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Politics

Insurance coverage corporations heed Biden name to assist victims cowl extra prices

Insurance companies heed Biden call to help victims cover more costs

U.S. President Joe Biden arrives on Jan.

Carlos Barria | Reuters

WASHINGTON – Two of the best-known US insurance companies have responded to President Joe Biden’s request to cover additional living expenses for Louisiana policyholders who evacuated their homes prior to Hurricane Ida but were not under certain mandatory evacuation orders.

Allstate and USAA have agreed to pay additional living expenses for policyholders in the state who have evacuated their homes, a White House official told CNBC.

More companies are expected to follow suit, said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss the ongoing effort.

Typically, insurance only covers the additional cost of living for policyholders evacuating their homes before major storms, not those who leave their homes voluntarily.

Biden first addressed the issue on Thursday in a White House speech about the storm.

CNBC policy

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“Right now we are hearing reports that some insurance companies may refuse to cover additional living expenses unless the homeowner has been on a mandatory evacuation,” Biden said.

Homeowners in the path of the storm, he said, “left their homes because they felt they were fleeing or risking death. Nothing about that is voluntary.”

Biden then appealed to home insurers: “Do the right thing. Pay your policyholders what you owe them and cover the cost of temporary housing amid the disaster. Help the needy. “

On Friday, Biden visited Louisiana, where he said his government was “putting as much pressure as possible” on insurance companies.

State Insurance Commissioner James Donelon issued a bulletin Friday to all insurers in the state saying they should “refrain from using the language in their insurance policies that requires mandatory evacuation to trigger civil coverage”.

Donelon also directed insurers to let his office know whether or not they would comply, and increased the stakes on companies if they choose to refuse coverage.

After the story was published, a USAA spokesman told CNBC, “Some USAA homeowner policies offer limited coverage for evacuation costs when damage is covered. Members can provide receipts for reimbursement. “

The episode is a rare example of a US president effectively shaming large corporations for changing a fundamental piece of the way they do business – how insurance companies assess eligibility for coverage.

The origins of political change can be traced back to Cedric Richmond, a former Louisiana congressman who is a senior official in the Biden White House.

In the days following the storm, Richmond learned from homeowners that their insurance policies would not cover temporary housing costs unless their homes were subject to mandatory evacuation orders.

Ida hit land in most of southeast Louisiana last Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane. However, the evacuation orders were very different from community to community.

Some coastal communities, such as Grand Isle, made mandatory evacuations for all residents. Others, however, issued evacuation orders that were only compulsory for people in low-lying areas and voluntary in areas that are better isolated from floods.

In New Orleans, Mayor LaToya Cantrell issued a mandatory evacuation order for people living outside the city’s levee system, but a voluntary one for those protected by the levees.

“We are not asking for a mandatory evacuation because time is just not on our side,” Cantrell said on the Friday before the storm. “We don’t want people on the street and therefore in greater danger due to lack of time.”

During his visit, Biden encouraged anyone affected by Ida to contact the Federal Emergency Management Agency and see what kind of help they might be eligible for, and promised to keep the federal resources there until they settle have fully recovered.

“We will be there for you,” he said.

The home insurance industry’s leading trading group said its members are aware of Ida’s suffering and would like to help.

“Ida has devastated communities along the Gulf Coast and along the east coast. Insurers recognize the tragedy and fear faced by many American families, individuals and businesses as wildfires and storms rage amid uncertainty over the pandemic, “said David Sampson, president and CEO of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, said in one Statement to CNBC.

“Insured who have suffered a claim should call their insurer as soon as possible to initiate the claim process. Call your insurer if you have been evacuated voluntarily or compulsorily to discuss your coverage. Policies can vary by company and state, ”he said.

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World News

Child Born on Afghan Flight Is Named Attain, After Jet’s Name Signal

Baby Born on Afghan Flight Is Named Reach, After Jet's Call Sign

The Afghan parents of a baby born on a C-17 plane that was evacuating passengers to Germany named their daughter after the plane’s call sign, a senior US general said this week.

