Tag Archives: Pandemic

U.S. appeals court blocks NY governor’s limits on religious gatherings

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The federal appeals court in Manhattan on Monday blocked New York state restrictions on the size of religious gatherings put in place to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

In a 3-0 decision, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, the Orthodox Jewish group Agudath Israel of America and two synagogues in enjoining New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Oct. 6 attendance caps at “houses of worship.”

The governor limited attendance to the lesser of 10 people or 25% capacity in “red” zones where the coronavirus risk was highest, and 25 people or 33% capacity in slightly less risky “orange” zones, even in buildings that seat hundreds.

Circuit Judge Michael Park said the plaintiffs established irreparable harm by showing the restrictions impaired their free exercise of religion.

He also said “no public interest is served by maintaining an unconstitutional policy when constitutional alternatives are available to achieve the same goal.”

Cuomo’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Monday’s decision followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling on Nov. 25 against enforcing the caps.

The majority, comprising most of the court’s conservative wing, said the restrictions “strike at the very heart of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty,” and that “even in a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten.”

Cuomo has said that ruling had no practical effect because some restrictions were lifted as COVID-19 flare-ups eased.

The appeals court returned Agudath Israel’s case to a Brooklyn federal judge to decide, under a “strict scrutiny” standard, whether the 25% and 33% limits were constitutional.

Avi Schick, a lawyer for Agudath Israel, said Monday’s decision “will be felt way beyond the COVID context. It is a clear statement … that government can’t disfavor religious conduct merely because it sees no value in religious practice.”

Randy Mastro, the diocese’s lawyer, said the diocese was “gratified,” and will welcome parishioners to mass “under strict protocols” that keep them safe.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

Israel speeds vaccines, locks down in hope of February exit from pandemic

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel began what officials hope will be its last coronavirus lockdown on Sunday as they ramp up vaccinations to a pace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said may allow an emergence from the pandemic in February.

If realized, that could help Netanyahu’s re-election hopes after missteps that include lifting a first lockdown with a premature declaration of victory in May, inconsistent enforcement of curbs and sluggish economic relief.

Since beginning vaccinations a week before Sunday’s European Union roll-out, Israel’s centralized health system has administered 280,000 shots, the world’s fastest rate.

The opening of 24/7 vaccination stations is under consideration. Netanyahu wants the daily rate doubled to 150,000 shots by next weekend.

That would enable, by the end of January, administering both first and follow-up shots to the elderly and other vulnerable groups that make up a quarter of Israel’s 9 million citizens and have accounted for 95% of its COVID-19 deaths, Netanyahu said.

“As soon as we are done with this stage … we can emerge from the coronavirus, open the economy and do things that no country can do,” he said in a televised address.

Sunday’s lockdown – the country’s third – will last at least three weeks and aims to tamp down contagions that are currently doubling in scale every two weeks, the Health Ministry said.

The vaccines mean “there is a very high chance that this is our final lockdown,” Sharon Alroy-Preis, acting head of the ministry’s public health services division, told Army Radio.

Israel has logged almost 400,000 COVID-19 cases and 3,210 deaths.

(Editing by Kirsten Donovan, Larry King)

Fauci says herd immunity could require nearly 90% to get coronavirus vaccine

By Jonathan Allen

(Reuters) – Herd immunity against the novel coronavirus could require vaccination rates approaching as high as 90%, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the most prominent U.S. infectious disease expert, said in an interview published on Thursday.

More than 1 million Americans have received a first dose of a vaccine since Dec. 14, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, or only about 0.3% of the population.

Fauci acknowledged that he had incrementally increased his estimates from earlier in the year, when he tended to say only 60% to 70% would need to be inoculated for herd immunity to be reached.

“We need to have some humility here,” Fauci told the New York Times. “We really don’t know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.”

His comments came as the country marks grim new daily milestones while contending with the world’s deadliest outbreak: it reported more than 3,000 deaths for the second consecutive day on Wednesday. The U.S. death toll reached 326,333 by midnight on Wednesday, according to Reuters data.

