health
Japan to further expand virus emergency areas as cases surge
Japan was set to expand its coronavirus state of emergency for a second week in a row Wednesday, adding several more prefectures as a surge in infections fueled by the delta variant strains the country’s health care system.
The government last week extended the state of emergency until Sept. 12 and expanded the areas covered to 13 prefectures from six including Tokyo. Sixteen other prefectures are currently under quasi-emergency status.
Read:Japan to widen virus emergency after record spike amid Games
The government at a meeting of experts Wednesday proposed upgrading eight prefectures from quasi-emergency status to a full state of emergency. Those prefectures include Hokkaido and Miyagi in the north, Aichi and Gifu in central Japan, and Hiroshima and Okayama in the west.
The proposal was expected to be approved and formally announced later Wednesday.
Japan’s state of emergency relies on requirements for eateries to close at 8 p.m. and not serve alcohol, but the measures are increasingly defied. Unenforceable social distancing and tele-working requests for the public and their employers are also largely ignored due to growing complacency.
The Japanese capital has been under the emergency since July 12, but new daily cases have increased more than tenfold since then to about 5,000 in Tokyo and 25,000 nationwide. Hospital beds are quickly filling and many people must now recover at home, including some who require supplemental oxygen.
Read: Tropical storm to bring rain, wind, waves to northeast Japan
More than 35,000 patients in Tokyo are recovering at home, about one-third of them unable to find a hospital or hotel vacancies immediately. Only a small percentage of hospitals are taking virus patients, either for financial reasons or because they lack the capability to treat the infections, experts say.
Japan has weathered the pandemic better than many other countries, with around 15,600 deaths nationwide since the start, but its vaccination efforts lag behind other wealthy nations. About 40% of the population has been fully vaccinated, mainly elderly people.
Economy and Fiscal Policy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, also in charge of the COVID-19 measures, said Wednesday that infections are spreading among those in their 20s to 50s who are largely unvaccinated. He urged them to take extra caution.
“Just imagine you may be the one getting infected tomorrow,” he said.
Rising infections among schoolchildren and teenagers could accelerate the surge as they begin returning to school after the summer vacation, said Dr. Shigeru Omi, top government medical advisor. He proposed schools curtail activity and urged high schools and colleges to return to online classes.
“Infections in Tokyo are showing no signs of slowing, and the severely tight medical systems will continue for a while,” he told a parliamentary session Wednesday.
The government has faced criticism for holding this summer’s Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics despite strong opposition from the public. Officials deny any direct link between the games and the spike in infections.
Schools, colleges asked to prepare for reopening, guidelines issued
The education authorities have issued some guidelines as part of preparations to reopen educational institutions which have remained closed since March last year due to Covid pandemic.
The teachers of primary schools have been instructed to return to their work places from Tuesday.
Read:SSC, HSC exams either in Nov or Dec next: Education Minister
The Primary Education Directorate asked the upazila/thana education officers to inspect the schools their jurisdiction within a week.
Besides, it also gave instructions to keep the institutions clean and tidy by taking utmost care to prevent dengue.
The primary school authorities were instructed to prepare their wash block accordingly.
Besides, the Directorate of Secondary & Higher Education (DSHE) asked the regional directors to take necessary preparations to reopen schools and colleges.
According to education ministry sources, most of the teachers and staffers of the educational institutions have been vaccinated.
Read:Educational institutions to remain closed until July 31, says govt
Besides, sources within the University Grants Commission claimed that around 80 % students of Dhaka University got their Covid jabs.
However schools will reopen only after the covid positivity rate comes below 5 %, said a source of the education ministry.
In that case, the closure of schools might be extended again.
Director of DSHE professor Shahedul Kabir Chowdhury said the regional directors were asked to inspect and submit a report on the final preparations on resuming academic activities at educational institutions.
Director General of the Directorate of Primary Education Alamgir Md Mansurul Alam said teachers have been told to return to schools.
Read:WB approves $191mn credit for Bangladesh’s education sector
"We also instructed our officials to visit institutions and submit a report on preparations to reopen. Failure to do so will result in administrative actions," he added.
The government shut down educational institutions on March 17, last year after the country reported its first Covid-19 cases on March 8.
Then the closure was extended several times until August 31 this year.
Kathy Hochul becomes New York’s first female governor
Kathy Hochul became the first female governor of New York at the stroke of midnight Tuesday, taking control of a state government desperate to get back to business after months of distractions over sexual harassment allegations against Andrew Cuomo.
The Democrat from western New York was sworn in as governor in a brief, private ceremony in the New York State Capitol overseen by the state’s chief judge, Janet DiFiore.
