Tag Archives: WorldNews

Boris Johnson says coronavirus could have been handled differently

Earlier this week the government announced the flu vaccine would be offered to everyone over 50 in England – up to 30 million people – this winter in an attempt to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed by a second wave of coronavirus.

On his own experiences with coronavirus, which involved a brief stay in intensive care, Johnson highlighted his weight, and a government campaign being launched next week on obesity, seen as a risk factor for Covid-19.

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PM concedes government did not understand the virus in ‘first few weeks and months’

Boris Johnson has conceded there were “things we could have done differently” over Covid-19, and admitted the government did not understand the virus in the “first few weeks and months”.

In a sometimes combative interview with the BBC, the prime minister repeatedly refused to discuss any lessons that could be learned before a possible second wave of Covid-19 this winter, saying it was not the moment to “run a kind of inquiry into what happened in the past”.

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Federal Cops Are Already in Seattle and the Mayor Is Pissed

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Federal agents have arrived in Seattle, and local officials aren’t happy.

King County Executive Dow Constantine tweeted on Thursday night that a federal plane had landed at the King County International Airport just south of downtown Seattle, and “more than a dozen personnel drove off to an unknown destination”

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee each said on Thursday night that they had been misled by the federal government as to whether or not it intended to send agents to Seattle. Both Durkan and Inslee warned federal agents not to intervene unless asked by local officials.

“After a day of conflicting messages from the federal government, where they told my staff repeatedly that there was no surge of additional personnel to Seattle, it appears they are doing just that,” Inslee tweeted.

The group of federal agents includes a Special Response Team from the Customs and Border Patrol, according to the New York Times. This group of agents is similar to those in Portland, where federal agents teargassed the mayor this week as their presence has only increased the size and intensity of protests. 

“The CBP team will be on standby in the area, should they be required,” the Federal Protective Service confirmed to the New York Times about their presence in Seattle, but a Homeland Security spokesperson also tried to downplay the comparisons to Portland. 

 “There is no large-scale deployment of personnel to Seattle at this time. As threats warrant, any large-scale use of law enforcement assets will involve close coordination with local law enforcement,” DHS spokesperson Alexei Woltornist told the Times. “There are no other cities across the country that have the same threats and lack of local law enforcement support as we are experiencing in Portland.”

 Earlier this month, Durkan sent Seattle police in to clear the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, a set of city blocks in east Seattle that protesters had occupied for weeks before a series of shootings in the area. 

While even federal officials have tamped down comparisons to Portland, Seattle police this week accused protesters of attacking police, vandalizing buildings, and looting businesses, according to the Seattle Times.

There are several protests planned in the city on Saturday and Sunday; in an email to SPD officers, Seattle police chief Carmen Best wrote: “I want to be clear that I will never ask you to risk your personal safety to protect property without the tools to do so in a safe way.” (This week, a federal judge upheld a ban passed by the Seattle City Council on crowd control weapons such as tear gas and blast balls.)

Durkan signed a letter this week along with mayors including Portland’s Ted Wheeler and Chicago’s Lori Lightfoot—where more federal troops are heading—demanding that the Trump administration withdraw federal agents from their cities. 

Durkan said in a series of Thursday night tweets that she had spoken to acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf and had received confirmation that DHS wouldn’t be sending federal agents to Seattle, and that if they did, the city’s leadership would be notified. 

Wolf, apparently, went back on his word. Durkan threatened legal action if “federal forces intervene like they have in Portland.” 

Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said Thursday that his committee had invited Wolf to testify at a hearing next week on the agency’s conduct in Portland.

“Despite the extreme escalation, DHS has given Congress no justification for its actions,” Thompson said in a statement posted to Twitter. “The Administration must be held accountable—and we must hear from Acting Secretary Wolf directly. The future of our democracy is at stake.”

Cover: U.S. Federal Police use crowd control methods to disperse protesters at the Multnomah County Justice Center in Portland, Oregon, on July 23, 2020. (ANKUR DHOLAKIA/AFP via Getty Images)

India sees daily record of 49,000 new coronavirus cases, drug shortages in some states

India reported more than 49,000 fresh cases of the novel coronavirus, with 740 new deaths on Friday (July 24), marking the biggest daily surge in cases even as officials in some states complained of shortages of vital drugs for those hospitalised.

As the number of cases neared 1.3 million in India, local authorities scrambled to procure generic versions of remdesivir, the drug that has shown promise in clinical trials in treating severely ill patients with Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“Demand is huge, as cases are rising rapidly in the state,” said a senior drug regulatory official in the western state of Maharashtra. “Supplies of the drug are limited, but companies have assured us they will provide more in a week.”

