Tag: Storm

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Ida now a tropical storm as greater than 1 million Louisiana utility clients are left with out energy

Ida now a tropical storm as more than 1 million Louisiana utility customers are left without power

Hurricane Ida hit land in Louisiana on Sunday as a Category 4 storm at wind speeds of 250 mph, one of the strongest storms to hit the region since Hurricane Katrina, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

The Karnofsky Shop suffers severe damage after Hurricane Ida hit New Orleans with strong winds in Louisiana on August 30, 2021.

Devika Krishna Kumar | Reuters

Ida has since been downgraded to a tropical storm and is expected to move further inland across southeast Louisiana and southwest Mississippi this morning, the National Hurricane Center said. The maximum sustained winds have decreased to almost 60 mph (95 km / h) with higher gusts.

Late Sunday, President Joe Biden approved a major disaster statement for Louisiana, freeing up federal funds for recovery efforts.

New Orleans Police Detective Alexander Reiter looks at the rubble of a building that collapsed during Hurricane Ida in New Orleans on Monday, August 30, 2021.

Gerald Herbert | AP

The storm is expected to subside over the next day or so, and the NHC said Ida is expected to turn into a tropical depression by tonight. The NHC warned that a life-threatening storm surge is expected in Grand Isle, Louisiana, up to the Alabama-Florida border, including Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Maurepas and metropolitan New Orleans.

The NHC said winds are likely to damage trees and cause power outages as Ida continues inland across southeast Louisiana. Heavy rains are expected in southeast Louisiana, the Mississippi coast and southwest Alabama through Monday and could trigger “significant to life-threatening floods and urban floods.”

According to PowerOutage.us, more than 1 million utility customers in Louisiana were without power as of early Monday. On Sunday evening, New Orleans said the entire city had lost power after “catastrophic transmission damage”.

Ida landed on the anniversary of Katrina, the dangerous Category 3 storm that devastated Louisiana and Mississippi 16 years ago, killing more than 1,800 people and causing $ 125 billion in damage.

Ida’s strength and path will be a major test of flood control from New Orleans to Katrina, including levees, flood walls, and gates built to protect against storms. Katrina had broken levees and caused catastrophic flooding in New Orleans.

Ida has also raised concerns about the city’s hospitals, which are already overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients and have little space for evacuated patients. In Galliano, Louisiana, as the storm raged ashore, the battle for patient care was exacerbated after part of the roof of the Lady of the Sea General Hospital was demolished.

Ida intensified so quickly that officers did not have time to order mandatory evacuations. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell ordered a mandatory evacuation for a small portion of the city outside the levee system, but said there was no time to enact one for the entire city.

Emergency shelters in Louisiana are operating at reduced capacity due to the pandemic, although state officials are working to secure hotel rooms for evacuees.

All Sunday flights were also canceled due to the approaching storm, New Orleans Airport announced on Saturday.

Water seeps into a beach house when Hurricane Ida hits land in Grand Isle, Louisiana, United States on August 29, 2021 in this still image from a social media video. Christie Angelette on REUTERS THIS PICTURE WAS SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT

Christie Angelette | Christie Angelette on REUTERS

President Joe Biden has declared a state of emergency in Louisiana and Mississippi, a move that empowers the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate all disaster relief efforts.

“The storm is a life-threatening storm,” said the president on Sunday at a briefing at FEMA headquarters. “The devastation is likely to be immense. Everyone should listen to instructions from local and state officials.”

Cars drive through flood waters along Route 90 as outer bands of Hurricane Ida arrive in Gulfport, Mississippi on Sunday, August 29, 2021.

Steve Helber | AP

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards called for a presidential statement on Sunday afternoon for a major disaster for Biden after the storm hit the state’s coastline.

“Hurricane Ida is one of the strongest storms to have ever hit Louisiana,” Edwards said in a statement. “Our goal is to help our local authorities and the citizens of the state as quickly as possible.

