Daily Archives: April 11, 2020

From toilet paper shortages to computer chips, the novel coronavirus pandemic has exposed many weak links in the highly globalized supply chains that enable goods to move around the world.

Now, many companies are taking a long, hard look at their models to see if the status quo still works. If the coronavirus broke the supply chain, how do you fix it? What should be changed, and what should not be changed?

There are three parts of the supply chain that have been thrown into question: offshoring, just-in-time inventory, and diversification and every company reliant on manufacturing is likely examining these factors.

From clothing to electronics and much more, things in the United States usually come from really far away, often from China, where the new coronavirus originated. For many companies, this is often unavoidable, because many goods would be prohibitively expensive if made in regions where labor costs are high. Offshoring and outsourcing exploded after 1979, when China adopted its Open Door Policy, allowing foreign companies to access its vast and inexpensive labor market, enabling far cheaper goods than before.

Taiwan-based Foxconn is best known as the assembler of the iPhone, with many factories in China like this one in Shenzhen. But going forward, companies will have to diversify their supply chains to ensure that they can still function if one country goes offline. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

Anything that was labor intensive footwear, apparel, assembly of electronics moved to China, said Marshall Fisher, a professor of operations, information, and decisions at Wharton.In 1960, 5% of the worlds physical products crossed boundaries. Thats grown to about 50%.

The trade-off from offshoring is lead time. A widget produced in China takes a long time to sail to the West, unless you put it on a plane, which eats up much of the cost savings. For many companies, that means nailing predictions to make sure they dont make too much product or too little, which isnt easy.

The key aspect with international trade, during the pandemic, is politics. It can be good and bad for business.

Rob Siegel, a Stanford professor who studies supply chains and has created them for businesses, recalled as a business school student in the fall 1993 when former Intel (INTC) CEO Andy Grove told his class that there will never be war with China because you will never invade the country that has the factories that make all your things.

Unfortunately, when it comes to pandemics, politics dont help. Taiwan, a manufacturing powerhouse, banned mask exports in late January as the coronavirus surged. (Taiwan later lifted the ban and donated many masks to other countries.) Dozens of countries including much of Europe, the U.S., and Brazil followed, either banning or restricting exports due to coronavirus.

This, perhaps greater than anything else, has prompted the question: Do you really want to rely on X country during an emergency?

However, this is more of a question for governments than businesses, which are more focused on making money than national security.

For many companies, making stuff abroad is the only viable option, but they do need to continue functioning if something bad happens. Thats why Fisher thinks the question companies will be asking isnt is our supply chain too long?, but rather should we be investing in resilience of the [complex, international] supply chain?

Companies dont just buy stuff from far away, but they have been buying the least amount of stuff possible running lean inventory and only buying when they need to.

Thats called the just-in-time inventory model, and like predicting months in advance when buying from afar, companies have gotten really good at creating models that allow them to run extremely efficiently. The downside of this model is its fragile: If something goes wrong, companies will be in a bind.

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So, when the coronavirus hit, some companies and consumers experienced supply issues.

But what should a company do if they operate under this model?

Largely speaking [just-in-time] isnt going to be redesigned for a 100-year crisis, said Siegel. Its almost impossible to plan for something that happens every 100 years.

This may sound like a gamble, but for many companies, changing the entire model just doesnt make sense. As Yossi Sheffi, director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, told Yahoo Finance, there are just too many advantages of just-in-time that go beyond cost. Theres more speed and agility, but also more quality.

When an auto production line experiences a problem with a part, for example, you have a pile of parts and swap a new one in. But with just-in-time, "you stop the line, find out what's wrong, and fix it," Sheffi said. "Low inventory helps people find out what's wrong."

For some stuff, however, we may see significant changes in inventory management. The pandemic has shown that the critical strategic reserves of products like ventilators and personal protective equipment are simply not adequate during a global emergency. The U.S., unable to import ventilators quickly due to other countries export laws, resorted to deputizing General Motors (GM) to make ventilators.

For many, that wasnt quick enough, and shifting the permanent production domestically may not be feasible either in the future. But what might be more practical is planning for more inventory.

If you have 100,000 ventilators that you could pull out at a moments notice, that'd be easier [than it would be] to nationalize GM via the Defense Protection Act, said Siegel.

Going forward, the government may choose to mandate that certain companies run with more inventory for critical items like ventilators, just in case, and keep their own warehouses better stocked.

