The FBI says it received a record number of complaints from the public last year about cybercrimes, including scams related to the COVID-19 pandemic, costing Americans a staggering $4.2 billion in losses.The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received 791,790 complaints in 2020, an increase of 69% over 2019 and the largest number since the center was created two decades ago, the bureau said in a report released Wednesday.By comparison, the total reported losses were $3.5 billion in 2019 and $1.5 billion five years ago, according to the report.The type of online scam known as Business E-Email Compromise (BEC) remained the costliest category, the report said, resulting in losses of about $1.8 billion. Once a fraudster gains access to a business’s email account, he or she makes unauthorized fund transfers.The COVID-19 outbreak gave scammers new opportunities to steal. The FBI internet crime center received more than 28,500 complaints related to people struggling to cope with the pandemic, the report said, without putting a dollar figure on the losses.Most vulnerable are targeted“These criminals used phishing, spoofing, extortion, and various types of Internet-enabled fraud to target the most vulnerable in our society — medical workers searching for personal protective equipment, families looking for information about stimulus checks to help pay bills, and many others,” the report said.The center received thousands of complaints related to COVID-linked unemployment benefit and small business loan programs Congress created last year.FILE – This graphic shows an excerpt from a U.S. Department of the Treasury Paycheck Protection Program FAQ document.The congressionally funded Paycheck Protection Program has proven a magnet for fraudsters. Congress created the program last March with an initial authorization of up to $349 billion in forgivable loans to small businesses that keep workers on their payrolls. The Justice Department has charged numerous individuals with defrauding the program by setting up shell companies and other schemes.In the latest case, tech executive Mukund Mohan pleaded guilty on Monday of wire fraud and money laundering in connection with his scheme to obtain over $5.5 million in PPP loans and launder the proceeds.The top three crimes reported to the FBI’s internet crime center last year were phishing or password theft scams, nonpayment/nondelivery scams and extortion, the report said.In a nonpayment scheme, goods and services are shipped but payment is never made. A nondelivery scheme involves receiving payment without supplying goods and services.Identity theft utilizedIn several states, fraudsters filed illegal unemployment benefit claims using stolen identities, according to the report.“Many victims of this identity theft scheme did not know they had been targeted until they attempted to file their own legitimate claim for unemployment insurance benefits,” the report said.In recent months, a slew of new scams related to COVID vaccines has emerged: schemes asking people to pay out of pocket to receive a vaccine, put their names on a vaccine waiting list or obtain early access.“Fraudulent advertisements for vaccines popped up on social media platforms, or came via email, telephone calls, online, or from unsolicited/unknown sources,” the report said.The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center was set up in 2000 as part of the bureau’s effort to combat cybercrime. It has received 5.8 million complaints, some of which have been referred to law enforcement agencies for investigation.
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Day: March 17, 2021
Testing is under way for modified versions of COVID-19 vaccines that aim to deal with coronavirus variants. Experts say current vaccines still seem to work against the variants and prevent the most severe forms of disease, though the evidence is limited. Making changes may not be necessary for all the vaccines. “We don’t know yet,” said Emory University Vaccine Center Associate Director Walter Orenstein. “But people want to get prepared just in case we need to.” Testing and manufacturing will likely take months, he said, so now is the time to get started. All major Western manufacturers with shots in use have announced studies involving either new shots targeted against a specific variant or additional booster shots of their existing vaccines. A woman reacts to seeing a syringe of the Sinovac vaccine for COVID-19 as health workers vaccinate residents in the Kalunga Vao de Almas quilombo on the outskirts of Cavalcante, Goias state, Brazil, March 16, 2021.The A pharmacist prepares to fill a syringe with the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at the Vaccine Village in Antwerp, Belgium, March 16, 2021.B.1.351 shares mutations with a strain first found in Brazil, where cases are surging. These mutations are thought to help both viruses spread more easily and also make them less susceptible to the effects of the vaccines. A vaccine against one variant may protect against both, said Baylor College of Medicine vaccine expert Peter Hotez. “The hope is that they’ll be close enough that [one variant vaccine] should cross-protect,” he said. “But these studies take time, so we don’t know for certain.” Moderna’s shot was less potent against B.1.351 in test tube studies, but still appeared strong enough to work. The company announced earlier this month that it had A man receives a dose of the Moderna vaccine against the coronavirus, at the Music Auditorium in Rome, Italy, March 17, 2021.Like Moderna’s shot, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine suffered in A nurse fills a syringe with a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Zinga Zanga village hall vaccination center in Beziers, southern France, March 17, 2021.Both the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are easier to change than earlier types of vaccines, which used dead or weakened germs or germ parts to trigger the immune system. The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech shots are genetic recipes for those parts, not the parts themselves. “It’s relatively straightforward to swap out the genetic recipe for an earlier variant with a newer variant,” said William Moss, executive director of the Johns Hopkins University International Vaccine Access Center. “Technologically, that’s not a big lift.” Booster dose While that remains an option, Pfizer-BioNTech said in February that they are focusing mainly on testing a third, booster dose of their original vaccine. Further strengthening the immune response might overcome a variant’s ability to evade it. FILE – A health worker loads syringes with the vaccine on the first day of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine being made available to residents at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza in Los Angeles. California, March 11, 2021.One of the biggest advantages of this vaccine is that it only requires one dose, while Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech take two. But Johnson & Johnson announced last November that it was testing the effects of a second dose. The AstraZeneca-University of Oxford vaccine took the biggest hit from B.1.351: just 10% effective against mild to moderate illness in a study published Wednesday. The study did not test how well it works against severe disease and death. Experts expect that it does still provide protection, though that has not been studied yet. Lead developer Sarah Gilbert at the University of Oxford told the BBC that she expected a modified version against B.1.351 would be ready by late this year. The AstraZeneca vaccine is the one most widely used in the World Health Organization-backed COVAX vaccine distribution program. The shots are currently on hold in several European countries over concerns about blood clots, though these may be coincidental and unrelated to the vaccine.
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White supremacist propaganda reached alarming levels across the U.S. in 2020, according to a new report that the Anti-Defamation League provided to The Associated Press.There were 5,125 cases of racist, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ and other hateful messages spread through physical flyers, stickers, banners and posters, according to Wednesday’s report. That’s nearly double the 2,724 instances reported in 2019. Online propaganda is much harder to quantify, and it’s likely those cases reached into the millions, the anti-hate organization said.The ADL, which was founded more than a century ago, said that last year marked the highest level of white supremacist propaganda seen in at least a decade. Its report comes as federal authorities investigate and prosecute those who stormed the U.S. Capitol in January, some of whom are accused of having ties to or expressing support for hate groups and anti-government militias.’Bookends'”As we try to understand and put in perspective the past four years, we will always have these bookends of Charlottesville and Capitol Hill,” group CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said.”The reality is there’s a lot of things that happened in between those moments that set the stage,” he said.Christian Picciolini, a former far-right extremist who founded the deradicalization group Free Radicals Project, said the surge in propaganda tracks with white supremacist and extremist recruiters seeing crises as periods of opportunity.FILE- Members of the white supremacist KKK are escorted by police past a large group of protesters during a KKK rally in Charlottesville, Va., July 8, 2017.”They use the uncertainty and fear caused by crisis to win over new recruits to their ‘us vs. them’ narrative, painting the ‘other’ as the cause of their pain, grievances or loss,” Picciolini told the AP. “The current uncertainty caused by the pandemic, job loss, a heated election, protest over extrajudicial police killings of Black Americans, and a national reckoning sparked by our country’s long tradition of racism has created a perfect storm in which to recruit Americans who are fearful of change and progress.”Propaganda, often distributed with the intention of garnering media and online attention, helps white supremacists normalize their messaging and bolster recruitment efforts, the ADL said in its report. Language used in the propaganda is frequently veiled with a patriotic slant, making it seem benign to an untrained eye.But some flyers, stickers and posters are explicitly racist and anti-Semitic. One piece of propaganda disseminated by the New Jersey European Heritage Association included the words “Black Crimes Matter,” a derisive reference to the Black Lives Matter movement, along with cherry-picked crime statistics about attacks on white victims by Black assailants.A neo-Nazi group known as Folks Front distributed stickers that include the words “White Lives Matter.”According to the report, at least 30 known white supremacist groups were behind hate propaganda. But three groups — NJEHA, Patriot Front and Nationalist Social Club — were responsible for 92% of the activity.Where it occurredThe propaganda appeared in every state except Hawaii. The highest levels were seen in Texas, Washington, California, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Virginia and Pennsylvania, according to the report.Despite the overall increase, the ADL reported a steep decline in distribution of white supremacist propaganda at colleges and universities, due in large part to the coronavirus pandemic and the lack of students living and studying on campus. There were 303 reports of propaganda on college campuses in 2020, down from 630 in 2019.Greenblatt acknowledged that free speech rights allow for rhetoric that “we don’t like and we detest.” But when that speech spurs violence or creates conditions for normalizing extremism, it must be opposed, he said.”There’s no pixie dust that you can sprinkle on this, like it’s all going to go away,” Greenblatt said. “We need to recognize that the roots of this problem run deep.”
