Day: February 2, 2021

Biden Announces Increase in COVID-19 Vaccines

The White House announced Tuesday new measures to increase the rate of vaccinations against COVID-19, including distributing vaccines to select pharmacies across the country. “Building on last week’s announcement, the Biden-Harris Administration will increase overall, weekly vaccine supply to states, Tribes, and territories to 10.5-million doses nationwide beginning this week,” a statement from the White House said, noting that this constitutes a 22% increase in vaccine supply since President Joe Biden took office January 20. The statement also said the federal government would reimburse states and territories for supplies like masks and gloves as the U.S. continues to battle record numbers of virus infections and deaths. People wait in their vehicles after receiving a shot at the Dodger Stadium COVID-19 vaccination site, in Los Angeles, California, Feb. 1, 2021.The statement included a list of pharmacies which are expected to carry the vaccine as soon as next week, noting that much of the U.S. population relies on local pharmacies to receive their flu shot every year. The announcement comes as many states have complained that they do not have enough vaccines to inoculate vulnerable populations. In cities like New Orleans, many Americans have reported that their scheduled vaccination appointments were canceled because of a lack of doses.Frustrations Mount Over Vaccine Shortages in New OrleansAmid tight supplies, one of America’s most diverse cities works to ensure vaccine equity across racial linesStudies by The Associated Press and The New York Times found that Black and Latinx populations were being vaccinated at lower rates than white populations across the country. Still, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that more Americans had been vaccinated against the disease than had contracted it. According to the CDC, 32 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in the United States. As of Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. had confirmed 26.4 million cases of the virus. 
 

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Britain Battles Mutant Coronavirus Outbreak

Britain has launched an emergency program of door-to-door testing in several parts of the country, following the discovery of numerous cases of the coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa. Scientists say the variant could be more resistant to vaccines, as Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
Camera: Henry Ridgwell   
 

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Amazon’s Bezos to Step Down as CEO

Amazon.com Inc. on Tuesday said founder Jeff Bezos would step down as CEO and become executive chairman, as the company reported its third consecutive record profit and quarterly sales above $100 billion for the first time. The transition, slated for the third quarter, will make current cloud computing chief Andy Jassy Amazon’s next chief executive officer. Net sales rose to $125.56 billion as consumers turned to the world’s largest online retailer for holiday shopping, beating analyst estimates of $119.7 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. FILE – Andy Jassy, CEO Amazon Web Services, speaks at a conference in Laguna Beach, California, Oct. 25, 2016.Bezos, who started the company 27 years ago as an internet bookseller, said in a note to employees posted on Amazon’s website, “As Exec Chair I will stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives but also have the time and energy I need to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and my other passions.” He added, “I’ve never had more energy, and this isn’t about retiring.” Since the start of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak, consumers have turned increasingly to Amazon for delivery of home staples and medical supplies. Brick-and-mortar shops closed their doors; Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, instead recruited over 400,000 more workers and posted consecutive record profits. With its warehouses open, Amazon had another record holiday, beating estimates for online store sales, subscription sales, third-party service sales such as warehousing, and other sales to merchants on its platform. Jassy’s Amazon Web Services (AWS), traditionally a bright spot, fell slightly short of expectations. While the cloud computing division announced deals in the quarter with ViacomCBS, the BMW Group and others, it posted revenue of $12.7 billion, short of the $12.8 billion analysts had estimated. A boost in revenue came from moving Amazon’s marketing event Prime Day — usually in July — to October, lengthening the holiday shopping season. 
 

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Nigeria to Add More Protections for Health Care Workers Following Surge in COVID-19 Infections

Nigerian authorities are pledging to provide more protection for health care workers following an increase in COVID-19 cases among the group.
 
Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control, said Monday the positive coronavirus test of 75 health care workers in the past week is worrisome.
 
Ihkekweazu is urging health care personnel to exercise caution and suspect COVID-19 in every case until it is ruled out.  He warned that even then the risk of infection still exists.   
 
Ihekweazu also said the NCDC will soon make available rapid diagnostic test kits in more health facilities as an additional form of protection.
 
Anadolu Agency said more than 800 health care workers in Nigeria have been infected with the virus since June, Health Minister Osagie Ehanire said.
 