For the most part, however, just-in-time inventory is here to stay, and low-cost offshoring isnt going anywhere. But what Yossi, Siegel, and Fisher agree will change is diversification.

"The first line of defense is to make your components in multiple places," said Fisher. "The idea is at least two companies making it in two geographic locations."

I expect companies to have at least a secondary supplier, said Sheffi. Not 50%, maybe 20-30%.

Rising wages in China have forced some companies to move their manufacturing away from the country, said Fisher, but many companies are still exposed.

Fisher noted that the 2011 Tsunami in Japan taught many companies, like Apple, the lesson to be more robust in the face of disruption, but that as the disaster faded into memory, so did the calls to diversify.

"Apple [has] foregone the few millions of costs to make the supply chain more robust and lost $100 billion in market cap, he said. The needle has tipped too much to efficiency from robustness."

Since then, the volleys of tariffs and uncertainty during the trade war with China caused companies to realize that relying solely on that country for manufacturing exposed them to big risks. Many companies, including Apple (AAPL), decided it would be a good idea to get more baskets to put their eggs in. Inadvertently, the U.S.-China trade war prepared some companies for the coronavirus pandemic. But few had made any big moves by the time the coronavirus hit.

This, Fisher said, is a wakeup call.

What companies will do is map their supply chain, look at everything that goes in, said Fisher. And those supply chains can be 10 layers deep. Foxconn gets things from other suppliers, which get them from another.

What you get from this is a figure called revenue at risk, which helps underscore the amount of money that is at stake should one link break in the chain. By adding other suppliers, that number can be brought down, avoiding a catastrophic stoppage for a business.

But given that this is somewhat of a 100-year storm literally, the last major pandemic was in 1918 the question remains: how many companies will simply roll the dice instead?

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Ethan Wolff-Mannis a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumer issues, personal finance, retail, airlines, and more. Follow him on Twitter@ewolffmann.

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Add Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Zack Wheeler to the growing list of players who seemingly want no part of any proposed isolated Major League Baseball season. And his reasoning might be the strongest weve heard yet.

Speaking to NBC Sports Philadelphia on Friday, the soon-to-be father made it clear that he will not sacrifice being with his wife for the birth of their first child this summer, regardless of the circumstances.

"I am not going to miss the birth of my first child. I don't care. I'm going to be there for her and the birth of my child. That's a fact. I think anybody would do the same thing. Any dad. Whether I have to come back here (Atlanta) and be with her and miss two more weeks because I have to quarantine to play again, so be it."

MLB suspended its season during spring training due to the COVID-19 outbreak. At this point, there is no clear indication of when, or even if, the season will resume. With MLB and the players union determined to play as many games as possible in 2020, multiple possibilities are being discussed in case the green light is given.

The latest proposals have centered around either isolating all 30 teams in Arizona or isolating in Arizona and Florida. The latter scenario would force a one-year realignment of leagues and divisions.

Neither scenario has much appeal to Wheeler. Thats because MLB wants to limit the number of people in and around the operation in order to best protect the players. That means leaving their loved ones behind for up to five or six months.

"I want to be here with her during that time," he said. "It's something special. You'll never get to experience that again, the birth of your first child. They are saying your significant other would not be allowed to be with you. That makes no sense to me. If we're gonna be stuck in quarantine, then why can't they be stuck with us in quarantine?"

Wheelers wife,Dominique, is due to give birth in July. Lets say the season starts on July 1, which at this point might be a best-case scenario. That would put Wheeler in the awkward position of first leaving the team almost right away, and then leaving his wife for several months to complete the season. Its a lot to ask. The whole scenario would certainly be weighing on his mind more than baseball.

Wheeler, who signed a five-year, $118 million contract with Philadelphia in December, is now a key part of the Phillies rotation. Any time he could potentially miss would hurt the team, especially in a short and compact season. But no one could possibly blame him for putting family first.

Phillies' pitcher Zack Wheeler has a good reason for not liking a proposed isolated MLB season. (Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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The economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic has hit working-class Americans much harder than their wealthier peers, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.

Twenty percent of Americans who were employed two months ago now say they have lost their jobs because of the coronavirus a number that has doubled over the past two weeks. But those earning less than $50,000 a year were three times more likely to be out of work than those making six-figure salaries. Thirty-seven percent of the under-$50,000 group say their wages have been cut, compared with 24 percent of those earning more than $100,000. And members of the less affluent group were twice as likely to say they might lose their jobs in the next month.

