Month: April 2021

Categories
Business

Totally Vaccinated Individuals Can Journey With Low Threat, C.D.C. Says

Fully Vaccinated Americans Can Travel With Low Risk, C.D.C. Says

Americans fully vaccinated against Covid-19 can travel safely domestically and abroad as long as they take basic precautions like wearing masks, federal health officials announced on Friday, a long-awaited change from the government’s dire warnings who have kept many millions at home for the past year.

Announcing the change at a press conference at the White House, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emphasized their preference for people not to travel. However, growing evidence of the effectiveness of vaccines given to more than 100 million Americans suggested that vaccinated people could do so “at little risk to themselves.”

The change in the official stance of the CDC comes at a moment of hope and danger in the pandemic. The pace of vaccination has accelerated rapidly across the country and the number of deaths has decreased.

However, in many states, cases are increasing significantly as new variants of the coronavirus spread across the country. Only last Monday, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the CDC director, facing a possible fourth wave if states and cities continue to ease public health restrictions, telling reporters that she feels “impending doom”.

Some public health experts were surprised by the announcement on Friday and expressed concern that the government is sending confusing signals to the public.

“It’s a mixture of ‘please don’t travel’ and at the same time it makes it easier for a subset of people to travel,” said Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. “I think it’s very confusing and contradicts the message we heard earlier this week: ‘stay seated’, ‘wait’, ‘be patient’. And that worries me. Public health messaging has to be very clear, very consistent, and very simple. “

Dr. Walensky himself appeared to acknowledge the apparent mixed message during Friday’s press conference. “Science shows us that full vaccination allows you to do more things safely, and it is important that we include this guide on rising cases as well, ”she said.

The travel industry welcomed the new guidelines in the hope that it could mark the beginning of a turnaround for airlines, hotels and destinations that have been suffering increasing losses for more than a year.

“When travel comes back, US jobs come back,” Roger Dow, executive director of the US Travel Association, an industry group, said in a statement.

Federal officials insisted that people who were not fully vaccinated should not travel at all, a position widely supported by public health experts.

Updated

April 1, 2021, 11:02 p.m. ET

“If you are fully vaccinated you can travel again. If not, there is still a lot of virus circulating and it is still a risky endeavor. You should defer until you are vaccinated or the situation improves,” said Caitlin Rivers, epidemiologist and assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

If unvaccinated people need to travel, the CDC recommends testing them for coronavirus infections one to three days before they travel and again three to five days after they travel. They should quarantine themselves for seven days if they are tested and ten days if they are not tested after a trip, the agency said.

People are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine or two weeks after receiving the second dose of the Pfizer BioNTech or Moderna shot. Around 58 million people in the US, 22 percent of the adult population, have been fully vaccinated, according to the latest figures from the CDC

Scientists are still not sure whether vaccinated people can even briefly get infected and spread the virus to others. A recent CDC study suggested that such cases might be rare, but until that issue is resolved, many public health officials feel it is unwise to tell vaccinated Americans to just do what they want. They say it is important that all people vaccinated continue to wear masks, practice social distancing, and take other precautions.

Under new CDC guidelines, fully vaccinated Americans traveling domestically are not required to be tested for the coronavirus or follow quarantine procedures at destination or upon their return. When traveling abroad, they only need to have a coronavirus test or quarantine if the country they are traveling to requires.

However, the guidelines state that they must have a negative coronavirus test before returning to the United States and that they should be retested three to five days after they return.

The recommendation is based on the idea that vaccinated people can still be infected with the virus. The CDC also noted the lack of vaccine supplies in other countries and concerns about the possible introduction and spread of new variants of the virus, which are more common overseas.

Most states have shortened their deadlines for opening vaccinations to all adults as the pace of vaccination has increased across the country. As of Friday, an average of nearly three million shots a day were being administered, according to the CDC

The new advice complements the CDC recommendations issued in early March that fully vaccinated individuals can gather in small groups in private settings without masks or social distancing and visit unvaccinated individuals from a single household as long as they are at low risk of developing serious illness if with infected by the virus.

Travel has already increased nationwide as the weather warms and Americans tire of pandemic restrictions. Last Sunday was the busiest day at domestic airports since the pandemic began. According to the Transportation Security Administration, nearly 1.6 million people passed security checks at American airports.

But industry concerns are far from over. The pandemic has also shown companies large and small that their employees can often work remotely as productively as in face-to-face meetings. As a result, the aviation and hospitality industries expect it will be years before lucrative business travel bounces back to pre-epidemic levels and leaves a gaping hole in revenue.

And while vacation travel in the US may be steadily recovering, airlines expect it to take until 2023 or 2024 for passenger traffic to hit 2019 levels, according to Airlines for America, an industry group. The industry lost more than $ 35 billion in the past year and continues to lose tens of millions of dollars every day, the group said.

Many countries, including those in the European Union, are still preventing most Americans from coming. Some are starting to make exceptions for those who are vaccinated. Starting March 26, Americans who can show proof of vaccination will be able to visit Iceland and avoid restrictions like testing and quarantine, according to the country’s government

The CDC also issued more detailed technical instructions for cruise lines on Thursday, urging them to take action to develop vaccination strategies and make plans for routine crew tests and daily reporting of Covid-19 cases before simulating test runs of You can travel with volunteers before accepting real passengers. The CDC guidelines recognize that cruises “always present some risk of spreading Covid-19”.

Some destinations and cruise lines already require travelers to be fully vaccinated. The Royal Caribbean cruise line requires passengers and crew 18+ to be vaccinated to board their ships, as do Virgin Voyages, Crystal Cruises, and others.

Currently, airlines do not require vaccinations to travel. But the idea has been talked about a lot in the industry.

Niraj Chokshi contributed to the coverage.

