Month: January 2021

Health

Hypertension Throughout Being pregnant Tied to Later Cognitive Decline

Post author By
Post date January 21, 2021

Excess Weight During Pregnancy Tied to Fertility Issues in Sons

Women who develop gestational hypertension – high blood pressure during pregnancy – may have decreased cognitive abilities later in life, according to a recent report.

The study in neurology included 115 women with a history of gestational hypertension between 2002 and 2006. They measured their mental agility an average of 15 years later using well-validated tests of verbal language proficiency, processing speed, memory and visual skills. They then compared their results with those of 481 women whose blood pressure remained normal during their pregnancy.

After checking ethnicity, educational level, pre-pregnancy BMI, and other factors, they found that women who were hypertensive during pregnancy had significantly lower scores on working memory and verbal learning tests than women whose blood pressure was normal .

The lead author, Dr. Maria C. Adank, a researcher at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, pointed out that the effect was mainly driven by 70 percent of the women in the study who had only mild hypertension – scores above 140/90 – and not the 30 percent who had preeclampsia, the extremely high blood pressure that, if left untreated, can lead to organ damage and death in both mothers and babies.

“These are women with only mildly high blood pressure. You are healthy. But even by the age of 45, they were affecting your cognition, ”she said. “You and your doctors should be aware of the risk and should be followed up. We believe that high blood pressure persists beyond pregnancy and should be treated. “

Tags Cognitive, Decline, Hypertension, Pregnancy, Tied

World News

Covid-19 Information: Dwell Updates – The New York Occasions

Post author By
Post date January 21, 2021

Dr. Anthony Fauci, seen here in December, said the United States would re-engage at all levels with the World Health Organization.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Hilary Swift for The New York Times

A day after President Biden reinstated American ties with the World Health Organization, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci told the organization that the United States was committed to working closely with other nations to implement a more effective global response to the pandemic.

“Given that a considerable amount of effort will be required by all of us,” Dr. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said via video link during a meeting of the group’s executive board, “the United States stands ready to work in partnership and solidarity to support the international Covid-19 response, mitigate its impact on the world, strengthen our institutions, advance epidemic preparedness for the future, and improve the health and well-being of all people throughout the world.”

Dr. Fauci said the United States would re-engage at all levels with the W.H.O. and intended to join Covax, a program set up by the agency to distribute vaccines to poorer nations.

His comments, which he said came exactly one year after the United States recorded its first Covid-19 case, underscored the alacrity with which the new administration is reversing both the substance and tone of the Trump administration’s approach.

“This is a good day for the W.H.O. and a good day for global health,” the agency’s leader, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said, thanking President Biden for honoring his pledge to resume W.H.O. membership and Dr. Fauci for his personal support to the body over many years as well as his leadership in America’s response to the pandemic.

On Thursday, Mr. Biden put forward national strategy that includes aggressive use of executive authority to protect workers, advance racial equity and ramp up the manufacturing of test kits, vaccines and supplies. The “National Strategy for the Covid-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness” outlines the kind of muscular and highly coordinated federal response that Democrats have long demanded and that President Donald Trump rejected.

Since virtually the moment Mr. Biden was sworn into office, he announced a series of actions to try to blunt the pandemic, including restoring the National Security Council’s Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, a group disbanded under Mr. Trump in 2018.

He is requiring social distancing and the wearing of masks by federal employees, contractors and others on federal property, and is starting a “100 days masking challenge” urging all Americans to wear masks and state and local officials to implement public measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

His moves come in stark contrast to the response of President Trump, who announced the United States would pull out of the W.H.O. in May last year, accusing the organization of kowtowing to China. Mr. Trump had sought to blame China for not doing enough to stop the spread of the disease, and he accused Beijing of hiding the true scope of infections from the W.H.O., targeting the agency in the process.

A panel established by the organization said in a damning report that there was much blame to go around. It criticized the slow response of governments and public health organizations. Investigators, who are still working on their final report, said they could not understand why a W.H.O. committee waited until Jan. 30 to declare an international health emergency. (The Chinese government had lobbied other governments against declaring such an emergency.) The investigators also said that despite years of warnings that a pandemic as inevitable, the agency was slow to make changes.

On Thursday, addressing “my dear friend” Dr. Tedros, Dr. Fauci thanked the W.H.O. for its leadership of the global response to the pandemic. “Under trying circumstances,” he said, “this organization has rallied the scientific and research and development community to accelerate vaccines, therapies and diagnostics; conducted regular, streamed press briefings that authoritatively track global developments; provided millions of vital supplies from lab reagents to protective gear to health care workers in dozens of countries; and relentlessly worked with nations in their fight against Covid-19.”

The United States, he said, would fulfill its financial obligations to the W.H.O., halt the previous administration’s moves to draw down American staff seconded to it and saw technical collaboration at all levels as a fundamental part of its relationship with the agency.

Dr. Fauci also set out broader aims for increasing global pandemic preparedness, including developing an improved early warning and rapid response mechanism for dealing with biological threats, and strengthening pandemic supply chains.

“We will work with partners around the world to build a system that leaves us better prepared for this pandemic and for the next one,” he said.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting.

United States ›	United StatesOn Jan. 20	14-day change
New cases	184,754	–16%
New deaths	4,367	+14%

World ›	WorldOn Jan. 20	14-day change
New cases	693,073	–1%
New deaths	17,614	+23%

Where cases per capita are
highest

Credit…Miles Fortune for The New York Times

One year ago today, health officials told Americans about a traveler who had just come home from Wuhan, China, sought treatment at an urgent-care clinic north of Seattle after falling ill — and set off alarm bells.

The man had the first confirmed coronavirus case in the United States.

In announcing the news, the officials struck a tone at once reassuring and worrisome. They said they believed the risk to the public was low. But they also cautioned that more cases were likely to come.

And come they did: The nation has now recorded more than 24 million cases and 400,000 deaths.

It began slowly.

In the first five weeks, American officials reported about 45 known cases and no known deaths from the virus.

But in the past five weeks, the country recorded over 7.4 million cases and close to 100,000 deaths. On Wednesday alone, officials recorded at least 184,237 new cases and at least 4,357 deaths. In terms of deaths, it was the second-worst day of the pandemic.

It was also a day on which a new president took office after ousting an incumbent widely derided for his handling of the pandemic — and vowed to do better.

The first known case, of the traveler from Wuhan, took place in Snohomish County, Wash., and it led to an extensive effort to isolate the patient and monitor the contacts he had encountered since returning from China.

Other travelers also ended up testing positive, and genomic sequencing showed that a different branch of the virus took root independently on the East Coast of the United States.

Although the Seattle area became the epicenter of an early outbreak at the end of February, researchers are not sure if the man who returned to the Seattle area set it off.

Genomic sequencing suggested that the man, who is now 36, was part of a virus branch that spread across the region. But researchers looking at timing and genetic variations across the region believe the outbreak may have begun with another, unknown person.

Washington’s early outbreak led the state to record 37 of the nation’s first 50 coronavirus deaths. But the state has since fared far better than the nation as a whole. If the United States had maintained a death rate comparable to Washington’s, there would be some 220,000 fewer coronavirus deaths.

Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York Times

That Covid-19 vaccine appointment may not just be hard to get — it may not even be all that secure.

Thousands of people across the country learned that their appointments had been abruptly canceled in the last few days, after vaccine shipments to local health departments and other distributors fell short of what was expected.