These income disparities also affect where people are working and by extension, their risk of contracting the coronavirus while on the job. The survey found that 66 percent of Americans earning more than $100,000 are now working from home, compared with just 18 percent of those with incomes under $50,000. Of those working on-site, a full 58 percent say they are either very or somewhat worried about getting infected. Only 43 percent of employed workers and 31 percent of those earning less than $50,000 say they have paid sick leave.

Despite such inequities, the economic impact of the pandemic has been widespread. One month ago, only 37 percent of Americans said the economy was getting worse. Today, that number is 63 percent. The employment situation is equally bleak. Of those who are still employed, 31 percent believe its either very or somewhat likely they will lose their jobs in the next month. The same number (31 percent) say their pay or hours have already been reduced.

The consequences of continuing economic upheaval could be profound. Thirteen percent of Americans one in eight say they will not be able to pay their rent or mortgage next month. Thirty-four percent say they are using their savings to pay for living expenses. And without employment, 49 percent predict they would exhaust their savings either this month or next.

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The Yahoo! News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,566 U.S. adult residents interviewed online between April 6-7, 2020. This sample was weighted according to gender, age, race and education. Respondents were selected from YouGovs opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S residents. The margin of error is approximately 3.4 percent.

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Click here for the latest coronavirus news and updates. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please refer to the CDCs and WHOs resource guides.

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New Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows coronavirus hitting the working class much harder than the wealthy - Yahoo News

NEW YORK, NY Yahoo Sports and the Womens Sports Foundation today announced #WeKeepPlaying, a first of its kind live event bringing together some of the most iconic women in professional sports to inspire young athletes during the COVID-19 crisis. The elite athletes will share their own stories of personal resilience to engage and inspire young athletes across the globe during this unprecedented time. The event will stream live on Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 4:00 pm ET exclusively on the Yahoo Sports mobile app and YahooSports.com.

The event, which will be moderated by journalist Cari Champion, will include some of the most renowned athletes across basketball, soccer, swimming, football, hockey and track & field who will speak to young athletes about the importance of staying healthy mentally, physically and emotionally. #WeKeepPlaying will also include a conversation with sports icon, international activist and Womens Sports Foundation founder, Billie Jean King, and former U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice who was also the first woman to be admitted to the Augusta National Golf Club.

Sports play a vital role in the mental and physical health of young athletes, so, as the global athletic community pauses its activity, it is more important than ever to have a candid conversation about the wellbeing of our youth, said Guru Gowrappan, Chief Executive Officer, Verizon Media. Yahoo Sports is committed to connecting people to their passions, and providing fans with comprehensive access to sports content and commerce that they crave. We are proud to bring our audience content that addresses the needs of our young athletes during these unprecedented times.

During this challenging time of COVID-19, we know that young girls all across the country cannot participate in sports or live out their passions on the field, court, ice, pool or anywhere they play sports, said Billie Jean King, founder of the Womens Sports Foundation. Our Foundation is the ally and advocate for all girls and women: we know her, we cheer for her, we believe in her, and we are here for her. That is why we are bringing together our community of prominent women athletes and leaders to empower, support and inspire young girls and each other during this unprecedented time.

Participating in the discussion will be:

Viewers will be able to submit questions in the lead up to the live event via @YahooSports on Twitter and Facebook by using #WeKeepPlaying. Content from this conversation will be featured on Yahoo Sports, which has been offering its audience the latest information, content and conversation -- especially around mental health -- during the crisis.

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Yahoo Sports and the Women's Sports Foundation launch #WeKeepPlaying - Verizon Communications

Berlin (AFP) - With the coronavirus pandemic wiping clean much of the calendar of public events in Germany, the memorial at the Buchenwald former concentration camp marked the 75th anniversary of its liberation on Saturday in a new way.

It published online a "Declaration of Thuringia" (www.thueringer-erklaerung.de) -- in German, English and French -- warning that "human rights, democracy and freedom can by no means be taken for granted" as "right-wing radicalism and authoritarianism are on the rise".

Signed by figures from politics and civil society, including Thuringia state premier Bodo Ramelow and Auschwitz and Buchenwald survivor Ivan Ivanji, the text described as a grave threat "a form of populism emboldened by a racially motivated superiority complex, nationalism and the undermining of European unity".

"Racism and anti-Semitism are openly propagated and have led to acts of violence in Germany that would have been inconceivable even several years ago," it stated.