A resident picks up sandbags home from a city-operated sandbag distribution point on Dryades YMCA along Oretha Castle Haley Blvd., Friday, Aug. 27, 2021 in New Orleans as residents prepare for Hurricane Ida.

Max Becherer | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans attorney via AP

Harmful winds will spread to southwest Mississippi on Sunday night and early Monday, likely causing widespread tree damage and power outages, as well as heavy rains and expected across the central Gulf Coast, the Hurricane Center said.

As the storm moves inland, the Hurricane Center is forecasting significant flooding in parts of the lower Mississippi, Tennessee Valley, upper Ohio Valley, central Appalachian Mountains and the mid-Atlantic by Wednesday, according to the Hurricane Center.

Ida is the first major storm to hit the Gulf Coast during the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season. The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was the most active on record, with 30 named storms including 13 hurricanes.

Scientists warn of increasingly dangerous hurricane seasons as climate change fuels more frequent and catastrophic storms. NOAA expects between 15 and 21 named storms, including seven to ten hurricanes, in the 2021 season.

This story evolves. Please check again for updates.

– CNBC’s Melodie Warner and Christine Wang contributed to this report.

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Entertainment

Storm Reid Dances to Normani’s “Wild Aspect” | Video

Storm Reid Dances to Normani's "Wild Side" | Video

We’re going to need a collaboration between Storm Reid and Normani ASAP. On July 21, the Euphoria actress posted an Instagram video of herself dancing to Normani’s new “Wild Side” track. Reid’s energy (and her animal print outfit) was flawless, despite throwing together the at-home video in a matter of minutes before she started work. Clearly, she can keep up with the best of the best, so let’s get her on a stage with Normani right away.

Even Reid’s makeup artist, Joanna Skim, was amazed to see what she pulled off in such a short time. “Ma’am. You stepped away for three minutes and shot a whole music video. How,” Skim commented on Reid’s video. Hey, when inspiration strikes, you have to go for it, especially if you’re “shooting [your] shot” like Reid was. Here’s to hoping this duo connects soon, and we finally get to see them work together as Normani rolls out new music.

Categories
World News

Ana Turns into First Named Storm of Atlantic Hurricane Season

Ana Becomes First Named Storm of Atlantic Hurricane Season

The Atlantic recorded its first storm of hurricane season on Saturday after a sub-tropical storm developed northeast of Bermuda, the National Hurricane Center said.

Storm Ana developed long before June 1, when hurricane season begins. It was the seventh year in a row that a named storm developed in the Atlantic prior to the official start of the season.

By early Saturday the storm had winds of up to 45 mph and was moving slowly west at 3 mph. For subtropical storm Ana to become a hurricane, it would have to reach wind speeds of up to 74 miles per hour, which is not expected to happen, the Hurricane Center said.

Jack Beven, a senior hurricane specialist at the center, said in a forecast update that the strength of subtropical storm Ana is unlikely to change during the daytime on Saturday and that it would weaken until Saturday evening and Sunday.

Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman and meteorologist at Miami’s Hurricane Center, said subtropical storms can still have significant effects.

“They can do just as much damage and do just as much,” he said. “That probably won’t happen with this one.”

The storm was expected to drift further northeast into the Atlantic before resolving in a few days. It is not expected to reach land, the Hurricane Center said.

A storm is only named after it has reached wind speeds of at least 39 miles per hour. Although the storm formed on Saturday had wind speeds similar to a tropical storm, it was considered subtropical because of its location and wind flow, Beven said in an update.

However, the subtropical storm Ana was the first in what is expected to be a busy hurricane season.

The Climate Prediction Center said the Atlantic could have 13 to 20 named storms this year, of which six to 10 could become hurricanes. Three to five could become large hurricanes with winds in excess of 200 km / h – enough to damage well-built homes, uproot trees, and make electricity and water inaccessible for days to weeks.

“While NOAA scientists don’t expect this season to be as busy as last year, it only takes one storm to destroy a community,” said Ben Friedman, acting administrator of NOAA, the country’s climate science agency, this week.

