Tag Archives: COVID-19

Australia’s Victoria extends Melbourne COVID-19 lockdown for 2nd week

By Renju Jose

SYDNEY (Reuters) -The Australian state of Victoria extended on Wednesday a snap coronavirus lockdown in its capital of Melbourne for a second week, as it scrambles to rein in a highly contagious variant first detected in India, but will ease some curbs elsewhere.

Last Thursday’s lockdown in Australia’s second most populous state was to have run until Thursday, following the detection of the first locally acquired cases in three months, but infections rose and the number of close contacts reached several thousand.

“If we let this thing run its course, it will explode,” the state’s acting Premier James Merlino told reporters in Melbourne. “This variant of concern will become uncontrollable and people will die.”

“No one…wants to repeat last winter,” he added, referring to one of the world’s strictest and longest lockdowns that the southeastern state imposed in 2020 to leash a second wave of infections.

More than 800 people died in that outbreak, accounting for about 90% of Australia’s total deaths since the pandemic began.

Snap lockdowns, regional border curbs and tough social distancing rules have largely helped Australia suppress prior outbreaks and keep its COVID-19 figures relatively low, at just over 30,100 cases and 910 deaths.

Though Victoria’s daily cases have been in the single digits since the lockdown was imposed, officials fear even minimal contact could help spread the variant involved in the latest outbreak.

Six new locally acquired cases were reported on Wednesday, versus nine a day earlier, taking to 60 the tally of infections in the latest outbreak.

Health authorities have said the variant could take just one day to pass from person to person, versus the five or six days of contact required for transmission of earlier variants.

For now, Melbourne’s five million residents face a second week of being allowed to leave home only for essential work, healthcare, grocery shopping, exercise or a vaccination.

But this restriction is likely to be relaxed for people elsewhere in the state, depending on any local transmission in the next 24 hours, while other measures, such as mandatory masks, will stay.

The latest outbreak has been traced back to a traveler who returned from overseas, authorities have said. The individual left hotel quarantine in the state of South Australia after testing negative, but subsequently tested positive in Melbourne.

Casino operator Crown Resorts Ltd, Victoria’s biggest single-site employer with 11,500 staff, had said at the start of the lockdown it would stand down staff but pay them wages for rostered hours.

After Wednesday’s extension, Crown has said it would make only a “one-off discretionary” payment, however.

Since the early days of the pandemic, Australian employers have relied on federal subsidies to pay staff stood down during lockdowns, but the government ended that scheme in March.

Merlino, the acting Victoria premier, called for the federal government to reinstate the subsidies in light of the lockdown. Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the government was open to new support measures but would talk to officials in Victoria before committing to specifics.

(Reporting by Renju Jose with additional reporting by Byron Kaye; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell and Clarence Fernandez)

Factbox: Latest on the worldwide spread of the coronavirus

(Reuters) – The head of the World Health Organization has called for launching negotiations this year on an international treaty to boost pandemic preparedness, as part of sweeping reforms envisioned by member states.

EUROPE

* Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious disease is to reduce the coronavirus risk level for the country to “high” from “very high” as the situation improves, Health Minister Jens Spahn said.

* Spain is considering easing rules on wearing face masks outdoors, as early as in mid-June.

AMERICAS

* With half the country at least partially protected against the coronavirus, Americans escaped their pandemic doldrums over the Memorial Day holiday weekend.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* South Korea closed its first phase of reservations for Johnson and Johnson vaccines as military personnel signed up for all 800,000 shots on offer, the government said.

* A shipment of coronavirus vaccines to North Korea via the global COVAX sharing program that was expected for late May has been delayed again amid protracted consultations, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said.

* Australia’s Victoria state authorities said it was still unclear whether a snap one-week lockdown to contain a fresh COVID-19 outbreak would end as planned on Thursday night, as the state grapples with a growing virus outbreak.

* Japan plans to start vaccination at workplaces and universities on June 21 to speed up the country’s inoculation drive.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* Dubai, the second-largest member of the United Arab Emirates federation, has started offering the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to 12-15 year old’s, the government media office said on Twitter.

