Tag: Covid

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World News

India stories document new Covid circumstances for fifth straight day

India reports record new Covid cases for fifth straight day

Medical staff in PSA caring for a person at the Covid-19 Temporary Care Center attached to LNJP Hospital at Shehnai Banquet Hall on April 23, 2021 in New Delhi, India.

Raj K Raj | Hindustan Times | Getty Images

India reported a record number of Covid-19 cases for the fifth consecutive year on Monday, while the official death toll also rose.

Official data showed that 352,991 new cases were reported within 24 hours as the total number of infections exceeded 17 million.

At least 2,812 people died, bringing the death toll to over 195,000 – media reports suggest the official death rate is likely undercounted.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been criticized for gathering large crowds for religious festivals and election campaigns in different parts of the country this year. Before the second wave, India had an average of around 10,000 new cases per day.

In April alone, the South Asian nation reported more than 5 million new cases, marginalizing the country’s health system.

Hospitals run out of beds and are also turning away from seriously ill patients. There is a serious shortage of oxygen supply, partly due to an uneven distribution between states. This has resulted in the deaths of many Covid-19 patients as the government strives to ensure supplies to the worst hit states by road, rail and air.

“It put a heavy strain on healthcare infrastructure, supplies and oxygen, as the amount of materials needed was four times what it was in the first wave,” Naresh Trehan, chairman of Medanta Hospital, told CNBC Street Signs Asia on Monday .

“We are actually having trouble coping with all of this,” he said. Additional measures are being taken to create more beds and to stimulate the production of more personal protective equipment and medicines. India’s “weak point”, however, is the lack of medical oxygen.

International answer

The international community responded with a promise to send urgently needed aid to India.

The United States will send raw materials necessary for India to advance AstraZeneca’s local manufacturing of the vaccine, as well as therapeutics, rapid diagnostic test kits, ventilators and protective equipment. It will also deploy a team of public health advisors from the Center for Disease Control and USAID to India.

This came after the UK, France and Germany pledged aid over the weekend. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Twitter that the European Union is “pooling resources to respond quickly to India’s request for assistance through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism”.

Last week, China’s Foreign Ministry said Beijing was “in communication” with New Delhi and “ready to provide assistance and assistance as India needs it.”

Singapore state investor Temasek said Sunday it has partnered with Air India and Amazon India to ventilate medical devices like oxygen concentrators and ventilators from the city-state. Medical supplies have been sent to the financial capital, Mumbai, in Maharashtra, and the eastern state of West Bengal, where more and more cases are occurring.

Big tech companies like Microsoft and Google have also publicly pledged to help.

Medical workers chat among themselves at a quarantine center for patients infected with Covid-19 coronavirus in a banquet room that was being converted into an isolation center on April 15, 2021 in New Delhi, India, to treat the rising cases of infection.

Anindito Mukherjee | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Local answer

Corporate India has also stepped up its efforts to help the country secure medical supplies to relieve the burden on the health infrastructure.

Indian media reported that billionaire Mukesh Ambanis Reliance Industries will produce over 700 tons of medical-grade oxygen daily in one of its oil refineries. It is to be given free of charge to the worst affected countries.

The Tata Group announced last week that it would import 24 cryogenic containers, which are also reportedly in short supply, to carry liquid oxygen. In the meantime, Jindal Steel and Power have announced that they will supply hospitals in dire need of it with 500 tons of liquid oxygen.

Indian social media users have also taken to the platforms to coordinate availability and access to medical care, oxygen bottles and other forms of assistance.

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Business

Remodeled by Covid and Business Shifts, the 2021 Academy Awards Units Off

Transformed by Covid and Industry Shifts, the 2021 Academy Awards Sets Off

LOS ANGELES – A surreal 93rd Academy Awards, a televised stage show about films that mainly go online, began on Sunday with Regina King, a former Academy Award winner and director of One Night in Miami, who performed for Dinner strutted club set.

“It’s been quite a year and we’re still in the middle of it,” she said, citing the pandemic and the guilty verdict in the George Floyd murder trial. “Our love of movies helped us get through.”

With a little more preamble, Oscar statuettes were handed out, and Emerald Fennell, a first-time nominee, won Best Original Screenplay for Promising Young Woman, a startling revenge drama. The last woman to win this category alone was Diablo Cody (“Juno”) in 2007.

“It’s so heavy and so cold,” said Fennell of the gilded Oscar statuette in an impromptu speech that took up one she wrote when she was 10 and loved Zack Morris on the television series “Saved By the Bell.” “You said write a speech. I’m going to have trouble with Steven Soderbergh, ”she said.

Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller won the adapted script award for “The Father” about the devastation caused by dementia. Another Round, about middle-aged men who want to get drunk every day, won an Oscar for International Feature Film (formerly known as Foreign Language Film). The Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg dedicated “Another Round” to his daughter Ida, who was killed in a car accident in 2019.

“Perhaps you’ve pulled some strings somewhere,” said Vinterberg, fighting back the tears.

At the ceremony, there was a possibility that the night might go down in Hollywood history. People of Color were nominated for all four acting awards – an indication that the film industry has made significant reforms. The academy, with around 10,000 members, is still predominantly white and male, but the organization invited more women and people of color to join its ranks after the intense outcry by #OscarsSoWhite in 2015 and 2016, when the incumbent nominees were all white . This year nine of the 20 nominations went to people of color.

As expected, Daniel Kaluuya was named supporting actor for playing the leader of the Black Panther, Fred Hampton, in Judas and the Black Messiah.

“Bro, we’re out here!” Kaluuya shouted solemnly before getting serious and paying tribute to Hampton (“what a man, what a man”) and ending with the cri de coeur: “When they played divide and conquer, we said unite and ascend.”

Hollywood wanted the TV show’s producers to do an almost impossible hat trick. First and foremost, they were asked to create a show that would keep TV ratings from dropping to alarming lows – while also celebrating films that, for the most part, had little audience relevance. The production team, which included Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Soderbergh (“Traffic”), is also hoping to use the television show to start the theater. This is no easy task when most of the world has been at the box office for more than a year. Ultimately, manufacturers had to integrate live camera feeds from more than 20 locations in order to comply with coronavirus security restrictions.

The Academy of Arts and Sciences for Feature Films had postponed the event, which usually takes place in February, to escape the pandemic. Nevertheless, the red carpet had to be radically reduced in size and the extravagant parties canceled.

Updated

April 25, 2021, 9:14 p.m. ET

For the first time, the Academy nominated two women for best director and recognized Chloé Zhao for “Nomadland”, a bittersweet meditation on grief and the American dream, and Fennell for “Promising Young Woman” for the consequences of sexual assault. The other nominated directors were David Fincher for “Mank,” a black and white love letter to Old Hollywood; Lee Isaac Chung for “Minari,” a semi-autobiographical story about a Korean-American family; and surprisingly Vinterberg for “Another Round”.

Zhao had been hailed for her “nomad land” direction by nearly 60 other organizations, including the Directors Guild of America and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In 93 years of the Oscars, only one woman, Kathryn Bigelow, has ever won. (Bigelow was celebrated for directing “The Hurt Locker” in 2010.) The directing category has also been dominated by white men over the decades, which makes the nomination of Chinese Zhao even more significant.

Netflix received its first Oscar nomination in 2014 for The Square, a documentary about the Egyptian revolution. Since then, the streaming giant has dominated the nominations, in large part due to the high spending on price campaigns. It amassed 36 this year, more than any other company, with Mank receiving 10 more than any other film.

But Netflix and its astute price warriors keep snooping in the end.

Last year the company’s hopes were based on The Irishman. Not even one of his 10 nominations was able to convert into a win. In 2019, Netflix pushed “Roma”. It won three Academy Awards, including one for Alfonso Cuarón’s direction, but lost the Grand Prix.

On Sunday, Netflix had two nominees, “Mank” and “The Trial of the Chicago 7”. These films competed with Zhao’s “Nomadland,” a contribution from Searchlight, a division of the Walt Disney Company. The other nominees for best picture were “Sound of Metal”, “Minari”, “Promising Young Woman”, “Judas and the Black Messiah” and “The Father”.

