• Spain officially surpassed China in its number of coronavirus deaths on Wednesday, with over 3,400 fatalities reported. 
• The country has seen tragic fallouts from the pandemic, including elderly people being found abandoned and even dead in nursing home beds.
• In Madrid, an ice rink is being converted into a makeshift morgue and an exhibition center is being turned into a hospital. 
• Some Spaniards are not obeying stay-at-home orders, which is frustrating officials. Similar frustrations from leaders are being seen in Italy, which has reported the highest number of coronavirus deaths.

Spain Suffers from Coronavirus

Spain’s coronavirus death toll officially surpassed China’s on Wednesday after the country registered an overnight increase of 738 new fatalities. The total number of coronavirus deaths in Spain has reached 3,434, while China’s is at 3,281, according to The New York Times.

The European nation is facing bleak realities as over 47,600 cases have been reported and the disease continues to wreak havoc. When soldiers were sent to disinfect nursing homes, they found elderly residents left unattended and some even dead in their beds, Spain’s defense minister María Margarita Robles Fernández told the Spanish TV channel Telecinco on Monday.

According to the Spanish newspaper El Pais, caregivers have walked out of these homes when the virus has been detected, and some have expressed their frustrations about working in high-risk conditions without adequate protective wear. 

Prosecutors have opened an investigation into the conditions of these facilities, according to El Pais.

And as of this week, an ice rink in Madrid is being converted into a makeshift morgue as funeral homes are overwhelmed by those left dead from the virus.  

Also in Madrid, an exhibition center — typically used for trade fairs — is being turned into a hospital. It is expected to have over 5,000 beds, including 500 in an intensive care unit when completed, according to reports. 

Medical facilities in the worst-affected areas have already been short on beds in ICUs, and some health care staffers have said that elderly people who have lost their lives could have been saved if there wasn’t a lack of ICU space. 

But Spanish officials have denied this claim.

“Some units are under a lot of stress, but we haven’t reached that point in Spain,” Ricard Ferrer, chairman of the Spanish Society of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine, told The Wall Street Journal. 

Spain’s Response Against the Outbreak 

Spain is 11 days into a 15-day nationwide lockdown that will likely be extended further. 

The government has faced criticism for not acting quickly enough, as Spain has seen a dramatic increase in cases over the past two weeks, but Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has argued that he acted in accordance with advice from scientific experts. 

The government is also resisting pushes to make the lockdown more strict by banning all nonessential activities, which would close down many factories and offices in an already-struggling economy.

“Our measures are among the most drastic taken in the European Union,” Health Minister Salvador Illa told reporters on Monday, adding that the challenge is to make sure citizens obey the already-existing restrictions. “We know it’s tough but it is the only path to the defeat of the virus.”

One significant characteristic of Spain that is worsening the problem of the virus is the country’s socially-oriented culture, which citizens have seemed slow to give up. Since the lockdown began, authorities have found about 60,000 people disobeying the restrictions on going out, and have arrested about 500, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

But just as in other nations hit hard by this pandemic, glimmers of hope and joy have been seen despite the devastation citizens are facing. One notable example of this is a video from Mallorca that went viral. The clip features police singing and dancing in the street for families stuck inside. 

Italy’s Struggles Rage On

Now Italy remains the only country that has seen more coronavirus deaths than Spain, with a staggering 7,503 fatalities as of Wednesday, according to John Hopkins University. Total cases in Italy are at 74,386.  

Italian leaders are facing their own struggles to maintain control over their country’s lockdown. Antonia Decaro, mayor of Bari, was shown on camera personally yelling at people in public to go indoors. Other leaders have released videos of themselves scolding their citizens for not complying with the stay-at-home ban. 

It’s clear by their stern messages that the officials are not taking this lightly.

“This is like a war bulletin because we are in a real war,” Massimiliano Presciutti, Mayor of Gualdo Tadino, said in a Facebook video on Friday. “And now I turn to you…You need to stay home! Don’t you understand that people are dying? Four hundred people are dying a day!”

“Hundreds of students will be graduating… I hear some want to host a party,” Vincenzo De Luca,  president of Campania, said. “We’ll send armed police over, and we’ll send them with flamethrowers.”

Nine EU nations, including Spain and Italy, have called on the EU to raise funds through a “common debt instrument” to handle both the health and economical fallouts from the pandemic.  

See what others are saying: (Wall Street Journal) (Reuters) (BBC)

• The New York Times created a visual timeline depicting how rapid travel and slow global responses aided the coronavirus’ ability to quickly become a pandemic. 
• This comes as a Reuters report revealed that a potentially key China-based CDC employee was removed from their post in July. That job could have been crucial in relaying information about the virus to the United States.
• The elimination of that position also highlights divisions between the Trump administration and China as the two blame each other for the virus’ spread.

Coronavirus Timeline

As an unfinished puzzle mocks you while you stare out the window, dreading your next grocery store run, one question is probably sitting on your mind: how did we get here?

