Discussions already taking place with cruise lines
Jamaica has thrown its hat in the ring to become the next Caribbean cruise ship home port when cruise shipping begins in the region come June.
This was confirmed by Jamaica’s Director of Tourism Donovan White.
The move by Jamaica comes less than a week after The Bahamas was announced as the cruise home port for Crystal Cruises and Royal Caribbean and St Maarten for Celebrity Cruises.
On Tuesday last, it was disclosed that Vision of the Seas would begin cruises out of Bermuda while the British Virgin Islands announced that it would be opening a cruise port of call.
Jamaica is now trying to get into the action, which has come about as a result of the United States cruise shipping home ports still being put on hold, as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
This has resulted in cruise lines trying to find new alternatives to home-porting such as those in the Caribbean. Jamaica is now looking to be a cruise home port after it reopens its borders to international tourism on June 15. White pointed out that Jamaica’s tourism officials have set in motion plans for the island becoming a cruise home port.
CRUISE SHIP HOME-PORTING PART OF OVERALL TOURISM RECOVERY PLAN
This is part of a larger plan for Jamaica’s tourism recovery plan as the arrival of cruise ships would boost tourism numbers to the island considerably.
Speaking during a recent virtual travel trade briefing, Jamaica’s tourism director spelt out the process of how the cruise ships could home port in the island and how cruises from Jamaica would operate. He explained that cruise passengers would be taken from the airport to the cruise port to board the ship.
He further posited that the . White confirmed that discussions are already going on between the cruise lines and the Government with plans and policies already made to have cruise ship home-porting, if a deal is reached with the cruise lines.
MORE TO SAY IN THE COMING WEEKS
According to the tourism director, “We will have more to say in the coming weeks, but you can be assured that conversations are indeed happening and the necessary policy and strategic frameworks that are required to make this a reality are, in fact, in place and are being reshaped where necessary.” The fact that more than 36 per cent of all cruise movements are made in the Caribbean with most cruise passengers coming from the United States and Canada makes it a win-win situation for Jamaica.
America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has held up cruise ship operations in US waters since March 2020, although it has laid out guidelines for cruises to resume with conditional sailing certificates. Cruise operators have been struggling to make it through what has become a year-long suspension.
Like the other islands, Jamaica has traditionally depended on the cruise industry to be a part of tourism income. The cruise lines and the Caribbean islands are therefore able to lend each other a hand in making their ports available for home-porting while the American home ports remain under lockdown.
CRUISES ARE NOW IN GREAT DEMAND
Cruises are in huge demand and people are ready to head back out and enjoy a vacation at sea, as Crystal announced record single-day bookings for when Crystal Serenity sails in The Bahamas from July. The cruise line reports that almost 4,000 travellers reserved staterooms or suites on at least one of the seven-night voyages out of Nassau or Bimini in The Bahamas.
Almost 200 guests have reportedly reserved back-to-back cruises with some planning to spend 42 days onboard. The numbers are impressive with a 2,024 per cent increase in online books. Celebrity Cruises CEO Lisa Lutoff-Perlo says returning to the Caribbean “marks the measured beginning of the end of what has been a uniquely challenging time for everyone.”
Prior the Crystal Serenity cruise, Royal Caribbean will set sail again on its ship, Adventure of the Seas for seven-night cruises starting in June onboard two of its vessels, Celebrity Millennium and Adventure of the Seas. The Celebrity Millennium will relaunch on June 5 from St Maarten.
One itinerary will stop in Aruba, Curacao and Barbados and another will stop in Tortola, St Lucia and Barbados. Among the precautions the cruise line is taking to reduce the chance of COVID-19 transmission is the fact that all its crews will be fully vaccinated, only adult travellers who have been vaccinated will be permitted on board and guests under 18 will have to have negative test results.
There was an air of optimism and relief among the first frontline medical staff in Cuba to receive the island’s experimental vaccine, Soberana 2 – meaning Sovereignty 2.
