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US, China standoff ensnares WHO meeting on COVID-19 fight
GENEVA (AP) — Facing the most disruptive pandemic in generations, the technocratic halls of the World Health Organization are now the scene of pitched battles in an increasingly bitter proxy war between the China and the United States.

At the U.N. health agency’s annual assembly this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping joined by video conference to offer more money and support. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump railed against the WHO in a letter accusing it of covering up the coronavirus outbreak with China — and threatening to permanently halt U.S. funding that has been its main financial lifeblood for years.

It marked the latest showdown between the world’s last superpower and the rising Asian giant vying to supplant it on the global stage — this time against the backdrop of a disease that has killed over 300,000 people, left hundreds of millions jobless and ground the world economy to a halt.

For America’s allies in the West and beyond — who have counted on the postwar stability and prosperity that the United States has fostered — the standoff was another gut-check moment about the “America First” leader, now heading into a tough reelection contest.

Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Health and Human Rights at Georgetown University, said the withdrawal of the U.S. from the global health world would mark a seismic political shift.

“What the U.S. is doing is acting like a bully, making an existential threat to the WHO, and my worry is if the U.S. ever made good on that pledge, the world would splinter,” he said. “This is giving an enormous political prize to China because China has long been looking for a chance to shine on the global stage.”

A U.S. exit would likely weaken the global health agency and leave the U.S. and China to each fund their own projects, Gostin said.

At the assembly that ended Tuesday, European Union leaders tried to strike a middle ground between the two rivals, and the agency’s director-general simply tried to keep the focus on fighting the disease — not each other.

The assembly’s opening day Monday was book-ended by two very different messages. On one side, Xi, serene beside the Chinese flag and a landscape mural, called in to say that China would offer $2 billion over two years to help with the COVID-19 response and economic fallout. He vowed that any vaccine against the disease developed in his country would be made a “global public good.”

On the other, Trump threatened to cut U.S. funding to the WHO for good unless the agency commits to “substantive improvements” in the next 30 days, in a letter to agency Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. It’s not clear what those improvements are.

“I cannot allow American taxpayer dollars to continue to finance an organization that, in its present state, is so clearly not serving America’s interests,” Trump wrote.

The U.S. is the biggest WHO donor, providing about $450 million a year.

Europeans looked on aghast.

“Watching the World Health Assembly today was observing the post-American world,” tweeted former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “A confident and assertive China with clear strategic approach. A EU trying to rescue what’s left of global cooperation. And a disruptive U.S. more keen on fighting China than fighting COVID19.”

Trump’s threat followed an intense internal debate within the administration between aides intent on eliminating all funding for the WHO and those favoring a more measured response, such as pegging U.S. funding temporarily to the level provided by China, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

The WHO and other institutions have often drawn criticism from conservatives who are part of Trump’s base and disdain U.N.-style internationalism.

In the end, Trump reiterated a number of accusations and complaints that he has publicly made before, such as that the agency’s claims about the virus were “either grossly inaccurate or misleading.”

He also alleged that the WHO had “consistently ignored credible reports of the virus spreading in Wuhan in early December 2019 or even earlier, including reports from the Lancet medical journal.”

On Tuesday, the Lancet called that characterization “factually incorrect,” noting that the first papers published on the coronavirus did not appear until January.

George Davey Smith, an epidemiologist at the University of Bristol, called Trump’s letter “an undisguised political attack on China.”

WHO acknowledged receipt of the missive and said it was considering it.

Tedros, an Ethiopian who goes by his first name, appeared determined to rise above the new bout of criticism, saying “WHO’s focus now is fighting the pandemic with every tool at our disposal.”

Medical experts said the attacks from Trump, who has repeatedly shunned and berated international institutions, were hurting the WHO’s ability to protect global health.

Devi Sridhar, a professor of global health at the University of Edinburgh, said the letter was likely written for Trump’s political base and meant to deflect blame for the virus’ devastating impact in the U.S., which has by far the most infections and deaths in the world.

“China and the U.S. are fighting it out like divorced parents while WHO is the child caught in the middle,” she said.

Nonetheless, the assembly produced a unanimous resolution — with both China and the U.S. on board — that backs global cooperation to find tools to address COVID-19 and evaluate the world’s response, as coordinated by WHO, to it.

It wasn’t immediately clear how, when or by whom that evaluation will be conducted. Xi expressed support for a review — but said it should wait until after the pandemic is over.

The European Union, the resolution’s chief architect, urged countries to support the WHO in the wake of Trump’s attacks.

“This is the time for all humanity to rally around a common cause,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.

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Maria Cheng reported from London. Lorne Cook in Brussels, Matt Lee in Washington, and Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed to this report.

WHO bows to calls from countries for independent virus probe

WHO HOLDS TWO DAY VIRTUAL GLOBAL CONFERENCE EVERYONE SHOWS UP EXCEPT THE USA

In this Monday, Feb. 24, 2020 file photo, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), addresses a press conference about the update on COVID-19 at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The European Union is calling for an independent evaluation of the World Health Organization’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, “to review experience gained and lessons learned.” (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)

GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization bowed to calls Monday from most of its member states to launch an independent probe into how it managed the international response to the coronavirus, which has been clouded by finger-pointing between the U.S. and China over a pandemic that has killed over 300,000 people and leveled the global economy.

The “comprehensive evaluation,” sought by a coalition of African, European and other countries, is intended to review “lessons learned” from WHO’s coordination of the global response to COVID-19, but would stop short of looking into contentious issues such as the origins of the new coronavirus. U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed he has proof suggesting the coronavirus originated in a lab in China while the scientific community has insisted all evidence to date shows the virus likely jumped into humans from animals.


In Washington on Monday, Trump faulted WHO for having done “a very sad job” and said he was considering whether to cut the annual U.S. funding from $450 million a year to $40 million.

“They gave us a lot of bad advice, terrible advice,” he said. “They were wrong so much, always on the side of China.”

Later Monday, Trump tweeted a letter he had sent WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. In the letter, Trump said “the only way forward” is if WHO “can actually demonstrate independence from China.”

Trump said that unless WHO commits to “substantive improvements over the next 30 days,” he will make a temporary suspension of U.S. funding permanent.

WHO’s normally bureaucratic annual assembly this week has been overshadowed by mutual recriminations and political sniping between the U.S. and China. Trump has repeatedly attacked WHO, claiming that it helped China conceal the extent of the coronavirus pandemic in its early stages. Several Republican lawmakers have called on Tedros to resign.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Monday it was time to be frank about why COVID-19 has “spun out of control.”

“There was a failure by this organization to obtain the information that the world needed and that failure cost many lives,” Azar said. Speaking hours after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced China would provide $2 billion to help respond to the outbreak and its economic fallout, Azar said the U.S. had allocated $9 billion to coronavirus containment efforts around the world.

Tedros said he would launch an independent evaluation of WHO’s response “at the earliest appropriate moment” — alluding to findings published Monday in a first report by an oversight advisory body commissioned to look into WHO’s response.

The 11-page report raised questions such as whether WHO’s warning system for alerting the world to outbreaks is adequate, and suggested member states might need to “reassess” WHO’s role in providing travel advice to countries.

In his opening remarks at the WHO meeting, Tedros held firm and sought to focus on the bigger troubles posed by the outbreak, saying “we have been humbled by this very small microbe.”

“This contagion exposes the fault lines, inequalities, injustices and contradictions of our modern world,” Tedros said. “And geopolitical divisions have been thrown into sharp relief.”
Full Coverage: Virus Outbreak

China, meanwhile, sought to divert attention to its renewed efforts to slow the coronavirus pandemic, with Xi announcing the $2 billion outlay over two years to fight it. Last year, China donated about $86 million to WHO.