The Nigerian Medical Association has confirmed at least 20 doctors have died from the virus within a one-week period last month.  
 
Nigeria has confirmed more than 131,000 COVID-19 infections and 1,607 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University Covid Resource Center.

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NFL Announces COVID-19 Precautions for Upcoming Super Bowl

While many U.S. professional football games this season have been played in empty stadiums because of the coronavirus pandemic, the February 7 Super Bowl will be played in front of 25,000 fans. It will be the lowest attended National Football League championship game of all time.Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, where the Kansas City Chiefs will take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has a capacity of 65,890, so the empty seats will be filled with as many as 30,000 cardboard cutouts of fans.Buccaneers, Chiefs to Face Off in Super Bowl Quarterbacks Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes look to add to their championship resumes According to the NFL, all fans in attendance will be given personal protective equipment (PPE) kits. The league said that it was giving 7,500 vaccinated health care workers free tickets to the game. Everyone in attendance will be required to wear face coverings.Until this year’s game, the lowest attended Super Bowl was the first one, where nearly 62,000 fans in the Los Angeles Coliseum watched the Green Bay Packers defeat the Chiefs 35-10 in 1967. There were 35,000 empty seats.The 1980 Super Bowl between the Los Angeles Rams and Pittsburgh Steelers remains the most attended game with 103,985 fans watching in the Rose Bowl. Pittsburgh won the game 31-19.

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South Africa Sees 2 Good Breaks in Coronavirus Fight 

South Africa’s president delivered a rare shot of good news to people in the continent’s coronavirus hotspot: the nation’s second wave appears to be abating, and the government will soon launch a vaccination campaign for health workers. The Monday address, delivered live on national television, was a departure from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s usual tone. For nearly a year, Ramaphosa has the been the bearer of grim news, talking of deaths, rising caseloads and burdened hospitals, of lockdowns and restrictions and of endless reminders, like a chiding father, reminding people to wear your mask, wash your hands.South Africa is the continent’s viral hotspot, with 1.4 million confirmed cases and more than 44,000  COVID-19 deaths since the virus arrived in March. The nation experienced the start of a second wave of the virus, featuring a new variant that is significantly more contagious, in late December. FILE – Family members and volunteers from the Saaberie Chishty Society lower the body of a COVID-19 victim into a grave at the Avalon cemetery in Lenasia, South Africa, Jan. 4, 2021.But this week, a ray of hope: earlier Monday, the president and top ministers stood on the sodden airport tarmac in Johannesburg to greet the arrival of 1 million vaccine doses.  Ramaphosa said they will , in the next two weeks, make their way into the arms of frontline healthcare workers. After that, Ramaphosa said, the country will vaccinate 40 million people — about 67 percent of the population — by year’s end. He emphasized that no one will be required to take the vaccine.  He spoke live on national TV late Monday.  “Fellow South Africans, the first set of good news is the arrival of the vaccine today,” he said. “The second is that we have recorded our lowest daily increase in infections. Since the beginning of December of last year, in fact, the average rate of new infections has been steadily coming down over the last three weeks, indicating that we have now passed the peak of the second wave.” Workers load South Africa’s first COVID-19 vaccine as they arrive at OR Tambo airport in Johannesburg, Feb. 1, 2021. (Elmond Jiyane for GCIS/Handout via Reuters)South Africa will become the fifth African nation to roll out mass vaccinations, after Morocco, Egypt, the Seychelles and Guinea. Ramaphosa also said that, in his role as chairman of the African Union, he is working to secure the delivery of one billion vaccines for the African continent.  “Seven hundred million of these will come through the global COVAX facility and 300 million have been facilitated by the African vaccine acquisition task team. We will be getting other vaccines that will be donated by various private sector companies to add to the vaccines that our continent needs,” the president said.” Ramaphosa, as the only African leader in the G-20, has publicly exhorted wealthy nations to share the vaccines equitably.  FILE – South African President Cyril Ramaphosa visits the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) treatment facilities in Johannesburg,Ramaphosa also announced that his government would ease current COVID-19 restrictions, including loosening the overnight curfew and allowing the resumption of alcohol sales. But, he warned, that doesn’t mean South Africa should breathe a sigh of relief — yet.  “Let us remember that despite the clear progress we have made, the number of new cases is still high and there is an ever present danger of a resurgence,” he said. “It is therefore necessary to maintain the country on coronavirus alert level three, indicating the continued high risk of transmission.”  
 

