The partner of a man allegedly murdered at his Christchurch home says she is struggling to make sense of his death.She says even though their relationship was troubled she loved and adored him and had hopes for a long and happy…
Category Archives: headline
US and UK Aiding India Fight Corona Devastation, World Stats
Washington reverses vaccine export ban while Downing Street dispatches ventilators and oxygen
Rebecca Ratcliffe and agencies
International efforts to help India fight its devastating coronavirus crisis have stepped up as the White House said the US would immediately provide raw materials for vaccine manufacture and the UK announced it had dispatched ventilators and oxygen to Delhi.
France and Germany are also set to send much-needed oxygen to India in the coming days as it battles the world’s worst outbreak. Pakistan, a traditional foe, offered medical equipment and supplies after the prime minister, Imran Khan, tweeted prayers for a “speedy recovery”.
India reported 349,691 new cases on Sunday, a record increase for the fourth consecutive day, and 2,767 people dead. Hospitals are running short of life-saving oxygen and patients are dying while they wait to see doctors.
It is feared that the official statistics and a death toll of 192,311 are underestimating the scale of the crisis as experts believe many people are not going to get tested, or lack access to healthcare.
Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, said the country was facing a “storm” of infections. “Our spirits were high after successfully dealing with the first wave,” he said in a radio address on Sunday. “But this storm has shaken the nation.”
The US had been facing increasing pressure to lift export controls on raw materials intended to boost its own domestic vaccine supply, which Indian vaccine manufacturers said was slowing down their ability to produce jabs.
The National Security Council spokeswoman, Emily Horne, said in a statement that the US would send raw materials required for India to manufacture the AstraZeneca vaccine, as well as therapeutics, rapid diagnostic test kits, ventilators and protective equipment for frontline workers. “The United States is working around the clock to deploy available resources and supplies,” she said.
The UK package includes 495 oxygen concentrators, which can extract oxygen from the air when hospital systems have run out, 120 non-invasive ventilators and 20 manual ventilators. It is expected to arrive in Delhi on Tuesday with further shipments later in the week.
Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, said Britain stood “side by side with India as a friend and partner […] I’m determined to make sure that the UK does everything it can to support the international community in the global fight against pandemic.”
The US president, Joe Biden, has previously said the US will not supply vaccines to other countries until it has enough supplies at home but the US’s top infectious diseases expert, Anthony Fauci, said on Sunday the US would review how to help increase India’s vaccine supply or helping them “to essentially make vaccines themselves”. India is one of the world’s largest vaccine manufacturers.
Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health in Providence, Rhode Island, urged the Biden administration to go further and share excess vaccines with India and other countries in crisis, pointing out that the US had an estimated 30m unused doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that has not been authorised by US regulators. The calls were echoed by the author Salman Rushdie, who said: “The US has something like a vaccine glut. India is in dire straits.”
The unprecedented spread of the virus has overwhelmed hospitals in major cities, which continue to face severe shortages of beds and oxygen.
Burial grounds in Delhi are running out of space with funeral pyres lighting up the night sky in other badly hit cities. In the central city of Bhopal, some crematoriums have increased their capacity from dozens of pyres to more than 50.
Workers at the city’s Bhadbhada Vishram Ghat crematorium said they cremated more than 110 people on Saturday, even as government figures in the entire city of 1.8 million put the total number of virus deaths at just 10. “The virus is swallowing our city’s people like a monster,” said Mamtesh Sharma, an official at the site told the Associated Press.
Modi’s government has faced mounting questions since the resurgence of the pandemic over its lax safety measures and failure to prepare for a rise in cases. It emerged on Sunday that Indian officials were attempting to censor such criticism, after Twitter confirmed it had blocked dozens of critical tweets following a legal demand from New Delhi.
A woman mourning the loss of her younger brother, age 50, after he was turned away by two hospitals and died waiting to be seen at a third blamed Modi for the crisis in a video shot by India’s weekly magazine The Caravan. “He has lit funeral pyres in every house,” she said.
The government has in response deployed special trains to move tanks of oxygen from steel plants to hospitals across the country in an effort to allow greater access to medical care. More than 500 oxygen-generation plants were also to be set up in government hospitals, the health ministry said on Sunday.
It said last week it planned to make vaccines available to all adults aged over 18 from 1 May, but the Serum Institute of India (SII), which manufactures the AstraZeneca vaccine, has warned it will not be able to meet its projected targets.