U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot characterized China’s newly announced contribution as “a token to distract from calls from a growing number of nations demanding accountability for the Chinese government’s failure to meet its obligations.” He said that since China was “the source” of the outbreak, it had “a special responsibility to pay more and give more.”

Xi insisted that China had acted with “openness, transparency and responsibility” when the epidemic was detected in Wuhan. He said China had give all relevant outbreak data to WHO and other countries, including the virus’s genetic sequence, “in a most timely fashion.”

Xi said that in recent weeks, China has dispatched medical supplies to more than 50 African countries and that 46 Chinese medical teams were currently on the continent helping local officials.

Other world leaders including the presidents of France, South Korea and South Africa and Germany’s chancellor were also piped in to throw their support to the WHO, which has been put on the defensive from a Trump administration that has blamed it for mishandling the outbreak and showering excessive praise on China’s response. The European Union and others staked out a middle ground.

The Trump administration has claimed that WHO criticized a U.S. travel ban that Trump ordered on people arriving from China.

Trump ordered a temporary suspension of funding for WHO from the United States — the health agency’s biggest single donor — pending a review of its early response. The advisory body, echoing comments from many countries, said such a review during the “heat of the response” could hurt WHO’s ability to respond to it.

Xi said China supports the idea of a comprehensive review of the global response to COVID-19 and that it should be “based on science and professionalism led by WHO, and conducted in an objective and impartial manner.”

Tedros emphasized that WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak to be a global health emergency on Jan. 30, its highest level of alert, at a time when there were fewer than 100 cases outside of China. In the following weeks, WHO warned countries there was a narrowing “window of opportunity” to prevent the virus from spreading globally.

During the first few months of the outbreak, WHO officials repeatedly described the virus’s spread as “limited” and said it wasn’t as transmissible as flu; experts have since said COVID-19 spreads even faster. It declared the outbreak to be a pandemic on March 11, after the virus had killed thousands globally and sparked large epidemics in South Korea, Italy, Iran and elsewhere.

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AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng reported from London. Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report. And Aamer Madhani contributed to this report from Chicago

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Follow AP pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

Experts: Trump’s threats to WHO could undercut global health

In this Monday, March 9, 2020 file photo, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization speaks during a news conference on updates regarding the novel coronavirus COVID-19, at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Outbreak experts say the increasing attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump on the World Health Organization for its handling of the coronavirus demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the U.N. health agency's role and could ultimately serve to weaken global health. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, file)

GENEVA (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump’s attacks on the World Health Organization are hurting its ability to protect global health, medical experts said Tuesday, as many WHO member states rallied around the U.N. health agency — even as they urged a look into its coordination of the global response to the coronavirus .

Political sniping on issues like war in Ukraine and Taiwan’s status pockmarked a second and final day of the WHO’s annual assembly, which nonetheless produced a unanimous resolution that backs cooperation to find tools to address COVID-19 and inspect the world’s response to it, among other things..


World leaders like the presidents of the European Commission and Colombia beamed in by video conference, hours after Trump made public his letter sent Monday to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus blasting “repeated missteps” of the agency as “very costly for the world.”

Tedros, an Ethiopian who goes by his first name, appeared determined to rise above the new bout of U.S. criticism, saying “WHO’s focus now is fighting the pandemic with every tool at our disposal. Our focus is on saving lives. At the end of the day, what matters is life.”

“Dark and difficult days may lie ahead but guided by science together, we will overcome,” Tedros said. “Let hope be the antidote to fear.”

The European Union, the resolution’s chief architect, urged countries to support WHO in the wake of Trump’s continued attacks. European Commission spokeswoman Virginie Battu-Henriksson said now wasn’t “the time for finger-pointing or undermining multilateral cooperation.”

The resolution, among other things, calls on Tedros to initiate “at the earliest appropriate moment ... an impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation” that would “review experience gained and lessons learned from the WHO-coordinated international health response to COVID-19.”

It wasn’t immediately clear how, when or by whom that evaluation will be conducted. China, where the outbreak emerged, expressed support for such a review, but said it should wait until after the pandemic is over.

While airing a few reservations, the U.S. nevertheless didn’t oppose the resolution.

The resolution also pointed to the “role of extensive immunization against COVID-19 as a global public good,” and called for participants to “work collaboratively” to produce “safe, effective, quality, affordable diagnostics, therapeutics, medicines and vaccines” for the COVID-19 response.


“This is the time for science and solidarity. This is the time for all humanity to rally around a common cause,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “And you can count on Europe to always play for the team.”

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said “together we stress the central role of the World Health Organization in international health management” and called for it to be strengthened.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said simply: “I support WHO and Dr. Tedros so that they lead and build on these lessons learned, so that they can help us to be better prepared for future challenges.”

Health experts said Trump’s increasing attacks on WHO for its handling of the coronavirus demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of the U.N. agency’s role and could ultimately serve to weaken global health.

In his letter, Trump threatened to permanently cut U.S. funding to WHO unless the agency commits to “substantive improvements” in the next 30 days.

“I cannot allow American taxpayer dollars to continue to finance an organization that, in its present state, is so clearly not serving America’s interests,” he wrote. The U.S. is the WHO’s biggest donor, providing about $450 million a year.

Devi Sridhar, a professor of global health at the University of Edinburgh, said the letter was likely written for Trump’s political base and meant to deflect blame for the virus’ devastating impact in the U.S., which has by far the most infections and virus deaths in the world.

“China and the U.S. are fighting it out like divorced parents while WHO is the child caught in the middle, trying not to pick sides,” she said.

“President Trump doesn’t understand what the WHO can and cannot do,” she said, explaining that it sets international standards and is driven by its member countries. “If he thinks they need more power, then member states should agree and delegate it more.”

Michael Head, a senior research fellow at the University of Southampton, said much of what Trump was demanding was beyond WHO’s intended scope. He said that WHO provides expert guidance, “not enforcement by law.”

Head noted that there are clear gaps in governance elsewhere that have allowed COVID-19 to spread — notably in the U.S., which has seen 1.5 million infections and more than 90,000 deaths linked to COVID-19.

Trump has repeatedly accused WHO of being unduly influenced by China, and wrote that the agency has been “curiously insistent” on praising the country’s “alleged transparency.”

WHO acknowledged receipt of Trump’s missive and said it was “considering the contents of the letter.” The agency has previously emphasized that it declared a global health emergency on Jan. 30, when there were fewer than 100 cases of coronavirus outside of China.

When that declaration was made, Tedros said China was setting a new standard for outbreak response. He said the world owed China gratitude for the way it bought other nations time to plan, with the extraordinary measures it was taking to contain the virus.

Trump’s letter also cited former WHO chief Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland as an example of a leader who stood up to China. In 2003, Brundtland called out China for its cover-up of the SARS outbreak and issued travel recommendations warning against travel to several Chinese cities. Brundtland, a former Norwegian prime minister, dismissed Trump’s criticisms of Tedros in a statement Tuesday.

“The last thing we need is to attack the WHO,” she said. WHO has both the necessary experience and authorizations to oversee and share information and at the same time assist all countries to overcome the ongoing corona crisis.”

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Maria Cheng reported from London. Lorne Cook in Brussels and Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed to this report.

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Trump threatens to pull out of WHO over virus response, China

AFP / Johannes EISELEA worker manages the flow of customers into a Food market in the Jackson Heights neighbourhood of Queens in New York City

President Donald Trump has threatened to pull the US out of the World Health Organization, accusing it of botching the global coronavirus response and of being a "puppet of China."