"Yesterday's destructive poisons are once again being touted as a universal remedy for society's ills."

- "It can happen to you, too" -

The website also published brief statements from people who survived Buchenwald, where around 56,000 people perished in the main camp and 20,000 in the satellite installation Dora between 1937 and a prisoners' uprising in April 1945.

"Not everybody can be a hero, a politician, a philosopher, a helper. But each and every one of us can respect the dignity of every other individual and give someone in need a helping hand," wrote Jack Unikoski, a 93-year-old Polish former inmate who today lives in Australia.

"Be friendly and tolerant of other people. Hatred for one group can easily spread to the others. We learned the hard way -- 'It can happen to you, too'," wrote Chava Ginsburg, a 90-year-old Hungarian woman who survived Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and women's camp Markkleeberg, another satellite camp of Buchenwald.

Along with 40 more people from 14 countries who lived through the concentration camps, the two were among those invited to the commemoration originally slated for April 5 and 7 in Buchenwald and Dora.

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Public events planned over several days to mark the liberation have all been cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But memorial director Volkhard Knigge said they would all be rescheduled for next year.

Meanwhile, he asked members of the public to place flowers at the entrances to both camps Saturday -- "while respecting social distancing rules".

- Rise in far-right violence -

Other memorials around Germany, including Ravensbrueck, Sachsenhausen and Bergen-Belsen, plan similar online events in the coming days.

"The good thing to be found amidst every evil is that we humans rediscover ourselves," wrote Hungarian philosopher Eva Fahidi-Pusztai, 94, another Buchenwald and Auschwitz survivor.

"We can once again do things for ourselves; we can help each other, have fun with each other," Fahidi-Pusztai said.

"We can more easily get through even crises with humour and good cheer. Believe me. I know only all too well."

The 75th anniversaries of the liberation of the camps falls in a year when Germany has seen a string of far-right and anti-Semitic attacks.

In February, a far-right extremist conspiracy theorist shot nine people dead, in a rare mass shooting that shocked the nation.

Last autumn, another shooter killed two in an attempted attack on a synagogue in Halle, a city in Germany's former communist East.

And in June 2019, a pro-refugee local politician from Angela Merkel's conservative party was shot at his home.

Germany's VS domestic intelligence service has warned that far-right terrorism and violence represent "the greatest danger to democracy" in the country.

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Buchenwald concentration camp marks 75th anniversary of its liberation - Yahoo News

Testing for the coronavirus at Abbott Laboratories in Michigan. (AP Foto/Carlos Osorio)

On Friday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading public health expert and adviser to President Trump, announced on CNN that within a week or so, we are going to have a relatively large number of tests to determine if recovered COVID-19 patients, including those who never showed symptoms, have evidence of immunity. Among policymakers, there is discussion about whether results of this testing could be used to issue certificates of immunity that would allow individuals to return to normal life. Here are some of the key scientific considerations that will play into their conversations.

At this time, there is promising preliminary evidence that antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 disease, will prevent reinfection. A recent study reported that five critically ill patients improved after receiving antibody-rich plasma from donors who had recovered from COVID-19. This potential treatment for COVID-19 is being further investigated with FDA guidance. Another study found that a subset of antibodies in 16 patients who had recovered from COVID-19 were able to neutralize, or prevent reinfection, with SARS-CoV-2. Given the small size of each of these studies, it is difficult to know if the findings will hold true at a population level. We do not yet know if all COVID-19 patients are able to mount effective immunity and prevent reinfection.

The important underlying concept is that not all antibodies can prevent infections. When we have an infection, our immune system will create many different antibodies. Some antibodies, called non-neutralizing antibodies, will attach to parts of the infectious agent, in this case SARS-CoV-2, that are not involved in how it invades our cells to cause disease. Think of non-neutralizing antibodies like an oven mitt on the wrong hand when youre taking a tray out of the oven useless for preventing a burn. At this time, it is not clear if every COVID-19 patient will develop neutralizing antibodies, or if only a subset will develop immunity that can prevent reinfection.

