Month: July 2021

Categories
Health

Ought to Folks Who Took The Covid-19 Vaccine Begin Sporting Masks Once more?

Should People Who Took The Covid-19 Vaccine Start Wearing Masks Again?

Since the delta variant is spreading among the unvaccinated, many fully vaccinated people also worry. Is it time to mask again?

While there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question, most experts agree that masks remain a wise precaution in certain situations for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people. How often you use a mask depends on your personal health tolerance and risk, the infection and vaccination rates in your community, and who you spend time with.

The bottom line is this: while a full vaccination protects against serious illness and hospitalization from Covid-19, no vaccine offers 100 percent protection. As long as large numbers of people remain unvaccinated and the coronavirus continues to spread, those vaccinated will be exposed to the Delta variant and a small percentage of them will develop what are known as breakthrough infections. Here you will find answers to frequently asked questions about how to protect yourself and reduce your risk of a breakthrough infection.

To decide if a mask is needed, first ask yourself these questions.

  • Are the people I am with also vaccinated?

  • What is the fall and vaccination rate in my community?

  • Will I be in a poorly ventilated indoor or outdoor area? Will the increased risk of exposure last a few minutes or hours?

  • How high is my personal risk (or the risk to my fellow human beings) for complications from Covid-19?

Experts agree that you don’t need to wear a mask if everyone you are with is vaccinated and symptom-free.

“I don’t wear a mask when hanging out with other people who have been vaccinated,” said Dr. Ashish K. Jha, Dean of Brown University School of Public Health. “I don’t even think about it. I go to the office with a few people and they are all vaccinated. I’m not worried. “

But once you venture into closed public spaces, where the chances of encountering unvaccinated people are greater, a mask is probably a good idea. A full vaccination remains the strongest protection against Covid-19, but the risk is cumulative. The more opportunities you give the virus to challenge the antibodies you made with your vaccine, the higher your risk of exposure to exposure so great that the virus breaks the protective barrier of your immune system.

Because of this, your community’s fall and vaccination rate is one of the most important factors influencing mask needs. For example, in Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, more than 70 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. In Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas, fewer than 45 percent of adults are vaccinated. In some counties, overall vaccination rates are far lower.

“We are currently two Covid nations,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital. In Harris County, Texas, where Dr. Hotez is alive, case numbers are up 114 percent in the past two weeks, and only 44 percent of the community is fully vaccinated. “I wear a mask indoors most of the time,” said Dr. Hotez.

Finally, masking is more important in poorly ventilated indoor spaces than outdoors, where the risk of infection is extremely low. Dr. Jah notices that he recently stormed into a cafe, exposed because vaccination rates are high in his area, and was only there for a few minutes.

Your personal risk also counts. If you are elderly or have immunocompromised your antibody response to the vaccine may not be as strong as a young person’s response. It is a good idea to avoid crowded rooms and wear a mask if you are indoors and do not know the vaccination status of those around you.

Use the Times tracker to find vaccination rates and case numbers in your area.

When the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that people who had been vaccinated could forego wearing masks, the number of cases declined, vaccinations increased, and the highly contagious Delta variant had not yet caught on. Since then, Delta has spread rapidly and now accounts for more than 83 percent of cases in the United States.

It is known that people infected with the Delta variant shed much higher amounts of the virus over longer periods of time compared to previous lines of the coronavirus. A preliminary study estimated that viral loads are 1,000 times higher in people with the delta variant. These high viral loads give the virus more opportunities to challenge your antibodies and breach your vaccine protection.

“This is twice as transferable as the original line from Covid,” said Dr. Hotez. “The reproductive number of the virus is around 6,” he said, referring to the number of people a virus carrier is likely to infect. “That means that 85 percent of the population must be vaccinated. Only a few areas of the country achieve that. “

Updated

July 22, 2021, 1:43 p.m. ET

The answer depends on your personal risk tolerance and the level of vaccinations and Covid-19 cases in your community. The more time you spend with unvaccinated people in closed rooms for a long time, the higher the risk of crossbreeding with the Delta variant or other variants that may appear.

Large gatherings, by definition, offer more opportunities to contract the coronavirus, even if you are vaccinated. Scientists have documented breakthrough infections at a recent Oklahoma wedding and July 4th celebrations in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

But even with the Delta variant, a full vaccination seems to be around 90 percent effective to prevent serious illnesses and hospital stays caused by Covid-19. However, if you are at a very high risk of complications from Covid-19, you should consider avoiding risky situations and wearing a mask if the vaccination status is unknown to those around you.

Healthy vaccinated people with a low risk of complications have to decide what personal risk they want to accept. Wearing a mask at large indoor gatherings will reduce the risk of infection. If you are healthy and vaccinated but are caring for an aging parent or spending time with others at high risk, you should also consider their risk when deciding whether to attend an event or wear a mask.

