Tag: Failure

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Politics

Remaining Failure in Afghanistan Is Biden’s to Personal

Final Failure in Afghanistan Is Biden’s to Own

Rarely in modern presidential history have words come back so quickly that bite an American commander in chief as quickly as President Biden’s a little over five weeks ago: “There will be no circumstance in which people are lifted from the roof of an embassy” of the United States in Afghanistan. “

Then he dug the hole deeper and added, “The likelihood that the Taliban will overrun everything and own the whole country is very unlikely.”

On Sunday, the scramble to evacuate American civilians and embassy workers from Kabul unfolded – exactly the image that Mr Biden and his aides had to avoid at the recent meetings in the Oval Office – live on television, not from the roof of the US embassy, ​​but from the Landing area next to the building. And now that the Afghan government has collapsed at astonishing speed, the Taliban certainly seem to have full control of the country back if the anniversary of September 11, 2001 is commemorated in less than a month of the attacks – just like that it was 20 summers ago.

Mr. Biden will go down in history, fair or unfair, as President who led a lengthy, humiliating final act in the American experiment in Afghanistan. After seven months in which his administration seemed to be broadcasting much-needed skill – vaccinating more than 70 percent of the country’s adults, developing rapid job growth, and making progress towards a bipartisan infrastructure bill – everything shook America’s final days in Afghanistan the pictures.

Even many of Mr. Biden’s allies, who believe they have made the right decision to finally end a war that the United States could not win and that was no longer in their national interest, admit that in carrying out the Withdrawal made a number of serious mistakes. The only question is how politically damaging these will be, or whether the Americans who cheered at the 2020 election rallies when both President Donald J. Trump and Mr Biden promised to leave Afghanistan will shrug their shoulders and say that it is had to end, even if it ended badly.

Mr. Biden knew the risks. He has often noted that he came into office with more foreign policy experience than any other president in recent times, arguably since Dwight D. Eisenhower. At meetings this spring about the impending U.S. withdrawal, Biden told staff it was crucial to avoid the kind of scene revealed by the iconic photos of Americans and Vietnamese climbing a ladder to a helicopter on the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon when it was desperately evacuated in 1975 when the Viet Cong swept into town.

But after he decided in April to set September 11th as the date for the final American withdrawal, he and his aides failed to get the interpreters and others helping the American forces out of the country fast enough, and them Stuck in immigration papers. There was no reliable mechanism for contractors to keep the Afghan Air Force flying while the Americans packed up. The plan Mr Biden spoke of at the end of June, what he called what he called a “beyond the horizon” capability to strengthen the Afghan forces in the event of a threat to Kabul, was half-baked before those Afghan forces collapsed .

By their own admission, Mr Biden’s aides believed they had the luxury of time, perhaps 18 months or so, based on intelligence ratings that grossly overestimated the capabilities of an Afghan army that disintegrated, often before any shots were fired. On July 8, the same day he said there was no need to worry about an imminent takeover by the Taliban, Biden said the Taliban were “not even close in terms of the training and capabilities” of the Afghan security forces at “be their capacity.” He now knows that they have made up for the lack of capacity in strategy, determination and drive.

“There are lessons in how every government has dealt with Afghanistan from start to finish, and we owe it to the military and other Americans who risk their lives to use those lessons to make future decisions.” said Michèle Flournoy, who served as the No. 3 Pentagon official in the Obama administration and was a leading contender in defense of Mr. Biden.

“The question for the Biden administration will be whether sufficient contingency planning has been carried out to sustain critical counterterrorism operations,” and whether we are “meeting our obligations to the Afghans who helped us, the risks associated with the withdrawal and enable continued support “the Afghan military is viable.”

Even the most seasoned hands in South Asian politics, like Ryan Crocker, a retired career diplomat who served as ambassador to Afghanistan under President Barack Obama and Iraq under President George W. Bush, thought it was more time.

“A prolonged civil war is, frankly, more likely,” he said seven days ago in ABC’s This Week, “than a swift takeover of the entire country by the Taliban.” But he went on to say that Mr. Biden “now has full responsibility for President Trump’s pledges” to leave the country. “He owns it,” said Mr. Crocker. “And I think it’s already an indelible mark on his presidency.”