The vaccine candidate, which is still officially in phase 3 trials, represents Cuba’s best hope of lifting the lockdown on the capital Havana and beginning to claw back some of the lost economy, especially in the tourism sector.
Even though Soberana is yet to be fully certified as an official vaccine, the authorities are so confident in its effectiveness the process of giving it to 150,000 Cuban doctors, nurses and healthcare workers is now fully under way.
Cuba has a strong record in vaccine development having produced its own meningitis B vaccine in the late 1980s. The numbers of infections and deaths from Covid-19 are much lower in Cuba than elsewhere in the world but the lockdown has caused serious economic hardship.
ReutersCopyright: Reuters
Thousands of Cuban health workers will be given the Soberana 2 vaccineImage caption: Thousands of Cuban health workers will be given the Soberana 2 vaccine
The government’s intention is to vaccinate the population of Havana before the end of May.
However, the communist-run government has come under some criticism for not ordering doses of some of the other coronavirus vaccines available, perhaps from Russia or China, to begin the protection of medical staff while the Soberana vaccine is in development.
Nevertheless, there is interest elsewhere in Latin America in the Cuban-developed vaccine candidates – which include at least two others beyond Soberana – especially from Venezuela, Mexico and Jamaica.
Customs officials in Ecuador discovered 185 baby tortoises packed inside a suitcase that was being sent from the Galápagos Islands to the mainland on Sunday.
The reptiles had been wrapped in plastic and were found during a routine inspection at the main airport on the island of Baltra.
Ten of them had died, officials said.
One of the biggest threats to Galápagos tortoises is illegal trading for animal collectors and exotic pet markets.
The tortoises seized at the airport on Baltra are thought to be less than three months old.
Officials combatting wildlife trafficking say hatchling-sized juveniles can fetch sums of more than $5,000 (£3,600) per animal.
It is believed the smugglers wrapped the tortoises in plastic to immobilise them but the X-ray machine’s operator at the airport nevertheless grew suspicious.
image copyrightAeropuerto Ecológico de Galápagos
image captionAn X-ray machine operator grew suspicious and the suitcase was searched
image copyrightAeropuerto Ecológico de Galápagos
image captionStaff from the Galápagos National Park are helping with the care of the seized tortoises
The suitcase had been posted at the airport by a transport firm and was said to contain “souvenirs”, a statement from the airport said.
No arrests have been made so far but employees of the transport firm who had checked in the suitcase were held for questioning, according to the statement.
Ecuador’s environment minister, Marcelo Mata, described the incident as a crime against the country’s wild fauna and natural heritage.
Many plants and animals found on the Galápagos are unique to the islands, which lie in the Pacific Ocean about 1,000km (600 miles) off the coast of Ecuador.
Among the most famous are the Galápagos giant tortoises, which are thought to have arrived on the volcanic islands between three and four million years ago.
The sentence for smuggling animals from the Galápagos is one to three years in prison.
The Associated Press is reporting exclusively on a draft copy of a World Health Organization study on the origins of COVID-19 that says transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal is the most likely scenario.
We set the scene as a former Minneapolis police officer goes on trial in George Floyd’s death. And in Egypt there is progress in attempts to budge the colossal container ship blocking the Suez Canal.
Also:
Thousands flee into Thailand following Myanmar air strikes.
Swiss banker’s journey from serving Venezuelan kleptocrats to star witness against them.
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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Authorities in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro begged the population to stay home, but thousands of Brazilians are traveling to coastal cities and ignoring recommendations on the first weekend of a 10-day holiday period decreed to contain the increase in COVID-19 infections in the country.
Some residents are clearing out and taking advantage of the holidays, despite warnings from authorities. Brazil’s two biggest cities, Rio and Sao Paulo, have imposed extensive restrictions on nonessential activities. Their state authorities brought forward holidays to create a 10-day break period, which started Friday.
