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Raros são os prazeres da vida. Talvez o prazer maior de um professor é estar com seus alunos vendo-os cada vez melhores e mais independentes. Parabéns a todos por serem o que são: maravilhosos aprendizes.
Osvaldo Santos Lima
fortune.com/2022/04/09/new-covid-wave-return-to-office-fa...
A new COVID wave is probably coming, and America just doesn’t seem to care – Fortune
As bosses begin ordering workers back to the office and masks come off, a new study warns COVID could become the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S., and Fauci says a wave is likely in the fall.
It was a viral moment that elicited both nervous laughs and tears of joy from a pandemic-weary nation: Colorado Gov. Jared Polis awaiting his state’s first COVID vaccine shipment in December 2020, staring at a delivery door like a child stares at a fireplace on Christmas Eve.
“Any minute now we’re going to hear a doorbell,” Polis says with childlike glee, his words muffled by a surgical mask.
“And then we’re going to ….” He dramatically pauses before saying, “of course, let the vaccine in.”
Before he finishes his sentence, a bell shrieks.
“Ope, there we go!” Polis exclaims, making a rapid rotation to hit a button and open the warehouse door.
“This is the Pfizer vaccine, arriving here in Colorado, to end the pandemic!” he exclaims as the door opens slowly, awkwardly revealing a delivery man who perhaps wasn’t aware he’d been chosen to save mankind—or at least Coloradans.
Polis’ giddy anticipation mirrored the mental state of so many Americans in those weeks before Christmas 2020. The potential side effects were unnerving, maybe, but the vaccine was coming.
To end the pandemic and nine months of isolation and tragedy.
That was the hope. But it wasn’t reality.
“I think some of it is just human nature, that you want to believe there will be a quick technological fix,” Fractal Therapeutics CEO Arijit Chakravarty told Fortune. His position is summed up by the headline of his searing new article published to Lancet-affiliated preprint journal medRxiv: “Endemicity is not a victory: the unmitigated downside risks of widespread SARS-COV2 transmission.”
Scenarios under which the U.S. sees surges of a variant more deadly than any seen before are plausible, Chakravarty and his colleagues contend.
Hundreds of thousands of deaths could ensue annually, they say. COVID could become the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S., beating out the most common maladies like heart disease and cancer.
“It’s not a specific prediction about the future,” Chakravarty hedged. “We’re not saying the world will end on Tuesday, April 7, 2024. But the goal is to make people say, ‘Gee, some scenarios out there are really quite ugly.’”
A ‘one-way ceasefire’
Chakravarty isn’t alone in worrying about what happens next. He has good company in Dr. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease expert who has become the face of America’s COVID response. He said this week that a surge of COVID is likely this fall, and an increase in cases over even the next few weeks would not be surprising.
Fauci’s remarks contrast with a sudden vanishing of the Omicron wave that gripped the country in December and January (and ruined many people’s holiday plans). Cases fell so far so fast that big cities like New York relaxed mandates that had been in place for nearly two years. In New York’s case, famously unvaccinated celebrities like basketball star Kyrie Irving are free to play indoors again, and masks are off at most restaurants and retail outlets, bringing it in line with the rest of the country.
March is seeing cases creep back up again as bosses consider a widespread return to the office.
When it comes to the blissful oblivion of many to the pandemic’s continued existence, “motivated reasoning” is to blame, says psychologist Paul Thagard, a philosopher and cognitive scientist who authored the paper “The cognitive science of COVID-19: Acceptance, denial, and belief change.”
Another term for motivated reasoning: “a complicated version of wishful thinking.”
“People look at what makes them happy instead of evidence,” Thagard says. “This virus has been very unpredictable. People want to believe it’s going to get better and better. It’s not based on solid knowledge of the biology of the virus.”
If another severe wave of COVID were to hit the U.S., Thagard predicts the country would see a similarly large wave of denial, “one more application of motivated reasoning.”
“Right now things don’t look that bad in North America, generally, because hospitals aren’t that full. That could change fairly quickly.”
Vaccines aren’t enough
Current vaccines have failed to end the pandemic.
That’s a key argument Chakravarty and his coauthors make in their new paper.
It’s a reality, they say, that so many are failing to recognize as they buy into the scenario that the pandemic is becoming milder and will continue to, and that the pandemic is shrinking to endemicity and will continue to shrink in scale.
“Public-health authorities in many countries have advocated for a strategy of using the vaccines to limit morbidity and mortality while permitting unchecked SARS-CoV-2 spread (‘learning to live with the disease’),” Chakravarty’s team writes.
But that strategy seems to rely on future waves of COVID being less deadly, either due to weaker but more transmissible strains of the virus taking hold, or due to population immunity that is inevitably temporary, the authors write. And it ignores the fact infection fatality rates of future COVID variants may wax and wane.
“Omicron was mild. Maybe if there’s a BA.3, it will be mild too,” Chakravarty says. “But just because it was named Omicron 3 doesn’t mean it couldn’t be its own beast.”
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WELLNESS COVID-19
A new COVID wave is probably coming, and America just doesn’t seem to care
As bosses begin ordering workers back to the office and masks come off, a new study warns COVID could become the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S., and Fauci says a wave is likely in the fall.
BY ERIN PRATER
April 09, 2022 11:25 AM EDT
Never miss a story: Follow your favorite topics and authors to get a personalized email with the journalism that matters most to you.
It was a viral moment that elicited both nervous laughs and tears of joy from a pandemic-weary nation: Colorado Gov. Jared Polis awaiting his state’s first COVID vaccine shipment in December 2020, staring at a delivery door like a child stares at a fireplace on Christmas Eve.
“Any minute now we’re going to hear a doorbell,” Polis says with childlike glee, his words muffled by a surgical mask.
“And then we’re going to ….” He dramatically pauses before saying, “of course, let the vaccine in.”
Before he finishes his sentence, a bell shrieks.
“Ope, there we go!” Polis exclaims, making a rapid rotation to hit a button and open the warehouse door.
“This is the Pfizer vaccine, arriving here in Colorado, to end the pandemic!” he exclaims as the door opens slowly, awkwardly revealing a delivery man who perhaps wasn’t aware he’d been chosen to save mankind—or at least Coloradans.
Polis’ giddy anticipation mirrored the mental state of so many Americans in those weeks before Christmas 2020. The potential side effects were unnerving, maybe, but the vaccine was coming.
To end the pandemic and nine months of isolation and tragedy.
That was the hope. But it wasn’t reality.
“I think some of it is just human nature, that you want to believe there will be a quick technological fix,” Fractal Therapeutics CEO Arijit Chakravarty told Fortune. His position is summed up by the headline of his searing new article published to Lancet-affiliated preprint journal medRxiv: “Endemicity is not a victory: the unmitigated downside risks of widespread SARS-COV2 transmission.”
Scenarios under which the U.S. sees surges of a variant more deadly than any seen before are plausible, Chakravarty and his colleagues contend.
Hundreds of thousands of deaths could ensue annually, they say. COVID could become the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S., beating out the most common maladies like heart disease and cancer.
“It’s not a specific prediction about the future,” Chakravarty hedged. “We’re not saying the world will end on Tuesday, April 7, 2024. But the goal is to make people say, ‘Gee, some scenarios out there are really quite ugly.’”
