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Health

Expedia CEO urges Covid vaccine for all however says it will not be required for workers

Expedia CEO urges Covid vaccine for all but says it won't be required for employees

Expedia is holding back on a company-wide Covid vaccine mandate even as other large companies begin implementing them, CEO Peter Kern told CNBC on Friday.

“We’re trying to find solutions that are most widely used across our entire workforce, but there are no easy answers. … We all have to learn to live with Covid,” Kern said on Squawk Box. . “

“If we were all vaccinated in the US, we wouldn’t talk a lot about the Delta variant or anything else. But the world is a big place. We won’t vaccinate 8 billion people overnight,” said Kern of the US Census Bureau nearly 7.8 billion, and growing.

The online travel platform CEO’s comments came when United Airlines announced on Friday morning that its 67,000 US employees would have to get vaccinated or risk being fired by October 25th – a first among major US airlines and a move that will likely put pressure on its competitors. Other airlines, including Delta Air Lines, are still choosing to incentivize their employees and customers to get vaccinated instead of requiring them.

“We have offices in 55 countries around the world, there is no one-size-fits-all answer,” said Kern. “I think everyone gets vaccinated and I think companies are trying to find ways to motivate their employees in the right way and we definitely want our employees to be vaccinated too . “

The travel business has been adversely affected by the more contagious Delta variant spreading in the U.S. and around the world, Kern said. “We’ve certainly seen tremendous demand well into the summer and there is still pretty strong demand. But on the fringes, Delta has certainly had an impact.”

Kern said business travel “lagged significantly,” with delayed plans to return to the office likely to add to this trend. However, he believes that Expedia’s business, international and domestic bookings will return to pre-pandemic levels by next summer.

When travel made a comeback in April, Expedia changed its marketing strategy by updating its app and websites to focus more on collaborating with consumers in planning trips rather than just focusing on the number of bookings. The company raised $ 3.2 billion in new capital last year to help cut costs during the height of the pandemic.

“I think you will see that we are investing better, smarter and more organized against our brands,” said Kern. “You will see that our brands are working more clearly together for the common good rather than competing with one another.”

Expedia announced an adjusted loss per share of $ 1.13 for the second quarter after the bell on Thursday. Analysts had expected a loss of 65 cents per share. However, sales of $ 2.11 billion were better than expected. That’s a 273% increase from pandemic-related sales a year ago, but still about 40% less than in the second quarter of 2019 before Covid.

The company’s brands include the namesake Expedia.com as well as Hotels.com, Vrbo, Trivago, Orbitz and Hotwire.

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Entertainment

I’m Obsessed With ‘Previous.’ The Twist: I Gained’t See It.

I’m Obsessed With ‘Old.’ The Twist: I Won’t See It.

Let me say up front that I do not expect to see M. Night Shyamalan’s latest movie, “Old,” which arrived in theaters last week, for no other reason than that I am traveling and haven’t set foot in a theater in almost two years. But in the past few weeks, I have watched its trailer over and over, enthralled by its combination of existential horror and unintended humor. The trailer introduces us to some people who become trapped on a remote beach, where they begin to age at an insanely accelerated pace. Naturally, they try to figure out what’s happening, floating theories and freaking out. This being a Shyamalan film, the trailer promises they will spend a lot of time looking confused and concerned — the same facial feat Mark Wahlberg sustained across the running time of “The Happening” — and yelling at one another, demanding explanations.

This is a familiar, Manichaean, Shyamalan-ish universe: A diverse group of bewildered souls, alone in a menacing void, earnestly playing out whatever endgame logic the scenario dictates. (It’s as though the director were compelled to continually make big-budget versions of “Waiting for Godot” — you think he can’t go on, but he’ll go on.) So we see a family on vacation, headed to the beach. The cast is soon filled out by others: a couple, a 6-year-old girl, a woman in a bikini making smoochie faces at her phone, two more men. Soon enough, the kids find things in the sand: rusted items from their hotel, cracked sunglasses, late-model iPhones. A young bleach-blonde corpse bobs toward a boy in the water. (She did not die of old age, but will decompose in hyperlapse.) Then the real aging begins. Parents confront their kids’ sudden adolescence. The 6-year-old girl grows up, becomes pregnant and gives birth on the beach. Some greater force is afoot, be it fate, God, time, Facebook or nature. Whatever it is, it clearly doesn’t care how many travel rewards points or memory-making family vacations you had in real life.