That same day, more Americans flew than on any other day since the pandemic emerged in March, with 1,191,123 passengers passing through airport checkpoints, according to data from the U.S. Transportation Security Administration.

The data suggested many were disregarding public health experts’ advice to avoid traveling to celebrate Christmas Day on Friday. Fauci and other experts say social distancing will be required deep into 2021 as vaccines are slowly rolled out.

The number of travelers was down from 2019, when 1,937,235 flew on Dec. 23. Wednesday’s traffic exceeded the previous pandemic-era high set on Nov. 29, the Sunday after the Thanksgiving holiday, when 1,176,091 people passed through TSA checkpoints, preceding new surges in coronavirus cases in many states.

Health care workers, elderly nursing home residents, elected officials and firefighters are among those receiving the vaccines first. Most Americans have been told it could be six months or more before they are eligible for the shots.

Fauci, who was appointed director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 1984, said in the interview that he had become more willing to reveal his beliefs as polls show Americans were becoming somewhat less skeptical about the new vaccines. The more infectious a disease is, the higher the rate of vaccination is required to reach a threshold of herd immunity, in which its spread is contained.

“When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” Fauci, who turned 80 on Thursday, told the Times.

“Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.'”

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting by Anurag Maan in Bangalore; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Americans give to charity like never before amid pandemic

By Jonnelle Marte

(Reuters) – Hundreds of cars line up before dawn on weekly distribution days for the Forgotten Harvest’s partner food pantries in the metro Detroit area, where visits are up by 50% this year.

The need has grown as the coronavirus pandemic has shut down offices and other businesses. So has the response.

Monetary donations to the food bank are on pace to top last year’s contributions, helping to fund a larger storage space and new mobile distribution sites required to distribute food safely during the crisis.

“The only good thing about this pandemic is that it’s made people care a little bit more about their neighbors,” said Christopher Ivey, director of marketing for Forgotten Harvest, one of the largest food banks in Michigan.

The economic crisis set off by the pandemic has widened the chasm between the “haves” and the “have-nots” in the United States in new ways. People who can work from home, often in higher-income jobs, are comfortable.

But over 20 million Americans rely on unemployment benefits, and hunger and poverty are rising.

The expanded rift has been accompanied by an outpouring of donations to local food banks, crowdfunding campaigns and other aid to financially devastated Americans.

Amazon shareholder Mackenzie Scott’s $4 billion in charitable contributions, announced earlier this month, may be the biggest. But plenty of Americans are also chipping in, donating $10 or $20, some for the first time ever.

Many non-profits have suffered this year as the pandemic shuttered galas and fundraisers. But donations to some small and mid-sized charitable organizations were up 7.6% in the first nine months of 2020 over 2019, according to a recent analysis by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, which tracks nearly 2,500 groups. The number of donors is up by 11.7%.

The trend seems to have continued in December, typically the most active time for charitable giving in the United States, early data show. Charities received $2.47 billion in donations on Dec. 1, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving known as GivingTuesday, up 25% from 2019.

“People are giving like we’ve never seen before,” said Woodrow Rosenbaum, chief data officer for GivingTuesday.

Much of that is coming in small dollar amounts, suggesting that people across the income spectrum are stepping up their contributions, Rosenbaum said.

About 70% of the donations made to campaigns on GoFundMe were under $50 this year, up from 40% in 2019, according to a spokesperson for the fundraising website.

“What we have now is much more collective action,” said Rosenbaum.

America’s Food Fund, started this year, raised over $44 million on GoFundMe, the largest campaign ever on the fundraising website. Long-time programs like the United States Post Office’s Operation Santa, which matches donors with needy families who send letters to a special North Pole address, report unprecedented support.

Jonathan Cummings, executive director for Revive South Jersey, a ministry started in 2012 to tutor English, mentor and provide housing help in local communities, says a “groundswell” of volunteers signed up to deliver food every two weeks after the organization realized that many of the families it supports were struggling to afford groceries.

