Month: March 2021

Health

One and Executed: Why Folks Are Looking forward to Johnson & Johnson’s Vaccine

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Post date March 4, 2021

One and Done: Why People Are Eager for Johnson & Johnson’s Vaccine

In North Dakota, health officials this week are sending their first Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccines to pharmacies and emergency clinics where people who don’t necessarily have a regular doctor can get the only push. In Missouri, cans are dispensed to community health centers and rural hospitals. And in North Carolina, health care providers use it to vaccinate meat packers, farm and food workers.

Ever since Johnson & Johnson revealed data showing that its vaccine, while very protective, had a slightly lower rate of effectiveness than the first shots made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, health officials have feared that the new shot might be considered by some Americans as the could be considered worse choice.

But the early days of the rollout suggest something else: some people are excited to get it because they want the convenience of a single shot. And public health officials are excited about how much faster they can distribute a single shot, especially in vulnerable communities that may otherwise not have access to a vaccine.

“This is a potential breakthrough,” said Dr. Joseph Kanter, the chief health officer in Louisiana. With its first allotted doses, the state is hosting a dozen large Johnson & Johnson vaccination events in community centers and other public places, modeled on flu vaccines.

As Johnson & Johnson’s production grows over the next several months, Dr. Kanter, the shot would allow his state to cut the staff and surgery costs associated with the second dose: “The J&J vaccine brings a lot to the table.”

In terms of how well it prevents serious illness, hospitalizations, and deaths, the Johnson & Johnson shot is comparable to that of Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. And while there is a lower overall effectiveness rate in the U.S. – 72 percent compared to around 95 percent in the others – experts say comparing these numbers is problematic because the companies’ studies were conducted at different times in different locations.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine can also be stored at normal refrigerated temperatures for three months – ideal for distribution in non-medical locations such as stadiums and convention centers.

“There are circumstances when this will be a really good, or perhaps the best, option,” said Dr. Matthew Daley, senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente Colorado’s Institute for Health Research and member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Independent Vaccine Advisory Board.

Only four million cans have been shipped this week, and the company’s production delays mean it will be at least a month before the states receive significant shipments. Because of this loophole, state officials are treating the first wave of doses as a moment to test different ways it can be used.

Patrick Allen, the director of the Oregon Health Authority, said the first doses in the state went to various facilities “to see if we could learn from their use.” This included mass vaccination sites in the Portland area, adult nursing homes, and pharmacies not included in the federal government’s pharmacy program. Health officials will evaluate the success of each of these locations to develop a plan for the larger shipments.

Many state health officials said they were focused on getting the vaccine to people who may be harder to reach for a second dose, such as the homeless or about to be released from prison. In North Carolina, this category includes the state’s mobile farming communities with three- or four-week working seasons. Mandy Cohen, the state’s health secretary, said large meat packers in the state such as Smithfield and Tyson Foods were interested in Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and had consulted with their department.

And because the vaccine tends to have fewer side effects than the other options, it appeals to people who don’t want to risk missing a work day to recover from chills or a fever. She said, “There are a lot of people who are. For example,” I’m much more interested now that you tell me I only need to get one shot instead of two. “

“I don’t think it’s an inferior vaccine, so I’m taking it for myself,” said Ms. Cohen, who was supposed to get the shot from Johnson & Johnson on Friday.

The vaccine has caused a stir in small, independent pharmacies. Steve Hoffart, the owner of Magnolia Pharmacy in Magnolia, Texas, a small town outside of Houston, has received calls and emails from residents waiting to arrive this week. He hopes to hold a Johnson & Johnson teacher event on March 13th. Schools in the area struggled to find replacement teachers during the pandemic, and a vaccine that doesn’t require a second visit and more free time has been a significant development. he said.

Tim and Joyce Staab, who live in Chillicothe, Ohio, a town about 20,000 hours’ drive from Columbus, were two of the first Americans to receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Both had general vaccination appointments scheduled for later in the week. But then they learned on Wednesday that an independent pharmacy near them had received 100 doses of Johnson & Johnson’s shot. Ms. Staab, 68, hesitates with needles and liked the one-and-do approach.

Mr Staab, 67, said he thought the vaccine would be a better choice for healthcare providers like the pharmacy where he got it. “You don’t have the resources, I don’t think, to deal with really hard-to-store vaccines,” he said.

States were able to adjust and craft distribution plans, in part because the federal government did not issue guidelines on where and to whom the vaccine should go.

That winter, as the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine approached, federal officials involved in vaccine distribution pushed for a more centralized use of the shot, either at large stadiums or at mass vaccination sites, which operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency or only at pharmacies, according to officials familiar with these discussions. However, the White House preferred to allow states to tailor their own plans, as they had for the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.

While health professionals are excited about the potential public health benefits of the new vaccine, some also fear that once vaccines run out, public interest will wane. When some people have a choice of brands, they may reject Johnson & Johnson’s, viewing it as an inferior choice.

In the mid-Atlantic black churches, Darrell J. Gaskin, professor of health policy at Johns Hopkins University and pastor, and Rupali Limaye, scientist at the university studying vaccine reluctance, have advised and reassured hundreds of people pastors and parishioners in Africa Methodist Episcopal Zion Churches in virtual presentations highlighting the safety of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and the prevention of major Covid-19 and death, including among the black volunteers at the company’s trial.

Dr. Gaskin said it was vital for officials to highlight the benefits of the vaccine at the beginning of its distribution so that people “don’t feel like there’s a luxury vaccine and then the non-luxury vaccine”.

“We are facing differences when it comes to Covid,” said Dr. Limaye. “How do we reduce differences? We bring out a product that contains a dose and is stable. “

One of the members of the Church of Dr. Gaskin, Patricia Cooper, a teacher in Washington, DC, said President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to get a vaccine approved last year and the “Emergency Use Approval” label suggested that the federal government could I’ve rushed reviews of vaccines and made them nervous about their safety. But she said she was eager to get a vaccine, particularly from Johnson & Johnson.

“This one is more appealing to me,” she said. “Who likes to get stuck more than once?”

But Oregon health officer Mr. Allen warned that a more specific use could lead to skepticism about its quality.

“When you start getting a little too cute, when you specifically target its use, you may feed the distrust of, ‘Well why am I getting this vaccine? And I’m in that particular population and people who aren’t in that particular population aren’t getting this vaccine, ”he said.

Federal health officials have promised a way to crack down on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which may be used in unequal ways. Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, chair of the Biden administration’s new Health Justice Task Force, told a press conference at the White House this week that the vaccine distribution “should be evenly distributed among communities.”

“We’ll be tracking biometrics like zip code and social vulnerability to see where the vaccines are going,” she said. “And if certain vaccines are consistently delivered to certain communities, we can intervene.”

Some state officials believe pairing the new and old vaccines can help show that they are equally important.

Mr Allen said Oregon has similar sales plans for Johnson & Johnson and Moderna because both vaccines can be refrigerated for short term. The state treats the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine as the vaccine with “special considerations” as it has stricter shipping requirements and large packs of vials that are better suited for mass vaccination sites, he said.

Managing Johnson & Johnson and Moderna vaccines in a similar manner would help “avoid equity issues and potential concerns based on perceived differences between vaccines, some of which are real and some of which are not”.

Tags Eager, Johnson, Johnsons, people, Vaccine

World News

Covid-19 Information: Reside Updates – The New York Instances

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Post date March 4, 2021

People line up early at the Jacob Javits Convention Center Covid-19 vaccination hub on March 4, 2021.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The average number of vaccine doses being administered across the United States per day topped two million for the first time on Wednesday, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A month ago, the average was about 1.3 million.

President Biden set a goal for the country shortly after taking office to administer more than 1.5 million doses a day, which the nation has now comfortably exceeded.

Mr. Biden has also promised to administer 100 million vaccines by his 100th day in office, which is April 30. As of Thursday, 54 million people have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine was authorized for emergency use on Saturday, but those doses do not appear yet in the C.D.C. data.

The milestone was yet another sign of momentum in the nation’s effort to vaccinate every willing adult, even as state and city governments face several challenges, from current supply to logistics to hesitancy, of getting all of those doses into people’s arms.

Mass vaccination sites across the country are opening up or increasing their capacity, in part to respond to the new influx of doses from Johnson & Johnson. In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Thursday that three short-term mass vaccination sites will open in the state on Friday. Three other state-run sites, including one at Yankee Stadium, will begin administering shots around the clock. In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp announced five new sites will open on March 17.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has recently helped open seven mega-sites in California, New York and Texas, that are staffed with active-duty troops. In Chicago, a vaccination site at the United Center will open next week, with a capacity of 6,000 shots a day. Many more such sites are planned.

There have been some hiccups in the massive logistical challenge of distributing millions of doses across the country, with special requirements for storage and handling. In Texas, more than 2,000 doses went to waste over the past two weeks, according to an analysis by The Houston Chronicle. A majority of those losses were blamed on blackouts that swept the state in February, leaving millions of homes and businesses without power, some for multiple days.