Afterward, she told WGRZ, a Buffalo television station, she felt “the weight of responsibility” on her shoulders.
Read:As Cuomo exits, Hochul to take office minus ‘distractions’
“I’ll tell New Yorkers I’m up to the task. And I’m really proud to be able to serve as their governor and I won’t let them down,” she said.
Hochul’s ascent to the top job was a history-making moment in a capital where women have only recently begun chipping away at a notoriously male-dominated political culture.
Cuomo left office at 12:00 a.m, two weeks after he announced he would resign rather than face a likely impeachment battle. He submitted his resignation letter late Monday to the leaders of the state Assembly and Senate.
On his final day in office, Cuomo released a pre-recorded farewell address in which he defended his record over a decade as New York’s governor and portrayed himself as the victim of a “media frenzy.”
Hochul was scheduled to have a ceremonial swearing-in event Tuesday morning at the Capitol, with more pomp than the brief, legally required event during the night.
She planned to meet with legislative leaders later in the morning and make a public address at 3 p.m.
For the first time, a majority of the most powerful figures in New York state government will be women, including state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Attorney General Letitia James and the chief judge, DiFiore. The state Assembly is led by a man, Speaker Carl Heastie.
Hochul will inherit immense challenges as she takes over an administration facing criticism for inaction in Cuomo’s final months.
COVID-19 has made a comeback, with new cases up nearly 1,370% since late June. Hospitalizations are climbing even as schools prepare to go back into session.
Big decisions lay ahead on whether to mandate masks or vaccines for certain groups, or whether to reinstate social distancing restrictions if the state’s latest wave of infections worsens. Hochul has said she favors making masks mandatory for schoolchildren, a contrast with Cuomo, who said he lacked that authority.
The economy remains unsettled. Jobs lost during the pandemic have been coming back, but unemployment remains double what it was two years ago.
New York has also struggled to get federal relief money into the hands of tenants behind on their rent because of the pandemic, releasing just 6% of the budgeted $2 billion so far. Thousands of households face the possibility of losing their homes if the state allows eviction protections to expire.
Hochul also faces questions about whether she’ll change the culture of governance in New York, following a Cuomo administration that favored force over charm.
Cuomo’s resignation comes after an independent investigation overseen by state Attorney General Letitia James concluded there was credible evidence he’d sexually harassed at least 11 women.
In his farewell remarks, Cuomo struck a defiant tone, saying the attorney general’s report that triggered his resignation was designed to be ”a political firecracker on an explosive topic, and it did work.”
Read:Kathy Hochul to be 1st female NY governor after Cuomo leaves
“There was a political and media stampede,” he said.
Cuomo also touted himself as a bulwark against his party’s left wing, which he said wants to defund the police and demonize businesses, and boasted of making government effective in his years in office. He cited his work battling the COVID-19 pandemic, legalizing same-sex marriage and hiking the minimum wage to $15.
“I tried my best to deliver for you,” Cuomo said.
Some critics jumped on Cuomo’s remarks as self-serving.
Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, a fellow Democrat, tweeted he had a hundred million opportunities to improve as a leader and “Chose himself every time. Goodbye, Governor Cuomo.”
Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, released a statement saying the governor was exploring his options for his post-gubernatorial life but had “no interest in running for office again.”
Cuomo’s resignation won’t end his legal problems.
An aide who said Cuomo groped her breast has filed a complaint with the Albany County Sheriff’s Office. Separately, Cuomo was facing a legislative investigation into whether he misled the public about COVD-19 deaths in nursing homes to protect his reputation as a pandemic leader and improperly got help from state employees in writing a book that may net him $5 million.
The switch in leadership was happening in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Henri, which narrowly missed Long Island on Sunday but dumped rain over the Catskill Mountains and Hudson Valley.
Hochul will need to quickly build her own team of advisers to steer the administration for at least the next 16 months.
Hochul, who said she didn’t work closely with Cuomo and wasn’t aware of the harassment allegations before they became public, has vowed no one will ever call her workplace “toxic.”
“I have a different approach to governing,” Hochul said Wednesday in Queens, adding, “I get the job done because I don’t have time for distractions, particularly coming into this position.”
She announced the planned appointments Monday of two top aides: Karen Persichilli Keogh will become Secretary to the Governor and Elizabeth Fine will be Hochul’s chief legal counselor.
Read:New York Governor Andrew Cuomo resigns over sexual harassment
She plans to keep on Cuomo-era employees for 45 days to allow her time to interview new hires, but said she will not keep anyone found to have behaved unethically.