A ‘one-way ceasefire’
Chakravarty isn’t alone in worrying about what happens next. He has good company in Dr. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease expert who has become the face of America’s COVID response. He said this week that a surge of COVID is likely this fall, and an increase in cases over even the next few weeks would not be surprising.
Fauci’s remarks contrast with a sudden vanishing of the Omicron wave that gripped the country in December and January (and ruined many people’s holiday plans). Cases fell so far so fast that big cities like New York relaxed mandates that had been in place for nearly two years. In New York’s case, famously unvaccinated celebrities like basketball star Kyrie Irving are free to play indoors again, and masks are off at most restaurants and retail outlets, bringing it in line with the rest of the country.
March is seeing cases creep back up again as bosses consider a widespread return to the office.
When it comes to the blissful oblivion of many to the pandemic’s continued existence, “motivated reasoning” is to blame, says psychologist Paul Thagard, a philosopher and cognitive scientist who authored the paper “The cognitive science of COVID-19: Acceptance, denial, and belief change.”
Another term for motivated reasoning: “a complicated version of wishful thinking.”
“People look at what makes them happy instead of evidence,” Thagard says. “This virus has been very unpredictable. People want to believe it’s going to get better and better. It’s not based on solid knowledge of the biology of the virus.”
If another severe wave of COVID were to hit the U.S., Thagard predicts the country would see a similarly large wave of denial, “one more application of motivated reasoning.”
“Right now things don’t look that bad in North America, generally, because hospitals aren’t that full. That could change fairly quickly.”
Vaccines aren’t enough
Current vaccines have failed to end the pandemic.
That’s a key argument Chakravarty and his coauthors make in their new paper.
It’s a reality, they say, that so many are failing to recognize as they buy into the scenario that the pandemic is becoming milder and will continue to, and that the pandemic is shrinking to endemicity and will continue to shrink in scale.
“Public-health authorities in many countries have advocated for a strategy of using the vaccines to limit morbidity and mortality while permitting unchecked SARS-CoV-2 spread (‘learning to live with the disease’),” Chakravarty’s team writes.
But that strategy seems to rely on future waves of COVID being less deadly, either due to weaker but more transmissible strains of the virus taking hold, or due to population immunity that is inevitably temporary, the authors write. And it ignores the fact infection fatality rates of future COVID variants may wax and wane.
“Omicron was mild. Maybe if there’s a BA.3, it will be mild too,” Chakravarty says. “But just because it was named Omicron 3 doesn’t mean it couldn’t be its own beast.”
Writing the paper wasn’t easy, Chakravarty says.
“We, as a team, went back and forth—this took months to write,” he says. “Emotionally, it’s a difficult conclusion to come to. It doesn’t help you sleep well at night.”
Regarding COVID, “You have to mitigate the risk of the worst thing without having a big debate about whether or not it’s going to happen today. People aren’t really having that conversation.”
He and his colleagues realize an approach like China’s zero COVID policy isn’t sustainable. The team recommends an approach of “subtle changes” that “don’t require endless amounts of personal sacrifice,” and that “slow down evolution and work on limiting the spread.”
Among their proposals: upgrading air quality and ventilation in buildings, since most transmission occurs indoors; widespread surveillance of virus transmission; and focusing on the development of preventative medicines and next-generation vaccines that can reduce the spread.
But with Congress bickering over a $10 billion COVID aid bill and the U.S. running out of funds for things like vaccines and research, the U.S. is quickly losing its ability to “see what’s happening and react nimbly.”
“We’re more and more flying blind,” he says.
A World Health Organization official recently said we may be entering a “period of ceasefire” with the virus, but Chakravarty says “it takes two parties to agree to a ceasefire. Another word for a one-way ceasefire? Surrender.”
‘We get comfortable with what happens’
Chakravarty says America is now rolling the dice with its COVID strategy.
Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, says it’s the no-plan plan.
In short: The American approach to COVID seems to be “ignore it and hope it goes away, and hope the interventions we have right now are functional enough to make it tolerable,” he says.
“And the answer is, not yet. We have good tools. We’re better than we were two years ago, but this virus is pretty tricky. It’s fooled us every time we thought we understood something.
“In many ways, we were unprepared and playing catch-up.”
COVID isn’t the only public health crisis about which Americans have become complacent, Benjamin says.
“We get tired of an issue,” he says. “We park it. We get comfortable with what happens. Thousands of people die from gun violence every year. That’s something that, when it happens, particularly mass shootings, everyone says, ‘It’s terrible. We must do something.’
“But the political will to do something about it quickly fades.”
He worries the most about politicians getting COVID fatigue and potentially failing to pass another COVID aid bill to fund, among other things, surveillance of the virus and research on new variants.
“Resource allocators have a tendency to, when something happens, throw a lot of money at it—usually not quite enough, never for long enough,” he says. “Then they withdraw funding, and their expectation of performance far exceeds the money put into it.
“We’re seeing that happen right now.”
A cautionary tale
This isn’t the first time Americans have turned a blind eye toward disease, says John M. Barry, author of “The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history.”
The 1918 flu pandemic “killed young people and children, and the elderly largely escaped it—despite that, people grew tired of taking precautions.”
The flu, an H1N1 virus thought to have originated in birds, was first identified in the U.S. in the spring of 1918. It spread worldwide in waves, infecting about a third of the world’s population and killing at least 50 million, with about 675,000 deaths in the U.S. alone, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many were previously healthy young adults and young children.
When it comes to America’s collective memory, the flu pandemic was left out, a seeming historical amnesia.
“That’s the single question I was asked most when my book came out in 2004: ‘How come I never heard of this?’” he says.
He’s not entirely sure, though it might have something to do with people at the time being more accustomed to death by infectious disease, World War I, and historians writing about “what people did to people,” but not about what nature did to people.
Thagard offers a cautionary tale: a fourth wave of the 1918 flu pandemic that came in 1920 at a time when the public was weary.
“They pretty much entirely ignored it—and the fourth wave, in some cities, was the deadliest yet,” Barry says.
“People just didn’t want to deal with it, just as we don’t want to deal with it.”
www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/against-omicron-vaccine-protect...
Against omicron, vaccine protection was much weaker, CDC data shows
Although coronavirus shots still provided protection during the omicron wave, the shield of coverage they offered was weaker than during other surges, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The change resulted in much higher rates of infection, hospitalization and death for fully vaccinated adults and even for people who had received boosters. The decline in protection continued a pattern driven by coronavirus vaccines’ reduced effectiveness over time, combined with the increasing contagiousness of the delta and omicron waves.
Before delta struck the United States in July, there were five to 10 cases of covid-19 for every 100,000 fully vaccinated adults each week, while the rate for unvaccinated people was 50 to 90 cases.
In the delta wave, unvaccinated people were five times as likely to get infected as vaccinated people. With omicron, that difference dropped to less than three times as likely.
Vaccines still provided their greatest protection against death. CDC’s data on deaths went through only December, before the peak of more than 2,600 deaths per day in January. At the end of December, unvaccinated people were 10 times as likely to die as the vaccinated who had received the initial series of two Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna shots, or a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. That difference was about one-third smaller than it had been before omicron.
Here’s what to know
» The Maryland State Board of Education voted Tuesday to rescind its statewide mask mandate and allow local school systems to set their own mask policies. Although the plan needs to be approved by state lawmakers, Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has voiced his support.
