Tag Archives: COVID-19. Pandemic

Disneyland theme parks in California to reopen April 30

(Reuters) – Walt Disney Co’s two theme parks in California will reopen on April 30 to a limited number of guests, the company said on Wednesday, over a year after they closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Attendance will initially be capped at roughly 15% of capacity, Disney Chief Executive Bob Chapek said on CNBC television.

Advance reservations and an admission ticket will be required for entry. Guests age 2 and up will need to wear masks, except when eating, drinking or swimming, and follow other safety measures including temperature checks before entering and social distancing on rides and throughout the parks.

Under state guidelines, capacity may increase if the prevalence of coronavirus in the area continues to fall.

The Disneyland Resort, located in Anaheim 35 miles southeast of Los Angeles, closed in mid-March of 2020. The resort includes the original Disneyland, nicknamed “The Happiest Place on Earth,” and the adjacent California Adventure theme parks.

Florida’s Walt Disney World parks reopened to visitors in July 2020 and Disney officials had been urging the state of California to ease reopening restrictions.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles and Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Richard Chang and Steve Orlofsky)

U.S. weekly jobless claims drop to four-month low

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits dropped to a four-month low last week as an improving public health environment allows more segments of the economy to reopen, putting the labor market recovery back on track.

Still, a full recovery from the deep scars inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic will probably take years, with the weekly unemployment claims report from the Labor Department on Thursday also showing a whopping 20.1 million Americans collecting unemployment checks in late February.

“The economy and the labor market are entering the next phase of the rebound, supported by a ramping up of vaccinations and declining infections that will allow for a resumption of activity,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics in White Plains, New York.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits decreased 42,000 to a seasonally adjusted 712,000 for the week ended March 6, the lowest level since early November. Data for the prior week was revised to show 9,000 more applications received than previously reported.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 725,000 applications in the latest week.

Unadjusted claims dropped 47,170 to 709,458 last week, amid declines in Texas, New York and Mississippi, where claims had been boosted in the prior period by harsh weather. Claims rose in Ohio, which has been plagued by fraudulent applications.

Including a government-funded program for the self-employed, gig workers and others who do not qualify for the regular state programs, 1.2 million people filed claims last week.

U.S. stocks opened higher. The dollar fell against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices were mixed.

INFECTIONS FALLING

New coronavirus infections have dropped for eight straight weeks, declining 12% last week, according to a Reuters analysis of state, county and CDC data. Vaccinations jumped to a record 2.2 million shots per day and virus-related deaths fell 18%.

That, together with nearly $900 billion in additional pandemic relief money advanced by the government in late December, fired up consumer spending and hiring in February after declining in December.

Domestic demand is expected to surge in the months ahead, after Congress approved President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion recovery package, which will send fresh aid to small businesses as well as one-time $1,400 checks to mostly lower- and middle-income households. It will also extend a government-funded $300 weekly unemployment supplement through Sept. 6.

Jobless claims have been slow to decline with the improvement in economic activity and public health because of issues ranging from fraudulent filings and backlogs to recent winter storms in the South.

Though claims have dropped from a record 6.867 million in March 2020 when the pandemic hit the United States just more than a year ago, they are above their 665,000 peak during the 2007-09 Great Recession and could remain elevated because of the expanded unemployment benefits. In a well-functioning labor market, claims are normally in a 200,000 to 250,000 range.

“There is some risk in our view though that expanded unemployment, with benefits of an additional $300 per week, could keep the level of claims for unemployment benefits more elevated this year, as some workers could earn more on unemployment than in their previous jobs,” said Andrew Hollenhorst, an economist at Citigroup in New York.

Regular state unemployment benefits averaged about $346 per week in January. Together with the weekly $300 subsidy, they add up to $646 per week or over $15 per hour for a 40-hour week.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, though some states have higher rates.

The claims report also showed the number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid declined 193,000 to 4.144 million during the week ended Feb 27. The decrease largely reflected people exhausting their eligibility for benefits, limited to 26 weeks in most states.

About 5.455 million people were on the government-funded extended benefits program during the week ended Feb. 20, up 986,351 from the prior week. There number of people on unemployment benefits under all programs during that period increased by 2.087 million.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Paul Simao and Andrea Ricci)

Exclusive: U.S. considering use of Virginia military base to house migrant children

By Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government is evaluating whether to house unaccompanied migrant children at a military base in Virginia amid a sharp rise in migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) notice seen by Reuters.

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed that Fort Lee, a U.S. Army facility about 30 miles (48 km) south of Richmond, was under consideration.