“When I go into a public area, I usually wear a mask,” said Dr. Hotez. “Until recently, I used to take my son and his girlfriend out to a restaurant for dinner and I wouldn’t wear a mask because the broadcast was so advanced. Now I’m not so sure. I can change the way I think about restaurants while Delta is getting faster. “

Breakthrough infections get a lot of attention because people who have been vaccinated talk about them on social media. If breakthrough infection clusters occur, it is also reported in science journals or in the media.

However, it’s important to remember that while breakthrough cases are relatively rare, they can still happen no matter what vaccine you’re given.

“No vaccine is 100 percent effective at preventing disease in vaccinated people,” says its CDC website. “There will be a small percentage of fully vaccinated people who will still get sick, hospitalized, or die of Covid-19.”

A breakthrough case doesn’t mean your vaccine isn’t working. In fact, most breakthrough infection cases result in no symptoms or only mild illness, which shows that the vaccines are working well to prevent serious illness from Covid-19.

As of July 12, more than 159 million people in the United States were fully vaccinated against Covid-19. Of these, only 5,492 had breakthrough cases that resulted in serious illness. including 1,063 who died. That’s less than 0.0007 percent of the vaccinated population. Now 99 percent of Covid-19 deaths are among the unvaccinated.

Many infectious disease experts are frustrated that the CDC only documents cases where a vaccinated person with Covid-19 is hospitalized or dies. But many breakthrough infections are still being discovered in asymptomatic people who are frequently tested, such as baseball players and Olympic athletes. Many of these people travel or spend long periods of time in close quarters with others.

“Sports figures are different,” said Dr. Yeh. “Part of the problem is that they also encounter a lot of unvaccinated people, even in their own small circle.”

If you’re fully vaccinated and know you’ve been exposed to someone with Covid-19, it’s a good idea to get tested even if you don’t have symptoms.

And if you have cold symptoms or other signs of infection, experts agree that you should be tested. Many vaccinated people who do not wear masks have caught colds in the summer, which lead to runny nose, fever and cough. But it’s impossible to tell the difference between a summer cold and Covid-19. Anyone with cough or cold symptoms should wear a mask to protect their surroundings and get tested to rule out Covid-19. It’s a good idea to have a few Covid tests on hand at home as well.

“If I woke up one morning and had symptoms of a cold, I would put on a mask at home and get tested,” said Dr. Yeh. “I don’t want to cause breakthrough infections in other members of my family, and I don’t want to give it to my 9 year old child.”

Categories
Politics

Home Republicans Use Vaccine Press Convention to Bash Democrats

House Republicans Use Vaccine Press Conference to Bash Democrats

House Republican leaders and doctors rallied for a news conference Thursday morning allegedly to urge Americans to get the coronavirus vaccine amid rising infections in the United States, but they used the event to attack Democrats, from whom they are said they had misrepresented the origins of the virus with no evidence.

The appearance of second- and third-tier Republicans in the House of Representatives, Reps Steve Scalise from Louisiana and Elise Stefanik from New York, along with a dozen doctors suggested that a resurgence in the spread of the virus fueled by the more contagious Delta variant was not had taken place called on the party to change its tone. Instead, Mr. Scalise and Ms. Stefanik beat up the Democrats for what they called a cover-up on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.

Only at the urging of reporters did the leaders mention vaccinations.

“I would encourage people to get the vaccine,” said Mr. Scalise towards the end of the event, when his position pushed him to do so. “I have great confidence in that. I got it myself. “

He and other Republicans spent most of Thursday discussing unsubstantiated claims that the Chinese released a virulent, man-made virus in the world, accusing Democrats of ignoring it.

The event in front of the Capitol was planned as a “press conference to discuss the need for vaccinations for individuals, uncover the origins of the pandemic and keep schools and businesses open”. Yet the Republicans who attended, many of whom represent constituencies that have refused to get the vaccine, seem unable to bring themselves to stress the importance of the move.

Even the doctors who emphasized vaccinations, Rep. Andy Harris from Maryland and Senator Roger Marshall from Kansas, quieter and narrowed their statements.

“If you are at risk you should get this vaccine,” said Dr. Harris, adding, “We urge all Americans to speak to their doctors about the risks of Covid, speak to their doctors about the benefits of vaccination, and” then make a decision that is right for them. “

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that everyone aged 12 and over – not just those at higher risk – get the coronavirus vaccine as soon as possible.

North Carolina Republican Rep. Greg Murphy countered, “This vaccine is a medicine and, like any other medicine, there are side effects and this is a personal choice.”

The emphasis on the so-called lab leak theory was surprising given the surge in infections that were concentrated in rural, heavily Republican regions of the country.