The health department in Erie County, N.Y., which includes Buffalo, canceled seven days of appointments this week, affecting 8,010 people, saying the state had sent far fewer doses than the county ordered. All future appointments should be considered “tentative, and are subject to vaccine availability,” the department said in a statement on Wednesday.

“We made appointments based on our hope and expectation that we would be able to fill those,” said Kara Kane, a department spokeswoman. “There’s a lot of confusion, a lot of questions, a lot of concern.”

Dianne Bennett, 78, lost a first-dose appointment at the Erie County Medical Center because of the cancellations, as did her husband. They were told to try again later, but Ms. Bennett said they had no idea when another appointment would be available.

“It’s such a lottery,” she said. “I just think it’s outrageous.”

Similar issues have cropped up across the country, as demand far outpaces supply and vaccine providers struggle to predict how many doses will arrive.

At Beaufort Memorial Hospital in South Carolina, hospital officials canceled 6,000 scheduled appointments through March 30 after they were notified that thousands of vaccine doses they expected were not coming.

San Francisco’s public health department expects to run out of vaccine on Thursday, The Los Angeles Times reported, because the city’s allocation dropped sharply from a week ago and the state did not replace doses that had to be discarded.

Local health officials throughout California say they have trouble scheduling appointments because they are unsure how much vaccine they will receive from week to week, the paper said.

In New York City, 23,000 vaccination appointments scheduled for Thursday and Friday were postponed because of a shipping delay, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday, a day after warning that the city’s supply would soon be exhausted.

“We already were feeling the stress of a shortage of vaccine,” the mayor said at a news conference. “Now the situation has been made even worse.”

Recent moves to open up eligibility have aggravated the situation.

After the state of Georgia announced that anyone 65 or older could get the vaccine, the 10-county Northwest Health District was swamped with more than 10,000 appointment requests in one weekend — far more than it could satisfy with the supply it had on hand. So it shut down its scheduling website, and told people to call their local health department to arrange an appointment instead, frustrating many people who thought they had already secured a slot.

“We’re having to schedule appointments at least a week out, based on anticipated delivery, but we don’t know what will show up on a daily basis,” said Logan Boss, the spokesman for the health district. “It’s difficult to explain that to the public.”

Global Roundup

Credit…China Daily, via Reuters

Three locally transmitted coronavirus cases were confirmed on Thursday in Shanghai, China’s largest city, as fears rose over another large-scale outbreak in the country where the virus was first detected.

The three cases, the first in the city in about two months, were connected to prominent hospitals in the city, China’s business capital. Two of the infected individuals worked at the hospitals, one at Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center and the other at Renji Hospital. They lived in the same residential complex. The third person was a close contact.

The infections were found during routine nucleic tests for hospital employees. The positive results led to closures at the outpatient sections of both hospitals and a citywide campaign to test all hospital employees.

Shanghai is the latest Chinese city to experience a recent outbreak, the worst since the pandemic first emerged in late 2019.

Beijing, the capital, and the provinces of Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Shanxi and Shandong have all recently reported new infections. This week alone, China reported more than 400 local infections, a steep and sudden increase.

Beijing has implemented new rules restricting the number of passengers allowed on public transportation, and extended the quarantine period for travelers returning from overseas.

Schools have been closed and the authorities on Wednesday announced that travelers returning to rural areas for the Chinese New Year holiday, the largest annual human migration in the world, must test negative for the virus and quarantine at home for 14 days.

Ma Xiaowei, the National Health Commission minister, has blamed the recent outbreak on travelers returning from overseas and on workers handling imported food.

The authorities said on Wednesday that two cases recently found in Beijing were of the more contagious B.1.1.7 variant, first found in Britain.

Here are other developments from around the world:

Five people were killed in a fire on Thursday that roared through an unfinished plant at the Serum Institute of India, which is producing millions of doses of the AstraZeneca and Oxford University coronavirus vaccine. Adar Poonawalla, the chief executive of Serum, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, said in a tweet that the destruction would not disrupt production of the vaccine, labeled Covishield in India. Covishield and a locally developed vaccine were rolled out as part of India’s massive inoculation drive this week, and Serum has promised 200 million doses to Covax, an international health group that has negotiated vaccine purchases for less wealthy countries, as soon as the end of January.
A senior member of South Africa’s government, Jackson Mthembu, died on Thursday from complications related to Covid-19, the office of President Cyril Ramaphosa said. Mr. Mthembu, 62, was a minister in the office of the presidency and a prominent figure in the governing African National Congress, who led media briefings on the government’s Covid-19 response. “Minister Mthembu was an exemplary leader, an activist and lifelong champion of freedom and democracy,” Mr. Ramaphosa said in a statement. It was unclear whether Mr. Ramaphosa had come into recent contact with Mr. Mthembu, who said he had tested positive on Jan. 11. But a spokesman for Mr. Ramaphosa, Tyrone Seale, said that the president was not in quarantine and that much of the government’s work had been carried out remotely.
Glastonbury Festival, Britain’s largest music event, has been canceled for a second year because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the organizers said on Thursday. The summer music festival has in recent years seen headline performances from Adele, The Killers and Kanye West, and usually attracts around 200,000 attendees. With Britain now under its third lockdown, Glastonbury’s organizers Michael and Emily Eavis said in a statement that it had “become clear that we will simply not be able to make the festival happen this year.” Those who paid deposits for tickets last year would now have spaces reserved in 2022, they said, when “we are very confident that we can deliver something really special.”

Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Biden planned to use Thursday, his first full day in office, to go on the offensive against the coronavirus, with a national strategy that includes aggressive use of executive authority to protect workers, advance racial equity and ramp up the manufacturing of test kits, vaccines and supplies.

The “National Strategy for the Covid-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness,” previewed Wednesday evening by Mr. Biden’s advisers, outlines the kind of muscular and highly coordinated federal response that Democrats have long demanded and that President Donald J. Trump rejected. Mr. Trump insisted that state governments take the lead.

Mr. Biden intends to make expansive use of his authority to sign a dozen executive orders or actions related to Covid-19 — including one requiring mask-wearing “in airports, on certain modes of public transportation, including many trains, airplanes, maritime vessels, and intercity buses,” according to a fact sheet issued by his administration.

With its nominees for top health positions not yet confirmed by Congress, the Biden team has asked Mr. Trump’s surgeon general, Dr. Jerome Adams, to stay on as an adviser and to help with the transition. But Mr. Biden’s advisers were not shy about taking aim at the former president, whose vaccine rollout has been the object of intense criticism.

Biden advisers said they were stunned by the vaccination plan — or the lack of one — that it inherited from the Trump administration, and said the Trump team failed to share crucial information about supplies and vaccine availability.

“What we’re inheriting is so much worse than we could have imagined,” said Jeff Zients, the new White House Covid-19 response coordinator, adding, “The cooperation or lack of cooperation from the Trump administration has been an impediment. We don’t have the visibility that we would hope to have into supply and allocations.”

The Biden team said it had identified 12 “immediate supply shortfalls” that were critical to the pandemic response, including N95 surgical masks and isolation gowns, as well as swabs, reagents and pipettes used in testing — deficiencies that have dogged the nation for nearly a year. Jen Psaki, the new White House press secretary, told reporters on Wednesday evening that Mr. Biden “absolutely remains committed” to invoking the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era law, to bolster supplies.

Local officials have expressed hope that the Biden administration would step up vaccine production enough to make second doses available for an expanded pool of eligible people.

Production of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines authorized in the U.S. are running flat, and it is not clear whether the administration could significantly expand the overall supply any time soon.

