(GRAFTON, Wis.) — Police and federal authorities are investigating after a Wisconsin health system said an employee admitted to deliberately spoiling 500 doses of coronavirus vaccine. Aurora Medical Center first reported that the doses has been spoiled on Saturday, saying they had been accidentally left out unrefrigerated overnight by an employee at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton. The health system said Wednesday that the doses of vaccine now appear to have been deliberately spoiled. Police in Grafton, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Milwaukee, said in a statement that the department, FBI and Food and Drug Administration are “actively” investigating the case. Police said they were notified of the alleged tampering Wednesday night. Police said Thursday morning that no other information would be immediately released, and declined to say if any arrests have been made. In a statement late Wednesday, Aurora said the employee involved “acknowledged that they intentionally removed the vaccine from refrigeration.” Aurora said it has fired the employee and referred the matter to the authorities. The statement said nothing about a possible motive for the action. “We continue to believe that vaccination is our way out of the pandemic. We are more than disappointed that this individual’s actions will result in a delay of more than 500 people receiving their vaccine,” the statement said. Aurora said it would provide more information on Thursday. from https://ift.tt/2WVHiO2 Check out https://takiaisfobia.blogspot.com/
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California on Wednesday announced the nation’s second confirmed case of the new and apparently more contagious variant of the coronavirus, offering a strong indication that the infection is spreading more widely in the United States. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the infection found in Southern California during an online conversation with Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “I don’t think Californians should think that this is odd. It’s to be expected,” Fauci said. Newsom did not provide any details about the person who was infected. The announcement came 24 hours after word of the first reported U.S. variant infection, which emerged in Colorado. That person was identified Wednesday as a Colorado National Guardsman who had been sent to help out at a nursing home struggling with an outbreak. Health officials said a second Guard member may have it too. The cases triggered a host of questions about how the version circulating in England arrived in the U.S. and whether it is too late to stop it now, with top experts saying it is probably already spreading elsewhere in the United States. “The virus is becoming more fit, and we’re like a deer in the headlights,” warned Dr. Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute. He noted that the U.S. does far less genetic sequencing of virus samples to discover variants than other developed nations, and thus was probably slow to detect this new mutation. The two Guard members had been dispatched Dec. 23 to work at the Good Samaritan Society nursing home in the small town of Simla, in a mostly rural area about 90 miles outside Denver, said Dr. Rachel Herlihy, state epidemiologist. They were among six Guard members sent to the home. Nasal swab samples taken from the two as part of the Guard’s routine coronavirus testing were sent to the state laboratory, which began looking for the variant after its spread was announced in Britain earlier this month, Herlihy said. Samples from staff and residents at the nursing home are also being screened for the variant at the lab, but so far no evidence of it has been found, she said. The Colorado case announced Tuesday involves a man in his 20s who had not traveled recently, officials said. He has mild symptoms and is isolating at his home near Denver, while the person with the suspected case is isolating at a Colorado hotel while further genetic analysis is done on his sample, officials said. The nursing home said it is working closely with the state and is also looking forward to beginning vaccinations next week. Several states, including California, Massachusetts and Delaware, are also analyzing suspicious virus samples for the variant, said Dr. Greg Armstrong, who directs genetic sequencing at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said the CDC is working with a national lab that gets samples from around the country to broaden that search, with results expected within days. The discovery in Colorado has added urgency to the nation’s vaccination drive against COVID-19, which has killed more than 340,000 people in the U.S. Britain is seeing infections soar and hospitalizations climb to their highest levels on record. The variant has also been found in several other countries. Scientists have found no evidence that it is more lethal or causes more severe illness, and they believe the vaccines now being dispensed will be effective against it. But a faster-spreading virus could swamp hospitals with seriously ill patients. The discovery overseas led the CDC to issue rules on Christmas Day requiring travelers arriving from Britain to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test. But U.S. health officials said the Colorado patient’s lack of travel history suggests the new variant is already spreading in this country. Topol said it is too late for travel bans. “We’re behind in finding it. Colorado is likely one of many places it’s landed here,” he said. “It’s all over the place. How can you ban travel from everywhere?” Colorado public health officials are conducting contact tracing to determine its spread. Researchers estimate the variant is 50% to 70% more contagious, said Dr. Eric France, Colorado’s chief medical officer. “Instead of only making two or three other people sick, you might actually spread it to four or five people,” France said. “That means we’ll have more cases in our communities. Those number of cases will rise quickly and, of course, with more cases come more hospitalizations.” London and southeast England were placed under strict lockdown measures earlier this month because of the variant, and dozens of countries banned flights from Britain. France also briefly barred trucks from Britain before allowing them back in, provided the drivers got tested for the virus. New versions of the virus have been seen almost since it was first detected in China a year ago. It is common for viruses to undergo minor changes as they reproduce and move through a population. The fear is that mutations at some point will become significant enough to defeat the vaccines. South Africa has also discovered a highly contagious COVID-19 variant that is driving the country’s latest spike of cases, hospitalizations and deaths. ___ Johnson reported from Washington state. from https://ift.tt/3pz6pSY Check out https://takiaisfobia.blogspot.com/ The COVID-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca wasn’t the first to be OK’d by regulators in the U.K.—health officials authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech jab nearly four weeks earlier. And it’s not the most effective—Stage 3 clinical trials suggest it prevents COVID-19 symptoms about 70% of the time vs. about 95% for the Pfizer vaccine and a similar one from Moderna (which is authorized in the U.S., but not the U.K.). But the greenlight from the British Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency on Wednesday could be a big step toward bringing the COVID-19 pandemic under control worldwide. It’s especially big news for the developing world because it’s cheaper and easier to handle and store. Countries from India to Brazil to South Africa have made big bets on the shot from the celebrated British university and the U.K.