RIO DE JANEIRO/BRASILIA, June 28 (Reuters) – Brazil’s government on Monday unveiled emergency hydroelectric measures in response to a drought that has emptied reservoirs and fanned inflation expectations.
Mines and Energy minister Bento Albuquerque in a speech urged consumers to be conscientious in their power and water use, but did not announce energy rationing. He said the government was working on a voluntary program to incentivize companies to use power outside of peak hours.
The news comes after President Jair Bolsonaro signed a temporary executive order that establishes an emergency body, known as the Chamber of Exceptional Rules for Hydro-energy Management.It is able to temporarily establish limits which “may result in a reduction in the flow of hydroelectric plants.” The order also paves the way for the government to buy electricity reserves from private companies.
Brazil – Latin America’s biggest country, with the world’s second highest COVID-19 death toll – is facing its worst drought in over 90 years, sparking fears of energy rationing and driving inflation fears. The lack of rain also poses a headache for the country’s giant agriculture sector.
Albuquerque has previously ruled out rationing, but said consumers should expect to pay more for their electricity, as power producers are forced to switch to more expensive sources.
On Friday, the National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel) recommended measures to control energy use and combat waste, asking consumers to take shorter showers and reduce the use of air conditioning, among other measures.
Writing by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Alistair Bell
PORT-AU-PRINCE, June 28 (Reuters) – Haiti will hold a constitutional referendum on Sept. 26, the same date as presidential and legislative elections, authorities said, after postponing the date twice in part because of the pandemic, an official calendar showed Monday.
Political tensions in the Caribbean nation have been running high in recent months and Haitians have expressed fear of violence going to the polls. read more
Violence has spiked in the capital Port-au-Prince in recent weeks as rival groups battle with one another or the police for control of the streets, displacing thousands and worsening the country’s humanitarian crisis. read more
Elections were scheduled for Sept. 19. Postponing the referendum was done to give the health ministry time to deal with the COVID-19 crisis, Guylande Mesadieu, the president of the electoral board said in an interview.
The electoral council said in a statement that the country will implement health measures to curb the spread of the pandemic so that Haitians could cast their votes safely.
Municipal and local elections have been scheduled for Jan. 16, 2022, the calendar also showed.
It is not clear what the constitutional referendum will entail but Moise has previously said the powers of the president needed to be strengthened to break a “decades-long cycle of political crises”.
The presidency was weakened in Haiti’s 1987 Magna Carta.
Haitians mistrusted strong figureheads in the wake of the Duvalier family dictatorship notorious for human rights abuses and corruption.
Reporting by Andre Paultre in Port-au-Prince; Writing by Stefanie Eschenbacher; Editing by Stephen Coates
Lionel Messi scored twice as he became Argentina’s most capped player in their 4-1 win Copa America win over Bolivia.
The Barcelona forward, 34, made his 148th international appearance, to take Javier Mascherano’s record.
Messi set up Papu Gomez’s sixth-minute opener, before scoring a penalty and adding a second just before half-time to extend his record goals tally to 75.
Elsewhere, Manchester United striker Edinson Cavani scored a 21st-minute penalty as Uruguay beat Paraguay 1-0.
Inter Milan’s Lautaro Martinez also scored in Argentina’s win and the team are now unbeaten in their last 17 games.
They take on Ecuador in the quarter-finals on Sunday, while Uruguay play Colombia on Saturday.
Hosts Brazil play Chile, while Paraguay face Peru.
Mexico’s Supreme Court has decriminalised the private recreational use of cannabis by adults, calling the current prohibition unconstitutional.
In an 8-3 decision, the court ruled that adults would be able to apply for permits to cultivate and consume their own cannabis. Smoking in public and in front of children is banned.
The ruling does not mention the commercialisation of cannabis. The decision came after a legalisation bill stalled in Congress. “Today is a historic day for liberties,” Supreme Court president Arturo Zaldívar said.
But some groups said the ruling was unlikely to result in major immediate changes.
Mexico United Against Crime, a non-governmental organisation, said the decision “does not decriminalise the activities necessary to carry out consumption” such as possession and transportation.
The legislation would let users with a permit carry up to 28g and grow as many as eight plants at home for personal use. At present, it is illegal to carry more than five grams.
Supporters of legalisation hope it could reduce some of the violence related to illegal drugs trade, which claims the lives of thousands of people in the country every year.
Grave diggers wearing personal protective equipment bury a person at a graveyard in Saint Petersburg
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia is facing a surge in COVID-19 cases that authorities blame on the highly infectious Delta variant and slow progress in vaccinating people, with deaths linked to the virus hitting a new record in Moscow on Friday.