Categories
Health

Every day U.S. knowledge on March 30, 2021

Daily U.S. data on March 30, 2021

Amid growing fears of a fourth wave of US Covid-19 cases, government officials urged Americans to continue taking precautions to prevent the virus from spreading.

During a press conference on Monday, the director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Rochelle Walensky said she had a feeling of “impending doom” and urged the Americans to “hold out just a little longer”. Later that day, President Joe Biden said the “war on Covid-19 is far from over”. He condemned behaviors that could spread infection and said some states should suspend their reopening plans.

At the same time, a new CDC study of vaccinated health care workers showed that one dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine was 80% effective in preventing coronavirus infections and 90% two weeks after the second dose. The pace of daily vaccinations is close to 3 million shots per day.

US Covid cases

About 66,000 new Covid cases are reported daily in the U.S. based on a 7-day average of Johns Hopkins University data that has ticked up. That number is well below the January high of around 250,000 cases per day, but more in line with the summer increase when daily cases hit close to 70,000 in late July.

Cases are increasing by 5% or more in more than half of the US states based on the change in the 7-day average of daily cases from a week ago.

US Covid deaths

According to Hopkins data, the US reports a weekly average of 990 Covid deaths per day. In total, more than 550,000 US coronavirus deaths have been reported.

US vaccine shots administered

Almost 2.4 million vaccine shots were administered on Monday, bringing the 7-day average of daily vaccinations to 2.8 million, a record level.

Biden said Monday that 90% of adults in the US will be eligible for Covid shots by April 19.

“For the vast majority of adults, you don’t have to wait until May 1st. You can be eligible for your shot on April 19th,” said Biden

US percentage of the vaccinated population

CDC data shows that 95 million people, nearly 30% of the US population, received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine. About 53 million are fully vaccinated with two shots of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or one shot of Johnson & Johnson.

About half of those over 65 are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

CNBC’s Noah Higgins-Dunn and Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.

Categories
Business

United Airways tells employees it is hiring a whole bunch of pilots for journey restoration

United Airlines tells staff it's hiring hundreds of pilots for travel recovery

A United Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft lands at San Francisco International Airport.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

United Airlines announced Thursday that hundreds of pilots will soon be hired – a process the airline had to stop when the coronavirus pandemic destroyed demand for travel last year. This comes from an internal email that has been checked by CNBC.

The Chicago-based airline is the first of the major US carriers to announce that it will resume hiring pilots. This is the latest sign that she is preparing for a recovery. The airline will begin hiring approximately 300 pilots who had contingent vacancies or training scheduled last year before the airline abandoned the hiring.

Over the past year, airlines, including United, have urged thousands of workers to take advantage of buyouts, early retirement packages, and leave of absence in an effort to cut costs during the pandemic. United and its pilots union – the Air Line Pilots Association – reached an agreement last year to avoid vacation with their pilots, including reduced hours for some junior pilots, even though they face lower guarantees due to government aid.

Congress included a third round of federal airline payrolls that bans job cuts through September 30 as part of the $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package last month. As of March 2020, lawmakers have provided $ 54 billion in grants and loans to airlines to pay workers during the crisis.

US airlines combined lost $ 35 billion last year, but expect bookings to grow steadily as more people are vaccinated and more comfortable boarding planes.

“With vaccination rates increasing and the demand for travel increasing, I am pleased to announce that United will resume the pilot recruitment process that was halted last year,” wrote Bryan Quigley, United’s senior vice president of flight operations on Thursday in a staff note watched by CNBC. “We’re starting with the 300 or so pilots who either had a new recruitment class appointment that was canceled, or who had a conditional vacancy in 2020.”

The demand for air travel has increased recently. The Transportation Security Administration examined an average of 1.2 million people a day last month, up 15% from last year when the pandemic and stay-at-home orders halted almost all travel.

Last month’s volume is still below half of March 2019 levels, with business and international travel still largely stalling, but demand for recreational activities is starting to rise. Scott Kirby, United CEO, told an industry conference on Wednesday that domestic leisure demand has recovered almost entirely.

“I’m particularly excited that we were able to protect our people during this disaster,” said Todd Insler, chairman of the United Chapter of the Air Line Pilots Association and United captain of the pandemic. He said if the company had been on vacation it would have been much harder to capitalize on the recovery of the trip.

Like United, other airlines see a need for additional staff, especially pilots, whose training is costly and time-consuming.

Spirit Airlines announced last month that the hiring of pilots and flight attendants was resuming, while other low-cost airlines, Allegiant Air and Sun Country Airlines, are also anticipating hiring this year.

Categories
Politics

Border Apprehensions Attain Highest Degree in at Least 15 Years

Border Apprehensions Reach Highest Level in at Least 15 Years

Authorities have dropped families with children at bus stops in border communities, where they continue their journey north to meet relatives in the United States. Border officials encountered more than 1,360 migrants traveling as part of families on Sunday and only displaced 219 according to records. On March 26, more than 2,100 families were arrested and only 200 were sent back south.

“We see that the numbers are increasing day by day. They have increased tremendously, especially in March, ”said Hugo Zurita, general manager of the Good Neighbor Settlement House in Brownsville, Texas, which provides hot meals and items such as clothing, hand sanitizer and masks to migrant families in the city at Bus Stop.

Republican Congressmen, who vowed to put the issue at the center of their efforts to regain control of Congress, have repeatedly accused the government of spurring the surge in migration with the promise of President Biden to have more compassionate policies on migrants than those imposed under President Donald J. Trump card.

“They will certainly use this as a weapon against us,” said Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas. “It does Biden’s good work. He did a hell of a job with vaccines. It kept us from the news we had. “

Biden’s government continued to apply a pandemic emergency rule to quickly expel single adults, who continued to make up the majority of those detained at the border in March. Immigrant attorneys criticized the rule as a violation of immigration laws that allow migrants to apply for asylum when they reach US soil.

The White House has spoken to at least one member of Congress about the possibility of deporting 16- and 17-year-olds to Mexico, according to one person familiar with the discussions.

