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Covid deaths of Yanomami children fuel fears for Brazil’s indigenous groups

Ten Yanomami children died from Covid-19 in January, fueling fears over the disproportionate impact the coronavirus is having on vulnerable indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon.

“It is very concerning that so many kids died in less than one month,” said Júnior Hekurari Yanomami, the head of Condisi-YY, an indigenous health council.

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Health ministry sends team to investigate ‘concerning’ virus cases in Yanomami territory near Venezuelan border

Ten Yanomami children died from Covid-19 in January, fueling fears over the disproportionate impact the coronavirus is having on vulnerable indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon.

“It is very concerning that so many kids died in less than one month,” said Júnior Hekurari Yanomami, the head of Condisi-YY, an indigenous health council.

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‘This has to end peacefully’: California’s Punjabi farmers rally behind India protests

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In northern California, home to a large Punjabi population, residents join backlash against laws ‘shoved down people’s throats’

Sukhcharan Singh grows walnuts in Yuba City, California, about 40 miles north of Sacramento. Like many Sikh farmers in this small Central Valley city, Singh’s thoughts are occupied by the ongoing protests in India.

“I lose sleep over this. When I was there, it was a poor country, yes, but it was a good country,” said Singh, 68, flipping through notes he has taken on the latest news out of India. “Last night I finally slept at 11.30.”

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Older and disabled Texans are demanding their home caregivers be vaccinated for COVID-19. But many workers don’t want it.

Vaccinate or look for a new job.
Health care worker Rachel Fuentes in her home in north Houston on Saturday, Feb. 6, 2020. Fuentes has been an in-home caregiver for elderly patients for the past 11 years. She is not eager to get the COVID-19 vaccine and hopes her current or future clients do not depend on it.

Houston health care worker Rachel Fuentes says she will wait to get the vaccine “as long as I can push it off.”

Credit: Shelby Tauber for The Texas Tribune

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Houston home health caregiver Rachel Fuentes is struggling between her need to stay employed and her fear of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Fuentes, 43, worries that her employer will make vaccinations mandatory, or that she won’t find clients who will let her care for them if she’s unvaccinated.

One of her co-workers, a 33-year-old, is already facing that reality: The assisted living facility where her client lives has said that if she’s not vaccinated by May 1, she won’t be allowed in.

Both women say they are more afraid of the injection than of catching COVID-19, which both say they have staved off by following safety protocols for a year.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. Health care is all I’ve known,” said the 33-year-old, who asked to remain anonymous because she fears backlash from people who know her and because she hasn’t told the older man she cares for that she will probably have to stop caring for him.

Like other home health agencies across the state, the women’s employers at Encore Caregivers in Houston are trying to navigate a growing dilemma: Their clients want home-based caregivers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, but they fear that they soon won’t have enough workers who are vaccinated to meet the demand.

“It’s starting to rear its head,” said Marilou Schopper, owner of Encore, which has more than 100 caregivers on staff. She said 10% of her staff has been vaccinated, and others have plans to be.

Home health and personal care aides help seniors and Texans with disabilities or debilitating illnesses to remain in their homes rather than move into a facility — which most prefer to avoid, according to government studies.

The caregivers are in the state’s 1A priority group for front-line health workers but are struggling to get access to vaccines because most aren’t affiliated with a state-approved vaccine provider like a hospital or nursing home.

In addition to lack of access, national surveys indicate that at least one-third are hesitant to take the vaccine, though those numbers appear to be decreasing, agency owners say. Researchers say that the main issues are distrust in the level of research on the vaccine and fear of side effects, among others.

Health experts and public officials widely agree that the vaccine is safe. Pfizer and Moderna reported their vaccines are 95% and 94% effective, respectively, at protecting people from serious illness, and while no vaccine is without side effects, clinical trials for both Pfizer and Moderna show serious reactions are rare.