The American leader has been locked in a bitter spat with Beijing, alleging it covered up the initial outbreak in central China late last year before the disease unleashed death and economic devastation across the planet.

AFP / John SAEKIRise of COVID-19 deaths

More than 317,000 people have died of COVID-19 out of nearly 4.8 million infections worldwide, and governments are scrambling to contain the virus while seeking ways to resuscitate their hammered economies.

With more fatalities and cases in the United States than any other country by far, under-pressure Trump has blamed the WHO for not doing enough to combat its initial spread.

AFP / Miguel SCHINCARIOLA resident of Paraisopolis, one of Sao Paulo's largest slums, takes part in a protest to demand more aid from the Brazilian government during the COVID-19 pandemic

"They're a puppet of China, they're China-centric to put it nicer," he said on Monday at the White House. "They gave us a lot of bad advice."

Trump had already suspended US funding to the UN body, and after his White House comments, he tweeted a letter he had sent to WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus threatening to make that freeze permanent.

AFP / Sai Aung MainMedical staff take the temperature of a resident while going door-to-door for health check-ups in Yangon, Myamar

"It is clear the repeated missteps by you and your organization in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world," the letter said.

"The only way forward for the World Health Organization is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China," it added, giving the body 30 days to show "substantive improvements."

Before the threat, the WHO had promised an independent review of its pandemic response.

AFP / Damien MEYERSchoolchildren wearing masks and face shields attend a class at Claude Debussy college in Angers, western France

Beijing has furiously denied the US allegations that it played down the threat, and Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated at the World Health Assembly that his nation had been "transparent" throughout the crisis.

As he launched his latest attack on China, Trump also dropped a bombshell saying he was taking hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug that his own government's experts have said is not suitable for fighting the coronavirus.

"I take a pill every day," said the president, adding that he is using it because he has "heard a lot of good stories."

- 'A test from God' -

Experts have warned that the social distancing measures that have impacted more than half of humanity will remain necessary to stop the virus until a vaccine or viable medical treatment is available.

AFP / Vincenzo PINTOA nun has her temperature checked before entering St. Peter's Square and Basilica at the Vatican

Development work on a prophylactic is under way at breakneck speed around the world, and results from a trial in the United States sparked optimism on Monday.

Early -- and small -- clinical trials of a vaccine by US firm Moderna showed encouraging results, with recipients showing an immune response similar to people recovering from COVID-19. It will begin a larger second-phase trial soon.

AFP/File / WANG ZHAOScientists at Peking University have said they are developing a drug that can help stop the pandemic without a vaccine

In China, meanwhile, scientists at Peking University have said they are developing a drug that can help stop the pandemic without a vaccine by using antibodies that can neutralize the virus.

They are planning clinical trials for the treatment, and are hoping to have the drug available later this year and in time for any potential winter outbreak.

AFP / Adem ALTANPolice patrol the streets of Ulus during curfew in Ankara, Turkey

Authorities around the world are keeping an eye on such breakthroughs as the virus continues on its destructive path, with many poorer nations now seeing a dramatic rise in infections even as the caseload eases in more developed parts of the world like Europe.

In Indonesia, gravediggers at a cemetery earmarked for COVID-19 victims in the capital Jakarta are struggling to keep up with the number of corpses arriving every day, trying not to touch the bodies and lessen the chance of getting infected themselves.

AFP / ADEK BERRYGravediggers lower the coffin of a COVID-19 victim into a grave at Pondok Ranggon cemetery in Jakarta

"I've been digging graves for 33 years now and I've never been this tired before," said gravedigger Minar.

"This is probably a test from God."

- Violence in Chile -

The vast economic damage caused by the virus has led to unprecedented emergency stimulus measures by governments and central banks, and the latest came from Europe where France and Germany laid out a half-trillion-euro fund.

AFP / Pablo RojasDemonstrators clash with riot police during a protest against Chilean President Sebastian Pinera's government in Santiago

The hard-hit continent has seen deaths and hospitalizations drop in recent days, sparking optimism about a post-pandemic recovery.

The daily death count in the United States has also slowed over the last couple of days, as all 50 states began easing lockdown measures to varying degrees.

The hard-hit continent has seen deaths and hospitalizations drop in recent days, sparking optimism about a post-pandemic recovery.

AFP / Brendan SmialowskiUS President Donald Trump has revealed that he is taking the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine as a preventive measure against the coronavirus

The daily death count in the United States has also slowed over the last couple of days, as all 50 states began easing lockdown measures to varying degrees.

But other parts of the world -- especially developing countries -- are only just starting to feel the full force of the virus.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday many governments had ignored WHO recommendations.

"As a result, the virus has spread across the world and is now moving into the Global South, where its impact may be even more devastating," he warned.

AFP / Gent SHKULLAKUStudents follow social distancing guidelines as they enter a school in Albania

Already, Brazil has overtaken Britain to have the third-highest number of infections in the world with around 255,000 confirmed cases, and the death toll in Latin America and the Caribbean has topped 30,000.

In Chile, where the government has imposed strict distancing measures in some areas after a dramatic rise in cases, the economic pressure from lockdowns was brought into sharp focus as violence erupted in a crowded, poor area on the outskirts of the capital Santiago.

Angry residents wielding sticks erected barricades and threw rocks at riot police, who fought back with tear gas and water cannon.

"It is not because of the quarantine," resident Veronica Abarca told AFP.

"It is aid, food, what people are asking for right now."

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Trump threatens to permanently end WHO funding

May 19 (UPI) -- U.S. President Donald Trump late Monday threatened to permanently pull funding from the World Health Organization unless it commits to "major substantive improvements within the next 30 days."

The threat is an escalation to a hold Trump put on U.S. funding to the United Nations' health agency last month so as to conduct a review of the WHO's response to the coronavirus outbreak. Trump has accused it of "mismanaging and covering up" the spread of the disease.

In the letter posted to his Twitter account on Monday night, Trump said the review has confirmed his concerns over the WHO's handling of the virus and its "alarming lack of independence" from China.

"It is clear the repeated missteps by you and your organization in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world," Trump wrote in the letter addressed to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. "The only way forward for the World Health Organization is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China."

Trump said his administration has begun discussions with the WHO on reforms.

"We don't have time to waste," he said. "That is why it is my duty, as president of the United States, to inform you that if the World Health Organization does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the World Health Organization permanent and reconsider our membership in the organization."

The letter lists in chronological order several of the missteps Trump accuses the organization of having made, many of which are connected to China.

This is the letter sent to Dr. Tedros of the World Health Organization. It is self-explanatory! pic.twitter.com/pF2kzPUpDv— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2020

Amid the pandemic, the Trump administration has leveled criticism at the Asian nation over its lack of transparency and alleged cover-up of its initial outbreak.

U.S. Secretary of state Mike Pompeo earlier this month blamed China and its lack of transparency for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people to the virus worldwide.

China has balked at the United States' allegations, often pointing to praise from the WHO as proof of its openness and strong response to the virus.

In his letter Monday, Trump said because of the WHO's "failure" to publicly call out China's lack of transparency, more than 100 member states have backed a resolution at the ongoing World Health Assembly calling for a review of the WHO's handling of the crisis and for an independent investigation into the virus' origins.

After Trump announced the hold on funding last month, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement saying now is not the time to halt funding to the international organization fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump has said the United States gives between $400 million and $500 million a year to the WHO in contrast to the roughly $40 million it receives from China.

