The head of the Chinese Communist Party’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention defended his country’s response to the pandemic, saying he never claimed there was no human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus.

“No, I never said [there’s] no human-to-human transmission in the public – never, ever,” George Gao Fu told state media China Global Television Network in an interview that aired on Monday, according to the South China Morning Post.

“Even from the very beginning, I don’t think it’s good [to] put any scientists in a position to say there’s no human-to-human transmission because these viruses are unknown,” Gao said.

His comments come as President Trump and a number of world leaders have questioned whether China accurately reported the number of cases following the initial outbreak in the city of Wuhan in December and whether it was transparent about how the virus spreads.

Trump, who has been highly skeptical of China’s response and has halted payments to the World Health Organization pending a review, tweeted last Friday about an email Taiwan sent to the United Nations agency in December that suggested the virus was being spread person to person.

“Why did the W.H.O. Ignore an email from Taiwanese health officials in late December alerting them to the possibility that CoronaVirus could be transmitted between humans?” Trump posted.

Taiwan’s Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said the email was sent to the WHO on Dec. 31 looking for information about “atypical pneumonia cases” in Wuhan.

He said China responded that the cases were “isolated for treatment.”

Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control said the wording about isolation made it clear “there was a real possibility of human-to-human transmission.”

The Chinese Communist Party has declared 83,853 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University, while the US has 788,920.

Wuhan’s health commission on Jan. 15 said “although significant evidence confirming human-to-human transmission has yet to be found, the possibility of limited human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out.”

Gao said transmission from human-to-human wasn’t confirmed until after a senior advisory group visited Wuhan on Jan. 19.

He announced the finding at a press conference on Jan. 22.

“At first, it was spread from animals to humans. However, the virus has since been mutating and has become adaptive to its host,” Gao said, according to the South China Morning Post, citing transcripts from state-run media. “Human-to-human transmission has occurred, and there has been some community transmission.”

That same day the WHO said a delegation visited Wuhan and concluded: “deployment of the new test kit nationally suggests that human-to-human transmission is taking place in Wuhan.”

Gao, in an interview with Science last month, was asked why there was so much difficulty in determining how the virus spread.

“Detailed epidemiological data were not available yet. And we were facing a very crazy and concealed virus from the very beginning. The same is true in Italy, elsewhere in Europe, and the United States: From the very beginning scientists, everybody thought: ‘Well, it’s just a virus,’” he told the publication.

The first human-to-human transmission of the virus in the US occurred on Jan. 30 when health officials reported that an Illinois man had been infected by his wife who had traveled to Wuhan and became ill on Jan. 24, according to the US CDC.

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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — While most countries are working on ways to contain the coronavirus, New Zealand has set itself a much more ambitious goal: eliminating it altogether.

And experts believe the country could pull it off.

The virus “doesn’t have superpowers,” said Helen Petousis-Harris, a vaccine expert at the University of Auckland. “Once transmission is stopped, it’s gone.”

Geography has helped. If any place could be described as socially distant it would be New Zealand, surrounded by stormy seas, with Antarctica to the south. With 5 million people spread across an area the size of Britain, even the cities aren’t overly crowded.

And Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has taken bold steps, putting the country under a strict lockdown in late March, when only about 100 people had tested positive for the new virus. Her motto: “Go hard and go early.”

New Zealand has so far avoided a widespread outbreak, and new cases have dwindled from a peak of about 90 per day in early April to just five on Tuesday, leaving the goal tantalizingly close. Only 13 people have died so far, and Ardern has been personally briefed on each death.

“We have the opportunity to do something no other country has achieved: elimination of the virus,” Ardern told reporters last week. “But it will continue to need a team of 5 million behind it.”

Petousis-Harris said the country had managed to avoid the confusion and half-measures that have hampered the response in many other places.

“New Zealand got everything right,” she said. “Decisive action, with strong leadership and very clear communications to everybody.”

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda ArdernAP Photo/Nick Perry, File

Ardern on Monday announced the country would stay in lockdown for another week before slightly easing some work restrictions to help restart the economy. Most of the social restrictions will remain in place.

She also tried to temper expectations of her goal, saying elimination didn’t mean that new cases wouldn’t arise in the future but they would be stamped out immediately.

New cases are likely when New Zealand eventually reopens its borders, but questions remain about how well prepared the health system is to implement effective contact tracing should a widespread outbreak occur. Petousis-Harris pointed to problems last year when the country failed to contain a measles outbreak.