Though Mr. Biden has indicated his administration would release more doses as they became available and keep fewer in reserve, he said on Friday that he would not change the recommended timing for second doses: 21 days after the first dose for Pfizer’s vaccine, and 28 days for Moderna’s.

“We believe it’s critical that everyone should get two doses within the F.D.A.-recommended time frame,” Mr. Biden said while discussing his vaccine distribution plans.

Credit…Stefanie Loos/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

As European countries brace for a potential surge of coronavirus cases linked to the new variants, countries have reimposed strict lockdown measures, and some have made “medical” grade masks mandatory in some areas.

Starting this week in Germany, N95 or surgical-grade masks are compulsory for people on public transportation, in office spaces and in shops. Such masks are also set to become mandatory in public transport and in shops in Austria next week, and France could soon follow. The French authorities are considering whether they should implement a recommendation from the country’s health advisory council that people drop homemade masks, and wear surgical or highly protective fabric masks instead.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said concerns about the new variants had driven the decision on masks.

“We have to slow the spread of this variant. That means we cannot wait until the danger is palpable,” the chancellor told reporters on Thursday, in explaining the decision to further tighten restrictions. “There is still some time to ward off the danger posed by this virus. All of the measures that we have agreed to are preventive.”

Effectively, the German authorities are trying to buy time by slowing the spread of the new variant long enough for the weather to warm and for the number of people vaccinated to increase, Ms. Merkel said. Her government has been criticized for weeks for failing to acquire enough doses of the vaccine to inoculate everyone who wants one.

The chancellor pushed back against the charge on Thursday, saying that everyone in Germany would have the opportunity to be vaccinated “by the end of the summer,” or Sept. 21. “But I cannot guarantee how many people will get themselves vaccinated,” she added.

The more contagious variant discovered in Britain has been found in 60 countries, according to the World Health Organization, but how it spreads, and whether it has already contributed to countries’ surges, remains unclear. Other variants have been detected in South Africa and in Brazil, and while none is known to be more deadly or to cause more severe disease, the authorities in some European countries have scrambled to impose measures like new mask rules or tightened lockdowns to limit their spread.

In Germany, people now have to wear N95, FFP2 or FFP3 masks, or generic surgical ones — the disposable masks that are usually blue — in some public spaces. Cloth masks and other face coverings such, like face shields, are not considered sufficient and are no longer accepted in highly trafficked areas, including stores and public transportation.

The new rules imposed in Germany are tougher than guidelines from the World Health Organization, which recommends medical masks only for health care workers, people with Covid-19 symptoms and those over 60 years old or who have underlying conditions. Wearing what it calls a nonmedical mask both indoors and outdoors is enough for the general public, according to the organization.

There is widespread evidence that masks limit the risk of infection, but not all masks provide the same level of protection. A study that compared transmission rates in 16 countries and was published in The Lancet in June found that while face masks contributed to a large reduction in risk of infection, the risks were even lower when people wore a N95 mask or a similar model compared with disposable surgical masks.

N95 masks are more expensive, raising concerns that the new rules will be discriminatory for low-income families. The Austrian government has promised free masks for people on low incomes and those over 65, and Germany is making masks available to those who are vulnerable, or 60 and older.

In France, the recommendations from the country’s health advisory council are not compulsory, but the authorities could decide to make them so. At the beginning of the pandemic, French officials stumbled over recommendations on masks, and the country later faced a widespread shortage that threatened the safety of health care workers and pushed people to make their own masks. Wearing a mask in public spaces, whether indoors or outdoors, has been compulsory for months.

Neither Germany nor Britain, which in recent weeks has faced a resurgence of cases and its highest numbers of daily deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, require people to wear masks outdoors.

Credit…Toby Melville/Reuters

When Britain’s tally of deaths from Covid-19 passed 1,000 last March, a senior health official said that it would be “a good result” to keep the eventual total below 20,000.

After two consecutive days of record death reports, the figure now stands at 93,290, the highest in Europe and the fifth highest worldwide. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, when 1,820 deaths were reported, Prime Minister Boris Johnson described recent numbers as “appalling.”

Mr. Johnson also warned of “more to come,” as a wave of cases that began late last year, many of them from the more transmissible coronavirus variant, continues to push Britain to new extremes.

Britain has relied on national lockdown measures, implemented in early January after Mr. Johnson was forced to roll back plans for a Christmas easing of restrictions, to reduce the pressure on its National Health Service. It’s also seeking to vaccinate widely and rapidly, concentrating on first doses in a program that has so far reached 4.6 million people, about 7 percent of the population.

Though case figures have shown declines in recent days, the latest interim results from one of the country’s largest studies into coronavirus infections, released on Thursday, brought less encouraging news. Scientists said infections in England had “plateaued” at the highest levels their study had recorded so far.

“We’re not seeing the decline that we really need to see given the pressure on the N.H.S. from the current very high levels of the virus in the population,” Prof. Paul Elliott of Imperial College London, who leads the research program, told the BBC.

Looking at infections in England from Jan. 6 to 15, the report warned of a “worrying” potential uptick in cases, though it cautioned that the results do not yet reflect the impact of the latest lockdown.

“If prevalence continues at the high rate we are seeing then hospitals will continue to be put under immense pressure, and more and more lives will be lost,” Professor Elliott said in a summary of the report.

Credit…Isadora Kosofsky for The New York Times

There is no shortage of screens in the intensive-care units treating Covid-19 patients, but at one I.C.U. in Los Angeles on Wednesday, some of the screens showed not blood pressure and oxygen levels but images of the 46th president of the United States being sworn in.

“I just wanted to see and listen,” said Laura Lima, a nurse watching the inauguration on an iPhone propped on her work station. “It’s important stuff.”

Ms. Lima works at Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital in South Los Angeles, and as she watched President Biden address the nation, a monitor beeped. She put on an isolation gown and gloves and entered the room of one of her patients, a man in his early 60s on a ventilator whose intravenous line needed to be adjusted.

Ms. Lima took note of the new president’s statements about hastening the rollout of vaccines.

“I think this community should be prioritized,” she said.

The neighborhood around the hospital, filled with low-income workers who often have poor access to health care, has been one of the hardest hit in Southern California’s surge.

Mario Torres Hernandez, a 63-year-old being treated with oxygen for Covid-19, had his television tuned to Telemundo during Mr. Biden’s visit to Arlington cemetery. “I hope he does more for us,” he said.

But it was another busy day at the I.C.U., and so the vast majority of its staff members were not watching the proceedings in Washington. One respiratory therapist said he had forgotten the inauguration was happening.

Some did think it was a day of hope.

“I’m so tired of zipping black body bags,” another nurse, Amanda Hamilton, said as the ceremony continued. “It’s exciting we have a president who actually cares and might do something about it.”

Credit…Samantha Reinders for The New York Times

Confirmed coronavirus cases from new variants found first in Britain, then in South Africa, Brazil and the United States have people worried about whether vaccines can protect against altered versions of the virus. Experts said in interviews that so far vaccines are capable of providing that protection.

But two small new studies, posted online Tuesday night, suggest that some variants may pose unexpected challenges to the immune system, even in those who have been vaccinated — a development that most scientists had not anticipated seeing for months, even years.

The findings result from laboratory experiments with blood samples from groups of patients, not observations of the virus spreading in the real world. The studies have not yet been peer-reviewed.

But experts who reviewed the papers agreed that the findings raised two possibilities. People who had survived mild cases may still be vulnerable to infection from a new variant; and the vaccines may be less effective against the variants.

