Tag Archives: caribbean

headline

World View: Record Covid Cases, Nun Deaths, Floyd, N. Ireland, More

April 9, 2021

Alternate text

AP Morning Wire

Nations around the world are setting new records for COVID-19 deaths and new confirmed cases, including places that had kept the coronavirus in check.

It’s been over a year since a choir practice in Washington state sickened 53 people and killed two, becoming one of the first known COVID-19 superspreader events in the United States.

From that situation emerged one of the  most pivotal transmission episodes in understanding the virus.

Elsewhere in the U.S., experts testified that a lack of oxygen killed George Floyd, not drugs.

Also this morning:

  • Communities of Catholic nuns are absorbing devastating losses from coronavirus outbreaks
  • Violence flares again in Northern Ireland
  • Monkeys enjoy day of freedom after breaking out of German zoo

VANESSA GERA

The Associated Press

Warsaw, Poland

The Rundown

I'm an image

Nations around the world set new records Thursday for COVID-19 deaths and new coronavirus infections, and the disease surged even in some countries that have kept the virus in check. In the United……Read More

I'm an image

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats in Congress are trying to pass the first major gun control legislation in more than two decades with the support of President Joe Biden, who said Thursday that it is… …Read More

I'm an image

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — George Floyd died of a lack of oxygen from being pinned to the pavement with a knee on his neck, medical experts testified at former Officer Derek Chauvin’s murder trial,… …Read More

I'm an image

GREENSBURG, Pa. (AP) — The nuns’ daily email update was overtaken by news of infections. Ambulances blared into the driveways of their convents. Prayers for the sick went unanswered, prayers for… …Read More

I'm an image

SEDRO-WOOLLEY, Wash. (AP) — With dish soap, brushes and plastic water jugs in hand, Carole Rae Woodmansee’s four children cleaned the gravestone their mother shares with their father, Jim. Each… …Read More

OTHER TOP STORIES

There will be no reckoning at the Republican National Committee. Three months after former President Donald Trump helped incite a violent attack against Congress, the GOP is b…Read More

BELFAST (AP) — Gangs of youths threw stones and fireworks at police in Belfast who hit back with water cannons as violence flared again on the streets of Northern Ireland. Unr…Read More

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Avengers, reassemble! Disneyland said Thursday that its new Avengers Campus will debut on June 4, nearly a year after originally planned. The new sect…Read More

BERLIN (AP) — About two dozen monkeys broke out of a southwestern German zoo and spent the day lolling in the sun near a forest before being recaptured, authorities said Thurs…Read More

 

The post World View: Record Covid Cases, Nun Deaths, Floyd, N. Ireland, More appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

headline

Corona Effect: What’s Gone Wrong in Brazil?

Brazil has recorded more than 330,000 deaths from Covid, second only to the United States, and experts are warning the current surge in cases may not peak for several weeks.

The rapid spread of a coronavirus variant first discovered in Brazil has been a major cause for concern around the world.

President Jair Bolsonaro has consistently played down the severity of the virus, but he is now turning his focus to the nationwide vaccination drive which his critics say has come far too late.

What has Bolsonaro said about Covid?

The president has been highly sceptical about the need to take decisive action to tackle the pandemic:

  • he has called Covid “just a little flu”
  • rejected a nationwide lockdown, saying such measures only made the poor poorer
  • called state governors and mayors who imposed lockdown “tyrants”
  • cast doubts on the efficacy and safety of jabs and said he wouldn’t get vaccinated
  • joked the Pfizer jab may “turn people into crocodiles”
  • dismissed opportunities to purchase millions of vaccine doses
  • told people to “stop whining” about the situation

He continues to oppose lockdowns, but his government has now stepped up its drive to vaccinate the country’s population of more than 200 million people.

Bolsonaro quote card

So how does Brazil’s record compare with the rest of Latin America and the world?

One in four global deaths

Brazil has by far the highest overall death toll in Latin America.

In recent weeks, it has accounted for around one in four of reported Covid deaths worldwide.

Deaths tolls

It remains behind Peru and Mexico as a proportion of overall population, but daily deaths are rising rapidly in Brazil.

Twice the number of people died in March than in any other month of the pandemic, and the upward trend has continued, as a more transmissible variant drives infections.

Daily deaths Brazil

A recent estimate from the University of Washington predicted that Brazil could see a total of more than 500,000 deaths by July.

Regional leaders say mixed messaging and a resistance to lockdowns at the national level has made local restrictions harder to enforce.

Hospital intensive care beds in many states across the country are full or close to capacity.

