Tag: contact

State Division in touch with the final People left in Afghanistan

Post author By
Post date August 30, 2021

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken holds a press conference on Afghanistan at the State Department in Washington, DC on August 25, 2021.

Alex Brandon | Swimming pool | Reuters

WASHINGTON – The State Department said Thursday it is in contact with the 1,000 or so US citizens remaining in Afghanistan and that two-thirds of them are actively trying to leave the country.

Another 500 Americans have been evacuated in the past 24 hours, according to a State Department spokesman who requested anonymity to discuss the still-fluid numbers.

Collectively, this group of 1,500 U.S. citizens makes up the last of the roughly 6,000 Americans Secretary of State Antony Blinken said were in Afghanistan when the massive U.S. airlift began on August 14.

“The US government does not follow the movements of the Americans when they travel around the world,” said Blinken on Wednesday. “There could be other Americans in Afghanistan who have never signed up with the embassy, who have ignored public evacuation instructions, and have not yet identified themselves.”

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“We have also found that many people who contact us and identify themselves as American citizens, even by completing and submitting repatriation assistance forms, are in fact not US citizens, which may take some time to verify.” “

On Thursday, the State Department said that around 500 more people “pretending to be Americans in Afghanistan who want to leave,” and US diplomats tried to contact them.

But the official said the department was skeptical of some of these last-minute claims:

“In our experience, many of them will not turn out to be US citizens in need of our help,” the official said.

Of the roughly 660 US citizens who have been contacted by the State Department in the past day or two and are actively attempting to leave Afghanistan, “many, if not most, of these people are almost or already out of the country,” the spokesman said.

The US is now also aware of “dozens more” American citizens “who do not want to leave Afghanistan for a number of reasons”.

The latest State Department figures underscore one of the most complex parts of the US withdrawal: the hunt down of every last American civilian in a country that lacks reliable internet and phone services.

American humanitarian workers and Christian missionaries have been active in Afghanistan for 20 years, often working in remote communities far from the big cities.

It was unclear how exactly the State Department tracked these last 1,000 people. Officials also didn’t say what would become of citizens who fail to leave the country before President Joe Biden’s August 31 deadline for military withdrawal.

Efforts to locate and remove individual US citizens became even more dangerous on Thursday when a suicide bombing outside the gates of Kabul airport killed 12 American soldiers and wounded 15 others.

A splinter group of ISIS in Afghanistan, ISIS-K, claimed responsibility for the attacks, in which at least 60 Afghan civilians were killed.

Biden will speak on Thursday at 5:00 p.m. to discuss the terrorist attacks and ongoing evacuation efforts.

Tags Afghanistan, Americans, contact, Department, left, state

Politics

U.S. working to contact most of 1,500 Americans left

Post author By
Post date August 26, 2021

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that there may be as many as 1,500 Americans in Afghanistan left to evacuate, a calculation that he described as “difficult to pin down with absolute precision at any given moment.”

Blinken said during a press conference that the U.S. currently is “aggressively reaching out” to about 1,000 contacts “multiple times a day, through multiple channels of communication” to determine if they still want to leave and to give them instructions on how to do so. However, the ultimate number might be lower, Blinken said.

Blinken added that the State Department has been in direct contact with 500 other Americans in the last 24 hours with instructions on how to safely travel to the airport for evacuation.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks about refugee programs for Afghans who aided the U.S. during a briefing at the State Department in Washington, DC, U.S. August 2, 2021.

Brendan Smialowski | Reuters

“The U.S. government does not track Americans’ movements when they travel around the world,” Blinken explained. “There could be other Americans in Afghanistan who never enrolled with the embassy, who ignored public evacuation notices and have not yet identified themselves.”

“We’ve also found that many people who contact us and identify themselves as American citizens, including by filling out and submitting repatriation assistance forms, are not, in fact, U.S. citizens, something that can take some time to verify. And some Americans may choose to stay in Afghanistan,” the nation’s top diplomat said.

The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan early on Thursday issued a security alert on its website urging Americans to avoid traveling to Kabul airport and warned some at certain gates to “leave immediately.”

“U.S. citizens who are at the Abbey Gate, East Gate, or North Gate now should leave immediately.” the alert said.

A State Department spokesperson called it a “dynamic and volatile security environment.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that many of the 1,000 contacts the U.S. is trying to reach are dual citizens who may not want to leave the country.

“Maybe they have extended family there, maybe they’ve spent their entire lives in Afghanistan and they’re not yet ready to depart,” Psaki told reporters during a press briefing. “Maybe they’re working on a range of projects there and aren’t yet ready to leave them. I know that’s hard for us to understand as we’re looking at the images, but for many of these Afghans, this is their home.”

