Tag: Covid19

Health

‘It’s Numbing’: 9 Retired Nuns in Michigan Die of Covid-19

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Post date January 30, 2021

‘It’s Numbing’: Nine Retired Nuns in Michigan Die of Covid-19

The religious sisters, who were retired at the Dominican Life Center in Michigan, followed strict rules to avoid a coronavirus outbreak: they were kept in isolation, visitors were banned, and masks were required from everyone on campus.

But months after it was held in check, it found its way in.

On Friday, the Adrian Dominican Sisters said nine sisters died from complications from Covid-19 on the Adrian campus, about 75 miles southwest of Detroit, in January.

“It’s numbing,” said Sister Patricia Siemen, head of the order. “We had six women die in 48 hours.”

The death of the sisters in Michigan contributed to a well-known trend in the spread of the virus as it destroys religious communities by infecting retired, aging populations of sisters and nuns who had tacitly dedicated their lives to others.

Now some of these sisters have come out into the open as details of their names, ages, and lifetimes are highlighted as part of the national discourse about Americans lost to the coronavirus.

“It’s a moment of reckoning with the place they now have in our culture,” said Kathleen Holscher, a professor who holds the Endowed Chair of Roman Catholic Studies at the University of New Mexico. “Fifty or 60 years ago you were the face of American Catholicism, in schools and in hospitals.”

Some of the women who died on the Adrian Dominican Sisters campus were nurses or teachers. Others had devoted decades of their lives to worship.

“Americans are being reminded that they are older and are still there,” said Dr. Holscher. “But now they live in these communal situations and take care of each other.”

Accounting for deaths in the nation’s religious communities began in the first half of 2020 as the country took note of the fatal transmission of the virus and the lives associated with it.

Last April, May and June 13 Felician sisters died of Covid-19 at the presentation of the Convent of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Michigan. They pursued teaching, pastoral care and prayer service.

In a suburb of Milwaukee, at least five sisters died at the Convent of Our Lady of the Angels as of April last year. They worked in parishes, schools and universities, taught English and music, and served the elderly and the poor.

In December, eight Roman Catholic sisters, educators, music teachers and social activists died of Covid-19-related diseases in a Wisconsin old people’s home in Notre Dame by Elm Grove, near Milwaukee.

“Nuns were the real grassroots workers in the Church,” said Jack Downey, professor of Catholic studies at the University of Rochester. “It is really the nuns that people interact with on a daily basis. You made Catholic life in the United States possible. “

Updated

Jan. 29, 2021, 4:46 p.m. ET

“This is how communities of nuns that go this way become particularly tragic,” he added.

While deaths have increased, losses have placed a focus on the future of these communities in a country where its population is not only shrinking but aging rapidly.

Michael Pasquier, a professor of religious studies and history at Louisiana State University, said interest in institutional religious life had waned since the 1960s, an era of cultural change that brought more women into the workplace. There are now about 40,000 Roman Catholic nuns or sisters in the country – mostly in the mid to late 1970s and older – compared to about 160,000 in the 1970s, he said.

The death toll from the virus, he said, “reminds us all that the makeup and face of Catholic sisters today are old.”

The losses have underscored the virus’ tendency to hunt down older adults, people with underlying medical conditions, and places where people are in close contact, such as nursing homes, which are particularly hard hit by the pandemic.

Dr. Holscher said the “poignant or tragic” part of the nuns’ deaths was that, unlike nursing homes, women forego a traditional family structure when entering religious life.

“They have no children, spouses or close family members,” she said. “And they signed up to take care of each other.”

Many of the aging religious orders took precautions in early 2020 to protect their communities. At Elm Grove, the nuns followed federal guidelines on masks and social distancing, as well as staggered meal times in the communal dining room.

The Dominican sisters imposed similar restrictions, including weekly tests for staff and sisters, cancellation of meals and personal prayers, and permission for the sisters to leave for medical appointments only.

“We worked so hard to keep it in check because when it gets into a building like a nursing home you are really pretty helpless,” said Sister Siemen. “The residents are already so vulnerable.”

However, on Jan. 14, the order announced that there had been an outbreak of nurses and workers at the Dominican Life Center, a qualified care center that had had a Covid-19 unit in place for months and not in use.

The first positive test took place on December 20th and several sisters died within weeks, some within days of each other.

Sister Jeannine Therese McGorray, 86, died on January 11 and Sister Esther Ortega, 86, died on January 14. Sister Dorothea Gramlich, 81, died on January 21.

Three sisters died on January 22nd: Sister Ann Rena Shinkey, 87; Sister Mary Lisa Rieman, 79; and Sister Charlotte Francis Moser, 86. The next day, Sister Mary Irene Wischmeyer, 94, and Sister Margaret Ann Swallow, 97, died. The last death was this week: Sister Helen Laier, 88, died Tuesday.

Sister Siemen said that the Order is used to mourning their sisters due to its aging population, but this series of losses has given them a sense of “solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of families who have lost loved ones to Covid. ”

Even so, she said that her faith helps them get through.

“There is obviously grief,” said Sister Siemen, “but as women of faith we know that going through this door of death is not the last for us.”

Tags Covid19, Die, Michigan, Numbing, Nuns, retired

World News

Covid-19 World Reside Updates: AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson Vaccines

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Post date January 29, 2021

Here’s what you need to know:

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Fauci Warns New Virus Mutations Are a ‘Wake-Up Call’

On Friday, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci warned that new virus variants, despite the global vaccine distribution, should offer a wake-up call to the continuing dangers of the pandemic.

We’re all aware of the variance that we knew dominated — the U.K. B.1.1.7 , the B.1.351 in South Africa and other variants, such as the P.1. in Brazil. When these variants were first recognized, it became clear that we had to look at, in vitro, in the test tube, whether the antibodies that were induced by the vaccines that we had available would actually neutralize these new mutants. Antigenic variation, i.e. mutations that lead to different lineage do have clinical consequences because as you can see, even though the long-range effect in the sense of severe disease is still handled reasonably well by the vaccines, this is a wake-up call to all of us that we will be dealing as the virus uses its devices to evade pressure, particularly immunological pressure, that we will continue to see the evolution of mutants. So that means that we as a government, the companies, all of us that are in this together, will have to be nimble to be able to just adjust readily to make versions of the vaccine that actually are specifically directed towards whatever mutation is actually prevalent at any given time.

On Friday, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci warned that new virus variants, despite the global vaccine distribution, should offer a wake-up call to the continuing dangers of the pandemic.CreditCredit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci warned Friday that new clinical trial results from Johnson & Johnson, showing that its vaccine is less effective against a highly infectious variant of the coronavirus circulating in South Africa, were a “wake up call.” He said the virus will continue to mutate, and vaccine manufacturers will have to be “nimble to be able to adjust readily” to reformulating the vaccines if needed.

Dr. Fauci’s warning, at the White House briefing on the virus, comes amid increasing concern about new and more infectious variants of the virus that are emerging overseas and turning up in the United States. This week, officials in South Carolina reported identifying two cases of the variant circulating in South Africa, and officials in Minnesota announced they had found a case of the variant that was first detected in Brazil.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who was also at the briefing, said another variant, first identified in Britain, has now been confirmed in 379 cases in 29 states. She said officials remained concerned about the variants and were “rapidly ramping up surveillance and sequencing activities” to closely monitor them. Unlike Britain, the United States has been conducting little of the genomic sequencing necessary to track the spread of the variants.

Dr. Walensky also issued a plea to Americans to continue wearing masks and practice social distancing, and to avoid travel. Earlier this month, the C.D.C. warned that the variant circulating in Britain could become the dominant source of infection in the United States and would likely lead to a surge in cases and deaths that could overwhelm hospitals. And given the speed at which the variant swept through that country, it is conceivable that by April it could make up a large fraction of infections in the United States.

“By the time someone has symptoms, gets a test, has a positive result and we get the sequence, our opportunity for doing real case control and contact tracing is largely gone,” she said. “We should be treating every case as if it’s a variant during this pandemic right now.”

Friday’s briefing, the second in what the Biden White House has promised will be thrice-weekly updates on the pandemic, came just hours after Johnson & Johnson reported that while its vaccine was 72 percent effective in the United States, the efficacy rate was just 57 percent in South Africa, where a variant has been spreading.

Public health officials including Dr. Fauci and Dr. Walensky say the emergence of these variants is heightening the urgency of vaccinations. Dr. Fauci also said Friday that children under 16, who are not currently eligible for the vaccine, will likely start getting vaccinated “by late spring or early summer” if small-scale clinical trials show that it is safe and effective to do so.

He noted that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is 85 percent effective against severe disease, and called the results “very encouraging,” even though the vaccine is not as effective as those by Pfizer and Moderna, which have emergency approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Johnson & Johnson will now seek its own emergency approval.

“This really tells us that we have now a value-added additional vaccine candidate,” he said.

But Dr. Walensky offered a far more sobering observation. While the daily number of new virus cases has been declining, the figures were still much higher than a period last summer, and deaths currently remain worrisome.

According to data compiled by The New York Times, new virus cases have averaged about 160,000 a day in recent days, compared to about 40,000 new cases a day around early September. As of Thursday, the seven-day average of new deaths was more than 3,200 a day, still near peak levels. The daily death toll has topped 4,000 deaths six times in the United States, including twice this week.

At Wednesday’s briefing by the Biden virus team, Jeffrey D. Zients, Mr. Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator, said the United States is lagging far behind other countries in sequencing the genomes of the new variants — a delay he called “totally unacceptable.” Dr. Walensky said she is working to change that.

“We have scaled up surveillance dramatically just in the last ten days, in fact, but our plans are more than what we’ve done so far,” Dr. Walensky said, adding that the C.D.C. is now asking every state to track for worrisome variants and sequence at least 750 samples from patients per week. In addition, she said, the agency has seven collaborations with universities to scale up surveillance to cover thousands of samples per week.

United States ›	United StatesOn Jan. 28	14-day change
New cases	165,264	–34%
New deaths	3,868	–2%

World ›	WorldOn Jan. 28	14-day change
New cases	603,392	–22%
New deaths	16,817	+4%

U.S. vaccinations ›

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E.U. Plans to Halt Vaccine Exports Until Supply Contracts Are Met

The European Union announced a plan that would effectively stop AstraZeneca from shipping Covid-19 vaccine doses manufactured in the bloc to other countries until its E.U. supply contracts are met.

The commission has adopted a strictly targeted measure that will allow us to gather accurate information about the production of vaccines and where manufacturers intend to ship them. The measure is time-limited and specifically applies to those Covid-19 vaccines that were agreed by advance purchase agreements. The measure is intended to run until the end of March. The aim is to provide us immediately with full transparency, transparency that until now has been lacking, and what Europeans expect. And if needed, it also will provide us with a tool to ensure vaccine deliveries.

The European Union announced a plan that would effectively stop AstraZeneca from shipping Covid-19 vaccine doses manufactured in the bloc to other countries until its E.U. supply contracts are met.CreditCredit…Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters

BRUSSELS — The European Union on Friday announced plans to effectively halt any attempt by AstraZeneca to move vaccine doses manufactured in the bloc to other countries unless it first meets its supply obligations to the bloc’s 27 member states.

The move, the latest escalation in a dispute between the bloc and the pharmaceutical company over reduced supplies, came as the European Union’s drug regulator authorized AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for use across its member states.

AstraZeneca said this month that it would significantly cut its promised delivery supply of the jab to the European Union as of mid-February. That pitted the bloc against Britain, a former member, which has been receiving a steady flow of vaccine doses from AstraZeneca since approving it well ahead of the E.U., in early December.

The AstraZeneca vaccine was developed in cooperation with Britain’s University of Oxford. The European Union accused the pharmaceutical company of using its promised doses to serve Britain, despite having paid the company about $400 million in October to help it scale up its capabilities and produce doses ahead of authorization.

The policy announced by the European Commission on Friday, presented as a “transparency tool,” will ask all pharmaceutical companies manufacturing coronavirus vaccines in factories within the bloc — currently Pfizer and AstraZeneca — to submit paperwork alerting the European authorities of any intention to move their products to non-E.U. countries. It will be in place until the end of March and will not apply to exports to poorer countries.

The Commission said it reserved the right to block such exports if it determined that the pharmaceutical companies were not meeting their contractual obligations with the E.U. first.

The measure could theoretically also affect Pfizer clients, but the Commission has said it is happy with how that company has handled a supply disruption in its Belgian factory that is setting back deliveries. The company has spread the pain among its clients, which include the E.U., Britain and Canada.

The Commission said that AstraZeneca’s decision to maintain delivery volumes to Britain while slashing its deliveries to the E.U., after a problem arose in a Belgium-based plant, was in bad faith and breach of the company’s contractual obligations.

The company’s chief executive responded that he regretted the situation, but that his company had not committed to a specific schedule, but rather to a vow to make its “best effort.”

The Commission dismissed the claim, and published a heavily redacted version of the contract with AstraZeneca. The contract affords the company many standard protections in case it fails to deliver, but includes some clauses that could be seen as favoring the E.U. interpretation that AstraZeneca is obligated to turn to other factories, including in Britain, to fulfill its delivery promises.

The matter is further complicated by regulation issues: The European drug regulator, the European Medicines Association, received an application for authorization from AstraZeneca on Jan. 12, nearly two weeks after the company received emergency authorization in Britain. The E.U. agency was expected to announce approval of use of the vaccine later on Friday.

The dispute with AstraZeneca is occurring against a backdrop of severe shortages of doses at vaccination centers across Europe. French and German regions have reported that they are nearly running out, and the Madrid region of Spain has suspended its rollout for at least two weeks until fresh deliveries arrive.

The E.U. regulator stopped short of imposing an age cap on the use of the vaccine, despite concerns about a paucity of data on the vaccine’s efficacy in people age 65 and older.

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N.Y.C. Indoor Dining to Reopen on Valentine’s Day

On Friday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that indoor dining in New York City could resume at up to 25 percent capacity starting on Valentine’s Day.

New York City restaurants, on our current trajectory, we can reopen indoor dining at 25 percent on Valentine’s Day. The restaurants want a period of time so they can notify workers. They can get up to speed for indoor dining, order supplies, etc. So we’re saying indoor dining. 25 percent on Valentine’s Day. Going forward, we are very excited about the possibility of reopening venues with testing. Restaurants are opened on Valentine’s Day. You could make a reservation now or plan dinner on Valentine’s Day, you propose on Valentine’s Day. And then you can have the wedding ceremony March 15, up to 150 people. People will actually come to your wedding because you can tell them with the testing, it will be safe. Everybody there will be tested, and everybody will be safe.

On Friday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that indoor dining in New York City could resume at up to 25 percent capacity starting on Valentine’s Day.CreditCredit…Clay Williams for The New York Times

Indoor dining will resume with limited capacity in New York City restaurants next month, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Friday, more than a month after he had banned it to combat a second wave of the coronavirus.

Starting on Feb. 14, the city’s restaurants can seat customers indoors at 25 percent maximum capacity, he said.