Last year, a record 30 storms developed in the Atlantic, of which 13 became hurricanes, according to NOAA, including six that intensified into larger hurricanes, according to NOAA.

It was the highest number of registered storms, surpassing the 28 in 2005, and became the second highest number of registered hurricanes, the agency said. Last September, five active storm systems moved simultaneously across the Atlantic.

There were so many storms in the Atlantic last year that NOAA ran out of a list of 21 names for the season and had to name storms by Greek letters for the second time in the agency’s history.

The next named storm to develop in the Atlantic this year will be Bill, followed by Claudette.

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Business

‘A Good Constructive Storm’: Bonkers {Dollars} for Large Tech

‘A Perfect Positive Storm’: Bonkers Dollars for Big Tech

In the great recession more than a decade ago, big tech companies like everyone else have reached a difficult point. Now they have become the undisputed winners of the pandemic economy.

The combined annual sales of Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft and Facebook are around $ 1.2 trillion, more than 25 percent higher than what they saw at the start of the pandemic in 2020, according to earnings reported this week was recorded. In Less Than A Week These five giants make more sales than McDonald’s in a year.

The U.S. economy is returning from 2020 when it contracted for the first time since the financial crisis. But for the tech giants, the pandemic hit was hardly a slip-up. It’s a fantastic time to be a tech titan – as long as you watch the screaming politicians, the daily headlines about killing free speech or tax evasion, the problems faced by competitors and workers, and too many to count , ignoring legal investigations and lawsuits.

America’s tech superpowers don’t deserve bonkers despite the deadly coronavirus and its impact on the global economy. They have gotten even stronger because of the pandemic. It’s both logical and slightly insane.

The hugely successful last year also raises awkward questions for tech company bosses, the public, and elected officials who are already angry with the industry: Is what’s good for big tech good for America? Or do the tech superstars win while the rest of us lose?

Americans have more cash in their pockets thanks to government stimulus measures and pandemic savings, and tech giants are getting a significant stake. Their combined sales are approximately 5 percent of the United States’ gross domestic product.

Big Tech’s big money in the pandemic has an understandable root cause: we needed his services.

People loved Facebook’s apps for keeping in touch and talking, and companies wanted to pay Facebook and Google, which owns Alphabet, to find customers stuck at home. People preferred to buy diapers and lounge chairs on Amazon rather than risking their health in stores. Companies loaded software from Microsoft when their companies and employees went virtual. Apple’s laptops and iPads are becoming lifelines for office workers and school children.

Before the pandemic, America’s tech superpowers had an impact on how we communicated, worked, entertained, and shopped. Now they are practically inevitable. Investors bought big tech stocks to bet that these companies would be nearly invincible.

“They’ve been on their way up and for nearly a decade and the pandemic has been one of a kind,” said Thomas Philippon, professor of finance at New York University. “It was a perfect positive storm for them.”

Times were not so good for these companies in the final economic phase. During the 2007-2009 downturn, Microsoft sales declined slightly, and its share price fell 60 percent from Fall 2008 to March 2009, a low point for US stocks. Google and Amazon have each lost up to two-thirds of their market value.

Updated

May 2, 2021, 10:39 a.m. ET

A sign of how different this time around: Amazon’s sales are growing much faster in 2021 than in 2009, when the company was a fifteenth of its current size. Revenue in the first quarter rose 44 percent year over year, and Amazon’s pre-tax profit – which has never been more robust – more than doubled to $ 8.9 billion. Businesses are addicted to Amazon’s cloud computing services, which have seen sales grow 32 percent and customers can’t live without Amazon’s delivery. Investors love Amazon too. The company’s market value has nearly doubled to $ 1.8 trillion since early 2020.

For the other tech giants, it’s like their brief dive from a pandemic never happened. Advertising sales usually rise and fall with the economy. However, as other types of ad spend shrank as the U.S. economy contracted last year, ad sales for Google and Facebook rose. The growth was even better for them in the first three months of this year.