ICU capacity in Brazil

Dr Miguel Nicolelis, a Brazilian professor of neuroscience at Duke University, told the BBC: “The country is in a nationwide hospital collapse right now – it’s the first time in history the public health system has collapsed.

“If we can acquire the vaccine in large quantities we could at least mitigate the situation.”

Vaccine shortages

Brazil has had a strong record in conducting vaccination campaigns and compared with many other countries in Latin America, it has a well-established healthcare infrastructure.

But its coronavirus vaccination efforts have lagged behind those of Chile and Uruguay who top the table in the region.

Latin America vaccination rates

Public confidence in the vaccines in Brazil is among the highest in the world, but supply has been slow.

Brazilian microbiologist Natalia Pasternak says: “We have a great immunisation programme, one of the best in the world. If we have enough doses, we know what to do, we have the expertise and the structure. We just need vaccines.”

Only around half the target of 46 million vaccine doses were delivered by the end of March.

Brazil has now ordered enough doses to vaccinate its entire population – but critics say these agreements have come far too late, as other large countries with similar purchasing power are now ahead in the queue.

In August, Brazil’s government turned down an offer from Pfizer to purchase up to 70 million doses of its vaccine.

It has recently ordered 100 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine, but the bulk of these will not arrive until the second half of the year.

The government has also ordered 100 million doses of the vaccine produced by Chinese firm Sinovac, despite President Bolsonaro criticising it in the past.

In November, he said the halting of trials of the vaccine in Brazil was a “another victory for Jair Bolsonaro”.

Brazil has in-country production of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which the government says will eventually provide millions of jabs – but a lack of the active ingredients needed to make the vaccine means that initial production in Brazilian labs has been limited.

The dangers posed by Brazilian variants

Brazilian public health institute Fiocruz says it has detected 92 variants of coronavirus in the country.

In particular, the P.1 variant has become a cause for concern because it is thought to be much more contagious than the original strain and has been spreading across Latin America and the world.

Scientists believe the current vaccines should still work against the Brazilian variant, although perhaps not quite as well, and new variants could emerge in the future that are different again.

Dr Nicolelis says: “Brazil is not only the epicentre of the pandemic worldwide, it’s a threat to the entire effort of the international community to control the pandemic. We are brewing new variants every week.”

The post Corona Effect: What’s Gone Wrong in Brazil? appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

headline

More Congress Members Join Capitol Invasion Lawsuit Against Trump

(CNN) Ten members of Congress who were in the House gallery as rioters breached the Capitol on January 6 are adding their names to the lawsuit first filed in February against former President Donald Trump and his former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.

The lawsuit, first brought by House Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson and the NAACP, accuses Trump and Giuliani of conspiring with extremist groups the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to incite the riot at the Capitol.

The amended lawsuit now details the personal stories of each member, describing how they narrowly escaped the mob, and how some still have nightmares and anxiety months later.

“As I sat in my office on January 6th with rioters roaming the hallways, I feared for my life and thought I was going to die,” Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee said in a statement.

“This invasion was a direct result of Donald Trump’s rhetoric and words. His calls to gather in Washington on January 6th and his message to ‘be strong’ thwarted the functioning of our Constitution.”

Cohen reveals in the lawsuit that he escaped to his office near the Capitol when the mob invaded it on January 6, sitting with the lights turned off and a baseball bat in his hand for protection for two to three hours.

The members joining the lawsuit are Cohen, Reps. Karen Bass of California, Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey, Veronica Escobar of Texas, Hank Johnson Jr. of Georgia, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Barbara Lee of California, Jerry Nadler of New York, Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Maxine Waters of California.

Nadler and Waters were especially outspoken and fiery critics of Trump during his presidency. Nadler led the first House impeachment of Trump in late 2019, and, as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, he called for Trump’s impeachment and removal from office the day after the Capitol insurrection. Trump was ultimately acquitted in both Senate impeachment trials.

“Those responsible for placing me and my colleagues in danger must face accountability for their criminality,” Nadler said in a statement. “This violence was anything but spontaneous; it was the direct result of a conspiracy to incite a riot, instigated by President Trump, Rudolph Giuliani, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.”

Waters spoke out forcefully against Trump before the House impeachment vote in January, calling him “the worst President in the history of the United States.” In the lawsuit, Waters discloses that following the January 6 attack she increased the number of security personnel who travels with her to and from her California home.

House impeachment manager Eric Swalwell sues Trump and close allies over Capitol riot in second major insurrection lawsuit

The lawsuit was the first civil action filed against the former President related to the attack at the US Capitol, and it cited a scarcely used federal statute passed after the Civil War to combat violence from the Ku Klux Klan. The law allows civil actions to be brought against people who use “force, intimidation, or threat” to prevent anyone from upholding the duties of their office.