Soderbergh wasn’t your usual Oscar producer, which may make him the perfect pick for this very unusual year. He and his production partners for the event, Stacey Sher and Jesse Collins, avoided Zoom and implemented enough protocols to allow nominees a mask-free environment.

In the run-up to Sunday, Soderbergh repeatedly referred to the show as a three-act film. The television station’s staff included filmmaker Dream Hampton “Surviving R. Kelly” and veteran writer and director Richard LaGravenese (“The Fisher King”). Moderators were referred to as “performers”. These included Zendaya, Brad Pitt, and Bong Joon Ho, last year’s best director winner.

The ceremony usually included performances of the five pieces that were nominated for best song. Not this year. These were brought from the main stage to a preshow that allowed them to be performed in their entirety.

That year, however, the academy decided to hand out two honorary Oscars during the main show. (Since 2009, honorary statuettes have been awarded during a non-televised fall banquet.) The non-profit film and television fund that draws technicians for a nursing home and retirement village for aging and sick “industrial” people (actors, executives, choreographers, lighting) , Cameramen), received one. Founded in 1921 by stars like Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin, the organization also offers a wide range of other services to Hollywood seniors.

The second went to Tyler Perry, whom the Academy described as “a cultural influence that goes well beyond his work as a filmmaker.” Perry, of course, began his entertainment career as a playwright. Since the end of his popular nine-film series “Madea” in 2019, Perry has focused on producing TV shows such as “Bruh”, “Sistahs” and “The Oval” for BET. He owns a studio in Atlanta.

The Dolby Theater, home to more than 3,000 people and which has hosted the Academy Awards since 2001, wasn’t the epicenter of the television broadcast. That year, an Art Deco Mission Revival train station in downtown Los Angeles served as the main venue and only the nominees and their guests attended.

Categories
Health

U.S. to present India uncooked supplies for vaccines, medical provides to struggle Covid

Country reports over 330,000 new cases

Medical workers in protective equipment (PPE) stand on alert in front of the Covid-19 station at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital on April 22, 2021 in New Delhi, India.

Sonu Mehta | Hindustan Times | Getty Images

WASHINGTON – The Biden government announced that it will immediately provide the raw materials needed to manufacture coronavirus vaccines in India as the country works to counter the rise in Covid-19 infections.

In the past few weeks, India has been grappling with a staggering surge in new coronavirus infections. Over the weekend, India set another world record for daily cases, bringing the country’s cumulative total to 16,960,172 cases, according to Johns Hopkins.

“Just as India sent aid to the United States because our hospitals were congested at the start of the pandemic, the United States is determined to help India in its need,” said Emily Horne, spokeswoman for the National Security Council, in a statement on Sunday.

Horne added that the United States would send raw materials to India to make the Covishield vaccine, as well as therapeutics, rapid diagnostic test kits, ventilators and protective equipment.

“The US Development Finance Corporation is funding a significant expansion of manufacturing capacity for BioE, the vaccine maker in India, so that BioE can produce at least 1 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines by the end of 2022,” Horne wrote. The US would also send a team of public health advisors from the Center for Disease Control and USAID to India.

The announcement follows a Sunday call between Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. Sullivan “reiterated America’s solidarity with India, the two countries with the highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world,” read an ad on the appeal.

The US response comes after the UK, France and Germany pledged aid to India over the weekend.

On Sunday, Biden wrote on Twitter that his government was “determined to help India in its need”.

Last week, when the United States administered a new record of 200 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine, Biden told reporters that his government was looking for more ways to help internationally.

“We’re looking at what will happen to some of the vaccines we don’t use. We’re going to make sure they can be shipped safely,” Biden said on April 21.

“We don’t have enough confidence to send it abroad now. But I assume we can do it,” he added.

Categories
Business

As Covid Outbreak Rages, India Orders Essential Social Media Posts to Be Taken Down

As Covid Outbreak Rages, India Orders Critical Social Media Posts to Be Taken Down

NEW DELHI – With a devastating second wave of Covid-19 across India and lifesaving oxygen starvation, the Indian government on Sunday ordered Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to remove dozens of social media posts critical of how the pandemic was dealt with are .

The order addressed itself in around 100 places that contained criticism from opposition politicians and called for the resignation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The government said the posts could cause panic, use images out of context and hinder their response to the pandemic.

For the time being, the companies have complied by making the posts invisible to those using the websites in India. In the past, companies have republished some content after determining that it wasn’t breaking the law.

The shutdown orders come as India’s public health crisis turns into a political spiral, setting the stage for an increasing battle between American social media platforms and Mr Modi’s government over who decides what can be said online.

On Sunday, the country reported more than 349,691 new infections and 2,767 deaths. This was the fourth day in a row that it set a world record in daily infection statistics, though experts warn that the real numbers are likely much higher. The country now accounts for almost half of all new cases worldwide. His health system seems to be fluctuating. Hospitals across the country have been working hard to get enough oxygen for patients.

In New Delhi, the capital, hospitals turned away patients this weekend after running out of oxygen and beds. Last week at least 22 patients were killed in a Nashik city hospital after a leak cut their oxygen supply.

Online photos of corpses on plywood hospital beds and the countless fires of overhauled crematoria have gone viral. Desperate patients and their families have sought help from the government online, appalling an international audience.

On Sunday evening, in one of many solicitations for help on social media, Ajay Koli took to Twitter to find an oxygen bottle for his mother in Delhi, who he said had tested positive 10 days ago. Mr Koli said he lost his father on Saturday. “I don’t want to lose my mother now.”

Mr Modi has been attacked for ignoring expert advice on the risks of easing restrictions after holding large political rallies without regard to social distancing. Some of the content now offline in India has highlighted this contradiction by using garish images to contrast Mr. Modi’s rallies with the flames of the pyre.

In a radio address on Sunday, Mr. Modi tried to contain the fallout. He said the “storm” of infections “rocked” the country.

Updated

April 25, 2021, 1:06 p.m. ET

“To win this fight, we must prioritize experts and scientific advice,” he said.

One of the out of view tweets was posted by Moloy Ghatak, a labor minister in the opposition-ruled state of West Bengal, where Mr Modi’s party hopes to make big wins in the current election. Mr. Ghatak accused Mr. Modi of “mismanagement” and held him directly responsible for the deaths. His tweet included pictures of Mr Modi and his election campaigns alongside those of the cremations and compared him to Nero, the Roman emperor for choosing to hold political meetings and export vaccines during a “health crisis”.

Another tweet from Revanth Reddy, a seated MP, used a hashtag blaming Mr. Modi for the “disaster”. “India records over 2 lakh cases daily,” it says using an Indian numbering unit which means 200,000 cases. “Shortages of vaccines, shortages of drugs, increasing numbers of deaths.”

The new steps towards the confluence of the online language deepen a conflict between American social media platforms and the government of Mr. Modi. The two sides have argued over the past few months over an urge by the Indian government to monitor what is being said online more closely. A policy that, according to critics, serves to silence critics of the government.

“This is a trend that is increasingly being enforced for online media rooms,” said Apar Gupta, executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital rights group. He added that the orders were used to “cause censorship” under the guise of making social media companies “more accountable”.

The battle for control of the gruesome images and online anger over a raging public health disaster is only one front in a wider conflict that is unfolding around the world. Governments around the world have tried to contain the power of the biggest tech companies like Twitter and Facebook, whose policies far from their California headquarters have huge political implications. At best, it can be difficult to untangle government efforts to deter misinformation from other motivations, such as tilting the online debate in favor of a political party.

While corporations attempt to adhere to guidelines that they say are based on the principles of free speech, their responses to government power games have been inconsistent and have often been based on business pragmatism. In Myanmar, Facebook cut ties with military-linked accounts because of violence against demonstrators. In China, Facebook is doing brisk business with government-sponsored media groups that have been busy denying the widespread internment of ethnic minorities that the US has labeled genocide.

In India, businesses are faced with a tough choice: obey laws and risk repressing political debates, or ignore them and face harsh sentences, including jail sentences for local employees, in a potentially huge growth market.

