Tag: latest

Newest Russia-Ukraine Battle Information: Reside Updates

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Post date September 1, 2022

Latest Russia-Ukraine War News: Live Updates

Recognition…Eleonore Dermy/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

He wrote a book describing a Russian military that was so ill-prepared when invading Ukraine that he didn’t know until he did that his unit had entered the country Awoke to artillery fire.

Now 34-year-old Pavel Filatiev, who says he is a paratrooper in the Russian military, is seeking political asylum in France after arriving there last weekend. He was hailed as a hero by some in the West, his book embraced by Kremlin opponents as evidence of what he called a “terrible war”.

But Mr. Filatiev remains a scourge and a traitor in his native Russia, at least among pro-war advocates who know of its existence, as opponents of the invasion are aggressively censored. Some critics also say his book ignores the strong support for President Vladimir V. Putin and the war among many Russians and Russian soldiers. And some Ukrainians and Russian opponents of the war say he is an unreliable narrator and an accomplice to the violence.

The book has attracted a great deal of attention, partly because of the rarity of a Russian soldier speaking about his experiences. Mr. Filatiev’s account of his time in Ukraine has not been independently verified by the New York Times. Kamalia Mehtiyeva, his lawyer, said he awaits a decision in the coming days on whether he can remain in France as a refugee.

“He fears persecution by the Russian Federation,” she said by phone from Paris.

According to his book, Mr. Filatiev spent about two months as a paratrooper stationed in the southern Ukrainian cities of Kherson and Mykolaiv and contracted an eye infection in a ditch. He then tried to leave the army after being taken to a military hospital in Sevastopol for health reasons. But he writes that he was threatened with prosecution if he didn’t return.

He fled Russia in August after publishing his book ZOV, which refers to the symbols painted on Russian military vehicles, and fled to France via Tunisia.

“We had no moral right to attack another country, especially the people closest to us,” he writes in the book, which he himself published on VKontakte, a Russian social media network, in August. “We have begun a terrible war,” he writes, “a war in which cities are being destroyed and which is resulting in the deaths of children, women and the elderly.”

“ZOV” describes a chaotic Russian army in which demoralized recruits were outfitted with rusty weapons and ill-fitting uniforms. On February 24, the day the invasion began, Mr. Filatiev writes that he and other soldiers were shocked to learn they were invading Ukraine.

“I woke up around 2am,” he writes. “The column was somewhere in the wilderness, and everyone had turned off their engines and headlights,” he continues. “I couldn’t understand: are we shooting at advancing Ukrainians? Or maybe at NATO? Or do we attack? Who is this infernal shelling aimed at?”

He later characterizes the Russian army as lacking in basic services. During a military operation in occupied Kherson in March, he writes, desperate Russian soldiers searched buildings for food, water, showers and a place to sleep and looted everything they could find of value, including computers and clothing.

Mr Filatiev’s report was widely reported by independent Russian media, most of which were based outside the country. But state media have conspicuously ignored him. And even some Ukrainians on social media have resisted attempts to glorify or praise him for fighting in Ukraine.

Ivan Zhdanov, a Russian opposition figure and ally of jailed dissident Aleksei A. Navalny, said Mr Filatiev had blood on his hands.

“Honestly, I’m skeptical about his decision because he went there and fought there,” he said on his show on YouTube.

In an interview with the Agence France-Presse news agency, Mr Filatiev said he believes he has a moral imperative to say what is happening in Ukraine.

“I want people in Russia and in the world to know how this war came about,” he told the news agency.

Constant Méheut contributed the coverage from Paris.

— And Bilefsky and Ivan Nekhepurenko

Tags latest, Live, News, RussiaUkraine, Updates, War

World News

The newest goal of China’s tech regulation blitz: algorithms

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Post date September 3, 2021

Computer code is seen on a screen above a Chinese flag in this July 12, 2017 illustration photo.

Thomas White | Reuters

BEIJING — Chinese authorities are planning to restrict how companies use algorithms to sell products to consumers, a move analysts said likely runs counter to business interests and sets a precedent for other countries.

China’s largest tech companies from e-commerce giant Alibaba to TikTok-owner ByteDance have built their multibillion dollar businesses on algorithms that serve up content a customer is more likely to spend money or time on, based on previous viewing records.

The increasingly powerful cybersecurity regulator on Friday released sweeping draft rules for regulating use of these so-called recommendation algorithms. The proposal is open for comment until Sept. 26, with no specified implementation date so far.

The groundbreaking rules could set up a clash between China’s technology giants — which have been subject to increasing regulation over the past 10 months — and Beijing, which has sought to rein in their power.

And China’s algorithm rules will be closely watched by other countries and technology firms around the world for how it might affect business models and innovation, analysts said.

“Companies are going to have a lot to say about this because this has the potential to restructure business models,” Kendra Schaefer, Beijing-based partner at Trivium China consultancy, told CNBC.

The rules have also thrown up questions about how enforcement will happen and how intrusive regulators might have to be to actually get companies to comply with these rules.

What the draft says

Here are some of the key points in the draft rules:

Companies must not set up algorithms that push users to become addicted or spend large amounts of money.
Service providers need to notify users in a clear way about the algorithmic recommendation services they provide.
Users need to have a way to switch off algorithmic recommendation services. Users should also have a way to choose, revise, or delete user tags used for the recommendation algorithm.
When algorithms are used to market goods or provide services to consumers, the company behind it must not use the algorithm to carry out “unreasonable” differentiation in terms of prices or trading conditions.
Any violations of the rules could land companies with fines between 5,000 yuan and 30,000 yuan ($773 and $4,637).

These proposed rules come as the Chinese government has ramped up its regulation on homegrown technology giants in the last year, primarily in the name of cracking down on monopolistic practices and increasing data protection.

On Wednesday, a new data security law took effect. A personal data privacy law is set to take effect on Nov. 1.

What enforcement might look like

Recommendation algorithms are formed of code that is fed specific information about users to help provide more tailored results. If you’re on an e-commerce site, some of items you see on the homepage are likely there because of your browsing or shopping habits.

But the algorithm’s code is not something that is made public and that could make enforcement difficult. At the very least, it could require regulators to inspect companies’ code behind the algorithms.

“You can’t carry out algorithmic regulation without looking at the code,” Trivium China’s Schaefer said.

Authorities are to carry out algorithm “security assessments” and inspection of the recommendation services, according to the draft rules. Companies must cooperate and provide any necessary technical or data support.

That would give regulators in China enormous power.

But it also throws up some challenges.

“First of all you need the technical capacity to do this. … You also need the bureaucratic process to do it. All that has to be sorted and it has not been yet,” Schaefer said.

This intrusiveness could set up a clash between China’s technology giants and regulators.

“I’m sure there are issues with privacy rights with companies … that [the code] is proprietary information,” Schaefer added.

None of the Chinese tech companies contacted by CNBC had immediate comment on the draft rules, with two indicating it’s too early in the process to assess them. The cybersecurity regulator did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment on the extent of implementation or impact on innovation.

Business model changes?

Many of China’s technology giants aren’t making money off of their algorithms directly. Instead, they’re used to direct consumers to products. For example, you may be watching videos on an app and then get recommended similar content. A company would monetize that via advertising or even getting you to buy things.

The latest rules could have the potential to force companies to change their business models, but it’s unclear as to what extent.

“The jury is still out on the implications for operations and profits,” said Ziyang Fan, head of digital trade at the World Economic Forum.

“It depends on a number of factors, such as the level of enforcement, and market reactions — how many users would choose to ‘turn off’ [the] recommendation algorithm if that’ll lead to a suboptimal user experience, such as getting cat videos pushes when you are a dog person?” he said in an email.

“If we see a significant drop in indicators such as DAUs [daily active users] and retention rates, then the implications for profits could also be significant,” he said, noting that social media companies may see the impact more, while online shopping and ride-hailing “probably less so.”

Where the rest of the world stands

As the intersection between tech and daily life grows, countries and regions around the world are increasingly looking at ways to regulate technologies and the companies that sell them.

That’s resulted in different approaches, so far. In the area of algorithms, China is specifically focused on the technology’s recommendation feature, while the U.S. and European Union are discussing broader laws around artificial intelligence.

Earlier this year, the European Union issued a draft law called the Artificial Intelligence Act with the purpose of facilitating “the development of a single market for lawful, safe and trustworthy AI applications” and pushing innovation in the space.

The law has “specific requirements that aim to minimise the risk of algorithmic discrimination.”

But there are a number of differences with China’s algorithm rules.

WEF’s Fan said the EU follows a “risk-based approach” while China’s rules “do not differentiate risk levels and apply to all use of algorithm recommendation technology.” That can cover a broad range of industries from food delivery to education.

And China’s rules “target algorithms directly at the user and product level,” such as the ability for users to switch off the algorithm, as stated in the proposed rules, Fan added.

UK’s Blue Prism turns into newest goal of U.S. non-public fairness

Post author By
Post date September 2, 2021

Employees walk past FTSE AIM share price information displayed on a lighted rotating cube in the atrium of the London Stock Exchange Group’s offices in London, UK

Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Robotics firm Blue Prism is the latest in a series of UK firms to attract the attention of U.S. private equity firms, but a high profile shareholder has urged it not to sell.

Blue Prism’s shares rose Wednesday after confirming they had started talks with TPG Capital and Vista Equity Partners. However, she stressed: “There can be no certainty that an offer will be made, nor on the terms on which an offer would be made.”