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Mass migration and the COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to the worldwide spread of female genital mutilation, or FGM, executed on girls from infancy to puberty, say aid organizations.Perpetrators cross borders to perform FGM in countries such as Chad, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Sudan, where there is no legislation against the practice, according to research by This map from the University of Virginia Medical School is from 2017 and shows where FGM occurs most in the world.The practice dates back more than 2,000 years and is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the partial or total removal of external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital tissues, including suturing the genitalia. Among the four levels of FGM, some are banned in some countries, while other types remain legal.“In many cases, families are aware that FGM carries a physical and mental health risk, but they have girls undergo FGM to increase their marriageability or as a way of safeguarding their chastity,” said Nankali Maksud, senior adviser of Prevention of Harmful Practices at UNICEF.“While communities cite reasons such as religion, culture or hygiene for practicing FGM, the practice is a human rights violation and an expression of power and control over girls’ and women’s bodies and sexuality,” she said.Despite bans, practice continuesFGM “If a country bans FGM, they’ll usually ban a particular practice of it, so people will just do something else,” said Dena Igusti, a 24-year-old artist and activist from New York who underwent FGM in 2006.“If a country bans FGM, they’ll usually ban a particular practice of it, so people will just do something else,” said Dena Igusti, 24, an artist and activist from New York who underwent FGM in 2006. “If that doesn’t work, they’ll go to a country that’s outwardly against it, like Western countries. But because there isn’t a focus on it, and there is this denial that it happens here, they get away with it.”In early January, the United States tightened its ban on FGM nationally, and it is explicitly banned in 39 states. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 500,000 women and girls have undergone or are at risk of undergoing FGM in the U.S.In all member states of the European Union, FGM is criminalized. But six African nations — Chad, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Sudan — have no laws against FGM, CoP-FGM says.While FGM is banned in the EU, Britain and the United States, it still occurs in these areas. The private nature of the practice and the silencing of victims or their hesitation to come forward continue to make FGM challenging to track.“Because it’s being brought to other places, the thought of it as something that happens in a faraway country doesn’t matter, because if you know someone who can do it, they’ll do it,” Igusti said. “There isn’t protection here. There are legal protections, but it doesn’t really matter.”Some parents travel back to their home countries to administer FGM to their children. Igusti underwent FGM while in Indonesia visiting family.“When it happened, it was kind of out of nowhere,” Igusti said. “My aunt said that we were going to the supermarket, but it was a completely different route. It happened in a way that was painful. I couldn’t walk for a couple of days, and I had gauze stuck in me.Some parents travel back to their home countries to administer FGM to their children. Dena Igusti underwent FGM while in Indonesia visiting family. “It was kind of out of nowhere,” she said.“There’s the physical pain of it, but there’s also the threats of what can happen afterwards. For me, it was always the threat of getting cut again.”Anecdotal evidence shows that when families migrate outside practicing communities, the pressure to conform still compels them to cut their daughters in secret or take them back home, Maksud said.“Discriminatory gender norms, poverty, low levels of education, lack of access to services, poor governance and humanitarian crises may all still lead to girls being cut, even following migration,” she said.Intervention by international organizations to end FGM has been disrupted by COVID-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions, the U.N. Children’s Fund reported in February. Over the next decade, 2 million additional women and girls may undergo this procedure as a result of halted outreach and school closures, the report said.