Health care worker Rachel Fuentes in her home in north Houston on Saturday, Feb. 6, 2020. Fuentes has been an in-home caregiver for elderly patients for the past 11 years. She is not eager to get the COVID-19 vaccine and hopes her current or future clients do not depend on it.

Health care worker Rachel Fuentes is not eager to get the COVID-19 vaccine and hopes her current or future clients do not depend on it.

Credit: Annie Mulligan for The Texas Tribune

A similar hesitancy issue is being reported among staff at nursing homes, where education efforts are underway to increase trust in the vaccine, according to reports.

As of May 2019, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported some 300,820 personal care and home health attendants are working in Texas, not including those who are self-employed.

The majority of them, like Fuentes and her co-worker, are women of color, who have been disproportionately affected both by the virus and by its economic fallout.

Patient demand, however, may push more caregivers like Fuentes to overcome their vaccine fears if they have a hard time finding clients.

More than 300,000 Texans are getting care at home or in community-based settings through nearly 6,000 home health companies or through private pay or similar avenues, according to a November 2020 report by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.

If home health agencies start losing clients because they don’t have enough vaccinated health workers, they’ll have to lay off workers, said Darby Anderson, vice chair of the Partnership for Medicaid Home-Based Care, a national advocacy group.

“How will you keep my family safe?”

The only thing fending off a crisis, operators say, is that most clients know there aren’t enough shots to go around, so many aren’t demanding that their caregivers be vaccinated. For now.

“The market is very quickly pushing me towards having COVID-vaccinated staff that I’m going to need to get out to [clients],” said Travis Boldt, director of operations for At Your Side Home Care in Houston, which has about 100 employees. “People are already asking me if I can guarantee that the staff is vaccinated.”

That is certainly true at Atria Senior Living in Houston, which offers assisted living, independent living, memory care and short-term stays for seniors. Its parent company, which operates facilities across the U.S. and runs vaccination clinics for residents in partnership with CVS, set a May 1 deadline for employees and private duty aides to be vaccinated.

“The No. 1 thing residents and family members want to know is, ‘How will you keep my family safe?’” said Kathleen Dixon, vice president at Atria Senior Living. “We believe our residents deserve to live in a vaccinated environment and our employees deserve to work in a vaccinated environment. It’s the responsible thing to do for as many people as possible to be vaccinated, and this includes private and home health aides who serve our residents.”

Lora Roberts’ 84-year-old mother, who has advanced Parkinson’s disease, has been getting hospice care in her Plano home for more than two years and is unable to leave the house to get the vaccine. Roberts is shopping for a new agency that can guarantee her the staff will be vaccinated.

“They come in and out of the home, they go from home to home and they also go from home to nursing home, where we’ve had a horrible pandemic,” Roberts said. “They have not vaccinated their staff. They know I’m mad about it, and I’m looking at taking her out of there.”

If the problem goes unchecked, agencies could lose money and be forced to either scale back their operations or close altogether, which would reduce options for home-based care and potentially push more older Texans into costly residential facilities, Anderson said.

The 33-year-old with the client in the assisted living facility knows that refusing the shot likely means scuttling a career she’s been building since she was a teenager.

“I think it’s cruel to make people choose between keeping their job and getting a vaccine I don’t want to get,” she said.

Hesitancy and demand

In a recent national survey of more than 100 home health providers by the Home Health Care News group, only 10% said there was “universal acceptance” of the vaccine by staff.

The problem is so troubling to the industry that Anderson’s group recently launched a national education campaign called “Be Wise, Immunize” to bring public awareness to home care workers, including testimonials and a website.

Home health workers are mostly women of color, at least half of them live in low-income households, and most have high school diplomas or general equivalency degrees. Research has shown that vaccine hesitancy is higher among people in those demographics.

At Griswold Home Care in San Antonio, administrators surveyed the agency’s 130 field staffers in December to find out how many of them planned to be vaccinated. Fewer than 50 said yes, said spokesperson Ryan McGuire, who said the agency is working to educate and encourage staffers to get the vaccine.

