Day: December 29, 2020

Parents now have an extra reason to say no to candy, cake and ice cream for young children. The first U.S. government dietary guidelines for infants and toddlers, released Tuesday, recommend feeding only breast milk for at least six months and no added sugar for children under age 2. “It’s never too early to start,” said Barbara Schneeman, a nutritionist at University of California, Davis. “You have to make every bite count in those early years.” The guidelines stop short of two key recommendations from scientists advising the government. Those advisers said in July that everyone should limit their added sugar intake to less than 6% of calories and men should limit alcohol to one drink per day. Instead, the guidelines stick with previous advice: Limit added sugar to less than 10% of calories per day after age 2. And men should limit alcohol to no more than two drinks per day, twice as much as advised for women. “I don’t think we’re finished with alcohol,” said Schneeman, who chaired a committee advising the government on the guidelines. “There’s more we need to learn.” The dietary guidelines are issued every five years by the Agriculture Department and the Department of Health and Human Services. The government uses them to set standards for school lunches and other programs. Some highlights: Infants, toddlers and moms Babies should have only breast milk at least until they reach 6 months, the guidelines say. If breast milk isn’t available, they should get iron-fortified infant formula during the first year. Babies should get supplemental vitamin D beginning soon after birth. Babies can start eating other food at about 6 months and should be introduced to potential allergenic foods along with other foods. “Introducing peanut-containing foods in the first year reduces the risk that an infant will develop a food allergy to peanuts,” the guidelines say. There’s more advice than in prior guidelines for pregnant and breastfeeding women. To promote healthy brain development in their babies, these women should eat 8 to 12 ounces of seafood per week. They should be sure to choose fish — such as cod, salmon, sardines and tilapia — with lower levels of mercury, which can harm children’s nervous systems. Pregnant women should not drink alcohol, according to the guidelines, and breastfeeding women should be cautious. Caffeine in modest amounts appears safe, and women can discuss that with their doctors. Alcohol and men In July, the science advisers suggested men who drink alcohol should limit themselves to one serving per day — a 12-ounce can of beer, a 5-ounce glass of wine or a shot of liquor. Tuesday’s official guidelines ignored that, keeping the advice for men at two drinks per day. Dr. Westley Clark of Santa Clara University said that’s appropriate. Heavy drinking and binge drinking are harmful, he said, but the evidence isn’t as clear for moderate drinking.  Lowering the limit for men would likely be socially, religiously or culturally unacceptable to many, Clark said, which could have ripple effects for the rest of the guidelines. “They need to be acceptable to people, otherwise they’ll reject it outright and we’ll be worse off,” he said. “If you lose the public, these guidelines have no merit whatsoever.” More careful scientific research into the long-term effects of low or moderate levels of drinking is needed, he said. What’s on your plate? Most Americans fall short of following the best advice on nutrition, contributing to obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Much of the new advice sounds familiar: Load your plate with fruits and vegetables, and cut back on sweets, saturated fats and sodium.  The guidelines suggest making small changes that add up: Substitute plain shredded wheat for frosted cereal. Choose low-sodium canned black beans. Drink sparkling water instead of soda. “It is really important to make healthier choices, every meal, every day, to develop a pattern of healthy eating,” said Pam Miller of the Agriculture Department’s food and nutrition service. There’s an app to help people follow the guidelines available through the government’s My Plate website. Read labels The biggest sources of added sugars in the typical U.S. diet are soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages, desserts, snacks, candy and sweetened coffee and tea. These foods contribute very little nutrition, so the guidelines advise limits. There’s information on added sugar on the “Nutrition Facts” label on packaged foods. Information on saturated fats and sodium is on the label too. 
 
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Argentina was on the cusp of legalizing abortion Tuesday over the objections of its influential Roman Catholic Church, with the Senate preparing to vote on a measure that has the backing of the ruling party and already has passed in the lower house. 
 
If passed, the bill would make Argentina the first big country in predominantly Catholic Latin America to allow abortion on demand. The vote is expected to be close after what was expected to be a marathon debate, beginning at 4 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) and likely to stretch into Wednesday morning. 
 
Demonstrators both for and against the bill came from around the country to stand vigil in front of the Senate building in Buenos Aires. Argentine senators attend a session to debate an abortion bill in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec. 29, 2020.”Argentina is a pro-life country,” one woman, who said she was from Cordoba province, told local television as she sat in a folding chair under an umbrella sheltering her from the Southern Hemisphere summer sun. She and others who knelt in prayer nearby said they were against the proposed change in law. 
 
Maria Angela Guerrero of the Campaign for Legal Abortion activist group, speaking to reporters in front of the Senate, said she was “cautiously optimistic” the bill would pass. 
 
