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“Every agency, business or establishment shall remain closed, except for the Royal Bahamas Police Force, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, Government community clinics, and COVID-19 vaccination sites.

“No individual, other than an essential worker, shall leave his or her place of residence for any purpose other than for the purpose of seeking urgent medical attention, to go to a vaccination site, or on prescribed days, to purchase food, water and other essential items. The administrator or a designee, is permitted to distribute food and water on behalf of the Government,” he said in the broadcast.

He said that food store owners may be permitted to restock their stores, after the arrival of the respective mailboat and the Seacorp.

“Food stores may be opened for two days, between 6:00 am and 6:00 pm after the mailboat has arrived. Residents may leave their homes, to go to the food store during the two days, immediately following the arrival of the mailboat only. Farmers are permitted to water their crops, between the hours of 5:00 am to 9:00 am.”

Prime Minister Minnis said that subsistence fishing will be permitted and that the commercial banks may reload their Automated Banking Machines.

“Gas stations may open on Fridays from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm for government agencies only. Customs and Immigration will be able to fulfill their duties as needed. Security guard services will be permitted. Hotel workers carrying identification will be permitted to traverse to and from their places of employment.

Prime Minister Minnis said that residents of North and Central Andros will be allowed to harvest crabs during the lockdown.

He said also that the AUTEC’s Navy Base will be allowed to operate and Emile Knowles Construction Company will also be allowed to work on the government’s bridge project in Stainard Creek during a 12 hour period.

“Out of an abundance of caution, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, has already dispatched officers to Cat Island, and North and Central Andros, to ensure that residents are not leaving these areas, and risking the greater spread of the COVID-19 virus, to other communities and islands,” Prime Minister Minnis said.

CMC

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Brazil Virus Deaths Keep Rising

#Brazil’s Healthy Ministry on Monday registered 790 new COVID-19 deaths in the past 24 hours and 37,498 new cases of coronavirus.

The country has confirmed 449,858 deaths from the virus out of more than 16 million confirmed cases since the pandemic began, according to ministry data.

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US Advises Against Japan Travel Ahead of Olympics

By John Bowden 

The US State Department has issued an advisory warning Americans not to travel to Japan, just two months before the Summer Olympics are scheduled to begin in Tokyo.

A notice on the agency’s website stated that a “high level” of COVID-19 was present in the country and urged Americans to avoid nonessential travel.

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a Level 4 Travel Health Notice for Japan due to COVID-19, indicating a very high level of COVID-19 in the country. There are restrictions in place affecting U.S. citizen entry into Japan. Visit the Embassy’s COVID-19 page for more information on COVID-19 in Japan,” read the notice.

The Olympic Games are set to begin in Tokyo on July 23. Foreign spectators have already been banned from attending, but thousands of athletes and support staff are expected to attend.

The Hill has reached out to the State Department for comment on whether the guidance differs for vaccinated Americans. Team USA did not immediately return a request for comment as to whether the advisory would affect U.S. participation in the Games.

News of the U.S. travel advisory comes as Japan’s government is under growing pressure at home to cancel the games; last week, a group of roughly 6,000 doctors called on the government to do so, while public opinion polls have indicated strong resistance to the idea of the Games going forward as planned.

Some athletes have already seen their Olympic dreams end early this year before the opening ceremony even began. Three members of Australia’s skateboarding team tested positive for COVID-19 in recent days, resulting in the entire team being judged as being in close contact to infected persons and being disqualified as a result.

Health officials have opened up mass vaccination clinics in at least two cities in the past several days in an effort to ramp up the country’s lagging vaccination program which has so far resulted in just 3.5 percent of its citizens being fully vaccinated.

“We will do whatever it takes to accomplish the project so that the people can get vaccinated and return to their ordinary daily lives as soon as possible,” Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said Monday, according to The Associated Press.

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China rejects report of sick staff at Wuhan lab prior to Covid outbreak

Spokesperson dismisses Wall Street Journal claims based on ‘previously undisclosed’ intelligence

Vincent Ni China affairs correspondent

Guardian (UK)

 

 

China has vehemently denied a Wall Street Journal report citing US intelligence materials that said several members of staff at a key virus laboratory in Wuhan had fallen ill shortly before the first patient with Covid-like symptoms was recorded in the city on 8 December 2019.

Foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, said it was “completely untrue” that three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) became sick in autumn 2019. The report, based on “previously undisclosed” US intelligence, said the lab staff had become sick “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness”.

“The United States continues to hype up the ‘lab-leak’ theory … Does it care about traceability or is it just trying to distract attention?” Zhao said. He also cited a March statement from WIV , in which the institute said it had “never dealt with Sars-CoV-2 before 30 December 2019”.