The government has also focused its response on addressing the root causes of migration, appointing Vice President Kamala Harris to work with leaders in the region to boost Central America’s economy, and restarting an Obama-era program, which some children may apply to their home region for permission to live with a parent or other relative in the United States.

Categories
Business

An Argument for Investing The place the Return Is Social Change

An Argument for Investing Where the Return Is Social Change

Achieving a market return is something investors are comfortable with, but a lower return makes it harder to attract enough investors, said Trenton Allen, executive director and chief executive officer of Sustainable Capital Advisors. “It’s not impossible,” he said. “But you’re reducing the number of investors you have access to.”

Traditional impact investors also argue that different returns are already being accepted for different investments. Consider bond-like returns for fixed income risk types.

“Impact investing is a big tent and should be a big tent,” said Nancy Pfund, managing partner at DBL Partners, an impact venture capital fund. “The challenge is that we shouldn’t cloud the water and think that impact-first is the only type of investment. We also don’t want to step back and grapple with prejudices about returns that we’ve been fighting against for at least 10 years. “

Even those who have taken this approach agree that it is a luxury.

“When organizational priority has an impact, it’s a privilege, but you must be deeply risk-tolerant,” said Margot Kane, chief investment officer of Spring Point Partners, a Philadelphia-based social venture fund founded by the Berwind family. whose wealth goes back to the coal mining industry in the 19th century.

For anyone looking to strike a balance, here are the two most important questions: How do you determine whether an investment qualifies as an impact first? And since impact, not return, is the main motivator, how do you measure it?

Let’s start with the selection.

“One of the things that we ask ourselves in due diligence on any of these projects is, ‘Is this a really great catalytic investment, or a very bad market price investment?'” Said Liesel Pritzker Simmons, co-founder and director of the Blue Haven Initiative and a family member whose wealth comes from Hyatt Hotels.

“In all honesty, it usually comes down to the problem you are trying to solve, and is the nature of that solution over-scalable or not?” She said.

Categories
World News

‘Mommy, I Have Dangerous Information’: For Younger Migrants, Mexico Can Be the Finish of the Street

‘Mommy, I Have Bad News’: For Young Migrants, Mexico Can Be the End of the Road

Thousands of young migrants, mostly from Central America, make their way to the border, many hoping to meet parents in the United States. But for those caught in Mexico, there is only one near-safe deportation.

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico – The children rushed out of a white van, dazed and tired, rubbing the sleep from their eyes.

They had been heading north without their parents, hoping to cross the border into the United States.

You never made it.

Arrested by Mexican immigration officials, they were taken to a shelter for unaccompanied minors in Ciudad Juarez, marched in a single file, and lined up on a wall for processing. For them, this facility is the closest to the United States about a mile from the border.

“‘Mom, I have bad news for you,'” one of the girls at the shelter, Elizabeth, 13, from Honduras, recalled telling her mother over the phone. “‘Don’t cry, but Mexican immigration got me.'”

The minors at the shelter are part of a growing wave of migrants hoping for a way to the United States, also because they see President Biden as more tolerant of immigration issues than his predecessor Donald J. Trump. Border officials encountered more than 170,000 migrants in March, according to the New York Times. This is an increase of almost 70 percent compared to February and the highest monthly total since 2006.

Of these migrants, more than 18,700 unaccompanied minors were detained at border crossings, almost twice as many as in February and more than five times as many as 3,490 in February 2020, the documents showed.

If they make it across the border, unaccompanied minors can try to take their case to the American authorities, go to school and one day find work and help relatives at home. Some can reunite with the parents waiting there.

But for those caught before crossing the border, the long road north ends in Mexico.

If they are from other parts of the country, as a growing number is due to the economic burden of the pandemic, a relative can pick them up and take them home.

But most of them are from Central America, fueled by lives that have become unsustainable through poverty, violence, natural disasters, and the pandemic, and encouraged by the promise of the Biden government to take a more generous approach to immigration.

They will often wait months in shelters in Mexico for precautions to be taken. Then they are deported.

The journey north is not easy and the young migrants who face it have to grow up quickly.

At the shelter, most are teenagers, but some are only 5 years old. When traveling alone, without parents – in groups of children or with a relative or family friend – they may come across criminal networks that often take advantage of migrants and border officials determined to stop them. But they keep trying by the thousands.

“For economic reasons, there is a great flow and it will not stop until people’s lives in these countries improve,” said José Alfredo Villa, director of the Nohemí Álvarez Quillay shelter for unaccompanied minors in Ciudad Juárez.

In 2018, 1,318 children were admitted to emergency shelters for unaccompanied minors in Ciudad Juárez, local authorities said. By 2019, the number had risen to 1,510, although it had dropped to 928 last year due to the pandemic.

In the first two and a half months of this year, however, the number rose to 572 – a rate that, if left, would far exceed the total achieved in 2019, the highest year ever recorded.

When minors enter the shelter, their schooling stops and staff cannot provide instruction for so many from different countries and with different educational backgrounds. Instead, the minors fill their days with art classes, in which they often draw or paint photos of their home countries. They watch TV, play in the yard or do the housework so that the shelter runs like laundry.

The scene in Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, tells only part of a story that takes place along the nearly 2,000 mile border.

Elizabeth, the 13-year-old from Villanueva, Honduras, said when Mexican authorities arrested her in early March, she thought of her mother in Maryland and how disappointed she would be.

When she called from the shelter, her mother was delighted at first and thought she had crossed, Elizabeth said; When she heard the news, her mother burst into tears.

“I told her not to cry,” Elizabeth said. “We’d meet again.”

The New York Times agreed to use the middle names of all unaccompanied minors surveyed to protect their identities. Her family circumstances and the outline of her cases have been confirmed by officials at the shelter who are in contact with her relatives and the authorities in their countries to arrange for their deportation.