On the other side of the debate is the Catholic Church, which is calling on senators to reject the proposal to allow women to end pregnancies up to the 14th week. Argentina is the birthplace of Pope Francis. 
 
Argentine law now allows abortion only when there is a serious risk to the health of the mother or in cases of rape. 
 A woman against an abortion bill prays as Argentina’s Senate prepares to vote on a measure that has the backing of the ruling party and has already passed the lower house, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec. 29, 2020.Legal abortion is extremely rare in Latin America because of the long history of opposition by the Church. Across the region, abortions are available on demand only in Communist Cuba, comparatively tiny Uruguay, and some parts of Mexico. 
 
The change in law has been rejected by Argentina’s Congress before, but this is the first time such a bill is being presented to lawmakers with support from the ruling government. In 2018, before center-left Peronist Alberto Fernandez was elected president, a similar bill was rejected by a slim margin. 
 
The measure is accompanied by side legislation aimed at assisting women who want to continue their pregnancies and face severe economic or social difficulties. 
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The western U.S. state of California are expected to extend strict stay-at-home orders Tuesday for residents in two major areas of the state as it struggles with increasing numbers of new COVID-19 infections.  Governor Gavin Newsom said Monday it was “self-evident” that the restrictions first imposed three weeks ago for central San Joaquin Valley and Southern California will be extended as intensive care units in hospitals are filled or nearly filled to capacity.  San Joaquin Valley is home to California’s vital agricultural sector, while Southern California includes the major cities of Los Angeles and San Diego. FILE – An ambulance crew waits with a patient outside the Coast Plaza Hospital emergency room during a surge of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in Los Angeles, California, Dec. 26, 2020.The situation has become so dire that hospitals in those regions have been turning away patients seeking emergency care and erecting tents as makeshift treatment rooms to treat the overflow of COVID-19 patients.   California has become the latest epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.  According to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Center, the state has 2,192,694 total confirmed COVID-19 infections, including 24,419 deaths.  Governor Newsom warned Monday that the state was about to undergo a “surge on top of a surge, arguably on top of another surge” as many Californians ignored urgings from health experts not to travel during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. An airline worker in Christmas themed attire assists travelers at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, Dec. 28, 2020.U.S. officials said nearly 1.3 million people went through U.S. airports on Sunday following the Christmas holiday, the highest level of air travel in more than nine months.  India is the latest nation to report discovery of a new variant of the novel coronavirus scientists say is far more contagious than the initial strain.  The Health Ministry says six people who returned to India from Britain in recent weeks have tested positive for the new strain.  The six patients and their close contacts have been placed in isolation, and the ministry says it has tracked down their fellow travelers.  India has suspended all flights from Britain until the end of the month, joining such countries as South Korea, Finland, Japan and Saudi Arabia.   The head of the World Health Organization is calling for an increase in genomic sequencing of the coronavirus after new variants have been detected in Britain and South Africa. FILE – World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a news conference in Geneva.WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at an online news conference Monday from Geneva that “only if countries are looking and testing effectively, will you be able to pick up variants and adjust strategies to cope.” He said WHO is working closely with scientists worldwide to “better understand any and all changes to the virus” and their impacts, and he called on countries to share any genetic information with WHO and other countries. A person walks past a roadside public health information sign, amidst the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, near Oxford, Britain, Dec. 28, 2020.British authorities are expected to approve the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine this week.  If approved, AstraZeneca’s vaccine will become the fifth to have been rolled out to fight the virus. Early tests showed that the vaccine was 70% effective for preventing illness, compared to 95% reported by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech. Russia and China also have their own vaccines. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency is reporting that U.S. pharmaceutical firm Moderna has agreed to supply 20 million doses of its new COVID-19 vaccine to the Asian nation.  Yonhap says the South Korean presidential office confirmed the agreement had been reached after a videoconference Monday between President Moon Jae-in and Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel. The agreement comes as South Korea reported 40 new COVID-19 fatalities, its highest single day figure since the start of the pandemic, raising its total death toll to 859.  Health officials also confirmed 1,046 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 58,725.   Also Monday, another COVID-19 vaccine candidate is beginning its final-stage testing in the United States. The testing for the vaccine candidate, made by Novavax, will involve 30,000 volunteers to determine whether the vaccine is effective and safe.FILE – A researcher lifts a vial with a potential COVID-19 vaccine at Novavax labs in Gaithersburg, Maryland, March 20, 2020, one of the labs developing a vaccine for the coronavirus.The trials will focus on high-risk older adults, as well as people from Black and Hispanic communities who have been disproportionately affected by the virus. The latest vaccine on the horizon comes as the world reached the grim milestone of 81 million people worldwide infected by the virus with 1.7 million world deaths globally, according to Johns Hopkins University.  The United States leads the world in both the number of total infections with 19.2 million and deaths with over 334,000 people. 
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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has issued a message of hope and healing for the new year to the hundreds of millions of people worldwide whose lives have been shattered by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Guterres does not hide his sorrow at the difficulties engendered by this once-in-a-century pandemic. COVID-19, he says, has upended the lives of millions, plunging the world into suffering and grief. FILE – U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York, Nov. 20, 2020.He describes 2020 as a year of trials, tragedies and tears, a year that continues to create havoc and claim new victims as COVID-19 rages on. The pandemic, he says, has increased poverty, inequality and hunger to new heights.  
 
