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Competing events highlight Trump, Biden’s different approaches to pandemic (nationthailand.com)

Competing events highlight Trump, Biden’s different approaches to pandemic

InternationalDec 09. 2020President Trump signs an executive order for “Ensuring Access to United States Government COVID-19 Vaccines” during an Operation Warp Speed Vaccine Summit at the White House complex on Tuesday. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford 

By The Washington Post · David Nakamura

The nation’s top infectious-disease expert was a notable no-show at President Donald Trump’s coronavirus vaccine summit at the White House on Tuesday. Anthony Fauci told colleagues that he had a scheduling conflict, so he wasn’t seated among the government health officials in the Southcourt Auditorium.

Which made it all the more jarring when he popped up via video message on the jumbo screen at a health-related event with President-elect Joe Biden in Wilmington, Del., at the same time.

“I believe, as you do, that in the fight against the pandemic, we must lead with science,” said Fauci, who for months has largely been sidelined by Trump over his implicit critiques of the president’s efforts to play down the threat of a virus that has killed at least 284,000 Americans.

Fauci’s remarks were pretaped, and he explained that he was not able to attend Biden’s introduction of his new health team – on which Fauci will serve as Biden’s “chief medical adviser” – because he was participating in a ceremony for a colleague at the National Institutes of Health who won the Nobel Prize for medicine.

But his appearance was another stark illustration of the discomforting split screen taking place as Trump seeks to maintain power by leveling baseless accusations of voter fraud while Biden works to assemble his administration – all against the backdrop of a global health and economic crisis.

Since losing the election, Trump has sought to undermine Biden’s transition. Trump reportedly has told aides he is considering holding a rally in Florida on Inauguration Day to announce his intention to run again in 2024 and draw attention away from Biden.

The competing events on Tuesday foreshadowed such a scenario.

It is not clear which of the two men first scheduled their events for Tuesday afternoon. Biden aides said the health-care team rollout was being planned since last week. The White House had listed the vaccine summit on week-ahead guidance to reporters on Sunday. In any case, the effect of the simultaneous appearances was to offer a contrasting message about the state of the pandemic, further muddying public perceptions.

Trump boasted of a vaccine whose imminent distribution will “quickly and dramatically reduce deaths and hospitalizations. And within a short period of time, I think we want to get back to normal.” Yet even as the federal government is preparing to authorize a vaccine developed by Pfizer, severe supply and distribution challenges remain amid reports that the Trump administration declined an opportunity to buy 100 million addition doses of the company’s vaccine last summer – creating a potential shortfall in the spring.

Biden and his aides, by contrast, expressed optimism but made clear that the road ahead will require more diligence and, perhaps, sacrifice from the public.

“A key piece of our ongoing work is communicating consistently with the American people,” Fauci said in his video message to Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. “Whether it’s maintaining social distancing and not congregating indoors, or the hundred-day challenge you described on masking, or to get as many people vaccinated as possible – these actions are bold but doable and essential to help the public avoid unnecessary risks.”

Fauci also appeared via video during the White House summit, ahead of Trump’s appearance. The president did not mention him while thanking numerous aides during his remarks. Two senior administration officials said some government scientists were wary of attending the White House event, worried it could come off as propaganda.

Executives from Pfizer and Moderna, the companies seeking federal government approval for their coronavirus vaccines this month, turned down White House invitations to participate, according to reports.

Trump has, without evidence, accused the companies of withholding news of success in vaccine trials until after the election in an effort to undermine his reelection chances. Company representatives have stated they have sought to avoid politicizing the vaccine issue.

In his remarks, the president boasted about Operation Warp Speed, his administration’s program to help develop and distribute a vaccine in record time.

“It’s a monumental national achievement,” Trump said. “Before Operation Warp Speed, the typical time could be infinity. We’re getting thing done at a level nobody has ever seen before. We have the gold standard of vaccines done in less than nine months.”