It comes after supermarket chain Morrisons, infrastructure giant John Laing, and aerospace company Cobham have been exposed to transatlantic private equity approaches in recent months.

Blue Prism, one of the largest tech companies in the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market, uses robotic process automation (RPA) software to hire digital workers to perform back office tasks for businesses.

In a letter to Blue Prism’s management team on Tuesday seen by CNBC, shareholder Coast Capital, a notable activist investor who is reluctant to sell its U.S. operations by FirstGroup, expressed concerns about the company’s valuation.

Coast Capital currently considers Blue Prism to be undervalued and it would be a mistake to approve an acquisition at its share price.

“As you know, Blue Prism PLC’s business value is currently valued at about three times its appointment revenue – a 80-90% discount over the company’s competitors including UiPath, Appian, WorkFusion, Automation Anywhere, etc.,” the letter from Coast Capital said.

“If a buyer were to pay a premium of 100%, the share price would still be considerably lower than its intrinsic value and well below the value that the share was still trading in January 2021.”

James Rasteh, CEO of Coast Capital, said Blue Prism was facing a number of problems – such as product gaps in its portfolio, its position on the London Junior Stock Exchange, and its geographic distance from many key customers – but which could be overcome . He said Coast worked with industry experts to develop an operational improvement plan to drive sales growth and increase Blue Prism’s stock value.

“In addition, we note that the Blue Prism PLC team (including management and board) has developed and maintained the world’s leading unattended automation software product with an extremely valuable customer base of more than 2,000 large corporations,” said Rasteh.

“Even in the worst of times today, the company has an enviable reputation as a best-in-class performer, keeping it at the forefront of its fast-growing and highly profitable industry. Now is not the time to throw in the towel!”

Blue Prism declined to comment. TPG Capital and Vista Equity Partners were not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.

“Reverse Activism”

Where coastal capital is public urged management change at FirstGroup, Rasteh told CNBC in an email Thursday that the company’s engagement with Blue Prism was “the opposite of activism” and claimed it plans to work with management to implement the operational changes needed .

Coast Capital has a stake of almost 3% in Blue Prism. According to data from Refinitiv Eikon, Jupiter Fund Management, which declined to comment, is the largest shareholder with 7.49%.

The company’s stock rose up to 39% on Wednesday but remains in the red around 30% for the year.

“The CEO, Jason Kingdon, is clearly a visionary in the UK’s high-tech industry and does not have long enough time to influence the workforce changes and operational improvements that can and will transform Blue Prism,” said Rasteh.

Kingdon was an early investor in Blue Prism and became Chairman and CEO in April 2020.

Tags blue, Equity, latest, Prism, private, target, UKs

Health

Map reveals newest outbreak in mainland China as delta instances rise

Post author By
Post date August 15, 2021

In recent weeks, new pockets of Covid-19 cases have surfaced in parts of mainland China as the highly contagious Delta variant spreads across the country.

So far this month, locally transmitted cases reported in mainland China have risen to 878 – more than double the 390 cases recorded for the entire month of July, according to the CNBC daily statistics from China’s National Health Commission.

To be clear, the number of reported infections is much lower in China than many countries – including the US, where an average of about 100,000 new cases a day, and Southeast Asia, where daily cases have risen sharply.

Still, Chinese authorities have imposed targeted bans, tightened movement controls and ordered mass tests to curb the recent resurgence in Covid cases.

Impact on China’s Economy

Economists have raised concerns about China’s zero tolerance for Covid. The government has insisted on stamping out any flare-ups in Covid cases, even as many countries around the world – including the UK and Singapore – have started to accept that the virus will never go away.

The recent resurgence of Covid cases in China is due to the fact that some economic growth engines continue to lose momentum while domestic consumption struggles to fully recover, HSBC economists said in a report on Wednesday.

The economists found that the number of new infections reported in China is the highest since an outbreak in northern China in December 2020.

“As a result, many provinces and cities have tightened social distancing restrictions and bans on travel between cities and provinces,” the report said.

“These measures will inevitably weigh on growth, especially domestic consumption, which has not yet seen a full recovery to pre-pandemic levels,” the analysts said.

HSBC said mounting economic pressures could lead Beijing to adopt “more supportive” fiscal policies. This could include major infrastructure spending and tax cuts for small and medium-sized businesses, the bank said.

Tags cases, China, Delta, latest, mainland, map, outbreak, rise, Shows

World News

The Newest Information on the Killing of Jovenel Moïse

Post author By
Post date July 8, 2021

Four people suspected of being involved in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Mose were killed by the police in an exchange of fire and two others were arrested, the Haiti police chief said on Wednesday. The chief, Léon Charles, also said three police officers who had been held hostage have been released.

“The police are fighting with the attackers,” he said at a press conference, noting that the authorities were still pursuing a few suspects. “We pursue them so that they meet their fate in a shootout or die in a shootout or we arrest them.”

Millions of Haitians anxiously huddled around radios and televisions all day, staying away from the streets to understand who killed the president, why and what the coming days could mean for the country. The attack created a political void that threatens to deepen the turmoil that has gripped Haiti for months.

Mr Moïse’s wife, Martine Moïse, was also shot dead in the attack, Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph said in a statement. Ms. Moïse was taken to a hospital in South Florida for treatment.

“A group of strangers, some of whom speak Spanish, attacked the private residence of the President of the Republic, fatally injuring the head of state,” said the prime minister, but little confirmed information was available as to who might have carried out the assassination.

In an interview with the New York Times, Mr. Joseph said that he is the one ruling the country at the moment. However, it was unclear how much control he had or how long it would take. A new prime minister was slated for this week to replace Mr Joseph and the chairman of the nation’s highest court, who may also have helped restore order, died of Covid-19 in June.

Later on Wednesday, Mr. Joseph presented himself as head of government on a television broadcast to the nation, announcing that he and his fellow ministers had declared a “state of siege”.

Mr. Joseph called for calm.

“Let’s look for harmony in order to move forward together so that the country doesn’t get into chaos,” he said.

He also vowed that the commando that carried out the attack would be brought to justice.

News of the murder of Mr Moïse rocked the Caribbean nation 675 miles southeast of Miami. But it was already in turmoil.

Protesters have taken to the streets in recent months to demand that Mr Moïse be removed. He had clung to power and ruled by decree for over a year, although many – including constitutional scholars and legal experts – argued that his term had expired. Others, including the United States, supported his position that his term does not end until next year.

Armed gangs patrol many streets and even kidnap school children and church pastors in the middle of their church services. Poverty and hunger are on the rise, and the government is accused of enriching itself without providing even the most basic services.

Now the political vacuum left by the murder of Mr Moïse could fuel a cycle of violence, experts warned.

More than two centuries ago, Haitians fought to shake off the yoke of colonial France and put an end to one of the world’s most brutal slave colonies that had brought great fortune to France. What began as a slave revolt at the beginning of the 18th century ultimately led to the breathtaking defeat of Napoleon’s troops in 1803.

But the suffering of the Haitians did not end with the expulsion of the French.

More recently, the country has suffered more than two decades of dictatorship from François Duvalier, known as Papa Doc, and his son Jean-Claude, known as Baby Doc.

In 1990 a poor local priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was elected president. But in less than a year he was ousted in a coup.

The country has not rebuilt since a devastating earthquake 11 years ago, and many say it is doing worse despite billions of dollars in reconstruction aid.

On Wednesday, Mr. Joseph said the president was “cowardly murdered” but the killers “cannot murder his ideas.” He urged the country to “keep calm” and said he would address the nation later that day.

He said the country’s security situation is under the control of the police and army. But international observers warned that the situation could quickly spiral out of control.

Didier Le Bret, a former French ambassador to Haiti, said the situation in Haiti had become so volatile that “many people had an interest in getting rid of Moïse”.

He said he hoped that despite his lack of political legitimacy, Mr. Joseph would be able to rule the country.

Mr Le Bret criticized the international community for ignoring the unstable political situation in Haiti and said it should now help the country “ensure a smooth transition”.

Harold Isaac contributed to the coverage.

Tags Jovenel, Killing, latest, Moïse, News

Politics

Obamacare survives after Supreme Courtroom rejects newest Republican problem

Post author By
Post date June 19, 2021

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 on Thursday against Texas and other Republican-led states seeking to strike down Obamacare in the law’s latest test before the nation’s highest court.

The court reversed an appeals court ruling that had struck down the law’s individual mandate provision. Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett joined Justice Stephen Breyer’s opinion, as did Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Breyer said Texas and the other states that challenged the law failed to show they were harmed by it.

“Neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs have shown that the injury they will suffer or have suffered is ‘fairly traceable’ to the ‘allegedly unlawful conduct’ of which they complain,” Breyer wrote.

The decision marks the third time that Obamacare, officially known as the Affordable Care Act, has survived a challenge before the Supreme Court since former President Barack Obama signed the landmark legislation into law in 2010.

Defenders of Obamacare worried that the Supreme Court – with its 6-3 majority of Republican-appointed justices – would scrap the law, a crucial element of the nation’s health-care system.

President Joe Biden, who served as Obama’s vice president when the law was signed, praised Thursday’s ruling as a “major victory” for millions of Americans who were at risk of losing their health care in the midst of the Covid pandemic if the law was overturned.

