China’s Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine candidate appears safe, weaker in elderl – The Jerusalem Post

For three groups of participants who respectively took two shots of low, medium and high-dose CoronaVac, over 90% of them experienced significant increase in antibody levels, while the levels were slightly lower than those seen in younger subjects but in line with expectation, Liu said in a statement.

CoronaVac, being tested in Brazil and Indonesia in the final-stage human trials to evaluate whether it is effective and safe enough to obtain regulatory approvals for mass use, has already been given to tens of thousands of people, including about 90% of Sinovac employees and their families, as part of China’s emergency inoculation scheme to protect people facing high infection risk.

The potential vaccine could remain stable for up to three years in storage, Liu said, which might offer Sinovac some advantage in vaccine distribution to regions where cold-chain storage is not an option.

Source: China’s Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine candidate appears safe, weaker in elderl – The Jerusalem Post

Saudi Arabia: Prominent Detainees Held Incommunicado

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Prominent women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul had been on hunger strike for six days before Saudi authorities finally allowed her parents to visit on August 31, according to family members. Al-Hathloul had spent almost three months before that in incommunicado detention.
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(Beirut) – Saudi Arabia has denied some prominent detainees contact with their family members and lawyers for months, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter requesting access to the country and private prison visits with detainees. The situation raises serious concerns for the detainees’ safety and well-being.

Saudi authorities have banned in-person visits with prisoners across the country since March 2020 to limit the spread of Covid-19. But Saudi activists and other sources say that the authorities have also unduly denied numerous imprisoned dissidents and other detainees regular communication with the outside world.

“Saudi authorities appear intent on making certain detainees and their loved ones suffer even further by denying them the ability to hear each other’s voices and know for certain they are ok,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “All prisoners should be allowed unfettered communication with their families and the world outside their prison cells, but especially so during these trying times.”

A family member of a leading women’s rights activist told Human Rights Watch they have not received phone calls from their detained relative in over two months. A relative of a prominent imprisoned cleric, Salman al-Awda, said the family has not heard from him since May.

Family members of another prominent women’s rights activist, Loujain al-Hathloul, said that the authorities finally allowed her parents to visit on August 31, after she spent almost three months in incommunicado detention. They said she had begun a hunger strike six days before the visit after learning that some other detainees had been allowed to call their families. Saudi authorities have detained all three for over two years or longer in what informed sources indicate are abusive conditions, while they face repeatedly adjourned trials based on charges that violate their basic rights.

According to lawyers representing the former crown prince, Mohammed bin Nayef, he has been detained without charge since his arrest in March, and his current whereabouts are unknown. While the prince has occasionally been allowed to make calls to family members, some of which were reportedly made under duress, the lawyers said that he has been denied visits with family members since his arrest and his personal doctor since his initial period of detention. The lawyers said they do not know whether the prince has received treatment for his diabetes and that there are serious concerns about his well-being and health.

Saudi authorities arrested al-Hathloul along with a number of other prominent Saudi women’s rights activists in May 2018, marking the beginning of a brutal crackdown on the women’s rights movement in Saudi Arabia. For the first three months, the authorities held her incommunicado, without access to her family and lawyer. In August, the authorities embarked on a second wave of arrests.

In November 2018, human rights organizations began reporting accusations that Saudi interrogators had tortured al-Hathloul and at least three other detained women, including with electric shocks and whippings, and had sexually harassed them.

Saudi Arabia brought charges against several women’s rights advocates, including al-Hathloul, that appear almost entirely related to their human rights activities and opened their trials in March 2019. As of August 2020, more than a year since, none of them had been sentenced and no new hearing dates have been set.

Al-Awda, 63, was among the first of dozens of people detained in mid-September 2017 by the Presidency of State Security, an agency established only months before, following Mohammad bin Salman’s appointment as crown prince. Al-Awda was held in solitary confinement, with no lawyer and a limited ability to contact family members.

In September 2018, Saudi prosecutors sought the death penalty against him on a host of vague charges related to his political statements, associations, and positions. None of the charges refer to specific acts of violence or incitement to violence. His relative said that he remains in solitary confinement, that his trial has been suspended since late 2019, and that his hearings have been postponed numerous times without explanation. Since May, Saudi prison authorities have denied him all contact with his family, leaving them seriously concerned for his health.