Hochul, who has already said she plans to run for a full term next year, is expected to pick a left-leaning New York City politician as her lieutenant governor. Hochul once represented a conservative Western New York district in Congress for a year and has a reputation as a moderate.
State Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs praised Hochul as “formidable.”
“She’s very experienced and I think she’ll be a refreshing and exciting new governor,” he said.
Lebanese hospitals at breaking point as everything runs out
Drenched in sweat, doctors check patients lying on stretchers in the reception area of Lebanon’s largest public hospital. Air conditioners are turned off, except in operating rooms and storage units, to save on fuel.
Medics scramble to find alternatives to saline solutions after the hospital ran out. The shortages are overwhelming, the medical staff exhausted. And with a new surge in coronavirus cases, Lebanon’s hospitals are at a breaking point.
The country’s health sector is a casualty of the multiple crises that have plunged Lebanon into a downward spiral — a financial and economic meltdown, compounded by a complete failure of the government, runaway corruption and a pandemic that isn’t going away.
Read: Fuel tanker explodes in Lebanon, killing 20, wounding dozens
The collapse is all the more dramatic since only a few years ago, Lebanon was a leader in medical care in the Arab world. The region’s rich and famous came to this small Mideast nation of 6 million for everything, from major hospital procedures to plastic surgeries.
THE NEW NORMAL
Ghaidaa al-Saddik, a second-year resident, had just returned from a week off after an exhausting year. Back on duty for a week, she has already intubated two critical patients in the emergency room, both in their 30s.
She struggles to admit new patients, knowing how short on supplies the hospital is, scared to be blamed for mistakes and questioning if she is doing her best. Many patients are asked to bring their own medicines, such as steroids. Others are discharged too soon — often to homes where power outages last for days.
“You feel like you are trapped,” said al-Saddik.
The 28-year-old spends more nights in the staff dorms studying because at home, she has no electricity. She moved to an apartment closer to the hospital that she shares with two other people to save on rent and transportation. With the collapse of Lebanon’s currency amid the crisis, her salary has lost nearly 90% of its value.
With fewer and fewer residents, she must now do the rounds for about 30 patients, instead of 10. Her mentor, a senior virologist, has left Lebanon — one of many in a brain drain of medical professionals.
“I want to help my people,” she said. “But at the same time, what about me being a better doctor?”
RUNNING ON EMPTY
The Rafik Hariri University Hospital is Lebanon’s largest public hospital and the country’s No. 1 for the treatment of coronavirus patients. Lebanon has so far registered nearly 590,000 infections and over 8,000 deaths.
The hospital, which depended on the state power company, had to start relying on generators for at least 12 hours a day. Since last Monday, the generators have been the only source of power, running non-stop. Most of the hospital’s diesel, sold at the black market at five times the official price, is either donated by political parties or international aid groups.
To save on fuel, some rooms run only electrical fans in the sweltering summer heat. Not all hospital elevators are working. Bed capacity has been downsized by about 15% and the ER admits only life-threatening cases.
Read: Mired in crises, Lebanon hopes summer arrivals bring relief
It is a perpetual crisis that has left the hospital always on the brink, says its director, Firas Abiad. There are “shortages of almost everything.”
As Cuomo exits, Hochul to take office minus ‘distractions’
Andrew Cuomo neared the end of his decade as New York’s governor Monday, as he prepared to relinquish his tight grip on government to Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul in a midnight power transfer that will break another glass ceiling for women in state politics.
Cuomo, a Democrat, was set to end his term at 11:59 p.m., just under two weeks after he announced he would resign rather than face a likely impeachment battle over sexual harassment allegations.
Hochul was scheduled be sworn in as New York’s first female governor just after midnight in a brief, private ceremony overseen by the state’s chief judge, Janet DiFiore.
Read:Kathy Hochul to be 1st female NY governor after Cuomo leaves
The switch in leadership was happening in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Henri, which narrowly missed Long Island on Sunday but was dumping potentially dangerous amounts of rain over parts of the Catskill Mountains and Hudson River Valley, even after it was downgraded to a tropical depression.
The storm drew Cuomo back out into public view over the weekend, albeit briefly. He gave two televised briefings — warning New Yorkers to take the storm seriously with the same mix of scolding and reassurance that once made his daily COVID-19 briefings popular.
Perhaps if the storm had been catastrophic Cuomo might have been tempted to put off his resignation. But as the potential for danger diminished, he said there would be no change in his plans. “My final day is tomorrow,” he said Sunday.
Hochul, also a Democrat, will inherit immense challenges as she takes over an administration facing criticism for inaction in Cuomo’s distracted final months in office.