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Nigeria to Add More Protection for Healthcare Workers Following Surge in COVID Infections

Nigerian authorities are pledging to provide more protection for healthcare workers following an increase in COVID-19 cases among the group.
 
Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control  Ihekweazu, said Monday the positive coronavirus test of 75 healthcare workers in the past week is worrisome.
 
Ihkekweazu is urging healthcare personnel to exercise caution and suspect COVID-19 in every case until it is ruled out.  He warned even then, the risk of infection still exits.   
 
Ihekweazu also said the NCDC will soon make available rapid diagnostic test kits in more health facilities as an additional form of protection.
 
Anadolu Agency said more than 800 healthcare workers in Nigeria have been infected with the virus since June, according to Health Minister Osagie Ehanire.
 
The Nigerian Medical Association has confirmed at least 20 doctors died from the virus within one week period last month.  
 
Nigeria has confirmed more than 131,000 COVID-19 infections and 1,607 deaths, according Johns Hopkins University Covid Resource Center.

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Marilyn Manson Denies Evan Rachel Wood’s Abuse Allegations

Rocker Marilyn Manson was dropped by his record label on Monday after actor Evan Rachel Wood accused her ex-fiancé of sexual and other physical abuse, alleging she was “manipulated into submission” during their relationship.
Manson called the allegations “horrible distortions of reality.”
Wood, who stars on HBO’s “Westworld,” had spoken frequently in recent years about being abused in a relationship but did not name the person until she posted Monday on Instagram.
“The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson,” Wood said. “He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years.”
Manson’s label, Loma Vista Recordings, said in a statement that after the “disturbing allegations,” it will “cease to further promote his current album” and has “also decided not to work with Marilyn Manson on any future projects.”
Wood and Manson’s relationship became public in 2007 when he was 38 and she was 19, and they were briefly engaged in 2010 before breaking up.
Wood, now 33, said in her post that Manson left her “brainwashed and manipulated into submission.”
“I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander, or blackmail. I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins any more lives,” the post added.
She concluded, “I stand with the many victims who will no longer be silent.”
Manson responded with his own Instagram post Monday night.
“Obviously my art and life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality,” his post said. “My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners. Regardless of how — and why — others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth.”
It was not immediately clear whether Wood has gone to authorities with any of her allegations, and a representative did not immediately respond when asked via email whether she had.
In 2018, Los Angeles County prosecutors declined to file charges against Manson over allegations of assault, battery and sexual assault dating to 2011, saying they were limited by statutes of limitations and a lack of corroboration. The accuser in that case was identified only as a social acquaintance of Manson.
He denied the allegations through his attorney at the time.
In 2017, Wood was one of thousands of women who identified themselves as victims of sexual harassment or assault amid the #MeToo movement.
“Being raped once made it easier to be raped again. I instinctually shut down. My body remembered, so it protected me. I disappeared. #metoo,” Wood wrote at the time as part of a series of tweets on her experience.
In 2018, she testified about her abuse to a House Judiciary subcommittee as she sought to have a Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights passed in all 50 states.
“My experience with domestic violence was this: Toxic mental, physical and sexual abuse which started slow but escalated over time,” she told the committee.
Wood began acting as a child, gaining fame and a Golden Globe nomination for playing a troubled adolescent in 2003’s “Thirteen.”
For three seasons she has played Dolores Abernathy, a sentient android, on HBO’s “Westworld” and has been nominated for a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for the role.
Manson, 52, became a household name in the mid-1990s with a series of hit rock albums and used a stage persona designed to shock and stoke controversy.
The Associated Press does not normally name people who say they were victims of sexual assault but is naming Wood because of her decision to speak out publicly.