Near the start of the trailer, Vicky Krieps’s character dreamily tells her impatient children: “Let’s all start slowing down.” Then everything starts speeding up. At some point she turns to her husband and exclaims, “You have wrinkles!” (The horror!) But of course “Old” will not be an allegory about the importance of sunscreen. What we’re being shown here looks far more like a meditation on mortality wrapped in a cautionary tale about our accelerated lives — about the scariness of time flying and kids growing up too fast, of bodies going to hell and the inescapability of death, and about the ravages we’ve visited upon the Earth, which will remain blanketed in all our fancy garbage long after it has turned us to dust.

Part of what’s so captivatingly strange about the trailer is the way it takes a movie that compresses life into a couple of hours and then compresses that into a galloping two-and-a-half-minute highlight reel. Its breakneck, parodic pace calls to mind Tom Stoppard’s “15-Minute Hamlet,” in which all the most famous scenes from Shakespeare’s play are crammed (twice!) into a quarter of an hour. (In a film adaptation I once saw, Ophelia drowned herself by plunging her head into a bucket.) The title alone reduces the existential horror of the premise to a midlife freakout.

The graphic novel from which this movie is adapted — “Sandcastle,” written by Pierre Oscar Lévy and illustrated by Frederik Peeters — was inspired by Levy’s memories of childhood holidays. “He used to travel a lot to a beach exactly like this one, in the north of Spain,” Peeters told the comics site CBR. “Later, he went back with his own children, and one day he had this idea.” The beach could serve as a microcosm of Western society, “with some of its strong basic figures.” This was not a thriller, Peeters said — “it’s a fable.”

It takes a movie that compresses life into a couple of hours and then compresses that into two and a half minutes.

Shyamalan may be best known for his last-minute twists, but this was an option the “Sandcastle” authors ultimately decided against. According to Peeters, Levy had written a resolution to the story, a final twist — “but we finally decided it was useless, and would have destroyed the frightening dimension of the book.” The frightening dimension, of course, is that there is no escaping time, or death — and neither is there any simple revelatory twist in life that will explain what you’re meant to be doing with your time here.

Anyone converting this source material into a movie has a choice to make: Either you embrace the terrifying meaninglessness of our short lives, or you try to offer consolation with a resolution to the story. The trailer tips its hand that Shyamalan has chosen the latter: The last words we hear are Gabriel Garcia Bernal’s character saying, “We’re here for a reason!” Maybe we are and maybe we are not, but my time on Earth is limited, and any story that attempts to wrap up the problem of life will feel like a waste of it.

As I watched this trailer over and over, I was also, coincidentally, in Spain, where I lived for many years while growing up. I am writing from my brother’s new apartment in Madrid, which happens to be next door to the childhood home of a childhood friend. Walking my dog past her building, then meeting with her later, I find myself dwelling on the trailer, on the nature of time passing, on how compressed and accelerated it can feel. It’s strange to sit across from people you met in elementary school but haven’t seen in years. It makes you feel like the couples in the trailer, watching their spouses transform into their future selves. Time seems to pass at an accelerated rate when you return to a place periodically, over a long period, with large gaps in between.

During the past year and a half of paralysis — this remote, isolated, slowed-down time, during which some of the most privileged among us were able to isolate in safety and comfort — it could seem as if the future were on hold. (It was not.) Time felt endless and slow until, for me, it accelerated significantly. I lost my mother suddenly. After 18 months of not traveling anywhere, I came back to the city where I lost my father, where my nephews were born, where my parents’ still-living friends have become elderly. It is funny to see how much has changed, and which things never change. I met a friend at a gallery opening and mentioned on arrival that I’d forgotten to iron my dress. He seemed happy to hear this: “You’re still you!” he said.