* Turkey further eased measures including partially lifting a weekend lockdown and opening restaurants to a limited number of guests.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* A Wuhan-based affiliate of China’s Sinopharm said the start of operations at a new factory will raise the annual production capacity of its COVID-19 vaccine to at least 1 billion doses.

* A deal on an intellectual property waiver for COVID-19 vaccines at the World Trade Organization was no closer to acceptance on Monday despite Washington’s backing, due to expected skepticism about a new draft, sources close to the talks told Reuters.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* Global stocks again hit record highs and oil rose on Tuesday, before European and U.S. data that should this week offer major clues to the health of the world economy.

* Euro zone manufacturing activity expanded at a record pace in May, according to a survey which suggested growth would have been even faster without supply bottlenecks that have led to an unprecedented rise in input costs.

* Ireland will begin to gradually phase out temporary coronavirus-related jobless payments later this year while maintaining other income and business supports as the economy fully reopens, Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath said.

* Turkish factory activity shrank in May for the first time in a year as output and new orders slowed down due to a 17-day full lockdown imposed to curb a surge in new coronavirus cases, a survey showed.

(Compiled by Jagoda Darlak and Ramakrishnan M.; Editing by William Maclean)

India COVID-19 variant exhibits resistance; antibody drug shows promise

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

India variant shows resistance to antibody drugs, vaccines

Antibody drugs and COVID-19 vaccines are less effective against a coronavirus variant that was first detected in India, according to researchers. The variant, known as B.1.617.2, has mutations that make it more transmissible. It is now predominant in some parts of India and has spread to many other countries. A multicenter team of scientists in France studied a B.1.617.2 variant isolated from a traveler returning from India. Compared to the B.1.1.7 variant first identified in Britain, the India variant was more resistant to antibody drugs, although three currently approved drugs still remained effective against it, they found. Antibodies in blood from unvaccinated COVID-19 survivors and from people who received both doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine were 3-fold to 6-fold less potent against the India variant than against the UK variant and a variant first identified in South Africa, according to a report posted on Thursday on the website bioRxiv ahead of peer review. The two-dose AstraZeneca vaccine, which does not protect against the South Africa variant, is likely to be ineffective against the India variant as well. Antibodies from people who had received their first dose “barely inhibited” this India variant, said study co-author Olivier Schwartz of Institut Pasteur. The study, Schwartz added, shows that the rapid spread of the India variant is associated with its ability to “escape” the effect of neutralizing antibodies.

New antibody drug keeps mild COVID-19 from worsening

An antibody drug from Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline that protects against progression of COVID-19 in high-risk patients with mild to moderate disease received emergency use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday. In a large randomized trial, patient risk of progression to more severe illness was reduced by 85% with the drug, sotrovimab, compared to a placebo, according to an interim report from the trial posted on Friday on the medRxiv website in advance of peer review. Everyone in the trial had risk factors for severe COVID-19 such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity and old age. Three of 291 patients (1%) in the sotrovimab group became sick enough to be hospitalized, versus 21 of 292 (7%) in the placebo group, researchers said. All five patients who needed to be admitted to intensive care received placebo, they reported. Serious complications were less common with sotrovimab than with placebo, they added. The antibody treatment will be available for COVID-19 patients in the coming weeks, GSK and Vir said on Wednesday.

Joint and muscle disease drugs may limit vaccine response

The COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna may be less effective in patients taking immunosuppressant drugs for rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases, researchers said. “While additional research is required, patients on immunosuppressants should be aware that they may not be fully protected against COVID even after full vaccination. Therefore, patients should talk to their providers before relaxing precautions,” said Dr. Julie Paik of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. In an earlier study, her team found that most patients with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases do respond appropriately to the vaccines. Looking more closely at 20 people whose immune systems did not respond well – that is, no antibodies were detectable after vaccination – the researchers found that most were receiving multiple immunosuppressive agents. “A unifying factor” among the patients was their use of medications such as rituximab and mycophenolate mofetil that affect immune cells called lymphocytes that produce antibodies and help control immune responses, the researchers reported on Monday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. “Our study highlights the need for physicians and patients to be aware that immunosuppressants may prevent an appropriate vaccine response against SARS-CoV-2,” Paik said.