Biden also vowed to expand Obamacare, a central promise of his presidential campaign.

“After more than a decade of attacks on the Affordable Care Act through the Congress and the courts, today’s decision – the third major challenge to the law that the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected – it is time move forward and keep building on this landmark law,” Biden said in a statement.

“Today’s decision affirms that the Affordable Care Act is stronger than ever, delivers for the American people, and gets us closer to fulfilling our moral obligation to ensure that, here in America, health care is a right and not a privilege,” he said.

Obama said the Supreme Court’s ruling makes clear that the law will endure, and the principle of universal health-care coverage has been established.

Two of former President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court picks, Kavanaugh and Barrett, joined the court’s overwhelming majority in rejecting the latest Republican effort to overturn the law. Democrats had warned during Barrett’s confirmation hearings that she was likely to cast a vote in the case that would jeopardize Obamacare.

Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, both conservatives, dissented from the court’s majority opinion.

“Today’s decision is the third installment in our epic Affordable Care Act trilogy, and it follows the same pattern as installments one and two,” Alito wrote in a dissent that was joined by Gorsuch. “In all three episodes, with the Affordable Care Act facing a serious threat, the Court has pulled off an improbable rescue.”

Trump tried unsuccessfully throughout his one term in office to overturn Obamacare. However, Congress as part of the 2017 tax bill effectively eliminated Obamacare’s so-called individual mandate penalties by reducing them to $0.

Texas and more than a dozen other Republican-led states then filed suit, arguing that that change to the law rendered it unconstitutional. The Supreme Court had previously upheld the mandate under Congress’ power to tax, but the GOP-led states argued that the tax justification was no longer valid if the penalty was nonexistent.

Those states, backed by Trump’s Department of Justice, argued that the entire Affordable Care Act should be erased if the individual mandate provision was found to be unlawful.

The case made its way through federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which agreed that the individual mandate was unconstitutional. But 20 Democrat-led states, led by California, asked the Supreme Court to reverse the appeals court’s judgment, arguing that with the mandate reduced to zero Americans have the choice whether or not to buy insurance.

The Supreme Court agreed in March 2020 to hear the case.

A spokeswoman for Trump did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the court’s ruling.

Numerous Biden administration officials and the top Democrats in Congress were quick to celebrate the decision.

“Each time, in each arena, the Affordable Care Act has prevailed,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor minutes after the ruling.

“Let me say definitively: The Affordable Care Act has won, the Supreme Court has ruled, the ACA is here to stay. And now, we’re going to try to make it bigger and better,” Schumer said.

“What a day,” he added.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was instrumental in the law’s passage, hailed the ruling and praised Obamacare as a “pillar of American health and economic security.”

“Today’s Supreme Court decision is a landmark victory for Democrats’ work to defend protections for people with preexisting conditions,” the California Democrat said during her weekly press conference.

White House chief of staff Ron Klain tweeted “It’s still a BFD” — an apparent reference to Biden’s infamous hot-mic comment at the signing of the bill in 2010, when he whispered to Obama, “this is a big f—— deal.”

“Today is a good day,” tweeted Sabrina Singh, deputy press secretary for Vice President Kamala Harris.

White House communications official Karine Jean-Pierre noted that the ruling marked the third time Obamacare survived a challenge in the high court.

Tags Challenge, Court, latest, Obamacare, rejects, Republican, Supreme, Survives

Health

Obamacare Survives Newest Supreme Court docket Problem

Post author By
Post date June 17, 2021

WASHINGTON – The Affordable Care Act faced a third major challenge in the Supreme Court on Thursday.

A majority of seven judges ruled that Republican plaintiffs had not suffered the type of direct harm they would be suing.

The court neglected the bigger questions in the case: whether most of the sprawling 2010 Health Act, the defining domestic legacy of President Barack Obama, could exist without a provision that initially required insurance or fines for most Americans.

In the years since the bill was passed in 2010, Republicans have worked hard to destroy it, and President Donald J. Trump has been relentlessly critical of it. Attempts to overturn it failed, however, as did two previous Supreme Court challenges in 2012 and 2015. Over the years, the law grew in popularity and became woven into the fabric of the healthcare system. His future now seems certain.

The abolition of the Affordable Care Act would have added about 21 million people to the uninsured in the United States – an increase of nearly 70 percent – according to recent estimates by the Urban Institute.

The largest insurance loss would have occurred among low-income adults who were legally eligible for Medicaid after most states expanded the program to include them. But millions of Americans would also have lost their private insurance, including young adults who were legally allowed to stay with their parents until the age of 26 and families whose incomes were modest enough to receive subsidies to pay their monthly premiums.

A ruling against the law would also have doomed the protection of Americans with past or current health problems – or pre-existing conditions – to fail. The protective measures prevent insurers from denying them coverage or charging them more for it.

The California v Texas case, No. 19-840, was filed by Republican officials who said the mandate requiring health coverage was unconstitutional after Congress lifted the penalty for lack of coverage in 2017 because the Mandate could no longer be justified a tax.

The argument was based on the court’s 2012 ruling in which presiding judge John G. Roberts Jr., along with the then-four liberal wing of the court, said the mandate was authorized by the power of Congress to assess taxes been.

The new challenge was largely successful in the lower courts. A federal judge in Texas ruled the entire law was invalid, but he postponed the effects of his ruling until the case could be appealed. In 2019, the United States Appeals Court for the Fifth District in New Orleans agreed that the mandate was unconstitutional, but declined to rule on the further fate of the Health Act and asked the lower court to consider the matter further .

Tags Challenge, Court, latest, Obamacare, Supreme, Survives

World News

Covid-19 Stay Updates: The Newest on Circumstances, Vaccines and Variants

Post author By
Post date June 17, 2021

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The U.S. government will invest $3.2 billion to develop antiviral pills for Covid-19, the Department of Health and Human Services announced on Thursday. Such a treatment could keep people out of the hospital and potentially save many lives in the years to come, as the virus becomes a perennial threat despite the distribution of effective vaccines.

A number of other viruses, including influenza, H.I.V. and hepatitis C, can be treated with a simple pill. But despite more than a year of research, no such drug exists for the coronavirus. Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s program for accelerating Covid-19 research, invested far more money in the development of vaccines than of treatments, a gap that the new program will try to fill.

The new influx of money will speed up the clinical trials of a few promising drug candidates. If all goes well, some of those pills might become available by the end of this year. The Antiviral Program for Pandemics will also support research on entirely new drugs — not just for the coronavirus, but for viruses that could cause future pandemics.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key backer of the program, said he looked forward to a time when Covid-19 patients could pick up antiviral pills from a pharmacy as soon as they tested positive for the coronavirus or develop Covid-19 symptoms. His support for research on antiviral pills stems from his own experience fighting AIDS three decades ago.

At the start of the pandemic, researchers began testing existing antivirals in people hospitalized with severe Covid-19. But many of those trials failed to show any benefit from the antivirals. In hindsight, the choice to work in hospitals was a mistake. Scientists now know that the best time to try to block the coronavirus is in the first few days of the disease, when the virus is replicating rapidly and the immune system has not yet mounted a defense.

Many people crush their infection and recuperate, but in others, the immune system misfires and starts damaging tissues instead of viruses. It’s this self-inflicted damage that sends many people with Covid-19 to the hospital, as the coronavirus replication is tapering off. So a drug that blocks replication early in an infection might very well fail in a trial on patients who have progressed to later stages of the disease.

So far, only one antiviral has demonstrated a clear benefit to people in hospitals: remdesivir. Originally investigated as a potential cure for Ebola, the drug seems to shorten the course of Covid-19 when given intravenously to patients. In October, it became the first — and so far, the only — antiviral drug to gain full F.D.A. approval to treat the disease.

Yet remdesivir’s performance has left many researchers underwhelmed. In November, the World Health Organization recommended against using the drug.

Remdesivir might work more effectively if people could take it earlier in the course of Covid-19 as a pill. But in its approved formulation, the compound doesn’t work orally. It can’t survive the passage from the mouth to the stomach to the circulatory system.

Researchers from around the world are testing other antivirals already known to work in pill form. One such compound, called molnupiravir, was developed in 2003 by researchers at Emory University and has been tested against viruses including influenza and dengue.

Credit…Prakash Mathema/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Sri Lanka is tapping Japan. Nepal has asked Denmark. Bangladesh has appealed to its diaspora in the United States.

South Asian countries are looking to the rest of the world to jump-start inoculation campaigns that have stalled since India halted vaccine exports to deal with its catastrophic second coronavirus wave this spring.

The ad hoc approach shows how the decision by India, the world’s biggest vaccine manufacturer, left poorer countries with few options for vaccines as richer countries hoarded much of the global supply. Even as the United States and other global powers pledge to donate a billion doses to poor nations, the World Health Organization says 11 billion doses are needed to defeat the pandemic.

Countries in South Asia and elsewhere — many battling outbreaks — continue to scramble for vaccines. Health officials say the vaccine pledge by the Group of 7 industrialized nations is too vague to incorporate into real planning, and does little to address the immediate needs of the millions of people awaiting doses.

India’s neighbors began vaccinations this year with a combination of doses donated by India and purchased from the Serum Institute of India, which is producing the vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, branded locally as Covishield.

But as coronavirus cases rose sharply in India in March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government blocked exports, forcing Serum to renege on bilateral agreements and commitments to Covax, the global program aimed at distributing vaccines to the world’s poorest countries.