Perhaps, for some of us, last year felt like a pause. But there was no pause. There never is. You look away for a moment, and your kid is tall. Your dog is old. Friends move away. You begin to wonder where this is all going. What’s the twist? When will it arrive? And then maybe you realize where you are, which may be a very old city — old to you and old in history, though not as old as some — and here you are, repeatedly watching a trailer for a movie, feeling a strange feeling.

Carina Chocano is the author of the essay collection “You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks and Other Mixed Messages” and a contributing writer for the magazine.

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World News

L.A. County’s Masks Mandate Is Right here. The Sheriff Will not Implement It.

L.A. County's Mask Mandate Is Here. The Sheriff Won't Enforce It.

A new requirement that masks be worn indoors in Los Angeles County went into effect at midnight on Saturday night. But the local sheriff has no plans to enforce it.

“Forcing the vaccinated and those who already contracted Covid-19 to wear masks indoors is not backed by science,” Sheriff Alex Villanueva wrote in a statement posted on his department’s website on Friday.

The department “will not expend our limited resources and instead ask for voluntary compliance,” the statement continued.

County public health officials had been urging residents for weeks to wear masks indoors as the highly contagious Delta variant spread in the state, as it is doing across the country.

But with California fully reopened and pandemic restrictions lifted, it remains unclear how willing the public will be to pick up their masks again — especially with little enforcement.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health could issue a notice of violation or a citation to businesses that fail to comply with the mandate, a spokeswoman, Natalie Jimenez, wrote in an email on Saturday. But she said that “education and information sharing” would be the department’s primary approaches.

“Our community will not be able to enforce our way out of this pandemic; we need everyone doing their part to keep themselves and each other safe,” Ms. Jimenez wrote.

Enforcing mask mandates proved an enduring challenge for public health officials across the country in earlier phases of the pandemic, as concerns about the virus’s spread, crushing hospital loads and a staggering national death toll clashed with politicized outcries over threats to personal liberty and rampant misinformation.

In Los Angeles County, Sheriff Villanueva repeatedly declined to enforce Covid restrictions, including a statewide stay-at-home order last winter. Last summer, the county’s inspector general warned that sheriff’s deputies weren’t following orders requiring them to wear masks on the job.

The Los Angeles County mask requirement was reintroduced because the Delta-driven surge presents risks that earlier versions of the virus did not, according to the county health department.

“People with only one vaccine are not as well protected, and there is evidence that a very small number of fully vaccinated individuals can become infected and may be able to infect others,” said a statement the department issued on Thursday.

Masks will continue to be required in public schools statewide, though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that masks be optional for fully vaccinated students and staff members.

L.A. County is averaging almost 1,400 new cases a day, a 251 percent increase from the average two weeks ago, and Covid hospitalizations are up 27 percent, according to a New York Times database. Still, the current situation is far less grave for the county than during the peak over the winter, when new cases hit an average of over 16,000 and hospitalizations rose to an average of more than 7,000.

Daily deaths have also remained in the single digits, down from winter’s average high of more than 240.

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Health

Ohio Clinic Says It Will not Administer Alzheimer’s Drug to Sufferers

Ohio Clinic Says It Won't Administer Alzheimer's Drug to Patients

In a conspicuous concern about the approval of the controversial new Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm, the Cleveland Clinic said Wednesday evening that it would not give it to patients.

The clinic, one of the largest and most respected medical centers in the country, said in a statement a panel of experts had “reviewed all available scientific evidence about this drug,” also called aducanumab.

“Based on the current data on safety and effectiveness, we have decided not to wear aducanumab at the moment,” the statement said.

