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Retrieved from: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks about the Omicron coronavirus variant during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., December 1, 2021. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine is the "optimal care" but two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccines or one of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine remains the U.S. government's official definition of fully vaccinated, top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said on Sunday.
Health officials will continue to evaluate what should constitute the official designation, Fauci, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Joe Biden's Chief Medical Advisor, said on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos".
"Well, I certainly think, George, it's the optimal care," Fauci said in response to being asked whether three vaccine doses could be the new standard of care.
"I mean, for official requirements, it's still two shots of the mRNA (Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna) and one shot of the J&J for the official determination of what's required or not. But I think if you look at the data, the more and more it becomes clear that if you want to be optimally protected you really should get a booster," he added.
It will take months to tell whether annual booster doses of the vaccine are needed, Fauci said, adding that he is hoping from an immunological standpoint that one booster dose will be enough to provide protection greater than just the six months offered by the initial vaccine.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fauci-says-three-shots-covid-19-vaccine-is-optimal-care-2021-12-12/
By Sangmi Cha
People wearing masks ride on an escalator at a subway station, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Seoul, South Korea, December 8, 2021. REUTERS/Heo Ran
South Korea will soon roll out a pilot project to use artificial intelligence, facial recognition and thousands of CCTV cameras to track the movement of people infected with the coronavirus, despite concerns about the invasion of privacy.
The nationally funded project in Bucheon, one of the country's most densely populated cities on the outskirts of Seoul, is due to become operational in January, a city official told Reuters.
The system uses an AI algorithms and facial recognition technology to analyse footage gathered by more than 10,820 CCTV cameras and track an infected person’s movements, anyone they had close contact with, and whether they were wearing a mask, according to a 110-page business plan from the city submitted to the Ministry of Science and ICT (Information and Communications Technology), and provided to Reuters by a parliamentary lawmaker critical of the project.
Governments around the world have turned to new technologies and expanded legal powers to try to stem the tide of COVID-19 infections. China, Russia, India, Poland and Japan as well as several U.S. states are among the governments to have rolled out or at least experimented with facial recognition systems for tracking COVID-19 patients, according to a March report by Columbia Law School in New York.
The Bucheon official said the system should reduce the strain on overworked tracing teams in a city with a population of more than 800,000 people, and help use the teams more efficiently and accurately.
South Korea already has an aggressive, high-tech contact tracing system that harvests credit card records, cellphone location data and CCTV footage, among other personal information.
It still relies, however, on a large number of epidemiological investigators, who often have to work 24-hour shifts, frantically tracing and contacting potential coronavirus cases.
In bidding for national funding for the pilot project in late 2020, Bucheon mayor Jang Deog-cheon argued that such a system would make tracing faster.
"It sometimes takes hours to analyse a single CCTV footage. Using visual recognition technology will enable that analysis in an instant," he said on Twitter.
The system is also designed to overcome the fact that tracing teams have to rely heavily on the testimony of COVID-19 patients, who aren't always truthful about their activities and whereabouts, the plan said.
The Ministry of Science and ICT said it has no current plans to expand the project to the national level. It said the purpose of the system was to digitize some of the manual labour that contact tracers currently have to carry out.
The Bucheon system can simultaneously track up to ten people in five to ten minutes, cutting the time spent on manual work that takes around half an hour to one hour to trace one person, the plan said.
The pilot plans call for a team of about ten staff at one public health centre to use the AI-powered recognition system, the official said.
Bucheon received 1.6 billion won ($1.36 million) from the Ministry of Science and ICT and injected 500 million won of the city budget into the project to build the system, the Bucheon official said.
'BIG BROTHER'
While there has been wide public support for existing invasive track and trace methods, human rights advocates and some South Korean lawmakers have expressed concerns that the government will retain and harness such data far beyond the needs of the pandemic.
"The government's plan to become a Big Brother on the pretext of COVID is a neo-totalitarian idea," Park Dae-chul, a lawmaker from the main opposition People Power Party, told Reuters.
"It is absolutely wrong to monitor and control the public via CCTV using taxpayers' money and without the consent from the public," said Park, who provided the city plan to Reuters.
The Bucheon official said there are no privacy concerns because the system places a mosaic over the faces of anyone who is not a subject.
“There is no privacy issue here as the system traces the confirmed patient based on the Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act,” the official told Reuters. “Contact tracers stick to that rule so there is no risk of data spill or invasion of privacy.”
Rules say patients must give their consent for the facial recognition tracking to be used, but even if they don't consent, the system can still track them using their silhouette and clothes, the official said.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said the use of such technology is lawful as long as it is used within the realm of the disease control and prevention law.
The plans for AI-powered facial recognition sweeps comes as the country experiments with other uses of the controversial technology, from detecting child abuse at day cares to providing police protection.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/skorea-test-ai-powered-facial-recognition-track-covid-19-cases-2021-12-13/
By Manas Mishra
Residents of Cidade de Deus slum, receive food and bread from members of the Institute doAcao, which was produced at the Santuario de Nossa Senhora de Fatima (Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima), amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 24, 2021. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes
More than half a billion people globally were pushed into extreme poverty last year as they paid for health costs out of their own pockets during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization and the World Bank said on Sunday.