If Elizabeth had made it across the river to Texas, her life would be different now. Even if she had been arrested by United States Customs and Border Protection, she would have been released by her mother and given a court hearing to present her asylum application.

The success of her asylum application would not be a given. In 2019, 71 percent of all cases involving unaccompanied minors led to deportation orders. But many never come to their hearings; They evade the authorities and slip into the population in order to lead a life of flight.

For the majority of minors in the shelter, being caught in Mexico means only one thing: deportation to their home country in Central America.

According to Mr Villa, the director of the shelter, around 460 minors were deported from emergency shelters in Juárez in the first three months of the year. And they often wait for months while Mexican officials routinely struggle to win cooperation from Central American countries to coordinate deportations, he said.

Elizabeth has no idea who will take care of her when she is sent back to Honduras. Her father left the family when she was born, she said, and the grandmother she lived with is dying.

When Elizabeth’s mom left in 2017, she broke it, she said.

The mother had taken out loans to help Elizabeth. When loan sharks came after the family requesting the repayment, they went to the United States to look for work, Elizabeth said.

“When my mother left, I felt my heart go, my soul,” she said and cried.

Elizabeth’s mother got a good job landscaping in Maryland and wanted to spare her daughter the treacherous trip to the United States. But when the grandmother was no longer able to take care of Elizabeth due to her health, it was the girl’s turn to say goodbye.

Elizabeth said she doubted if she would ever see her grandmother again.

In early March, Elizabeth reached the Rio Grande on Mexico’s northern border. She began wading towards Texas when local authorities caught her and pulled her out of the water.

Mexican immigration officials took her to the Nohemí Álvarez Quillay shelter, named after an Ecuadorian girl who died of suicide in 2014 after being imprisoned at another shelter in Juarez. She was 12 years old and on her way to reuniting with parents who had lived in the Bronx since childhood.

In mid-March, two weeks after her arrival, Elizabeth celebrated her 13th birthday at the shelter.

When the shelter’s staff were cutting the cake for Elizabeth – minors are prohibited from handling sharp objects – three other children were dropped off by immigration authorities just hours after the eight that had arrived that morning. They watched cartoons while waiting for the shelter officials to register them.

Elizabeth’s best friend since arriving, Yuliana, 15, had been by her side and was arrested by Mexican authorities in December when she tried to cross the border with her 2-year-old cousin and pull by the hand of her 4-year-old . old cousin. Yuliana is from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, one of the most violent cities in the world.

Both girls said they saw parents struggle to put food on the table before making the tough decision to immigrate to the United States. And both felt that their failure to cross them had raised the enormous expectations that had been placed of them: reuniting with a lonely parent, going to work, and sending money to family members left behind.

Home is no place for girls – Honduras or the United States. Home is where their families are. They want to be there.

“My dream is to get ahead and raise my family,” said Yuliana. “It is the first to help my mother and my brothers. My family.”

The day she left San Pedro Sula to join her father in Florida, she said her mother made a promise to her.

“She asked me never to forget her,” said Yuliana. “And I replied that I never could because I would go for her.”

Categories
Health

Covid-19 Vaccine Facet Results: Your Questions Answered

Covid-19 Vaccine Side Effects: Your Questions Answered

Almost three million people in the United States receive the Covid-19 vaccine every day. And each new burst raises new questions about what to expect after vaccination.

Last week I asked readers to send me their questions about vaccinations. Here are some of the answers.

Short-lived side effects such as fatigue, headache, muscle pain, and fever are more common after the second dose of the Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, which each require two shots. (The Johnson & Johnson vaccine only requires a single shot.) Patients who experience uncomfortable side effects after the second dose often describe feeling like they have a bad flu and use phrases like “it blew me out” or ” I was useless for two days. “During vaccine studies, patients were advised to take a few days off after the second dose, just in case they had to spend a day or two in bed.

The data collected by v-safe, the app that anyone can use to track side effects after vaccination, also shows an increase in reported side effects after the second dose. For example, about 29 percent of people reported fatigue after the first Pfizer BioNTech shot, but that increased to 50 percent after the second dose. The muscle pain increased from 17 percent after the first shot to 42 percent after the second. While only about 7 percent of people had chills and a fever after the first dose, that number rose to about 26 percent after the second dose.

The New York Times interviewed several dozen of the people who were newly vaccinated in the following days. They reported a wide range of reactions, from no reaction to symptoms such as uncontrolled tremors and “brain fog”. While these experiences are not pleasant, they are a sign that your own immune system is having a strong response to the vaccine.

An analysis of the first 13.7 million Covid-19 vaccine doses given to Americans found that side effects were more common in women. While severe reactions to the Covid vaccine are rare, almost all cases of anaphylaxis or life-threatening allergic reactions have occurred in women.

The finding that women are more likely to report and experience unpleasant side effects from the Covid vaccine is consistent with other vaccines as well. Women and girls after flu vaccinations and vaccines against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) and hepatitis A and B can produce up to twice as many antibodies. One study found that in nearly three decades, women accounted for 80 percent of all anaphylactic diseases in adults.

Although women report side effects more often than men, the higher rate of side effects in women also has a biological explanation. Estrogen can stimulate an immune response, while testosterone can weaken it. In addition, there are many immune-related genes on the X chromosome, of which women have two copies and men only one. These differences may explain why far more women than men suffer from autoimmune diseases, which occur when a robust immune response attacks healthy tissues in the body. You can read more about women and vaccine side effects here.

Side effects get all the attention, but when you look at data from vaccine clinical trials and the real world, you will find that many people don’t experience side effects beyond an aching arm. In the Pfizer vaccine studies, about one in four patients reported no side effects. In the Moderna studies, 57 percent of patients (64 or younger) reported side effects after the first dose – these jumped to 82 percent after the second dose, meaning that almost one in five patients reported no reaction after the second shot.