Nationally, the average of new coronavirus infections in 14 days is up 171 percent to more than 41,300 a day on Wednesday, and the death toll – a delayed figure – is up 42 percent from two weeks ago to nearly 250, so a New York time database. Still, new cases, hospital admissions and deaths remain at a fraction of their previous devastating highs.

Vaccines remain effective against the worst effects of Covid-19, including the Delta variant. Experts say that breakthrough infections are still relatively rare in vaccinated people. The delta variant accounts for an estimated 83 percent of new cases in the United States, the CDC said earlier this week.

The Kaiser Family Foundation reported in late June that 86 percent of Democrats had at least one shot, compared to 52 percent of Republicans. An April analysis by the Times found that the country’s least vaccinated counties had one thing in common: they voted for Mr Trump.

But dr. Murphy said the notion that conservatives are reluctant to get the vaccine “isn’t just insincere; It is a lie.”

As for the theory of the laboratory leak, the Republicans successively presented the issue as practically done: Research in a virus laboratory in Wuhan, China, created the novel coronavirus through risky experiments to “gain functionality” and then released it into the world.

“Criminals have been convicted on less evidence than is currently the case, and more evidence is being revealed every day,” said Iowa representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks.

Recently, some scientists have urged the possibility of a laboratory leak to be taken seriously, along with the possibility that the coronavirus emerged naturally, most likely from an animal. But they are mainly testing the possibility that a naturally developed virus was present in the laboratory and escaped, not that the virus was created on purpose. Even some of the most vocal scientific proponents of a laboratory leak do not claim that there is definitive evidence as to the origin of the virus.

Instead of covering up the matter, President Biden ordered U.S. intelligence services in late May to investigate the origins of the coronavirus and report back in 90 days.

Categories
Health

Dr. Scott Gottlieb says the Covid delta spike could peak in late August

Vaccine ramp up probably not enough to manage UK virus variant

Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Thursday the current spike in Covid infections due to the highly contagious delta variant may be over sooner than many experts believe.

However, the former FDA chief urged Americans to take precautions in the meantime as delta, first found in India, takes hold as the dominant variant in the U.S.

“I think the bottom line is we’re going to see continued growth, at least in the next three to four weeks. There’s going to be a peak sometime probably around late August, early September,” Gottlieb said on “Squawk Box.” “I happen to believe that we’re further into this delta wave than we’re measuring so this may be over sooner than we think. But we don’t really know because we’re not doing a lot of testing now either.”

There may be another small bump in infection rates as schools reopen in the fall and become “vectors of transmission” as they did with the B.1.1.7 variant, first discovered in Britain, and now called alpha, said Gottlieb, who led the Food and Drug Administration from 2017 to 2019 during Donald Trump’s presidency.

Gottlieb also warned that just wearing masks, particularly cloth masks, may not enough to prevent Covid infections from the delta variant in classrooms. He advised schools to create pods, space out children in the classroom, avoid group meals and suspend certain large activities, as well as improve air filtration and quality levels. 

“There might be other things you do that actually achieve more risk reduction than the masks in the setting of a much more contagious variant where we know there’s going to be spread even with masks,” Gottlieb said. “If we’re going to tell people to wear masks, I do think we need to start educating people better about quality of masks and the differences in terms of the reduction and risk you’re achieving with different kinds of masks.”

For businesses wanting to bring people back into offices, Gottlieb said that October may be a more “prudent” time than September.

Gottlieb, who serves on the board of Covid vaccine maker Pfizer, said the critical question right now is how likely vaccinated people are to transmit the virus if they become infected. He said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should be collecting that data because it’s likely the current delta variant may be the newer, more permanent form of coronavirus going forward.

“When you’re dealing with a new variant where the virus levels that you achieve early in the course of your infection are thousandfold the original strain, it’s possible that you’re shedding more virus and you could be more contagious,” he said.

Local officials across the country are advising and reimposing indoor mask mandates as the highly transmissible delta variant causes Covid cases and deaths to increase again in the U.S., particularly in largely unvaccinated communities.

Nearly 162 million people in the U.S. are fully vaccinated — almost 49% of the nation’s population — even as the rate of daily administered shots has seen a sharp dip in recent months, according to a CDC tracker.

The CDC eased its Covid guidelines on masks for fully vaccinated people on May 13.

Since delta has taken a stronger hold, however, health experts are cautioning people to again use masks and follow public health measures. White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNBC on Wednesday that even fully vaccinated people may want to consider wearing masks indoors as a protective measure against the delta variant.

Last week, Gottlieb told CNBC that he believes the U.S. is “vastly underestimating” the number of Covid delta infections, particularly among vaccinated people with mild symptoms, making it harder to understand if the variant is causing higher-than-expected hospitalization and death rates. 