The announcement was a source of hope for the restaurant industry, an important driver of the city’s economic engine, which has been decimated by ever-changing virus-induced restrictions that have forced many restaurants and bars to go out of business and caused thousands of workers to lose their jobs.

After shutting down restaurants in March, Mr. Cuomo allowed the city’s indoor dining to restart in late September. He prohibited it again in mid-December as holiday travel threatened to increase transmission of the virus and overwhelm hospitals.

Restaurants and bars that have stayed afloat have relied on takeout and delivery, as well as outdoor dining, an increasingly untenable option as the frigid winter advances.

Starting March 15, wedding receptions with up to 150 attendees will be allowed in the state, the governor said, as long as the venues are at no more than 50 percent capacity. The gatherings would have to be approved in advance by a local health department, and all attendees will have to be tested.

“We want to use testing as the key to reopening events,” Mr. Cuomo said.

The governor’s decisions come at an incredibly precarious phase in the state’s battle against the virus, which has killed more than 42,500 people in New York State, a one-time center of the pandemic.

Yankee Stadium will open its doors as a mass vaccination site, Mr. Cuomo said, pointing to high positivity rates in the Bronx. He did not specify a time frame.

Credit…Joao Silva/The New York Times

Johnson & Johnson said on Friday that its one-dose coronavirus vaccine provided strong protection against Covid-19, offering the United States a third powerful tool in a race against a worldwide rise in virus mutations.

But the results came with a significant cautionary note: The vaccine’s efficacy rate dropped from 72 percent in the United States to 57 percent in South Africa, where a highly contagious variant is driving most cases. Studies suggest that this variant also blunts the effectiveness of Covid vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Novavax.

The variant has spread to at least 31 countries, including two cases documented in the United States this week.

Johnson & Johnson said it planned to apply for emergency authorization of its vaccine from the Food and Drug Administration as soon as next week, putting it on track to receive clearance later in February.

“This is the pandemic vaccine that can make a difference with a single dose,” said Dr. Paul Stoffels, the company’s chief scientific officer.

The company’s announcement comes as the Biden administration is pushing to immunize Americans faster even as vaccine supplies tighten. White House officials have been counting on Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine to ease the shortfall. But the company may have as few as seven million doses ready when the vaccine is authorized, according to federal health officials familiar with its production, and no more than 32 million doses by early April.

The variant from South Africa, known as B.1.351, could make the vaccine push tougher. Given the speed at which the variant swept through that country, it is conceivable that it could make up a large fraction of infections in the United States by April and therefore undermine the effectiveness of available vaccines.

The two vaccines approved by the U.S. government have been found to be less effective against the B.1.351 variant in clinical trials, a development that has unsettled federal officials and vaccine experts.

Many researchers say it is imperative to vaccinate people as quickly as possible. Lowering the rate of infection could thwart the more contagious variants while they are still rare.

“If ever there was reason to vaccinate as many people as expeditiously as we possibly can with the vaccine that we have right now, now is the time,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert. “Because the less people that get infected, the less chance you’re going to give this particular mutant a chance to become dominant.”

Credit…Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The World Health Organization on Friday changed its guidance for pregnant women considering a Covid-19 vaccine, abandoning opposition to immunization for most expectant mothers unless they were at high risk.

The change followed an outcry to the W.H.O.’s previous stance, which stated that the organization did “not recommend the vaccination of pregnant women” with the vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

Several experts had expressed disappointment on Thursday with the W.H.O.’s earlier position. The experts noted that it was inconsistent with guidance on the same issue from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and would confuse pregnant women looking for clear advice.

The vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, while they have not been tested in pregnant women, have not shown any harmful effects in animal studies. And the technology used in the vaccines is generally known to be safe, experts said.

The W.H.O.’s new phrasing reflects this information:

“Based on what we know about this kind of vaccine, we don’t have any specific reason to believe there will be specific risks that would outweigh the benefits of vaccination for pregnant women.” The recommendation is now closely aligned with the C.D.C.’s stance.

Experts praised the shift, welcoming agreement between the world’s leading public health organizations on this important issue.

“I was very pleased to see that W.H.O. changed their guidance regarding offering the Covid-19 vaccine to pregnant women,” said Dr. Denise Jamieson, an obstetrician at Emory University and a member of the Covid expert group with the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The association was among the many women’s health organizations that had urged Pfizer and Moderna to speed up vaccine tests in pregnant women.

“The more permissive W.H.O. language provides an important opportunity for pregnant women to get vaccinated and protect themselves from the severe risks of Covid-19,” Dr. Jamieson said. “This impressively rapid revision by W.H.O. is good news for pregnant women and their babies.”

Pregnant women have traditionally been excluded from clinical trials, leaving a dearth of scientific data on the safety of drugs and vaccines in women and their unborn children. Vaccines are generally considered to be safe, and pregnant women have been urged to be immunized for influenza and other diseases since the 1960s, even in the absence of rigorous clinical trials to test them.

Pfizer will test its vaccine in pregnant women over the next few months, according to a spokeswoman for the company. And Moderna plans to establish a registry to observe side effects in women who were immunized with its vaccine.

Credit…Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images

Germany on Friday announced its plans to restrict incoming travel from a handful of countries, including Britain and Ireland, in an attempt to curb the spread of infectious coronavirus variants, going beyond the measures recommended by the European Union.

“It’s about stopping the entry of a highly infectious virus,” Horst Seehofer, Germany’s interior minister, said on Thursday, a day before the federal cabinet approved the restrictions.

Under the new travel ban — which also applies to passengers coming from Portugal, Brazil, South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland) — German residents will be able to return home, but non-German residents from the areas in question will be refused entry, even with a negative coronavirus test.

While multiple known infectious variants have been found in Germany, including the B.1.1.7 variant at a hospital in Berlin, which then had to go into lockdown, health authorities believe they can still prevent variants from spreading and driving new infections.

The change will go into effect over the weekend and will be in place until at least Feb. 17. It follows a temporary halt in travel for all passengers coming from the United Kingdom and South Africa, which was lifted a few days after it was enacted. All nonessential travel remains discouraged.

After more than six weeks of a strict lockdown — during which restaurants, bars, nonessential shops and most schools have been shuttered — Germany is starting to show slight improvement in its daily case numbers. On Thursday, health authorities reported 14,022 infections in a 24-hour period, nearly 4,000 less than the amount registered one week earlier.

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Canadian Airlines Suspend Flights to the Caribbean and Mexico

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada announced on Friday that major airlines have agreed to suspend flights to sunny vacation spots as new coronavirus quarantine measures are put into place.

The government and Canada’s main airlines have agreed to suspend service to some destinations right away. Air Canada, WestJet, Sunwing and Air Transat are canceling air service to all Caribbean destinations and Mexico starting this Sunday up until April 30. Starting next week, all international passenger flights must land only at the following four airports: Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal. In addition to the pre-boarding test we already require, as soon as possible in the coming weeks, we will be introducing mandatory P.C.R. testing at the airport for people returning to Canada. Travelers will then have to wait for up to three days at an approved hotel for their test results, at their own expense, which is expected to be more than $2,000. We will also, in the coming weeks, be requiring non-essential travelers to show a negative test before entry at the land border with the U.S. And we’re working to stand up additional testing requirements for land travel.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada announced on Friday that major airlines have agreed to suspend flights to sunny vacation spots as new coronavirus quarantine measures are put into place.CreditCredit…Blair Gable/Reuters

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada announced Friday that flights between the country and several sunny vacation spots will be suspended, as new testing and quarantining measures are put in place for most air travelers entering Canada.

After previously requiring that air travelers coming to Canada for nonessential purposes show evidence of a negative coronavirus test result from within 72 hours before being allowed on planes, Mr. Trudeau said that they will now also be tested when they land upon their return to Canada. Travelers will have to wait for the results of that second test for three days in a government hotel at their own expense under the new measures.

“Now is just not the time to be flying,” Mr. Trudeau said at an outdoor news conference. “By putting in place these tough measures now, we can look forward to a better time when we can all plan those vacations.”

During most of the pandemic, international flights leaving and entering Canada have been limited to four airports. The flights that are canceled under the new order mainly service resort areas in Mexico and the Caribbean. Airlines are making arrangements to return Canadians who are already in those areas, Mr. Trudeau said.

In December, Canada temporarily stopped air travel to and from the United Kingdom following the appearance there of a new variant of the coronavirus.

Mr. Trudeau estimated that the mandatory three-day stay would cost travelers about 2,000 Canadian dollars, or about $1,570. Travelers with a negative test result will then need to quarantine for 11 more days at their homes. Those with positive test results will be sent to government facilities.

Travelers entering Canada on nonessential trips at land border crossings will also soon be tested, Mr. Trudeau said. They have long been required to quarantine for two weeks.

The premiers of Ontario and Quebec, the country’s two most populous provinces, have been pressuring Mr. Trudeau to introduce testing upon arrival at airports and introduce further flight restrictions. Several Canadian politicians and officials have also come under severe criticism and, in some cases, resigned their positions for traveling outside of the country for vacation.

Mr. Trudeau acknowledged that the percentage of Covid-19 cases in Canada linked to foreign travel is “extremely low.” But he said that the new restrictions should limit the risk posed by new variants of the virus.

“These variations represent a very real challenge,” Mr. Trudeau said.

Credit…Mark Lennihan/Associated Press

Over 1,100 undergraduate and graduate students at Columbia University have pledged to withhold their tuition for the spring semester to demand a discount for what they see as a lost spring term.

While some universities have brought students back to campus, Columbia has mostly offered online instruction for students and allowed only a sliver of them to live on campus or attend in-person classes.

In response, students are asking the university to reduce their total costs — including tuition, fees, and room and board — by at least 10 percent, following suit of several schools including Georgetown University, Princeton University and Williams College. Columbia College, the university’s undergraduate school, can cost more than $80,000 a year for students not receiving financial aid.

Strike organizers said that both graduate and undergraduate students were participating; the university has more than 31,000 students.

“It’s a reasonable demand,” said Matthew Gamero, 19, a sophomore who is one of the strike organizers. “This is about the university providing an education of its worth, and to have it online is certainly not what we’re paying for.”

“This is a moment when an active reappraisal of the status quo is understandable, and we expect nothing less from our students,” the university said in a statement. “Their voices are heard by Columbia’s leadership, and their views on strengthening the University are welcomed.”

A tuition discount is only one of a series of demands made by strikers. They have also called on the university to reduce funding for campus policing, improve working conditions for graduate students and provide aid for the surrounding West Harlem community.

The tuition strike was officially kicked off after the spring term bill was due last Friday. For undergraduates, the university could impose a $150 late fee and prevent them from registering for summer or fall classes. The university could also penalize seniors by withholding their diplomas until their balance is paid.

Credit…Michel Euler/Associated Press

France said on Friday that it would close its borders to non-European Union countries as cases rise and the government struggles to avoid a new lockdown.

Jean Castex, the French prime minister, said that all travel between France and nations outside of the E.U. would be banned starting on Sunday, with exceptions made only for urgent matters. All travelers from E.U. countries, except for cross-border workers, will have to present a negative coronavirus test to enter the country, Mr. Castex added.

Speculation about new restrictions had been growing in France over the past week, with a flurry of conflicting and often confusing information from officials, and many were expecting President Emmanuel Macron to replace the current 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew with a new lockdown.

Speaking after a special cabinet meeting in Paris, Mr. Castex acknowledged France faced a “strong risk of acceleration of the epidemic” because of the more contagious British and South African variants of the virus, and said debates over a new nationwide lockdown were “legitimate.”

“But we all know the very heavy toll it has on the French, on all counts,” he said of a lockdown. “This evening, we consider that in view of the numbers over the past few days, we can still give ourselves a chance to avoid one.”

The variants that emerged in Britain and South Africa have both been detected in France, and the country’s vaccination campaign has slowed amid disruptions in the E.U. supply chain. The number of new cases has continued to rise in France over the past few weeks, with nearly 23,000 new cases reported on Friday, though they have not skyrocketed like they have for some of France’s neighbors.

Britain, which has faced record numbers of cases and deaths, tightened its travel restrictions on Wednesday, requiring British citizens arriving from 22 high-risk countries to quarantine in hotels for 10 days at their own expense. England entered its latest lockdown at the start of January.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, recommended on Monday restricting nonessential travel in a bid to prevent blanket border closures, which can obstruct trade and the movement of cross-border workers.

“We need to keep safe and discourage nonessential travel,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the commission, wrote on Twitter, citing the danger of new variants circulating.

Mr. Castex also announced the closure of the country’s largest malls that do not sell groceries, starting on Sunday, and increased police checks on curfew violations and establishments like restaurants that open illegally. Companies will be further encouraged to have their employees work from home, he said.

“Our goal is to do everything to avoid a new lockdown, and the next few days will be decisive,” Mr. Castex said.

Credit…Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Fourteen students at the University of Michigan have contracted a highly contagious variant of the coronavirus, leading health authorities to issue a stay-at-home recommendation for students living on and off campus.

Students were advised to not leave their residences until Feb. 7, except to attend classes, seek medical treatment or run essential errands.

The outbreak of the variant, first detected in Britain and known as B.1.1.7, appears to have started with a student who traveled to the United Kingdom over the winter break, according to Susan Ringler-Cerniglia, a spokeswoman for the Washtenaw County Department of Health.

The first case on the university’s campus was identified on Jan. 16 after the student tested positive and notified officials that he or she had traveled to an area where the variant was prevalent. That prompted additional sequencing that identified the student was infected with the variant, Ms. Ringler-Cerniglia said.

Since then an additional 13 students who are positive with the same variant have been identified. One of them had visited a local indoor mall and a grocery store before testing positive, leading authorities to issue a public notice to people who had visited those locations, asking them to seek testing.

Rick Fitzgerald, a spokesman for the university, said that all the infected students were in isolation with mild symptoms.

The stay-at-home recommendation announced by the Washtenaw County Health Department this week applies to the Ann Arbor campus but not to the broader community.

“More stringent, mandatory actions may be imposed if this outbreak continues to grow and additional variant clusters are identified,” the health department said in a memo to university officials on Wednesday.

Michigan athletics also imposed a two-week pause in competitions and practice, citing the emergence of the variant as the reason. Five of the cases involved individuals connected to the athletic program.

The variant is regarded as 50 percent more transmissible than the standard form of the virus but it isn’t more dangerous, and the vaccines that are currently on the market appear to be effective against it.

Since Michigan’s winter session began Jan. 19, the university has identified a total of 175 coronavirus cases, including the 14 cases of the variant.

Credit…Kathy Willens/Associated Press

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the leader of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, was in quarantine on Friday after he interacted last week with a person who later tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a spokesman.

In a statement, the archdiocese said the cardinal “has not tested positive, feels fine, and has no symptoms.” Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said the cardinal is tested regularly, had tested negative since the interaction, and would be tested again “in a few days.” He did not specify what kind of tests were used nor the timing of when he cardinal was tested after the interaction.

Tests taken too soon after exposure may return false negative results, because the virus has not yet had time to build up to detectable levels. People are thought to carry the largest quantity of virus around the time their symptoms appear, if they experience symptoms at all.