» Tamara Lich, a key organizer of the self-styled “Freedom Convoy” protests against vaccination rules in Canada, was denied bail Tuesday after a judge said there was a high risk she would reoffend if released. Lich is charged with counseling to commit mischief.
» Hong Kong will mandate testing for all 7.5 million of its residents starting in March, with each person being tested three times. The city has been slammed with a surge driven by the omicron variant and faces pressure from Beijing to contain the outbreak.
Pregnancy-related deaths shot up during pandemic’s first year
Pregnant people and new mothers died at a higher rate in 2020, an increase that mostly afflicted women of color, according to a report released Wednesday by U.S. health officials.
For all women, the number of maternal deaths rose 14 percent during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, to 861, according to the report from the National Center for Health Statistics. The maternal mortality rate in 2020 was 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births.
When breaking down the data, however, the increase “for non-Hispanic White women was not significant.” Instead, it was women of color who died at significantly higher rates from pregnancy or childbirth in 2020.
The mortality rate was highest for non-Hispanic Black women: 55.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, which was 2.9 times the rate for non-Hispanic White women. The mortality rate jumped 26 percent in 2020 for Black women.
In a reopening world, travel is enticing and terrifying all at once
The moment many travelers have waited for since March 2020 has finally arrived — or so it appears.
The omicron variant of the coronavirus is receding. Governments across the globe are reopening for foreign travel, including nations that enforced strict protocols such as Israel and Australia. Countries in Europe and Asia are again lifting restrictions for vaccinated visitors, with some slashing requirements for testing and quarantines.
Some Americans are rushing to splurge on summer trips, embracing the idea of “revenge travel” to make up for lost time. But the threat of a new variant lurks, and fear of the virus isn’t so easily discarded after two years of rapidly changing public health advice around travel. Part of “living with the virus” is figuring out boundaries when the responsible way to act is up for debate.
Key coronavirus updates from around the world
Here’s what to know about the top coronavirus stories around the globe from news service reports.
» The World Health Organization is creating a global training center to help poorer countries make vaccines, antibodies and cancer treatments using the messenger RNA technology that has successfully been used to make coronavirus vaccines. At a news conference Wednesday, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the new hub will be in South Korea and will share mRNA technology being developed by the WHO and partners in South Africa, where scientists are working to re-create the vaccine made by Moderna. That effort is taking place without Moderna’s help.
» The Pan American Health Organization warned that the Caribbean was falling behind in its effort to fight the coronavirus, as only 63 percent of its eligible population was vaccinated and large regional discrepancies persist. Out of 13 countries and territories in the Americas that have not yet reached the World Health Organization’s goal of 40 percent coverage, 10 are in the Caribbean, PAHO Director Carissa Etienne said Wednesday.
» Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II spoke with Prime Minister Boris Johnson by phone on Wednesday as she continued to carry out official duties days after testing positive for the virus, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said. It was announced Sunday that Elizabeth, 95, was suffering mild cold-like symptoms but was expected to carry on with light engagements, suggesting the world’s current oldest and longest-reigning monarch was not seriously unwell.
» Switzerland will donate up to 15 million coronavirus vaccine doses to other countries by the middle of this year, having secured more than enough to cover its own population of around 8.7 million, the government said. Around 34 million doses of vaccine will be available to Switzerland in 2022 — 20 million in the first half of the year and 14 million in the second, the cabinet said.
» Italy will end its covid-19 state of emergency March 31, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said Wednesday, promising a gradual return to normal after more than two years of the health crisis. Coronavirus cases and deaths have receded in recent weeks, and the government has come under pressure from businesses and some political parties to roll back the restrictions that have been progressively introduced since early 2020.
CDC says some people should wait longer between first and second vaccine doses
Newly updated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance says some people should wait eight weeks between first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna coronavirus vaccines, rather than the three- to four-week intervals initially recommended.
The change was made Tuesday on the CDC’s website. It says an eight-week interval “may be optimal for some people ages 12 years and older, especially for males ages 12 to 39 years.” The CDC cited the small risk of a rare heart condition in that population and said the risk might be reduced by extending the length of time between doses.
It added that some studies in adolescents and adults have also suggested peak antibody response and vaccine effectiveness may increase with the longer spacing between shots.
As vaccines became available last year, British health officials stretched the interval between doses as part of an effort to get vaccines to as many people as possible. A study published last summer found that the longer gap led to higher overall antibody levels.
The shorter interval — three weeks for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and four weeks for the Moderna vaccine — is still recommended by the CDC for people 65 and older, those who are immunocompromised and others who need rapid protection because of concern over high community spread or risk of severe disease.
Federal health officials have said there is probably a link between two coronavirus vaccines and increased risk of a rare condition, myocarditis, predominantly in men between the ages of 12 and 39. Most cases have been mild, and medical authorities have said the benefits of the shots outweigh the risks.
Among men ages 18 to 39, the condition has been reported in about 68 per 1 million getting the second Moderna dose and about 47 per 1 million getting the second Pfizer dose, the Associated Press reported.
William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University vaccines expert, told the AP that the CDC’s action was sensible, saying that earlier in the pandemic, with the virus spreading and people dying, “we wanted to get the vaccine into their arms as quickly as possible.”
If those who are already vaccinated worry the original schedule has given them less than the maximum amount of protection, they can seek out a booster shot, he said.
“We really have very good data indicating that two doses plus the booster provide very strong protection against severe disease,” Schaffner said.
Masks come off in blue states. Residents wonder: Is it too soon, or long overdue?
The mask era appears to be on the decline as the coronavirus pandemic lurches into a third year, another turning point on the path to normalcy.
It’s about time, said Keith Bosley, who has been skeptical about mask mandates, thinking they harm children’s development and are ineffective when most people wear cloth face coverings instead of high-quality masks. “I follow the mandates. I didn’t agree with them, but I followed them and tried to be a good citizen,” said Bosley, who is 66, boosted, tested regularly for his senior care job and keeps a mask in his pocket if case a business requires one. “It’s a choice right now, which is probably what it should have been.”
The abrupt end of mask requirements in blue states, which had left mandates in place longer than most Republican-led regions, signals a new reality in which leaders in the most cautious parts of the country say the time has arrived to live with the coronavirus — minus sweeping mandates.
Some people say it’s long overdue and time to trust vaccines as the best shield. Others worry that political pressure to return to normal is endangering the immunocompromised, elderly and youngsters not yet eligible for vaccination. Many are unsure when they will feel comfortable again in a maskless world, their hopes dashed before by virus variants.
‘Freedom Convoy’ organizer Tamara Lich denied bail in Canada
A key organizer of the self-styled “Freedom Convoy” was denied bail in Canada on Tuesday after being arrested last week for her role in shepherding the national demonstrations against pandemic restrictions and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that have locked down Canadian cities for weeks.
Tamara Lich, 49, leader of Freedom Convoy 2022, one of the main groups organizing the demonstrations, was arrested Thursday and charged with “counselling to commit the offence of mischief.” A judge said her continued detention “is necessary for the protection and safety of the public.”
The Freedom Convoy started out in late January as a movement of truckers and their supporters who opposed a federal rule mandating vaccines for truckers crossing U.S.-Canada borders and snowballed into protests against Trudeau’s government and pandemic restrictions. Protesters occupied downtown Ottawa and disrupted border crossings.