The Wall Street Journal report came on the eve of a key meeting of the World Health Organization’s decision-making body, which is expected to discuss in detail the next phase of an investigation into the origins of Covid-19.

Separately, CNN reported on Monday, citing people briefed on the intelligence, that the intelligence community “still does not know what the researchers were actually sick with”. “At the end of the day, there is still nothing definitive,” one of the people who has seen the intelligence told CNN.

Shi Zhengli, who directs the Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases at WIV, said earlier this year that all staff had tested negative for Covid-19 antibodies, and there had been no turnover of staff on the coronavirus team.

News Corp exclusive on Chinese ‘bioweapons’ based on discredited 2015 book of conspiracy theories

 

Read more

International experts investigating the origins of the coronavirus said in February, following their trip to China, that it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus had spread from a lab leak in the city of Wuhan.

Peter Ben Embarek, the head of the WHO mission, said at the time that work to identify the origins of Covid-19 pointed to a “natural reservoir” in bats, but it was “unlikely” that this occurred in Wuhan.

The organisation’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, however said in March that “all hypotheses remain on the table” after 14 countries, including the US and UK, made a joint statement to express concerns over the WHO team’s conclusions.

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic on Monday said that the organisation’s technical teams were now deciding on the next steps. He said further study was needed into the role of animal markets as well as the lab-leak hypothesis.

In Washington, a US national security council spokesperson said that the Biden administration continued to have “serious questions about the earliest days of the Covid-19 pandemic, including its origins within the People’s Republic of China.”

She said the US government was working with the WHO and other member states to support an expert-driven evaluation of the pandemic’s origins “that is free from interference or politicisation.”

UK and US criticise WHO’s Covid report and accuse China of withholding data

The lab-leak theory has been around since last year. In January 2020, as China attempted to contain the spread of the virus, rumours began to spread amid the scramble for answers. The conservative US website Washington Times, for example, alleged that coronavirus “may have originated in a lab linked to China’s biowarfare programme”.

But what many virus experts deemed a pure science issue was quickly turned into a diplomatic row, amid growing tensions between China and the United States. Three weeks after the Washington Times’s report, Republican senator Tom Cotton raised the lab-leak theory, while admitting he had no evidence to support it.

In March 2020, Zhao alleged on his Twitter account that the coronavirus was an “American disease” that might have been brought to China by members of the United States army who had visited Wuhan a few months earlier. He provided no evidence to support his theory, either.

Soon afterwards, several US allies began calls for an independent inquiry into the origin of Covid-19. Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, for example, reiterated his country’s call in his address to the United Nations general assembly in September.

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Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine is highly effective in fighting off and neutralizing the aggressive coronavirus variant first discovered in Brazil, according to Russia’s Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and a study conducted by researchers in Argentina.

Brazil’s P1 coronavirus variant, behind a deadly COVID-19 surge in Brazil, has spread throughout hard-hit Latin America. Scientists in Brazil have found that the variant’s mutations could make it more resistant to antibodies, raising international concern over its potential to render vaccines less effective. read more

The Argentina-based study, carried out by the Dr. Vanella Institute of Virology of the National University of Córdoba (UNC), however, found a strong immune response against the variant in those vaccinated with Sputnik V.

“The study confirmed that the immunity developed in people vaccinated with ‘Sputnik V’ neutralizes the Brazilian strain after having received two doses, and even after the first,” the RDIF said in a statement on Monday.

According to the Argentine study, viewed by Reuters and cited by RDIF, 85.5% of individuals developed antibodies against the COVID-19 variant on day 14 following the first dose of the vaccine. That rate rose to nearly 100% by day 42, after an individual had received both doses.

Rogelio Pizzi, dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the UNC, told Reuters the institute’s study showed that the Russian vaccine successfully inhibits the variant.

“The results are excellent. The vaccine works for this strain,” Pizzi told Reuters, adding that the UNC Institute of Virology is also conducting studies on the strain originally detected in the UK.

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 Rafael Abuchaibe

BBC Monitoring

image copyrightEPA

image copyright Reuters

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President Jovenel Moïse declared a state of emergency over the weekend as Haiti experiences what officials say may be a new, deadlier wave of the coronavirus being blamed for the deaths of at least three public figures so far.

“The government declares a state of health emergency for eight days,” President Jovenel Moïse tweeted Saturday. “Today, more than ever, respecting the restrictions is imposed on everyone.”

Prominent figures Pastor Emmanuel Sannon, Chesnel Pierre and Frantz Gérard Verret died of COVID-19 symptoms over the weekend, according to local reports. Ex-senator Jean Robert Bossé also tested positive.