Giving Tuesday donations tracked by Share Omaha, a Nebraska organization that supports local nonprofits, nearly doubled this year from 2019, to over $3 million, with a third coming from first-time donors. When the group asked for volunteers earlier in the year for packing meals for the homeless and other tasks, it got 700 applications, up from the 200 monthly average.

“Even if people are out of work or furloughed, they want to give back to the community,” said Marjorie Maas, executive director for the organization.

Janette McCabe was one of the hundreds of people waiting in cars before sunrise on the Monday before Christmas in a parking lot in Warren, Michigan, for a Forgotten Harvest food bank distribution.

McCabe and her husband lost their jobs recently and have been relying on food stamps. She has been coming to the food bank distribution for about a month and a half.

“The volunteers are fantastic,” McCabe said. “I don’t know what we would do if we didn’t have them.”

(Reporting by Jonnelle Marte; Additional reporting by Emily Elconin; Editing by Heather Timmons and Dan Grebler)

U.S. states enlist medical, nursing students to give out COVID-19 vaccine

By Tina Bellon and Melissa Fares

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. states, facing a backlog in administering coronavirus vaccines, are asking medical and nursing students, and even firefighters, to help give the shots and free up healthcare workers battling a raging pandemic at overcrowded hospitals.

At least seven state health departments are seeking volunteers for their vaccination sites, some partnering with local universities or nursing schools to offer incentives such as tuition discounts and hands-on training. Others are teaching first responders to administer shots.

The national rollout of COVID-19 vaccines are the best hope to end a pandemic that has cost the lives of more than 320,000 Americans and crippled the U.S. economy.

This month, U.S. regulators authorized the first two COVID-19 vaccines, one from drugmakers Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE and another from Moderna Inc.

As of Wednesday, nearly 10 million doses have been delivered across the country, but only about 1 million administered due to staffing shortages at hospitals and the special requirements for preparing the shots. The slow pace of the vaccination campaign threatens the federal government’s goal of inoculating nearly 20 million people by year’s end.

While inoculation is currently focused on frontline healthcare workers, the vaccination drive is expected to expand to tens of millions of essential industry workers beginning in January or February.

From New York to Tennessee, states are hoping medical and nursing students will free up medical staff focused on tending to the record numbers of new COVID-19 patients.

“Being able to staff vaccination clinics with volunteers from our reserve workforce means that staff at the vaccination sites can continue to perform their normal duties, which is crucial as our hospitalization rate has increased,” said a spokeswoman for Indiana University’s School of Medicine.

‘STRIKE BACK AGAINST COVID’

As the first vaccines arrived, Indiana health officials called on the state university because of its far-reaching campuses. More than 630 of Indiana University’s medical and nursing students have signed up as volunteers and receive 90 minutes of online and hands-on training.

Fourth-year medical student Nicholas Clough began administering COVID-19 vaccines to frontline healthcare workers last Wednesday. He has lost several family members during the pandemic.

“It finally felt like it was a real, tangible strike back against COVID,” said Clough, 26.

The University of Wisconsin is offering a $500 tuition credit to students with medical credentials working at understaffed hospitals during the winter break, including administering vaccines.

The university is also talking to government officials to turn universities into vaccine distribution hubs, a spokesman said.

In California, fire department paramedics have been trained to administer the vaccine, initially to fellow employees.

“They have already received online training and will have another one-hour live training session,” said Peter Sanders, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department, which expected its first shipment of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday.

Michigan has set up a volunteer registry allowing officials and hospitals to recruit help for upcoming vaccine clinics.

“We encourage all medical and nursing students to register now so they will be ready when their assistance is needed!” a health department spokeswoman said.

Other states are not actively recruiting nursing students. A spokeswoman for Georgia’s health department said the state might do so later, as the vaccine becomes more widely available to the public.

Depending on state licensing laws, medical and nursing students are allowed to administer vaccines, often under supervision of a fully-licensed professional.

Facing a shortage of vaccinators, the Association of Immunization Managers, a nonprofit representing state and local health officials, recommends relaxing regulation or adjusting licensing requirements.

At least two states, Massachusetts and New York, have changed their laws in recent weeks to expand those who are eligible to give shots.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Dec. 13 allowed medical, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, podiatric and midwifery students to administer flu and COVID-19 shots under supervision.

