Category: General

A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel Friday recommended a third shot of the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for some people with weakened immune systems following a Thursday authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted 11-0 on the matter. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky must give a final sign-off.

The CDC said those seeking a booster will not need a prescription or proof from a health care provider saying they are immunocompromised, Reuters reported.

“It will be a patient’s attestation, and there will be no requirement for proof or prescription or a recommendation from an individual’s health care provider,” CDC official Dr. Amanda Cohn said, speaking before the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice vote.

“The FDA is especially cognizant that immunocompromised people are particularly at risk for severe disease,” the agency’s acting commissioner, Dr. Janet Woodcock, said in a statement late Thursday.

“Other individuals who are fully vaccinated are adequately protected,” Woodcock said, “and do not need an additional dose of COVID-19 vaccine at this time.”

Scientists have been debating whether to offer extra doses of COVID-19 vaccines to certain immunocompromised people, such as organ transplant recipients or cancer patients. A recent study by Johns Hopkins University found that many transplant patients had little to no antibody protections after receiving the full two doses of a vaccine, but a third shot boosted their protection.

People eligible for a third shot should wait at least 28 days after their second shot.

It remains unclear if or when a third dose could be recommended for all Americans.

“We believe sooner or later you will need a booster for durability of protection” – but not yet, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious diseases expert, told reporters this week.

Source: Voice of America

The Biden administration on Friday announced plans to provide billions of dollars in American Rescue Plan funding to help rural communities battle the COVID-19 pandemic.

The money will be targeted to assist rural hospitals and health care providers, according to a White House news release. The money will also be used to expand access to testing and vaccines as well as to train more health care workers.

The statement said 138 rural hospitals have shuttered since 2010, with 19 hospitals closing in 2020 alone.

“For many rural communities, keeping rural hospitals open means the difference between life or death for community members.”

Some of the money will be used to pay health care workers who were not able to work because of the pandemic.

“These funds will help ensure that providers can effectively respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and will place them on a stable financial footing to continue serving their communities into the future,” the statement said.

Funding will also be used to increase access to telehealth services.

Source: Voice of America

NAIROBI, KENYA – Kenya’s Olympic team won 10 medals at the Tokyo Games, the most of any African nation. However, Kenyan officials say the medal count could have been even higher if not for the training restrictions brought on by COVID-19.

As in past years, Kenya dominated the long-distance running competitions, winning gold in the 800 and 1500 meters and men’s and women’s marathons.

Emmanuel Korir, who won the 800 meters gold for Kenya, told VOA he was happy with his performance.

“To be honest, I am so happy. We didn’t get time to train well. I don’t want to complain. It affected everyone, so we were all equal. Everything was fine. The only problem was there were no spectators, but at least we did it,” Korir said.

The East African nation won more medals than any other African nation, but this year’s performance was not as good compared to the 2016 Olympics in Rio, where its athletes won 13 medals.

Kenya lost the men’s 3,000 meters steeplechase in Tokyo after winning gold in the event every Olympics since 1984.

Barnaba Korir, the general team manager for Kenya’s Olympic team, says the lockdowns and restriction of movements caused by the COVID-19 pandemic stopped the athletes from winning more medals.

“Athletes were not allowed to train in a group. They had to train individually. It really affected them and we did not expect them to do well. And when we selected the team for the Olympics, there were also restrictions. We have to have athletes at the camp and the development where an athlete is not allowed to leave outside, the movement is restricted. They had to be in the camp, so those things were psychologically affecting our athletes but they ran very well,” Barnaba Korir said.

Emmanuel Korir says he is already looking forward to the next Olympics in Paris.

“I am working for maybe one day to run a world record. Preparing for the world championship and for the next Olympics; we have only three years, so everything is going to be fine,” he said.

Meanwhile, many Kenyans on social media criticized government officials for failing to organize a reception for its returning champions.

But Barnaba Korir says the criticism is unjustified.

“But I was there. I came early from Tokyo and we had officials from the government. Most of our athletes were arriving minutes after midnight and we organized for Faith Kipyegon and Peres Chepchirchir, Brigid Kosgey. We organized our athletes to be received at the airport and taken to a five-star hotel. So, I don’t think we should go that direction,” he said.