Existing vaccines will still prevent serious illness, and people should continue getting them, said Dr. Michel C. Nussenzweig, an immunologist at Rockefeller University in New York, who led one of the studies: “If your goal is to keep people out of the hospital, then this is going to work just fine.”

But the vaccines may not prevent people from becoming mild or asymptomatic infections with the variants, he said. “They may not even know that they were infected,” Dr. Nussenzweig added. If the infected can still transmit the virus to others who are not immunized, it will continue to claim lives.

The studies published Tuesday night show that the variant identified in South Africa is less susceptible to antibodies created by natural infection and by vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

Neither the South African variant nor a similar mutant virus in Brazil has yet been detected in the United States. The more contagious variant that has blazed through Britain does not contain these mutations and seems to be susceptible to vaccines.

Credit…Chamila Karunarathne/EPA, via Shutterstock

Sri Lanka reopened its airports to foreign arrivals on Thursday for the first time in 10 months amid a surge in new coronavirus cases, including that of a minister photographed drinking a shaman’s tonic that some in the island nation believe protects against the disease.

Thousands of people defied Covid-19 restrictions in central Sri Lanka for a shot of the tonic touted by the holy man Dhammika Bandara as lifelong protection against the virus.

Mr. Bandara said the recipe for the tonic, which includes honey and nutmeg, came to him in a trance from the Hindu goddess Kali. TV networks that support the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa have given Mr. Bandara airtime to promote the tonic.

Sri Lanka’s health ministry is conducting clinical trials into its potential benefits, according to Chatura Kumaratunga, the commissioner of Ayurveda, an ancient form of alternative medicine rooted in the Indian subcontinent.

In the meantime several lawmakers have become ill even after drinking the tonic. “The minister who had the tonic had only one dose,” Mr. Bandara told The New York Times, adding that it had to be taken twice a day for two days to work.

Coronavirus cases in Sri Lanka have surged from about 3,300 in October to more than 55,000. At least one case of the more contagious variant of the virus first found in Britain has been reported.

Dr. Haritha Aluthge of the Government Medical Officers’ Association said the surge was partly a result of the throngs who visited the central district of Kegalle for Mr. Bandara’s tonic.

“There were no local cases in Kegalle before this incident,” he said.

But general complacency and greater movement across the island were also driving up numbers, he said.

After a trial run with a group of about 1,500 Ukrainian tourists last month, Sri Lanka decided to welcome back all foreign tourists, hoping for a much-needed boost to its tourism-dependent economy. Tourists, however, have to show negative PCR tests, are limited to 55 hotels across the country and must be accompanied by government officials for the first two weeks of their trips.

Credit…Christine Marizzi/BioBus

Over the next few months, New York area high school students will gather samples from the city’s birds as a part of the Virus Hunters program, hosted by the nonprofit science outreach organization BioBus. Their goal is to catalog the flu viruses that often lurk in urban fowl, some of which might have the potential to someday hop into humans.

The surveillance program, which was developed in partnership with virologists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, is one of several outreach efforts that have emerged in recent years to equip young scientists with hands-on experience in outbreak preparedness — a quest that has only gained urgency since the new coronavirus started its tear across the globe.

For many months to come, Covid-19 will continue to shutter schools and thwart efforts to gather. The changes have forced educators and researchers to change their teaching tactics. But several groups have met the challenge head on, not merely weathering the pandemic’s inconveniences but transforming them into opportunities for scientific growth.

Flu viruses are fairly cosmopolitan pathogens that are capable of jumping into a wide range of animals, including birds, and changing their genetic material along the way. Only some of these viruses pose a possible threat to people, experts said. But which ones? Researchers won’t know unless they check.

Credit…Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

A pharmacy services company responsible for vaccinating residents at eight Ohio nursing homes allowed 890 doses of the Moderna vaccine — more than half its supply — to become spoiled by failing to make sure they were kept cold enough, state officials said.

The episode is being investigated by Ohio’s state Board of Pharmacy, and the state Department of Health has cut the company off from any more allocations of vaccine.

Before the new year, the company, SpecialtyRx, was given 1,500 doses to vaccinate residents at the eight facilities. After administering a first round of shots, the company found that it had not properly monitored or recorded the temperatures in its refrigerators and freezers where the remaining doses were stored.

State investigators determined that the 890 stored doses were no longer viable, the Department of Health said in a statement. The nursing home residents are still awaiting their second shots, and the facilities will have to arrange with another provider to obtain them.

The Moderna vaccine can be stored for up to 30 days if it is kept between 36 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit. Officials with SpecialtyRx could not be immediately reached for comment.

Like many other states, Ohio has gotten off to a slow start with its vaccination program. About 456,100 Ohioans — less than 4 percent of the population — had received first doses as of Wednesday, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer.

Gov. Mike DeWine said at a news conference on Tuesday that most of the state’s frontline health care workers and nursing-home residents had received a dose. “We are trying to juggle a lot of things and do a lot of things with not enough vaccines,” Mr. DeWine said.

The state plans to open up eligibility next week to all residents 75 years and older, as well as to younger people with certain severe illnesses and disorders.

The number of new cases reported in Ohio has been declining over the past week, but death reports have remained high after jumping upward after Christmas.

Credit…via Sakal family

Patty Sakal, an American Sign Language interpreter who translated updates about the coronavirus for deaf Hawaiians, died on Friday of complications related to Covid-19. She was 62.

Ms. Sakal, who lived in Honolulu, died at Alvarado Hospital Medical Center in San Diego, where she had gone last month to visit one of her daughters, according to Ms. Sakal’s sister, Lorna Mouton Riff.

Ms. Sakal, who worked as an A.S.L. interpreter for nearly four decades in a variety of settings, had become a mainstay in coronavirus news briefings in Hawaii, working with both the former mayor of Honolulu, Kirk Caldwell, and the state’s governor, David Y. Ige, to interpret news for the deaf community.

In a statement, Isle Interpret, an organization of interpreters to which Ms. Sakal belonged, called Ms. Sakal “Hawaii interpreter ‘royalty.’”

This was in part because Ms. Sakal understood Hawaiian Sign Language, a version of American Sign Language developed by deaf elders to which she had been exposed while growing up.

“She was highly utilized and highly desired by the deaf in the community because they could understand her so well and she could understand them,” said Tamar Lani, the president of Isle Interpret.

In an interview with Hawaii News Now, Mr. Caldwell, whose second term as mayor of Honolulu ended this month, praised Ms. Sakal for “truly putting herself on the frontline.”

“Here it was, a pandemic and it was not safe to go, yet she went out and she helped do a job that was critical to people who needed this information,” Mr. Caldwell told Hawaii News Now. Neither he nor Mr. Ige could immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Tags Covid19, Live, News, Times, Updates, York

Business

Why speedy Covid assessments are inflicting a stir within the UK

Post author By
Post date January 21, 2021

Why rapid Covid tests are causing a stir in the UK

Diane Schofield takes a side flow test when she arrives at the Aspen Hill Village nursing home in Hunslet, Leeds.

Danny Lawson – PA Pictures | PA pictures | Getty Images

LONDON – A battle has broken out in the UK over the use of rapid coronavirus tests – formally known as “lateral flow tests”.

There is a heated debate going on about how exactly they detect Covid-19 cases and whether they should be introduced as a cheaper and faster way to do mass testing.

The tests can be done by yourself and detect the current Covid-19 infection, with the results usually being available within 30 minutes. They involve taking a swab from both nostrils, but not the throat, and can be used without laboratory equipment.

The UK government, which wants lateral flow testing to be introduced in more facilities like schools, says the tests are accurate, reliable, and allow regular testing of people who may have the virus but are asymptomatic.