The number of migrant children arriving at the southwestern border has increased in recent months, putting pressure on HHS-run shelters that house the children before they are released to parents or other sponsors in the United States.

In the notice, HHS said it urgently needs to find more shelter space for unaccompanied minors. The department said it must “aggressively” find solutions for the rising number of children entering the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of migrants caught crossing the border and allowed to enter the United States has increased in recent weeks, as U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged to reverse many of the hardline policies of former President Donald Trump.

U.S. officials are hurrying to find housing and speed up releases of a growing number of unaccompanied children arriving at the border after Biden exempted them in February from a Trump-era policy known as Title 42. That policy, issued on COVID-19-related public health grounds, allows U.S. authorities to rapidly expel migrants caught at the border.

Under U.S. law, children under the age of 18 caught crossing the border without a parent or legal guardian are labeled “unaccompanied” and must be transferred from Border Patrol facilities to HHS shelters within 72 hours.

The law outlines separate procedures for children from Mexico and Canada that allow them to be more easily removed from the country.

Most children arriving without a parent or legal guardian are from Mexico and Central America.

The United States has used military bases to house unaccompanied children during previous spikes in arrivals, including during a surge of unaccompanied minors in 2014 under former President Barack Obama.

The Biden administration also plans to convert two family detention centers in Texas into facilities that would quickly process incoming migrant families and allow them to be released within 72 hours pending the outcome of their cases, according to two people familiar with the plan.

HHS said that as of March 4 the agency had 7,700 unaccompanied minors in custody, the highest level since 2019. As of last week, it had roughly 7,700 beds available.

Unaccompanied children come to the United States to reunite with family members or escape violence and poverty in their home countries, according to experts. In some cases, children arrive at the border with an adult, such as a relative or family friend, but are deemed “unaccompanied” because they are traveling without a parent or legal guardian.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson; Additional reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Ross Colvin and Alistair Bell)

Congressional Democrats set to back more than $50 billion for transportation sector

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats in the U.S. Congress are to release a sweeping plan on Monday to provide more than $50 billion in additional assistance to U.S. airlines, transit systems, airports and passenger railroad Amtrak and create a $3 billion program to assist aviation manufacturers with payroll costs, according to documents seen by Reuters and sources briefed on the matter.

The $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief proposal will provide $30 billion to transit agencies, $14 billion for passenger airlines, $8 billion to U.S. airports, $1 billion for airline contractors and $1.5 billion to Amtrak, the draft legislation says. U.S. House committees are set to vote on the legislation on Wednesday.

Airline stocks rose sharply on news of the new funding, with American Airlines up 4.2%, while United Airlines gained 5% and Southwest Airlines jumped nearly 6%.

President Joe Biden had proposed $20 billion for struggling U.S. transit agencies – and nothing for airlines – while Democrats had pushed for more transit help, citing the collapse in travel demand as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Transit agencies have previously been awarded $39 billion in emergency assistance by Congress. New York’s Metropolitan Transit Agency says daily subway travel has recently been down 70% or more.

U.S. airlines have been awarded $40 billion in payroll support since March and airline unions had asked Congress for another $15 billion to keep thousands of workers on the payroll past March 31, when the current round of funding expires. The additional $14 billion will keeping nearly 30,000 airline workers on the job through Sept. 30.

A summary of the $14 billion airline payroll proposal from the House Financial Services Committee seen by Reuters noted airlines lost over $35 billion in 2020 and “airlines do not expect to return to profitability until midway through 2021.

The $3 billion aviation manufacturing program would provide a 50% government subsidy to cover costs of pay, benefits and training for employees at risk of being furloughed or who were furloughed due to the pandemic. The grants cover up to 25% of a company’s U.S. workforce.

U.S. airplane manufacturer Boeing and suppliers have cut thousands of manufacturing jobs over the last year as demand for new planes has shrunk amid the collapse in airline travel.

Boeing said last year it recorded severance costs for 26,000 employees in 2020, with 18,000 having left last year and the remainder expected leave in 2021. Boeing did not immediately comment on the program.

International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) President Robert Martinez urged lawmakers to back the effort to provide payroll assistance to “help this critical workforce and supply chain weather the storm of this historic pandemic.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson, Editing by Franklin Paul and Dan Grebler)

Canada considering drug decriminalization to fight overdose crisis

By Anna Mehler Paperny

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada’s federal government is considering decriminalization of the possession of opioids and other illicit drugs in its efforts to tackle a spiraling overdose crisis, a government official said this week, even as data show the number of charges rising.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is facing pressure to rein in drug overdoses, though it has previously downplayed decriminalization.