-Swedish drugmaker. The U.K. was the first country to allow use of the vaccine, but India is expected to follow suit within days. Trials are ongoing in the U.S. and in multiple other countries. Questions and major hurdles remain before it will be available in the U.S. and continental Europe, where it has yet to receive regulatory approval. However, if the vaccine is authorized for use and rolled out widely across the world, “that’s really the beginning of the end of the pandemic,” says Ben Cowling, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong. Advantages of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccineThe first thing to know about the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab is that it’s cheap. AstraZeneca has promised it will not make a profit on the vaccine during the pandemic. As a result, it costs $3 to $4 per dose around the world. Compare that to $25 to $37 a dose for the vaccine developed by Moderna and about $20 a dose for Pfizer’s jab, according to figures reported in Europe. “Approval of this vaccine is a turning point for the pandemic because it has been deliberately developed to have global impact that includes people living in the most fragile and poorest regions of the world,” said Helen Fletcher, a professor of immunology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Second, it’s easier to transport and store. Unlike Pfizer’s vaccine, which must be stored in specialized freezers at -70°C (-94°F), the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot requires only standard refrigeration and will remain viable for up to six months. (Morderna’s vaccine can be kept at normal freezer temperatures and stored in refrigeration for up to 30 days once thawed.) Additionally—there will be a lot more of it available. AstraZeneca and Oxford have worked with manufacturers across the world to produce millions of doses already, and the company says it hopes to make 3 billion more in 2021. With the current two-dose regimen, that’s enough to vaccine nearly 20% of the world’s population. The Serum Institute of India, which was contracted to make COVID-19 vaccine for the developing world, has already manufactured up to 50 million doses and says it can make 100 million a month by March. Pfizer, one of the world’s largest drug companies, has set a target of delivering 1.3 billion doses for 2021. Moderna, an upstart pharmaceutical company, says it hopes to produce between 500 million and 1 billion doses. However, rich countries have already claimed much of the expected supply of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine. “Those vaccines are already committed, so they are not available for most middle income and low income countries,” says Dr. Chandrakant Lahariya, a Delhi-based epidemiologist and author of a book on India’s COVID-19 fight. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, on the other hand, makes up the bulk of the 2 billion vaccine doses secured by COVAX, a consortium of 190 world governments formed to help ensure COVID-19 vaccines were distributed fairly around the world—including to developing countries. How is the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine different?The Oxford-AstraZeneca uses different technology from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that are approved for use in the U.S. While those two vaccines use the mRNA genetic code of the coronavirus to train the body’s defenses, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine uses a “viral vector,” introducing a harmless virus—in this case a virus that causes the common cold in chimpanzees—modified with the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein to stimulate an immune response. Other COVID-19 vaccines in the pipeline also use the viral vector method—including one from Johnson & Johnson and Russia’s Sputnik V. This technique has already proved successful in the past, including with the Ebola vaccine. The mRNA vaccines, on the other hand, are the first using that approach to receive authorization. Questions remainWhile the U.K.’s decision to use the vaccine is significant, Cowling, the HKU epidemiologist, says other countries may wait to begin administering it until after the European Medical Authority (EMA) or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) grant authorization—both of which are seen as more stringent than the British regulator. One EMA official yesterday told Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad that AstraZeneca has not even submitted its vaccine for a regulatory consideration yet, adding that approval in January wasn’t likely. There also remain questions surrounding late-stage trials for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. In September, AstraZeneca and Oxford halted trials in the U.K. after a volunteer experienced an unexplained illness—but did not announce the pause until it was reported in the news media. U.K. regulators gave the OK to continue trials days later. However, the New York Times reported that U.S. regulators at the FDA were not notified of the pause and taken aback by the news. It took almost seven weeks before regulators allowed trials to resume in the U.S. Then, in November, clinical trial data raised questions about dosing. The results showed that the vaccine was 62% effective for subjects given two full doses, and 90% effective for those who were mistakenly given a half dose first, and then a full dose. There were also questions about how the data were released and reported. The company said it maintained the highest standards during clinical trials and reported the dosing issue to authorities when it was discovered. U.K. regulators signed off on a plan to continue the trial with the half-dose participants. However, the group that received the half dose was too small and included no patients over age 55—meaning no firm conclusions could be drawn. On Wednesday, British regulators authorized the use of two full doses, administered four to 12 weeks apart. Despite these questions, Fletcher at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says the dosing question should not delay approval by the FDA and EMA—both regulators were only considering authorization for two full doses. Additionally, there are very little data on how long protection for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine—or any other COVID-19 vaccine—will last. Regardless, the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab will almost surely help turn the tide against the pandemic. “With more than 30 supply agreements and partner networks established globally, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine could slow the pandemic,” she says, “and should save many lives within the next year.” from https://ift.tt/37ZWvnB Check out https://takiaisfobia.blogspot.com/ Even though the COVID-19 vaccine clinic wasn’t due to open until 5 p.m., cars started lining up around about 15 minutes early, just as darkness, and some snowflakes, started to fall. The vehicles, some ambulances and other types of emergency response cars, belonged to 70 first responders in Minnesota’s Carlton County who wanted to be among the first in the area to get vaccinated against COVID-19. They drove through the large parking garage in Carlton, run by the county’s transportation department, where they received one of the northern Minnesota county’s allotment of 100 doses of the vaccine made by Moderna, from the state’s initial batch of 15,000 doses. The county, located just beyond the western tip of Lake Superior, is home to about 35,000 people, and is among the first around the country to use a drive-through strategy for vaccinating its residents against COVID-19; Hamilton County in Tennessee held its first day of a two-day drive-through vaccination clinic for health care workers and first responders on the day after Christmas, and had to close before its second day because of overwhelming demand. Health officials in Macon in Illinois, are planning its drive-up immunization on Dec. 30, and Florida’s Brevard County is holding its first drive-through COVID-19 vaccination clinic on Jan. 4 for those over age 65. Carlton County’s emergency preparedness team was ready for the line of first responders waiting, in their cars, for their shots. The county team had been preparing for this evening since last summer, when it started thinking about how best to fulfill its pending task of vaccinating all of the county’s residents when a COVID-19 shot became available. “One of the main responsibilities of public health departments is to dispense vaccines and medications, especially during a public health emergency,” says Ali Mueller, emergency preparedness coordinator for the county. “But we knew with COVID-19 that mass dispensing of vaccines would have to be done in a different way; the in-person setup in large conference rooms or schools, and