DECEMBER 31st, 2020–(Daily Mail)–Are the United States falling at the final hurdle? The “Warp Speed” chief has admitted that just 2.6m Americans have been vaccinated instead of 20m target – despite 12m doses sitting in freezers across the states

The US has only administered about 10 percent – less than 2.6million – of the 20 million doses of coronavirus vaccine it promised to give to Americans by the end of 2020, despite having distributed more than 12million doses to states and territories.

CDC data reveal that as of 9am ET on Wednesday, fewer than 2.6million people had received their first doses of Moderna or Pfizer’s vaccines – both of which are difficult to ship and handle because they need to be stored at freezing temperatures.

The bottleneck is caused by officials on state and federal level who have failed to create plans to get those shots into the arms of Americans according to a former FDA official who told DailyMail.com that the failure is akin to dropping the baton on the last leg of the vaccine race.

The hold-ups came as the US set yet another grim record for the deadliest day yet with 3,903 deaths recorded in a single day on Wednesday – and a new mutant ‘super strain’ of the virus was detected in southern California and Colorado.

While Americans continue to wait to be vaccinated, the UK on Wednesday authorized a vaccine by AstraZeneca that will almost certainly accelerate vaccine distribution there because it is cheaper, far easier to ship, handle and store than the Pfizer and Moderna alternatives.

Yet US regulators have no intention of approving the more efficient shot until April – two months after AstraZeneca’s US trial will have enough data to prove to the FDA that it works. Other trials have already shown that AstraZeneca’s $4 vaccine is safe and about 70 percent effective – well above the efficacy the FDA said it will require to approve a vaccine.

But in the US, federal government has punted distribution plans almost entirely to states, where health departments are already stretched thin by surging COVID-19 cases. The result is a helter-skelter patchwork of last-minute plans that look vastly different from state to state, bumping drug addicts and prisoners to the front of the line in some places, while in others, like Florida, elderly Americans are camping out in lawn chairs overnight in a bid to get vaccinated.

Others say essential workers and the aged are being told to ‘call around’ to see if they can get a vaccine.

As anger mounted that only about 230,000 Americans are getting vaccinated a day, President Trump tweeted on Wednesday that states had the doses and needed to ‘get moving!’. Even Operation Warp Speed’s chief scientist Dr Moncef Slaoui admitted. that the US vaccine roll-out ‘should be better’.

There were more than 3,903 deaths in 24 hours on Wednesday – the highest since the start of the pandemic. It is the ninth time this month that single-day fatalities have exceeded 3,000 – numbers never seen in the U.S. before December. Hospitalizations soared to a new high too, with 125,220 Americans with coronavirus in inpatient treatment.

In the past 48 hours, 461,982 vaccines have been given – about 230,000 a day.

‘We agreed that the number is lower than what we hoped for,’ said co-chief of Operation Warp Speed Dr Moncef Slaoui during a Wednesday briefing.

‘We know that it should be better and we are working hard to make it better,’ he added, of the distribution process.

At least 11.45 million doses have been distributed and the federal government has allocated just shy of 20 million doses to be distributed by the end of next week.

But that has not translated to shots in arms.

The vaccine roll-out in the US lags behind other wealthy nations. In the 16 days since the U.S. began vaccinating people, 2,589,125 Americans have gotten their first dose.

That means an average of about 40 out of every 100,000 people in the US are getting vaccinated a day, compared to 60 per capita in the UK, which approved the Oxford University-developed vaccine made by AstraZeneca on Wednesday.

Dr Slaoui said that vaccine – which is more easily distributed because it can be shipped and stored at refrigerator temperatures – likely won’t be authorized until April.

US regulators have faced broad criticism – including from President Trump – for dragging their feet on vaccine approvals while thousands of Americans die of COVID-19 each day.

It seems that the harsh words have done little to hurry the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) up.

AstraZeneca expects to have results from its ongoing US vaccine trial by February – yet Operation Warp Speed says it doesn’t expect the shot to get authorized for another two months thereafter.

It remains unclear why. The vaccine was at least 70 percent effective in trials. Data published in the Lancet gave rise to no major concerns over side effects or safety (despite trials being paused in September after two participants developed neurological issues, both of which were ultimately deemed unrelated to the jab).

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BEIJING, China–December 30th, 2020–China on Thursday announced that it has granted market approval attached with conditions for its first homemade COVID-19 vaccine, which was developed by Sinopharm, marking a monumental step in the battle against the pandemic that has killed 1.79 million globally.

