Just over two months ago, on Independence Day, President Joe Biden declared that the United States was “closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus.” Vaccines had driven down the average daily death toll from COVID-19 from more than 3,400 at the start of the year to around 400 in early July. It didn’t last. On Thursday, with about 1,500 Americans dying of COVID-19 each day, according to ourworldindata.org, Biden announced new measures aimed at beating back the virus again. Public health experts applaud the stepped-up efforts, including new vaccine mandates and increased access to testing. But some say they do not go far enough. And they note that the Biden administration’s mixed messaging deserves some of the blame for the current situation. ‘Pandemic of the unvaccinated’ Despite vaccines that are safe, effective, free and widely available, one-quarter of the adult population has not yet taken its first shot. The highly contagious delta variant of the COVID-19 coronavirus has ripped through this unprotected population like California wildfire, overwhelming hospitals in parts of the country and dampening the economic recovery that was starting to take hold. FILE – In this Aug. 26, 2021 file photo, a syringe is prepared with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at a mobile vaccine clinic in Santa Ana, Calif.The United States has the highest death rate and the second-lowest vaccination rate among major industrialized nations, according to ourworldindata.org. “This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Biden said. The United States is also unusual among industrialized nations for the level of political division over pandemic measures. Resistance to COVID-19 restrictions that started among conservatives during the Trump administration has persisted under Biden. Republican elected officials have pushed back against mask and vaccine mandates as unconstitutional infringements of personal liberty. The Republican governors of Texas and Florida have barred local school districts from requiring masks in classrooms. Biden’s new plan will require teachers and federal employees to be vaccinated. It mandates that private businesses with more than 100 employees must require their workers to get the shots or be tested weekly. Biden took aim in his speech Thursday at “elected officials actively working to undermine the fight against COVID-19.” Those officials shot back. “See you in court,” Republican South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem wrote on Twitter. South Dakota will stand up to defend freedom. FILE – In this Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021, file photo, students, some wearing protective masks, arrive for the first day of school at Sessums Elementary School in Riverview, Fla.‘Not safe’ Overall, public health officials said the Biden administration is doing the right thing. The administration is mandating vaccines under its purview to make workplaces safe. “It is not safe at this moment to return to a workspace where there are large numbers of unvaccinated people. It is just not,” said Brown University School of Public Health Dean Ashish Jha at a news briefing. “While I appreciate the rights of people who choose not to be vaccinated, people also have a right to be able to go to work and not get infected, not get sick and not die.” Jha said the administration also should have required vaccination at colleges and universities and for interstate travel, areas where the federal government has jurisdiction. “These things largely work,” he said. “People don’t love them, but they work.”
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Day: September 10, 2021
United States Soccer Federation President Cindy Parlow Cone said Friday the body hopes to “equalize” World Cup prize money for its men’s and women’s national teams as part of efforts to settle ongoing litigation with its women footballers. In an open letter addressed to U.S. fans, Parlow Cone said the gulf in prize money paid out by FIFA in the men’s and women’s tournaments was “by far the most challenging issue” facing U.S. Soccer in pay negotiations with men’s and women’s teams. The question of World Cup prize money formed a prominent part of a lawsuit filed by the U.S. women’s soccer team in 2019, which accused the USSF of “stubbornly refusing” to pay its men and women players equally. FILE – Cindy Parlow Cone of U.S. Soccer attends a meeting of the organization’s board of directors in Chicago, Dec. 6, 2019.A federal judge later rejected the claim of pay discrimination, but the U.S. women have appealed. The 2019 lawsuit cited the discrepancy in World Cup prize money payments paid to the two teams in 2014 and 2015. The U.S. men received $5.375 million for reaching the round of 16 at the 2014 World Cup, while the women received $1.725 million for winning the 2015 tournament. The USSF has argued that its hands are tied because the prize money is set by FIFA, which awarded $38 million to France for winning the 2018 men’s World Cup in Russia, but only $4 million to the American women for winning the 2019 Women’s World Cup. “FIFA alone control those funds,” Parlow Cone said in her letter on Friday. “And U.S. Soccer is legally obligated to distribute those funds based on our current negotiated collective bargaining agreements with the men’s and women’s teams.” However, Parlow Cone said U.S. Soccer wants to bring the men’s and women’s national teams together to “rethink how we’ve done things in the past.” “To that end, we have invited the players and both Players Associations to join U.S. Soccer in negotiating a solution together that equalizes World Cup prize money between the USMNT and USWNT,” she wrote. “Until FIFA equalizes the prize money that it awards to the Men’s and Women’s World Cup participants, it is incumbent upon us to collectively find a solution. “U.S. Soccer is ready and willing to meet with both groups of players as soon as possible and as often as needed to determine that innovative solution.” Parlow Cone said the USSF had wanted to negotiate a single collective bargaining agreement covering men’s and women’s teams but had met resistance. Accordingly, the USSF is negotiating separate agreements. U.S. Soccer said the body “will be offering the USMNT and the USWNT the exact same contract, just as we have in past negotiations.” “That means offering CBAs that include equalized FIFA prize money, identical game bonuses and identical commercial and revenue sharing agreements.” A spokeswoman for the U.S. women’s team said Parlow Cone’s letter showed that the USSF “finally acknowledged that they pay women less than men and must correct this ongoing disparity by reaching an equal pay collective bargaining agreement and resolving the ongoing lawsuit. “Letters to fans are not a substitute.”