“But the new year lies ahead,” he says. “With it, we see rays of hope: People extending a helping hand to neighbors and strangers. Front-line workers giving their all. Scientists developing vaccines in record time. Countries making new commitments to prevent climate catastrophe.”   
 
Guterres says climate change and the pandemic are crises not easily overcome. He says it will take enormous work, commitment and above all a willingness of all people to work together for the same goal. 
 
“If we work together in unity and solidarity, these rays of hope can reach around the world. That is the lesson of this most difficult year. … Together, let us make peace among ourselves and with nature, tackle the climate crisis, stop the spread of COVID-19 and make 2021 a year of healing.”   
 
Guterres says 2021 can be a year of healing divisions that were made worse from the deadly infection and broken economies if people work together. He says the best New Year’s resolution for 2021 is to heal the planet. 
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Britain must vaccinate 2 million people a week to avoid a third wave of the coronavirus outbreak, a study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) has concluded. Britain has had more than 71,000 deaths from the coronavirus and has recorded more than 2.3 million cases of COVID-19 infections as of late Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University data. “The most stringent intervention scenario, with tier 4 [restrictions] England-wide and schools closed during January and 2 million individuals vaccinated per week, is the only scenario we considered which reduces peak ICU burden below the levels seen during the first wave,” the study said. “In the absence of substantial vaccine roll-out, cases, hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths in 2021 may exceed those in 2020,” it said. FILE – Staff members deliver injections of the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to patients in their cars at a drive-in vaccination center in Hyde, Greater Manchester, northwest England, Dec. 17, 2020.An accelerated uptake of 2 million vaccinated per week “is predicted to have a much more substantial impact,” it added. The study has yet to be peer-reviewed. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his scientific advisers have said a variant of the coronavirus, which could be up to 70% more transmissible, was spreading rapidly in Britain, although it is not thought to be more deadly or to cause more serious illness. That prompted tight social mixing restriction measures for London and southeast England, while plans to ease curbs over Christmas across the nation were dramatically scaled back or scrapped altogether. Media reports over the weekend said that the United Kingdom will roll out the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine starting January 4, with its approval by the country’s medical regulator expected within days. Earlier this month, the United Kingdom became the first country in the world to roll out the vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech. The British government said Thursday that 600,000 people in the United Kingdom have received the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine since inoculations began. 
 
