British health officials are warning that people with a “significant history” of allergic reactions should not receive the new coronavirus vaccine that was rolled out in a mass vaccination program Tuesday, pending investigation of two adverse reactions. Britain is the first western country to begin the mass vaccinations, as Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
Camera: Henry Ridgwell Produced by: Henry Hernandez
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Month: December 2020
Soccer Players Lay Down ‘Marker’ in Fight Against Racism
Players have taken a knee, unfurled slogans and demanded tougher action only to find soccer — their working environment — remains infected with racism.
The tipping point might just have come, with elite players in Paris taking the extraordinary step of refusing to continue playing.
At the end of a year of striking gestures against racial injustice and discrimination, the Champions League produced one of soccer’s most powerful shows of solidarity against racism on Tuesday when players from Paris Saint-Germain and Istanbul Basaksehir left the field and didn’t return.
“The walk off by both Basaksehir and PSG together lays down a marker in Europe,” Piara Powar, executive director of the anti-discrimination Fare network, told The Associated Press. “Many players are fed up with half measures to tackle racism and are more prepared than ever to exercise their right to stop a match.”
The flashpoint came 14 minutes into the game when the fourth official — Sebastian Coltescu of Romania — was accused of using a racial term to identify Basaksehir assistant coach Pierre Webo before sending him off for his conduct on the sidelines. Webo is Black.
“You are racist,” Basaksehir coach Okan Buruk said to Coltescu.
An enraged Webo demanded an explanation from Coltescu, repeating at least six times: “Why you say negro?”
The exchanges were broadcast live around the world from soccer’s biggest club competition.
“Why when you mention a Black guy, you have to say ‘This Black guy?'” asked Basaksehir substitute Demba Ba, who is Black.
The Fare network helps UEFA prosecute discriminatory acts like Tuesday’s incident at the Parc des Princes.
“Our colleagues at the Romanian state anti-discrimination organization have confirmed it is racist in Romanian to refer to a player by using his race as an identifier,” Powar said. “There is no ambiguity. This incident shows the need for much better training of match officials. Unintentional racism is still racism.”
Racism at soccer games has typically come from the stands, but matches in countries such as France are being played without fans because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The high-profile incidents tend to highlight the inadequate responses, like in the Portuguese league in February.
Porto striker Moussa Marega tried to walk off the field after being the target of racist abuse from fans in a game against Guimarães and demanded to be substituted. But he faced attempts by his own teammates and opposing players to prevent him from leaving the field.
The referee then gave Marega a yellow card for refusing to continue in the game — the type of action that dissuades players from walking off.
The Romanian referee who was in charge of the game in Paris on Tuesday — Ovidiu Hategan — was in the same role for the 2013 Champions League game when Manchester City player Yaya Toure complained about the lack of action against monkey noises he heard from CSKA Moscow fans.
“If officials cannot set the standards by their own behavior,” Powar said, “they cannot be relied on to deal with racism on the pitch or in the stands.”
Referees have often been criticized for not leading players off the field, instead leaving them to take the decision themselves. England’s national team decided to continue playing a game in Montenegro last year after Callum Hudson-Odoi and Danny Rose were targeted with monkey chants.
The Champions League game in Paris will resume on Wednesday with a new refereeing team.
“The players walking off is a step in the right direction,” former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand said on Britain’s BT Sport television. “But it can’t just be left to them.”
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YouTube Will Remove New Videos That Falsely Claim Fraud Changed US Election Outcome
YouTube said on Wednesday it would start removing content that falsely allege widespread fraud changed the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, in a change to its more hands-off stance on videos making similar claims.
The update, which applies to content uploaded from Wednesday, comes a day after “safe harbor,” a deadline set by U.S. law for states to certify the results of the presidential election.
YouTube said it would start enforcing the policy in line with its approach towards historical U.S. presidential elections.
Online platforms have been under pressure to police misinformation about the election on their sites.
YouTube, owned by Alphabet Inc’s Google, was widely seen as taking a more hands-off approach than Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc, which started labeling content with election misinformation. YouTube labels all election-related videos.
After the November election, Reuters identified several YouTube channels making money from ads and memberships that were amplifying debunked accusations about voting fraud.
Last month, a group of Democratic senators asked YouTube to commit to removing content containing false or misleading information about the 2020 election outcome and the upcoming Senate run-off elections in Georgia.
Asked about how the policy would apply to Georgia elections, a YouTube spokeswoman said this policy only applied to the presidential election.
YouTube said in a blog post on Wednesday that since September it had removed over 8,000 channels and thousands of misleading election-related videos for violating its existing policies.
The company said more than 70% of recommendations on election-related topics came from authoritative news sources.
