U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday criticized his predecessor’s vaccination program and urged Americans to be patient as he fixed it.”My predecessor — I’ll be very blunt about it — did not do his job in getting ready for the massive challenge of vaccinating hundreds of millions,” Biden said at the National Institutes of Health.”We won’t have everything fixed for a while. But we’re going to fix it,” he added.Biden also announced that the United States had acquired enough vaccines to inoculate 300 million of the 328 million U.S. population by the end of July.President Joe Biden listens as Kizzmekia Corbett, an immunologist with the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institutes of Health, speaks during a visit at the NIH Feb. 11, 2021, in Bethesda, Md. NIH Director Francis Collins is at center.The country is on track to exceed Biden’s goal of vaccinating 100 million Americans within his first 100 days in office.According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 46 million doses of the vaccine have been administered.Earlier Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious-disease expert, said by April, anyone in the United States who wants a COVID-19 vaccination should be able to get one.The United States has recorded more cases and deaths from COVID-19 than any country in the world — over 27 million and over 470,000, respectively, according to Johns Hopkins University.
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Day: February 11, 2021
The Biden administration asked a U.S. court Thursday to suspend litigation connected to former President Donald Trump’s proposed ban on WeChat while it reviews the policy. The Justice Department filed a request with the U.S. Court of Appeals seeking a suspension of the case. That followed action Wednesday in which the department asked a federal court for a pause on proceedings aimed at banning TikTok. Newly installed Commerce Department officials have begun a review of the prior administration’s actions on WeChat, including “an evaluation of the underlying record justifying those prohibitions,” the DOJ said in the filing. “The government will then be better positioned to determine” whether “the regulatory purpose of protecting the security of Americans and their data continues to warrant the identified prohibitions,” the filing added. Trump issued an executive order last August declaring both WeChat and TikTok as threats to national security because of data collection practices affecting Americans. However, U.S. courts have blocked the bans from going into effect, leading to appeals lodged in the final months of the Trump administration seeking to override the lower courts. The DOJ said the Commerce Department “remains committed to a robust defense of national security as well as ensuring the viability of our economy and preserving individual rights and data.”
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The social media platform Instagram has permanently removed the account of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for posting false information regarding vaccines and COVID-19.
In a statement Wednesday, Facebook, which owns Instagram, said, “We removed this account for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines.”
Kennedy’s Facebook page, which has carried some of same information and has over 300,000 followers, remains active.
Kennedy is the son of the former senator and U.S. attorney general Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and worked for decades as an environmental lawyer. In recent years, he is better known as an anti-vaccine crusader.
He chairs a nonprofit organization, Children’s Health Defense, which is skeptical about the health benefits of vaccines. Kennedy has lobbied Congress to give parents exemptions from state vaccine requirements for children.
Kennedy has said he is not opposed to vaccines, as long as they are safe, and says he has vaccinated all of his children. Yet, he regularly endorses discredited links between vaccines and autism and has argued that it is safer to contract the coronavirus than to be inoculated against it.
Members of Kennedy’s famous political family have spoken out against his views.
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Top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday that by April, anyone in the United States who wants a COVID-19 vaccination should be able to get one.
In an interview with the NBC morning television program “Today,” Fauci, who also is the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, said projections indicate top priority groups, such as U.S. frontline workers and the elderly, should have received their vaccinations by April.
Fauci said after that, it would be “open season, namely, virtually everybody and anybody, in any category, could start to get vaccinated.” From there, he said, given logistics, it likely would take several more months to get vaccines to all who want them.
Fauci was hopeful that by July or August, “the overwhelming majority of people in the country will have been vaccinated.” He credits new vaccines becoming available and an increased capacity to deliver them with speeding the process.
An Associated Press–NORC Center for Public Affairs poll released late Wednesday indicate 67 percent of U.S. citizens plan to get vaccinated, and about one-third say probably or probably will not. Those who have doubts said vaccine safety was their number one concern.
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It’s a busy time on the Red Planet as three Mars missions from three countries converge on their target. Plus, there’s money to be made on what space drops on our planet. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has the Week in Space.Camera: NASA/Reuters/AP/CCTVProduced by: Arash Arabasadi
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The social media platform Instagram has permanently removed the account of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for posting false information regarding vaccines and COVID-19.
In a statement Wednesday, Facebook, which owns Instagram, said, “We removed this account for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines.”
Kennedy’s Facebook page, which has carried some of same information and has over 300,000 followers, remains active.
Kennedy is the son of the former senator and U.S. attorney general Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and worked for decades as an environmental lawyer. In recent years, he is better known as an anti-vaccine crusader.
He chairs a nonprofit organization, Children’s Health Defense, which is skeptical about the health benefits of vaccines. Kennedy has lobbied Congress to give parents exemptions from state vaccine requirements for children.
Kennedy has said he is not opposed to vaccines, as long as they are safe, and says he has vaccinated all of his children. Yet, he regularly endorses discredited links between vaccines and autism and has argued that it is safer to contract the coronavirus than to be inoculated against it.