having long lines with people in close proximity, wouldn’t be possible [because of the risk of spreading the virus.]” Over the summer, when a local clinic offered drive-through immunizations for kids who had missed their well-child visits, it sparked an idea to try it for other vaccination programs as well. “I thought, maybe we could develop something like this for flu vaccination,” says Jenny Barta, disease prevention and control immunization coordinator for Carlton County Health and Human Services. She also believed the drive-through flu vaccine program could serve as a dry run for a possible COVID-19 drive-through vaccination effort. By September, she and her team had worked out the details of standing up a drive-through flu clinic, working with technology company Esri and its mapping and analytics tools to customize an online pre-registration form and develop a dashboard for tracking in real time the number of flu shots dispensed as well as the time of day when each person received a vaccine. The software also helps the county health team track traffic patterns and determine when flow is heaviest and when it’s lighter (eventually, when the COVID-19 vaccinations are open to the public, that information can be communicated back to people to help them estimate wait times and avoid crowded periods). The public health team worked with the county’s transportation department to set up tents along the driveway leading to the large garage for two days in September. “We quickly figured out that even though the weather was decent, it was still unpredictable,” says Barta. “The wind was unpredictable, and moving vaccine carts across uneven surfaces was a hassle. So we ended up moving into the large garage space; people drove in on one side and out the other side of the garage.” That decision proved critical for the first day of drive-through COVID-19 vaccinations on Dec. 29, when the temperature dipped to 18°F and snow covered the driveway and parking lot. The transportation staff had moved some of the snow plows, pick-up trucks, street sweepers and other pieces of equipment normally stored in the garage to make room for the clinic. Groups of first responders drove their vehicles inside the garage and shut off their engines before signing in with health staff who went from car to car with iPads to get people’s consent and make sure they understood the benefits and risks of the vaccine. Three teams of nurses, who had vaccinated each other on Dec. 23, when the doses arrived at the health department (also in the midst of a snowstorm), rolled vaccination carts from car to car administering the shots. “It went really, really smoothly,” says Mueller. “We vaccinated people in the first 13 cars in about 15 minutes.” The test run the county did over the summer with flu shots proved invaluable in helping things go smoothly for the COVID-19 shots. The flu clinic was so popular that more than 700 people got their flu shots in two days—in normal years, that’s how many people are immunized on average over the entire flu season of about five months, says Mueller. The success of that experience helped the county’s public health team learn the best ways to manage traffic flow into and out of the facility, how to predict when demand might be highest and lowest, and how best to communicate with the public not just about the existence of the drive-through clinic, but also to answer any questions they might have about the shot. Such education is even more critical with the COVID-19 vaccine, since it’s not just a new shot against a new disease, but also comes with different side effects than the annual flu vaccine. Because several people who have received the COVID-19 vaccine so far have developed anaphylactic reactions, the Carlton County program includes a “Rest and Recovery” area outside of the garage where people who have just been immunized are required to wait at least 15 minutes before driving off, in case they experience any side effects from the jab. Two nurses and a behavioral health specialist bundled in snow pants and armed with cups of hot coffee were on site to float among the cars and provide care if anyone needed it. “We told people to honk or use their flashers to let us know if they are not feeling well,” says Mueller. “We recommended that people stay for 15 minutes, or 30 minutes if they have a history of anaphylactic reactions to medications.” None of the vaccinees reported any issues, and using the software developed by Esri, Barta and Mueller’s team knew that on average, it took about 30 minutes for the first responders to get vaccinated. (During the flu clinic in the fall, people who had pre-registered drove through and got their shots in under five minutes). Everyone who got vaccinated was also encouraged via fact sheets the health officials provided them to register in the Centers for Disease Control’s V-safe program, which lets people directly report any side effects or other health issues they experience after getting immunized. The text-based system will also send reminders to anyone who has registered, asking them about their health status every day for the first week after getting the shot, and once a week for about two months after that. Because there were only 70 people expected to get vaccinated in this first run, the Carlton County public health team decided not to use an appointment system, although they encouraged the first responders to pre-register, and most did. When the County vaccinates the general public in coming months, Barta and Mueller expect that people will likely pre-register and pick an appointment time as they did for the flu clinic. Even if they don’t pre-register, they will be able to scan a QR code that health officials provide when they arrive so people can register while they wait in line to save time. County health officials also plan to expand the education and outreach materials that people can access to learn when and where they can get their shots. Working with Esri, the county’s COVID-19 vaccine website will allow people to find out if they are eligible to get vaccinated based on the state’s tiered vaccination program, and if they are eligible, where the closest vaccine clinics are. The drive-through model could be an efficient, convenient and safe way to vaccinate large groups of people, says Mueller. “The drive-through is really resourceful when it comes to personal protective equipment because it is pretty much contactless,” she says. “And it allows us to potentially vaccinate thousands of people in a day. I’m excited for the future and for doing this on a larger scale, and hope that other jurisdictions can learn from us too.” from https://ift.tt/37XeY4a Check out https://takiaisfobia.blogspot.com/ When COVID-19 initially blazed through Asia, Europe and then the United States, global public health experts worried that it could be catastrophic for Africa, with its crowded cities, poorly funded health sector and lack of testing facilities. The U.N. Economic Commission for Africa in April predicted up to 300,000 deaths this year if the virus couldn’t be contained on the continent. Yet it was the U.S, with its superior health system, that hit that grim milestone first, and so far, Africa has been largely spared the worst of the devastation experienced by the rest of the world. As of Dec. 29, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention was reporting total 2.6 million cases and 63,300 deaths for a population of 1.2 billion. That’s roughly one case for every 500 people, compared to one in 20 in the U.S. However, those numbers might not actually reflect the reality on the ground. Overall, testing for COVID-19 cases has been comparatively limited on the continent, which could be contributing to lower case numbers. South Africa, which has the highest testing rate in the region, was only performing 0.68 tests a day per 1,000 people in mid-December, compared to 4.3 in the U.S., according to Our World in Data (Denmark, which has the highest test rate, is currently performing 15.1 tests per 1,000). That might explain why the continent has lower-than-expected reported case rates. As for COVID-19-related deaths, one way to estimate the true impact of the virus is to look at total excess deaths this year, calculated by comparing the overall mortality figures in 2020 to previous annual averages. Those figures in South