YouTube also said that since Election Day, fact-check information panels had been triggered over 200,000 times on election-related search results
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Cruise Ship Returns to Singapore After Coronavirus Case Discovered
A Royal Caribbean cruise ship returned to port in Singapore Wednesday, cutting short a four-day cruise after a passenger was diagnosed with the coronavirus. In a statement, Royal Caribbean said a guest on the Quantum of the Seas ship “tested positive for coronavirus after checking in with our medical team.” The cruise line said they had identified the guest and isolated the passengers and crew who had been in contact with him. They said each of those individuals had since tested negative.Britain Warns People with History of Allergic Reactions Not to Get Coronavirus VaccineWarning comes after two people had adverse reactions to vaccine on first day of rollout in BritainRoyal Caribbean said the ship returned to port in accordance with government protocols and will allow guests to leave after a review of contact tracing is completed. Singapore’s The Straits Times newspaper reports the patient on the Quantum of the Seas who tested positive is an 83-year-old resident. The paper reports 1,680 guests and 1,148 crew members were on board the vessel.Singapore recently began a “safe cruising” pilot program, conducting so-called “cruises to nowhere,” in which ships make round trips to Singapore with no stops in between. The trips, which feature strict safety measures, including pre-board testing of all passengers and limited capacity, have been popular during the pandemic when most travel has been banned or strictly limited.The paper reported that Singapore, a small but wealthy city-state in Southeast Asia, has reported 58,285 coronavirus cases since the pandemic began and 29 deaths.
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Britain Warns People with History of Allergic Reactions Not to Get Coronavirus Vaccine
British regulators warned Wednesday that people with a history of allergic reactions not to get inoculated with a coronavirus vaccine developed jointly by U.S. drug maker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech.The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency issued the warning after two people reported adverse reactions to the vaccine on Tuesday, the first day of the vaccine’s rollout in Britain.National Health Service medical director Stephen Powis said two employees reported severe allergic reactions linked with receiving the vaccination. He said both are recovering.Experts: Vaccines Appear Safe, But Some Questions RemainWith the pandemic raging, regulators allow shorter safety testsPfizer and BioNTech did not immediately comment on the warning in Britain, the first country to administer a fully examined vaccine for emergency use.MHRA Chief Executive June Raine told a parliamentary committee in London Tuesday the reaction to the vaccine was not a side-effect seen in trials.Raine’s remarks were made during a broader discussion about how MHRA will continue to observe people who get the vaccine.
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Cybersecurity Firm FireEye Says Was Hacked by Nation State
Prominent U.S. cybersecurity firm FireEye said Tuesday that foreign government hackers with “world-class capabilities” broke into its network and stole offensive tools it uses to probe the defenses of its thousands of customers, who include federal, state and local governments and top global corporations.The hackers “primarily sought information related to certain government customers,” FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia said in a statement, without naming them. He said there was no indication they got customer information from the company’s consulting or breach-response businesses or threat-intelligence data it collects.FireEye is a major cybersecurity player — it responded to the Sony and Equifax data breaches and helped Saudi Arabia thwart an oil industry cyberattack — and has played a key role in identifying Russia as the protagonist in numerous aggressions in the burgeoning netherworld of global digital conflict.Neither Mandia nor a FireEye spokeswoman said when the company detected the hack or who might be responsible. But many in the cybersecurity community suspect Russia.“I do think what we know of the operation is consistent with a Russian state actor,” said former NSA hacker Jake Williams, president of Rendition Infosec. “Whether or not customer data was accessed, it’s still a big win for Russia.”FireEye’s Mandia said he had concluded that “a nation with top-tier offensive capabilities” was behind the attack.The stolen “red team” tools — which amount to real-world malware — could be dangerous in the wrong hands. FireEye said there’s no indication they have been used maliciously. But cybersecurity experts say sophisticated nation-state hackers could modify them and wield them in the future against government or industry targets.The hack was the biggest blow to the U.S. cybersecurity community since a mysterious group known as the “Shadow Brokers” in 2016 released a trove of high-level hacking tools stolen from the National Security Agency. The U.S. believes North Korea and Russia capitalized on the stolen tools to unleash devastating global cyberattacks.The nation’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned that “unauthorized third-party users” could similarly abuse FireEye’s stolen red-team tools.Milpitas, California-based FireEye, which is publicly traded, said in Tuesday’s statement that it had developed 300 countermeasures to protect customers and others from them and was making them immediately available.FireEye has been at the forefront of investigating state-backed hacking groups, including Russian groups trying to break into state and local governments in the U.S. that administer elections. It was credited with attributing to Russian military hackers mid-winter attacks in 2015 and 2016 on Ukraine’s energy grid. Its threat hunters also have helped social media companies including Facebook identify malicious actors.Thomas Rid, a Johns Hopkins cyberconflict scholar, said that if the Kremlin were behind the hack it could have been seeking to learn what FireEye knows about Russia’s global state-backed operations — doing counterintelligence. Or it might have seeking to retaliate against the U.S. government for measures including indicting Russian military hackers for meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and other alleged crimes. FireEye is, after all, a close U.S. government partner that has “exposed many Russian operations,” he said.FireEye said it is investigating the attack in coordination with the FBI and partners including Microsoft, which has its own cybersecurity team. Mandia said the hackers used “a novel combination of techniques not witnessed by us or our partners in the past.”Matt Gorham, assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division, said the hackers’ “high level of sophistication (was) consistent with a nation state.”The U.S. government is “focused on imposing risk and consequences on malicious cyber actors, so they think twice before attempting an intrusion in the first place,” Gorham said. That has included what U.S. Cyber Command terms “defending forward” operations such as penetrated the networks of Russia and other adversaries.U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat on the Senate’s intelligence committee, applauded FireEye for quickly disclosing the intrusion, saying the case “shows the difficulty of stopping determined nation-state hackers.”Cybersecurity expert Dmitri Alperovitch said security companies like FireEye are top targets, with big names in the field including Kaspersky and Symantec breached in the past.“Every security company is being targeted by nation-state actors. This has been going on got over a decade now,” said Alperovitch, the co-founder and former chief technical officer of Crowdstrike, which investigated the 2016 Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign.He said the release of the “red-team” tools, while a serious concern, was “not the end of the world because threat actors always create new tools.”“This could have been much worse if their customer data had been hacked and exfiltrated. So far there is no evidence of that,” Alperovitch said, citing hacks of other cybersecurity companies — RSA Security in 2011 and Bit9 two years later — that contributed to the compromise of customer data.Founded in 2004, FireEye went public in 2013 and months later acquired Virginia-based Mandiant Corp., the firm that linked years of cyberattacks against U.S. companies to a secret Chinese military unit. It had about 3,400 employees and $889.2 million in revenue last year, though with a net loss of $257.4 million.The company’s 8,800 customers last year included more than half of the Forbes Global 2000, companies in telecommunications, technology, financial services, healthcare, electric grid operators, pharmaceutical companies and the oil-and-gas industry.Its stock fell more than 7% in after-hours trading Tuesday following news of the hack.