Well, on Sunday, reports from the New York Times and Reuters began to answer that question. The reports created key timelines and noted new details that explain how the world came to face the coronavirus pandemic. The Times created a visual timeline that starts at the virus’s beginnings in Wuhan, China, before breaking down its international reach.

According to the Times, a handful of cases from a seafood market quickly turned to dozens by the end of December. At the time, doctors only knew that patients had a type of viral pneumonia. But even in December, the number of cases could have been exponentially higher. 

“The true size of the outbreak was much larger even then — an invisible network of nearly 1,000 cases, or perhaps several times more,” the Times wrote. 

China first alerted the World Health Organization about public risk on December 31, calling the disease preventable and controllable. This alert came on the eve of a crucial turning point for the virus: traveling for Lunar New Year. On January 1, there was extensive travel from Wuhan and throughout China. Throughout the whole month of January, about 7 million people left Wuhan. 

This infected thousands of travelers and started local outbreaks all over China. By February 4, areas that were centers for travel were seeing outbreaks of their own. The Times said that 85% of virus-carrying travelers may have gone undetected.

International Spread

All of this led to the end of January, when Wuhan was put on lockdown, travel bans were getting set in place, and international spread picked up. Still, even though countries other than China were now taking measures of their own, the damage had already been done.

“It was too late,” the Times report said. “Outbreaks were already growing in over 30 cities across 26 countries, most seeded by travelers from Wuhan.” 

By March, the virus had made its way to Italy, South Korea, Iran, and more. China was no longer the driver of its spread and was actually beginning to see a decline in cases as it increased isolation, tracing, and testing.

The United States, however, has had slim testing in comparison. By the time the country was beginning to respond, major cities already had outbreaks. Like the outbreaks before it, the ones in these areas were “once again outpacing efforts to stop it.”

China-Based CDC Position Removed

On top of this rapid and uncontained spread, a Reuters report indicates that key communication between the United States and China may have been lost. The U.S. got rid of a CDC position in July, just months before the outbreak. According to Reuters, that job belonged to Dr. Linda Quick. Quick was an epidemiologist that trained Chinese field epidemiologists who were sent to the “epicenter of outbreaks to help track, investigate and contain diseases.”

According to several sources in their report, Quick’s position could have been essential in relaying news about the outbreak from on the ground in China at an earlier time, then developing a quicker response. The CDC, however, said her elimination did not stop the spread information and “had absolutely nothing to do with CDC not learning of cases in China earlier.”

Still, cases of the disease began popping up at least in December in Wuhan. Alex Azar, secretary of Health and Human services said he first learned of the virus in early January. A former CDC director maintained to Reuters that if the role existed today “it is possible that we would know more today about how this coronavirus is spreading and what works best to stop it.”

Trump Vs. China

Reports over the past several days also indicated that there could be another factor in potentially lagging information between the United States and China: President Donald Trump.

Dr. Robert Fontaine, who served in that now-removed adviser position years ago, told Reuters that tensions between the Trump Administration and Chinese leadership have grown over the past year, damaging their ability to work together. 

“The message from the administration was, ‘Don’t work with China, they’re our rival,’” he told the outlet. 

On par with that messaging, many experts have claimed that the United States’ relationship with China has weakened since the outbreak. Trump and other officials have repeatedly called the coronavirus “the Chinese virus,” a phrase that has been condemned for being stigmatizing and racist. Despite criticism, the administration has defended the phrase, which works hand in hand with Trump’s efforts to blame China for the severity of the outbreak. 

Trump has pointed fingers at China for not stopping the virus’ spread and travel sooner, among other lagging responses. China, however, has thrown the blame right back, criticizing U.S. leadership for not taking it seriously, even though there were global warnings.

This divide is approaching at an incredibly consequential time. China and the U.S. are the two largest economies in the world, both facing varying levels of uncertainty because of this pandemic. Dr. Mira Rapp-Hooper, a fellow in Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations told The Hill that as they toss blame back and forth, things may only get worse. 

“This is one of these catastrophic, earth shattering moments that have the potential to pull two otherwise rivals together to provide necessary leadership at a time of crisis and it appears to be pushing them even further apart,” she said.

See what others are saying: (New York Times) (Reuters) (The Hill)

• An International Olympic Committee member told USA Today on Monday that the 2020 Tokyo Games will be postponed.
• Facing a surge of pressure amidst the worsening coronavirus pandemic, the IOC announced Sunday that it was considering this move.
• Shortly after the announcement, Canada said it’s pulling its athletes from the Games if they take place this summer.
• Australia made a similar move, saying it is not ready to assemble a team considering the current circumstances.
• The IOC as a whole has not officially announced the postponement or details but said it would finalize decisions in the next four weeks.

IOC Considers Postponement

Pressure has been mounting against Olympic officials to reconsider the July commencement of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo as the deadly coronavirus continues to infect populations around the globe. 

