Leaked documents obtained by the Associated Press confirmed that Chinese government officials secretly knew the novel coronavirus could become a pandemic in mid-January. According to a memo from a confidential teleconference on Jan. 14, National Health Commission head Ma Xiaowei said the epidemic was “the most severe” since the SARS outbreak in 2003. He also warned of a possible pandemic. But Chinese leader Xi Jinping waited until Jan. 20 to warn the public.
Until the United States can review the World Health Organization’s response to the pandemic, it will not financially support the agency, President Donald Trump said. The WHO failed to assess early reports from Wuhan, China, suggesting the Chinese government hid the severity of COVID-19, and it “parroted and publicly endorsed” the false claim that the virus could not spread by human-to-human transmission, Trump said on Tuesday. The United States is the UN agency’s largest overall donor and contributed about $400 million last year.
Bad actors are peddling fake cures and tests and posing as Medicare and IRS agents to scam Americans during the coronavirus pandemic. The Federal Trade Commission said it had received nearly 18,000 fraud complaints related to the outbreak as of Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Sports | America’s only female grandmaster survived a serious bout with COVID-19, then won the U.S. women’s chess championship