COVID-19 has refused to abate. Schools are set to reopen in the coming weeks, with big decisions to be made about whether to require masks for students or vaccination for teachers. The state’s economic recovery from the pandemic is still incomplete.
Cuomo’s resignation comes after an independent investigation overseen by state Attorney General Letitia James concluded there was credible evidence he’d sexually harassed at least 11 women, including an aide who said he groped her breast and has since filed a complaint with the Albany County Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators also said Cuomo’s senior staff retaliated against at least one of those women and worked to undermine the credibility of others.
Cuomo insists he didn’t touch anyone inappropriately and called the allegations “unfair” and “untruthful,” but said he wouldn’t force the state to endure an impeachment trial he couldn’t win.
Read:New York Governor Andrew Cuomo resigns over sexual harassment
Separately, Cuomo was facing a legislative investigation into whether he misled the public about COVD-19 deaths in nursing homes to protect his reputation as a pandemic leader and improperly got help from state employees in writing a pandemic book that may net him $5 million.
Cuomo has offered few hints about his plans or where he’ll live after leaving the Executive Mansion. He told New York magazine in a recent interview that he’s “not disappearing.”
In his resignation speech Aug. 10 he spoke with pride about his record of legalizing same-sex marriage, expanding paid family leave and boosting the statewide minimum wage to $15.
Hochul will need to quickly build her own team of advisers who can help steer the administration for at least the next 16 months.
She plans to keep on Cuomo-era employees for 45 days to allow her time to interview new hires, but said she will not keep anyone found to have behaved unethically. At least 35 employees in the governor’s office have left since February, according to staff rosters.
Hochul, who said she didn’t work closely with Cuomo and wasn’t aware of the harassment allegations before they became public, has vowed no one will ever call her workplace “toxic.”
“I have a different approach to governing,” Hochul said Wednesday in Queens, adding, “I get the job done because I don’t have time for distractions, particularly coming into this position.”
Hochul has already said she plans to run for a full four-year term next year.
She’ll do so as the state Democratic Party grapples with an internal struggle between moderate and liberal New Yorkers.
Read: Cuomo’s top aide resigns as governor faces harassment furor
Hochul, who once represented a conservative Western New York district in Congress for a year and has a reputation as a moderate, is expected to pick a left-leaning state lawmaker from New York City as her lieutenant governor.
State Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs praised Hochul as “formidable.”
“She’s very experienced and I think she’ll be a refreshing and exciting new governor,” he said.
Gaza border clashes wound 24 Palestinians, Israeli policeman
Israeli gunfire on Saturday wounded 24 Palestinians, including a 13-year-old boy who was shot in the head, health officials said. An Israeli policeman was critically wounded by Palestinian gunfire during the clashes along Gaza’s border with Israel.
The violence erupted after hundreds of Palestinians took part in a demonstration Saturday organized by Gaza’s Hamas rulers to draw attention to a stifling Israeli blockade of the territory. The demonstration grew violent after dozens of people approached the fortified border fence and threw rocks and explosives toward Israeli soldiers from behind a black smoke screen spewing from burning tires.
The Israeli military said that hundreds of demonstrators approached one area of the fence in northern Gaza and attempted to climb over while throwing explosives at troops. It said that troops fired tear gas and live rounds toward the protesters.
Read:Human Rights Watch: Israeli war crimes apparent in Gaza war
It also said a member of the paramilitary border police was hospitalized in grave condition after being shot. Amateur video from the Palestinian side showed a protester running up to the concrete barrier and firing a pistol into a hole used by an Israeli sniper.
In Gaza, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said 24 Palestinians were wounded by Israeli fire. Two of them, including the 13-year-old boy, were in critical condition.
The violent confrontations were reminiscent of the weekly border demonstrations organized by Gaza’s Hamas rulers in 2018 and 2019 to draw attention to Israel’s stifling blockade over the tiny seaside territory.
Israel and Hamas are bitter enemies that have fought four wars and countless skirmishes since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza in 2007, a year after winning a Palestinian election. The most recent war, in May, ended in an inconclusive cease-fire after 11 days of fighting.
Khalil al-Haya, a senior Hamas official, told protesters that the confrontation with Israel “was still open.”
Read:War's trauma apparent in portraits of Gazan children
There has been growing tension in recent weeks, with Hamas calling for Israel to ease the blockade, which greatly restricts movement of people and goods in and out of the territory. Israel has imposed the blockade with Egyptian help since 2007, saying it is needed to prevent Hamas from arming itself.
In a statement, the Israeli army said troops responded with live rounds after hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated at the Gaza-Israeli border.