A year ago, analysts feared Apple could be crippled by the pandemic in China, which is the center of the company’s manufacturing activities and major consumer market. The fears did not last long. In the first three months of 2021, Apple’s iPhone sales grew the fastest since 2012. Sales in mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong nearly doubled year over year.

The tech giants aren’t the only companies gathering in dark times. America’s big banks were in tears too. So do some of the younger tech companies like Snap and Zoom, makers of the video conferencing app preferred by the pandemic. The crisis forced all types of businesses to go digital quickly in order to be successful. Restaurants invested in online sales and delivery, and doctors were deeply involved in telemedicine.

However, the dictionary doesn’t have enough superlatives to describe what’s happening to the top five technology companies. It’s all a bit awkward, really. It’s rocket fuel for critics, including some regulators and lawmakers in Europe and the United States, who say the tech giants are crowding out newcomers and leaving everyone worse off.

Big tech companies face fierce competition that leads to better products and lower prices, but their bank statements might suggest otherwise. Facebook’s profit margins are now higher than they were before the pandemic.

Part of their success can be explained by the peculiarities of the pandemic economy. Some people and sectors are doing great while other families are lining up at food banks and companies like airlines begging for cash. In contrast to the stock market problems during the Great Recession, the stock indices in the USA have reached new highs.

The tech superstars also took advantage of this moment. Alphabet and Facebook have used the pandemic to limit less important areas such as advertising costs and travel and entertainment budgets. And the tech giants have generally increased spending in areas that expand their benefits.

Alphabet is now spending more on large-scale projects like building computer complexes than Exxon Mobil is spending on digging oil and gas. Amazon’s workforce has grown by more than 470,000 people since late 2019. This deepens the moat that separates the tech superstars from everyone else.

Big tech is emerging from the pandemic, lean, mean and ready for a US economy expected to come back to life in 2021. In the meantime, there are still long lines at food banks. Some American workers who lost their jobs last year may never get them back. Housing lawyers fear millions of people will be evicted from their homes. And being big tech is an invitation for everyone to hate you – but you have huge piles of money.

Categories
Business

How China’s Outrage Machine Kicked Up a Storm Over H&M

How China’s Outrage Machine Kicked Up a Storm Over H&M

When Swedish fast fashion giant H&M announced in September that it was ending its relationship with a Chinese supplier accused of forced labor, some Chinese social media accounts dedicated to the textile industry took note. But on the whole the moment passed without fanfare.

Six months later, Beijing’s online outrage machine went into action. This time his anger was ruthless.

The Communist Party’s youth wing condemned H&M on social media and posted an archive photo of slaves at a Mississippi cotton plantation. Official news outlets piled up with their own outraged memes and hashtags. Patriotic web users carried the message across far and wide corners of the Chinese Internet.

In a matter of hours, a tsunami of nationalist anger hit H&M, Nike, Uniqlo and other international apparel brands and became the latest outbreak of Chinese politics in the western region of Xinjiang, a major cotton producer.

The crisis that apparel brands are now facing is well known to many overseas companies in China. The Communist Party has been using the country’s vast consumer market for years to force international corporations to march in line with their political sensibilities, or at least not to openly deny them.

However, the latest episode has shown that the Chinese government is increasingly able to unleash storms of patriotic anger to punish companies that violate this pact.

In the case of H&M, the timing of the uproar seemed to be dictated not by anything the retailer had done, but by sanctions imposed on Chinese officials last week by the United States, the European Union, the UK and Canada related to Xinjiang were imposed. China has taken hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in the region to indoctrination camps and harshly pushed them into jobs at factories and other employers.

“The part of the hate festival is not subtle. It’s the same logic they’ve followed for decades, ”said Xiao Qiang, a researcher at the University of California’s School of Information at Berkeley and founder of the China Digital Times, a website that tracks Chinese internet controls. But “their ability to control it is getting better,” he said.

“They know how to make these pro-government, nationalist users shine,” Xiao continued. “You will be very good at it. You know exactly what to do. “

On Monday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian rejected the idea that Beijing had led the boycott campaign against H&M and the other brands.