(Reporting by Tina Bellon and Melissa Fares in New York; Additional reporting by Deena Beasley in Los Angeles; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Aurora Ellis)

Pfizer, U.S. strike 100 million COVID-19 vaccine deal with 70 million due by June

By Ankur Banerjee and Vishwadha Chander

(Reuters) – The U.S. government will pay Pfizer Inc nearly $2 billion for 100 million additional doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to bolster its supply as the country grapples with a nationwide spike in infections.

Under the new agreement, Pfizer will deliver at least 70 million doses by June 30 and the rest no later than July 31, the company said on Wednesday, bringing the total number of doses to 200 million for a total price of about $4 billion.

The purchase price amounts to $19.50 per shot and is slightly higher than the $18.90 per dose that Reuters has reported the European Union has agreed to pay. The shot has been authorized for use in EU and the United States.

The U.S. deal comes after growing concern that the government had not done enough to secure doses of one of the two authorized vaccines, made more pressing amid a COVID-19 surge that has left hospitals struggling to find beds for the sick.

Pfizer’s two-dose vaccine, developed with German partner BioNTech, is being rolled out across the United States after the shot won emergency use authorization earlier this month. The country has also authorized a vaccine from Moderna Inc.

Pfizer and the government have said that they had been negotiating the terms of the agreement, with the company indicating it was trying to work out how to deliver the doses in the second quarter.

Pfizer and BioNTech have said they expect to produce 1.3 billion doses in 2021, but executives at the German biotech have said they were trying to boost manufacturing. Governments around the world are scrambling to get enough supplies of the vaccine to tame the pandemic that has killed about 1.7 million people globally and crushed economies.

“This new federal purchase can give Americans even more confidence that we will have enough supply to vaccinate every American who wants it by June 2021,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement.

“Securing more doses from Pfizer and BioNTech for delivery in the second quarter of 2021 further expands our supply of doses across the Operation Warp Speed portfolio.”

Pfizer said last week it may need the U.S. government to help it secure some components needed to make the vaccine. While the company halved its 2020 production target due to manufacturing issues, it said last week its manufacturing is running smoothly now.

The government also has the option to acquire up to an additional 400 million doses of the vaccine.

More than 600,000 Americans have received their first COVID-19 vaccine doses as of Monday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The first wave of shots have so far gone to healthcare workers and nursing home residents, as well as some top government officials. Americans in “essential” jobs and those over 75 will likely start to receive vaccines in January while general population vaccinations will start in a few months.

(Reporting by Ankur Banerjee and Vishwadha Chander in Bengaluru; Editing by Caroline Humer and Sriraj Kalluvila)

Trump veto threat raises the prospect of year-end government shutdown

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Washington on Wednesday faced the prospect of a year-end U.S. government shutdown during a raging pandemic after outgoing President Donald Trump threatened not to sign a $2.3 trillion package funding the government for another year.

The package, which includes $892 billion specifically responding to the COVID-19 virus, which has killed more than 323,000 Americans, was the result of months of negotiation between congressional Republicans and Democrats. It also funds government operations through September 2021.

Trump, in a video posted to social media on Tuesday evening, surprised some of his closest officials by demanding that the bill be revised to include $2,000 payments to each American, more than triple the $600 that Congress had been discussing publicly for almost a week before passing the bill.

A source familiar with the situation said aides thought they had talked Trump out of the $2,000 demand last week, only to learn he had not given up when he posted the video. That surprised even his Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, who took part in the talks and backed the $600 figure.

Current federal funding is due to expire on Monday if Trump, who is scheduled to leave for Florida on Wednesday, does not sign the bill into law.

That would furlough millions of federal workers and shut down wide swaths of the U.S. government at a time when it is rushing to distribute two coronavirus vaccines and contend with a massive hack that officials say was perpetrated by Russia.

Trump’s administration helped to craft the bill, and the White House said on Sunday that he would sign it.

In the video Trump demanded the bill be stripped of foreign aid, which is included in every annual federal spending bill.