Pierre was a former general director of the National Old Age Insurance Office (ONA) and Verret was the president of the provisional electoral council between 2007 and 2009.

Haiti has been seeing about 70 new coronavirus infection cases per day, on average, Moïse said last week. The English and Brazilian variants were detected in Haiti, officials said.

Haiti also accepted 130,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine last week, but there’s no word yet of when the vaccine will arrive. Source

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Torrents of lava poured into villages after dark in eastern Congo yesterday with little warning, leaving at least 15 people dead amid the chaos and destroying more than 500 homes, officials and survivors said.

The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo on Saturday night sent about 5,000 people fleeing from the city of Goma across the nearby border into Rwanda, while another 25,000 others sought refuge to the northwest in Sake, the United Nationa’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said today.

More than 170 children are still feared missing and UNICEF officials said they were organising transit centres to help unaccompanied children in the wake of the disaster.

Goma ultimately was largely spared the mass destruction it suffered the last time the volcano erupted in 2002. Hundreds died then and more than 100,000 people were left homeless. But in outlying villages closer to the volcano, Sunday was marked by grief and uncertainty.

Aline Bichikwebo and her baby managed to escape when the lava flow reached her village, but said both her mother and father were among those who perished. Community members gave a provisional toll of 10 dead in Bugamba alone, though provincial authorities said it was too soon to know how many lives were lost.

Bichikwebo says she tried to rescue her father but wasn’t strong enough to move him to safety before the family’s home was ignited by lava.

“I am asking for help, because everything we had is gone,” she said, clutching her baby. “We don’t even have a pot. We are now orphans and we have nothing.”

The air remained thick with smoke because of how many homes had caught fire when the lava came.

“People are still panicking and are hungry,” resident Alumba Sutoye said. “They don’t even know where they are going to spend the night.”

Others died while evacuating

Elsewhere, authorities said at least five other people had died in a truck crash while they were trying to evacuate Goma, but the scale of the loss had yet to be determined in some of the hardest-hit communities.

Residents said there was little warning before the dark sky turned a fiery red, sending people running for their lives in all directions. One woman went into labour and gave birth while fleeing the eruption to Rwanda, the national broadcaster there said.

Smoke rose from smouldering heaps of lava in the Buhene area near the city Sunday.

“We have seen the loss of almost an entire neighbourhood,” Innocent Bahala Shamavu said. “All the houses in Buhene neighbourhood were burned and that’s why we are asking all the provincial authorities and authorities at the national level, as well as all the partners, all the people of good faith in the world, to come to the aid of this population.”

Elsewhere, witnesses said lava had engulfed one highway connecting Goma with the city of Beni.

However, the airport appeared to be spared the same fate as 2002, when lava flowed onto the runways.

Goma is a regional hub for many humanitarian agencies in the region, as well as the UN peacekeeping mission. While Goma is home to many UN peacekeepers and aid workers, much of surrounding eastern Congo is under threat from myriad armed groups vying for control of the region’s mineral resources.

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He also called out Broward County’s large Caribbean-American community, who he says have been generally hesitant to take the shot.

“We have seen in Broward County, some of our southern zip codes and some areas of West Broward show an alarming discrepancy in the percentage of people vaccinated. We’ve seen hesitancy particularly gaming the Caribbean-American communities. Again, it does not matter your age, ethnicity, or national origin. I am urging everybody to protect themselves and their community. Get vaccinated. COVID is not over,” he said.

Mayor Geller says that as more variants of the virus emerge and become present in the United States, it has become even more necessary for residents to take the shot. He also urged businesses and residents to continue to follow safety protocols, despite the new CDC guidelines.

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Health officials in Montserrat said there is no link between two recent deaths and the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The Ministry of Health and Social Sciences issued a report on Friday following the conclusion of post-mortem investigations which were conducted by pathologist Dr Stephen King.

According to Ministry officials, Dr King ruled out any possibility that the COVID-19 vaccine contributed to the deaths of two individuals who died suddenly.

The Ministry of Health said in a release that none of the deaths recorded in the country since the vaccination programme began in February were a result of complications related to the COVID vaccine.

Residents are now being urged to be more discerning in the news they share.

The Ministry said in its statement that disseminating fake news creates public panic and undue emotional stress.

Officials continue to assure the public that investigations will continue into any death deemed suspicious, as is routinely done.

“The public will be duly informed should any local safety concerns of the AstraZeneca vaccine be found. To date, no severe reactions to the vaccine have been noted locally,” the Ministry said.

Meanwhile, residents who have not yet been vaccinated are being urged to register by contacting a health centre of their choosing or by using the online registration portal www.gov.ms/vaccination.

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