Barnaba Korir added that the government’s Ministry of Sports is working on developing a standard procedure to honor winning Olympic athletes in the future.

Source: Voice of America

SAN FRANCISCO – TikTok announced on Thursday additional restrictions for teenagers, its audience of choice, to better protect them against dangers related to social networks such as bullying or lack of sleep.

“We think it is important to be even more proactive to ensure the safety of adolescents,” said the platform, which has built its success in particular thanks to the enthusiasm of young users for its format of short and rhythmic videos.

Direct messaging will be disabled by default for 16- and 17-year-olds.

Teens in general will be encouraged to pay more attention to who can see the videos they upload. Those under 16, in particular, will be forced to choose among their subscribers, their friends or no one.

And some options will be disabled, like “Stitch” and “Duet”; the latter allows you to take a video and shoot another in parallel to broadcast both at the same time. Some users do it to value other users, but some do it to denigrate them.

In addition, 13-to-15-year-olds will no longer receive notifications after 9 p.m., nor 16- and 17-year-olds after 10 p.m., to promote more restful nights.

Despite strict rules against all content that sexualizes or exploits children, networks popular with young people are regularly criticized for not sufficiently protecting children from online predators.

They therefore seek to protect themselves from possible scandals without repelling their audience.

Google and Facebook regularly update their regulations concerning adolescents. Since Tuesday, on the ultra-popular YouTube (Google), videos uploaded by 13-to-17-year-olds are by default in “private” mode.

TikTok became the world’s most downloaded mobile application in 2020, ahead of Facebook and its messengers, a sign that the pandemic has amplified the success of the lightweight video platform beyond its initial audience.

Source: Voice of America

Regional Overview

Refugee and asylum seeker populations have faced notable hardships during the COVID-19 pandemic particularly in contexts of limited integration within hosting nations. Now, more than ever, there is a need for sustained investments in fostering self-reliance of refugee populations through progressive national policies, integration into social protection systems, predictable multi-year funding, and co -operation amongst nations for voluntary and safe repatriations and re-integrations. Critical also is sustained focus on preventing root causes of internal and crossborder displacements: conflict and violations of human rights.

WFP recognizes the contributions of supporting donors in this particularly challenging resourcing climate. However, resourcing remains insufficient to meet even the very basic needs of refugee households with WFP pushed to implement reductions in rations due to resourcing limitations in some contexts. WFP also calls for the global community to sustain focus on the self-reliance potential for refugees which is threatened by diversions in resourcing and slow progress in the integration of refugees into national systems consistent with the spirit of international refugee frameworks.

Southern Africa hosts 6.5 million IDPs and 1.1 million refugees and asylum-seekers originating mostly from Rwanda, Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi and South Sudan. WFP continues its dedicated support to refugees holistically addressing immediate food and nutrition needs, advancing resilience and livelihoods opportunities, supporting social cohesion through diverse support to host locations, and increasing focus on contributions to peace, stability and conflict sensitive programming across all locations to address root causes of displacement.

This update presents an overview of WFP’s refugee operations in Southern Africa. It highlights some of the measures taken by WFP and partners to not only serve refugees better, but also to draw attention to critical funding shortfalls that threaten the food and nutrition safety, and protection, of refugees, as well as the necessary progress towards self-reliance.

Source: World Food Programme

Situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Although a peaceful transition of power followed the December 2018 presidential elections in the DRC, at the end of 2020, the overall security situation remained complex, with continued inter-ethnic conflicts and armed attacks, particularly in the eastern provinces of the country. Since 2019 and throughout 2020, increased violence has resulted in the continued internal forced displacement of more than 5.2 million people, according to the 2021 DRC Humanitarian Response Plan. This includes approximately 2.9 million people displaced in 2020 in the eastern provinces (mainly in Ituri, North and South Kivu and Tanganyika). This is the largest IDP situation in Africa and one of the most acute and longstanding humanitarian crises in the world. The country also hosts about half a million refugees, fleeing unrest and persecution in neighbouring countries.

The situation in the DRC was aggravated in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic, while the DRC also continues to fight against successive outbreaks of the Ebola Virus Disease and a measles outbreak. Additionally, in October 2020, OCHA estimated that 15.6 million people are severely food insecure, of which some 4.7 million suffer from severe malnutrition.