Africa point to the possibility of a higher number of deaths from COVID-19 than the official records show. A report by the South African Medical Research Council noted that South Africa saw some 17,000 extra deaths from natural causes between early May and mid-July, a 59% increase in excess deaths compared to what was expected over the same period. However, the Africa CDC says there has been no indication that a large number of COVID-19 deaths have been missed. If official numbers are to be believed, the African continent trails much of the rest of the world when it comes to case fatality rates, and there have been fewer scenes of overwhelmed hospitals and funeral parlors coming from the continent compared to other parts of the globe. Nevertheless, some countries across the continent are currently seeing increases in COVID-19 cases amid concerns of a second wave. South Africa has seen a sharp increase recently, amid evidence that a new variant has been detected; President Cyril Ramaphosa announced new restrictions on Monday, citing the daily record of 14,790 infections recorded on Christmas Day, which he described as “a cause for alarm.” Over the weekend, the country’s total recorded cases since the start of the pandemic reached one million at the weekend. But overall, African countries have largely defied the doomsday predictions. Why that might be the case is unclear. “If the data is reliable—and that is a big question mark for me—there would be multiple explanations for lower numbers, not one solid reason,” says Cape Town-based independent clinical epidemiologist Dr Nandi Siegfried. It could be due to a lower average age, a more favorable climate, solid public health policies or fewer co-morbidities on the continent—each offers an imperfect defense, which taken cumulatively, contributes to an overall protective effect. Here, we break down some of those reasons. Preparation is the best preventativeMany African countries have poor medical infrastructure, but they also have longstanding experience with infectious disease. When the WHO declared COVID-19 a public health emergency of international concern at the end of January, doctors and public health officials in countries that already had experience with outbreaks of other infectious disease sprang into action. “We had to learn the hard way,” Liberian public health expert Dr. Mosoka Fallah told TIME in March, referring to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the three West African countries that bore the brunt of the 2013-16 Ebola epidemic. “Ebola knocked us over, but now we know not to underestimate anything; we know how important it is to prepare.” Fallah and a team of Liberian public health officials set up a training program after the WHO announcement at the end of January to help doctors and nurses at regional hospitals recognize the symptoms of COVID-19. They brought in testing kits and re-instated the hand washing stands that had been ubiquitous during the Ebola outbreak. They ramped up their contact-tracing protocols and established screening points at airports, even before the first case had been identified in the country. That experience meant that that when it came to social distancing, many African citizens were already accustomed to the elbow bump, frequent hand washing and the need for masking. Read more: I Helped Fight the Ebola Outbreak in Liberia. Here’s What It Takes to Conquer a Pandemic Masks were not politicizedAccording to the WHO, the single best way to stop the spread of COVID-19 is by wearing a mask. An August 2020 poll by the Partnership for Evidence-based COVID-19 Response found that among respondents in 18 African countries, more than 85% said they had worn a face mask in the previous week. Early shutdownsCountries like Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria shut down early, and hard. Businesses were closed, borders shut, gatherings were banned, and in-person schooling stopped. Curfews were enforced. The moves were unpopular, and economically destructive, but they also bought time for medical personnel to prepare hospitals, source supplies and learn from treatment innovations perfected elsewhere, such as using oxygen instead of scarce ventilators, and turning severely ill patients on their stomachs. Preventing that spread of the virus through lockdowns while also preparing to treat the sickest effectively is paying dividends now. A younger populace, with fewer comorbiditiesIf South African epidemiologist Siegfried could point to one telling factor in the continent’s low COVID-19 mortality rate, it would be that Africa’s median age is 19 years old. “We don’t have many people over the age of 50,” she says, noting that the virus is far more dangerous in older populations. “It seem logical that a relatively youthful population would result in a lower toll.” That, and the fact that diabetes, obesity and hypertension, some of the comorbidities that appear to make COVID-19 more deadly, are also less common among the continent’s population than they are in other parts of the world. Climate and geographyThe COVID-19 virus appears to dissipate more quickly outside, where infectious respiratory droplets and aerosols can be easily dispersed, which is why most public health officials recommend that socializing, when necessary, be done outside. With a few exceptions, Africa’s mild winters mean that much of life can be, and is, lived outside, especially in rural areas. Limited public transport networks, usually a curse in the region, also mean that Africans do not travel as much between countries and cities, minimizing close contact and the risk of exposure. Hygiene hypothesisConversely, people do congregate closely in cities, particularly in Africa’s slums, which are home to half of the continent’s urban population. At the beginning of the outbreak, public health officials feared that COVID-19 would spread like wildfire in Africa’s sprawling informal settlements, where social distancing is impossible and sanitation facilities are limited. But so far, death rates haven’t met those worst-case scenario predictions. Some epidemiologists suspect that the close contact with other people and regular exposure to different pathogens may in fact make people more resistant to the worst forms of COVID-19. South Africa’s top virologist, Shabir Madhi, a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand who is leading a vaccine trial in the country, told TIME in July that one hypothesis is that constant exposure to other coronaviruses, such as those that sometimes cause the common cold, could provide some degree of immunity. “Maybe our poor living conditions could be working in our favor,” he said, noting that a significantly higher of cases appeared to be mild or asymptomatic, compared to cases elsewhere. “I’m not sure what else would explain the disparity,” he said, while noting that more research needed to be done. Still, other countries around the world, such as Brazil, have a similar combination of slums, BCG vaccination, warm weather and a younger population, yet still have high COVID-19 infection rates. It could just be that Africa’s early and robust public health response delayed the onset of what may yet be the catastrophe that epidemiologists feared. Case numbers across the continent, already increasing, could continue to rise as the holiday season pushes residents of large cities into remote villages. “That might drive the pandemic,” John Nkengasong, director of the Africa CDC, told reporters in a December online press briefing. Africa is already recording 10,000 to 12,000 cases a day, inching back upwards to its July peak of 14,000. Many hope the region can hold out for a little longer, at least until vaccines are available in sufficient quantities to inoculate the continent. Madhi warns against that tendency. “Vaccines are not the answer to our problems,” he says, even though he has been running one of Africa’s biggest vaccine trials for the past six months. “Until there’s enough vaccines that can be spread across the globe, our most critical defense is in avoiding mass gatherings and using face masks. In terms of controlling this particular pandemic, the focus still has to be around these nonpharmaceutical interventions.” from https://ift.tt/3pAA4LD Check out https://takiaisfobia.blogspot.com/ (LONDON) — Britain has authorized use of a second COVID-19 