Members of Kennedy’s famous political family have spoken out against his views.
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The president of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics organizing committee reportedly will resign after making sexist remarks about women that were disclosed to media.
Japan’s Kyodo news agency and other news outlets, citing unnamed sources, reported Thursday that Yoshiro Mori would step down on Friday after concluding he could not let the ensuing controversy continue.
A committee spokesman declined to comment on the reports.
The former prime minister reportedly said at an Olympics board of trustees meeting on Feb. 3 that “board meetings with lots of women take longer” because “if one member raises her hand to speak, others might think they need to talk, too.”
Mori retracted his comments and apologized the next day, saying he would not resign.
His remarks, which were leaked to a Japanese newspaper, sparked public debate in the country about gender equality.
The 83-year-old’s reported pending resignation has fueled concerns over the feasibility of holding the games later this year.
More than 80% of the Japanese public believe the games should be canceled or postponed, according to recent polls.
A meeting of the organizing committee executive board is planned for Friday.
In an interview with Nippon TV, Mori did not confirm reports he was stepping down, but said he would “explain his thoughts” at the meeting.
The Japanese news outlet TBS News reported that Saburo Kawabuchi, the former mayor of the Olympic village and president of the Japan Football Association, would replace Mori.
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India has warned social media giants to comply with local laws or face action amid an escalating dispute with Twitter over the government’s demand that hundreds of accounts be blocked.
Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told parliament Thursday that “if social media is misused to spread fake news and misinformation, then action will be taken.”
Naming Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube and LinkedIn, he said that they were free to do business in India but would have to “follow the Indian constitution.”
The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called on Twitter to take down hundreds of accounts and posts for allegedly using provocative hashtags and spreading misinformation about a massive farmers’ protest that erupted in violence on January 26.
India has reacted angrily to Twitter’s failure to comply fully with its directive — while the social media company has acted on some of these accounts, it has not taken down all of them.
Following a virtual call with Twitter’s executives, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said that it had “expressed deep disappointment” over the manner in which the company had “unwillingly, grudgingly and with great delay” complied with only parts of its orders. “Lawfully passed orders are binding on any business entity and must be obeyed immediately,” it said in a statement on Wednesday.FILE – A man reads tweets by Indian celebrities on his mobile phone in New Delhi, India, Feb. 4, 2021.Twitter had earlier said, “In keeping with our principles of defending protected speech and freedom of expression, we have not taken any action on accounts that consist of news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians.”
India also called out Twitter for “differential treatment,” citing its crackdown on accounts following last month’s insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington.
“During Capitol Hill, social media platforms stand with the police action and in violence at Red Fort, you take a different stand,” Minister Prasad said in parliament, referring to the storming of a historic building in New Delhi by thousands of farmers during a rally. “We won’t allow these double standards.”
Critics have voiced concern about the government’s intolerance of dissenting voices and accuse it of cracking down on free speech.
Digital rights activists say there is no way to ascertain whether the government’s request to act against hundreds of accounts is legal because the orders “lack transparency.”
“Apart from Twitter which has seen these orders, no one can comment on whether these orders are justified,” according to Nikhil Pahwa, founder of MediaNama, a mobile and digital news portal. “But on the face of it some of these demands appear to be a disproportionate act of censorship,” he said.
Pahwa cites the example of a news magazine, The Caravan, whose account was restored after being briefly blocked. “The Caravan is an award-winning, legitimate news organization and was not even given an opportunity of a hearing.”
Pahwa welcomed Twitter’s move to not take down all the accounts as the government demanded. “I wish more platforms stood up for their users’ speech like this and push back against orders that are in their opinion not lawful,” he said.
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The World Health Organization’s (WHO) European office announced Thursday it will partner with the European Union to deploy COVID-19 vaccines in six eastern European nations.Speaking at his headquarters in Copenhagan, WHO Europe Director Hans Kluge said the nearly $50 million program will target Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova.Kluge said the program is intended to ensure equitable access to vaccines throughout Europe. “Vaccines offer a way to emerge faster from this pandemic, but only if we ensure that all countries, irrespective of income level, have access to them,” he said.UK COVID Variant Will Likely ‘Sweep the World,’ British Scientist WarnsScientists will probably be tracking global spread of mutations for at least next decade, Sharon Peacock of COVID-19 Genomics UK consortium saysKluge said the program will focus on vaccine readiness, information campaigns, supplies and training of health workers in the countries. It will complement existing EU sharing programs and the WHO-supported vaccine cooperative COVAX facility designed to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines throughout the world.Kluge also noted, with cautious optimism, that overall case incidences of COVID-19 in the 53-country WHO Europe region has declined for four straight weeks and said COVID-19-related deaths have fallen in each of the last two weeks. He said hospitalization rates have also declined.But he cautioned that the decline in cases conceals increasing numbers of outbreaks and community spread involving COVID-19 variants of concern, “meaning that we need to watch overall trends in transmission carefully and avoid rash decisions.”Kluge said the vaccination news in Europe is also mixed. He noted in the region, the total number of vaccination doses given has surpassed the number of reported COVID-19 cases — with some 41 million doses administered compared to 36 million reported cases.But he said, in 29 out of the 37 countries currently vaccinating in the European region today, 7.8 million people have completed their immunization series. That is equivalent to only 1.5% of the population of those 29 countries.”