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The U.S. space agency on Friday will brief the media on the initial analysis of the first sample of a Martian rock collected by its Perseverance rover earlier this week. NASA confirmed the rover had collected the rock, releasing a picture of the sample inside a collection tube. The rover made a first attempt to collect a sample in early August, but the rock crumbled during the drilling and coring process. The rover moved to a different location earlier this month where the team selected a rock that held up better. Over the past week, scientists have been using Perseverance’s instruments to analyze the sample and they are expected to reveal what they have discovered at Friday’s briefing. Former NASA research director Scott Hubbard — now a professor at Stanford University — told the Associated Press the collection “is a huge step forward in what the science community has wanted for more than 50 years, which is to bring samples back from the Red Planet.” He said the sample appears to be one that could be dated, a main goal of collecting such rocks, along with looking for evidence of past or present biological life. A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The plan is for subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with the European Space Agency, to send spacecraft to Mars to collect Perseverance’s sealed samples from the surface and bring them to Earth for in-depth analysis. Perseverance landed in Jezero Crater February 18, and the rover team kicked off the science phase of its mission June 1. Some information for this report came from the Associated Press.
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It will be the Big Apple battle of teenagers in Saturday’s U.S. Open final after Britain’s Emma Raducanu became the first qualifier to reach the title clash at a major, joining Canadian Leylah Fernandez as the duo continued their giant-killing spree.The final under the lights at the colossal Arthur Ashe Stadium between Fernandez and Raducanu will be the first major final in the Open Era across both the men’s and women’s game to feature two unseeded players.It will also mark the first Grand Slam final to be contested by two teenagers since the 1999 U.S. Open between Serena Williams and Martina Hingis.Both Raducanu, 18, and Fernandez, who turned 19 this week, were yet to be born then.”We first encountered each other because I was born in Toronto and she was Canadian, so we kind of, like, made a little relationship back then,” said Raducanu, whose parents moved to England when she was two-years-old.”But, yeah, then I played her at junior Wimbledon. Obviously since then we’ve both come very far in our games and as people. Yeah, I’m sure it’s going to be extremely different to when we last encountered each other.”But we’re both playing good tennis so it will be a good match.”Fernandez was the first to book her spot with yet another upset on Thursday as she took down second seed Aryna Sabalenka 7-6(3) 4-6 6-4 in the first semi-final on Thursday night.Raducanu did not take much longer, wrapping up her contest against Greek Maria Sakkari 6-1 6-4 in 84 minutes to become the first British woman to reach a major final since Virginia Wade won Wimbledon in 1977.Playing in just her fourth tour-level tournament, Raducanu has not dropped a set in New York – the first woman to make the U.S. Open final without dropping a set since German Angelique Kerber in 2016.”Honestly I just can’t believe it. A shock. Crazy,” she said, beaming from her ubiquitous smile. “To be in a Grand Slam final at this stage of my career, yeah, I have no words.”Their fearless tennis has endeared both to the fans and the crowd will have a tough choice in deciding who they would want to back on Saturday.”They are both young. They play fearless. They have nothing to lose playing against us,” said Sakkari. “I have to give credit to both of them, both of the young girls, that they take their chances. They’re out there fighting for that title.”A win in the final would see Raducanu jump to 24th in the rankings, a massive climb after starting the hardcourt major ranked 150th in the world.Left-handed Fernandez, who can make her top-20 debut by climbing to number 19 with the U.S. Open title, has been no less impressive.The Canadian had shown en route to the semi-final that she can beat anyone, with victories over four-time major winner and defending champion Naomi Osaka, three-time Grand Slam winner Kerber in the fourth round and fifth-seeded Elina Svitolina in the quarter-finals.She looked at sea against the power of big-hitting Sabalenka at the start of the match, but soon found her groove as her Belarusian opponent squandered her chances.It was her third win in four matches against top-five players in the world.”Impossible is nothing,” she said. “Like my dad would tell me all the time there’s no limit to my potential to what I can do. Every day we just got to keep working hard, we got to keep going for it.”I think I’ve been doing some things incredible. I don’t know. It’s like I think one word that really stuck to me is ‘magical’ because not only is my run really good but also the way I’m playing right now.”