Vancouver has asked the federal government to exempt the city from part of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of drugs within city boundaries. A spokesman for Health Minister Patty Hajdu said on Wednesday that decriminalization was under consideration and that discussions with Vancouver were under way but would not comment further

That could subject people caught with small amounts of drugs to fines or mandatory treatment.

Canada’s opioid toxicity death rate for the first half of 2020, 14.6 per 100,000, was the highest since national data began to be collected in 2016, according to the federal government.

The number of people charged with drug possession of non-cocaine, non-heroin drugs in Canada more than tripled to 13,725 in the past decade to 2019, according to Statistics Canada. The number of people charged with heroin possession almost quintupled, to 1,043.

“The idea that we’re kind of becoming more tolerant isn’t borne out by the data,” said Neil Boyd, director of the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted illicit drug supply chains, making for a more toxic supply; it has also lessened supports and driven people to use alone, health advocates say.

Health Canada’s move to discuss decriminalization “comes at a time when the overdose crisis in our city has never been worse,” Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart said in a statement Wednesday.

Many health experts argue decriminalization would encourage drug users to use in safer spaces where they can access medical care.

Trudeau dismissed decriminalization last year, telling the Canadian Broadcasting Corp it was not a “silver bullet.”

Portugal decriminalized illicit drug possession and consumption in 2001. In the 2020 election Oregon voted to decriminalize.

This week Montreal’s city council also voted to support decriminalization. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police came out in support of the move last summer.

(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

GM shares jump on plans for electric delivery vehicle business

By Ben Klayman and Paul Lienert

DETROIT (Reuters) – General Motors Co shares jumped on Tuesday to their highest level since the company’s post-bankruptcy IPO in 2010, as the automaker announced its entry into the growing electric delivery vehicle business.

After Chief Executive Mary Barra outlined plans for GM’s first BrightDrop commercial vans to be delivered to FedEx later this year, GM shares rose as high as $48.95 in morning trading, pushing the company’s market cap over $68 billion.

The new BrightDrop delivery business will put GM squarely in competition in the commercial sector with cross-town rival Ford Motor Co, as well as startups such as Rivian, Arrival and Canoo that are developing electric commercial vehicles for customers ranging from Amazon to Hyundai Motor.

Fueled in part by the COVID-19 pandemic, GM estimates the U.S. market for parcel and food delivery will climb to more than $850 billion by 2025. It is one sector that EV sales leader Tesla has yet to crack.

Barra said BrightDrop will offer delivery and logistics customers such as FedEx a range of products and services that leverage the automaker’s expertise in electrification and fleet management.

The BrightDrop EV600 will use a version of GM’s Ultium battery system that will power many of the company’s future electric vehicles, including the Hummer EV pickup and the Cadillac Lyriq crossover.

Barra introduced BrightDrop in an online keynote address at the CES annual tech and gadget show.

As part of Barra’s presentation, GM design chief Mike Simcoe hosted a virtual unveiling of two battery-powered Cadillac concepts: A flying car and a boxy shuttle with sliding doors. Simcoe said Cadillac also is working on a luxury electric two-seater.

In a pre-show briefing, Pam Fletcher, GM vice president of global innovation, said the BrightDrop EV600 is a large, purpose-built delivery van that will have a range of 250 miles (400 km) between charges, with a long list of advanced safety features and built-in internet connectivity.

Unlike Cruise, the San Francisco self-driving startup that is majority-owned by GM and is developing a robotaxi business, BrightDrop does not plan to operate its own vehicle fleet. It will focus on supplying electric vans and related services to commercial customers.

A source familiar with details of the EV600 said it will share basic underbody architecture with the Hummer EV and a variety of other large GM trucks and SUVs that will hit the market over the next three years.

The first 500 units will go to FedEx by the end of the year, with deliveries to other customers starting in early 2022, Fletcher said.

The BrightDrop commercial van family could eventually include a smaller model designed for medium-distance deliveries and a larger model designed for rapid loading and unloading, she said.

In November, GM said it would challenge Tesla with increased spending and accelerated vehicle production targets. The higher investment will be funded by expanded pickup and SUV production.

GM said it planned to increase spending on electric and autonomous vehicles to $27 billion by 2023, up 35% from previously disclosed plans. The Detroit automaker will offer 30 EVs globally by 2025 and wants to exceed annual sales of 1 million EVs in China and the United States by then.

(Reporting by Ben Klayman and Paul Lienert in Detroit; Editing by Richard Pullin, Dan Grebler and Bernadette Baum)

Shell begins permanent shutdown of Convent, Louisiana, refinery

By Erwin Seba

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc began the permanent shutdown of its 211,146 barrel-per-day (bpd) Convent, Louisiana refinery, the company said on Tuesday.