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A huge U.S. study of another COVID-19 vaccine candidate got underway Monday as states continue to roll out supplies of the first shots to a nation eagerly awaiting relief from the catastrophic outbreak. Public health experts say more options, in addition to the two vaccines now being dispensed — one made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, the other by Moderna — are critical to amassing enough shots for the country and the world.  The candidate made by Novavax Inc. is the fifth to reach final-stage testing in the United States. Some 30,000 volunteers are needed to prove if the shot — a different kind than its Pfizer and Moderna competitors — really works and is safe. FILE – Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, prepares to receive his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Md., Dec. 22, 2020.”If you want to have enough vaccine to vaccinate all the people in the U.S. who you’d like to vaccinate — up to 85% or more of the population — you’re going to need more than two companies,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, told The Associated Press on Monday. The coronavirus is blamed for about 1.8 million deaths worldwide, including more than 330,000 in the U.S. This has been the deadliest month of the outbreak in the U.S., with about 65,000 deaths in December so far, according to the COVID Tracking Project. The nation has repeatedly recorded more than 3,000 deaths per day over the past few weeks. And the U.S. could be facing a terrible winter: Despite warnings to stay home and avoid others at Christmastime, nearly 1.3 million people went through the nation’s airports on Sunday, the highest one-day total since the crisis took hold in the U.S. nine months ago. The Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed expects to have shipped 20 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to states by the beginning of January, fewer than originally estimated, to the frustration of states and health officials trying to schedule the shots. There is no real-time tracking of how quickly people are getting the first of the two required doses. As of Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had reports of more than 2.1 million vaccinations out of 11.4 million doses shipped — but the agency knows that count is outdated. It can take days for reports from vaccine providers to trickle in and be added to the site. “Just because a vaccine arrives doesn’t mean we can put an on-the-spot clinic up and running,” said Jenny Barta, a public health official in Carlton County, Minnesota. Registered nurse Cynthia Banada, left, administers the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to Luz Collazo, 103, at Miami Jewish Health, a senior health care facility, in Miami, Dec. 28, 2020.But Tuesday, her agency aims to vaccinate 100 people in a drive-thru clinic for emergency medical workers that Barta hopes could become a model for larger attempts at mass vaccination. Nurses will wheel vaccine to cars lined up in a county-owned snowplow garage. Once the drivers get their shots, they will wait in parking spaces to be sure they do not have an allergic reaction before heading home. “Vaccinating one individual at a time is how we’re going to work our way out of this pandemic,” she said. Yet another worry hanging over the vaccine scramble: Will shots block a new variant of the coronavirus that emerged in Britain and might spread more easily? Fauci said that data from Britain indicates the vaccines still will protect against the virus but that National Institutes of Health researchers will be “looking at it very intensively” to be sure. A look at the front-runners in the global vaccine race: Genetic code vaccines The U.S. based its emergency rollout of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and a similar one made by Moderna and the NIH on studies suggesting they are both roughly 95% effective. Europe over the weekend began its first vaccinations with the Pfizer shot, and on January 6 will decide whether to add Moderna’s. These shots are made with a brand-new technology that injects a piece of genetic code for the spike protein that coats the coronavirus. That messenger RNA, or mRNA, induces the body to produce some harmless spike protein, enough to prime the immune system to react if it later encounters the real virus.  Both vaccines must be kept frozen, the Pfizer shot at ultra-low temperatures that complicate its delivery to poor or rural areas. Additional companies are working toward their own mRNA candidates, including Germany’s CureVac, which has begun a large study in Europe. Protein vaccines The Novavax candidate is made differently, using what Fauci called a “more tried and true” technology that needs only ordinary refrigeration. The Maryland company grows harmless copies of the coronavirus spike protein in the laboratory and mixes in an immune-boosting chemical. Novavax has enrolled 15,000 people in a late-stage study in Britain and 4,000 in South Africa. The newest and largest study, funded by the U.S. government, will recruit volunteers at more than 115 sites in the U.S. and Mexico and target high-risk older adults, along with volunteers from Black and Hispanic communities, which have been hit hard by the virus.  “We’ve got to protect our community and our people,” said the Rev. Peter Johnson, 75, a prominent civil rights activist in Dallas who was among the first volunteers. Two-thirds of the participants will receive the vaccine and the rest dummy shots, a twist from earlier vaccine studies that gave half their volunteers a placebo. That should help researchers recruit people who wonder whether it’s better to take part in a study or wait their turn for an existing shot, said Dr. Gregory Glenn, research chief at Novavax.  For many people, that would be a long wait. The Pfizer and Moderna shots are slated first for health care workers and nursing home residents, followed by people 75 and older, and essential workers. “If you wanted to hedge your bets, for most people who aren’t in those very high-risk groups, the shortest route to getting the vaccine would be to sign up for a trial,” said NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins. Trojan horse vaccines The next big vaccine news may come from Johnson & Johnson, which is aiming for a one-dose COVID-19 vaccine.  Made in yet another way, it uses a harmless virus — a cold virus called an adenovirus — to carry the spike gene into the body. In mid-December, J&J finished enrolling about 45,000 volunteers in a final-stage study in the U.S. and a half-dozen other countries. Fauci expects early results sometime next month. In Britain, regulators also are considering clearing a similar vaccine made by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. Tests of the shots in Britain, South Africa and Brazil suggested they are safe and partially protective — about 70%. But questions remain about how well the vaccine works in people older than 55 and how to interpret results from a small number of people given a different set of doses. A U.S. study of the AstraZeneca shots is still recruiting volunteers. Fauci said researchers hope it will provide a clearer answer. Companies in China and Russia also are producing adenovirus-based vaccines and began administering them before the results of final testing came in. Argentina is expected to soon use the Russian vaccine. Killed vaccines Spike-focused vaccines are not the only option. Making vaccines by growing a disease-causing virus and then killing it is a still older approach that gives the body a sneak peek at the germ itself rather than just that single spike protein.  China has three such inactivated COVID-19 vaccines in final testing in several countries and has allowed emergency use in some people ahead of results. An Indian company is testing its own inactivated candidate. 
 
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