The lawsuit is backed by the NAACP, and its president, Derrick Johnson, accused the former President of inciting “a meticulously organized coup … that placed members of Congress and the integrity of our democracy in peril.”

The post More Congress Members Join Capitol Invasion Lawsuit Against Trump appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

headline

Mexico: Gulf Drug Cartel Chief Arrested

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican prosecutors say they have detained one of the leaders of the Gulf Cartel, and in a related raid at a different house found a local politician with three guns.

The federal Attorney General’s Office said late Wednesday that the raids took place earlier this week in the town of Salinas Victoria, just outside of Monterrey in the northern border state of Nuevo Leon.

Agents detained Evaristo Cruz, alias “El Vaquero” (The Cowboy), at one house with two other men, guns, cash and radios, prosecutors said. Cruz is reputedly a leader of the “Cyclones” faction of the splintered Gulf Cartel, based in the neighboring state of Tamaulipas.

Working on the same search warrant, agents detained local politician Raúl Cantú at another home, where three guns and possible marijuana were allegedly found. Cantú is running for mayor of the town on the ticket of the small Citizen’s Movement Party.

The party said in a statement that the guns at Cantú’s house were apparently hunting weapons owned by his father. But it also said that if he had committed any crime, the party would cooperate in the investigation.

On Cantu’s Facebook page, a statement posted by his lawyers claimed that agents had made a mistake in raiding his house, saying it was not mentioned in the search warrant. The legal team also said the hunting guns were legally registered to Cantú’s father, who is deceased.

Prosecutors alleged that Cantú attempted to bribe the agents into releasing him.

The post Mexico: Gulf Drug Cartel Chief Arrested appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

headline

Brazil: High Court Orders Probe of President’s COVID Response

SAO PAULO (AP) — A Brazilian Supreme Court justice ordered the Senate on Thursday to investigate the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis and the full court ruled that churches can be barred from reopening during the pandemic, threatening to further strain tensions between President Jair Bolsonaro and the judiciary.

The order by Justice Luis Roberto Barroso for a Senate probe came only minutes after the whole court upheld the power of local authorities to prevent churches and other houses of worship from opening.

Bolsonaro has downplayed the threat of the coronavirus while arguing that the economic and emotional impacts of shutdowns would harm more Brazilians than the pandemic. He has at times bristled at the checks and balances from other branches of government, and has repeatedly criticized the Supreme Court for upholding the power of governors and mayors to establish restrictions on economic and personal activity during the pandemic. Last year, he attended protests against the court.

The conservative president, a proud Christian who has the support of some of the country’s main evangelical leaders, has opposed locally imposed lockdowns and other restrictions that health experts have said were sorely needed to halt the virus’ spread. In recent weeks, Brazil has become the epicenter of the pandemic crisis, accounting for more than one-quarter of the world’s deaths from COVID-19.

“The inquiry will call scientists from all over Brazil to testify and show how irresponsible the president’s statements were. It will get tougher for him. Public opinion will be heard at the Senate,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo. “It was unavoidable. The time came for the political system to react.”

With the country’s death toll rising — among the 345,000 dead are three senators — more than the required 27 senators had already signed a request for a congressional investigation into the administration’s handling of the pandemic, but moving forward required approval by the chamber’s president, Sen. Rodrigo Pacheco. Pacheco, who won his leadership post in January with Bolsonaro’s support, had refrained from triggering the probe.

“It wasn’t the moment. That’s what I think,” Pacheco told reporters in Brasilia after the judge’s order. “This inquiry at this moment will be out of bounds. It might crown the national failure in this pandemic.”

Pacheco said a probe will inevitably drag forward the 2022 presidential race in which Bolsonaro is expected to seek reelection, giving opposition senators a platform for attacking the leader and potentially accusing him of committing crimes.

The Senate is to look at how the government dealt with the COVID-19 crisis, and could level new criticism at Bolsonaro. If senators decided there was anything criminal in the response, the Senate would have to ask the federal attorney general to open its own investigation.

The ruling on houses of worship doesn’t prevent local authorities from allowing churches to reopen, and some have already done so.

But the court acted after Justice Kassio Marques, the court’s only member appointed by Bolsonaro, allowed churches across Brazil to reopen Saturday provided they followed health protocols. Many churches opened on Easter Sunday, some without observing social distancing.

Marques was overruled by his colleagues in a 9-2 vote that culminated Thursday.

Justice Gilmar Mendes said during his vote that Brazil has become “an international pariah in matters of health care.”

“Brazil, which was once a role model in public health, in immunization campaigns, is today in this highly embarrassing situation,” he said.