“They named the little girl Reach, and they did so because the callsign of the C-17 plane that flew them from Qatar to Ramstein was Reach,” said General Tod Wolters, commander of US European Command, in a Pentagon -Message conference on Wednesday.

The Afghan mother, who is not named, had contractions and complications on Saturday on a flight from a base in Qatar to the Ramstein air base in southwest Germany, the US Air Force said on Twitter.

In response, the C-17 – identified on the radio as Reach 828 – sank in altitude to increase air pressure on the plane, “which helped stabilize and save the mother’s life,” the Air Force said.

After the plane landed, paramedics got on board and helped drop the baby into the hold. A group of women protected their mother’s privacy with their scarves, said Capt. Erin Brymer, a nurse who helped deliver the child, told CNN.

By the time they got there, the woman was “past the point of no return,” she said. “This baby was supposed to be born before we could possibly move it to another facility.”

Pictures released by the US Air Force showed the woman being transported from the plane to a nearby medical facility shortly after the birth of her daughter.

General Wolters said the baby was one of three – all in good condition – born to women who boarded evacuation flights from Afghanistan. Two more were delivered at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a military hospital in southern Germany.

“It is my dream to see this little kid named Reach grow up and become a US citizen and fly United States Air Force fighter jets in our air force,” General Wolters told reporters.

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Health

IPCC UN local weather report is our ‘remaining wake-up name,’ say consultants

IPCC UN climate report is our 'final wake-up call,' say experts

A devastating new UN report warning of certain devastation caused by climate change has been dubbed humanity’s “last wake-up call” by environmental experts.

Speaking to CNBC on Tuesday, environmentalists outlined the role businesses, countries and individuals can play in containing the crisis. They also shared their hopes for the party’s 26th UN Climate Change Conference, known as COP26, in November.

The United Nations IPCC climate panel released a highly anticipated report on Monday warning that efforts to limit global warming to nearly 1.5 degrees Celsius, or even 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, are in will be “inaccessible” for the next two decades without an immediate, rapid and comprehensive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Implement “ambitious action now”

Meeting policymakers’ temperature targets for 2050 will be difficult but achievable, said Emily Kreps, global director of capital markets at CDP, a nonprofit that helps companies manage their climate impact.

However, this requires “ambitious action” from companies, governments and capital markets, she told Squawk Box Asia on Tuesday.

This should be considered our final wake-up call.

Emily Kreps

Global Director of Capital Markets, CDP

The threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius outlined in the report is a crucial global goal, as it also makes so-called tipping points more likely. Tipping points refer to an irreversible change in the climate system that includes further global warming.

“This should be seen as our last wake-up call,” said Kreps, who encouraged companies to set “concrete and concrete goals”.

Ulka Kelkar, director of climate at the World Resources Institute India, agreed that the pace of change must “accelerate quickly”.

For example, the exit from fossil fuels and the introduction of renewable energies must happen at five times the speed. In the meantime, the development of new, more sustainable technologies needs to move forward, she said.

This is particularly urgent in developing countries like India, which have the ability to circumvent practices that are harmful to the environment.

“Over here we have to start thinking a step forward, we have to skip,” she told Street Signs Asia.

“(That means) more renewable energy to produce (a) large-scale hydrogen that can be used in all of our industries” – from fertilizers and chemicals to steel making, she added.

Expectations for COP26

The report comes as a series of extreme weather events that are wreaking havoc around the world.

In the past few weeks alone, Europe, China and India have been hit by floods. Forest fires have also devastated the United States, Canada, Greece, and Turkey.

The UN report makes it “clear that these events are related to climate change and human impact on the climate,” Mans Nilsson, executive director of the Stockholm Environment Institute, told Squawk Box Europe.

Industrialized countries (must) seal the agreement on a long overdue climate finance package.

Ulka Kelkar

Director, World Resources Institute India

World leaders will discuss the issue further when they meet at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.