Yet as Trump took a victory lap, he contributed again to what experts have called an “infodemic” of falsehoods and disinformation that has hampered efforts to control the spread of the virus. When a reporter asked why no Biden aides had been invited to participate in the summit, Trump repeated his baseless assertions that he deserves to be declared winner of the election because of rampant fraud.

Election officials in the states, including some Republicans, have said there is no such evidence.

“We’re going to have to see who the next administration is because we won in those swing states,” Trump said. “Hopefully, the next administration will be the Trump administration because you can’t steal hundreds of thousands of votes. You can’t have fraud and deception and all of the things that they did.”

Trump also was asked why he is holding the traditional White House holiday parties this month despite guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to limit indoor gatherings and curtain travel amid the spike in virus infections. Masks have not been required, according to guests.

“I would say that I look out at the audience at those parties, and we have a lot of people wearing masks, and I think that’s a good thing,” Trump said before moving on to another question.

In Wilmington, Del., the Biden event was proceeding with a more sober tone. Concluding his videotaped message, Fauci, 79, called the pandemic the toughest public health crisis he has dealt with in his 36 years at the helm of NIH’s infectious-disease division.

“The road ahead will not be easy,” he said. “We have got a lot of hard and demanding work to do in the next year. But as we have done through previous crises, I know we can get through this pandemic together as a nation.”

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White House pushes Senate GOP to include $600 stimulus payment in relief package (nationthailand.com)

White House pushes Senate GOP to include $600 stimulus payment in relief package

InternationalDec 09. 2020President Trump, right, meets with Republican leadership, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., center, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., left, at the White House on March, 1, 2017 in Washington, MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Bill O’Leary. 

By The Washington Post · Jeff Stein, Mike DeBonis

WASHINGTON – White House officials are asking Senate Republican leaders to include stimulus checks worth $600 in the emergency economic relief package being debated in Congress, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of private deliberations.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., did not include a second round of stimulus payments in the relief proposal that he released last week. Senior Republican members of Congress are listening to White House officials’ push for the stimulus checks, the two people said, a provision also broadly supported by congressional Democrats.

President Donald Trump has privately indicated a willingness to send another round of stimulus checks of as much as $2,000, according to one person in direct communication with the president. Congress in March approved a round of $1,200 stimulus checks that the Treasury Department disbursed to more than 100 million American families in a matter of weeks.

A second round of stimulus checks was left out of the $908 billion bipartisan framework unveiled last week by a group of moderate senators hoping to break the months-long impasse over stimulus negotiations. Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have been pushing for the checks to be included in the final package, with Sanders going as far as saying he will vote against the relief legislation unless they are approved. Trump’s name was printed on the first round of stimulus checks sent during the spring and summer.

“While the amount is yet to be determined, direct payments to American workers continue to be a high priority of the president’s,” a White House spokesman said in a statement.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin issued a statement Tuesday evening saying the White House has made a $916 billion proposal to Congress on what it would seek in the new deal. The short statement did not specifically mention the stimulus checks, though White House officials had made clear their interest in the payments to congressional offices.

Lawmakers are working this week to reach agreement on a variety of divisive policy questions, including how to apportion aid to state and local governments, and a liability shield to grant legal immunity to firms over coronavirus-related lawsuits. A number of critical emergency aid programs are set to expire if Congress does not act, including unemployment benefits for more than 12 million people and a federal eviction moratorium. Congress is expected to approve a one-week “continuing resolution” this week to avert a shutdown of the federal government after Dec. 11.

The urgency of negotiations has led to a flurry of activity on Capitol Hill. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, one of the leaders of the $908 billion framework, acknowledged support for a second round of stimulus payments but said the group’s effort was more narrowly aimed at those in need.

“I know there’s considerable public support for it, but right now we’re targeting struggling families, failing businesses, health-care workers, and we don’t have a stimulus check to every single person, regardless of need,” Collins told reporters.

Hawley expressed frustration Tuesday about negotiators being “pretty dug in on the idea of not including checks.” He added: “I see them saying things like, ‘This is an emergency relief bill.’ I don’t know what’s more of an emergency than working people and families who are having to get into food lines. . . . I don’t understand that logic at all.”