During the bail hearing on Tuesday, Ontario Court Justice Julie Bourgeois cited evidence from testimony over the weekend showing that Lich was a key organizer of the demonstrations and that she urged protesters to stay in Ottawa as the standoff with authorities escalated. Bourgeois said there was a “substantial risk” that Lich would reoffend if she were let out on bail and told Lich that she is “certainly facing a potentially lengthy term of imprisonment.”
Over the weekend, Lich said that if she were released on bail, she would leave Ottawa and stop advocating for the protests. But Bourgeois on Tuesday expressed skepticism toward Lich’s testimony, calling her “guarded” and her “attitude almost obstructive.”
“This community has already been impacted enough by some of the criminal activity and blockades you took part in and even led,” Bourgeois said.
Police in Canada’s national capital on Friday began closing in on Freedom Convoy protesters who remained in downtown Ottawa after repeated warnings that they would be arrested if they didn’t leave. Authorities said they had arrested 196 people for various offenses as of Monday morning, including convoy leaders Lich and Chris Barber, 46, a far-right agitator.
On Tuesday, police were still in place in downtown Ottawa, enforcing checkpoints and other security measures to make sure the protesters who left did not come back. In a statement, Ottawa police said “some unlawful protesters returned to the protest site after being arrested,” including a man from Quebec and a woman from southern Ontario who were subsequently charged with obstructing police and other crimes.
Nearly half of New Yorkers think state mask mandate should still be in place, poll shows
Almost two weeks after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) let her state’s indoor mask mandate expire, a poll shows 45 percent of New Yorkers say it should still be in place.
The poll, conducted by the Siena College Research Institute last week among about 800 registered New York state voters and released Tuesday, noted that the mandate requiring mask-wearing inside in public places ended on Feb. 10.
Twenty percent said it ended at the right time; 31 percent said it should have ended earlier than it did.
“There is no clear consensus on mandating masks in indoor public spaces,” Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg said in a news release, but he noted a “plurality” of voters said it should still be in place.
Opinions on the mandate were split along ideological lines, reinforcing the notion that masks and other pandemic restrictions are a polarized subject in the United States. Of the New Yorkers who said the indoor mask mandate “should have ended earlier,” 58 percent identified as conservative and 16 percent as liberal. Of those who said the mandate “should still be in place,” 20 percent said they were conservative and 59 percent liberal.
Siena College also polled New Yorkers about their views on their state’s indoor mask mandate for schools, which is still in place. They were told that Hochul “said the state would reassess its position on masks in school after the February break” and asked what decision they thought should be made.
More than half (58 percent) said the state should wait for early March data before deciding whether to lift the school mask mandate. About one-third said the school mask mandate should have ended already. Some 10 percent said it should end after the February school break.
“Waiting to see data from early March before deciding to lift the school mask mandate — as opposed to lifting that mandate as schools reconvene next week or wishing it had been lifted previously — is how the majority of New Yorkers would like to proceed,” Greenberg said. “The majority of virtually every demographic group agrees, though not Republicans and conservatives, who wish the mandate had ended already.”
Hong Kong’s coronavirus surge leaves the most vulnerable without a place to quarantine
HONG KONG — When Chan, a Hong Kong construction worker, tested positive for the coronavirus, he had nowhere to go. The 38-year-old shared a cramped apartment with seven others, including a toddler and his aging father. So he moved into the stairwell.
For 16 days, Chan, who asked for only his last name be used out of embarrassment, followed the city’s mandatory self-isolation policy, living on the roof of the building in a steady drizzle amid unseasonably cold temperatures. He ate instant noodles and defecated in plastic bags. He slept in three jackets and two trousers with a blanket dampened by the rain seeping under the rooftop door. He said he often woke from a dream that “he was naked and freezing.”
An explosion of coronavirus infections has exposed the yawning inequities in Hong Kong, hitting hardest the most vulnerable — seniors, domestic workers and the more than 90,000 lowest-income households who live in cramped, subdivided flats. For them, the mandatory isolation has brought more hardship than the virus.
As cases rise exponentially — more than 8,600 cases were announced on Wednesday compared to just a handful in the weeks before — the territory’s health-care system is overwhelmed, forcing those on the fringes of society into deeply uncomfortable arrangements as they work to break transmission chains.
Faz muitos anos desde que fui a minha primeira exposição de fotografias. Tantos que não posso recordar. A sensação foi a mesma de quando entrei a primeira vez no Teatro Guaíra, quando vi a Bibi Ferreira em Piaf, quando li “O estrangeiro” do Camus, quando ouvi “Palhaço”, do disco Circense do Egberto Gismonti, quando, em suma, sofri pela obra do destino aquilo que se chama de fratura estética.
Em todos esses momentos algo se quebrou dentro de mim. Deixei de ser para ser além do que era. Apreendi o outro por meio dos seus discursos artísticos, visuais ou não. E, ao apreender, aprendi. Para Camus e sua angustiante história fui levado pela mão de Cristovão Tezza, meu professor de literatura. Para o Guaíra e consequentemente a Bibi pela mão de minha mãe. Egberto Gismonti pelo bom gosto musical de meu irmão. Culpo a todos estes seres por terem me transformado. Culpo-lhes por ser assim, cada dia um diferente, triturado pelas inúmeras fraturas estéticas da vida. São eles meus professores e responsáveis por ser eu também um professor.
Parabéns aos meus alunos por me mostrarem que continuo no caminho certo, o de ensinar a amar o que amo tanto: Aprender.
saudações fotográficas,
Osvaldo Santos Lima
A scene from Omicron Ceti III where the simple but happy and healthy colonists meet the crew of the Enterprise. This shot is from the TOS episode "This Side of Paradise", one of the finley directed Ralph Zenensky episodes from the series.
Fitzgerold's namesake ends "I Know Myself But That Is All" whereas Spock says "For the First Time in My Life I Was Happy" at the end of this episode. A sublte ending and interesting story, we are left wondering which of the three plot devices - Berthold rays, spores, or the Enterprise interference with the codependence on the planet is the bad thing.
Entre os olhares cruzados pergunto quem fotografa quem?
Serei eu o verdadeiro intruso com minha câmera ou ele com sua memória me reinventando a cada instante?
A cada foto que faço fico portanto menos real, mais memória, menos carnal, mais de outrora. A cada dia que me afasto fico, portanto, menos meu, mais teu.
Sabe, a cada retrato que faço pertenço menos a este mundo que nunca me pertenceu.
Osvaldo Santos Lima
08/12/2021. London, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Boris Johnson-Omicron Press Conference . The Prime Minister Boris Johnson chairs a press conference on the Covid-19 variant Omicron in No9 Downing Street with Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance and Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
Fiz este retrato em nosso Curso de cinematografia digital aqui no Omicron Centro de Fotografia em seu núcleo de cinema. Ebert é um desses caras raros! Conhece seu ofício como poucos e é um ótimo mestre.
Espero que este retrato faça jus a sua personalidade.
saudações fotográficas mestre,
Osvaldo Santos Lima
Heuchera Myrtle Goutweed Lamium Lily-of-the-Valley Cranesbill
From my set entitled “Heuchera”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/sets/72157607185356154/
In my collection entitled “The Garden”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/collections/7215760718...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeucheraThe genus Heuchera includes at least 50 species of herbaceous perennial plants in the family Saxifragaceae, all native to North America. Common names include alumroot and coral bells. They have palmately lobed leaves on long petioles, and a thick, woody rootstock. The genus was named after Johann Heinrich von Heucher (1677–1746), an 18th century German physician.