Since the virus emerged from the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, more than 4.8 million people worldwide have been infected resulting in more than 318,000 deaths, according to a live tracker of the virus by Johns Hopkins University. With 1.5 million infections and 90,000 deaths, the United States is by far the worst affected country by the coronavirus.

U.S. blasts WHO's coronavirus response, says failure 'cost many lives'

May 18 (UPI) -- The United States harshly criticized the World Health Organization's response to the coronavirus pandemic Monday, saying the global agency's "failure cost many lives."

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, speaking during the WHO's two-day virtual World Health Assembly, repeated criticisms of the organization made last month by U.S. President Donald Trump, who pulled its funding after accusing it of "mishandling" and "covering up" the coronavirus outbreak.

"In an apparent attempt to conceal this outbreak, at least one member state made a mockery of their transparency obligations, with tremendous costs for the entire world," Azar said, apparently referencing China.

"We saw that WHO failed at its core mission of information sharing and transparency when member states do not act in good faith. This cannot ever happen again," he said.

The U.S. criticisms came after WHO's leader promised an independent investigation into its response to the coronavirus pandemic so that mistakes made during the health crisis are not repeated.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in opening remarks the inquiry will begin at the "earliest appropriate moment" and will review "experience gained and lessons learned" and make recommendations for how to improve "national and global pandemic preparedness."

The COVID-19 outbreak began in December in Wuhan, China.

Ghebreyesus said the WHO is "committed to transparency, accountability and continuous improvement" and urged more international support.

"The world doesn't need another plan, another system, another mechanism, another committee or another organization," Ghebreyesus said. "It needs to strengthen, implement and finance the systems and organizations it has -- including WHO."

Since the start of the pandemic, more than 4.7 million cases and 315,000 deaths have been reported.




Monday's assembly is a gathering of delegations from all 194 member states who meet each year to set the WHO's policies and approve its budget. For the first time, the 2020 assembly is meeting virtually and has been compressed into two days.

After a plenary session on Monday, resolutions from individual delegations will be introduced Tuesday. Attention will be focused on a draft resolution backed by the European Union and Australia that calls for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday said Beijing supports a comprehensive investigation, as long as it's "objective" and "impartial."

Xi also said China will give $2 billion over two years to help with the COVID-19 response and economic and social development in affected countries, especially developing nations.

Australia last month called for an independent investigation to determine how the pandemic started, which drew an angry response from China that accused Canberra of "ideological bias and political games" at a time of worldwide emergency.

More than 120 countries have signed on to the resolution.

China also came under pressure from a U.S.-backed resolution pushing to grant Taiwan "observer status" at the assembly. This, too, was opposed by Beijing, which has long considered Taiwan a renegade breakaway province rather than an independent nation.

The assembly was scheduled to vote Monday on the proposal, but Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said Taipei has dropped the effort. Wu said the proposal was unlikely to be included in the assembly's shortened agenda.

COVID-19 data sharing with law enforcement sparks concern


 In this April 1, 2020, file photo, a Camden County police officer wears a protective mask as she waits to direct people to a COVID-19 testing facility in view of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Camden, N.J. Public health officials in at least two-thirds of U.S. states are sharing the addresses of people who have the coronavirus with first responders. Supporters say the measure is designed to protect those on the front line, but it's sparked concerns of profiling in minority communities already mistrustful of law enforcement. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — More than 11 million people have been tested in the U.S. for COVID-19, all with the assurance that their private medical information would remain protected and undisclosed.

Yet, public officials in at least two-thirds of states are sharing the addresses of people who tested positive with first responders — from police officers to firefighters to EMTs. An Associated Press review found that at least 10 of those states also share the patients’ names.

First responders argue the information is vital to helping them take extra precautions to avoid contracting and spreading the coronavirus.


But civil liberty and community activists have expressed concerns of potential profiling in African-American and Hispanic communities that already have an uneasy relationship with law enforcement. Some envision the data being forwarded to immigration officials.

“The information could actually have a chilling effect that keeps those already distrustful of the government from taking the COVID-19 test and possibly accelerate the spread of the disease,” the Tennessee Black Caucus said in a statement.

Sharing the information does not violate medical privacy laws, according to guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But many members of minority communities are employed in industries that require them to show up to work every day, making them more susceptible to the virus — and most in need of the test.

In Tennessee, the issue has sparked criticism from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, who only became aware of the data sharing earlier this month.

The process is simple: State and local health departments keep track of who has received a test in their region and then provide the information to dispatch centers. The AP review shows that happens in at least 35 states that share the addresses of those who tested positive.

At least 10 states go further and also share the names: Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Tennessee. Wisconsin did so briefly but stopped earlier this month. There have been 287,481 positive cases in those states, mostly in New Jersey.

“We should question why the information needs to be provided to law enforcement, whether there is that danger of misuse,” said Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

He said law enforcement agencies should provide assurances that the information won’t be turned over to the federal government, noting the Trump administration’s demands that local governments cooperate with immigration authorities.

Law enforcement officials say they have long been entrusted with confidential information — such as social security numbers and criminal history. The COVID-19 information is just a continuation of that trend.

According to the national Fraternal Order of Police, more than 100 police officers in the United States have died from the coronavirus. Hundreds more have tested positive, resulting in staffing crunches.

“Many agencies before having this information had officers down, and now they’ve been able to keep that to a minimum,” said Maggi Duncan, executive director of the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police.

Critics wonder why first responders don’t just take precautions with everyone, given that so many people with the virus are asymptomatic or present mild symptoms. Wearing protective equipment only in those cases of confirmed illness is unlikely to guarantee their protection, they argue.

In this March 19, 2020 file photo State Rep. G.A. Hardaway, D-Memphis, wears a mask during House floor proceedings in Nashville, Tenn., amid the coronavirus pandemic. Sharing information about people who have tested positive or been exposed to COVID-19 with first responders does not violate medical privacy laws, under guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That has not quelled skepticism about how the data is used. “Tell us how it’s working for you, then tell us how well it’s been working; don’t just tell us you need it for your job,” said Hardway, a Memphis Democrat who chairs the Tennessee Black Caucus. (AP Photo/Jonathan Mattise, file

In Ohio, Health Director Dr. Amy Acton issued an April 24 order requiring local health departments to provide emergency dispatchers with names and addresses of people who tested positive for the coronavirus. Yet the order also stated that first responders should assume anyone they come into contact with may have COVID-19.

That portion of the order puzzles the American Civil Liberties Union. “If that is a best or recommended practice, then why the need or desire to share this specific information with first responders?” said Gary Daniels, chief lobbyist for the ACLU’s Ohio chapter.

Duncan said having the information beforehand is valuable because it allows officers “to do their jobs better and safer.”

To use the data, officers aren’t handed a physical list of COVID-19 patients. Instead, addresses and names are flagged in computer systems so that dispatchers can relay to officers responding to a call. In most states using the information, first responders also must agree they won’t use the data to refuse a call.

In some states, the information is erased after a certain period of time.

In Tennessee, the data is purged within a month, or when the patient is no longer being monitored by the health department, according to health officials and agreements the AP reviewed. In Ohio’s Franklin County, which includes the state capital, health officials reported 914 confirmed and probable cases to dispatch agencies in May and April, but removed those names after patients spent 14 days in isolation, said spokeswoman Mitzi Kline.