The inactivated vaccine developed by Beijing Biological Products Institute under Sinopharm’s subsidiary China National Biotec Group (CNBG), got official authorization from China’s National Medical Products Administration on Wednesday, Chen Shifei, deputy head of the National Medical Products Administration, said at Thursday’s press conference.

The move came one day after the institute announced that the vaccine showed 79.34 percent efficacy and a 99.52 percent antibody positive conversion rate, according to interim results of the Phase III clinical trials.

The results are better than the 50 percent standard of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Chinese authorities, according to the institute. The vaccine also showed a good safety level, its producers noted.

A vaccine has to undergo strict review by each country’s national drug administration before being authorized for public use. All data and processes are reviewed by professional third-party committees, CNBG’s chairman Yang Xiaoming told the Global Times in a recent exclusive interview.

Yang was inoculated with a CNBG vaccine in March with hundreds of his colleagues. He said they had tested the level of antibodies six months after vaccination and the results were good.

Yang noted that data on safety and efficacy collected so far in the Phase III clinical trials is better than expected

Reported side effects of the vaccines are also milder than expected, Yang said. The side effects of CNBG’s inactivated vaccines include aches or redness at the injection site, fever, muscular soreness, sickness and headache.

A representative of Sinopharm told the Global Times on Wednesday that the interim results are mainly based on data from trials conducted in the United Arab Emirates, the vaccine’s largest test base. The Chinese regulator uses a very rigorous standard – stronger even than the international criteria – in reviewing the number of confirmed infected cases in the double-blind placebo-controlled trials for understanding the efficacy of the vaccine.

The Beijing institute’s vaccine was approved in the UAE and Bahrain earlier this month.

Sinopharm’s two inactivated vaccines have been administered to nearly 1 million people for emergency use and no serious adverse reactions have been reported. About 70,000 volunteers have participated in the phase-III clinical trials in more than 10 countries.

Tao Lina, a vaccine expert in Shanghai, said that the approval demonstrated that China has created a “miracle” by creating a vaccine within one year.

Pfizer and Moderna have announced 95 percent efficacy for their mRNA vaccines, which was beyond predictions and drove up the public’s expectation for Chinese inactivated vaccines.

Tao noted that despite the high efficacy, the US mRNA vaccines have shown more side effects as well as acute allergy occurrences. The mRNA vaccines also have more strict requirements for transportation.

Tao suggested that the inactivated and mRNA vaccines can both help human beings to resist the novel coronavirus. But both are early-stage products and more improved ones are expected, which will offer more balance between efficacy, safety and transportation requirements.

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AUCKLAND, New Zealand–January 1st, 2021–Happy muted New Year! New Zealand and the Pacific Islands are first to ring in 2021 as countries around the world prepare to send off a year blighted by the global pandemic with pared-down celebrations

With virtual parties, socially-distanced firework displays and the hope of better days to come, the world has begun bidding good riddance to the year of the pandemic today and greeting the dawn of 2021.

Unmourned but never to be forgotten, 2020 started passing into history in Kiribati and Samoa at 10am GMT and New Zealand at 11am – with the last Pacific islands set to cross the invisible threshold 25 hours later.

In New Zealand and Australia, two of the first countries to reach midnight and also two of the most successful in fending off the worst of Covid-19, life was normal enough for some crowds of revellers to gather on waterfronts in Auckland and Sydney to mark the new year.

But for most of the world’s seven billion people, a grinding year is ending with typically scaled-back festivities, with fireworks, pyre burnings and live performances set to be watched from home or cancelled altogether.

From France to Latvia to Brazil, police and military personnel are being deployed to enforce night-time curfews and bans on large gatherings are enforced, with much of the world still in lockdown and the vaccine race only just beginning.

Although the Pacific islands were spared the worst ravages of the pandemic, border restrictions, curfews and lockdowns meant this New Year’s Eve was still a little different.

At the palm-fringed Taumeasina resort in Samoa, manager Tuiataga Nathan Bucknall was pleased to be open without a limit on guest numbers, but thanks to a state of emergency stopped serving alcohol at 11 pm.

In harder-hit countries such as Italy – where shocking images of makeshift morgues and exhausted medics first awoke the world to the horror of the pandemic last spring – curfews and lockdowns are still in force.