Robust, coordinated immune response marks mild COVID-19

In COVID-19 patients who do not become seriously ill, the immune system reacts to the virus “robustly,” with a highly coordinated response, and this coordination may be one key to ensuring a mild illness, according to researchers. Detailed studies of immune system behavior in COVID-19 patients have focused primarily on those with moderate or severe illness and have found “uncoordinated” immune responses. The new study, posted Wednesday on the bioRxiv website ahead of peer review, “used cutting-edge methods to deeply study immune cells” in 18 patients with only mild illness, said study co-author Greg Szeto of the Allen Institute for Immunology in Seattle. In these mildly ill volunteers, the more intense the immune response in early infection, the higher the levels of antibodies in their blood after recovery, the multicenter research team found. And compared to participants who recovered, participants who had lingering troublesome symptoms – so-called Long Covid – had weaker immune responses to the virus in early infection, Szeto added. The differences the study found between mildly ill patients who did and did not develop Long Covid may help researchers devise more personalized ways to monitor immune responses to the virus and better methods for treatment, Szeto’s team concluded.

 

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid and Megan Brooks; Editing by Will Dunham)

What we know about the origins of COVID-19

By Deborah J. Nelson

(Reuters) -Scientists are revisiting a central mystery of COVID-19: Where, when and how did the virus that causes the disease originate?

The two prevailing competing theories are that the virus jumped from animals, possibly originating with bats, to humans, or that it escaped from a virology laboratory in Wuhan, China. The following is what is known about the virus’ origins.

WHY IS THE LAB IN WUHAN A FOCUS OF INTEREST?

The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is a high-security research facility that studies pathogens in nature with the potential to infect humans with deadly and exotic new diseases.

The lab has done extensive work on bat-borne viruses since the 2002 SARS-CoV-1 international outbreak, which began in China, killing 774 people worldwide. The search for its origins led years later to discovery of SARS-like viruses in a southwest China bat cave.

The institute collects genetic material from wildlife for experimentation at its Wuhan lab. Researchers experiment with live viruses in animals to gauge human susceptibility. To reduce the risk of pathogens escaping accidentally, the facility is supposed to enforce rigorous safety protocols, such as protective garb and super air filtration. But even the strictest measures cannot eliminate such risks.

WHY DO SOME SCIENTISTS SUSPECT A LABORATORY ACCIDENT?

To some scientists, the release of a dangerous pathogen via a careless lab worker is a plausible hypothesis for how the pandemic started and warrants investigation. The Wuhan lab, China’s leading SARS research facility, is not far from the Huanan Seafood Market, which early in the health crisis was cited as the most likely place where animal-to-human transmission of the virus may have taken place. The market was also the site of the first known COVID-19 super spreader event. Their proximity raised immediate suspicions, fueled by the failure so far to identify any wildlife infected with the same viral lineage and compounded by the Chinese government’s refusal to allow the lab-leak scenario to be fully investigated.

Scientists and others have developed hypotheses based on general concerns about the risks involved in live virus lab research, clues in the virus’ genome, and information from studies by institute researchers. Although the Wuhan lab’s scientists have said they had no trace of SARS-CoV-2 in their inventory at the time, 24 researchers sent a letter to the World Health Organization (WHO) urging a rigorous, independent investigation. The WHO’s first such mission to China this year failed to probe deeply enough, they wrote.

A U.S. State Department fact sheet, released before the WHO mission in the waning days of the Trump Administration, alleged, without proof, that several WIV researchers had fallen sick with symptoms consistent with COVID-19 or common seasonal illnesses before the first publicly confirmed case in December 2019.

A May 5, story by Nicholas Wade in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said lab scientists experimenting on a virus sometimes insert a sequence called a “furin cleavage site” into its genome in a manner that makes the virus more infective. David Baltimore, a Nobel Prize-winning virologist quoted in the article, said when he spotted the sequence in the SARS-CoV-2 genome, he felt he had found the smoking gun for the origin of the virus.