Disputes over online language in India are becoming more common. The Indian government, controlled by Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, has become increasingly aggressive in suppressing dissent. She has arrested activists and journalists and pressured media organizations to stick to her line. It cut off mobile internet access in crisis areas. A number of apps from Chinese companies were blocked following a stalemate with China.

In February, Twitter relented to government threats to arrest its employees and suspended 500 accounts after the government accused them of making inflammatory remarks about Mr. Modi. However, Twitter declined to remove a number of journalists ‘and politicians’ accounts, pointing out that the order to ban them appeared to be inconsistent with Indian law.

In a statement on Sunday, the Indian government said the posts it targeted were “spreading false or misleading information” and “panic over the Covid-19 situation in India through the use of unrelated, ancient and out of context images or images “. It pointed to photos in several posts that were alleged to be of bodies unrelated to the recent outbreak.

In a statement sent via email, Twitter said that if content is “found to be illegal in a particular jurisdiction but doesn’t violate Twitter’s rules, we may only deny access to the content in India,” adding that in this case users would be notified. Facebook did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.

The moves did little to quell a wider chorus of online anger.

“If most citizens do everything they can to organize hospital beds, oxygen and logistics support for loved ones, what exactly is the Indian government doing?” wrote Mahua Moitra, a politician and MP from West Bengal.

Aftab Alam, professor at the University of Delhi, was more direct.

“Because you know it’s easier to remove tweets than to ensure oxygen supply,” he wrote on Twitter.

Categories
Business

Adobe EVP Anil Chakravarthy talks Covid yr, nearly assembly Tom Brady

Adobe EVP Anil Chakravarthy talks Covid year, almost meeting Tom Brady

When Anil Chakravarthy joined Adobe in January 2020, his job as head of the Digital Experience business was to help customers modernize and take advantage of the cloud. He also had to gear up quickly for Adobe Summit, the company’s annual customer event that was set to start in March in Las Vegas.

Covid-19 changed his plans entirely. Chakravarthy, who had spent the previous six years as CEO of Informatica, canceled all travel and started working from his living room sofa. He spent so much time on video meetings from there that co-workers turned his couch into a meme.

Chakravarthy also missed his chance to meet Tom Brady, who was scheduled to be a guest speaker at the Las Vegas summit. Like its tech peers, Adobe converted its conference into a virtual event.

Despite all the disruption, revenue in the Digital Experience division, which includes products for marketing, analytics and e-commerce, climbed 12% last year. And in the first quarter, sales increased 24% to $934 million, accounting for close to a quarter of the company’s total revenue. It’s the company’s second-biggest business, behind digital media, which includes the Acrobat family of products.

Over a year into his new gig, Chakravarthy is now preparing for the virtual 2021 summit next week. He’s also getting ready for an eventual return to the office and a chance to meet many more of the company’s 23,000 worldwide employees in person.

Chakravarthy sat down with CNBC via video from his home in Silicon Valley to talk about the past year and what lies ahead as the pandemic comes to an end.

Here’s the full Q&A: 

(This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.) 

Ari Levy, CNBC: You started right before the pandemic hit. What was it like being thrown into the fire like that?

Anil Chakravarthy, EVP and GM, Adobe’s digital experience business and worldwide field operations: We had about two months of typical onboarding, we had our employee meetings and I was on the road with customers and partners at our key sites around the world. We were just getting ready to go up to Seattle to meet one of our partners, Microsoft, and I had another road trip planned in March. This was early March. First we put a stop to travel. Then we said, people don’t come into the office. Then it became complete work from home.

The big pivot was this event. It was supposed to be in Las Vegas. We were expecting 23,000 people. We had everything lined up. I was looking forward to meeting Tom Brady on stage.

We redirected the entire stage to go from Las Vegas to come to our office so we could record in the office. That plan went through the window. Finally, we all ended up recording from home and made the entire event virtual. That was our first real, hey this is a digital-only world now. Everybody came face to face with that. We went from digital as an important channel to digital as the primary channel to, in many cases, digital only. That was the pattern we saw across industries. Since we had an early exposure to that, we engaged with a lot of customers and worked with them on that over the course of the year.

Were you supposed to interview Brady on stage?

Tom had his own cameo role. I would introduce him and Tom would do his thing — that was the plan. It became a video thing. The video ended up really nice. He was more produced than it was for me at home.

What became your top job when the pandemic hit as far as supporting employees and working with customers?

For employees, the top job just became, what do we do for their well-being and safety? There were things that we never would have thought about. Employees were all over the place. There were people with health issues, people who just don’t have enough room to work at home. In places like in India, we have employees who live in relatively small apartments and multi-generational households and things like that. There was a whole range of issues. Some people were super happy that everybody was working remote. Some were like, oh my God, I don’t think I can get my job done.

We had people who were going into data centers, and doing things where they couldn’t travel to data centers any more or to customer sites to deliver projects. There was a spectrum of events that we had to deal with to make sure that we were delivering a continuous service. We do trillions of transactions a month online. What happened was the volume really went up like crazy. Every day seemed like Black Friday. The key was, how do you help this wide variety of employees with different functional roles and different personal situations really stay effective using a complete virtual environment.

On the customer side, I would put it into two classes. There was a class who were severely financially impacted, especially in the travel and hospitality verticals. For them it was like, hey work with us and become a long-term partner so we can get through this and continue to invest in Adobe. The other was like, hey finance is not the problem but we never anticipated we would be in this kind of situation. A retailer that was experimenting with digital is now like, nobody is coming to store, the website is it and I have to stand up curbside pickup in four weeks. How do I do that? It was mostly going into both a consultative role but also a role where we could really work with them as a partner while keeping our business healthy.

You’re from India as is your CEO, Shantanu Narayen. You mentioned employees in India specifically. What was the response there and how did you help employees get comfortable with the situation?

First of all, we helped people with arrangements for how to work from home. In our intranet, we actually had a very useful set of collected best practices, advice from employees. There were these little mini networks you could follow. If you’re a young parent and you have young kids at home, what are some things you can do that would help you become more effective while working form home? There was a separate network of people who would share tips about what they were doing. If you were living in a multigenerational household, what would you do? if you are in an engineering role versus a customer support role, where you have to be aligned with customers’ time zones while working from home, what would you do? Those were some of challenges, especially with customer delivery of projects.

All of our customers who would typically be in an office situation, they’re working remote. How do you make sure you have all the permissions and the access to help them deliver those projects? What proved really successful for us was there was a set of things we did to make everybody effective like tools to work from home, which a lot of companies did. In addition, we then had these specific colleague affinity groups of employees who could really, based on their role and their personal situation, find advice to make their own situation more effective at working from home.

Did you have to send hot spots to people who had weak internet connections?

What proved very effective is Adobe made an allowance. You could expense a certain amount of money and you could use it for whatever you wanted as long as it was reasonably justified. Some people used it to buy office furniture and some people used it for better internet and things like that. We had that open for six months or so.

When you arrived at Adobe, what was the high-level expectation?

The experience cloud is the business I’m responsible for. Also, for our enterprise customers we have a sales team that will cover all of Adobe. I’m responsible for the enterprise go to market team as well, which is not only experience cloud, because we want to represent all of Adobe to our enterprise customers.

In terms of the experience cloud, we’ve been investing in this now for well over 10 years starting with the acquisition of Omniture. We’re the clear leader in providing the customer experience. The nature of how customers provide this customer experience is changing rapidly so it’s much more data driven. It’s driven off a common understanding for the customer. Think of it as a unified profile of the customer and then how we deliver content to the customer, how we help them do online commerce, how we market to them.

It’s all being driven off this common platform, the data-driven platform. That, by the way, is what made Adobe successful. The Adobe transformation was the result of moving online and really driving the personalized journey with customers. We call that our data-driven operating model. How do we make that available to all of our customers? Coming from Informatica, which is where I was before, I had that background in enterprise and driving data-driven platforms. That was my charter was how do we accelerate that journey. We’re making good progress on that front.

What was it like for you working from home?

