Tag Archives: Coronavirus

In COVID-19 milestone for West, Britain starts mass vaccination

By Alistair Smout

LONDON (Reuters) – A 90-year-old grandmother became the world’s first person to receive a fully-tested COVID-19 shot on Tuesday, as Britain began mass-vaccinating its people in a global drive that poses one of the biggest logistical challenges in peacetime history.

Health workers started inoculating the most vulnerable with the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, with the country a test case for the world as it contends with distributing a compound that must be stored at -70C (-94F).

Margaret Keenan, who turns 91 in a week, was the first to receive the shot, at a hospital in Coventry, central England.

“It’s the best early birthday present I could wish for because it means I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the new year after being on my own for most of the year,” she said.

The launch of the vaccine, one of three shots that have reported successful results from large trials, will fuel hope that the world may be turning a corner in the fight against a pandemic that has killed more than 1.5 million people.

Britain, the worst-hit in Europe with over 61,000 deaths, is the first Western nation to begin mass-vaccinations and the first globally to roll out the Pfizer/BioNTech shot.

But despite the relief of people receiving the first dose of the two-dose regimen, they will have to wait three weeks for their second shot, and there is no evidence immunization will reduce transmission of the virus.

“It will gradually make a huge, huge difference. But I stress gradually, because we’re not there yet. We haven’t defeated this virus yet,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he expected millions to be vaccinated by the end of the year, and described the start of the drive as “V-Day.” But he cautioned people should respect social-distancing rules until spring at least, when he hoped the most vulnerable people would be vaccinated.

The country has ordered enough supplies of the Pfizer/BioNTech shot to vaccinate 20 million people. The developers said it was 95% effective in preventing illness in final-stage trials.

Russia and China have both already started giving domestically produced vaccine candidates to their populations, though before final safety and efficacy trials have been completed.

FIVE DAYS IN A FRIDGE

In Britain, about 800,000 doses are expected to be available within the first week, with care-home residents and carers, the over-80s and some health workers prioritized. Hancock said he had a “high degree of confidence” Britain would take delivery of another batch of the vaccine next week.

“I know we’re absolutely bursting at the doors with COVID patients, so I more than anybody wants it to happen quickly,” said Ami Jones, a hospital intensive-care consultant from Wales who received the jab before going to work.

The country is relatively small with good infrastructure. Yet the logistical challenges in distributing the vaccine, which only lasts five days in a regular fridge, mean it will first go to dozens of hospitals and cannot yet be taken into care homes.

Bigger tests could await for the Pfizer/BioNTech shot, as well as a vaccine from Moderna, which was found to have a similar level of success in trials and is based on the same mRNA genetic technology that requires such ultra-cold storage.

Transport and distribution could prove more challenging in hot countries and bigger nations such as the United States and India, which have been worst-hit by COVID-19 and are expected to approve the shot for emergency use in the coming days or weeks.

South Korea, which has coped relatively well with the pandemic, sounded a note of caution, saying it would not hurry vaccine rollouts, partly to give it time to observe potential side-effects in other countries. Vaccinations may start in the first half of 2021, the health ministry added.

The third vaccine to have had trial success, developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, is viewed as offering one of the best hopes for many developing countries because it is cheaper and can be transported at normal fridge temperatures. Late-stage trials found it had an average success rate of 70%.

Britain hopes for regulatory approval of the Oxford/AstraZeneca shot in the next couple of weeks.

A SHOT FOR SHAKESPEARE

Britain approved the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for emergency use less than a week ago, and is rolling it out ahead of the United States and European Union.

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is being imported from Belgium, while initial supplies of the AstraZeneca/Oxford shot are being shipped from Germany.

“Of course, it adds complexity,” Steve Bates, chief executive of the BioIndustry Association, told reporters of the possible impact of Brexit. “But there is a robust plan for alternative routes and mitigation.”

In total Britain has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech shot, enough to vaccinate 20 million people in the country of 67 million. It has ordered 357 million doses of seven different COVID-19 vaccines in all.

Amid the gravity of the pandemic, the vaccination on Tuesday of one William Shakespeare, an 81-year-old of Warwickshire in England, was greeted with humor on social media.

Twitter users joked about “The Taming of the Flu” and “The Two Gentlemen of Corona”. Some asked, if Margaret Keenan was patient 1A, was Shakespeare “Patient 2B or not 2B?”.