Many scenes in Brazilian cities show the difficulty that authorities are facing in enlisting the cooperation of the population to contain the spread of the virus.
In Sao Sebastiao, a city of more than 80,000 inhabitants on the Sao Paulo coast, tourists destroyed barriers installed at the access to beaches to avoid crowds, according to local reports. The city is one of those that suffered an invasion of tourists who took advantage of the holidays decreed by the state government.
“Don’t come to the coast. We depend on tourism, but right now we depend on health. We need to avoid an even bigger collapse,” said the city’s mayor, Felipe Augusto, angered by the acts of vandalism.
In Ubatuba, another of the main cities on the Sao Paulo coast, residents burned tires on a road to try to prevent an influx of visitors.
Restrictions on activity implemented last year were half-hearted and sabotaged by President Jair Bolsonaro, who sought to stave off economic doom. He remains unconvinced of any need for clampdown, fearful that the damage to the economy could generate more unemployment and social chaos.
Brazil currently accounts for one-quarter of the entire world’s daily COVID-19 deaths, far more than any other single nation, and health experts are warning that the nation is on the verge of even greater calamity. The nation’s seven-day average of 2,500 deaths stands to reach to 3,000 within weeks, experts told the Associated Press.
The health system is already buckling, with almost all states’ intensive care units near or at capacity. On Sunday 92.6% of ICU beds were occupied in Sao Paulo, while Rio state had an occupancy of 92%.
Rio city authorities closed 19 stores and fined 60 bars, restaurants and street vendors on Saturday for breaking rules that prohibited their operation, the mayor’s press office confirmed to The Associated Press. On the city beaches, some people ignored the new rules and stayed on the sand.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Small-particle pollution spiked in Mexico City to almost six times acceptable limits Sunday, a level not seen for years in the Mexican capital.
Levels of small particles, known as PM10, reached 581 points in the city’s Iztapalapa borough, on a scale where 100 is considered the highest acceptable level.
No formal pollution alert was declared, but the levels were enough to earn a rare “extremely bad” rating from the city’s air-quality monitoring network.
Alerts, which can force some vehicles to stay off the road, are normally declared when pollution reaches between 1.5 and 2 times acceptable limits.
PM10 particles are often from dust or soil kicked into the air, and the network warned that high winds were likely to cause an increase in particle levels.
Ozone and extremely small particles, known as PM2.5, are often triggered by vehicle emissions and are traditionally more of a problem in Mexico City. But they did not appear to play as much of a role in Sunday’s pollution spike.
Spring is dry season in central Mexico and it is also a time when farmers on Mexico City’s outskirts traditionally burn grass and weeds to prepare fields for planting.
Deep job losses and benefits lags have meant an increase in homeless Americans, and shelters have struggled to keep up
A motel provided to homeless people in Venice, California. A report in January warned homelessness could increase by twice as much as during the 2008 recession. Photograph: Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images
Michael Sainato
Rick Temple and his 15-year-old son were living in a room in his work office in Bakersfield, California, before the coronavirus hit in March last year, where Temple, 51, worked as an independent contractor as a dispatcher for freight cargo. But he quickly lost his job and the room, and has relied on unemployment benefits ever since.
When he first applied for unemployment, it took a couple of months before his benefits started, and from November to January he experienced a lag in benefits as well due to a fraud hold which meant he needed to submit new paperwork before his benefits resumed.
While relying on unemployment, Temple and his son have struggled with homelessness, living out of their car and renting motel rooms when they can afford to do so. His son has attended school virtually since the pandemic began.
“Being poor and homeless is very expensive. My credit score is trash now. Being unemployed, I can’t pay for much of anything, let alone three months’ worth of rent to get an apartment,” said Temple. “I have to live in the car and scrounge by, doing whatever I can to eat. I’ll get a $3 Whopper off a coupon app, have the one meal and go as long as I can.”