On Sunday, Mr. Biden was silent in public. The White House posted a photo of him in a video briefing at Camp David. He was to be seen alone in the photo, his helpers beamed in. And it was up to them to explain why, in July, he thought the Afghan forces would fight hard.

Republicans, including some of those who applauded Trump when he said he would get America out of Afghanistan by Christmas 2020, jumped at the pictures of Americans being evacuated and Ashraf Ghani, the country’s president who has no succession flees without a deal with the Taliban on the country’s future and without support.

“I think it’s an absolute disaster,” said Texas representative Michael McCaul on Sunday in CNN’s State of the Union, claiming that Afghanistan would become a “state before September 11, 2001 – a breeding ground for terrorism” to return. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken countered that the US ability to track down, track down and kill terrorists is far greater than it was two decades ago.

But Mr. McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, appeared to be exploring topics for the next election season when he said of Mr. Biden, “He could have planned this. He could have had a strategy for that. “

Now, he said, “there is still no other strategy than speeding to the airport and evacuating as many people as possible.”

Indeed, there is a strategy, but not one that Mr Biden can easily sell given the images of chaos in Kabul. In his opinion, the years of reshuffling American foreign policy in response to the 9/11 attacks gave China room to stand up, Russia room to disrupt, Iran and North Korea room to focus on their nuclear ambitions. The escape from Afghanistan is part of a wider effort to refocus on key strategic challenges and new threats from cyberspace to space. But this weekend was proof that the past is never really in the past.

The government defended itself against criticism for not moving fast enough in Afghanistan by admitting that it was surprised by the speed of the collapse but insisted that there were plans. Pentagon press secretary John F. Kirby said a sample of the evacuation effort was “withheld until May” and that Marines from Iwo Jima were stationed to fly to Kabul.

“We have been quick to respond in the past few days because we were prepared for this emergency,” said Kirby.

But Mr Biden’s own words make it clear that he was confident that that day, if at all, would not come for a long time. He repeatedly said he did not regret his decision and would bear no responsibility if the Taliban took power, also because Trump signed the deal in February 2020 that set a date for full American withdrawal on May 1, 2021. (Although Mr. Biden extended the withdrawal date to September 11, almost all American troops were gone by early July.)

The result of the Trump-Taliban agreement, Biden said on Saturday, was that he was facing a Taliban force “in the strongest military position since 2001” and a date by which all American forces would have to be deposed.

Mr Blinken went around on Sunday to ask why more was not being done sooner to get Afghan interpreters out of the country for the US military and other allies threatened by Taliban retaliation. He was also asked why more Americans weren’t withdrawn from the embassy in Kabul earlier, as many at the Pentagon had requested, before the extent of the collapse became apparent.

“The inability of the Afghan security forces to defend their country has played a very important role,” Blinken said in NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.

All true. But it is Mr Biden who may be remembered for his role in wildly overestimating the strength of the Afghan armed forces and not moving fast enough when it became clear that the scenarios presented to him were wrong.

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Health

Coronary heart Failure Tied to Elevated Most cancers Threat, Examine Finds

Heart Failure Tied to Increased Cancer Risk, Study Finds

People with heart failure can be at increased risk of cancer.

Cancer patients are usually monitored for heart failure because some cancer drugs can damage the heart. Now, a new study suggests that heart failure patients who can live with the disease for many years could benefit from being monitored for cancer.

The researchers used a German health database to track 100,124 heart failure patients and compare them to the same number of controls who did not have heart failure. All were initially cancer-free, and the scientists tracked their cancer incidence over the next 10 years. The study is in the journal ESC Heart Failure.

The two groups were matched for age, gender, age, obesity, and diabetes incidence, although researchers lacked data on socioeconomic status, smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity, all of which are known to affect cancer risk.

Nevertheless, the differences in cancer incidence between the two groups were significant. Overall, 25.7 percent of patients with heart failure were diagnosed with some form of cancer compared with 16.2 percent in those without.

The increased rate of cancer in heart patients has been noted in other studies, but the large sample size in this analysis allowed researchers to identify differences between the cancers. Heart failure patients were more than twice as likely to develop cancer of the lip, oral cavity, and throat. The risk of lung cancer and other cancers of the respiratory tract was 91 percent higher, female genital cancer 86 percent, and skin cancer 83 percent higher. People with heart failure were 75 percent more likely to develop colon cancer, stomach cancer, and other cancers of the digestive system. Women with heart failure were 67 percent more likely to develop breast cancer and men were 52 percent more likely to develop cancer of the genital organs.