Their efforts, combined with a national trend toward increasing acceptance of the vaccine, seem to be working, he said. At the end of January, he said, more than 100 said they wanted to be vaccinated.

“More people they know are getting it, and they’re getting a little bit more information,” he said. “I think more people are coming around to it.”

At Encore Caregivers, Schopper is collecting testimonials from her staffers who have gotten the vaccine in order to help sell acceptance to her staff. In other outreach, she is actively helping them get vaccination appointments through Houston and Harris County-based programs.

Some of her employees, like Rashidat Falore, didn’t have to be told twice.

“I wanted to do it, at all costs, because I don’t want to catch COVID,” said Falore, 60, a Nigerian immigrant who takes care of an 87-year-old client. “You don’t want to get infected and infect your client. That’s no good. She is vulnerable.”

The next challenge 

Most home health workers do not have the same access to the vaccine as their counterparts in hospitals, which are authorized to get vaccine allocations and can vaccinate their own staff on site.

Instead, home health workers frequently must get their shots from public vaccination hubs or through scarce public health programs, an arduous process as demand for vaccines in Texas still far outpaces supply, said Rachel Hammon, executive director for the Texas Association of Home Care and Hospice.

“It’s been unnecessarily challenging, and agencies have been fighting tooth and nail, in every way, trying to piece together places for their employees to go get vaccinated,” Hammon said.

Boldt, the operations director for At Your Side Home Care, said his agency is trying to find a way to help workers get vaccinated, including potentially offering bonuses for time spent getting the shot.

“Getting them the vaccine is really going to be the ultimate solution,” he said.

A simple solution, Hammon said, would be if qualified home health agencies were allowed to administer the shot to their employees and clients — like they already are allowed to do with flu and pneumonia vaccines.

A recent change in federal law appeared to open the door to authorizing home health agencies to administer the COVID-19 vaccine in Texas, where they currently aren’t allowed to do so, Hammon said. But agencies were notified last week by state health officials that they don’t believe it preempts state law.

“It is unconscionable not to look for any possible way to allow for the mobilization of over 30,000 nurses to put shots in the arms of our most vulnerable Texans and the front-line workers who care for them every day,” Hammon said.

A bill in the Texas Legislature would allow this, but it could take months to pass. The bill’s author, state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, said Gov. Greg Abbott should use his emergency powers and allow it temporarily through an executive order.

“Since the state’s political leaders and medical experts are all in agreement that we must vaccinate all willing Texans against COVID-19 as swiftly and efficiently as possible, it should follow that we must do everything possible to make that happen — especially cutting away at red tape preventing health care providers from doing their jobs,” Howard said. “An executive order from the governor is necessary to provide this temporary relief while the Legislature works to provide a permanent solution.”

Meanwhile, home care workers like Fuentes and their employers are waiting to see what will happen in the next few months.

She has some time because her client, a frail 91-year-old, hasn’t asked her to get vaccinated. But she knows that her choice to avoid the shot will, at some point, become a matter of deciding whether to stick to her guns or keep her job.

“I’ll just work with the ones that are willing to work with me,” she said. “I think eventually I will have to get it, but as long as I can push it off, I am.”

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Moroccan Scientist Lbachir BenMohamed Leads Work on New COVID-19 Vaccine

Moroccan scientist Lbachir BenMohamed is making headlines in the US for working on a universal COVID-19 vaccine — a vaccine that would work on all variants of the coronavirus, even those that have not appeared yet.

At the Institute for Immunology affiliated to the University of California, Irvine, BenMohamed is leading a nine-member research team tasked with developing a universal COVID-19 vaccine.

Moroccan scientist Lbachir BenMohamed is making headlines in the US for working on a universal COVID-19 vaccine — a vaccine that would work on all variants of the coronavirus, even those that have not appeared yet.

At the Institute for Immunology affiliated to the University of California, Irvine, BenMohamed is leading a nine-member research team tasked with developing a universal COVID-19 vaccine.