A lack of side effects doesn’t mean the vaccine isn’t working, said Dr. Paul Offit, professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccine Advisory Board. Dr. Offit found that a significant number of people reported no side effects during the vaccine trials, and yet the studies showed that around 95 percent of people were protected. “That proves you don’t have to have side effects to be protected,” he said.

Nobody really knows why some people have a lot of side effects and others don’t. We know that younger people develop a stronger immune response to vaccines than older people, whose immune systems become weaker as they get older. Women usually have stronger immune responses than men. But even these differences don’t mean you aren’t protected if you don’t feel a lot after the shot.

Scientists still aren’t sure how effective the vaccines are in people whose immune systems may be weakened by certain conditions, such as cancer treatments, HIV infection, or because they are taking immunosuppressive drugs. However, most experts believe that the vaccines still offer these patients some protection against Covid-19.

Updated

April 1, 2021, 11:02 p.m. ET

The bottom line is that although individual immune responses can vary, the data collected so far shows that all three US-approved vaccines – Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson – are effective against serious illness and death from Covid-19 .

You shouldn’t try to prevent discomfort by taking a pain reliever before receiving the shot. The concern is that premedication with a pain reliever like acetaminophen (Tylenol) or ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), which can prevent side effects like arm pain, as well as fever or headache, could also weaken your body’s immune response.

While it’s possible that taking a pain reliever before your shots may have dampened your body’s immune response, vaccine experts say you shouldn’t worry and shouldn’t try to get another shot. Studies of other vaccines suggest that while premedication can reduce the body’s immune response to a vaccine, your immune system can build strong enough defenses to fight infection. A review of studies involving more than 5,000 children compared antibody levels in children who took pain relievers before and after vaccinations and in children who did not. They found that pain medication had no significant effect on the immune response and that children in both groups produced adequate levels of antibodies after their shots.

The high effectiveness of all Covid vaccines suggests that even if taking Tylenol before the shot weakens your body’s immune response, there is some margin and you are likely still well protected against Covid-19. “You should feel reassured that you have enough immune response to be protected, especially with vaccines that are this good,” said Dr. Offit.

“It’s okay to treat side effects with pain relievers,” said Dr. Offit, but if you don’t really need one, “don’t take it”.

While most experts believe it is safe to take a pain reliever to relieve post-vaccination discomfort, they do not recommend taking it preventively after the shot or if your symptoms are manageable without the drug. The concern about taking an unnecessary pain reliever is that it may weaken some of the effects of the vaccine. (In terms of vaccine, there is no significant difference if you choose acetaminophen or ibuprofen.)

During the Moderna study, about 26 percent of people took acetaminophen to reduce side effects, and the vaccine’s overall effectiveness was still 94 percent.

Research and individual reports suggest that people with a previously diagnosed Covid-19 infection may react more strongly and experience more side effects after their first dose of vaccine than people who have never been infected with the virus. A strong reaction to your first dose of vaccine could also be a sign that you were previously infected, even if you weren’t aware of it.

If you’ve previously tested positive for Covid-19 or had a positive antibody blood test, be prepared for a stronger reaction to your first dose and plan a few days off just in case. Not only will it be more convenient to stay at home and rest in bed, the vaccine side effects may be similar to symptoms of Covid-19, and your staff won’t want to be around you anyway.

Studies suggest that a dose might be appropriate for people with a previously confirmed case of Covid-19, but medical guidelines have not changed so far. If you received the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, you should plan to receive your second dose, even if you have had Covid-19. Skipping your second dose can cause problems if your employer or airline requests proof of vaccination in the future. If you live in an area where Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine is available, you can be fully vaccinated after just one dose. Read more about the vaccine response in people with Covid-19 here.

The vaccines appear to be effective against a new variant that originated in the UK and is rapidly dominating the US. However, some variants of the coronavirus, especially one first identified in South Africa and one in Brazil, appear to be better able to evade antibodies in vaccinated individuals.

That sounds worrying, but there is reason to be hopeful. Vaccinated individuals exposed to a more resistant variant still appear to be protected from serious diseases. And scientists have a sufficiently clear understanding of the variants that they are already working on to develop booster shots that target the variants. The variants identified in South Africa and Brazil are not yet widespread in the United States.

People who are vaccinated should continue to wear masks in public and follow public health guidelines, but they shouldn’t live in fear of variations, said Dr. Peter J. Hotez, Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “If you are vaccinated you should feel pretty sure how protected you are,” said Dr. Hotez. “It is unlikely that you will ever go to a hospital or intensive care unit with Covid-19. In time, you will see a recommendation for a booster. “

I hope these answers will reassure you about your own vaccine experience. For a more complete list of questions and answers, see our dedicated vaccine tool, “Answers to All Your Covid-19 Vaccination Questions”.

Categories
Entertainment

Malcolm Cecil, Synthesizer Pioneer, Is Lifeless at 84

Malcolm Cecil, Synthesizer Pioneer, Is Dead at 84

Malcolm Cecil, a UK-born bassist with the soul of an engineer who revolutionized electronic music by helping create a giant analog synthesizer that gave a new sound to Stevie Wonder’s albums, died Sunday in a Valhalla hospital, NY. He was 84 years old.

His son Milton said the cause was not yet clear.

Mr Cecil, a talkative man with a curly head, had played double bass in jazz bands in England and was night maintenance engineer at Mediasound Studios in Manhattan in 1968 when he met Robert Margouleff, a film and record producer he owned and owned and operated a moog there -Synthesizer.

“He said, ‘Robert, if you show me how to play the synthesizer, I’ll teach you how to be a top-notch sound engineer,” Margouleff said in a telephone interview.

They started designing and building what would become the Original New Timbral Orchestra or TONTO. Starting with the Moog and adding other synthesizers and a collection of modules, some of which were designed by Mr. Cecil, they created a massive semicircular device that took up a small space and weighed a ton. It could be programmed to produce a variety of original tones and to modify and process the sounds of traditional musical instruments.