Homelessness has been a significant problem in America during the pandemic. Homeless people are at significant risk for coronavirus, and these populations have almost certainly grown amid mass job losses. After the 2008 economic recession, US cities experienced significant increases in homeless populations, estimated at 3% between 2008 and 2009.
According to a report this month provided to Congress by the US housing department, 580,466 Americans experienced homelessness on any given night in 2020, a 2.2% increase from 2019. Rates of unsheltered individuals increased by 7% and chronic homelessness increased by 15%, based on surveys conducted before the pandemic in January 2020.
A report in January by non-profit research organization Economic Roundtable warned homeless population increases would be twice as high as the increases experienced after the 2008 recession.
“Most jurisdictions feel that unsheltered homelessness has gone up,” said Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. “It could be that they’re just more visible, but the sense is that it’s growing.”
When the pandemic began, Temple struggled to find a parking lot where he could sleep in his car, often switching between parks and parking lots at Home Depot and Walmart, before getting kicked out by police or security. A church found him and his son and gave them permission to sleep in the church parking lot. They have avoided the local homeless shelter because of coronavirus concerns; it is held in a warehouse, and Temple has spent years without health insurance or being able to afford to see a doctor.
“One of the things that I don’t like is, especially during the pandemic, the choices they gave us,” Temple added. “I’m not sure where we go from here.”
When the pandemic began, Temple struggled to find a parking lot where he could sleep in his car
Based on community surveys from the National Alliance to End Homelessness, homeless systems are continuing to experience staffing shortages, shortages of hotel or motel spaces, and shortages of permanent housing to meet the needs of homeless people. Community leaders expressed concerns about anticipated increases in unsheltered homelessness of Americans without new funding for homeless resources.
Coronavirus outbreaks overwhelmed homeless shelters in places like Los Angeles, and other cities have continued sweeps of homeless encampments despite CDC guidance not to do so unless housing units are available for the homeless.
In Dallas, a woman who requested to remain anonymous has lived in her car since November after escaping domestic violence at home. A significant portion of US homeless people identify as domestic violence survivors.
She says she spends the majority of her time trying to find day passes for local gyms to be able to shower, or going to a local library to charge her phone and use the internet. If she can’t find free food, she relies solely on fast-food dollar menus, and buys a $1 large soda from McDonald’s every day to have a cup to use to pee in.
“It’s like solitary confinement with windows,” she said. “Most people have a support system. I have no one. Everyone thinks everyone has someone, but some people have no one.”
Although a federal eviction moratorium has been in place since 4 September, holes in the moratorium and a nearly six-month delay in enacting one have meant that thousands of evictions have been carried out during the pandemic, and homeless shelters have struggled to keep up with increases in demand while trying to mitigate Covid outbreaks. The ban is currently set to expire on 31 March.
According to Princeton’s Eviction Lab, over 260,000 evictions have been filed during the pandemic in the five states (Connecticut, Delaware, Missouri, Indiana and Minnesota) and 27 cities tracked by the lab.
Austin Valentine, 19, was attending East Tennessee State University as a freshman undergraduate student this year, but recently became homeless because he was unable to pay his tuition and room and board fees after student loans, because he lost his food-service job. He’s now living in a motel in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
“I got kicked out on 12 February,” said Valentine. “Now I’m living in a $200-a-week motel room that’s covered with bedbugs and cockroaches, and no electricity, little heat, and just cold water.”
He’s currently looking for a second job, as the recent restaurant job he started doesn’t provide enough hours. His search has been difficult because the hospitality and tourism industry in eastern Tennessee has been hit hard. He started a GoFundMe campaign to try to raise funds to move into an apartment.
“No one’s really hiring at the moment,” added Valentine. “I’ve been working, [and] trying to save up as much money as I can so I can get out of this situation.”
East Tennessee State University declined to comment on Valentine’s situation, citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. But it said it provides payment plans and counseling to connect students facing financial hardship with local resources and support.