(Reporting by Alistair Smout; Additional reporting by Sarah Young, Kate Holton and Natalie Thomas; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Pravin Char)

U.S. CDC reports 281,253 deaths from coronavirus

(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday reported 14,636,914 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 174,387 from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 1,118 to 281,253.

The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by a new coronavirus, as of 4 pm ET on Dec. 6 versus its previous report a day earlier.

The CDC figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.

(Reporting by Dania Nadeem in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

Chile announces fresh lockdowns

By Aislinn Laing and Fabian Cambero

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Chile’s health authorities on Monday announced a fresh lockdown in the capital Santiago after coronavirus cases spiked 18% in the past week.

Health Minister Enrique Paris said the measure, which will involve a full lockdown on weekends and restricted activities during the week, was designed to avoid a full quarantine.

The coronavirus first hit Chile, population 19 million, in March, and the country reached a peak in June, with more than 5,000 cases daily and ranking only behind Qatar globally for cases per capita.

In August, authorities began lifting the lid on lockdowns covering the capital suburb by suburb, using a step-by-step rule, while the focus of cases bounced from the mine-heavy north of the country to the south, where hospitals continue to be saturated.

However, a steady uptick in cases that culminated in this week’s 18% rise has prompted a change in strategy.

Paris said the return to partial lockdown was a “preventative step” to avoid a return to the previous full and lengthy lockdowns that caused significant economic hardship.

“Given the number of inhabitants of the Metropolitan Region, that (18%) figure is shocking and worries us a lot,” he said.

The announcement is complicated, however – and Paris faced tough questions at his regular news conference – because a picture emerged over the weekend of Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera posing for a selfie with a bystander without wearing a mask.

Pinera has apologized, and a government spokesman explained he had been walking alone along the beach in the upmarket central Chilean resort of Cachagua where he has a house, but was surprised by a bystander.

Chile has strict rules that require the wearing of masks in all public places including outside, and violations are punishable with sanctions that include significant fines and even jail terms.

Spokesman Jaime Bellolio said the president would report himself to the health authorities.

Gaffe-prone Pinera has previously been pictured eating pizza on the night fierce social protests broke out in Santiago in October last year, and posing for pictures at the square that was the hub of the demonstrations after the pandemic forced its clearance.

(Reporting by Aislinn Laing; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Merkel warns Germany needs tougher lockdown to get through winter

By Andreas Rinke

BERLIN (Reuters) – German leaders came out on Monday in favor of stricter measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, a few days after the country posted its highest one-day death toll so far.

Chancellor Angela Merkel told party colleagues that existing lockdown measures – with bars and restaurants closed and shops admitting limited numbers – were too little to get the virus under control.

“The situation is getting very serious: these measures will not be enough to get us through the winter,” participants said she had told a meeting of her conservative bloc’s legislators.

Daily infections are no longer rising as sharply as previously in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, but they have stagnated at a high level and the highest single-day coronavirus death toll yet was reported last Wednesday.

Markus Soeder, premier of the southern state of Bavaria, which has the nation’s highest death toll, said he was certain regional and national leaders would agree tighter measures before Christmas. They had previously agreed not to revisit lockdown rules before Jan. 10.

Although vaccines that are expected to help contain the pandemic are on their way, available doses are limited, meaning that only certain groups, notably the very elderly, can expect to be inoculated during the winter, an expert panel ruled on Monday.

Meanwhile, some states are going further on their own initiative: Rhineland-Palatinate banned takeaway sales of mulled wine in a bid to discourage disease-spreading impromptu street parties.

From Wednesday, Bavaria will allow people to leave home only for essential reasons, while evening curfews are planned for hotspots with the highest infection rates.

Data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases on Monday morning showed the number of confirmed cases rose by 12,332 in the past 24 hours to 1,183,655. The reported death toll rose 147 to 18,919 – still well below that of large European peers such as Spain, France and Italy.

(Writing by Thomas Escritt and Caroline Copley Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Pandemic’s uneven march across U.S. paved way for wider outbreak

By Howard Schneider

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Nine months after the U.S. government declared a state of emergency to fight the coronavirus pandemic, daily deaths and new infections are breaking records, hospital capacity is more stretched than ever, and debate over the economic response has devolved into a battle over who deserves help and who doesn’t.

How did it get to this point? Once-in-a-century public crises might seem a natural rallying point for a nation, but the current pandemic hit a trifecta: a politically polarized society, the uneven spread of the virus, and an economic impact that was disparately felt and quick to fade in some parts of the country even as it kept others fast in its grip.