The vaccine is currently at the stage of preclinical trials, but it is expected to reach clinical tests before the end of 2021.

Lbachir BenMohamed explained during his several appearances on US television channels that the universal COVID-19 vaccine has a similar composition to the vaccines developed by American pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Pfizer.

However, the universal vaccine includes additional ingredients that would allow it to be effective against any possible mutation of the coronavirus in the future.

Another original concept that BenMohamed and his team are working on is the injection method of the vaccine. While all currently-available COVID-19 vaccines are injected through a syringe, the in-development universal vaccine would be administered through a patch, similarly to the widely-available nicotine patches.

Lbachir BenMohamed explained that the main reason behind developing a new method of injection is to overcome the limitations imposed by liquid vaccines.

The Moroccan scientist argued that current vaccines have strict limitations, such as the extremely-low temperatures required during their storage and transportation. The use of patches, meanwhile, would make transporting vaccines significantly easier.

“We could just put the patches in an envelope and send the vaccine anywhere in the world,” BenMohamed told Fox Los Angeles.

The innovative solution aroused the curiosity of American journalists who expressed their eagerness to learn more about the vaccine, as it goes through more development phases.

Modest beginnings

Born in 1968 in a small town near Guelmim, in Morocco’s southern provinces, a young Lbachir BenMohamed would have never thought that he would be making headlines for leading an international research team.

In an interview with Moroccan news outlet Le360, the Moroccan scientist shared how he managed to forge his path towards becoming a highly-acclaimed scientist in the US.

BenMohamed first attended the modest Sidi Ahmed Derkaoui primary school in his hometown, Tagant. As a teenager, he had to travel 40 kilometers to the city of Guelmim to pursue his middle and high school studies.

After earning a high school diploma, BenMohamed enrolled at the Faculty of Sciences affiliated to the Ibn Zohr University in Agadir. In 1984, he was part of the first class to ever study biology and geology at the university.

Five years later, in 1989, BenMohamed obtained a Licence (Bachelor equivalent) in biochemistry. He went on to deepen his knowledge in the field at the University of Paris VII, currently known as the Paris Diderot University, where he obtained a Diploma of Advanced Studies in immunology.

In the 1990s, the Moroccan scientist joined the world-renowned Pasteur Institute in Paris as an intern. He carried most of his research work at the institute until he obtained a Ph.D. in 1997.

Migration to the US

The doctor decided to fly to the US to improve his English language and then return to Paris to continue his post-doctoral research. However, attracted by the quality of research institutions in the US, he decided to stay there.

Lbachir BenMohamed joined the University of California, Irvine, in 2002 as an assistant researcher. He earned several promotions throughout the years and has been, since 2014, a fully-fledged professor at the university.

The universal COVID-19 vaccine is currently the Moroccan immunologist’s top priority. The project has recently received a $4 million grant from the US government to accelerate the vaccine’s development.

The post Moroccan Scientist Lbachir BenMohamed Leads Work on New COVID-19 Vaccine appeared first on Morocco World News.

Tesla Buys $1.5 Billion Worth of Bitcoin, May Accept the Cryptocurrency as Payment in the Future

With Trump out of the way – he wants to con everyone… not gonna happen.

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Today in an SEC filing, Tesla disclosed that it has acquired $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin, the popular cryptocurrency. Moreover, the company noted that it may also accept bitcoin in the future as a form of payment for its cars, though it did allow that there is some regulatory uncertainty around that effort. From a report: As the news broke, the price of bitcoin instantly rose by around 7% to more than $40,000 per coin. Tesla had previously telegraphed that it had an interest in the cryptocurrency, however to purchase such a large block of the coin is notable. In its filing, Tesla writes that earlier this year it “updated [its] investment policy to provide [it] with more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on [its] cash that is not required to maintain adequate operating liquidity,” adding that it has the option of putting cash into “certain alternative reserve assetsâ that include âoedigital assets, gold bullion, gold exchange-traded funds and other assets as specified in the future.” Under that banner, the firm has “invested an aggregate $1.50 billion in bitcoin,” going on to say that the well-known electric car company “may acquire and hold digital assets from time to time or long-term.”