Officials have scrambled to compel people to get inoculated amid tepid demand for the vaccine since cases spiked this month. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin on Friday said 21 million people had been vaccinated out of a population of 144 million.
The government coronavirus task force reported 20,393 new COVID-19 cases, the most confirmed in a single day since Jan. 24, including 7,916 in Moscow, taking the official national tally since the pandemic began to 5,409,088.
It said 601 people had died of coronavirus-linked causes in the past 24 hours, with 98 in the capital, pushing the national death toll to 132,064. St Petersburg also reported 98 deaths.
The federal statistics agency has kept a separate count and has said Russia recorded around 270,000 deaths related to COVID-19 from April 2020 to April 2021.
Moscow authorities have ordered bars and restaurants from Monday to serve people only if they can present a QR-code showing they have been vaccinated, had an infection indicating immunity or recently tested negative.
But one chain of private medical clinics, Invitro, said it was suspending antibody tests for 7 to 10 days due to a shortage of reagents, RIA reported.
Anna Popova, the head of consumer health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, said eight Russian regions would make vaccination against COVID-19 compulsory some time next week, in addition to 10 regions where that is already the case.
The local health ministry in Russia’s far eastern Khabarovsk region on Friday said it had been forced to suspend vaccinations at some sites in two cities due to shortages.
The Kremlin said on Friday rising demand and storage difficulties were responsible for vaccine shortages, which would be resolved in the coming days.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was planning to be vaccinated with the one-dose Sputnik Light, Russia’s fourth registered vaccine against COVID-19, in the coming weeks.
(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov, Alexander Marrow, Anton Kolodyazhnyy and Polina Ivanova; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Katya Golubkova, Alex Richardson and Giles Elgood
The COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna produce a “persistent” immune response and give a sign of long-lasting protection, a new study finds.
The study is a positive development in the discussion around whether booster shots of the vaccines will be needed and when, though there has not been a definitive answer to that question yet.
The study published in the journal Nature on Monday centers on what are known as germinal centers, what Ali Ellebedy, the study’s senior author and an associate professor at Washington University in St. Louis, describes as “boot camps for immune cells.”
The study found that those training grounds in the body for immune cells were still active 15 weeks after the first dose of vaccine.
“Germinal centers are the key to a persistent, protective immune response,” Ellebedy said in a statement. “Germinal centers are where our immune memories are formed. And the longer we have a germinal center, the stronger and more durable our immunity will be because there’s a fierce selection process happening there, and only the best immune cells survive.”
“We found that germinal centers were still going strong 15 weeks after the vaccine’s first dose,” he added. “We’re still monitoring the germinal centers, and they’re not declining; in some people, they’re still ongoing. This is truly remarkable.”
One key wild card in the discussion of booster doses is what variants of the virus develop. So far, the vaccines have held up well against new variants of the virus, including the highly transmissible delta variant that is on the rise in the United States.
But if a new variant develops that is more resistant to the current vaccines, that could prompt a need for booster doses, possibly with a modified vaccine designed to fight the new variant.
Bangladesh soldiers set to patrol streets as national Covid lockdown looms
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
Guardian (UK)
Bangladesh prepared to enter into its harshest lockdown yet, with people only allowed to leave their homes in an emergency and soldiers set to patrol the streets, as a deadly resurgence of Covid-19 infections swept the country.
As the national Covid positivity rate exceeded 20% and the country on Monday recorded its highest single-day death toll of the pandemic so far, the government announced a set of tough measures to attempt to curb the spread, including the closure of public transport networks and confining the population to their homes for a week.
Cabinet secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam said troops would be deployed from Thursday to help enforce the lockdown. “The armed forces will be on patrol. If anyone ignores their orders, legal action will be available to them,” he told reporters late Monday.
Islam added that “if needed, it [lockdown] will be extended.”
Most of the south Asian nation’s 168 million population will be confined to their homes by Thursday as part of the restrictions. Only essential services and some larger garment factories supplying international markets will be allowed to operate.
The halting of buses and trains last week has already left tens of thousands of migrant workers living in the capital Dhaka stranded and unable to get home. In scenes reminiscent of India’s lockdown last year, many migrant workers began walking home along the roads in the sweltering summer heat while others crammed into ferries, with no social distancing possible.
Officials have linked the rise in infections to the deadly Covid-19 second wave that swept neighbouring India in April, fuelled in part by the transmissible Delta variant. India and Bangladesh share a long and porous border and thousands of migrant workers have crossed over from India in recent weeks.
More than two-thirds of new virus cases in Bangladesh’s capital are of the Delta variant, a recent study by the independent Dhaka-based International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research reported.