Today’s rampant spread of the virus is bound with those facts: Local and state decisions to let the economy reopen as much as it did, as soon as it did, with public health rules spotty and unevenly enforced, set the stage for it to rotate through the country and eventually to spread unchecked.

While that spurred more job creation early on, the country is now facing the worst of both worlds.

New COVID-19 cases are mounting at a rate of a million a week, and deaths have reached new peaks approaching 3,000 daily. Meanwhile, the economic recovery seems to be hitting stall speed. U.S. payrolls grew by only 245,000 jobs in November, scant progress given that net job losses since February still total around 10 million.

New data released in early December on state and metro level employment and wages by industry show just how unevenly the economic pain of those first months was spread.

Indeed, while workers in New York City, one of the early epicenters of the U.S. outbreak, struggled with economic conditions reminiscent of the Great Depression last spring, workers in Montana, on the whole, earned about as much in the three months from April to June as they did in the prior three months.

For workers in six western states, in fact, the second quarter of 2020 looked about the same as the second quarter of 2019 in terms of total wages collected, while in Nevada, Hawaii and Michigan wages were down more than 10% from a year earlier.

The jobs crash was painful everywhere, particularly in the industries where people would be most vulnerable to a communicable disease – the close-contact services like restaurants, grooming parlors and gyms.

Even in places where the initial crash was less intense, more than 8% of jobs were lost from February to April. At its worst, in the U.S. Northeast and Hawaii, more than 20% of jobs disappeared.

But the places that suffered the lightest initial blow also more quickly regained lost employment, and in some instances by June had nearly regained all the lost jobs in April’s wave of layoffs and closing. At that point the spread of the pandemic was also mild in those states, perhaps providing a reason to maintain a business-as-usual approach.

In urban areas the difference in outcomes was even more pronounced. Seasonal factors influence the numbers of jobs in some cities more than others. Beach towns and summer resorts see a bump when the weather warms. But comparing the number of jobs this June to a year ago shows how some fared better – or worse.

Atlantic City, New Jersey, an oceanside resort and casino hub, had only 66% of the jobs this past June that it did the year before. Cleveland, Tennessee, part of the U.S. South’s emerging auto industry, by contrast, had more jobs in June than it did a year before.

Industries also felt those first months of the pandemic very differently. At first blush, hiring in some seasonal industries proceeded apace, with drive-in theaters, for example, staffing up for the summer: Employment there more than doubled from February to June, possibly a sign of entertainment migrating outdoors. Still, even such an industry well-suited to the moment saw its employment drop compared with a year earlier.

By contrast, nursery and garden center employment rocketed nearly 30% from February to June – a typical summertime jump. Nonetheless, it was also 1.7% above the level from June 2019.

At the other end of the scale, industries in the food and entertainment sectors saw job losses that may amount to a permanent shift in the economy and where people work.

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Dan Burns and Paul Simao)

California bans private gatherings, New York expands hospitals to battle coronavirus surge

By Dan Whitcomb and Maria Caspani

LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK (Reuters) -California compelled much of the state to close shop and stay home on Monday and New York ordered hospitals to increase bed capacity by 25 percent, as the United States braced for yet another coronavirus surge during the upcoming holidays.

California Governor Gavin Newsom’s order came into effect one day after the state set a record with more than 30,000 new COVID-19 cases, triggered in areas of Southern California where fewer than 15% of intensive care hospital beds remain available.

In addition, five counties in Northern California surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area have voluntarily imposed the restrictions even before reaching the intensive care unit threshold. Combined, the areas cover about three-quarters of the state’s nearly 40 million people.

Dr. Celine Gounder said California had little choice. “Given how out of control the virus is at this point, we are having to dial up some of those restrictions again,” Gounder told CBS News. “Ideally, we should be more proactive than this.”

In reporting more than 30,000 new cases on Sunday, the state exceeded its previous high of 21,986 set on Dec. 4, and notched a record high for hospitalized COVID-19 patients as well.

Nationwide, COVID-19 infections in United States are at their peak with an average of 193,863 new cases reported each day over the past week, according to a Reuters tally of official data.

There have been 14.7 million confirmed infections and 282,253 coronavirus-related deaths reported in the country since the pandemic began, the most in the world.

California has been under a stay-at-home order for all but essential services since March. The new order, which will last at least three weeks, bans private gatherings of any size, shuts all but critical infrastructure and retail operations, and requires everyone to wear a mask and maintain physical distancing.

But the sheriffs of Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties have said they will refuse to enforce the order.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said in a videotaped message that his office “will not be blackmailed” into enforcing the governor’s orders, and Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said in a statement his deputies would not respond to calls to enforce violations of the mask mandate, stay-at-home orders or the ban on social gatherings.