In Nepal, about 1.4 million people age 65 and older have been awaiting a second shot after receiving a first AstraZeneca dose in March. Nepal’s government has appealed to diplomats in Britain, Denmark, South Korea and the United States for help.

“Efforts are on,” said Dr. Taranath Pokhrel, a director at the Nepalese Health Ministry, “but no substantive progress has been achieved so far.”

Of the first 25 million vaccine doses pledged as donations by the Biden administration, seven million are earmarked for Nepal and other countries in Asia, but in Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, it’s not clear when, what kind or how many will arrive.

Even after a weekslong nationwide lockdown, nearly one in three of Nepal’s coronavirus tests has been coming back positive. Less than 1 percent of the Himalayan country’s 30 million people are fully vaccinated.

Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have all received donations from China of its Sinopharm vaccine. But Sri Lanka, like Nepal, is angling for more AstraZeneca shots to provide a second dose to tens of thousands of people, some of whom have been waiting for nearly four months.

Sri Lanka’s president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, met with Japan’s ambassador to appeal for 600,000 AstraZeneca doses, and officials said that the Japanese government was receptive.

Japan, which has announced plans to donate doses across Asia, has “given a bit of a green light” to Sri Lanka, Gen. Shavendra Silva, the head of a Sri Lankan Covid task force, told The New York Times.

Sri Lanka’s government plans to inoculate the rest of its population with the donated Sinopharm doses and Sputnik V shots it has purchased from Russia.

Bangladesh, where infections and deaths from a second wave of the coronavirus continue to rise, is counting on its U.S. diaspora to raise pressure on the Biden administration for help obtaining more AstraZeneca doses, said Shamsul Haque, secretary of the country’s Covid vaccine management committee.

“We are short roughly 1.5 million doses of AstraZeneca for second shots,” Mr. Haque said.

China has donated 1.1 million Sinopharm doses, and Bangladesh is negotiating bulk buys of more vaccines from China, and Sputnik V doses from Russia. Only about 4.2 million of Bangladesh’s 168 million people are fully vaccinated.

— Emily Schmall, Aanya Wipulasena, Bhadra Sharma and Julfikar Ali Manik

Credit…Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed economic and social fault lines around the globe, but Covid-19 vaccines have made the divides even starker: While some poor countries are pleading for doses to save their people, a few rich ones are awash in shots and lacking takers.

A handful of U.S. states, for example, have tried incentives to get more people vaccinated. But in Moscow, as Covid hospitalizations surged this week, the city government took a harder line, mandating vaccinations for many workers in public-facing jobs.

Some other governments have also attempted to require vaccines. A province in Pakistan has said it will stop paying the salaries of civil servants who are not inoculated, starting next month. And Britain, which is seeing a surge attributed to the spread of the Delta variant of the virus, is weighing whether to make shots obligatory for all health care workers.

The Moscow Times quoted the city’s mayor, Sergei S. Sobyanin, as saying on Wednesday, “When you go out and come into contact with other people, you are an accomplice of the epidemiological process — a chain in the link spreading this dangerous virus.” The mandate he announced focuses on the education, entertainment, health care, and hospitality sectors and will continue until at least 60 percent of employees have been vaccinated, the newspaper reported.

In Britain, officials said that requiring health care workers to be vaccinated would help stop the spread of the virus in hospitals. Nadhim Zahawi, the British vaccine minister, said that there was a precedent for such a requirement. “Obviously, surgeons get vaccinated for hepatitis B, so it’s something that we are absolutely thinking about,” he told Sky News last month.

Many universities in the United States now require at least some students and employees to be vaccinated, and federal officials have repeatedly made clear that most companies with at least 15 employees have the right to require that workers are inoculated.

But vaccine requirements continue to face resistance from some.

In 15 American states, not a single college had announced any type of vaccine requirement as of last month. Days ago, 178 employees of Houston Methodist Hospital who refused to get a coronavirus shot were suspended. And on Saturday, protesters are expected at the offices of the New York State Bar Association in Albany, where officials will be discussing a report that recommends mandating a coronavirus vaccine for all New Yorkers, unless they are exempted by doctors.

But for the undecided who are open to persuasion, incentives to get the vaccine remain common: There are lotteries in California, college scholarships in New York State and free drinks in New Jersey.

The giveaways have spurred some to action. This week, both New York and California announced that they were lifting virtually all coronavirus restrictions on businesses and social gatherings.

Credit…Emilio Parra Doiztua for The New York Times

Warmer weather and low coronavirus case numbers are raising hope in some countries in Europe that vaccine rollouts could usher in a more normal summer after an erratic year of lockdowns.

France announced on Wednesday, sooner than expected, that it was ending a mandate on mask wearing outdoors and lifting a nighttime curfew that has lasted for months — an increasingly unpopular measure as days grew longer and cafes reopened.

“The health situation in our country is improving, and it is improving even faster than what we had hoped,” Jean Castex, the French prime minister, said in making the announcement, which some political opponents noted came a few days before regional elections.

In addition, tourists from the United States may be allowed back into European Union countries as early as Friday — a move crucial to lifting Europe’s battered economies. On Wednesday, ambassadors of the European Union indicated their support for adding the United States to a list of countries considered safe from an epidemiological point of view, a bloc official confirmed, though no official announcement is expected until Friday.

The traffic will be one-way, however, unless the United States lifts its ban on many European travelers, which was first announced over a year ago. The U.S. barred noncitizens coming from many countries around the globe, including those in the Schengen area of Europe, Britain and the Republic of Ireland.

In Europe, however, low infection numbers in many countries in recent weeks have been taken as an optimistic sign. But that is not the case everywhere. In Britain, officials are keeping watch for the Delta variant, which has spurred a rise in cases, and on Monday delayed by a month a much-anticipated reopening that had been heralded as “freedom day.”

And in Moscow, a surge of cases prompted a shutdown, leaving Russian officials pleading with residents to get vaccinated.

Still, the move to open up E.U. countries to tourists coming from the United States signaled a wider hope that the bloc was on a pathway to normalcy.

Health policy in the European Union is ultimately the province of member governments, so each country has the right to decide whether to reopen and how to tailor the travel measures further — by adding requirements for PCR tests or quarantines, for example.

Travel from outside the bloc was practically suspended last year to limit the spread of the coronavirus, with the exception of a handful of countries that fulfilled specific criteria, such as a low infection rate and their overall response to Covid-19. Until Wednesday, the list contained a relatively small number of nations, including Australia, Japan and South Korea, but more are coming, including Albania, Lebanon, North Macedonia and Serbia.

Some countries heavily dependent on tourism, like Spain and Greece, have already reopened to external travelers. Germany also lifted more restrictions this month, announcing it would remove a travel warning for locations with low infection rates from July 1.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, recommended last month that all travelers from third countries who were fully vaccinated with shots approved by the European Medicines Agency or by the World Health Organization should be allowed to enter without restrictions.

The loosening of travel measures was enabled by the fast pace of vaccination in the United States and by the acceleration of the inoculation campaign in Europe, and bolstered by advanced talks between the authorities on how to make vaccine certificates acceptable as proof of immunity.

The European Union is also finalizing work on a Covid certificate system, which is supposed to be in place on July 1. Fifteen member countries already started issuing and accepting the certificate ahead of schedule this month. The document records whether people have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, recovered from Covid or tested negative within the past 72 hours, and it would eventually allow those who meet one of the three criteria to move freely across the bloc’s 27 member countries.

Travelers coming from outside the bloc would have the opportunity to obtain a Covid certificate from an E.U. country, the European Commission said. That would facilitate travel between different countries inside the bloc, but would not be required for entering the European Union.

Credit…Money Sharma/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The majestic Taj Mahal in India reopened its doors to visitors this week, part of a broad easing of restrictions by local governments hoping to revive a battered tourism industry.

The move to open up the economy comes even as the country is still in the midst of a devastating outbreak that has killed hundreds of thousands. Vaccination continues at a slow pace and some health experts have warned that easing restrictions too quickly could have deadly consequences.

While the number of new cases across the nation has dropped steadily in recent weeks, — with 67,208 new infections reported on Wednesday, the lowest number in two months — health officials in some regions, including Mumbai, have warned that a new deadly wave could come soon as cases there rise.

Still, local governments across the country are continuing to open up.

In Delhi, the capital, the authorities are also moving to reopen attractions, including the popular Red Fort.

The Taj Mahal is in the city of Agra in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where hundreds of dead bodies were buried on the banks of the Ganges as coronavirus deaths spiked in April and May.

The Taj Mahal, built in the 17th century by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a tomb for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, is a major tourist attraction and is normally thronged by more than seven million visitors annually, or an average of about 20,000 people per day.

The authorities closed the monument on April 17, the first time that had happened since 1978, when a river snaking out of Agra flooded the area. It was previously closed during World War II in 1942, and when India and Pakistan were at war in 1971.

Officials in Agra said that visitors wanting to go to the Taj Mahal had to book tickets online and that tourists would be allowed to enter the premises only if they were wearing a mask.

“No one is allowed to touch the wall of the monuments,” said Vasant Kumar Swarnkar, an official with the Archaeological Survey of India, a government body, adding, “The monument is being sanitized three times a day.”

Kamlesh Tiwari, a guide at the Taj Mahal, said that most of those who had visited the monument since it had reopened were local tourists and that the crowds had been relatively modest so far.