The cardinal’s quarantine had not previously been announced by the archdiocese. Mr. Zwilling said the cardinal had been in quarantine since Wednesday but that no announcement had been made because the infected individual had not received the results of their coronavirus test until Thursday.

“He did not have any public events, and all of his meetings were via Zoom, etc.,” Mr. Zwilling said in an email, referring to the cardinal. “We are announcing today because the exposure was confirmed, and the first public events — Mass tomorrow evening and Sunday morning — were coming up, and he will obviously not be present for those events.”

The cardinal will “continue to follow health and safety protocols as instructed by medical professionals, as will others on his staff who also had close contact with this individual,” the statement said.

Cardinal Dolan is one of the most influential figures in American Catholicism, and the Archdiocese of New York is the second-most populous in the United States, with more than 2.8 adherents living in a territory that stretches from Staten Island into the Hudson Valley.

He had celebrated Mass last Sunday at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and interacted with other priests and parish personnel, all wearing masks, at that time, according to online video of the service.

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W.H.O. Delivers Update on China Visit

On Friday, the World Health Organization reviewed the details of its investigation into the origin of the coronavirus in China, and what it hopes to learn from the visit.

There is a very long list of site visits planned and face-to-face meetings continue. The — the visits will include the Wuhan Institute of Virology, other labs, the Wuhan markets, early responders, hospitals in which the first clusters of cases occurred. We continue to be hopeful that all of the data and all of the meetings that they need will be had. And and just to reconfirm that all hypotheses are on the table, and we’re looking forward, hopefully, to a successful conclusion of the mission. Success in the case of animal human interface investigations is not measured necessarily in absolutely finding a source on the first mission. This is a complicated business, what we need to do is gather all of the data, all of the information, summarize all of these discussions and come to an assessment as to how much more we know about the origins of the disease, and what further studies may be needed for the release of.

On Friday, the World Health Organization reviewed the details of its investigation into the origin of the coronavirus in China, and what it hopes to learn from the visit.CreditCredit…Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

After months of delays, a team of World Health Organization scientists tracing the pandemic’s origin began its field work on Friday in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus was first detected.

The W.H.O. said its team of 15 experts planned to visit hospitals, laboratories and a live animal market over the next several weeks in Wuhan, a city of 11 million, where the virus was detected in late 2019.

“As members start their field visits on Friday, they should receive the support, access and the data they need,” the W.H.O. said on Twitter. “All hypotheses are on the table as the team follows the science in their work to understand the origins of the #COVID19 virus.”

The Chinese government had repeatedly sought to delay the inquiry, apparently out of concern that the experts would draw attention to the government’s early missteps in handling the outbreak. But it relented under mounting global pressure.

The W.H.O. experts were first asked to undergo 14 days of quarantine in Wuhan, which ended on Thursday.

They plan to speak with some of the first patients to show symptoms of Covid-19, as well as with medical workers and Chinese scientists, according to the W.H.O. Their fieldwork will include a visit the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where some of the first cases were detected.

They will also visit the Wuhan Institute of Virology and a laboratory operated by Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The question of the pandemic’s origin has caused friction between China and the United States, with officials in each country at times blaming the other for unleashing the virus on the world.

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday that the United States hoped for a “robust and clear” international investigation.

Chinese officials, in response, defended the country’s handling of the inquiry.

“We hope the U.S. side will work with China, take on a responsible attitude and respect facts, science and the diligent work of W.H.O. experts,” Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, said at a news conference in Beijing on Thursday.

Chinese officials said on Friday that several passengers traveling to China from the United States had falsified coronavirus test results so they could gain entry to the country. The Chinese consulate in San Francisco said the passengers had “changed their test results from positive to negative” and that other travelers had lied about test results. The consulate did not provide details about the passengers or the punishments they might face. China maintains strict border control rules, including a requirement that travelers present results from antibody and nucleic acid tests before they fly. The consulate said the passengers had violated public health laws. “The way they put others at risk is odious,” the statement said.
Vietnam recorded nine more coronavirus cases on Friday, including one in the capital, Hanoi, as a new outbreak spread beyond the two northern provinces where infections had first been detected a day earlier. Officials put the number of cases from the latest outbreak at 93 as of Friday afternoon but said that it could reach 30,000, nearly 20 times the number of cases that Vietnam detected during the entire first year of the pandemic. Vietnam has been among the most successful countries in containing the virus, with strict border controls, mask-wearing, contact tracing and isolation of infected people. The latest outbreak comes as officials from the governing Communist Party meet to select the country’s new leaders, an event held once every five years.
Hungary’s medicine authority has approved the coronavirus vaccine developed by the Chinese company Sinopharm. “This means that in addition to Pfizer, Moderna, Sputnik and AstraZeneca, we can also count on Sinopharm,” said Dr. Cecilia Muller, the country’s chief medical officer. “We trust that these vaccines will be readily available in large quantities and the immunization process will be completed in larger numbers in less time.” The country’s foreign minister later announced that it had purchased five million doses of the vaccine. Regarding the options, Prime Minister Viktor Orban expressed enthusiasm for the Chinese vaccine on Friday. “I will wait for the Chinese vaccine,” he said. “I trust that one the most.”
Spain’s first case of the South African variant of Covid-19 was detected in the port city of Vigo, in the northwestern region of Galicia. Health authorities in Galicia said a 30-year old man who works in the shipping industry returned from a recent work trip to South Africa and tested positive for the variant earlier this month. He had light symptoms and was not hospitalized, they said.

Credit…Sarahbeth Maney for The New York Times

The unions representing the nation’s health care workers have emerged as increasingly powerful voices during the still-raging pandemic.

With more than 100,000 Americans hospitalized and many among their ranks infected, nurses and other health workers remain in a precarious frontline against the coronavirus and have turned again and again to unions for help.

Nurses across the country from various unions are participating in dozens of strikes and protests. National Nurses United, the country’s largest union of registered nurses, held a “day of action” on Wednesday with demonstrations in more than a dozen states and Washington, D.C., as it starts negotiations at hospitals owned by big systems like HCA, Sutter Health and CommonSpirit Health.

“It’s so overwhelming. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before,” said Erin McIntosh, a nurse at Riverside Community Hospital in Southern California, a part of the country that has been among the hardest hit by a surge in cases. “Every day I’m waist-deep in death and dying.”

Hospitals said the unions are playing politics during a public health emergency and say they have no choice but to ask more of their workers.

But health care workers say they have been bitterly disappointed by their employers’ and government agencies’ response to the pandemic. Dire staff shortages, inadequate and persistent supplies of protective equipment, limited testing for the virus and pressure to work even if they might be sick have left many workers turning to the unions as their only ally. The virus has claimed the lives of more than 3,300 health care workers nationwide, according to one count.

Credit…Joshua Lott/Reuters

“We wouldn’t be alive today if we didn’t have the union,” said Elizabeth Lalasz, a Chicago public hospital nurse and steward for National Nurses United.

Despite the decades-long decline in the labor movement and the small numbers of unionized nurses, labor officials have seized on the pandemic fallout to organize new chapters and pursue contract talks for better conditions and benefits. National Nurses organized seven new bargaining units last year, compared to four in 2019. The Service Employees International Union, which represents Mrs. McIntosh, also says it has seen an uptick in interest.

Credit…Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

With the pandemic exposing racial disparities in the United States — Black people have died of Covid-19 at nearly three times the rate of white people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — health officials have been working to promote vaccinations in Black communities, and to combat doubt.

So doctors in Atlanta turned to Tyler Perry — a popular and prolific actor, director and studio head — to spread the word to Black audiences that the vaccine was harmless. He agreed to interview the experts, turning it into a TV special that aired Thursday night on BET. On the show, he peppered doctors from Grady Health System with questions about the safety of the vaccine, how it was developed, how it was tested and how it works.

At the end of the interview, with his sleeve pulled up, Perry got the jab as cameras rolled.

Perry is one of the most powerful people in the entertainment industry. He built his fortune portraying the character of Madea, a tart-tongued and irreverent matriarch, onstage and onscreen, before retiring her in 2019 to concentrate on other projects, which include running his 330-acre studios in Georgia.

Skepticism about the Covid-19 vaccine among Black people has been deeply concerning to health officials. A recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that one in three Black people was hesitant about vaccine. A recent CNN analysis found that Black and Latino Americans were getting the vaccine at significantly lower rates than white people — rates attributed to, among other factors, lack of access to health care for many Black people, but also to an entrenched mistrust about the medical establishment.

On the BET special, Perry spoke of episodes in history that have led to a lack of faith in the medical establishment and the government, among them the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, in which doctors allowed syphilis to progress in Black men by withholding treatment from them, and the case of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951, whose cells were used in research without her knowledge or consent.

“We as Black people have healthy hesitation when it comes to vaccinations and so on and so forth, and even disease,” he said.

Perry said he didn’t want people getting vaccinated just because he had. “What I want to do is give you the information, the facts,” he said. “There’s a lot of misinformation out there.”

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New York City Sets ‘Aggressive Goal’ of 5 Million Vaccinations by June

Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city is aiming to vaccinate 5 million New Yorkers against Covid-19 by June. He also announced plans to bring city workers back to offices in May and reopen schools for all students in September.

We’re going for an aggressive goal, five million New Yorkers vaccinated by June. I am absolutely certain we can do it so long as we have the vaccine. And I am more and more confident because the actions the Biden administration, because the Johnson Johnson vaccine is coming, more and more confident that we will have what we need. I’m going to push hard on the federal government to get every pharmaceutical company in America into this work because they’re not right now. The federal government needs to ensure that they are required to produce vaccine, whether they’re the originator of the vaccine or not. So long as we have the supply, we can reach five million new Yorkers in June, get to a point of community immunity. And we’re going to bring back our city workforce in May and after, because obviously so many are on the job right now. But the folks who work in our offices and do so much important work, we want them back. We want to send a signal to this whole city. We’re moving forward. We want to see the private sector bring workforces back. We are going to have an entirely different situation as we proceed into the spring. By the end of the spring, I think you’re going to see something very different. And we’re going to a great group of folks out there, our vaccine for all core leading the way. Now, a lot of different pieces matter, and one of the most crucial ones that matters to us for today, for our parents, for our families, for our future, tomorrow — our schools, one of the things that says most clearly, we are back is our schools. And so in September, our schools come back fully. We focus on helping kids overcome that Covid achievement gap. Our 2021 student achievement plan focuses on the academic side, but also the emotional side, the mental health needs of our kids after everything they’ve been through.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city is aiming to vaccinate 5 million New Yorkers against Covid-19 by June. He also announced plans to bring city workers back to offices in May and reopen schools for all students in September.CreditCredit…James Estrin/The New York Times

In his final State of the City address, Mayor Bill de Blasio offered a sprawling vision of New York City’s recovery from a pandemic that has taken tens of thousands of lives and destroyed the city’s economy.

The mayor committed to accelerating the city’s vaccination efforts and set a goal of inoculating five million New Yorkers by June.

“We’re going for an aggressive goal,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference on Friday morning, adding that “I am absolutely certain we can do it, so long as we have the vaccine.”

On Friday, Mr. de Blasio said that, given an adequate supply of the vaccine, the city could vaccinate half a million people per week, and that he planned to reopen vaccination sites that had closed as more vaccine became available.

Johnson & Johnson announced on Friday that their vaccine was very effective at preventing the virus, but that its efficacy dropped steeply against a more contagious variant in South Africa. White House officials have been counting on Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, to ease the shortfall of vaccine supply. Unlike the federally authorized vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine is effective after only one dose. But the company may only have about seven million doses ready when the F.D.A. decides whether to authorize it, according to federal health officials familiar with its production, and about 30 million doses by early April.

Mr. de Blasio also noted on Friday that the citywide seven-day average rate of positive test results was 8.63 percent, and city data show that in more than 30 city ZIP codes the rate is above 10 percent.

During the State of the City address, the mayor also said he would begin in May to bring back to offices the thousands of city employees who have been working remotely, and would safely reopen schools for all students in September.

“New York City’s vaccination effort is the foundation of a recovery for all of us,” the mayor’s 18-page recovery plan says. “With every vaccine shot, New York City moves closer and closer to fully reopening our economy, restoring the jobs we lost and ensuring equality in our comeback.”

If the federal government provides enough stimulus dollars to the city, Mr. de Blasio said, he will create a City Cleanup Corps of 10,000 temporary workers to focus on beautifying the city — an idea he compared to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression.

Mr. de Blasio also proposed two plans to help small businesses: a $50 million “recovery tax credit” program for businesses that have faced hardships from the pandemic, and a $100 million “recovery loan” program to help shops stay open. The city will provide low-interest loans of up to $100,000 to roughly 2,000 small businesses, according to the mayor’s plan.

But Mr. de Blasio has also warned that the city is facing major budget cuts and layoffs. He recently announced that the city’s property tax revenues are projected to decline by $2.5 billion next year, driven by a drop in the value of office buildings and hotel properties that have emptied out during the pandemic.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Friday that restaurants in New York City, major drivers of its economy that have struggled under pandemic restrictions, could reopen for indoor dining at 25 percent capacity starting on Feb. 14. Mr. Cuomo closed them last month as virus numbers ticked up.

Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Cuomo have expressed optimism that President Biden, along with a Democratic-led Congress, will bring substantial assistance to the city. Mr. de Blasio also called for higher taxes on wealthy New Yorkers in his speech — a policy he has pushed for years, but that Mr. Cuomo has opposed.

Mr. de Blasio noted that more than 100 billionaires in the state increased their net worth by billions of dollars during the pandemic and called again for a redistribution of wealth.

“There is clearly enough money in New York to invest in a fair and fast recovery — it’s just in the wrong hands,” he said.

Credit…David Zalubowski/Associated Press

The federal occupational safety agency on Friday posted new guidance for employers on reducing the spread of Covid-19 in the workplace, just over one week after President Biden signed an executive order directing it to do so.

The move by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, part of the Labor Department, includes only recommendations, not requirements. But the agency said it was exploring a rule mandating certain protective measures.

The agency declined to issue such a rule, known as an emergency temporary standard, during the Trump administration. But Mr. Biden indicated support for a standard during the campaign.

The new guidance makes fewer distinctions than the Trump administration’s version based on the exposure risk of different workers. “Everyone should be protected, not some more protected than others,” Ann Rosenthal, a senior adviser to the agency, said on a video call with reporters.

The document issued on Friday also uses less equivocal language than the agency did under President Donald J. Trump. For example, it says the most effective prevention programs “ensure that absence policies are nonpunitive.” During the Trump administration, the agency advised employers to “ensure that sick leave policies are flexible and consistent with public health guidance.”

Meatpacking and meat processing have been a particular source of concern, accounting for an outsized portion of Covid-19 infections nationally.

In late December, a state judge in California issued a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit involving workers at a local poultry plant, requiring a variety of safety protocols such as providing masks and requiring workers to wear them, as well as face shields, where social distancing isn’t possible.

The court announced Friday that it would issue a preliminary injunction to the same effect, giving workers an ongoing ability to force compliance if the company backs off the protocols. It cited evidence submitted by the plaintiffs that “regulatory agencies are overwhelmed by the issues raised by the Covid-19 pandemic and are unable to inspect with the same regularity as was the practice prior to the pandemic.”