The post Brazil: High Court Orders Probe of President’s COVID Response appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

headline

Virus Surge Closes Puerto Rico Schools

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico’s health secretary announced Thursday that all public and private schools in the U.S. territory would close for two weeks amid a surge in COVID-19 cases.

The closures would go into effect April 12, roughly a month after some 100 of the island’s 858 public schools were authorized to reopen for the first time in a year amid the pandemic. Only kindergarteners, special education students and children in first, second, third and 12th grades were allowed to return to school. They attend in-person classes only twice a week and are dismissed before noon, with school cafeterias remaining close.

The announcement was praised by some health experts, teachers and parents who worried about an increase in infections and had warned that reopening schools was a rushed decision.

Health Secretary Carlos Mellado said that while no COVID-19 breakouts were identified at any of the schools, the move is necessary given the recent spike in cases.

The island of 3.2 million people has reported more than 200,000 confirmed and suspected cases and more than 2,000 deaths.

More than 1 million vaccines have been administered since inoculations began in December, and starting on April 12, all those 16 years and older can be vaccinated. Currently, only those 35 to 49 years old with chronic health conditions are authorized to receive a vaccine, along with all those 50 and older.

The post Virus Surge Closes Puerto Rico Schools appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

headline

Gibralter Back to Normal, US-1 in 4 Vaccinated, World Stats

GUARDIAN (UK) Gibraltar has become one of the first places in the world to vaccinate the bulk of its adult population against Covid-19, allowing virus restrictions to be lifted and life to almost return to normal.

AFP report that since the end of March, masks are only required in enclosed public spaces, shops and on public transport. And a curfew between midnight and five am was also lifted, boosting business at bars and restaurants which only reopened on 1 March after months of restrictions.

Popular spots are once again buzzing with people enjoying a meal or a drink. Gino Jimenez, chairman of the Gibraltar Catering Association who also runs a popular eatery, said it was “especially gratifying” to see vulnerable seniors finally “out of their homes and safe”.

People walk without wearing face masks in Gibraltar.
People walk without wearing face masks in Gibraltar. Photograph: Cristina Quicler/AFP/Getty Images

Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo announced Thursday that rules restricting gatherings to no more than 16 people will be eliminated as of 16 April 16. And as of Monday there will no longer be any limit on the numbers who can sit together at a bar or restaurant.

In Gibraltar, with a population of 34,000, the pandemic claimed 94 lives, most this January and February, and infected nearly 4,300 residents. But thanks to the vaccine drive, there have been no virus-related hospitalisations for more than two weeks

A British police officer talks on the phone without a protective face mask in Gibraltar.
A British police officer talks on the phone without a protective face mask in Gibraltar. Photograph: Cristina Quicler/AFP/Getty Images

Since “Operation Freedom” began in January, Gibraltar has fully inoculated 85 percent of the population. “It is a huge relief,” Health Minister Samantha Sacramento told AFP at her office atop the only hospital. She credits the enclave’s small size and a steady supply of vaccines – Pfizer and AstraZeneca – for the swift rollout.

“During the first weeks, we were vaccinating seven days a week. It was literally a conveyer belt,” said Sacramento, the only woman in Gibraltar’s cabinet. Frontline hospital staff and elderly care home residents and workers were the first in line.

Those who receive both doses of the jab are issued with a vaccination card that can be used to attend mass events or to travel. Last week Gibraltar’s Victoria Stadium welcomed 600 fully-vaccinated people for the territory’s World Cup football qualifier against the Netherlands.

The crowd during the World Cup qualifying match between Gibraltar and the Netherlands.
The crowd during the World Cup qualifying match between Gibraltar and the Netherlands. Photograph: Hollandse Hoogte/REX/Shutterstock

And on 27 March, 500 spectators watched a top heavyweight boxing match at Gibraltar’s Europa Sports Complex. In both cases, fans also had to test negative on the day of the event.

Rafael Cordon, a 63-year-old chef who commutes daily to work in the British territory from the Spanish town of San Roque said he was grateful to Gibraltar for being able to get fully vaccinated so quickly. He said there was now a big contrast between both places.

Being in Spain, where mask-wearing in public is compulsory and night curfews are in place, is “like being inside a fishbowl where your movements are limited,” he said. “Then you cross over to this side and it is like going from one world to another. This is an oasis right now.”