“The endgame here was always going to be a final wave of infection,” Gottlieb told CNBC on Thursday. “We had anticipated that this summer would be relatively quiet and we’d have a surge of infections in the fall with B.1.1.7, and that would be sort of the final wave of the pandemic phase of this virus and we would enter a more endemic phase where this virus just becomes a fact of life and it circulates at a certain level.”

But unlike the early last year, he added, “We have therapeutics and vaccines to deal with it, we’re better at treating it and it becomes sort of like a second flu.”

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic testing start-up Tempus, health-care tech company Aetion and biotech company Illumina. He also serves as co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings’ and Royal Caribbean’s “Healthy Sail Panel.”

Categories
World News

New Excessive Climate Report? Not So Quick.

New Extreme Weather Record? Not So Fast.

Jeff Masters, a meteorologist and co-founder of Weather Underground, an online news service, says the reason more temperature records are not being kept is because the process is too time-consuming. A typical example of this is that efforts to reanalyze every named Atlantic storm since 1851, which began two decades ago, have so far only reached 1965.

“There are hundreds of temperature records in the US alone that would not survive re-analysis,” said Dr. Masters. “The most famous of these is the hottest world record temperature in history of 134 degrees Fahrenheit in 1913 in Death Valley.”

Two extreme weather experts, William T. Reid and Christopher C. Burt, have argued on the Weather Underground site that the 1913 reading was “impossible from a meteorological point of view,” in part because it was inconsistent with other observations in that part Death Valley in the same week. They say the man who recorded the temperature at Greenland Ranch, California, seems to have retrospectively “knowingly or accidentally” exaggerated the readings, and that he may not even be there at the time.

But Randall Cerveny, who leads the World Meteorological Organization’s efforts to research and review global weather records, said in an email that the 1913 reading is still considered “the hottest temperature recorded for the United States and the world” was recognized.

Dr. Cerveny, who teaches geographic science at Arizona State University and worked with Mr. Burt to debunk the 1922 Libya data set, described Mr. Burt and Mr. Reid’s research on the 1913 Death Valley data set as “presumptive, not new, evidence . He added that the US Climate Extremes Index, a NOAA project, has also chosen not to investigate it.

“We do not reject records without solid evidence that they are inaccurate,” he said.

Referring to more recent Death Valley records, Dr. Cerveny that the WMO is still trying to verify a 129.9 degree value in this range on August 6, 2020.

If confirmed, it would be the third highest temperature ever recorded on Earth and the second highest in the United States. But dr. Cerveny said the investigation will “take a while” because his team tested the temperature sensor that made the measurement.

Categories
Entertainment

‘Ailey’ Assessment: A Poetic Have a look at the Man Behind the Dances

‘Ailey’ Review: A Poetic Look at the Man Behind the Dances

Too often, the idea of Alvin Ailey is reduced to a single dance: “Revelations.” His 1960 exploration of the Black experience remains a masterpiece, but it also overshadows the person who made it. How can an artist grow after such early success? Who was Alvin Ailey the man?

In “Ailey,” the director Jamila Wignot layers images, video and — most important — voice-overs from Ailey to create a portrait that feels as poetic and nuanced as choreography itself. Black-and-white footage of crowds filing into church, children playing, dance parties, and the dusty landscape of Texas (his birthplace) builds an atmosphere. Like Ailey’s dances, the documentary leaves you swimming in sensation.

Ailey’s story is told alongside the creation of “Lazarus,” a new dance by the contemporary choreographer Rennie Harris, whose homage to Ailey proposes an intriguing juxtaposition of past and present. In his search to reveal the man behind the legacy, Harris lands on the theme of resurrection. Ailey died in 1989, but his spirit lives on in his dancers.

But his early days weren’t easy. Born in 1931, Ailey never knew his father and recalls “being glued to my mother’s hip. Sloshing through the terrain. Branches slashing against a child’s body. Going from one place to another. Looking for a place to be. My mother off working in the fields. I used to pick cotton.”

He was only 4. Ailey spoke about how his dances were full of “dark deep things, beautiful things inside me that I’d always been trying to get out.”

All the while, Ailey, who was gay, remained intensely private. Here, we grasp his anguish, especially after the sudden death of his friend, the choreographer and dancer Joyce Trisler. In her honor, he choreographed “Memoria” (1979), a dance of loneliness and celebration. “I couldn’t cry until I saw this piece,” he says.

Ailey’s mental health was fragile toward the end of his life; Wignot shows crowds converging on sidewalks, but instead of having them walk normally, she reverses their steps. He was suffering from AIDS. Before his death, he passed on his company to Judith Jamison, who sums up his magnetic, enduring presence: “Alvin breathed in and never breathed out.”