Tags AstraZeneca, Covid19, global, Johnson, Live, Updates, vaccines

Health

Pregnant Girls Get Conflicting Recommendation on Covid-19 Vaccines

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Post date January 29, 2021

Pregnant Women Get Conflicting Advice on Covid-19 Vaccines

Schwangere, die nach Leitlinien für Covid-19-Impfstoffe suchen, sind mit der Art von Verwirrung konfrontiert, die die Pandemie von Anfang an verfolgt hat: Die weltweit führenden Organisationen für öffentliche Gesundheit – die US-amerikanischen Zentren für die Kontrolle und Prävention von Krankheiten und die Weltgesundheitsorganisation – bieten widersprüchliche Angebote Rat.

Keine der Organisationen verbietet oder fördert ausdrücklich die Immunisierung schwangerer Frauen. Sie wägen jedoch dieselben begrenzten Studien ab und geben unterschiedliche Empfehlungen.

Das Beratungsgremium der CDC forderte schwangere Frauen auf, sich vor dem Hochkrempeln mit ihren Ärzten zu beraten – eine Entscheidung, die von mehreren Frauengesundheitsorganisationen begrüßt wurde, da die Entscheidungsfindung weiterhin in den Händen der werdenden Mütter lag.

Die WHO empfahl schwangeren Frauen, den Impfstoff nicht zu erhalten, es sei denn, sie hatten aufgrund von Arbeitsexpositionen oder chronischen Erkrankungen ein hohes Risiko für Covid. Am Dienstag gab es Leitlinien zum Moderna-Impfstoff heraus, die bei Frauen und Ärzten in den sozialen Medien für Unsicherheit sorgten. (Anfang dieses Monats wurden ähnliche Leitlinien zum Pfizer-BioNTech-Impfstoff veröffentlicht.)

Mehrere Experten äußerten sich bestürzt über die Haltung der WHO und sagten, die Risiken für schwangere Frauen aus Covid seien weitaus größer als jeder theoretische Schaden durch die Impfstoffe.

“Es gibt keine dokumentierten Risiken für den Fötus, es gibt keine theoretischen Risiken, es gibt kein Risiko in Tierstudien”, sagte Dr. Anne Lyerly, Bioethikerin an der Universität von North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “Je mehr ich darüber nachdenke, desto enttäuschter und trauriger fühle ich mich darüber.”

Die Meinungsverschiedenheit zwischen der CDC und der WHO beruht nicht auf wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen, sondern auf deren Fehlen: Schwangeren wurde die Teilnahme an klinischen Studien mit den Impfstoffen verwehrt, eine Entscheidung, die einer langen Tradition des Ausschlusses schwangerer Frauen entspricht biomedizinische Forschung, aber eine, die jetzt in Frage gestellt wird.

Während das Ziel angeblich darin besteht, Frauen und ihre ungeborenen Kinder zu schützen, drängt das Ausschließen schwangerer Frauen von Studien das Risiko aus dem sorgfältig kontrollierten Umfeld einer klinischen Studie in die reale Welt. Die Praxis hat Patienten und Anbieter gezwungen, sensible, besorgniserregende Probleme mit wenig harten Daten über Sicherheit oder Wirksamkeit abzuwägen.

Impfstoffe gelten im Allgemeinen als sicher, und schwangere Frauen werden seit den 1960er Jahren aufgefordert, sich gegen Influenza und andere Krankheiten immunisieren zu lassen, auch wenn keine strengen klinischen Studien durchgeführt wurden, um sie zu testen.

“Als Geburtshelfer stehen wir häufig vor schwierigen Entscheidungen über die Verwendung von Interventionen in der Schwangerschaft, die in der Schwangerschaft nicht ordnungsgemäß getestet wurden”, sagte Dr. Denise Jamieson, Geburtshelferin an der Emory University in Atlanta und Mitglied der Covid-Expertengruppe am American College für Geburtshilfe und Gynäkologen. Das College befürwortete nachdrücklich die Einbeziehung schwangerer und stillender Frauen in die Impfstoffstudien.

“Was viele Menschen vermissen, ist, dass es Risiken gibt, nichts zu tun”, sagte Dr. Jamieson. “Es ist keine kluge Strategie, schwangeren Frauen die Möglichkeit zu bieten, sich impfen zu lassen und sich selbst zu schützen, wenn bekannte und schwerwiegende Risiken für Covid durch die Schwangerschaft bestehen.”

Die Unsicherheit ist nicht auf Covid-Impfstoffe beschränkt: Viele, wenn nicht die meisten Medikamente, einschließlich weit verbreiteter Medikamente, wurden noch nie bei schwangeren Frauen getestet. Es kann Jahre oder Jahrzehnte dauern, bis unerwünschte Nebenwirkungen auftreten, wenn keine Studie mit einer Kontrollgruppe zum Vergleich vorliegt.

“Dies ist keine Geschichte über die WHO oder andere Personen, die von einer Impfung in der Schwangerschaft abraten”, sagte Carleigh Krubiner, Policy Fellow am Center for Global Development und Hauptforscher für das Projekt “Schwangerschaftsforschungsethik für Impfstoffe, Epidemien und neue Technologien” (VERHINDERN). “Es ist eine Geschichte über das Versäumnis, schwangere Frauen rechtzeitig und angemessen in Impfstudien einzubeziehen.”

Dr. Krubiner erklärte, sie verstehe die Verpflichtung der WHO und anderer Beratungsgremien, sich auf wissenschaftliche Studien zu stützen, und fügte hinzu: „Die Realität ist, dass wir noch keine Daten zu diesen Impfungen in der Schwangerschaft haben und es ohne diese Daten sehr schwierig ist Komm raus und gib eine umfassende Empfehlung zur Unterstützung ab. “

Die CDC und die WHO haben im Verlauf der Pandemie viele Male dissonante Ratschläge gegeben – insbesondere zur Nützlichkeit von Masken und zur Möglichkeit, dass das Virus in Innenräumen mit dem Flugzeug fliegt.

In einer Erklärung sagte die CDC am Donnerstag, dass aufgrund der Wirkungsweise der Impfstoffe Pfizer-BioNTech und Moderna „es unwahrscheinlich ist, dass sie ein spezifisches Risiko für schwangere Frauen darstellen“.

Die Empfehlung der CDC könnte für die USA sinnvoll sein, wo Frauen möglicherweise leicht ihre Gesundheitsdienstleister konsultieren können, sagte Joachim Hombach, ein Gesundheitsberater der WHO zu Impfungen. Die WHO berät jedoch viele Länder mit niedrigem und mittlerem Einkommen, in denen Frauen keinen Zugang zu Ärzten oder Krankenschwestern haben.

Die Empfehlung der WHO wurde auch “im Zusammenhang mit der begrenzten Versorgung” der Impfstoffe abgegeben, sagte Dr. Hombach. “Ich denke nicht, dass die Sprache entmutigend ist, aber die Sprache gibt die Fakten an.”

Pfizer bezog schwangere Frauen nicht in seine ersten klinischen Studien ein, da es die von der Food and Drug Administration festgelegten Richtlinien befolgte, um zunächst Studien zur Entwicklungstoxizität und Reproduktionstoxizität durchzuführen, sagte Jerica Pitts, eine Sprecherin des Unternehmens. Pfizer und Moderna übermittelten der FDA im Dezember Ergebnisse aus Toxizitätsstudien an trächtigen Ratten.

Pfizer plant, im ersten Halbjahr 2021 eine klinische Studie an schwangeren Frauen zu beginnen, sagte Frau Pitts. Laut Colleen Hussey, einer Sprecherin des Unternehmens, richtet Moderna ein Register ein, um die Ergebnisse schwangerer Frauen zu erfassen, die den Impfstoff erhalten.

Kritiker der Entscheidung der Unternehmen, schwangere Frauen von Studien auszuschließen, sagen, dass die Studien zur Reproduktionstoxizität viel früher hätten durchgeführt werden können – sobald vielversprechende Impfstoffkandidaten identifiziert wurden. Die Unternehmen hätten ein Protokoll zur Registrierung schwangerer Frauen hinzufügen sollen, sobald klar war, dass die Vorteile der Impfstoffe den potenziellen Schaden überwogen, sagte Dr. Krubiner.

“Es ist schwer zu verstehen, warum diese Verzögerung auftritt und warum sie nicht früher eingeleitet wurde”, sagte sie. “Das größere Problem ist, dass wir Monate verloren haben, wenn sie anfangen.”

Akiko Iwasaki, ein Immunologe an der Yale University, der Impfungen für schwangere Frauen befürwortet hat, stellte das zugrunde liegende Problem in Frage, das zur Entscheidung der WHO führte.

“Was auch immer es ist, ich wünschte, die WHO wäre transparenter in ihren Gründen für diese Empfehlung”, sagte sie. “Das Leben von Frauen hängt davon ab.”

Covid19 Impfungen >

Antworten auf Ihre Impfstofffragen

Bin ich in meinem Bundesstaat für den Covid-Impfstoff berechtigt?

Derzeit können mehr als 150 Millionen Menschen – fast die Hälfte der Bevölkerung – geimpft werden. Aber jeder Staat trifft die endgültige Entscheidung darüber, wer zuerst geht. Die 21 Millionen Beschäftigten im Gesundheitswesen des Landes und drei Millionen Einwohner von Langzeitpflegeeinrichtungen waren die ersten, die sich qualifizierten. Mitte Januar forderten Bundesbeamte alle Bundesstaaten auf, die Berechtigung für alle über 65-Jährigen und für Erwachsene jeden Alters mit Erkrankungen zu öffnen, bei denen ein hohes Risiko besteht, dass sie schwer krank werden oder an Covid-19 sterben. Erwachsene in der Allgemeinbevölkerung stehen am Ende der Reihe. Wenn Gesundheitsbehörden von Bund und Ländern Engpässe bei der Verteilung von Impfstoffen beseitigen können, sind alle ab 16 Jahren bereits im Frühjahr oder Frühsommer förderfähig. Der Impfstoff wurde bei Kindern nicht zugelassen, obwohl derzeit Studien durchgeführt werden. Es kann Monate dauern, bis ein Impfstoff für Personen unter 16 Jahren verfügbar ist. Aktuelle Informationen zu den Impfrichtlinien in Ihrer Region finden Sie auf Ihrer staatlichen Gesundheitswebsite

Ist der Impfstoff frei?

Sie sollten nichts aus eigener Tasche bezahlen müssen, um den Impfstoff zu erhalten, obwohl Sie nach Versicherungsinformationen gefragt werden. Wenn Sie nicht versichert sind, sollten Sie den Impfstoff trotzdem kostenlos erhalten. Der Kongress hat in diesem Frühjahr ein Gesetz verabschiedet, das es Versicherern verbietet, eine Kostenteilung wie eine Zuzahlung oder einen Selbstbehalt anzuwenden. Es bestand aus zusätzlichen Schutzmaßnahmen, die es Apotheken, Ärzten und Krankenhäusern untersagten, Patienten, einschließlich nicht versicherter Patienten, in Rechnung zu stellen. Trotzdem befürchten Gesundheitsexperten, dass Patienten in Schlupflöcher geraten, die sie für Überraschungsrechnungen anfällig machen. Dies kann bei Personen der Fall sein, denen zusammen mit ihrem Impfstoff eine Arztbesuchsgebühr berechnet wird, oder bei Amerikanern, die bestimmte Arten der Krankenversicherung haben, die nicht unter die neuen Vorschriften fallen. Wenn Sie Ihren Impfstoff von einer Arztpraxis oder einer Notfallklinik erhalten, sprechen Sie mit ihnen über mögliche versteckte Kosten. Um sicherzugehen, dass Sie keine Überraschungsrechnung erhalten, ist es am besten, wenn Sie Ihren Impfstoff an einer Impfstelle des Gesundheitsministeriums oder in einer örtlichen Apotheke erhalten, sobald die Aufnahmen breiter verfügbar sind.

Kann ich wählen, welchen Impfstoff ich bekomme?Wie lange hält der Impfstoff? Brauche ich nächstes Jahr noch einen?

Das ist zu bestimmen. Es ist möglich, dass Covid-19-Impfungen genau wie die Grippeimpfung zu einem jährlichen Ereignis werden. Oder es kann sein, dass der Nutzen des Impfstoffs länger als ein Jahr anhält. Wir müssen abwarten, wie dauerhaft der Schutz vor den Impfstoffen ist. Um dies festzustellen, werden Forscher geimpfte Menschen aufspüren, um nach „Durchbruchsfällen“ zu suchen – jenen Menschen, die trotz Impfung an Covid-19 erkranken. Dies ist ein Zeichen für eine Schwächung des Schutzes und gibt Forschern Hinweise darauf, wie lange der Impfstoff hält. Sie werden auch die Spiegel von Antikörpern und T-Zellen im Blut geimpfter Personen überwachen, um festzustellen, ob und wann ein Auffrischungsschuss erforderlich sein könnte. Es ist denkbar, dass Menschen alle paar Monate, einmal im Jahr oder nur alle paar Jahre Booster benötigen. Es geht nur darum, auf die Daten zu warten.

Benötigt mein Arbeitgeber Impfungen?Wo kann ich mehr erfahren?

Die von Pfizer und Moderna im Dezember veröffentlichten Toxizitätsdaten ergaben keine schädlichen Auswirkungen der Impfstoffe auf trächtige Ratten – Beweise, die von der WHO in ihren Leitlinien angeführt wurden.

Eine extreme Folge eines konservativen Ansatzes für Impfstoffe während der Ebola-Epidemie in der Demokratischen Republik Kongo, als Gesundheitspersonal allen Mitarbeitern an vorderster Front einen Impfstoff gegen die Krankheit anbot und Kontakte von Personen bestätigten, dass sie diese hatten – außer wenn sie schwanger waren oder Stillen. Ohne den Impfstoff starben 98 Prozent der schwangeren Frauen, die mit dem Ebola-Virus infiziert waren.

Die Regeln wurden nach einem öffentlichen Aufschrei geändert, aber bis dahin waren viele schwangere Frauen gestorben, sagte Dr. Lyerly.

Covid-19 hat sich auch für schwangere Frauen als gefährlich erwiesen. Eine große CDC-Studie, die im November veröffentlicht wurde, ergab, dass schwangere Frauen mit Covid, die symptomatisch waren, signifikant häufiger ins Krankenhaus eingeliefert wurden oder starben als nicht schwangere Frauen, die ebenfalls Covid-Symptome hatten.

Die Beweise veranlassten Beamte der Behörde, eine Schwangerschaft in die Liste der Erkrankungen aufzunehmen, die das Risiko schwerer Krankheiten und des Todes durch Covid erhöhen.

Die CDC hat eine Smartphone-Anwendung namens v-safe eingerichtet, um Berichte über Nebenwirkungen von immunisierten Personen zu erhalten. Bislang haben sich rund 15.000 schwangere Frauen in das Register eingetragen, berichtete das Impfkomitee der Agentur am Mittwoch.

“Ich denke, das ist unsere beste Chance, schnell Sicherheitsdaten zu erhalten”, sagte Dr. Jamieson.