“I think it’s an interesting retrospective cohort study,” said Dr. Girish L. Kalra, Senior Cardiology Fellow at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA who was not involved in the work. “The study’s main flaw is that the database did not allow researchers to control the greatest risk of developing cancer and heart disease: smoking. Smoking cigarettes could be the common thread in this study. “

Although the strong association with oropharyngeal and respiratory cancers suggests that smoking might be an explanation, the association remained robust for a wide range of cancers. The study also controlled other factors associated with different types of cancer, including obesity, diabetes, and increasing age, as well as the frequency of medical consultations that could lead to increased detection of cancer.

In addition to smoking, there are other possible mechanisms that could explain the link. For example, a previous study found that a well-known protein biomarker for heart disease that occurs before symptoms appear also correlates with an increased risk of cancer. It is also possible, the researchers write, that chronic inflammation can be implicated in both heart failure and cancer. Alcohol consumption has also been linked to a wide variety of cancers.

“There are more correlations between heart failure and cancer than just common risk factors,” says lead author Mark Luedde, a cardiologist at Kiel University. “Heart failure is not a heart disease. It is almost always a disease of the heart and other organs. The importance of comorbidities for the prognosis and quality of life of those affected cannot be overestimated. “

Dr. Kalra agreed. “Ultimately, the heart is a guarantee for all health,” he said. “This study supports the belief that people with heart failure are a high risk group and deserve our greatest attention. As doctors, we should ensure that our heart patients are screened for cancer at the recommended intervals. And we should continue to urge our smokers to quit. “

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Politics

Some Republicans Discover Failure to Grapple With Local weather Change a ‘Political Legal responsibility’

Some Republicans Find Failure to Grapple With Climate Change a ‘Political Liability’

That same week, a group of young Republicans with signs saying “This is what an environmentalist sees” held an initial rally for “conservative” climate action in Miami.

On Capitol Hill, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy plans to set up a Republican task force on climate change, his staff confirmed. Mr. McCarthy declined an interview request.

And on Wednesday, Mr Curtis plans to announce the formation of the Conservative Climate Committee, which aims to educate his party about global warming and develop policies to counter what the committee calls “radical progressive climate proposals”. So far, 38 members of the Republican House of Representatives have joined, its employees said.

“I hope that any Republican member of this group, when asked about the climate in a community meeting, will be very comfortable talking about it,” said Curtis, adding, “I fear that too often Republicans simply have said “what you don’t like without adding ‘but here are our ideas’.”

These ideas include limited government, market-based policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions as formulated by new conservative think tanks. One of them is C3 Solutions, jointly run by a former advisor to the late Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, who called global warming “crap”. The organization also recently recruited an energy policy expert from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative group that until recently promoted vocal critics of climate change.

A package of bills presented by Mr. McCarthy on Earth Day advocated carbon capture, an emerging and expensive technology that captures and stores carbon emissions generated by power plants or factories before they are released into the atmosphere. It also encouraged tree planting and the expansion of nuclear power, a carbon-free energy source that many Republicans prefer to wind or solar power.

These measures would do little to reduce fossil fuel emissions, which raise average global temperatures and cause more extreme heat, drought and forest fires; stronger storms; and rapid extinction of plant and animal species. Republicans have not offered any specific emissions reduction targets.

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Business

FAA orders inspections of Boeing 777s after engine failure on United flight

FAA orders inspections of Boeing 777s after engine failure on United flight

Residents take photos of debris that fell from the engine of a United Airlines aircraft in the Broomfield neighborhood outside of Denver, Colorado on February 20, 2021. A United Airlines flight suffered a fiery engine failure shortly after taking off from Denver on Feb. 20 en route to Hawaii, where massive debris is falling on a residential area before a safe emergency landing, officials said.

Chet Strange | AFP | Getty Images

United Airlines announced on Sunday that 24 of its Boeing 777s will be temporarily decommissioned after one of the aircraft suffered an engine failure over the weekend.