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the second-ranking Senate Republican, told reporters that “there is also considerably more opposition” to the stimulus payments, adding: “If something else falls out, maybe that falls in. But at this point, it’s not a part of the discussion at this point. But it could be.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters Tuesday that many Democrats support the stimulus payments but that they should be added to the $908 billion framework, rather than included in exchange for another provision. Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the second-highest-ranking Senate Democrat, told reporters that it would be hard to include the checks without cutting other priorities from the package, given Republicans’ insistence on keeping the bill’s price tag below $1 trillion.

The stimulus checks have divided economists as well as lawmakers. Some economists point out that millions of stimulus checks were received by families that are prospering economically and have not lost jobs or suffered pay cuts, arguing that they were poorly targeted for the current crisis. Other economists have said that the checks helped stabilize a turbulent economy and reached many people struggling economically who were denied unemployment benefits or other forms of social insurance. An August analysis by the Urban Institute, a centrist think tank, found that additional stimulus checks would keep 6.3 million people out of poverty.

House Democrats have included more generous versions of the $1,200 stimulus checks in their stimulus proposals.

A spokesman for McConnell declined to comment on the White House push for more stimulus checks.

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A $4.5 billion Trump food program is running out of money early, leaving families hungry and food assistance charities scrambling (nationthailand.com)

A $4.5 billion Trump food program is running out of money early, leaving families hungry and food assistance charities scrambling

InternationalDec 09. 2020Dozens of vehicles wait to receive food at the Seasons Florida Resort in Kissimmee on Saturday, part of a food drive for Disney cast members and other tourism workers who have been furloughed or laid off. MUST CREDIT: Photo by Eve Edelheit for The Washington Post. 

By The Washington Post · Laura Reiley, Greg Jaffe

KISSIMMEE, Fla. – Only weeks before the holidays, a $4.5 billion food program that has kept millions of Americans fed through the pandemic is running out of money.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/46c8d035-8bc6-4854-b449-b884598c33c6?ptvads=block&playthrough=false

The Farmers to Families Food Box program, a staple of food lines across America, was launched by the Trump administration in May to support struggling farmers and feed jobless Americans battered by the pandemic. It was supposed to provide food support through the end of the year. But because of soaring demand and a shortage of federal money, it is ending a month early in many regions of the country, leaving tens of thousands of families without a critical supply of food.

Anti-hunger experts warned that several other federal food programs are also set to expire, causing food banks across the country to lose about 50% of the food they receive from the Agriculture Department, even as food banks report an average 60% increase in need.

The program has gone through four rounds of funding since it began this spring: $1.2 billion in contracts were awarded in the first round, $1.76 billion in the second, and $1 billion in the third. The fourth round was cut to $500 million. The USDA, in a statement, acknowledged that the amount of funding in that last round, which covered November and December, “resulted in some non-profits being unable to participate and fewer box deliveries.”

But the USDA added that many nonprofit organizations chose to receive the boxes at a higher rate earlier in the program with the understanding that this would deplete supplies for the last two months of the year. But multiple nonprofit organizations interviewed by The Washington Post said they were not apprised of the limited food resources for this round.

“The needs are beyond what we can comprehend,” said Lawdia Kennedy, who oversees a biweekly food drive in suburban Atlanta. “We had three truckloads scheduled for Saturday and they just vanished. Six states are right now being told there will be no food, right before Christmas. It’s hard to put into words what this means for the families I serve.”

Volunteers Kyla Smith, left, and Kendra Rodriguez wait to hand out food at the Seasons Florida Resort in Kissimmee. MUST CREDIT: Photo by Eve Edelheit for The Washington Post.

Kennedy, who runs a nonprofit called Queen Material Community Center, scrambled unsuccessfully to find an alternative source of food. “I’ve been telling people that [the food drive] is postponed and might happen next weekend,” she said, “but that hope is turning into a lie.”

Likewise, the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank has seen “a huge decrease” in the number of boxes it receives from the program, according to David May, director of marketing and communications. “We are currently receiving 100,000 pounds of [boxes] per week, while we were receiving 3 million pounds per week during the summer,” May said.

