Tag Archives: COVID-19

Dutch PM Rutte confirms lockdown to last until at least March

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Tuesday that most of the lockdown measures in the Netherlands, many of which have been in place since October, will remain in place for weeks due to fears over a surge in cases as a result of variant strains.

Rutte’s government is still weighing whether to continue an evening curfew that has triggered rioting in some Dutch cities beyond next week, the prime minister told a press briefing.

The government announced earlier this week that primary schools and daycares will reopen on Feb. 8, adding that it is also looking at possibly reopening secondary schools but that will not happen before March.

“It is inescapable to extend the current lockdown almost entirely until at least March 2,” Rutte said, despite falling case numbers in the Netherlands.

“A third wave is inevitably coming our way,” he said, pointing to new virus strains which are more infectious.

The Netherlands has been in what the government calls a strict lockdown since mid-December and last month imposed a curfew, the country’s first since World War Two, which sparked riots.

The National Institute for Health (RIVM) said on Tuesday there had been 28,628 COVID-19 cases in the past week, down 20% from the week before and the lowest level since lockdown measures were introduced in October.

But this week’s decline “would have been greater without the new variants of the virus that have entered the Netherlands, especially the British Variant,” the RIVM said in a statement.

Health Minister Hugo de Jonge said on Monday that half of the cases were being caused by the new variant as of Jan. 26, up from around a third the week before. The government fears it may cause a new wave ahead of March 17 elections.

(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Chris Reese and Alexander Smith)

UK’s record-breaking fundraiser, ‘hero’ Captain Tom Moore, dies aged 100

By Ben Makori and Henry Nicholls

MARSTON MORETAINE, England (Reuters) -Britain’s Captain Tom Moore, the World War Two veteran who lifted a nation’s spirits by raising millions of pounds for health service workers battling the coronavirus, died on Tuesday aged 100 after he contracted COVID-19.

Moore struck a chord with locked-down Britain by walking around his garden with the help of a frame to raise 38.9 million pounds ($53 million) for the National Health Service.

His endeavor and wit spread joy amid the grim news of the coronavirus outbreak: Moore’s message to the world was that the sun would shine again and that the clouds would clear.

“It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our dear father, Captain Sir Tom Moore,” his daughters said in a statement following his death on Tuesday morning at Bedford Hospital in central England.

Over the last five years, he had been receiving treatment for prostate and skin cancer, his family said. He was fighting pneumonia and was taken to hospital after testing positive for COVID-19 on Jan. 22, unable to be vaccinated due to the other medication he was taking.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Queen Elizabeth led the tributes to Moore, whose exploits won global admiration.

“Captain Tom Moore was a hero in the truest sense of the word,” said Johnson, who spoke to Moore’s daughter Hannah to pass on his condolences. “He became not just a national inspiration but a beacon of hope for the world.”

The flag above his Downing Street office was lowered to half-mast in Moore’s honor.

The queen, who knighted Moore at Windsor Castle last summer in recognition of his efforts, will send a message of private condolence to the family, Buckingham Palace said, adding the 94-year-old monarch had “very much enjoyed meeting Captain Sir Tom”.

“Her thoughts, and those of the Royal Family, are with them, recognizing the inspiration he provided for the whole nation and others across the world,” the palace said.

When Moore, dressed in a blazer and tie, started his sponsored walk at his home in the village of Marston Moretaine, 80km (50 miles) north of London, he hoped to raise 1,000 pounds.

Instead, he amassed a world record sum for the National Health Service, with his quiet determination and cheerful outlook winning the hearts of the British public.

SUNSHINE DURING LOCKDOWN

“The last year of our father’s life was nothing short of remarkable. He was rejuvenated and experienced things he’d only ever dreamed of,” his daughters said.

“Whilst he’d been in so many hearts for just a short time, he was an incredible father and grandfather, and he will stay alive in our hearts forever.”

Such was his fame that his 100th birthday was marked by a message from Johnson, a promotion to the rank of colonel and fly pasts by both historic planes and modern RAF helicopters above his home.