====================================================

The US vaccination programme continues to gather pace. Madeline Holcombe reports for CNN:

As the US aims to ramp up inoculations to win the race against Covid-19 variants, more than 1 in 4 adults are now fully vaccinated. Officials and experts hope to get Americans vaccinated quickly as lockdown fatigue takes its toll and many people are letting down their guard just as more transmissible, and perhaps more deadly, variants of the virus become dominant. In that effort, all 50 states have committed to opening vaccinations to all Americans 16 and up by 19 April.
The US is still averaging above 60,000 new cases a day – a level Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, said puts the US at risk for another surge. Experts are especially concerned about the spread of the B.1.1.7 variant, first identified in the UK and now the dominant strain in the US.
“I wish we had another three or four months before this B.1.1.7 variant surge started to occur,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, director for the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said this week.
As states including California and Vermont plan to fully reopen this summer, experts are warning that to truly declare victory against the variants, Americans need to get vaccinated and continue measures like social distancing and mask wearing.

CNN – More than 1 in 4 US adults are fully vaccinated against Covid-19

==============================================

Russia’s  Vaccine Less Effective Against Variant

Maria Kiselyova for Reuters reports that Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus shot is less effective against the South African variant – but the manufacturer is claiming that it still does better than other vaccines

The lead scientist behind it, Alexander Gintsburg, has been cited by the Interfax news agency as saying: “With regards to the ‘South African’ strain, the effictiveness of the antibodies produced by Sputnik V, like all other vaccines, against it declines.”

The Sputnik V shot has become embroiled in a controversy in Slovakia, where the health agency has claimed that the vaccines delivered to it are not the same as the Sputnik V vaccines that were tested in clinical trials.

===============================================

Australia Frustration

There is a lot of frustration in Australia about the distribution of vaccines not matching the efficiency with which the country initially tried to squash Covid. Christopher Knaus reports for us:

Australia could have been manufacturing vaccines like Pfizer already had it acted early on calls to develop onshore mRNA capability, experts say.

The AstraZeneca announcement on Thursday has left the vaccine rollout in a state of disarray, and heavily reliant on securing more imports of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which has already achieved provisional approval by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

Unlike the AstraZeneca vaccine, which can be produced at CSL’s Melbourne facilities, there is no current capability to produce mRNA vaccines in Australia.

For months, the Australian Academy of Science and mRNA experts have urged the Australian government to help develop a domestic mRNA manufacturing capability. That capability has not been developed.

In February, the academy used a pre-budget submission to warn Australia and the region would be vulnerable to supply limitations without the ability to produce mRNA vaccines.

Associate professor Archa Fox, a leading mRNA expert with the University of Western Australia, said it was frustrating that the country was yet to develop mRNA manufacturing capability.

But she said it was not too late.

Fox said it was difficult to be too critical of government, given the uncertainty around the various vaccine candidates – particularly the relatively new RNA vaccine technologies – in the early stages of the pandemic.

“It is a little frustrating because even if lots of people jumped in now, it still would take at least probably a year, even with plenty of investment,” she told the Guardian. “But that’s not too late for boosters against variants and all that sort of stuff.”

Even with manufacturing capability, the government still would have needed to achieve a licensing agreement with pharmaceutical companies to produce local versions of their mRNA vaccines.

Read more of Christopher Knaus’ report here: Frustrated experts say Australia could already be producing mRNA Covid vaccines if it had acted earlier

Dispute Over India Supplying Vaccine to COVAX

The Serum Institute of India (SII) is legally compelled to ship coronavirus vaccine to global vaccine sharing facility COVAX, its co-lead Gavi has told Reuters, a provision that could complicate the SII’s efforts to boost domestic supplies. Gavi is a public–private global health partnership which says it has the goal of increasing access to immunisation in poor countries.

India, where infections have surged to 13.06 million, suspended all major exports of vaccines last month to fill demand at home, forcing the world’s biggest vaccine maker to divert nearly all its production to the domestic market, and meaning reduced supplies for nations expecting vaccine shipments.

“The agreement is legally binding and served as a basis for the first-round allocation document, which has been communicated to all participating economies,” a Gavi spokeswoman said in an email to Reuters.

The pact specified Gavi would receive from SII 1.1 billion doses of either the AstraZeneca vaccine or that of Novavax , with 200 million committed, and the rest on option. SII partner AstraZeneca has already issued it a legal notice over delays to other shipments, even as many Indian states have complained of a shortage facing priority recipients.

From an initial August target of vaccine coverage for 300 million of its highest-risk people, or just over a fifth of its population of 1.35 billion, India has upped the figure by about 100 million, adding pressure on SII to crank up supplies.

India could resume vaccine exports by June, the firm’s chief executive, Adar Poonawalla, told the media this week. However he also said that the Indian government needed to provide the SII with financial assistance, as the revenue lost from being unable to export was hampering efforts to ramp up production.