And Mr. Biden has made equity a major focus of his pandemic response, saying he wants pharmacies, mobile vaccination units and community clinics that help underserved communities to help increase the pace of vaccinations. Experts say that Black and Latino Americans are being vaccinated at lower rates because they face obstacles like language barriers and inadequate access to digital technology, medical facilities and transportation. But mistrust in government officials and doctors also plays a role and is fed by misinformation that is spread on social media. In cities across the country, wealthy white residents are lining up to be vaccinated in low-income Latino and Black communities.

The president said on Tuesday that the country would have enough doses available for every American adult by the end of May, though he said it would take longer to inoculate everyone and he urged people to remain vigilant by wearing masks.

The administration also announced it had brokered a deal in which the drug giant Merck & Co. will help manufacture the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The unusual agreement between two rivals in the pharmaceutical industry was “historic,” Mr. Biden said on Tuesday. “This is a type of collaboration between companies we saw in World War II.”

Mr. Biden was also going to invoke the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era law, to give Johnson & Johnson access to supplies for manufacturing and packaging vaccines.

United States ›	United StatesOn March 3	14-day change
New cases	66,714	–17%
New deaths	2,369	–8%

World ›	WorldOn March 3	14-day change
New cases	419,698	+1%
New deaths	10,837	–19%

U.S. vaccinations ›

Credit…Montinique Monroe/Getty Images

Some governors across the United States are taking widely diverging approaches to mask mandates, as federal officials, including President Biden, warn that despite a drop in coronavirus cases, it is too soon to stop wearing masks.

On Thursday, Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama, a Republican, extended her state’s mask mandate for another month. Striking a different tone than those of her Republican peers in Mississippi and Texas, she said she wanted to keep what she called an effective policy to require masks for a bit longer, telling residents that masks would not be required in public beyond April 9 when other restrictions would also be lifted.

“There’s no question that wearing masks has been one of my greatest tools in combating the virus,” she said at a news conference.

In response to decisions this week to lift statewide mask mandates by Gov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi and Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, Mr. Biden said on Wednesday that those moves were a “big mistake.”

“The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, everything’s fine, take off your mask and forget it,” Mr. Biden told reporters at the White House. “It’s critical, critical, critical, critical that they follow the science.”

Even a fellow Republican, Gov. Jim Justice of West Virginia, said it was a bad idea to ignore the advice of the experts.

“I don’t know really what the big rush to get rid of the mask is, because these masks have saved a lot, a lot of lives,” Mr. Justice said Thursday on CNN, adding that he, too, looks forward to the day when he doesn’t have to wear a mask.

The governor issued a mask mandate over the summer instructing people to wear masks indoors when social distancing was not possible. In November, he extended the mandate to wearing a mask at all times except when eating or drinking, and in recent months has become a Biden ally, at least on the stimulus package.

“If we don’t watch out, we can make some mistakes,” Mr. Justice said.

Mr. Biden has asked that for his first 100 days in office, which ends in April, Americans fight the spread of the virus in a variety of ways, including wearing a mask, getting vaccinated and continuing to follow health precautions. He and his top health advisers have emphasized the benefit of wearing masks, and warned about the trajectory of cases nationwide and the detection of more cases of virus variants across the country.

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At the White House on Thursday, Jen Psaki, the press secretary, said the president’s comments about “Neanderthal thinking” was “a reflection of his frustration and exasperation” with the governors of Mississippi and Texas for undermining the message about the need to continue wearing masks.

“Our concern here is on the health, welfare and well being — and survival, frankly — of people across the country and in states where the recommendations from leadership is not following health and medical guidelines,” she said. “So we have concerns about the impact on the population.”

In Mississippi, Mr. Reeves was unrepentant after Mr. Biden’s admonishment.

“Mississippians don’t need handlers,” he said. “As numbers drop, they can assess their choices and listen to experts. I guess I just think we should trust Americans, not insult them.”

Mr. Reeves did, however, encourage his citizens to “do the right thing” and wear a mask.

So did Mr. Abbott this week in Texas, where vaccinations considerably trail the national average, more than 7,000 new cases are being reported a day and, in recent weeks, ominous variants of the virus have appeared.

On Tuesday, Mr. Abbott framed his decision as long-awaited relief after an exhausting stretch of isolation and hardship.

Kaitlyn Urenda-Culpepper, a Dallas resident whose mother died from Covid-19 in July, said there was no choice now but to hope that the governor had made a wise decision.

“I don’t want him to be wrong,” she said. “But, obviously, for the greater good of the people, I’m like, ‘Man, you better be right and not cost us tens of thousands more people.’”

Erin Coulehan contributed reporting.

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Alabama Governor Extends Statewide Mask Order Until April

Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama on Thursday said she would keep a statewide mask order in place until April 9, breaking with Republican governors who planned to end mask mandates against the advice of health officials.

We need to get past Easter, and hopefully allow more Alabamians to get their first shot before we take a step that some of the states have taken to remove the mask order altogether and lift other restrictions. Folks, we’re not there yet, but goodness knows we’re getting closer. Our new modified order will include several changes that will ease up some of our current restrictions while keeping our mask order in place for another five weeks through April 9. But let me be abundantly clear, after April the 9th, I will not keep the mask order in effect. Now, there’s no question that wearing masks has been one of our greatest tools in combating the spread of the virus. That, along with practicing good hygiene and social distancing, has helped us keep more people from getting sick or worse, dying. And when we — even when we lift the mask order, I will continue to wear my mask while I’m around others and strongly urge my fellow citizens to use common sense and do the same thing. But at the — but at that time, it will become a matter of personal responsibility and not a government mandate.

Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama on Thursday said she would keep a statewide mask order in place until April 9, breaking with Republican governors who planned to end mask mandates against the advice of health officials.CreditCredit…Jake Crandall/The Montgomery Advertiser, via Associated Press

Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama on Thursday said she was extending the statewide mask order for another month, breaking with two other Republican governors who have announced plans to lift mandates in their states against the advice of federal health officials.

Aside from her decision on the mask mandate, which will now be in place until April 9, Ms. Ivey said other virus related restrictions, including allowing restaurants and breweries to operate at full capacity, will also be lifted then.

“There’s no question that wearing masks has been one of my greatest tools in combating the virus,” she said at a news conference.

New coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths are down in the state, according to a New York Times database. About 14 percent of the residents in the state have received at least one dose of the vaccine. The state’s health officer, Dr. Scott Harris, said the state had already given more than a million vaccine shots.

“We need to get past Easter and hopefully allow more Alabamians to get their first shot before we take a step some other states have taken to remove the mask order altogether and lift some other restrictions,” Ms. Ivey said on Thursday. “Folks we’re not there yet, but goodness knows we’re getting closer.”

In recent days, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, has been pleading with state officials not to relax health precautions now, warning about the trajectory of cases nationwide and the detection of more cases of virus variants across the country.

“We are just on the verge of capitalizing on the culmination of a historic scientific success: the ability to vaccinate the country in just a matter of three or four more months,” Dr. Walensky said on Wednesday. “How this plays out is up to us. The next three months are pivotal.”

And President Biden on Wednesday criticized officials in several states, including Texas and Mississippi, for lifting mask mandates, describing their actions as “Neanderthal thinking” and insisting that it was a “big mistake” for people to stop wearing masks.

Ms. Ivey issued a statewide mask order last summer when the number of cases in the state soared less than three months after she eased restrictions at the end of April. The mask mandate has drawn criticism from members of her own party. She extended it in January when the state was seeing a second surge of cases.

On Thursday, she said she planned to wear her mask around others, even after the statewide over was lifted. She urged residents to “use common sense and do the same thing.”

Credit…Pool photo by Olivier Chassignole

Italy blocked a shipment of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from being flown to Australia on Thursday, making good on the European Union’s recent threats to clamp down on exports of the shots and ratcheting up a global tug of war over vaccine supplies.

It was the first time that a member country used new E.U. regulations to keep vaccine from being exported. The shipment consisted of more than 250,000 doses.

Italy’s foreign ministry said that Italy acted because Australia is regarded as a “nonvulnerable” country under the new regulations; because vaccines are in short supply in Italy and the European Union generally; and because of delays in AstraZeneca’s vaccine deliveries to the bloc’s member countries.

The new regulations empower the E.U.’s members to keep any vaccine doses made within the bloc from being sent abroad if the manufacturer has not yet met its supply obligations to member countries. Pfizer and AstraZeneca are the two companies currently manufacturing vaccines within the bloc.

So far, the European Commission has approved 174 requests for export authorizations.

Australia has had fewer coronavirus cases, relative to its size, than almost any other large developed country, and has been recently averaging only nine new cases a day, according to a New York Times database. Italy, with less than three times the population of Australia, is averaging more than 18,000 new cases a day.

AstraZeneca applied on Feb. 24 for an authorization for the Australia shipment. Two days later, Italy told the European Commission it intended to deny the application, the foreign ministry said in statement Thursday night. After the commission offered no objection, the ministry said it notified AstraZeneca of the denial on Tuesday.

For earlier shipments, “Italy gave its authorization because they were small quantities aimed at activities of scientific research,” the foreign ministry said. “However, this time it was 250,700 doses.”

AstraZeneca declined to comment.

The company infuriated E.U. officials in January when it said it would significantly cut its planned February and March deliveries to member nations. They accused the company of sending doses to Britain that had been promised to the European Union, in breach of contractual obligations.