A spokeswoman for the clinic said individual doctors there could prescribe Aduhelm to patients, but those patients would have to go elsewhere to get the drug, which is given as an intravenous infusion every month.

The stance of the major medical center is the latest fallout from the approval of the drug by the Food and Drug Administration on June 7, a decision that also fueled Congressional investigations.

Many Alzheimer’s experts and other scientists have said that it is unclear that the drug helps slow cognitive decline and that at best the evidence suggests only a slight slowdown while showing that Aduhelm causes brain swelling or hemorrhage could.

Recognition…Biogen, via Associated Press

The drug is also expensive. Biogen, the maker, has set its price at $ 56,000 per year.

In a recent survey of nearly 200 neurologists and primary care physicians, most said they disagreed with the FDA’s decision and did not plan to prescribe the drug to their patients.

Last week, Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting FDA commissioner, in response to growing criticism of an independent state investigation into the agency’s regulatory process, wrote, “To the extent that these concerns could undermine public confidence in the FDA’s decision, I believe” it is critically important that the disputed events are reviewed by an independent body. “

Two almost identical clinical trials with Aduhelm were stopped prematurely because an independent data monitoring committee concluded that the drug did not appear to be helping patients. A later analysis by Biogen found that participants who received the high dose of the drug in one study experienced a very slight slowdown in cognitive decline – 0.39 on an 18-point scale – that participants in the other study however, had not benefited from it at all.

About 40 percent of study participants developed cerebral hemorrhage or swelling, and while most of these cases were mild or manageable, about 6 percent of participants dropped out because of serious side effects from these conditions.

After reviewing the data late last year, an FDA advisory committee strongly recommended outside experts against approval, and three of its members resigned in protest last month when the agency defied the advice of the advisory committee. The American Geriatrics Society had also urged the agency not to approve the drug because it was “premature in the absence of sufficient evidence.”

In response to widespread criticism that Aduhelm was approved for anyone with Alzheimer’s, the FDA last week severely restricted the drug’s recommended use, saying that it should only be used for people with mild memory or thinking problems as it doesn’t have any Data on the use of Aduhelm gave later stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

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Health

Why U.S. will not hit Fourth of July objectives

United States President Joe Biden speaks during an event in the South Court Auditorium of the White House on June 2, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Biden’s government says it will miss its July 4th vaccination target

All that free beer, donuts, and baseball tickets won’t be enough to keep up with the pace of vaccinations.

President Joe Biden’s goal of getting at least one shot in the arms of 70% of US adults before the July 4th holidays is missed.

According to a CNBC analysis of CDC data, by then about 67% of adults will be at least partially vaccinated at the current vaccination rate.

Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards

The president said he hoped Independence Day would mark a turning point in the pandemic.

Yet vaccination efforts have come up against a wall in some states, despite the fact that the Delta variant of the disease is rapidly spreading across the country.

More from Personal Finance:
States hope free joints and other perks will generate interest
More and more universities are demanding Covid vaccines
More people plan to quit when return to work plans take hold

From Krispy Kreme to cold money, there is now no shortage of incentives to entice Americans into the Covid vaccine. But vaccination rates stay below 70% and are likely to stay there, according to Iwan Barrankay, professor of business and public policy at Wharton.

“These incentives are a great idea and they are very engaging, but there is simply no evidence that these incentives address the barriers,” Barankay said.

“We get into a population of people who are vehemently against it or who have a life situation that is too complicated,” he said. This group will not be swayed by vaccine sweeteners like cash gifts, sports tickets and free food, he added.

For some, socio-economic barriers remain, such as childcare or time off work to get vaccinated.

Barrankay has spent years researching what works to encourage patients to take their medication. Financial incentives are not compelling for patients with complicated lives, he said. Low income, inadequate housing, lack of transportation, and caring for others in the household are all factors that can get in the way.

In some cases, there is no incentive that you can offer people.

Ivan Barankay

Wharton professor

For others, there are also behavioral barriers, including skepticism about the vaccine, that can be even more difficult to overcome.