Authorities in Bangladesh feared a repeat of scenes in India, and more recently Nepal, where the deadly Covid-19 wave overwhelmed hospitals, led to oxygen shortages and brought the healthcare system to its knees.
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Ministers in England are expected to announce plans that will mean school pupils will no longer have to automatically isolate after contact with a positive Covid case. The proposals are that self-isolating will be replaced by a testing regime to prevent children from missing school.
Our community team would like to hear from teachers and parents what they think about the plans and how it will affect them and schoolchildren.
Ireland’s government is to decide today whether to permit only those who are fully vaccinated to eat and drink inside bars and restaurants.
Speaking to journalists before a cabinet meeting, Reuters report that transport minister Eamon Ryan said the government was considering a recommendation by the National Public Health Emergency Team that would require people to “show vaccination status”.
The restrictions could mean delaying Monday’s planned re-opening of indoor hospitality to allow time to develop a system to manage the changes. Ireland would be one of the first places in Europe to introduce the measure.
Bars, restaurants, and cafes have been closed in Ireland for much of the past 16 months, with the latest national lockdown in place since late December. Outdoor dining and drinking has been allowed since 7 June.
The French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi has said today that it will invest about €400m ($476.4m) in research and development of next-generation vaccines using mRNA technologies, which proved their efficiency in the Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines.
Sanofi has lagged its US competitors on the Covid vaccines front, and says that its “mRNA center of excellence” would bring together approximately 400 employees.
“During the Covid-19 pandemic, mRNA technologies demonstrated potential to deliver new vaccines faster than ever before,” said Jean-Francois Toussaint, global head of R&D at Sanofi Pasteur, reports Reuters.
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Cambridge hospital’s mask upgrade appears to eliminate Covid-19 risk to staff
Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge is making headlines this morning after a study that claims that using an improved type of PPE in hospital settings reduced transmission of Covid to staff.
Data had suggested that staff working on Covid wards nearly 50 times more likely to contract the virus than staff working elsewhere in the hospital. They then made the decision to swap from one type of mask – fluid resistant surgical masks (FRSMs) – to another: filtering face piece 3 (FFP3).
Since the change, in December 2020, data shows that staff working the Covid wards were no more likely to contract Covid than people in the non-Covid areas of the hospital. Addenbrooke’s research has yet to be peer-reviewed.
Nevertheless, Dr Mike Weekes, who worked on the study, said it gives “some real world evidence that FFP3 masks are actually effective and more effective than the surgical masks. We should be thinking about is changing to use FFP3 masks for anyone caring for a patient with coronavirus.”
However, he did add a note of caution, saying: “Clearly, it’s a relatively small study in one trust and so we need to see these findings replicated elsewhere.
BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, June 28, 2021 (MMS-SKN) — The island of St. Kitts is under a 24-hour lockdown which started on Sunday June 27 from 6:00 p.m. until 5:00 a.m. on Thursday July 1, but health centres will be open today Monday June 28, tomorrow Tuesday June 29 and Wednesday June 30 from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. to facilitate those who are due to take the second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Roll up your sleeves and vaccinate: Opening hours for health centres.
“The Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday carve out are intended specifically for persons who already have had their first dose of the vaccine and are now requiring the second dose to be completely vaccinated,” stated Prime Minister Dr the Hon Timothy Harris. “Those are the persons we would wish to have out on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.”
Prime Minister Harris made the remarks on Sunday June 27 at the Sylvia Garnette Primary Health Care Facility in Tabernacle, which along with other health centres in the country was open between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., where he had gone to encourage and give support to persons taking their vaccines.
“Persons have an opportunity today (Sunday June 27) whether for their first dose or they are taking the vaccine for the second time to be fully vaccinated,” said Dr Harris. “What is critical is that the cycle of two doses is completed for the batch that will be expiring after Wednesday, and we have enough vaccines available to give everyone who is due the vaccine by the 30th of June the opportunity to take it.”
He as a result encouraged that during the 24-hour lockdown period that persons requiring the second dose of the vaccine to go to their health centres to be vaccinated so as to be fully vaccinated. He however, reminded them that they should carry with them their vaccination card which shows that they have already received the first dose, and a government issued ID in case the police were to stop them and to demand proof for them being on the road.
Prime Minister Harris, with two well-known restaurateurs Mr Anthony ‘Movie Star’ Richardson and Ms Andrea French who also took the vaccine on Sunday June 27 at the Sylvia Garnette Primary Health Care Facility.
“The more people have the second dose, the higher the protection in the community, and this in itself would provide a barrier against significant infections going forward because the vaccine is the most powerful tool which we have in the fight against Covid-19,” pointed out the Honourable Prime Minister. “The more persons therefore armed with it, the stronger the defence of the entire country will be, and the better and safer all of us will be.”