Blinken’s press conference, his first since the collapse of the Afghan government to the Taliban more than a week ago, comes as U.S. and coalition forces intensify emergency evacuation flights.

In the past 24 hours, Western forces evacuated 19,000 people out of Kabul on 90 military cargo aircraft flights, a cadence of one departure flight every 39 minutes, according to the Pentagon.

Evacuees wait to board a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 23, 2021.

Sgt. Isaiah Campbell | U.S. Marine Corps | via Reuters

Since the mass evacuations began Aug. 14, approximately 82,300 people have been airlifted out of Afghanistan. About 87,900 people have been evacuated since the end of July, including about 4,500 U.S. citizens and their families.

The Pentagon said Wednesday that 10,000 people are currently at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul awaiting a flight. About 5,400 U.S. servicemembers are assisting with evacuation efforts, with nearly 200 U.S. military aircraft dedicated to the mission.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday reiterated to leaders of the G-7, NATO, United Nations and European Union that the United States will withdraw its military from Afghanistan by the end of the month.

The president warned that staying longer in Afghanistan carries serious risks for foreign troops and civilians. Biden said that ISIS-K, an Afghanistan-based affiliate of the terror group, presents a growing threat to the airport.

“Every day we’re on the ground is another day we know that ISIS-K is seeking to target the airport and attack both U.S. and allied forces and innocent civilians,” he said.

NHS contact tracing app downloads spike

Post author By
Post date July 25, 2021

Selective focus. Concept photo.

Oleksandr Siedov | iStock editorial team | Getty Images

LONDON – UK contact tracking app downloads spiked last week, according to new data, despite widespread concerns about people being asked to self-isolate amid a surge in coronavirus cases.

The NHS Covid-19 app was downloaded 161,000 times in the week of July 11-17, according to analysis firm App Annie, up from 131,000 the previous week and 137,000 times from June 27 to July 3.

Meanwhile, weekly active users – defined as anyone who opens the app in a given week – stayed at 14.7 million for the weeks July 11-17 and July 4-10, compared with 14.4 million from June 27th to July 3rd.

This doesn’t mean that everyone who uses the app has the contact tracking feature turned on. Some may have disabled the feature.

Even so, it shows that engagement with the app is still strong, despite fears that more people will delete it to avoid self-isolation.

“Downloads have skyrocketed when an announcement depends on the usage of the app and then they tend to decrease, but usage has stayed strong week after week,” said Lexi Sydow, head of market insights at App Annie. opposite CNBC.

“Ultimately, usage will be a better measure of how people actually interact with the app.”

Millions of Britons could be pinged by the app over the summer after the country lifted its remaining Covid restrictions and the number of infections in the country increased.

More than 1.1 million people in England and Wales have been pinged from the app in the past two weeks.

Last Friday, the UK reported more than 50,000 new cases for the first time since mid-January. The daily cases have decreased somewhat since then, but are still on the order of tens of thousands.

What is contact tracking?

The NHS Covid-19 app was launched by the UK government last year to do traditional contact tracing – which involves notifying an infected person’s contacts – using technology.

The idea is that people will be informed if they have been around someone infected with the coronavirus and it is recommended that they isolate themselves to reduce the spread among the population.

The contact tracking app for England and Wales, like many others, uses Bluetooth to discover users who are nearby. If a user comes near a person who has tested positive, he is informed and asked to isolate himself.

This is controversial for businesses at a time when the UK is experiencing a resurgence of the Covid cases and England is lifting almost all remaining restrictions on public life.

According to the Chartered Institute of Personal and Development, 57% of HR professionals say they experienced a staff shortage in the past month because the app asked employees to self-isolate.

The app was originally introduced as a key part of plans to lift England’s lockdown restrictions at the start of the pandemic. More recently, however, the government is trying to downplay its importance.

A policy change is expected to go into effect on August 16, which means that those who have received two Covid vaccine syringes will be exempt from self-isolation if prompted by the app.

The government has also identified a list of workers who could avoid isolation even if exposed to the virus.

There are now doubts as to how effective the app will be in the future.

“The exposure notification app made sense at the start of the pandemic, when we had no vaccines and we had high deaths and hospital admissions,” Stephanie Hare, an independent technology researcher, told CNBC.

“The goal was to break the chain of transmission – to stop the virus from spreading – and all of our policies were aligned,” she added.