He received more than 125,000 birthday cards from well-wishers around the world and became the oldest person to reach number one in Britain’s main music singles chart, featuring on a cover version of “You’ll Never Walk Alone”.

“I never, ever anticipated ever in my life anything like this, it really is amazing,” Moore said when he turned 100 on April 30. “Thank you very much to everyone, wherever you are.”

Raised in Yorkshire, northern England, Moore served in India, Burma and Sumatra during World War Two.

Soldiers from the First Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment, the successor to his own, gave him a guard of honor when he completed the 100th length of the garden on April 16, 2020.

Moore found words to cheer up the British public during lockdown, his status as a war veteran adding to his standing.

“For all those people who are finding it difficult at the moment, the sun will shine on you again and the clouds will go away,” he said after completing his sponsored walk.

“You’ve all got to remember that we will get through it in the end, it will all be right, it might take time. At the end of the day we shall all be OK again.”

($1 = 0.7334 pounds)

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Holden; additional reporting by Estelle Shirbon and Costas Pitas in London; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

White House plans to send vaccine doses to retail pharmacies

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House will launch a new program shipping coronavirus vaccines directly to retail pharmacies starting next week in an effort to increase Americans’ access to shots, a top aide said on Tuesday.

President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 response coordinator, Jeff Zients, said the program will launch on Feb 11 and make 1 million doses available to 6,500 stores. As supply grows, the program could expand to as many as 40,000 stores, he said.

Biden said last month that the COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been a “dismal failure” so far and vowed to boost the speed at which shots are given to Americans, with a focus on ensuring equitable access regardless of geography, race, or ethnicity.

The federal government will distribute a million vaccine doses to the 6,500 stores next week, Zients said, adding that the amount will grow over time.

That is in addition to 10.5 million doses that the federal government plans to ship weekly to states and territories for the next three weeks, he added.

“This will provide more sites for people to get vaccinated in their communities,” Zients said, adding that supply constraints will limit the program in its early days.

The initial pharmacy locations were selected to improve access to vaccines in hard to reach areas and among socially vulnerable communities, Zients said.

CVS Health Corp said in a news release that its pharmacies will be participating in the program.

Zients also said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will reimburse states for some COVID-related costs they had taken on since the pandemic began last January, such as for personal protective equipment and deployment of the national guard.

He said Congress does not need to approve funds for FEMA to do this and that the total payments to states will be between $3 billion and $5 billion.

Zients added that the federal government has acquired supplies of equipment healthcare providers need to get six doses from each vial of Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine rather than five.

The Biden administration has said it is willing to use emergency wartime powers if necessary to secure the specialized low dead space syringes and other supplies needed to eliminate vaccine waste and improve administration efficiency.

The major winter storm that hit the east coast of the United States this week has not disrupted vaccine deliveries but has forced some vaccine administration sites to shut down or reduce operating hours, Zients said.

(Reporting by Carl O’Donnell, Susan Heavey and Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Splendid isolation: Hungarian family out sails COVID nightmare on the sea

By Krisztina Than

BUDAPEST (Reuters) – While the world was grappling with the pandemic, a Hungarian family of four decided last summer to fulfil their dream: sailing around the globe in a 50-feet boat called “Teatime.”

They left a Croatian port in late June 2020 and have since sailed around Italy and Spain, then stopped for some time on Cape Verde before crossing the Atlantic.

After having spent Christmas on Martinique, they are now anchored in Marigot, on the Caribbean island of St. Martin, waiting to sail towards the Panama canal.

They are in no rush, though, as life on the boat — just as for many people quarantined in their homes — has slowed down.

“For me it is a fantastic experience that I can spend a lot more time with my kids, instead of getting home late from work totally exhausted,” said 48-year-old Domonkos Bosze, who set up a home office on the boat. He works in the IT business.

“Our route is fairly flexible: basically the weather defines which way we go, as the hurricane and cyclones seasons set the limits for sailing each region.”

He and his wife Anna, who have been sailing for more than a decade, had planned the adventure long before the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the pandemic presented them with the dilemma of whether this was the right time to go, in the end their determination overruled all worries and risks.