The vaccination rollout at the Sylvia Garnette Primary Health Care Facility in Tabernacle was facilitated by Nurse Paula Boddie, who was assisted by Nurse Vivien Greene-Simon. Prime Minister Harris, who is also the Area Parliamentary Representative for St. Christopher Seven (Bellevue to Ottley’s) brought six young men from his home village of Tabernacle who took their first dose of the vaccine.
Dr Harris observed that it had been a wonderful week with an excellent turnout in terms of persons who took the vaccine, stressing: “We have had excellent turnout, 800-plus on Thursday, 900-plus on Friday, yesterday Saturday we had 1300-plus persons, the largest number since the programme started in February.”
He however noted: “Today (Sunday June 27) I anticipate we will have lower numbers, but they will nonetheless give a significant boost to the second dosers and then Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday is the last set of opportunities available for people to get their second dose and become fully vaccinated.”
At the end of the vaccination session at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, June 27, a total of 25 persons got vaccinated at the Sylvia Garnette Primary Health Care Facility, with 17 persons taking the second dose, and eight taking the first dose.
Nurse Paula Boddie administers the Oxford AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine to Pastor Abraham Davis of Mansion Village.
British overseas territory is known to be a midpoint in the Caribbean for people smugglers taking migrants to US.
A boat drifting carrying 20 dead people, including two children, has been found drifting off the coast of Turks and Caicos.
The vessel was discovered by fishermen one mile off the coast of Grand Turk island last Thursday. The fishermen alerted the marine branch of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force, which towed the boat ashore.
Police said they had ruled out foul play and was investigating the circumstances of deaths and how the boat came to be in Turks and Caicos waters.
Investigators are also trying to establish the identities of those on board.
In a statement, the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force said: “Whilst the deaths are unexplained, there is no indication of foul play, and investigators are keeping an open mind as to how these people met their deaths.”
Police Commissioner Trevor Botting said that the boat likely came from outside of the Caribbean, adding that the islands were not thought to be its final destination.
He said: “It is believed that the boat originates from outside of the Caribbean region and that neither the Turks and Caicos Islands nor the region was their intended destination.”
Turks and Caicos, which is British Overseas Territory, has been known to be a midpoint for human smuggling boats travelling from from Haiti, Sri Lanka, and India to the US.
In June 2020, Sri Lanka-born Canadian citizen Srikajamukam Chelliah pleaded guilty to human trafficking charges in Turks and Caicos and was sentenced to 14 months in prison for conspiring to smuggle undocumented immigrants from Sri Lanka into the US.
Mr Botting said: “Whatever the circumstances, this is a tragic situation where many people have lost their lives, and the thoughts and prayers of the force go out to those families who have lost a loved one. We will do all we can to identify them and contact their families.
He also thanked the policing team and health agencies who responded to the scene, calling the deaths a “human tragedy and a very distressing scene”.
Basseterre, St. Kitts, June 28, 2021 (SKNIS): As the Lambda variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 disease continues to spread throughout communities in St. Kitts, with Nevis spared, for the time being, the Government on the advice of health authorities has instituted a 14-day stringent action plan that includes a majority of 24-hour lockdowns and a few days of limited operations in order to curb the spread of the deadly and evasive virus. Since May 19, 2021, the country has seen 384 confirmed positive cases in just five weeks, in stark contrast to a total of just 45 positive cases in the previous 14 months, all of whom have recovered.
The Ministry of Health’s robust contact tracing continues to identify new cases of COVID-19 with one positive result reported within the last 24 hours in its COVID-19 Situation Report for Sunday 27th June, 2021.
The report states that the total number of confirmed cases, since the virus was imported into the country on March 24, 2020, now stands at 429 with 299 active cases, 127 recovered cases and three deaths. 414 of those cases were recorded in St. Kitts, while 15 were registered in Nevis. To date, there have been 20, 565 negative test results.
The country’s vaccination programme has been making steady progress and offering some hope, although more work needs to be done. As of Sunday 27th June, 2021, health authorities had administered 38, 499 total doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine representing 68.8 % of the target adult population who have had at least the first dose. 15, 778 persons have been back for their second dose amounting to 47.8 percent. In order for herd immunity to be achieved 70 percent of the total adult population, which equates to 33, 037 must be fully vaccinated.
Almost four million people around the world have succumbed to COVID-19 with the World Health Organization reporting the grim figure of 3, 899,172 deaths. 179, 686,071 cases have been confirmed globally and of that number 166, 271, 056 have recovered.