I have a couch behind me that you can see. I was sitting on the couch before I got this — using my allowance I got this desk and everything. The couch became very famous inside the company, because I think people are bored and everything became a meme, including my couch. I don’t why it became a meme. I was just sitting on the couch. I guess not too many people sit on the couch all day. It became like, hey he’s on the couch again.

Our chief human resources officer has a Dr. Fauci bobblehead behind her. So that became a big meme. This couch became a meme. If I could explain memes, I’m telling you I’d be in a different line of work.

Now I have this standing desk. It’s a nice setup. Somebody from the security team brought my office monitor and everything here. I waited like six months. I was fighting it.

Now that we’re over a year into the pandemic, how much of your job is still dealing with personal issues and making sure people are OK?

A good 10-20% of my job is that, a coach and consultant and sounding board and just being able to help people work through that. One of the good things we’ve been able to do is for several of the people who are here and are open to it, I go for a walking one on one. We mask up and go for a walk. That’s provided a nice way to balance both the human aspect of life with what we’re trying to get done at work. I do about three or so a week, typically during workday evenings and sometimes over the weekend.

Did you find yourself front and center at the company faster than you expected because of Covid?

The digital experience is a big business and we have lots of employees. The part that was a little bit unexpected was I had not had the chance to meet in person as many people as I would have otherwise met. We had a whole lineup of international events. Our summit events, once we do the one in Las Vegas, we do them in many markets around the world. I had decided that I would travel to those events and that would give me a chance to meet our employees and customers in the regions. All of that became virtual. The good news is virtually I’ve met a ton of employees and a ton of customers. That has worked really well.

Typically when you go into a new company or you take over a new role within company, as part of doing that job you get a lot of incidental contact. You meet employees and customers in situations where you just have a lot of casual conversations and you pick up a lot of things about what’s really going on and what are the issues they face in doing their jobs. That incidental contact is much harder to create in an online environment. I had to work around that. It doesn’t happen naturally. I have to work at making it happen.

What ‘s been the biggest surprise for you?

The biggest positive surprise has been the resiliency of our company and the employees and how they’ve worked around these constraints. With 23,000 people, we support trillions of transactions. The volume has really gone through the roof. It’s been crazy. Being able to keep all of that up and running and scaling, working in a virtual environment, the resiliency required when people are scrambling and trying to make sure they’re taking care of their families and themselves and so on.

The surprise we’re continuing to work on is, from a customer perspective things have changed. Customers have also done a really good job of pivoting for the most part. But it’s not done. Right now as everybody starts to think about the future of work, that’s the unknown that we’re all working through.

Where are we now in the reopening of the economy and returning to work?

We’re at the beginning of that process of reentering and coming back. Everybody is thinking it through and figuring out what’s the right way to do it, the right pace to do it at and what should be required and what should be recommended in terms of employees and customers. We just had our employee meeting and there were lots of questions about that. We have been doing a lot of — our HR team working with our facilities team — has done a lot of work, both our own surveys and our own thought leadership but also comparing notes with our peer companies on what this future of work will look like and within the Adobe employee base what people would like to do.

We do believe that this idea of working from home for some portion of the week is going to stay as the norm for a large number of employees. The piece that we are moving to is, hey there are certain types of activities where we will require people to be in the office because that’s more productive. That’s brainstorming about new products, for example, or key planning sessions and things like that. As more people get vaccinated, that gets easier.

I went into the office to record my session for [the] summit. We were super duper careful. I got tested that morning and made sure everybody got tested before going in. Some of that might continue and some of that might get relaxed. 

Give me a little more detail on this year’s summit and how how it will be different from last year.

We have Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, doing a fireside chat with Shantanu. We also have the COO of FedEx. One as a partner but they’ve also had a huge role in the pandemic distributing vaccine. This year we have Serena Williams. I know I’m not meeting her this time so there’s no let down, unlike last year. We have hundreds of customers and lots of partners. We expect that we’ll have well over a half-million attendees virtually.

What we’ve learned from last year to this year is how to really personalize it at scale. Last year, because we moved so quickly, it was like we made the content, we put it out there and people came. It was all in a couple weeks. This time, we opened up registration a while ago and people have indicated what they want. We know what they’re interested in based on our relationships with them. It’s a lot more targeted, a lot more personalized and essentially built from the ground up to be a digital experience.

Finally, how did you meet Shantanu and did her personally recruit you?

Informatica was a partner of Adobe’s. At that time, Informatica was a partner for the Adobe Experience platform, especially in the data integration space. It was complementary. That’s how I met Shantanu. A lot of the reason I came was the opportunity to work with him and work with the leadership team at Adobe.

WATCH: Adobe CEO says digital services remain mission critical to business

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Health

Tens of millions Are Skipping Their Second Doses of Covid Vaccines

Millions Are Skipping Their Second Doses of Covid Vaccines

Millionen Amerikaner erhalten nicht die zweite Dosis ihrer Covid-19-Impfstoffe, und ihre Reihen wachsen.

Mehr als fünf Millionen Menschen oder fast 8 Prozent derjenigen, die zum ersten Mal die Pfizer- oder Moderna-Impfstoffe erhalten haben, haben nach den neuesten Daten der Zentren für die Kontrolle und Prävention von Krankheiten ihre zweite Dosis verpasst. Das ist mehr als das Doppelte der Rate unter Menschen, die in den ersten Wochen der landesweiten Impfkampagne geimpft wurden.

Selbst wenn das Land mit dem Problem von Millionen von Menschen zu kämpfen hat, die sich vor einer Impfung fürchten, stehen die örtlichen Gesundheitsbehörden vor der aufkommenden Herausforderung, sicherzustellen, dass diejenigen, die geimpft werden, dies vollständig tun.

Die Gründe variieren, warum Menschen ihre zweiten Schüsse verpassen. In Interviews sagten einige, sie befürchteten die Nebenwirkungen, zu denen auch flulike Symptome gehören können. Andere sagten, sie fühlten sich mit einem einzigen Schuss ausreichend geschützt.

Diese Einstellungen wurden erwartet, aber eine weitere Hürde war überraschend weit verbreitet. Eine Reihe von Impfstoffanbietern hat Termine für die zweite Dosis abgesagt, weil ihnen das Angebot ausgegangen ist oder sie nicht die richtige Marke auf Lager hatten.

Walgreens, einer der größten Impfstoffanbieter, schickte einige Leute, die einen ersten Schuss des Pfizer- oder Moderna-Impfstoffs erhielten, zu ihren zweiten Dosen in Apotheken, in denen nur der andere Impfstoff zur Verfügung stand.

Mehrere Walgreens-Kunden sagten in Interviews, dass sie, in einigen Fällen mit Hilfe von Apothekenmitarbeitern, nach einem Ort gesucht hätten, an dem sie die richtige zweite Dosis erhalten könnten. Andere gaben vermutlich einfach auf.

Von Anfang an befürchteten Experten des öffentlichen Gesundheitswesens, dass es schwierig sein würde, alle drei oder vier Wochen nach der ersten Dosis zu einem zweiten Schuss zurückzukehren. Es ist keine Überraschung, dass mit der breiteren Einführung von Impfstoffen die Zahl derjenigen, die ihre zweite Dosis auslassen, gestiegen ist.

Trotzdem beunruhigt der Trend einige Staatsbeamte, die sich beeilen, die Zahl der nur teilweise geimpften Menschen vor Schwellungen zu bewahren.

In Arkansas und Illinois haben Gesundheitsbeamte Teams angewiesen, anzurufen, SMS zu schreiben oder Briefe an Personen zu senden, um sie daran zu erinnern, ihre zweiten Schüsse zu bekommen. In Pennsylvania versuchen Beamte sicherzustellen, dass College-Studenten ihre zweiten Aufnahmen machen können, nachdem sie den Campus für den Sommer verlassen haben. South Carolina hat mehrere tausend Dosen speziell für Menschen bereitgestellt, die für ihren zweiten Schuss überfällig sind.

Zunehmende Beweise, die in Studien und aus realen Impfkampagnen gesammelt wurden, deuten auf die Gefahr hin, dass Menschen ihre zweite Dosis auslassen. Im Vergleich zum Zwei-Dosis-Regime löst ein einziger Schuss eine schwächere Immunantwort aus und kann die Empfänger anfälliger für gefährliche Virusvarianten machen. Und obwohl eine Einzeldosis einen teilweisen Schutz gegen Covid bietet, ist nicht klar, wie lange dieser Schutz anhält.