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Study: 8% of Amazon Rainforest Destroyed Since 2000
Deforestation has wiped out 8% of the Amazon rainforest in just 18 years, according to a study released Tuesday. The swath of land destroyed between 2000 and 2018 is the size of Spain, according to a study by Amazon Geo-Referenced Socio-Environmental Information Network (RAISG). “The Amazon is far more threatened than it was eight years ago,” RAISG said in a statement. The organization’s last map tracking deterioration of the forest was published in 2012. FILE – An employee uses heavy machinery to stack logs at the Serra Mansa logging and sawmill company, in Moraes Almeida district, Itaituba, Para state, Brazil, in the Amazon rainforest, Sept. 12, 2019.The current map, a collaboration between 10 organizations, shows 513,016 square kilometers of the rainforest have been lost since 2000. According to the report, the latest data shows a turn for the worse. While rates of deforestation declined between 2003 and 2010, logging, farming, ranching, mining and infrastructure projects in the past decade have negatively affected the Amazon.Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has encouraged development in the Amazon rainforest and loosened enforcement of environmental laws. “In 2018 alone, 31,269 square kilometers of forest were destroyed across the Amazon region, the worst annual deforestation since 2003,” the RAISG study says. The destruction of mature tropical forests is a massive hit to biodiversity and is responsible for about 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to the World Resources Institute, the research and advocacy group that oversees Global Forest Watch. Because forests are massive sponges of carbon dioxide, reversing their loss would play an outsize role in fighting climate change.Forest Losses Increased in 2019 to Third-Largest This Century Indonesia, Columbia offer glimmers of hope in the bad news The RAISG study comes days before the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, in which 195 countries agreed to measures that would limit world production of CO2 emissions. In a controversial move, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement in 2017.
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Four Lions in Spanish Zoo Catch COVID-19
Four lions have tested positive for COVID-19 at Barcelona Zoo in Spain, veterinary authorities announced Tuesday.Veterinarians are unsure how the lions were infected, although two zookeepers have also tested positive.The infection in three female cats and one male is only the second documented case of the coronavirus in big cats since four tigers and three lions tested positive in April at the Bronx Zoo in New York.The lions, Zala, Nima and Run Run, all 16 years old, and 4-year old Kiumbe, underwent a PCR test. This is the same type of test carried out on the staff members in November after they showed mild symptoms of the disease.In a statement, the zoo said the “lions were given veterinary care for their mild condition,” which they explained is “similar to a very mild flu condition.”All four responded well to anti-inflammatory treatment and are being observed closely.A statement from the zoo said the animals were no longer showing upper respiratory symptoms but still had mild coughing and sneezing.Veterinary authorities who are investigating are optimistic there will be no widespread infections as the lions have had no contact with other animals.
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Endemic Corruption Is Reason Behind Alarming Wildlife Trafficking From Nigeria
Corruption has made Nigeria the biggest smuggler of ivory and pangolin scales from central and West Africa to Asia, according to a report by the Environmental Investigation Agency. The London-based group says in the past five years, Nigeria has been implicated in global seizures equating to 4,400 elephants and hundreds of thousands of endangered pangolins.Aaron Olamilekan, a Nigerian wildlife advocate, spoke as he held a dead pangolin he bought from a group of local hunters arriving from a hunt on the outskirts of Abuja.”They tell me why most of them hunt. It’s based on poverty; there’s no good job for them, there’s no government support for them. So, they have no choice than to go into the wild,” Olamilekan said.The hunters sell the animals in exchange for cash.But Olamilekan sometimes intercepts them, negotiates and rescues endangered species.Animals returned to wildHe runs a sanctuary where he says animals can be resuscitated and nurtured before they’re released into the wild.”The ecosystem is being tampered with because all these animals have a role to play in our environment, so killing them will cause a future disaster,” Olamilekan said.Illegal hunting for trade is the major reason that endangered species such as elephants and pangolins are in constant decline.Since 2015, Nigeria has been the main exit point for pangolin scales and elephant ivory from the continent to many parts of Asia, where they are prized for decorative purposes or their alleged but unproven medicinal uses.Smugglers take ivory, scalesA recent report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) shows more than 30 tons of ivory and 167 tons of pangolin scales have been smuggled through the country in five years.The EIA blames corruption by Nigerian border or port officials for the illegal trade. Shruti Suresh is a senior wildlife campaigner at EIA.”Corruption which exists within certain public sectors is helping organized crime to thrive and traffic ivory, pangolin, and several other species.” Suresh said. “We need political will at the highest level of government to prioritize this issue.”Nigeria is a member of several international conventions protecting endangered wildlife, including the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES).Laws rarely enforcedNigerian authorities continue to pledge their commitment toward protecting wildlife even though laws meant to safeguard endangered species are rarely enforced.The EIA wants Nigerian authorities to take stricter measures against poachers and smugglers, noting that uncontrolled trade during this period of the coronavirus pandemic could be potentially dangerous.For the moment, wildlife advocate Olamilekan will be saving as many endangered animals as possible.