vaccine, becoming the first country to greenlight an easy-to-handle shot that its developers hope will become the “vaccine for the world.” The United Kingdom government says the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has made an emergency authorization for the vaccine developed by Oxford University and UK-based drugmaker AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot said “today is an important day for millions of people in the U.K. who will get access to this new vaccine. It has been shown to be effective, well-tolerated, simple to administer and is supplied by AstraZeneca at no profit. He added: “We would like to thank our many colleagues at AstraZeneca, Oxford University, the UK government and the tens of thousands of clinical trial participants.” from https://ift.tt/37YB4mR Check out https://takiaisfobia.blogspot.com/ (DENVER) — The first reported U.S. case of the COVID-19 variant that’s been seen in the United Kingdom has been discovered in Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis announced Tuesday, adding urgency to efforts to vaccinate Americans. The variant was found in a man in his 20s who is in isolation southeast of Denver in Elbert County and has no travel history, state health officials said. Elbert County is a mainly rural area of rolling plains at the far edge of the Denver metro area that includes a portion of Interstate 70, the state’s main east-west highway. Colorado Politics reported there is a second suspected case of the variant in the state according to Dwayne Smith, director of public health for Elbert County. Both of the people were working in the Elbert County community of Simla. Neither of them are residents of that county — expanding the possibility of the variant’s spread throughout the state. The Colorado State Laboratory confirmed the virus variant, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was notified. Scientists in the U.K. believe the variant is more contagious than previously identified strains. The vaccines being given now are thought to be effective against the variant, Colorado health officials said in a news release. For the moment, the variant is likely still rare in the U.S., but the lack of travel history in the first case means it is spreading, probably seeded by travelers from Britain in November or December, said scientist Trevor Bedford, who studies the spread of COVID-19 at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. “Now I’m worried there will be another spring wave due to the variant,” Bedford said. “It’s a race with the vaccine, but now the virus has just gotten a little bit faster.” Public health officials are investigating other potential cases and performing contact tracing to determine the spread of the variant throughout the state. “There is a lot we don’t know about this new COVID-19 variant, but scientists in the United Kingdom are warning the world that it is significantly more contagious. The health and safety of Coloradans is our top priority, and we will closely monitor this case, as well as all COVID-19 indicators, very closely,” Polis said. Polis and state health officials are expected hold a news conference Wednesday. The discovery of the new variant led the CDC to issue new rules on Christmas Day for travelers arriving to the U.S. from the U.K., requiring they show proof of a negative COVID-19 test. Worry has been growing about the variant since the weekend before Christmas, when Britain’s prime minister said a new strain of the coronavirus seemed to spread more easily than earlier ones and was moving rapidly through England. The nation’s first variant case was identified in southeast England. Dozens of countries barred flights from the U.K., and southern England was placed under strict lockdown measures. Scientists say there is reason for concern but the new strains should not cause alarm. Japan announced Monday it would bar entry of all nonresident foreign nationals as a precaution against the new strain. New variants of the coronavirus have been seen almost since the virus was first detected in China nearly a year ago. It is common for viruses to undergo minor changes as they reproduce and move through a population. The slight modifications are how scientists track the spread of a virus from one place to another. But if the virus has significant mutations, one concern is that current vaccines might no longer offer the same protections. Although that’s a possibility to watch for over time with the coronavirus, experts say they don’t believe it will be the case with the latest variant. The U.K. variant, known as B.1.1.7, has also been found in Canada, Italy, India and the United Arab Emirates. South Africa has also discovered a highly contagious COVID-19 variant that is driving the country’s latest spike of confirmed cases, hospitalizations and deaths. The variant, known as 501.V2, is dominant among the newly confirmed infections in South Africa, according to health officials and scientists leading the country’s virus strategy. ___ This story has been corrected to refer to the announcement of the new variant by the British Prime Minister taking place the weekend before Christmas. ___ AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson in Washington state contributed. ___ Nieberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. from https://ift.tt/3pD3VTt Check out https://takiaisfobia.blogspot.com/ “The ‘ol quarantine move-in,” a friend joked a couple months ago, when I told her I’d decided to live with my boyfriend of almost two years. I can add all the caveats I want—my lease was up and we probably would have moved in together this year anyway—but I know I’m a statistic. I’m just one of the countless people who have made huge life decisions during this massively chaotic and unsettling pandemic year. Of course, there is significant privilege in having the time and ability to choose to make a life shift right now, when many people are facing changes they most certainly did not ask for: losses of jobs, savings, homes, friends, family, security. But among those lucky enough to make them voluntarily, life adjustments are coming fast and frequently. My Instagram feed feels like a constant stream of engagements, pandemic weddings, moving trucks, career announcements and newly adopted pets. Three of my closest friends decamped from major cities to houses in the suburbs in 2020; one bought a house, got married and decided to change careers over the course of about six months. I’m in my late twenties, so to some degree this comes with the territory. But something about the COVID-19 pandemic, about the unending strangeness of the year 2020, seems to have paved the way for even more change than usual. It’s hard to plan two weeks in the future—who knows what will be open, what we’ll feel safe doing—but, with our previous lifestyles already uprooted, it feels easier than ever to plant new ones. My friends and I joke that when we catch up from our respective quarantines, there is either nothing new, or everything. We’re not alone. The U.S. population seems to be making changes to the way it lives, works and relates en masse. A Pew Research Center poll found that, as of June, 22% of American adults had either moved because of the pandemic or knew someone who did. That trend apparently continued into the fall: About 20% more houses sold in November 2020 compared to November 2019, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. The reasons for that trend are likely many. Among them, months of indoor time seems to have prompted many people to look for homes that offer more space, and those who can work from home suddenly have more freedom to move beyond the commuting distance of an office. Meanwhile, about a quarter of U.S. adults said they’re considering a career shift due to the pandemic, found a November report from HR company Morneau Shepell. That’s not surprising, given that traditional workplaces have been partially replaced (at least for now) by teleworking and many people who cannot work from home must grapple with an entirely new risk-benefit analysis associated with clocking in. The numerous Americans who lost jobs in 2020 also have no choice but to reconsider their employment. In the world of relationships, jewelers are reporting double-digit increases in engagement ring sales, the Washington Post reported in