However, the tests have divided the scientific community. Critics say the tests are less accurate than PCR tests, which are still generally considered the “gold standard” for sensitivity and accuracy (although results typically take longer than 24 hours) and could produce multiple false negative results to lead.

The government is keen to expand the testing regime (in a strategy known as “Operation Moonshot”) as this could allow a faster exit from a third national lockdown that is further damaging the UK economy after a year of disruption.

Most infectious Covid cases

A preprint of a government-funded study by Oxford University was released on Thursday that concluded that “lateral flow devices could detect most infectious Covid-19 cases and provide safer relaxation of the current lockdown”.

The study also confirmed that the more viruses found in the nose and throat (known as viral load), the more contagious the individual is: “This is the first time this has been confirmed in a large-scale study and explains part of it why some pass on Covid-19, others don’t, “the study says.

Therefore, people with higher viral loads are more likely to pass the infection on to others, making those infected people the most important to identify so that they can be isolated to reduce further transmission.

The wider use of lateral flow tests could help ingest more of these highly infectious people who are more likely to transmit the virus, the study said.

“The modeling suggests that lateral flow devices would identify people who are responsible for 84% of transmissions by using the least sensitive of four tested (lateral flow) kits and 91% the most sensitive,” says it in the study, although they realized that such tests are less accurate than PCR tests.

“Covid-19 tests that are less sensitive than standard PCR but are easier to make widely available, such as lateral flow tests, could be a good solution to ensure that highly infectious people know that they have to isolate faster and in a more isolated manner could allow the lockdown restrictions to be relaxed.

“They would also allow more people to be tested, which leads to immediate results, including those who have no symptoms and people at an increased risk of testing positive, for example because of their work or because they have had contact.”

Tim Peto, Professor of Medicine at Oxford University and lead author on the study, said, “We know that lateral flow tests are not perfect, but that doesn’t prevent them from playing an important role in detecting large numbers of blood cells . ” Cases of infection fast enough to prevent further spread. “

The UK government had planned to run lateral flow tests in schools to run daily coronavirus tests on students ages 11-18 to reduce the number of children and young adults staying at home and self-isolating must when they come into contact with a positive case.

However, the plan was put on hold as the majority of schools took classes online and a third lockdown was in place due to a rapid surge in infections.

Tags causing, Covid, rapid, stir, tests

Politics

Biden inaugural tackle used phrase ‘democracy’ greater than some other president’s

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Post date January 21, 2021

Biden inaugural address used word 'democracy' more than any other president's

President Joe Biden speaks after being sworn in as the 46th President of the United States during the 59th inauguration of the President at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on January 20, 2021.

Patrick Semansky | AFP | Getty Images

Standing on the spot where there had been a deadly riot at the US Capitol two weeks earlier, President Joe Biden delivered an inaugural address that uses the word “democracy” more than any other inaugural address in US history.

“This is America’s day. This is democracy day,” said Biden at the beginning of the speech. “The will of the people was heard and the will of the people was heeded. We have learned again that democracy is precious. Democracy is fragile. And at this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed.”

Biden used the word 11 times in his address. This precedes the addresses of Harry Truman, who said “democracy” nine times in his 1949 address, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who also did so at his third swearing-in ceremony in 1941, according to a CNBC analysis of speeches by the American Presidential Project . The project is an archive of public documents maintained by the University of California at Santa Barbara.

“What fascinated me about it was that it started and ended with democracy,” said Bill Antholis, director and CEO of the Miller Center, a non-partisan subsidiary of the University of Virginia that specializes in presidential scholarships.

Antholis, former executive director of the Brookings Institution and a member of the Clinton administration, traced the subject of Biden’s speech back to the Capitol uprising and the events that preceded it.

“I think this was a very different speech than the one that would have been written if Trump had admitted on the morning of November 4th,” said Antholis. “And since the insurrection attacked both the physical symbol and a key process in our democracy, Biden spoke at a very timely moment.”

Most common use of the word “democracy” in the President’s inaugural speeches

Joe Biden (2021): 11
Harry Truman (1949): 9
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s third address (1941): 9
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s second address (1937): 7
George HW Bush (1989): 5
Bill Clinton’s second address (1997): 4
Bill Clinton’s first address (1993): 4
Warren G. Harding (1921): 4
William Henry Harrison (1841): 4

Antholis noted that the term “democracy” was used more widely in political speech in the 20th century, during the time of Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, which began in 1913. Wilson, a former political science professor, adopted the term. Antholis said that Truman and Roosevelt saw themselves as “Wilsonians,” which may explain their use of the term.

Wednesday’s speech was also in stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s inaugural address four years ago when Trump spoke of “American slaughter”.

“One of the things that stood out was the normality of a very moving ceremony and the way he talked about democracy as permanent,” said Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and former director for Speechwriting for President Bill Clinton.

“The images that the word carnage convey are terrible,” said Kathleen Kendall, a research professor of communications at the University of Maryland. “Biden did the opposite. I would say his main point is that America has been tested and has risen to the challenge.”

Words like “America,” “democracy,” and “unity,” all used by Biden are words that most Americans see and respond positively to, Kendall added.

Tags address, Biden, Democracy, Inaugural, presidents, word

Entertainment

Lawmakers Push for ‘Selena’ to Be Added to Nationwide Movie Registry

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Post date January 21, 2021

Lawmakers Push for ‘Selena’ to Be Added to National Film Registry

First there was Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, the pioneering Latina singer who inspired a generation of artists and was killed on the cusp of national fame. Then there was Selena, the movie that polished her legend and brought another Latina artist to fame.

Tribute albums, a Netflix series, and podcasts followed, and now, more than two decades after the film was released in 1997, a group of lawmakers are pushing for “Selena” to be listed on the national film register, declaring that his Taking up pressure on Hollywood could increase Latino representation in the ranks of the industry. The legislature’s efforts have been welcomed by film and Latino study experts, who said it was long overdue.

“It’s a recognition of Chicana and Latina talent in acting and representation,” said Theresa Delgadillo, professor of Chicana and Latina studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “and a music innovator at the center.”

Ms. Quintanilla-Pérez broke into the male-dominated Tejano music industry in Texas, winning critical admiration, large following, and then a Grammy in 1994. A year later, only 23, she was shot dead by the founder of her fan club. Her English-language debut “Dreaming of You” was released posthumously.

For over a quarter of a century after her death, Ms. Quintanilla-Pérez remains a pop culture icon, especially among Mexicans and Latinos from her native Texas. At Spotify, she has more than five million listeners a month. “This month the Grammys will honor her with a special merit award.

But the 1997 film with Jennifer Lopez as Selena and Edward James Olmos as her Father, deserves credit too, said Representative Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat who leads the effort in Congress. In an interview, he said that Latino creators and their stories are too often pushed aside by gatekeepers of American culture like Hollywood and the national register, and that Latinos in all media are too often portrayed by negative stereotypes such as gang members, drug dealers, and hypersexualized women.

“Hollywood is still the picture-defining institution in the United States,” Castro said of his project for a more balanced representation. “All of us walking around with brown skin or a Spanish surname have to face the stereotypes and narratives created by American media, and historically some of the worst stereotypes have come out of Hollywood.”

In a letter from the 38 members of the Hispanic Caucus in Congress, Castro wrote that “the exclusion of Latinos from the film industry” “reflected the way Latinos continue to be excluded from America’s full promise – a problem that is yet to be resolved when our stories can be fully told. “

He said the National Film Registry could “help break down this exclusion by preserving important cultural and artistic examples of American Latino heritage”.