“These foreign companies refuse to use Xinjiang cotton just because of lies,” Zhao said at a press conference. “Of course, this will spark the resentment and anger of the Chinese people. Does the government even have to encourage and guide this? “

After the Communist Youth League sparked outrage on Wednesday, other government-backed groups and state news outlets lit the flames.

They posted memes suggesting new meanings after the letters H and M: mian hua (cotton), huang miu (ridiculous), mo hei (smears). Official Xinhua News Agency released an illustration of the Better Cotton Initiative, a group raising concerns about forced labor in Xinjiang, as a blindfolded puppet controlled by two hands patterned like an American flag.

The enthusiasm quickly caught the attention of Beijing’s highest levels. A State Department spokeswoman held up a photo of slaves in American cotton fields during a press conference Thursday.

The messages were reinforced by people with a large fan base but largely apolitical presence on social media.

Squirrel Video, a Weibo account devoted to silly videos, shared the Communist Youth League’s original post on H&M with its 10 million followers. A gadget blogger in Chengdu with 1.4 million followers shared a clip in which a worker removes an H&M sign from a mall. A user in Beijing who writes about TV stars highlighted entertainers who had terminated their contracts with Adidas and other target brands.

“Today’s China cannot bully everyone!” He wrote to his nearly seven million followers. “We don’t ask for trouble, but we are not afraid of trouble either.”

A fashion influencer named Wei Ya hosted a live video event on Friday trading products made from Xinjiang cotton. In her Weibo post announcing the event, she made sure to tag the Communist Youth League.

By Monday, news sites circulated a rap video combining the cotton issue with some popular recent lines of attack on Western powers: “How can a country where 500,000 have died of Covid-19 claim the hill?”

A Weibo user posted a lush animated video that he’d been working on all night. It shows men with white hoods pointing guns at black cotton pickers and ending with a lynching.

“These are your foolish deeds; we would never, ”reads a caption.

Less than two hours after the user shared the video, it was republished by Global Times, a party-controlled newspaper known for its nationalist tone.

Many web users who speak out during such campaigns are motivated by genuine patriotism, even if the Chinese government pays some people to post comments on party lines. Others, like the traffic-hungry blog accounts ridiculed as “marketing accounts” in China, are likely to be more pragmatic. You just want the clicks.

In these moments of mass glow, it can be difficult to tell where official propaganda ends and the search for opportunistic gains begins.

“I think the line between the two is becoming increasingly blurred,” said Chenchen Zhang, assistant professor of politics at Queen’s University in Belfast who studies Chinese Internet discourse.

“Nationalist issues are selling; They bring a lot of traffic, ”said Professor Zhang. “Official accounts and marketing accounts come together and everyone participates in this ‘market nationalism’.”

Chinese officials are making sure the anger doesn’t get out of hand. According to tests by the China Digital Times, Internet platforms have been carefully monitoring search results and comments on Xinjiang and H&M since last week.

An article in the Global Times urged readers “to be firm in criticizing those like H&M who intentionally provoke, but at the same time remain rational and beware of pretend patriots joining the crowd to incite hatred.” “.

The Communist Youth League has been at the forefront of optimizing party messages for viral engagement. Its influence is growing as more voices in society seek ways to show loyalty to Beijing, said Fang Kecheng, assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Hong Kong University of China.

“They have more and more fans,” said Professor Fang. “And whether it’s other government departments, marketing accounts, or those nationalist influencers, they all pay closer attention to their positions and follow immediately.”

The H&M riot had the presumably unintended effect that more Chinese internet users discussed the situation in Xinjiang. For many years, people generally avoided the topic, knowing that comments dealing with the harsh aspects of Chinese rule could get them into trouble. In order to avoid detection by censors, many Internet users did not designate the region with its Chinese name, but with the Roman letter “xj”.

But in the past few days, some have found out firsthand why it is still worth being careful when talking about Xinjiang.