“We don’t expect a major rush because foreign tourists are missing,” he said. “We are jobless since last April because there is no tourism.”

VideoMughal emperor Shah Jahan built a mausoleum in memory of his wife, Mumtaz, in Agra, India.CreditCredit…Jeremy Woodhouse/Getty ImagesCredit…Charly Triballeau/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The government in Japan said on Thursday that it would relax emergency measures in Tokyo and other areas as the country’s latest coronavirus outbreak recedes, and with the Olympic Games scheduled to begin in just over five weeks.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga made the announcement at a meeting of the government’s coronavirus task force, saying that new infections had declined over the past month and that the strain on the nation’s hospitals had eased.

On Sunday, the state of emergency will be lifted in nine prefectures, but some restrictions will remain in place in Tokyo and in six other areas until at least July 11, the government said. Emergency measures in Okinawa will remain in effect for three more weeks, officials said.

The announcement comes as new daily cases reported in Japan have fallen by 48 percent over the past two weeks, to an average of 1,625 a day, according to a New York Times database. More than 684,000 vaccine doses were administered on Wednesday, twice as many as a month ago, based on government data.

Still, Japan’s vaccination drive remains one of the slowest among richer nations: About 26 million vaccine doses have been administered, with 15 percent of the population having received at least one shot, Times data shows.

Tokyo has been under a state of emergency since late April, the third since the start of the pandemic. Under the rules that go into effect on Monday, alcohol sales will be allowed to resume, but only until 7 p.m., while dining establishments will still be asked to close by 8 p.m.

The chief medical adviser to Japan’s government, Shigeru Omi, said that officials must remain vigilant and “take strong measures without hesitation” if cases begin to rise again.

With the Games set to begin in Tokyo on July 23 — and officials reportedly considering allowing up to 10,000 domestic spectators at some events — experts warn that infections could resurge. But John Coates, a vice president of the International Olympic Committee who is currently visiting Japan and under quarantine, said at a news conference last month that the Games could go on even if another state of emergency were declared.

Credit…Amr Alfiky/The New York Times

New York City plans to move about 8,000 homeless people out of hotel rooms and back to barrackslike dorm shelters by the end of July so that the hotels can reopen to the general public, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday.

When the pandemic lockdown began last spring, New York City moved the people out of the shelters, where in some cases as many as 60 adults stayed in a single room, to safeguard them from the coronavirus. Now, with social distancing restrictions lifted and an economic recovery on the line, the city is raring to fill those hotel rooms with tourists.

“It is time to move homeless folks who were in hotels for a temporary period of time back to shelters where they can get the support they need,” Mr. de Blasio said at a morning news conference.

The mayor said the city would need the state’s approval to remove the homeless people from 60 hotels, but a spokesman for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said that as long as all shelter residents — even vaccinated ones — wore masks, the state had no objections to the plan.

On Tuesday, Mr. Cuomo announced that the state was lifting nearly all remaining coronavirus restrictions and social distancing measures, after more than 70 percent of the state’s adults had received at least a first dose of a vaccine.

The hotels, many of them in densely populated parts of Manhattan, have been a source of friction with neighbors who have complained of noise, outdoor drug use and other nuisances and dangers from the hotel guests.

Wednesday’s announcement signals the end to a social experiment that many homeless people gave high marks to, saying that having a private hotel room was a vastly better experience than sleeping in a room with up to 20 other adults, many of them battling mental illness or substance abuse or both. Some people said they would sooner live in the street.

“I don’t want to go back — it’s like I’m going backward,” said Andrew Ward, 39, who has been staying at the Williams Hotel in Brownsville, Brooklyn, after nearly two years at a men’s shelter. “It’s not safe to go back there. You’ve got people bringing in knives.”

Credit…Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA, via Shutterstock

On the night of March 26, 2020, as the coronavirus was engulfing Britain and its leaders were struggling to fashion a response, Prime Minister Boris Johnson ridiculed his government’s health secretary, with a profanity, as totally “hopeless,” according to a text message posted by his former chief adviser.

The WhatsApp message, one of several texts shared on Wednesday by Mr. Johnson’s former aide, Dominic Cummings, reignited a debate over how Britain handled the early days of the pandemic — a period when Mr. Cummings said it lurched from one course to another and failed to set up an effective test-and-trace program.

In riveting testimony before Parliament last month, Mr. Cummings pinned much of the blame for the disarray on the health secretary, Matt Hancock, whom he accused of rank incompetence and serial lying. Mr. Hancock denied the accusations before lawmakers last week. He said it was “telling” that Mr. Cummings had not provided evidence to back up his most incendiary claims.

The WhatsApp messages, and an accompanying 7,000-word blog post, are the former aide’s attempt to do so. They depict a government under relentless stress, racing to secure ventilators and protective gear, scale up a testing program, and settle on the right strategy to prevent the nation’s hospitals from collapsing.

In the text exchange with Mr. Johnson on March 26, Mr. Cummings noted that the United States went from testing 2,200 people a day to 100,000 in two weeks. He said Mr. Hancock was “skeptical” about being able to test even 10,000 a day, despite having promised two days earlier to reach that goal within a few days.

The exchange prompted Mr. Johnson’s profane description of Mr. Hancock. Later, Mr. Johnson was severely ill with Covid-19 and hospitalized, forcing his foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to lead in his absence. Mr. Cummings said Mr. Raab did a far better job leading the government’s response to the pandemic, than Mr. Johnson, with whom he helped elect but has since had a bitter falling out.

Credit…Katherine Taylor for The New York Times

The pandemic has put a spotlight on parosmia, a once little-known condition that distorts the senses of smell and taste, spurring research and a host of articles in medical journals.

Membership has swelled in existing support groups, and new ones have sprouted. A fast-growing British-based parosmia group on Facebook has more than 14,000 members. And parosmia-related ventures, including podcasts and smell training kits, are gaining followers.

A key question remains: How long does Covid-19-linked parosmia last? Scientists have no firm answers.

Parosmia is one of several Covid-related problems associated with smell and taste. The partial or complete loss of smell, or anosmia, is often the first symptom of the coronavirus. The loss of taste, or ageusia, can also be a symptom.

In 2020, parosmia became remarkably widespread, frequently affecting Covid-19 patients, who lost their sense of smell and then largely regained it, before a distorted sense of smell and taste began.

Credit…Illustration by Brian Rea

Last fall, as academics and public-health experts in the United States puzzled over how to make all schools safe for full-time, in-person learning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was advising everyone to wear masks and remain six feet apart at all times.

But most schools could not maintain that kind of distance and still accommodate all their students and teachers. The C.D.C’s guidance also left many questions unanswered: How did masks and distancing and other strategies like opening windows fit together? Which were essential? Could some measures be skipped if others were followed faithfully?

The C.D.C. seemed incapable of answering these questions. From the pandemic’s earliest days, the agency had been subject to extreme politicization, and its advisories on mask-wearing, quarantine and ventilation had been confusing, inconsistent and occasionally wrong. While the agency has made clear improvements under the Biden administration and a new director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, its messaging is still deeply muddy and communities across the country — and school districts, especially — are still struggling with next steps.

As the rest of the nation is learning, the former president was not the C.D.C.’s only — or even its biggest — problem.

Tags cases, Covid19, latest, Live, Updates, vaccines, Variants

World News

Covid-19 Reside Updates: The Newest Information

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Post date June 10, 2021

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Pool photo by Francisco Seco

Leaders of the European Union on Thursday joined the calls for a full investigation into the origins of Covid-19, with the European Council president declaring “support for all the efforts in order to get transparency and to know the truth.”

“The world has the right to know exactly what happened in order to be able to learn the lessons,” added the president, Charles Michel, who heads the European Council, the body that represents the bloc’s national leaders. He made the comments during a news conference preceding the Group of 7 summit, which starts on Friday and will be attended by President Biden.

The World Health Organization conducted an inquiry this year into the origins of the virus, which first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. The study concluded that “introduction through a laboratory incident was considered to be an extremely unlikely pathway” but was widely seen as incomplete because of China’s limited cooperation. Governments, health experts and scientists have called for a more complete examination of the origins of the virus, which has killed more than 3.7 million people worldwide.

Late last month, Mr. Biden ordered American intelligence agencies to investigate the origins of the virus, an indication that his administration was taking seriously the possibility that the deadly virus had accidentally leaked from a lab, in addition to the prevailing theory that it was transmitted by an animal to humans outside a lab.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, highlighted on Thursday that “investigators need complete access to the information and to the sites” to “develop the right tools to make sure that this will never happen again.”

In the draft conclusions of next week’s summit between the European Union and the United States, leaders will call for “progress on a transparent, evidence-based and expert-led W.H.O.-convened Phase 2 study on the origins of Covid-19, that is free from interference.”

Credit…Elijah Baylis for The New York Times

NASHVILLE — Public health departments have held vaccine clinics at churches. They have organized rides to clinics. Gone door to door. Even offered a spin around a NASCAR track for anyone willing to get a shot.

Still, the United States’ vaccination campaign is sputtering, especially in the South, where there are far more doses than people who will take them.

As reports of new Covid-19 cases and deaths nationwide plummet and many Americans venture out mask-free, experts fear the virus could eventually surge again in states like Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, where fewer than half of adults have had a first shot.