Again, it’s that idea of resurrection. “We are his breath out,” she continues. “So that’s what we’re floating on, that’s what we’re living on.”

Ailey
Rated PG-13. Running time: 1 hour and 22 minutes. In theaters.

Categories
Health

How Weight Coaching Burns Fats

How Weight Training Burns Fat

Before and after that process, the researchers drew blood, biopsied tissues, centrifuged fluids and microscopically searched for vesicles and other molecular changes in the tissues.

They noted plenty. Before their improvised weight training, the rodents’ leg muscles had teemed with a particular snippet of genetic material, known as miR-1, that modulates muscle growth. In normal, untrained muscles, miR-1, one of a group of tiny strands of genetic material known as microRNA, keeps a brake on muscle building.

After the rodents’ resistance exercise, which consisted of walking around, though, the animals’ leg muscles appeared depleted of miR-1. At the same time, the vesicles in their bloodstream now thronged with the stuff, as did nearby fat tissue. It seems, the scientists concluded, that the animals’ muscle cells somehow packed those bits of microRNA that retard hypertrophy into vesicles and posted them to neighboring fat cells, which then allowed the muscles immediately to grow.

But what was the miR-1 doing to the fat once it arrived, the scientist wondered? To find out, they marked vesicles from weight-trained mice with a fluorescent dye, injected them into untrained animals, and tracked the glowing bubbles’ paths. The vesicles homed in on fat, the scientists saw, then dissolved and deposited their miR-1 cargo there.

Soon after, some of the genes in the fat cells went into overdrive. These genes help direct the breakdown of fat into fatty acids, which other cells then can use as fuel, reducing fat stores. In effect, weight training was shrinking fat in mice by creating vesicles in muscles that, through genetic signals, told the fat it was time to break itself apart.

“The process was just remarkable,” said John J. McCarthy, a professor of physiology at the University of Kentucky, who was an author of the study with his then graduate student Ivan J. Vechetti Jr. and other colleagues.

Mice are not people, though. So, as a final facet of the study, the scientists gathered blood and tissue from healthy men and women who had performed a single, fatiguing lower-body weight workout and confirmed that, as in mice, miR-1 levels in the volunteers’ muscles dropped after their lifting, while the quantity of miR-1-containing vesicles in their bloodstreams soared.

Of course, the study mostly involved mice and was not designed to tell us how often or intensely we should lift to maximize vesicle output and fat burn. But, even so, the results serve as a bracing reminder that “muscle mass is vitally important for metabolic health,” Dr. McCarthy said, and that we start building that mass and getting our tissues talking every time we hoist a weight.

Categories
Politics

Texas will get concerned in Israel’s combat with Ben & Jerry’s over West Financial institution boycott

Texas gets involved in Israel's fight with Ben & Jerry's over West Bank boycott

A family is enjoying the visitor attractions at the Ben & Jerrys factory in Waterbury, Vermont on June 24, 2021.

Christiana Botic | Boston Globe | Getty Images

The struggle between Israel and Palestinians spills over to 30 US states whose laws prevent pension funds from investing in companies that refuse to do business with the Jewish state.

The most recent example concerns the socially conscious ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s, the West Bank and Texas.

Earlier this week, Ben & Jerry’s board of directors said it would no longer allow sales in areas it believes Israel should not control. The company issued a statement stating, “We believe it is inconsistent with our values ​​for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

The company, now owned by global consumer giant Unilever, has been selling its brand in Israel through a local Israeli distributor for decades. Unilever said it would seek a new deal to sell ice cream in Israel, but not in territories claimed by Palestinians for their own state.

In Israel, companies are prevented from treating customers and subsidiaries differently in what Israel calls “disputed territory” from what much of the world recognizes as Israeli territory. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett this week promised to act “aggressively” on the ice cream company founded in 1978 by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, who are Jewish and progressive.

The American flag and the Texas State Flag flutter over the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas.

Brian Snyder | Reuters

Now Texas is getting involved.

A spokesman for Republican Governor Greg Abbott told CNBC on Tuesday evening: “Ben and Jerry’s decision to boycott parts of Israel is a shame and an insult to America’s closest allies in the Middle East.” The statement went on to say, “Unilever, the parent company of Ben and Jerry, must reverse this ill-conceived decision.”

Abbott signed a bill four years ago that would force Texas pension funds to part ways with companies boycotting Israel.

State auditor Glenn Hegar, who controls billions of dollars in assets for Texas public pension funds, has already urged his office to take action. In a statement to CNBC, he said, “I have directed my employees to determine if certain actions by Ben & Jerry’s or Unilever would trigger listing under Chapter 808 of the Texas Government Code,” the law passed in 2017.