In this Feb. 27, 2020 file photo Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton speaks during a news conference at the MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, left, watches. Under pressure from law enforcement, Tennessee's top health officials quietly agreed in April to release the names and addresses of those who had been treated or exposed to COVID-19 to police departments and sheriff's offices. Acton issued an order April 24 requiring local health departments to provide emergency dispatchers the names and addresses of people within their jurisdictions who tested positive. The order required dispatchers to treat the data as “protected health information” and to remove it from the system once a person has recovered from the illness, although the order is unclear on how dispatching agencies would learn of this follow-up information. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak, file)

Some are not convinced. The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition called sharing the medical information “deeply concerning,” warning that doing so may undermine the trust governments have been trying to build with immigrants and communities of color.

“Tell us how it’s working for you, then tell us how well it’s been working. Don’t just tell us you need it for your job,” said state Rep. G.A. Hardway, a Memphis Democrat who chairs the legislative black caucus.

The data remains highly sought after by law enforcement. In Pennsylvania, two police unions sued to force local health officials to disclose both patient names and addresses. The lawsuit is still pending.

Still, there have been cases of misuse.

New Hampshire health officials agreed to start sharing names and addresses in mid-March, but some first responders also informed local leaders of positive cases. State health department spokesman Jake Leon said that was a misunderstanding and has been stopped.

“We have not experienced additional issues,” Leon said.

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Associated Press writers Andrew Welsh-Huggins in Columbus, Ohio; Nomaan Merchant in Houston; Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire; Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin; and Lindsay Whitehurst in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.

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‘This is war’: Virus charges beyond Latin American hot spots

People infected with COVID-19 disease wait for an available bed, outside a public hospital in Lima, Peru, Thursday, April 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Beyond the hot spots of Brazil and Mexico, the coronavirus is threatening to overwhelm Latin American cities large and small in an alarming sign that the pandemic may be only at the start of its destructive march through the region.

More than 90% of intensive care beds were full last week in Chile’s capital, Santiago, whose main cemetery dug 1,000 emergency graves to prepare for a wave of deaths.

In Lima, Peru, patients took up 80% of intensive care beds as of Friday. Peru has the world’s 12th-highest number of confirmed cases, with more than 90,000.

“We’re in bad shape,” said Pilar Mazzetti, head of the Peruvian government’s COVID-19 task force. “This is war.”

In some cities, doctors say patients are dying because of a lack of ventilators or because they couldn’t get to a hospital fast enough. With intensive care units swamped, officials plan to move patients from capitals like Lima and Santiago to hospitals in smaller cities that aren’t as busy — running the risk of spreading the disease further.

Latin American countries halted international flights and rolled out social distancing guidelines around the same time as the U.S. and Europe, delaying the arrival of large-scale infection, said Dr. Marcos Espinal, director of communicable diseases at the Pan American Health Organization.

“Latin America was the last wave,” said Espinal, who previously worked at the World Health Organization.

He warned that authorities need to maintain anti-virus restrictions even as the U.S. and Europe reopen. Some of the hardest-hit cities, like Lima and Santiago, imposed strict, early lockdowns. But officials have struggled to enforce them, whether among the wealthy who are used to flouting regulations or lower-income people who depend on day labor or selling things on the street to feed their families.

Latin America is the world’s most unequal region, a reality that Espinal said made it difficult to balance health and economic growth, with millions facing increased poverty during quarantines, curfews and shutdowns.

A month after swamping the Ecuadorian coastal city of Guayaquil in one of the first serious blows to Latin America, COVID-19 is sickening thousands in the capital of Quito, where 80% of intensive care beds were occupied as of Friday.

“In terms of intensive care, we’re stripped bare,” city health secretary Lenín Mantilla said.

Quito has more than 2,400 confirmed infections, and Health Minister Juan Carlos Zevallos said he expected the peak to come toward the end of June. He assured citizens that the city was prepared and would avoid the fate of Guayaquil, where hundreds died at home, left in living rooms for days before overworked coroners could retrieve the bodies. Those who perished in hospitals in coastal cities were put in chilled shipping containers that served as makeshift morgues.

The number of deaths in Quito jumped alarmingly over the weekend, from 114 to 209, and doctors said they dreaded the coming days.

“I have a 26-year-old woman next to me who walked in. Three hours later, she’s suffocating because we don’t have a respirator available,″ said an intensive care doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the media. “I think we’re getting to the point that you saw in Europe, where people died for lack of respirators.”

Ecuador has banned most private car trips and imposed a 2 p.m. to 5 a.m. daily quarantine, but thousands of people can be seen buying from street vendors across the capital.

The worst-hit country in Latin America remains Brazil, which is third in the world for reported infections — at more than 250,000 — even with limited testing. More than 85 percent of intensive care beds are full in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

Now, other countries are surging. Chile has imposed new restrictions in Santiago after cases doubled over the past week, to more than 34,000 in the country of 18 million people.

Under the new restrictions, people will have to receive a police permit to leave home, with violators fined the equivalent of thousands of dollars. Essential workers are exempted.

“We’re on very, very thin ice,” said Claudio Castillo, a professor of public policy and health at the University of Santiago.

In Colombia’s Amazon region, cases have shot up in recent weeks, from 105 at the start of the month to 1,006 on Monday. The infections are concentrated in Leticia, a city on the Amazon river that borders both Brazil and Peru.

Locals believe it’s related to the increase in cases in Brazil’s Amazon. Even though Colombia’s president has militarized the border, many still cross. Residents often work in one country and live in the other.

Leticia relies on two poorly equipped hospitals, which have about a half-dozen respirators between them. Authorities recently began transporting seriously ill patients to Bogota after a failure at a hospital oxygen plant. Officials said Monday that they will open hotels in Leticia to take in people with less severe coronavirus cases.

Health workers also complain of limited access to testing and say they are overworked to the point of collapse.

In Mexico, intensive care occupancy is below 50 percent in most cities, although deaths have begun to overwhelm funeral homes and crematoriums in the Mexico City borough of Iztapalapa.

Meanwhile, in Quito, a growing number of people say they know someone who died of what was likely COVID-19, although many are not tested.

Marcelo López, who delivers food, said his 35-year-old cousin gargled with honey and ginger because he believed it would protect him from the virus. Unemployed, his cousin delayed going to a hospital this month even after feeling sick.

“When he finally acted, it was too late — he was seriously ill,” López said. “There were no ventilators in the hospital, and he died.”

___

Weissenstein reported from Havana. Contributing to this report were María Verza and Carlos Rodríguez in Mexico City; Christine Armario in Bogota, Colombia; Joshua Goodman in Miami; Franklin Briceño in Lima, Peru; Eva Vergara in Santiago, Chile; and David Biller in Rio de Janeiro.

Indigenous infections grew amid slow Brazil agency response
AP NEWS

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Locals walk after the funeral of Chief Messias Martins Moreira, 53, of the Kokama ethnic group, who died of Covid-19, at Parque das Tribos in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, Thursday, May 14, 2020. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros)
SAO PAULO (AP) — As COVID-19 reached remote indigenous lands in Brazil’s Amazon, the government agency responsible for protecting native people brushed off calls for action, focusing instead on waging ideological battles, according to agents from the institution itself and others.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s repeated promotion of developing the vast Amazon has for months prompted indigenous activists, celebrities and agents on the ground to sound the alarm. In the face of a spreading pandemic, they warn inaction is enough to wipe out many indigenous people.

The Associated Press spoke to four agents who work with indigenous peoples in the farthest reaches of Brazil’s Amazon, and they were unanimous in their conclusion: The national Indian foundation, known as FUNAI, is hardly doing anything to coordinate a response to a crisis that could decimate ethnic groups.


There’s not enough protective equipment for agents who enter indigenous territories or meet with native people in cities. Necessities like kerosene and gasoline are in short supply. Food deliveries only began last week — a month after indigenous people were instructed to remain in their villages — and remain vastly insufficient.