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With no masks in sight, buzzing offices and concerts drawing tens of thousands, Denmark on Friday ditches vaccine passports in nightclubs, ending its last COVID-19 curb.The vaccine passports were introduced in March 2021 when Copenhagen slowly started easing restrictions.They were abolished at all venues on Sept. 1, except in nightclubs, where they will be no longer necessary from Friday.”We are definitely at the forefront in Denmark as we have no restrictions, and we are now on the other side of the pandemic thanks to the vaccination rollout,” Ulrik Orum-Petersen, a promoter at event organizer Live Nation, told AFP.On Saturday, a sold-out concert in Copenhagen will welcome 50,000 people, a first in Europe.Already on Sept. 4, Live Nation organized a first open-air festival, aptly named “Back to Live,” which gathered 15,000 people in Copenhagen.”Being in the crowd, singing like before, it almost made me forget COVID and everything we’ve been through these past months,” said Emilie Bendix, 26, a concertgoer.Denmark’s vaccination campaign has gone swiftly, with 73% of the 5.8 million population fully vaccinated, and 96% of those 65 and older.’Aiming for free movement'”We’re aiming for free movement… What will happen now is that the virus will circulate, and it will find the ones who are not vaccinated,” epidemiologist Lone Simonsen told AFP.”Now the virus is no longer a societal threat, thanks to the vaccine,” said Simonsen, who works at the University of Roskilde.According to the World Health Organization, the Scandinavian country has benefitted from public compliance with government guidelines and the COVID-19 strategy adopted.”Like many countries, Denmark has, throughout the pandemic, implemented public health and social measures to reduce transmission. But at the same time it has greatly relied on individuals and communities to comply voluntarily,” said Catherine Smallwood, WHO Europe’s emergency officer.With around 500 daily COVID-19 cases and a reproduction rate of 0.7, Danish authorities say they have the virus under control.Health Minister Magnus Heunicke has however vowed that the government would not hesitate to swiftly reimpose restrictions if necessary.Authorities insist that the return to normal life must be coupled with strict hygiene measures and the isolation of sick people.The WHO still considers the global situation critical and has urged caution.”Every country needs to remain vigilant as and when the epidemiological situation changes,” Smallwood said.Denmark has said it will keep a close eye on the number of hospitalizations — just under 130 at the moment — and conduct meticulous sequencing to follow the virus.A third dose has also been available to risk groups since Thursday.Simonsen said the vaccines have so far provided immunity from variants “but if escape variants (resistant to the vaccine) were to appear, we will have to rethink our strategy.”Christian Nedergaard, who owns several restaurants and wine bars in Copenhagen, said that while everyone is happy about the return to normal life, “the situation is still complicated.””The memory of coronavirus will fade very quickly from some people’s minds but not for everyone, and for restaurants this period has for sure been a game-changer,” he said.”The industry needs to think about how to become more resilient.”Travelers entering Denmark must still present either a vaccine passport or a negative PCR test, and masks are mandatory in airports.