Although the rate of outflows from the DRC was lower in 2020 than in previous years, tens of thousands of people still fled across borders and have joined refugees from previous waves of violence and insecurity.

Refugees continued to flee mostly from eastern areas of North and South Kivu and Ituri Provinces to Uganda, as well as from Haut Katanga and Tanganyika Provinces to Zambia and other countries in Southern Africa. At the same time, some countries reported a net reduction in the Congolese refugee population attributed to spontaneous returns to the DRC, suggesting a general stability in some areas of origin.

Regional Protection and Solutions Context

The 2021 Regional Refugee Response Plan (RRRP) for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Situation details the inter-agency response for Congolese refugees in neighbouring countries of asylum: Angola, Burundi, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, United Republic of Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Most countries in the region have demonstrated commitment to maintaining open borders for asylum-seekers, and Congolese have benefitted from safe access to asylum and international protection. However in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments implemented precautionary measures including border closures, which affected access to asylum. This trend may continue into 2021 and RRRP partners are committed to engaging with governments to ensure those seeking asylum still have safe access to territory. Furthermore, Congolese refugees, particularly those living in camps and settlements, often face restrictions on their freedom of movement; right to work; housing, land and property rights; and access to education and justice. This situation was worsened in 2020 as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns and movement restrictions, which negatively impacted economic activity and resulted in loss of income and increased vulnerability for Congolese refugees and their families.

At the same time, refugee settlements and camps in many host countries have reached or exceeded capacity, and the available basic services are stretched to their limit. RRRP partners continue discussions to expand existing or establish new camps and settlements. While RRRP partners promote self-reliance with the aim of reducing dependence on humanitarian assistance, the reality is that this process is slow and often underfunded. Therefore, the majority of Congolese refugees are expected to continue to rely on assistance and services provided by RRRP partners and government. In 2021, it is expected that in addition to protection services, there will be a need for RRRP partners to continue to deliver basic services and assistance programmes: supporting health and nutrition services; maintaining and expanding water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) systems; improving household shelter infrastructure; supporting access to education; and providing food assistance either in-kind or through cash and voucher modalities. At the same time, RRRP partners will continue to work with government at various levels to secure the inclusion of refugees where possible into national and local systems of basic services and explore ways to reinforce government-led services as a way of facilitating refugees’ access.

There continue to be reports of incidents of discrimination and xenophobia in some refugee-hosting countries, and refugees are especially vulnerable, specifically women, children, and other persons with specific needs and disabilities. This highlights the need to intensify efforts towards social cohesion and peaceful coexistence, by including local communities in decision-making and expanding service provision to support the most vulnerable in communities hosting refugees. In this evolving protection environment, it is important to strengthen partnerships and collaboration between governments, humanitarian, and development actors to provide adequate protection and ensure legal safeguards to create an environment conducive to local integration and social cohesion. Given that prospects for voluntary repatriation and resettlement remain limited, it is necessary to strengthen self-reliance and integration initiatives for refugees and the communities that host them. It also remains critical to promote and support livelihood opportunities and increase vocational and skills training. For those who do wish to return to their homes in the DRC, it is important to ensure that voluntary repatriation is carried out in safety and dignity, and that livelihood opportunities and land are made available to returnees, to ensure that the return is sustainable.

Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Oregon Governor Kate Brown on Wednesday announced she was restoring a statewide indoor mask requirement for public settings as her state suffers from a record-breaking number of new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, largely among unvaccinated individuals.

The statewide mandate applies to all Oregon residents older than 5, regardless of vaccination status, and is intended to curb the spread of the more transmissible delta variant, which is threatening the state’s hospital capacity.

“The harsh reality is that delta is a different virus. It has changed everything,” Brown said during a press briefing. “Modeling from the Oregon Health Authority and Oregon Health & Science University project that … without safety measures, we could be as many as 500 staffed hospital beds short of what we need to treat patients by September.”

The mask mandate is set to go into effect on Friday. Brown also announced that all state executive branch employees would have to be fully vaccinated by either October 18 or six weeks after a vaccine has been granted full approval by the Food and Drug Administration.

During the briefing, State Epidemiologist Dean Sidelinger emphasized that unvaccinated people posed the greatest threat to themselves and their community.