Valdis Dombrovskis, a top commission official, said in announcing the new export control regulations that the situation had “left us with no choice other than to act.”

The commission has maintained that the controls are about transparency, not vaccine nationalism. But with Europe’s sluggish vaccination campaigns lagging behind those of other developed nations and the bloc growing desperate for doses, member countries have signaled a willingness to use the rules for their own benefit.

Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy pressed fellow European leaders in a meeting last week to use all tools at hand to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for delays in delivering doses.

Credit…Sandor Ujvari/EPA, via Shutterstock

The European Union drug regulator announced on Thursday that it was beginning a rolling review of the Russian-developed Sputnik V vaccine, after one of the bloc’s members moved unilaterally to use the shots and another is about to do the same.

The announcement by the regulator, the European Medicines Agency, comes amid a slow and frustrating vaccine rollout in the European Union that has been dogged by supply disappointments as well as major logistical problems.

The review is the formal process the agency uses, in which scientists examine data on the shots’ efficacy and side effects — it is the fastest way to examine the vaccine as a whole, with a view to eventually granting it authorization for use in the European Union.

The agency said in a news statement that the Gamaleya Research Institute, which developed the vaccine, had applied for the rolling review through a Germany-based entity named R-Pharm Germany.

Hungary broke with the bloc and ordered its own share of Sputnik V vaccines this year, granting the shots authorization locally through its national regulator. As the supply woes in the European Union began to bite, the Czech Republic this month announced it would follow suit. A deal to acquire the Russian vaccine has also set off a political crisis in Slovakia.

Several other European governments were considering a similar move, despite the fact that Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, recently cast doubt on the Sputnik V vaccine.

“We still wonder why Russia is offering theoretically millions of millions of doses while not sufficiently progressing in vaccinating their own people,” Ms. von der Leyen said during a news conference last month.

“This is also a question I think that should be answered,” she added. “They have to submit the whole set of data, indeed go through the whole scrutiny process like any other vaccine.”

While the announcement of the review is an important step in the formal scientific scrutiny by the European regulator, there is no telling how long the process will take. The agency will require deep access to data underlying the vaccine’s performance, as well as site visits to its production facilities, before granting authorization.

Credit…Philip Cheung for The New York Times

Hoping to hasten its emergence from the coronavirus pandemic, California will begin channeling 40 percent of new vaccine doses to low-income communities pummeled by the coronavirus, officials in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration said late on Wednesday.

The strategy is an effort to make the vaccine rollout more equitable and to reduce the number of counties considered most at risk, as well as to speed California’s ability to reopen, officials said.

Once 400,000 more doses are administered in the target communities, the state will ease restrictions in high-risk counties, officials said, a threshold that could be reached in about two weeks.

The targeted communities are defined using a composite “health equity” index that assesses need based on income, education, transportation and housing availability. State data has indicated that when vaccination efforts are targeted at poorer Californians, wealthier people have gamed the system. Black and Latino residents have been inoculated in smaller numbers than their white neighbors.

Eligible only in some counties

California faced a surge in infections in December and January, but cases have fallen 40 percent statewide — to late October levels — in the past two weeks, intensifying calls for the state government to relax restrictions.

Mr. Newsom, whose handling of the pandemic has helped fuel a Republican-led recall campaign against him, has crisscrossed the state, opening vaccination centers and assuring people that immunization is the “light at the end of the tunnel.” But he has also made clear that the virus and its variants remain lethal: At least 287 new coronavirus deaths and 4,316 new cases were reported in California on March 2.

When the governor of Texas announced this week that the state would lift its mask mandate, Mr. Newsom tweeted that the move was “absolutely reckless.”

Administration officials said California would keep in place its mask mandate. The vaccine blitz, they said, was aimed at quashing the further spread of Covid-19 so people could go back to work and businesses could reopen safely.

About 1.6 million vaccine doses have so far been delivered in low-income communities.

Once two million vaccines have been administered in those locations, officials said, the state will adjust its color-coded tier system to make it easier for counties to move into less restrictive categories, which will hasten the reopening of schools. When there are four million doses in the targeted areas, additional tiers will be adjusted to further ease reopenings.

Credit…Ahmed Jalil/EPA, via Shutterstock

A surge in coronavirus cases has prompted Iraqi officials to impose lockdowns. Shia authorities have suspended religious pilgrimages. And on Sunday, the Vatican’s ambassador contracted the virus and went into isolation.

For good measure, suicide bombings, rocket attacks and geopolitical tensions have increased, too.

But Pope Francis — to the bewilderment of many — is intent on going anyway.

After more than a year cooped up behind the Vatican walls, Francis is to fly to Baghdad on Friday at one of the most virulent moments of the entire pandemic, sending a message that flies in the face of nearly all public health guidelines.

“The day after tomorrow, God willing, I will go to Iraq for a three-day pilgrimage,” the pope said on Wednesday in his weekly address. “I ask that you accompany this apostolic trip with prayer so that it can occur in the best way possible, bear the hoped-for fruit. The Iraqi people await us.”

Francis was vaccinated in mid-January, and has called on wealthy countries to give vaccines to poorer ones, calling a refusal to vaccinate “suicidal.”

The pope’s entourage is also vaccinated, but there is anxiety among his supporters that a trip intended largely to bring encouragement to Iraq’s long-suffering Christians has the potential to be a superspreader event. The possibility of the 84-year-old pope’s inadvertently endangering an Iraqi population with practically no access to vaccines is not lost on his allies back in Rome.

“There is this concern that the pope’s visit not put the people’s health at risk, this is evident,” said Antonio Spadaro, a Jesuit priest and close ally of Francis. “There is an awareness of the problem.”

The Vatican insists the trip will be a safe, socially distanced and sober visit devoid of the usual fanfare and celebrations. And a Vatican spokesman played down the number of cases in Iraq when reporters asked how the pope could possibly justify not delaying a trip that could endanger so many.

Andrea Vicini, a medical doctor, Jesuit priest and professor of moral theology and bioethics at Boston College, said he admired the pope’s willingness to put his own skin in the game for peace when it came to promoting dialogue with Islam and protecting the persecuted and people at the margins.

“He wants to show that he is ready to risk,” Father Vicini said. “The problem is that others will be at risk.”

GLOBAL ROUNDUP

Credit…Lisi Niesner/Reuters

Austrian officials will carry out a mass vaccination drive in the western district of Schwaz in the hopes of stabilizing the alpine area, which has been battered by a surge in new coronavirus infections driven in part by the variant B.1.351, first identified in South Africa.

The pilot program in Austria is the first such inoculation drive in the European Union. Like most of the rest of the bloc, the country is lagging behind some other wealthy nations — such as Britain, Israel and the United States — in its vaccine rollout. Only 5 percent of residents in the alpine state of Tyrol, which includes Schwaz, have received at least one shot.

All residents above the age of 16 will be able to get free vaccinations when the drive begins next week. The European Union has allocated 100,000 extra doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for the area near the western Austrian city of Innsbruck, which is home to about 86,000 people.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Wednesday that the effort would be “our chance to eradicate the variant in the region of Schwaz.”

The infection rate in the broader Tyrol region has declined from its peak of about 800 cases per 100,000 people over a seven-day period in November to just over 100 per 100,000 in the past week. But the German government closed its side of the border with the area on Wednesday night when it became clear that a high percentage of those infections were caused by the B.1.351 variant.

On Thursday, Mr. Kurz traveled to Israel where, together with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark, he planned to speak with experts about collaborating on future vaccines.

In other news from around the world:

Sinopharm of China, a state-owned company that is manufacturing two vaccines in the country, can make a maximum of three billion doses this year, its chairman told state news media on Wednesday. The number represents a tripling of the company’s previous target.
The state of São Paulo, Brazil, will head into its toughest restrictions yet this weekend, Gov. João Doria told reporters on Wednesday, as cases surge in the region. All bars, restaurants and nonessential stores will close until at least March 19, according to The Associated Press. The restrictions come as the country grapples with a concerning new variant that has lashed the Amazonian city of Manaus, in the northwest, and is spreading to other places. Brazil recorded its highest single-day toll of the pandemic this week.
Germany’s independent vaccine panel has said that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine can be used on people 65 and over, reversing earlier guidance. Although the European drug regulator authorized use of the shots in January, the German panel had initially refused to recommend the vaccine because it had not been tested enough in that age group. Because Germany is still focusing its vaccination drive on those over 80, much of the AstraZeneca doses had lingered in storage.
Hungary announced on Thursday that it would introduce a new round of restrictions next week, with some schools closed and nonessential stores shuttered, to combat a sharp rise in coronavirus cases. The announcement comes as a blow to Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who had been vocal about his hopes for the country to begin reopening this month.
France on Thursday vowed to vaccinate at least 10 million people by mid-April as the government, still stopping short of a nationwide lockdown, extended restrictions on movements and gatherings to areas in the country where there have been surges in local cases. So far, only about 3.1 million people, or 4.7 percent of the country’s population, have received a first injection, and only 1.7 million people, or 2.5 percent of the population, have been fully vaccinated, which puts France behind other European countries in the vaccination rollout. Jean Castex, the prime minister, said at a news conference that starting in mid-April, all people ages 50 to 74 would be eligible for the vaccine, regardless of pre-existing health conditions.