“Under Boris Johnson’s new policy for England, we are no longer trying to break the chain of transmission, making the exposure notification app less useful to society,” said Hare.

“It could still be useful to people who want to download and use it and would rather know if they’ve been exposed.”

Tags app, contact, downloads, NHS, spike, tracing

Health

Florida Personal College Bars Vaccinated Academics From Pupil Contact

Post author By
Post date May 2, 2021

Florida Private School Bars Vaccinated Teachers From Student Contact

A private school in Miami’s fashionable design district sent a letter to its faculty and staff last week about getting vaccinated against Covid-19. In contrast to institutions that have promoted and even facilitated the vaccination of teachers, the school, Centner Academy, did the opposite: One of its co-founders, Leila Centner, informed the staff “with a very heavy heart” that they had a shot they would have to stay away from students.

In an example of how misinformation threatens the nation’s efforts to vaccinate enough Americans to get the coronavirus under control, Ms. Centner, who has frequently shared anti-vaccine posts on Facebook, claimed in the letter that “recent reports Unvaccinated people who were negatively influenced by their interaction with vaccinated people showed up. “

“Even in our own population, we have at least three women with menstrual cycles who are affected after spending time with a vaccinated person,” she wrote, reiterating the false claim that vaccinated people somehow pass the vaccine on to others and thereby their reproductive systems can affect. (You can’t do both.)

In the letter, Ms. Centner gave employees three options:

Let the school know if they have already been vaccinated so they can be physically kept away from the students.
Let the school know if they will receive the vaccine before the end of the school year “as we cannot allow recently vaccinated people to be around our students until more information is known”;
Wait until the school year is over to get vaccinated.

Teachers who receive the vaccine over the summer will not be allowed to return, the letter said until clinical trials on the vaccine are completed, and then only “if there is still a job available at that point” – which is what the teachers are doing effectively dependent on avoiding the vaccine.

Recognition…Romain Maurice / Getty Images for Haute Living

Ms. Centner asked the faculty and staff to fill out a “confidential” form stating whether they had received a vaccine – and if so, what and how many doses – or planned to be vaccinated. The form requires staff to acknowledge that the school is taking legal action to protect students if it is determined that I have not answered these questions correctly.

Ms. Centner addressed questions on the matter to her publicist, who said in a statement that student safety was a top priority throughout the pandemic. The statement reiterated false claims that people who were vaccinated “may transmit something from their bodies”, leading to adverse reproductive problems in women.

“We are not one hundred percent sure that the Covid injections are safe, and there are too many unknown variables for us to be comfortable at the moment,” the statement said.

The Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization, and many other agencies have concluded that the coronavirus vaccines currently used in the United States in an emergency are safe and effective.

The Centner Academy opened in 2019 for preschoolers up to eighth grade and has applied as a “happiness school” that focuses on the mindfulness and emotional intelligence of children. The school prominently promotes support for “medical freedom from prescribed vaccines” on its website.

Ms. Centner started the school with her husband, David Centner, a technology and electronic tolling entrepreneur. Everyone donated a lot to the Republican Party and the Trump re-election campaign while giving much smaller sums to the local Democrats.

In February, the Centners welcomed a special guest to speak to students: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the well-known anti-vaccine activist. (Mr Kennedy was suspended from Instagram a few days later for promoting misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines.) That month, the school hosted a zoom talk with Dr. Lawrence Palevsky, a New York pediatrician often quoted by anti-vaccination activists.

Kitty Bennett contributed to the research.

Tags Bars, contact, Florida, private, School, Student, teachers, Vaccinated

World News

U.S. attempting to contact Aung San Suu Kyi after civilians die in navy custody

Post author By
Post date March 13, 2021

U.S. trying to contact Aung San Suu Kyi after civilians die in military custody

Myanmar State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi will watch her hearing on the Rohingya genocide case at the United Nations International Court of Justice on December 11, 2019 in the Peace Palace of The Hague on the second day of her hearing on the Rohingya genocide case.

Koen Van Weel | AFP | Getty Images

The US is still working to contact Aung San Suu Kyi and other civilian inmates in Myanmar, the State Department said Friday after two officials from its National League for Democracy party died in military custody last week.

Suu Kyi was Myanmar’s state advisor, the civilian head of government, before she was ousted from power and arrested by the military in a coup on February 1. Her NLD party won an all-out victory in the general election last year that led the military to accuse fraud and oust them from power.

“We have a pending request to contact the State Council, which is of course unjustly arrested by the military at the moment,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters during a press conference on Friday.

“We have continuously inquired about their health and safety, as well as the health and safety of all detained leaders and civil society actors, and are working through appropriate channels to contact the detainees,” Price said.