Contact with the outside world is an essential right of prisoners. International standards dictate that prisoners must be allowed to “communicate with their family and reputable friends at regular intervals, both by correspondence and by receiving visits.”vLimitations on contact and movement should be proportionate and measured, and a prosecutor or prison director may not arbitrarily withdraw a prisoner’s rights to such contact. International standards require that “communication of the detained or imprisoned person with the outside world, and in particular his family or counsel, shall not be denied for more than a matter of days.”

Even before the pandemic, Human Rights Watch had documented that prison administrations would often halt prisoners’ communications with relatives without explanation and would heavily monitor calls when they do allow them, cutting the lines if prisoners tried to discuss their cases or complain about detention conditions. Some prisoners also said that phone calls are usually restricted to 2 to 10 minutes.

Saudi Arabia has recorded a steady rise in Covid-19 cases since March 2, with 303,973 cases and 3,548 deaths recorded by August 20. Infectious diseases like Covid-19 pose a serious risk to populations in closed institutions like prisons and detention centers. In Saudi Arabia’s prisons, where human rights groups have long documented ill-treatment, overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and denial of adequate medical care, it is virtually impossible to adequately protect the mental and physical health of already vulnerable prisoners in case of an outbreak.

On April 24, a leading Saudi human rights figure, Abdullah al-Hamid, 69, died while serving a long prison term. The Saudi human rights organization ALQST reported that al-Hamid’s health condition had deteriorated in recent months, and that the authorities had delayed a heart operation a doctor told al-Hamid he needed in early 2020. ALQST said that authorities took steps to prevent al-Hamid from discussing his health condition with his family. He suffered a stroke on April 9 and remained hospitalized in a coma until his death.

On July 19, a writer and journalist, Saleh al-Shehi, died in the hospital two months after his release from detention. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called for an independent international investigation to determine whether there is a link between his detention conditions and his death from an illness that has not been formally identified but that some local media outlets said was Covid-19. Saudi authorities released Al-Shehi from prison on May 19 without explanation after he had served two and a half years of a five-year sentence on speech-related charges.

Saudi authorities should promptly allow independent international monitors to enter the country, regularly monitor prison and detention facilities, carry out impartial investigations into allegations of torture and suspicious deaths in detention, and conduct private and regular visits with prisoners, Human Rights Watch said.

“Following the devastating deaths of prominent detainees in suspicious circumstances, Saudi Arabia’s allies should demand that they immediately release all those unjustly detained for exercising their basic rights before it’s too late,” Page said. “The families of detainees held incommunicado should not have to spend another day anxiously wondering what has become of their relatives.”

21st Century Colonialism – implemented by a few NGOs? Whose Survival is at stake here, Survival? The survival of the rainforests and indigenous peoples or of the luxury gold and diamond jewelry industry? — Barbara Crane Navarro

I did volunteer work for Survival France in the ’90s and early 2000s at periods when I had returned to France from time among the Yanomami in Venezuela and Brazil and thought at first that Survival was doing the right thing. I spent a lot of time collecting signatures on printouts of Survival petitions for […]

21st Century Colonialism – implemented by a few NGOs? Whose Survival is at stake here, Survival? The survival of the rainforests and indigenous peoples or of the luxury gold and diamond jewelry industry? — Barbara Crane Navarro

New York Will Test the Dead More Often for Coronavirus and Flu – The New York Times

in New York, where officials recently announced a ramp-up in post-mortem testing for the coronavirus as well as the flu. Deaths linked to respiratory illnesses that weren’t confirmed before a person died are to be followed up with tests for both viruses within 48 hours, according to the new regulation.

“These regulations will ensure we have the most accurate death data possible as we continue to manage Covid-19 while preparing for flu season,” Dr. Howard Zucker, the state’s health commissioner, said in a statement last week.

Fatigue and headache most common Covid symptoms in children – study

Researchers call for age-based symptom checklists as virus presents differently in children

Fatigue, headache and fever are the most common symptoms of coronavirus in children, with few developing a cough or losing their sense of taste or smell, researchers have found, adding to calls for age-specific symptom checklists.

The NHS lists three symptoms as signs of Covid-19 in adults and children: a high temperature, a new, continuous cough, and a loss or change in the sense of smell or taste.

Continue reading…

Student athletes get COVID-19 tests three times a week, while experts say testing for other university students is lagging

Public health experts say Texas universities should increase testing of all students to prevent community spread of the coronavirus as classes resume.
A nurse demonstrates to a student how to self-administer a COVID-19 test a at a testing location at the University of Texas at Austin. Sept. 4, 2020.