Albee Zhang contributed research.

Credit…Altaf Qadri/Associated Press

India’s ambitious but troubled campaign to inoculate its vast population against Covid-19 — and, in the process, to burnish its reputation as a manufacturer and innovator — received a major lift after initial trial results showed a homegrown vaccine was safe and effective.

Bharat Biotech, the Indian drug company that developed the shots, said late Wednesday that early findings from clinical trials involving nearly 26,000 subjects showed that the vaccine, Covaxin, had an initial efficacy rate of 81 percent.

The results have yet to be peer reviewed, the company said, and it was unclear how effective Covaxin would prove to be in a final analysis.

Still, the results were met with relief in India. Covaxin was approved by government officials in January and administered to millions of people even though it had not yet been publicly proved. Many in the country, including frontline health care workers, had feared that Covaxin could be ineffective or worse, slowing down the national campaign to inoculate 1.3 billion people.

Officials in Brazil, where the government had bought doses of Covaxin, had recently questioned whether the vaccine worked.

The results this week could alleviate some of those concerns, said Dr. Anant Bhan, a health researcher at Melaka Manipal Medical College in southern India. Still, he said, questions will linger over Covaxin until the research is completed.

“This data will now need to be examined by the regulator in India and could then have an impact on the regulatory decisions with regards to the vaccine,” Dr. Bhan said.

If the results hold, they could also benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, who has stressed his intention of making India self-reliant. An effective, Indian-developed vaccine could add credibility to that campaign.

India approved Covaxin for emergency use in early January along with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which is known in India as Covishield. When the vaccination drive started less than two weeks later, most people were not allowed to choose which shot they got.

The move to authorize Covaxin’s use came under sharp criticism from pharmaceutical bodies and health experts, who questioned the scientific logic behind approving a vaccine that was still in trials. Indian officials often denounced those doubts without explaining the rush. Instead, they portrayed the endorsement of Covaxin through a lens of nationalism, saying that it showed India’s emergence as a scientific power.

VideoAfter weeks of declining cases, a representative from the World Health Organization on Thursday warned the public of a resurgence of cases and a strain on hospitals across Europe.CreditCredit…Tobias Schwarz/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Central and Eastern Europe is experiencing a resurgence in coronavirus infections partly driven by new variants but also by the relaxing of restrictions, the World Health Organization’s top official in Europe said on Thursday.

After six successive weeks of declining infection numbers across Europe, the continent experienced a 9 percent rise in coronavirus cases in the past week, Hans Kluge, the W.H.O.’s regional director told reporters. More than half of the 53 countries in the European region had recorded an increase in infections, he said, including some in Western Europe.

“Over a year into the pandemic, our health systems should not be in this situation,” Mr. Kluge said. “We need to get back to basics.”

The increase came as 43 European countries reported cases of the B.1.1.7 variant first identified in Britain, which has much higher transmissability, he said, adding that 26 countries had found cases of the B.1.351 variant first discovered in South Africa and that 15 had reported cases of the P.1 variant first discovered in Brazil.

The B.1.1.7 variant already accounts for more than half of the new cases of infection in several countries, including Britain and Denmark, and is expected to soon pass that level in Germany.

But W.H.O. officials stressed that new variants were only part of the problem, calling for a gradual lifting of restrictions and travel bans when there was evidence to support it and for an accelerated rollout of shots.

Vaccinations have started in 45 European countries, Mr. Kluge said, but only around a quarter of health workers in 20 European countries have completed vaccination against Covid-19.

Frustration at the slow introduction of vaccines in Europe has driven several governments to bypass the European Union’s purchase program in favor of bilateral supply deals, but the W.H.O. underscored that countries could not rely solely on vaccines to curb infections.

Catherine Smallwood, health emergencies expert for the W.H.O. in Europe, said, “We are not going to take the heat out of transmission immediately” through inoculations. “It’s going to take a long time,” she noted, “so we will have to be patient and we need to use all of the other measures we have at our disposal.”

Credit…Oded Balilty/Associated Press

Most Palestinians living in the occupied territories have yet to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, setting off a rancorous debate about whether Israel has a duty to vaccinate Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.

But among Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, questions are now being asked of their own leadership, which has been accused of siphoning some of the few doses allocated for Palestinians and distributing them to the senior ranks of the governing party, allies in the news media and even to family members of top dignitaries.

Like many governments worldwide, the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited control over parts of the occupied territories, has officially prioritized its senior administrative leadership and frontline health workers, as well as people who come into regular contact with the authority’s president and prime minister.

But in secret, the authority has diverted some of the thousands of vaccines it has received to some senior members of the ruling party in the West Bank who have no formal role in government, according to two senior Palestinian officials and a senior official from the party, Fatah, who all spoke on condition of anonymity.

Vaccines have also been secretly given to top figures at major news outlets run by the authority, according to one of the senior Palestinian officials and two employees at those outlets. Family members of certain government officials and Fatah leaders were also given the vaccines, the senior official and a former government official said.

Already frustrated at their exclusion from Israel’s world-leading vaccination program, ordinary Palestinians now accuse their leaders of hoarding some of the relatively few vaccines that the authority has obtained, even amid a surge in infections and tightened restrictions.

“Of course it’s understandable and acceptable that the president, prime minister and ministers take the vaccination before others — this is the case everywhere in the world,” said Hasan Ayoub, the chairman of the political science department at An Najah University in Nablus. “But there’s absolutely no justification for giving the very small number of vaccines we have to other people close to power at the expense of those who most need them.”

Several government officials did not respond to requests for comment on the accusations.

In public statements, the Health Ministry did not admit to any wrongdoing. It has acknowledged receiving 12,000 vaccines — 10,000 from Russia and 2,000 from Israel. Of those, it says that 2,000 were sent to the Gaza Strip, which is under the de facto authority of Hamas, the militant group, and 200 to the royal court in Jordan, where some Palestinian leaders live. And of the remaining 9,800, 90 percent were given to frontline health workers, the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

The ministry said that the remainder had been given to officials in the presidency and prime ministry, election officials, some international embassies, members of the national soccer team and roughly 100 students who needed the vaccine to travel.

Credit…Luis Robayo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug that has been touted as a potential Covid-19 treatment, does not speed recovery in people with mild cases of the disease, according to a randomized controlled trial published in the journal JAMA today.

Ivermectin is typically used to treat parasitic worms in both people and animals. Scientists have previously reported that the drug can prevent some viruses from replicating in cells. Last year, researchers in Australia found that high doses of ivermectin suppressed SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, in cell cultures.

The finding raised hopes that the drug might prove effective against Covid-19, and it has been widely used during the pandemic, especially in Latin America.

But rigorous data on the drug’s effectiveness in people has been lacking, and some scientists suspect that effectively inhibiting the coronavirus may require extremely high, potentially unsafe doses of the drug. The Covid-19 treatment guidelines from the National Institutes of Health note that there is not enough evidence “to recommend either for or against” using the drug in Covid-19 patients.

In the new study, a team of researchers in Colombia randomly assigned more than 400 people who had recently developed mild Covid-19 symptoms to receive a five-day course of either ivermectin or a placebo. They found that Covid-19 symptoms lasted about 10 days, on average, among people who received the drug, compared to 12 days among those who received the placebo, a statistically insignificant difference.

The new trial adds much-needed clinical data to the debate over using the drug to treat Covid-19, said Dr. Regina Rabinovich, a global health researcher at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who was not involved in the study.

But she noted that the trial was relatively small and that it did not answer the most pressing clinical question, which is whether ivermectin can prevent severe disease or death. “Duration of symptoms may not be the most important either clinical or public health parameter to look at,” she said.

Bigger trials, some of which are currently underway, could help provide more definitive answers, said Dr. Rabinovich, who noted that she was “totally neutral” on ivermectin’s potential usefulness. “I just want data because there’s such chaos in the field.”

Credit…Ken Bohn/San Diego Zoo Global, via, via Reuters

The San Diego Zoo has given nine apes an experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by Zoetis, a major veterinary pharmaceuticals company.

In January, a troop of gorillas at the zoo’s Safari Park tested positive for the virus. All are recovering, but even so, the zoo requested help from Zoetis in vaccinating other apes. The company provided an experimental vaccine that was initially developed for pets and is now being tested in mink.

Nadine Lamberski, a conservation and wildlife health officer at San Diego Zoo Global, said the zoo vaccinated four orangutans and five bonobos with the experimental vaccine, which is not designed for use in humans.

She said one gorilla at the zoo was also scheduled to be vaccinated, but the gorillas at the wildlife park were a lower priority because they had already tested positive for infection and had recovered. Dr. Lamberski said she would vaccinate the gorillas at the wildlife park if the zoo received more doses of the vaccine.

Mahesh Kumar, senior vice president of global biologics for Zoetis, said the company is increasing production, primarily for its pursuit of a license for a mink vaccine, and will provide more doses to the San Diego and other zoos when possible. “We have already received a number of requests,” he said.