On Thursday, the foreign ministry said domestic demand would determine the extent of India’s exports. It has already shipped 64.5 million doses and given out 92 million at home.

======================================================

Hong Kong suspends its order of AstraZeneca jabs

Hong Kong has confirmed this morning that it has requested AstraZeneca suspend delivery of its Covid-19 vaccine amid fears of side effects and concerns over its efficacy against new variants of the coronavirus.

Hong Kong’s health chief Sophia Chan said the city has asked AstraZeneca not to deliver as planned later this year. “We think it is not necessary for AstraZeneca to deliver the vaccines to the city within this year,” she said, adding Hong Kong wanted “to avoid any waste as vaccines are in short supply globally”.

Hong Kong’s Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan.
Hong Kong’s Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan. Photograph: Isaac Lawrence/AFP/Getty Images

Hong Kong has already secured a decent supply of vaccines for its 7.5 million residents, with deals for 7.5 million shots each with BioNTech/Pfizer and China’s Sinovac, both of which have begun deliveries.

Chan said Hong Kong was also keen to look at other vaccines that may have stronger results against newer strains of the coronavirus.

Earlier this week David Hui, a leading public health expert and government adviser, called for Hong Kong to replace AstraZeneca with a new single dose vaccine made by Johnson and Johnson.

People queue up outside a vaccination center for BioNTech in Hong Kong earlier this week.
People queue up outside a vaccination center for BioNTech in Hong Kong earlier this week. Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP

While it has a steady supply of vaccines, take up has been slow amid swirling distrust of the government. So far just 529,000 people have had their first dose. There has also been public concern that China’s Sinovac vaccine received fast-track approval despite not publishing its clinical trial data in a peer reviewed journal.

Worries over the AstraZeneca shot have spread worldwide after Europe’s medicines regulator said this week it could cause very rare blood clots in some recipients, prompting some countries to stop giving it to people under a certain age.

Late in March Hong Kong had previously suspended the use of Pfizer/BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine after discovering a packaging problem affecting one batch of vials.#

===================================================

FINLAND

An extremely quick snap from Reuters here, that Finland plans to gradually ease the country’s Covid-19 restrictions towards the summer.

Prime minister Sanna Marin added a note of caution at a news conference this morning though, saying that the spread of the virus is still severe and that the restrictions should not be lifted prematurely.

==============================================

UK transport secretary: public could now ‘start to think’ about foreign holidays

The UK’s transport secretary Grant Shapps has said that the public could now “start to think” about foreign holidays this summer.

Asked if people could start to book foreign holidays now, he told Sky News: “I’m not telling people that they shouldn’t book summer holidays now, it’s the first time that I’ve been able to say that for many months.

“But I think everybody doing it understands there are risks with coronavirus and of course actually, I think people would want to be clear about which countries are going to be in the different traffic light system.

“So there is only two or three weeks to wait before we publish that list itself. But yes, tentative progress, for the first time, people can start to think about visiting loved ones abroad, or perhaps a summer holiday.

“But we’re doing it very, very cautiously, because we don’t want to see any return of coronavirus in this country”, PA report him saying.

There’s a grim despatch from Agence France-Presse about the situation in the Philippines this morning. In a bid to slow the spread of the virus and decongest hospitals, authorities in the Philippines last month ordered more than 24 million people in the capital and four neighbouring provinces to stay home unless they are essential workers.

A week after lockdown was imposed, 70-80 percent of hospital beds for Covid-19 patients were full, while ICU beds were “almost 100 percent” occupied in most of the capital, Health Undersecretary Maria Vergeire said.

“It’s a dire situation – it is the worst nightmare of a hospital manager happening in reality,” said Jaime Almora, president of the Philippine Hospital Association.

Leland Ustare, an anaesthesiologist at St Luke’s Medical Center, said some patients were spending days in the emergency room waiting for an intensive care bed. “This time is even worse than last year,” Ustare said, referring to the first few months of the pandemic. The numbers are really worse.”

AFP report that the government is distributing modular tents to struggling hospitals and re-deploying health workers from regions where virus transmission rates are low. Isolation facilities were being expanded to include schools and hotel rooms for mild cases in an effort to ease the burden and stop the virus spreading in crowded households.

Almora said the problem in hospitals was a lack of health workers, not beds. “The hospitals have the capacity, they have the beds, but they cannot expand their capability because of the manpower problem,” he said.

Some nurses have resigned out of fear of catching the virus or gone abroad to work in hospitals where the risks were the same but the pay higher, he said. Government insurance restrictions on copayments was also deterring smaller facilities from accepting Covid-19 patients, Almora added.