TEATIME ON SEA

So far the biggest challenge has been a six-hour storm during the Atlantic crossing which they managed well, losing only a toaster and the satellite phone which broke.

They follow the changes in coronavirus rules in each country and take a test or go into quarantine as required.

“When we arrived in Martinique … we told authorities that we just spent 16 days on the open seas and they accepted that as quarantine,” Bosze said.

Nonetheless, the boat is filled with enough foodstuff for a month. And they catch their own tuna or mahi mahi (dorado), much to the joy of their 6- and 8-year-old daughters.

The two girls do remote learning, and will be enrolled in local schools if possible to get familiar with different cultures.

Domonkos said a discussion with Jimmy Cornell, the legendary Romanian-born British yachtsman, had a great influence on their thinking when they planned the trip.

While being together all the time in a confined space posed some difficulties in the beginning, now everything goes like clockwork on “Teatime”, named after the family’s habit of sitting down for tea and chatter.

Anna said the trip has given her huge freedom even though she cooks regularly besides handling the sails if needed.

“We saw dolphins jumping at the bow of the boat and swimming with us, with the sea totally calm … so we could see them clearly under water,” she said, smiling.

Depending on COVID restrictions, they plan to sail on this year or next year towards the Pacific, and now they say their trip could last another 5-6 years, stopping for extended periods in the southern Pacific and on the Indian ocean.

(Reporting and writing by Krisztina Than; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine 92% effective in fighting COVID-19

By Polina Ivanova

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Scientists gave Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine the green light on Tuesday saying it was almost 92% effective in fighting COVID-19 based on peer-reviewed late-stage trial results published in The Lancet international medical journal.

Experts said the Phase III trial results meant the world had another effective weapon to fight the deadly pandemic and justified to some extent Moscow’s decision to roll out the vaccine before final data had been released.

The results, collated by the Gamaleya Institute in Moscow that developed and tested the vaccine, were in line with efficacy data reported at earlier stages of the trial, which has been running in Moscow since September.

“The development of the Sputnik V vaccine has been criticized for unseemly haste, corner cutting, and an absence of transparency,” said Ian Jones, professor at the University of Reading, and Polly Roy, professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

“But the outcome reported here is clear and the scientific principle of vaccination is demonstrated,” the scientists, who were not involved in the study, said in a comment shared by The Lancet. “Another vaccine can now join the fight to reduce the incidence of COVID-19.”

The results were based on data from 19,866 volunteers, of whom a quarter received a placebo, the researchers, led by the Gamaleya Institute’s Denis Logunov, said in The Lancet.

Since the trial began in Moscow, there were 16 recorded cases of symptomatic COVID-19 among people who received the vaccine, and 62 among the placebo group, the scientists said.

This showed that a two-dose regimen of the vaccine – two shots based on two different viral vectors, administered 21 days apart – was 91.6% effective against symptomatic COVID-19.

‘RUSSIA WAS RIGHT’

The Sputnik V vaccine is the fourth worldwide to have Phase III results published in leading peer-reviewed medical journals following the shots developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca.

Pfizer’s shot had the highest efficacy rate at 95%, closely followed by Moderna’s vaccine and Sputnik V while AstraZeneca’s vaccine had an average efficacy of 70%.

Sputnik V has also now been approved for storage in normal fridges, as opposed to freezers, making transportation and distribution easier, Gamaleya scientists said on Tuesday.

Russia approved the vaccine in August, before the large-scale trial had begun, saying it was the first country to do so for a COVID-19 shot. It named it Sputnik V, in homage to the world’s first satellite, launched by the Soviet Union.

Small numbers of frontline health workers began receiving it soon after and a large-scale roll out started in December, though access was limited to those in specific professions, such as teachers, medical workers and journalists.

In January, the vaccine was offered to all Russians.

“Russia was right all along,” Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which is responsible for marketing the vaccine abroad, told reporters on Tuesday.

He said the results supported Russia’s decision to begin administering Sputnik V to frontline workers while the trial was still underway, and suggested skepticism of such moves was politically motivated.