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Read more of this story at Slashdot.

‘You messed with the wrong generation’: Daily protests pose strong challenge to Myanmar coup

Read local perspectives on the coup and watch protest videos shared by citizen journalists

‘You messed with the wrong generation’, one of the protest visuals posted on walls in various cities across Myanmar. Photo supplied to Global Voices by local researchers, Used with permission

The civil disobedience movement launched in response to the February 1 military coup has continued to gather support across Myanmar.

Communication lines have been intermittently disrupted since the coup and internet connectivity was totally cut off on February 6. When service was restored the following day, the world saw images and reports of massive pro-democracy rallies in the streets of Myanmar cities and towns.

Global Voices interviewed local researchers and foreign residents about the protest movement. A member of the expat community shared this account from over the weekend:

The civil disobedience movement asked the public to go out in the streets on Friday [February 5]. The protests swelled on Saturday. Then internet connection was cut off in the country. Protests continued on Sunday until today [February 7]. Hundreds of thousands participated in almost all regions and cities. Police are deployed in the streets but so far no arrests were made. Protest is peaceful. Meanwhile the Than Pone is still being done every night at 8PM.

Than Pone—which means “iron buckets”—is the name given to the banging of pots to ward off evil spirits. Since the coup, collective pot-banging takes place  three times a day in some areas: at 8am, 2pm, and 8pm, for a total of 15 minutes.

Local researchers told Global Voices that many internet users “got pissed off that the internet was shut down and joined the protest.” One researcher had no internet at home so went out to meet a friend and ended up in the crowd.

They observed that people offered the police flowers, water bottles and snacks during the protest in Yangon on February 6.

These videos shared by the researchers offer a glimpse of the large protest in Yangon, the country’s largest city:

A glimpse of the weekend protest in Myanmar. Video shared by local researchers with Global Voices pic.twitter.com/WpbhZsLb6j

— GlobalVoices SE Asia (@gvsoutheastasia) February 8, 2021

Weekend anti-coup protests gathered thousands in Yangon and other cities in Myanmar. Video taken by local researchers and shared with Global Voices pic.twitter.com/JwZWZHoxCR

— GlobalVoices SE Asia (@gvsoutheastasia) February 8, 2021

Disinformation runs rampant during internet shutdown

Disinformation has been rampant since the coup. One of the most notorious sources of disinformation is Radio Free Myanmar, which mimics the logo and naming convention of the news website Radio Free Asia.

Local researchers noted that verifying information became more difficult when the internet was blocked:

When you don’t have internet for two days, there is no way to verify those news. Even politicians starting to believe those are rumours.

They were referring inaccurate reports circulating outside Myanmar based on discussions taken place on Chinese social media platform Weibo, such as the military’s supposed readiness to repatriate Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, or that soldiers had staged the coup to protecting the people.

The symbol of the civil disobedience campaign is inspired by the Hollywood film ‘Hunger games’ three-finger salute. Photo supplied to Global Voices by local researchers, used with permission

The researchers also reported that some Buddhist ultra-nationalists have been attempting to mislead coup supporters by claiming that the three-finger salute widely used in anti-coup protests is in fact a Muslim gesture that means “I am the son/daughter of Muhammad.”