“In some cases, there is no incentive you can give people,” Barankay said.

Some Americans, especially those in black, Hispanic, and rural communities, are more reluctant to get Covid vaccinations.

“People are influenced by others around them,” said Barrankay. “If you can change someone’s behavior in a community, it has a multiplier effect, but it is much more difficult work.”

Still, as vaccination rates plateau, public and private groups continue to increase the stakes – from million dollar payouts and even marijuana or a lap around a NASCAR track – to encourage more vaccinations.

In May, Maryland hosted the first of its $ 40,000 lottery draws for people who were vaccinated. Forty consecutive days of the drawing for a prize of $ 40,000 will end on July 4th with a final drawing for a payout of $ 400,000.

Ohio also hosts a series of cash prize draws with its own “Vax-a-Million” contest.

In the private sector, Krispy Kreme was one of the first in March to introduce a nationwide Covid vaccine incentive, offering a free glazed donut to every adult with a vaccination card. The company said it has already given away more than 1.5 million donuts. (The offer is still valid for the rest of the year.)

And Anheuser-Busch recently said it would buy “a round of beer” to anyone over the age of 21 once Biden’s 70% target is reached on July 4th.

A handful of states have reported that vaccination incentive programs have increased local vaccination rates in some populations following recent declines.

For its part, Ohio said its vaccination rates doubled in some counties after the state vaccine lottery was announced.

Recent data shows that the Gambit could be effective with certain groups and have few overall drawbacks, according to a Morning Consult report.

The survey of 2,200 adults, including nearly 1,600 unvaccinated people, found that men are more likely than women to say that these offers would get them to sign up for a vaccination.

Democrats, more than Republicans, also said they were more likely to get vaccinated if they could get free goods or services, and when broken down by generations, millennials were the most likely to say that certain freebies would encourage them to get vaccinated.

A separate survey by Blackhawk Network found that money is the most popular motivator over a sweepstakes, paid time off, free food or drink, or other commodity.

About 66% of unvaccinated adults said they would accept a monetary incentive, and 44% said they would even get vaccinated for $ 100 or less. Blackhawk Network surveyed more than 3,000 adults in June.

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Health

Each day new U.S. Covid instances will not ever go to zero

Rise in adolescent Covid hospitalizations is reflection of new variants, Gottlieb says

The US will “never have zero” new daily Covid cases, said Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Monday.

“We will always have some prevalence,” the former FDA chief said, predicting that infections will become endemic, which means they will remain present in the American population. Seasonal flu, for example, is an endemic respiratory disease.

Gottlieb’s comments come as concerns grow over the variant of Covid Delta, which was first discovered in India and is now devastating public health strategies in the UK.

On Squawk Box, Gottlieb said that while the spread of the Delta variant in the US will continue to grow, the response to new cases there may not follow the blueprint used in other parts of the world. He gave Israel as an example. This country, which has gained recognition for the success of its vaccine introduction, recently reintroduced its mandate for inner masks, less than two weeks after it was first lifted.

“Israel is a poor proxy for what you are doing about our situation here because Israel really wants a situation where they want zero Covid,” said Gottlieb, who sits on the board of directors at Covid vaccine maker Pfizer. “We’re not going to try to reduce this to zero cases a day” in the US

“Israel is trying to reduce the number of cases to zero per day, so they are taking different measures than we are,” he added. “Hong Kong is trying to keep it out completely; that’s why they forbid travel.”

Despite predicting the US will have “persistent infection,” Gottlieb said the nature of the cases will vary significantly in both scale and geography from earlier stages of the pandemic, which is defined as an epidemic gone global.

“I don’t think we’re going to have a situation like last winter where there are 200,000 cases a day. I think we’re talking about maybe tens of thousands of cases a day here in the United States.” how it’s starting to catch on across the country, “said Gottlieb, who headed the Food and Drug Administration in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2019.

According to data from Johns Hopkins University, the highest single day of infection in the US was on January 2 at 300,462. The most Covid deaths in the United States in one day were 4,475 on Jan. 12.