Since the pandemic’s onset, there has been fear about the vulnerability of native people who live far from urban health facilities and whose communal lifestyles render them susceptible to swift transmission.
A girl wearing a mask walks holding hands with an adult after the funeral of Chief Messias Martins Moreira, 53, of the Kokama ethnic group, who died of Covid-19, at Parque das Tribos in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, Thursday, May 14, 2020. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros)
At least 88 indigenous people have already died of COVID-19 in the Amazon, according to a tally by the Brazilian indigenous organization APIB that includes health ministry figures and information from local leaders. The count is likely higher, because hospitals often don’t use patients’ indigenous names when admitting them.

As native people started succumbing to the coronavirus, FUNAI’s focus was elsewhere, according to Antônio Carlos Bigonha, who heads the public prosecution office responsible for indigenous affairs. He said the Indian agency’s response has been “delinquent, lax, insufficient,” reflective of Bolsonaro’s open support of assimilation.

“The environment of COVID-19 is so grave, because integration alone is bad, but in the context of a pandemic is genocide,” Bigonha said in a telephone interview.

CIMI, a Catholic group that defends indigenous rights, condemned FUNAI’s policies for failing to safeguard native peoples. FUNAI fired back, attacking what it called “socialist public policies” implemented since 2003 by the leftist Workers’ Party that it maintained made indigenous people dependent on welfare.
Mourners embrace during the funeral of Chief Messias Martins Moreira, 53, of the Kokama ethnic group, who died of Covid-19, at Parque das Tribos settlement in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, Thursday, May 14, 2020. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros)

“This isn’t ... a socialist plot,” said Bigonha. “It’s just an interpretation of historical facts: We adopted integrationist policy at the start of the 20th century and it almost did away with the indigenous people.”

Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, famous for his work with indigenous tribes, drafted a manifesto warning of imminent threat to native peoples and calling on Brazil’s government to take action to protect them. It drew 245,000 signatories, including Paul McCartney, Meryl Streep, film director Pedro Almodóvar and model Gisele Bündchen.

FUNAI’s response was swift: It returned photographs Salgado had taken of the Korubo people in the isolated Javari Valley, near the Peruvian border, along with a statement recommending Salgado auction them to buy food, personal hygiene products and cleaning goods for indigenous people.

FUNAI told the AP in an e-mailed response that it adopted “all the measures within its reach” in the fight against the pandemic. It said it has distributed 45,000 food kits and more than 200,000 personal protection items nationwide, without breaking it down by region, and that another 40,000 food kits were coming soon.

Agents on the ground, including three employed by FUNAI, told a different story. They spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity for fears of retribution after several officials in the Bolsonaro administration were fired or reassigned after talking to reporters.

There’s no leadership from above and requests sent to FUNAI headquarters in Brasilia go unanswered for weeks, they said.


Graves of people who died in the past 30 days fill a new section of the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery, amid the new coronavirus pandemic in Manaus, Brazil, Monday, May 11, 2020. The new section was opened last month to cope with a sudden surge in deaths. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)


Cemetery workers place coffins in a common grave during a funeral at the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery, amid the new coronavirus pandemic in Manaus, Brazil, Wednesday, May 13, 2020. The new section of the cemetery was opened last month to cope with a surge in deaths. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)


Cemetery workers place crosses over a common grave after burying five people at the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery amid the new coronavirus pandemic in Manaus, Brazil, Wednesday, May 13, 2020. The new section of the cemetery was opened last month to cope with a surge in deaths. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

The Upper Solimoes region near Brazil’s border with Colombia has one of Brazil’s highest COVID-19 mortality rates. The only hospital with ventilators, a military facility in Tabatinga, on the border, has only 13 of the lung machines, the health ministry said.

To contain the virus, since mid-March FUNAI agents have told indigenous groups they should prevent anyone from entering their territories and block roads and rivers near their communities.

But as long as there aren’t enough food kits delivered, the tribes won’t stay on their lands, the agents said. Little agriculture is possible when rivers flood the Upper Solimoes and Upper Negro regions, and the vast majority sell or trade what they fish and hunt.


Health workers prepare to move 89-year-old COVID-19 patient Sildomar Castelo Branco into an aircraft as he is transferred from Santo Antonio do Içá to a hospital in Manaus, Brazil, Tuesday, May 19, 2020. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)


Nurse Janete Vieira puts on her protective equipment as she prepares to airlift COVID-19 patients from Santo Antonio do Içá to a hospital in Manaus, Brazil, Tuesday, May 19, 2020. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)


In the Upper Solimoes, home to some 76,000 indigenous people, only six of the 350 ethnic groups received 1,300 food kits through last week, according to an agent involved in the operation. That has further damaged FUNAI’s credibility, the agent said.

FUNAI’s Rio Negro regional coordinator, Auri de Oliveira, said the chief problem wasn’t shortage of food, but indigenous people traveling to nearby cities to receive emergency coronavirus cash aid from the government. He said the food kit delays were due to “normal bureaucracy” and they have started arriving.

“The food kits will help maintain indigenous people in the villages,” he wrote in a text message. “We will see if they come to town again, because there will be a new cycle of welfare payments.”

While some food aid is arriving it’s not enough: One tribal leader in the Upper Solimoes region said by phone Friday his village received food kits for only 90 of its more than 700 families.

Brazil’s health ministry said in a statement that the hard-hit cities of Tabatinga and São Gabriel da Cachoeira received some help on Monday. A hospital in Tabatinga got another 10 ventilators and 15,000 masks, among other items. Another unit in Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira received eight ventilators and 11 health-care professionals are coming from Brasilia.

Brazil’s shortcomings in fighting the pandemic in the Amazon are worrying its neighbors. Colombian President Ivan Duque deployed the military to its border with Brazil after a surge of COVID-19 cases. About 8,000 indigenous people live near the Colombian border town of Leticia, where cases have shot up in recent weeks.

Peru sealed its border with Brazil in March. On the Brazilian side, one agent reported the coronavirus has reached the Javari Valley, the remote region featured in the photographs FUNAI returned to Salgado, showing the Korubo people posing with spears, canoeing on a river and carrying a slain tapir through the jungle.

The Javari Valley is home to the biggest concentration of isolated indigenous peoples in the world, including 10 groups, according to FUNAI. Hospitals near Javari’s isolated tribes are overcrowded, said one FUNAI agent, who offered a stark warning: If the virus hits harder, collapse will be quick.

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Biller reported from Rio de Janeiro.

Outbreak on edge of Navajo Nation overwhelms rural hospital


1 of 9In this photo taken May 8, 2020, medical staff from Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital including Chief Medical Officer Val Wangler, center, hold a protest over working conditions and depleted staff in Gallup, N.M. Many nurses and doctors say staffing at the hospital was inadequate because of hospital CEO David Conejo's move to cut back on nurses in the first week of March to offset declining hospital revenues after elective surgeries were suspended. They voiced their discontent at the recent protest calling for his resignation. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

GALLUP, N.M. (AP) — On the eve of New Mexico’s shutdown of bars and restaurants to stem the spread of the coronavirus, the city of Gallup came alive for one last night of revelry.

Before the night was out in the desert oasis on the fringes of the Navajo Nation, 98 people were detained for public intoxication and sent to sober up at a detox center. Several homeless people also sought refuge in the same cinder block building, which doubles as a shelter. Somewhere in the mix, lurked the virus.

The outbreak seeded at the Na’Nizhoozhi Center would combine with the small, local hospital’s ill-fated staffing decisions and its well-intentioned but potentially overambitious treatment plans to create a perfect storm that has overwhelmed doctors and nurses and paralyzed this community in the state’s hard-hit northwest.

In all, 22 people infected with the coronavirus were transferred from the detox center to Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital, the only acute care medical center for the general public within 110 miles (180 kilometers) of Gallup.

“They were putting multiple cots in one room to accommodate them,” said pulmonologist Rajiv Patel, who helped lead the hospital’s initial response.

To care for that influx, any available doctor was pressed into service, including those who normally don’t handle critically ill patients, Patel said.

“That’s right when we overloaded,” said hospital CEO David Conejo. “Now we’ve got too many patients, and too few (staff) to help.”

In this May 7, 2020, photo signs hang on doors at the Na'Nizhoozhi Center detox facility in Gallup, N.M. A night of revelry before bars and restaurants shut in New Mexico appears to have led to an outbreak in the detox center and homeless shelter on the fringes of the Navajo Nation. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

Rehoboth’s eight intensive care beds are full, and now it has to transfer all coronavirus patients with severe breathing problems away from the facility and the adjacent Gallup Indian Medical Center, which attends exclusively to the Native American community.

Of about 500 medical and support staff, at least 32 hospital workers have become infected, and doctors and nurses say that they all live with the fear of spreading the virus to their colleagues and relatives.

Conejo blames Patel for the fact that the hospital became overwhelmed, saying the doctor took on more COVID-19 patients than the staff could handle because of his ambition but also good intentions.

But Patel — who arrived at Rehoboth in March from an Army reserve stint in Kuwait — said the hospital simply didn’t have enough staff with the experience to provide the right care and struggled to train more quickly. Patel has since left to work at Flagstaff Medical Center in Arizona.

In this photo taken May 8, 2020, medical staff from Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital hold a protest over working conditions and depleted staff in Gallup, N.M. Many nurses and doctors say staffing at the hospital was inadequate because of hospital CEO David Conejo's move to cut back on nurses in the first week of March to offset declining hospital revenues after elective surgeries were suspended. They voiced their discontent at the recent protest calling for his resignation. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

In this May 8, 2020, photo, medical staff from Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital including Caleb Lauber, center, hold a protest over working conditions and depleted staff in Gallup, N.M. Many nurses and doctors say staffing at the hospital was inadequate because of hospital CEO David Conejo's move to cut back on nurses in the first week of March to offset declining hospital revenues after elective surgeries were suspended. They voiced their discontent at the recent protest calling for his resignation. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

 May 8, 2020, photo, medical staff from Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital including physician Neil Jackson, right, hold a protest over working conditions and depleted staff in Gallup, N.M. Many nurses and doctors say staffing at the hospital was inadequate because of hospital CEO David Conejo's move to cut back on nurses in the first week of March to offset declining hospital revenues after elective surgeries were suspended. They voiced their discontent at the recent protest calling for his resignation. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

In this May 8, 2020, photo, New Mexico state Sen. George Munoz, D-Gallup, joins medical staff from Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital in a protest over working conditions and depleted staff in Gallup, N.M. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

Twice, the doctor said, alarms went off during the night on breathing machines — only to be misinterpreted by overnight staff. Within two days of those missteps, he and colleagues decided that severely ill coronavirus patients would have to go elsewhere — a heart-wrenching decision that meant sick people would be treated far from family and one that underscored the consequences of not having adequate care in the region.

“It was an easy decision because it was the right thing to do for patients,” said Patel, whose wife is Navajo. “It was very saddening for me personally because my heart and soul are completely invested in the health situation on the reservation.”

Many nurses and doctors, meanwhile, say staffing at the hospital was inadequate because of Conejo’s move to cut back on nurses in the first week of March to offset declining hospital revenues after elective surgeries were suspended. They voiced their discontent at a recent protest calling for his resignation.

“We knew it was coming to McKinley County, there wasn’t any ifs, ands or buts. I was directed that I had to let go of 17 agency nurses,” said Felicia Adams, chief nursing officer who has recovered from COVID-19. “We want to take care of our patients, we don’t want to have to send them away.”

Conejo defended his oversight, noting that he deferred to the hospital’s board of trustees and a team of nurses and physicians on final decisions. He also said the hospital couldn’t afford not to cut staff in March and that the facility wanted to reduce overall employment to qualify for small-business assistance. But Adams and others believe Conejo put profits ahead of care.

Physician Caleb Lauber said that, as experienced contract nurses were let go in March, unfamiliar responsibilities were thrust upon other nurses given only on-the-fly training.

New Mexico’s state auditor is seeking more information about the county-owned hospital’s finances from its private operators. State health officials and philanthropists, meanwhile, are recruiting more than a dozen volunteer medical professionals and have hired a new critical care physician for the hospital.

While much of New Mexico is showing signs of emerging from the initial wave of the pandemic, stubbornly high rates of infection and death persist in the state’s northwest corner — including in the Navajo Nation that extends into Arizona and Utah. More than half of New Mexico’s roughly 6,200 confirmed infections are in Native Americans.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness and lead to death.

As the Navajo have suffered in this pandemic, so, too has Gallup, whose fate has long been tied to the neighboring Navajo Nation. In normal times, the city’s population of 22,000 can quickly quadruple in size since it is a crucial source of supplies and water for faraway Navajo households, many of which lack full plumbing.

The city is also a destination for many of the most marginalized Navajo, those who have left home and ended up on Gallup’s streets, often as they grapple with alcohol addiction. Officials suspect that the coronavirus whipped through the homeless population, and some passed through the Na’Nizhoozhi Center, putting the liquor-tax funded shelter and detox center at the heart of the city’s outbreak.

In this May 7, 2020, photo, medical staff from Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital put on protective equipment as they work at a drive-thru coronavirus testing site outside the hospital in Gallup, N.M. Of about 500 medical and support staff, at least 32 hospital workers have become infected, and doctors and nurses say that they all live with the fear of spreading the virus to their colleagues and relatives. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

In this May 7, 2020, file photo, Certified Medical Assistant Shaniya Wood, left, and physician Caleb Lauber, right, test one of over 100 homeless patients who were being isolated in motels for the coronavirus in Gallup, N.M. Some 140 people are participating in the impromptu system, and officials hope it will interrupt a treadmill of infections among Gallup’s homeless population. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee, File)

The city and its rural outskirts account for about 32% of COVID-19 infections statewide, with 79 related deaths as of Tuesday.

To stem the spread, Gallup was subject to an extreme 10-day lockdown this month — cutting the city off from many of those who depend on it for supplies. Authorities have now set up free water stations and deliveries — to avoid the risk of transmission posed by coin-operated water stations, where hand after hand scooped out returned change.

Now, the Na’Nizhoozhi Center is also part of the response as it steers destitute people infected by the coronavirus toward isolation in rooms at four otherwise unoccupied motel buildings. Some 140 people are currently participating in the impromptu system, and officials hope it will interrupt a treadmill of infections among Gallup’s homeless population.

But the virus has also taken its toll on the center. In addition to the 22 residents who became infected, several staff have been sickened by the virus and some simply stopped showing up, said Kevin Foley, executive director of the center. Six jobs now are open at a rate of $10 and hour, with just one application, he said.

He yearns for a Hollywood ending.

“I wish that all those people would come over in those space suits and just clean the place for good,” he said, “but it’s not like that.”