The pandemic disrupted health services globally and triggered the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, making it even more difficult for people to pay for healthcare, according to a joint statement from both the organizations.
"All governments must immediately resume and accelerate efforts to ensure every one of their citizens can access health services without fear of the financial consequences," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Tedros urged governments to increase their focus on health care systems and stay on course towards universal health coverage, which the WHO defines as everyone getting access to health services they need without financial hardship.
Healthcare is a major political issue in the United States, one of the few industrialised countries that does not have universal cover for its citizens.
Globally, the pandemic made things worse and immunisation coverage dropped for the first time in ten years, with deaths from tuberculosis and malaria increasing.
"Within a constrained fiscal space, governments will have to make tough choices to protect and increase health budgets," Juan Pablo Uribe, global director for health, nutrition and population at World Bank, said.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/health-costs-during-pandemic-pushed-over-half-billion-people-into-poverty-2021-12-12/
The Covid-19 vaccination tents at Chongwe District Hospital in Zambia sat empty.Credit...João Silva/The New York Times
NGWERERE, Zambia — Four people turned up at a health clinic tucked in a sprawl of commercial maize farms on a recent morning, looking for Covid-19 vaccines. The staff had vials of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine stashed in the fridge. But the staff members apologetically declined to vaccinate the four and suggested they try another day.
A vial of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine holds five doses, and the staff was under orders not to waste a single one.
Ida Musonda, the nurse who supervises the vaccination effort, suspected that her team might have found more takers if they packed the vials in Styrofoam coolers and headed out to markets and churches. “But we have no fuel for the vehicle to take the vaccines there,” she said.
They did vaccinate 100 people on their last trip to a farm; the records from that trip sat in a paper heap in the clinic because the data manager had no internet connection to access an electronic records system.
For months, the biggest challenge to vaccinating Africans against Covid, and protecting both the continent and the world from the emergence of dangerous variants, has been supply: A continent of about 1.4 billion people has received just 404 million doses of vaccine, and only 7.8 percent of the population is fully vaccinated.
But as supply has begun to sputter into something like a more reliable flow, other daunting obstacles are coming into focus. All of them are on view at and around Ngwerere.
Weak health care systems with limited infrastructure and technology, and no experience vaccinating adults, are trying to get shots into the arms of people who have far more pressing priorities. At the same time, the global flow of information, and deliberate misinformation, on social media is generating the same skepticism that has stymied vaccination efforts in the United States and other countries.
Some Zambians are hesitant, but others have an attitude that could better be described as vaccine indifference. This is a poor country where the economy has contracted sharply during the pandemic, and many unvaccinated people are more focused on putting food on the table.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/11/health/covid-vaccine-africa.html
By Mark Landler
A Christmas market in Trafalgar Square in London on Saturday. Britain is trying to counter the rapidly spreading Omicron variant of the coronavirus.Credit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times
LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain said on Sunday evening that its coronavirus vaccine booster program would be accelerated to counter what he called a “tidal wave” of cases from the rapidly spreading Omicron variant.
Mr. Johnson said the British government would now aim to offer all eligible adults a booster shot by the end of this year, a month earlier than the goal he set on Nov. 30 to deliver these millions of shots by the end of January.
“No one should be in any doubt: There is a tidal wave of Omicron coming,” Mr. Johnson said in a videotaped address, “and I’m afraid it is now clear that two doses of vaccine are simply not enough to give the level of protection we all need.”
Mr. Johnson, who has been under extreme pressure for days after the disclosure that his aides held a holiday party in breach of coronavirus restrictions last year, did not announce any major new social-distancing restrictions. But the government raised the Covid alert level from three to four — its second-highest level — amid signs that Omicron was spreading rapidly throughout the country.
In raising the alert level, the chief medical officers of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, declared in a statement that the “early evidence shows that Omicron is spreading much faster than Delta and that vaccine protection against symptomatic disease from Omicron is reduced.”
The first real-world study of how vaccines hold up against the Omicron variant, published by British government scientists on Friday, indicated that third vaccine doses provided considerable defense against Omicron, though there was a significant drop in protection after an initial round.
Under what Mr. Johnson called the “Omicron Emergency Boost,” the government will offer booster shots to adults ages 18 and older by New Year’s Day. Adults are eligible for a booster shot three months after their second shot. Britain has distributed 23.1 million booster shots, reaching 40.2 percent of people aged 12 and above.
To reach the new goal, Mr. Johnson said the National Health Service would have to defer some other medical procedures between now and the end of the year. He said the government would deploy 42 military planning units to help open additional vaccination centers and mobile units.