WHAT ARE THE ARGUMENTS FOR ANIMAL-TO-HUMAN TRANSMISSION?

Many scientists believe a natural origin is more likely and have seen no scientific evidence to support the lab leak theory. Kristian G. Andersen, a scientist at Scripps Research who has done extensive work on coronaviruses, Ebola and other pathogens transmissible from animals to humans, said similar genomic sequences occur naturally in coronaviruses and are unlikely to be manipulated in the way Baltimore described for experimentation.

Scientists who favor the natural origins hypothesis have relied largely on history. Some of the most lethal new diseases of the past century have been traced to human interactions with wildlife and domestic animals, including the first SARS epidemic (bats), MERS-CoV (camels), Ebola (bats or non-human primates) and Nipah virus (bats).

While an animal source has not been identified so far, swabs of stalls in the wildlife section of the wildlife market in Wuhan after the outbreak tested positive, suggesting an infected animal or human handler.

HAS NEW INFORMATION EMERGED TO LEND CREDENCE TO ONE THEORY OVER ANOTHER?

The scientists’ March 4 letter to the WHO refocused attention on the lab-leak scenario, but offered no new evidence. Nor has definitive proof of a natural origin surfaced.

U.S. President Joe Biden on May 26 said his national security staff does not believe there is sufficient information to assess one theory to be more likely than the other. He instructed intelligence officials to collect and analyze information that could close in on definitive conclusion and report back in 90 days.

(Reporting by Deborah J. NelsonEditing by Bill Berkrot)

Post vaccination infection rare but possibly contagious; study refutes another anti-vax pregnancy claim

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Breakthrough infections rare, but potentially contagious

As of April 30, when roughly 101 million Americans had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, “breakthrough” infections had been reported in 0.01% of them, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Tuesday. Roughly 27% of breakthrough infections were asymptomatic, while in 2% of cases, patients died. The CDC had genetic data for virus samples from 555 breakthrough infections. Mutated variants of the coronavirus, including those first seen in the UK and South Africa, accounted for 64% of the breakthroughs. In a separate study posted Tuesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review, researchers reported that among 20 fully-vaccinated healthcare workers with breakthrough COVID-19 cases, all were infected with variants. An earlier study had linked breakthrough infections with low viral loads, suggesting low transmission risks, but “we found many samples in our breakthrough cohort with high viral load,” said coauthor Pavitra Roychoudhury of the University of Washington. “Our work suggests that not all breakthrough infections are at low risk of initiating transmission and, if they did, these infections could lead to the continued spread of variants of concern, particularly in areas with low vaccination rates.”

Study refutes anti-vaxxers’ pregnancy, breast milk claims

Unfounded claims by anti-vaccine activists that COVID-19 shots from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna will damage the placenta and contaminate breast milk have been refuted by new data. The vaccines deliver synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA), which instructs the body to make proteins that in turn induce antibodies to attack the coronavirus. Anti-vaxxers claim, with no evidence, that mRNA also induces antibodies that attack a protein called syncytin-1, which is important for the developing placenta during pregnancy. They also claim mRNA from the vaccines ends up in breast milk. When researchers studied blood samples from 15 women who received at least one dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine – including two pregnant women and five who were breastfeeding – they saw coronavirus antibodies but no antibodies against syncytin-1. None of the breastfeeding women had vaccine mRNA in their milk, according to a report posted Tuesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. “This small study tells us that it is unlikely that COVID-19 mRNA vaccination will cause complications in pregnancy or fertility through cross-reacting antibodies against syncytin-1, or for breastfed infants through breast milk,” the authors said.