Alumroot species grow in varied habitats, so some species look quite different from one another, and have varying preferences regarding temperature, soil, and other natural factors. H. maxima is found on the Channel Islands of California, where it grows on rocky, windy, saline-washed ocean shores. H. sanguinea, called coral bells because of its terra cotta-colored flowers, can be found in the warm, dry canyons of Arizona. Gardeners and horticulturists have developed a multitude of hybrids between various Heuchera species. There is an extensive array of blossom sizes, shapes, and colors, foliage types, and geographic tolerances.
Though tangy and slightly astringent, the leaves may be used to liven up bland greens.
Natives of the Northwest U.S. have used tonic derived of Alumroot roots to aid digestive difficulties, but extractions from the root can also be used to stop minor bleeding, reduce inflammation, and otherwise shrink moist tissues after swelling.
From my set entitled “Lily of the Valley”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/sets/72157607213707592/
In my collection entitled “The Garden”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/collections/7215760718...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convallaria
Convallaria majalis, commonly known as the Lily of the Valley or Lily-of-the-Valley, is the only species in the genus Convallaria in the flowering plant family Ruscaceae, formerly placed in the lily family Liliaceae or in its own family called Convallariaceae. This woodland plant is native throughout the cool temperate Northern Hemisphere in Asia and Europe and a limited native population in Eastern USA [1] (Convallaria majalis var. montana). There is, however, some debate as to the native status of the American species.[2] It is a herbaceous perennial plant that forms extensive colonies by spreading underground stems called rhizomes that send out stolons. These send up numerous stems each spring. The stems grow to 15-30 cm tall, with one or two leaves 10-25 cm long, flowering stems have two leaves and a raceme of 5-15 flowers on the stem apex. The flowers are white tepals (rarely pink), bell-shaped, 5-10 mm diameter, and sweetly scented; flowering is in late spring, in mild winters in early March. The fruit is a small orange-red berry 5-7 mm diameter that contains a few large whitish to brownish colored seeds that dry to a clear translucent round bead 1 to 3 mm wide. Plants are self-sterile, and colonies of one clone do not set seed.[3]
There are three subspecies [4] that have sometimes been separated out as distinct species by a few botanists.
Convallaria majalis var. keiskei - from China and Japan with red fruit and bowl shaped flowers
Convallaria majalis var. majalis - from Eurasia with white midribs on the flowers.
Convallaria majalis var. montana - from the USA with green tinted midribs on the flowers.
All parts of the Lily of the Valley are highly poisonous, containing cardiac glycosides and saponins, although the plant has been used as a folk remedy in moderate amounts[5]. If the plant is touched or handled, hands should be washed before doing anything else.
Convallaria majalis is a popular garden plant, grown for the scented flowers. A number of different forms are grown including plants with double flowers, rose colored flowers, plants with variegated foliage and forms with larger size. Some consider it a weed, because it can spread over a wide area of gardens and other places where it is planted and can be difficult to contain or remove.
Lily of the Valley is used as a food plant by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Grey Chi.
The flower is also known as Our Lady's tears since, according to Christian legend, the tears Mary shed at the cross turned to Lilies of the Valley. According to another legend, Lilies of the Valley also sprang from the blood of St. George during his battle with the dragon. Other names include May Lily, May Bells, Lily Constancy, Ladder-to-Heaven, Male Lily and Muguet.
Traditionally, Lily of the Valley is sold in the streets of France on May 1. Lily of the Valley became the national flower of Finland in 1967. The Norwegian municipality Lunner has a Lily of the Valley in its coat-of-arms. It is the official flower of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, Kappa Sigma fraternity, Delta Omicron fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority, and Alpha Phi sorority.
The name "Lily of the Valley" is also used in some English translations of the Bible in Song of Songs 2:1, although whether or not the Hebrew word "shoshana" (usually denoting a rose) originally used there refers to this species is uncertain. The meaning of this flower is "You will find Happiness."
From my set entitled “Lamium”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/sets/72157607217474399/
In my collection entitled “The Garden”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/collections/7215760718...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadnettle
Lamium (deadnettle) is a genus of about 40-50 species of flowering plants in the family Lamiaceae, of which family it is the type genus. They are all herbaceous plants native to Europe, Asia, and north Africa, but several have become very successful weeds of crop fields and are now widely naturalised across the temperate world.
The genus includes both annual and perennial species; they spread by both seeds and stems rooting as they grow along the ground.
The common name refers to their superficial resemblance to the unrelated stinging nettles, but unlike those, they do not have stinging hairs and so are harmless or apparently "dead".
Lamiums are frost hardy and grow well in most soils. Flower colour determines planting season and light requirement: white- and purple-coloured flowered species are planted in spring and prefer full sun. The yellow-flowered ones are planted in fall (autumn) and prefer shade. They often have invasive habits and need plenty of room. Propagate from seed or by division in early spring
apnews.com/article/ap-interview-coronavirus-omicron-roche...
The AP Interview: CDC chief says omicron mostly mild so far
ATLANTA (AP) — More than 40 people in the U.S. have been found to be infected with the omicron variant so far, and more than three-quarters of them had been vaccinated, the chief of the CDC said Wednesday. But she said nearly all of them were only mildly ill.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the data is very limited and the agency is working on a more detailed analysis of what the new mutant form of the coronavirus might hold for the U.S.
“What we generally know is the more mutations a variant has, the higher level you need your immunity to be. ... We want to make sure we bolster everybody’s immunity. And that’s really what motivated the decision to expand our guidance,” Walensky said, referencing the recent approval of boosters for all adults.
She said “the disease is mild” in almost all of the cases seen so far, with reported symptoms mainly cough, congestion and fatigue. One person was hospitalized, but no deaths have been reported, CDC officials said.
Some cases can become increasingly severe as days and weeks pass, and Walensky noted that the data is a very early, first glimpse of U.S. omicron infections. The earliest onset of symptoms of any of the first 40 or so cases was Nov. 15, according to the CDC.
The omicron variant was first identified in South Africa last month and has since been reported in 57 countries, according to the World Health Organization.
The first U.S. case was reported on Dec. 1. As of Wednesday afternoon, the CDC had recorded 43 cases in 19 states. Most were young adults. About a third of those patients had traveled internationally.
More than three-quarters of those patients had been vaccinated, and a third had boosters, Walensky said. Boosters take about two weeks to reach full effect, and some of the patients had received their most recent shot within that period, CDC officials said.
Fewer than 1% of the U.S. COVID-19 cases genetically sequenced last week were the omicron variant; the delta variant accounted for more than 99%.
Scientists are trying to better understand how easily it spreads. British officials said Wednesday that they think the omicron variant could become the dominant version of the coronavirus in the United Kingdom in as soon as a month.
The CDC has yet to make any projections on how the variant could affect the course of the pandemic in the U.S. Walensky said officials are gathering data but many factors could influence how the pandemic evolves.
“When I look to what the future holds, so much of that is definitely about the science, but it’s also about coming together as a community to do things that prevent disease in yourself and one another. And I think a lot of what our future holds depends on how we come together to do that,” she said.