In Florida, the shortfall in the Farmers to Families program was evident Saturday in the parking lot of a shuttered motel about a dozen miles from Disney World. At 6:45 a.m., Yrais Vinana sat in her car, engine off, surrounded by hundreds of laid-off workers who had begun queuing up before dawn for food.

Canned and dry goods and corn were handed out at the Seasons Florida Resort in Kissimmee on Saturday. MUST CREDIT: Photo by Eve Edelheit for The Washington Post.

Until this past week, the food drive, run by the Society of St. Andrew, an anti-hunger charity, and the Unite Here Local 737 union, had distributed $155,805 worth of Farmers to Families food boxes every Saturday. For the past two months, Vinana, who is on furlough from her custodial job at Disney’s Grand Floridian property, could count on receiving one or two 32-pound boxes of food that typically included fresh fruit, milk, meat and cheese – enough to feed her family for three or four days. In Florida, the USDA contracted with Oakes Farms, a major food distributor, to supply the boxes each week.

This past Saturday was different. Instead of boxes of fresh food paid for by the federal government, the union dipped into its savings and raised money on Facebook to buy ramen, canned vegetables and Goya beans at Walmart.

When the line began moving around 7 a.m., trunks popped open and volunteers, many of whom were also laid-off Disney workers, tossed in the plastic bags of food.

“One bag per car, no exceptions,” yelled Jeremy Haicken, president of Unite Here Local 737. Almost under his breath, he added, “People can’t believe the government promised food and reneged.”

Trunk lids slammed. Masked volunteers called out, “Have a good one!” Vinana exited the parking lot and turned onto a gritty stretch of highway lined with mini-golf courses, massage parlors, escape rooms, pawnshops and “family fun centers.” She and others in the food line wouldn’t realize how paltry this week’s assistance was until they unpacked their bags at home.

– – –

The Farmers to Families Food Box program began in May in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the crippling recession and the giant food lines forming across the country. It launched amid great fanfare and with the backing of President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka.

The program paid large food distributors to supply food boxes to nonprofits running food lines across the country. The smaller $500 million award for the program’s fourth phase has left some communities that took part in the spring and summer without a critical source of food this winter. The Adirondack region of New York, for example, received food for the first three rounds but was not selected for the final round, according to John Bernardi of the United Way of the Adirondack Region.

“That left a palpable void. The turnout had been unbelievable through the spring and summer. The boxes were really outstanding, with fresh food, meat and dairy,” Bernardi said. “This has left the food pantries overwhelmed.”

Fernaly Nazaire, 7, brings donated food to cars at the Seasons Florida Resort in Kissimmee. MUST CREDIT: Photo by Eve Edelheit for The Washington Post.

Other regions received funding for the most recent round, but it wasn’t enough to sustain them through the end of the year. Oakes Farms, a major Florida-based farming and food distribution company, was awarded $68 million in late October to supply food boxes in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky and the Virgin Islands. Two weeks into the program, Oakes officials said they realized that the money was not going to last, said Steve Veneziano, the company’s vice president. Veneziano said he and other Oakes executives assumed that the USDA would supply extra funds to meet the growing need in December. But the cash never came.

“We just didn’t know until it was too late,” he said. “The demand was just so overwhelming. We really needed two to two and a half times the award. We could’ve easily spent $150 million.”

The impact of that shortage quickly rippled through the Southeast last week as Veneziano called the food drives he was scheduled to supply to tell them that there was no money left for food. One of the first calls he made was to Kelly Stainner, who as program coordinator for the Florida chapter of the Society of St. Andrew is one of Oakes’s largest customers. Stainner’s group is responsible for distributing about 10,000 Oakes-supplied food boxes each week to nonprofit partners such as the Unite Here 737 local, which runs the Kissimmee food distribution site.

“Is there anything you can do?” Stainner recalled several of her partners asking her.

“I’ve tried. I’ve begged,” she told them. “There’s just no money.”