A beauty blogger told her nearly 100,000 Weibo followers that she was contacted by a woman who said she was in Xinjiang. The nameless woman said that her father and other relatives were imprisoned and that the foreign news about mass internment was all true.

Within a few hours, the blogger apologized for the “bad effects” her post had made.

“Support not only Xinjiang cotton, but also Xinjiang people!” Another Weibo user wrote. “Support Xinjiang people who walk the streets without having their phones and IDs checked.”

The post later disappeared. The author declined to comment, citing concerns about its safety. Weibo did not respond to a request for comment.

Lin Qiqing contributed to the research.

Categories
Business

ERCOT Managers Resign After Widespread Storm Outages

ERCOT Managers Resign After Widespread Storm Outages

Five officials will step down from the board of directors that oversee Texas’s electricity grid after it has been pushed to the brink of collapse by the recent winter storm. Some of the coldest temperatures the state has seen in generations leave millions of people without electricity.

The Texas Electric Reliability Council, which regulates the flow of electricity to more than 26 million people in the state, was blamed for the widespread outages, prompting the governor, lawmakers, and federal officials to investigate, particularly into system failures, in preparation for cold Weather.

The five board members who plan to resign at a meeting scheduled for Wednesday morning were all from outside Texas, a point of contention for critics who questioned the wisdom of outsiders who play such an influential role in the state’s infrastructure.

In a statement filed Tuesday with the Public Utility Commission, four board members said they would resign “to give leaders a free hand in future directions and to remove distractions.” In a footnote, the filing added that a fifth member also resigned.

The departing are Sally Talberg, the chairperson and former state utility who lives in Michigan. Peter Cramton, vice chairman and professor of economics at the University of Cologne and the University of Maryland; Terry Bulger, a retired bank clerk who lives in Illinois; Raymond Hepper, a former officer with the agency that oversees the New England power grid; and Vanessa Anesetti-Parra, who oversees regulatory affairs for a company headquartered in Canada. Another person who should fill a vacant seat, Craig S. Ivey, has retired from the 16-member board.

The board became a target of blame and control after last week’s winter storm precariously brought the state’s power grid close to a total blackout that could have taken months to recover. To prevent this from happening at the last minute, the council known as ERCOT ordered rolling outages that plunged much of the state into darkness and skyrocketed electricity prices. Some customers had bills well over $ 10,000.

The weather crippled the system when power plants were taken out of service and pumps used to produce the natural gas needed for refueling were frozen over.

State officials said ERCOT had given assurances that the energy infrastructure was prepared for winter conditions.

“But those assurances turned out to be devastatingly false,” said Governor Greg Abbott in a statement, adding, “When the Texans needed power urgently, ERCOT didn’t do its job and the Texans shivered in their homes with no power.”

When the state was struck by the crisis, the realization that some board members lived outside the state became a source of outrage, so ERCOT initially removed information about them from its website. Officials said the members had been harassed and threatened.

A state lawmaker said it is considering proposing laws that would prevent non-Texas residents from serving on the board.

“If you don’t live here, if you don’t see what we are experiencing, and you are still tasked with making decisions on our behalf, it is unacceptable,” said Jeff Leach, a state official whose district includes part of the suburbs from Dallas said in a recent interview.

The resignations come as lawmakers prepare to hold hearings on the blackouts on Thursday. The Harris County attorney, whose jurisdiction includes Houston, said Tuesday that he was opening a civil investigation into decisions made by ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission, among others, and the Travis County district attorney, which also includes Austin said he had opened a criminal investigation.

In a statement, ERCOT said: “We look forward to working with Texan legislation and thank the outgoing board members for their services.”

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said late Monday that its enforcement department would be reviewing natural gas and electricity wholesale activities in Texas, presumably to determine if there was any illegal anti-competitive or price manipulation.

The grid outages caused wholesale electricity prices to rise from $ 1,200 per megawatt hour to about $ 9,000.