Unlike earlier this year, the most significant outbreaks are now likely to be “highly regionalized,” he added, and depend heavily on the percentage of the local population vaccinated, much of the prevalence and other parts of the country that are more vulnerable. “

According to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins data, the US is seeing an average of just under 12,000 new coronavirus cases per day over the past seven days. This number is stable compared to a week ago. The seven-day average of new daily Covid deaths reported in the US is 306 – that’s 9% more than a week ago.

Around 46% of the US population are fully vaccinated against Covid, while 54% have received at least one dose, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. Crucially, roughly 78% of Americans age 65 and over are fully vaccinated, and nearly 88% have received at least one dose.

Gottlieb said that even if the US witnesses the spread of the new coronavirus, “it will have far less impact than a year ago as more of the vulnerable people who will now be more susceptible to this infection will be protected by vaccinations.”

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC employee and a member of the board of directors of Pfizer, genetic testing startup Tempus, health technology company Aetion Inc., and biotechnology company Illumina. He is also co-chair of the Healthy Sail Panel of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean.

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Health

Biden administration says it will not hit Fourth of July objectives

Biden administration says it won't hit Fourth of July goals

The Biden administration said Tuesday that it is unlikely to meet President Joe Biden’s goal of getting 70% of American adults to receive one or more vaccinations by July 4th.

White House Covid Tsar Jeff Zients said the government has reached its 70 percent target for people 30 and older and is well on its way to achieving it by July 4th for those 27 and older.

“We believe it will take a few more weeks to reach 70% of adults with at least one vaccination, including those aged 18-26,” he said.

Still, Zients insisted that the White House “exceeded our highest expectations” in its vaccination program and achieved a vision for Biden in March of gathering friends and family safely to celebrate the holiday.

Biden set two goals in early May: to have 70% of adults in the United States given at least one vaccination, and to fully vaccinate 160 million American adults by Independence Day.

About 65% of American adults will have had one or more injections by Monday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A CNBC analysis of the CDC data shows that with the current vaccination schedule, about 67% of adults are at least partially vaccinated by the fourth.

According to CDC data, around 144 million people aged 18 and over are fully vaccinated, on the way to reaching around 151 million if the current pace of daily vaccinations reported remains constant.

United States President Joe Biden speaks during an event in the South Court Auditorium of the White House on June 2, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Alex Wong | Getty Images

When Biden first announced his two goals on May 4th, the US was well on its way to scoring both. However, according to CDC data, the vaccination rate has fallen in the weeks since the seven-day average from 2.2 million vaccinations per day in all age groups to 1.1 million on June 21.

The government has easily met its previous vaccination goals in the first 100 days of the president’s tenure. Biden initially targeted 100 million vaccinations in 100 days, which was criticized as being too easy, and achieved it on day 58. The White House raised the target to 200 million vaccinations, which it surpassed on the 92nd day of the presidency.

Amid the vaccination campaign, nationwide case numbers have dropped to levels not seen since the early days of the pandemic, although the risk of disease remains for the unvaccinated.

Zients said many younger Americans are less eager to get a vaccination and stressed the importance of vaccinations for this age group due to the spread of the Delta variant.

Biden warned on Friday that the highly contagious variant, first identified in India, appears to be “particularly dangerous” for young people.

“The data is clear: if you are not vaccinated, there is a risk that you will become seriously ill, or die, or spread,” Biden said during a White House press conference.

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have already reached Biden’s goal, led by Vermont, Hawaii and Massachusetts, where more than 80% of adults are at least partially vaccinated.

Other states are lagging behind, 17 of which are below the 60% mark. These include Mississippi, Louisiana, Wyoming, and Alabama, each of which less than 50% of its adult residents hit one or more shots.

“Our work doesn’t stop on July 4th or at 70%,” said Zients, calling Biden’s goals a “goal worth striving for in order to make progress in a short period of time.”