It is also possible that sales in states with anti-boycott laws could be affected. If Ben & Jerry’s or Unilever bid for a contract with a public agency, they could be disqualified if the boycott becomes a reality.

Florida State CFO Jimmy Patronis, who controls the public pension funds, told CNBC that his office began discussing the issue Tuesday morning. “I find what is happening very worrying,” he said in a text. But he wasn’t ready to say what action could be taken.

Airbnb was the last company involved in a similar problem. In 2018, the rental site said it bans the listing of Israeli property in the West Bank, territory that the Palestinians claim they should be part of their state.

An Airbnb listing in Israel

Airbnb

But the company turned around a few months later and was now looking at listings on a “case-by-case” basis, according to a statement on its website.

Ben & Jerry’s board of directors, who have a unique agreement with parent company Unilever that allows for an oversized role in decision-making on social issues, initiated the withdrawal from Israel this week.

Following the Ben & Jerry statement, Unilever released its own on Monday saying, “We remain fully committed to our presence in Israel, where we have invested in our people, brands and business for several decades.” In addition, the company’s CEO spoke to Bennett this week. Following the interview, Israel’s new Prime Minister said: “This is an action with grave consequences, including legal consequences, and it (Israel) will take vigorous action against any boycott directed against its citizens.”

Ben & Jerry chairman Anuradha Mittal has not responded to CNBC about the implications of the decision and the possibility of divesting Unilever’s state pension funds. In a telephone interview on Thursday, Ben & Jerry’s spokesman Sean Greenwood said, “The company has nothing to add beyond the original statement,” which was released Monday.

Speaking to NBC News earlier this week, Mittal went after Unilever for making its own statement on the subject, calling it a “deception”. She added, “I can’t stop thinking this is what happens when you have a board with all the women and people of color pushing to do the right thing.”

Unilever did not respond to CNBC calls or emails asking for a response to the possibility of a sale by state pension funds.

Categories
Health

Native officers throughout U.S. are beginning to reimpose masks guidelines as delta variant takes maintain

Local officials across U.S. are starting to reimpose mask rules as delta variant takes hold

From Los Angeles to Massachusetts, local officials across the country are urging Americans to wear masks again as the Delta variant rips across the US

Several California and Nevada counties are now advising all residents to wear masks in public indoor spaces, regardless of whether they are vaccinated or not. Local leaders in at least three other states have reintroduced mask mandates, issued face-covering recommendations, or threatened the return of strict public health limits for all residents – despite federal health guidelines that in most cases, vaccinated individuals do not use these protocols must follow the settings.

“A surge in the number of cases was not unexpected as the community began to reopen fully,” Jennifer Sizemore, spokeswoman for the southern Nevada health district, told CNBC in an email. Clark County, home of Las Vegas, tightened its mask recommendation last week after Covid-19 cases and deaths rose 50% in the previous week. A total of 4,599 new infections and 33 coronavirus-related deaths were reported last week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Covid infections are rising again in the US after months of falling cases, new cases have risen 55% since last week to an average of 37,000 new cases per day in the past seven days, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University .

The CDC relaxed its Covid guidelines on masks for fully vaccinated individuals on May 13, stating that they do not need to use them or practice social distancing in most environments. CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told lawmakers at a Senate hearing Tuesday that the agency was actively reviewing its mask and other public health guidelines as the virus and pandemic evolve, especially as scientists learn more about the Delta variant and how it is doing Keep vaccines against it.

“A lot has changed since May 13,” said Walensky. “We now have a variant in circulation in this country that was 3% (of new cases) at the time and is now 83% and much more transferable.”

The Delta variant is spreading across the country, especially in areas with low vaccination rates, she said. Nearly two-thirds of counties in the US have vaccinated less than 40% of their residents, “which is what enables the emergence and rapid spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant,” leading to an increase in hospital admissions and deaths, she said.

This is gradually becoming apparent in Nevada, which, according to CDC data, has only fully vaccinated 43.5% of its population. Clark County recorded 641 new Covid hospital admissions last week, 23% more admissions than the previous seven days. Despite the resurgent outbreak in the Las Vegas area, Sizemore said the county’s vaccination rate has remained at just under 42% for the past two weeks.

“However, the community’s vaccination rate has slowed and unvaccinated people are not taking recommended precautions, including wearing masks and continuing to practice social distancing,” Sizemore said.

Nevada isn’t the only state that is stepping up its mask guidelines. On Friday, seven counties in California’s Bay Area recommended the use of masks indoors for a full mandate. The California city of Berkeley also called for the continued use of masks.

Further south, Los Angeles County restored its indoor public mask mandate on Saturday. The county initially lifted the mandate on Thursday when the state formally withdrew a number of executive measures to contain the spread of Covid.