Each year a committee selects 25 films to be included in the national register established by Congress in 1988. Of the 800 films in the register, at least 17 are examples of Latino stories, including “El Norte”, “The Devil Never” Sleep “ and “Real women have curves,” said Brett Zongker, a spokesman for the Library of Congress. From 11 Latino directors on the list, 9 are men and two are women.

Although the film register tries to reflect the diversity in America, Zongker said, “Unfortunately, women and people with color are underrepresented in film history, especially as directors.”

The gap between Americans and the main cast extends to speaking roles. Although Latinos are the largest minority group in the United States, making up 18.5 percent of the population, a 2019 study found found that only 4.5 percent of all speaking characters in 1,200 highest-grossing films from 2007 to 2018 were Latino.

Mr Castro said he is still collecting entries on other films to submit, but “Selena” as a particularly loved film is the focus of efforts. Frederick Luis Aldama, a Latino film and television professor at Ohio State University, said the film “shows the complexity, dignity, humanity, and wealth of a Latino father and daughter, and it really shows us that we are not just the ‘bad hombres, as the twitter feeds have told the world over the past few years. “

Whether the film register accepts it or not, a wave of appreciation for the work of Ms. Quintanilla-Pérez has gripped the entertainment industry.

“They have these kind of artists that we lost when they flourished,” said Daniel Chavez, professor of Latin American studies at the University of New Hampshire. “These young characters become mythical in a way.”

In addition to the upcoming Grammy, Ms. Quintanilla-Pérez was recognized in the National Recording Registry last year for her 1990 album “Ven Conmigo”. The Netflix show “Selena: The Series” premiered last year and will return in May. And a podcast about her legacy titled “Anything for Selena” released its first episodes last week.

The podcast host Maria Elena Garcia said that as a young girl struggling with her identity, she was inspired by how Ms. Quintanilla-Pérez took on her Mexican and American heritage without apology.

“She was whole in both places,” Ms. Garcia said in an interview. “Although she didn’t sound like Mexican-born people, she told them it was, and I can say, my heritage. It was incredibly profound to me, even though I was a little girl. “

When Ms. Garcia saw her success, she added on the podcast and felt like “she brought us with her”.

It was this sense of representation for young Latinas that drove filmmaker Gregory Nava to direct Selena, he said. While pondering whether to make the film in the mid-1990s, Mr. Nava remembered a walk in Los Angeles and saw two young Mexican girls wearing Selena t-shirts. “Why do you love Selena?” he asked her.

“Because she looks like us,” they said.

“Our stories need to be told,” said Mr Nava in an interview. “These young girls that I made ‘Selena’ for are all grown up and have young girls and they need nicer pictures of who we are.”

Some scenes from “Selena” have proven to be big for many Latinos, like one in which Mrs. Quintanilla-Pérez and her father Abraham Quintanilla talks about the problems Mexicans face when they simply speak English and Spanish for different audiences.

“Being Mexican-American is tough,” says Mr. Olmos as Mr. Quintanilla. “Anglos jump over you if you don’t speak perfect English. Mexicans jump over you if you don’t speak Spanish perfectly. We have to be twice as perfect as everyone else. “

In the end, Ms. Quintanilla-Pérez became an idol for many Mexicans and Americans alike, but the effect of the film is probably felt most strongly in Texas, the singer’s homeland. “Selena” was made on a small budget, said Mr. Nava. When trying to re-enact Ms. Quintanilla-Pérez’s last appearance at the Houston Astrodome, he reached out to the ward for help.

“I insisted we shoot in Texas because I wanted to shoot in their country,” said Mr. Nava. “She was the earth, sky and sun of Texas.”

In newspaper advertisements, he asked the community to dress as if they were going to the opening concert of Ms. Quintanilla-Pérez’s concert. Mr. Nava said more than 35,000 people showed up.

And droves came out for other scenes, including an additional one who was later elected to Congress, Mr. Castro.

Tags Added, film, lawmakers, national, push, Registry, Selena

Health

England’s third lockdown sees ‘no proof of decline’ in instances

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Post date January 21, 2021

England's third lockdown sees 'no evidence of decline' in cases

Medics transfer a patient from an ambulance to the Royal London Hospital in London on January 19, 2021.

TOLGA AKMEN | AFP | Getty Images

LONDON – A third national lockdown in England appears to have had little impact on the rising rate of coronavirus infection, according to the results of a large study, with the prevalence of the virus showing “no signs of decline” in the first 10 days of the year, on a more severe basis Restrictions.

The closely watched REACT-1 study, led by Imperial College London, warned that if the prevalence of the virus in the community were not significantly reduced, the health system would remain under “extreme pressure” and the cumulative death toll would rise rapidly.

The results of the preprint report, released Thursday by Imperial College London and Ipsos MORI, come shortly after the UK recorded another all-time high in coronavirus deaths.

Government figures released on Wednesday showed an additional 1,820 people had died within 28 days of a positive Covid test. To date, the UK has registered 3.5 million coronavirus cases with 93,290 deaths.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during a press conference on Coronavirus (COVID-19) on Downing Street on January 15, 2021 in London, England.

Dominic Lipinski | Getty Images

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the latest numbers were “appalling” and warned: “There are still difficult weeks ahead.”

Johnson imposed lockdown measures in England on January 5, ordering people to “stay home” as most schools, bars and restaurants had to close. The strict public health measures are expected to remain in place until at least mid-February.

What were the main results?

The REACT-1 study tests nasal and throat swabs roughly monthly from 120,000 to 180,000 people in the UK community. The most recent results mainly cover a period January 6-15.

The study compared the results of swabs collected between November 13 and 24 and those collected between November 25 and December 3.

The researchers found 1,962 positives from 142,909 swabs removed in January. This means that 1.58% of the people tested had Covid on a weighted average.

This corresponds to an increase in prevalence rates of more than 50% since the results of the study in mid-December and is the highest value REACT-1 has recorded since it began in May 2020.

The prevalence from January 6-15 was highest in London. According to one study, 1 in 36 people infected was more than twice as likely as the previous REACT-1 results.

A man wearing a mask as a preventive measure against the spread of Covid-19 goes for a walk in London.

May James | SOPA pictures | LightRocket via Getty Images

In the south-east of England, the east of England and the West Midlands, the infections had more than doubled compared to the results published in early December.

“Our data shows worrying evidence of a recent surge in infections that we will continue to monitor closely,” said Professor Paul Elliott, program director at Imperial, in a statement.

“We are all helping to keep this situation from getting worse and we must do our best to stay home wherever possible,” he added.

The UK Department of Health and Welfare said the full effects of the lockdown measures were not yet reflected in the prevalence figures reported in the REACT-1 study.

“These results show why we cannot be on our guard in the coming weeks,” said Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

“It’s absolutely essential that everyone does their part to help alleviate infection. This means staying at home and only going out where absolutely necessary, reducing contact with others and maintaining social distance,” said Hancock.

Tags cases, Decline, Englands, evidence, Lockdown, Sees

Business

Weekly Jobless Claims Report Will Give Newest Indication of Restoration: Reside Updates

Post author By
Post date January 21, 2021

The skyline of London’s financial district last week. After years of shunning British stocks, investors are having a change of heart.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Toby Melville/Reuters

The start of 2021 has been rocky for Britain. Its exit from the European Union unleashed a colossal amount of red tape that has left some industries desperate for help, and the country is under yet another lockdown because of a fast-spreading strain of the coronavirus.

But there has been a glimmer of hope. More than four million people in Britain have been partially vaccinated against the coronavirus, a promising pace of inoculation.