Großbritannien empfahl zunächst dringend, Covid-Impfstoffe für schwangere Frauen zu verwenden, hat jedoch seitdem seine Leitlinien überarbeitet, um die Impfung schwangerer Frauen zuzulassen, die an vorderster Front arbeiten oder anderweitig einem hohen Risiko ausgesetzt sind. “Ich hoffe, die WHO wird es auch noch einmal überdenken”, sagte Dr. Jamieson.

Einige Experten sagten, die Empfehlungen seien nicht so unterschiedlich, wie sie auf den ersten Blick erscheinen könnten. “Die CDC ist eher geneigt zu sagen, dass schwangere Frauen Zugang zum Impfstoff haben sollten, aber ihre Umstände mit ihren Anbietern besprechen sollten”, sagte Dr. Ana Langer, eine Expertin für reproduktive Gesundheit, die die Frauen- und Gesundheitsinitiative an der TH Chan School in Harvard leitet der öffentlichen Gesundheit. „Die vorläufige Empfehlung der WHO besagt, dass Frauen, bei denen ein besonders hohes Risiko besteht, exponiert zu werden oder Covid zu bekommen, den Impfstoff erhalten sollten. Wo ist hier der große Unterschied? “

Denise Grady trug zur Berichterstattung bei.

Tags Advice, Conflicting, Covid19, pregnant, vaccines, Women

Health

EU suggests AstraZeneca diverts Covid-19 vaccines from UK

Post author By
Post date January 28, 2021

An AstraZeneca vaccine production line.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

LONDON – The European Union has proposed that drug maker AstraZeneca reroute supplies of its coronavirus vaccine from the UK to mainland Europe as the battle over production delays and supplies continues.

It comes after AstraZeneca told the EU last week that it would initially deliver far fewer doses of its Covid vaccine to the block of 27 than initially thought.

The European Medicines Agency is expected to make a decision on Friday on whether the AstraZeneca vaccine will actually be approved for use.

In Germany, doubts have been expressed about the effectiveness of the vaccine in those over 65 years of age. On Thursday, the German vaccine committee recommended that the AstraZeneca vaccine only be offered to people between the ages of 18 and 64.

This is due to the fact that there is insufficient data to assess the effectiveness in people over 65 years of age.

Older study participants were later admitted to Phase 3 clinical trials of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which took place in the UK and Brazil, and earlier in South Africa. Therefore, there is less data on the effectiveness of the shot in those over 65.

Germany’s position casts doubt on the approval of the AstraZeneca vaccine at a time when a violent turmoil has broken out between the drug manufacturer and the EU over the delivery of the sting. The EU on Wednesday called for the pharmaceutical company to deliver on its agreement to supply millions of coronavirus vaccines by whatever means necessary.

“Constructive” discussions

Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said talks with the company, which continued on Wednesday, were “constructive”. But she also tweeted that “contractual obligations must be met, vaccines must be delivered to EU citizens”.

She said in a statement that the EU rejected the “first come, first served” logic after AstraZeneca’s CEO attributed delays in delivery to teething troubles at European manufacturing sites and ironing out similar issues in the UK. because they had ordered his vaccine dose three months earlier than the EU.

In a press conference, Kyriakides said there was “no hierarchy” in the manufacturing facilities identified in his pre-purchase agreement with AstraZeneca and no provision as to which EU would or would not supply.

“There are four factories in the contract, but there is no distinction between the UK and Europe. The UK factories are part of our pre-purchase agreement so they must deliver,” she said. There was no clause in the contract stating that the drug manufacturer would give priority to the UK, she added.

Slaughter brows

It is the latest development in the very public confrontation between the EU and AstraZeneca, as the latter is facing problems in two of their European plants.

The British-Swedish company’s CEO, Pascal Soriot, further fueled tensions on Tuesday when he said in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that the deal with the EU was a “best possible” rather than a “contractual obligation”.

The EU hit back and asked the drug manufacturer to provide detailed plans for its delivery schedule. An official urged AstraZeneca to redirect cans made in the UK to the EU, despite the company’s failure to respond to the problem, according to a Reuters report.

In an interview on Tuesday, Soriot said: “The UK government said that delivery from the UK supply chain would go to the UK first. Basically it is. The EU agreement mentions that UK production facilities were an option for Europe, but later. “

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not comment directly on the matter on Wednesday but said: “We are very confident in our deliveries, we are very confident in our contracts and we are proceeding on that basis.”

Vaccination drives

So far, the UK has vaccinated over 7.1 million people with a first dose of vaccine and nearly half a million received their second dose, which means more vaccinations have been received than Germany, France, Italy and Spain combined data numbers, according to Our World In.

Tags AstraZeneca, Covid19, diverts, Suggests, vaccines

Health

With All Eyes on Covid-19, Drug-Resistant Infections Crept In

Post author By
Post date January 27, 2021

“We saw a bloom in Candida auris,” said Dr. Rubin, who attributed the change to a handful of factors, particularly the challenges in testing for germs when so much testing resources went towards Covid-19.

Harmful drug-resistant bacteria are also emerging, including carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii, which is classified as an “Urgent Health Threat” by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In December, the CDC reported a group of Acinetobacter baumannii during a surge in Covid-19 patients in a New Jersey urban hospital with about 500 beds. The hospital was not identified. The bacterium Klebsiella pneumoniae spread to hospitals in Italy and Peru.

Recognizing the problem, three major medical societies sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Dec. 28, demanding a temporary suspension of the regulations that tie reimbursement rates to hospital-acquired infections. The three groups – the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America, the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists, and the Association for Infection Control and Epidemiology – feared that infection rates might have increased due to Covid-19.

“The staff, care, care locations and standard patient care practices have all changed during this extraordinary period,” the letter said.

Not all types of drug-resistant infections have increased. For example, some research shows that the rate of hospital patients acquiring the bacterium Clostridioides difficile did not change much during the pandemic – a finding that suggests that the long-term effects of the pandemic on these infections overall are not yet clear.

Dr. Huang and other experts said they are not claiming the priority in fighting Covid-19 was wrong. Rather, they say that drug-resistant germs need renewed attention. Previous research has shown that up to 65 percent of nursing home residents carry some form of drug-resistant infection.

Over the years, critics have alleged that hospitals, and especially nursing homes, have been negligent in their efforts to combat these infections because of the cost of disinfecting equipment, training staff, isolating infected patients, and checking for germs.

Tags Covid19, Crept, DrugResistant, Eyes, infections

Health

Hong Kong’s First Covid-19 Lockdown Exposes Deep-Rooted Inequality

Post author By
Post date January 27, 2021

HONG KONG – When Shirley Leung, 60, woke up in Hong Kong’s first coronavirus lockdown, she overlooked the tiny room she shares with her adult son, which can accommodate a single bed, cardboard boxes and plastic tubs for storing clothes.

She tried to ignore the smell of the ceiling and walls covered with mold. She rationed the fresh vegetables she had at home, dissatisfied with the canned goods and instant noodles the government had provided when it imposed restrictions on Saturday. She looked at the cramped, interconnected nature of her home.

“If a room is infected, how is it possible that cases do not spread to compartmentalized apartments?” Ms. Leung said in a telephone interview. “How can it be safe?”

Hong Kong has long been one of the most unequal places in the world, a city where sleek luxury shopping malls rub shoulders with overcrowded tenement houses, where the bathroom sometimes doubles as a kitchen. In normal times, this inequality is often masked by the glittering surface of the city. But during the coronavirus pandemic, its cost has become unmistakable.

From January 1 to the end of last week, more than 160 confirmed cases were found in the Jordanian neighborhood, out of about 1,100 across the city. The government responded by locking down 10,000 residents in an area of 16 blocks. More than 3,000 workers, many in protective suits, came to the area to conduct mass tests.

Hong Kong executive director Carrie Lam said Tuesday the lockdown had been a success, adding that more may follow. Officials announced one soon after in nearby Yau Ma Tei.

Officials suggested that the dilapidated living conditions of many of Jordan’s residents fueled the spread of the virus. Jordan is a crowded neighborhood known for its bustling night market, aging high-rise apartments, and numerous restaurants. This is where some of the city’s highest concentrations of rental apartments are located, the subdivided apartments that are created when apartments are divided into two or more smaller ones.

More than 200,000 of the city’s poorest residents live in units where the average living space per person is 48 square feet – less than a third the size of a parking lot in New York City. Some rooms are so small and restrictive that they are called cages or coffin houses.

The same conditions that may have led to the outbreak also made the lockdown particularly painful for many residents who worried about missing even a work day or feared being trapped in poorly ventilated breeding grounds of transmission. Officials admitted that they did not know exactly how many people were living in the compartmentalized apartments, which made efforts to test everyone difficult. Discrimination against low-income South Asian residents, many of whom are concentrated in the region, has also created problems.

Some have accused the government of tightening conditions for an outbreak and then imposing persistent measures on a group that can least afford to endure them. Wealthy Hong Kongers have caused outbursts of their own or disregarded socially distant rules with no similar consequences.

“If they did something wrong, it is to be poor, to live in a compartmentalized apartment, or to have a different skin color,” said Andy Yu, an elected officer in the restricted area.

The divided apartments have been a cause for concern since the pandemic began.

Ms. Leung, the retiree, and her son have only one bed to sleep in at night, and their son sleeps during the day after returning from night shifts as a construction worker. A roof beam was cracked, but the landlord had postponed repairs, she said. Shape was also a persistent problem as dirty water dripped from an adjacent unit.

Installation in subdivided apartments is often reconfigured to allow for more bathrooms or kitchens. However, the installation is often incorrect. During the 2002/03 SARS outbreak, more than 300 people were infected in a housing estate and 42 died after the virus spread through broken pipelines.

The government promised reforms after SARS but has recognized that the situation remains dangerous.

“Many of the buildings in the exclusion zone are older and in poor condition,” said Sophia Chan, the secretary for nutrition and health, on Saturday. “The risk of infection in the community is very high.”

The lockdown ultimately lasted only two days until midnight on Sunday the government said it had successfully tested most of the region’s residents. Thirteen people tested positive.

Updated

Jan. 26, 2021, 11:30 p.m. ET

However, experts said the government failed to address the underlying issues.

Wong Hung, deputy director of the Institute of Health Equity at Hong Kong University of China, said the government had not adequately regulated the compartmentalized housing.

“They fear that if they do something, there will be no place where low-income families can find shelter,” said Professor Wong. The real estate market in Hong Kong is consistently rated as the least affordable in the world.

Income inequality in Hong Kong is also closely linked to ethnicity, and the pandemic has exacerbated longstanding discrimination against South Asian residents, who make up around 1 percent of the city’s population. Almost a third of South Asian families with children in Hong Kong are below the poverty line, which, according to government data, is almost twice the proportion of all families in the city.

Many South Asians live in and around Jordan, including in divided dwellings, and as the virus spread, some locals made widespread allegations of unsanitary behavior.

Raymond Ho, a senior health official, was outraged last week when he suggested that Hong Kong’s ethnic minorities boost transmission because “they like to eat, smoke, drink alcohol and chat together”. Ms. Lam, the city’s leader, later said the government had not suggested that the spread of the disease was race related.

Sushil Newa, the owner of a brightly painted Nepalese restaurant in the exclusion zone, showed screenshots on his phone from online commentators comparing his community to animals and suggesting that they be alcoholics.

“We just work hard and pay taxes here. How come we are isolated from Hong Kong?” said Mr. Neva, referring to the discrimination when a clerk shoveled containers of biryani to take away.

Professor Wong said the government also failed to communicate effectively with residents of South Asia, which has led to confusion about the lockdown. The government later said it had sent translators. Other residents said the government provided Muslims with food that was not culturally appropriate, such as pork.

Even so, Mr Neva said he supported the lockdown. Although he lost money, controlling the outbreak is more important, he said.

Other entrepreneurs agreed, but also demanded compensation from the government.

Low Hung-kau, the owner of a corner stall, Shanghai Delicious Foods, said he was forced to ditch ingredients he had prepped for steamed buns – an added blow to the decline in business since the neighborhood outbreak began .

“I’ve lost 60 percent of my business,” he said. “Hardly anyone comes over.”

He spent the day after the lockdown gathering neighboring business owners to ask the government to pay at least some of their losses over the weekend. Government officials have dodged questions about compensation, only hoping employers would not deduct the salaries of workers who missed their jobs.

Activists criticized the government for its relief efforts throughout the pandemic, noting that it did not offer unemployment benefits. In addition, much of the state aid was directed towards employers rather than employees. Some companies have applied for subsidies to keep employees on payroll and then declined that promise.

Despite the risks, some had no choice but to break the lock.

Ho Lai-ha, a 71-year-old street cleaner, said she swept streets and cleared sewers over the weekend just days after they were identified as potential sources of contamination.

“I’m a little scared, but there is no other way,” she said as she dipped a duster into an open grate on Monday. “The area has been closed, but our work continues.”

Tags Covid19, DeepRooted, Exposes, Hong, Inequality, Kongs, Lockdown

Health

What If You By no means Get Higher From Covid-19?

Post author By
Post date January 26, 2021

What If You Never Get Better From Covid-19?

At least anecdotally, some long-distance drivers experience the type of virus reactivation that describes climates. In late October, seven months after contracting the coronavirus, Lauren Nichols developed shingles – a reactivation of the virus that causes chickenpox. The “out of this world” episode of searing nerve pain sent her to the emergency room. A lesion developed on the cornea of her left eye that threatened her vision. Antiviral drugs helped control her shingles. Nichols, an administrator of a Long Covid support group, told me that reactivation of Epstein-Barr, cytomegalovirus and other herpes viruses is happening in a small but significant percentage of long distance drivers on the site.

A similar argument about what drives chronic symptoms – persistent infection versus persistent inflammation from previous infection – plays an important role in the Lyme disease study. Some people infected with Borrelia burgdorferi, the tick-borne bacterium that causes Lyme, do not recover even after taking antibiotic treatment. Patients may refer to this condition as “chronic Lyme disease,” but doctors prefer to refer to it as “post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome” because they are unsure whether the infection is still present. As with ME / CFS research, the debate over the root cause of this post-Lyme disease has polarized the field for years.

There are other similarities as well. The Lyme problem is not recognized, but it is immense. It is estimated that 329,000 people become infected with B. burgdorferi each year. About 10 percent of people treated with antibiotics develop persistent symptoms, including fatigue, pain, and occasionally nervous system disorders such as dysautonomia – heart rate, blood pressure, and other basic body functions out of order. It seems to affect women more than men, it has long been dismissed as psychological and the long-term illness is often judged to be worse than the acute infection.

Like ME / CFS, post-Lyme syndrome does not have a biological marker that allows a specific diagnosis. The three non-mutually exclusive ideas about what causes long-term symptoms are roughly the same as for ME / CFS: a persistent infection (or maybe just debris from the Lyme spirochetes); an autoimmune disease or inflammatory dysfunction that is caused by the infection and that persists after the bacteria go away; or changes in the nervous system reflecting Jarred Younger’s idea of ”angry microglia” but described by Lyme researchers as “raising central nervous system awareness”. Perhaps the infection changes the way the brain functions in such a way that stimuli that were once easily bearable – pain, light, sound – become unbearable.