Kreps said she hoped the conference would produce nationally determined contributions and “science-based goals”.

Meanwhile, Kelkar’s expectations were threefold.

“Developed countries (must) make the deal on a long overdue climate finance package,” said Kelkar, especially to adapt to the extreme events of recent times.

“The second major area is clean technology partnerships: something like green hydrogen, something like the circular economy that uses materials more efficiently. The third is the rules of carbon trading, a market-based tool that enables all of this mitigation. ”,“ She added.

– CNBC’s Sam Meredith contributed to this report.

Categories
Entertainment

From ‘Name My Agent!’ to Hollywood Profession

From ‘Call My Agent!’ to Hollywood Career

At some point during the pandemic, perhaps between the debut of “Ted Lasso” last August and “Bridgerton” in December, you may have happened upon Netflix’s French import “Call My Agent!” (“Dix Pour Cent” in French), a sweet yet absurd sendup of the global entertainment complex as seen through the lens of a Parisian talent agency where the agents are mostly good-hearted lovers of cinema at the beck and call of their highly demanding clients.

If so, you were one of millions who discovered Camille Cottin, the French actress who played Andrea Martel, the hard-nosed striver with the piercing green eyes who is trying to keep her agency afloat while her personal life falls apart.

The show was one of the few joys of the pandemic, one that prompted viewers to sample additional international content like “Lupin” and “Money Heist,” overcoming “the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles” that the “Parasite” director, Bong Joon Ho, referred to during his 2020 Golden Globes speech. The success of “Call My Agent!” has prompted spinoffs in Britain, Quebec and Turkey. And there is now talk of a stand-alone movie that will see Andrea Martel headed to New York.

But Cottin, 42, whose background includes theater and sketch comedy, completely missed the phenomenon that “Call My Agent!” became in the United States while she was in lockdown in Paris with her husband and two young children. Turns out, she was just as miserable as the rest of us.

“I was quite worried in the pandemic and I was a bit paralyzed,” Cottin said in English during a recent video call. “I wanted to be creative, but I wasn’t at all. Also I had the feeling like I’m never going to work again. I was scared.”

“Now you tell me during the pandemic everybody watched ‘Call My Agent!’ I was miles away, imagining that I was buried alive,” she added with a grim laugh.

Cottin was conducting this interview in a car on her way home from a costume fitting for the Cannes Film Festival. (No “Call My Agent!” fans, the fitting did not involve a fussy feathered gown like the one Juliette Binoche awkwardly donned at the end of Season 2.) Cottin’s new film “Stillwater,” in which she plays Virginie, a working actress and single mother who guides Matt Damon’s remorseful father through an ill-conceived journey in Marseilles, has just debuted to mostly positive reviews. Manohla Dargis called her “electric” in The New York Times. Vanity Fair called her performance “bright and winsome.”

But this moment in the car was far less glamorous. Her 6-year-old daughter was fast asleep, head in mom’s lap. And when the car stopped, I could see the multitasking Cottin at work, scooping up her groggy child, a poof of pink taffeta in one arm, her video call still on in the other, a bright Parisian sky in the background. She paused for a moment to put her daughter to bed before continuing the conversation on the floor of her bathroom, a compromise she made with her child, who asked her not to stray too far. Then her husband, Benjamin, came home. “The father is here!” she exclaimed. “Virginie would have had to handle that situation alone.”

After a small role in the 2016 “Allied,” starring Brad Pitt, “Stillwater” represents Cottin’s biggest introduction yet to American audiences. It just may be the role that lets her officially cross over from obscure French actress to global sensation. Later this year she will star opposite Lady Gaga and Adam Driver in Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci,” playing Paola Franchi, the girlfriend of Maurizio Gucci (Driver). And she’s set to reprise her role as Hélène, a high-ranking member of the assassin organization the Twelve, in BBC’s “Killing Eve.”