Hospital beds filling up

“Oregonians, sick with COVID, nearly all of them unvaccinated, are on the verge of overfilling our hospital beds, posing a critical threat to all Oregonians who need hospital care,” Sidelinger said.

Oregon reported over 2,300 new coronavirus cases Tuesday and 635 coronavirus hospitalizations, both record-high numbers for the state. According to Brown, nearly 90% of Oregon’s intensive care unit beds are filled.

The state ranks 12th in the nation for fully vaccinated residents, with 56% of the population fully vaccinated. About 50% of the entire U.S. population is fully vaccinated.

“If you haven’t made the choice to get vaccinated yet, delta is the game changer that gives you a reason to reconsider,” said Pat Allen, the director of the Oregon Health Authority.

Oregon joined Louisiana and Washington, D.C., in reinstating universal indoor mask requirements amid a national resurgence of the virus. The U.S. is averaging over 110,000 new COVID cases a day, up from a low of about 11,000 per day in June, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Nevada recently introduced a modified indoor mask mandate that applies to residents in counties with “substantial or high transmission,” while Hawaii never eliminated its indoor mask requirement in the first place.

The CDC in late July recommended that both vaccinated and unvaccinated people resume wearing masks indoors if they live in areas with “substantial or high transmission,” citing new data on the contagiousness of the delta variant.

Rates high in most counties

As of Monday, the CDC had labeled nearly 90% of all U.S. counties as having substantial and high transmission rates. The delta variant accounted for 93% of new cases.

Six states — California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Mexico, New York and Washington — have taken a different approach, requiring only unvaccinated individuals to wear masks indoors in public settings.

Despite the rapidly increasing national caseload and nonbinding CDC mask recommendations, seven states have gone in a direction opposite from Oregon by legally prohibiting local governments or schools from enacting mask mandates.

These seven states are Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota and Texas. All are led by Republicans, who have generally defended the bans as protection against infringement on personal freedom.

Bans against mask mandates are already facing legal challenges. Two judges in Texas have issued separate temporary stops to their governor’s executive order banning face-covering requirements in schools and government buildings. Lawsuits have also been filed against the bans in several states, including Florida and Arkansas.

Source: Voice of America

California will require that all teachers and school staff be vaccinated or undergo weekly COVID-19 testing, Governor Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday. No other state has enacted such a requirement.

“We think this is the right thing to do, and we think this is a sustainable way to keeping our schools open and to address the number one anxiety that parents like myself have for young children,” said Newsom, who is facing a recall election.

Newsom’s mandate comes as some large school districts in California have already enacted similar rules as the delta variant spreads in the nation’s most populous state.

Health care, state workers

Recently, Newsom also mandated that health care workers get vaccinated. They don’t have the option of being tested instead. State employees are also required to be vaccinated or face weekly testing.

Meanwhile, two separate court decisions in Texas have granted local officials the authority to implement face mask mandates in defiance of Governor Greg Abbott’s order prohibiting local governments from issuing such initiatives.

A district judge in Dallas County on Tuesday issued a temporary restraining order against the governor’s order, saying Texans “have and will continue to be damaged and injured by Governor Abbott’s conduct.”

Clay Jenkins, the top Dallas County executive, had filed a lawsuit against Abbott’s executive order. Jenkins said Tuesday on Twitter that he would meet with county emergency officials in anticipation of issuing an order mandating mask wearing on Wednesday.

Another decision was handed down Tuesday in Bexar County, where a judge ruled that the county and San Antonio, its county seat, could mandate face coverings in public schools and other public buildings. County and city officials immediately issued mask mandates after the court’s ruling.

The superintendents of public schools in Dallas and Austin, the state capital, each imposed mandatory face mask orders for their districts earlier this week.

Abbott’s office has issued a statement defending his order, saying it is time for Texans to take “personal responsibility” when it comes to choosing to wear a mask.

In Florida, the Broward County school board voted Tuesday to maintain its face mask mandate in defiance of Governor Ron DeSantis, who has threatened to withhold funding from school districts and withhold the salaries of local superintendents and school board members who go against his order banning such mandates.

Different approaches

The governors of Oregon and Hawaii are taking different approaches and reimposing restrictions.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown issued an executive order Wednesday mandating that everyone return to wearing face masks indoors, regardless of their vaccination status. And Governor David Ige of Hawaii issued an order limiting bars, restaurants and gyms to 50% capacity, with patrons required to wear masks at all times except when eating and drinking.