FAUCI SEES ‘BAD TIME’ AHEAD

To avoid a critical shortage of hospital beds, New York state health officials will order hospitals to increase their capacity by 25% and ask retired doctors and nurses to come back to work, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday.

If the hospitalization rate fails to stabilize over the next five days, indoor dining in New York City will be halted, Cuomo said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci warned the nationwide surge could get worse after the year-end holiday season.

After millions ignored expert advice and traveled for the Thanksgiving holiday in November, Fauci anticipated Americans would once again behave recklessly during Christmas and New Year’s Eve festivities.

Spikes in the death toll typically appear about three weeks after surges in infections and hospitalizations.

“Mid-January is probably going to be a bad time,” said Fauci, appearing with Cuomo in his video news conference.

Anticipating U.S. Food and Drug Administration emergency authorization of the first vaccine within the coming days, the White House will host a vaccine distribution summit on Tuesday with governors, retail pharmacy chains and shipping companies, Health Secretary Alex Azar told Fox News.

The aim of the meeting was “to be very transparent and show the world how comprehensively we have planned out every aspect of this distribution,” Azar said.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb, Maria Caspani, Doina Chiacu, Lisa Lambert, Peter Szekely and Daniel Trotta; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Jonathan Oatis and Bill Berkrot)

WHO warns against pandemic complacency amid vaccine rollout

GENEVA (Reuters) – Recent progress on COVID-19 vaccines is positive but the World Health Organization is concerned this has led to a growing perception that the pandemic has come to an end, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday.

Britain approved Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, raising hopes that the tide could soon turn against a virus that has killed nearly 1.5 million people globally, hammered the world economy and upended normal life for billions.

“Progress on vaccines gives us all a lift and we can now start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. However, WHO is concerned that there is a growing perception that the COVID-19 pandemic is over,” he said.

Tedros said the pandemic still had a long way to run and that decisions made by citizens and governments would determine its course in the short run and when the pandemic would ultimately end.

“We know it’s been a hard year and people are tired, but in hospitals that are running at or over capacity it’s the hardest it can possibly be,” he said.

“The truth is that at present, many places are witnessing very high transmission of the COVID-19 virus, which is putting enormous pressure on hospitals, intensive care units and health workers.”

The virus emerged in Wuhan, China, a year ago since when more than 65 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 1.5 million have died.

Two promising vaccines could soon receive emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and some 20 million Americans could be vaccinated this year, helping stem the tide of the virus in the world’s worst hit country.

However, the WHO’s top emergency expert Mike Ryan also cautioned on Friday against complacency in the wake of vaccine roll-out, saying that although they were a major part of the battle against COVID-19, vaccines would not on their own end the pandemic.

“Vaccines do not equal zero COVID,” he said.

Ryan said some countries would have to sustain very strong control measures for some time into the future or they would risk a “blow up” in cases, and a yo-yoing of the pandemic.

“We are in a pivotal moment in some countries. There are health systems in some countries at the point of collapse,” he said, without referring to specific countries.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Michael Shields in Zurich; Writing by Toby Chopra; Editing by Jon Boyle, Catherine Evans and Raissa Kasolowsky)

U.N. warns 2021 shaping up to be a humanitarian catastrophe

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Next year is shaping up to be a humanitarian catastrophe and rich countries must not trample poor countries in a “stampede for vaccines” to combat the coronavirus pandemic, top U.N. officials told the 193-member U.N. General Assembly on Friday.

World Food Program (WFP) chief David Beasley and World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke during a special meeting on COVID-19, which emerged in China late last year and has so far infected 65 million globally.

The pandemic, measures taken by countries to try to stop its spread and the economic impact have fueled a 40% increase in the number of people needing humanitarian help, the United Nations said earlier this week. It has appealed for $35 billion in aid funding.

“2021 is literally going to be catastrophic based on what we’re seeing at this stage of the game,” said Beasley, adding that for a dozen countries, famine is “knocking on the door.”

He said 2021 was likely to be “the worst humanitarian crisis year since the beginning of the United Nations” 75 years ago and “we’re not going to be able to fund everything … so we have to prioritize, as I say, the icebergs in front of the Titanic.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and his top officials have also called for COVID-19 vaccines to be made available to all and for rich countries to help developing countries combat and recover from the pandemic.

Tedros appealed for an immediate injection of $4.3 billion into a world vaccine-sharing program.