The international community awakened to Cottin’s charms far before all of us in the United States were stuck at home. When “Call My Agent!” showed up on British television, Cottin discovered the show had found an audience across the English Channel. It was 2019, and she was attending a casting director festival in Kilkenny, Ireland, with her own French agent. Suddenly she was the center of attention.

“They were like, ‘Oh could I make a selfie with you?,’ and I was like, ‘What? You’re the James Bond casting director,’” she said, laughing.

That trip and another to London led to her casting in “Gucci” and to her meeting the producer of “Killing Eve.”

Yet “Call My Agent!” had no bearing on the “Stillwater” director Tom McCarthy’s decision to cast Cottin. He hadn’t yet seen the show when he met her. Rather, he hired her based on an audition that he said astonished him and his co-writers, Thomas Bidegain and Noé Debré.

“You kind of can’t keep your eyes off her when she is on the screen,” he said in a recent interview from France. “She’s a bit scattered, a bit all over the place. She’s funny, she’s self-deprecating, she’s empathetic. She’s tough. She’s straightforward. And I feel like after watching her for a year and a half in the edit room, every moment with her is very lived.”

To Cottin, Virginie, who is open and nurturing and always looking for something to fix (like Damon’s Oklahoman roughneck), is a near facsimile of herself.

“Virginie is the closest character I’ve had to play to me,” she said even though it’s one of the few roles she’s played in English. “We have the same energy. And until now, I’ve mostly been counted for women with a lot of more tension. A bit more in control.”

There is a disarming ease to Cottin that is evident on initial introduction and belies the icy veneer of her “Call My Agent!” character. She doesn’t take herself too seriously — McCarthy calls her “goofy” — and you realize quickly how great her potential for comedy is. It’s a skill she exhibited in her most well-known French role, playing the lead in the prank TV show “Connasse,” which means “bitch” in her native tongue. Her exploits included scaling Kensington Palace in search of an introduction to Prince Harry.

A “Call My Agent!” producer, Dominique Besnehard, described Cottin as “the pretty, biting, bold one” who in the role of Andrea “is very good at going from harshness to fragility.”

To Cottin, it’s a character she both admires and understands, yet still finds at a remove from her own personality.

“I have much less assurance than Andrea. She is more self-confident and strategic and good at making decisions,” she said. “If I have to make a choice, it will take me too long, always too long. And I will ask everybody his opinion about it.”

Cottin is decidedly not uncertain about her career, but as an actress in her 40s she is more aware that the highs she’s experiencing today may not predict the highs she will see in her future.

“Maybe if I was 20, I would think, ‘Oh my God, maybe I’m going to have an Oscar,’” she said, laughing, in a mocking American accent. “It’s never vertical. You can make a step, you can consider that you’ve been up and then suddenly, you can go down. Nothing is a straight line. I see these projects as trips, great trips. I can’t say, ‘Oh, now that I’ve done that I can tell you what’s coming next,’ because I don’t know. And it doesn’t mean that it will happen again.”

Besnehard suggested she could have a career like Binoche, taking roles both in France and the United States. “I hope the American people would not monopolize her,” he said.

McCarthy sees a much clearer trajectory.

“I predict great things for Cami and not just because of our movie, which I think she’s sensational in but it’s just her time,” he said. “You can feel it when someone’s earned a moment in their career, and put in the work, and they’re ready to take control of it.”

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Politics

Lawmaker to Name for Renewed Push to Free Paul Whelan, U.S. Marine Jailed in Russia

Lawmaker to Call for Renewed Push to Free Paul Whelan, U.S. Marine Jailed in Russia

Paul N. Whelan, the former US Marine who was sentenced to 16 years in prison in Russia on espionage charges, has been unable to contact his family or the US embassy since July 4, and relatives and members of Congress are increasingly concerned about his welfare. His.

“No one has heard from him,” said Haley Stevens, a Michigan Democrat who represents Mr. Whelan, in an interview. “We haven’t heard from him or really been able to speak to him since the beginning of July.”