Public health experts say Texas universities should increase testing of all students to prevent community spread of the coronavirus as classes resume.

Credit: Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas Tribune

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Athletics officials at Texas universities spent months planning for a fall football season during a pandemic. As conferences deliberated how teams could safely compete in the age of coronavirus, proponents hoped enhanced coronavirus testing for athletes would ease any lingering doubts.

It worked. Within the month, five major Texas football programs are slated to play. In football and other high contact sports like soccer and volleyball, athletes will be tested three times a week, according to directives from the Big 12 Conference and Southeastern Conference.

For teams competing on a Saturday, that might mean a test Sunday, another Wednesday, and a final, rapid-results test Friday, said Kenny Boyd, a Baylor University senior associate athletic director. Non-conference opponents must also adhere to testing protocols that match conference standards.

Conference and school officials say enhanced testing for sports is necessary to protect athletes, support staff and the teams they compete against. It’s an impressive regimen, public health experts agree. But that same level of testing is not available to other Texas college students — even those living in high-risk settings like dorms.

Universities don’t follow the same testing methods and report cases differently, so there’s no way to compare outcomes since classes began again.

Texas A&M University reported 327 new positive tests the week ending Aug. 29, down slightly from the 371 it reported a week prior. Between Sept. 1 and Sept. 3, The University of Texas at Austin reported 103 new positive cases, more than doubling in three days the amount it reported for all of August. Baylor also reported 101 new cases during that time frame.

Public health experts say schools need to dramatically ramp up testing in order to catch “silent spread” fueled by students who are infected but don’t have symptoms.

In Texas, that means colleges should be testing everyone as much as the athletes, said Diana Cervantes, an epidemiologist at the University of North Texas Health Science Center.

“If you really wanted to find out what’s going on … you’re going to have to do more intense and more frequent, routine testing,” Cervantes said. “Because right now, all of the schools and universities and public schools, they’re really relying on symptomatic screening. They’re not doing a lot of testing.”

Testing for “silent spread”

Many colleges in Texas offer diagnostic testing for students, faculty and staff who have symptoms of the virus. But routine testing for those without symptoms or exposure to a positive case is less prevalent, even as the CDC estimates 40% of COVID-19 infections are asymptomatic.

A. David Paltiel, a professor at the Yale School of Public Health, said frequent testing for asymptomatic spread is crucial to controlling college outbreaks. Given the infectiousness of the coronavirus, schools should be testing everyone every three or four days, he said.

“By far, the most powerful variable that administrators control is testing frequency,” Paltiel said. “If you’re only springing into action when symptoms emerge … it’s like a fire department that only responds to calls when the house is already known to have been burnt to the ground.”

As Texas continues to report thousands of new cases a day, some colleges in states with fewer infections have launched aggressive testing campaigns. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign requires students, faculty and staff to be tested twice a week.

Among Texas schools that have rolled out plans to catch silent spread, officials vary on how much testing to offer, who exactly should be tested and whether that testing should be mandatory.

Baylor University stands out as one of the few Texas institutions to mandate participation in testing. The private Christian university is requiring all students, faculty, staff and vendors to test if selected, warning that failure to comply may result in disciplinary action. Unlike other Texas universities, Baylor also required a negative test from all students and employees before they returned to campus.

UT-Austin, Texas A&M University and Texas Tech University encourage participation in asymptomatic testing but stop short of requiring it. Texas Christian University does not offer routine testing for students without symptoms, according to The Dallas Morning News.

Cervantes worries a voluntary approach could allow outbreaks to go undetected, especially if some students dodge the invitation to test.

“If it’s optional then people could self-select themselves out of that,” Cervantes said. “Let’s say I think I had a high-risk exposure and I think that testing positive is going to mean something detrimental to me, maybe I’d decide not to get tested.”

Texas Tech is offering walk-up testing on campus for students, faculty and staff, including those without symptoms or exposure to the virus.

In College Station, Texas A&M is randomly selecting students to participate in saliva-based testing throughout the semester. Faculty and staff members are not included, said Shawn Gibbs, dean of A&M’s School of Public Health.

“Faculty and Staff are not part of the random testing program as they represent a population that is less likely to be asymptomatic, more likely to seek testing if they develop symptoms, and less likely to participate in riskier behaviors that could expose them to COVID-19,” Gibbs said in a statement, adding that the school has made testing freely available to employees who have symptoms or are close contacts to someone who has tested positive.