India has reported 30,601 deaths from the disease, with more than 40 per cent of these deaths coming from Maharashtra state.

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MUMBAI (REUTERS) – India reported more than 49,000 fresh cases of the novel coronavirus, with 740 new deaths on Friday (July 24), marking the biggest daily surge in cases even as officials in some states complained of shortages of vital drugs for those hospitalised.

As the number of cases neared 1.3 million in India, local authorities scrambled to procure generic versions of remdesivir, the drug that has shown promise in clinical trials in treating severely ill patients with Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“Demand is huge, as cases are rising rapidly in the state,” said a senior drug regulatory official in the western state of Maharashtra. “Supplies of the drug are limited, but companies have assured us they will provide more in a week.”

India has reported 30,601 deaths from the disease, with more than 40 per cent of these deaths coming from Maharashtra state.

The western state is the worst-affected, having recorded nearly 350,000 cases, of which almost 60 per cent were reported in the country’s financial capital, Mumbai, and its satellite towns.

Remdesivir, made by the US drugmaker Gilead Sciences Inc, has been in high demand globally amid the pandemic, and Gilead in May and June authorised six Indian companies, and three foreign ones, to make and sell generic versions of the drug in 127 developing nations.

Only three of these firms with operations in India – Hetero Labs, Cipla and Mylan NV – have so far been able to start supplying. Others are either awaiting regulatory approvals or still setting up production.

Several hospitals have struggled to get the drug as patient numbers increased in a county whose public health system is one of the world’s most poorly funded. India has the third-highest number of coronavirus cases after the United States and Brazil.

Drug industry and government officials in the country said that they are doing their best.

“These things cannot be done in a hurry,” said Mr P.D. Vaghela, an official at India’s Department of Pharmaceuticals, adding that the drug regulator was working on granting approvals to companies for generic remdesivir at the earliest.

“Some people were engaging in black marketing but we have taken strict action against them,” he said.

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Plunge in student enrolment in Philippines as parents fret over coronavirus, distance learning

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MANILA – Millions of students in the Philippines are dropping out of school this year as parents fret over a still raging coronavirus outbreak and harbour doubts over how effective distance learning will be.

Some 23 million students in public and private schools – out of 28 million students in the country – have enrolled for the 2020-21 school year, according to the Department of Education.

While 90 per cent of public school students have re-enrolled, private schools have seen a plunge in the number of re-enrollees. Last year, they had four million. Now, they only have 1.5 million.

Some 300,000 have transferred to public schools, while the rest will get instructions from their parents or private tutors, or just while the year away.

With so few of their students returning, many private schools have had to shut down.

“The drop is due to the pandemic,” said Education Secretary Leonor Briones on Monday (July 20) during a Cabinet meeting.

She said parents who are financially strapped because they lost their jobs or had to take pay cuts are transferring their children to public schools to cut expenses.

Some of these parents have also been lobbying for private schools to reduce their tuition fees as they are moving to distance learning.

“My children won’t be using classrooms, or the laboratory and library. Why should I still pay for miscellaneous fees?” a mother asked on a Facebook group of affected parents.

Lawyer Emillie Espina combed through the tuition and other fees at his son’s engineering school, and found over 10,000 pesos (S$280) worth of charges she thinks it should waive because these cover things such as dental and athletics that students will not be using.

“We value the education of our children but fees should not be charged without basis and without compassion, especially in this trying period,” she said.

Another mother, who works from home as an outsourcing agent, said she can no longer afford the 40,000 pesos to keep her son in a private school. So, she moved him to a public school, where she only has to get him a laptop and pay for printouts of school modules.

“I will be the one to teach my kids, so why pay so much for distance learning?” she said.

It’s food and safety first for now, and tuition later, said Alliance of Concerned Teachers secretary-general Raymond Basilio.

The learning arrangement is not ideal, he said.

With students still barred from classrooms, the government is rolling out “blended learning” as an alternative: a combination of online classes, printed materials, and broadcasting classes through TV and radio.

Most of those in public schools do not have Internet subscriptions. They will have to rely on modules their schools will send, and get instructions via TV or radio.

With their parents without a source of livelihood or barely hanging on to their jobs, these students will have to learn on their own.

In farming communities, they are unlikely to have any time for schoolwork if they are at home, as they are expected to help out with household chores and making ends meet.

