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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40006429

The number of Covid-19 cases crossed 11.53 million across Southeast Asia, with 60,156 new cases reported on Monday, lower than Sunday’s 63,862. The number of deaths was lower at 1,084 from Sunday’s 1,094. The death toll in Asean is now 253,104.

Vietnam will ease up disease control measures in Hanoi from Wednesday onwards after new infections in the city decreased to 20 people per day on average and more than 94 per cent of adult population have been vaccinated with the first jab. The city will continue to maintain social distancing measures while most of the construction sites have been allowed to open as usual.

Vietnam reported 8,681 new cases and 215 deaths on Monday, with a cumulative 695,744 patients and 17,305 deaths.

Meanwhile, the Philippines will reopen up to 120 schools for limited in-person classes for the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in a pilot approved by President Rodrigo Duterte. Up to 100 public schools in areas considered “minimal risk” for virus transmission will be allowed to take part in the two-month trial, while 20 private schools can also participate. Classrooms will be open to children in kindergarten to Grade 3, and senior high school, but limited to not exceeding 20 students per class in a half-day session. It has yet to announce when the programme will start.

Published : September 21, 2021

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40006423

The FDA is likely to authorize Pfizer booster shots this week for many Americans at high risk of falling seriously ill from the coronavirus, now that a key advisory committee has voted to recommend the measure, media reported.

 COVID-19 vaccine for younger children and booster shots for at least those over 65 years old are being prepared in accordance with a tight schedule in the United States, as the Americans stagger into the 19th month of their fierce fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 7-day average of confirmed cases of the pandemic stood at 148,202 nationwide on Sunday, with its 14-day change striking an 8-percent fall, according to The New York Times (NYT). COVID-19-related deaths were 2,011 on Sunday, with the 14-day change realizing a 29-percent rise.

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California, once the country’s epicenter of COVID-19, is now the U.S. state reporting the lowest positivity rate per 100,000 people. As of Saturday evening, 24.99 new confirmed cases were reported for every 100,000 people in this Golden State, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Kindergarten children play toys in a classroom at Montrara Ave. Elementary School in Los Angeles, California, the United States, on Aug. 16, 2021. (Xinhua)

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SHOT FOR CHILDREN

A lower dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, one-third the amount given to adults and teens, is safe and triggered a robust immune response in children as young as 5 years old, the drug companies announced in a news release Monday morning.

“The finding, eagerly anticipated by many parents and pediatricians, is a crucial step toward the two-shot coronavirus vaccine regimen becoming available for younger school-aged children, perhaps close to Halloween,” reported The Washington Post.

However, the companies must prepare and submit the data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a process they expect to complete by the end of September. Then, the data, not yet published or peer reviewed, will be scrutinized by regulators to ascertain that the vaccine is safe and effective. That could take weeks, or up to a month.

According to the companies, the two-dose shot was found to be safe and well tolerated among the children in the study, with the vaccine generating levels of antibodies that were similar to those of younger adults, which met the study’s measurements of success.

Meanwhile, Pfizer and BioNTech said that they had not yet determined vaccine efficacy, or how well it protects against COVID-19 for children in the age group.

“We are eager to extend the protection afforded by the vaccine to this younger population, subject to regulatory authorization, especially as we track the spread of the Delta variant and the substantial threat it poses to children,” Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla said in a statement.

Photo taken on Aug. 23, 2021 shows Pfizer signage at Pfizer

BOOSTER IN SIGHT

The FDA is likely to authorize Pfizer booster shots this week for many Americans at high risk of falling seriously ill from the coronavirus, now that a key advisory committee has voted to recommend the measure, reported NYT on Monday.

On Friday, a panel of experts endorsed offering Pfizer booster shots for those aged 65 and older, and people 16 and over who are at high risk of getting severe COVID-19 or who work in settings that make them more likely to get infected.

The agency, which often follows the committee’s advice but is not required to, is expected to decide early this week. An advisory committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is scheduled to meet on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss booster shots before that agency, which sets vaccine policy, issues its recommendations.

Interviewed with news media on Sunday, Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor and an adviser to the White House, asked Americans to be patient and not to get a booster shot until they were eligible. That includes people aged 65 and over who received the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

Last month, the Biden administration proposed a plan that would have made all vaccinated Americans eligible for a booster shot eight months after their second shot, or their first in the case of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

In the meantime, the expert panel concluded that boosters were not necessary for most younger, healthier Americans, unless their jobs put them at special risk for infection.

RISING INSURANCE

In 2020, as the pandemic took hold, U.S. health insurance companies declared they would cover 100 percent of the costs for COVID-19 treatment, waiving co-pays and expensive deductibles for hospital stays that frequently range into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But this year, most insurers have reinstated co-pays and deductibles for COVID-19 patients, in many cases even before vaccines became widely available. “The companies imposed the costs as industry profits remained strong or grew in 2020, with insurers paying out less to cover elective procedures that hospitals suspended during the crisis,” reported The Washington Post on Monday.