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration announced on Sunday that the agency would order the inspection of some Boeing 777 jetliners powered by the same Pratt and Whitney engine, the PW4000.

The Japanese aviation authority has ordered airlines to suspend flights from aircraft with this type of engine until further notice, according to the FAA. United is the only US airline with this type of engine in its fleet, the agency added.

United Flight 328, a Boeing 777-200 bound for Honolulu, landed at Denver International Airport shortly after take-off on Saturday afternoon after the right engine failed.

No one was injured in the flight, which carried 229 passengers and 10 crew members, but debris, including part of the engine cover, fell in nearby Broomfield, Colorado.

Federal investigators said their initial investigation found two of the correct motor’s fan blades were broken.

The National Transportation Safety Board said one of the engine’s fan blades broke near its root, while another broke halfway. Other engine fan blades were also damaged, the NTSB said in an initial report late Sunday.

“We checked all available safety data after yesterday’s incident. Based on the initial information, we concluded that the inspection interval for the hollow fan blades, which applies only to this engine model, which is only used in Boeing 777 aircraft, has been extended should be, “FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said in a statement.

United has another 28 of these aircraft in its fleet that are currently in storage. Airlines parked or retired dozens of planes after demand plummeted due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Engine makers Pratt and Whitney, a unit of Raytheon Technologies, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Similar incidents

Such incidents are rare but have occurred in recent years.

In February 2018, another United Airlines 777-200, equipped with Pratt and Whitney PW4077 engines, suffered an engine failure over the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii after a fan blade broke. This comes from an NTSB report published in June. The flight made it safely to Honolulu with 364 passengers and 10 crew members.

In April 2018, a passenger was killed when a fan blade broke off the engine of a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737, broke a window and briefly sucked the passenger outside.

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Business

F.A.A. Orders Inspections on Boeing 777 Jets After Engine Failure

F.A.A. Orders Inspections on Boeing 777 Jets After Engine Failure

The chief of the Federal Aviation Administration said Sunday that one day after a dramatic engine failure over Colorado, he is calling for “immediate or intensified inspections” of all Boeing 777 aircraft with a particular Pratt & Whitney engine model.

Also on Sunday, United Airlines, the only American airline affected by the FAA regulation, announced that they are currently temporarily putting on the ground the 24 Boeing 777 aircraft currently in service in their Pratt & Whitney-powered fleet will.

The FAA’s announcement came shortly after its counterpart in Japan ordered the airlines there not to fly the aircraft, which affected 32 jets operated by All Nippon Airways and Japan Airways. Both Japanese and American orders are only for Boeing 777s with Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines.

“We reviewed all available security data following yesterday’s incident,” FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said in a statement. “Based on the initial information, we came to the conclusion that the inspection interval for the hollow fan blades, which apply only to this engine model and are only used in Boeing 777 aircraft, should be extended.”

The Colorado episode that involved United Airlines Flight 328 on Saturday resulted in no reported injuries, but the plane threw debris over three neighborhoods before safely landing in Denver.

In a statement on Sunday, United said: “Safety remains our top priority – for our employees and our customers.” It went on, “This is why our pilots and flight attendants receive extensive training to prepare and manage incidents like United Flight 328. We continue to pride ourselves on their professionalism and unwavering commitment to safety in our daily operations and in emergencies that happen. “

Mr. Dickson said the FAA is working with its counterparts around the world and that its security experts meet with Pratt & Whitney and Boeing “late into the evening” to complete details of the required inspections. According to the agency, only airlines in the USA, Japan and South Korea operate Boeing 777s with the affected Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engine model.

A spokesman for Japan Airways said the airline stopped using the 13 engine-equipped Boeing 777s in its fleet before the aviation authority issued its policy. Only three scheduled flights were affected. The airline announced last year that it would remove all 13 aircraft from its fleet by early next year.

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Business

United Boeing 777 suffers engine failure after takeoff from Denver, particles discovered however no accidents

United Boeing 777 suffers engine failure after takeoff from Denver, debris found but no injuries

A United Airlines plane

Nicolas Economou | NurPhoto | Getty Images

A United Airlines Boeing 777-200 bound for Honolulu suffered an engine failure shortly after taking off from Denver on Saturday, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The plane returned to Denver, where it landed safely. Images shared on social media showed what appeared to be part of the engine nacelle in front of a house while police shared other debris. United said no injuries were reported on board the flight.