“Before the pandemic, there were educational programs,” said Ann-Marie Wilson, founder and executive director of 28 Too Many, an anti-FGM advocacy group. “Either the funding has stopped for some of the programs, the people delivering the programs have gone away, or the girls aren’t able to access it anymore because of school closures.”Without checks on girls in schools, many have been sent out to work, married off by their parents or sent to work in the sex industry, said Wilson.Wilson said her organization and others like it have had difficulty continuing their FGM intervention programs during the pandemic because of a lack of funding. The group received most of its funds through in-person events. In the first quarter of 2021, 28 Too Many’s income was down by a quarter, according to Wilson.“We’d like to make sure that we do make it through this pandemic and carry on to the future, expanding our work and seeing it into the future,” Wilson said. “We want to work until there is nobody left who has FGM and is vulnerable.”UNICEF adapted its FGM intervention programs to accommodate social distancing during the pandemic by switching to digital media platforms, conducting door-to-door campaigns and conducting community dialogues, according to Maksud.In 2019, the U.N. called for action to eliminate FGM globally by 2030. But with intervention tactics halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, this goal may be out of reach.UN Calls for Ending Female Genital Mutilation by 2030
Wednesday marks the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. Coinciding with the day, the United Nations is calling for action to eliminate the procedure by 2030.
The U.N. estimates at least 200 million girls and women alive today have been subjected to female genital mutilation, a procedure that partially or totally removes female genital organs.
“Even before COVID-19 upended progress, the Sustainable Development Goals’ target of ending female genital mutilation by 2030 was an ambitious commitment,” said the report, written by UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore and Natalia Kanem, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA). “Far from dampening our ambition, however, the pandemic has sharpened our resolve to protect the 4 million girls and women who are at risk of female genital mutilation each year.”
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Kenya’s constitutional court has dismissed a petition to strike down the Female Genital Mutilation Act, which outlaws the traditional practice of female circumcision.Women’s rights groups welcomed the ruling and said the judges’ pronouncement would protect millions of women and girls.The 2017 petition sought to invalidate the FGM measure on the ground that it took away a grown woman’s right to undergo the cut.Judge Lydia Achode read the ruling on behalf of the other two judges:”Our final orders shall be as follows: The amended petition is devoid of merit and is hereby dismissed. Two, the attorney general … shall forward a proposal to the national assembly to consider amendment of Section 19 of the prohibition of female genital mutilation … with a view to prohibiting all human practices of FGM as set out in this judgment above.”Sofia Rajab Leteipan, a lawyer with Equality Now, an organization that fights for women’s and girls’ rights, said the ruling had saved women and girls from the practice.”We are extremely pleased with the judgment from the three judges, and I think this judgment goes very far in reaffirming the rights of women and girls to human dignity, to their right to health and also ensuring that we do not use cultural practices as an excuse to undermine the rights of women and girls,” Leteipan said. Law passed decade agoIn 2011, Kenya passed legislation barring female genital mutilation, also called female circumcision. The legislation imposed harsh penalties on those involved in cutting girls and women, including a minimum fine of $1,800 or three years’ imprisonment.Speaking after Wednesday’s ruling, Tatu Kamau, the petitioner, she said she was not happy with the court’s ruling.”Generally for me I am disappointed,” she said. “I feel that the rights of women have been subsumed by those of a child.”Achode disagreed.”We have also discussed the absence of consent by victims. … We are not persuaded that one can choose to undergo a harmful practice from medical and anecdotal evidence presented by the respondent. We find that limiting this right is reasonable in an open and democratic society,” the judge said.According to UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency, more than 200 million women and girls have undergone FGM in 31 countries.
