network, known as the El Fagr network," the San Francisco-based tech firm posted in a series of tweets."The media group created inauthentic accounts to amplify messaging critical of Iran, Qatar and Turkey. Information we gained externally indicates it was taking direction from the Egyptian government."El Fagr's online managing editor Mina Salah…


Apr22020 by DmediaNo Comments

India PM Plans Staggered Exit From Vast Coronavirus Lockdown

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India will pull out of a three-week lockdown in phases, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday, as officials battle to contain the country's biggest cluster of coronavirus infections in the capital, New Delhi.   The shutdown, which has brought Asia's third-largest economy to a shuddering halt, is due to end on April 14.   Modi had ordered India's 1.3 billion people indoors to avert a massive outbreak of coronavirus infections, but the world's biggest shutdown has left millions without jobs and forced migrant workers to flee to their villages for food and shelter.   He told state chief ministers that the shutdown had helped limit infections but that the situation remained far from satisfactory around the world and there could be a second wave.   "Prime minister said that…


Apr22020 by TechmanNo Comments

Google Boosts Support for Checking Coronavirus Facts 

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Google on Thursday said it is pumping $6.5 million into fact-checkers and nonprofits as it ramps up its the battle against coronavirus misinformation.   Fact-checking organizations, which often operate on relatively small budgets, are seeing a surge in demand for their work as mistaken or maliciously false information about the pandemic spreads, according to Alexios Mantzarlis of the Google News Lab.   "Uncertainty and fear make us all more susceptible to inaccurate information, so we're supporting fact-checkers as they address heightened demand for their work," Mantzarlis said.   A Poynter Institute report last year on the state of fact-checking indicated that more than a fifth of fact-checking organizations operated with annual budgets of less than $20,000.   "We are supporting fact checking projects around the world with a concentration on parts hardest hit by the pandemic," Mantzarlis told…


Apr22020 by TechmanNo Comments

California Energy Company Pivots to Refurbishing Ventilators 

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A California hydrogen fuel cell company is now repairing and updating old ventilators, answering a challenge by the state to address a shortage of the life-saving equipment needed to help coronavirus patients breathe. Bloom Energy manufacturing director Joe Tavi told the Associated Press news agency state officials reached out to the Silicon Valley firm asking for its help in refurbishing old ventilators the state had on hand. Tavi said he downloaded a 300-page operating manual for the ventilators, and his co-workers developed a plan to fix the machines.  Since then, the company has fixed more than 400 ventilators and averages about 100 a day.  California Governor Gavin Newson says the state — with a population of about 40 million people — needs about 10,000 ventilators. Nationwide, the Society of Critical Care Medicine tells AP…


Apr22020 by DmediaNo Comments

Israel’s Health Minister Has Virus, Top Officials to Isolate

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The new coronavirus is forcing more top Israeli officials into isolation after the country's health minister, who has had frequent contact with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, tested positive, the Health Ministry said Thursday.   The Middle East has over 81,000 confirmed cases of the virus, most of those in Iran, and over 3,600 deaths. Iran’s Health Ministry said Thursday that the new coronavirus killed another 124 people, pushing the country's death toll to 3,160.   In a rare acknowledgment of the severity of the outbreak by a senior Iranian official, President Hassan Rouhani said the new coronavirus may remain through the end of the Iranian year, which just began late last month, state TV reported Thursday.   “The corona issue is not an issue that we can say it will…


Apr22020 by DmediaNo Comments

12,000 Apply to Be Next US Astronauts

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NASA may have just found the next man to walk on the moon — or the first woman to land on Mars — or someone who can float above the Earth and make repairs to the International Space Station.Wednesday was the deadline for submitting an application to join the next class of astronauts.NASA says more than 12,000 people applied — the largest number in three years — proving that those who believe Americans have lost interest in space are wrong.“We’ve entered a bold new era of space exploration with the Artemis program, and we are thrilled to see so many incredible Americans apply to join us,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Wednesday. “The next class of Artemis Generation astronauts will help us explore more of the moon than ever before…


Apr12020 by DmediaNo Comments

China Releases Data on Asymptomatic Coronavirus Cases

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China’s National Health Commission (NHC) announced Wednesday it has more than 1,300 asymptomatic coronavirus cases, the first time it has acknowledged cases of people testing positive for the virus but not showing symptoms.At a news briefing in Beijing, commission spokesman Mi Feng said the 1,367 asymptomatic cases were under quarantine and medical observation.The commission had said Tuesday it would begin releasing figures on asymptomatic cases in response to “public concern” about the figures.The French news agency AFP reports there had been mass calls online for the NHC to release the information after it was reported an infected woman in Henan province had been exposed to three asymptomatic cases.While the proportion of people who have contracted the virus but remain asymptomatic is currently unknown, scientists say these "carriers" can still pass…


Apr12020 by DmediaNo Comments

Astronomers Find Best Evidence of ‘Intermediate-Size’ Black Hole

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Astronomers using the U.S. space agency NASA’s orbiting Hubble telescope, as well as two orbiting x-ray observatories, say they have gathered the best evidence yet of a so-called “intermediate mass” black hole.A report published Tuesday in the Astrophysical Journal, and reported by NASA, explains that the so-called intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) are about 50,000 times the mass of our sun.   They are smaller than the supermassive black holes that lie at the cores of large galaxies, but larger than stellar-mass black holes formed by the collapse of a massive star.  IMBHs are a long-sought "missing link" in black hole evolution. They have been particularly difficult to find because they are smaller and less active than supermassive black holes.     University of New Hampshire astronomer Dacheng Lin—who published the…


Apr12020 by DmediaNo Comments

Europe Faces ICU Bed Crunch, Rushes to Build Field Hospitals

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Facing intense surges in the need for hospital ICU beds, European nations are on a building and hiring spree, throwing together makeshift hospitals and shipping coronavirus patients out of overwhelmed cities via high-speed trains and military jets. The key question is whether they will be able to find enough healthy medical staff to make it all work.Even as the virus slowed its growth in overwhelmed Italy and in China, where it first emerged, hospitals in Spain and France reached their breaking points and the U.S. and Britain  braced for incoming waves of desperately ill people. "It feels like we are in a third world country. We don't have enough masks, enough protective equipment, and by the end of the week we might be in need of more medication too," said…


Apr12020 by DmediaNo Comments

Scientists Report Coronavirus Shutdowns Have Reduced Seismic ‘Noise’

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Researchers who study Earth’s movements say mandatory shutdowns of transportation systems and other human activities as a result of the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a drop in what they call seismic “noise” around the world.An article published Tuesday in the scientific research journal Nature explains that human activity, such as moving vehicles and industrial machinery, can move Earth’s crust the way earthquakes and volcanic activity do. And researchers say the lack of such human activity in recent days has made a significant difference.Royal Observatory of Belgium seismologist Thomas Lecocq says vibrations caused by human activity have dropped by one-third since coronavirus containment measures were introduced in that country.  Researchers at the California Institute of Technology reported a similar drop in the Los Angeles area, as did researchers in Britain.Nature reports…