“I don’t think people appreciate that if we let up on the vaccine efforts, we could be right back where we started,” said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, the director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

A range of theories exist about why the South, which as of Wednesday was home to eight of the 10 states with the lowest vaccination rates, lags behind: hesitancy from conservative white people, concerns among some Black residents, longstanding challenges when it comes to health care access and transportation.

The answer, interviews across the region revealed, was all of the above.

“There’s no magic bullet. There’s no perfect solution,” said Dr. W. Mark Horne, president of the Mississippi State Medical Association.

Time is of the essence, both to prevent new infections and to use the doses already distributed to states. Coronavirus variants are spreading, especially the highly transmissible and increasingly prevalent Delta variant, first detected in India. And millions of Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses will expire nationwide this month, prompting some governors to issue urgent pleas that health providers use them soon.

From rural Appalachia to cities like Birmingham and Memphis, the slowdown has forced officials to refine their pitches to residents. Among the latest offerings: mobile clinics, Facebook Live forums and free soccer tickets for those who get vaccinated.

Credit…Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times

Moderna requested an emergency authorization on Thursday from the Food and Drug Administration for use of its coronavirus vaccine in 12- to 17-year-olds. If authorized, as expected, the vaccine would offer a second option for protecting adolescents from the coronavirus, and hasten a return to normalcy for middle- and high-school students.

The company has already filed for authorization with Health Canada and the European Medicines Agency, and plans to seek approval in other countries, the chief executive Stéphane Bancel said in a statement. Authorization by the F.D.A. typically takes three to four weeks.

Last month, the F.D.A. expanded emergency use authorization for the vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech for use in children ages 12 to 15 years. That vaccine was already available to anyone older than 16. About 7 million children under 18 have received at least one dose of the vaccine so far, and about 3.5 million are fully protected.

Moderna’s vaccine was authorized for use in adults in December. Its application to the F.D.A. for young teens is based on study results reported last month. That clinical trial enrolled 3,732 children ages 12 to 17 years, with 2,500 receiving two doses of the vaccine and the remaining a saltwater placebo.

The trial found no cases of symptomatic Covid-19 among fully vaccinated teens, which translates to an efficacy of 100 percent, the same figure that Pfizer and BioNTech reported for that age group. The trial also found that a single dose of the Moderna vaccine has an efficacy of 93 percent. Participants did not experience serious side effects beyond those seen in adults: pain at the site of the injection, headache, fatigue, muscle pain and chills.

An independent safety monitoring committee will follow all participants for 12 months after their second injection to assess long-term protection and safety.

Credit…Juan Ignacio Roncoroni/EPA, via Shutterstock

RIO DE JANEIRO — Officials at the World Health Organization on Wednesday repeated their calls for the world’s governments to accelerate plans to distribute coronavirus vaccines to hard-hit nations, warning that many countries in Latin America continued to see rising caseloads.

“Across our region, this year has been worse than last year,” said Dr. Carissa F. Etienne, the director of the Pan American Health Organization, which is part of the W.H.O. “In many places, infections are higher now than at any point in this pandemic.”

The comments came as President Biden prepared to announce that his administration would buy 500 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and donate them among about 100 countries over the next year, according to people familiar with the plan. Mr. Biden could announce the arrangement as early as Thursday, as he begins his first trip abroad as president.

It is not yet clear which countries the 500 million vaccine doses would be supplied to, but Latin America is among the regions where the need is urgent. Eight of the 10 countries with the highest rate of Covid deaths per capita are in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

And even as hospitals in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and other nations where the virus continues to spread aggressively have created overflow facilities, health care systems in several nations in the region are struggling to cope, Dr. Etienne said during the W.H.O.’s virtual news conference on Wednesday morning.

“Despite the doubling or even the tripling of hospital beds throughout the region, I.C.U. beds are full, oxygen is running low and health workers are overwhelmed,” she said.

Most governments in Latin America are struggling to acquire enough doses to quickly inoculate their people, which will delay their ability to fully reopen economies, officials said.

Last week, Mr. Biden said that the United States would distribute 25 million doses this month to countries in the Caribbean and Latin America; South and Southeast Asia; Africa; and the Palestinian territories, Gaza and the West Bank. Those doses are the first of 80 million that Mr. Biden pledged to send abroad by the end of June.

Dr. Etienne said that only a more equitable distribution system would put an end to the pandemic in the foreseeable future.

“Today we’re seeing the emergence of two worlds, one quickly returning to normal and another where recovery remains a distant future,” Dr. Etienne said. “Unfortunately, vaccine supply is concentrated in a few nations while most of the world waits for doses to trickle down.”

She singled out the vaccine shortage in Central America, home to more than 44 million people, where just over two million have been inoculated. Fewer than three million people have been vaccinated in nations in the Caribbean, which has a population of just over 34 million.

Credit…Atul Loke for The New York Times

As it has with nearly every other major event of the past year, the pandemic looms large over this week’s Group of 7 summit, with world leaders already making commitments to do more to stop the coronavirus as they prepare for the three-day gathering that begins on Friday.

In recent months, wealthy nations with robust vaccination campaigns have quickly moved toward inoculating large swaths of their population. Now, they are pledging to help the rest of the world meet that goal, too.

In a statement released on Thursday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is playing host to the summit as Britain takes up the G7 presidency this year, said it was crucial to use the moment to act.

“The world needs this meeting,” he said. “We must be honest: International order and solidarity were badly shaken by Covid. Nations were reduced to beggar-my-neighbor tactics in the desperate search for P.P.E., for drugs — and, finally, for vaccines,” he added, referring to personal protective equipment.

He said now was the time to “put those days behind us.”

“This is the moment for the world’s greatest and most technologically advanced democracies to shoulder their responsibilities and to vaccinate the world, because no one can be properly protected until everyone has been protected,” he added.”

President Biden, under pressure to address the global coronavirus vaccine shortage, will announce on Thursday that his administration will buy 500 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and donate them among about 100 countries over the next year, the White House said.

“We have to end Covid-19, not just at home, which we’re doing, but everywhere,” Mr. Biden told United States troops at R.A.F. Mildenhall in Suffolk, England, on Wednesday evening. “There’s no wall high enough to keep us safe from this pandemic or the next biological threat we face, and there will be others. It requires coordinated multilateral action.”

Pfizer said in a statement announcing the deal on Thursday that the United States would pay for the doses at a “not for profit” price. The first 200 million doses will be distributed by the end of this year, followed by 300 million by next June, the company said. The doses will be distributed through Covax, the international vaccine-sharing initiative.

“Fair and equitable distribution has been our North Star since Day One, and we are proud to do our part to help vaccinate the world, a massive but an achievable undertaking,” Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s chief executive, said in a statement.

global round up

Credit…Feline Lim/Getty Images

The Singaporean government said on Thursday that it would ease some social restrictions after nearly a month of tough measures to contain a coronavirus outbreak fueled in part by the Delta variant, first detected in India.

The city-state also said that it would expand its vaccination campaign, allowing Singaporeans ages 12 and older to register for shots beginning on Friday and extending eligibility to the rest of the population in the coming months.

The announcement came a day after the nation of 5.7 million recorded just two new coronavirus cases, the lowest number in months. In mid-May, after an outbreak at Singapore’s international airport led to dozens of infections, the government banned dining in restaurants and gatherings of more than two people.

“We have slowed down the chains of transmission and reduced the number of community cases, and are now in a position to ease the tightened measures,” the Health Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

Beginning on Monday, people will be allowed to gather in groups of up to five, and restaurants and gyms will be permitted to reopen to customers the following week if cases remain low, the ministry said.

About a third of Singaporeans are fully vaccinated, one of the highest rates in Asia, but the country has kept cases low by requiring masks, strictly tracing contacts and eliminating most overseas travel. Officials have said that lifting further restrictions will depend on many more people getting vaccinated.

In other news around the globe:

Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, will restrict access to shopping malls, restaurants, cafes and other public places to those who have been vaccinated against the coronavirus or who have recently tested negative, starting on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The new rules were announced late on Wednesday and come as the United Arab Emirates has seen daily cases rise during the past three weeks. The restrictions will also apply to gyms, hotels, public parks, beaches, swimming pools, entertainment centers, cinemas, and museums, Abu Dhabi’s media office said.
Germany’s vaccination confirmation app was introduced on Thursday, nearly half a year after inoculations started there. The app, called CovPass, will present a simple QR code confirming that the owner is fully vaccinated. Starting on Monday, doctors and pharmacies will be able to transcribe the usually handwritten entries from paper vaccine booklets into the digital app.
After accusations of fraud at its rapid virus-testing centers, the Health Ministry in Germany announced tougher licensing rules and more spot checks. Public sector health insurers are being tasked with keeping a close eye on the number of tests claimed and carrying out spot checks if the numbers seem off. The government’s per-test payout will also be significantly reduced, to a maximum of 12.50 euros, or about $15, from €18.
David Hasselhoff called for people to roll up their sleeves for the vaccine in an advertisement for Germany’s inoculation campaign. “I’ve found freedom in vaccination,” the former “Baywatch” star said in the clip, a reference to his 1989 version of the song “Looking for Freedom,” which became a smash success in Germany as the Berlin Wall fell and which he performed atop the Wall on New Year’s Eve that year. German health authorities believe that as much as 75 percent of the population will eventually get vaccinated.

Christopher F. Schuetze contributed reporting.