Energy analysts said the outage affected not only oversight from ERCOT, but also power utilities across the state who hadn’t prepared their systems for harsh weather conditions.

“Heads had to roll, but I don’t think that’s going to change,” said Michael E. Webber, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. “It’s easy to blame the non-government board members of the network operator, rather than the government gas producers and power plant owners.”

These operators failed to spend the money on weathering their instruments, pipelines and electrical wiring to withstand cold weather because they were not required to do so by government regulations.

Ivan Penn and Clifford Krauss contributed to the coverage.

Categories
Health

Covid vaccine shipments delayed by storm to reach by midweek: White Home advisor

Covid vaccine shipments delayed by storm to arrive by midweek: White House advisor

Boxes containing the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are being prepared for shipment on December 13, 2020 at the Pfizer Global Supply Kalamazoo manufacturing facility in Portage, Michigan.

Morry Gash | Getty Images

All deliveries of Covid-19 vaccine doses delayed by the historic winter storm last week are expected to be delivered mid-week, Andy Slavitt, Senior White House Advisor for Covid-19 Response, said Monday.

Slavitt said Friday that shipments of about 6 million cans, equivalent to shipments worth about three days, were delayed by the storm.

“I reported on Friday that we would make up for the deliveries by the end of this week,” said Slavitt on Monday at the Covid-19 White House press conference. “We now assume that any remaining cans will be delivered by the middle of the week.”

He added that the federal government plans to ditch about 7 million vaccine doses on Monday, a combination of shots left behind from last week and some that should run out this week. He said the government’s ability to catch up quickly on the storm was thanks to members of the military and McKesson staff who the government hired to assist with distribution and logistics in getting the vaccine up and running.

“Seventy McKesson employees volunteered to work Saturday night and Sunday morning at 1am to prepare shipments for an 11am transit deadline,” he said, adding that UPS employees are also flexible on delayed deliveries could react.

Slavitt added that although the White House expected to catch up on the doses dispensed quickly, “it will take some time” for vaccination centers to catch up on vaccinations.

“We encourage vaccination centers to follow the same example of those who work longer hours to catch up on supplies by allowing more appointments to vaccinate the anxious public as soon as possible,” he said. Slavitt added that vaccination centers are still closed in some parts of the country that were particularly hard hit by the storm.

The pace of vaccination in Texas, rocked by the storm that left millions in the state without electricity, suffered badly. Slavitt said the 7-day average of daily doses received fell 31% over the past week.

Categories
Entertainment

Meghan and Harry Help Girls’s Shelter Broken Texas Storm

LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 15: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend the WellChild Awards at the Royal Lancaster Hotel on October 15, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Mark Cuthbert / UK Press via Getty Images)

It was announced just last week that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are officially stepping down from their royal duties for good, but that doesn’t mean they are stepping back from the causes that mean most to them. On February 21, Harry and Meghan surprised Genesis Women’s Shelter & Support in Dallas, TX, assisting them with repairs caused by the winter storm that devastated the state.

“Today news of our damage reached Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex!” Genesis Women’s Shelter & Support – an organization dedicated to providing protection, safety, and advice to women and children who have experienced domestic violence – wrote on their Twitter page. “Through your non-profit organization [Archewell Foundation]They support us by replacing the roof of our temporary shelter and helping us meet our immediate needs. ”

Although Meghan and Harry are forced to give up various royal patrons and honorary appointments by stepping down as high-ranking working members of the royal family, they can retain their private patronages, including charities and projects like Smart Works, Mayhew, The Invictus Games, and of course their Archewell Foundation . This under-the-radar couple’s recent help shows that the Duke and Duchess will always be people of action, regardless of royal patronage.

Genesis has set up an Amazon wish list to help with donations.