“Ich bin sehr besorgt, weil Sie diese zweite Dosis benötigen”, sagte Dr. Paul Offit, Professor an der University of Pennsylvania und Mitglied des Impfstoffbeirats der Food and Drug Administration.

Was Sie über die Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Pause in den USA wissen müssen

    • Am 23. April stimmte ein Beratergremium der Zentren für die Kontrolle und Prävention von Krankheiten dafür, eine Pause für den Impfstoff von Johnson & Johnson Covid aufzuheben und ein Etikett über eine äußerst seltene, aber möglicherweise gefährliche Blutgerinnungsstörung anzubringen.
    • Von den Gesundheitsbehörden des Bundes wird erwartet, dass sie den Staaten offiziell empfehlen, die Pause aufzuheben.
    • Die Verabreichung des Impfstoffs wurde kürzlich eingestellt, nachdem Berichte über eine seltene Blutgerinnungsstörung bei sechs Frauen aufgetaucht waren, die den Impfstoff erhalten hatten.
    • Das Gesamtrisiko für die Entwicklung der Störung ist äußerst gering. Frauen zwischen 30 und 39 Jahren scheinen mit 11,8 Fällen pro Million Dosen am stärksten gefährdet zu sein. Es gab sieben Fälle pro Million Dosen bei Frauen zwischen 18 und 49 Jahren.
    • Mittlerweile wurden fast acht Millionen Dosen des Impfstoffs verabreicht. Bei Männern und Frauen ab 50 Jahren gab es weniger als einen Fall pro Million Dosen.
    • Johnson & Johnson hatte auch beschlossen, die Einführung seines Impfstoffs in Europa aus ähnlichen Gründen zu verschieben, entschied sich jedoch später, seine Kampagne fortzusetzen, nachdem die Arzneimittelbehörde der Europäischen Union die Hinzufügung eines Warnhinweises angekündigt hatte. Südafrika, das von einer ansteckenden Virusvariante am Boden zerstört wurde, stellte die Verwendung des Impfstoffs ebenfalls ein, setzte ihn jedoch später fort.

Es steht viel auf dem Spiel, da in den USA nur ein Impfstoff zugelassen ist, der als Einzelschuss verabreicht wird. Die Verwendung dieses Impfstoffs von Johnson & Johnson wurde diesen Monat unterbrochen, nachdem er mit einer sehr seltenen, aber schwerwiegenden Nebenwirkung der Blutgerinnung in Verbindung gebracht worden war. Die Gesundheitsbehörden des Bundes haben am Freitag empfohlen, die Verwendung des Impfstoffs wieder aufzunehmen, aber die Kombination aus Sicherheitsbedenken und anhaltenden Produktionsproblemen dürfte diesen Impfstoff zu einer praktikablen Option für weniger Menschen machen.

Die Anzahl der versäumten zweiten Dosen der CDC reicht bis zum 9. April. Sie gilt nur für Personen, die bis zum 7. März eine erste Moderna-Dosis oder bis zum 14. März eine erste Pfizer-Dosis erhalten haben.

Während Millionen von Menschen ihre zweiten Schüsse verpasst haben, sind die Gesamtquoten der Nachsorge, bei denen rund 92 Prozent vollständig geimpft sind, im historischen Vergleich hoch. Ungefähr drei Viertel der Erwachsenen kommen zurück, um ihre zweite Dosis des Impfstoffs zu erhalten, der vor Gürtelrose schützt.

In einigen Fällen können Probleme mit Sendungen oder der Planung eine Rolle spielen, wenn Personen ihre zweite Dosis verpassen. Einige Impfstoffanbieter mussten Termine absagen, weil sie keine erwarteten Impfstofflieferungen erhalten hatten. Die Leute haben auch berichtet, dass ihre Termine für die zweite Dosis abgesagt wurden oder nur aufgetaucht sind, um herauszufinden, dass keine Dosen der Marke verfügbar waren, die sie brauchten.

Einige Leute können flexibel sein, wenn sie umgebucht werden. Dies ist jedoch schwieriger für Menschen, die keinen Zugang zu zuverlässigen Transportmitteln haben oder Jobs mit genau festgelegten Arbeitszeiten haben, sagte Elena Cyrus, Epidemiologin für Infektionskrankheiten an der Universität von Zentralflorida.

Aktualisiert

24. April 2021, 22.42 Uhr ET

Walgreens buchte einige Kunden für ihre zweiten Termine an Orten, an denen nicht der gleiche Impfstoff vorhanden war, den sie für ihre Anfangsdosen erhalten hatten. Das Unternehmen sagte, es habe das Problem Ende März behoben.

Susan Ruel, 67, sollte ihre beiden Impfstoffdosen in verschiedenen Walgreens-Läden in Manhattan erhalten. Sie sagte, sie habe ihre erste Pfizer-Dosis ohne Zwischenfälle im Februar erhalten, aber als sie zu ihrem zweiten Termin ankam, wurde ihr gesagt, dass der Laden nur Moderna-Dosen auf Lager habe.

Ein Walgreens-Apotheker sagte Frau Ruel, dass es eine andere Walgreens-Apotheke in weniger als drei Kilometern Entfernung gibt, in der Pfizer-Dosen auf Lager sind. Während Frau Ruel darauf wartete, dass die U-Bahn sie dorthin brachte, bekam sie einen Anruf: In diesem Walgreens-Laden waren auch die Pfizer-Dosen ausgegangen.

Frau Ruel schaffte es am nächsten Tag, die Pfizer-Dosis bei einem weiteren Walgreen zu bekommen. Aber sie sagte, viele Menschen in ihrer Situation hätten sich wahrscheinlich nicht so sehr bemüht. “Alles, was Sie brauchen, ist Ärger wie dieser”, sagte sie.

In der Region Chicago beispielsweise sagten Apotheker an zwei Walgreens-Standorten, das Problem verursache Kopfschmerzen. Sie sagten, dass das Terminsystem von Walgreens jede Apotheke zwischen 10 und 20 Kunden pro Woche schickte, die einen zweiten Pfizer-Schuss benötigen, obwohl beide Apotheken nur den Moderna-Impfstoff auf Lager haben.

Es ist nicht klar, wie weit verbreitet das Problem der Walgreens-Dosisanpassung war oder wie viele Menschen ihre zweite Dosis aufgrund dessen verpasst haben.

Jim Cohn, ein Sprecher von Walgreens, sagte, dass das Problem “einen kleinen Prozentsatz” der Personen betraf, die ihre Termine online gebucht hatten, und dass das Unternehmen sie kontaktierte, um “im Einklang mit unserer Impfstoffverfügbarkeit” einen neuen Termin zu vereinbaren. Er sagte, dass fast 95 Prozent der Menschen, die ihren ersten Schuss bei Walgreens bekommen haben, auch ihren zweiten Schuss von der Firma erhalten haben.

Walgreens ist auch unter Beschuss geraten, weil bis vor kurzem vier Wochen nach dem ersten Schuss eine zweite Dosis des Pfizer-Impfstoffs geplant wurde, anstatt dass die von den CDC-Apothekern empfohlene dreiwöchige Lücke von Kunden belagert wurde, die sich beschwerten, einschließlich ihrer Unfähigkeit zu buchen Impfstoff Termine online.

In anderen Fällen ist der Zugang zu Impfstoffen jedoch nicht die einzige Barriere. Auch die Einstellungen der Menschen tragen dazu bei.

Basith Syed, eine 24-jährige Beraterin in Chicago, schnappte sich Mitte Februar bei einem Walgreens einen übrig gebliebenen Moderna-Impfstoff. Aber als die Zeit für seinen zweiten Schuss kam, war er bei der Arbeit beschäftigt und bereitete sich auf seine Hochzeit vor. Nach dem ersten Schuss hatte er zwei Tage damit verbracht, sich ausgelaugt zu fühlen. Er wollte keine Wiederholung riskieren und war zuversichtlich, dass eine einzige Dosis ihn schützen würde.