While developing it, Mr. Cecil and Mr. Margouleff recorded an album entitled “Zero Time” (1971) under the name of TONTO’s Expanding Head Band.

Timothy Crouse wrote about Zero Time in Rolling Stone: “How to take acid and discover that your mind has the power to stop your heart, the realization that this instrument can do all sorts of things to you now that you have it it has you is troubling. “

The album caught the attention of Mr. Wonder, who had just turned 21 when he appeared on Mediasound over Memorial Day weekend in 1971. Mr. Cecil lived in an apartment above the studio so he could fix anything that could go wrong, day or night.

“I get a ringtone,” Cecil told the Red Bull Music Academy in 2014. There’s my friend Ronnie and a guy who turns out to be Stevie Wonder in a green pistachio jumpsuit and what my album looks like under his arm. Ronnie says, ‘Hey Malcolm, has someone here who wants to see TONTO.’ “

What began as a demonstration by TONTO for Mr. Wonder turned out to be a weekend-long recording experiment. Seventeen songs were recorded and a collaboration was born.

Over the next three years, TONTO became an important sound element of Mr. Wonder’s music on the 1972 albums “Music of My Mind” and “Talking Book” and their successors “Innervisions” (1973) and First Finale of Fulfillment (1974).

In an interview with the music website Okayplayer in 2019, Mr. Cecil described part of the creative process behind the recording of “Evil”, the final track of “Music of My Mind”.

“When you hear ‘Evil’ it has a fantastic opening that is all TONTO and the sound was classic,” he said. “There was an oboe sound. There was a horn sound and a foreboding bass. “He added,” When Stevie wanted something, he explained what he was hearing in his head and we tried to get it as specific as possible. “

The experience with Mr. Wonder was, said Mr. Margouleff, “very much in the moment; nothing was planned in advance. It was all intuitive and wonderful. “

Mr. Cecil and Mr. Margouleff won the Grammy Award for their development of “Innervisions”, which included the hits “Living in the City” and “Higher Ground”. Mr. Wonder won Grammys that year for Album of the Year and Best Rhythm and Blues Song for “Superstition,” which mixed Mr. Wonder’s drums and clavinet play with a funky TONTO bass sound.

The partnership of Mr. Cecil and Mr. Margouleff with Mr. Wonder ended after four albums.

“We never brought the business part of our relationship with Stevie together,” said Margouleff. “Business problems have made our relationship untenable.”

A year later, Margouleff and Cecil split after technical difficulties during Billy Preston’s live appearance by TONTO on the NBC music show “Midnight Special”.

Malcolm Ian Cecil was born in London on January 9, 1937. His mother, Edna (Aarons) Cecil, was an accordionist who played in bands, including one that was all women, and maintained troops during World War II. His father David was a concert organizer who also worked as a professional clown under the name Windy Blow. They divorced when Malcolm was very young.

Malcolm started playing the piano at the age of 3 and began playing drums a little later. As a teenager he started playing the double bass and was soon playing in jazz clubs. He studied physics at the London Polytechnic for a year before joining the Royal Air Force in 1958. His three years as a radar operator prepared him for future studio work.

After his release he was the house bass player in the nightclub of saxophonist Ronnie Scott in London, where he played with American musicians such as Stan Getz and JJ Johnson. a member of Alexis Korners Blues Incorporated, a band whose evolving line-up included Charlie Watts and Jack Bruce; and the solo bassist of the BBC Radio Orchestra. He also had a shop that set up sound systems and other equipment for musicians.

Mr. Cecil suffered from collapsed lungs and decided he needed a warmer climate. He moved to South Africa where he continued to play bass. But he didn’t like living in the midst of apartheid.

He sailed for San Francisco in 1967 and then went to Los Angeles, where he spent a year as a chief engineer in Pat Boone’s recording studio. He later moved to New York City, where he worked at the Record Plant for six weeks before joining Mediasound as a maintenance engineer.

He admired the Moog Synthesizer IIIc in Mediasound, but only met Mr. Margouleff on his fifth night there. They quickly began recording experimental psychedelic music together, and six months later jazz flautist Herbie Mann signed them to his Embryo label.

The first track they recorded for their album “Zero Time” was “Aurora” which was originally 23 minutes long. “I said, ‘Malcolm, I’m not even sure it’s music,'” Margouleff recalled. They cut its length by two thirds.

Mr. Cecil and Mr. Margouleff made TONTO the most advanced synthesizer in music. It was mostly used in its heyday in the 1970s for recording Richie Havens, the Doobie Brothers, James Taylor, Quincy Jones, Joan Baez, Little Feat, and others.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Mr. Cecil produced several Gil Scott-Heron albums and produced or constructed albums by the Isley Brothers, Ginger Baker, Dave Mason and other artists. He also played bass on Mr. Scott-Heron’s 1994 album “Spirits”. Mr. Margouleff went on to produce the rock band Devo.

TONTO’s Expanding Head Band released another album in 1974, “It’s About Time”. “Tonto Rides Again,” a digitally remastered compilation of the previous two albums, was released in 1996.

“Margouleff and Cecil were about 30 years ahead of their time when they started this project,” wrote Jim Brenholts in a review of “Tonto Rides Again” on AllMusic.

In addition to his son Milton, Mr. Cecil is survived by his wife Poli (Franks) Cecil.

TONTO had several homes in New York City, including Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios; It also spent time in Los Angeles and in a converted barn owned by Mr. Cecil in the Hudson River town of Saugerties, NY

In 2013, TONTO was acquired by the National Music Center in Calgary, Alberta, where it was restored and its effects celebrated in a five-day event in 2018. A Tribe Called Red, a Canadian electronic music duo that TONTO admires and contemplates an influence performed there, and Mr. Cecil gave a demonstration.