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U.S. President Joe Biden says he is mystified about continuing opposition by some Americans to getting vaccinated against the coronavirus, particularly among Republicans who opposed his election.”I honest to God thought that, once we guaranteed we had enough vaccine for everybody, things would start to calm down,” Biden told ABC News on Tuesday. “Well, they have calmed down a great deal.”Still, Biden told ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos, “I don’t quite understand – you know – I just don’t understand this sort of macho thing about, ‘I’m not gonna get the vaccine. I have a right as an American, my freedom to not do it.’“Well, why don’t you be a patriot? Protect other people,” Biden said.Biden, who was inoculated before his inauguration two months ago, said getting vaccinated let him show Americans it is safe and also was personally satisfying “because I can hug my grandkids now.””They come over to the house,” the president said. “I can see them. I’m able to be with them.”More than 35 million Americans are fully vaccinated, about 13% of adult Americans. Former President Donald Trump and his wife Melania were both vaccinated before he left office.On Tuesday, Trump told Fox News, “I would recommend it, and I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it, and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly.”However, he added, “But you know, again, we have our freedoms, and we have to live by that, and I agree with that also.”Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden’s top medical adviser and the country’s top infectious-disease expert, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” show last Sunday that anyone’s reluctance to getting vaccinated was “disturbing” and makes “absolutely no sense.”Three recent national polls showed that Republicans who voted for Trump were far more reluctant to get vaccinated than Democrats who supported Biden.A recent NPR/PBS/Marist poll found that 47% of Trump voters and 41% of Republicans said they will not get a shot when eligible.A CBS News poll in recent days found 33% of Republicans won’t get inoculated when it becomes available to them, while just 10% of Democrats took the same view. A Monmouth University found 59% of Republicans were either hesitant to get vaccinated or said they would likely never get inoculated. By contrast, 23% of Democrats felt the same way. Fauci called the political split on vaccinations baffling.“It makes absolutely no sense,” he said. “We’ve got to dissociate political persuasion from what’s common sense, no-brainer, public health things.”
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James Levine, one of the world’s most acclaimed conductors who served as music director for the Metropolitan Opera in New York for four decades before sexual abuse accusations ended his career, has died at age 77.Dr. Len Horovitz, his personal physician, said Levine died on March 9 in Palm Springs, California, of natural causes. The maestro, known for his wild hair and bespectacled face, was long revered by the Met’s audiences, singers and symphony-sized orchestra at America’s cathedral of opera whose standards he helped place among the highest in the world.
Levine, considered the foremost American conductor of his time and perhaps the most celebrated since Leonard Bernstein, led about 2,500 performances of 85 different operas since his Met debut in 1971, more than anyone else since it was founded in 1880. He also conducted some of the major orchestras of America and Europe, most notably the Munich Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
He stepped down as music director in 2016 after struggling with health problems, but was fired in 2018 from his reduced role with the Met after three men accused him of abusing them as teenagers as far back as 1968. His final appearance at the Met was leading a concert performance of Verdi’s Requiem in 2017.
Levine and the Met, the largest performing arts organization in the United States, reached an out-of-court settlement in 2019 resolving his lawsuit accusing the company of breach of contract and defamation and the company’s countersuit. The settlement called for him to get $3.5 million.
Peter Gelb, the Met general manager who made the decision to part ways with Levine, called the outcome “a tragedy.” Levine called the accusations “unfounded” and said he was not “an oppressor or an aggressor.”
In a statement on Wednesday, the Met said it “honors the memory” of Levine and acknowledged his “undeniable artistic achievements” but said his relationship with the opera company frayed in the wake of the sexual misconduct allegations.
Levine worked with the greatest opera singers of his era, including Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Renee Fleming, Anna Netrebko, Marilyn Horne, Jessye Norman, Samuel Ramey, Kathleen Battle, Frederica von Stade, Bryn Terfel, Roberto Alagna, Kiri Te Kanawa, Cecilia Bartoli, Renata Scotto, Leontyne Price and Grace Bumbry.
“He is one of the greatest artists of all time. He has created one of the greatest orchestras in modern history. He may be one of the greatest opera conductors who ever lived,” Gelb told The New York Times in 2011.
‘Music chose me’
Levine was respected for his conducting abilities, his penchant for eliciting the finest performances from musicians and his endless enthusiasm.
A traditionalist, he conducted sparkling performances of venerable operas by composers including Verdi, Mozart, Puccini, Rossini and Wagner, as well as new compositions. A piano prodigy, Levine remained active as a keyboard recitalist. He worked to create an exceptional rapport with his musicians.