He also objected to other elements of the 5,500-page bill, such as fish breeding and funding for the Smithsonian museums.

Trump did not say whether he would actually veto the legislation.

He has also set up a parallel fight with Congress that comes to a head on Wednesday, his deadline to decide whether to carry out his threat to veto the $740 billion National Defense Authorization Act. Trump dislikes the bill, which funds the military and has passed uninterrupted every year for decades, because it would strip the names of Confederate generals from military bases and because it does not repeal liability protections – unrelated to defense – for social media companies, such as Twitter and Facebook, that Trump considers unfriendly to conservatives.

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and the Republican-controlled Senate passed the bill by wide, bipartisan margins, and could return to Washington to override his veto if necessary. The House of Representatives already plans to return on Dec. 28 if Trump vetoes the defense-policy bill. That is the same day government funding is due to expire.

Both measures passed with veto-proof majorities, but a veto would put Trump’s fellow Republicans in an awkward position.

Many of them opposed the $2,000 payments that Trump is now demanding, and they would have to either defy their party’s leader or change their position on those payments.

Democrats have supported the $2,000 payments sought by Trump, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Tuesday she was ready to vote on the proposal this week. She did not address Trump’s other concerns.

If Trump takes no action, the bill would normally become law after 10 days without his signature under the U.S. Constitution. However, that does not apply in this situation because Congress is due to adjourn at the end of the year.

Trump sparked a record 35-day government shutdown two years ago when he rejected a federal spending bill over what he said was insufficient funding for building a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan, additional reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Scott Malone and Steve Orlofsky)

In pandemic America’s tent cities, a grim future grows darker

By Michelle Conlin

PHOENIX, Ariz. (Reuters) – Nadeen Bender stood outside her home, a tattered two-man tent, surrounded by the re-purposed Amazon Prime boxes she uses to store her life’s belongings. One by one, she checked the cartons to make sure nothing had been stolen in the night.

When asked about her Christmas plans, the rail-thin 43-year-old said through a face mask, “to try to avoid it.” Then she burst into tears.

The tent city that has served as Bender’s neighborhood for the past seven months is in the middle of downtown Phoenix, just down the road from luxury high-rise apartments and expensive restaurants.

To deal with an exploding homeless population and encourage social distancing during the pandemic, Marcipoa County officials turned this pair of asphalt-topped parking lots into the area’s newest homeless shelter. The county has more than 7,500 people on the streets, and nearly 5,000 dead from COVID-19.

Inside the crowded encampment, ringed by security fencing and barbed wire, each family has been allotted a 12-by-12-foot lot, marked by paint, to separate people as much as possible.

Phoenix is just one example of a slow-motion disaster unfolding in many large U.S. cities as homeless numbers, already growing in recent years, spike during the global pandemic.

The virus presents a compounding threat. Not only are these populations some of the most vulnerable to the coronavirus, but by destroying millions of jobs, the pandemic threatens a wave of evictions that experts warn could lead to a catastrophic housing displacement and even more people living on the streets.

With cities facing a steep hit to their tax bases due to lockdowns aimed at curbing the virus’s spread, homeless advocates say the federal government must step in, and estimate another $11.5 billion is needed immediately.

New funding for the homeless is not included in a $900-billion pandemic relief package passed by Congress on Monday. The fate of the bill was thrown up in the air the next day after President Donald Trump threatened not to sign it.

Meanwhile, the $4 billion provided earlier this year through the March CARES Act bailout and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is running out, advocates say.

“It’s not just the pandemic, it’s the financial fallout from the pandemic and the complete lack of a comprehensive response to the pandemic from the federal government,” said Diane Yentel, who is the president of the Washington-based National Low Income Housing Coalition.

“Addressing homelessness remains the most pressing health equity challenge of our time. And it’s about to get worse,” said Dr. Howard K. Koh, a professor of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who chairs its new initiative on health and homelessness.

EVICTION SURGE

As the coronavirus began to ravage the United States in the spring of 2020, federal, state and local governments issued temporary bans on many evictions, with an eye on the economic and health consequences of increased homelessness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in September followed up with a nationwide ban that the stimulus deal would extend to Jan. 31.