“The Lancet did very unbiased work despite some of the political pressures that may have been out there,” he said.

EFFECTIVE IN ELDERLY

The number of people vaccinated in Russia has remained low so far. Authorities have pointed to some early issues with scaling up production while polls have shown low demand among Russians for the vaccine.

Russia has already shared data from its Phase III trial with regulators in several countries and has begun the process of submitting it to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for approval in the European Union, Dmitriev said.

The data release comes as Europe scrambles to secure enough shots for its 450 million citizens due to production cuts by AstraZeneca and Pfizer. The U.S. roll-out, meanwhile, has been hampered by the need to store shots in ultra-cold freezers and uneven planning across states.

There were 2,144 volunteers over 60 in the Sputnik V trial and the shot was shown to be 91.8% effective when tested on this older group, with no serious side-effects reported that could be associated with the vaccine, The Lancet summary said.

RDIF’s Dimitriev also said the Gamaleya Institute was testing the vaccine against new variants of COVID-19 and the early signs were positive.

The vaccine was also found to be 100% effective against moderate or severe COVID-19, as there were no such cases among the group of 78 participants who were infected and symptomatic at 21 days after the first shot was administered.

Four deaths of participants occurred, but none was considered associated with vaccination, The Lancet said.

“The efficacy looks good, including in the over 60’s,” said Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London. “It’s good to have another addition to the global arsenal.”

ONE DOSE VERSION

The authors of the study noted that because COVID-19 cases were only detected when trial participants reported symptoms, further research was needed to understand Sputnik V’s efficacy on asymptomatic cases and transmission.

Sputnik V has been approved by 15 countries, including Argentina, Hungary and the United Arab Emirates and this will rise to 25 by the end of next week, the RDIF’s Dmitriev said.

The sovereign wealth fund also said vaccinations using Sputnik V will begin in a dozen countries including Bolivia, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela and Iran.

Hungary was the first member of the European Union to break ranks and unilaterally approve the vaccine last month. It is set to receive a first batch of 40,000 doses on Tuesday.

Germany has said it would use Sputnik V if it is approved by Europe’s drug regulator while France has said it could buy any efficient vaccine.

However, large shipments of the shot have only been sent so far to Argentina, which has received enough doses to vaccinate about 500,000 people.

“Now all doubts are cleared up,” Argentine Science Minister Roberto Salvarezza told local radio station La Red, citing “the confirmation in a prestigious scientific publication.”

Production for export will primarily be done by RDIF’s manufacturing partners abroad, the fund has said.

On Tuesday, Dmitriev said production had started in India and South Korea, and would launch in China this month. Trial doses have also been produced by a manufacturer in Brazil.

Russia is conducting a small-scale clinical trial of a one-dose version of the vaccine, which developers expect to have an efficacy rate of 73% to 85%.

(Additional reporting by Kate Kelland in London and Nicolas Misculin in Buenos Aires; Writing by Polina Ivanova; Editing by Mark Potter and David Clarke)

Some lingering COVID-19 issues seen in children; patients’ antibodies attack multiple virus targets

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.

Long lasting COVID-19 effects seen in children

“Long COVID” – a term that refers to effects of the virus that linger for weeks or months – may be a problem for children, too, a small study suggests. Doctors at a large Italian hospital tracked 129 children and teens with COVID-19 who were otherwise generally healthy. At an average of about five months after their diagnosis, only about 42% had completely recovered. Roughly one in three youngsters still had one or two symptoms and more than one in five had three or more, according to a report posted on Tuesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. The most common persistent problems were insomnia (reported by 18.6%), respiratory symptoms including pain and chest tightness (14.7%), nasal congestion (12.4%), fatigue (10.8%), muscle pain (10.1%), joint pain (6.9%), and concentration difficulties (10.1%). Although these issues were more common in children who had been obviously sick, they also developed in infected youths with few or no symptoms initially. There is increasing evidence that restrictive measures aimed at curbing the pandemic are significantly impacting children’s mental health, the researchers acknowledge. Still, their findings suggest, the potential long-term effects COVID-19 can have on children should be considered when developing measures to reduce the impact of the pandemic on their overall health.