“The FAA is aware of reports of debris near the aircraft’s flight path,” the agency said in a statement.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA said they are investigating the incident. The Broomfield Police Department in Colorado said the plane dropped debris in several neighborhoods and warned not to touch or move any part of the plane.

United Flight 328 had 231 passengers and 10 crew members on board.

United said it is in contact with the FAA, NTSB, as well as local law enforcement agencies.

“All passengers and crew were dropped off and transported back to the terminal,” United said in a statement in Denver. “We are now working on getting our customers on a new flight to Honolulu in the next few hours.”

The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents United cabin crews, said its staff support and safety committees provide assistance to the crews.

“We are grateful that the plane landed safely,” said the union.

Boeing said it had received reports of the incident.

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Business

United Flight Sheds Particles Over Broomfield, Colo., After Engine Failure

United Flight Sheds Debris Over Broomfield, Colo., After Engine Failure

A United Airlines flight with 331 people on board suffered an engine failure on Saturday afternoon in the suburbs of Boulder, Colorado, throwing debris in three neighborhoods before landing safely in Denver.

No injuries have been reported, officials said.

Flight 328 took off from Denver International Airport at 12:15 p.m. local time, said Alex Renteria, an airport spokeswoman.

The FAA said in a statement that the aircraft, a Boeing 777-200, had a “right engine failure” shortly after takeoff and that there were reports of debris “near the aircraft’s flight path”.

The flight was being routed from Denver to Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport when the episode happened.

David Gonzalez, a United press representative, said the flight had 321 passengers and 10 crew on board. The flight was picked up by rescue workers as a precaution when it returned to Denver.

He said all passengers and crew had left the plane and were taken to an airport terminal. “We are now working on getting our customers on a new flight to Honolulu in the next few hours,” he said.

Police in Broomfield, Colorado, about 15 miles southeast of Boulder, said unspecified parts of the plane fell in three neighborhoods around 1:08 p.m. local time.

A video on Twitter showed a burning engine with parts of its case missing.

Rebecca Schulte, a resident, said she saw two pieces that were just a few doors away from her home. She describes how she heard a “low noise” that she compared to an empty dump truck going over a pothole, and then she heard sirens.

As she investigated further, she found a “large metal ring” that landed on the front stairs of a nearby house and hit the handrail.

“How it missed the house is a mystery to me,” she said. She said the metal ring was about 10 feet wide.

In a video on Twitter, passengers can hear cheering when the plane lands safely.

The aircraft was a different model than the Boeing 737 Max, which was on the ground in March 2019 after two fatal crashes.

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Business

Primary Road enterprise failure fears rise once more in pandemic whipsaw

Main Street business failure fears rise again in pandemic whipsaw

Margaux & Max stayed afloat with Dinges’ Facebook livestreams and creative marketing even though the retail store is closed for personal purchases.

Photo: I Donna Dinges

Small business owners suffered a minor whiplash injury last year when Covid-19 took over the nation. Restrictions, at the discretion of state and local leaders, resulted in closings, reopenings, and limited activity in markets across the country.

New data from the CNBC | SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey for the first quarter of 2021 shows that the experiences of entrepreneurs on Main Street reflect this time of unpredictability.

While just over half of small business owners say they can stay open throughout the pandemic, 20% of small business owners say their stores were temporarily closed due to the pandemic and have since reopened, but with limited capacity. In addition, 10% of small business owners say they have closed and haven’t reopened. Another 4% say they shut down, reopened, and then shut down again.

The back and forth has weighed on the mood of small business owners and led the Main Street community to cancel President Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion bid relief plan, according to the poll, which was conducted January 25 through January 2 across the country among 2,111 small business owners. 31 Using the SurveyMonkey Platform.

Je Donna Dinges relaunched her boutique for clothing and accessories, Margaux & Max, in a new, larger location at the beginning of March 2020. Within a few days, cases of Covid began to rise nationwide and the Ferndale, Michigan-based store was closed.

Je Donna Dinges opened her Margaux & Max boutique in a new and bigger location when Covid spread across the United States. It had to close within a few days in March 2020.