The parallels between ME / CFS and Lyme confirm the belief that many different infections – including Lyme spirochetes – can trigger long-term debilitating syndromes. It’s a lesson we as a society may have forgotten, said Allen Steere, a Lyme expert and rheumatologist at Harvard Medical School. “Now we have infected millions and it is becoming clear to people that this type of problem can follow.”

It’s a crazy prospect, but for a long time Covid may not be a single syndrome at all. It could, as seems to be the case with ME / CFS, be a series of problems linked in various ways to an initial trigger – in Covid’s case, the invasion of the human body by a virus believed to be it is originally native to bats. ME / CFS doctors and researchers have faced this frustrating complexity for years. It is an inevitable challenge in treating any condition, be it ME / CFS or Long Covid, whose diagnosis is based almost entirely on subjective reporting of symptoms. After all, there are many ways in which you can cause symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, and even dysautonomia. As Peter Rowe puts it, treating ME / CFS is like peeling an artichoke. “They are trying to remove treatable layers of problems and see what the essence is,” he told me.

In the case of ME / CFS, scientists have identified several more leaves of the proverbial artichoke – a lucky bag of treatable, somewhat opaque conditions that appear to be associated with it. One is mast cell activation syndrome, which can cause fatigue, pain, and problems with thinking and memory. An infection can sometimes trigger it. Another is small fiber neuropathy, a condition in which the body’s nerves misfire and can die, causing pain, fatigue, and disruption of basic body functions such as breathing. Infections can sometimes trigger it, and given the current description of Lang Covid symptoms, Anne Louise Oaklander, a pioneer in understanding this neuropathy, suspects it also occurs in long-distance drivers. “Small fiber neuropathy is usually treatable,” said Oaklander, “and in some cases curable.”

Tags Covid19

Health

Flaming Lips Use of Plastic Bubbles at Live shows Go away Covid-19 Specialists Uncertain

Post author By
Post date January 25, 2021

Flaming Lips Use of Plastic Bubbles at Concerts Leave Covid-19 Experts Unsure

There are Covid-19 bubbles – small groups of friends or family members who agree to only interact with one another during the pandemic – and then there are the types of bubbles the Flaming Lips have used in recent concerts.

Band members and concert goers rocked and bounced while trapped in large, individual plastic bubbles amid bright, swirling lights in trippy scenes at concerts on Friday and Saturday in Oklahoma City.

The band took elaborate precautions during their live performances to protect themselves from the transmission of the coronavirus, but some health experts were unsure of the effectiveness of these measures.

“I would need to see how the air exchange works between the outside and the inside of the bubbles to be able to tell if it is overall safe or if it reduces the risk of transmission,” said Dr. Eric Cioe-Peña, director of global health at Northwell Health in New Hyde Park, NY

The Friday and Saturday concerts were originally scheduled for December, but the band postponed them due to the increasing cases of Covid-19 in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.

“It’s a very limited, weird event,” the band’s front man Wayne Coyne told Rolling Stone last month. “But the craziness is that we can enjoy a concert before we endanger our families and everyone.”

“I think it’s a bit of a new normal,” he added. “You might go to a show, maybe not, but I think we can do it.”

In March, Mr Coyne posted a sketch on Instagram showing what the bubble concert might look like.

Nathan Poppe, a videographer and photographer documenting the show for the band, said on Twitter that the floor was constructed in a grid of 10 bubbles by 10 bubbles. “Each bladder can contain one person or two or maybe three,” he said.

Photos showed fans climbing into the balls on the concert floor, where the bubbles were then blown up with leaf blowers.

Each bladder was equipped with a high-frequency speaker, a water bottle, a fan, a towel, and a sign for when someone needed to use the toilet or when it was too hot inside. If it got too stuffy inside, the bladder could be filled with cool air, said Mr. Poppe.

He said concert goers could take off their masks in the bladder but would have to wear them after exiting the bladder.

“You roll your bladder to the exit and open it on the door,” he said.

It was not immediately clear what became of the bubbles used after the 90-minute performances, each attended by around 200 people.

Some health professionals have had concerns about the safety of users in the bladders.

“There is no evidence of the effectiveness – or the absence – of these bubbles from an infectious disease transmission point of view,” said Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health.

He said that controlling virus transmission relies on good air circulation and filtration.

“If air filtration is good, protective barriers can theoretically increase and decrease the risk of transmission. However, I would hesitate to go to a concert in a bubble right now unless further researched,” he said.

Dr. Cioe-Peña said the plastic bubbles used at the concerts appeared to be unventilated. But if each of the bubbles had “a bidirectional filtered air supply,” he said, “it would effectively prevent covid transmission between the bubbles.”

While a plastic bladder could help reduce exposure to “infectious agents” when filled with filtered air, it could also lead to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the bladder, said Richard E. Peltier, associate professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

“My recommendation would be to add a small CO2 sensor to the bladder,” he said. “While they’re not always the most precise, they should be enough to tell a concert-goer that it’s time to take a break and freshen up the stale air. And then safely enjoy the music again. “

Tags Bubbles, Concerts, Covid19, Experts, Flaming, Leave, Lips, Plastic, Unsure

World News

Covid-19 Information: Stay Updates – The New York Instances

Post author By
Post date January 25, 2021

A dose of the Moderna vaccine being filled into a syringe in Mountain View, Calif., on Friday.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Moderna’s vaccine is effective against new variants of the coronavirus that have emerged in Britain and South Africa, the company announced on Monday. But it appears to be less protective against the variant discovered in South Africa, and so the company is developing a new form of the vaccine that could be used as a booster shot.

“We’re doing it today to be ahead of the curve should we need to,” Dr. Tal Zaks, Moderna’s chief medical officer, said in an interview. “I think of it as an insurance policy.”

He added, “I don’t know if we need it, and I hope we don’t.”

Moderna reported findings from a study that used blood samples from eight people who had received two doses of the vaccine, and two monkeys that had also been immunized.

The variant found in Britain had no effect on the levels of neutralizing antibodies — the type that can disable the virus — produced after vaccination. But with the form from South Africa, there was a sixfold reduction in those levels.

Even so, the company said, those antibodies “remain above levels that are expected to be protective.”

Moderna collaborated on the study with the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health.

The results have not yet been published or peer-reviewed, but have been submitted to bioRxiv, which posts preliminary studies online.

The company’s action is part of a race to control a shape-shifting virus that has already created global havoc and now threatens to mutate in ways that will make it even harder to fight.

In other vaccine news:

The pandemic has inflicted the greatest labor crisis since the Great Depression, Guy Ryder, the head of the United Nations International Labour Organization, said on Monday. Mr. Ryder said the coronavirus has caused a loss of working hours equivalent to some 255 million jobs last year. There is still massive uncertainty about when the global economy will return to pre-pandemic levels of employment, but it won’t be in 2021, the agency said. Its analysis also pointed to the unevenness of the pandemic’s impact, with growth in the finance and I.T. sectors, underscoring the need for a targeted response to the crisis.
Australia on Monday approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for use among people 16 and older, the country’s first coronavirus vaccine approval. Vaccinations are expected to start late next month. The announcement came one year to the day after Australia reported its first coronavirus case.
After delays, Turkey received 6.5 million more doses of a Chinese-produced coronavirus vaccine Monday morning, the state-run news agency, Anadolu, reported. Turkey was expecting to receive at least 10 million doses of the vaccine in December, and 20 million more in January. But the batches were delayed and the number of doses remained below expectations, an apparent blow to China’s vaccine diplomacy. Turkey has given more than 1. 2 million inoculations, according to Health Ministry data, using the CoronaVac shot from the Chinese company Sinovac. Almost 2.5 million people in Turkey are infected with the coronavirus and more than 25,000 people have died, government data shows.

Livia Albeck-Ripka contributed reporting.

United States ›	United StatesOn Jan. 24	14-day change
New cases	129,527	–33%
New deaths	1,815	–5%

World ›	WorldOn Jan. 24	14-day change
New cases	449,163	–20%
New deaths	8,808	+8%

Where cases per capita are
highest

Credit…Joel Angel Juarez for The New York Times

California officials announced on Monday morning that they were lifting severe coronavirus restrictions on huge swaths of the state, home to tens of millions of people. The decision would allow restaurants in those areas to reopen for outdoor dining, and would give hair salons and other personal care businesses the green light to resume limited operations.

However, local officials can still opt to keep restrictions in place, based on conditions in individual communities.

“Seven weeks ago, our hospitals and frontline medical workers were stretched to their limits,” Dr. Mark Ghaly, the state’s secretary of health and human services, said in a statement. “But Californians heard the urgent message to stay home when possible, and our surge after the December holidays did not overwhelm the health care system to the degree we had feared.”

Effective immediately, state officials said, they were ending regional stay-at-home orders, which banned gatherings of any size and required residents to stay home except for essential work. The orders came into force when hospital intensive-care units in the region were projected to become dangerously full.

Such orders had been in effect for Southern California, a huge region encompassing Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego, as well as for the San Joaquin Valley and the Bay Area. Counties in those regions will now return to a tiered system of rules tied to the prevalence of the virus in each county.

The move is a victory for restaurateurs, who have been pushing the governor to ease what they have said are arbitrary and unnecessary rules.

But it is also a sign that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration is struggling to keep a firm grip on a pandemic response that has been criticized as chaotic and piecemeal, undercutting what should be strong, clear public guidance.

The news came on the heels of a weekend of mixed signals from the state about its strategy to curb the rampant spread of the virus.

While California’s overall case numbers have been on the decline, hospitals in Southern California are still overwhelmed, and experts worry that new variants of the virus — including one that researchers recently found in more than half of test samples collected in Los Angeles — could threaten progress.

In the Bay Area, the amount of available intensive care unit capacity has risen to 23.4 percent, according to the state as of Sunday — well above the 15 percent threshold that triggered the stay-at-home order for the region. Yet the Sacramento area has just 11.9 percent intensive care unit capacity, and was allowed to exit the strict order more than a week ago.

Although The San Francisco Chronicle reported on Saturday that officials in the region were feeling hopeful that the order would be lifted soon, the state’s department of public health said on Sunday that the Bay Area wasn’t eligible to have restrictions loosened based on its projections.

Mr. Newsom has repeatedly said that the state’s reopening process would be guided by transparent data, but The Associated Press reported that Mr. Newsom’s administration has refused to disclose key data that officials are using to make decisions about restrictions.

And even after President Biden unveiled what experts have long said is a desperately needed national strategy for finally controlling the pandemic, there are still major hurdles in the vaccine rollout, which in California has contributed to continuing chaos, in which vaccine eligibility rules have been implemented differently county by county.

The state quietly rolled out a promised clearinghouse website to help people find vaccination appointments. But it’s still described as a pilot site.

The governor has been facing mounting political pressure from a recall effort. Experts have said that the vaccine rollout, as well as efforts to reopen, are key tests for his administration.

Credit…Tom Mihalek/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Merck announced on Monday that it was abandoning a pair of Covid-19 vaccines in clinical trials.

The news came as a disappointment at a time when the United States and other countries are struggling to accelerate their sluggish vaccination campaigns and new coronavirus variants threaten to bring surges over the next few months.

The two projects are the second and third vaccines to be abandoned in clinical trials. The University of Queensland in Australia abandoned its own effort in December. Sanofi and other vaccine makers have paused some projects after getting disappointing initial results but are now regrouping to move forward.

Merck was slower than other companies to get into the Covid-19 vaccine race. In June, it acquired the Austrian firm Themis Bioscience to develop a vaccine originally designed at Institut Pasteur, based on a weakened measles virus. Researchers began a Phase 1 trial in August. In a second effort, Merck partnered with IAVI, a nonprofit scientific organization that develops vaccines and treatments, on another vaccine. For that one, they used the same design that they successfully employed to make a vaccine for Ebola.

Merck and IAVI were awarded $38 million for their vaccine research, but neither of Merck’s projects earned the lavish support that Operation Warp Speed showered on other efforts from companies such as Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. In its announcement, Merck said that both vaccines looked safe in early clinical trials. But neither produced a strong response from the immune system. They decided that it was not worth going forward with large-scale trials that would demonstrate whether the vaccines protected people from Covid-19.

“We are grateful to our collaborators who worked with us on these vaccine candidates and to the volunteers in the trials,” Dr. Dean Y. Li, the president of Merck Research Laboratories, said in a statement.

Merck will instead focus its Covid-19 efforts on an experimental antiviral drug known as molnupiravir. Originally designed for influenza, it has shown promising effects in studies on animals and in early clinical trials. The trial is set to finish by May, although preliminary results could come out as early as March.

IAVI said it would continue searching for Covid-19 vaccines. “Our scientists will continue to evaluate other candidates to see if other routes of administration or changes to the construct could lead to improved immune response,” said Karie Youngdahl, senior director and head of global communications at IAVI.

Credit…Yoan Valat/EPA, via Shutterstock

The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, recommended on Monday restricting nonessential travel in a bid to curb the spread of new more contagious variants of the coronavirus.

At the same time, the commission’s proposal aims to prevent blanket border closures, which would obstruct trade and the movement of cross-border workers. Traveling without restrictions would still be possible for family, work and health reasons, which are deemed essential.

“The situation in Europe with the new variants have led us to take difficult but necessary decisions,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the commission, wrote on Twitter. “We need to keep safe and discourage nonessential travel.”

The move came amid signs in Britain that Prime Minister Boris Johnson would announce an extension and tightening of lockdown rules in England. In the United States, President Biden has moved to restrict travel from Europe and South Africa over concerns about new variants. Also on Monday, Moderna announced that while its vaccine is effective against new variants, it appears to be less protective against the one that emerged in South Africa, raising further concern.

In the E.U. plan, countries and regions where the 14-day infection rate is more than 500 per 100,000 inhabitants would qualify as “dark red,” or high-risk zones, and moving between them should be limited to essential reasons, the commission said. At the same time, those coming in from outside the bloc, even for essential reasons, would have to undergo testing and quarantines. “The first recommendation is: don’t travel,” said Ylva Johansson, the bloc’s commissioner for home affairs.

The commission’s proposal is nonbinding and needs to be endorsed by national governments, who will discuss it Monday afternoon. It comes after last week’s meeting of the leaders of 27 European Union nations, who agreed in principle to selectively restrict nonessential travel, but did not decide on the details.

“There is currently a very high number of new infections across many member states,” said Didier Reynders, the bloc’s commissioner for justice. “There is an urgent need to reduce the risk of travel-related infections, to lessen the burden on overstretched health care systems.”

Freedom of movement is the cornerstone of the bloc, but travel restrictions remain the province of national governments and vary from country to country, creating a chaotic patchwork of measures. Belgium, for example, has announced a ban on nonessential travel coming into force this Wednesday, with fines for those who don’t comply.

Credit…Eraldo Peres/Associated Press

China’s coronavirus vaccines were supposed to deliver a geopolitical win that showcased the country’s scientific prowess and generosity. Instead, in some places, they have set off a backlash.