December. In the 2020 installment of Match’s annual Singles in America report, more than half of respondents said they’re prioritizing dating and rethinking the qualities they search for in a partner, likely sparked by the complete social upheaval of this year. It will take years for researchers to fully understand the effect coronavirus had on the U.S. population, and it’s unlikely there will be one single lifestyle shift that characterizes the pandemic. Right now, the dominant trend seems to be change itself. The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have spurred a collective reckoning with our values, lifestyles and goals—a national existential crisis of sorts. Freelance journalist and author Nneka Okona has lived in Atlanta for almost five years, but it often didn’t feel that way. Okona, 34, traveled a total of about 100,000 miles in 2019, so she was rarely home. Even when she vowed to take a month or two off from traveling, she’d get antsy and book a last-minute getaway. To say pandemic lockdowns and social distancing changed her lifestyle would be a massive understatement. “It was such a drastic change. I realized maybe a couple months into the pandemic that I actually was not doing well, mental-health-wise,” Okona says. She started seeing a therapist, who helped her realize she was suffering depression after slamming the brakes on her action-oriented life. Almost a year into the pandemic, Okona says she’s doing much better mentally and reflecting on her life in ways that weren’t possible when she was constantly on the go. “With the movement I was just so distracted,” she says. “It was easier to ignore a lot of things I needed to focus on because I didn’t have time.” Now, she says, she’s thinking critically about where she wants to live, whether she wants to continue freelancing and in what form she’ll continue her travel habit moving forward. Reevaluation is a common reaction to sudden, strange stillness like that brought on by the pandemic, says Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, who leads the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. “It gives people a lot of time to review their lives and think about what life could look like moving forward,” she says. “For many people, that’s not a bad thing, for them to really spend time taking an inventory of what their life is like currently and what they want it to be like.” Quarantine also creates a perfect storm for making big decisions, says Jacqueline Gollan, a psychiatry professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine who studies decision making. Many people are stuck at home for most of their waking hours, watching one day bleed into the next. When it feels like nothing noteworthy is going on, people may try to make things happen. “People have a basic bias toward action,” Gollan says. “People will want to take action on something, whatever it is, rather than delay action [even] when that’s the best option.” That natural inclination may be ratcheted up even further when people are trying to relieve negative emotions associated with the pandemic, Gollan says. In addition to a general preference for action over inaction, humans are also likely to seek out situations—new relationships, living situations, jobs—that seem like they’ll relieve stress, sadness or other bad feelings. That’s particularly likely during something as emotionally taxing as a pandemic. Coronavirus has also reminded people of their own mortality, Gollan says. “People are realizing that life is short, and they’re reprioritizing,” she says. That’s an expected reaction: Studies show that natural disasters and other traumatic events can prompt people to make big decisions like getting married, often in a search for security or comfort. Crises can also make people analyze and change their values. People tend to become more religious after natural disasters, research shows, perhaps out of a desire to understand or cope with difficult and inexplicable situations. Similarly, a Pew Research Center report from October 2020 found that 86% of U.S. adults thought there were lesson(s) humankind should learn from the COVID-19 pandemic. When asked to specify what those lessons were, people gave Pew more than 3,700 answers—some practical (the importance of wearing a mask), some spiritual (“We need to pray more and pray harder”) and some personal (we should “value humankind and intimacy”). Relationships are often the first thing to get a makeover when people take a hard look at their lives, says Amanda Gesselman, associate director for research at the Kinsey Institute, a research center that focuses on sex and relationships. Gesselman’s research shows many people, particularly those in their twenties and thirties, are spending more time than usual on dating apps during the pandemic, and report having deeper conversations with the people they meet there, compared to before the pandemic. “A big trend right now is really focusing on what kind of connections you want,” she says. It’s not all warm and fuzzy, though. Rachel Dack, a Maryland-based psychotherapist and relationship coach, says she is indeed seeing many clients think critically about what they want in a relationship—and that leads to breakups and divorces as well as engagements and cohabitations. In Match’s recent survey, about a quarter of singles said stay-at-home orders caused them to end a relationship. Some preliminary data also suggest more couples than normal are divorcing this year, though not all researchers agree with that assessment. For every relationship moving forward, Dack says, another seems to be splintering—perhaps not surprising, given pressures like financial stress or the tension of forced 24/7 togetherness. Researchers have observed that phenomenon in the aftermath of other crises; stressful times can both end and promote relationships. Mass traumas can force change in other unpleasant ways, too. Both the 1918 flu pandemic and the 2008 recession led to noticeable decreases in the U.S. birth rate. National or global crises can also cause or compound mental health and substance abuse issues at the population level, as the COVID-19 pandemic has already done. Research shows that rates of depression and anxiety have skyrocketed during the pandemic, which is one reason Gollan says it’s wise to think carefully about making any serious choices right now. “We’re notoriously not very good at predicting the consequences of a future decision,” Gollan says, and we’re also prone to “optimism bias”—the tendency to believe our decisions will work out in the end and that the future will be largely positive. That’s not always the case, though. Decisions can and do backfire, especially when they’re made under duress. That’s not to say all change is bad. For many people, the pandemic has kickstarted a genuinely valuable process of reevaluation—it’s been a disruption so jarring it forces introspection. The luxury of extra free time, for those who have it, can also make it easier to define and act upon values and priorities. The trick, Gollan says, is leaning into the natural inclination for change without toppling over the edge. Don’t act just because you think you should, and resist the urge to make life-altering changes based solely on temporary factors, she says. (The pandemic will end, though it might not feel like it.) “Stress test” your planned decision by seeking out information or perspectives that challenge it, Gollan suggests—before it’s too late to undo. As we spoke, I wondered whether Gollan would approve of my decision to move in with my boyfriend. I haven’t had any regrets so far, but maybe I’ve been blinded by optimism and a desire for comfort amidst all the difficulty of this year. Did I stress test the plan enough? Should we have waited until the pandemic ended and our heads cleared? I’m not sure what an expert would say. But if 2020 has taught me anything, it’s that I cannot begin to predict what the future—or even tomorrow—will bring. I’m happy where I am, and that feels like more than enough as a historically awful year comes to a close. Maybe it’s the optimism bias at work. But optimism, psychologically biased or not, feels like a worthy antidote to a year marked by tragedy and sadness and stress. I’m going to hang onto it where I can. from https://ift.tt/3mWw0nf Check out https://takiaisfobia.blogspot.com/ A