Now the financial burden of COVID-19 is falling unevenly on patients across the country, varying widely by health-care plan and geography, according to a survey of the country’s two largest health plans in every state by the nonprofit and nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

Last year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 88 percent of people covered by private insurance had their co-pays and deductibles for COVID-19 treatment waived. By August 2021, only 28 percent of the two largest plans in each state and Washington, D.C. still had the waivers in place, and another 10 percent planned to phase them out by the end of October.

America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the industry’s lobbying and trade group, said insurance companies began to reinstate cost-sharing for COVID-19 treatment as vaccines became available and in recognition that the coronavirus will be an ongoing health challenge.

“After a year and a half, it’s pretty clear that COVID-19 is here to stay, that this is a continuing health condition,” AHIP spokesman David Allen was quoted as saying. “When it comes to treatment, we’re looking at it like we would treat any other health condition.” 
 

People walk past a pharmacy in Washington D.C., the United States, on Nov. 12, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

Published : September 21, 2021

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40006421

The 1918 flu killed an estimated 675,000 Americans. It was considered Americas most lethal pandemic in recent history up until now.

U.S. COVID-19 deaths on Monday surpassed 675,000, the estimated U.S. fatalities from the 1918 influenza pandemic.

As of 4:21 p.m. ET on Monday, 675,446 Americans were killed due to COVID-19, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Total COVID-19 cases in the country were over 42 million.

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The fatalities are expected to continue to rise as the country is currently experiencing another wave of new infections, fueled by the fast-spreading Delta variant.

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“The number of reported deaths from COVID in the US will surpass the toll of the 1918 flu pandemic this month. We cannot become hardened to the continuing, and largely preventable, tragedy,” tweeted Tom Frieden, the former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Sept. 13.

The 1918 flu killed an estimated 675,000 Americans, according to the Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention. It was considered America’s most lethal pandemic in recent history up until now. 

Published : September 21, 2021

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40006420

“President Biden has asked to be able to speak with President Macron to talk about the way forward, to talk about his deep commitment to the U.S. alliance with France,” a senior Biden administration official said.

U.S. President Joe Biden is seeking to hold a phone call with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, U.S. officials said on Monday, an effort to reduce tensions caused by a controversial submarine deal.

A diplomatic rift emerged between Washington and Paris over the announcement that the United States and Britain will support Australia to develop nuclear-powered submarines, depriving France of a contract to provide conventional submarines to Australia.

Outraged by the abrupt move without notice, France recalled its ambassadors to the United States and Australia for consultations on Friday.

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“President Biden has asked to be able to speak with President Macron to talk about the way forward, to talk about his deep commitment to the U.S. alliance with France,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters in a call briefing on Monday.

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• Gamechanger

“We understand the French position, we don’t share their view in terms of how this all developed,” said the official. “We think that will be an important moment and opportunity for the two leaders to speak directly with one another.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in a briefing later Monday that the call would take place “in the coming days,” while noting officials are still working on scheduling it.

Under the new security partnership unveiled on Wednesday between Australia, Britain, and the United States, known as AUKUS, Australia will build nuclear-powered submarines with U.S. and British technology.

On Thursday, Australia announced it would scrap the deal with France signed in 2016 to purchase 12 conventional diesel-electric submarines.

French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian on Thursday called the trilateral move a “stab in the back.” “We had established a relationship of trust with Australia. This trust has been betrayed,” he said.

“The American behavior worries me; this unilateral and brutal decision is very similar to what Mr. (Donald) Trump was doing,” he added.

Published : September 21, 2021

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40006419

“Its the developed world that over 200 years has put the carbon in the atmosphere that is causing this acceleration of climate change and, say, it really is up to us to help them,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday that COP26 UN Climate Change Conference is “a turning point” for the world.

“I think the Glasgow COP26 is a turning point for the world. And it’s the moment when we have to grow up and take our responsibilities,” Johnson told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York following the closing of the Informal Leaders Roundtable on Climate Action.

Calling on the rich countries to honor their pledge to provide each year 100 billion U.S. dollars for the climate action in the developing countries, the prime minister said that “it is the developing world that is bearing the brunt of catastrophic climate change in the forms of hurricanes and fires and floods and the real long-term economic damage that they face.”

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“It’s the developed world that over 200 years has put the carbon in the atmosphere that is causing this acceleration of climate change and, say, it really is up to us to help them,” he added.

Earlier, Johnson told the roundtable that “history will judge” the world’s richest nations if they fail to deliver on their pledge to commit 100 billion dollars in annual climate aid ahead of COP26. He placed the chances of securing the money before November at “six out of 10.”

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“We cannot let climate action become another victim of coronavirus. Let us be the leaders who secure the very health of the planet for our children, grandchildren and generations to come,” Johnson said at the event.

The prime minister also assured his country “will lead by example, keeping the environment on the global agenda and serving as a launch pad for a global green industrial revolution.”

However, he warned that “no one country can turn the tide, it would be akin to bailing out a liner with a single bucket.”

The roundtable follows the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, signaling a “code red for humanity,” and comes less than six weeks before the COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.

The roundtable addresses the gaps that remain on the actions urgently needed from national governments — especially the G20 — on mitigation, finance and adaptation.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks to reporters after attending the Informal Leaders Roundtable on Climate Action at the UN headquarters in New York, on Sept. 20, 2021. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

Published : September 21, 2021