Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - April 13, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A4 A 4 MONDAY, APRIL 13, 2020 ? WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMNEWS I COVID-19 PANDEMIC THANK YOU. FROM ALL OF US AT THE WINNIPEG FREE PRESS TO EVERYONE WORKING HARD TO KEEP THE WORLD GOING, WE THE SERVICES YOU PROVIDE ARE HELPING MANITOBANS TO STAY NOURISHED, CONNECTED, GROUNDED, AND WELL. FARMERS CIVIL SERVICE EMPLOYEES GROCERS & THEIR STAFF AIRLINE STAFF FOOD, PHARMACY & TELECOM PROVIDERS DELIVERY FOLKS MEDICAL WORKERS TRANSIT & TAXIS TRUCKERS UTILITY WORKERS JOURNALISTS MAIL CARRIERS SANITATION WORKERS & GARBAGE HANDLERS NON-PROFIT WORKERS MILITARY PERSONNEL POLICE FIRE & PARAMEDICS Leaks indicate the U.S. intelligence community may have warned the White House as early as January about the seriousness of the outbreak in China. Asked about media reporting that Beijing fudged data on COVID-19, Deputy Prime Min- ister Chrystia Freeland recently said Canada turns to the World Health Organization for virus information, given that a global response to the pandemic is essential. "Having said that, Canada is a very energetic member of the Five Eyes and we have a close and very important security-and-intelligence partnership with the United States in the Five Eyes, in NATO and in NORAD," Freeland told a news briefing. "A reason that we are able to have those con- versations, which are very important in the crisis that the world is experiencing today, is because those conversations have been in private. And so I am not able to share details of what is discussed in those conversations." It's quite possible that Canada saw some of the early intelligence from the U.S., said Greg Fyffe, former executive director of the international as- sessment staff at the Privy Council Office. Chances are also good that Canadian intelli- gence assessments of COVID-19 have been pro- duced from an array of sources, but such reports are not made public and rarely leaked, he said. Fyffe recalls tracking the H1N1 avian flu dur- ing his time at the PCO. "We were making sure that the intelligence that was available was circulated," he said. Wark acknowledges that Canadian intelligence officials gather some health-related information. But there is "absolutely no evidence" the major players of the security community have col- lectively focused efforts on a pandemic threat- assessment mission, he said. There is also no indication the Public Health Agency of Canada has conducted its own open-source assessment of the threat in recent years, Wark added. After SARS, there was a sense the federal Inte- grated Threat Assessment Centre, housed at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, would regularly report on the pandemic danger, among other looming problems. However, tellingly, the unit soon morphed into the Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre. "It went down that road, which is the road that all of our security-and-intelligence resources have gone down for so long," Wark said. "CO- VID-19 is going to do far greater damage to national security than terrorism ever did." The intelligence community once saw terror- ism as rather unsexy, said Mark Stout, a former analyst at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. But that changed after the Sept. 11, 2001 at- tacks on the United States, and analysts who study transnational issues like pandemics could soon be getting more respect, too, he told an online presentation sponsored by the Washington- based International Spy Museum. "I suspect we may see a similar reorientation after this," said Stout, now a program director in global security studies at Johns Hopkins Univer- sity. Fyffe said the pandemic's broad impact likely has senior Canadian intelligence officials asking basic questions. "What does this mean for the resources we have? What are the questions we want to ask?" he said. "It does happen from time to time that some- thing changes significantly enough that you have to really reorder all your sense of what the priori- ties are." At daily briefings, Canadian officials have suggested there will be an opportunity to take stock and do lessons-learned exercises when the COVID-19 crisis abates. Canada was better positioned than a number of countries to respond to this pandemic because it had learned from the SARS experience, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last Friday. "Similarly, as we go through this time we will learn more things about how to be even better prepared next time if this ever happens again, as it is likely it will in the coming decades." Wark says the lessons must be learned and ap- plied immediately. "The national-security intelligence advisers should be turning the whole security intelligence community around on as much of a dime as possible to say, 'We are in the global pandemic reporting business as of now. And we're going to stay in that business when we're through this crisis.'" -The Canadian Press CANADA ? FROM A1 To open or not to open economy While Trump eyes May 1, others urge caution P UBLIC health experts on Sunday debated the question of when to reopen portions of the U.S. econ- omy, shuttered because of the corona- virus pandemic, with several Trump administration officials cautioning that a target date of May 1 - floated by U.S. President Donald Trump, among others - may not be realistic. "It is a target, and, obviously, we're hopeful about that target, but I think it's just too early to be able to tell that we see light at the end of the tunnel," Food and Drug Administration Com- missioner Stephen Hahn said on ABC News' This Week. "I think it's just too early for us to say whether May 1 is that date." The comments by Hahn and other officials came on Sunday, when the number of confirmed cases in the United States stood at 551,896 and the number of deaths reached 21,890. They also came as news spread that one of those who died after being infected was a billionaire donor and personal friend of Trump, New York real estate developer Stanley Chera. The overall picture of the virus's toll remained devastating over the holiday weekend. In New York state, the epicentre of the epidemic in the United States, the death toll approached 10,000. The Navajo Nation implemented a 57-hour weekend curfew as cases in the hard- est-hit part of Indian Country neared 700. And even as Pope Francis spoke in a mostly empty St. Peter's Basilica on Sunday, one pastor in Louisiana pressed ahead with an Easter service that drew hundreds of people, defying the warnings of the governor and local police. Some experts, such as Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, argued Sunday that rather than a sudden reopening of the entire country, the United States should insti- tute a "rolling reentry" into normal life depending on the conditions in differ- ent regions. "It is not going to be a light switch," Fauci said on CNN's State of the Union. "It is going to be depending where you are in the country, the nature of the outbreak you've already experienced, and the threat of an outbreak that you may not have experienced." The transition could "probably start, at least in some ways, maybe next month," Fauci said. But he noted that the virus could resurge later in the year. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evalu- ation at the University of Washington, similarly voiced caution, warning that lifting all restrictions next month would probably mean that "by July or August, we could be back in the same situation we are now." "Maybe some states can open up mid-May," Murray, the creator of one of the most widely cited coronavirus models, said on CBS News' "Face the Nation." "But we have to be very care- ful and make sure that we don't sort of lose all the effort that the American people have put into closures by pre- mature opening." One governor put the choice facing the country in stark terms. "I fear if we open up too early . . . that we could be pouring gasoline on the fire," New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, said on CNN. He added: "Right now, the house is on fire, and job number one is to put the fire out." Not all governors agree. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said Friday that he plans to issue an executive or- der this week addressing strategies for how to reopen the state's businesses. Trump has been pushing for resum- ing business activity by May 1, people familiar with the discussions have told The Washington Post, and several Cabinet secretaries have in recent days publicly expressed hope that restrictions could be at least partially eased next month. News of Chera's death was reported Saturday by the Real Deal, a publica- tion that covers the New York real estate industry. A person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condi- tion of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak about it, confirmed Chera's death and friend- ship with Trump. At a White House briefing last month, Trump described a friend who was "a little older" and "heavy" who was in a coma due to the coronavirus. That friend was Chera, Vanity Fair reported. While the federal government does have the power to make recom- mendations, the ultimate decision on whether to reopen is up to each state. The current federal guidance to avoid social gatherings and work from home expires at the end of April. Public health experts say that for the economy to be safely reopened, cer- tain steps will need to be taken first. Among other things, the United States should mount a large-scale effort to identify people who have been in contact with the infected and conduct widespread testing, and it should build up health-care capacity. Because the virus has a 14-day incubation period, experts also say states should refrain from moving toward relaxing their restrictions until they have seen a sustained reduction in new cases for at least that long. Trump's likely Democratic oppo- nent in the general election, former vice president Joe Biden, unveiled his own proposal for combating the coronavirus pandemic and reopening the country. He echoed the guidance of several experts on issues such as testing, hospital readiness and contact tracing. He also sharply criticized the Trump administration's response. "As we prepare to reopen America, we have to remember what this crisis has taught us: The administration's failure to plan, to prepare, to honestly assess and communicate the threat to the nation led to catastrophic results," Biden wrote in an opinion article published in the New York Times. "We cannot repeat those mistakes." While most Americans stayed away from church on Sunday, Pastor Tony Spell, who leads Life Taber- nacle Church near Baton Rouge, La., planned to host 2,000 people in two Easter services, he told The Wall Street Journal. Central Police Department Chief Roger Corcoran stood outside the church and said not nearly that many attended. He counted about 330 people entering the morning service. - The Washington Post FELICIA SONMEZ, TAYLOR TELFORD AND ELISE VIEBECK SETH WENIG / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Pedestrians seek a bit of escape on Coney Island. New York State's death toll from COVID-19 is about 10,000. MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey issued an emergency order Sunday temporarily suspending state restrictions imposed because of the new coronavirus if those restrictions could interfere with people's safety while strong storms were blowing through the South. "On this Easter Sunday, Alabama faces the po- tential for inclement weather, and we want all Ala- bama families to be prepared for whatever comes our way," Republican Ivey said in a statement. She said shelters and community safe rooms should remain open and maintain "reasonable practices and procedures to prevent the spread of COVID-19." "My fellow Alabamians, stay vigilant, and stay safe," Ivey said. Alabama has at least 3,579 confirmed corona- virus cases, the state health department said Sunday. There have been 93 reported deaths in COVID-19 patients, and state health officials have so far confirmed 61 of those. For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the highly contagious virus can cause severe symptoms or be fatal. Like other states, Alabama has seen a rapid increase in unemployment as businesses have closed or drastically reduced their operations. The Alabama tourism director, Lee Sentell, said in a news release that one-third of the hotel and food employees have lost jobs in two weeks. - The Associated Press Alabama eases virus restrictions as storms sweep the South A_04_Apr-13-20_FP_01.indd A4 2020-04-12 10:03 PM ;