In London, American singer-songwriter Patti Smith will ring in the New Year with a tribute to NHS workers who have died from Covid-19, projected on the screen at Piccadilly Circus and streamed on YouTube.

And in New York, the famous ball-drop in Times Square will unfold this year without the usual throngs of cheering revelers. Police will block off the area so that spectators cannot even get a glimpse.

Since it surfaced in China in late 2019, the coronavirus has infected more than 80million people and led to nearly 1.8million deaths, the majority of them in Europe and the Americas.

Although mass vaccination efforts have begun in many countries in recent weeks, offering hope that the end of the pandemic is in sight, it is likely to be months before normal life can return in most of the world.

In China, where the Lunar New Year generally takes precedence over January 1, a countdown ceremony will take place in Beijing with just a few invited guests while other planned events have been cancelled.

Hong Kong, with its British colonial history and large expatriate population, has usually seen raucous celebrations along the waterfront and in bar districts.

For the second year running, however, New Year’s Eve fireworks have been cancelled, this time over coronavirus rather than public security concerns.

In Japan, some people skipped what is customarily a chance to return to ancestral homes for the holidays, hoping to lessen health risks for extended families.

Rural restaurants saw business drop, while home deliveries of traditional New Year’s ‘good luck’ food called ‘osechi’ boomed.

Emperor Naruhito is delivering a video message instead of waving from a window with the imperial family as cheering crowds visit the palace.

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Washington, D.C., December 30, 2020 (PAHO)—The COVID-19 pandemic swept through every country in the Americas in 2020, infecting more than 35 million people and causing some 850,000 deaths.

Globally, COVID-19 affected 216 countries and territories, causing more than 80 million cases and 1.7 million deaths worldwide. The Americas was the most affected continent in a context of large inequities.

Pan American Health Organization Director Carissa F. Etienne called it “the most extraordinary public health event of our lifetimes,” and said the work to control the pandemic in 2021 “won’t be easy or quick.”

In a year-end message, Etienne said, “As we approach the end of 2020, I would like to recognize your dedication in meeting the unparalleled challenges of this year. My thanks to all staff, national governments, international organizations, and citizens who have helped confront COVID-19 while continuing to advance the health and well-being of people in the Region of the Americas.”

PAHO focused on helping countries rapidly detect cases, protect their health workers, reduce transmission, and save lives, providing training, logistical support, vital equipment and supplies, and emergency planning.

To complement PAHO resources in 27 country offices, personnel and supplies were mobilized to train national health authorities, support national emergency plans, and assess reorganization of health services. PAHO also disseminated technical specifications for personal protective equipment (PPE) and biomedical equipment and supported the analysis of needs to meet the requirements for PPE, supplies, and reagents and advanced purchasing processes to generate a strategic national reserve through donations to the PAHO Strategic Fund, a regional technical cooperation mechanism for pooled procurement of essential medicines and strategic health supplies. Additionally, over 200 virtual training sessions were held, with some 30,000 participants from 33 countries.

Contact tracing is critical for health authorities to keep the spread of the virus under control. In collaboration with the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network–GOARN, PAHO trained health workers in 31 countries and territories in the Go.Data app. The app supports investigation and management of suspected COVID-19 cases, display of transmission chains, and contact tracing.

The global scientific community raced to identify and assess the efficacy of potential therapeutics for caring for persons sickened by COVID-19. To help countries navigate the deluge of information, PAHO reviewed findings from over 1,700 clinical trials and 58 therapeutic options to enable health authorities to take evidence-backed decisions for patient care. In addition, 111 technical guidelines and recommendations were developed or tailored to the Americas from WHO documents.

PAHO also supported strengthening or installation of SARS-CoV-2 virus reference laboratory diagnostic capacity in 35 countries and territories and established a regional genomics surveillance network to monitor for variants of the virus.

“While we hope 2021 will usher a new chapter in our fight against this virus, protecting the millions of people in our region with COVID-19 vaccines will be a huge undertaking,” Etienne said in a recent briefing. “So, we must be patient and remain realistic that COVID-19 will be among us for some time – so our work to control it cannot and must not stop.” Vulnerable people in the Americas “are already receiving COVID-19 vaccines, with millions more doses expected early next year. This timeline is astonishing and a testament to the unprecedented collaboration among scientists, researchers and experts alike.”