White House senior medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Los Angeles County’s new mask mandate could serve as a prototype for other regions with high rates of infection. He said he expected schools and businesses to continue enforcing their own mask policies to protect against the Delta variant.

“If you want to be even more secure despite being vaccinated, you should wear a mask indoors, especially in crowded places,” Fauci said in an interview with CNBC’s Closing Bell. On Wednesday.

In Massachusetts, Provincetown officials advised everyone on Monday to resume wearing masks indoors after the July 4 celebrations resulted in an outbreak of new cases.

In Orleans Parish, Louisiana – where the CDC reported 560 new coronavirus cases last week – New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell authorized a consultation on indoor masks on Wednesday to help curb the spread of the Delta variant. And New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Tuesday that he wanted to avoid reinstating a mask mandate and instead press for residents to get vaccinated.

“Right now, I hope we don’t have to,” Murphy said. “If we have to, we will.”

Categories
World News

Europe’s journey trade determined as Covid surges

Europe's travel industry desperate as Covid surges

In 2020, workers will carry scaffolding on the beach “Paradise” on the Greek Cycladic island of Mykonos. The island has traditionally been overcrowded with wealthy foreigners, but it turned into a ghost island last year.

ARIS MESSINIS | AFP | Getty Images

During the Covid-19 pandemic, perhaps no other industry was hit harder than the global travel and tourism sector, as planes grounded, resorts closed, and carefree vacations are a distant memory for most of us.

Some countries in Europe – Greece, Spain, and Portugal, for example – rely on tourism to fuel economic growth, with the prosperity of thousands of businesses, livelihoods, and communities tied to the success or failure of the season.

With Covid vaccinations rolled out across the region since late 2020, there were high hopes that Europe could look forward to a recovery in summer tourism this year.

Instead, the season looks very uncertain, as the delta variant is increasing in Europe and stipulating a multitude of different rules and restrictions, traffic light systems, country risk profiles as well as possible quarantines and entry requirements for vaccines.

Fourth wave?

Traveling within Europe these days is in many ways not for the faint of heart. The Covid infection rate has increased across the region as the highly contagious Delta variant has conquered the globe.

As with the previous Alpha variant (which Delta has now usurped), the UK was something of a harbinger of doom when it came to what the rest of Europe could expect. The UK saw another wave of Covid caused by the alpha variant earlier this year and is now seeing another wave with Delta.

Despite efforts on the continent to contain the variant, the inevitable spread has occurred, with the strain now accounting for the majority of new infections from country to country.

The Netherlands and Spain have seen large spikes in cases, largely due to the night sector, after both countries reopened their nightclubs in late June, only to reverse course two weeks later. Meanwhile, France announced earlier this week that it was entering a fourth wave of the pandemic, with government spokesman Gabriel Attal sounding the alarm:

“We have entered a fourth wave. The epidemic dynamics are extremely strong. We are seeing a faster wave and a bigger surge than any previous … the incidence rate continues to explode … So big, so sudden, we have that not seen since the beginning of the pandemic, “said Attal on Monday.

Tourism and airline stocks took a hit earlier this week as global markets slumped on renewed fears about the global recovery. EasyJet and Ryanair, well-known low-cost airlines in Europe, were among the stocks that posted significant price losses. EasyJet’s shares, for example, traded at 842.20 pence on Friday but fell to 758.20 pence early Monday afternoon.

Easyjet CEO Johan Lundgren told CNBC on Tuesday that the travel sector was facing an “extremely challenging” situation, but that vaccination programs in Europe were key to reopening. The data shows that two doses from Pfizer-BioNTech or AstraZeneca-Oxford University are effective against the Delta variant, reducing the risk of hospitalization and death.

“We always knew that [the recovery] shouldn’t be a straight line … But we see the restrictions lifted. But it is absolutely right that when you open up societies and communities, infections also increase. The question is whether the vaccinations make the link between [infection and] severe hospitalization and death, and luckily it looks like it, “Lundgren told CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe.

Complex trips

Anyone planning a last-minute European vacation this year should expect an often confusing, complex, and quite stressful experience – even before you get off the plane.

As a general example of the complexities of vacationing in these troubled times, let’s take traveling from the UK to Greece – a vacation that 3.4 million Britons took in 2019, as official statistics show:

Greece allows UK visitors if they can provide evidence of a negative Covid-19 PCR test performed within 72 hours of arriving in the country or evidence of a negative rapid antigen test performed by an authorized laboratory within the 48 hour before the scheduled flight; or proof of two doses of a Covid vaccine completed at least 14 days prior to travel.