The SII also manufactures vaccines for the international Covax programme intended to help the developing world, which is set to deliver only one in five of the doses it had estimated it would supply by May.
Adar Poonawalla, the chief executive, appealed to Biden earlier this month to lift restrictions on supplies needed for production. “I humbly request you to lift the embargo of raw material exports out of the US so that vaccine production can ramp up. Your administration has the details,” he said on Twitter.
India, which has embarked on the world’s largest vaccination drive, has administered more than 140m doses of vaccine. So far, 8.47% of people have received one dose, and 1.55% are fully vaccinated.
================================================
US Authorities Give Green Light for Johnson and Johnson Vaccine
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which had jointly recommended a nationwide pause 10 days ago, accepted the recommendation from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Vaccination sites across should be able start administering the shots as early as Saturday morning.
There are about 9.5 million doses of the vaccine sitting on shelves across the country that could be deployed immediately, and states were already reacting in the hours after the panel’s vote.
Pharmacies and hospitals were also preparing to resume giving the J&J shot. CVS said it would make appointments available at its pharmacies next week. A spokesman said “all warnings and precautions will be communicated throughout the vaccination process.”
“This is not a decision the agencies reached lightly. Medical and scientific teams of both the FDA and CDC reviewed several sources of information and data related to the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine to reach today’s assessment,” acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said during a press briefing.
The FDA will update fact sheets given to patients at the vaccination site, as well as instructions for vaccine providers and health providers that include warnings of the risk of a rare complication involving blood clots in women under the age of 50.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said the agency has been focusing most of its outreach in the past week on providers, like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, who would be treating younger women.
Johnson & Johnson has also already negotiated language with the FDA, a company official told the CDC panel on Friday.
The FDA and CDC told states to temporarily stop using the vaccine last week out of an abundance of caution amid concerns over six cases of the clotting condition.
On Friday, officials said they were aware of 15 cases of the unusual clots amid nearly 8 million shots administered. All were women, most of them under 50. Three died, and seven remain hospitalized.
“Above all else, your health and safety come first. The American public should feel reassured about the safety systems and protocols that we have in place around the COVID-19 vaccines,” Walensky said.
The Biden administration has ordered enough vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to cover all American adults without the help of J&J, but public health experts have grown increasingly concerned about the impact of the pause, especially on vaccine hesitancy.
Even with the pause lifted, Johnson & Johnson is still facing major supply issues. Distribution of the vaccine to states has been extremely uneven, and it’s not clear how quickly the company can ramp up production.
Johnson & Johnson’s goal of delivering 100 million doses by the end of May could be in jeopardy as a result of a government investigation into Emergent BioSolutions, which contracts with J&J to manufacture vaccines in Baltimore.
Emergent produced tens of millions of doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, but the FDA launched an investigation that has unveiled serious safety and cleanliness issues. The agency has ordered a pause on manufacturing at the plant while the problems are addressed. No vaccines can be distributed until the FDA certifies the plant.
=================================================
WORLD STATS
Highlighted in green
= all cases have recovered from the infection
Highlighted in grey
= all cases have had an outcome (there are no active cases)
Latest News
April 26 (GMT)
Updates
- 103 new cases and 3 new deaths in Afghanistan [source]
- 3 new deaths in El Salvador [source]
- 328 new cases and 2 new deaths in Uzbekistan [source]
- 199 new cases and 2 new deaths in Kyrgyzstan [source]
- 2,716 new cases and 20 new deaths in Kazakhstan [source]
- 500 new cases and 4 new deaths in South Korea [source]
The post US and UK Aiding India Fight Corona Devastation, World Stats appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.
Clinging to pool noodle: Hypothermic man rescued from Wellington waters after dinghy sinks
A pool noodle was all a man had to keep him afloat as he waited to be rescued amid rough sea conditions in Wellington on Monday afternoon.The man and his friend got into trouble when their dinghy sank near Scorching Bay around midday….
COVID Test: Puerto Rico to Fine Travelers $300 for Not Having One
Travelers will face a $300 fine beginning April 28 if they touch down in Puerto Rico without a negative PCR test done within 72 hours of arriving
By Jeanette Settembre | Fox News
There could be trouble in paradise for travelers arriving in Puerto Rico without proof of of a negative COVID-19 test.
Travelers will face a $300 fine beginning April 28 if they touch down in Puerto Rico without a negative PCR test done within 72 hours of arriving, according to Puerto Rico’s tourism website, Discover Puerto Rico.
