“We are no prepared for this situation” said a Doctor in Germany
A letter posted on social media by an emergency doctor has gone viral in Germany, where he said he felt medical staff had been “left in the lurch” by authorities.
Falk Stirkat, an emergency doctor on call from Erlangen said: “We are in no way whatsoever prepared for the current situation.”
“We’re being sent to the people who have had contact with someone with Coronavirus in order to get samples from them. But we’re not being provided with any sort of proper protective clothing. I have been told to just go to the patients without any protection.”
“One colleague was forced to use a pair of diving goggles she brought from home to protect her and others from the spread of the virus.”
Doctor Falk Stirkat, an emergency doctor on call from Erlangen
In further signs that authorities are overwhelmed with the situation, people have been reporting huge difficulties in finding who to turn to if they suspect they or their children might have the virus.
One woman told a newspaper that she spent four and a half hours on the phone trying to find someone to help her, but was “sent from pillar to post” and has since been told to stay at home.
A display shows the latest information on the spread of the novel coronavirus worldwide during a crisis meeting of government officials in Berlin, Germany
Italy into a Deepening Recession
due the Coronavirus
The coronavirus outbreak will strongly impact Italian economic growth in the first half of 2020, sending the country into a deepening recession.
Italy’s business lobby Confindustria has said that the coronavirus outbreak will strongly impact economic growth in the first half of 2020, sending the country into a deepening recession.
In a statement, Confindustria said gross domestic product would fall in the first quarter, with a “stronger contraction” between April and June due to the epidemic that has killed more than 50 people in Italy and heavily disrupted economic activity.
Italian GDP already declined 0.3% in the fourth quarter of last year from the previous quarter, before the coronavirus outbreak struck.
Coronavirus outbreak has become
a 'Global Pandemic'
The coronavirus outbreak has turned into "a global pandemic", German Health Minister Jens Spahn said Wednesday, warning that worse was still to come.
The situation in Germany and across Europe had changed drastically in recent days, he said, with Germany reporting a sharp uptick to 240 cases.
"The coronavirus outbreak in China has become a global pandemic," Spahn told German lawmakers in the Bundestag.
"The situation is changing very quickly," he said. "What's clear is that we have not yet reached the peak of the outbreak."
The World Health Organization (WHO) has so far stopped short of declaring a pandemic - defined as an epidemic that spreads throughout the world through local transmission. But it has urged countries to prepare for a potential pandemic.
8% of Iran's parliament
has tested positive for coronavirus
Twenty-three (23) members of Iran’s 290-member “Majlis” or parliament have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to Iran’s Deputy Parliament Speaker Abdul Reza Misri.
That's about about 8% of all members of parliament. Misri made the announcement while speaking to reporters in Tehran, citing an open letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei from Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani.
In the letter, MPs were also called on to halt contact with the public to avoid further spread of the disease.
Larijani also advocated for a continuance of the suspension of open sessions in parliament in his open letter to Khamenei, which was enacted last week amid Iran’s growing outbreak.
European Union offices
The first case of the new virus in European Union offices in Brussels has been announced. It appears to have been in the European Defence Agency (EDA).
First case of coronavirus in the EU institutions: the European Defence Agency has cancelled all meetings until 13 March after a senior official tested positive for COVID-19, according to an internal mail seen by EURACTIV.
Euractive says a source told it that a senior EDA official who contracted the virus had returned from a trip to Italy last week. Afterwards, he had a meeting with around 30 officials from other EU institutions last week and started feeling sick on Saturday before testing positive for Covid-19.
A member of the military staff of the European External Action Service (EEAS) who attended the meeting has started experiencing symptoms and is now waiting for the outcome of the test, the source added. The other participants of the meeting have since held other meeting and/or travelled.
Dr. Li Wenliang dies of coronavirus
A Wuhan doctor, from the same department as whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang, died from coronavirus on Tuesday, according to Wuhan Central Hospital.
Doctor Mei Zhongming
Mei Zhongming was the 57-year-old chief doctor and deputy director of the ophthalmology department at Wuhan Central Hospital, and was Dr. Li’s superior.
The hospital expressed “deep condolence” at the news of Dr. Mei’s death. Li Wenliang was regarded as a hero in China for trying to raise awareness of the coronavirus outbreak before it was publicly acknowledged by the government.