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Indians Suffering Mystery Illness Found to Have Lead, Nickel in Blood
Indian doctors have found lead and nickel in the blood of patients who have succumbed to a mysterious illness in the southern part of the country.More than 400 people in the state of Andhra Pradesh have fallen ill with common symptoms of nausea and fainting that does not appear to be linked to the coronavirus. At least one person has died.The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in the capital of Delhi tested 10 blood samples of patients and reported Tuesday they had found traces of lead and nickel.The AIIMS did not find lead or nickel in water samples tested from the affected area.Some officials in the state have said it is possible the illness is related to organochlorine pesticides, which are banned in many countries for their harmful health effects. It was not immediately clear how much, if at all, the pesticides are currently used in India.Geeta Prasadini, public health director for the city of Eluru, said the patients first began exhibiting signs of the illness, including convulsions, Saturday night.Commenting on the possibility that pesticides are to blame, Prasadini said Tuesday, “Nobody knows.”Another Eluru official, Dolal Joshi Roy, told CNN Tuesday that none of the patients had tested positive for COVID-19, the diseases caused by the coronavirus.Andhra Pradesh is one of the states hardest hit by the coronavirus, with more than 800,000 confirmed cases, Indian authorities said.Roy said about 180 of those hospitalized for the illness had been released by Tuesday.
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First Woman Competes at Middle East’s Top Falconry Show
Athari Alkhaldi stands out amid a sea of men and falcons at the Middle East’s top falconry competition: the first Saudi woman to qualify and participate in the event.
“With my participation … I proved I am here, that women can join this field, that it’s not only restricted to men,” she said, alongside her falcon Ma’aned.
Falconry is an important part of the desert heritage of Arabs of Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries going back thousands of years.
The two-week King Abdulaziz Falconry Festival, which gathers more than 4,000 falcons from the Gulf and further afield, honored Alkhaldi’s presence with an award for the first female to make a qualifying competition flight with her bird.
Alkhaldi first participated last year, but her bird refused to take flight. Determined, she returned this year and her bird successfully flew.
“Dealing with the birds, it is not easy … they are sensitive and need special treatment,” she said, adding that it requires patience and persistence.
“Falconry has been a well-known heritage since ancient times. We take pride in it.” she said.
The government-backed festival, in its third-year, has 22.7 million Saudi riyals ($6 million) in prize money to give out during beauty and flying contests.
Depending on the breed, falcon flight speeds can exceed 300 km (186 miles) an hour.
Alkhaldi said her passion for falcons first began 10 years ago and she has been developing her skills with the hunting birds ever since.
Festival spokesman Waleed Al-Taweel said the festival wants to promote the falconry culture among women and men.
“Honoring (Alkhaldi) is a continuation of the Kingdom’s efforts to empower women in all areas,” he said of the participation award given to her.
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Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Nears Approval for Emergency Use in US
A COVID-19 vaccine developed by U.S. drug maker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech has moved closer to approval for emergency use in the United States after the Food and Drug Administration disclosed documents Tuesday confirming the vaccine was strongly protective against the infectious disease.The FDA documents were released on the same day that Britain began inoculating citizens with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the first country to administer a fully examined vaccine for emergency use.The documents offer the global community the first detailed view of the results of the vaccine’s trials.An FDA advisory committee comprising independent experts will vote Thursday on whether to recommend use of the vaccine. The panel’s decision is not binding, but the FDA has usually accepted its recommendations.Britain Becomes 1st Nation to Approve Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine’Historic moment’ makes Britain first Western nation preparing to begin mass inoculations against novel coronavirus A final decision by U.S. regulators is expected within days. If the vaccine is approved, the first recipients will be health care workers and nursing home residents, according to plans developed by each state.FDA staff members said the two-dose vaccine was very effective in preventing COVID-19 cases at least seven days after the last dose. But the FDA said there was not enough data to confirm the safety of the vaccine in people under 16, pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems. COVID-19 is caused by the coronavirus.