Even if New Zealand does purge itself of the virus, the effects will linger. Before the outbreak, tourism was booming. About 4 million people visited each year, drawn by stunning scenery and the lure of adventure sports. The industry employed more than 300,000 people and accounted for about 10 percent of New Zealand’s entire economy.

“It’s been devastating. No question at all,” said Stephen England-Hall, the chief executive of Tourism New Zealand, a promotional agency. “No one can really plan to go from 100 percent to zero in three days.”

A study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that because of its reliance on tourism, New Zealand’s economy could initially be one of the hardest-hit by the coronavirus among developed nations.

The government, which came into the crisis with its books in relatively good shape, has been handing out billions of dollars in temporary wage subsidies to try and prevent mass unemployment. More than half the nation’s workforce has suddenly become reliant on government handouts.

Personal trainer Jessee James still operates her business by leading virtual sessions over Zoom and FaceTime.AP

Still, most people appear to support Ardern’s strict lockdown, under which schools are closed and people working nonessential jobs can leave home only for groceries or exercise. Google mobility data indicates there has been high compliance.

Many have found creative ways to cope, like 28-year-old personal trainer Jessee James. Instead of meeting her clients in gyms or at their homes, she’s been leading virtual sessions over Zoom and FaceTime.

Some of her clients are using cans of beans instead of dumbbells, or laundry baskets instead of sandbags. Many want to talk more about their feelings, like the business owner who needed to lay off employees or the client with emotional issues who needs encouragement.

“Normally they would just talk to the people around them,” James said. “It’s been quite different.”

One of the most symbolic casualties of the outbreak has been Air New Zealand. The airline had been a source of pride for many as it expanded internationally and won industry awards. In a series of frank updates, Chief Executive Greg Foran described how the carrier had reduced flights by 95% and would need to cut its workforce by at least 3,750.

One person who doesn’t yet know if he will retain his job with the airline is 27-year-old pilot Scott Beatson. He and partner Bella Ashworth, who just finished law school, bought a house earlier this year, and they’re both now worried about their futures.

“It’s quite sad,” Beatson said. “Just before the lockdown, I was talking with a baggage loader and a check-in person, and everyone took such pride in the company.”

An eager fisherman and hiker, Beatson has taken to camping in his backyard while stuck at home. Like many around the country, he’s been tuning into some of the daily briefings given by Ardern and Ashley Bloomfield, the director-general of health.

An unassuming official who spent a year working at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Bloomfield’s calm and reassuring presence has turned him into an unlikely heartthrob.

Singer Maxwell Apse wrote a song about Bloomfield that has been viewed more than 75,000 times on YouTube. “If I had one wish, I would make it this: I’d be in your bubble,” go the lyrics.

Many pop-up community stations have been deployed to contain the coronavirus.AP

When New Zealand does come out of its bubble, the path forward remains unclear. It will need to continue relying on its traditional strength in farming to sell things abroad like dairy products, kiwifruit and wine.

Some have suggested the country could first reopen its borders to Australia, which has also been successful in flattening its virus curve.

England-Hall, the tourism executive, said New Zealand will look to first rebuild the domestic tourism market. He said being virus-free could eventually become a selling point abroad for the country.

The conundrum is that to stay virus-free, New Zealand may need to continue its current requirement that new arrivals spend two weeks in quarantine. Given that the average tourist in the past has stayed for about 11 days, it seems an insurmountable obstacle.

Ever the optimist, England-Hall foresees a new type of tourism product in which wealthy people could be pampered during a quarantine period — a kind of isolation spa.

But with travel curtailed, some worry that New Zealand could revert to a more insular version of itself, before cheap flights allowed its citizens to roam the world, and foreigners to visit. A place where isolation can be both a blessing and a curse.

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DES MOINES, Iowa – From exports to wholesaling and grocery stores, pork farmers across the country have profited over $20 billion per year from pigs – but they’ve needed to make tough decisions recently, like many industries that have fallen victim to the coronavirus.

“All of us in agriculture have been asked to keep working despite everything that’s going on with the coronavirus,” Mike Paustian, the president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association, told Fox News. “Everyone recognizes that we need to keep food moving.”

Pork farmers, numbering over 60,000 across the U.S., have been working despite the fact that mandatory shutdown orders have closed some of the pork industry’s largest consumers including restaurants and schools.

The National Pork Producers Council estimated that pork farmers will lose roughly $37 for every market-ready hog, which equates to $5 billion in revenue by the end of the year due to these disruptions.

“One of the reasons that the price for pigs is so low right now is because there’s been this disruption in how food moves to consumers,” Paustian said. “With restaurants being shut down we have a lot less business. About 70 percent of bacon is consumed in restaurants and food service.”