ARAUQUITA, Colombia (AP) — Clashes that began over the weekend between Venezuela’s military and a Colombian armed group in a community along the nations’ shared border have continued, prompting more Venezuelans to seek refuge in a nearby Colombian community, international monitoring groups said Thursday.
Colombian officials said more than 3,900 people have now moved from Venezuela to northeast Colombia, about 800 more than Wednesday. The children and adults are in eight shelters set up to host them.
“It was reported that families continue to flee across the border in search of safety as the violence in the area has not completely stopped,” said Dominika Arseniuk, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Country Director in Colombia. “People we have spoken with are terrified and fear for their lives.”
Venezuelan Defense Minister Gen. Vladimir Padrino López confirmed on Monday in a statement that the clashes began Sunday. He said they resulted in the arrests of 32 people, the destruction of six camps and the seizure of weapons, but he did not name the Colombian armed group involved.
Human Rights Watch told The Associated Press the armed group involved is the 10th Front, which is made up of dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish acronym FARC. The fighting is taking place in in the border state of Apure, Venezuela.
“We have received credible complaints of abuses by the Venezuelan security forces against the population in Apure, including violent raids without a warrant, possible arbitrary detentions and theft of property from the population,” said José Miguel Vivanco, the organization’s director for the Americas.
A peace deal between the Colombian government and the FARC in 2016 ended five decades of war. But the group has suffered deep divisions, with some of its members joining mainstream leftist movements and others giving up on the peace process and returning to arms.
In the Colombian municipality of Arauquita, where the displaced people have taken refuge, a humanitarian crisis has developed, according to local and national officials. One shelter is hosting about 400 people, but despite the addition of 13 tents, some families have had to sleep on small mattresses set up on the ground and on the stands of a space normally used for sporting events.
Marta Orozco, a Venezuelan, said she fled her home in Apure because houses were being looted.
“The one that is entering (the homes) is the government. It is looting and beating people … the government of Venezuela,” Orozco, 38, said.
The Colombian government has repeatedly accused Venezuela of harboring members of the National Liberation Army as well as FARC dissidents. Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its concern for the civilian population and called on the international community “to join in assisting in the face of this humanitarian crisis.”
Colombia and Venezuela share about 1,370 miles (2,200 kilometers) of border but have not had diplomatic relations since February 2019 following the decision of President Nicolás Maduro to expel Colombian diplomats. Colombia President Iván Duque does not recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate president and instead supports opposition leader Juan Guaidó.
The Colombian government on Wednesday reinforced the military presence on the border with Venezuela in the Arauca area with about 2,000 soldiers, according to the Defense Ministry.
Suárez reported from Bucaramanga. Associated Press writer Jorge Rueda in Caracas, Venezuela
The Hill -Recall the desperate early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in early Spring 2020. Researchers worried that the Spanish flu of 1918 that cost millions of American lives could be a possible model.
The Imperial College of London released a projection of over 2 million deaths in the U.S. alone if the government failed to take action. The government’s top advisor, Anthony Fauci, recommended a strategy of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) to “bend the curve.” However, the highly infectious nature of the disease meant that they could offer only a temporary respite.
Adding to the gloom was the scientific community’s pessimism concerning the prospects for an early vaccine. Past history suggested that vaccines required years to get through regulatory approval — and then an additional year or more to scale-up for the millions of doses needed. Four months into the pandemic in the Spring of 2020, the most optimistic observers projected that we were well more than a year away from a viable vaccination program.
Contrary to earlier expectations, two vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) were approved in December 2020, and the first doses were administered less than a week later. These advances occurred under the auspices of Operation Warp Speed, a joint government, business, and military venture. Its unique feature was to guarantee purchases of experimental vaccines as they proceeded through regulatory approval in order to scale-up quickly the successful ones.