“Ich fühlte nicht wirklich die Dringlichkeit, diese zweite Dosis zu bekommen”, sagte Herr Syed.

Anfang April hatte sich sein Zeitplan etwas beruhigt und er suchte nach einem zweiten Moderna-Schuss. Aber bis dahin boten die Walgreens, auf denen er seinen ersten Schuss bekommen hatte, nur Pfizer-Schüsse an. Er konnte keine Slots in anderen Walgreens-Läden finden. Mr. Syed sucht nicht mehr aktiv nach einem zweiten Schuss, obwohl er immer noch hofft, irgendwann einen zu bekommen.

.

Laut CDC gibt es nur begrenzte Daten zur Wirksamkeit des Impfstoffs, wenn die Schüsse mehr als sechs Wochen voneinander entfernt sind, obwohl einige Länder, darunter Großbritannien und Kanada, Schüsse mit einem Abstand von bis zu drei oder vier Monaten abgeben.

Die Erfahrung von Herrn Syed ist Teil einer umfassenderen Verschiebung in Illinois. Als Impfstoffe hauptsächlich an Mitarbeiter des Gesundheitswesens, Bewohner von Langzeitpflegeeinrichtungen und Menschen über 65 verabreicht wurden, bekam fast jeder seinen zweiten Schuss. In den letzten Wochen ist die Zahl jedoch unter 90 Prozent gesunken, obwohl sie sich laut dem Illinois Department of Public Health seitdem leicht erholt hat.

In Arkansas haben ungefähr 84.000 Menschen ihre zweiten Schüsse verpasst, was 11 Prozent derjenigen entspricht, die für diese Schüsse in Frage kommen, sagte Dr. Jennifer Dillaha, die staatliche Epidemiologin. Vor kurzem haben Arbeiter angefangen, Leute anzurufen, die für ihre zweiten Schüsse fällig oder überfällig sind.

College-Studenten stellen eine besondere Herausforderung dar. Viele haben sich kürzlich für eine Impfung qualifiziert und bekommen ihre ersten Schüsse, aber sie werden den Campus verlassen haben, wenn sie für ihre zweite Dosis fällig sind.

In Pennsylvania haben Gesundheitsbeamte Impfstoffanbieter angewiesen, College-Studenten zweite Dosen zu verabreichen, auch wenn sie ihre ersten Dosen nicht von diesem Ort erhalten haben.

Einige Impfstoffanbieter haben spezielle Kliniken für Menschen eingerichtet, die eine zweite Dosis benötigen. In South Carolina startete das Gesundheitssystem Tidelands Health ein Programm speziell für Menschen, die ihre ersten Pfizer-Dosen mehr als 23 Tage zuvor erhalten hatten, aber keinen zweiten Schuss finden konnten. Das staatliche Gesundheitsamt schickte dem Gesundheitssystem 2.340 Dosen für die Bemühungen.

Die Nachfrage war stark und Tidelands hat nur noch wenige hundert Dosen übrig. Die Mehrheit der Abnehmer waren Personen, die “Schwierigkeiten hatten, durch die verschiedenen Planungssysteme und Anbieter zu navigieren”, sagte Gayle Resetar, Chief Operating Officer des Gesundheitssystems.

In vielen Fällen hatten Impfstoffanbieter Termine für die zweite Dosis wegen schlechten Winterwetters abgesagt. “Es war Sache des Einzelnen, sich auf einem Webportal oder einer Webplattform neu zu planen, und das wurde für die Menschen einfach schwierig”, sagte Frau Resetar.

Es gibt seltene Fälle, in denen Menschen auf den zweiten Schuss verzichten sollen, beispielsweise wenn sie nach dem ersten Schuss eine allergische Reaktion hatten.

Zvi Ish-Shalom, ein Professor für Religionswissenschaft aus Boulder, Colorado, hatte geplant, sich vollständig impfen zu lassen. Dann, eine Stunde nach seiner ersten Aufnahme des Moderna-Impfstoffs, bekam er Kopfschmerzen, die erst einen Monat später verschwunden waren.

Es gibt keine Möglichkeit, sicher zu wissen, ob der Impfstoff die Kopfschmerzen ausgelöst hat. Nachdem Dr. Ish-Shalom die Risiken und Vorteile einer zweiten Dosis abgewogen hatte, traf er eine Entscheidung über das weitere Vorgehen.

“Zu diesem Zeitpunkt fühle ich mich angesichts all der verschiedenen Elemente dieser Gleichung sehr klar und sehr wohl, auf den zweiten Schuss zu verzichten”, sagte er.

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Health

CDC panel debates J&J Covid vaccine after uncommon blood clot challenge

CDC panel debates J&J Covid vaccine after rare blood clot issue

[The stream is slated to start at 11 a.m. ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.]

An advisory panel from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is holding an emergency meeting Friday to discuss Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine and its use after six women developed a rare but potentially life-threatening bleeding disorder called the one left dead.

A positive recommendation from the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices could pave the way for US regulators to lift the recommended hiatus for the use of the J&J shot earlier this weekend.

The CDC panel decided to postpone a decision on the vaccine last week while officials continued to investigate cases of six women who developed cerebral sinus thrombosis (CVST) within about two weeks of receiving the shot.

Earlier this week, J&J announced that it would restart its vaccine rollout in Europe after regulators there backed the single vaccine by recommending adding a warning to the label. The European Medicines Agency has examined all available evidence, including reports from the United States.

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World News

Phuket Was Poised for Tourism Comeback. A Covid Surge Dashed These Hopes.

Phuket Was Poised for Tourism Comeback. A Covid Surge Dashed Those Hopes.

PHUKET, Thailand – Around the corner from the teeth whitening clinic and tattoo parlor with offerings in Russian, Hebrew and Chinese, near the al fresco restaurant with indifferent fried rice that cheers sunburned tourists or tired go-go dancers is supposed to, the Hooters sign has lost its H.

The sign in this distinctive orange comic font is now simply “ooters”.

Like so much on Patong Beach, the shabby epicenter of sybaritic Thailand, Hooters is “temporarily closed”. Other facilities around the beach on Phuket Island are more tightly closed, their metal grilles and padlocks rusted, or their contents ripped out except for the fittings, leaving only the carcasses of a tourism industry ravaged by the coronavirus epidemic.

The sun, which typically draws 15 million people to Phuket each year, remains unforgiving in a downturn. The rays bleach the “For Rent” signs on remote villas and the scorching greens on neglected golf courses. They exposed the emptiness of the streets of Patong, where tuk-tuk drivers once roamed and served as giveaways for snorkeling trips, peep shows or Thai massages.

Just a few weeks ago, Phuket seemed ready for a comeback. After a year with virtually no foreign tourists coming to Thailand, the national government decided that Phuket would welcome vaccinated visitors from July without the need to quarantine them. The project was called Phuket Sandbox.

But Thailand is now hit by its worst Covid-19 outbreak since the pandemic began, spread in part by well-heeled Thais who partied in Phuket and Bangkok with no social distancing. The confirmed daily number of cases – albeit low by global standards – has risen from 26 on April 1 to more than 2,000 three weeks later, in a country that saw a total of around 4,000 cases in early December.

For months, Thailand’s strict quarantines, lockdowns, border surveillance and strict use of masks kept the virus in check, despite the economy suffering. But even as the past few weeks have seen repeated daily highs in the case load, the Thai government is reacting slowly.

In early April, when cases were increasing, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha responded with a verbal shrug.

“Whatever happens, happens,” he said.

Desperate to revitalize its tourism sector, Phuket, which closed its airport during a spike in covid last year, allowed people to continue domestic flights this spring even if cases hit record highs. It was only on Thursday that local authorities requested Covid-19 screening for those arriving on the island.

“If you ask me how optimistic I am, I can’t tell,” said Nanthasiri Ronnasiri, director of the Phuket Tourism Bureau. “The situation is constantly changing.”