Patients’ antibodies target virus from many angles

Most antibody treatments and vaccines targeting the coronavirus focus on stimulating an immune response against the spike protein it uses to break into cells. Targeting other sites on the virus as well may be a better approach, researchers say. Their study of COVID-19 survivors whose immune systems had generated strong responses to the virus showed that more than half of those antibodies targeted components of the virus other than the spike protein. The most common non-spike targets of the antibodies were the closed capsule in which the virus stores its genetic instructions and specific segments of those instructions, such as stretches of its RNA code. This suggests that non-spike related antibodies may play a significant role in clearing the virus, the research team said in a paper posted on Thursday on bioRxiv ahead of peer review. In terms of natural immunity, it also suggests that when faced with new spike protein variants, the immune system will have other sites on the virus that it can still remember and attack. A spokesperson for the researchers said their company, Immunome Inc, is developing a cocktail of antibodies that target multiple sites on the virus.

COVID-19 may affect kidney filtering

COVID-19 impairs the kidneys’ ability to filter waste and toxic substances in some patients, a new report suggests. Kidney filters do not usually allow much protein into the urine. Researchers who studied 103 COVID-19 patients found that about 24% of them had high levels of the protein albumin in their urine, and 21% had high levels of the protein cystatin c in their urine. About 25% of the patients had a noninfectious piece of the coronavirus in their urine, but none of the samples contained infectious virus. That suggests the virus particles researchers did see were “a direct result of a filtration abnormality rather than a viral infection of the kidney,” according to a report posted on Sunday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. None of the patients had signs of kidney dysfunction, other than the filtration issues. “At this stage, we do not know whether or not these abnormalities are a sign of long-term consequences,” said coauthor Choukri Ben Mamoun of the Yale School of Medicine. “It is for this reason that we report these findings and emphasize the need for long-term examination of the consequences of this infection.”

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

As pandemic worsens, Portugal reports nearly half of all its COVID-19 deaths in January

By Catarina Demony and Victoria Waldersee

LISBON (Reuters) – Portugal reported close to half of all its COVID-19 deaths in January, highlighting the severe worsening of the pandemic in a country whose plight has caused several European nations to offer help.

Hospitals across the nation of just over 10 million appear on the verge of collapse, with ambulances queuing sometimes for hours for lack of beds and some health units struggling to find enough refrigerated space to preserve the bodies of the deceased.

Austria is willing to take in intensive-care patients and is waiting for Portuguese authorities to propose how many patients they want to transfer, the Austrian embassy in Lisbon said.

Germany will send medical staff and equipment.

Hard-hit neighbor Spain has offered help too, but Portugal is yet to accept, a Spanish foreign ministry source told Reuters, while Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya told LaSexta TV both countries were in “direct contact every day, at all levels”.

In January, 5,576 people died from COVID-19, representing 44.7% of all 12,482 fatalities since the start of the pandemic in Portugal, health authority DGS said.

Portuguese officials have blamed the huge increase in the infection and death rates on the more contagious variant of the disease first detected in Britain, while acknowledging that a relaxation of restrictions on social movement over the Christmas holidays played a role.

The association representing funeral homes warned that public hospitals were running out of refrigerated space to preserve the bodies of COVID-19 victims, and some, including Portugal’s largest hospital Santa Maria, have installed extra cold containers to ease pressure on their morgues.

Over 711,000 infections have been reported since March 2020, with 43% of those infections in January, according to DGS, whose tally increased by 275 deaths and 5,805 cases on Monday.

Portugal has the world’s highest seven-day rolling average of new daily cases per million inhabitants, according to data tracker ourworldindata.org.

With 865 coronavirus patients in intensive care and 6,869 in hospital wards, hospitals are running out of beds and there is a shortage of doctors and nurses.

Portugal has 850 ICU beds allocated to COVID-19 cases in its mainland public health system and another 420 for those with other ailments, according to the latest data.