Ms. Stevens and the family members of Mr. Whelan and Trevor Reed, another former Marine who has been sentenced to prison terms in Russia, will hold a press conference to discuss detention conditions and press for new Congressional resolutions calling for their release.

Speaking to the Capitol on Thursday, Ms. Stevens said Mr. Whelan had to work in a prison clothing factory six days a week, injuring his arm and being held by Russia for 944 days.

“That’s 944 days he’s been away from his friends and family,” Ms. Stevens said at the press conference. “It’s 944 days too long.”

In early June, Mr Whelan interviewed CNN, after which the Russian authorities restricted his access to cell phones, although he was still allowed to call his family. President Biden raised the cases of Mr Whelan, 51, and Mr Reed, 30, during his June summit with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin.

Mr. Whelan called his parents in early July and then a second on July 4th.

“At that time he said, ‘If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, there will be trouble,'” said Elizabeth Whelan, his sister, in an interview.

Since then, neither the US embassy in Moscow nor Mr. Whelan’s parents have been able to contact him, Ms. Whelan said.

Joey Reed, Mr Reed’s father, said Thursday that his son had Covid and that he hadn’t heard from him in more than two weeks. “We are very concerned about his health,” he said. “Both of our families are concerned that Paul and Trevor might die in a Russian prison because of the poor conditions and lack of medical care.”

Evidence against Mr Whelan is thin, and nothing Russian prosecutors have produced has convinced American officials that he was spying on Russia.

Mr Whelan was arrested in late 2018 and, following his conviction last year, was detained in the IK-17 labor camp in Mordovia, about eight hours from Moscow.

Ms. Whelan said she believed her brother was returned to camp after being taken to hospital for treatment for an arm injury. But Mrs. Stevens said it was not clear where the Russians were holding him now. She also said that he was in solitary confinement.

Ms. Stevens, the Congresswoman, said, “The reality is that there has been no contact with him. This reaches another crucial moment. ”

Congress passed a resolution on Mr Whelan in 2019, but new action is in order, Ms Stevens said. She added that a vote would hardly force Mr Whelan’s release, but would demonstrate bipartisan opposition to Moscow’s tactics and “get under the skin of Russia.”

Rep. August Pfluger, the Texas Republican who represents the district Mr. Reed is from, urged Mr. Biden to step up pressure on Russia.

“We won’t compromise until we get Trevor and Paul home,” he said. “We will not tolerate American citizens being illegally detained by the Putin regime.”

Ms. Stevens said Moscow was trying to use Mr. Whelan and Mr. Reed to its own advantage.

“Americans absolutely cannot be used as political pawns for other countries, period, end of story, unacceptable,” she said. “These are the Russians who engage in the dark arts of political interference. I think this is part of an attempt to play with the inner psychology of our political structure. “

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Health

Medical Teams Name for Vaccine Necessities for Well being Care Employees

Medical Groups Call for Vaccine Requirements for Health Care Workers

A group of nearly 60 major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association, called for mandatory vaccination of health workers on Monday. With the highly contagious Delta variant causing a new surge in coronavirus cases, vaccination is an ethical obligation for health care workers, the groups said in a joint statement.

“With the recent surge in Covid-19 and the availability of safe and effective vaccines, our health organizations and societies are advocating that all healthcare and long-term care employers require their employees to receive the Covid-19 vaccine,” said it in the statement. “This is the logical fulfillment of the ethical obligation of all healthcare workers to put patients and residents of long-term care facilities first and to take all necessary steps to ensure their health and well-being.”

The declaration was signed by a wide variety of professional associations, including representatives of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and infectious disease experts.

In recent weeks, more and more hospitals and health systems have announced that all employees must be vaccinated against the coronavirus. The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has stated that the mandates are legal and many hospitals already require their employees to get flu vaccinations.

“Health organizations rarely agree, but here they speak with one voice and unanimity,” said Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, oncologist and bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, who organized the joint declaration. “I think that shows the widespread recognition that this is the right thing for this country.”

