Angola News Wire

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky Tuesday said the United States appears to be on a path out of the pandemic, noting the most recent seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases and deaths is the lowest since the pandemic began.

During a White House COVID-19 Response Team briefing, Walensky said the most recent figures indicate “we should all have cautious optimism.”

Senior White House COVID-19 adviser Andy Slavitt added to the good news, noting case numbers this past week were down in all 50 states also for the first time in the pandemic.

While vaccination rates have slowed, Walensky said the U.S. continues to vaccinate 1.5 and 2 million people per day. She said in less than a week since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the CDC authorized and recommended use of the Pfizer vaccine for adolescents 12 and older, more than 600,000 young people received the vaccine.

Walensky also noted that 60% of all Americans 18 or older have received at least one shot, a good sign the nation will easily meet U.S. President Joe Biden’s goal of having 70% with at least one shot by the 4th of July.

During the same briefing, Senior White House Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci sought to reassure Americans about the efficacies of the COVID-19 vaccines. He presented recent studies showing the current vaccines available in the U.S. are proving effective in providing protection against variant strains of the virus, including the B.1.6.7 variant, originally identified in India.

Walensky said the CDC is working on its guidance for U.S. school-age children for when they return to school later this year or, perhaps, attend summer camps in the next few months. She said the guidelines will be based on how many young people may be vaccinated in the next few months, so they are still being developed.

Source: Voice of America

With little more than two months to go before the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympic Games, a major Japanese medical association is calling for the cancellation of the event due to the current surge of new COVID-19 infections.

The Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association posted an open letter Monday to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga warning that hospitals in the Japanese capital city “have their hands full and have almost no spare capacity.”

The group that represents about 6,000 primary care doctors and hospitals urged Suga to convince the International Olympic Committee that holding the games would be “difficult” and that it should be called off.

The current surge has prompted authorities to place Tokyo and several other prefectures under a state of emergency, leading to a growing demand among the general public to cancel the Olympics, which are scheduled to begin July 23 after a one-year delay because of the pandemic.

A public opinion poll published Monday by Asahi Shimbun newspaper revealed more than 80% of Japanese are opposed to the games, with 43% wanting them canceled and another 40% calling for them to be postponed again.

Only 14% of those want the games to proceed as scheduled.

The outbreak has also caused the Japanese economy to contract 5.1% in the first three months of 2021.

Taiwan to close schools

Meanwhile, health officials in Taiwan said Tuesday it will close all schools and education centers in the island due to the surge of new coronavirus infections. The closures, which also include all daycare centers, take effect Wednesday and last through May 28.

The self-ruled island had been held up as one of the world’s few success stories in containing the spread of the coronavirus, with just 2,017 total cases and 12 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. But it has been dealing with an outbreak of new infections which authorities have connected to outbreaks among flight crews with state-owned China Airlines and a hotel at Taoyuan International Airport.

Taipei reported 240 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, down from Monday’s record-high 335 new infections. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Pfizer, Moderna vaccines

On the vaccine front, a group of U.S. scientists say the COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna are highly effective against the B.1.617 and B.1.618 variants first detected in India. The lab-based preliminary study conducted at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine used serum samples collected from eight people who had recovered from COVID-19, six people fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine and three people fully vaccinated with Moderna’s.

The researchers found the antibodies from people who had been vaccinated were working “well above” the serum level from those who had recovered from COVID-19.

The study has not been peer-reviewed.

Meanwhile, the European Union’s drug regulator announced Monday the Pfizer vaccine can be stored much longer at temperatures higher than previously recommended. The European Medicines Agency said unopened vials of the two-shot vaccine can be stored between five and 30 days at temperatures between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius, as opposed to ultra-cold temperatures between minus 70 and 80 degrees Celsius.

The new storage recommendations will make it easier to distribute the vaccine among the EU’s 27-member states, many of whom have been mired in slow inoculation rates.

Johns Hopkins is reporting more than 163.6 million total COVID-19 infections worldwide, including more than 3.3 million deaths. The United States leads the world with more than 32.9 million confirmed infections and 586,359 deaths. India has topped 25 million total infections, putting it second behind the U.S., while Brazil is third with more than 15.6 million confirmed cases.

Brazil is in second place in total deaths with 436,537, while India is third with 278,719 deaths.

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA – A growing number of people around the world are dying from heart disease and stroke because of overwork, a new World Health Organization-International Labor Organization study says. The study is based on data from more than 2,300 surveys collected in 154 countries from 1970 to 2018.

The study says those working at least 55 hours a week are at higher risk of dying from heart disease and stroke. In 2016, the data show 1 in 10 people around the world, or 450 million, worked excessively long hours, leading to 745,000 heart disease and stroke deaths.

Frank Pega, a technical officer in WHO’s department of environment, climate change and health, says this is a 29% increase since 2000.

“We know that this burden disproportionately affects men,” said Pega. “Seventy percent of all death deaths? from cardiovascular disease occur occurs? in men, according to our official estimates. Also, the regions that are most affected are Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. And we can tell you that it appears that middle-aged and older workers are disproportionately burdened.”

The study reports most recorded deaths are among those aged 60 to 79 who have worked for 55 hours or more per week. The lowest recorded number is in Africa, which has a young population.

It says Europe and North America have the lowest occupational disease rates. It says this is because people in these regions are largely covered by employment protections that limit the number of hours they work.

The new analysis highlights the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has on workers, who increasingly are working from home. Pega says teleworking and the digitization of work appear to be speeding the trend toward long working hours.