I donna thing

She has not yet reopened her retail store to personal business, a conscious choice for things as she has an autoimmune disease and wants to limit her exposure. However, the entrepreneur is not deterred. To stay afloat, she broadcasts livestream fashion shows that she holds on Friday evenings in her shop on Facebook and shows her styling mannequins in all sizes with clothes and accessories. Your customers tune in, Dinges said, and then shop on the side of the road during the week and pick up their purchases.

“I am very concerned about my own health … and I am also very concerned about my clientele,” Dinges said. “I made the decision to stay closed but not go out of business.”

The CNBC poll found that small business sentiment fell to new lows in the first quarter. Confidence plummeted from 48 to 43 quarterly, the lowest since CNBC and SurveyMonkey started tracking confidence on Main Street in 2017. Additionally, the number of small business owners who believe they can work longer than a year fell from 67% in the fourth quarter to 55%.

The level of trust varied depending on the breed of business owner. The CNBC poll found that fears of permanent shutdowns are high among black small business owners. 37% say they can survive for more than a year in current conditions, compared with 59% of white small business owners and 55% of Hispanic small business owners.

Black-owned companies that have not reopened (25%) after a temporary shutdown due to the pandemic contrasts with 8% of white-owned small businesses.

Despite the challenges, the survey’s Small Business Confidence Index finds that black small business owners continue to be optimistic and have a higher confidence rating for small businesses than their peers.

The paycheck protection program was a lifeline for some, but the program was tweaked after outcry by some businesses and advocates last year that the PPP was not serving smaller and minority borrowers. In January, when the $ 284 billion program restarted, community financial institutions, typically serving smaller businesses or possibly mission-based, first got access to the portal.

To date, more than $ 103 billion has been approved for more than 1.4 million small business loans, according to the Small Business Administration. According to the SBA, 82% of all loans went to companies applying for less than $ 100,000, indicating that smaller businesses were looking for help. In addition, nearly a third of the loans went to businesses in rural communities. Anti-fraud measures have extended approval times and loans were no longer approved on the day of last year as they were last year.

Underserved small business

Administration officials have stated that they believe the PPP will not run out of money like it did in April 2020 when the program first launched, and lawmakers continue to push for transparency about the demographic profile of corporate borrowing. President Biden has pledged to include aid to underserved small businesses in the form of grants and funding in his $ 1.9 trillion pandemic package, as small businesses are likely to need more lifelines when the PPP closes in March.

“When the administration is really getting grants directly to companies and business owners, it is actually helping the capital and working capital of those companies rather than just effectively acting as a passageway for their employees, which of course it did.” The intention of the PPP. She’s invaluable in her own way, “said Brian Blake, public policy director for the Community Development Bankers Association.

Dinges said she struggled to get access to PPP funds last year and eventually reached out to Kabbage for a small business loan after being turned down. She is considering applying for a second loan this year and is optimistic about the future despite ongoing challenges. Their sales are down nearly 40%, but it could be a lot worse considering what Main Street has seen over the past year.

“”I am definitely hopeful. As I drove through my church, I look at empty shop windows, which is sad. But I look at the empty shop windows of big retailers, “said Dinges.” And it just struck me as these big retailers collapse and I’m still standing … the loyalty I get from my customers really moves me. “

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Health

Egypt Denied an Oxygen Failure Killed Covid Sufferers. We Discovered That It Did.

Egypt Denied an Oxygen Failure Killed Covid Patients. We Found That It Did.

EL HUSSEINEYA, Egypt – A scream pierced the night from the balcony of an Egyptian hospital. A nurse yelled that patients in the intensive care unit in Covid were gasping for air.

Ahmed Nafei, who was standing outside, passed a security guard, stormed in and saw that his 62-year-old aunt was dead.

Angry, he took out his cell phone and started filming. It appeared that the hospital had run out of oxygen. Monitors beeped. One nurse was clearly desperate and crouched in a corner when her colleagues tried to resuscitate a man with a manual ventilator.

At least four patients died.

Mr Nafei’s 47-second video this month about the chaos at El Husseineya Central Hospital, about two and a half hours northeast of Cairo, went viral on social media.

As the outrage grew, the government denied the hospital had run out of oxygen.