Ms Briones said classes will open on Aug 24, whether schools are ready or not. “The bottom line is that the children’s education will continue.”

But Mr Basilio said carrying on under the less than ideal conditions comes at the children’s expense.

“One child left behind is one too many,” he said.

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Mask mandate appears to be helping in Texas, but experts ask Gov. Greg Abbott not to rule out a shutdown

public health experts warn that more restrictive lockdowns may still be appropriate in the state’s hardest-hit regions, as the disease continues to infect about 10 times as many people each day compared with two months ago, ravaging some parts of the state more severely than others.

State data now appears to show new daily infections leveling off, albeit at nearly record highs. There were around 9,100 daily new cases of the virus on average over the past week. The state recorded its largest number of daily new cases July 15, at 10,791. On Thursday, that number was 9,507.

“The downside is even though we are approaching another plateau, we are at a much higher level than in May,” Nandy said.
While there is widespread consensus that more people wearing face coverings in public will slow viral spread, researchers disagree over how much credit to assign to Texas’ statewide mask order.

While there is widespread consensus that more people wearing face coverings in public will slow viral spread, researchers disagree over how much credit to assign to Texas’ statewide mask order.
Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune

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Three weeks after Gov. Greg Abbott required Texans to wear masks, epidemiologists and disease modelers say they are cautiously optimistic that the mandate is helping the state turn a corner in its efforts to contain an outbreak that has killed more than 4,500 Texans.

Throughout the summer, Texas’ coronavirus outbreak became grimmer by the day and by almost every metric: case counts, hospitalizations, deaths. But in the past week or so, Abbott and some of the state’s public health officials began to see hope in the daily case counts as they appeared to stabilize.

A growing body of evidence points to widespread mask-wearing as an effective strategy for containing the virus, and one North Texas researcher’s statistical analysis published this week argued that local mask orders in the region reduced viral transmission enough to avoid a lockdown. The governor, who has faced blistering criticism for his handling of the pandemic from members of his own political party, immediately seized upon those findings in defense of his statewide order.

“A community lock down is not needed as long as masks & other distancing strategies are used,” Abbott wrote Monday on Twitter, citing the analysis by Rajesh Nandy, a professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of North Texas Health Science Center.

Scientific Report shows that the mask mandate is successfully slowing the spread of COVID-19 in North Texas.

The report also shows that a community lock down is not needed as long as masks & other distancing strategies are used.

https://t.co/uaxrxG33C0

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) July 20, 2020

But public health experts warn that more restrictive lockdowns may still be appropriate in the state’s hardest-hit regions, as the disease continues to infect about 10 times as many people each day compared with two months ago, ravaging some parts of the state more severely than others.

State data now appears to show new daily infections leveling off, albeit at nearly record highs. There were around 9,100 daily new cases of the virus on average over the past week. The state recorded its largest number of daily new cases July 15, at 10,791. On Thursday, that number was 9,507.

“The downside is even though we are approaching another plateau, we are at a much higher level than in May,” Nandy said.

The average percentage of coronavirus tests coming back positive has also fallen over the past week.

Taken together, epidemiologists say those trends may indicate that Texas is reaching a plateau of new cases, where the number of cumulative infections climbs steadily, rather than exponentially. That would hardly represent a victory over the pandemic, but it would help keep hospitals from being overrun with sick patients.

Public health experts say more time is needed to see if daily case numbers hold steady or, ideally, decline — which would also lead to fewer hospitalizations and deaths.

Growing evidence in support of masks

While there is widespread consensus that more people wearing face coverings in public will slow viral spread, researchers disagree over how much credit to assign to the statewide mask order.

“We will probably never know for sure whether the mask mandate is affecting what looks to be at least a leveling off of cases,” said Catherine Troisi, an infectious disease epidemiologist at UTHealth School of Public Health in Houston.

“It is certainly possible the mask mandate is decreasing spread,” she said. “I hope that’s true, but it’s hard to prove.”

Disease modelers estimate a figure called the reproduction number, which essentially represents how many people, on average, a person infected with the coronavirus will pass it on to. A reproduction number above 1 signals rapid growth, a value of 1 indicates stable growth, and less than 1 means an area is experiencing a decrease in new cases over time and has slowed the rate of transmission.

In the state’s largest urban areas, including Houston and Dallas, researchers are more confident that the rate of transmission has slowed such that the regions’ reproduction numbers are now at or are slightly below 1.

“I think we can take credit in Houston for adopting a masking approach, and I do think it’s being helpful,” said Chris Amos, the associate director of quantitative science at Baylor College of Medicine, who has modeled the rate of virus transmission in Houston.