Kelly Madison, left, and Lori Mannel wait for food at the Seasons Florida Resort. MUST CREDIT: Photo by Eve Edelheit for The Washington Post.

The shortfall in funds also took Mary Diez-Castillo, vice president of Vision Community Outreach in Hialeah, Fla., completely by surprise. She was supposed to get 12,000 boxes last week from Oakes, but instead got zero. “We were getting 5 to 6 tractor trailers a day,” she said. “We fed 275,000 people in the month of November. We set up in shopping centers, in parks, in all the cities around here.”

The bad news sent her searching for alternatives. She cold-called 27 produce companies asking for donations and pivoted briefly to Mac Edwards Produce in the Doral area. But it, too, ran out of food money on Nov. 30.

“We are a nonprofit, run by volunteers with no salaries,” she said as she drove Friday to South Florida in search of food.

Like Haicken and Local 737, she is committed to continuing to provide food to laid-off workers until Congress passes a new relief bill, which could provide additional, emergency funding for the USDA food program. “We thought this would run until Dec. 31,” she said. “We’ll keep insisting. We won’t give up.”

The unexpected shortfall in the Farmers to Families Food Box program could be the first of several hits facing food banks across the country this winter.

The Food Purchase and Distribution Program, a component of the Trump administration’s aid to farmers who were suffering from the trade war with China, allocated $7.1 billion for direct food purchases for food assistance. The initiative bought commodity foods directly from farmers and distributed those goods to food banks. It ends Dec. 31.

These two programs alone accounted for 1.7 billion of the 5 billion meals distributed by Feeding America, a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks, said Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, the organization’s chief executive.

In total, food banks across the country are poised to lose about half of the food they have been receiving free from the federal government, Babineaux-Fontenot said.

Unite Here Local 737 President Jeremy Haicken helps out at Saturday’s food drive at the Seasons Florida Resort in Kissimmee. MUST CREDIT: Photo by Eve Edelheit for The Washington Post.

Forty percent of people turning to American food banks have never relied on them before, she added. Many of these newcomers, who are unfamiliar with other federal food assistance programs, turn first to the food lines that depend on the food box program for help. Based on estimates of increased unemployment and poverty, food insecurity could rise from 35 million at the start of 2020 to 50 million people by year’s end.

Currently, about $236 million in USDA funding is available for states to spend as part of the Emergency Food Assistance Program, a much smaller federal program that provides low-income Americans with emergency food assistance at no cost. But it is unclear how, or how swiftly, states could utilize these funds to make up for the loss of food boxes or other federal aid.

Of all the federal programs, the shortfall to the Farmers to Families Food Box program is perhaps the most urgent, because it is hitting families now. Peter Sharma, the owner of the Seasons Florida Resort in Kissimmee, which opened its parking lot to the weekly food drive, watched on Saturday morning as the union volunteers organized 20-bushel laundry bins full of the hastily assembled food bags.

The hotel has been closed since March, Sharma’s 24 employees furloughed.

Sharma recently put his house on the market to raise money to pay his annual tax bill. If it sells, he and his wife plan to move into his empty motel and wait for the tourists to return, hopefully by this summer.

Most weeks he asks the union to set aside some of the USDA food boxes for his furloughed employees. This week they would have to get by with the union-purchased plastic bags of beans and ramen.

“This is a herculean effort,” he said, watching the line move. “These people, they’re not the homeless. They’re working. They’re your neighbors.”

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All eyes on Britain for western world’s first covid shots (nationthailand.com)

All eyes on Britain for western world’s first covid shots

InternationalDec 09. 2020

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Emily Ashton, Corinne Gretler

Britain’s National Health Service launched what it has called the biggest immunization campaign in its history, starting covid vaccinations across the country.

People over 80 are at the front of the line for the shot made by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE on Tuesday, with tens of thousands expected to get vaccinated in the coming days. The U.K. is the first western nation to begin its program, having approved the jab last week.