The country’s caseload of more than 828,000 – the second highest in Southeast Asia – is expected to top a million before the end of April. President Rodrigo Duterte, whose government has been under fire over its handling of the pandemic and vaccine rollout, warned last week of “bleak months” ahead.

======================================

Australians left in lurch as AstraZeneca Covid vaccine advice changes

Melissa Davey

Here’s Melissa Davey with the latest on the vaccination rollout in Australia:

States and territories have been left scrambling to respond to government advice recommending against vaccinating anyone under 50 with the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, leaving tens of thousands of people in the lurch.

On Friday, New South Wales halted its AstraZeneca rollout entirely for several hours while patient consent forms with the latest information about the rare risk of severe clotting associated with the vaccine were added. The state’s rollout for people aged 50 and over has since resumed.

“As with all other vaccines, informed consent is required before administering Covid-19 vaccines, ensuring recipients make decisions based on an understanding of the risks and benefits,” a NSW health spokesman said. “AstraZeneca vaccinations for those aged 50 years and over will recommence later today.”

Meanwhile Western Australia has barred anyone under the age of 50 from getting the AstraZeneca vaccine. The chief health officer, Andrew Robertson, said effective from Friday: “People under 50 who are booked in to receive their AstraZeneca vaccine will have their appointments cancelled.”

People in the 1a and 1b vaccination program cohorts – including health workers – who are under 50 and have already received their first AstraZeneca vaccine, should “not be alarmed” and proceed to get their second jab, he said. “You should not cancel your second vaccination booking,” he said.

The Tasmanian government put an immediate hold on any first dose AstraZeneca vaccinations for people aged under 50, with the premier, Peter Gutwein, saying the state government was working through what the latest advice would mean for the ongoing rollout.

The advice to the federal government from the Australian Technical Advisory Group for Immunisation (Atagi) does not say all people under 50 should not receive the vaccine, but rather says the alternative Pfizer vaccine is “preferred”. The difficulty is Australia has low supply of the Pfizer vaccine, and GPs can not readily offer it to everyone as an alternative.

Read more of Melissa Davey’s report here: Tens of thousands of Australians left in the lurch as AstraZeneca Covid vaccine advice changes

Hungary delays school re-opening by 3 weeks

Yesterday Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s chief of staff Gergely Gulyás was bullish about Hungarian schools reopening in 19 April as planned.

Today, Orbán himself is not. Reuters report that he’s just announced on state radio that school reopenings will be pushed back three weeks to 10 May.

Orban also said he expects 3.5 million of Hungary’s 10 million people to be vaccinated with at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by 19 April.

==================================================

WORLD STATS

Graphs – Countries – News

Coronavirus Cases:

134,618,106

Deaths:

2,917,595

Recovered:

108,392,057
ACTIVE CASES
23,308,454
Highlighted in green
= all cases have recovered from the infection
Highlighted in grey
= all cases have had an outcome (there are no active cases)

[back to top ↑]

Latest News

April 9 (GMT)

Updates

  • 28,487 new cases and 768 new deaths in Poland [source]
  • 9,150 new cases and 402 new deaths in Russia [source]
  • 5,140 new cases and 548 new deaths in Mexico [source]

 

The post Gibralter Back to Normal, US-1 in 4 Vaccinated, World Stats appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

headline

SVG orders evacuation due to La Soufrière activity 

 

Following days of increased seismic activity at La Soufrière Volcano in St. Vincent and The Grenadines, the leader of the CARICOM member nation has issued an evacuation order for surrounding communities.

Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said he received communication from Professor Richard Robertson of the Seismic Research Centre of the University of the West Indies, based in Trinidad and Tobago.

Gonsalves said Professor Robertson indicated to him that the situation had deteriorated further at La Soufrière. He (Gonsalves) said that he also spoke to Michelle Forbes, the Director of National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO), and she tendered him advice relevant to evacuation.

“You may recall at 1 o’clock, Professor Robertson had indicated a fresh batch of magma either near or approaching the surface of the volcano, and the possibility of the volcano moving to an explosive phase has increased significantly.”

Gonsalves said since then there has been further heightened activity, and he (Robertson) would have explained what has occurred, and had given the recommendation.

Robertson explained that the activity changed significantly early Thursday morning with the onset of tremor activity.

“You would have had six series of tremors interspersed by two and half hours.”

He said the last period of tremor was accompanied by gas venting.

“It looks clearly like it wants to clear its throat. It looks to us like a kind of explosion, and at this point we cannot say for sure nothing will happen within the next 24 hours…to guarantee safety of the people, we have to make certain decisions.

“We would not be surprised, for example, if sometime within the next 24 to 48 hours there are explosions from the volcano much more significant than we have seen so far.”