Today the news of our damage reached Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex! Through their non-profit organization, they support us by replacing the roof of our transitional shelter and helping us meet our immediate needs. THANK YOU, ARCHEWELL FOUNDATION! pic.twitter.com/rFtxzvtFRo

– Genesis Women’s Shelter & Support (@GenesisShelter) February 22, 2021

Categories
Health

Biden Covid group briefs press as winter storm delays vaccine deliveries

I took 'no pleasure' in contradicting Trump on Covid

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President Joe Biden’s Covid-19 Response Team plans to hold a press conference on Friday while a massive winter storm has closed vaccine dispensaries and delayed shipments to the United States

The Chief Medical Officer of the White House, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warned Thursday that the power outages and winter storm in Texas are a “significant” problem for Covid-19 vaccine distribution this week. The Biden government has announced a number of moves in recent weeks to increase vaccine intake, such as shipping cans directly to retail pharmacies and community health centers.

“We just have to make up for it as soon as the weather subsides a bit, the ice melts and we can get the trucks and the people out,” said Fauci during an interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell.

FedEx and UPS package centers in the Midwest were also hit by the storm, delaying vaccine shipments across the country.

The delay comes because the country’s leading health authorities, including Fauci and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, calling on Americans to contain the spread of the virus so that the US can give vaccines before highly contagious variants make the pandemic worse.

Read CNBC’s live updates for the latest news on the Covid-19 outbreak.

– CNBC’s Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.

Categories
Health

Historic winter storm delays Covid vaccine shipments throughout the U.S.

Historic winter storm delays Covid vaccine shipments across the U.S.

Snow plow carts clear a street in New York, United States on Thursday, December 17, 2020.

Angus Mordant | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Deliveries of Covid-19 vaccine doses were delayed in several states this week due to historic winter storms across the country, state and federal officials said.

Almost all of the cans that were supposed to arrive in New York state this past weekend have been delayed, Governor Andrew Cuomo said late Thursday.

“Any dose that should have been shipped on Monday was withheld and limited numbers of Pfizer vaccines left shipping facilities on Tuesday and Wednesday,” Cuomo said, adding that the state is working with vendors to “increase the number reduce the deadlines that are required. ” be moved. “

It’s not just New York. Samantha Bequer, a spokeswoman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said more than 200,000 cans expected this week had not arrived.

“The state is still expecting full vaccine allocation by week 10,” Bequer said in a statement. “Yesterday, the state was notified that federal deliveries of Moderna vaccines are still being delayed due to severe weather. At this point in time, the state has not been given a new timetable for when expected delayed deliveries will occur.”

Bequer said the state is working with vendors advising them to postpone, but not cancel, vaccine appointments hit by the setbacks.

In Colorado, state officials said earlier this week that a shipment of more than 130,000 cans was delayed due to the storm. They said the storm hit a vaccine distribution center in Tennessee, which has pushed back shipments to several states.

The North Carolina Department of Health said Thursday it had been informed by the federal government of ongoing delays in some deliveries and deliveries this week due to severe weather.

The Virginia Department of Health said Thursday that the expected delivery of more than 106,000 shots will likely be delayed “due to distribution channels in the Midwest and elsewhere that are currently closed”.

Andy Slavitt, the White House’s senior advisor on Covid Response, confirmed Friday that there is now about 6 million doses backlog affecting all 50 states. “Many states” were able to make up for the missed deliveries with existing inventory, he said at a Covid-19 briefing in the White House.

Health officials in California, Louisiana, and Georgia have also confirmed delays in their shipments.

The Georgian Ministry of Health announced earlier this week that Pfizer and Moderna were holding shipments due to the weather, which “severely affected shipments of COVID-19 vaccines to Georgia”.

White House officials have recognized the setbacks. The chief physician Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Thursday that the storm is creating a significant problem for vaccine distribution.

“Well, obviously it’s a problem. It slowed down and stalled in some places,” Fauci told MSNBC. “We just have to make up for it as soon as the weather subsides a bit, the ice melts and we can get the trucks and the people out.”

Slavitt told CNN Thursday evening that officials “will have to work double next week, provided the weather improves”. However, he added that “there has not been a single vaccine that is spoiled”.

“We will keep these vaccines safe and sound, then give them to people and catch up as soon as the weather allows,” he said.