During his career, he was bothered by health problems, notably a series of back operations. This forced him to cut back on performances and conduct while sitting down. He injured his spine in a fall while on vacation in 2011 that required surgery and left him partially paralyzed.
Complications related to Parkinson’s disease prompted Levine in 2016 to step down as the Met’s full-time music director and become music director emeritus, a position in which he would still conduct. His later suspension and dismissal ended that arrangement.
“I sometimes say that music chose me because I can’t remember my life without it,” Levine said in a PBS documentary. “I feel music gave me a real continuum of creative, constructive life. … As I look around at other professions in the world, it seems that to have a life in music is the most beautiful life I could imagine.”
Levine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1943. He made his debut as a piano soloist at age 10 with the Cincinnati Symphony. After studying at the Juilliard school of music in New York, he was invited in 1963 to serve as assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra under prominent conductor George Szell.
He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1971, conducting Puccini’s Tosca. He was appointed the Met’s principal conductor in 1973, its musical director in 1975 and was given the expanded role of artistic director in 1986.
“The crisis of how to enact opera onstage visually has some alarming facets,” Levine once told New York magazine. “I’m referring to productions the composer and librettist would denounce. I’m speaking of a production that uses a piece instead of presents the piece. People will say, ‘Oh, Jimmy, he’s so fanatic.’ … But there are so many contemporary productions that just destroy the piece, for nothing.”
From 1996 to 2000, he also led more than a dozen concerts on the popular “Three Tenors World Tour,” with Domingo, Pavarotti and Jose Carreras.
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A Japanese district court ruled Wednesday that a ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.
The historic ruling by the Sapporo District Court was in response to a lawsuit filed by six plaintiffs, including two male couples and one female couple, who demanded more than $9,100 each (1 million yen), in damages from the Japanese government. The court said the prohibition violates Article 14 of the Japanese constitution, which declares all people are equal under the law, but it rejected the plaintiff’s demand for damages.
The lawsuit is one of five that have been filed in various Japanese courts seeking to overturn the ban.
Japan is the lone holdout in the world’s top seven economies, known as the Group of Seven, that refuses to recognize same-sex marriage. The government says the constitution defines marriage as one based on “the mutual consent of both sexes,” meaning one solely between a man and a woman. The ban prevents same-sex couples from sharing in the same benefits granted to opposite-sex couples, such as inheriting their partner’s houses and other assets, or maintaining parental control over their children.
Several municipalities have issued “partnership certificates” that give same-sex couples some of the same rights as heterosexual couples.
Homosexuality itself has been legal in Japan since 1880. Taiwan is the only place in Asia that has legalized same-sex marriage.
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U.S.-based pharmaceutical company Moderna has begun testing its two-dose COVID-19 vaccine in young children to determine if vaccinations should be expanded to people younger than 18 years of age. The company will administer the vaccine to about 6,750 children in the United States and Canada between the ages of six months and 12 years old. The doses would be given 28 days apart so researchers can monitor the side effects from the vaccine and determine its ultimate effectiveness. The study is being conducted in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which helped Moderna in development of the vaccine. Moderna has been conducting a separate study on the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness since December involving 3,000 children between the ages of 12 and 18 years old.A nurse draws a Moderna coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine, in Los Angeles, March 12, 2021.In a related development, the Vietnamese government says its homegrown COVID-19 vaccine called Nanocovax will be available by the end of this year. Vietnam has inoculated more 15,000 of its citizens with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine this month, and is negotiating to purchase more vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and the developer of Russia’s Sputnik V. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Wednesday that the country will send about 8,000 doses of its supply of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to neighboring Papua New Guinea, which is battling an ever-increasing spread of the disease. Prime Minister Morrison also called on the European Union and AstraZeneca to ship one million doses of the vaccine to Papua New Guinea that had been purchased by Canberra. The EU recently blocked a shipment of more than 250,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia in order to help make up an acute shortage of vaccines in Europe, plus Australia’s success in largely containing the virus. Australian Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly told reporters that half of expectant mothers who have been admitted to hospitals in the capital of Port Moresby have tested positive for COVID-19. Kelly said large numbers of frontline health care workers have also contracted the virus. Morrison says all travel between Australia and Papua New Guinea has been suspended.
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