Infection of apes is a major concern for zoos and conservationists. They easily fall prey to human respiratory infections, and common cold viruses have caused deadly outbreaks in chimpanzees in Africa. Genome research has suggested that chimpanzees, gorillas and other apes will be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that has caused the pandemic. Lab researchers are using some monkeys, like macaques, to test drugs and vaccines and develop new treatments for the virus.

Scientists are worrying not just about the danger the virus poses to great apes and other animals, but also about the potential for the virus to gain a foothold in a wild animal population that could become a permanent reservoir and emerge at a later date to reinfect humans.

Infections in farmed mink have produced the biggest scare so far. When Danish mink farms were devastated by the virus, which can kill mink just as it kills people, a mutated form of the virus emerged from the mink and reinfected humans. That variant showed resistance to some antibodies in laboratory studies, raising suspicion that vaccines might be less effective against it.

That virus variant has not been found in humans since November, according to the World Health Organization. But other variants have emerged in people in several countries, proving that the virus can become more contagious and in some cases can diminish the effectiveness of some vaccines.

Denmark ended up killing as many as 17 million mink — effectively wiping out its mink farming industry. In the United States, thousands of mink have died, and one wild mink has tested positive for the virus.

Although many animals, including dogs, domestic cats, and big cats in zoos, have become infected by the virus through natural spread, and others have been infected in laboratory experiments, scientists say that widespread testing has yet to find the virus in any animal in the wild other than the one mink.

National Geographic first reported the vaccination of the apes at the San Diego Zoo.

Credit…Francis Kokoroko/Reuters

When 600,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine arrived in Ghana last week, Owusu Akoto, chief executive of a logistics company, was there alongside health officials to receive them.

Mr. Akoto’s company, FreezeLink, has a fleet of temperature-controlled trucks and was one of a few private companies helping the government to keep vaccines cooled before distribution. He is also partnering with a drone operator to reach some rural communities.

A former management consultant, Mr. Akoto founded his company in the hope of addressing food waste in Ghana, but he said that being involved in vaccine distribution had brought both pride and a sense of relief.

“It’s emotional. It feels a bit raw,” Mr. Akoto said in an interview from the Ghanaian capital, Accra. He said that his cousin had recently died after contracting the coronavirus. “The vaccine could have saved his life.”

The doses were the first delivery in a global initiative called Covax, created to ensure that poorer countries that would struggle to buy coronavirus shots on the open market could still receive them. Officials hope to deliver two billion vaccines worldwide through the initiative this year, though they say that the program faces a funding gap of billions of dollars.

By Thursday, about 10 million doses had been delivered to 11 countries in Africa through the Covax program, according to the World Health Organization.

Some vaccines, like those of Pfizer and Moderna, must be kept at deep-freeze temperatures for much of their time in storage and during delivery, a requirement that has long been a concern for distributors in areas with less infrastructure. But the AstraZeneca vaccine only needs to be stored at a temperature of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius, or about 35 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit, which makes it easier to handle by regular cold-storage companies.

Mr. Akoto said that a priority so far had been in areas with a surge in new infections. His company is also working with Zipline, a drone company, that is helping to deliver vaccines to more rural parts of Ghana that are harder to reach by road. Zipline said it was providing “on-demand, last-mile delivery” of the vaccine.

Mr. Akoto acknowledged that Ghana had a long way to go to inoculate the entire population of about 30 million, and he said he was concerned about vaccine skepticism.

“But the journey of a million miles just became that much shorter,” he said.

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

Politics

Treasury to Make investments $9 Billion in Minority Communities

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Post date March 4, 2021

Treasury to Invest $9 Billion in Minority Communities

WASHINGTON – The Biden government on Thursday unveiled a plan to invest $ 9 billion in minority communities. This is a first step towards ensuring that those hardest hit by the pandemic have access to credit when the economy recovers.

The Treasury Department announced that it is opening the application process for its emergency capital investment program, which will provide large funding to community development financial institutions and minority depositaries to increase lending.

Efforts are a priority for Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, who has warned that the aftermath of the pandemic is exacerbating inequality in the United States.

“America has always had deserts for financial services, places where it is very difficult for people to get their hands on capital, for example to start a business,” Ms. Yellen said in a statement. “But the pandemic has made these deserts even more inhospitable.”

She added, “The Emergency Capital Investment Program will help these places that the financial sector has not normally served well.”

Ms. Yellen has been an advocate of financial institutions for community development for years, arguing that they are an important tool in promoting a more inclusive economy.

The aid programs introduced in 2020, such as the Small Business Paycheck Protection Program, have been criticized by minorities who say that black and other minority owned companies are at a disadvantage in applying for a limited pool of funds because many had weaker banking relationships than that her colleagues in white possession. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York last year found that black-owned companies were hit hardest by closings in the first half of 2020.

Treasury is using funds approved under the $ 900 billion stimulus package passed in December and signed by former President Donald J. Trump.

Community development financial institutions that provide affordable credit options to consumers and low-income businesses have been largely neglected by Mr Trump and his finance department. President Biden and Mrs. Yellen have signaled that they will be vital to improving racial justice in the United States.

The new program will make direct investments in local lenders who support small businesses and consumers in low-income communities. The investments will have low interest rates and provide greater incentives for lenders to offer small loans to the neediest, both in rural areas and in places of persistent poverty.

Finance officials said they wanted the new program to strengthen financial institutions health for community development. The department is also launching two separate programs that provide lenders with additional $ 3 billion in grants and other assistance.

Tags Billion, Communities, invest, Minority, Treasury

Business

Proposed E.U. Legislation Goals to Rectify Gender Pay Hole

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Post date March 4, 2021

Proposed E.U. Law Aims to Rectify Gender Pay Gap

BRUSSELS – The European Union urged member states to close the gender pay gap and on Thursday announced details of a legislative proposal requiring companies to disclose gender pay gaps in wage interviews and giving applicants access to salary information. It would too Providing women with better tools to fight for equal pay.

The move takes place as workers all over the world were disproportionately affected by the economic effects of the coronavirus crisis and could lead to sanctions against companies that does not correspond.

The proposed law would also allow women to verify that they are being adequately compensated versus male colleagues. The European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, wants to give workers the opportunity to apply for appropriate compensation in the event of discrimination.

Under the proposed law, those who believe they are victims could take action through independent observers of compliance with the equal pay requirements. You could also raise gender pay complaints through employee representatives either individually or in groups.

“You need transparency for equal pay,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the Commission, who had undertaken to make pay transparency binding after taking office in December 2019. “Women need to know whether their employers treat them fairly. And if they don’t, they must have the power to fight back and get what they deserve. “

Although in theory the principle of equal pay for equal work is one of the basic values of the European Union of 27 countries, the difference in salaries for men and women doing the same work is 14.1 percent and the difference in pensions is 30 percent. said the commission. According to the European Institute for Gender Equality, a research group, female managers earn a quarter less than men.

Despite several efforts to enforce equal pay in practice, it appeared to be inaccessible to women across the bloc for more than 60 years, which is a beacon for human rights and equality. So far, only 10 European countries, including Austria, Germany, Italy and Sweden, have introduced national legislation on wage transparency.

The proposed EU-wide law requires the approval of the member states and the European Parliament. There are concerns that it could be blocked by national governments, as has happened with the European Commission’s proposal to introduce gender quotas on boards of directors. Faced with these potential obstacles, Vera Jourova, the bloc’s top official for values and transparency, described the pay proposal as “pure pragmatism and good economic calculations”, stressing that companies benefit from gender equality at work.

“We see quite limited appetites in some Member States and surprisingly in those who have already put such measures in place,” said Ms Jourova. “What gives me hope is that this is badly needed.”

Companies with more than 250 employees would be required to publicly disclose their gender pay gap, reflecting the concerns of smaller organizations that have suffered a severe economic blow from the coronavirus.

“I am aware that in times of economic downturn and the uncertainty caused by the pandemic, this proposal may seem out of date for some,” said Helena Dalli, the bloc’s equal opportunities commissioner, and stressed that the law was “appropriately proportionate ” be.

Under the bill, national governments would be required to penalize companies that violate equal pay measures. Governments could decide on the penalties imposed, including financial sanctions, which must be effective and proportionate, the commission said.

The suggestion comes as researchers warn that the virus could significantly delay women’s progression in the workplace. According to the 2020 Women in Work Index, which is compiled annually by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 33 industrialized countries, advice, economic damage caused by the pandemic and the effects of government policy have a disproportionately high impact on women. This has reversed the steady trend of gains for women in employment and resulted in what the consultancy calls “shecession”.

Women’s rights groups welcomed the Commission’s initiative. “Information is power: Pay transparency would enable employees to know the value of their work and to negotiate salaries accordingly,” said Carlien Scheele, Director of the European Institute for Gender Equality. “This would help combat discrimination in the workplace, which can only be a boon to gender equality.”

Aware of the possible legal and economic implications of the proposal, employers carefully assessed it and blamed it on what they described as profound reasons for gender inequality.

“Appropriate compensation transparency requirements can be part of the answer,” said Markus J. Beyrer, head of BusinessEurope, a lobby group. “However, the key to improving gender equality is addressing the root causes of inequalities, particularly gender stereotypes, labor market segregation and inadequate childcare.”

Mr Beyrer said the Commission must respect the “competences of the national social partners” and “should not add undue burdens to human resource management and pave the way for inappropriate litigation”.