One member of the band, Ehren Thomas, compared TONTO to the combination of spaceship and time machine in a long-running British TV series.

“It’s like the Tardis in Doctor Who,” he told the CBC, “because you can’t program it to do anything. You can set up the parameters and ask TONTO to do what you want , but what comes out of it is beyond your control. “

Categories
Business

How a lot does it value to work in Bali, Croatia, Jamaica and Barbados

How much does it cost to work in Bali, Croatia, Jamaica and Barbados

Google may call people back to the office, but many other companies – not to mention entrepreneurs – continue to advocate remote working.

From Croatia to Barbados, destinations offer very different experiences to foreigners looking to work on new shores. The weather is usually better (excluding hurricanes) and the cost can be cheaper (excluding imported goods).

But life isn’t an Instagram photo, warned a digital nomad who spoke to CNBC Global Traveler about living and working abroad.

Bali, Indonesia

Name: Jubril Agoro
From: Chicago

After more than a decade of living as a digital nomad in Thailand, Colombia and Africa, Agoro came to Bali in December 2020. He chose the Indonesian island for one reason: the people who live there.

“The people of Bali are some of the friendliest, calmest ghosts I have ever met,” London-born Agoro told CNBC. “Plus, the cost of living here is about a quarter of what I paid for a similar lifestyle in Miami.”

Agoro and four members of his team run a travel documentation company called Passport Heavy out of a large mansion manned by a cook, a personal trainer, a housekeeper and a mansion manager.

“We have all of these people so we can really work efficiently and not really have to go,” he said.

Agoro gave two examples of monthly expenses remote workers can expect:

1. Budget or solo lifestyle

  • Nice apartment – $ 500
  • Scooter – $ 70
  • Gas – $ 10
  • Eat out – $ 300
  • Gym Membership – $ 40
  • Entertainment – $ 200
  • Weekly massages – $ 7

2. “Six-digit” lifestyle

  • Villa – $ 1,000
  • Improved motorcycle – $ 170
  • Gas – $ 20
  • Eating out – $ 600- $ 700
  • Nicer Gym Membership with Group Classes – $ 150
  • Entertainment – $ 1,000
  • Weekly massage – $ 30

Although Bali is still closed to international tourists and there is no official program for remote workers, there is a community of digital nomads in Bali, some of whom arrive on investment visas or at the invitation of the government, Agoro said. Others are finding ways to circumvent immigration regulations, the Singapore digital newspaper Today reports.

Shipping isn’t ideal (“there’s no Amazon Prime”) and can be expensive, said Agoro, who paid $ 85 to get a replacement credit card shipped from the US. Nevertheless, he loves Bali’s balanced lifestyle and its reserved manner.

Ubud, Uluwatu and Canggu are popular with remote workers in Bali, said Agoro, who chose Canggu for its “many cafes, beach clubs, great internet, fantastic restaurants and gyms.” [and] Yoga studios. “

Courtesy Jubril Agoro

“You can’t tell the difference between someone who has $ 10 million and someone who has $ 482 in their bank account,” he said.

He warned people not to get “bogged down” by Instagram highlights and said most remote workers “sit on laptops and tweak things … work just as hard as people around the world.”

Agoro originally planned to stay a year but will likely stay two, he said.

“I’m like most people who come to Bali,” said Agoro. “I’ll stay here as long as I can because I’m living my best life.”

Barbados

Name: David Esposito
From: New Hampshire, USA

When his employer switched to remote working for the whole of 2021, Esposito decided to apply to live in Barbados even though he had never been before.

Seeing “a golden opportunity”, he applied for a 12-month Barbados Welcome Stamp, a process he describes as very straightforward. The application took no more than 15 minutes and it was approved about 10 days later, he said.

He arrived in February 2021 and lives in an “amazing Airbnb apartment” in Atlantic Shores, a residential area on the south end of the island. He said the people (“super accommodating and friendly”) and the island itself (“beautiful”) were the highlights of life there.

Esposito, a consultant to a software company, lived in Manchester, New Hampshire before moving to Barbados.

Courtesy David Esposito

However, island life in Barbados isn’t cheap, Esposito said.

“Having lived in Boston and Denver outside Barbados, I did not find the same level of ‘sticker shock’ that many warned me about my arrival,” he said. “Rental rates are similar to what I’ve seen in the US, but taxes on imports are high!”

Food is “expensive as hell,” Esposito said, and items aren’t always available. He also relies solely on taxis for left-hand drive problems, problems with drunk drivers, the unpredictability of local buses, and rental prices.

“I’ve seen what it costs to rent a car – no thanks,” he said.

Esposito said he arrived with no expectations, but the only thing he wasn’t prepared for was the local attitude towards dogs that are not considered pets.

“I was definitely not ready for all of the sideways glances, avoidance, and aggression that I experienced while walking my dog,” he said.

Even so, he said he would “like to stay here as long as possible – it’s a wonderful place!”

Croatia

Name: Melissa Paul
From: Southern California

When Croatia started accepting digital nomads in January, Paul was the first person to be accepted into the program.

She came to Croatia in 2014 as a marketing consultant for the wedding and event industry and lived on the island of Krk near Rijeka, an experience that she found “too remote”. Paul now lives in a house she bought in the mountain town of Labin in western Istria.

The Croatian program, which allows stays of up to a year, works for so-called “slowmads” who prefer to “visit a country slowly over many months rather than jumping from place to place,” said Paul.

Courtesy Melissa Paul

“I’ve learned how cold, lonely, and strange things can be when they’re not prepared,” she said. “Now I know what I need to be comfortable.”

Paul names Croatia’s safety, technological infrastructure, and beauty – including its beaches, islands, waterfalls, and national parks – as some of the best aspects of living there.

“Add to that the friendly people, the handicrafts, the delicious, high quality, locally grown gourmet products like olive oil, wine, truffles, pasta, honey etc … it’s an incredible place to live,” she said.