For most, vaccination against the virus is the light at the end of the tunnel. But only roughly 70,000 people have been fully vaccinated with the two required doses so far. Those over 80 start getting their shots on Monday.

(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves, Catarina Demony and Victoria Waldersee; Additional reporting by Belen Carreno and Emma Pinedo Gonzalez in Madrid and Seythal, Thomas Seythal in Berlin; Editing by Ingrid Melander, Mark Heinrich and Bernadette Baum)

WHO team in China’s Wuhan visits provincial CDC

WUHAN, China (Reuters) – A World Health Organization-led team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday visited the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in China’s central region of Hubei, where the outbreak emerged in late 2019.

The group of independent experts spent about 4-1/2 hours on its longest site visit since completing two weeks of quarantine on Thursday, and did not speak to waiting journalists.

The WHO, which has sought to manage expectations for the mission, has said its members would be limited to visits organized by their Chinese hosts and have no contact with community members, because of health curbs.

The group has so far also visited hospitals where early cases were detected, markets, and an exhibition on the battle with the outbreak in the provincial capital of Wuhan.

No full itinerary for the group’s field work has been announced, and journalists covering the tightly controlled visit have been kept at a distance from team members.

Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow with the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington, said two weeks in the field was not much time for the experts.

“I don’t think they have the time to get any conclusive results. It is more like communication and information exchange,” Huang told Reuters by phone from Washington.

“It depends how diligent they are in digging new information but also about how cooperative and accommodating the Chinese side will be.”

Beijing has sought to cast doubt on the notion that the coronavirus originated in China, pointing to imported frozen food as a conduit.

That hypothesis figured again on Sunday in the Global Times tabloid run by the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily.

On Sunday, the experts visited the Huanan seafood market linked to initial infections, and the Baishazhou wholesale food market, where a loudspeaker repeatedly announced that the sale of imported cold chain products was banned at the market.

(Reporting by Martin Quin Pollard and Thomas Peter in Wuhan; Additional reporting by David Stanway in Shanghai; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Gerry Doyle and Clarence Fernandez)

Under Biden order, workers refusing unsafe work could stay on unemployment aid

By Ann Saphir and Jonnelle Marte

(Reuters) – Many workers called back by employers resuming or expanding operations despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic face a dilemma: return to jobs that put them at high risk of the virus, or say no, and risk going without pay or unemployment benefits.

President Joe Biden argues workers should not have to make that choice.

An executive order signed on his second full day in office could make it easier for people to still qualify for jobless benefits if they quit or refuse a job that puts them at undue risk of infection from the coronavirus.

More than 18 million Americans are drawing some form of government unemployment assistance.

The order asks the U.S. Department of Labor to clarify that workers who refuse jobs due to unsafe working conditions can still receive unemployment insurance. A department spokesman told Reuters the agency is developing an Unemployment Insurance Program Letter – the usual mechanism for issuing guidelines or clarifying policies – in response to the order.

The Labor Department also issued new guidance on Friday with recommendations on how employers can protect workers from the virus, which has infected more than 25 million Americans and led to more than 433,500 U.S. deaths since the pandemic began.

“In a period where lots of people have lost jobs and people are desperate for work, people will go and end up working under dangerous conditions and they will do so believing they have no other alternative,” said Ken Jacobs, chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

Assuring them they have the right to refuse unsafe work, and paying them enough to afford not to work, is “vitally important,” Jacobs said. “You want people in the greatest risk groups to stay home.”

SEEKING CLARITY

It’s not clear how many workers have lost unemployment benefits after refusing jobs because of COVID-19 safety concerns, said Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and an expert on unemployment insurance. Still, the new guidance should establish minimum protections for workers, replacing an approach that can vary by state, he said.

“It’s been very unclear for a claimant to understand whether they can refuse an offer to go back to work,” Stettner said.

Currently some states, including Texas, publish lists of the circumstances in which a worker might be able to keep receiving benefits after turning down a job. For instance, the state offers exceptions for workers age 65 and up, or those with health conditions that put them at high risk.

But other states advise workers of a narrower set of protections, and many make decisions on a case by case basis.

“The goal would be to have some clear standards,” Stettner said.