The US has tried to contact Suu Kyi since the coup in February but has been turned away by the military, which has increasingly used violence against protesters in recent weeks.

There are growing concerns about the well-being of Suu Kyi and other detainees after two members of her party died last week after security forces arrested them. Suu Kyi was last seen at a court hearing on March 1st. It is unclear where she is being held. There were reports held at their home before they were taken to an undisclosed location.

More than 70 Burmese civilians have been killed and more than 2,000 people have been arrested, charged or convicted by the military regime since the coup. This is based on data compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Last week the US Department of Commerce imposed export controls on the Myanmar Defense and Interior Departments and two military-affiliated companies. Washington has threatened further sanctions against the military regime if it does not stop operations.

The US has also urged China to use its leverage over Myanmar to bring the democratically elected government back to power. Beijing blocked a UN Security Council resolution in February condemning the coup. However, China backed a Security Council statement this week condemning the violence against demonstrators and expressing support for the democratic transition in Myanmar.

The president’s statement on Wednesday is a step under a resolution but still becomes part of the United Nations’ permanent record. The UN Security Council can impose sanctions, but such a measure would likely fail against the Chinese and Russian opposition.

US and Chinese officials meet in Anchorage, Alaska on March 18 to discuss a wide range of topics. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Congress this week that future meetings with Chinese officials would only take place if concrete progress was made on issues affecting Washington.

“There are currently no plans for a number of follow-up contracts. These commitments, if they are to follow, must really be based on the thesis that we are seeing tangible progress and tangible results with China on issues of concern for us,” said Blinken.

Tags Aung, Civilians, contact, custody, Die, Kyi, Military, San, Suu

Health

CDC requires airways to gather contact data on vacationers from DRC, Guinea

Post author By
Post date March 8, 2021

CDC requires airlines to collect contact information on travelers from DRC, Guinea

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention require airlines to collect contact information for all passengers from Guinea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in two separate Ebola outbreaks in African countries.

As of Thursday, airlines will have to collect and submit contact information to the CDC for all US travelers who have been to the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Guinea in the 21 days prior to their arrival in the US, the CDC said on Tuesday. On Friday, the CDC announced that it would serve travelers from both countries through six US airports in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, the District of Columbia, Newark and Los Angeles.

The risk of Ebola spreading to the US is “extremely small,” the CDC said last week, but health officials are preparing their public health response protocols to ensure the disease does not get into the country.

“For timely public health follow-up care, health officials must have immediate access to accurate and complete contact information for travelers when they arrive in the US,” said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky in a statement. “Any delay in contacting an exposed person can increase the likelihood of the disease spreading.”

Airlines must collect the names, addresses of travelers in the United States, primary contact phone numbers, secondary or emergency contact phone numbers, and email addresses, the CDC said in a statement. It is “the minimal amount of information needed to reliably locate travelers,” added the CDC.

Information provided by travelers is “checked by US government officials upon arrival to ensure that it is correct and complete,” the CDC said. The agency noted that a February 2020 CDC rule empowered the CDC to impose such a requirement on airlines.

“Air travel has the potential to get people, some of whom may have been exposed to a communicable disease, anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours,” said the CDC. “In certain situations, public health officials may need to track travelers who have arrived from a country where an outbreak is occurring, such as the Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Guinea.”

The World Health Organization is responding to two Ebola outbreaks, one in the West African nation of Guinea and one in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa. Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said Monday that 13 cases of Ebola have been confirmed in Guinea, four of which were deemed likely.

The cases in Guinea currently appear to be contained in the remote regions of N’Zerekore and Gueckedou in southern Guinea, Ryan said. He added that 99% of around 500 identified people who have been exposed to the virus are being tracked. More than 1,100 people have been vaccinated against Ebola since its recurrence last month, he added.

Separately, Ryan said eight cases, including four deaths, have been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. No new cases have been reported there since Feb.22, Ryan said.

In contrast to the highly infectious coronavirus, which can be transmitted by people without symptoms, it is believed that Ebola spreads mainly through people who are already visibly ill. The virus spreads through direct contact with the blood or body fluids of people who are sick or who have died of the disease, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ebola has an average death rate of 50% which, according to the WHO, can vary depending on the outbreak.

The recurrence of Ebola in Guinea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo has hit global health professionals particularly hard, as these countries are home to the two worst Ebola outbreaks in history. The outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, declared in June, lasted nearly two years. At the time of the end, there were a total of 3,481 cases and 2,299 deaths, according to WHO.