Investors looking to ride a wave of optimism about a vaccine rollout have turned to Britain’s stock market, which has posted a strong start to the year, jumping more than 6 percent in the first week.

Overall, in the first two and a half weeks of January, the FTSE 100, Britain’s benchmark stock index of large companies, gained 4.3 percent — outstripping the S&P 500 index, which rose 2.6 percent, and the Stoxx Europe 600 index, which was up 3 percent. Even when the gains are converted to U.S. dollars, the FTSE 100 still has a clear lead.

Beyond the vaccine rollout helping to ensure an economic rebound, another factor is drawing investors: the relative cheapness of British stocks.

Britain’s FTSE 100 index is benefiting from an investment strategy in which traders buy so-called value stocks. These are companies that are perceived to be trading below their true value because their business has been disrupted by a recession, especially in the financial and energy sectors, and the FTSE 100 has a large share of these stocks.

Analysts at Citigroup have ordained Britain’s stock market their “favorite” value trade.

“I would emphasize the very much unloved and horrible dreadful U.K. market might be worth a look this year,” Robert Buckland, a Citigroup equity strategist, said in a presentation last week. “We all know it’s been a place to avoid for many, many years.”

The British stock market has been a laggard for years.

Once converted into dollars, the annual returns of the FTSE 100 have been the worst of the three indexes for the past nine years.

Why are investors betting on a turnaround now? For one, many of them are ready for a bargain. The equity bull market has been dominated by shares of American tech companies that are expensive, which makes some investors nervous about how much they can keep rising. Cheap stocks in industries that tend to do well during economic boom times are offering an alternative.

And then there is Britain’s free-trade deal with the European Union. Some investors have put aside whether it’s a good or bad deal in its detail, in favor of relief that an agreement was reached in late December.

The deal “reduced that overhang people had of uncertainty,” said Caroline Simmons, the U.K. chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management.

Credit…Alex Welsh for The New York Times

The new Biden administration will get its first dose of economic reality Thursday morning when the Labor Department reports the latest weekly data on initial jobless claims.

Last week, the government reported a surge in demand for unemployment benefits, with more than one million new claims, as pandemic-related restrictions and lockdowns took a fierce toll on employment.

The virus has hardly abated since then, with the death toll topping 400,000 in the United States, and few economists expect any significant letup in layoffs. Although job losses have been concentrated in service industries like restaurants and leisure and entertainment, the broader economy has also shown signs of a slowdown recently.

“I think it’s going to be another bad number, but some of what we saw last week was catch-up after the holidays,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at the accounting firm Grant Thornton in Chicago. “I think we will be able to see Thursday how much was catch-up and how much was deteriorating economic conditions.”

The beginning of vaccinations in December provided optimism about a quick turnaround, but the slow rollout in many parts of the country has set back those hopes. On the other hand, the passage of a $900 billion relief package late last year and the prospect of more aid under the Biden administration have allayed fears of a double-dip recession.

An additional $300 a week in supplemental unemployment benefits may encourage more people to file for benefits, said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust in Chicago. The increased assistance was part of the new stimulus effort.

Over all, the best bet for the economy is more vaccinations, Mr. Tannenbaum said.

“There is no better economic stimulus than a successful vaccine rollout,” he said. “It will reduce the risk of human interaction and provide a basis on which different types of businesses can open more durably.”

Credit…Charlotte de la Fuente for The New York Times

Stocks on Wall Street were set to open higher on Thursday after the S&P 500 index closed at a record high after President Biden was sworn in the previous day.
The benchmark U.S. index was heading for a 0.2 percent increase as investors await the latest data on weekly unemployment claims. It will give the new Biden administration its first signal of how the American labor market is responding to new fiscal stimulus as the pandemic rages on. Last week, the number of claims jumped, though some of that was attributed to a catch up in the data from the holiday period.
European stocks were mostly higher as traders anticipated more U.S. fiscal stimulus. The Stoxx Europe 600 index rose 0.4 percent, reaching an 11-month high. Most markets in Asia closed higher.
Renewable energy stocks extended gains this week after Mr. Biden recommitted the United States to the Paris climate agreement. Shares in Orsted and Vestas, two Danish wind energy companies, are up nearly 6 percent and 8 percent this week. Siemens Gamesa, a Spanish subsidiary of Siemens Energy that makes wind turbines, rose more than 3 percent on Thursday. Shares in First Solar, an American company, were up 2.8 percent in premarket trading.

Shares in the Canadian company TC Energy fell 1.2 percent on Wednesday, after it said it would stop work on the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Later in the day, Mr. Biden rescinded the company’s construction permit.
Oil prices declined on Thursday. Futures of West Texas Intermediate fell 0.6 percent to just under $53 a barrel.
The euro rose 0.3 percent against the U.S. dollar before the European Central Bank announces its latest policy decision, though traders were not expecting a change from the current stance of negative interest rates and asset buying.
The pound rose 0.6 percent against the U.S. dollar and was stronger against most major peers after the Bank of England governor struck a cautious tone about the use of negative interest rates, diminishing some expectations in the market that the tool could be used soon. The central bank governor, Andrew Bailey, said that he expected the British economy to experience a “pronounced recovery” as the vaccination program is rolled out.

Credit…Johannes Eisele/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

On President Biden’s first day in office, the head of Amazon’s consumer business, Dave Clark, sent a letter to the White House with an offer to help achieve the goal of vaccinating 100 million people in the administration’s first 100 days. By way of assistance, the retailer offered to vaccinate a large share of its workers.

The e-commerce giant has made similar offers to state governments, including Tennessee and Washington, although Amazon was not among the companies Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington announced as partners in its vaccination plan this week.

Those earlier letters to governors were signed by Brian Huseman, who runs Amazon’s U.S. lobbying team, which has been seeking permission from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to vaccinate “essential” workers at the company’s warehouses, data centers and Whole Foods “at the earliest appropriate time.”

The company has hired a health care provider to help administer the vaccine to employees, it said in the letters.

This suggests that public-private partnerships to distribute vaccines may come with perks for the companies taking part, the DealBook newsletter notes, potentially giving companies leverage to push employees up the line in priorities set by states. Several states are struggling to roll out vaccines as fast as they’d like because of issues with funding, staffing and logistics. In his letter to Mr. Biden, Mr. Clark said that Amazon could help with “operations, information technology and communications capabilities,” though he didn’t specify what that would entail.

Credit…Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York Times

Suriname, Guyana and Brazil are the new areas of focus for oil companies, attracting more new investment than the Gulf of Mexico and other more established oil fields. They are helping to keep global oil prices relatively low, undermining efforts by Russia and its allies in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, like Saudi Arabia, to manage global supply and push up prices.

The recent pickup in interest in Guyana and Suriname is somewhat surprising because their promise as oil producers has often come up empty, reports The New York Times’s Clifford Krauss. Companies drilled more than 100 unsuccessful wells there, mostly in shallow waters, from 1950 to 2014. But after rich fields were found in the deep waters off Brazil, Exxon Mobil and other companies returned to take another look. Exxon struck a gusher in Guyanese waters in 2015, opening the current flurry of exploration.

In Guyana, oil companies have found more than 10 billion barrels of probable reserves of accessible oil and gas offshore, according to IHS Markit, the energy consulting firm. Production began in 2019 and is ramping up quickly. Guyana already accounts for one of the top 50 oil basins worldwide, according to consultants.

Suriname has at least three billion to four billion barrels of reserves, energy experts said, or up to half the new oil and gas discovered around the world last year.