Paul describes Croatia as “massively cheaper” than her former home Los Angeles. She estimates that $ 1,000 to $ 1,500 per month ($ 1,180 to $ 1,770) is a “good standard of living.”

By owning her own home and car, she pays less than $ 950 a month for utilities, groceries, gasoline, health insurance, coffee, and a few dinners, she said.

Last year, more remote workers moved to Croatia due to Covid-19 and political turmoil caused by the last US presidential administration (the latter known locally as “Trump Refugees”), Paul said.

Courtesy Melissa Paul

A two-bedroom apartment in smaller villages costs less than $ 450 a month, she said. This could more than double in coveted city centers like Zagreb and Split.

The only thing that is expensive: food that gets more expensive during the tourist season, Paul told CNBC.

Aside from missing her parents in Maryland, Paul finds no challenge in living in Croatia, even though she wishes she had learned Croatian and Italian before arriving.

“The lifestyle is wonderful and in normal, non-covid times the ability to travel regularly to neighboring European countries is amazing,” she said. “I’ve learned to use the time difference to meet appointments and go to the beach in the afternoon for a swim, a long walk in the country or for a cozy coffee with friends.”

Many remote workers on their way to Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain stay longer in Croatia because “they fall in love with the country like me”.

“If anything, I would say that the longer I stay, the richer my life gets,” she said.

Jamaica

Name: Sheryl Nance-Nash
From New York

Nance-Nash’s little house on Long Island, New York, was fine before the pandemic because she often traveled to work.

“With the pandemic, that immediately came to a standstill,” she said. “I started going crazy and really felt cooped up.”

She moved to Robin’s Bay, Jamaica in September 2020. Even if life gets “normal” again, she assumes that she will continue to live in Jamaica for at least part of the year.

One of Nance-Nash’s primary clients is that anyone can work from home (previously they didn’t), and she uses Zoom and WhatsApp to conduct an interview for her work as a travel writer.

“Now that I’ve done this remote thing, I can’t imagine staying in one place 24/7!” She said. “Life is short; I want to enjoy every minute.”

Nance-Nash and her husband live in Robin’s Bay, Jamaica, an area she describes as rural and off the beaten path.

Courtesy Sheryl Nance-Nash

“I literally stare at the ocean all day while I work,” she said. “I hear the waves. It has done wonders for my health – mentally and physically.”

Nance-Nash lives in a house she built with her husband, a Jamaican national, in a rural part of the country. Life there has “adapted” and is fraught with internet and electricity problems, especially on stormy days during hurricane season. The grocery store is 30 minutes away.

“Paradise is not perfect!” She said.

The costs are mixed. Imported products like groceries can be high, while local groceries, alcohol, and transportation can be inexpensive. Long cab rides can cost as little as $ 5. “However, you probably have other people in the taxi.”

“I’m going to a wonderful place for a mani / pedi that includes some hot stone pampering and a glass of wine, and it’s about $ 35,” she said. “I certainly didn’t understand that in New York!”

Unlike other Caribbean islands, Jamaica doesn’t have an official remote worker program, and Nance-Nash said the process of staying is difficult but worth it.

“The beauty, the rolling hills, the mountains, the sea and the tropical greenery were more breathtaking than I imagined,” she said. “Seeing this every day means feeling incredibly blessed.”

Read more about working remotely

Categories
Health

Each day knowledge for March 31

Daily data for March 31

The Covid-19 cases in the USA are on the up again. Nationwide infection rates are well below the high of around 250,000 new cases per day in January, but are approaching the numbers seen during the summer surge when the average daily case number hit nearly 70,000.

To expedite the vaccination campaign, many states are expanding licensing guidelines for those who qualify for a shot. Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Wednesday that the initial phase of expanded eligibility could frustrate some Americans.

“Some states are willing to qualify a wider population for vaccination and tolerate the fact that the first two or three weeks of it will be chaotic,” said Gottlieb. “Once a state opens the eligibility wide, a lot of people will complain that they can go to the website and not get an appointment. It will take a couple of weeks to clear that excessive demand.”

US Covid cases

Approximately 66,800 new coronavirus cases are reported daily in the US, based on a seven-day average of data from Johns Hopkins University. That number has seen an upward trend, raising concerns about a possible “fourth wave” of infections.

US Covid deaths

The daily death toll has fallen significantly since its winter peak, but it still stands at nearly 1,000 a day based on a weekly average from Hopkins data. Since the pandemic began, more than 550,000 deaths from Covid have been reported in the United States, more than any other country.

The introduction of the vaccine could be cause for optimism in this regard. With Americans’ most vulnerable populations protected, the death toll may not increase as much as it has in previous periods when the number of cases has increased.

US vaccine shots administered

As more states expand licensing rules for people who can get a vaccine – President Joe Biden said Monday that 90% of adults in the US will be eligible for shooting by April 19 – the daily rate of vaccination continues to rise.

After 1.8 million reported vaccine doses administered Tuesday, the 7-day average of shots administered in the US hit 2.8 million.

Some concerns about getting the vaccine may be easing. The Kaiser Family Foundation’s most recent survey on the vaccine monitor found a decrease in respondents who said they wanted to wait and see if they received the vaccine. 17% of respondents chose this answer in March, compared with 39% in December.

However, 13% of respondents in March said they would “definitely not” get a vaccine and 7% said they would only get a vaccine if it was necessary for work, school or other activities.

US percentage of the vaccinated population

Nearly 30% of the US population has received at least one dose of vaccine, and 16% of the population is fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On Wednesday morning, Pfizer said its Covid-19 vaccine was 100% effective in a study in adolescents aged 12 to 15 years.

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC employee and a member of the boards of directors of Pfizer, genetic testing startup Tempus, health technology company Aetion Inc., and biotech company Illumina. He is also co-chair of the Healthy Sail Panel for Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean.