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Coronavirus roundup: US needs to restore pharmaceutical production—in Puerto Rico
  [NYPOST] Though coronavirus has only begun to show up in America, it’s already exposed the nation’s serious over-reliance on China for pharmaceutical production. As Washington looks to address that, it should consider killing two birds with one stone by using the issue as a chance to give Puerto Rico a leg up.After all, the island was for decades a central hub of US drug manufacturing. It would do the commonwealth and the mainland a world of good to restore that preeminence. About 90 percent of the active ingredients (manufactured “precursors”) used by US drugmakers now come from China. With that country’s factories largely shut down by the outbreak, America’s pharmaceutical supplies are at risk even as the virus hits here. The Food and Drug Administration fears a shortage of widely used generic drugs. Moving to ensure some domestic capacity for future crises is a no-brainer. And boosting Puerto Rico, now struggling with a debt crisis plus hurricane and earthquake damage, should be one, too. In the 1970s, Congress passed tax breaks for companies that set up shop in Puerto Rico. Drugmakers took advantage and soon made the island one of the world’s top pharma-production centers. But President Bill Clinton signed a law to start phasing out the tax breaks in the 1990s. Once they expired fully in 2006, the industry began a major pullout from the island.
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France records more than 1,000 coronavirus cases, death toll rises to 19 [EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] French health authorities reported three new coronavirus deaths on Sunday, taking the country's corpse count from the outbreak to 19, as the number of reported infections also rose to 1,126 cases. The spike in COVID-19 cases came as French President Emmanuel Macron was holding an emergency meeting Sunday to discuss the response to the outbreak. La Belle La Belle France is currently at a coronavirus alert level 2 although officials have said it would inevitably rise to Stage 3. On Saturday, the National Assembly announced a third coronavirus case in La Belle La Belle France’s lower house of parliament. The National Assembly did not name the politician who recently caught the disease, but said the third case was a female parliamentarian. A politician from the eastern Alsace region was hospitalised in intensive care on Thursday after contracting the disease and a snack bar worker in the National Assembly building had also caught the virus. The jump in infections in La Belle La Belle France mirrored the global trend with the more than 100,000 cases worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In La Belle La Belle France, the virus has circulated with greater intensity in some areas, notably the northern Oise and the northeastern Haut-Rhin departments, where schools, nurseries and kindergartens will be shut for two weeks starting Monday. Related: Coronavirus: 2020-03-08 Italian leader orders lockdown of Venice and Milan as coronavirus spreads Coronavirus: 2020-03-08 Saudi starts an oil price war after Russia will not agree with OPEC Coronavirus: 2020-03-08 'It's Like Scenes From A Mad Max Movie' -- Americans Continue Epic Run On Costco Related: Emmanuel Macron: 2020-02-27 France dissolves group run by rapper for defending terrorism Emmanuel Macron: 2020-02-24 France: Macron Vows Crackdown on Political Islam Emmanuel Macron: 2020-02-06 French Police Clear Last Migrant Camp in North Paris
Claudia Rosett: Why Is the CDC Lowballing Numbers for the Coronavirus? [PJMedia] The CDC is America's lead agency for expertise and guidance on the Wuhan virus, so the CDC web site is where you'd look for up-to-the-minute data on this outbreak, right? Umm, nope, don't even think about it. As confirmed case numbers nation-wide soared over the weekend, the numbers posted Friday on the CDC web site didn't budge: 164 total cases, 11 deaths. No change. In CDC-world, the virus took a break over the weekend. Meantime, in the real world, the far more timely and accurate online dashboard provided by Johns Hopkins was reporting on the soaring case numbers for this virus, which by Sunday afternoon had topped 500 (more than triple the CDC's number) and 21 deaths (almost double the CDC figure).
Posted by: Fred 2020-03-09 |
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