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As the United States continues to deal with the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant, President Joe Biden announced new sweeping vaccine mandates as part of a multipronged push to end the pandemic. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
Producer: Mary Cieslak
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Africa is slated to receive 25% fewer COVID-19 vaccines by the end of the year than it was expecting, the director of the World Health Organization’s regional office for Africa said Thursday.The African continent, already struggling with a thin supply of vaccines while many wealthy nations initiate booster shot programs, has fully vaccinated just more than 3% of its residents.The global vaccine sharing initiative COVAX announced Wednesday that it expects to receive about 1.4 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of the year, as opposed to the projection of 1.9 billion doses it received in June.”Yesterday, #COVAX shipment forecasts for the rest of the year were revised downwards by 25%, in part because of the prioritization of bilateral deals over international solidarity.” – Dr @MoetiTshidi— WHO African Region (@WHOAFRO) September 9, 2021Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s Africa director, said during a press conference Thursday that the United States has thrown away three times as many vaccine doses as COVAX has delivered to African countries since March.COVAX delivered more than 5 million doses to Africa in the past week, but the U.S. Centers for Disease and Prevention said that as of September 1, U.S. pharmacies have thrown away more than 15 million doses since March.The United States and other wealthy nations have been under increasing pressure to donate their surplus of COVID-19 vaccines to poorer countries as the pandemic wreaks havoc across the globe with the emergence of new and more contagious variants of the coronavirus, which causes COVID-19.Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, on Wednesday implored wealthy nations to forgo COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for the rest of the year to ensure that poorer countries have more access to the vaccine. Tedros had previously asked rich countries not to provide boosters until September.Also on Thursday, Turkey’s health minister said the country is soon likely to approve a locally made vaccine, which began late-stage trials in June, for emergency use. Ankara expects it will start mass producing “Turkovac” this October.Italy sent teams to the island of Lampedusa to inoculate newly arrived immigrants. Lampedusa is one of the main arrival points for African migrants from Libya and Tunisia. Roughly 40,000 migrants from North Africa have arrived in Italy so far this year, twice as many as in 2020.In Los AngelesMeanwhile, the Los Angeles Board of Education approved a measure Thursday that would mandate vaccinations against COVID-19 for all students 12 years and older. Students would be required to receive their first dose by November 21 followed by a second dose by December 19 in order to be fully vaccinated by the next semester.The measure also requires students participating in in-person extracurricular activities to receive both shots by the end of October. The district will allow medical or religious exemptions.Los Angeles is the largest school district in the U.S. to impose a mandatory vaccination policy. The district is the nation’s second-largest, with just more than 600,000 students.In JapanSeparately, Japan announced Thursday that it would extend its current coronavirus state of emergency for Tokyo and 18 other areas until Sept. 30. Two prefectures will be shifted from full emergency status to more targeted restrictions.The state of emergency was first imposed for the city and a handful of other prefectures just weeks before the start of the Tokyo Olympics as Japan struggled under the surge of new infections sparked by the delta variant and a sluggish vaccination campaign.Japan currently has more than 1.6 million confirmed infections, including 16,600 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, with nearly 50% of its population fully vaccinated.Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
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The U.S. government sued the southwestern state of Texas on Thursday to try to block its new law that bans abortions in the state after about six weeks of pregnancy, the most restrictive anti-abortion statute in the country. Attorney General Merrick Garland, at a Washington news conference, said the Texas law “is clearly unconstitutional under long-term Supreme Court precedents” granting women in the U.S. the constitutional right to have an abortion. He said the Department of Justice, in bringing the lawsuit against the country’s second-largest state, “has a duty to uphold the rule of law.” He said “all provisions” of the law concerned him. The U.S. Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote last week, allowed the law to take effect, a decision praised by anti-abortion advocates looking to eventually overturn the court’s landmark 1973 decision declaring that women in the U.S. hold a constitutional right to have an abortion. Those supporting U.S. abortion rights, including President Joe Biden, derided the court’s late-night decision, which has stopped most abortions in the state. Biden warned that the law would cause “unconstitutional chaos” because it gives private citizens, rather than government officials, the right to enforce it by filing civil lawsuits against people who help a woman obtain an abortion after six weeks, whether it be a doctor who performs the procedure or someone who drives a woman to a clinic. The law allows people winning such lawsuits to collect at least $10,000 and makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest. FILE – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks in the House Chamber in Austin, Texas, Feb. 5, 2019.Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott said this week that the state would strive to “eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas” by arresting and prosecuting them. He defended the law, saying women who were raped would still have six weeks to end their pregnancy. Many women do not realize they are pregnant at six weeks. Those supporting abortion rights in the U.S. fear the high court’s ruling allowing the Texas law to take effect presages an erosion or reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision establishing abortion rights. In its new term starting next month, the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy that the southern state of Mississippi adopted.
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