During the border protests in 2018 and 2019, over 350 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire. The protests ground to a halt after mediators, including Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations brokered an unofficial deal in which Israel eased some of its economic restrictions on Gaza and allowed Qatar to deliver tens of millions of dollars in monthly payments to needy Gaza families and Hamas salaries.
Since the May war, the new Israeli government, headed by Naftali Bennet, has blocked the Qatari aid, calling for a mechanism to ensure Hamas doesn’t benefit from the cash. It also has blocked the import of key reconstruction materials while demanding that Hamas first return the remains of two soldiers killed in a 2014 war and two Israeli civilians believed to be alive.
Running out of patience, Hamas called for Saturday’s protest to signal its frustration with Israel delaying the Qatari cash injections.
On Thursday, however, Israel announced an agreement with the Gulf Arab country to resume aid payments to thousands of families in the Gaza Strip step aimed at easing tensions with the Palestinian territory in the wake of the war. Under the new arrangement, the funds are to be transferred by the United Nations directly to Gaza families, while giving Israel oversight over the the list of recipients. The payments are expected to begin in the coming weeks.
Read:Israeli airstrikes target Gaza sites, first since cease-fire
Hamas made the call for the protest at Gaza-Israel frontier before the new agreement on the resumption of Qatari aid was reached. It also said the protest was meant to mark the anniversary of a 1969 arson attack at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque by an Australian tourist later found to be mentally ill.
At least 254 people were killed during May’s Gaza-Israel war, including 67 children and 39 women, according to the Gaza health ministry. Hamas has acknowledged the deaths of 80 militants. Twelve civilians, including two children, were killed in Israel, along with one soldier.
Oxygen plant among earthquake-damaged buildings in Haiti
As if Haiti’s 7.2 magnitude earthquake, a tropical storm and the coronavirus pandemic weren’t enough, the temblor damaged the only medical oxygen plant in the southern part of the country.
The building that housed the oxygen concentrator machines that the region depended on partially collapsed, and the machines were upended. The Etheuss company is run by the a family famous for their vetiver perfume oils plant in the city of Les Cayes, one of the areas hardest hit by Saturday’s earthquake.
“We are trying to get the oxygen production started again. That is our responsibility, because many people depend on it,” said Kurtch Jeune, one of the brothers who run the plant, as he showed reporters through the damaged, rubble-strewn plants on Thursday.
The quake left concrete pillars and roofs at the facility leaning, and cement block rubble battered the tanks, electrical system and the delicate web of copper tubing that fills vital oxygen plants. “The oxygen generators are upside down,” Jeune said. “We did get a promise of help from the public works department to get the rubble out with excavators.”
Read: Tensions over aid grow in Haiti as quake’s deaths pass 2K
Jeune said that, apart from two medical oxygen plants in the capital, Port-au-Prince, his factory was the only one serving local hospitals. As the COVID-19 pandemic grinds on, Jeune says demand for oxygen has gone up 200% in the last month.
“We have the capacity to supply 40 oxygen cylinders per day,” Jeune said. “We supply several hospitals.”
The powerful earthquake that struck Haiti’s southwestern peninsula killed at least 2,189 and injured 12,268 people, according to official figures. More than 300 people are estimated to still be missing, said Serge Chery, head of civil defense for the Southern Province, which includes the small port city of Les Cayes.
More than 100,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, leaving about 30,000 families homeless, according to official estimates. Hospitals, schools, offices and churches also were demolished or badly damaged.
The earthquake was trailed by a tropical storm that brought heavy rain and strong winds at the beginning of the week.
Private relief supplies and shipments from the U.S. government and others began flowing more quickly into Haiti on Thursday, but the Caribbean nation’s entrenched poverty, insecurity and lack of basic infrastructure still presented huge challenges to getting food and urgent medical care to all those who need it.
Read: What makes Haiti prone to devastating earthquakes
Adding to the problems, a major hospital in the capital of Port-au-Prince, where many of the injured were being sent, closed for two days beginning Thursday to protest the kidnapping of two doctors, including one of the country’s few orthopedic surgeons.
The abductions dealt a blow to attempts to control criminal violence that has threatened disaster response efforts in the capital.
Further, a group of 18 Colombian volunteer search-and-rescue workers had to be escorted out of the quake-hit city of Jeremie under police protection after a false rumor circulated that they had been involved in the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise. The workers took shelter Wednesday night at a civil defense office, and police escorted them to the airport on Thursday.
Moise’s killing, still unsolved, is suspected of being carried out by a group of Colombian mercenaries. Despite what happened to the Colombian rescue workers, Haiti is welcoming “everyone who is coming to bring assistance,” said Jerry Chandler, the head of the national Civil Protection Agency.