According to Ms. Jourova, “binding rules” are required, not just trust in social responsibility Companies. “We see it’s going nowhere,” she said.

Tags Aims, gap, Gender, Law, Pay, Proposed, Rectify

Entertainment

5 Issues to Do This Weekend

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Post date March 4, 2021

In the past few years, comedian Sarah Silverman has been in touch. In 2017 and 18, she toured the country for her Emmy-nominated Hulu series “I Love You, America” in search of different opinions. In October she started the “Sarah Silverman Podcast” in which she answered questions from listeners who left her voice messages at kastmedia.com/asksarah.

Now she’s ready to hear from people even more directly in a new livestream. Silverman promises an interactive stand-up performance, saying in a promo she made for it, “I’ll talk about everything big and small, guided by your live questions and comments.” Tickets to the stream are $ 20 and are available from RushTix. The show begins on Saturday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time and can be viewed for 48 hours thereafter.
SEAN L. McCARTHY

CHILDREN

Foolishness and surprises up your sleeve

Known as Mario Marchese backstage, he performs these and other tricks in Mario’s Virtual Punk Rock Magic Party, which he will host on Sunday and March 21st at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Marchese, who performed on “Sesame Street”, presents as much silly comedy as instinct in this 40-minute zoom production. (The punk rock is G-rated.)

An energetic performer – he can make Gilbert Gottfried look gentle – Marchese specializes in the kind of slapstick that kids under 10 giggle with. They especially appreciate the invitations to help him out as much as the format allows and dance wildly in the end.

Families who can buy tickets for $ 25 per household at Eventbrite.com will see some cool illusions that include not just coins but also playing cards, milk, and some handcrafted robots. That’s magic with a soup of science.
LAUREL GRAEBER

Art museums

From the periphery to the fore

Many things happened in 2020 that we would rather forget, but the social justice movement shouldn’t be one of them. It has shaped the practices of many color artists over the past few months. Parallels & Peripheries: Practice + Presence, a dynamic exhibition of works by color artists at the New York Art Academy, is evidence of the recent reassessment of the intersection of art and activism.

Robyn Gibson, an assistant curator, organized the show with Larry Ossei-Mensah to hold the academy responsible for not providing a space for artists of color to feel seen. In this way, Jean Shin’s “projections”, a series of cascading projector slides intended to convey this marginalization, are not only the actual heart of the show, but also the thematic one. Together the pieces ask us: “Who are the real” masters “?”

The exhibition can be seen until Sunday. Appointments for a personal inspection can be made at nyaa.edu/parallels-peripheries. You can also find links to a virtual show and a recording of an artist panel discussion.
MELISSA SMITH

jazz

Three pages by Claudia Acuña

After establishing herself in her hometown music scene in Santiago, Chile, Claudia Acuña moved to New York in the mid-1990s after a rebirth of jazz. The breadth and richness of her voice quickly attracted attention, as did her adaptability to the gentle rhythmic inflections of her band.

On Saturday, Acuña will present a multi-part program at the Academy of Music Theater in Northampton, Massachusetts as part of the International Women Rising Festival. The first concert at 3 p.m. Eastern Time will draw much of its material from Turning Pages, their latest album, which features mostly original compositions while highlighting Acuña’s well-known alchemy of influences: South American folk, Afro-Latin American rhythm, 20th century Pop and American jazz repertoire. At 8 p.m. she offers a separate show that focuses on the romantic bolero tradition. Both concerts can be streamed at Thirdrow.live/events/claudia-acuna. each cost $ 15. At 7pm, Acuña will attend a Q. and A. session. Tickets for this cost $ 20.
GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

As a strange woman in ballet, Adriana Pierce often felt unseen and not represented on stage and outside. No wonder. The presence of queer women in ballet is seldom discussed in choreography and almost never explored. Pierce is trying to change that with her #QueertheBallet project.

In February, she and two American Ballet Theater dancers, Remy Young and Sierra Armstrong, performed at Bridge Street Theater in Catskill, NY. A nine-minute film recording rehearsals and choreographing a new duet by Pierce is now available for free on the project’s website and on the Bridge Street Theater’s YouTube channel.

In the film, Pierce explains her desire to explore the nuances of connecting women, as well as the technical and expressive possibilities of two women in pointe shoes. The duet certainly doesn’t look subversive, which may be the point. “Ballet doesn’t have to change very much to take on more identities,” she says.
BRIAN SEIBERT

Tags Weekend

Health

Italy blocks shipments of AstraZeneca Covid vaccine

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Post date March 4, 2021

Vial of AstraZeneca vaccine against coronavirus (COVID-19) on the first day of a mass vaccination by police and fire departments at the Wanda Metropolitan Stadium.

Marcos del Mazo | LightRocket | Getty Images

LONDON – The European Union intervened in the supply of coronavirus vaccines for the first time. Italy reportedly blocked delivery of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine to Australia on Thursday.

Reuters, citing two sources, reported that the British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca had asked Rome for permission to ship around 250,000 doses from its plant in Anagni, Italy. However, the Italian government refused. The Financial Times also reported the same story.

An AstraZeneca spokesman declined to comment when contacted by CNBC. A spokesman for the EU or the Italian Foreign Ministry was not immediately available to comment.

In January, the European Union temporarily controlled exports of vaccines made within the bloc after AstraZeneca and other supply problems were spat at. The EU has been under pressure from what critics are calling the slow adoption of Covid vaccines.

The European Commission, the body that runs the sales contracts, has been accused of not securing enough vaccines and the region’s medical agency has been criticized for taking too long to approve vaccinations that have given the go-ahead elsewhere have received.

The controls will last until the end of March and give EU member states the power to refuse to authorize exports if vaccine manufacturers fail to comply with contracts.

In January, AstraZeneca announced that it would deliver far fewer cans to the EU than originally expected in the spring due to production problems at its plants in the Netherlands and Belgium. Then on January 31, it announced it would dispose of an additional 9 million doses in the first quarter to make up for the deficit.

Tags AstraZeneca, Blocks, Covid, Italy, shipments, Vaccine

Business

Alabama Gov. Ivey lifts statewide Covid masks mandate starting April 9

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Post date March 4, 2021

Alabama Gov. Ivey lifts statewide Covid mask mandate beginning April 9

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey announces the renewal of a state ordinance mandating face masks in public during a news conference on July 29, 2020 in Montgomery, Ala.

Kim Chandler | AP

Alabama plans to overturn a statewide ordinance requiring people to wear masks in public on April 9, even if Governor Kay Ivey extends the state declaration of emergency for Covid-19 by 60 days.

“Let me be very clear that after April 9, I will no longer keep the mask order in effect,” said Ivey on Thursday.

Ivey extended mask orders and other health measures, which should expire on March 8, to give companies enough time to implement their own guidelines, she announced at a press conference. The governor urged residents to continue wearing face coverings even though the state will no longer mandate them.

“While I am convinced that a mask mandate was the right thing to do, I also respect those who object and believe that this was a step too far in going beyond government,” said Ivey.

The state’s expanded “Safer at Home” regulation, which now runs through April 9, allows restaurants and bars to operate without group size restrictions, although tables must meet additional sanitary requirements and remain 6 feet apart.

The ordinance allows senior centers to resume their outdoor activities, and hospitals and nursing homes can each welcome one additional visitor. The state’s public health declaration of emergency now expires on May 7th.

The governor noted that state hospitals have reported a 77% decrease in their weekly average number of daily Covid patients, about 686 people since peaking in mid-January. While Alabama is going in the “right direction,” Ivey said the expanded order will give the state more time to give residents their first dose of a vaccine.

According to recent data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just over 674,800 Alabama residents have received at least one dose of vaccine – nearly 14% of the total.

The Republican governor’s decision to lift the state’s mask mandate comes just days after both Texas and Mississippi announced similar moves on Tuesday. However, President Joe Biden and senior US health officials criticized the decision as a “big mistake”.

“We are on the verge of fundamentally changing the nature of this disease because we can get vaccines into people’s arms. … The last, the last thing we need is the Neanderthals’ thinking. That,” In the meantime Is everything ok. Take off your mask. Forget it. “It’s still important,” Biden told reporters on Wednesday.

Correction: This article has been updated to correct the date the Safer Home order will be fulfilled. It expires on April 9th at 5 p.m.

Tags Alabama, April, beginning, Covid, Gov, Ivey, lifts, mandate, mask, statewide

Business

Stay Inventory Market Updates – The New York Occasions

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Post date March 4, 2021

The Avalon Cafe and Biscuit Bar in Detroit closed because of the pandemic. Conditions should improve in the coming months, economists say.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Elaine Cromie for The New York Times

The economy continues to slowly rebound from the worst of the pandemic, but claims for unemployment benefits remain high by historical standards, a sign of how long it will take for the job market to recover fully.

Initial jobless claims rose last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday, after a big drop in the previous week.

A total of 748,000 workers filed first-time claims for unemployment benefits in the week that ended Feb. 27, 32,000 higher than the week before. In addition, 437,000 new claims were filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federal program covering freelancers, part-timers and others who do not routinely qualify for state benefits, a rise of 9,000.