Vaccines appear safe for “long COVID” survivors

COVID-19 survivors with lingering symptoms can safely be vaccinated against the coronavirus, a small study suggests. Researchers tracked 36 individuals with “long COVID” who had been hospitalized while acutely ill and who later received at least one dose of either the Pfizer/BioNTech or AstraZeneca vaccine. Eight months after admission to the hospital, and before vaccination, participants had at least one lingering symptom and half had at least four symptoms. Before vaccination, their quality-of-life was “markedly reduced” from normal, the researchers reported on Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine. One month after vaccination, 71% of their symptoms remained unchanged, 23% of their symptoms were improved, and 6% of symptoms had worsened. There was no significant worsening in quality-of-life or mental well-being, and outcomes were similar with both vaccines, researchers reported. The results may reassure people with persistent COVID-19 symptoms that the different types of vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech or AstraZeneca are “not associated with a decrease in quality of life or worsening of symptoms,” the researchers said.

Moderna says vaccine safe, effective in adolescents

Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine was 100% effective in a trial involving 3,732 adolescents aged 12-17, with no major safety problems, the company said on Tuesday. Among participants who received two doses, there were no cases of COVID-19 compared with four cases among those who received a placebo. After only one dose, the vaccine was 93% effective in this age group, Moderna said. Side effects were similar to those reported in earlier studies, including headache, fatigue, body aches and chills. Moderna plans to submit the findings to regulators for emergency use authorization in June. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Monday it is monitoring rare reports of mild heart inflammation after COVID-19 vaccination in adolescents. The CDC said the condition is not occurring at higher rates than would be expected in the general population, so no causal link to the vaccine has been established. Dr. Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security said even if vaccines turn out to be the cause, it is important to consider the risk-benefit ratio. “Vaccines are going to unequivocally be much more beneficial,” outweighing any low risk of myocarditis, he said.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid, Julie Steenhuysen and Radhika Anilkumar; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

COVID-19 mask mandates latest flashpoint for U.S. schools

By Sharon Bernstein and Colleen Jenkins

(Reuters) – Two days after the school board in Johnston, Iowa, decided last week to keep requiring mask wearing in schools to prevent coronavirus transmission, the state’s Republican governor signed a law that immediately prohibited such mandates.

The reaction in Johnston was swift and sharply divided, with some parents applauding the move to make masks optional for the waning days of the school year and others calling it dangerous given the continued threat from COVID-19.

“I just find it super disappointing and selfish,” said local parent Sara Parris, who is still sending her two sons to class with face coverings.

The debate over masks in schools is yet another flashpoint for U.S. educators grappling with how to keep students and staff safe during the pandemic. Friction around returning to in-person learning has given way to heated disagreements over whether masks should be shed for good.

Iowa and Texas have banned school districts from requiring kids to wear masks on campus. Similar moves are under consideration in other states and local jurisdictions, spurred in part by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) saying on May 13 that vaccinated people no longer needed to wear masks in most situations.

With children under age 12 not yet eligible for vaccinations, however, the CDC recommends face coverings in educational settings at least through the end of the school year. While children are less likely to suffer severe COVID-19, they are not without risk and can readily transmit the virus.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said on Twitter that her state was “putting parents back in control of their child’s education and protecting the rights of all Iowans to make their own health care decisions.”

Responding to the governor via Twitter, Democratic state Senator Sarah Trone Garriott said: “I’m hearing from lots of parents reporting that their children are being bullied for wearing a mask. Are you going to stand up for their personal choice?”

At the Johnston school board meeting last week, most parents spoke in favor of making masks optional, with one mother calling masking requirements for children abusive. Other parents emailed school officials asking for mask mandates to remain in place.

“It’s been difficult to try to find the right balance,” Justin Allen, president of the school board and a parent of two high school students, said in an interview.

“Just when you think you are in kind of a comfort zone and you think you can focus on education for awhile, something else emerges and you have another controversial issue to address.”

CDC STUDY BACKS MASKS

In North Carolina, parents opposed to mandatory face coverings staged a protest in Wake County after Democratic Governor Roy Cooper lifted mask requirements in some situations but not in schools.

“Parents should determine if their child should wear a mask, not school systems or the governor,” parent Nazach Snapp wrote in a letter to the Wake County school board.

Others urged the board to continue its mask requirement.

“Given that vaccines are not available yet for children under 12, I implore you to continue to require students in middle and elementary settings to wear masks,” wrote parent Mimosa Hines.