Although many healthcare workers have been eligible for vaccination since December when the first vaccinations were approved, a significant number remain unvaccinated. In New York, for example, about one in four hospital employees has not yet been vaccinated, according to state data. Only 58.7 percent of nursing home workers nationwide are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some healthcare workers have spoken out against vaccine requirements. A small group of employees sued the Houston Methodist Hospital over his mandate. The lawsuit was dismissed last month and more than 150 hospital employees were fired or quit for refusing to be vaccinated.

Some employers have been reluctant to request the vaccines, which are currently under emergency approval, until they have received full approval from the Food and Drug Administration. This approval is expected but could take months.

Dr. Emanuel said some hospitals and health organizations used the lack of full approval as an excuse to postpone vaccine mandates. The joint statement stated that the Covid-19 vaccines were shown to be safe and effective.

“With more than 300 million doses administered in the United States and nearly 4 billion doses administered worldwide, we know the vaccines are safe and highly effective in preventing serious illness and death from Covid-19,” said Dr. Susan R. Bailey, the immediate past president of the AMA, said in a statement.

The joint statement said that exceptions could be made for the small subgroup of workers who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons.

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Health

Docs name for flu testing as Covid threatens to coincide with flu epidemic

Doctors call for flu testing as Covid threatens to coincide with flu epidemic

British doctors have urged authorities to make flu testing available amid concerns that an influenza epidemic may be about to collide with a third wave of Covid-19.

In a report published Thursday, physicians from the U.K.’s Academy of Medical Sciences warned a resurgence of respiratory viruses such as flu and RSV — a common virus that can be serious for young infants and the elderly — was likely to increase pressure on the country’s National Health Service.

The U.K. is due to lift nearly all Covid restrictions on July 19. However, the country is currently experiencing a rise in new cases of the virus, which has been linked to the highly transmissible delta variant.

On July 14, 42,302 people tested positive for Covid in the U.K., making it the country with the fourth-highest number of new cases, according to Johns Hopkins University. 

Doctors warned in Thursday’s report that overlapping symptoms between flu and Covid meant routine testing for both viruses, and possibly additional respiratory infections — known as multiplex testing — would be important ahead of an expected uptick in common winter illnesses. Medical experts have expressed concerns the U.K. could be headed for an influenza epidemic later this year, and multiplex testing would help doctors differentiate between viruses, allow them to monitor the growth of epidemics, make timely decisions about treatments and reduce transmission rates, the report said.

“We strongly support multiplex testing,” its authors said. “However, if this is not feasible, well evaluated and accurate point-of-care testing for influenza should be deployed in hospitals, primary care settings, care homes and community pharmacies.”

They added that “the symptoms of influenza and other winter respiratory viruses are typically clinically indistinguishable from Covid-19 without a test,” and warned demand for PCR tests may surge this year given the potential rise in winter diseases with similar symptoms.

A recent study of Covid symptoms in the U.K. found that the most common symptoms of the virus included a headache, sore throat and loss of smell. However, these can vary and people with the virus can also experience flu-like symptoms such as fever and a cough, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.K.’s NHS.

The AMS noted that while a successful vaccine rollout would mean mortality would be lower in the next wave than in the winter of 2020/2021, continuous transmission of Covid among the under-50s could result in higher levels of “long Covid” than seen in the previous two waves. The medical body also warned that if Covid cases rise or remain elevated throughout the fall and winter, the third wave could coincide with a resurgence of flu and RSV, adding pressure to the NHS.

Outbreaks of RSV and flu during the fall and winter may be twice as large as the numbers seen in a “normal” year, according to the report. Social distancing and lockdown measures had prevented these illnesses from spreading at their usual rates during the coronavirus pandemic, meaning population immunity may have been diminished.  

“Very low levels of influenza over the last two seasons will have led to lower levels of immunity than usually seen, which means a wave of influenza could be problematic,” the report warned. A priority should be to ensure vulnerable groups were given a flu vaccine, its authors said, although flu vaccines were less effective than those for Covid.