Margaret Keenan, who’s due to turn 91 next week, was the first person to get the vaccine at about 6:30 a.m., according to a statement. Receiving a shot at a hospital in Coventry was “the best early birthday present I could wish for,” Keenan said, because it meant she’d be able to spend time with her family and friends in the new year after being on her own for most of 2020.

“At the moment I don’t know how I feel — just so strange and wonderful, really,” she told reporters. “This is for a good cause, so I’m so pleased to have it done.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson hailed a “huge step forward” in the fight against the coronavirus, which has infected more than 1.7 million people and killed more than 61,000 people in Britain. The U.K.’s speedy clearance of the vaccine has drawn criticism from experts in the U.S. and Europe, though domestic regulators say they’ve put safety first.

The stakes are high for Johnson’s government after missteps earlier in its handling of the pandemic, with the U.K. recording Europe’s highest death toll from the virus and reeling from the economic fallout of repeated lockdowns. Now it faces the logistical challenge of rolling out the vaccine to a country of 67 million people, amid concern that end-of-year holidays could spur a new wave of infections.

“It’s important for people to understand that the virus is, alas, still rising in some parts of the country,” Johnson told television reporters. “We can’t afford to relax now.”

As the program ramps up in the weeks ahead, Britons should continue to follow the social distancing rules in their area, the prime minister said. Some 99% of England’s population are currently in the top two tiers of restrictions — with many regions forced to close pubs and restaurants — as the government attempts to curb the spread of the virus.

Fifty hospitals are initially taking part in the vaccination campaign and have started scheduling over-80s for shots and working with care-home providers to book their employees into vaccination clinics. Around 800,000 doses are expected to be available in the first week, with as many as 4 million available by the end of the year, according to NHS Providers, which represents hospitals.

Any appointments not used for these groups will be available for health-care workers at highest risk of serious illness from covid-19, NHS England said. All those vaccinated will need a second shot 21 days after the initial jab.

A number of community-based family doctors will start vaccinations next week, before mass vaccination centers — based in sporting venues and conference centers — are brought online when further supplies of the vaccine become available.

Despite surveys showing sizable portions of the population are skeptical about the benefits of a vaccine or worried about safety, there’s no need for concern, Johnson said.

“I would say to all those who are scared: Don’t be,” he said. “There is nothing to be nervous about.”

The U.K. has struck deals for 357 million vaccine doses from seven makers, including the Pfizer-BioNTech collaboration. It plans to combine that shot with one from AstraZeneca Plc and the University of Oxford in trials next year, according to the U.K. Vaccine Taskforce.

When asked what went through her mind when she found out she was going to be the first to get the Pfizer shot, Keenan said she “thought it was a joke.”

“I’m happy it’s happened, and hopefully it’ll help other people come along and do as I did, and try and do the best to get rid of this terrible thing,” she said.

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covid blunders in Latin America sow fears of more mistakes on vaccines (nationthailand.com)

covid blunders in Latin America sow fears of more mistakes on vaccines

InternationalDec 09. 2020Doctors and nurses work to resuscitate a patient in the covid-19 intensive care unit at the Emilio Ribas Institute of Infectious Disease hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Dec. 4, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Jonne Roriz 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Andrea Navarro, Julia Leite, Simone Preissler Iglesias

One afternoon a couple months ago, hijackers commandeered a truck just east of Mexico City and hauled off its cargo. It wasn’t cash or jewelry but doses of ordinary flu vaccine so scarce in Mexico this year that there’s a black market for it in what many worry is an omen for covid-19 vaccination.

In Brazil, the region’s other behemoth, President Jair Bolsonaro, who belittles masks, is vowing not to get a covid vaccine, causing health officials to worry that his loyal supporters might follow suit. In Bolivia, the government has approved ingesting chlorine dioxide — bleach — against the virus, widely considered useless and dangerous.

Arguably, no region in the world has been hit as hard by the virus as Latin America. At the best of times, its health systems are wobbly. This pandemic year, with Brazil registering the world’s second-highest covid death toll and Mexico the highest case-fatality ratio, they’re unraveling, aggravating rising inequality, crime, economic decline and public mistrust. With 8% of the globe’s population and 30% of its covid deaths, Latin America is facing the pandemic’s next phase — mass vaccination — with alarm.