To date, more than 89 million Americans have received at least one vaccination dose — 27 percent of the population. For the high-risk 65 and over age group, more than 38 million (71 percent) have received at least one dose. Although some small risk of COVID infection remains, the vaccines appear to have rendered symptoms milder, and deaths exceedingly rare. The CDC and FDA conclude that a review of available clinical information — including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records — revealed no evidence that vaccination contributed to patient deaths.
The primary reason to fear COVID-19 has been its lethality. It has killed over a half million — largely the elderly — in the United States. With the vaccines being widely administered, we can now introduce a more benign statistic; namely, “deaths averted” by vaccination. Here is a possible approach:
In my back-of-the-envelope calculation, I consider only the 65 and over. The lethality rates for those under 65 are low and would not add much to the outcome. Of those over 65, 38 million have received at least one dose. My data are primarily from CDC sources: here, here, here, and here.
In the absence of Warp Speed there would be, as of today’s date, no vaccinations. We therefore proceed to follow these vaccinated elders in their hypothetical world of no vaccine. As time passes, some will contract COVID-19, and some of them will die. How many? Erring on the very conservative side, we assume that they would be subject to the current mortality risk (COVID deaths divided by population) of the 65 and older group, which stands at approximately 8 tenths of 1 percent (.008 percent). Applying this rate to the 38 million who would not have been vaccinated in the absence of Warp Speed, we get 295,000 deaths averted as a result of vaccination.
That figure is likely an underestimate because we use the latest mortality rate (which has dropped considerably). On the other hand, one third currently lack the second dose, but we have few if any cases of deaths attributable to COVID-19 after the first dose.
As time passes, scientists can produce complex models of “averted deaths” due to vaccination, but for now this simple back-of-the-envelope calculation provides a rough order of magnitude.
Operation Warp Speed is a rare example of a successful government-business-military endeavor. It is reminiscent, in my view, of the Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic bomb. Both worked because of the extreme importance of the undertaking, as all participants realized we could solve this problem only one shot at a time.
‘Lack of perspective’: why Ursula von der Leyen’s EU vaccine strategy is failing
European commission president accused of focusing too much on UK and domestic German image
Von der Leyen speaking in Brussels. ‘Fundamentally she seems to be struggling with her basic narrative,’ said one commentator. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
When Jean-Claude Juncker, her predecessor in the commission’s Berlaymont headquarters, took aim at the EU’s error-strewn vaccine strategy last week, it prompted a tweet of appreciation from Dominic Cummings, former chief adviser to Boris Johnson and key architect of Brexit.
“Juncker no dummy, he right,” the ex-Vote Leave strategist wrote. “& if Commission, now melting down, don’t listen, UK shd NOT tit-for-tat but shd make generous offer over heads of EU leaders to EUR peoples – will bring years of goodwill, good policy & politics, & Cmsn will cave shortly after.”
Von der Leyen is unlikely to lose sleep over the barb. As for Juncker’s intervention, sources close to the ex-president say his target was not Von der Leyen but instead the EU’s member states.
Between calling on his successor to drop the “stupid vaccine war” with Britain and criticising an overly cautious and budget-conscious approach to vaccine procurement, he dismissed calls for her resignation. “These are not failures of the commission. These are failures of the member states in total and so I don’t think that the getting rid of Mrs Von der Leyen would be helpful,” he told the BBC’s HARDtalk programme.
But critics within the commission describe Juncker’s broadside as “unprecedented”. It has been seen by many in Brussels as a reflection of the growing exasperation, both within the institution and the governments, of some of the member states at Von der Leyen’s performance.
The European commission was always likely to have a difficult pandemic, without the fiscal firepower and autonomy of action of a nation state. “We’re tired of being the scapegoat,” Von der Leyen said in a recent interview. But since January, she has been engaged in a bitter row with the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, and in turn the British government, over a shortfall in EU vaccine supplies, culminating last week in a broadening of the bloc’s powers to block exports.