The public flagship launched the first round of random testing Aug. 21, selecting more than 5,000 students – about 7% of its student population. The testing is voluntary for now, but if the school is not satisfied with the response rate, it says the next round will be mandatory.

UT-Austin plans to test 5,000 students, faculty and staff members who do not have symptoms each week. The saliva-based testing is voluntary and directed toward critical populations, such as students in dorms, but anyone is allowed to participate every 14 days, University spokesperson J.B. Bird said. On Sept. 4, the University reported 36 clinical positive results among the 2,770 tests of asymptomatic people it has conducted since the week of Aug. 23.

Bird said UT-Austin has the capacity to increase the number of asymptomatic tests through the semester “and will adapt if the data indicate that this would be a better strategy for tracking, tracing and limiting transmission.”

“With the reduced number of students in Austin, our capacity of up to 5,000 proactive community tests per week offers the chance to survey a significant percentage of the community,” Bird said.

The protocol for athletes, school officials say, seems to be successful at preventing clusters of infection, though it remains to be seen whether testing for Texas campuses at large will provide that kind of mitigation. Plans to press forward with major college football in Texas were dealt an early setback Friday after TCU canceled its first football game due to COVID-19.

Paltiel said any plan dependent on random or voluntary testing is “not good enough.”

“Young, asymptomatic individuals are fueling the spread of this pandemic,” Paltiel said. “You have to test everyone because you’re really looking for those silent spreaders, the kids who feel just fine.”

Disclosure: Baylor University, Texas A&M University, Texas Christian University, Texas Tech University, University of Texas at Austin and University of North Texas have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Israeli ex-envoys blast deals with Kosovo, Serbia – The Jerusalem Post

“I’m not sure it’s in Israel’s interest to get mixed up in this deal,” Koll stated. “We’re paying a price by surrendering a principal of ours, a long-standing policy. It’s a step that might have future repercussions for the Israel-Palestinian conflict.”

The retired diplomat believes that the “Israeli clauses” were a result of “US pressure on Israel, pressure that can’t be disconnected” from the upcoming US presidential election.

Source: Israeli ex-envoys blast deals with Kosovo, Serbia – The Jerusalem Post

Former Shin Bet head to ‘Post:’ Gov’t is leading Israel to dead end – The Jerusalem Post

A self-described “proud minority – and I am not ashamed of it,” Ayalon said he believes that Israel still must find a way to coexist with its Palestinian neighbors.

He told the post that the title of his book, Friendly Fire, is because he thinks “our worst enemy is not the Iranians, Hezbollah, Hamas or Islamic Jihad – our main threat, our worst enemy is ourselves.”

Ayalon “told three prime ministers unequivocally that peace and security were intertwined,” he related in his book. “Security cooperation with the Palestinians was key to combating terror, and this cooperation was only possible in the context of genuine hope among the Palestinian public that our occupation would end.”

He added that if Israel does not maintain itself as a Jewish and democratic state, that will mean the end of Zionism, and “this is what we are doing day by day for several years – it is only because of us.”

Source: Former Shin Bet head to ‘Post:’ Gov’t is leading Israel to dead end – The Jerusalem Post

Kosovo-Serbia talks resume in Brussels after US economic agreement | Euronews

Balkan analyst Đorđe Bojović said the Washington talks were more about Donald Trump’s campaign ahead of November’s presidential election than securing a settlement between Kosovo and Serbia.

“It was primarily for Trump’s flagging electoral campaign, he massively needed a foreign policy win,” Bojović told Euronews.

“The so-called Washington agreement is not an agreement in itself … it clearly lacks a political framework”.

The EU has also warned Serbia and Kosovo over their U.S. talks, which could threaten the bloc’s long-held policy that broader peace negotiations over Jerusalem’s status are needed between Israel and the Palestinians.

“There is no EU member state with an embassy in Jerusalem,” European Commission spokesman Peter Stano said on Monday.

“Any diplomatic steps that could call into question the EU’s common position on Jerusalem are a matter of serious concern and regret.”

(Trump pushed for moving Serb and Kosovo embassies to Jerusalem designed to attract healthy share of absentee votes {approximately 300,000} of US citizens who live and work in Israel?)

Source: Kosovo-Serbia talks resume in Brussels after US economic agreement | Euronews

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