Global partnerships like the COVAX Facility are also pooling resources, expertise and efforts to ensure that countries have equal access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines under the same timelines Etienne added. PAHO’s Revolving Fund, through which 41 countries and territories pool their resources to procure high-quality vaccines, syringes and related supplies for their populations at the lowest price, will also play a significant role.

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We are more than disappointed that this individual’s actions will result in a delay of more than 500 people receiving their vaccine.

The organization, which runs 26 hospitals, said the employee in question had been fired and authorities had been notified about the incident.

It was earlier revealed that 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine had been taken out of a pharmacy refrigerator at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wisconsin overnight, after which more than 500 doses of the vaccine had been “discarded.” The center’s officials said at the time that the vaccine had been removed from the freezers “inadvertently.”

The Moderna vaccines arrive frozen at between -25°C and -15°C (-13°F and 5°F) and must be stored in refrigerators between 2°C and 8°C (36°F and 46°F), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Police confirmed to the media that they have launched an investigation regarding an employee “tampering” with the vials, and that the FBI and Food and Drug Administration were working on the case as well.

“Earlier this week, we learned that 57 vials of Moderna vaccine were removed from a pharmacy refrigerator at Aurora Medical Center – Grafton overnight, resulting in more than 500 doses of vaccine being discarded,” Advocate Aurora Health, the parent of the Grafton, Wis, hospital said.

“We immediately launched an internal review and were led to believe this was caused by inadvertent human error. The individual in question today acknowledged that they intentionally removed the vaccine from refrigeration.”

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TRAVEL by Eric Mackenzie Lamb

About four years ago, having some time on my hands, I decided to explore Ireland, a country which I’d never visited before. After arriving at Dublin airport, I rented a car and headed north, a route which would first take me to Belfast in Northern Ireland, then back across the border in a southwesterly direction along the island’s picturesque Atlantic coast. The weather was perfect-at least for the moment-with plenty of photo opportunities along the way.

And I wasn’t disappointed. It didn’t take long to realize why the country was known as the Emerald Isle. Rolling green hills, centuries-old stone farmhouses, rambling sheep, spectacular views that seemed to stretch forever: the epitome of history, serenity, and unspoiled beauty.

By coincidence, my visit took place only a few days before the referendum in which a majority of the UK’s population would vote in favor of Brexit. But not here. Crossing the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, it was evident that most locals on either side, many of them tradesmen, farmers and fishermen, were adamantly opposed to such a drastic move, especially as they believed that it had all been dictated by the political elite in London, another universe away. (Little had they realized how maddeningly complicated the process would become over the next four years. But by then, it was too late to turn back the clock).

The following morning, after spending a restful night with a great breakfast at an Air B&B farmhouse,  I continued south along the coast. As is typical in Ireland, especially on the Atlantic side, the weather had changed overnight from sunshine to sporadic rain and patchy fog. Then again, I thought to myself, that’s what kept the country so green. Ominous dark clouds  on the western horizon were a sure sign that some fierce Atlantic gales would soon be arriving.

Shortly after noon, I decided to take a break from driving and do a hike along the seaside cliffs. There wasn’t a solitary human being to be seen, only flocks of seagulls and gannets.  All I could hear was the whistling of the wind and the muted roar of waves breaking on the rocky beaches below. It felt almost ghostly. Walking along the path, I suddenly noticed a large solitary rock about a hundred yards away, inscribed with what appeared to be a metal plaque. Out of curiosity, I made my way toward it for a closer look. The plaque’s text was in both English and Gaelic, not easy to read because most of its surface had been worn away by time and weather. But its message was still clear-a testimonial  to a momentous event which had happened more than four centuries before, and which changed history forever: the English defeat of the Spanish Armada.

 

The real story starts here. Not even Hollywood could come close to depicting the scale of human bravery under hopeless conditions which followed a reckless decision by King Felipe II of Spain to invade England-a decision which would ultimately result in the tragic loss of over twenty thousand lives and the beginning of the end for the Spanish Empire.

But first, some background information.

By the mid Sixteenth century, England and Spain had become sworn enemies, with much of the mutual hostility due to England’s conversion to Protestantism under the Reformation Act, along with its support by English royalty. Queen Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII, infamously became known as Bloody Mary for her brutal executions of hundreds of English Catholics who refused to stop practicing their faith, an act of defiance which was considered heresy.  Mary died in 1558 and was succeeded by her half sister, Elizabeth the First, who continued to support mandatory Protestantism (known as the Act of Conformity) and the abolition of what was then termed as Popery.