Having received that report earlier, Gonsalves issued the following order:

“I hereby order as follows: 1) the evacuation of all premises in the areas designated as the red zone on the northeast and northwest of St Vincent and the evacuation of the area itself…and 2) the exclusion of persons, vessels or vehicles form such premises and areas, save and except for the purpose of effecting the said evacuation,”

He emphasised that while the evacuation order would be published today (Friday), it would take immediate effect.

“I want to urge all our people to be calm, do not panic, be disciplined, be orderly.”

“Royal Caribbean said they would be available to transport persons for a short period of time and to hold our people who are evacuated,” Gonsalves said

According to the Prime Minister, Royal Caribbean was offering three of its ships, two of them expected to arrive by this morning, while Carnival Cruise Line has also indicated that by this evening, two of its cruise ships will be in the country to transport evacuees.

“The cruise ships of Royal Caribbean will be first used to transport the persons from St Vincent and the Grenadines who are to be evacuated to other countries in the region who have offered temporary hospitality, namely St Lucia, Grenada, Barbados and Antigua,” he said, adding that the British Virgin Islands has also offered assistance but arrangements have not been made.

The post SVG orders evacuation due to La Soufrière activity  appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

headline

Biden-US Gun Violence an ‘International Embarrassment,’ Wants Tighter Controls

President Biden on Thursday decried the epidemic of gun violence in America as an “international embarrassment” as he rolled out a series of executive actions intended to address the issue.

“Nothing I’m about to recommend in any way impinges on the Second Amendment,” Biden said in the Rose Garden. “They’re phony arguments suggesting these are Second Amendment rights at stake with what we’re talking about. But no amendment, no amendment to the Constitution is absolute.”

“So the idea is just bizarre to suggest that some of the things we’re recommending are contrary to the Constitution,” he added. “Gun violence in this country is an epidemic. And it’s an international embarrassment.

Biden, flanked in the Rose Garden by Vice President Harris and Attorney General Merrick Garland, outlined six measures his administration will pursue to try to curb gun violence. 

Biden directed the Justice Department to propose rules to make “ghost guns,” homemade weapons without a serial number that are more difficult to track, subject to background checks; to propose model “red flag” legislation for states that could help law enforcement keep firearms out of the hands of potentially dangerous individuals; and to reclassify pistols modified with stabilizer braces to be subject to the National Firearms Act.

The Department of Justice is also expected to issue a report on gun trafficking for the first time in years, and five federal agencies will be directed to focus grant programs more on community-based gun violence intervention. Biden is set to nominate David Chipman, a gun control advocate, to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Chipman worked as an ATF agent for 25 years.

Biden framed the need for action as urgent, repeatedly calling the steady drum beat of mass shootings in the U.S. an epidemic. He pointed to recent mass shootings in Atlanta; Boulder, Colo.; and one this week in South Carolina that left five people dead.

Hundreds of people each day are shot in the country, Biden said, noting flags were still at half-staff for the victims of the Atlanta shooting when the Boulder shooting happened less than a week later.

“This is an epidemic for God’s sake, and it has to stop,” he said.

Attendees in the Rose Garden included numerous advocates for stronger gun laws, including former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was shot in 2012, parents of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shootings of 2012 and 2018, respectively, and Brandon Wolfe, a survivor of the 2017 Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla.

Biden reiterated his calls for Congress to take action by passing three House-passed measures on the issue, just as he did last month after the Colorado shooting. The president urged the Senate to pass the House bills that would expand background checks, close the so-called Charleston loophole and reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. All three were passed with bipartisan support in the House.

“They’ve offered plenty of thoughts and prayers … but they’ve passed not a single new federal law to reduce gun violence,” Biden said. “Enough prayers. Time for some action.”

 

The post Biden-US Gun Violence an ‘International Embarrassment,’ Wants Tighter Controls appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

headline

Police disclose Phillip’s cause of death

An autopsy was performed on the body of 34-year-old Leon Phillip of La Guerite, St. Kitts, on April 7, 2021, by Resident Pathologist, Dr. Adrian Nuñez.

Dr. Nuñez concluded that death was due to hypovolemic shock due to massive hemothorax as a consequence of a single gunshot wound to the thorax.

Last Thursday Police had responded to a report of a shooting incident in Newtown last Wednesday and upon arrival found the motionless body of 34-year-old Leon Phillip of La Guerite laying on the ground with what appeared to be a gunshot wound to the chest.

The District Medical Officer had visited the scene and pronounced him dead, while personnel from the Forensic Services Unit processed the scene and had collected items of evidential value.

The post Police disclose Phillip’s cause of death appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.