What You Need To Know About The Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Break In The United States

    • On April 23, an advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted to lift a hiatus on Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine and put a label on an extremely rare but potentially dangerous bleeding disorder.
    • Federal health officials are expected to officially recommend states lift the hiatus.
    • The vaccine was recently discontinued after reports of a rare bleeding disorder surfaced in six women who received the vaccine.
    • The overall risk of developing the disorder is extremely small. Women between the ages of 30 and 39 appear to be most at risk, with 11.8 cases per million doses. There were seven cases per million doses in women between 18 and 49 years of age.
    • Almost eight million doses of the vaccine have now been given. There was less than one case per million doses in men and women aged 50 and over.
    • Johnson & Johnson had also decided to postpone the launch of its vaccine in Europe for similar reasons, but later decided to continue its campaign after the European Union Medicines Agency announced the addition of a warning. South Africa, devastated by a contagious variant of the virus, also stopped using the vaccine, but later continued to use it.

On April 18, Thailand’s tourism minister admitted that an opening for Phuket on July 1 appears unlikely as the plan is contingent on Covid being suppressed in Thailand.

To prepare for the Phuket sandbox, the Thai government sent many of their limited vaccines to the island in hopes of herd immunity by the summer. By mid-April, more than 20 percent of Phuket residents had been vaccinated. Nationwide, only about 1 percent of the population received the required doses.

“I’m very relieved,” said Suttirak Chaisawat, a grocer who received his Sinovac vaccine this month at a resort that was being repurposed for mass vaccination. “We all need hope for Phuket.”

While the vaccinations may have given Mr. Suttirak some optimism, the current picture remains grim.

Usually the golden sands of Patong Beach are full of foreign vacationers at this time of year.

But the beach is now almost deserted, except for a group of residents who line up for Covid tests in a mobile medical unit. Up the street a monitor lizard, a creature more crocodile than newt, was trampling across the asphalt, and little traffic obstructed the crossing.

Phuket’s half-built condominium complexes are being reclaimed by nature, always a battle in the tropics but a lost cause when developers’ money runs dry. Billboards for “Exclusive Dream Holiday Home” are stained with mold and monsoon mud.

Updated

April 24, 2021, 10:42 p.m. ET

This month’s Thai New Year period should be a dress rehearsal for Phuket’s revival. Instead of foreign backpackers or attendees at business conferences, the hotels sought to attract high-end Thai tourists who, without the pandemic, might have decamped overseas skiing in Hokkaido, Japan, or shopping in Paris.

But rather than preparing the island for its return as a global tourist haven, the Thai New Year may have ruined the island’s chances of reopening in July.

At festivals in Patong and other beaches this month, thousands of wealthy Thais partied, fewer masks than bikini tops. For some in Thailand’s high society, Covid was viewed as something that could infect vegetable vendors or shrimp peelers, not the jet set.

But then these beach buddies started testing positive and the virus spread to Phuket from luxury Bangkok nightclubs.

The resurgence of the virus after so many months of economic hardship is harrowing for the majority of Phuket residents who depend on foreign tourists for their livelihoods.

When a 3-year-old elephant was chewing on sugar cane nearby, Jaturaphit Jandarot was slowly swinging in his hammock. There was little else to do.

Before the pandemic, he and the other elephant handlers on the outskirts of Patong took more than 100 tourists, mainly from China, on 30-minute drives every day. There are no visitors now.

“I was very excited to hear that they are going to open Phuket to foreign tourists,” said Jaturaphit. “Thais don’t ride elephants.”

Regardless of the level of international travel, the elephants still need to be fed. Every month a dozen animals consume sugar cane, pineapples, and bananas worth at least $ 2,000. The 3-year-old, hardly more than a toddler in the elephant years, eats as much as the adults.

After the tin and rubber industries declined in Phuket, tourism grew from a few bungalows on Patong Beach in the 1970s to a global phenomenon that attracted golfers, clubbers, yachers, sex tourists, and Scandinavian snowbirds.

Much of the high-end accommodation in Phuket is near the beach town of Bang Tao, a quiet Muslim-majority community where posters for upscale wine bars mix with Arabic signs for Islamic schools.

Phuket’s largest mosque is in Bang Tao, and this year the first day of Ramadan coincided with the start of the Thai New Year celebrations, a promising augur after a year of economic hardship. The night before the fast began, worshipers flocked to the mosque. Women chopped shrimp, banana blossoms and armfuls of herbs for the upcoming feast.

But at the last minute, Phuket authorities canceled mass prayers fearing the virus would spread. Iftar, the breaking of the fast, takes place in houses, not in the mosque.

When local authorities attributed Covid-19 cases on the island to the upscale beach parties, Bang Tao residents became frustrated.

“We want to welcome people to Phuket, of course, but if they don’t protect themselves and bring Covid here, I’m a little angry,” said Huda Panan, an elementary school teacher who lives behind the mosque.

Ms. Huda’s husband is a taxi driver but has not worked for over a year. Most of the mosque community was dependent on tourism and worked as a concierge, cleaner, landscaper and water sports guide. Now some locals are selling dried fish and cleaning the hills for fruit that is used to add wrinkles to a local curry – whatever they can do to survive.

Occasionally, Buddhist temples, churches and mosques in Phuket distribute meals to the hungry. The lines are long. The food is running out.

“We can wait a little longer for Phuket to get better,” Ms. Huda said in the heat of the day when the daily fast became long. “But not much more.”

Muktita Suhartono contributed to coverage from Bangkok.

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Health

These schools now say Covid vaccines might be required for fall 2021

These colleges now say Covid vaccines will be required for fall 2021

It is becoming more and more likely that students returning to college campus this fall will need to get the Covid-19 vaccine.

In the past few days, California State University and the University of California announced that all students, staff, and faculties who want to be on campus must be vaccinated against Covid – a move that will affect more than 1 million people.

Across the country, more and more other colleges and universities have announced that vaccinations will be mandatory for the fall of 2021, including Yale University, Georgetown University, Stanford University, Wesleyan University, Grinnell College, Bowdoin College, George Washington University and American University, Emory University, Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Spelman College, Atlantic College in Maine, Seattle University, Vassar College, Manhattanville College, Fairleigh Dickinson University and Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

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25% of students postponed college during Covid
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Many schools have difficulty opening up to face-to-face learning again

They join a number of other schools that have made similar announcements, including Duke University; Brown University; Northeastern University; the University of Notre Dame; Syracuse University; Ithaca College; Cornell University; Rutgers University; DePaul University and Columbia College in Chicago; Nova Southeastern University; Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island; Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado; and St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas.

More institutions are likely to follow, according to Lynn Pasquerella, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Across the country, campuses struggled to stay open over the past year as fraternities, sororities, and off-campus parties suddenly spiked coronavirus cases among students. Meanwhile, students overwhelmingly declared distance learning to be a mediocre substitute for teaching.

With Covid vaccines becoming more eligible and accessible, schools need to consider how a vaccine mandate can help keep higher education back on track, Pasquerella said.

For those enrolled in school, there are already many vaccination requirements in place to help prevent the spread of diseases such as polio, diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough.

All 50 states have at least some immunization mandates for children who attend public schools and even children who attend private schools and daycare. In each case there are medical exceptions, and in some cases there are also religious or philosophical exceptions.

“Adding Covid-19 vaccination to our student vaccination requirements will help provide our students with a safer, more robust college experience,” said Jonathan Holloway, president of Rutgers, in a statement.

In most cases, students can request a vaccination waiver for medical or religious reasons, and students participating in completely removed programs do not need to be vaccinated.

Still, the hesitation of the vaccine remains a powerful force, especially among parents.

According to a poll by ParentsTogether, a national advocacy group, in March, only 58% of parents or caregivers said they would vaccinate their children against Covid, although 70% of parents said they would vaccinate themselves.

According to ParentsTogether, low-income households and minority groups were even less likely to vaccinate their children.

Other studies have shown that blacks and Latinos are more skeptical about vaccines than the entire US population due to historical abuse in medicine. Racial differences in vaccine distribution have also been observed in the US

“Colleges need to be one step ahead and think about how this will play out,” said Bethany Robertson, co-founder and co-director of ParentsTogether.