A study published by the CDC on Friday showed that in elementary schools that required masks, transmission of COVID-19 was lower by 37% than in schools where masks were optional. The study, which included 169 elementary schools in Georgia that were open for in-person instruction, also showed improved ventilation slowed virus transmission.

It advised increasing, not decreasing, the use of masks and ventilation in schools.

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association, two unions that represent a total of about 5 million teachers and staff, have urged states to keep their mask requirements at least through the end of this school year.

While nearly 90% of AFT’s members have been vaccinated against COVID-19, many of their students have not.

U.S. regulators earlier this month authorized use of the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc and partner BioNTech SE for children ages 12 to 15. It is still being tested for use in younger children.

AFT President Randi Weingarten said Texas and Iowa “jumped the gun” in removing their mask requirements. Politics around masks, along with unclear guidance from the CDC, have left teachers in an awkward position, she said.

“Teachers don’t want to become the mask police,” she said. “It’s time to let us actually teach.”

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California and Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

At least two people killed as cyclone bears down on India’s east coast

By Subrata Nagchoudhury and Jatindra Dash

BHUBANESWAR, India (Reuters) – A tornado ripped through eastern India on Tuesday, killing at least two people and damaging dozens of homes as a powerful cyclone neared the coast, officials said, while authorities tried to move over a million people to safety from low-lying areas.

Cyclone Yaas was powering across the Bay of Bengal and would batter the eastern states of Odisha and West Bengal, and also Bangladesh, on Wednesday, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

“It is likely to cause large-scale damage,” IMD chief Mrutyunjay Mohapatra told Reuters by telephone.

A freak tornado that some experts said was linked to the incoming storm snapped electricity lines, which electrocuted two people, and damaged around 45 houses in West Bengal’s Hooghly district, a government official said.

In all, the state had already moved around 900,000 people in several coastal districts to storm shelters, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee told reporters.

But neighboring Odisha state appeared likely to face the brunt of Cyclone Yaas – the second cyclone to hit the country in a week – where officials also began moving people in cars and boats into storm shelters and other sturdy structures.

Pregnant women and children were sent to government hospitals, as fishermen shifted boats to safety inland.

In Odisha’s Balasore district, close to where the cyclone is expected to make landfall, volunteers broadcast alerts over megaphones, urging people to move.

“Evacuation is always a challenge. In general, there is a reluctance … this time we have COVID,” said Vishal Kumar Dev, an official overseeing relief efforts in Balasore.

“Often people say, ‘We’ll go only when the rain increases.’ We’re convincing them.”

Cyclones in the Bay of Bengal are common at this time of year, and often roar ashore, causing deaths and destruction in coastal areas of both India and Bangladesh.

Last week, Cyclone Tauktae – the most powerful cyclone to hit India’s west cost in more than two decades – killed more than 150 people.

A devastating second wave of coronavirus infections complicated storm preparations. Officials in Odisha said they were conducting antigen tests and temperature checks, and isolating people with COVID-19 symptoms.

(Reporting by Jatindra Das in BHUBANESWAR and Subrata Nagachoudhury in KOLKATA; Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Robert Birsel and Howard Goller)

U.S. calls for ‘transparent’ new investigation into COVID origins

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United States called on Tuesday for international experts to be allowed to evaluate the source of the coronavirus and the “early days of the outbreak” in a second phase of an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus.

U.S. intelligence agencies are examining reports that researchers at a Chinese virology laboratory were seriously ill in 2019 a month before the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, according to U.S. government sources who cautioned on Monday that there is still no proof the disease originated at the lab.

“Phase 2 of the COVID origins study must be launched with terms of reference that are transparent, science-based, and give international experts the independence to fully assess the source of the virus and the early days of the outbreak,” U.S. health secretary Xavier Becerra said in a video message to the annual ministerial meeting of the World Health Organization.

Becerra did not mention China directly, where the first known human cases of COVID-19 emerged in the central city of Wuhan in December 2019.

The origin of the virus is hotly contested. In a report issued in March written jointly with Chinese scientists, a WHO-led team that spent four weeks in and around Wuhan in January and February said the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal, and that “introduction through a laboratory incident was considered to be an extremely unlikely pathway”.