The new federal guidance, likely to be issued in the coming weeks, would be aimed at making both states and workers aware they should be able to qualify for unemployment benefits after refusing a job that puts them at greater risk because of their age, a health condition or lack of COVID-19 safety protocols, analysts say.

‘WE NEED A STANDARD’

That policy could make a big difference for people in jobs at restaurants or other businesses requiring workers to be in close proximity to others, two recent studies suggest.

Essential workers were 55% more likely to get infected with coronavirus than those who stayed at home, according to a study of the early months of the pandemic in Pennsylvania published this week by researchers at Independence Blue Cross and the Wharton School of Business.

“We all had a hunch that essential workers by the nature of their jobs are probably more exposed, which means they’re probably more likely to get infected – but what we didn’t know was by how much,” said Wharton’s Hummy Song, one of the paper’s authors.

A separate study out last week from the University of California found deaths of working-age Californians increased by 22% in 2020 from what would have been expected based on prior trends, and the deaths were concentrated in certain occupations.

Deaths among workers in food and agriculture, for instance, were 39% higher. Among healthcare workers, deaths were up 20%, the study noted.

The findings indicate there may be better protections in place in health care settings than in restaurants or other fields, said Yea-Hung Chen, one of the study’s authors.

New guidance from the Biden administration could help workers in at least some of those higher-risk sectors keep unemployment benefits and avoid unsafe work – even as it puts pressure on companies to make workplaces safer, said University of California, Berkeley professor Jesse Rothstein.

“We need a standard,” said Rothstein. “The DOL has been AWOL for the last year.”

(Reporting by Jonnelle Marte in New York and Ann Saphir in San Francisco; Editing by Dan Burns and Diane Craft)

At the urging of nursing homes, a law is amended and COVID court claims are slowed

By Tom Hals

(Reuters) – Garnice Robertson wants accountability for her mother’s death from COVID-19 caught while she was living at a Kansas nursing home that allegedly failed to prevent an outbreak of the disease. An unexpected legal hurdle stands in her way.

The nursing home argues it has complete legal immunity for lawsuits like Robertson’s stemming from COVID-19. It cites recent changes to a 2005 law by the former Trump administration that had been sought by the senior care industry.

The law known as the PREP Act was originally designed to encourage production of emergency vaccines during an epidemic by granting legal immunity to drug developers.

Riverbend Post-Acute Rehabilitation of Kansas City, Kansas, where Robertson’s mother allegedly became infected, is one of at least 36 nursing homes and senior living facilities that have cited the law as a defense.

Facilities across 14 states, where more than 650 residents died, have argued they should be immune from wrongful death cases – an early sign of how the PREP Act could be used by a range of businesses to fend off lawsuits resulting from the pandemic.

No judge has yet adopted the nursing homes’ view of the law, but those arguments, and disputes over which court should hear the case – federal or state – have led to months of delays, preventing Robertson’s lawyers from getting records and interviewing witnesses critical to her case, the lawyers said.

Robertson, whose lawsuit was moved to federal court in Topeka, Kansas by Riverbend, said she was upset by the nursing home’s use of the law.

“If I’m feeling the way I feel, how do you think all these other people feel?” she said. “It’s just not right.”

Riverbend, which is affiliated with the publicly traded Ensign Group Inc, and its lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.

IMMUNITY EXTENDED TO FIGHT COVID

The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act was originally meant to jumpstart U.S. defenses against a possible avian flu epidemic or bioterrorist attack.

It authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), during a public health emergency, to shield from liability makers of “countermeasures” such as diagnostic tests, protective gear and vaccines like those developed by Pfizer Inc, Germany’s BioNTech and Moderna Inc.

The PREP Act does not apply in instances of serious injury or death caused by “willful misconduct”.

When the PREP Act shield applies, the injured person instead can seek compensation from a government fund, although most claims are denied.

Former HHS Secretary Alex Azar invoked the PREP Act in March in response to the coronavirus pandemic, and since then the agency has issued amendments and guidance as recently as Jan. 12 to broaden the reach of the law.