“We want every American in every community to be protected and free from fear of the virus,” Zients said.

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

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Health

Russia Covid vaccines will not be obligatory Putin says amid skepticism

Russia Covid vaccines won't be compulsory Putin says amid skepticism

Russian President Vladimir Putin examines military aircraft flying over the Kremlin and Red Square to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II in Moscow on May 9, 2020.

Alexey Druzhinin | AFP | Getty Images

President Vladimir Putin ruled Russia will not make Covid vaccines mandatory for its citizens, saying people should see the need to vaccinate for themselves.

Some officials in Russia had suggested making vaccination compulsory, but Putin said Wednesday that such a move would be “counterproductive”.

During a video conference on the economy, Putin said officials had analyzed options, including compulsory vaccination for the entire population or for workers in specific sectors who come into contact with large numbers of people, Russian news agency Tass reported.

This could have made Covid recordings mandatory for people who work in areas such as retail, education, or transportation. Putin said he did not approve of such a move.

“In my opinion, it is counterproductive and unnecessary to introduce compulsory vaccinations,” he said. “People should recognize this need for themselves” and understand that without a vaccine they “may be at very serious and even fatal danger”, especially the elderly.

Putin urged the public to get vaccinated, stressing that Russian Sputnik V vaccine is safe.

“I want to emphasize again and address all of our citizens: think carefully, remember that the Russian vaccine – practice has already shown that millions (of people) have used it – is currently the most reliable and safest,” said Putin. “All the conditions for vaccination have been created in our country.”

Vaccine hesitate

Despite the pleas from the President and other senior officials and the establishment of walk-in vaccination centers in shopping malls in major cities, Russia has found that much of its population is unwilling to receive a Covid shot.

Some officials have tried more unusual means of persuading those who hesitate. Moscow is offering free ice cream to everyone who has been vaccinated in Red Square and buying vouchers or gift cards worth 1,000 rubles (about $ 13.60) for retirees. Some Russian regions have reportedly offered cash incentives to get the shot.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has openly expressed his frustration at the slow response to vaccinations.

“It’s remarkable … people get sick, they keep getting sick, they keep dying. And yet they don’t want to get vaccinated,” Sobyanin said in comments posted on a video blog on Friday and reported by Reuters.

“We were the first big city in the world to announce the start of mass vaccination. And what?” Sobyanin said. “The percentage of people vaccinated in Moscow is lower than in any European city. In some cases, many times over.”

He noted that so far only 1.3 million people in Moscow had received a shot from a population of 12 million.

As of Wednesday, just over 11% of the Russian population had received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, according to Our World In Data. This is comparable to the rate in India, which has also struggled to get its vaccination program off the ground due to production problems, but is lagging behind other major economies. For example, the UK has given at least one dose to over 70% of its population.

The home of Sputnik V.

That frustration is more palpable in Russia because it was one of the first countries in the world to approve a Covid vaccine last August. Initially, there were concerns about the safety and efficacy data of Sputnik V, particularly when Russia approved the shot prior to the completion of clinical trials, which aroused suspicion in the international scientific community.

However, the Sputnik V vaccine was found to be 91.6% effective in preventing people from developing Covid-19. This is evident from the peer-reviewed results of its late-stage clinical study published in The Lancet Medical Journal in February.

Even so, a poll published in March by Russian polling station Levada found that 62% of people did not want to receive the vaccine, with 18- to 24-year-olds showing the greatest reluctance.

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Health

Singapore’s overseas minister says Covid will not go away fully

Singapore's foreign minister says Covid won't go away completely

Crowds thronged Singapore’s Orchard Road shopping belt to prepare for the festive season on December 12, 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Zakaria Zainal | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

SINGAPORE – Covid-19 is “permanent” and subsequent waves of infection will occur normally in the coming years, Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan told CNBC.

“Covid-19 is endemic to humanity, which means it will never go away completely,” Balakrishnan told CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia on Monday.