Before entering Greece, however, you must fill out a passenger search form with your vaccination status, your vacation address and the next of kin no later than 11:59 p.m. (local time) the previous day. Then vacationers must take a PCR test and fill out another passenger locator form before returning to the UK, and then have another PCR test or 10 day quarantine within two days of their return to the UK.

All of that, and Greece is actually one of the easier places to vacation this year.

Like its fellow Europeans, Greece has not escaped the somewhat inevitable spike in Covid cases as the economy (especially the island’s night economy) has opened up. Still, the daily number of cases seems small compared to France or the UK. On Wednesday, Greece reported 2,972 new cases, 19 of which were located after controls at the country’s borders.

Busier times in Paliouri Beach, Greece: this picture was taken in 2017 which was considered one of the busiest summers in terms of visitor arrivals.

NurPhoto | NurPhoto | Getty Images

Wolfango Piccoli, co-president of the Teneo Intelligence risk advisory service, stated on Wednesday that the resurgence of Covid-19 in Greece “brings with it new challenges, particularly with regard to another lean tourist season and the following economic consequences”, circumstances that Put pressure on Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

“Mitsotakis had hoped to leave the pandemic behind this summer when his center-right government reached the middle of its four-year return to growth. However, the Covid-19 numbers have risen significantly in recent weeks and the important tourism sector is already pushing for more government support in the fall, fearing that visitor numbers will be even more disappointing this year, “said Piccoli.

As the Delta variant gradually became more dominant, Piccoli noted that Greece was puzzled as “the number of daily vaccinations has fallen below 100,000 this month, despite the government incentivizing Greeks between the ages of 18 and 25 150 euros (177 US dollars) offers vaccinated. “

So far, only about 120,000 of an estimated 980,000 Greeks in this age group have been vaccinated.

Immunization rates in the general population have reached nearly 52% for at least one dose of the vaccine and nearly 44% for full vaccination, Piccoli noted, adding that “the recent slower uptake has cast doubt on the government’s ability to meet its vaccination goal.” 70-75% of the adult population by the end of summer. “

Categories
Politics

Biden predicts the F.D.A. will give ultimate approval to a Covid vaccine by the autumn.

Biden predicts the F.D.A. will give final approval to a Covid vaccine by the fall.

President Biden told a town hall audience in Ohio on Wednesday evening that he expected the Food and Drug Administration would give final approval “quickly” for Covid-19 vaccines, as he pressed for skeptical Americans to get vaccinated and stop another surge of the pandemic.

Mr. Biden said he was not intervening in the decision of government scientists, but pointed toward a potential decision soon from the F.D.A. to give final approval for the vaccines, which are currently authorized for emergency use. Many medical professionals have pushed for the final approval, saying it could help increase uptake of the vaccines.

“My expectation talking to the group of scientists we put together, over 20 of them plus others in the field, is that sometime maybe in the beginning of the school year, at the end of August, beginning of September, October, they’ll get a final approval” for the vaccines at the F.D.A., Mr. Biden said.

The president also said he expected children under the age of 12, who are not currently eligible to receive the vaccine, would be approved to get it on an emergency basis “soon, I believe.”

The president’s comments at the town hall came as the spread of the Delta variant has led to a national rise in coronavirus cases. Over the past week, an average of roughly 41,300 cases has been reported each day across the country, an increase of 171 percent from two weeks ago. The number of new deaths reported is up by 42 percent, to an average of 249 a day for the past week.

In some states, such as Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana and Florida, new infections have increased sharply, also driving an increase in hospitalizations. Cases are increasing more rapidly in states where vaccination rates are low.

In Ohio, where Mr. Biden traveled on Wednesday to talk up what he pitched as the good-paying union jobs that his infrastructure plan would create, the president found himself fielding questions from audience members concerned about low vaccination rates in their communities.

“This is simple, basic proposition,” he said. “If you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized. You’re not going to be in an I.C.U. unit. And you are not going to die.”

Later, Mr. Biden exaggerated the efficacy of the vaccine, even as some vaccinated staffers in the West Wing have recently tested positive for the coronavirus. “You’re not going to get Covid if you have these vaccinations,” he said.

In response to a move by Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier Wednesday to bar two of former President Donald J. Trump’s most vociferous Republican defenders in Congress from joining a select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, Mr. Biden was unequivocal about what happened that day.

“I don’t care if you think I’m Satan reincarnated, the fact is you can’t look at that television and say nothing happened on the sixth,” he said. “You can’t listen to people who say this was a peaceful march.”

But speaking in a red state that Mr. Trump won in the 2020 election, as he tries to build support for his infrastructure plans, Mr. Biden kept his criticism to some of the lawmakers elected to office, rather than Republican voters who got them there.

“I have faith in the American people, I do, to ultimately get to the right place,” he said. “Many times Republicans are in the right place.”

Jesus Jiménez contributed reporting.