On Sunday, the International Olympic Committee said it is considering postponing the Games. This announcement came after Norway’s Olympic Committee, Brazil’s Olympic Committee, USA Track and Field, USA Swimming, and others pushed for the delay as the public health crisis grows. 

“The IOC will, in full coordination and partnership with the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee, the Japanese authorities and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, start detailed discussions to complete its assessment of the rapid development of the worldwide health situation and its impact on the Olympic Games, including the scenario of postponement,” the committee said in a statement. 

The committee said it would finalize these decisions within the next four weeks.  

The IOC also noted that they are ruling out the option of canceling the Games altogether, saying that doing so “would not solve any of the problems or help anybody.”

In a letter to the athletes around the globe, IOC President Thomas Bach reiterated this sentiment, saying a total cancellation would destroy their Olympic dreams. Bach also outlined some of the hardships the Olympics community would face if the Games were delayed.  

“A number of critical venues needed for the Games could potentially not be available anymore. The situations with millions of nights already booked in hotels is extremely difficult to handle, and the international sports calendar for at least 33 Olympic sports would have to be adapted,” he wrote. “These are just a few of many, many more challenges.”

Canada and Australia Pull Out

Following the IOC’s news of possible postponement, Canada made a big announcement of their own on Sunday, becoming the first nation to pull its athletes from the Olympic Games this summer.

The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) and Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC) announced their joint decision in a press release late Sunday night, urging for the Games to be postponed one year. 

“While we recognize the inherent complexities around a postponement, nothing is more important than the health and safety of our athletes and the world community,” the Canadian committees said.

The COC and CPC added that they are grateful for the IOC’s decision to not cancel the event entirely. 

The Australian Olympic Committee swiftly followed suit after their executive board members held a virtual conference on Monday and unanimously agreed that “an Australian Team could not be assembled in the changing circumstances at home and abroad.”

“We have athletes based overseas, training at central locations around Australia as teams and managing their own programs. With travel and other restrictions this becomes an untenable situation,” AOC CEO Matt Carroll said. 

The committee said that Australian athletes should prepare for the Olympics Games in the summer of 2021. 

Uncertainty Carries On

Though Canada and Australia are calling for the Games to be pushed back a year, it’s not yet clear if that will be the case if there is a postponement at all.

Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee President Yoshiro Mori implied that he wasn’t considering a very long delay for the Games.

“Whether it’s delayed by one month, three months or five months, we need to run simulations of the impact,” Mori said at a press conference on Monday.

“We are 2020 so that is the direction for now,” he added. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe weighed in on the topic during a parliamentary session on Monday.

“If it is difficult to hold [the games] in a complete way, a decision of postponement would be unavoidable,” Abe said, adding that he hopes the IOC comes to a decision soon.

On Monday, USA Today reported that International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound confirmed that the Games would indeed be postponed. 

“On the basis of the information the IOC has, postponement has been decided,” Pound said in an interview. “The parameters going forward have not been determined, but the Games are not going to start on July 24, that much I know.”

Pound said the announcement of the next steps will be rolled out. 

“It will come in stages,” he said. “We will postpone this and begin to deal with all the ramifications of moving this, which are immense.”

When USA Today asked for an IOC response and referenced Pound’s remarks, a spokesperson said: “It is the right of every IOC member to interpret the decision of the IOC executive board which was announced yesterday.”

The IOC has not officially added to their news of considering postponement and hammering out details over the next month.

Some have expressed their unhappiness with the projected decision timeline of 4 weeks. Among these people was Hugh Robertson, chairman of the British Olympic Association.

“We urge rapid decision-making for the sake of athletes who still face significant uncertainty,” Robertson told The New York Times. “Restrictions now in place have removed the ability of athletes to compete on a level playing field, and it simply does not seem appropriate to continue on the present course toward the Olympic Games in the current environment.”

The IOC’s decision affects many parties who have shared concern about how they can adequately prepare for the Games if the dates are up in the air. This includes sponsors who are spending millions of dollars on advertising, broadcasting networks who plan to air the events, and players in the travel and hospitality industries who are organizing people’s trips and stay in Tokyo. 

And as Robertson emphasized, as the heart of the Games, athletes want a decision as soon as possible. Some Olympic training facilities have closed as the coronavirus worsens and major qualifying events have been canceled. Athletes are facing the conflicting decision of continuing their rigorous training or heeding orders to stay home. 

“So many people feel that if there was an answer then we would know what to do,” Kathleen Baker, a gold and silver medalist in swimming at the 2016 Olympics, told The New York Times.

Baker is not the only Olympian demanding answers. Lolo Johnson, a U.S. Olympic hurdler, is among those urging the IOC to make a decision. 

“It’s tearing athletes apart,” Jones told the Associated Press. “We want to be like everyone else. We want to be healthy, responsible citizens. But we’re also afraid the IOC is going to say, in a month, that the games are on, and, what, hopefully you’re going to still be in shape?”

See what others are saying: (New York Times) (CNN) (The Hill)