An official statement released the following day concluded that the four deceased had suffered “complications” and denied that the deaths were “in any way related” to anoxia. Security officers interrogated Mr. Nafei and officials accused him of breaking rules that prohibit visiting and filming in hospitals.

However, an investigation by the New York Times found otherwise.

Witnesses, including medical staff and patient relatives, said in interviews that oxygen pressure had fallen to steeply low levels. At least three patients, and possibly a fourth, died of a lack of oxygen. A detailed analysis of the video by doctors in Egypt and the United States confirmed that the chaotic scene in the intensive care unit indicated an interruption in oxygen supply.

The fatal lack of oxygen was the end result of a cascade of problems in the hospital, our research found. By the time the patients suffocated in the intensive care unit, an ordered oxygen release was hours too late and a backup oxygen system had failed.

“We will not bury our heads in the sand and pretend everything is fine,” said a doctor at the hospital on condition of anonymity because he feared arrest. “The whole world can admit there is a problem, but not us.”

The government’s rush to deny the episode is just the latest example of the lack of transparency in its response to the Covid crisis, which has sparked cynicism and distrust of its public assurances.

For many Egyptians, Mr Nafei’s video offered a rare and uncensored look at the real toll of the coronavirus at the height of Egypt’s second wave of pandemics.

The government admitted that four people died in intensive care that day, January 2, but denied that it was due to a lack of oxygen.

The Ministry of Health’s statement stated that the deceased patients were mostly elderly, that they died at different times, and that at least a dozen other patients, including newborns in incubators, were connected to the same oxygen network and unaffected. These factors confirmed “the lack of a link between the deaths and the alleged lack of oxygen”.

Medical staff confirmed that the hospital’s oxygen supply was not completely depleted, but said the pressure was dangerously low. In the intensive care unit, it is even worse and not enough to keep the patients alive. The pressure may have been lower because the intensive care unit’s oxygen vents were at the end of the network or because of other inefficiencies in the pipeline.

Updated

Jan. 18, 2021, 5:26 p.m. ET

Efforts by hospital staff to correct the shortage were thwarted by further mishaps. When they tried to switch the intensive care unit oxygen supply from the hospital’s main tank to the reserve reserve, the reserve system appeared to be overloaded and failed.

Earlier in the day, aware that they were running out of breath, hospital officials had requested more oxygen from the Ministry of Health. But the van that was due in the afternoon was more than three hours late.

“If it had arrived by 6 p.m., none of this would have happened,” said the hospital doctor.

The medical experts who analyzed the video, including six doctors in the United States and Egypt, discovered details that aid in the determination of oxygen failure.

In the video, none of the patients appear to be connected to the central oxygen line.

A doctor uses a portable tank, which is usually used in an emergency and only temporarily. And just a few feet away, a group of nurses are trying to resuscitate a patient with a manual pump that does not appear to be connected to an oxygen source.

“There is no oxygen tube attached to the airbag,” said Dr. Hicham Alnachawati, a New York emergency doctor who worked in intensive care units in hospitals. It doesn’t happen. It’s impossible if you don’t have oxygen. “

Another doctor who checked the video, Dr. Bushra Mina, the Egyptian-American head of pulmonology at Lenox Hill Hospital who has cared for hundreds of Covid-19 patients in New York, noted the “urgency” of the doctor and nurses in the video “Trying to Oxygenate the Patients.” supply or supplement. “

“It can be overwhelming, even in the US where you have a lot of resources,” said Dr. Mina. “Imagine Egypt where resources are limited and you exceed your capacities.”

The oxygen crisis at El Husseineya Central Hospital may not have been the only one.

Signs of shortages in other hospitals flooded social media for a week. A hospital director on social media urged people to donate portable oxygen tanks, citing a “critical need”. A patient in another hospital filmed himself in the isolation ward and said, “We don’t have enough oxygen.” And a video of a scene similar to the one Mr. Nafei saw was posted online.

These claims could not be independently verified.

“Is there a real problem?” asked Ayman Sabae, a researcher with the Egyptian Personal Rights Initiative, a human rights group. “Nobody but the government can claim to have this information.”

The government’s record during the crisis has not instilled confidence that it aligns with the Egyptians.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has denounced critics of the government’s coronavirus efforts as “enemies of the state”. His security services expelled a foreign journalist who questioned the official toll. Prosecutors have warned that anyone who spreads “false news” about the coronavirus can face a prison sentence of up to five years.