EU leaders back ‘global value chains’ instead of vaccine export bans
Her aides point to the necessity of challenging a company that has fallen dramatically short on its promise of 120m doses of vaccine this quarter – just 30m are expected – and the need to confront Britain over its refusal to export any of those being made in the firm’s plants in Oxford and Staffordshire.
Others, however, question the tone of the commission’s communications and the subsequent focus on the UK’s lack of exports, a country with a population a seventh the size of the EU and with a small and stuttering vaccine production line. AstraZeneca has only delivered a third of expected deliveries to the UK in the first quarter of the year.
Diplomats complain Von der Leyen may be overly concerned about sating her critics in the CDU, the centre-right political party of which she and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, are members, ahead of September’s federal election, where the slow progress of vaccination is being seen as a vote-decider. Britain’s success has heavily featured in the German media as a point of comparison.
Officials who have worked alongside Von der Leyen, who has chosen to live in an apartment on the 13th floor of the commission HQ in Brussels, add that she is overly insular, trusting and confiding in a small group, namely her head of cabinet Björn Seibert and communications adviser, Jens Flosdorff, both Germans. “Sleeping in the office doesn’t make for good decisions – rather a lack of perspective and political feel,” said one.
Last week’s events were a fresh cause of irritation for some. On Wednesday, the commission published a revised regulation to allow the EU to block vaccine export requests to countries with better vaccination coverage or where, through contracts or law, exports or raw materials are being blocked from being sent to the bloc’s 27 member states.
The revised regulation had not been shared with a number of capitals, coming as a fait accompli just 24 hours before a summit of leaders. The prime ministers of Belgium and the Netherlands, Alexander De Croo and Mark Rutte, insisted on additional commitments to open supply chains in the Thursday night summit communiqué.
That development follows the debacle of the aborted attempt to draw an export border on the island of Ireland at the time of the announcement of the original export authorisation regulation. “It has been noticed that the commission has a habit of landing things on the member states and a number of us have raised our concerns,” said a senior diplomat.
Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund thinktank in Brussels, believes Von der Leyen’s gravest mistake is missing an opportunity to tell a “fantastic story” about EU openness.
“I think fundamentally she seems to be struggling with her basic narrative,” he said. “She tries to either be this sort of vaccine nationalist that is going to block exports of Pfizer even though they are in full compliance – a sort of sawn-off-shotgun approach, where you can fire it but you never know what you will hit; and on the other hand, the really good story of the EU basically at cost to itself in the short run helping supply the world.” About 77m doses of vaccine have been exported from plants located in EU member states to 33 countries.
Kirkegaard said the enormous scale-up by Pfizer and other suppliers, with a further 360m doses by June set to join the 100m delivered this quarter, had only been possible due to the policy of keeping the EU open. The bloc will also be best placed to respond to new Covid-19 variants. “A leader that was a leader would have told that story,” he said. “She is the German commissioner, it is the biggest country, she has a special role in ‘keeping Germany happy’, so there is a lot of pressure coming from there. You look at the polls and there [are] a lot people in the CDU who are going to lose their jobs. They are looking for a scapegoat and she is in the firing line.”
But, Kirkegaard said, the battle over exports had been “nonsense”. Von der Leyen, he suggests, may have been guilty of letting Boris Johnson get under her skin.
“The UK is a tiny, tiny vaccine producer and will always be that. One of the biggest communication mistakes they made was that AstraZeneca supplies were down in the EU because they were up in the UK, which is absurd,” he said.
“They think of the UK [as] much more of an equal than it is. In vaccine production it is a mouse and the EU will very soon by far be the largest producer in the world … I think they should stop reading the Daily Mail.”
Mexico’s government acknowledged Saturday that the country’s true death toll from the coronavirus pandemic now stands above 321,000, almost 60% more than the official test-confirmed number of 201,429.
Mexico does little testing, and because hospitals were overwhelmed, many Mexicans died at home without getting a test. The only way to get a clear picture is to review “excess deaths” and review death certificates.