Around 10,000 deaths are caused by flu in a regular year in England and Wales, according to the NHS.

Meanwhile, non-infectious illnesses like asthma and stroke were also likely to be exacerbated in the winter, the AMS report warned, adding more pressure to health care services.

Categories
Business

World financial leaders name for $50 billion from rich nations

World economic leaders call for $50 billion from wealthy nations

People wearing protective face masks wait to receive a dose of COVISHIELD, a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine manufactured by Serum Institute of India, at a vaccination centre in New Delhi, India, May 4, 2021.

Adnan Abidi | Reuters

Global economic and health leaders called on the world’s wealthier nations to provide $50 billion in funding to accelerate Covid-19 vaccine distribution across the planet and help end the pandemic.

The heads of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Health Organization and World Trade Organization said Tuesday that nations need to act before the virus has a chance to spread throughout unvaccinated countries and evolve into more dangerous new variants.

The group, which published an op-ed in newspapers across the globe this week, said there was a two-track pandemic brewing with richer nations vaccinating large portions of their populations while poorer countries that have received less than 1% of the vaccines administered so far “being left behind.”

“Even as some affluent countries are already discussing the rollout of booster shots to their populations, the vast majority of people in developing countries — even front-line health workers — have still not received their first shot,” according to the op-ed signed by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Bank President David Malpass and WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

“By now it has become abundantly clear there will be no broad-based recovery without an end to the health crisis. Access to vaccination is key to both,” they wrote, noting that $50 billion will generate some $9 trillion in additional global output by 2025 by accelerating an end to the pandemic.

The money would go toward increasing manufacturing capacity, supply and delivery, which would accelerate the equitable distribution of diagnostics, oxygen, treatments, medical supplies and vaccines.

“Cooperation on trade is also needed to ensure free cross-border flows and increasing supplies of raw materials and finished vaccines,” they said.

They said the money is “a relatively modest investment by governments in comparison to the trillions spent on national stimulus plans and lost trillions in foregone economic output.”

“WTO members can and should deliver on all three fronts,” Okonjo-Iweala said. The trade group currently has members from 159 countries around the world.

The WHO said last week that Africa needs at least 20 million AstraZeneca Covid vaccine doses within the next six weeks to get the second round of shots to people who’ve already received the first. The continent has received only 1% of all of vaccines administered globally and needs another 200 million doses of any cleared Covid-19 vaccines to vaccinate 10% of the continent by September.

“More than 700 million vaccine doses have been administered globally, but over 87% have gone to high income or upper middle-income countries, while low income countries have received just 0.2%,” the WHO’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom, said in a briefing last month.

Many countries have had to rely on COVAX for their doses, a global collaboration of organizations like the WHO and UNICEF, to speed the production and delivery of Covid-19 vaccines across the world.

The WHO and its COVAX partners hope to vaccinate 30% of the population in all countries by the end of 2021, if they get enough funding.

“This can reach even 40% through other agreements and surge investment, and at least 60 percent by the first half of 2022,” the agency leaders said.

Categories
Health

Republicans name for Fauci’s termination over shifting place on Wuhan lab funding

Republicans call for Fauci's termination over shifting position on Wuhan lab funding

Dr. Anthony Fauci is facing increasing calls from Republican lawmakers for his termination over what they say is a shift in his position on whether the U.S. government funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Fauci, the chief medical advisor to the White House, told lawmakers Tuesday that the National Institutes of Health funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology through the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance with $600,000 over a period of five years. Funding to the nonprofit was eventually halted by the NIH.

He denied that the funding was specifically used for so-called gain of function research, which is altering a virus to make it either more transmissible or deadly to better predict new pathogens and ways to fight them.

On Wednesday during a Senate hearing, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., further questioned Fauci’s faith in the Wuhan lab’s scientists. “How do you know they didn’t lie to you and use the money for gain of function research anyway?” Kennedy asked Fauci.