“And the reason it won’t go away completely is because it’s spread around the world, has sufficient critical mass, the rate of mutations and new variants continues, and the level of human immunity increases and decreases as well,” said he said.

The minister, who was a doctor before entering politics, also warned that now could be a “more dangerous time” for vaccinated people who might be complacent, as well as those who are not vaccinated and have no protection against Covid.

Balakrishnan said vaccination is critical and that people who have received Covid shots develop fewer symptoms and have fewer serious illnesses, even when infected. However, vaccination alone is not the panacea for an “exponential explosion” in Covid cases.

That means measures such as social distancing and border restrictions may have to “come and go” in response to waves of Covid infection over the next two years, the minister said.

Singapore tightened social restrictions over the weekend after the number of cases increased in the community. Cumulatively, the country confirmed more than 61,300 cases and 31 deaths on Sunday, data from the Ministry of Health showed.

Balakrishnan said around 20% of Singapore’s population has been vaccinated, but the government has no defined threshold for achieving “herd immunity”. He explained that with the emergence of new variants of Covid, the level of protection required in a community will change so that the disease no longer spreads quickly.

It is likely that immunity to vaccinations will also decrease over time. So the point is, you can’t wait to say that you have reached the magical figure and suddenly you are immune and the mask has taken off and there are no restrictions.

Vivian Balakrishnan

Singapore’s Foreign Minister

“As new variants evolve and these new variants actually appear to be more contagious than the original strain, the level of herd immunity will mathematically change,” Balakrishnan said.

“It’s likely that immunity to vaccinations will also wear off over time. So the point is, you can’t expect to have reached the magical figure and suddenly be immune and mask off and not have any restrictions,” said he added.

Singapore-Hong Kong travel bubble

Singapore is a Southeast Asian city-state with no domestic air travel market. The country has reached an agreement with Hong Kong – a city that also has no domestic flight market – to create a travel bubble that will allow travelers to skip the quarantine.

When CNBC asked if the program should start on May 26th, Balakrishnan said, “As of now, the plan is yes, but we have to see how the situation develops over the next few days.”

The launch of the air travel bubble – originally scheduled for November 2020 – has been postponed several times after a surge in coronavirus cases in Hong Kong.

The two cities announced last month that the program will begin with one flight per day to each city with up to 200 travelers per flight.

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Politics

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms Received’t Search Second Time period

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms Won’t Seek Second Term

The other challenger, Sharon Gay, a lawyer, also said she would make crime fighting a top priority.

Ms. Bottoms, 51, was expected to build a formidable defense. She has a loyal ally in President Biden, whom she endorsed early on and who repaid her loyalty with an appearance at a virtual fundraiser in March. Ms. Bottoms was briefly mentioned as a potential vice president and said she later turned down a cabinet position in the Biden administration.

Ms. Bottoms, who served as a judge and councilor before narrowly winning the 2017 mayor election, is also blessed with one voice – measured, compassionate, slightly hurt, and permeated by her experience as a black daughter and mother – that seemed uniquely calibrated too to address the challenges of the past year.

After the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Ms. Bottoms went on live television and became a national star speaking directly to protesters. Some of their demonstrations had fallen into lawlessness, with people smashing windows, spraying property and burning cars.

“When I saw the murder of George Floyd, I hurt like a mother hurt,” she said. She then scolded the protesters, insisting that they “go home” and study the rules of nonviolence as practiced by the leaders of the civil rights movement.

Mr Biden was one of several national figures who were noted. “We saw her stand and speak out in the summer full of protests and pain,” said the president at the fundraiser in March.

However, the challenges were numerous.

On June 12, shortly after Mr. Floyd’s death, a white Atlanta police officer shot and killed a black man, Rayshard Brooks, in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant. Protests and violence broke out, and the Bottoms administration fired officer Garrett Rolfe the day after the shooting. (This week, the city’s public services agency reinstated officer Rolfe, who was accused of murder, because the administration violated his procedural rights.)