Rapid tests will not be permitted as proof of negative COVID-19 tests and the new mandate will be required to all travelers, even those who have been fully vaccinated against the virus, according to the new guidelines.
Travelers visiting the Island must upload the negative PCR test result to the “Travel Safe” platform online. Anyone with a positive test result must quarantine and get medical attention.
The new regulation comes after Puerto Rico put a curfew in place daily between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. to curb the spread of the virus. All businesses shut down promptly at 10 p.m. and getting into Old San Juan is guarded by law enforcement at a checkpoint where tourists and residents are only permitted past the curfew. Travelers looking for late-night food and drinks are also out of luck – restaurants and common areas inside hotels are
The post COVID Test: Puerto Rico to Fine Travelers $300 for Not Having One appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.
US: VP Harris Tackles Central America Immigration
The Biden administration’s policy toward Central America is starting to take shape as Vice President Harris takes the lead on a potentially treacherous portfolio that straddles diplomacy and migration.
Harris and other administration officials laid out a new approach to the region that will try to tackle both the challenges created by Central American governments and why so many of their citizens are deciding to make the trek to the U.S.
“The bottom line is that this initiative, from my perspective, must be effective and relevant to the underlying issue, which is addressing the acute and the root causes of migration away from that region,” Harris tolda group of philanthropists working in the
President Biden last month appointed Harris as the administration’s point person on regional migration. Since then, she has been in close contact with top Mexican and Guatemalan officials and on Wednesday announced plans to visit Guatemala and meet with President Alejandro Giammattei.
Migration from the Northern Triangle — El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — is driven by a wide range of reasons, ranging from systemic corruption and political oppression to near-famine and the aftermath of tropical hurricanes.
The administration’s strategy is an attempt to prioritize which to address in the short and long term by separating them into acute issues, like natural disasters, and chronic problems, like corruption.
Ricardo Zúñiga, the State Department special envoy for the Northern Triangle, told reporters Thursday that the administration’s ultimate goal is to “create enabling conditions that allow for these societies to thrive.”
“When something goes wrong in Central America, we feel it in the United States,” said Zúñiga. “We are very connected as societies. The truth is, we are very closely linked.”
Advocates and experts in the region say that while many in Central America consider migration to the United States as an option, there are often specific events that prompt an individual or a family to relocate.
Those are the acute causes the Biden administration is zeroing in on as opportunities for short-term success in stemming the level of migration that’s created a crisis at the U.S. southern border.
The aftermath of hurricanes Eta and Iota, which hit Honduras and neighboring Nicaragua within weeks of each other last year, is currently among the top drivers of migration.
Noah Bullock, executive director at Cristosal, a human rights advocacy organization in El Salvador, said targeted assistance for crises like natural disasters can often be enough to persuade a family to remain in their home.
“On those very acute causes, we need to be able to find individual actions to reduce vulnerabilities,” said Bullock.
Alongside food and storm reconstruction assistance, often channeled through international aid groups and other nongovernmental organizations, experts note that the United States has the capacity to offer COVID-19 vaccine support that could lessen the health care repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic.
But it’s the chronic governance and corruption conditions facing the region that will likely prove a heavier lift for the administration.
“These countries are unsustainable almost by design,” said Dan Restrepo, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who advised former President Obama on Western Hemisphere issues.
Restrepo said a common trait in all three Northern Triangle countries is that a small group of elites profit at the expense of the majority of the population.
Those elites are “increasingly colluded with criminal groups,” said Adriana Beltran, director for citizen security at the Washington Office on Latin America.
And their control over the power structures in each country “has translated into an inability to provide basic services, invest in education, health care, and respond to emergencies when disaster strikes,” she added.
At the same time, the U.S. has leverage since the elite groups that support much of the region’s political structure are especially vulnerable to pressure from Washington.
“These elites, the thing they perhaps fear the most is being limited to living, working and doing business only in their own countries,” said Restrepo. “Access to the United States is very important to these folks.”
Although the three countries suffer similar structural issues, they each present unique challenges.
An indicator of the U.S. government’s relative trust in each of the three governments is Harris’s decision to meet with Giammattei, instead of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández or Salvadoran President Nayib Bukkele.
Hernández, whose brother is serving a life sentence in the United States for drug trafficking, has in the past played the role of a Washington ally in the region, although U.S. officials have kept him at arm’s length, given multiple credible allegations of his involvement in organized crime.