“We have some evidence that shows that when countries go into national lockdown, the numbers of hours work increased by about 10%. … We also have … a sort of massive increase in digitization of work, and digitization of work might actually make it harder to disconnect,” said Pega. “… Rest periods and personal periods might need to be scheduled when you are working online, because otherwise you might be working very long hours.”

Health and occupational safety officials urge nations to consider the well-being of their populations as the world enters the post-COVID recovery period. They say governments must ensure that recovery measures are not pursued at the expense of the health of workers.

They say governments should introduce and enforce laws that ban mandatory overtime and ensure limits on maximum working times.

Source: Voice of America

PRAYAGRAJ – Police are reaching out to villagers in northern India to investigate the recovery of bodies buried in shallow sand graves or washing up on the Ganges River banks, prompting speculation on social media that they were the remains of COVID-19 victims.

In jeeps and boats, the police used portable loudspeakers with microphones asking people not to dispose of the bodies in rivers. “We are here to help you perform the last rites,” police said.

On Friday, rains exposed the cloth coverings of bodies buried in shallow sand graves on the riverbank in Prayagraj, a city in Uttar Pradesh state.

Navneet Sehgal, a state government spokesman, on Sunday denied local media reports that more than 1,000 corpses of COVID-19 victims had been recovered from rivers in the past two weeks. “I bet these bodies have nothing to do with COVID-19,” he said.

He said some villagers did not cremate their dead, as is customary, due to a Hindu tradition during some periods of religious significance and disposed of them in rivers or digging graves on riverbanks.

K.P. Singh, a senior police officer, said authorities had earmarked a cremation ground for those who died of COVID-19 on the Prayagraj riverbank and the police were no longer allowing any burials on the riverfront.

Sehgal state authorities have found “a small number” of bodies on the riverbanks, he said, but didn’t give a figure.

Ramesh Kumar Singh, a member of Bondhu Mahal Samiti, a philanthropic organization that helps cremate bodies, said the number of deaths is very high in rural areas, and poor people have been disposing of the bodies in the river because of the exorbitant cost of performing the last rites and a shortage of wood. The cremation cost has tripled up to 15,000 rupees ($210).

Health authorities last week retrieved 71 bodies that washed up on the Ganges River bank in neighboring Bihar state.

Authorities performed post mortems but said they could not confirm the cause of death due to decomposition.

A dozen corpses were also found last week buried in sand at two locations on the riverbank in Unnao district, 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Lucknow, the Uttar Pradesh state capital. District Magistrate Ravindra Kumar said an investigation is underway to identify the cause of death.

India’s two big states, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, with nearly 358 million people in total, are among the worst hit in the surge sweeping through the country with devastating death tolls. Hapless villagers have been rushing the sick to nearby towns and cities for treatment, many of them dying on the way, victims of India’s crumbling health care.

After hitting record highs for weeks, the number of new cases was stabilizing, said Dr. V.K. Paul, a government health expert.

The Health Ministry on Sunday reported 311,170 confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, down from 326,098 on Saturday.

It also reported 4,077 additional deaths, taking the total fatalities to 270,284. Both figures are almost certainly a vast undercount, experts say.

Source: Voice of America

The largest U.S. union of registered nurses has condemned the Centers for Disease Control’s recent announcement that fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks in most settings.

“This newest CDC guidance is not based on science, does not protect public health, and threatens the lives of patients, nurses, and other frontline workers across the country,” National Nurses United Executive Director Bonnie Castillo said in a statement. “Now is not the time to relax protective measures, and we are outraged that the CDC has done just that while we are still in the midst of the deadliest pandemic in a century.”

NNU President Jean Ross said, “if the CDC had fully recognized the science on how this deadly virus is transmitted, this new guidance would never have been issued.”

The union called on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue emergency temporary standard (ETS) on infectious diseases “without delay.”

“If OSHA does not issue a Covid ETS immediately, we will undoubtedly see more unnecessary, preventable infections and deaths, as well as long Covid cases among nurses and other frontline workers,” said NNU President Zenei Triunfo-Cortez,

Saturday, the CDC also said it is refining its coronavirus guidelines and announced when schools open this fall, students from kindergarten through 12th grade should wear masks because all students will not be fully vaccinated. The agency said masks should be worn while riding buses and while inside schools. It also urged students and teachers to maintain 6 feet of social distancing.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was approved earlier this month for children, ages 12 and older.

Surge sweeps rural India

India’s daily count of new COVID infections continues a downward trend, but numbers are still dangerously high. On Sunday, the health ministry said there were 311,170 new cases and 4,077 deaths in the previous 24-hour period.

The virus is spreading aggressively in rural areas, where two-thirds of the country’s 1.4 billion people live.

Amid news reports of sick people in rural areas being rushed to towns and cities for treatment, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered his government to mobilize all resources to distribute oxygen supplies and other medical aid to hard-hit rural areas.

India has 24.6 million COVID cases, but public health experts believe India has undercounted the infections. Only the U.S. has more cases than India with nearly 33 million, according to the Johs Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The global COVID count is 162.5 million cases, Johns Hopkins says.

Lockdown in Caribbean

A surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths is prompting a state of emergency and curfew beginning early Sunday in Trinidad and Tobago. According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the twin island state has seen 2,659 new cases of COVID-19 and 69 new deaths in the past week. Both are records.

Health officials say the variant first found in Brazil, which is highly transmissible, is partly to blame. More than 61,000 shots have gone into arms in Trinidad and Tobago, but only 1,179 people are fully vaccinated.

Source: Voice of America