Fauci said there was no way to guarantee that the scientists and grantees did not lie. “You never know,” he said.

He added that scientists at the lab are “trustworthy” and that he would expect they complied with the conditions of the grant, which was to study the transmission of coronaviruses from bats to humans to better understand the SARS-CoV-1 epidemic in the early 2000s.

“I don’t have enough insight into the Communist Party in China to know the interactions between them and the scientists,” Fauci said when asked whether the Chinese government influences its scientists. He also said he has no way of knowing the influence of the Chinese government on the World Health Organization after Kennedy implied that the WHO is in the pocket of the Chinese government.

President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he has ordered a closer intelligence review of what he said were two equally plausible scenarios of the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic — that it originated in a lab or from an animal. The director of national intelligence previously agreed that the two scenarios are equally likely.

Biden revealed that he tasked the intelligence community earlier this year with preparing “a report on their most up-to-date analysis of the origins of Covid-19, including whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident.”

“As of today, the U.S. Intelligence Community has ‘coalesced around two likely scenarios’ but has not reached a definitive conclusion on this question,” Biden said in a statement.

Federal health officials maintain that it is more likely that the virus has a natural origin, but do not exclude a lab leak as a possibility.

Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, recently introduced the Fauci Incompetence Requires Early Dismissal Act, which called for Fauci’s termination.

“Dr. Fauci represents everything that President Eisenhower warned us about in his farewell address: the scientific-technical elite steering the country toward their own ends,” Davidson said in a statement.

The Republican lawmakers also said they believe Fauci misled the American people early in the pandemic in regard to mask guidance. Fauci said in early March 2020: “Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.” He later clarified he meant that masks should be prioritized for health workers, but Republican lawmakers maintain that Fauci lied.

GOP lawmakers also claim that Fauci misled Americans when he said there would be an explosion of coronavirus cases after Texas lifted its mask mandate.

“It is long past time for Dr. Fauci to stop talking to the American public. Fauci should resign or be fired immediately,” said Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa.

Correction: Warren Davidson, R.-Ohio, is a member of the House of Representatives. An earlier version misstated his title.

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Consultants Name for Sweeping Reforms to Forestall the Subsequent Pandemic

Experts Call for Sweeping Reforms to Prevent the Next Pandemic

Some countries didn’t even know the regulations existed, his group reported. Others lacked laws critical to responding to outbreaks, such as those that allow quarantines.

Changing these regulations would require “years of negotiation,” said Dr. Wieler, noting that the latest set took a decade to complete. Instead, one of the main recommendations of his committee was to increase the accountability of countries for their commitments, including a pandemic treaty and regular readiness review that would involve other countries.

The independent panel also proposed the establishment of an international council, led by heads of state, to raise awareness of health threats and oversee a multi-billion dollar funding program to which governments would contribute based on their capabilities. It would promise quick payouts to countries struggling with a new outbreak and give them an incentive to report.

“There will only be the political will to create these things if something disastrous happens,” said Dr. Mark Dybul, one of the panel members. These recommendations came in part from his experience as director of the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, known as Pepfar, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Dr. However, Wieler, who led the other international review, said that creating new institutions in general, rather than focusing on improving existing ones, could increase costs, make coordination difficult and harm WHO

The panels’ recommendations after global emergencies were sometimes followed up. The 2014 and 2015 Ebola outbreak led to the creation of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, which aims to strengthen the Agency’s role in managing health crises and to provide technical guidance. A report released earlier this month found that the new program had received “increasingly positive feedback” from countries, donors and partner agencies as it tackled dozens of health and humanitarian emergencies.

The WHO before and after the Ebola outbreak are “basically two different agencies,” said Dr. Joanne Liu, a former MSF international president and a member of the independent panel. Dr. Liu was one of the WHO’s most astute critics during the Ebola response, and she noted a “significant improvement” in how quickly the agency had declared an international emergency this time.