On Saturday, the government quietly published such a report, which found there were 294,287 deaths linked to COVID-19 from the start of the pandemic through Feb. 14. Since Feb. 15 there have been an additional 26,772 test-confirmed deaths.
The higher toll would rival that of Brazil, which currently has the world’s second-highest number of deaths after the United States. But Mexico’s population of 126 million is far smaller than either of those countries.
The new report also confirms just how deadly Mexico’s second wave in January was. As of the end of December, excess death estimates suggested a total of about 220,000 deaths related to COVID-19 in Mexico. That number jumped by around 75,000 in just a month and a half.
Also suggestive were the overall number of “excess deaths” since the pandemic began, around 417,000. Excess deaths are determined by comparing the deaths in a given year to those that would be expected based on data from previous years.
A review of death certificates found about 70.5% of the excess deaths were COVID-19 related, often because it was listed on the certificates as a suspected or contributing cause of death. But some experts say COVID-19 may have contributed to many of the other excess deaths because many people couldn’t get treatment for other diseases because hospitals were overwhelmed.
Former President Felipe Calderón wrote in his Twitter account Saturday that “more than 400,000 Mexicans have died, above the average for previous years … probably the highest figure in the worl
NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (March 22, 2021) – – Hon. Premier Mark Brantley, Minister of Foreign Affairs for St. Kitts and Nevis, has made intervention to its ally the United States of America for the provision of COVID-19 vaccines for the federation and the rest of the Caribbean region.
Hon. Brantley, through recent correspondence to the US Ambassador to the Eastern Caribbean, the OECS and Barbados, Linda Taglialatela, implored the US government to make vaccines available to the small island developing states with some urgency.
“We in the Caribbean continue to make the passionate plea that vaccines be made available to us with some alacrity…
“We are aware from reports in the New York Times just yesterday that the great United States of America has made vaccines available to Mexico and Canada.
“I have myself indicated to the United States that…having benefitted the other two borders Mexico and Canada, that it would perhaps be useful for them to think of their third border, the Caribbean, and to make vaccines available to us in the region as well,” he said.
The Premier made the disclosure during his presentation at a virtual forum hosted by the Organisation of American States (OAS) on “Legal challenges faced by the Caribbean in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic”, held March19, 2021.
The Foreign Minister noted that St. Kitts and Nevis and the wider Caribbean region, including Latin America, have been experiencing some challenges accessing COVID-19 vaccines.
He urged the OAS General Secretary for assistance in this regard.
“The difficulty of course, is that we have not been able to access sufficient vaccines to satisfy our populations…The other issue of course has to do with the equality of vaccine access and that has proven problematic, because naturally some countries are in a better financial position than others, some countries are themselves producers of vaccines.
“And I’m happy Secretary General that you are here because I think through your office we can assist each other in saying that there has to be a human right to the equitable access of
vaccines, because as we have said and continue to maintain, none of us is safe until all of us are safe.
“And so Secretary General I would urge the OAS to be a voice and an advocate for us in that regard…I feel that we have vested interest in insisting that vaccines be made available to our people on an equitable basis,” he said.
Mr. Luis Amalgro, OAS Secretary General, who was also a participant in the important forum, said he was in agreement with Minister Brantley’s position on equitable access to the vaccine for the region.
Mr. Luis Amalgro, Secretary General of the Organisation of American States
“I completely agree with you. I have assumed the challenge you have put on us and I think we should work very hard in relation to this matter. Most of us agree that the COVID-19 vaccine should be distributed fairly worldwide because we believe in the principle of fairness…
Mr. Luis Amalgro, Secretary General of the Organisation of American States
“The global pandemic requires a response based on unity, solidarity and multi-lateral cooperation to ensure that all states have access to vaccines,” he said.
The OAS Secretary General said he too joins the call for equal access to and equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
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