Credit…Janice Wei/National Park Service, via Associated Press

An overcrowded jail in Hawaii that had avoided Covid-19 outbreaks during the first 15 months of the pandemic has been overwhelmed by the virus — with more than one-third of its inmates infected — just as the state is more fully reopening to tourists.

The outbreak corresponds with a significant rise in Covid-19 cases in Hawaii County, or the Big Island, where the jail is situated: There has been a 141 percent increase in infections during the past two weeks, according to a New York Times database.

The National Guard is helping with testing and security to control the outbreak at the Hawaii Community Correctional Center in Hilo, the Big Island’s largest city, where inmates started fires last week as part of a protest, advocacy groups for inmates said.

Public health officials have warned for months that the nation’s correctional facilities will continue to suffer from large numbers of coronavirus infections until the vast majority of inmates and staff are vaccinated.

And because the average person stays in jail for only about 10 days, the virus has been able to spread rapidly between the community and jails during the course of the pandemic.

The reluctance among inmates and staff in the nation’s prisons and jails to get inoculated has complicated vaccination efforts, including in Hawaii.

At the Hilo jail, there are no precise figures available for vaccinations, but as few as 25 percent of inmates and 50 percent of staff have consented to be vaccinated, Lt. Gov. Josh Green, who is also an emergency room physician, said in an interview. The result, he said, is potential community spread through both inmates and staff.

“If there was a continuous simmering outbreak of Covid in the one place where very few people are getting vaccinated, it can break back into the community,” Mr. Green said.

The jail outbreak has led to some uncertainty about reopening. For much of the pandemic, travelers have been required to quarantine for at least 10 days upon arrival.

But arriving tourists can now skip quarantine by showing proof of a negative coronavirus test taken within 72 hours of their arrival. Beginning next Tuesday, people will no longer have to show negative tests to travel from one of the state’s islands to another. Demand for hotel rooms has increased more than 800 percent, according to state tourism data from April, the latest available.

As of Wednesday morning, 138 inmates and 18 staff have been infected in the Hilo jail, officials said.

There are currently about 340 inmates at the jail — about 120 more than its capacity. Inmates routinely must sleep on floors.

“This is scary because what’s happening — I don’t think it’s just going to be contained to that one place, because it’s going to leak out into the community where the guards live,” said Kat Brady, the coordinator of an advocacy group, the Community Alliance on Prisons.

Dr. Green said the state is considering prohibiting unvaccinated guards from having contact with prisoners in the future.

He said correctional institutions were among the “last pockets of risk” for coronavirus outbreaks, and that the lack of priority in reducing crowding and increasing vaccination rates was shortsighted.

“People are more inclined to spend money on ‘good citizens’ versus those who have lost their way,” he said. “But outbreaks will affect us all.”

— Ann Hinga Klein and Maura Turcotte

Credit…Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

NEW DELHI — India’s coronavirus death toll shot up on Thursday after an audit unearthed thousands of uncounted fatalities in the northern state of Bihar, one of the largest and poorest states in the country.

The audit in Bihar showed that more than 9,000 people had died from Covid-related complications since March 2020, significantly higher than the 5,500 deaths originally reported.

The audit was ordered after a hearing on May 17 in the Bihar High Court in Patna, the state capital, in which a district commissioner reported that a single cremation ground had handled 789 bodies in a 13-day period in May. That number clashed sharply with the seven deaths in the whole of May that Tripurari Sharan, a top state-level official, had reported for that entire district.

The revised figures underline the doubts about the accuracy of the Indian government’s official coronavirus statistics. Even in normal times, only about one in five deaths in India is medically certified, experts say.

Opposition political parties in Bihar have accused the state’s top elected official, Nitish Kumar, and his administration of hiding the true death toll to mask failures to mitigate the deadly second wave that has battered India.

The high court in Bihar has been monitoring the state government’s pandemic response since early May after taking up a petition filed by an activist that complained of mismanagement.

But Bihar’s health minister, Mangal Pandey, told The New York Times that the updated numbers reflected a good-faith effort to uncover families eligible for monetary support from the government.

“The intention is to help everyone, not to hide the real death toll,” Mr. Pandey said. “We will leave no death unaccounted for.”

Elsewhere in India, such as in the western state of Gujarat, observers have reported a wide discrepancy between official coronavirus death numbers and the actual figures. While some states have issued revised numbers, no update comes close to Bihar’s. Still, experts say they believe that India’s total number, which because of the audit in Bihar rose by 6,148 deaths on Thursday to 359,676, is a vast undercount.

Emily Schmall reported from New Delhi, and Sameer Yasir from Srinagar, Kashmir.

Credit…Isadora Kosofsky for The New York Times

Deaths from Covid-19 have dropped 90 percent in the United States since their peak in January, according to provisional federal data, but the virus continues to kill hundreds daily. By late May, there were still nearly 2,500 weekly deaths attributed to Covid-19.

With more than half of the U.S. population having received at least one vaccine dose, experts say that the unvaccinated population is driving the lingering deaths.

After seniors were given priority when the first vaccines were authorized for emergency use in December, the proportion of those dying who were 75 or older started dropping immediately.

Younger populations began to make up higher shares of the deaths compared with their percentages at the peak of the pandemic — a trend that continued when all adults became eligible for the shots. While the number of deaths has dropped across all age groups, about half now occur in people aged 50 to 74, compared with only a third in December.

More than 80 percent of those 65 and older have received at least one vaccine dose, compared with about half of those 25 to 64.

“I still think the narrative, unfortunately, is out there with younger people that they can’t suffer the adverse events related to Covid,” which is not the case, said Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious-diseases expert at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Still, those 50 and older make up the bulk of Covid-19 deaths. Among that cohort, white Americans are driving the shifts in death patterns. At the height of the pandemic, those who were white and aged 75 and older accounted for more than half of all Covid-19 deaths. Now, they account for less than a third.

Middle-age populations of all racial groups are making up a higher proportion of Covid-19 deaths than they did in December.

The extent of the drop in deaths, however, is not uniform, and cumulative vaccination rates among Black and Hispanic populations continue to lag behind those of Asian and white populations, according to demographic data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The data shows that more work is needed to reach and vaccinate “rural populations, ethnic and racial minority populations, homeless populations, people who don’t access medical care,” Dr. Kuppalli said.

Credit…Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

Goldman Sachs wants to know how many of its employees have gotten a Covid-19 shot. The bank sent a memo this week informing employees in the United States that they must report their vaccination status by noon on Thursday.

“Registering your vaccination status allows us to plan for a safer return to the office for all of our people as we continue to abide by local public health measures,” said a section of the memo, which was sent to employees who have not yet reported their status and was obtained by the DealBook newsletter.

Disclosing vaccination status had been optional at the bank. In May, Goldman told employees that they could go maskless in the Manhattan office if they reported their vaccination status.

Now, all Goldman employees in the United States, regardless of whether they choose to wear a mask while in the office, will need to log their status in the bank’s system. They do not need to show proof of vaccination, but will be asked to record the date they received their shots and the maker of the vaccine.

The bank has roughly 20,000 employees based in the firm’s New York headquarters as well as other U.S. cities, including San Francisco and Dallas.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission made clear this month that asking employees for their vaccination status was legal, as long as the data was kept confidential.

Companies are trying to find out how many workers are vaccinated ahead of full office reopenings. They’re doing it by conducting surveys, giving out cash rewards upon proof of vaccination or making reporting compulsory, as with Goldman. That data can inform the need for new incentives to get more people vaccinated or potentially to impose a mandate. (Goldman, for its part, said in the memo it “strongly encourages” vaccination, though the choice “is a personal one.”) The Wall Street firm, which began to bring more workers back to the office this month, has been offering employees paid time off to get the shots.

Credit…Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

A Nevada man accused of stealing more than 500 blank Covid-19 vaccine cards from the Los Angeles vaccination site where he worked was charged on Wednesday with one felony count of grand theft, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office.

The man, Muhammad Rauf Ahmed, 46 of Las Vegas, had been arrested in April, but the charge was delayed as the police and prosecutors sought to determine the value of the cards, which was eventually judged to be “at least $15 apiece if illegally sold.”

Around the country, many bars, restaurants and businesses that operate under limited capacity have loosened restrictions for people who can prove that they have gotten the vaccine, creating an underground market for doctored or fraudulent vaccine cards.

In January, fake vaccine cards were being sold on eBay, Etsy, Facebook and Twitter, ranging in price from $20 to $60. In May, a California bar owner was arrested on charges that he sold fake vaccine cards for $20 a piece.

Mr. Ahmed was a nonclinical contract employee hired to work at the vaccination site at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds, where nearly 4,000 vaccines are administered daily, the La Verne Police Department, in eastern Los Angeles County, said in a statement on Tuesday.

La Verne Detectives recover over 500 blank COVID-19 vaccine cards stolen from Fairplex Mega-POD.

Muhammad Raud Ahmed, 45 of Las Vegas NV, a non-clinical contracted employee of the location has been arrested.#arrest #COVID19 #vaccine pic.twitter.com/HlzJpSONEU

— La Verne Police Dept (@LaVernePD) June 8, 2021

On April 27, the department was contacted after a security guard at the site spotted Mr. Ahmed leaving with a batch of the distinctive cards in his hand, Detective Sgt. Cory Leeper said in an interview on Wednesday.