“As a bare minimum, the United States should publicly declare [Hernández] can no longer enter the U.S.,” said Restrepo.
Meanwhile, Bukkele and the Biden administration got off on the wrong foot. The flamboyant Salvadoran president was denied a meeting with Biden, after showing up in Washington uninvited. He then refused to meet with Zúñiga when the State Department envoy was in El Salvador.
Although democratically elected, Bukkele has shown authoritarian tendencies, and Salvadoran police forces and semi-official online trolls have grown increasingly aggressive toward journalists and civil society leaders in the country.
Guatemala’s Giammattei leads a country with similar structural deficiencies but has reason to avoid corruption scandals as his predecessor, Jimmy Morales, is in serious legal jeopardy for toppling a United Nations-led anti-corruption mission in 2017.
The Biden administration’s strategy toward Central America has been relatively well-received by regional experts, but the biggest critics are on the other side of the aisle on Capitol Hill. Republican lawmakers have centered many of their political attacks on Harris, increasingly trying to make her the face of the border crisis.
The administration also came under fire this month from fellow Democrats and immigration advocates after it announced a continuation of former President Trump‘s cap on refugees. The White House later reversed course and said it would set a new, higher cap in May.
But when it comes to the current migrant surge at the border, some congressional Democrats still point the finger at the previous administration.
“President Trump ended the aid to the Northern Triangle, causing the very destabilization that he then attacked as a border crisis a few months later as people tried to get into the country,” said Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.).
“That is one of the root problems they created, and now no one on the Republican side wants to take ownership of that,” he added.
Some conservatives, however, say the problem with the Biden administration’s plan is that it doesn’t go far enough in helping Central Americans help themselves.
Eddy Acevedo, former national security adviser for the U.S. Agency for International Development during the Trump administration, said for any program to succeed, a strong security component must be added to aid and development.
“Everybody’s focused on root causes and development, but we do need to do more on the security side,” said Acevedo, who pointed to U.S. aid to Colombia and Mexico as examples.
“The successes we had in Plan Colombia and the Mérida Initiative proved that doing strong security programs alongside development programs is a system that works.”
The post US: VP Harris Tackles Central America Immigration appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.
Queensland hospitals, aged care crippled by cyber attack
Multiple Queensland hospitals and aged care centres have been crippled by a cyber-attack, resulting in several disruptions to internal systems.
9News understands the entire UnitingCare Queensland internal IT system was attacked by ransomware software, with all UCQ hospitals and aged care homes working without IT systems until further notice.
Among a number of aged care centres across Queensland that have been affected, the Wesley and St Andrews War Memorial Hospitals in Brisbane have also had systems taken down.
READ MORE: 'Taken too soon': Woman found in Gold Coast chest identified
The attack has impacted all operational systems including internal staff email and patient operation booking, forcing onhand staff to revert to paper-based operations for the foreseeable future.
Doctors have been told not to expect to be able to access vital patient information and details like x-rays.
In a statement to 9News, UnitingCare Queensland confirmed the attack but wasn't able to provide a timeframe on when systems will be back to normal.
"On Sunday 25 April, UnitingCare Queensland was impacted by a cyber incident. As a result of this incident, some of the organisation's Digital and Technology systems are currently inaccessible," a UnitingCare spokesperson told 9News.
"It is not possible to provide a resolution timeframe at this stage, however, our Digital and Technology Team are working to resolve this issue,"
It is currently unclear if patients' personal and medical data has been accessed.
Bondi Beach property sells for $1 million over reserve
A Bondi Beach house has fetched the princely sum of $5.8 million as Sydney's property market roars.
Man missing from mental health facility in Christchurch found after urgent public plea
The man missing from a mental health facility in Christchurch this afternoon has been found. Police said the 32-year-old Eden Nicolson had been located this evening. They thanked the public for their help after issuing an urgent…
Whiskas among big-brand pet foods hit by global shipping issues
Supermarkets are facing pet food shortages with products hit by global shipping and supply issues. Whiskas and some Nestle-owned cat and dog food products are among those affected, and some pet owners are facing having to switch…
Serious injuries in State Highway 2 crash near Pukehina
State Highway 2 in the Bay of Plenty has now reopened after a serious crash between a car and motorbike.The crash happened about 3.10pm on SH2 near Pukehina yesterday and the road was closed until 6.40pm.A St John spokeswoman…