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Tokyo Olympics Chief Says Games Will Go On Despite Coronavirus 

The head of the Tokyo Olympics expressed confidence Tuesday the event will go forward this year despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Tokyo 2020 President Yoshiro Mori said discussions should be about how and not whether the Olympics will happen. “We will hold the Olympics, regardless of how the coronavirus [situation] looks,” Mori said. The Summer Games were originally scheduled to begin in July 2020, but organizers postponed the event for one year.  The new start date is July 23. FILE – A man wearing a protective mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus walks near a banner of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics at an underpass in Tokyo, Jan. 19, 2021.Adding to doubts about whether it would be possible to stage the games are recent lockdowns initiated in a number of countries.  Large parts of Japan are currently under a state of emergency because of the virus. Malaysia is among those extending lockdowns to try to stop the spread of COVID-19.  Defense Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said Tuesday the restrictions would be extended until February 18. “The Health Ministry has confirmed that daily cases in all states are still showing a rising trend… the sporadic spread in the community is also high,” Ismail Sabri said in a televised address. In Britain, fears of the spread of coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa have prompted a mass door-to-door testing campaign. Volunteers hand out the COVID-19 home test kits to residents, in Goldsworth and St Johns, amid the outbreak of COVID-19 in Woking, Britain, Feb. 2, 2021.The effort involves eight areas of the country where people will be tested whether they have symptoms or not.  In all, about 80,000 people were to be tested. Britain has been one of the hardest-hit countries during the pandemic, with more than 3.8 million confirmed cases and 106,000 deaths. ‘A detective story’A team of World Health Organization scientists investigating the source of the coronavirus, that first emerged in China’s Hubei province in late 2019, visited a provincial disease control center Monday that was key in the early management of the outbreak.       FILE – Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team, investigating the origins of the Covid-19 coronavirus, visit the closed Huanan Seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, China’s central Hubei province, Jan. 31, 2021.China did not release any details about the team’s visit to the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control. Team member Peter Daszak, however, told reporters it had been a “really good meeting, really important.”      Since the WHO team’s arrival last month, the scientists have also visited the Huanan Seafood Market that was linked to a cluster of COVID-19 cases and at least one of the hospitals in Wuhan that treated some of the first patients. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.     The scientists want to know where the virus originated, in what animal and how it made its way into humans — something that could take years to figure out.      “We continue to ask the questions, we continue to push for more data. … It’s a detective story,” Mike Ryan, top emergency WHO official, told a Geneva news conference Monday.     Maria Van Kerkhove, an American epidemiologist and technical lead on COVID-19 at WHO, said at the news conference that the team is focusing on “the early cases” and “are having very good discussions around that” with their Chinese counterparts.      The outbreak in China led to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said Monday there are more than 103 million global COVID-19 infections and more than 2.2 million people have died.     Cases have fallen worldwide for three consecutive weeks. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the decline “encouraging news” but warned, “We have been here before.”     Speaking Monday at the news conference, Tedros said, “Over the past year, there have been moments in almost all countries when cases declined and governments opened up too quickly, and individuals let down their guard, only for the virus to come roaring back.” 

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South Africa to Begin Testing COVID-19 Vaccines  Before Launching Program

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said medical regulators will begin testing the integrity of the country’s first batch of AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19 before vaccinating front line healthcare workers. He made the comment during a national address late Monday, hours after he and other dignitaries accepted 1.2 million doses of vaccine that arrived at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport Monday afternoon. President Ramaphosa said after healthcare workers get their shots the country aims to vaccinate essential workers, people over 60 years of age, people with co-morbidities and those living in places such as nursing homes. The remainder of the adult population will get their shots in the third phase of the vaccination program. South Africa is the African nation hardest hit by the novel coronavirus, with more than 1.4 million confirmed cases since the virus turned up in the country in March. The nation’s second wave of the virus fueled by a new variant that surfaced in late December appears to be subsiding.  The head of South Africa’s coronavirus task force, Dr. Salim Abdool Karim, said the current vaccines are expected to work on the new variant, called 501.V2, Ramaphosa said in addition to Monday’s shipment the country is due to receive another 500,000 doses from the Serum Institute of India next month.  South Africa has also secured millions of doses of vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and the global COVAX facility, which is a worldwide collaboration to speed up the development, production and access to COVID-19 treatments and vaccines. The president said South Africa will also receive an allocation of vaccine doses through the African Union, which has been negotiating with manufacturers to secure vaccines for the entire continent on a pooled basis. South Africa will now become the fifth African nation to roll out vaccinations, after Morocco, Egypt, the Seychelles and Guinea.   

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