“Vaccine distribution will be complicated in developed countries but in Latin America you have to add a lack of transparency, lack of governance and corruption,” said Sergio Litewka, director of global bioethics at the University of Miami. “Will the same people who were incapable of handling the pandemic be able to handle the vaccine?”

There are problems that will affect all countries. Pfizer Inc. just announced that supply chain snags will halve this month’s distribution from original plans. INTERPOL has issued a global alert saying organized crime networks are targeting covid-19 vaccines, both physically and online, around the globe.

But Latin America, apart from a couple countries, appears more vulnerable than other regions. The virus has set back decades of gains in democracy and equality, and nearly tripled the number facing food insecurity. Given how poorly the region has fared over the past nine months and the ultracold equipment needed to store and transport two of the proven vaccines, many of its health leaders expect it to lag behind, with the risk of more virus waves still ahead.

A worker checks a refrigerated container carrying Sinovac Biotech coronavirus vaccines at Guarulhos International Airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Nov. 19, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Jonne Roriz

Of the three vaccine front-runners, Pfizer’s and Moderna Inc.’s have shown 95% effectiveness but their costs and the temperature requirements might prove prohibitive. That leaves AstraZeneca Plc. The shot developed with the University of Oxford accounts for more than 40% of the supplies going to lower- and middle-income nations, based on deals tracked by London-based research firm Airfinity Ltd.

Health ministries across the region say they are gearing up with equipment, distribution points and plans to mobilize the military. Some have deals with big drug companies, most are part of Covax, a World Health Organization endeavor to help less well-off countries obtain vaccines speedily and at low prices.

But many in the know are worried.

Jorge Martin Rodriguez, professor of public health policy at Javeriana University in Bogota, says it will probably be 2022 or 2023 before Colombia is protected, something many don’t seem to realize.

“That hasn’t been mentioned much and it’s something to which we need to bring awareness,” Rodriguez said in a phone interview. “The risk will fall only when we reach herd immunity, ideally through vaccination.”

He estimates 45% of the population will acquire immunity through vaccine or infection next year, meaning restrictions will need to remain.

Vendors wear protective masks at a market in Cusco, Peru, on Oct. 13, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Jonne Angela Ponce

Mexico and Argentina signed a deal in August with Astra through billionaire Carlos Slim’s foundation to fund the production of as many as 250 million doses. Brazil is hosting phase 3 trials for Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Sinovac and Janssen.

In theory, Brazil should fare better vaccinating its 210 million people than it did containing the disease. According to a dozen health experts consulted, its five-decade-old immunization program, which operates 35,000 outposts, is in sturdy shape. Even in this difficult year, the government reached 90% of the people it intended to with the annual flu shot.

Vice President Hamilton Mourao said on Monday the country should vaccinate 150 million people by the end of 2021. The government, which is mostly relying on the AstraZeneca shot, is now also in talks to purchase 70 million doses from Pfizer.

But recent mishaps are causing concern. Last month, it was reported that there were almost 7 million high-quality coronavirus tests sitting unused in a Sao Paulo airport, with most of them set to expire by January.

“I had no idea that was even there,” said Carlos Lula, health secretary of the northern state of Maranhao and president of Conass, the association of the country’s state secretaries. “We had been pleading with the health ministry for more tests.”

Like the U.S., Brazil is a federal system and the central government may or may not play a major role in health care. Governors implemented measures as they saw fit, asking the country’s supreme court to ensure Bolsonaro would not overrule them in his push to get people back to work. As a result, the virus behaved differently across the nation’s 27 states, a first wave that folded into a second in what some have described as a “tsunami” of infections.

Talks between the health ministry and states remain stalled and there are disagreements over whether to use the Chinese vaccine, CoronaVac, which Sao Paulo state says will begin to be deployed on Jan. 25. The expectation is that Brazil will need more than one vaccine to cover the whole country.