The agency guidance included criticism of rulings that went against defendants, including Riverbend.

“They have made the arguments for the defendants better than the existing defense lawyers,” said Jonathan Steele, Robertson’s lawyer, of the HHS guidance. “It’s unprecedented.”

Some changes were sought by the type of facility operators now defending against lawsuits.

In August, in response to a query from a lawyer at a lobbying firm, then-HHS general counsel Robert Charrow wrote that senior living facilities were covered by the PREP Act if they were using approved products to fight the pandemic.

HHS also said in recent months the PREP Act applied in situations where, while trying to comply with health regulations, an organization failed to take an action such as testing – which is an allegation in most of the nursing home lawsuits.

LeadingAge, a group that represents non-profit nursing homes and other service providers, sought the clarification in March, when masks and other protective gear were in short supply.

LeadingAge, one of several elder care groups that called for greater protection, declined to comment. The group does not represent Ensign.

HHS has said it wants to provide legal certainty to organizations that they will be immune from good-faith mistakes when trying to comply with health guidelines and ensure a unified national response against the spread of COVID-19.

HHS did not respond to a request for comment regarding the agency’s plans under a Biden administration.

Acting HHS Secretary Norris Cochran said in a letter to state governors on Friday that they could expect continued use of PREP Act declarations to support the fight against the pandemic.

More than 100,000 residents of U.S. nursing homes and senior living facilities have died from COVID-19. Some attorneys said that without some form of immunity, litigation over a novel airborne illness that could be spread by asymptomatic carriers could swamp the industry.

BUYING TIME?

So far, seven federal judges have issued preliminary rulings, and all of them sided with the plaintiffs and ordered the cases returned to state court, Reuters found.

Six of the rulings were issued before HHS amended the PREP Act in December to declare that for consistent interpretation of the law the cases should be heard in federal court, which was reshaped by former President Donald Trump and is seen as more favorable to companies.

Only a few of the rulings touched on the question of PREP Act immunity, which nursing homes can still use as a defense in state court.

Just raising the PREP Act defense can complicate procedures in a way that could impact future cases, said Mike Duff, a professor at the University of Wyoming College of Law.

“Time is money and complexity is time and the more complexity in a case means the less likely the wrongful death claimants will find lawyers to represent them,” he said.

Nursing homes have used that HHS guidance to try to move cases from state court, adding delays.

For example, the family of Vincent Martin sued Hollywood Premier Healthcare Center of Los Angeles in state court a month after Martin died of COVID-19 in April.

The nursing home, where at least 11 residents died, cited the PREP Act to have the lawsuit moved to federal court.

The federal judge, however, sided with the family and sent it back to state court.

In January, armed with fresh guidance from HHS, Hollywood had the case moved back to federal court a second time, where it is pending.

U.S. District Court Judge Dale Fischer said Hollywood’s request to stay proceedings while it appealed the order sending the case back to state court raised “a serious possibility of such removals being used in a cynical, strategic way to stall cases and to extract concessions … from opposing plaintiffs.”

Hollywood and other facilities are not unreasonably delaying discovery, but are applying the law and HHS guidance which makes clear the cases belong in federal court, said Kim Cruz, a lawyer for Hollywood, in an email.

‘UNFAIR’ TACTICS

Robertson, whose case has been similarly removed to federal court, called Riverbend’s legal tactics unfair and she is waiting to gets answers about her mother’s care.

Her mother, Georgia Clardy, had been a resident since 2017 at Riverbend.

She was taken to a hospital in March for a broken femur and, during her absence, Robertson said coronavirus entered and spread within the Riverbend facility.

The lawsuit alleges Riverbend’s negligence included a lack of adequate staff, allowing infected employees to enter the facility and a failure to adopt social distancing.

Robertson said she would have brought her mother home from the hospital rather than returning her to Riverbend if the facility had told her there was an outbreak.

“Once I found out she was diagnosed with COVID nobody wanted to talk about it,” said Robertson. “That was very disturbing for me.”

The judge in Robertson’s case has set the next hearing for February.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Noeleen Walder)