The CDC is also trying to establish whether the omicron variant causes milder — or more severe — illness than other coronavirus types. The finding that nearly all of the cases so far are mild may be a reflection that this first look at U.S. omicron cases captured mainly vaccinated people, who are expected to have milder illnesses, CDC officials said.
Another key question is whether it is better at evading vaccines or the immunity people build from a bout with COVID-19.
This week, scientists in South Africa reported a small laboratory study that found antibodies created by vaccines were not as effective at preventing omicron infections as they were at stopping other versions of the coronavirus.
On Wednesday, vaccine manufacturer Pfizer said that while two doses may not be protective enough to prevent infection, lab tests showed a booster increased levels of virus-fighting antibodies by 25-fold.
Blood samples taken a month after a booster showed people harbored levels of omicron-neutralizing antibodies that were similar to amounts proven protective against earlier variants after two doses, the company said.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/09/us-covid-cases-su...
US Covid cases surge as vaccine progress slows and Omicron variant sparks fears
Ohio, as well as Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Pennsylvania have seen a recent increase in cases and hospitalizations
For Dr Rina D’Abramo of the MetroHealth System in Cleveland, it’s difficult when patients in the emergency room tell her they have not been vaccinated.
“You can hear it in their voice when you say, ‘Are you vaccinated?’” said D’Abramo, who works at a hospital in the Brecksville suburb. “They shrink down and are like, ‘No. Now I know why I need to be vaccinated.’ ”
Unfortunately, there are plenty of people in Ohio and the rest of the US too who have not yet learned that lesson, even as infection rates nationally start to surge again amid fears of the possibly highly contagious new Omicron variant.
Ohio is one of the states that has seen the largest recent increases in hospitalizations due to Covid as the number of cases climbs across the country. There has been 19% increase in hospitalizations over the past two weeks in the United States, according to a New York Times analysis of data.
Ohio has a daily average of more than 4,400 people hospitalized due to Covid, which ranks fourth among states and represents a 29% increase over the past two weeks.
While the increased number of people vaccinated against Covid had inspired hopes that Americans would be able to experience a relatively normal winter, the rise in Covid cases; holiday gatherings; and unanswered questions about the Omicron variant have sparked fresh concerns and warnings from doctors and public health officials in the US.
“The yellow caution light has gone on because I think our progress in vaccination has slowed,” said William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Forty percent of the US population has not been fully vaccinated, and the number of doses administered each day has decreased from about 3.3m in April to about 1.7m today, according to the Times.
Ohio is surrounded by states that have also seen a recent surge in Covid cases and hospitalizations. Pennsylvania and Michigan each have a daily average of more than 4,500 patients hospitalized, representing a more than 20% increase over the past two weeks. Illinois and Indiana have seen a 49% increase in hospitalizations.
D’Abramo diagnoses about 10 patients daily with Covid, and about 98% of them are unvaccinated, she said.
That trend has strained the capacity of hospitals in the Cleveland area. MetroHealth, Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals announced last week that the surge has forced them to postpone some non-urgent surgeries.
“This action frees resources for patients with immediate and life-threatening needs and manages the demands on frontline caregivers, who have served with distinction throughout the pandemic,” reads a joint announcement.
At Beaumont Health, the largest healthcare system in Michigan, the emergency room and other parts of the hospital are full, primarily with patients who are not vaccinated, said Dr Matthew Sims, a Beaumont physician and director of infectious disease research.
“With Covid patients, they have to be in rooms. You can’t go into overload conditions where you turn conferences rooms into emergency rooms or hallways into wards. You can’t do that sort of thing when it’s a contagious disease,” said Sims.
Beaumont, like other hospitals in Michigan and across the country, has also had to contend with a staffing shortage. The federal government recently agreed to send 22 healthcare providers to a Beaumont facility in Dearborn and 22 providers to Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, the Detroit News reported.
In addition to the shortage, “everyone who works in healthcare is getting very tired. We have been dealing with this for two years straight, and it wears on us,” said Sims.
Doctors continue to not only urge people to get vaccinated against Covid – and for those who are eligible to get a booster shot – but also to encourage people to wear N95 or KN95 masks during indoor gatherings and if possible, to gather outdoors or open doors and windows to improve filtration, said Dr Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist at New York University.
Gounder also suggested that people take rapid Covid tests before holiday gatherings.
“I think we have chosen one of the most painful paths through the pandemic in this country” because of people’s refusal to get vaccinated, Gounder said. “I think we have prolonged our pain unnecessarily.”
Gounder and others now wait for more data on the Omicron variant, which has been detected in 19 states and 50 countries, National Public Radio reported Tuesday.
Researchers in South Africa have reported that Omicron may be more infectious but less severe than other forms of the virus.
While Schaffner emphasized that we are still awaiting more information, if the variant proves more infectious and much less likely to produce hospitalization, “then Omicron might actually be a bonus because we would be vaccinating, but Omicron would also be spreading among the unvaccinated, making them mildly ill and offering them some protection.”
That “would get us closer, faster, to so-called herd immunity, which would lead us to a more endemic circumstance,” rather than a pandemic, Schaffner said.
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In the meantime, D’Abramo, the Ohio emergency physician, continues to grapple with the pandemic inside and outside her hospital. Two unvaccinated friends with a 10-year-old child recently became very sick with Covid, she said.
The wife remains on an ECMO life support machine; the husband was hospitalized for two weeks and is now home.
“To me, that’s a tragedy. There is no way to say she wouldn’t have gotten sick if she was vaccinated, but most likely, she wouldn’t have,” D’Abramo said.
At the hospital, she routinely has Covid patients waiting for beds in the intensive care unit. D’Abramo must decide whether to intubate them and connect them to a ventilator.
“I don’t ever come home from a shift and be like, ‘That was a nice, normal shift.’” D’Abramo said. “It’s nonstop and it does kind of feel like you get beat down because you are getting beat down by something that I thought would maybe be over this winter.”
The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi posed for portraits at TCU's Frog Fountain prior to attending a Victory event on September 26, 2014.. (I don't have the first clue what this event was, but I'm assuming it was a formal dance of some sort.) You can learn more about the chapter at the following sites:
www.facebook.com/AOIILambdaRho
This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.
Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:
www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/
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Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:
12/12/2021. London, United Kingdom. The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, gives a national television address concerning the Omicron variant of Covid and the government's booster jab program. 10 Downing Street. Picture by Tim Hammond / No 10 Downing Street
08/12/2021. London, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Boris Johnson-Omicron Press Conference . The Prime Minister Boris Johnson chairs a press conference on the Covid-19 variant Omicron in No9 Downing Street with Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance and Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
20/12/2021. London, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Boris Johnson Update after Cabinet on Omicron. The Prime Minister Boris Johnson updates the media in the study of No10 Downing Street after a Cabinet meeting on the Omicron variant . Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
20/12/2021. London, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Boris Johnson Update after Cabinet on Omicron. The Prime Minister Boris Johnson updates the media in the study of No10 Downing Street after a Cabinet meeting on the Omicron variant . Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
08/12/2021. London, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Boris Johnson-Omicron Press Conference . The Prime Minister Boris Johnson chairs a press conference on the Covid-19 variant Omicron in No9 Downing Street with Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance and Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
08/12/2021. London, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Boris Johnson-Omicron Press Conference . The Prime Minister Boris Johnson chairs a press conference on the Covid-19 variant Omicron in No9 Downing Street with Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance and Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
08/12/2021. London, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Boris Johnson-Omicron Press Conference . The Prime Minister Boris Johnson chairs a press conference on the Covid-19 variant Omicron in No9 Downing Street with Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance and Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Omicron-brings-COVI...