Nor were tensions eased  by the fact that English privateers, often led by the legendary Sir Francis Drake,  consistently attacked Spanish ships in Atlantic and Caribbean waters in order to confiscate gold and other valuables being transported from Spain’s South American colonies to the mother country. As far as King Felipe was concerned, enough was enough. He ordered his armed forces to start preparing for the invasion of England. He also revealed his plans in secret to Pope Sixtus V, who gave his blessing to bring Protestant England back into the fold of Rome.

By 1587, Spanish preparations were well underway to prepare for the invasion. However, these were interrupted when Drake raided the Armada’s supplies in Cadiz, which resulted in almost a year’s delay.

Finally, in May of 1588, the Armada’s fleet, under the command of the Duke of Medina Sedonia, set sail from Corunna. Its goal was to secure the English Channel and then transport the invading Spanish army to England from Flanders. The very size of the force was unprecedented: 130 ships, 2,500 guns, 8,000 sailors, and 20,000 soldiers. (In addition, the fleet carried 180 priests and 14,000 barrels of wine). However, the Armada was beset by storms and didn’t reach the southern coast of England until July 19, almost two months after it had departed.  This also adversely affected its supplies of food, fresh water, and other essentials even before the battle had begun.

The delay had also helped the English to spot the approaching fleet when it first appeared off the coast of Cornwall. On July 21st, as the Armada approached Plymouth, they were intercepted by a hundred English ships under the command of Lord Charles Howard and Francis Drake, who had already made meticulous tactical plans. Their first step was to bombard the Spanish fleet from a safe distance, taking advantage of their heavy long range guns. Despite the confrontation, and thinned by the English assault, the Armada’s fleet managed to proceed slowly up the channel and, by July 27, had anchored off the French port of Calais. The plan was to wait until a message was received confirming that the Spanish army was ready to embark from Flanders.

But no message came. By now, it had become apparent to the Spanish officers that the Duke of Medina Sedonia was totally inexperienced when it came to maritime warfare. His decision to wait in an exposed position off Calais, rather than proceed as quickly as possible to Flanders, message or no message, would have disastrous consequences.

And they weren’t long in coming. Just after midnight on July 29, the English launched eight burning unmanned ships into Calais harbour. The resulting panic was immediate. The Spanish were forced to cut their own ships’ anchors and sail out to sea to avoid catching fire.

But worse was yet to come. Precisely at the first light of dawn, the scattered and disorganized Spanish fleet was attacked in full force by the smaller and more agile English ships off the French coast, in what would go down in history as the Battle of Gravelines and the ultimate defeat of what had once been called the Invincible Armada. Many Spanish ships tried frantically to escape by turning southwest along the channel, but a sudden change in wind direction and blockage by English navy vessels made this impossible. The only choice was to turn around and sail in the opposite direction, only to be further devastated by gunfire from the faster English vessels which pursued them. The Armada’s remnants were forced to retreat to the northern tip of Scotland and then south along the Irish coast in an attempt to return to Spain. With no anchors, the surviving ships were now even more vulnerable to tides and strong winds. According to historical records, at least twenty-one Spanish ships were driven ashore and wrecked along the Irish coast, including the Santa Maria Rata Encoronada, with 520 guns and 429 men, whose memorial plaque I’d seen during my hike along the cliffs. Most of the Encoronada’s crew managed to escape. Once ashore, a decision was made by its captain to set the vessel on fire to prevent its appropriation by the English. After this was done, the captain and his crew were transferred to another ship, the Duquesa Santa Ana, which itself was wrecked four days later off County Donegal.

In the end, less than half of the Armada’s fleet managed to return to Spain. By then, untold thousands of men had perished, either from wounds sustained in battle, or from malnutrition, disease, or drowning. Meanwhile, back in England, the expression God sent us the wind had almost become a national anthem.

You may also have heard the expression Black Irish. Although it’s never been proven, many still believe that they’re descendants of the Armada’s Spanish survivors who made it ashore and eventually intermarried with the Irish population-a perception fostered by their darker complexion and black hair. And, like so many Irish over the past centuries, they became immigrants to other parts of the world, including the Caribbean. All in search of a better life.

Who knows?  Maybe it’s time to check those birth records in Montserrat?

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