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Capsule Containing Samples from Asteroid Arrives at Japan Space Agency
Anxious researchers with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Tuesday said they have received a capsule containing samples collected from an asteroid after traveling five billion kilometers back to Earth.The capsule, from Japan’s spacecraft Hayabusa2, blasted off for the asteroid Ryugu in December 2014, overcoming an unexpectedly rough landing surface to collect samples of asteroid dust in a capsule. That capsule plunged to Earth in Australia on Sunday and was flown to Japan where it was delivered to the agency’s scientists.At a news conference at JAXA in Sagamihara, about 51 kilometers southwest of Tokyo, space again scientists said the capsule is now secured safely in a curation facility at its research center.Project manager Yuichi Tsuda acknowledged he became a little emotional when the capsule was delivered to the facility, saying, “When I saw it, after returning from a flight of 5 billion kilometers, I was really moved. It was really touching.”The researchers cannot immediately pry open the capsule and start examining the sample. A series of steps must be taken to ensure the sample is not contaminated. They say initial gas samples were taken from the capsule shortly after it was recovered. But the scientists will wait until the proper time to open it.JAXA researcher Tomoshiro Usui said, “If things go well, I believe we can open the lid in the vacuum chamber and confirm the contents after next week at the earliest.”The Hayabasa2 orbited above Ryugu for a few months before landing, then used small explosives to blast a crater and collected the resulting debris, with the expectation that some 100 milligrams may have been gathered. Asteroids are believed to have formed at the dawn of the solar system, and scientists say the sample may contain organic matter that could have contributed to life on Earth.Experts from NASA say the Japanese agency is planning to share samples of the material collected from Ryugu with six teams of scientists around the globe, including the U.S. space agency, by the end of next year.
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Australia Introducing Bill to Make Facebook and Google Pay Media Groups for Content
Legislation to make Facebook and Google pay media organizations for news content will be introduced in the Australian parliament on Wednesday, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said Tuesday.
Frydenberg said the measure would be reviewed by a parliamentary committee after its introduction and before legislators vote on it next year.
If the measure becomes law, Frydenberg said the internet giants must negotiate payments for content with local publishers and broadcasters. A government-appointed mediator would decide the payment terms if a deal is not reached.
Facebook has said it may block Australian news content instead of paying for it.
Google has warned the legislation would lead to “dramatically worse” search results on Google and YouTube and jeopardize free services.
Until recently, most countries watched companies shift advertising money to the world’s largest social media website and search engine, depriving news outlets of their primary revenue source. The dramatic decline in advertising revenue sparked a wave of closures and job losses.
Regulators, however, are beginning to rein in the two corporate giants, which Frydenberg said receive 80% of Australia’s online advertising spending.
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Smartphone Glass Strength: The Quest To Make Glass Shatterproof
U.S. glassmaker Corning has become the dominant provider of glass covers for smartphones worldwide. Deana Mitchell has the story.
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Feds Passed Up Chance to Lock in More Pfizer Vaccine Doses
The Trump administration opted last summer not to lock in a chance to buy millions of additional doses of one of the leading coronavirus vaccine contenders, a decision that could delay the delivery of a second batch of doses until manufacturer Pfizer fulfills other international contracts. The revelation, confirmed Monday by people familiar with the matter, came a day before President Donald Trump aimed to take credit for the speedy development of forthcoming coronavirus vaccines at a White House summit Tuesday. Pfizer’s vaccine is expected to be endorsed by a panel of Food and Drug Administration advisers as soon as this week, with delivery of 100 million doses — enough for 50 million Americans — expected in coming months. Under its contract with Pfizer, the Trump administration committed to buy an initial 100 million doses, with an option to purchase as many as five times more. This summer, the White House opted not to lock in an additional 100 million doses for delivery in the second quarter of 2021, according to people who spoke about the matter on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. FILE – A customer wearing a mask walks out of a Walgreen’s pharmacy store and past a sign advising that COVID-19 vaccines are not available there yet during the coronavirus outbreak, December 2, 2020.Days ahead of the vaccine’s expected approval, the administration is reversing course, but it is not clear that Pfizer, which has since made commitments to other countries, will be able to meet the latest request on the same timeline. The Pfizer vaccine is one of two on track for emergency FDA authorization this month, the other coming from drugmaker Moderna. The Trump administration insisted late Monday that between those two vaccines and others in the pipeline, the U.S. will be able to accommodate any American who wants to be vaccinated by the end of the second quarter of 2021. The administration’s decision not to lock in additional Pfizer purchases last summer was first reported by The New York Times. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told NBC the administration is “continuing to work across manufacturers to expand the availability of releasable, of FDA-approved vaccine as quickly as possible. … We do still have that option for an additional 500 million doses.” Seeking to tamp down public skepticism over the vaccine and secure a key component of Trump’s legacy, Tuesday’s summit will highlight the administration’s plans to distribute and administer the vaccine. But officials from President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team, which will oversee the bulk of the largest vaccination program in the nation’s history once he takes office January 20, were not invited. Officials from the pharmaceutical companies developing the vaccines also were not expected to attend, despite receiving invitations, according to people familiar with the matter. Some expressed concerns about the event contributing to the politicization of the vaccine development process and potentially further inhibiting public confidence in the drugs.