Omicron brings COVID-19 vaccine inequity 'home to roost'
LONDON (AP) — The emergence of the new omicron variant and the world's desperate and likely futile attempts to keep it at bay are reminders of what scientists have warned for months: The coronavirus will thrive as long as vast parts of the world lack vaccines.
The hoarding of limited COVID-19 shots by rich countries — creating virtual vaccine deserts in many poorer ones — doesn’t just mean risk for the parts of the world seeing shortages; it threatens the entire globe.
That's because the more the disease spreads among unvaccinated populations, the more possibilities it has to mutate and potentially become more dangerous, prolonging the pandemic for everyone.
“The virus is a ruthless opportunist, and the inequity that has characterized the global response has now come home to roost,” said Dr. Richard Hatchett, CEO of CEPI, one of the groups behind the U.N.-backed COVAX shot-sharing initiative.
Perhaps nowhere is the inequality more evident than in Africa, where under 7% of the population is vaccinated. South African scientists alerted the World Health Organization to the new omicron variant last week, though it may never be clear where it first originated. Researchers are now rushing to determine whether it is more infectious or able to evade current vaccines.
COVAX was supposed to avoid such inequality — but instead the initiative is woefully short of shots and has already abandoned its initial goal of 2 billion doses.
Even to reach its scaled-back target of distributing 1.4 billion doses by the end of 2021, it must ship more than 25 million doses every day. Instead, it has averaged just over 4 million a day since the beginning of October, with some days dipping below 1 million, according to an Associated Press analysis of the shipments.
Shipments in recent days have ramped up, but nowhere near the amount needed.
Meanwhile, richer nations often have a glut of shots, and many are now offering boosters — something the WHO has discouraged because every booster is essentially a dose that is not going to someone who's never even gotten their first shot. Despite the U.N. health agency's appeal to countries to declare a moratorium on booster shots until the end of the year, more than 60 countries are now administering them.
“What it highlights are the continuing and fundamental risks to everyone associated with not seriously addressing the inequalities still at play globally in the fight against disease and poor health," said Dr. Osman Dar, director of the One Health Project at the Chatham House think tank.
Anna Marriott, health policy manager for Oxfam, said COVAX was limited from the outset after being pushed to the back of the vaccine queue by rich countries.
“The COVAX team may be delivering as fast as they can, but they can’t deliver vaccines they haven’t got,” Marriott said.
Just 13% of vaccines COVAX contracted for and 12% of promised donations have actually been delivered, according to calculations by the International Monetary Fund from mid-November. About a third of the vaccines dispensed by COVAX have been donations, according to the vaccine alliance known as Gavi, and the initiative is now partly a clearinghouse for those donated doses, the very situation it was set up to avoid.
Last week, COVAX sent out a news release praising a European Union pledge to ship 100 million vaccines to Africa by the end of the year — but only 1/20 of that amount was actually on planes.
Asked about the logistical challenges of distributing the other 94 million doses in only six weeks, Aurelia Nguyen, managing director of COVAX maintained that arrangements “are in place to move a vast number of doses between now and the end of the year."
In a statement, she said the issue was ensuring that “conditions are right on the ground for doses to be administered.”
In minutes released ahead of an executive meeting this week, Gavi fretted that the perception that rich countries are dumping older or lesser vaccines on poor countries could undermine the whole project. On Monday, in a joint statement with WHO and the African Union among others, it admonished that “the majority of the donations to date have been ad hoc, provided with little notice and short shelf lives.”
Fury over dose dumping is already very real. In Malawi and South Sudan, tens of thousands of out-of-date doses were destroyed.
But it's not just getting the vaccines into poorer countries that's a problem, according to some experts. COVAX is “falling short on getting vaccines from the (airport) tarmac into people’s arms,” said Dr. Angela Wakhweya, senior director for health equity and rights at CARE.
Authorities in Congo, for instance, returned their entire COVAX shipment this summer when they realized they would not be able to administer doses before they expired.
In a “risk management” report on COVAX, Gavi warned that “poor absorption” of vaccines by developing countries could lead to “wastage” of some doses. One problem is logistics — just getting the doses in the right country at the right time. But just as important is the ability of often underfunded national health systems to distribute the shots where they're most needed, along with syringes and other necessary gear. A third issue is persuading sometimes hesitant people to get the vaccines.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, however, has disputed distribution is a problem, saying the only obstacle to immunization in poor countries is supply.
Most COVAX doses distributed so far have been AstraZeneca’s vaccine, a shot that has yet to be authorized in the U.S. and whose botched rollout in Europe helped fuel anti-vaccine sentiment when the vaccine was linked to rare blood clots. The vaccines mostly used in the U.S. and much of Europe — made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna — have only been available in tiny amounts via COVAX.
The U.S., which blocked vaccine sales overseas and exports of key ingredients for months, has donated 275 million doses in all, more than any other country but still less than a third of what the Biden administration pledged. The European Union, which has in general allowed vaccines manufactured in the bloc to be sold anywhere in the world, has actually delivered about a third of its 400 million promised doses.
Efforts to ramp up global production beyond a select group of manufacturers have stalled, which many activists and scientists blame on pharmaceutical companies' opposition to waive intellectual property rights for the highly lucrative vaccines.
Given that the pandemic has so far not devastated Africa as many had initially feared, some scientists on the continent are now discussing whether to withdraw their vaccine requests.
“I think what Africa could do to really shame the world is to stop asking for vaccines,” said Christian Happi, a Nigerian virologist who sat on the scientific advisory board of CEPI. “The vaccines have not arrived, and anyways it may turn out that we don’t need them as much as the West.”
www.cnn.com/2021/11/29/politics/omicron-variant-covid-19-...
Biden says new Omicron variant is 'cause for concern, not a cause for panic'
(CNN)President Joe Biden on Monday said the new Omicron coronavirus variant is "a cause for concern, not a cause for panic," as federal health officials brace for the first cases of the new variant to be detected in the US.
"Sooner or later we're going to see cases of this new variant here in the United States. We'll have to face this new threat just as we face those who have come before it," Biden said, speaking from the White House.
The President noted scientists and officials are learning more every day about the new variant. He said the new travel restrictions his administration put in place, which went into effect Monday and restricted travel from several countries in Southern Africa, gives the US more time to respond.
Biden said on Thursday he would put forward a "detailed strategy outlining how we're going to fight Covid this winter. Not with shutdowns or lockdowns, but with more widespread vaccinations, boosters, testing and more."
The President told reporters lockdowns to prevent the spread of the virus were off the table "for now."
"If people are vaccinated and wear their mask, there's no need for lockdown," Biden said.
The President again urged Americans to get vaccinated and get their booster shots, saying it is the best protection against this new variant, as well as any other variants.
"We have the best vaccine in the world, the best medicines, the best scientists, and we're learning more every single day. And we'll fight this variant with scientific and knowledgeable actions and speed -- not chaos and confusion," Biden said.