And the government has waged a bitter feud with doctors who earlier revolted in the pandemic over lack of protective equipment. Some of the doctors were thrown in jail.

“They’re trying to control the narrative, they’re trying to make sure things look like they’re under control, and part of that is controlling the information that is being shared with the public,” Sabae said. “I have no problem with that if the government gives us credible information that we can rely on.”

When the El Husseineya Central Hospital video came out instead, the answer was to tell the Egyptians not to believe what they were seeing.

“This is not a scene showing a lack of oxygen,” said Mamdouh Ghorab, the governor of Al Sharqiya, the governorate that also includes El Husseineya Central Hospital. He spoke on a pro-government television show that did not interview or invite witnesses to question the official narrative.

Even the official numbers are suspect. Egypt has reported over 150,000 Covid cases and over 8,000 deaths, remarkably low numbers for the region and for a country of over 100 million people.

However, outside experts and even some government officials say both numbers are a huge undercount, largely due to the lack of comprehensive testing and because the laboratories that run tests don’t always report their results to the government.

Although the lack of oxygen at El Husseineya Central was denied, officials began taking steps to address the problem and tacitly acknowledged it.

Health Minister Hala Zayed recognized a shortage of oxygen delivery trucks and delays in distribution. President Sisi called on the government to double oxygen production to meet the surge in demand.

The government appears to have taken another action in response to the video of the crisis in El Husseineya Central. Visitors must now leave their phones at the door.

Mona El-Naggar reported from El Husseineya and Yousur Al-Hlou from New York. Video by Arielle Ray and Ben Laffin.

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World’s ‘ethical failure’ WHO says

World's 'moral failure' WHO says

Healthcare workers administer the COVID-19 vaccine to residents of the Jackson Heights neighborhood at St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church on January 10, 2021 in Tampa, Florida.

Octavio Jones | Getty Images

LONDON – The head of the World Health Organization said Monday the fair distribution of coronavirus vaccines was “seriously at risk”.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned of a “catastrophic moral failure”, saying “the recent emergence of fast-spreading variants makes the quick and fair introduction of vaccines all the more important.”

But he added that this distribution could easily become “another building block in the wall of inequality between the world’s owners and non-owners”.

“With the use of the first vaccines, the promise of fair access is seriously jeopardized,” he said at a meeting of the WHO Executive Board.

While more than 39 million doses of various vaccines have now been administered in at least 49 higher-income countries, only 25 doses have been administered in one of the lowest-income countries.

“I have to be dull, the world is facing catastrophic moral failure and the price for that failure is paid for with life and livelihood in the poorest countries in the world.”

At the beginning of his speech, Tedros emphasized that developing and approving safe coronavirus vaccines less than a year after the virus emerged in China in late 2019 was an “amazing achievement and a much-needed source of hope”.

However, he added, “It is not right for younger, healthier adults in rich countries to be vaccinated before health workers and older people in poorer countries.”

“There will be enough vaccines for everyone, but right now we must work together as a global family to prioritize (those) who are most at risk of serious illness and death in all countries.”

Without naming names, according to Tedros, some countries and companies speak the language of fair access but continue to prioritize bilateral deals, bypassing COVAX, which is driving prices up and trying to jump to the top. “That’s wrong,” he said.

COVAX is a global program jointly led by an international vaccine alliance called Gavi, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, and the WHO. It was established to ensure equitable access to vaccines for every country in the world. The goal is to deliver 2 billion doses of safe, effective vaccines that have passed regulatory approval and / or prequalification by the WHO by the end of 2021.

The WHO urged wealthier countries that had pre-ordered millions of doses of coronavirus vaccines, such as the US, UK and Europe, to share some of those vaccines with COVAX so they could then pass them on to poorer countries.

Wealthier nations have been accused of “hoarding” more vaccines than they need, even though the vaccine supply is still in its infancy, as mass vaccination – which began in the West in December – is largely still in its first phase of distribution.

Tedros urged countries with bilateral agreements with vaccine manufacturers and controls of supply to “be transparent to COVAX on quantities, prices and delivery dates” and to share their own doses with COVAX once they have vaccinated their own health workers and older populations.