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Associated Press writer Felicia Fonseca contributed to this report from Flagstaff, Arizona

J&J to stop selling talc-based baby powder in US, Canada
AP NEWS

 In this April 15, 2011, file photo, a bottle of Johnson's baby powder is displayed. Johnson & Johnson is ending production of its iconic talc-based Johnson’s Baby Powder, which has been embroiled in thousands of lawsuits claiming it caused cancer. The world’s biggest maker of health care products said Tuesday, May 19, 2020 that the discontinuation only affects the U.S. and Canada, where demand has been declining. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

FAIRLESS HILLS, Pa. (AP) — Johnson & Johnson is ending sales of its iconic talc-based Johnson’s Baby Powder in the U.S. and Canada, where demand has dwindled amid thousands of lawsuits claiming it has caused cancer.

The world’s biggest maker of health care products said Tuesday the talc-based powder will still be sold outside the U.S. and Canada.

“Demand for talc-based Johnson’s Baby Powder in North America has been declining due in large part to changes in consumer habits and fueled by misinformation around the safety of the product and a constant barrage of litigation advertising,” the company said.


J&J faces about 19,400 cases alleging its talcum powder caused users to develop ovarian cancer, through use for feminine hygiene, or mesothelioma, a cancer that strikes the lungs and other organs.

Of the cases that have been tried, J&J has had 12 wins, 15 losses and seven mistrials. All of the losses have either been overturned on appeal or are still being appealed.

The company insists, and the overwhelming majority of medical research on talc indicates, that the talc baby powder is safe and doesn’t cause cancer.

“Whether or not the powder actually causes cancer, people became hesitant to use the product,” Erik Gordon, a professor at University of Michigan’s business school, said in an email.

J&J spokeswoman Kimberly Montagnino said the company doesn’t plan to settle any of the lawsuits and “will continue to vigorously defend” the product.

The New Brunswick, New Jersey, company said the baby powder decision came as it moves to discontinue about 100 consumer health products. It said its aim is to prioritize products in high demand during the coronavirus outbreak and allow for social distancing in its manufacturing and distribution facilities.

J&J will still sell its less-popular cornstarch-based baby powder in North America.

Me and we: Individual rights, common good and coronavirus
By TED ANTHONY May 18, 2020

In this May 15, 2020, file photo, a couple salute the United States Air Force Thunderbirds who fly over downtown Los Angeles to honor frontline COVID-19 responders at Griffith Park in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

We, the people. But individual rights. The common good. But don’t tread on me. Form a more perfect union and promote the general welfare. But secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

From the moment the American republic was born right up until today, this has been its hallmark: Me and we — different flavors of freedom that compete but overlap — living together, but often at odds.

The history of the United States and the colonies that formed it has been a 413-year balancing act across an assortment of topics, priorities, passions and ambitions. Now, in the coronavirus era, that tug of war — is it about individuals, or the communities to which they belong? — is showing itself in fresh, high-stakes ways.

On Friday, protesters massed at the foot of the Pennsylvania Capitol steps — most of them maskless — for the second time in a month to decry Gov. Tom Wolf and demand he “reopen” the state faster. It is one of many states where a vocal minority has criticized virus-related shutdowns for trampling individual rights.

“He who is brave is free,” read a sign carried by one Pennsylvania protester. “Selfish and proud,” said another, referring to the governor’s statement that politicians advocating immediate reopening were “selfish.” “My body my choice,” said a sign at a rally in Texas, coopting an abortion-rights slogan to oppose mandatory mask rules.

“The pandemic is presenting this classic individual liberty-common good equation. And the ethos of different parts of the country about this is very, very different. And it’s pulling the country in all these different directions,” says Colin Woodard, author of “American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good.”

Though polls show a majority of Americans still support some level of shutdown, the cries to reopen have grown in the past few weeks as job losses continue to mount. In Pennsylvania and across the country, the demonstrators’ chorus has generally been: Don’t tell me how to live my life when I need to get out of my house and preserve my livelihood.

“They’re being told to stay home, wait it out. And that’s a really weird democratic message to get. And the only way to do it is to say, ‘I trust the government,’” says Elspeth Wilson, an assistant professor of government at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania.

While the catalyst is an unprecedented pandemic, the collision of individual rights and the common good is as old as the republic itself: Where does one American’s right to move around in public without a mask end, and another American’s right to not be infected with a potentially fatal virus begin?

In this May 4, 2020, file photo, a man wears a mask as he waits in line outside the Warrensburg License Office in Warrensburg, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

“This is economic paralysis by analysis for some people. And they’re afraid,” says Steven Benko, an ethicist at Meredith College in North Carolina. “They feel devalued.”

Americans have long romanticized those who reject the system and take matters into their own hands — the outlaw, the cowboy, the rebel. Many American leaders have wrestled to reconcile that with “common good” principles that are generally needed to govern.

“Reagan did that better than anyone. He was the cowboy selling the shared American vision. That’s quite a contradiction,” Benko says.

Ronald Reagan’s crowning metaphor — the United States as the “city upon a hill” — was borrowed from the Puritans, whose traditions shaped the American ethos, including the compact that created the New World’s first English government. But Puritanism also asserted that hard work, a form of moral righteousness, heralded success and salvation.

Over time, and with other ingredients added as more groups came to American shores, a vague sense of shame became attached to the inability to be an individualist: If you couldn’t get along on your own, in the eyes of some, you were less of an American.

But is that kind of “rugged individualism,” as it came to be known, applicable in a 21st-century virus scenario where everything from food shopping to health care to package delivery requires a web of intricate, precise networks that form a common good?

Overlaid on this debate, too, is what some call an ignored truth: Individualism tends to favor groups that are in power, economically or socially. In short, doing what one wants is a lot easier when you have the means (health care, money, privilege) to deal with the impact it causes.

In this May 16, 2020, file photo, protesters holds a sign during a rally calling for the state to reopen the economy outside the Thompson Center in downtown Chicago. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

That’s particularly relevant when the direct impact of one’s individualism — in the form of virus-laden droplets — can ripple out to others.

“We fail to recognize how interdependent we really are,” says Lenette Azzi-Lessing, a clinical professor of social work at Boston University who studies economic disparity.

“The pandemic and dealing with it successfully does require cooperation. It also requires shared sacrifice. And that’s a very bitter pill for many Americans to swallow,” she says. “The pandemic is revealing that our fates are intertwined, that the person in front of us in line on the grocery store, if he or she doesn’t have access to good health care, that that’s going to have an effect on our health.”

In this May 14, 2020, file photo, a protester carries a sign during a rally against Michigan's coronavirus stay-at-home order at the State Capitol in Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)
U.S. history has sometimes revealed that in times of upheaval — the Great Depression, World War II, even the founding of the nation itself — common good becomes a dominant American gene for a time. Will that happen here? Or is the fragmentation of politics and economics and social media too powerful to allow that?

“The status quo is individualism. And then when we get to these crisis periods, it changes,” says Anthony DiMaggio, a political scientist at Lehigh University who is researching groups that advocate reopening. ”All these rules go out the window and people are willing to jettison all these ways of looking at the world.”

So is it, as Ayn Rand once told an interviewer, that “each man must live as an end in himself, and follow his own rational self-interest?” Or is it more like Woody Guthrie, paraphrasing Tom Joad in “The Grapes of Wrath”: “Everybody might be just one big soul — well, it looks that way to me.”

More likely, in a nation stitched together by a high-wire act of political compromise, it’s somewhere in between — a new path that Americans must chart so they can continue their four-century experiment through unprecedented times. Yet again.

IN UNION WE TRUST

 In this May 12, 2020, file photo, members of the Culinary union prepare before a car caravan rally in Las Vegas. The union is asking for casino companies to make their full safety guidelines and reopening plans public. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
Ted Anthony, director of digital innovation for The Associated Press, has been writing about American culture since 1990. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/anthonyted.