Oil companies say they can make money in Suriname with oil prices as low as $30 to $40 a barrel because of lower costs. That is roughly equivalent to the threshold in Guyana and well below today’s oil price. It is also below break-even levels in many places, including some U.S. shale fields, where costs usually add up to nearly $50 a barrel.

The European Central Bank left its stimulus measures intact Thursday, as expected, as it waited to see whether measures announced in December would be enough to limit economic damage from the pandemic.

Following a meeting of its governing council, the bank reiterated its intent to pump as much as 1.9 trillion newly created euros, or $2.3 trillion, into bond markets as part of a “pandemic emergency” program intended to keep market interest rates low.

The bond purchases will continue at least until March 2022 and longer if necessary, the bank said.

As expected, the central bank also said that it would maintain a program that effectively pays banks to lend money to businesses and consumers.

The European economy continues to suffer from the burden of extended lockdowns, but analysts had not expected the central bank to take further action Thursday after expanding programs intended to encourage banks to lend and hold down market interest rates.

Credit…Sebastian Hidalgo for The New York Times

United Airlines lost $1.9 billion in the fourth quarter, bringing its total losses for 2020 to just over $7 billion, its worst year since merging with Continental Airlines a decade ago. Despite that terrible loss, the airline said it expects 2021 to be a “transition year” as it prepares for a recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

“The truth is that Covid-19 has changed United Airlines forever,” the company’s chief executive, Scott Kirby, said in a statement. “The passion, teamwork and perseverance that the United team showed in 2020 is exactly what will help us build a new United Airlines that’s better, stronger and more profitable than ever.”

The airline reported about $3.4 billion in operating revenue in the final three months of last year, down more than two-thirds from the same period in 2019. It ended the year with access to nearly $20 billion in cash or cash-equivalent funds, not including federal stimulus loans.

Delta Air Lines last week reported a $12.4 billion loss in 2020, capping what its chief executive called the “toughest year in Delta’s history.”

In anticipation of a recovery, United has resumed major maintenance and engine overhauls so that planes sidelined by weak demand will be ready as more people start flying again, it said.

But that recovery is unlikely to arrive for quite some time. United said it expects to bring in about a third as much operating revenue in the first quarter of this year as it did during the same three months in 2019. Most analysts believe the airline industry will not fully recover from the pandemic for several years.

Tags Claims, Give, Indication, jobless, latest, Live, recovery, report, Updates, Weekly

Business

U.S. to stay a WHO member and be part of Covid vaccine plan

Post author By
Post date January 21, 2021

U.S. to remain a WHO member and join Covid vaccine plan

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases.

Patrick Semansky | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The US will remain a member of the World Health Organization under President Joe Biden, said Dr. Anthony Fauci on Thursday and intends to join a global alliance that aims to deliver coronavirus vaccines to low-income countries.

One day after Biden took office, US Chief Medical Officer Fauci spoke to the WHO Executive Board via videoconference from Washington: “President Biden will later today issue a directive stating the United States’ intention to join COVAX and support ACT. ” – Accelerators to advance multilateral efforts for Covid-19 vaccine distribution, therapeutic and diagnostic distribution, equitable access, and research and development. “

The US will remain a member of WHO, the United Nations health agency, and “meet its financial commitments,” said Fauci. He added that Biden’s government plans to work with the other 193 member states to help reform the group.

“This is a good day for WHO and a good day for global health,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“We’re all happy that the United States is staying with the family,” Tedros said on Twitter.

WHO delegates “warmly” welcomed the decision, and many underlined their appreciation that the new government would now attempt to reunite with the international aid group in the face of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Fauci, America’s foremost infectious disease expert, accepted Biden’s offer to join his administration and serve as chief medical officer last month. He will lead a US delegation to WHO’s annual meetings during the week.

Tags Covid, join, member, Plan, remain, Vaccine

Health

Amid One Pandemic, College students Prepare for the Subsequent

Post author By
Post date January 21, 2021

Amid One Pandemic, Students Train for the Next

The project was funded in early 2020, said Christine Marizzi, the chief scientist at BioBus. Weeks later, the coronavirus started beating the nation and the team was forced to change its plans. Dr. Marizzi, who has long specialized in community-based research, wasn’t put off, however. For the remainder of the school year, the team will train its virus hunters through a mix of virtual lessons, detached and masked lab work, and sample collection on site.

It’s a welcome distraction for Ms. Bautista, who, like many other students, had to switch to distance learning in her high school that spring. “When the pandemic broke out, I felt really helpless,” she said. “I felt like I couldn’t do anything. This program is really special to me. “

School of the outbreak

A thousand miles south, students at Sarasota Military Academy Prep, a charter school in Sarasota, Florida, have also had to make some drastic changes since the coronavirus landed in the United States. However, a few of them may have entered 2020 a little better prepared than the others, having seen a nearly identical epidemic just weeks before.

These were the alumni of Operation Outbreak, an outreach program developed by researchers that has simulated an annual virus epidemic on the school campus for the past few years. Led by Todd Brown, Sarasota Military Academy Prep’s Community Outreach Director, the program began as a low-tech project that used stickers to mimic the spread of a viral disease. Under the guidance of a research team led by Pardis Sabeti, a computational biologist at Harvard University, the program quickly turned into a smartphone app that could ping a virtual virus from student to student with a Bluetooth signal.

Sarasota’s recent iteration of Operation Outbreak has been sinister to his conscience. The simulation took place in December 2019, just a few weeks before the new coronavirus raged worldwide. The focus was on the simulation of a viral pathogen that moved quickly and silently among people and caused a flurry of flulic symptoms.

Tags Pandemic, students, Train

Politics

Charlottesville Impressed Biden to Run. Now It Has a Message for Him.

Post author By
Post date January 21, 2021

Charlottesville Inspired Biden to Run. Now It Has a Message for Him.

“We can band together and stop the screaming and lower the temperature,” Biden said. “Because without unity there is no peace – only bitterness and anger.”

In interviews this week, Charlottesville activists, religious leaders and civil rights groups who survived the events of 2017 urged Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party to go beyond unity as the ultimate political goal and prioritize a sense of justice that the historically excluded. When Mr Biden called Mrs Bro on the day he entered the 2019 presidential race, she urged him on his political commitments to correct racial inequalities. She declined to support him and focused more on supporting the anti-racism movement than on any individual candidate.

Local leaders say this is the legacy of the Summer of Hate as the white supremacist actions and violence of 2017 in Charlottesville are well known. When the election of Mr. Trump and the violence that followed pierced the myth of a racial America, especially among white liberals, these leaders committed themselves to the long arc of protecting democracy from white supremacy and misinformation.

“We were the canary in the coal mine,” said Jalane Schmidt, an activist and professor who teaches at the University of Virginia and who participated in activism in 2017. Comparing the current political moment with the aftermath of the civil war, she formulated the decision to join Mr Biden’s government either as a commitment to profound changes similar to reconstruction or as part of the compromise that brought it to an end.

“We have a big political party that is too big and supports undemocratic practices, the suppression of voters and the indulgence of these conspiracy theories,” said Dr. Schmidt, referring to Republicans. “So healing? Unit? You can’t do that with people who don’t adhere to basic democratic principles. “

Rev. Phil Woodson, the associate pastor of the First Methodist United Church, who was among the counter-protesters who stood up to the mob in 2017, said: “As much as Charlottesville may have been the impetus for his presidential campaign, Joe Biden did not do it in Charlottesville. “

Tags Biden, Charlottesville, Inspired, Message, Run

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