Officials in Brazil and Turkey have complained that Chinese companies have been slow to ship the doses and ingredients. Disclosures about the Chinese vaccines have been spotty. The few announcements that have trickled out suggest that China’s vaccines, while considered effective, cannot stop the virus as well as those developed by Pfizer and Moderna, the American drugmakers.

In the Philippines, some lawmakers have criticized the government’s decision to purchase a vaccine made by a Chinese company called Sinovac. Officials in Malaysia and Singapore, which ordered doses from Sinovac, have had to reassure their citizens that they would approve a vaccine only if it has been proven safe and effective.

At least 24 countries, most of them low and middle income, signed deals with the Chinese vaccine companies because they offered access at a time when richer nations had claimed most of the doses made by Pfizer and Moderna. But the delays in getting the Chinese vaccines and the fact that the vaccines are less effective mean that those countries may take longer to vanquish the virus.

Beijing officials who had hoped the vaccines would burnish China’s global reputation are now on the defensive. The state news media has started a misinformation campaign against the American vaccines and promoting the Chinese vaccines as a better alternative. They have also distributed online videos that have been shared by the anti-vaccine movement in the United States.

The vaccines are also meant to prove that China has become a scientific and diplomatic powerhouse. It remains on par with the United States in the number of vaccines approved for emergency use or in late-stage trials. Sinopharm, a state-owned vaccine maker, and Sinovac have said they can produce up to a combined two billion doses this year, making them essential to the global fight against the coronavirus.

Unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, their doses can be kept at refrigerated temperatures and are more easily transported, making them appealing to the developing world.

China’s campaign has been plagued with doubts, however. A YouGov survey this month of roughly 19,000 people in 17 countries and regions showed that most were distrustful of a Covid-19 vaccine made in China. The misinformation campaign surrounding Western vaccines could further undermine its image.

Credit…Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City announced on Monday that the openings of planned mass coronavirus vaccination sites at Yankee Stadium and Citi Field would be postponed because of the low supply of doses available.

“We want to get those to be full blown, 24-hour operations,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference, “but we don’t have the vaccine.”

The site at Citi Field had been set to launch this week, while plans for the one in the Bronx were still being developed. Another site at the Empire Outlets on Staten Island was initially scheduled to open last week, but would also be postponed, the mayor said.

The city had a total of 19,032 first doses in inventory on Monday morning, Mr. de Blasio said, and expects to receive just under 108,000 doses this week. But he continued to warn that figure was not nearly enough to keep up with the pace at which New Yorkers are being inoculated: If the supply was greater, the mayor said New York City would be on pace to administer roughly 500,000 doses per week.

Instead, he said many inoculation appointments will continue to be canceled or rescheduled as they were last week.

Some public health experts have worried that the limited supply could undermine goals of state and city officials to prioritize communities hard hit by the virus — Black and Latino people and low-income New Yorkers — in the vaccine rollout.

The state has not released demographic information on the distribution, but Mr. de Blasio said on Monday that data would come “this week,” adding that “it’s part of making sure that we act to address the disparities that have pervaded the Covid experience.”

The mayor last week also sent a letter to President Biden requesting more doses, along with the “flexibility” to use second doses to increase the pace of vaccinations. He did not discuss any specific progress made on Monday, but appeared hopeful that an update could come soon.

“What is so clear now is the commitment of the Biden administration,” Mr. de Blasio said, “to finding every conceivable way to get us more vaccine quickly. We are waiting in the course of this week for more detailed information.”

But federal health officials and corporate executives agree that the immediate supply is unlikely to increase before April because of manufacturing constraints. Public health officials are also awaiting clinical trial results for the vaccine under development by Johnson & Johnson, which city officials said on Monday they hoped would also raise supply levels.

Still, the current vaccination effort has so far sown confusion and frustration across the country as other states similarly struggle with shortages.

And as small businesses across New York City continue to collapse during the pandemic, Mr. de Blasio said the city’s annual restaurant week started on Monday with a focus on takeout and delivery options.

“There’s a lot of things we need to keep doing to help our business in the meantime,” he said, “as they work to survive.”

Credit…Pat Nabong/Chicago Sun-Times, via Associated Press

With roughly 70,000 kindergarten through eighth grade students scheduled to return to public school classrooms in Chicago next week, the district and the teachers’ union remain locked in a battle over the reopening plan, with the union saying that a majority of its members voted to authorize a strike if the district seeks to force teachers back into buildings.

All staff working in kindergarten through eighth grade classrooms were originally supposed to report to buildings on Monday to prepare for students’ return next week. But late last week, the union asked its members to vote on a resolution calling on them to refuse to report in-person and to authorize a strike if the district locked them out of its electronic systems.

Over the weekend, the two sides jockeyed for leverage. The district sent a message to families and staff saying that it had agreed to a request from the union to postpone the date for staff to return to Wednesday. Shortly after, the union sent its own message denying that there had been any agreement and saying that its members had voted to continue working remotely indefinitely.

The district said that the union was making several requests that it disagreed with, including delaying reopening until all staff members had been able to receive at least one dose of the vaccine or until the citywide positivity rate fell below 3 percent. Over the last week, the citywide positivity rate has been 7.2 percent. The district has said it will begin vaccinating teachers in mid-February and that it hopes to vaccinate all employees in the coming months.

According to the district, the union was also requesting weekly surveillance testing of staff as well as regular testing of students in parts of the city with high positivity rates. Currently, the district is planning to test up to a quarter of staff each week and is not planning to do surveillance testing of students.

Prekindergarten students and some special education students returned to school buildings on Jan. 11, in the first wave of the district’s reopening. The district said on Friday that roughly 60 percent of the 5,352 students who were expected to attend in person actually did in the first week. Overall about a third of families in the district who have been given the option to have their students return in person have signed up to do so.

Chicago is not the only district where opposition from teachers’ unions is threatening reopening plans: Over the weekend, plans to reopen schools in Montclair, New Jersey, were postponed indefinitely after the superintendent said he did not have enough teachers to properly staff the schools.

Credit…Marco Ugarte/Associated Press

Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said Sunday that he had contracted the coronavirus and was undergoing “medical treatment” for what he described as mild symptoms.

Mr. López Obrador, writing on Twitter, said he would continue to carry out his official duties, including holding a call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that is set for Monday.

“As always, I am optimistic,” he said.

The Mexican leader has consistently played down the pandemic, questioning the value of wearing masks and refusing to wear one himself in most public appearances.

On Friday, he posted a photo of himself indoors, again without a mask, conducting a call with President Biden. He was accompanied by Marcelo Ebrard, the foreign minister, and Alfonso Romo, a former top aide — and neither was wearing a mask. And on Saturday, the president met with local business leaders in Monterrey.

Hours before disclosing that he had contracted the virus, Mr. López Obrador, who flies commercial on all official trips, sat in coach on a flight from San Luis Potosí to Mexico City, according to local media reports.

As late as June, Mr. López Obrador was still sounding dismissive. He said that having a clean conscience would help fight off the virus. “No lying, no stealing, no betraying, that helps a lot to not get coronavirus,” he told reporters.

And for months, the president has repeatedly insisted that the end of the pandemic’s devastation was just around the corner.

“The worst is ending,” he said this month, as deaths surged. “We are coming out of it.”

In the spring, The New York Times reported that the Mexican government had failed to record hundreds, possibly thousands, of deaths in Mexico City, dismissing officials who had tallied more than three times as many fatalities in the capital than the government had publicly acknowledged.

Then in December, federal officials, loath to damage the economy still further, reassured the public that Mexico City had not reached the level of contagion that would require a full lockdown. In fact, the government’s own numbers showed that the capital had surpassed that threshold, an analysis by The Times found.

Some public health experts said they were little surprised that Mr. López Obrador had become infected, given his preference for going mask free, even in situations where the risk of exposure was high.

“One even expected or assumed, because of his way of exposing himself to so many people and not wearing a mask, that he would have been infected earlier,” said Carlos Magis Rodríguez, professor of medicine at the National Autonomous University in Mexico. “In all the public appearances of López Obrador, except for when he went to visit Trump, we saw him without a face mask.”

He said there was reason for concern about the prognosis for Mr. López Obrador, who is 67 and had a heart attack in 2013. “He’s at greater risk than a young person,” Dr. Magis said.

Mr. López Obrador has told reporters that he will wait to get vaccinated with the rest of his age group, most likely in mid-March.

The news came as Mexico is confronting its worst moment since the pandemic began, with deaths hitting horrific highs. On Thursday, Mexico confirmed 1,803 new coronavirus deaths, surging past the previous record of more than 1,500 set days earlier.

And while the president is already being treated, many Mexicans are struggling to get medical care. The country’s hospitals are overrun, and close to 90 percent of beds in Mexico City, the epicenter of the national outbreak, are occupied.

Mexico has intentionally kept testing low throughout the pandemic, which has obscured the true extent of the virus’s reach across the country. But it is undeniable that Mr. López Obrador has presided over one of the worst outbreaks in the world.

To date, the country has recorded more than 1.7 million coronavirus infections and nearly 150,000 deaths, the fourth-highest global death toll.

Official numbers severely underestimate the true toll of the pandemic. As of December, the country had recorded 250,000 more deaths than expected, an excess mortality rate that suggests the pandemic has been far deadlier than official numbers suggest.

Kirk Semple and Elda Cantú contributed reporting.

Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

An adviser to seven presidents and the nation’s top infectious disease expert for decades, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci has weathered many crises.

But in 2020, as one of the most familiar, trusted faces of the nation’s public health community, Dr. Fauci, 80, faced a year like no other when the coronavirus pandemic unfolded in the final months of the Trump administration amid an extremely divisive election season.

In an hourlong conversation with The New York Times over the weekend, Dr. Fauci described some of the difficulties, and the toll, of working with President Donald J. Trump.

Credit…Anthony Vazquez/Chicago Sun-Times, via Associated Press

In his first 48 hours in office, President Biden sought to project an optimistic message about returning the nation’s many homebound students to classrooms. “We can teach our children in safe schools,” he vowed in his inaugural address.

The following day, Mr. Biden signed an executive order promising to throw the strength of the federal government behind an effort to “reopen school doors as quickly as possible.”

But with about half of American students still learning virtually as the pandemic nears its first anniversary, the president’s push is far from certain to succeed. His plan is rolling out just as local battles over reopening have, if anything, become more pitched in recent weeks.

Teachers are uncertain about when they will be vaccinated. With alarming case counts across the country and new variants of the coronavirus emerging, unions are fighting efforts to return their members to crowded hallways.

The Chicago Teachers Union told members to defy orders to return to the classroom on Monday and to begin working remotely. The teachers say the district has not done enough to keep students and teachers safe during the pandemic. Students are supposed to come back to classrooms on Feb. 1.

Given the seemingly intractable health and labor challenges, some district officials have begun to say out loud what was previously unthinkable: that schools may not be operating normally for the 2021-22 school year. And some labor leaders are seeking to tamp down the expectations Mr. Biden’s words have raised.

“We don’t know whether a vaccine stops transmissibility,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers union.

Some virus experts, however, have said there is reason to be optimistic on this question.

Ms. Weingarten said a key to returning teachers to classrooms in the coming months would be promises to allow those with health conditions, or whose family members have compromised immune systems, to continue to work remotely; the collection of centralized data on the number of coronavirus cases in specific schools; and assurances from districts that they would shut down schools when cases occur.

Fights over those very demands have slowed and complicated reopenings across the country.

Mr. Biden’s executive order directs federal agencies to create national school reopening guidelines, to support virus contact tracing in schools and to collect data measuring the impact of the pandemic on students. The White House is also pushing a stimulus package that would provide $130 billion to schools for costs such as virus testing, upgrading ventilation systems and hiring staff members.

Research has pointed to the potential to operate schools safely before teachers and students are vaccinated, as long as practices like mask wearing are adhered to, and especially when community transmission and hospitalization rates are controlled.

Credit…Juan Arredondo for The New York Times

An 8-year-old girl in Missouri is getting an earful from frustrated Arizonans who are trying to get inoculated against Covid-19 and mistakenly calling her instead.

Sophia Garcia of Sullivan, Mo., who used to live in Arizona, has been receiving dozens of calls from people in the state on her hand-me-down phone, whose Phoenix number is just one digit different from the Arizona health department’s vaccine help line.

“Every five minutes my phone keeps ringing,” she told Phoenix’s CBS affiliate, KPHO/KTVK. Callers have been complaining about scheduling difficulties and asking how to book an appointment, her family said. In response, Sophia has recorded a voice mail message directing callers to the appropriate number.

Her story offers a glimpse of the struggles and at times desperation of people seeking vaccination in Arizona and elsewhere. People across the United States have complained of their second dose appointments being canceled after vaccination sites ran out of supplies. And there are concerns that President Biden’s goal of 100 million shots in 100 days may not be ambitious enough.

Arizona, which has the worst infection rate in the country, is speeding up vaccinations after a slow start, with the Department of Health Services announcing on Sunday that more than 400,000 doses had been administered. Over 61,000 people have received both doses, the health department said. A New York Times tracker monitoring the vaccine rollout in each state places Arizona in the top 20 for doses administered.

After earlier glitches and staff shortages, the state attributes the turnaround partly to round-the-clock use of the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix, as a site for inoculations in the past few weeks. “The success of our State Farm Stadium vaccination site has made it clear that Arizona can efficiently and effectively administer vaccine to large numbers,” Dr. Cara Christ, director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, said in a statement.

Another vaccination site at the Phoenix Municipal Stadium is set to open next week.

State officials said the federal government had denied a request for an additional 300,000 doses each week. “Now the federal government has to step up its game and provide additional vaccine to support Arizona’s proven momentum,” Dr. Christ said.

In the meantime, Arizonans who inadvertently call Sophia in Missouri will get this firm but encouraging message: “Hopefully, if you try carefully, you could get the right number.”

GLOBAL ROUNDUP

An official in the northeastern Chinese city of Tonghua, where residents are barred from leaving their homes amid a strict lockdown, apologized to residents who said they had not been receiving enough food.

Tonghua, an industrial city of about two million people in Jilin Province, went into lockdown on Jan. 20 after the number of recent cases grew to nearly 100. Since then the local outbreak has been largely brought under control, with just two new symptomatic cases reported on Saturday.

As China observes the one-year anniversary of the lockdown in Wuhan, the central city where the virus was first discovered, other parts of the country are confronting smaller outbreaks. The government has responded with mass testing and citywide lockdowns that at one point affected more than 28 million people, almost three times the size of the population that was initially locked down in Wuhan.

On Monday, China reported 124 new cases in the previous 24 hours, including 117 local cases and seven among travelers in quarantine after returning from overseas. That is an increase from 80 cases reported a day earlier, though still vastly lower than other large countries. Mainland China, which has a population of 1.4 billion people, has recorded a total of about 100,000 coronavirus cases and 4,635 deaths, according to a New York Times database.

In Tonghua, the tough restrictions on movement have led to widespread complaints, with residents taking to social media to vent and seek help. Jiang Haiyan, a deputy mayor, acknowledged the problems on Sunday, saying that a lack of personnel had hindered the distribution of supplies.