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Trump Summit Aims to Boost Faith in Vaccine; Biden Excluded; Drugmakers Decline
The Trump administration is aiming to instill public confidence as well as claim major credit for the forthcoming coronavirus vaccines with a White House summit Tuesday featuring experts who will outline distribution plans in detail. Officials from President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team are not invited, even though they will oversee the continuation of the largest vaccination program in the nation’s history once he takes office January 20. President Donald Trump is trying to frame vaccine development as a key component of his legacy. The Operation Warp Speed summit will feature Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and a host of government experts, state leaders and business executives, as the White House looks to explain that the vaccine is safe and lay out the administration’s plans to bring it to the American people. Senior administration officials provided details on the summit on Monday. An official with the Biden transition confirmed no invitation was extended.FILE – Vials with a sticker reading, “COVID-19 / Coronavirus vaccine / Injection only” and a medical syringe are seen in front of a displayed Pfizer logo, October 31, 2020.Officials from the pharmaceutical companies developing the vaccines also were not expected to attend, despite receiving invitations, according to people familiar with the matter. Some expressed concerns about the event contributing to the politicization of the vaccine development process and potentially further inhibiting public confidence in the drugs. Trump is set to kick off the event with remarks aiming to celebrate vaccine development, according to an official who previewed the event. Trump also will sign an executive order to prioritize Americans for coronavirus vaccines procured by the federal government. A second official said the order would restrict the U.S. government from donating doses to other nations until there is excess supply to meet domestic demand. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss plans for the summit. It was not immediately clear what, if any, impact the order would have on other nations’ abilities to access the vaccines. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday he expects his country to receive about 250,000 doses of a vaccine from Pfizer by the end of the year. The Food and Drug Administration is to meet Thursday to conduct a final review of the Pfizer drug, and it will meet later this month on a vaccine developed by Moderna. Both have been determined to be 95% effective against the virus that causes COVID-19. FILE – A man receives a trial COVID-19 vaccine at the Research Centers of America, in Hollywood, Florida, August 13, 2020.Plans call for distributing and then administering about 40 million doses of the two companies’ vaccines by the end of the year — with the first doses shipping within hours of FDA clearance. But Biden said Friday that “there’s no detailed plan that we’ve seen” for how to get the vaccines out of containers, into syringes and then into people’s arms. Trump administration officials insist that such plans have been developed, with the bulk of the work falling to states and municipal governments to ensure their most vulnerable populations are vaccinated first. The administration says it has leveraged partnerships with manufacturers, distributers and health care providers, so that outside of settings like veterans’ hospitals, “it is highly unlikely that a single federal employee will touch a dose of vaccine before it goes into your arm.” In all, about 50,000 vaccination sites are enrolled in the government’s distribution system, the officials said. Each of the forthcoming vaccines has unique logistical challenges related to distribution and administration. The Pfizer vaccine must be transported at super-cooled temperatures and comes in batches of 975 doses. Each vial contains five doses, requiring careful planning. The administration has prepared detailed videos for providers on how to safely prepare and administer doses, to be posted after the FDA issues its emergency use authorization. One such plan is to be announced Tuesday: Pharmacy chains CVS and Walgreens have stood up a “mobile vaccination service” ready to vaccinate people in every nursing home and long-term care facility in the country. The roughly 3 million residents of those facilities are among the most vulnerable for COVID-19 and have been placed at the front of the line to access the vaccine. So far, 80%-85% of the facilities have signed on to the service, the officials said.
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Fauci Warns of ‘Surge Upon a Surge’ of COVID-19
The top infectious disease expert in the U.S. warned Monday of a “surge upon a surge” of coronavirus cases as Americans travel for holidays.“If we don’t listen to the public health measures that we need to follow, then we could start to see things get really bad in the middle of January. Not only for New York state, but for any state or city that is facing similar problems,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said at a press conference in New York alongside state Governor Andrew Cuomo.Millions of Americans traveled across the country for the Thanksgiving holiday, despite warnings from health experts. As case numbers continue to rise, experts worry that surges will increase if Americans gather with family for Hannukah and Christmas.New York is no exception to an upward trend in coronavirus cases, though Cuomo said Monday that the state’s numbers are lower than many other parts of the country.Jayceon Melendez arrives at P.S. 134 Henrietta Szold Elementary School, Dec. 7, 2020, in New York.New York City students returned to schools on Monday, after they had been sent home in mid-November following an increase the rate of positive COVID-19 tests.“This is a good day for New York City, even against a tough backdrop,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday at a virtual news conference from City Hall.De Blasio said it was safe to reopen schools, as protocols had been beefed up.Since mid-September, when schools opened, more than 1,740 students and 2,240 staff in the public school system have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to city statistics.California: 30,000 new cases in a dayCalifornia began imposing restrictions throughout the state, beginning at midnight Sunday, as it tallies record numbers. The state confirmed 30,000 new cases Sunday — the highest recorded in a single day. Its previous high was nearly 22,000 set Friday.Fauci said Monday that the state’s restrictions would “rescue them from possibly getting their hospitals overrun,” Reuters reported.The California governor’s order bans all private gatherings in the affected areas, closes all but critical infrastructure and retail operations, and requires mask wearing and social distancing.However, the sheriffs of Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties — three of the state’s most populous counties — have said they would not enforce the order, which is to last three weeks.The U.S. has confirmed a total of more than 14,800,000 cases of the coronavirus this year, and 283,211 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.Last week, U.S. officials decided that health care workers and nursing home residents would be among the first Americans to be vaccinated against the disease, likely before the end of the year.
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Despite Promise, Few in US Adopting COVID-19 Exposure Apps
Six months ago, Apple and Google introduced a new smartphone tool designed to notify people who might have been exposed to the coronavirus, without disclosing any personal information. But for the most part, Americans haven’t been all that interested.
Fewer than half of U.S. states and territories — 18 in total — have made such technology widely available. And according to a data analysis by The Associated Press, the vast majority of Americans in such locations haven’t activated the tool.
Data from 16 states, Guam and the District of Columbia shows that 8.1 million people had utilized the technology as of late November. That’s about one in 14 of the 110 million residents in those regions.