Sources familiar with plant operations told Reuters the permanent shutdown of the refinery, which Shell has been unable to sell as fuel demand has been hammered in the COVID-19 pandemic, began on Monday night.

“We’re engaged in a phased shutdown of Convent and (will) take all of the time necessary to safely accomplish that,” said Shell spokesman Curtis Smith in an email on Tuesday.

The shutdown began when Shell idled the 12,000-bpd isomerization unit on Monday night, the sources said. The company was taking offline the 36,000-bpd diesel hydrotreater on Tuesday.

Shell said on Nov. 5 it would permanently shutter the refinery after failing to find a buyer for the plant, which had become unprofitable because of reduced demand during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Shell will keep the refinery on the market after it completes the shutdown by the Christmas holiday, the sources said.

Shell and the United Steelworkers union (USW) reached agreement last week on a severance package for 350 hourly workers at Convent.

The USW and Shell agreed hourly employees will be paid three weeks for every year of service with a minimum of 12 weeks and a maximum of 78 weeks, sources familiar with the agreement said.

That package is similar to what Shell salaried employees are being offered, they said. The number of salaried and hourly staff is about equal. Another 400 contractors work at the Convent refinery.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba, editing by Louise Heavens and Bernadette Baum)

U.S. Justice Alito says pandemic has led to ‘unimaginable’ curbs on liberty

(Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said the COVID-19 pandemic had led to “previously unimaginable” curbs on individual liberty, singling out restrictions on religious events.

The justice, who is seen as a conservative, told a meeting of the Federalist Society late on Thursday he was not underplaying the severity of the crisis or criticizing any officials for their response.

But he added: “We have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive and prolonged as those experienced for most of 2020.”

“The COVID crisis has served as sort of a constitutional stress test,” he said during his address over a video link for the conservative organization’s annual conference.

Alito, who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush in 2006, referred to restrictions on gatherings that had affected religious events.

“Think of worship services! Churches closed on Easter Sunday, synagogues closed for Passover in Yom Kippur”, he said.

“It pains me to say this,” Alito added, “but in certain quarters, religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored right.”

The justice said freedom of speech was also under threat.

“Although that freedom is falling out of favor in some circles, we need to do whatever we can to prevent it from becoming a second-tier constitutional right,” he said.

Alito’s remarks on free speech echoed his words from 2016 at the same event when he referred to college campus culture that conservatives say stifles free speech to avoid offending political sensibilities on matters such as gender, race and religion.

Social norms had created a list of things that was now unacceptable for students, professors and employees to say, he added on Thursday.

“You can’t say that marriage is a union between one man and one woman”, he added. “Until very recently that’s what a vast majority of Americans thought. Now its considered bigotry.”

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Michael Perry and Andrew Heavens)

Measles surging as COVID-19 curbs disrupt vaccinations

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) – Measles surged to infect almost 870,000 people across the world in 2019, the worst figures in almost a quarter of a century as vaccination levels fell below critical levels, a report said on Thursday.

Millions of children are at risk of the disease again this year as restrictions imposed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic further disrupt immunization programs, the report co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

Measles is one of the most contagious known diseases – more so than COVID-19, Ebola, tuberculosis or flu.

More than 207,000 people died of it last year alone, the report found. With immunization coverage below the critical 95% needed for community protection, infections rose in all WHO regions last year to the worst levels since 1996, it said.

“These data send a clear message that we are failing to protect children from measles in every region of the world,” the WHO’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a statement.

The surge in fatal cases means global measles deaths have risen nearly 50% since 2016.

The report, co-led by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cited a collective failure to fully immunize children on time with two doses of measles vaccine as the main driver of the deadly increases.

Looking ahead to 2020, the report warned that disruptions to vaccination due to the COVID-19 pandemic have crippled efforts to curb measles outbreaks.

As of this month, more than 94 million people were at risk of missing measles vaccinations due to paused immunization campaigns in 26 countries, it said.

“COVID-19 has resulted in dangerous declines in immunization coverage,” Seth Berkley, chief executive of the GAVI global vaccine alliance, said.

He described the “alarming” measles report was “a warning that, with the COVID-19 pandemic occupying health systems across the world, we cannot afford to take our eye off the ball.”

After steady downward progress from 2010 to 2016, measles cases began rising again from 2017. The report said there were a total of 869,770 measles cases, with 207,500 deaths, in 2019.