Ige also ordered that all social gatherings be limited to no more than 10 people indoors and 25 people outdoors.

Source: Voice of America

Australia’s New South Wales state reported another 356 new COVID-19 infections Tuesday.

The new infections are the highest number for the southern state and its capital, Sydney, since a new surge that began in June, when a Sydney airport limousine driver tested positive for the highly contagious delta variant after transporting international air crews.

The latest infection numbers announced Tuesday in Sydney include at least three deaths.

New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced that the farming town of Tamworth and the coastal tourist spot of Byron Bay have been placed under an immediate seven-day lockdown after at least one person traveled there from Sydney.

Sydney and its more than five million citizens are in the latter half of a strict nine-week lockdown that is due to end August 28, but government officials have indicated it may extend the restrictions into September.

In the neighboring state of Victoria, officials reported 20 new cases Tuesday, an increase from the 11 new cases reported the day before. The state capital of Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, is under a lockdown that is scheduled to end Thursday.

Australia has been largely successful in containing the spread of COVID-19 through aggressive lockdown efforts, posting just 37,010 total confirmed cases and 943 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The national government has come under fire for a glacial vaccination effort that has led to just 18 percent of all Australians fully vaccinated.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison acknowledged Tuesday that the country was in a “tough fight” against the delta variant, but pledged that all Australians over 16 years old will be offered a vaccine by the end of the year, saying he wants “everybody around that table at Christmas time.”

High-risk destinations

In the United States, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Monday added seven new destinations to its highest risk level of its COVID-19 travel advisory list.

The CDC has designated Aruba, Eswatini, France, French Polynesia, Iceland, Israel and Thailand as Level 4 locations, which signifies a “very high” risk of contracting COVID-19. The federal health agency says anyone who must travel to those nations should be fully vaccinated.

The latest figures from Johns Hopkins show 203,443,396 million people around the world have tested positive for COVID-19, including 4.3 million deaths. The United States leads in both categories with 35.9 million total confirmed cases, including 617,321 deaths.

India has nearly 32 million total cases, Brazil is third, with 20.1 million. Brazil is second in COVID-19 fatalities with 563,562, followed by India with 428,682.

Source: Voice of America

Two school districts in Texas are defying an order issued by Governor Greg Abbott that prohibits local governments from issuing face mask mandates as the southwestern U.S. state faces a dramatic surge of new COVID-19 infections.

Michael Hinojosa, superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District, announced Monday that all students and teachers should wear face masks. The move comes just days after the superintendent of Houston’s public schools, the state’s largest school district, announced that he would ask the district’s trustee board to approve a similar mandate.

The head of Dallas County’s governing board of commissioners, Judge Clay Jenkins, has filed a lawsuit against Abbott’s executive order. The nonprofit South Center for Child Advocacy has also filed a lawsuit in Travis County, whose county seat, Austin, is also the state’s capital city, seeking a temporary restraining order against the governor’s order.

Amid the growing opposition to his order, Abbott on Monday called for hospitals across the state to voluntarily delay all elective, or non-emergency, surgeries and medical procedures to focus all of their efforts on treating the increasing number of COVID-19 patients. Many hospitals have either reached or exceeded patient capacity, with two major hospitals in Houston erecting tents to handle the overflow of coronavirus patients.

Abbott is also directing state agencies to search for additional medical personnel outside the state to help with the new surge of patients.

Another governor battling with local officials over mask mandates as COVID-19 cases rise in his state is Florida’s Ron DeSantis, who has threatened to withhold funding to school districts and withhold salaries of local superintendents and school board members who defy his order banning such mandates. Like Texas, the southeastern state is struggling to deal with the new surge of coronavirus patients, with more than 40% of the intensive care beds in Florida hospitals filled with COVID-19 patients.

The New York Times says the United States is now averaging more than 100,000 new COVID-19 cases a day, the biggest numbers since February, when the coronavirus vaccines were first made available to the general public.

Health experts have blamed the new surge on the spread of the more contagious delta variant and the declining number of Americans seeking vaccination.

Many of the new COVID-19 cases are among young children who are not yet eligible to receive a vaccine, according to the Times.

Source: Voice of America