In theory, such apps could bolster one of the most difficult tasks in pandemic control: Tracing the contacts of people infected with the coronavirus in order to test and isolate them if necessary. In practice, however, widespread COVID-19 misinformation, the complexity of the technology, overwhelmed health workers needed to quickly confirm a diagnosis, and a general lack of awareness have all presented obstacles, experts and users say.
“There’s a lot of things working against it,” said Jessica Vitak, an associate professor at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies. “Unfortunately, in the U.S., COVID has been politicized far more than in any other country. I think that’s affecting people’s willingness to use tools to track it.”
Charlotte, North Carolina, lawyer Evan Metaxatos was thrilled to learn in November about his state’s tracking app, called SlowCOVIDNC. He immediately downloaded it and got his parents and pregnant wife to follow suit.
But they’re still outliers in the state, which launched the app in September with little fanfare. Of roughly 10.5 million state residents, only 482,003 had installed it through the end of November.
“It won’t work great until everyone’s using it, but it’s better than nothing,” Metaxatos said.
Apple and Google co-created the primary technology behind such apps, which use Bluetooth wireless signals to anonymously detect when two phones have spent time in close proximity. If an app user tests positive for the virus, that person’s phone can trigger a notification to other people they’ve spent time near — without revealing names, locations, or any other identifying information.
In states such as Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland and Washington, as well as Washington, D.C., iPhone users don’t even have to download an app. In fact, Apple prompts users via pop-ups to activate the notification system by adjusting their phone settings.
In these states, adoption rates are notably higher. But even in the most successful state, Connecticut, only about a fifth of all residents have opted into this tracking. On Friday, Washington said that more than 1 million state residents — roughly 13% of its population — had activated the technology in its first four days.
Virginia’s COVIDWISE app launched on Aug. 5 and was the first to go live. Since then, fewer than one in ten residents have downloaded it, though the state estimates almost 20% of Virginians between the ages of 18 and 65 with a smartphone have done so. Delaware’s app downloads account for about 7% of the state’s population.
All other U.S. states analyzed have much lower adoption rates.
New York launched its app on Oct. 1. It recently surpassed 1 million downloads, which amounts to about 5% of the population. New Jersey and Pennsylvania have seen less use, with a 4% download rate.
Adoption is even lower in Wyoming, North Dakota, Michigan, Nevada and Alabama, with users representing only 1% to 3% of their state populations. The apps, which are free, can be found in Apple’s app store and the Google Play store for Android devices; they’re also typically available on state health-department websites.
Irish app developer NearForm says more than one-quarter of Ireland’s population uses its COVID-19 app. It’s been harder to get such traction in the four U.S. states where it’s built similar apps: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware.
In Ireland, “all sides of the political divide came together with a consistent message on this is what we need to do,” said Larry Breen, NearForm’s chief commercial officer. “That debate continues to rage on your side of the pond.”
Elsewhere in Europe, the uptake has been mixed. Germany and Britain have penetration rates similar to Ireland’s; in Finland the figure is 45%, according to data compiled by MIT Technology Review. In France, however, less than 4% of the population is using the official COVID app, which shuns the Apple-Google approach for a more intrusive data collection system that raised privacy concerns and technical issues.
Security experts praise the Apple-Google system for protecting users’ anonymity, but it’s been a tough sell for many people. American users say partisanship, privacy concerns and stigma surrounding COVID-19 have kept participation low. A lack of state and federal efforts to boost awareness hasn’t helped.
Neither have technological and bureaucratic issues.
Lee McFarland, a loan officer from Grand Forks, North Dakota, was eager to download his state’s Care19 Alert app but said he couldn’t push a “Notify Others” button after getting the virus in late October.
“If you test positive, a public health official will call and verify your code,” said a message on McFarland’s app. “This ensures that only verified positive COVID-19 people can send notifications.”
McFarland said he forgot to tell the health worker he had the app installed on his phone. He was unsuccessful in following up with the worker to get the needed code, and has since deleted the app.
Even when that process works, however, many North Dakotans don’t actually push the button to notify others.
Tim Brookins, CEO of app developer ProudCrowd, said 91 of North Dakota’s 14,000 active users had their “Notify Others” button enabled after the state confirmed them as positive. Of the 91 users, only 29 pushed the button, which prompted 50 notifications.
Still, many users say they’ll keep the app in hopes others will see its potential benefits.
“You can say that about just about anything that not enough people are doing this or that, but everybody that does something is helping,” said David Waechter, a general contractor from Lenoir, North Carolina. “I think that the United States could use a good strong dose of E pluribus unum and stop thinking about self and start thinking about our countrymen.”
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The Dylan Catalog, a 60-Year Rock ‘N’ Roll Odyssey, Sold
Bob Dylan’s entire catalog of songs, which reaches back 60 years is being acquired by Universal Music Publishing Group. The catalog contains 600 song copyrights including “Blowin’ In The Wind,” “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” and “Tangled Up In Blue.”The influence of Dylan’s body of work may only be matched by that of the Beatles. Financial terms were not disclosed Monday, but the catalog may be the most prized in the music industry. Four years ago, when Michael Jackson’s estate sold the remaining half-share that it owned in the artist’s catalog, it fetched $750 million.”Brilliant and moving, inspiring and beautiful, insightful and provocative, his songs are timeless—whether they were written more than half a century ago or yesterday,” said Sir Lucian Grainge, CEO of Universal Music Group, in a prepared statement. Dylan’s songs have been recorded more than 6,000 times, by various artists from dozens of countries, cultures and music genres, including the Jimi Hendrix version of “All Along The Watchtower.”The transaction’s announcement comes a few weeks after the singer-songwriter’s musings about anti-Semitism and unpublished song lyrics sold at auction for a total of $495,000.Dylan, first entered the public consciousness with New York City’s Greenwich Village folk scene during the early 1960s. When he brought an electric guitar on stage in 1965, he split the music community in what was considered a radical departure for an artist. Dylan then produced three albums back to back in just over a year that changed the course of rock ‘n’ roll that decade, starting with “Bringing It All Back Home.”Dylan has sold more than 125 million records globally. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, the first songwriter to receive such a distinction.