The notorious Ebola outbreak in West Africa began in Guinea in 2014 before spreading across land borders to Sierra Leone and Liberia, according to WHO. By the end of 2016, there were more than 28,000 cases, including over 11,000 deaths, according to the WHO.

During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the US CDC confirmed 11 cases of Ebola in the US, mostly among medical professionals who had traveled to Africa to help with the response.

Tags Airlines, CDC, collect, contact, DRC, Guinea, information, requires, Travelers

Politics

David Perdue quarantines after Covid contact

Post author By
Post date January 1, 2021

Georgia Senator David Perdue went into quarantine after contacting someone who tested positive for Covid-19, his campaign announced on Thursday, less than a week before the Republican runoff against Democrat Jon Ossoff.

Perdue and his wife Bonnie tested negative for the coronavirus according to their campaign, which did not specify how long the 71-year-old incumbent senator would be in quarantine.

His contest against Ossoff is one of two runoff elections in Georgia on Tuesday that will determine whether Republicans or Democrats will have majority control over the US Senate starting next month.

In the other race, incumbent Senator Kelly Loeffler, Perdue’s Republican, meets Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock. Recent polls suggest close races in any runoff election.

Perdue was due to perform with Loeffler on Thursday afternoon at a New Year’s Eve rally and concert in Gainesville.

The guidelines issued by the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention require that people exposed to a person with Covid stay at home for 14 days after their last contact with an infected person.

“This morning Senator Perdue was informed that he had come into close contact with someone in the campaign who tested positive for COVID-19,” said a statement from Perdue’s campaign.

“Both Senator Perdue and his wife tested negative today, but according to his doctor’s recommendations and CDC guidelines, they will be quarantined,” the campaign said.

“The Senator and his wife have been tested regularly throughout the campaign and the team will continue to follow CDC guidelines. More information will be provided as it becomes available.”

Ossoff later tweeted, “I hope David, Bonnie, the campaign staff and supporters stay healthy and COVID negative.”

Loeffler quarantined himself at the start of the race after receiving inconclusive Covid test results on November 21. She has not tested positive for the virus.

Senator David Perdue (R-GA) speaks during a campaign rally as he runs for re-election at the Olde Blind Dog Irish pub in Milton, Georgia on December 21, 2020.

Al Drago | Reuters

In the final days leading up to Tuesday’s runoff election, Republicans stepped up their efforts to get a vote as data shows that Democrats enjoyed an advantage in turnout.

When asked during a Fox News interview how closely she and Perdue coordinated their drainage efforts, Loeffler said, “Our campaigns have come together in a nationwide operation of 1,000 people with 40,000 volunteers and 8,000 election monitors. So we all work hard one day to get out across Georgia and work with the Georgia voters and make sure they know what this is about. They know they’ll turn out. “

“The future of the country is at stake,” said Loeffler of the runoff election.

President Donald Trump is said to be promoting Perdue and Loeffler in Georgia on Monday.

President-elect Joe Biden will travel to Atlanta on Monday, and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris plans to visit Savannah on Sunday to surprise Ossoff and Warnock in the final push before election day.

If Perdue and Loeffler both win their runoff elections, Republicans will hold a 52-seat majority in the Senate. The Democratic caucus, made up of two independents, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Maine’s Angus King, would have 48 seats.

If Ossoff and Warnock win, the Democratic caucus would have 50 seats. With the groundbreaking vote by Vice-President-Elect Harris, this would put the Democrats in control of the Senate. Democrats currently hold the House of Representatives and will continue to do so in 2021, despite losing a number of seats in that Chamber.

The Covid crisis was an important topic in the election campaign. Perdue, in particular, was scrutinized by the Democrats over allegations of improper stock trading at the start of the pandemic.

Ossoff and Warnock have criticized Perdue and Loeffler’s handling of the crisis, while the incumbent senators have accused the Democrats of stalling efforts to get an aid package through.

More recently, Ossoff and Perdue used Trump’s call for $ 2,000 stimulus checks as an opportunity to criticize Senate Republicans for speaking out against a larger direct payment earlier in the Covid aid negotiation process. Perdue and Loeffler, who have strongly allied themselves with Trump, later parted ways with many Senate Republicans to support the president’s call for greater direct payments.

Georgia has reported more than 647,800 cases of Covid this year, with 10,846 deaths attributable to the coronavirus in the state.

More than 2.8 million Georgians have already voted in Wednesday’s runoff elections, a record turnout for such a competition in the state.

Tags contact, Covid, David, Perdue, quarantines

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What is contact tracking?