Bedugul Coffee: Wednesday Morning Briefing: New Zealand considers freight as possible source of new coronavirus cluster

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New Zealand considers freight as possible source
New Zealand officials are investigating the possibility that its first COVID-19 cases in more than three months were imported by freight, as the country’s biggest city plunged back into lockdown on Wednesday.

The discovery of four infected family members in Auckland led Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to swiftly reimpose tight restrictions in the city and social distancing measures across the entire country.

The source of the outbreak has baffled health officials, who said they were confident there was no local transmission of the virus in New Zealand for 102 days.

“We are working hard to put together pieces of the puzzle on how this family got infected,” said Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield.

Russia says medics to get anti-COVID shots in two weeks
Russia said on Wednesday the first batch of its Covid-19 vaccine would be ready for some medics within two weeks and rejected as “groundless” safety concerns aired by some experts over Moscow’s rapid approval of the drug.

President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia had become the first country to grant regulatory approval to a COVID-19 vaccine, after less than two months of human testing.

The vaccine has not yet completed its final trials. Only about 10% of clinical trials are successful and some scientists fear Moscow may be putting national prestige before safety.

“It seems our foreign colleagues are sensing the specific competitive advantages of the Russian drug and are trying to express opinions that in our opinion are completely groundless,” Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said.

U.S. fraternities, sororities give it the old college try
Sixteen gallons of hand sanitizer sat in the foyer of the Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority house at the University of Wisconsin as house mother Karen Mullis reconfigured tables in the dining room to maintain social distancing.

Upstairs, the sorority has moved beds 2 meters apart and rooms in the basement will be used to quarantine any house members who test positive for the novel coronavirus, which has killed over 163,000 people in the United States, the most in the world.

Masks are mandatory and house guests prohibited.

“We have all of these rules but it is dependent on these kids taking it seriously,” Mullis said. “If the girls are not responsible, then this is not going to work.”

Only 17 of 38 members plan to live at the sorority house near the Madison, Wisconsin campus this fall. The rest will stay home or live in an apartment, Mullis said.

Virus found on Ecuador shrimps in China
A city in China’s eastern Anhui province found the novel coronavirus on the packaging of shrimps from Ecuador, state media reported on Wednesday, in the latest instance of the virus being detected on imported products.

The coronavirus was found on the outer packaging of frozen shrimps bought by a restaurant in Wuhu city when local authorities carried out a routine inspection, CCTV, China’s state television, said.

The news broke a day after a port city in eastern Shandong province said it found the virus on the packaging of imported frozen seafood, although it did not say where it originated.

Next 10 days 'critical' in Vietnam's virus fight

Vietnam’s Prime Minister said on Wednesday that the next 10 days would be critical in the Southeast Asian country’s fight against a new coronavirus outbreak, which resurfaced late last month after three months of no domestic cases.

Vietnam was lauded for suppressing an earlier contagion through aggressive testing, contact-tracing and quarantining, but it is now racing to control infections in multiple locations linked to the popular holiday city of Danang, where a new outbreak was detected on July 25.

“Note that the period from this week to the middle of next week is critical,” Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said on Wednesday, according to a government statement.

Track the spread of the virus with this state-by-state and global graphics.

Breakingviews - Corona Capital: Online retail, UK, Cathay Pacific. Read concise views on the pandemic’s financial fallout from Breakingviews columnists across the globe.

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