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Biden Names Top Health Care Officials
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden named his top health care officials on Monday, tapping former Congressman Xavier Becerra as his Health and Human Services chief to lead the country’s fight to curb the surging coronavirus pandemic and oversee millions of vaccinations against it in the coming months.
FILE – California Attorney General Xavier Becerra speaks during a news conference in Sacramento, California, March 5, 2019.Becerra currently is attorney general for the western state of California who led the defense last month in the U.S. Supreme Court against a conservative bid to overturn the country’s Affordable Care Act, in a case yet to be decided. During his 24 years as a congressman in the House of Representatives, Becerra worked to win approval for the national health care law that has provided insurance coverage to millions of Americans.
In addition, Biden picked Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, as his chief medical adviser on COVID-19. Biden also asked Fauci to continue in his longtime role as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci, 79, has served as a medical adviser to six U.S. presidents and for months has been the face of the U.S. government’s response to the pandemic.
In the months before the presidential election, President Donald Trump grew increasingly peeved at Fauci’s grim assessments of the spread of the virus and sidelined him in favor of more upbeat commentary.
FILE – Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases arrives to participate in a roundtable at the American Red Cross national headquarters in Washington.Biden has said he will pay close attention to scientific findings about the virus from Fauci and other medical experts and get vaccinated as soon as Fauci says the preventative is safe.
U.S. health regulators are about to review two proposed vaccines that have proved effective in clinical tests. Millions of doses of the vaccines could be available later this month, with millions more in early 2021.
Biden named Dr. Vivek Murthy as surgeon general, a position he held from 2014 to 2017 during the administration of former President Barack Obama, when Biden was second in command.
The president-elect picked Dr. Rochelle Walensky, a top expert on virus testing, prevention and treatment in the eastern state of Massachusetts, as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She is chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Biden chose Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, an expert on health care disparities among racial and ethnic groups in the U.S., as chair of his COVID-19 equity task force. She is an associate professor of medicine, public health and management at the Yale School of Medicine.
The president-elect picked business executive Jeffrey Zients, a former director of the National Economic Council under Obama, as a coordinator of his COVID-19 response team and a counselor to him. Biden named former White House and Pentagon senior adviser Natalie Quillian as deputy coordinator of the government’s response to the pandemic.
The Biden transition team said the health officials “will help fulfill the president-elect’s vision of making health care a right, not a privilege, for all Americans — building on the Affordable Care Act to lower health care costs and tackle prescription drug costs.”
In a statement, Biden said, “This trusted and accomplished team of leaders will bring the highest level of integrity, scientific rigor, and crisis-management experience to one of the toughest challenges America has ever faced — getting the pandemic under control so that the American people can get back to work, back to their lives, and back to their loved ones.”
He said that after his inauguration on January 20, the government would “expand testing and masking, (and) oversee the safe, equitable and free distribution of treatments and vaccines.”
He said his administration would “rally the country and restore the belief that there is nothing beyond America’s capacity if we do it together.”
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Pakistan Suspends Senior Hospital Staff After Oxygen Shortage Kills 6 COVID Patients
Authorities in Pakistan suspended seven senior officers at a government hospital Monday after an inquiry found their “criminal negligence” resulted in the disruption of oxygen supply to the facility, killing six coronavirus patients.
The deaths occurred the previous day in Peshawar, capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, as the country of about 220 million people battles a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The incident took place due to system failure” said the inquiry report, noting that patient care “badly suffered” in Khyber Teaching Hospital, the city’s largest. The report found that at the time of incident 90 patients were admitted in the coronavirus isolation ward who were left for hours without sufficient oxygen.
The depletion of oxygen supply “went unnoticed, unsupervised and unchecked” and there had been no backup supply system put in place. Provincial Health Minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra told reporters that the government will hold a second inquiry over the next five days.
The hospital director was among those suspended.
Pakistan has reported more than 420,000 COVID-19 infections, with about 8,400 deaths since the pandemic hit the country in late February. The number of cases dropped dramatically in mid-July to several hundred a day.
But the number of people contracting the virus has rapidly increased in the past two months. Officials said they had documented nearly 3,800 new cases in the last 24 hours across Pakistan, with 37 deaths. The national positivity rate stood at almost 10 percent, which had dropped to around one percent in July.
Intensive care units across Pakistan are said to be almost full, with federal and provincial governments struggling to deal with the health emergency and urging people to strictly comply with safety guidelines and wear masks to help contain the spread of the pandemic.
The National Command and Operation Center, which oversees the pandemic-related actions, warned Monday that more than 2,500 “COVID patients are in critical condition across Pakistan and the number of critical patients is rising fast.”
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