Health care facilities in the Western Hemisphere poorest nation were already at a critical point before the earthquake because of the pandemic. The country of 11 million people has reported 20,556 cases and 576 deaths of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Haiti received its first batch of U.S.-donated coronavirus vaccines only last month via a United Nations program for low-income countries.
The rest of Jeune’s factory, which produces an essential oil used in fine perfumes, was also badly damaged.
Read: Rescuers racing in Haiti as storm threatens to follow quake
The family’s business processes bales of beige, stringy roots culled from the vetiver plant to produce more than half the world’s vetiver oil.
Vetiver oil is also used for cosmetics, soaps and aromatherapy. It generates an estimated $12 million in revenue a year and employs anywhere from 15,000 to 60,000 farmers.
The damage to the factory threatens Haiti’s already perilous rural economy, plagued by drought, soil erosion and tropical storms.
Haiti produces more than 70 tons of vetiver oil a year, surpassing Indonesia, China, India, Brazil and the neighboring Dominican Republic. It is one of the country’s top exports, with up to 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) harvested annually. But more than 60% of the crop still comes from individual producers, many of whom are struggling financially, according to Gabriel Gelin, a spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program in Haiti.
What do we know about booster shots for COVID-19?
U.S. health officials may soon recommend COVID-19 booster shots for fully vaccinated Americans. A look at what we know about boosters and how they could help fight the coronavirus:
WHY MIGHT WE NEED BOOSTERS?
It’s common for protection from vaccines to decrease over time. A tetanus booster, for example, is recommended every 10 years.
Read: US okays Covid booster dose for those with weak immune systems
Researchers and health officials have been monitoring the real-world performance of the COVID-19 vaccines to see how long protection lasts among vaccinated people. The vaccines authorized in the U.S. continue to offer very strong protection against severe disease and death.
But laboratory blood tests have suggested that antibodies — one of the immune system’s layers of protection — can wane over time. That doesn’t mean protection disappears, but it could mean protection is not as strong or that it could take longer for the body to fight back against an infection.
The delta variant has complicated the question of when to give boosters because it is so much more contagious and much of the data gathered about vaccine performance is from before the delta variant was widely circulating. Delta is taking off at the same time that vaccine immunity might also be waning for the first people vaccinated.
Israel is offering a booster to people over 50 who were vaccinated more than five months ago. France and Germany plan to offer boosters to some people in the fall. The European Medicines Agency said it too is reviewing data to see if booster shots are needed.
WHEN WOULD THEY BE GIVEN?
It depends on when you got your initial shots. One possibility is that health officials will recommend people get a booster roughly eight months after getting their second shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.
Officials are continuing to collect information about the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was authorized for use in the U.S. in late February, to determine when to recommend boosters.
Read:US to recommend COVID vaccine boosters at 8 months
WHO WOULD GET THEM?
The first people vaccinated in the United States would likely be first in line for boosters too. That means health care workers, nursing home residents and other older Americans, who were the first to be vaccinated once the shots were authorized last December.
BOOSTER? THIRD SHOT? WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
Transplant recipients and other people with weakened immune systems may not have gotten enough protection from vaccines to begin with. They can now receive a third dose at least 28 days after their second shot as part of their initial series of shots needed for them to be fully vaccinated. For those with normal immune systems, boosters are given much later after full vaccination — not to establish protection, but to rev it up again.
WHAT QUESTIONS REMAIN?
Still unknown is whether people should get the same type of shot they got when first vaccinated. And the nation’s top health advisers will be looking for evidence about the safety of boosters and how well they protect against infection and severe disease.
Read:Why might COVID-19 vaccine boosters be necessary?
Global access to vaccines is also important to stem the pandemic and prevent the emergence of new variants. Booster shots could crimp already tight global vaccine supplies.
WHAT ABOUT THE UNVACCINATED?
Dr. Melanie Swift, who has been leading the vaccination program at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, says getting more shots into people who haven’t yet been vaccinated at all is “our best tool, not only to prevent hospitalization and mortality from the delta variant, but to stop transmission.” Every infection, she says, “gives the virus more chances to mutate into who knows what the next variant could be.”
“People who took the vaccine the first time are likely to line up and get their booster,” Swift says. “But it’s not going to achieve our goals overall if all their unvaccinated neighbors are not vaccinated.”
Death toll from Haiti’s weekend earthquake rises to 1,941
Haitian officials raised the death toll from a deadly weekend earthquake by more than 500 on Tuesday after Tropical Storm Grace forced a temporary halt to search and rescue efforts, a delay that fed growing anger and frustration among thousands who were left homeless.