“We need to start the conversation with parents now to build trust and understanding of how vaccinating children against Covid-19 will protect their health, the health of their families and the health of our communities,” said Robertson.

However, in addition to students, parents, and community members, schools must also weigh the interests of faculty, staff, lawmakers, and the boards of trustees, Pasquerella said.

“It’s complicated,” she said. “No matter what decision you make, one group will ultimately be dissatisfied.”

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What Do Girls Need? For Males to Get Covid Vaccines.

What Do Women Want? For Men to Get Covid Vaccines.

Holly Elgison and Len Schillaci are a mixed couple, and they are far from being alone.

“I always wanted to get 100 percent of the vaccine,” said Ms. Elgison, a medical claims investigator in Valrico, Florida.

Her husband, a disaster insurance expert, said he would pass. “To be honest, I think the worst of Covid is behind us,” said Mr Schillaci. “I’m good.”

With the Biden administration trying to immunize 80 percent of adult Americans by the summer, the continued reluctance of men to get a shot could hamper that goal.

Women are vaccinated at a far higher rate – around 10 percentage points – than men, although the gap between men and women is roughly the same across the country’s population. The trend is worrying for many, especially as vaccination rates have dropped somewhat recently.

The reasons for the gender gap in the US are diverse, reflecting the roles of women in certain occupations who received vaccination priority early, political and cultural differences, and longstanding patterns of women using preventive care more often than men.

The gap also exists when worldwide deaths from Covid-19 were around 2.4 times higher in men than women. And the department explains the reality of the disproportionate role women play in caring for others in American society.

“It might be important to pinpoint herd immunity,” said Alison Buttenheim, an associate professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on vaccine reluctance. “While most experts resent larger gaps by race, political party, religion and occupation,” she said, many of which overlap with gender differences, “I have not heard any specific initiatives to combat men.”

What You Need To Know About The Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Break In The United States

    • On April 23, an advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted to lift a hiatus on Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine and put a label on an extremely rare but potentially dangerous bleeding disorder.
    • Federal health officials are expected to officially recommend states lift the hiatus.
    • The vaccine was recently discontinued after reports of a rare bleeding disorder surfaced in six women who received the vaccine.
    • The overall risk of developing the disorder is extremely small. Women between the ages of 30 and 39 appear to be most at risk, with 11.8 cases per million doses. There were seven cases per million doses in women between 18 and 49 years of age.
    • Almost eight million doses of the vaccine have now been given. There was less than one case per million doses in men and women aged 50 and over.
    • Johnson & Johnson had also decided to postpone the launch of its vaccine in Europe for similar reasons, but later decided to continue its campaign after the European Union Medicines Agency announced the addition of a warning. South Africa, devastated by a contagious variant of the virus, also stopped using the vaccine, but later continued to use it.

In Los Angeles County, where 44 percent of women over 16 got their first shot – compared to 30 percent of men – officials are trying hard to figure out how exactly to do that.

“We are very concerned about this and plan to establish targeted contact with men,” said Dr. Paul Simon, science director for the Los Angeles county’s health department, said the differences are of particular concern to Black and Latino men. Only 19 percent of black men in Los Angeles County and 17 percent of Latino men received at least one dose of the vaccine, compared with 35 percent of Asian men and 32 percent of white men by month.

“We don’t quite get it,” said Dr. Simon. “One of our messaging strategies will be that the vaccine is not only important to you, but also a means of protecting others in your family.”

The early breakdown of vaccination rates by gender could largely be explained by demographics. Americans over 70 got their first doses, and women make up a greater proportion of this age group. Healthcare workers and teachers have also been given precedence over vaccines in many states: three-quarters of full-time healthcare workers are women, and over 75 percent of public school teachers in the United States are women.

The differences show both where women do the paid and unpaid work of life. For example, women lost the majority of their earliest jobs in the food, retail, healthcare, and government professions. The mothers among them have done most of the work in moving to distance learning and caring for parents and sick relatives.

The combination may have boosted their vaccine motivation in two ways: they are trying to protect the rest of their family, and they are desperate to get back into work. Just as women caused job losses last year, they are now leading the economic recovery. Around half a million women entered the world of work in March, partly because personal schooling was resumed in large parts of the country.

Updated

April 24, 2021, 7:32 p.m. ET

“In addition to the disproportionate representation of women in various important occupations,” said Pilar Gonalons-Pons, University of Pennsylvania assistant professor of sociology who specializes in gender issues, “they are also disproportionately represented in their work as unpaid caregivers for older adults and communities, and this can also be an additional motivation for the vaccine. “

In many ways, the pattern in vaccines reflects longstanding gender differences in terms of health care. Women, on average, are more likely to receive annual exercise than men, even when adapted to pre-existing health conditions and other factors, and are more likely to receive preventive treatment than men.

Men are more likely than women to engage in harmful behaviors such as heavy drinking, smoking and illegal drug use, and are more overweight than women. According to federal data, men are less likely to see doctors regularly, go to the emergency room, and receive basic dental care in a crisis. Vaccines are no exception: historically, influenza vaccination is much higher in women – about 63 percent versus 53 percent – although the gap is narrowing among Americans over 75 years of age.

The coronavirus vaccine “is the latest expression of the proven gender gap we have long seen in the search for preventive health services,” said Lindsey Leininger, health policy researcher and clinical professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

However, experts say that even related to the general dissatisfaction with male health care, there may be some factors specific to this vaccine that prevent more male shots in the arms. Because signing up was cumbersome and confusing, men may have had less patience navigating the system, which was largely online. This process may be easier for women as they tend to get more information about their health care online.

“We have to find out whether there are differences in access, whether men have greater difficulty finding their way through the appointment systems,” said Simon from Los Angeles.

When it comes to the coronavirus, which has been the subject of rampant misinformation, evolving medical advice, and politicization, another dynamic may be at work.

“Some men feel that they are not necessarily vulnerable,” Simon told health care workers. “You have survived this for more than a year and have a sense of omnipotence.”

Public health experts and scientists have long been concerned about the “macho” effect that is preventing men from receiving all types of health care and fear that this vaccine will make it worse. (Particularly in the military’s most masculine service division, the Marines, about 40 percent of those offered the vaccine by the Department of Defense have turned it down.)

“This avoidance has been linked to ideals of masculinity, where men are strong and invincible and don’t ask for help,” said Kristen W. Springer, associate professor at Rutgers University, New Jersey’s sociology institute who studied this trait.

“In other words, these cultural ideals lead men to avoid essential health services in order to act masculine,” she said. “Now that the vaccine is available to everyone, it will be interesting to see the differences between men and women in vaccine intake, as these reflect more social and cultural ideas about gender and health, such as the cultural idea being the ‘real’ Men ‘don’t have I don’t need preventive health care. “

At this point in time, U.S. health officials have not released data on non-binary adults and vaccinations.

There can also be political connections. Women are far more likely than men to register as Democrats, and polls show that Republicans across the country are far less likely than Democrats to take the vaccine.

Who will people listen to? Apparently not their wives and friends or doctors. Leah Witus and Erik Larson, professors at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, watched videos of men and women with identical information about the vaccine for their recent preprint study. Of the 1,184 Americans who observed them, most were positively influenced by the male narrator, while the female narrator received a far more mixed response.

“The male-narrated version of the video increased viewers’ vaccination intent,” Ms. Witus said, “but the female-narrated version had mixed associations with vaccination propensity and, for some viewers, those identified as conservative actually decreased vaccination intent . ”

This could mean a victory for Mr Schillaci as he and his wife subtly fight to influence the vaccination decision of their 20 year old son. Mr Schillaci shared his views with his son, whom his wife nudges to get a shot.

“I would prefer if he got the shot and I hope he will think about it,” said Ms. Elgison.

But Ms. Elgison’s own decision can benefit her son even if he chooses not to have the vaccine.

As is so often the case in life, men can find that their gaps are being filled by women. “To the extent that most people live and socialize in a mixed environment, men will benefit from higher coverage among women,” said Ms. Buttenheim.

However, Ms. Elgison still has one trump card that she hopes could work. “I want my son to have it so we can all travel together,” she said. “I explained to him that it was possible that we could protect his father.”