“We simply cannot accept a world in which the poor and marginalized are trampled by the rich and powerful in the stampede for vaccines,” Tedros told the General Assembly. “This is a global crisis and the solutions must be shared equitably as global public goods.”

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Dan Grebler)

In silence, Greek city buries coronavirus dead

THESSALONIKI, Greece (Reuters) – Authorities in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki have dug dozens of graves for the victims of COVID-19 after a sharp increase in the number of deaths.

Greece has ordered a second nationwide lockdown after a spike in cases of the new coronavirus. By Thursday, it had recorded 111,537 cases and 2,706 deaths.

Thessaloniki, a city of about one million and where the first nationwide cases surfaced in February, has been particularly hard hit during the second wave.

“We didn’t encounter many cases in the first lockdown .. There were very few cases (then) and it wasn’t every day. These days it’s daily,” said funeral services provider Stavros Chatzivaritis.

“There are between five and eight funerals, almost every day.”

At the Resurrection of the Lord Cemetery in Thessaloniki, on the eastern side of Greece’s second largest city, many new graves have been opened. The Greek Orthodox chapel in the compound conducts funeral services, with pallbearers in full protective clothing.

The silence in its graveyard is punctured by the gentle chant of an Orthodox priest, or by the thud of the shovelled earth hitting the coffin, wrapped in plastic.

There are flowers, but grieving relatives are kept to a minimum and at a distance. “To my beloved,” wrote one on a wreath.

(Reporting by Alexandros Avramidis; Writing by Michele Kambas; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

U.S. job growth slows sharply; long-term unemployment rises

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy added the fewest workers in six months in November, hindered by a resurgence in new COVID-19 cases that, together with a lack of more government relief money, threatens to reverse the recovery from the pandemic recession.

The closely watched employment report also showed a surge in people experiencing long periods of joblessness, putting pressure on Congress to come up with another rescue package.

The report only covered the first two weeks of November, when the current wave of coronavirus infections started. Infections, hospitalizations and death rates have sky-rocketed, leading some economists to anticipate a drop in employment in December or January as more jurisdictions impose restrictions on businesses and consumers shun crowded places like restaurants.

“This is a disappointing report, and one that shows the third wave of the pandemic is having a bigger effect on hiring than had been thought,” said Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial Network. “Prospects for a continued strong recovery in consumer spending may be at risk. This is a wake-up call for the Congress and should support more Federal stimulus.”

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 245,000 jobs last month after rising by 610,000 in October, the Labor Department said on Friday. That was the smallest gain since the jobs recovery started in May. The fifth straight monthly slowdown in job gains left employment 9.8 million below its February peak.

Job growth last month was held back by further departures of temporary workers hired for the 2020 Census. States and local governments are also expected to have shed more workers, leaving overall government payrolls to drop by 99,000 jobs, the second straight monthly decline. The private sector added 344,000 jobs.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls would increase by 469,000 jobs in November. Hiring peaked at 4.781 million jobs in June. Reports on consumer spending, manufacturing and services industries have suggested a slowdown in the recovery from the worst recession since the Great Depression.

The United States is in the midst of a fresh wave of COVID-19 infections. Nearly 200,000 new cases were reported on Wednesday and hospitalizations approached a record 100,000 patients, according to a Reuters tally of official data.

A bipartisan, $908 billion coronavirus aid plan gained momentum in Congress on Thursday as conservative lawmakers expressed their support and leaders in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives huddled together.

More than $3 trillion in government COVID-19 relief helped millions of unemployed Americans cover daily expenses and companies keep workers on payrolls, leading to record economic growth in the third quarter. The uncontrolled pandemic and lack of additional fiscal stimulus could result in the economy contracting in the first quarter of 2021.

U.S. stock index futures sharply pared gains on the jobs report. The dollar was trading lower against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices were lower.

LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED

The unemployment rate fell to 6.7% from 6.9% in October. It, however, has been biased down by people misclassifying themselves as being “employed but absent from work.” Without this error, the government estimated the jobless rate would have been about 7.1% in November.

The number of people unemployed for 27 weeks or more jumped 385,000 in November to 3.9 million. These long-term unemployed accounted for 36.9% of the 10.7 million unemployed last month. The number of people working part-time for economic reasons was steady at 6.7 million.

Despite the ample slack in the labor market, average hourly earnings rose 0.3% after nudging up 0.1% in October. That left the year-on-year increase in wages at 4.4%. The average workweek was steady at 34.8 hours.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Paul Simao)