Grace battered southwestern Haiti, which was hit hardest by Saturday’s quake, and officials warned some areas could get 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain before the storm moved on. Intermittent rain fell in the earthquake-damaged city of Les Cayes and in the capital of Port-au-Prince.
Late Tuesday afternoon, the Civil Protection Agency raised the death toll to 1,941 and the number of injured to 9,900, many of whom have had to wait for medical help lying outside in wilting heat.
Read: Haiti quake death toll rises to 1,419, injured now at 6,000
The devastation is centered in the country’s southwestern area, where health care has reached capacity and people have lost homes and loved ones.
Patience was running out in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation. Haitians already were struggling with the coronavirus, gang violence, worsening poverty and the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse when the quake hit.
Bodies continued to be pulled from the rubble, and the smell of death hung heavily over a pancaked, three-story apartment building. A simple bed sheet covered the body of a 3-year-old girl that firefighters had found an hour earlier.
Neighbor Joseph Boyer, 53, said he knew the girl’s family.
“The mother and father are in the hospital, but all three kids died,” he said. The bodies of the other two siblings were found earlier.
Illustrating the lack of government presence, volunteer firefighters from the nearby city of Cap-Haitien had left the body out in the rain because police have to be present before a body can be taken away.
Another neighbor, James Luxama, 24, repeated a popular rumor at many disaster scenes, saying that someone was sending text messages for help from inside the rubble. But Luxama had not personally seen or received such a message.
A throng of angry, shouting men gathered in front of the collapsed building, a sign that patience was running out for people who have waited days for help from the government.
“The photographers come through, the press, but we have no tarps for our roofs,” said one man, who refused to give his name.
The head of Haiti’s office of civil protection, Jerry Chandler, acknowledged the situation. Earthquake assessments had to be paused because of the heavy rain, “and people are getting aggressive,” Chandler said Tuesday.
Some children were orphaned in the quake and some youngsters were starting to go hungry, said Carl-Henry Petit-Frère, a field manager for Save the Children, which said in a statement that it was distributing what it could to people living on the streets without protection from the wind and rain.
“I see children crying on the street, people asking us for food, but we are low on food ourselves as well,” Petit-Frère said, adding that children were warned not to go into houses because they could collapse. “The organizations that are here are doing what they can, but we need more supplies. Food, clean water and shelter are needed most, and we need them fast.”
About 20 soldiers finally showed up to help rescuers at the collapsed apartment building.
Prior to that, the only help that arrived was from poorly equipped volunteers.
“All we have are sledgehammers and hands. That’s the plan,” said Canadian volunteer Randy Lodder, director of the Adoration Christian School in Haiti.
Sarah Charles, assistant administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, said its disaster response teams were forced to suspend operations as the storm arrived Monday, but members were back Tuesday to assess its impact and continue helping.
Read:What makes Haiti prone to devastating earthquakes
“We do not anticipate that the death toll related to this earthquake will be anywhere near the 2010 earthquake, where more than 200,000 people were killed,” Charles told reporters.
The scale of the damage also was not as severe as that earthquake, she said, adding: “That’s not what we’re seeing on the ground right now.”
In a statement, the U.S. military’s Southern Command said it was moving eight helicopters from Honduras to Haiti and that seven U.S. Coast Guard cutters were en route to support the USAID team. Two cutters already are there along with two Coast Guard helicopters and U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft that are taking aerial images of earthquake devastated areas, the statement said.
The effort was being mounted “to provide the kind of emergency response that is necessary in a human tragedy and catastrophe like this,” U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House.
John Morrison, public information officer for the Fairfax Co. (Virginia) Urban Search and Rescue, said its team was still trying to find survivors. Two U.S. Coast Guard helicopters had ferried searchers to six stricken communities on Monday.
“The team reports that food, health care services, safe drinking water, hygiene and sanitation and shelter are all priority needs,” Morrison said. He added that rescuers had not seen any signs of people trapped alive in buildings.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Tuesday that the organization had disbursed $8 million to its agencies so that they could get supplies they need immediately. He said the U.N. is “playing a leading role” supporting Haiti, but added that “the government has the primary responsibilities.”
“I think the lesson learned is always for better and improved coordination so as not to see the chaotic scenes that we had” in the aftermath of the country’s devastating 2010 earthquake, Dujarric said. “We sometimes see where countries are, with the best of intentions, sending aid that may not be needed. ... So, I think the lesson learned is always better and more improved coordination to avoid waste and to avoid redundancies.”