Even if new case counts remain steady, Texas has a long way to go toward reducing the rate of viral transmission as other states have done. New York, for example, has reported an average of roughly 700 new cases per day in recent weeks, after an April peak of more than 12,000.

Nandy’s analysis of mask orders found that states, such as New York, that acted quickly were able to avoid the virus’ June surge experienced in Texas. New York, one of the country’s earliest hot spots, began requiring face masks in mid-April; Abbott announced Texas’ statewide mask order July 2.

Disease modelers pointed to recent findings to bolster the idea that mandatory mask-wearing is a highly effective public health strategy — at least when there is widespread compliance.

In one study, researchers studied a group of 139 clients who visited a salon in Springfield, Missouri. Two hairstylists who had not been tested for COVID-19 but had respiratory symptoms associated with the disease, such as a cough or shortness of breath, worked with those clients over about a week.

Crucially, both the hairstylists and all of their clients wore masks, a requirement of a Springfield city ordinance and a policy of the salon, according to the report published July 14 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both hairstylists later tested positive, but researchers found that none of their 139 clients developed COVID-19 symptoms.

“The citywide ordinance and company policy might have played a role in preventing spread” of the virus, the researchers wrote, and “broader implementation of masking policies could mitigate the spread of infection in the general population.”

In a second study, researchers examined the effects on health care workers in Massachusetts after a large hospital system in March required all workers and patients to wear surgical masks. The article, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that health care workers were significantly less likely to be sickened by the coronavirus after the masking requirement compared with before.

Avoiding a shutdown

After waffling on mask mandates, first prohibiting Texas cities from enforcing them and later issuing a statewide order, Abbott hopes to avoid the possibility of a business shutdown, which is even more unpopular among members of his party.

An Abbott spokesman did not respond to emailed questions Thursday.

But public health experts say shutdowns are an effective measure that may be appropriate in areas with severe outbreaks.

Even Nandy’s analysis, presented to government officials, academics and journalists this week, argued that a shelter-in-place order “should not be ruled out in the event of another surge,” a point echoed by epidemiologists across Texas.

In Austin, for example, University of Texas researchers wrote in an article published this week that “immediate and extensive social distancing measures” undertaken in March, including business closures, were necessary to ensure that hospitals weren’t overrun with COVID-19 patients by early summer.

In the Rio Grande Valley, a largely Hispanic region of South Texas where a surge of coronavirus deaths has led funeral homes to set up temporary morgues and crematoriums to run overtime, local leaders this week sought to impose another shelter-in-place order, but an Abbott executive order left it unenforceable and “simply a recommendation,” according to a spokesperson for the governor.

Around the same time, the state’s largest cities began to report signs that viral transmission had slowed. Conservative politicians, including state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, heralded the findings as reason to “keep the Texas economy open and fight the virus at the same time.”

Public health experts were left to debate whether a mask mandate was enough to bring down virus transmission in hard-hit communities — and what constitutes an acceptable rate of spread of a pandemic with disproportionate impacts along geographic and racial lines.

National polls have found broad support for mask mandates among Democrats and Republicans. But are mask mandates effective enough to take a shelter-in-place order off the table?

“There’s just not enough evidence either way,” said James Scott, a professor of statistics and member of the University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium.

“I understand that there’s an enormously difficult set of tradeoffs that have to be navigated when you contemplate locking the economy down,” he said. “But I think it would be premature to rule out the possibility of subsequent lockdowns if things got really, really bad.”

Disclosure: The UNT Health Science Center and the University of Texas at Austin 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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Mexico’s neglect of Covid-19 testing mystifies experts as cases surge

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The country performs just three tests per 100,000 people, with explanations ranging from cost-cutting to a push for herd immunity

Before travelling to Washington to meet Donald Trump earlier this month, the Mexican president took a coronavirus test.

Until then, Andrés Manuel López Obrador had never been tested, arguing that there was no need for it – even though several cabinet members had become infected with Covid-19.

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‘We wear them to protect one another’: readers share their homemade masks stories

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A necessary evil, a good way to keep the kids entertained, and more comfortable than a bra

This mask is made with three layers of closely woven fabrics, with pleats at the top and bottom to help it sit nicely over my nose and minimise steaming up under my glasses. I’m a GP and, although I don’t love wearing a mask, I do like the fact that it’s something we do more for others than for ourselves. It’s a positive expression of caring for each other. Catherine Lake, 47, Portsmouth

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