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In China, Japan and South Korea, there are reports of COVID-19 patients who recovered completely, then developed new symptoms and tested positive for the virus a second time. It is not clear if these patients were reinfected or, more optimistically, if they had an unexplained increase in the virus, also called a reactivation, and symptom relapse. Its also possible that some cases were false positives the test was positive, but the patient did not have COVID-19. In South Korea, 51 patients from Daegu and the surrounding North Gyeongsang Province, the epicenters of the countrys COVID-19 outbreak, showed this pattern of recovery and then renewed symptoms. Jeong Eun-kyeong, director-general of the Korean Centers for Disease Control, publicly stated that it is likely due to reactivation, not reinfection. Additional data to put the matter to rest is not yet available, but a number of researchers are working to find answers.

Another open question with COVID-19 immunity is how long it will last. Other coronavirus strains that cause seasonal infections like the common cold, show declining immunity a few weeks after infection, and reinfection within a year. But SARS-CoV, the cause of the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome pandemic, has more genetic similarity to SARS-CoV-2 and more reassuring immunity data. SARS patients had two to three years of protection from reinfection. If that is also true of COVID-19, it could buy the world enough time to develop and distribute a vaccine, which is probably at least 18 months off.

Immune testing for COVID-19 is inherently valuable. Widespread use will help us understand the extent of the viruss spread in the population and can help identify individuals who are still vulnerable to infection.

The economic implications of certificates of immunity are highly appealing. Expedited research will help enable our leaders to make smart safe decisions for the well-being of all.

Ashita S. Batavia, MD, MSc, is a board-certified infectious disease specialist and public health expert with extensive experience in treating epidemics. She works at Lawrence Hospital NYP-Columbia. (Instagram: @ashita_batavia)

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Click here for the latest coronavirus news and updates. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please refer to the CDCs and WHOs resource guides.

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WASHINGTON Russian spies are likely using the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to collect intelligence on U.S. supply lines, which have struggled to provide adequate medical equipment, according to an intelligence report issued earlier this week by the Department of Homeland Security and obtained by Yahoo News.

The Russian intelligence services likely are watching the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic, says says an April 6 intelligence bulletin produced by the DHS Counterintelligence Mission Center.

Intelligence collection on medical supply chain vulnerabilities could inform future operations aimed at weakening key logistical elements in preparation for a wartime attack, or opportunistically during an emergency, the document says.

DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the report comes at a time when the U.S. has surpassed other countries in coronavirus cases, while also facing domestic concerns about shortfalls in medical supplies, particularly for personal protective equipment, or PPE, for health care providers. After weeks of delays, President Trump last month authorized the use of the Defense Production Act to ramp up production of equipment, including ventilators and N95 respirator masks.

Moscow, in the meantime, has already scored some major public relations coups amid the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier this month, Russia sent a planeload of medical equipment to the United States in what at first appeared to be a donation, though it was later revealed that the United States paid for supplies.

On Friday, President Trump spoke directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the coronavirus pandemic, the White House announced.

Last month, Russia flew in plane loads of medical equipment and more than 100 personnel to Italy as part of what it describes a humanitarian mission. But La Stampa, an Italian newspaper, reported that Russian military intelligence officials were also on those flights.

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Michael Carpenter, managing director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, told Yahoo News he wasnt surprised by the reports claims, given how Russia operates. Russian intelligence service is always probing vulnerabilities among adversaries. Its not surprising even in the midst of a pandemic where they are supposed to be focusing on their own safety and health, theyre scrutinizing our supply chain vulnerabilities, our critical infrastructure vulnerabilities and so forth, said Carpenter, who previously served as a senior Pentagon official responsible for Russia.

This pandemic is essentially a war game of countries resilience, how command and control works, how governments respond rapidly, he added.

The unclassified DHS report notes that Russia has since January conducted a disinformation campaign related to the coronavirus epidemic. DHS also expects that Russia will use the current crisis as a way to improve its future information operations.

We expect the Kremlin analyzes American public reaction to disinformation and adjusts techniques to maximize the impact both during the current COVID-19 situation and in the future, such as Russias ongoing 2020 election interference, the report says.

Daniel Hoffman, a retired CIA senior Intelligence Officer, said that Russia is using its propaganda to send a not so cryptic message to the U.S. government. "The Russians are well aware that we know what our vulnerabilities are," he said. "Implicitly threatening us, the Kremlin wants us to know they also know our vulnerabilities."

Russia Likely Watching US R... by Sharon Weinberger on Scribd

Another target of Kremlin propaganda are Russians, according to Bret Schafer, a media and digital disinformation fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. During the 2016 presidential elections, the Kremlin-directed interference campaign spread conspiracy theories.