Rain and wind raised the threat of mudslides and flash flooding as Grace slowly passed over southwestern Haiti’s Tiburon Peninsula before heading toward Jamaica and southeastern Cuba. Forecasters said it could become a hurricane before hitting Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
Officials said the magnitude 7.2 earthquake destroyed more than 7,000 homes and damaged nearly 5,000, leaving about 30,000 families homeless. Hospitals, schools, offices and churches also were demolished or badly damaged.
In the village of Bonne Fin, a one-hour drive from from Les Cayes on dirt roads, the mountaintop Hospital Lumiere illustrated the anguish and complexity of Haiti’s medical crisis and dire need for outside help.
No one died or was injured at the hospital when the quake hit, but the operating rooms partially collapsed.
Through cracks in a wall, Dr. Frantz Codio could see three glistening anesthesia machines he needed to perform orthopedic operations on broken bones. But he could not get to them because the building’s cement roof was leaning at a crazy angle — in some places just 3 or 4 feet (0.9 meters to 1.2 meters) above the floor.
Despite warnings not to go inside the structure, Codio did so on Sunday and pulled one of the machines out.
“People said, ‘Don’t go in there, it’s too dangerous,’ but I had God with me,” Codio said.
Read: Death toll of powerful earthquake in Haiti soars to 1,297
Etzer Emile, a Haitian economist and professor at Quisqueya University, a private institution in Port-au-Prince, said the earthquake will almost certainly result in more long-term poverty for Haiti’s struggling southwestern region.
Political instability and gang criminality along the southern roads into the region have particularly hobbled economic activity in recent years.
“The earthquake has just given a fatal blow to a regional economy already on its knees for about 2 1/2 years,” Emile said.
Northwest sizzles as heat wave hits many parts of US
Volunteers and county employees set up cots and stacked hundreds of bottles of water in an air-conditioned cooling center in a vacant building in Portland, Oregon, one of many such places being set up as the Northwest sees another stretch of sizzling temperatures.
Scorching weather also hit other parts of the country this week. The weather service said heat advisories and warnings would be in effect from the Midwest to the Northeast and mid-Atlantic through at least Friday.
In Portland, tempertures neared 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 Celsius) on Wednesday and the mercury could soar past the century mark Thursday and Friday. Authorities trying to provide relief to vulnerable people are mindful of a record-shattering heat wave earlier this summer that killed hundreds in the Pacific Northwest.
Read:Wildfires rage as US West grapples with heat wave, drought
The high temperatures in Portland, part of a usually temperate region, would break all-time records this week if the late June heat wave had not done so already. Seattle will be cooler than Portland, with temperatures in the mid-90s, but it still has a chance to break records, and many people there, like in Oregon, don’t have air conditioning.
People began coming into a 24-hour cooling center in north Portland before it opened Wednesday.
The first few people in were experiencing homelessness, a population vulnerable to extreme heat. Among them was December Snedecor, who slept two nights in the same center in June when temperatures reached 116 F (47 C).
She said she planned to sleep there again this week because the heat in her tent was unbearable.
“I poured water over myself a lot. It was up in the teens, hundred-and-something heat. It made me dizzy. It was not good,” Snedecor said of the June heat. “I’ve just got to stay cool. I don’t want to die.”
Read: Heat wave blankets US West as fires rage in several states
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has declared a state of emergency and activated an emergency operations center, citing the potential for disruptions to the power grid and transportation. Besides opening cooling centers, city and county governments are extending public library hours and waiving bus fare for those headed to cooling centers. A 24-hour statewide help line will direct callers to the nearest cooling shelter and offer safety tips.
Emergency officials have sent alerts to phones, said Dan Douthit, spokesman for the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management.
The back-to-back heat waves, coupled with a summer that’s been exceptionally warm and dry overall, are pummeling a region where summer highs usually drift into the 70s or 80s. Intense heat waves and a historic drought in the American West reflect climate change that is making weather more extreme.
The June heat in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia killed hundreds of people and served as a wake-up call for what’s ahead in a warming world. It was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change, a detailed scientific analysis found.
Even younger residents struggled with the heat in June and dreaded this week’s sweltering temperatures.
Read: Study: Northwest heat wave impossible without climate change
Katherine Morgan, 27, has no air conditioning in her third-floor apartment and can’t afford a window unit on the money she makes working at a bookstore and as a hostess at a brewery.
She’ll have to walk to work Thursday, the day when temperatures could again soar.
“All my friends and I knew that climate change was real, but it’s getting really scary because it was gradually getting hot — and it suddenly got really hot, really fast,” Morgan said.