huge U.S. study of another COVID-19 vaccine candidate got underway Monday as states continue to roll out scarce supplies of the first shots to a nation anxiously awaiting relief from the catastrophic outbreak. Public health experts say more options in addition to the two vaccines now being dispensed — one made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, the other by Moderna — are critical to amassing enough shots for the country and the world. The candidate made by Novavax Inc. is the fifth to reach final-stage testing in the United States. Some 30,000 volunteers are needed to prove if the shot — a different kind than its Pfizer and Moderna competitors — really works and is safe. “If you want to have enough vaccine to vaccinate all the people in the U.S. who you’d like to vaccinate — up to 85% or more of the population — you’re going to need more than two companies,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, told The Associated Press on Monday. The coronavirus is blamed for about 1.8 million deaths worldwide, including more than 330,000 in the U.S. This has been the deadliest month of the outbreak in the U.S. yet, with about 65,000 deaths in December so far, according to the COVID Tracking Project. The nation has repeatedly recorded more than 3,000 dead per day over the past few weeks. And the U.S. could be facing a terrible winter: Despite warnings to stay home and avoid others over Christmastime, nearly 1.3 million people went through the nation’s airports on Sunday, the highest one-day total since the crisis took hold in the U.S. nine months ago. The Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed expects to have shipped 20 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to states by the beginning of January, fewer than originally estimated to the frustration of states and health officials trying to schedule the shots. There is no real-time tracking of how quickly people are getting the first of the two required doses. As of Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had reports of more than 2.1 million vaccinations out of 11.4 million doses shipped — but the agency knows that count is outdated. It can take days for reports from vaccine providers to trickle in and get added to the site. “Just because a vaccine arrives doesn’t mean we can put an on-the-spot clinic up and running,” said Jenny Barta, a public health official in Carlton County, Minnesota. But Tuesday, her agency aims to vaccinate 100 people in a drive-thru clinic for emergency medical workers that Barta hopes could become a model for larger attempts at mass vaccination. Nurses will wheel vaccine to cars lined up in a county-owned snowplow garage. Once the drivers get their shots, they will wait in parking spaces to be sure they don’t have an allergic reaction before heading home. “Vaccinating one individual at a time is how we’re going to work our way out of this pandemic,” she said. Yet another worry hanging over the vaccine scramble: Will shots block a new variant of the coronavirus that emerged in Britain and might spread more easily? Fauci said that data from Britain indicates the vaccines still will protect against the virus but that National Institutes of Health researchers will be “looking at it very intensively” to be sure. A look at the frontrunners in the global vaccine race: Genetic Code VaccinesThe U.S. based its emergency rollout of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and a similar one made by Moderna and the NIH on studies suggesting they are both roughly 95% effective. Europe over the weekend began its first vaccinations with the Pfizer shot, and on Jan. 6 will decide whether to add Moderna’s. These shots are made with a brand-new technology that injects a piece of genetic code for the spike protein that coats the coronavirus. That messenger RNA, or mRNA, induces the body to produce some harmless spike protein, enough to prime the immune system to react if it later encounters the real virus. Both vaccines must be kept frozen, the Pfizer shot at ultra-low temperatures that complicate its delivery to poor or rural areas. Additional companies are working toward their own mRNA candidates, including Germany’s CureVac, which has begun a large study in Europe. Protein VaccinesThe Novavax candidate is made differently, using what Fauci called a “more tried and true” technology that needs only ordinary refrigeration. The Maryland company grows harmless copies of the coronavirus spike protein in the laboratory and mixes in an immune-boosting chemical. Novavax already has enrolled 15,000 people in a late-stage study in Britain and 4,000 in South Africa. The newest and largest study, funded by the U.S. government, will recruit volunteers at more than 115 sites in the U.S. and Mexico and target high-risk older adults along with volunteers from Black and Hispanic communities, which have been hit hard by the virus. “We’ve got to protect our community and our people,” said the Rev. Peter Johnson, 75, a prominent civil rights activist in Dallas who was among the first volunteers. Two-thirds of participants will receive vaccine and the rest dummy shots, a twist from earlier vaccine studies that gave half their volunteers a placebo. That should help researchers recruit people who wonder whether it’s better to take part in a study or wait their turn for an existing shot, said Dr. Gregory Glenn, research chief at Novavax. For many people, that would be a long wait: The Pfizer and Moderna shots are slated first for health care workers and nursing home residents, followed by people 75 and older and essential workers. “If you wanted to hedge your bets, for most people who aren’t in those very high-risk groups, the shortest route to getting the vaccine would be to sign up for a trial,” said NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins. Trojan Horse VaccinesThe next big vaccine news may come from Johnson & Johnson, which is aiming for a one-dose COVID-19 vaccine. Made in yet another way, it uses a harmless virus – a cold virus called an adenovirus — to carry the spike gene into the body. In mid-December, J&J finished enrolling about 45,000 volunteers in a final-stage study in the U.S. and a half-dozen other countries. Fauci expects early results sometime next month. In Britain, regulators also are considering clearing a similar vaccine made by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. Tests of the shots in Britain, South Africa and Brazil suggested they are safe and partially protective — about 70%. But questions remain about how well the vaccine works in people over 55 and how to interpret results from a small number of people given a different set of doses. A U.S. study of the AstraZeneca shots is still recruiting volunteers; Fauci said researchers hope it will provide a more clear answer. Companies in China and Russia also are producing adenovirus-based vaccines and began administering them before the results of final testing came in. Argentina is expected to soon use the Russian vaccine. Killed VaccinesSpike-focused vaccines aren’t the only option. Making vaccines by growing a disease-causing virus and then killing it is a still older approach that gives the body a sneak peek at the germ itself rather than just that single spike protein. China has three such “inactivated” COVID-19 vaccines in final testing in several countries and has allowed emergency use in some people ahead of results. An Indian company is testing its own inactivated candidate. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science. The AP is solely responsible for all content. from https://ift.tt/3aJMahk Check out https://takiaisfobia.blogspot.com/ Mario Smith first broke out in cold sweats on Nov. 21. He thought it was just exhaustion from working maintenance shifts at the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility in Adrian, Mi., where he’s been incarcerated since 2018. But then guards came to his cell on Nov. 23, he says, and told him to report to another area of the prison. Smith knew then that he must have tested positive for COVID-19. “I feared for my life,” Smith tells TIME. The 37-year-old has asthma, high blood pressure and obesity, putting him at increased risk for severe illness and complications from the virus. Sentenced to life in prison when he was 17, Smith recently had his sentence reduced to 30 years minimum, but remembers worrying that he might die in prison after all. Smith is one of at least 1,400 inmates at Gus Harrison Correctional Facility—and over 20,000 incarcerated Americans throughout the state of Michigan—who have tested positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic began. As of Dec. 28, 108 inmates have died from the virus throughout the state, six of whom were incarcerated in the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility. In a statement sent to TIME, the Michigan Department of Corrections says that the facility has “taken a number of measures to protect against COVID, as well as slow the spread.” These measures include testing prisoners and staff members every week and suspending in-person visitation in March. “We clean every facility with disinfectant and bleach every day and common touchpoints are cleaned multiple times a day. Prisoners are cohorted based on [their] COVID status so we keep positive and negative prisoners away from one another,” the statement says. “We paused programming and classes for the past few weeks at every prison to reduce possible spread.” From the moment the virus began to spread across the U.S., experts and epidemiologists predicted that incarcerated people would be particularly vulnerable. Risk factors they face include the close proximity in which inmates live and congregate, prison transports, where inmates tend to be shackled close together, and a lack of consistent access to cleaning supplies. “They are basically the perfect conditions for superspreading events,” Dr. Thomas Inglesby, director of Johns Hopkins’ Center for Health Security, told NPR. And many of the worst projections have since come true: there have been outbreaks at more than 850 jails and prisons in the country, putting many of the over 2 million people incarcerated in the U.S. at risk of infection. Dr. Ross MacDonald, chief physician of New York’s Rikers Island, told TIME in March simply that, “the right preventive measures don’t exist to stop the spread of this virus in [jail and prison facilities].” A December study from the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice (NCCCJ), a nonpartisan criminal justice group, reveals that the infection rate has been three times higher in the prison population compared to that of the general public, while the mortality rate has been double. At least 275,000 incarcerated people have tested positive for COVID-19, and more than 1,700 have died. The true toll is likely to be higher still, as data sets are inconclusive due to a lack of consistency across states in sharing prison and jail data. “We weren’t prepared,” says Alberto Gonzales, co-chair of the NCCCJ and former U.S. Attorney General under President George W. Bush. “The fact of the matter is you can only do so much with respect to prisons and jails in terms of preparing for something like this.” Gonzalez and other experts say the scarcity in data points to a lack of oversight from the federal government. “You have so many different government agencies that have been trying to manage COVID,” adds Loretta Lynch, co-chair of the NCCCJ and former U.S. Attorney General under President Barack Obama. “There was no overarching strategy to gauge the impact on the correctional system at large.” In October, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a suit against the federal government for its “failed response to the spread of COVID-19 in prisons and jails.” “COVID has been uniquely awful for people in jails and prisons,” says Somil Trivedi, senior staff attorney in the Criminal Law Reform Project at the ACLU. “That includes staff who are forced to go in there for their livelihoods… and then forced to go back out into the community.” At the Toledo Correctional Institution in Toledo, Ohio, 172 staff members had tested positive as of Dec. 27—a large enough portion of the prison’s workforce that the Ohio National Guard has been called in to help run the facility, local news channel WTOL 11 reports. Forty-five-year-old David Easley began suffering from loss of taste and smell, extreme fatigue and chills a few weeks ago, he says. He tested positive for the virus shortly afterwards and was put in quarantine for 14 days. (He’s since been released.) At least 87 inmates in the Toledo Correctional Institution have tested positive since the pandemic began. Easley alleges the prison only tests inmates who report symptoms; a representative for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) disputes this, however, telling TIME that prison doctors have “the authority to order as much testing as [they need] for clinical and/or surveillance reasons.” “Weekly wastewater monitoring” is being undertaken at Ohio correctional facilities, a statement from the ODRC provided to TIME claims, which “is a tool that allows us to detect the presence of COVID-19 among the staff or inmate population and make the necessary operational changes in order to help protect the health and safety of those working and living inside of our prisons.” “The health and safety of our staff and the incarcerated population continues to be the top priority of the agency. COVID-19 presents unique challenges in a congregate setting such as a prison,” the statement continues. “All applicable CDC guidelines in have been implemented inside our prisons, and in many cases those things were put in place even before they were official CDC recommendations.” Both Easley and Smith say they’re not surprised they caught COVID-19. “They’ve got us bunched up together… There’s no social distancing at all,” says Smith of the conditions he is being held in. “We share day rooms, we share showers. We share practically everything.” Smith says he was moved to another area of the prison to quarantine after he tested positive. He says was given vitamins but otherwise was told essentially to wait to recover, he says. He had aches, chills and says he lost his sense of taste and smell. Nearly everyone he knows in the prison has also tested positive at this point, he adds. “Pick a prisoner,” he says. “We all have it.” One consistent call for change advocated by experts and activists to offset the spread of the virus in prisons and jails has been to release as many inmates as possible. “The primary fix is to release everybody who you can possibly release safely,” Trivedi says. “To cut down, thin out the population within the facilities to allow for social distancing and mask-wearing to actually work.” Nationally, this year’s prison population has been reduced by about 5%, a drop attributed in large part to COVID containment protocols. In its statement to TIME, the MDOC says that over 7,000 prisoners in the state have been paroled, “beginning with the elderly and those with preexisting conditions.” “The only prisoners who are parole eligible who have not been released around the state are those who the board feels would be a danger to society if released,” the statement adds. In response to a separate ACLU suit on Dec. 11, a California judge ordered a 50% reduction in the jail population in Orange County as COVID-19 numbers in the jails soared. Bu the sheriff has since refused to obey the order. As of Dec. 27, 1,872 detainees in the jail had tested positive and one had died, according to the Orange County Register. Along with calls to release more inmates, activists and experts say there needs to be more testing in prisons and jails, a better distribution system of personal protective equipment (PPE) for inmates and those working in correctional facilities, and priority access to vaccines offered to at-risk prisoners. And experts believe that the presence of the virus has raised more wide-reaching questions about the criminal justice system. “This is an opportunity to look at whether or not we are effectively using our prison and jail system within the overall criminal justice system,” Lynch says. “We see the public health challenges exacerbated in overcrowded [prison and jail] facilities.” Smith eventually recovered but says he is still being housed in a COVID-19 unit. He worries about catching the virus again. “I know if I’m in prison, I’m going to catch it again. That’s just bottom line,” he says. “I might not be so lucky the next time around.” from https://ift.tt/38zNkck Check out https://takiaisfobia.blogspot.com/ |
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