Civil disobedience campaign gathers public support

The disinformation appears to be a desperate reaction by coup supporters as the civil disobedience campaign gains traction. Here are some photos depicting the defiance of many groups across Myanmar:

UPDATE: Civil servants from the Education and Railway departments in Mandalay, the economic hub of Upper Myanmar, join citywide protests against the military regime on Monday. (Photo: The Irrawaddy) #WhatishappeninginMyanmar pic.twitter.com/Pds0nE7WTT

— The Irrawaddy (Eng) (@IrrawaddyNews) February 8, 2021

Lawyers take part in a protest against the #militarycoup in Yangon, #Myanmar, 08 February 2021. EPA-EFE/LYNN BO BO pic.twitter.com/jXIH7tiP3p

— Mizzima News (@MizzimaNews) February 8, 2021

UPDATE: Thousands of people in Karen State joined a nationwide general strike against the military coup on Monday. Protesters have been marching towards the Karen State government office in Hpa-an since 8 a.m. #WhatishappeninginMyanmar pic.twitter.com/S1Hum5hCUm

— The Irrawaddy (Eng) (@IrrawaddyNews) February 8, 2021

Government workers from Ministry of Ethnic Affairs hold the signs with red ribbons as a symbol of resistance against the #militarycoup during a strike named civil disobedience campaign in front of their ministry headquarters, #Naypyitaw, #Myanmar, 05 February 2021. EPA-EFE pic.twitter.com/gUiMMCQ91L

— Mizzima News (@MizzimaNews) February 5, 2021

Today the people of Myanmar are rising up against the military regime, demanding democracy. This is no longer a protest. It’s an uprising. Public nurses, school teachers and forestry officials are taking to the streets to join #2021uprising #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar #MyanmarCoup pic.twitter.com/8Cv52hOqpA

— Myanmar Now (@Myanmar_Now_Eng) February 8, 2021

Teachers and students of Myanmar Mercantile Marine College flash three-finger salute and sing a song as they against the #militarycoup in Yangon, #Myanmar, 05 February 2021. EPA-EFE/NYEIN CHAN NAING pic.twitter.com/TbXSJ4pmdJ

— Mizzima News (@MizzimaNews) February 5, 2021

Even Japanese beer giant Kirin was forced to sever business ties with the military after the coup.

The Burmese Ghouls, a professional esports team that rarely comments on politics, publicly condemned the coup.

In response to the week-long protests, Myanmar military authorities have banned public gatherings of more than five people in some townships. The police also used water cannons to disperse a protest in Naypyidaw, the country’s capital.

Police disperse anti-coup protesters with water jets in Naypyitaw

Riot police in Naypyitaw on Monday dispersed anti-coup protesters gathered at the Thabyae Gone Market with water canon, wounding some protesters. (Photo: The Irrawaddy)#WhatishappeninginMyanmar#StopMilitarycoup pic.twitter.com/xasPQOqiSr

— The Irrawaddy (Eng) (@IrrawaddyNews) February 8, 2021

These two recent developments will certainly affect the trajectory of the protest movement in the coming days.

*With additional reporting from Global Voices’ Civic Media Observatory project

Written by Global Voices South East Asia

China-donated Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines arrive in Laos

For more:

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-02-08/China-donated-Sinopharm-COVID-19-vaccines-arrive-in-Laos-XI1tIoxMjK/index.html

A batch of China-donated Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines arrived in the Lao capital Vientiane early on Monday. The YTO Express cargo plane carrying the Chinese-made vaccines arrived at Wattay International Airport at around 1:00 a.m. local time. Lao Minister of Health Bounkong Syhavong and Chinese Ambassador to the Laos Jiang Zaidong received the vaccines at the airport. #Laos

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Police fire water cannon as Myanmar demonstrators stage largest protest since 2007

#Police fired a water cannon at #protesters in the #Myanmar capital on Monday as tens of thousands of people joined a third day of nationwide demonstrations against the military’s removal of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi a week ago.

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Myanmar junta leader gives first address to nation since coup

There was a fair election and you have trashed it – give back power to the people…

#Myanmar’s #junta leader on Monday called on the public to prioritise facts and not feelings, and said an election would be held and power handed to the winning party, in a rare national address, as anti-#coup #protests took place nationwide. FRANCE 24’s International Affairs Commentator Douglas Herbert tells us more.

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