Eventually, two staff members from the vaccination site confronted Mr. Ahmed at his car, the detective sergeant said. Mr. Ahmed told them that he liked to go to his car on his break and on that day, sought to “pre-fill” the cards with information that went to every recipient in order to get ahead of his workload, the detective sergeant said.

Officials recovered 128 cards from Mr. Ahmed’s vehicle, according to the police, and when questioned further, Mr. Ahmed acknowledged that he may have taken additional cards. The police found 400 blank cards in the hotel room where he was staying. Mr. Ahmed was arrested. Efforts to reach him by telephone on Wednesday were not successful.

“Selling fraudulent and stolen vaccine cards is illegal, immoral and puts the public at risk of exposure to a deadly virus,” George Gascón, the district attorney in Los Angeles, said in a statement on Wednesday.

Credit…Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images

Back in April, Italy, acting on a report by Europe’s drug regulator of a “possible link” between the AstraZeneca vaccine and rare blood clots, recommended not giving the shots to people under 60.

But in the ensuing months, as the country put its inoculation campaign into overdrive, AstraZeneca vaccines became the featured attraction of “open days” or “open nights,” which offered shots to younger people weeks ahead of where they would have fallen in the priority schedule. The events — some featuring D.J.s and group selfies — were praised as a great success. But they also raised concerns that Italy seemed to be promoting the AstraZeneca vaccine to younger people despite the regulator’s recommendations.

On Wednesday, the government muddled matters further by publicly mulling whether to introduce stricter limitations on the use of the AstraZeneca shots that would effectively prohibit such events for younger people in the future.

“I think new indications would be appropriate,” Pierpaolo Sileri, an undersecretary at the Italian Health Ministry, told the Italian news website Fanpage, adding that the government would consider a block on administering the vaccine to people under the age of 30 or 40.

Other countries have also struggled to chart a clear policy on the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Though the regulator, the European Medicines Agency, deemed the vaccine safe, the risk of very rare blood clots has led some nations to adapt their approaches. In Britain, where the vaccine was created, more than 35 million doses have been given, but the country has acknowledged the risk by offering younger people an alternative when possible. France only distributes the shots to people who are 55 and older, Belgium to those who are 41 and older.

Germany stopped using the AstraZeneca shots altogether for a few days, before later recommending that they should not be used in people under 60. Now, like Italy, Germany has made the AstraZeneca vaccine available to anyone over 18, as long as they acknowledge the risk.

On Wednesday, a new study published in the journal Nature Medicine showed that people receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine had a slightly increased risk of a bleeding disorder and possibly of other rare blood problems.

Andrea Costa, another undersecretary at the Italian Health Ministry, said on Italian radio on Wednesday that the country was able to rely on “many other vaccines” and that any further limitation “will not hamper the vaccination campaign.”

But some doctors in Italy said they feared that yet another change in direction could prompt more skepticism toward the AstraZeneca vaccine.

“This poor vaccine,” said Dr. Patrick Franzoni, who spearheads the inoculation campaign in the northern region of Trentino-Alto Adige. “With this Ping-Pong of information, we risk completely boycotting it.”

In the past weeks, Dr. Franzoni said that he had helped organize open nights, complete with D.J.s, during which 22,000 younger people, who would otherwise have had to wait weeks for a shot, received the AstraZeneca vaccine.

“When older people saw they had AstraZeneca on their slot they did not book the vaccine,” Dr. Franzoni said, “so we did these open nights” to use up the supply.

“And we had a great response,” he added.

Other Italian regions introduced similar initiatives. In Lazio, which includes Rome, about 200,000 people of all ages got their AstraZeneca shot during open days. And Liguria, in the northwest, offered more than 40,000 doses at similar events.

But when reports spread about an 18-year-old girl who was hospitalized with a cerebral thrombosis after attending an open day in Liguria, many canceled their appointments.

Some doctors in Italy have urged the government to stop distributing the AstraZeneca vaccine to younger people. “With a low circulation of the virus, the risks of AstraZeneca can outweigh the benefits in people below the age of 30,” Nino Cartabellotta, a prominent public health researcher, tweeted.

The Italian government is now discussing possible new and more restrictive recommendations, a spokesman for the Health Ministry said.

Christopher F. Schuetze, Monika Pronczuk and Constant Méheut contributed reporting.

Tags Covid19, latest, Live, News, Updates

Business

Ransomware Disrupts Meat Vegetation in Newest Assault on Crucial U.S. Enterprise

Post author By
Post date June 2, 2021

A cyberattack on the world’s largest meat processor forced the closure of nine beef factories in the United States and interrupted production in poultry and pork factories, according to union officials on Tuesday. The attack could shake the country’s meat markets and raise new questions about the vulnerability of critical American companies.

JBS said most of its plants would reopen on Wednesday. But even a one-day disruption to JBS could “significantly affect” wholesale beef prices, according to analysts for the Daily Livestock Report.

The attack at JBS was a ransomware attack, the White House said – the second recent attack of its kind to freeze a critical US business. Last month, a ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline, which carries gas to nearly half of the east coast, sparked gas and kerosene bottlenecks and panic buying.

JBS, which is based in Brazil and accounts for one-fifth of the US daily cattle harvest, said in a statement late Tuesday that it has made “significant strides in solving the cyberattack.”

“Our systems are coming back online and we are not sparing resources to combat this threat,” said Andre Nogueira, CEO of JBS USA, in the statement.

The Department of Agriculture announced Tuesday that it is working with other producers to minimize bottlenecks.

All nine JBS beef factories in the United States closed on Tuesday, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents workers at JBS beef and pork factories. The company’s poultry and pork factories in the US posted on Facebook that they had canceled shifts scheduled for Monday or Tuesday or changed production, some citing “IT problems”.

In addition to the company’s U.S. plants, the shutdowns affected 2,500 workers at a beef factory in Brooks, Alberta, according to Scott Payne, a spokesman for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401 in Canada. “All shifts were canceled yesterday,” he said on Tuesday. “The morning shift was canceled today. But the afternoon shift has been postponed to today. “

When the plants went online, at least one beef factory delayed the start of production on Wednesday and another changed one of its shifts, according to the factories.

With restaurants and retail customers starting to buy beef in the summer, the wholesale market was “extremely tight,” the analysts for the Daily Livestock Report wrote in a report released on Tuesday. They discovered that a small restaurant in southern Utah had started charging an additional $ 4 for dishes that included carne asada.

“Retailers and beef processors are coming back from a long weekend and need to catch up on orders and make sure the meat crate is full,” the analysts wrote. “If you suddenly get a call that the product may not be delivered tomorrow or this week, it will create very big challenges when it comes to keeping the equipment up and running and keeping the retail case in stock.”

In business today

Updated

June 1, 2021, 12:59 p.m. ET

A prolonged hiatus, the analysts warned, “could add gasoline to an already large flame”.

JBS said it was the target of an “organized cybersecurity attack” that affected systems in North America and Australia, that its backup servers were unaffected, and that it did not expect customer, supplier or employee information to be leaked.

Karine Jean-Pierre, a White House deputy press secretary, told reporters at Air Force One Tuesday that JBS had told the Biden government that it was a ransomware attack and that the ransom was from “a criminal organization based in Russia “came.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the hack, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency was also involved, Ms. Jean-Pierre said.

“The White House is working directly with the Russian government on this matter, sending the message that responsible states do not harbor ransomware criminals,” she said.

In two weeks’ time, President Biden is due to meet Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in Geneva for a summit that puts a multitude of cyberattacks, many of which originate from Russia, at the top of the American agenda.

A recent security breach used SolarWinds software to infiltrate more than 250 federal agencies and companies. It was considered the worst attack because it raised the question of whether the United States could trust its software supply chain. SolarWinds, according to the United States, is the work of the SVR, one of the leading Russian intelligence agencies.

Last week, the SVR was blamed for a breach that hijacked the company that distributes emails on behalf of the US Agency for International Development and sent links containing malware to organizations criticizing Putin.

But ransomware attacks have become more urgent after hackers hit the Colonial Pipeline last month. The pipeline operator shut down its systems after the attack, which led to price rises, panic buying and a shortage of jet fuel. The company later admitted it paid $ 4.4 million to restore its data.

The attack on the Colonial Pipeline was the work of a ransomware operator called DarkSide, which Biden said was based in Russia.

The perpetrator behind the JBS attack has not been publicly identified. Cybersecurity specialists said Tuesday blogs and online channels frequented by large ransomware groups have gone silent – most likely because the group in charge was waiting to see if JBS would pay.

The US government does not know how to deal with the attacks, as many of the responsible groups operate from Russia, where they largely enjoy a safe haven. Russia has refused to extradite its hackers and frequently attacks them for sensitive intelligence operations.

Mr Biden said after the attack on the Colonial Pipeline that Russia was partly responsible, although there was no evidence that the government was involved.

“We were in direct communication with Moscow to get responsible countries to take decisive action against these ransomware networks,” said Biden. “We will also take action to disrupt their operability.”

He did not rule out the possibility of the US launching a cyber attack against the criminals responsible for the pipeline attack. Following Mr Biden’s remarks, DarkSide criminals said they would close, despite cybersecurity experts warning that they would likely be renamed and reappear.

David E. Sanger and William P. Davis contributed to the coverage.

Tags Attack, business, critical, Disrupts, latest, meat, plants, Ransomware

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