Neither figure is seasonally adjusted. On a seasonally adjusted basis, new state claims totaled 745,000, an increase of 9,000.

Claims are lower than they were when coronavirus cases spiked early last year. With the virus easing since then in many places, some restrictions on business activity have been rolled back. That has helped the job market somewhat.

The increase in claims last week included a big jump in Ohio and Texas, as the latter recovered from severe winter storms last month.

“We knew there was some backlog in Texas and claims would likely go back up,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at the forecasting firm Oxford Economics. “Despite expectations for record-breaking growth in 2021, the job market is still quite fragile.”

Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas said Tuesday that the state was lifting all restrictions on business and eliminating its mask requirement, moves that drew criticism from President Biden. Elsewhere, officials have been more cautious — in Chicago, parks and playgrounds reopened, while in Massachusetts, capacity restrictions on restaurants have been lifted.

“The labor market is continuing to gradually improve,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West in San Francisco. “Job growth will accelerate, perhaps as soon as the second quarter, with decent gains in leisure and hospitality and travel.”

Even so, the number of new filers remains extremely high by historical standards, a sign of just how entrenched the pandemic remains one year after it first struck.

“We are still dealing with millions of unemployed Americans,” said Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group. “It’s going to take a long time to get back to normal, but job growth will be stronger as we head into the spring.”

Credit…Denis Balibouse/Reuters

The United States will suspend retaliatory tariffs against Britain for four months, including on Scotch whisky, arising from the longstanding trade dispute about subsidies for Boeing and Airbus. The two governments said they would use the time to try to come up with a long-term solution to the trade disagreement.

Since Britain left the European Union, it has sought to forge its own trade policy and secure a free-trade deal with the United States. On Jan. 1, the British government ended its retaliatory tariffs on Boeing and other goods, which were imposed by the European Union, in an effort to smooth over its relationship with the Biden administration. The decision essentially separated Britain from the dispute about aircraft subsidies between the European Union and United States. (That said, the U.S. trade representative argued Britain did not have the legal standing to keep imposing these tariffs outside the bloc.)

The tariff suspension is expected to help several types of British exporters, especially the Scotch whisky industry. In October 2019, a 25 percent tariff was placed on Scotch whisky and exports to the United States have since dropped 35 percent, costing companies more than £500 million (about $700 million), the industry’s trade group said. Cashmere and Stilton cheese producers will also benefit, the government said.

The decision “shows what the U.K. can do as an independent trading nation, striking deals that back our businesses and support free and fair trade,” Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister, said in a statement.

The suspension “will allow time to focus on negotiating a balanced settlement to the disputes, and begin seriously addressing the challenges posed by new entrants to the civil aviation market from nonmarket economies, such as China,” the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and British Department of International Trade said in a joint statement.

What did Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey talk about when they went yachting around the Hamptons together last summer? Perhaps only Beyoncé knows.

Maybe now we do, too. Square, the mobile payments company led by Mr. Dorsey, announced on Thursday its plan to acquire a “significant majority” of Tidal, the streaming music service owned by Jay-Z and other artists — including Beyoncé, Jay-Z’s wife, and Rihanna, who is a client of Jay-Z’s entertainment management company, Roc Nation.

Square will pay $297 million in stock and cash for the stake in Tidal. Jay-Z will join Square’s board.

Credit…Sam Hodgson for The New York TimesCredit…Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters

The announcement comes less than two weeks after Jay-Z announced that he would sell 50 percent of his champagne company, Armand de Brignac — better known as Ace of Spades — to LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton amid a downturn in the entertainment industry caused by the pandemic that has affected some of Jay-Z’s holdings.

“I think Roc Nation will be fine,” Jay-Z said in an interview last month about the sale of Armand de Brignac. “Like all entertainment companies, it will eventually recover. You just have to be smart and prudent at a time like this.”

Also last month, Mr. Dorsey, who is also the chief executive of Twitter, announced that he and Jay-Z had endowed a Bitcoin trust to support development in India and Africa.

Tidal, which Jay-Z bought in partnership with other artists in 2015 for $56 million, provides members access to music, music videos and exclusive content from artists, but the streaming music industry has been dominated by competitors like Spotify, Apple and Amazon.

In 2017, Jay-Z sold 33 percent of the company to Sprint for an undisclosed amount. (After a merger, Sprint is now a part of T-Mobile.) Earlier this week, Jay-Z bought back the shares from T-Mobile, and most will be sold to Square as part of the deal.

Mr. Dorsey and Jay-Z began to discuss the acquisition “a few months ago,” said Jesse Dorogusker, a Square executive who will lead Tidal on an interim basis.

“It started as a conversation between the two of them,” he said. “They found that sense of common purpose.”

Mr. Dorogusker said Square, which was founded in 2009, will offer financial tools to help Tidal’s artists collect revenue and manage their finances. “There are other tools they need to be successful and that we’re going to build for them,” he said.

Credit…Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Almost a year ago, on March 11, the World Health Organization officially declared that the spread of the coronavirus was a pandemic. Lockdowns and social distancing soon became a fact of life, and companies that rely on people gathering and moving around were hit hard.

But in recent weeks, many of these businesses have said they see signs that people are preparing to go out again: to the office, on vacation and elsewhere. Taken together, the DealBook newsletter notes, these indicators suggest that a reopening might be around the corner, as vaccines roll out, the weather changes or people simply seek out something new after so long in isolation. (Scientists say that people should be careful even after being vaccinated.)

Apparel. Richard Hayne, the chief executive of Urban Outfitters, told investors this week that its brands had recently been selling more “going out-type apparel.” In the last week of February, seven of Anthropologie’s top 10 sellers online were dresses, which may suggest that shoppers are preparing for life beyond Zoom. “Over the past year, we were lucky if they included one or two dresses,” Mr. Hayne said.

Concert tickets. “We’re feeling more optimistic than we were a month ago,” Live Nation’s chief executive, Michael Rapino, said on an earnings call last week. When the company recently released nearly 200,000 tickets for summer music festivals in Britain, they sold out in days.

Trips to Vegas. Tom Reeg, the chief executive of the casino giant Caesars Entertainment, told analysts that bookings were up 20 percent month on month. “It’s almost like a switch was flipped sometime late January, early February,” he said last week. Apollo Global Management’s co-head of private equity, David Sambur, cited these numbers when explaining the firm’s big bet on a Las Vegas recovery: the $6.25 billion acquisition of the Venetian casino and expo center announced on Wednesday.

Cruise bookings. Royal Caribbean’s chief executive, Michael Bayley, recently told investors that the company recorded a 30 percent jump in new bookings this year, compared with the last two months of 2020. A large share are people over 65, who are counting on being vaccinated soon, Mr. Bayley suggested. The company, which suspended most cruises through April, began a $1.5 billion stock sale this week.

Gym memberships. January was the first month that Planet Fitness saw a net increase in memberships since the pandemic began, according to Chris Rondeau, the gym chain’s chief. The uptick “reinforces our belief that people want to return to bricks-and-mortar fitness,” he told analysts.

But not movie tickets (yet). Alamo Drafthouse filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday, making it one of the most prominent movie chains to seek Chapter 11 protection during the pandemic. Still, it expressed some optimism, “because of the increase in vaccination availability, a very exciting slate of new releases and pent-up audience demand,” said Tim League, the company’s founder.

Credit…Pool photo by Susan Walsh

The market conniptions of recent days are a direct result of several developments that point to the brightening prospects of economic recovery. Vaccinations are rising, retail sales and industrial production have been surprisingly solid and, perhaps most important, the Biden administration is expected to push its $1.9 trillion stimulus plan through Congress in the coming days.

One clear consequence is expected to be strong growth. Wall Street economists now expect output to rise by nearly 5 percent in 2021. Such robust growth — it would be the best year for the economy since 1984 — would seem like a good thing for stocks.

But growth brings with it the possibility of rising inflation, which in turn could prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates — and that’s what investors are reacting to, with different consequences for the stock and bond markets, Matt Phillips reports for The New York Times.

Few economists see a significant risk of runaway inflation, but investors say that the mere possibility of painful price growth might drive the Fed to raise interest rates to tamp down the economy.

That would be bad for bond owners. If the Fed raised rates, rates around the bond market would climb. Then the price of bonds that investors hold would have to fall until they produced yields that were comparable to the new, higher rates in the market.

In expectation of that, investors are demanding a higher return now in the form of a higher yield on their bonds. Higher rates can be a problem for the stock market’s performance. One reason is that high interest rates make owning bonds more attractive, coaxing at least some dollars out of the stock market. Higher rates can also make borrowing more expensive for companies, especially smaller ones that have potential but lack a track record of profitability.

Credit…Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, including Russia, are expected to meet by videoconference on Thursday to consider a potential but by no means certain production increase of as much as 1.5 million barrels a day.

Analysts say the combined group, called OPEC Plus, could increase the supply of oil without undermining its price on global markets. After collapsing last spring, oil prices have risen to pre-pandemic levels in recent weeks, with Brent crude, the global benchmark, reaching nearly $67 a barrel in late February.

Vaccination programs against the coronavirus are gathering pace, potentially leading to increased economic activity and greater demand for oil this year. In addition, production growth from shale producers in the United States is expected to be restrained this year.

