- The head of the World Health Organization said the agency declared the outbreak of Covid-19 to be a global emergency “early enough” and that the pronouncement was made when there were fewer than 100 cases outside China, where the new coronavirus was first detected. In recent weeks, WHO has been criticized for moving too slowly to warn the rest of the world about the threat posed by Covid-19. Last week, US President Donald Trump suspended funding to WHO, accusing it of mismanaging the response to the coronavirus epidemic
- Netflix picked up nearly 16 million global subscribers during the first three months of the year, helping cement its status as one of the world’s most essential services in times of isolation or crisis. The quarter spanned the beginning of stay-at-home orders in the US and around the world, a response to the coronavirus pandemic that apparently led millions to latch onto Netflix for entertainment and comfort when most had nowhere to be but home
- A South African minister had to pay an admission of guilt fine of Rand 1,000 (USD 53) after she was suspended and criminally charged for breaching lockdown regulations in place to stem the spread of the coronavirus pandemic that has infected over 3,000 people in the country. Minister of Communications, Telecommunications and Postal Services Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams was suspended on April 8 for two months, one without pay, after President Cyril Ramaphosa acted swiftly following a public outcry over her violation of the 35-day lockdown
- The digital data of WHO, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Gates Foundation and other institutes working on the novel coronavirus pandemic have been hacked, with thousands of their emails, passwords and documents getting leaked online. According to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors terror groups online, hackers shared around 25,000 email addresses and their passwords of the groups which are at the forefront of the war against the global pandemic. Many screenshots of the documents, emails and their passwords were posted on Twitter too. The data was leaked on Sunday and Monday
- The UK Parliament on Wednesday achieved a historic first as the House of Commons held the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions in a “hybrid” form, with around a dozen lawmakers physically present within the chamber and others tuning in online through giant screens set up to adhere to the social distancing norms in place to curb the spread of coronavirus
- Google on Wednesday revealed that it has detected 18 million malware and phishing Gmail messages per day related to COVID-19, in addition to more than 240 million COVID-related daily spam messages. Google’s Threat Analysis Group identified over a dozen government-backed attacker groups using Covid-19 themes as lure for phishing and malware attempts — trying to get their targets to click malicious links and download files