A WHO spokesman, Tarik Jasarevic, asking about a follow-up mission, told Reuters on Monday that the agency was reviewing the recommendations from the report at the technical level.

“The technical teams will prepare a proposal for the next studies that will need to be carried out, and will present that to the Director-General for his consideration,” he said, referring to WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Jasarevic, noting Tedros’ remarks on March 30, said that further studies would be needed in a range of areas, including on the early detection of cases and clusters, the potential roles of animal markets, transmission via the food chain and the laboratory incident hypothesis.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Philippa Fletcher)

Kazakhstan rolls out app to control access to public areas

ALMATY (Reuters) – Kazakhstan is rolling out an app which it hopes will limit the spread of COVID-19 by restricting people’s access to places such as bars, cinemas and airports based on their vaccination and infection risk status.

The Ashyq (Open) app assigns each user a red, yellow, green or blue status based on whether they have been vaccinated, or been in contact with an infected person. Users must scan a QR code with the app before entering a public place.

The app has been met with mixed reactions – while some acknowledge its potential usefulness, many are frustrated by the long queues it sometimes causes.

The airport of the Central Asian nation’s biggest city, Almaty, will start using it from Friday after a few days of tests. The app is mandatory for cinemas and theatres and its deployment allows restaurants and bars to stay open until 2am instead of closing at 10pm.

Those with red or yellow status, which is assigned to those currently infected with COVID-19 or who have been in contact with a positive case, will not be able to enter most areas.

Blue status individuals are those with no sign of contact with a suspected case and they have almost full access to sites. Green status is temporarily assigned to those who have had a negative PCR test, or permanently assigned after vaccination.

Almost 2 million people in the oil-rich former Soviet republic of 19 million have so far received a first dose of the vaccine – mostly Russia-developed Sputnik V – and over 800,000 have received both jabs.

(Reporting by Pavel Mikheyev; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

Argentina’s gravediggers plead for vaccines as death toll climbs

By Miguel Lo Bianco and Agustin Geist

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Ernesto Fabián Aguirre, a gravedigger in the Memorial cemetery in the suburbs of Argentine capital Buenos Aires, feels like he is going into battle every day as the country’s coronavirus death toll mounts amid a new wave of infections.

Argentina’s gravediggers are threatening to strike over demands that cemetery workers burying the dead are vaccinated against COVID-19, a test for the South American country’s government which has faced hold-ups to its vaccine roll-out.

“We face a daily war in this place,” Aguirre told Reuters. “The fear is real, that’s why we want the vaccine to arrive for everyone so that, at least, we can live a couple more years,” he said with a wry laugh.

Argentina is seeing a sharp second wave of the pandemic, with the average daily death toll hitting a record at over 450 lives lost a day. The country has recorded over 70,000 deaths since the pandemic hit. Daily new cases now average just below 25,000, prompting calls for tighter restrictions.

Meanwhile the country’s inoculation campaign has only fully inoculated 4.5% of the population and 18% has received at least one dose, according to a Reuters analysis. At an average of 132,000 doses given per day, it will take another 69 days to inoculate another 10% of the population.

Argentina’s union representing cemetery, crematorium and funeral workers has threatened a national strike if it does not reach a deal with the government on vaccines. The strike could start this week after a government-enforced conciliation period ends.

The burial protocol for COVID-19 victims involves disinfecting and handling the coffin, where workers have to wear protective gear including body suits, face masks, goggles and gloves.

“It is a very hard work every day and I would like if it could be possible for us to be vaccinated because each day we have to take good care of ourselves and the COVID-19 issue is raging,” said Juan Polig, the cemetery’s manager.

Polig explained that beyond the physical risk of infection, workers had to deal with the emotional pain of consoling relatives and having to restrict how many family members can visit the grave due to COVID protocol measures.

“It’s hugely sad and complicated,” he said.

(Reporting by Miguel Lo Bianco and Agustín Geist; Writing by Eliana Raszewski; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Lisa Shumaker)