Petroleum heavyweights that are curtailing production, like Russia and the United Arab Emirates, would like to put some of that oil back on the market. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s de facto leader, continues to urge caution while apparently seeking even higher prices.

After January’s OPEC meeting, Saudi Arabia voluntarily agreed to cut its own production by one million barrels a day, to about 8.1 million barrels a day. That cut is scheduled to expire in April, and it remains uncertain what the Saudis will do. Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Saudi oil minister, clearly enjoys surprising the market and upending what he thinks are traders’ expectations.

On Wednesday, a preparatory technical committee meeting did not produce a formal recommendation, analysts say.

“Once again, it seems that Russia and U.A.E. are pressing for a collective OPEC Plus increase, while Saudi Arabia and Algeria are seeking to keep output unchanged for the time being,” Helima Croft, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, an investment bank, wrote in a note to clients.

In January, OPEC Plus reached an unusual compromise that allowed modest increases to Russia and Kazakhstan that were offset by the substantial cuts that Saudi Arabia volunteered after the meeting.

The outcome of the meeting on Thursday may depend once again on how much production the Saudis are willing to sacrifice to gain higher prices.

Credit…Joshua Lott for The New York Times

After 33 years as a shopping mall mainstay, Mickey Mouse is mostly calling it a day.

The Walt Disney Company said on Wednesday that it would dramatically downsize its chain of Disney Stores, which have struggled amid the pandemic and a broader consumer shift to online shopping. At least 60 locations in North America — 30 percent of the Disney Store footprint in the region — will close this year.

The company described the closures as the “beginning” of its downsizing effort. A significant number of overseas stores are also expected to close. According to its 2020 annual report, Disney has about 60 stores in Europe.

The Disney Store chain was founded in 1987 and once numbered more than 1,000 locations worldwide. For a time in the early 1990s, during a boom for shopping malls, Disney even experimented with an adjacent spinoff chain of Mickey’s Kitchen restaurants, where items included Dumbo burgers, Pinocchio pizzas and fries shaped like Donald Duck.

Disney redesigned many Disney Store locations in 2017 in an attempt to boost business, incorporating live video feeds from its theme parks and shifting the merchandise mix away from toys and toward fashion-conscious young adults. Results were mixed. In 2019, as shopping malls continued to struggle, Disney expanded its merchandising presence at Target stores, a move that analysts viewed as the beginning of the end for the stand-alone Disney Store business.

ShopDisney, the company’s online store, will expand over the next year and become more integrated with Disney’s theme park apps and social media platforms, according to Stephanie Young, president of Disney Consumer Products, Games and Publishing.

Stocks on Wall Street fell on Thursday, heading for a third-consecutive daily decline, led again by a drop in technology stocks.

The S&P 500 fell more than half a percent, following similar declines in the Stoxx Europe 600 and the FTSE 100. The three days of selling on Wall Street has left the S&P 500 down more than 2.5 percent.

The 10-year U.S. yield was at 1.46 percent on Thursday. Rising government bond yields have rattled tech stocks especially hard because they have been some of the biggest gainers over the past year and partly supported by central bank’s easy money policies. On Thursday, the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite fell more than 1 percent.

The market volatility has actually been caused by good news: an economic rebound, which investors worry will cause inflation. Few economists see a significant risk of runaway inflation, but investors say that the mere possibility of painful price growth might drive the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to tamp down a heated economy. And that would be bad for bonds.

Despite policymakers mostly brushing off the worries, more investors think the Fed might have to intervene. To address these worries, the Fed could buy the long-dated bonds where yields are rising or put in place a policy of yield curve control.

Credit…Pool photo by Michael Reynolds

Facebook said on Wednesday that it planned to lift its ban on political advertising across its network, resuming a form of digital promotion that has been criticized for spreading misinformation and falsehoods and inflaming voters. The social network said it would allow advertisers to buy new ads about “social issues, elections or politics” beginning on Thursday, according to a copy of an email sent to political advertisers and viewed by The New York Times.
Darren W. Woods, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, said in an interview before an annual presentation to investors that Exxon would try to set a goal for not emitting more greenhouse gases than it removed from the atmosphere, though he said it was still difficult to say when that might happen. Under pressure from activist investors, Exxon said this week that it was adding two new directors with no previous ties to fossil fuels to its board. The company recently said it would create a new business that captured carbon dioxide from industrial plants and buried it deep in the ground. It also recently invested in Global Thermostat, a company that aims to suck carbon dioxide out of the air.

Tags Live, market, Stock, Times, Updates, York

Politics

Capitol Police put together for potential militia plot in opposition to Congress

Post author By
Post date March 4, 2021

Capitol Police prepare for possible militia plot against Congress

The US Capitol Police Department said Wednesday it had received information showing a “possible conspiracy to breach the Capitol” on Thursday “by an unidentified militia group”.

“We take this information seriously,” said the Capitol Police in a press release that also said the authorities are prepared for possible violence.

“Due to the sensitive nature of this information, we cannot provide any additional details at this time.”

The warning came a day after the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI sent an intelligence bulletin to state and local law enforcement agencies warning that some domestic groups were “discussing plans to take control of the U.S. Capitol and Democratic lawmakers on or.” to remove March 4th “. “A senior police officer told NBC News on Wednesday.

The exposure of the potential threat comes almost two months after the Capitol uprising on Jan. 6, when thousands of supporters of then-President Donald Trump broke into the halls of Congress and disrupted the confirmation of President Joe Biden’s election.

Five people died in connection with the attack, including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick.

March 4th is considered a significant date by some extremists, especially among supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, as it was the date for the presidential inauguration until 1937. Some QAnon supporters believe that that day Trump can take back power.

The joint Homeland Security and FBI bulletin states that “domestic violent extremists” or “militia-violent extremists” were encouraged by the January 6 attack and are therefore at greater risk.

The bulletin states that extremists continue to “perceive electoral fraud and other conspiracy theories related to the presidential transition that can help (domestic violent extremists) mobilize to violence without warning”.

Trump has falsely claimed for months that he lost the election to Biden due to widespread election fraud. No such fraud was found.

The Capitol Police said in their statement on Wednesday that they “know and are prepared to face possible threats to members of Congress or the Capitol complex.”

“We have already made significant security improvements to ensure the creation of a physical structure and increase in the workforce to ensure the protection of Congress, the public and our police officers,” the police said in their statement.

“Our department is working with our local, state and federal partners to halt any threat to the Capitol.”

Tags Capitol, Congress, militia, plot, police, Prepare

Health

Her Eyelid Drooped and She Saved Getting Weaker. What Was Going On?

Post author By
Post date March 4, 2021

Her Eyelid Drooped and She Kept Getting Weaker. What Was Going On?

Three weeks later when she returned to her doctor, the patient still had not received the test. And now she had a new problem: her mouth felt weak. It was difficult to talk; Her voice was different. At the end of a short conversation, their words were reduced to whispers. She couldn’t smile and she couldn’t swallow. Sometimes when she drank water it came from her nose rather than her throat. It was strange. And scary.

Chen wasn’t there so she saw a colleague, Dr. Abhirami Janani Raveendran, who was also an intern. Raveendran had never seen MG either, but knew it could affect the muscles of the mouth and throat. She asked the patient to have a blood test and sent Keung a message informing him of the patient’s troublesome new symptoms and the possible diagnosis.

When Keung saw the news, he was alarmed. He agreed that these symptoms made myasthenia gravis a likely diagnosis. And a dangerous one: patients with MG can lose strength in the muscles of the throat and diaphragm and become too tired to breathe. He called the patient. He noticed that her voice was nasal and thin – signs of muscle weakness. She said she had no difficulty breathing, but Keung knew that could change. So he told her to go to the hospital immediately. He frightened her. He wanted it.

A series of minor shocks

After the patient received Keung’s urgent call, her daughter drove her to the emergency room at Yale New Haven Hospital and she was placed in the kneeling unit. This is the section for patients who are not sick enough to need the intensive care unit but may get to this point shortly. A technician would come in every few hours to measure the strength of her breathing. If it got too low, she would have to go to intensive care and maybe land on a breathing apparatus.

Keung wasn’t sure if the patient had myasthenia. Her eyelid was always droopy, her vision always double. With MG, he would expect these symptoms to worsen after using the muscle and improve after resting. And MG usually affected the muscles closest to the body. He would expect her shoulders to be weak, not her hands. Despite his uncertainty, he decided to start treatment for MG. He didn’t want to risk her getting any weaker. She was given high-dose steroids and intravenous immunoglobulins to suppress the parts of the immune system that attack the connection between her nerves and muscles.

The next day, Keung did a test that showed if the patient had MG. In the repeated nerve stimulation test, a tiny electrode is placed over the muscle, in this case the abductor digiti minimi, the muscle that moves the little finger. A series of small (and uncomfortable) shocks are delivered in rapid succession, causing the muscle to contract. In someone with normal nerves and muscles, every identical shock results in identical muscle contraction. In this patient, however, the first shocks produced weak contractions, and then they became even weaker. This charge is characteristic of MG. The blood test that Chen asked her to do was done at the hospital. It was positive. She had myasthenia gravis.

Tags Drooped, Eyelid, Weaker