“If we don’t do this now, the wave of Omicron could be so big that cancellations and disruptions, like the loss of cancer appointments, would be even greater next year,” Mr. Johnson said. “To hit the pace we need, we’ll need to match the N.H.S.’s best vaccination day yet — and then beat it day after day.”
“This will require an extraordinary effort,” he added.
The videotaped address seemed calculated in part to seize the offensive in advance of a politically perilous week in which Mr. Johnson will face a difficult vote in Parliament on Covid restrictions he announced last week, as well as an election in which the Conservative Party is at risk of losing a once-safe seat.
Mr. Johnson faces a potential mutiny by members of his Conservative Party, who have threatened to vote against the new restrictions, which include urging people to work from home, wear face masks in more indoor settings, and to show a vaccine certification to enter nightclubs, and events with large audiences.
The prime minister’s credibility has also come under question after reports that members of his staff held Christmas parties in 10 Downing Street, at a time when the public was instructed not to meet with friends or family members.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/12/world/europe/uk-boosters.html
By Eva Corlett
New Zealand health authorities are investigating claims that a man received up to 10 Covid-19 vaccination doses in one day on behalf of other people, in the latest effort by members of the public to skirt tough restrictions on the unvaccinated.
The Ministry of Health said it was taking the matter seriously. “We are very concerned about this situation and are working with the appropriate agencies,” its Covid-19 vaccination and immunisation spokesperson, Astrid Koornneef, said.
Stuff reports the man is believed to have visited several immunisation centres and was paid to get the doses. In New Zealand vaccines can either be booked through a website, via a doctor, or people can turn up to walk-in centres. To be administered a vaccine, a person must provide the health care worker with their name, date of birth and physical address, but no further identification is required.
“To assume another person’s identity and receive a medical treatment is dangerous. This puts at risk the person who receives a vaccination under an assumed identify and the person whose health record will show they have been vaccinated when they have not,” Koornneef said.
“This could affect how their health is managed in the future.”
The ministry urged anyone who has had more vaccine doses than recommended to seek clinical advice.
Vaccinologist Helen Petousis-Harris, from the University of Auckland, said there was no specific data on using the vaccine in this way, but the man was not likely to come to serious harm.
“We know that higher doses result in more general vaccine reactions, like fever and headaches and pains, so you might anticipate he would feel pretty grotty the next day.”
This case was not an isolated one, Petousis-Harris said, adding that she had heard of others being paid to receive the vaccine on someone else’s behalf. People are not required to show photo identification when getting the vaccine, in order to make the process as accessible as possible, but that makes the system vulnerable to abuse by “a small minority of people,” she said.
“I think it is a very selfish act on the behalf of the buyer, and exploiting, perhaps, somebody who needed to get some money and is willing to take those risks, which is not very community minded.”
New Zealand is expected to hit its 90% double vaccinated goal for the eligible population – 12 years and older – before Christmas. But a small and vocal cohort of people are reluctant to be immunised.
The country’s new traffic light system, announced by prime minister Jacinda Ardern in late November, ends lockdowns in favour of restrictions on the unvaccinated. The red, orange and green levels depend on vaccination rates and the level of strain on the health system, but even at red – the strictest level – businesses are fully open to the vaccinated, with some restrictions on gathering size.
Last week, Newshub filmed a licensed doctor handing out medical certificates as vaccine exemption certificates at her clinic and telling her patients she was not vaccinated. Proper medical exemptions can only be granted through the Ministry of Health, and medical professionals are required to be immunised. The police have confirmed they are investigating the incident.
Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/13/new-zealand-authorities-investigate-claims-man-received-10-covid-vaccinations-in-one-day
Here’s a round-up of the day’s leading Covid stories:
· Britain faces a “tidal wave” of the Omicron variant and two vaccine doses will not be enough to contain it, prime minister Boris Johnson warned, as he accelerated the nation’s booster rollout programme.
· Russia has recorded a cumulative total number of Covid cases that now exceeds 10 million.
· The European Central Bank’s vice-president Luis de Guindos has tested positive for Covid-19 and is self-isolating, the ECB said.
· The US is set to reach 800,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
· Three doses of a Covid-19 vaccine is the “optimal care” but two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccines or one of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine remains the US government’s official definition of fully vaccinated, infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said.
· Australia will shorten the wait time for people to receive a Covid-19 booster following a rise in Omicron cases.
· More than a dozen Chinese-listed companies have suspended production in coronavirus-hit parts of China’s eastern Zhejiang province.
· Australians are preparing for quarantine-free travel across most of the country during the Christmas period as the state of Queensland opened its domestic borders to all vaccinated people for the first time in nearly five months.
· South Korea will test artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition to track Covid-19 cases.
· South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa, 69, tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday, though is showing only mild symptoms, the presidency said.
· Indonesia will start administering Covid-19 vaccinations for children aged six to 11 on Tuesday, a health ministry official said.
· New Zealand health authorities are investigating claims that a man received up to 10 Covid-19 vaccination doses in one day on behalf of other people, believed to be skirting tough restrictions on the unvaccinated.
Medicine