Now its different, according to Schafer. Instead, the narrative framing from state-backed outlets has generally been to portray the Russian governments response to the crisis as competent, while framing the EU and U.S.s response as inept, he wrote in an email to Yahoo news.

Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., agreed that the focus of Russian information operations now appears to be on a domestic audience. The goal is to show Russians what Putin is accomplishing, she says.

Im sure they're watching as different parts of our supply chain are breaking down under this unique environment, she says. They can use that to broadcast at home.

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Click here for the latest coronavirus news and updates. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please refer to the CDCs and the WHOs resource guides.

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Exclusive: Russia collecting intelligence on U.S. supply line failures amid coronavirus crisis, DHS warns - Yahoo News

By Deena Beasley

(Reuters) - More than two-thirds of severely ill COVID-19 patients saw their condition improve after treatment with remdesivir, an experimental drug being developed by Gilead Sciences Inc., according to new data based on patient observation.

The analysis, published on Friday by the New England Journal of Medicine, does not detail what other treatments the 61 hospitalized patients were given and data on eight of them were not included -- in one case because of a dosing error.

The paper's author called the findings "hopeful," but cautioned that it is difficult to interpret the results since they do not include comparison to a control group, as would be the case in a randomized clinical trial. In addition, the patient numbers were small, the details being disclosed are limited, and the follow-up time was relatively short.

There are currently no approved treatments or preventive vaccines for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus that has killed more than 100,000 people worldwide.

Gilead last month sharply limited its compassionate use program for remdesivir and is conducting its own clinical trials of the antiviral drug, with results expected in coming weeks. Researchers in China as well as the U.S. National Institutes of Health are also testing the drug in COVID-19 patients.

The new analysis includes patients in the United States, Europe, Canada and Japan who received a 10-day course of intravenous remdesivir.

Before the treatment, 30 patients were on mechanical ventilators, and four were on a machine that pumps blood from the patient's body through an artificial oxygenator. After a median follow-up of 18 days, 36 patients, or 68%, had an improvement in oxygen-support class, including more than half of the 30 patients receiving mechanical ventilation who had their breathing tubes removed. A total of 25 patients, or 47%, were discharged from the hospital. Seven patients, 13% of the total, died.

Twelve patients, 23%, had serious side effects including multiple-organ-dysfunction syndrome, septic shock and acute kidney injury.

"We look forward to the results of controlled clinical trials to potentially validate these findings," wrote Dr. Jonathan Grein, the paper's lead author and director of hospital epidemiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles.

(Reporting By Deena Beasley; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

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Tom Brady and Donald Trump hung out through the years. Then the friendship got complicated.

Trump ran for U.S. President in 2016 and won. Brady, then the New England Patriots quarterback, pretty much stopped discussing his friend in public, hoping to avoid controversy. Trump continues to bring up Brady, however.

Brady had perhaps the most expansive interview of his career on Wednesday, spending hours on The Howard Stern Show discussing a number of topics. Stern is renowned for his skills as an interviewer and he got Brady discussing Trump, something he has been reluctant to talk about for years.

It became a big deal when reporters noticed a Make America Great Again hat in Bradys locker after Trump was running for office. That and Bradys well-known friendship with Trump led to an awkward spot in which Brady was being asked political questions he clearly didnt want to answer.

Stern had a friendship with Trump too. Trump was a frequent guest on Sterns show, and Stern said Trump came to his wedding. Stern related to Brady that way.

I dont know where youre at politically, but it was weird because there was a time when Donald called me up and said, I want you to speak at the Republican convention, Stern recalled. And Donald can be very forceful. It was weird, I was actually a Hillary Clinton supporter, I was really into her. It was awkward for me because he was asking me to do that and I had to say no to him, and its not an easy thing to do somebody who has been kind to you. Did you get asked the same thing? I imagine he wanted you to endorse him.

Yeah, Brady said. Well, he wanted me to speak at that convention too, and I wasnt going to do anything political.

Brady said he met Trump in 2001 and the friendship evolved as Bradys football career took off.

He would call me after games, I watched your game Tom, lets play golf together, Brady told Stern. So 2003, 2004, thats kind of the way it was. He would come up to our games and stand on the sideline and cheer for the Patriots. He had a way of connecting with people, and still does. But the whole political aspect came, and I got brought into a lot of those things because it was so polarizing around the election time. It was uncomfortable to me. You cant undo things not that I would undo a friendship but the political support is totally different than the support of a friend.