Still, since the pandemic began, more than 162,000 evictions have been filed in the 27 cities tracked by the Princeton University Eviction Lab.

So far, Congress has no clear plan to deal with the expiration of the CDC’s ban, when up to 40 million people will be at risk of eviction, according to the Aspen Institute. Overnight, more than $70 billion will be owed in back rent and utilities, said Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness estimated the U.S. homeless population at nearly 600,000 in 2019, before the pandemic hit. The potential health repercussions of a significant increase in that number due to evictions and joblessness are enormous, made exponentially worse by the pandemic, academics and health experts say.

Already, homeless families with babies in New York City shelters live amidst mold, mildew and vermin, according to an audit released on Monday by the city comptroller. Subway closures between 1 and 5 a.m. for COVID cleanings have forced many of the city’s homeless who go there for warmth to burrow deeper into the system’s tunnels or freeze in the tarp encampments and grocery-cart hovels that have become a feature of the city’s sidewalks.

New York City’s homeless die of COVID at a rate 78% higher than the general population, according to the Coalition for the Homeless.

In Los Angeles, several members of the city council want the city to use the convention center as a homeless shelter. San Diego already did that – and now its convention center is suffering a COVID-19 outbreak, with 190 residents and staff testing positive.

Another homeless shelter in Chicago is reeling from an outbreak just as freezing temperatures fuel demand.

Twenty-seven states that let local moratoriums on evictions expire over the summer, before the CDC ban, had a 5.4-times higher COVID mortality rate, according to a report released on Nov. 30 by researchers from Johns Hopkins University and other four other universities.

THE ZONE

Phoenix’s unshaded tent city is called “The Zone” by its inhabitants.

The Zone’s hundreds of residents are packed together – often not wearing masks, with many living just in sleeping bags or on a tarp. Without running water or plumbing, simple pandemic health protocols, like handwashing, are difficult. Although the city has posted portable toilets and washing stations along the perimeter, feces and garbage litter the property. In some spots, the stench is overwhelming.

COVID is a constant worry. Those who test positive for the virus can check into a 136-bed hotel provided by a nonprofit — if they can get a spot. If they prefer to remain on the streets, there’s a “shelter-in-place duffle” that contains food, water, hygienic supplies, masks and a tent.

Bender, a former foster mom with the leathered tan of someone who lives outside, said the homeless population has become more varied since the pandemic hit – she’s met a former doctor, paralegal and even an opera singer.

“A lot of us want to work, we want to get off the streets,” she said.

But the pandemic has made that seem even more impossible, she said.

“I can’t even get online” to apply for jobs, she said, “because the libraries are closed.” Her congressional stimulus check? “How would I even sign up for that or get that without a computer, or an address?”

“I didn’t think my life could get any worse,” said Bender. “But it did.”

(Reporting by Michelle Conlin; Editing by Tom Lasseter and Sonya Hepinstall)

‘My second life’: California nurse walks out of hospital after 8-month COVID-19 ordeal

By Steve Gorman

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Reuters) – As a veteran ICU nurse whose job is to care for the most critically ill patients at her hospital in Long Beach, California, Merlin Pambuan was well aware of the deadly ravages COVID-19 can inflict on the human body.

Last spring in a tragic role reversal, Pambuan became one of those patients – admitted to the intensive care unit of St. Mary Medical Center, her workplace for the past 40 years, where she was rendered unconscious by paralysis-inducing sedation and placed on a ventilator to breathe. A feeding tube was later added.

She came close to death on several occasions, her doctors later revealed. So dire was her condition at one point that end-of-life options were discussed with her family.

By the time she awoke and could breathe on her own again, she was too weak to stand. But she fought back and struggled through weeks of painful therapy to regain her strength and mobility, celebrating her 66th birthday in St. Mary’s acute rehabilitation ward in late October.

On Monday Pambuan beat the odds of her eight-month ordeal by walking out the front door of the hospital, drawing cheers, applause and exhilaration from colleagues lining the lobby to rejoice in her discharge.