Another looming issue: The supply of pigs has exceeded the demand and as the animals grow larger, they become too large for processing plants.

“When a pig is born, it’s about two pounds, and in about six months it will grow to be about 280 pounds,” Paustian said.  “That’s generally the size that a lot of pigs go to the market and so that becomes a challenge.”

Paustian added, “When we have a disruption like this, things start to back up and producers have to start to make accommodations because the welfare of our pigs [becomes] impacted. We have to do things like adjusting what we’re feeding them to try to slow them down and not get them to grow so fast.”

Making matters worse for pork producers: the struggle of helping to feed America while keeping their employees safe.

A Smithfield Foods plant, one of the nation’s largest pork-processing facilities in Sioux Falls, S.D., closed after more than 600 confirmed coronavirus cases were tied to the plant.

Companies such as Christiansen Farms, which operates more than 400 farms and processing plants across the country, have announced that even with mitigation processes, including social distancing and temperature checks for employees, they were preparing to make tough decisions.

“Some of the worst-case scenarios are quite honestly, pretty disturbing,” Christensen Farms CEO Glenn Stolt said. “If plants go down and we’re not able to take full-grown animals to the plants, we have to look at alternative measures, including potential euthanasia, which is not something that any one of us in agriculture even thinks about doing.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced a COVID-19 relief package that would include $3 billion in planned agricultural product purchases and $1.6 billion in direct payments to hog farmers.

But, the National Pork Producers Council argued it wouldn’t be enough to keep family farms from going bankrupt. The council asked the USDA to extend that support to other key players in the industry to avoid consolidation and farm bankruptcies.

“We fear the lifeline so desperately needed will fall short of what is truly needed,” Howard “A.V.” Roth, the president of the National Pork Producers Council, said in a statement. “While the direct payments to hog farmers will offset some losses for some farmers, they are not sufficient to sustain the varied market participants, including those who own hogs as well as thousands of contract growers who care for pigs. All of these participants have made sizable investments in a U.S. pork production system that is the envy of the world. Many generational family farms will go bankrupt without immediate financial aid.”

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New York’s largest hospital system is giving 45,0000 of its “heroic” workers lump sum $2,500 bonuses and a paid week off for fighting the coronavirus epidemic, it announced Monday — as Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged the feds to provide “hazard pay” to other front-line workers.

“Our dedicated staff’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been nothing short of heroic. Thanks to the courage and commitment of our front-line caregivers, we answered the call-in service to the patients and communities who entrust us with their care,” said Northwell Health president and CEO Michael Dowling.

Northwell’s network of hospitals include Lenox Hill on the Upper East Side, LIJ in Forest Hills and New Hyde Park, and the Staten Island University medical facilities, among others in the suburbs.

Mitchell Katz, the CEO of the city’s network of 11 public hospitals, also said last week he wants to provide bonus pay to his front-line workers.

New York Presbyterian and Mt. Sinai hospital systems have also offered bonuses to their direct care workers.

Meanwhile, Cuomo on Monday proposed that federal funds be used to reward front-line workers –including transit workers, building cleaners, day care workers as well as medical workers.

The state is broke, so the governor is depending on President Trump and Congress to cough up the dough to reward workers risking their health and lives to serve and save others.

“Pay them what they deserve. I’d say hazard pay. Give them a 50 percent bonus and I would do that now,” Cuomo said during an Albany press briefing Monday.

“Our front-line workers are heroes. They are carrying us through this crisis,” he said.

The head of the union representing the city’s paramedics and EMTs — the emergency responders who often are the first to treat COVID-19 patients and transport them to the hospital — welcomed Cuomo’s call.

The starting pay for entry-level emergency management technicians is $16 an hour — a dollar more than the minimum wage, said Oren Barzilay, president of Local 2507.

“It’s hard to survive on $16 an hour,” Barzilay said.

“That would be great,” Barzilay said the hazard pay proposal. “We’ll see.”

It’s long been a sore point that EMTs and paramedics make less than firefighters. All are employed by the FDNY.

Other state lawmakers are also pushing for hazard pay for front-line workers.

State Senator Andrew Gounardes (D-Brooklyn) sent a letter to the New York congressional delegation urging support for hazard pay in the next federal COVID relief package — and suggesting it be extended to any gig or freelance workers, including delivery workers, freelance journalists and drivers.

Senator Jessica Ramos (D-Brooklyn) and Assembly Member Aravella Simotas (D-Queens) also sent a letter to the governor and legislative leaders last week requesting that federal stimulus funds be earmarked for front-line workers.

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