“At present, there are problems of untimely and inadequate distribution of household materials for citizens, which has caused great inconvenience to everyone’s lives,” Ms. Jiang said.

The city’s Communist Party committee and local government “express their sincere apologies to everyone,” she added.

The city had since recruited a large number of community workers and volunteers to ensure adequate supply distribution, Ms. Jiang said.

But on the social media accounts for The People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s main newspaper, some people continued to express dissatisfaction with the situation.

“Before the residents weren’t treated humanely, they didn’t tell us anything and in one night went from house to house sealing everything up,” read one popular reply. “Now grass-roots officials and volunteers are treated inhumanely, and in one night all the food must be distributed door to door.”

Lin Qiqing and Salman Masood contributed reporting.

In other developments around the world:

Australia on Monday approved the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for use among people 16 and older, the country’s first vaccine approval. Vaccinations are expected to start late next month. The announcement came one year to the day after Australia reported its first coronavirus case.
Pakistan is likely to approve the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine for emergency use, officials said. It would be the third to get such approval, joining Oxford University’s AstraZeneca and the Chinese SinoPharm vaccines. Pakistan, which has an approximate population of 212 million, has yet to start its rollout. Dr. Faisal Sultan, the de facto health minister, said last week that one million dosages would be distributed in the first three months of 2021. Trials of the Chinese CanSino vaccine are currently being conducted in the country, and the results are expected in the first week of February, officials said.
Officials in New Zealand confirmed on Monday a case of the South African variant of the coronavirus in a returned traveler a week after she left hotel quarantine. Officials have said the 56-year-old, who had tested negative twice before being allowed to return home, was probably infected by a fellow returned traveler while in quarantine. People who were at the same hotel have been urged to self-isolate immediately. It is the first case New Zealand has recorded outside quarantine since November. The government in Australia responded on Monday by suspending its travel bubble with New Zealand for at least 72 hours, saying all travelers from the country must quarantine on arrival.
The presidential election in Portugal on Sunday was marked by record-low voter turnout amid a nationwide lockdown and the country’s highest one-day death toll from the coronavirus. Turnout was about 39 percent, according to the preliminary results, despite an easing of restrictions on movement and an increase in the number of polling stations. In the last presidential election in 2016, turnout was more than 48 percent. On Sunday, officials reported a record 275 coronavirus deaths, one day after reporting 15,333 cases, also a single-day record. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Portugal’s center-right president, was re-elected to a second five-year term with about 61 percent of the vote.

VideoVideo by City of New Orleans, courtesy of Crista RockCreditCredit…Crista Rock

With the snap of the snare drums, New Orleanians take joyous turns high-stepping and chicken strutting, dressed in the finery of their social clubs and krewes. The celebration, shown on a 30-second public service announcement, is one of numerous efforts around the country to persuade people to get inoculated against the coronavirus. But its homegrown approach, using neighborhood personas and invoking local Carnival culture, may make it particularly effective, say experts in vaccine hesitance and behavioral change.

“I’m getting the vaccine so we can have Mardi Gras, y’all!” shouts Jeremy Stevenson, a Monogram Hunter Mardi Gras Indian, also known as Second Chief Lil Pie, as he sways in a 12-foot tower of turquoise feathers and beading.

Other locals prance forth to offer their own reasons, concluding: “Sleeves Up, NOLA!”

“I teared up several times and also just laughed out loud with delight. The sense of community is contagious,” said Alison M. Buttenheim, the scientific director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. “Vaccination is framed as a collective action that everyone can contribute to in order to bring back things the community values and cherishes.”

Although national vaccine hesitation rates are falling, surveys show that antipathy to the new shots is still widespread among some demographic groups. But there has been little consensus around ways to build confidence in the shot.

In November, New Orleans put together a coalition of public health doctors, clergy, leaders from Black, Latino and Vietnamese communities, and heads of the city’s large social clubs. The group identified cultural icons that would appeal widely to residents.

Rather than focusing messaging on the miseries wrought by the pandemic, it decided to emphasize an aspirational and inviting tone, a core insight derived from behavioral change research.

“I’m getting my shot so I can visit my 92-year-old mom and we can eat in our favorite restaurants,” says Julie Nalibov of the Krewe of Red Beans.

The spot will be shown on local TV stations and saturate social media. Photographs will adorn citywide billboards.

“I hope state and local health departments around the country can get resources to develop more hyperlocal campaigns,” Dr. Buttenheim said. “Imagine similar spots from Philly, or Boise, or Hawaii, or the Cherokee Nation.”

Credit…Rob Engelaar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands said on Monday that anyone involved in riots over the weekend protesting the country’s coronavirus measures had engaged in “criminal violence” and warned that perpetrators would be treated accordingly.

Hundreds of people were detained during unrest in Amsterdam, Eindhoven and at least eight other cities after the start of a 9 p.m. curfew on Saturday, the police said. Officers used tear gas, attack dogs and water cannons to disperse crowds in the southern city of Eindhoven, where shops were looted and cars set on fire. In Urk, a staunchly protestant fishing village young people burned down a Covid test facility.

“This has nothing to do with protest or fighting for freedom,” Mr. Rutte, told reporters on Monday. “This is criminal violence, and we will treat it as such.”

His caretaker government implemented harsh new lockdown measures last week, vetted by Parliament, to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Flights to Britain, South Africa and most of South America were halted on Saturday. It also implemented a nationwide curfew, the first since World War II.

The mayor of Eindhoven, John Jorritsma, was visibly upset when he spoke to reporters about the violence in the city. He called the rioters “scum of the earth” and said he feared the Netherlands, normally one of the quietest countries in the European Union, was “on a path of civil war.”

A spokesman for the Dutch police union said the group feared that the illegal protests and riots were just the start of the curfew-related unrest. “I hope it was a one-off, but I’m afraid it was a harbinger for the coming days and weeks,” the spokesman, Koen Simmers, said, according to the public broadcaster NOS. “We haven’t seen so much violence in 40 years,” he added.

The protesters also gathered last week in Amsterdam after calls on social media to “resist” the lockdown rules and the government’s policies overall. Mr. Rutte is one of the longest-serving European leaders. Elections in the Netherlands are scheduled for March.

Protests also erupted over the weekend in Denmark. Five people were arrested on Saturday during an anti-lockdown demonstration in Copenhagen, local news outlets reported. Around 1,000 protesters gathered to demonstrate against what they said were limitations of their freedoms, after a call for protest by a Facebook group. Protesters tied an effigy of Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to a pole and burned it, Danish channel TV2 reported. A sign was hung around the effigy’s neck saying, “She must and should be killed.”

Credit…Gleb Garanich/Reuters

Ukraine reopened schools, restaurants and movie theaters on Monday after testing showed the coronavirus was spreading less rapidly after just one week of a strict lockdown.

The health minister, Maksym Stepanov, pointed to the improving statistics as a clear indication that a strict lockdown, even if brief, can tamp down numbers. The rate of new infections declined about a third after the first seven days of closures, he said.

The cumulative number of infections nationwide last week was just over 30,000, nearly 14,000 less than the week before, Mr. Stepanov said. “The statistics are relatively optimistic and point to an improvement in the situation,” he said, local media reported.

Mr. Stepanov also pointed to a decline in hospitalizations, which typically trail infections by several weeks, suggesting that the downward trend had begun before the lockdowns and that New Year celebrations had not shifted the dynamic.

President Volodymyr Zelensky quickly imposed lockdowns last spring before easing them over the summer. The country retained a system that can close businesses in cities or regions with flare-ups.

Though the government lifted some restrictions on Monday, not all businesses can open. Nightclubs and sports stadiums remain closed. Schools are not allowed convene large gatherings of students, such as for performances or schoolwide meetings.

Ukraine, which aspires to join the European Union but is not in the bloc, has struggled to find vaccines and may not be able to inoculate its population until well into the year, forcing it to rely on quarantines, lockdowns and other restrictions until then.

Google said it will make company buildings, parking lots and open spaces available to serve as temporary vaccination clinics in partnership with health care providers and public health officials.

In a blog post on Monday, Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, said the company will start by opening sites in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City, with plans to expand to other sites nationwide.

The move is part of a series of measures to help accelerate vaccination efforts. Google also said it plans to contribute $100 million in ad credits to health organizations to educate people about the vaccine and $50 million for groups working on fair access to the vaccine.

It will also include more information in search results and maps to help people find vaccination locations with details about who is eligible and whether appointments are necessary. Google said it will provide local distribution information in search results in the coming week so people can determine whether they are eligible to receive a vaccine.

Tags Covid19, Live, News, Times, Updates, York

Business

How Beijing Turned China’s Covid-19 Tragedy to Its Benefit

Post author By
Post date January 24, 2021

How Beijing Turned China’s Covid-19 Tragedy to Its Advantage

A year ago this week, the Chinese Communist Party was on the verge of its biggest crisis in decades. The corona virus brought the city of Wuhan to a standstill. In the days that followed, the government’s efforts to hide the pandemic would go public, sparking an online backlash unlike anything the Chinese internet had seen in years.

Then, when the blows landed faster than the Chinese propaganda machine apparently could handle, some liberal-minded Chinese began to think the unthinkable. Perhaps this tragedy would force the Chinese people to push back. After decades of mind control and the deterioration of censorship, perhaps this was the moment when the world’s largest and most powerful propaganda machine would crack.

It was not.

A year later, party’s control over the narrative has become absolute. In Beijing’s narrative, Wuhan does not stand as evidence of China’s weaknesses, but of its strengths. The memories of the horrors of last year seem to be fading, at least judging by the online content. Even moderate dissent is shouted down.

The people of China should bow their heads this week in memory of those who have suffered and died. Instead, the Chinese internet is on fire over the scandal of a Chinese actress and her surrogate babies, a tabloid controversy sparked by Chinese propaganda.

Anyone looking for lessons about China in the years to come must understand the consequences of what is happening in 2020. The tragedy has shown that Beijing is able to control what people in China see, hear and think to an extent that exceeds even what pessimists believed. During the next crisis – be it a disaster, a war or a financial crisis – the party has shown that it has the means to get people together, no matter how tenacious Beijing is about it.

This week I went through my Chinese social media schedules and screenshots from a year ago. I was shocked at how many posts, articles, photos, and videos were removed. I was also surprised to remember the sense of hope in that moment, despite intense anger and sadness.

The shift was particularly evident on the night that Dr. Li Wenliang, who was silenced after warning of the outbreak in late 2019, died of the virus.

That night, numerous Chinese people led an online riot. They posted videos of the song “Les Misérables” “Can you hear people singing?” They repeatedly shared one of Dr. Li’s quotes: “A healthy society shouldn’t have just one voice.”

Even one of China’s propaganda guidelines warned that Dr. Li’s death was an “unprecedented challenge”. Young people told me that the official news media had lost credibility.

One of my followers on Weibo, the Chinese social media platform, apologized for attacking me earlier. I used to think people like you were bad, he wrote. Now, he added, I know we have been betrayed.

A middle-aged intellectual told me he expected the population of liberal-minded Chinese – those who want more freedom from Beijing’s controls – to grow from its estimate of 5 percent to 10 percent of the total population to 30 to 40 percent.

As those hopes rose, others tried to stifle the excitement. A political scientist suggested that the proportion of liberal-minded Chinese internet users would shrink, not grow. In three months, she predicted, the Chinese public, led by the great communist government, would celebrate the glorious victory over the outbreak.

Updated

Jan. 23, 2021, 9:48 p.m. ET

Unfortunately she was right.

In order to get the narrative back in the early days of the pandemic, as my colleagues have reported, the Chinese government began a tremendous effort behind the scenes to ensure that the censors took control at the local level as well. They listened and read almost everything people had written. Then the censors either addressed the problems or silenced those who thought differently. Chinese officials say police examined or otherwise treated more than 17,000 people who they said they had invented or distributed fake information about pandemics.

The lockdown in Wuhan ended after 11 weeks. By the summer, a photo of a crowded Wuhan swimming pool appeared on the home pages of many websites around the world. China became a success story as infection cases and the death toll skyrocketed in the US and many other Western countries. The contrast made the effectiveness of the party’s strong hand an easy sale.

The Chinese Communist Party has a long history in controlling history. In the United States, historical narratives shift and compete, causing argument and sometimes even violence, but constantly shedding light on new perspectives and providing a better understanding of what underlies national identity. In China, on the other hand, the government has successfully taught its citizens that the country is virtually ungovernable unless a strong hand controls the narrative.

The Communist Party reports severely on its most serious mistakes, including the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and crackdown on Tiananmen Square. Immediately after the Cultural Revolution, so-called scar literature – memoirs of those who suffered during this difficult time – became a popular genre. The party quickly recognized the danger of the public sharing their individual trauma and banned the books.

Under Xi Jinping, the party has become even less tolerant of unorthodox historical ideas. In 2016, Yanhuang Chunqiu, a monthly history magazine in which moderate retired officials published articles, was forced to cede its editorial powers to the authorities.

The narrative of the current pandemic is no exception. Journalists, writers and bloggers whose account of the outbreak differs from the official version have been arrested, disappeared or silenced.

Fang Fang, a Wuhan-based writer, became the most vilified figure on the Chinese internet in 2020. Your crime? Documentation of their lockdown experiences in an apolitical account in an online diary.

People on the internet call her a liar, a traitor, a villain and an imperialist dog. They accuse her of slandering the government and causing the Chinese people to lose face to the world by publishing an English translation of their diary in the United States. A man asked the government to investigate her for the crime of undermining state power. A high-ranking medical doctor punished her for lack of patriotic feelings.

No publisher is willing or able to publish their works in China. The social media posts and articles they endorse are often censored. Some people who spoke out in favor of them in public were punished, including a literary professor in Wuhan who lost their membership in the Communist Party and their right to teach.

“I think Fang Fang wrote about what happened,” said Amy Ye, the organizer of a volunteer group for disabled people in Wuhan. “In fact, I don’t think she included the most dire situations. Your diary is very moderate. I don’t understand why such a thing could not be tolerated. “

This requirement for a single narrative carries risks. It silences those who might warn the government before it does something stupid like stumbling into conflict or disrupting China’s economic growth machine.

It also hides the real feelings of the Chinese people. On the street, most Chinese people like to tell you what they think, perhaps in great detail. But China became more opaque in 2020. Online censorship got tougher. Few Chinese people are willing to take the risk of speaking to Western news media. Beijing has expelled many American journalists.

This single narrative also means that people who don’t fit in run the risk of being left behind.

Ms. Ye, the volunteer organizer of the Wuhan Group, doesn’t think Wuhan could win a victory over the pandemic. “My whole world has changed and it will probably never go back to what it used to be,” she said.

She is still struggling with depression and the fear of getting out of her apartment. As a pre-pandemic outgoing person, she has only attended one social gathering since lockdown ended in April.

“We were suddenly locked up at home for many days. So many people died. But nobody was held accountable, ”she said. “I would probably feel better if someone could apologize for not doing their job.”

“I can’t forget the pain,” she said. “It’s engraved on my bones and my heart.”

Tags advantage, Beijing, Chinas, Covid19, Tragedy, Turned

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