“This is my second life,” Pambuan said moments earlier, as she prepared to leave her hospital room, accompanied by her husband, Daniel, 63, and their daughter, Shantell, 33, an aspiring social worker who spent months at her mother’s bedside as her patient advocate and personal cheerleader.

The spectacle of Pambuan striding slowly but confidently through the hospital lobby – she had insisted on making her exit without assistance of a wheelchair or walker, although was still connected to supplementary oxygen – marked a transformative victory for the diminutive but tough ICU nurse.

‘WHAT WE LIVE FOR’

The outpouring of affection she received from colleagues – including many of the physicians, fellow nurses and therapists who took part in her care – also reflected a rare moment of communal triumph for the pandemic-weary hospital staff.

“This is what we live for … seeing our patients going home alive and in good condition,” said Dr. Maged Tanios, a pulmonary and critical care specialist at St. Mary. He said Pambuan’s recovery was especially rewarding since she is part of the hospital’s extended “family.”

Tanios said he was not aware of other St. Mary medical staff being admitted to the ICU for COVID. However, studies show frontline healthcare workers’ frequent, close contact with coronavirus patients puts them at higher risk of contracting the disease, hence the decision to give them top priority in getting immunized.

Pambuan’s discharge, ironically, coincided with the recent rollout of COVID-19 vaccines to medical workers, as well as a crushing surge in coronavirus infections that have overwhelmed hospitals, and ICUs in particular, across California.

Pambuan said she has no recollection of the four months she spent hooked to a breathing machine – from early May to early September – but recalls first waking up from deep sedation unable to move her extremities.

With encouragement from nursing staff and her daughter Pambuan said she grew determined to regain her mobility and her life.

“I said, ‘No, I’m going to fight this COVID,'” she recounted. “I start moving my hand (and) a physical therapist come and say, ‘Oh, you’re moving your hands,’ and I said, ‘Oh, I’m going to fight, I’m going to fight. I’m trying to wiggle my toes. I’m going to fight it.'”

Pambuan spent the last few months of her hospital stay undergoing physical and respiratory rehabilitation and will continue recuperation from home, while making peace, she said, with a change in pace.

“It’s going to be very difficult for me,” she said. “But I have to accept it, that I’m going to be on oxygen for a while and slow down a little bit.”

When or if she will return to work in the ICU remains an open question, she said.

In the meantime, Pambuan said she feels indebted to her co-workers for their “really professional” care, grateful for the support of loved ones and newly convinced of the power of optimism.

Her message to others in her shoes – “Don’t lose hope. Just fight. Fight, because look at me, you know. I’m going home and I’m walking.”

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Long Beach, California; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Europe crosses 500,000 COVID-19 deaths as new variant spreads

By Anurag Maan and Shaina Ahluwalia

(Reuters) – Europe became the first region worldwide to cross 500,000 COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally, as a new variant of the coronavirus discovered in Britain threatened the region’s prevention measures to curb the pandemic.

Reports of the mutated variant out of England prompted a pre-Christmas lockdown and have forced dozens of countries to close their borders to British travelers this week.

Italy, the nation with the highest death toll in Europe, on Sunday detected a patient infected with the new variant as have Denmark and France.

To curb the spread, European countries are considering screening passengers on flights from UK and obligating quarantine for travelers upon arrival.

Earlier this month, the United Kingdom became the first nation to approve the Pfizer Inc – BioNTech vaccine followed by the United States, European Union and other countries.

Europe has reported about 30% of the global COVID-19 fatalities and cases so far, according to a Reuters tally.

Europe’s death toll has accelerated in recent months. Since the first COVID-19 death was reported in France in February, it took eight months for the region to reach 250,000 deaths. It took only 60 days for the region to go from 250,000 to 500,000 deaths.

France, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom and Russia have reported hundreds of deaths a day and the five countries account for almost 60% of the region’s total fatalities.

Globally there have been 77.52 million cases and 1.71 million deaths, according to a Reuters tally.

(Reporting by Anurag Maan and Shaina Ahluwalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)