Brady said he felt getting involved in the political realm could have affected his job of being the quarterback to teammates who might not have been voting for Trump.

Tom Brady chats with Donald Trump at a 2005 boxing match. (Photo by Donna Connor/WireImage)

Brady explained how he felt uncomfortable juggling his friendship with Trump and the sudden political implications involved with that.

I didnt want to support, I didnt want to get into all the political ... theres zero win in anything in regards to that. Its politics, Brady told Stern. The whole political realm right now ... Im a person, from my standpoint, to embrace leadership. I got brought together in a locker room where I was trying to get along with everybody. In an outward sense, when you start talking about politics is about how you do you not bring people together, which is the opposite of what politics should have always been in our country.

From my profession, leadership and responsibility is about embracing the whole and trying to bring people together to lead them to a common goal. Now, theres a lot of different agendas and goals.

Brady said there was never a rift in the locker room over his Trump friendship,

Did teammates ever get pissed off at you for your relationship? Stern asked.

No, no, never, Brady said. They know me. They know who I am. I was with them every day.

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Stern switched topics, bringing up Trumps previous desire to have Brady date his daughter Ivanka. Brady had a round of awkward laughter over the question.

That was a long time ago, Brady said. That was a long time ago in my life.

Brady said Trump never told him he wanted him to date his daughter, but Stern said Trump had said that on his show before.

There was never that where we dated or anything like that, Brady said.

Then Brady, who is married to supermodel Gisele Bndchen, relied on one of his best media skills, which is deflecting during an awkward question.

It all worked out for me anyway, Brady said. I married the woman of my dreams.

Tom Brady and Donald Trump playing golf in January of 2006. (Photo by Davidoff Studios/Getty Images)

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WASHINGTON Reprising the skeptical tone he has applied to the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, President Trump accused the World Health Organization of helping China conceal the number of its citizens that have been infected by the coronavirus.

I do believe they knew, the president said at Fridays briefing of the coronavirus task force, suggesting that the WHO was aware that China was not being truthful about the scope of COVID-19 infections. But they didnt want to tell the world. And were gonna get to the bottom of it.

Trump did not provide evidence to support his assertion, but he made clear that the international public health organization would remain a primary target in the coming days. We're going to talk about the WHO next week in great detail. I didn't want to do it today, Good Friday. I didn't want to do it before Easter, and also didn't want to do it before we have all the facts, he said.

Fridays comments came during a week in which Trump has repeatedly blamed the WHO for improperly handling the coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday, he said that the WHO was very biased toward China.

Trump has said he wants to put a hold on U.S. funding to the WHO, although when or how he intends to do so remains unclear (funding is appropriated by Congress). The United States contributed $893 million to the WHO for its current two-year funding period, while Chinas latest contribution was $86 million.

Were paying them more than 10 times more than China, the president said. And they are very, very China-centric.

The source of Trumps irritation appears to be that the WHO did not endorse his restriction on travel from China to the United States, which he implemented on Jan. 31. Four days before that, a WHO guidance advised against unnecessary restrictions of international traffic.

More broadly, the president appears to be annoyed that the WHO has generally praised Chinas response to the pandemic, which originated within its borders, in the southeastern city of Wuhan. Praise for China has indeed been fulsome from WHO officials. Dr. Bruce Aylward, a Canadian epidemiologist who led the WHO team in China, told Yahoo News that if he were to get infected by the coronavirus, he would seek treatment in China.

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They know how to keep people alive, he said.

Aylward added, however, that Chinese epidemiologists learned much of what they know from American counterparts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Praise for China has irked some in the United States, Trumps allies in particular. They believe that Trump has been unfairly maligned while China has been unfairly celebrated. Instead of acting in the best interest of our global health, the WHO has served as a propaganda arm for the Chinese government, Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., wrote on Twitter earlier this week. She said she supported a funding freeze.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has also criticized the WHO for what he perceives as its overly solicitous attitude towards China.

Earlier this week, Trump also charged that the WHO minimized the threat very strongly. That appears to be a reference to a Jan. 14 tweet from the WHO that declared that Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. That would prove an incorrect assertion. Trump has also made false assertions about the coronavirus, including that it would vanish of its own accord.

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Click here for the latest coronavirus news and updates. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please refer to the CDCs and WHOs resource guides.

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Trump escalates battle with World Health Organization over coronavirus response - Yahoo News