WHO and the UN children’s fund UNICEF urged governments last week to act now to prevent epidemics of measles, polio and other infectious diseases.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Andrew Heavens)

Hundreds of disillusioned doctors leave Lebanon, in blow to healthcare

By Samia Nakhoul and Issam Abdallah

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Fouad Boulos returned to Beirut in 2007 from the United States having trained there in pathology and laboratory medicine. He was so confident that Lebanon was the right place to be that he gave up his American residence green card.

Fourteen years later he is leaving his homeland with his wife and five children and returning to the United States to try his luck starting from scratch.

In the past year, Lebanon has been through a popular uprising against its political leaders, the bankruptcy of the state and banking system, a COVID-19 pandemic and, in August, a huge explosion at the port that destroyed swathes of Beirut.

Some of those who can leave the country have done so, and an increasing number of them are doctors and surgeons, many at the top of their profession. With them goes Beirut’s proud reputation as the medical capital of the Middle East.

“This is a mass exodus,” said Boulos, Associate Professor of Clinical Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the American University of Beirut (AUB).

“It will keep on going,” he told Reuters. “If I had hope I would have stayed but I have no hope – not in the near nor in the intermediate future – for Lebanon.”

As he spoke at his mountain residence in Beit Mery, a forested area with sweeping views over Beirut, his wife helped pack up their last possessions, ready to return to the United States.

Suitcases lined the hallway, and one of his daughters was online saying final farewells to school friends and her teacher.

“It breaks my heart. It was the hardest decision I ever had to make, leaving everything behind,” Boulos added.

Many highly qualified physicians, who were in demand across the United States and Europe before they returned to Lebanon after the 1975-90 civil war, are throwing in the towel, having lost hope in its future.

They are not only seeing wages fall, but also face shortages of equipment, staff and even some basic supplies in their hospitals as Lebanon runs out of hard currency to pay for imports.

BLEEDING TALENT

Sharaf Abou Sharaf, head of the doctors’ syndicate, said the departure of 400 doctors so far this year creates a major problem, especially for university hospitals where they both practice and teach.

“This bleeding of talent does not bode well, especially if the situation lasts long and there are others who are preparing to leave,” he said.

Caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan agreed.

“Their expertise was built over many years and is very hard to lose overnight. We will need many years to return the medical sector to its former glory,” he told Reuters.

Protests that erupted last year and brought down the government had raised hopes that politicians, selected by a system in which leaders of Christian and Muslim sects shared the top jobs, could be pushed aside.

Then came the Aug. 4 blast, when large amounts of poorly stored ammonium nitrate exploded, killing 200 people, injuring 6,000, making 300,000 people homeless and destroying large parts of the capital Beirut including several hospitals.

“The explosion was the final nail in the coffin,” Boulos said.

“It crystallized all the fears, all the pain and all the difficulties that we were living through,” added the medic, who trained at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

‘CORRUPT TO THE CORE’

Boulos said he had lost faith in the country’s leadership, after years of instability caused by political bickering.

“Lebanon is corrupt to the core,” he said, echoing the chants of thousands of protesters who packed city streets during the last year.

The country has also had to deal with the influx of more than a million Syrians fleeing civil war, an economy that has buckled under the weight of debt, mass unemployment, poverty, and, more recently, the coronavirus pandemic.

On Tuesday, Lebanon ordered a nationwide lockdown for around two weeks to stem the spread of the virus, as intensive care units reached critical capacity.

Hassan, the caretaker health minister, has said an agreement was reached with the central bank to allocate funds for private hospitals to set up COVID-19 wings and that the state would pay hospital dues for the first six months of 2020.

The government had for years owed hospitals arrears and their unpaid bills are mounting.

Ghazi Zaatari, Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Chair of the Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine at AUB, said he feared the exodus would accelerate.

“For the past 10 years we put a lot of effort into recruiting around 220 faculty members, and now it is very disheartening to see that many of those we hired are leaving again.”

Doctors in Lebanon, although relatively well paid, generally earn less than they did abroad.

Over the past year they have seen real incomes drop due to the 80% devaluation in the currency.

The caretaker health minister said the state was seeking international help to prop up depreciated salaries of doctors to slow the exodus.

But both Boulos and Zaatari said money was not the main problem.

“Money is an issue, but this lack of trust and confidence in the political leadership (for) a safe, secure and successful future is a huge factor,” Zaatari said.

“I am one of those who came back in the mid-90s believing that there was a promise of a better future and a reconstruction plan, only to find that 20 years later everything is collapsing and the promises were false promises. We were robbed big time.”

(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam, Imad Creidi and Nancy Mahfouz; Editing by Mike Collett-White)