He continued: "We have more tools today to fight the variant than we've ever had before, from vaccines to boosters to vaccines for children, 5 years and older and much more."
Biden was joined on Monday by Vice President Kamala Harris and his chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Officials briefed Biden for approximately 45 minutes Sunday on the new variant and again on Monday morning, with a heavy dose of caution about what's still unknown. Health officials say there are likely far more cases worldwide than is currently known.
Biden praised South African scientists for their transparency and quick work in identifying and reporting the new variant.
"This kind of transparency is to be encouraged and applauded because it increases our ability to respond quickly to any new threats, and that's exactly what we did," Biden said, adding that he does not believe the travel restrictions would make other countries less likely to report new variants.
The President said: "We needed time to give people an opportunity to say get that vaccination now before it, it's going to move around the world. I think it's almost inevitable that there will be at some point that strain here in the United States, but I don't think anyone is going to be reluctant to report."
Biden's team told him it will likely take one to two weeks to know more about the variant, including whether antibodies handle it effectively. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is currently sequencing coronavirus genomes and working closely with state health officials, two steps that will be critical to figuring out if the variant is already in the US.
Biden said to beat the pandemic, the world needs to be vaccinated, and said the US has shipped more than 275 million Covid-19 vaccines to 110 countries.
"Now we need the rest of the world to step us as well," Biden said.
Fauci said Sunday that hopefully scientists will be able to make a determination soon on whether the Omicron variant is resistant to current Covid-19 vaccines. It's also too soon to tell whether Omicron causes more severe disease.
Fauci said he doesn't think there's any possibility that Omicron could completely evade any protection from the vaccine, but that it may diminish the level of protection.
If there is a diminution of protection, Fauci and other health officials said getting a Covid-19 vaccine booster shot could help enhance protection, since boosters enlarge the capacity of the body to recognize all kinds of mutations on coronavirus variants.
Vaccine maker Moderna's chief medical officer told CNN that the Omicron variant has at least 50 mutations -- including 30 on the key spike protein, which allows the virus to enter human cells, alone. He added that Omicron has thrown a "new wrench" into the fight against Covid-19, but emphasized that having some vaccination will help fight even a very altered and highly dangerous variant.
Biden announced Friday the US would restrict travel from South Africa and seven other countries starting Monday because of the new variant. The Biden administration is now restricting travel from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi. The President was acting on advice from Fauci and the CDC.
The Omicron variant has already been detected on five continents -- North America, Australia, Africa, Europe, Asia -- and the travel restrictions are already generating push back, with South Africa's Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation saying they are "akin to punishing" South Africa.
The Omicron variant was the quickest to be labeled a "variant of concern" by the World Health Organization because of its seemingly fast spread in South Africa and its many troubling mutations.
WHO designates coronavirus variants as either variants of concern -- meaning they look dangerous enough to bear close scrutiny and continual updates -- or as variants of interest, or variants under monitoring. Only five currently meet the definition for variants of concern: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Omicron.
EHS Social Work honors students with induction. Phi Alpha Social Work Honor Society
Champlain College Chapter: Rho Omicron
Fall 2014. (Photo by Stephen Mease)
The newest members of Dillard's Circle of the Omicron Delta Kappa, the National Leadership Honor Society, gather for the 2019 Initiation in Georges Auditorium on April 3, 2019. (Photo by Sabree Hill/ Dillard University Photographer)
History & Glory
Galleria Storica
Anno: 1927 - 1936
Tara: 6,3 - 7,7 tonnellate
Lunghezza: 8300 - 9850 millimetri
Motore: Benzina
Cilindri: 6
Cilindrata: 7060 centimetri cubi
Potenza: 91,5 Cavalli (HP)
Velocità massima: 40 chilometri/orari
Anni 30 - Lo sviluppo del trasporto
Omicron é un autobus prodotto da Lancia tra il 1927 e il 1936, con la costruzione in totale di 601 modelli. E' stato sviluppato in diverse versioni con telaio corto o lungo per l'uso urbano, oltre ad una versione a due piani. Molto lussuoso per l'epoca, venne utilizzato anche per viaggi lunghi. Il telaio Omicron era disponibile in tre versioni, la C (versione corta) e L (versione lunga), entrambi con due assi, e un'opzione a tre assi. Il Omicron C aveva un passo di 8.300 millimetri e il Omicron L aveva un passo più lungo, di 9.530 o 9.850 millimetri. Il modello esposto venne utilizzato come officina mobile per gli autobus del trasporto pubblico a Roma. Rimase in servizio sino al 1956
12/12/2021. London, United Kingdom. The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, gives a national television address concerning the Omicron variant of Covid and the government's booster jab program. 10 Downing Street. Picture by Tim Hammond / No 10 Downing Street
Grupp 1, SCHAPENDOES, DK UCH EUW-15 FI UCH NO JV-13 NO UCH NO V-13 NO V-14 SE UCH Carnac’s Outstanding Omicron
MyDOG, nordens största hundevenemang. www.mydog.se
12/12/2021. London, United Kingdom. The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, gives a national television address concerning the Omicron variant of Covid and the government's booster jab program. 10 Downing Street. Picture by Tim Hammond / No 10 Downing Street
The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi posed for portraits at TCU's Frog Fountain prior to attending a Victory event on September 26, 2014.. (I don't have the first clue what this event was, but I'm assuming it was a formal dance of some sort.) You can learn more about the chapter at the following sites:
www.facebook.com/AOIILambdaRho
This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.
Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:
www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/
www.facebook.com/fortworthportraitproject
www.twitter.com/FWPortraitProj
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Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:
02/12/2021. London, United Kingdom. The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson hosts a virtual roundtable with leading members of the Pharmaceutical industry. Accompanied by The Health Secretary, Sajid Javid and The Chief Scientific Advisor, Patrick Vallance. 09 Downing Street. Picture by Tim Hammond / No 10 Downing Street
"Construí a casa em que moro sobre a casa em que morei. Num vício contido de mim mesmo me repliquei."
Pequeno pensamento que me ocorreu quando olhei para nosso Centro de Fotografia. O Omicron Centro de Fotografia é uma grande família. Adoro ver os corredores movimentados e aulas acontecendo nos mais diversos temas. Os alunos são minha inspiração, minha força e o destino deste lugar. Salve, salve a fotografia que aproxima pessoas e destinos.
Osvaldo Santos Lima
12/12/2021. London, United Kingdom. The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, gives a national television address concerning the Omicron variant of Covid and the government's booster jab program. 10 Downing Street. Picture by Tim Hammond / No 10 Downing Street
Mais um Curso anual de Fotografia vai começar em agosto no Omicron Centro de Fotografia. Novos alunos, novas turmas, professores agregando cada vez mais conhecimento e boa vontade ao nosso curso.
Só há uma maneira de fazer: a maneira certa! Só há uma maneira de encarar nossos objetivos: olhando para o passado e percebendo que sempre devemos estar em movimento.
Aos alunos que chegam minhas boas vindas, aos que se formam,bem, eu não posso me despedir de vocês pois estaremos sempre juntos.
Osvaldo Santos Lima
David Mitchell's Omicron model. Folded from six A4 sheets using my very own silver rectangle version of the folding procedure for the basic unit.
Size: 10.5 cm x 10.5 cm x 10.5 cm
Paper design: Minecraft birch, sandstone, and spruce