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A British scientist says the coronavirus variant first discovered in that country late last year has “swept the country” and will “sweep the world in all probability.”
Sharon Peacock, the head of the COVID-19 Genomics U.K. consortium, made the prediction Wednesday during an interview with the BBC.
The more transmissible strain was first detected in the southern British county of Kent back in September, and has since been identified in more than 50 countries, including the United States.
The COVID-19 Genomics U.K. consortium tracks the genetic mutations of the novel coronavirus. Peacock said the newly developed vaccines are effective against the current mutations, but she warned that scientists will be tracking new mutations at least for the next decade until the virus “mutates itself out of being virulent.”
A new study suggests an inhaled steroid commonly used to treat asthma symptoms appears to reduce the need to hospitalize someone infected with COVID-19.
Scientists at Britain’s Oxford University conducted a month-long study of 146 patients with early symptoms of the novel coronavirus. Half of the patients were administered an inhaler containing budesonide, while the other patients received the usual care.
The scientists discovered the majority of patients given budesonide not only avoided hospitalization, but also recovered faster and had fewer lingering symptoms.
The study, which has not been peer reviewed, was launched after researchers discovered that patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, were significantly underrepresented among hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the early days of the pandemic. FILE – Passengers are checked in a sanitary control stations in the international passenger arrival area at Santiago International Airport, as Chile recorded on Dec. 29, 2020, its first case of the British COVID variant, in Santiago, Dec. 21, 2020.The heads of the World Health Organization and the U.N. Children’s Fund are appealing for scaled-up COVID-19 vaccine production and equitable distribution, warning that the global rollout is dangerously uneven.
“Of the 128 million vaccine doses administered so far, more than three quarters of those vaccinations are in just 10 countries that account for 60% of global GDP,” said WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore in a joint statement on Wednesday. “As of today, almost 130 countries, with 2.5 billion people, are yet to administer a single dose.”
If this continues, they warn, it “will cost lives and livelihoods,” and create conditions for the virus to mutate and become resistant to vaccines. Global economic recovery will also be slowed.
The officials urged governments to look “beyond their borders” and devise a vaccine strategy that will both end the pandemic and limit the emergence of new variants.
They recommend immunizing frontline health workers and vulnerable persons in all countries first. The WHO and UNICEF chiefs also appealed to vaccine manufacturers to allocate their limited supply fairly and transfer technology to other producers that can help boost the global supply.
“COVID-19 has shown that our fates are inextricably linked,” they said. “Whether we win or lose, we will do so together.”
Race to vaccinate
Also on Wednesday, the WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization issued interim guidance recommending the AstraZeneca and Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine for persons over age 65.
Several European countries, including Germany and France, have limited use of it to people between ages 18 and 64 because of insufficient data on elderly recipients.
The WHO experts said based on ongoing trials and vaccine effectiveness studies in countries that are using the AstraZeneca vaccine, it appears safe and effective for the older age group.
They also recommend an interval of 8 to 12 weeks between the two doses.
South Korea approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency use for all adults starting Feb. 26. But the announcement, made before the WHO recommendation was released, issued a precautionary warning for persons over aged 65.
On Sunday, South Africa raised doubts about the AstraZeneca vaccine when it suspended its vaccination campaign after a new study revealed it to be less effective against a variant of the virus found in South Africa.
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday warned about an “explosion of risk” from digital markets, including the misuse of cryptocurrencies, but said new financial technologies could also help fight crime and reduce inequality.In remarks to a financial sector innovation roundtable, Yellen said such technologies could be used to stem the flow of dark money from organized crime and fight back against hackers, but also to reduce digital gaps in the United States.She said passage of the Anti-Money Laundering Act in December would allow the Treasury Department to rework a framework for combating illicit finance that has been largely unchanged since the 1970s.”The update couldn’t have come at a better time,” Yellen told policymakers, regulators and private sector experts. “We’re living amidst an explosion of risk related to fraud, money laundering, terrorist financing, and data privacy.”The COVID-19 pandemic had triggered more — and more sophisticated — cyberattacks aimed at hospitals, schools, banks, and the government itself, she said.Cryptocurrencies and virtual assets offered promise, but they had also been used to launder the profits of online drug traffickers and to finance terrorism.Innovation in the sector could help address these problems while giving millions of people access to the financial system, she said.Yellen, who has promised to prioritize fighting inequality and disparities, said the pandemic had exposed huge problems, including the dearth of broadband access in many areas of the country.She said responsible and equitable innovation could make a big difference.”Innovation should not just be a shield to protect against bad actors. Innovation should also be a ladder to help more people climb to a higher quality of life,” she said.
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