“We’ll have to get creative — applying vaccines at home, in drive-throughs, churches, stadiums,” said Juarez Cunha, the head of the Brazilian Society of Immunization. “We’ve done it before, and we’ll have to do it again.”

In next-door Argentina, Adolfo Rubinstein, a former health minister, said he doesn’t expect mass vaccination across Argentina until the second half of 2021 partly because of the need for the low-temperature freezers.

“There aren’t so many freezers available, particularly in the most distant, rural areas,” he said. Noting that winter, along with its spike in cases, will start in the Southern Hemisphere as vaccine distribution begins, he added, “It’s very likely that, starting in April, you’ll start to see a new outbreak of cases.”

AstraZeneca is among the pharma companies supplying Covax, the WHO effort, which will accelerate the production of Astra or Novavax shots for low- and middle-income nations, priced at a maximum of $3 per dose. Sanofi and partner GlaxoSmithKline have also signed on. As the shots become available, Covax will distribute them at the same rate until all countries have enough doses to cover 20% of their populations.

Health-care workers of the San Jose Hospital mobile unit treat Venezuelan migrants at a closed school in Maicao, La Guajira, Colombia, on Oct. 1, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Nicolo Filippo Rosso

In Mexico, the government says more flu shots will be available in the coming weeks, blaming the slow deployment on one of the largest producers, Sanofi Pasteur Inc. Sanofi says its supply chain was affected by the pandemic.

“It’s been a complete failure, there are no flu vaccines,” said Francisco Moreno, head of internal medicine at ABC Medical Center in Mexico City. “Mexico is gearing up for another disaster because we couldn’t control the covid pandemic and we didn’t prepare the population against the flu.”

There are a couple bright spots in the region.

Uruguay has the lowest infection and mortality rates in South America thanks to one of the best health-care systems and widespread adoption of voluntary social distancing policies. The country of 3.5 million closed its borders early and plans to keep them closed over the Christmas tourism season. President Luis Lacalle Pou said the government expects to have a vaccine available as soon as April.

And in Chile, which had some tough covid months, Josefina Bascunan, head of academic, research and strategic alliances at Hospital del Trabajador in Santiago, said the flu vaccine went well this year and she believes the government can put in place a strong coronavirus vaccination strategy.

More typical however, is Peru, which has suffered mightily under covid despite stringent lockdown efforts and now looks to vaccination with concern.

Victor Zamora, a recent health minister, said congress – which recently impeached a president – hasn’t yet debated legislation to fast-track the approval for new vaccines. He added that 70,000 nurses and a great deal of equipment need to be mobilized.

“You can’t expect this fragmented, bureaucratic, slow, politicized state to guarantee you modern, executive logistics,” he said by telephone. “I’d prefer the private sector do it even if it costs more money. Just in masks and gowns in the public sector, there is enormous loss because of theft, corruption and mismanagement.”

“If the private sector can get a Coca-Cola to the remotest point on this map of Peru, and I can’t get there with a paracetamol, we’re doing something wrong and they’re doing something right.”

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Merkel is losing her touch at the worst possible time (nationthailand.com)

Merkel is losing her touch at the worst possible time

InternationalDec 09. 2020German Chancellor Angela Merkel, followed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, in Berlin on Feb. 10, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Krisztian Bocsi 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Arne Delfs

At a critical juncture for Germany and the European Union, Angela Merkel is faltering.

In the final months of her 16-year tenure, the German chancellor is within touching distance of a historic budget settlement that would underpin the recovery from the pandemic, bind the EU closer together and accelerate the shift to a carbon-neutral future. It’s threatening to slip through her fingers.

For years, Merkel has allowed rule-of-law violations in Hungary and Poland to fester. Now they could derail the $2.2 trillion (1.8 trillion-euro) budget and jointly funded recovery package that was supposed to be the centerpiece of Germany’s EU presidency. To make matters worse, the dispute with the U.K. over post-Brexit trade ties is overshadowing preparations for Thursday’s crucial EU summit and raising the risk of another economic shock.

With negotiations hamstrung by restrictions on face-to-face meetings, Merkel’s European allies are talking about pressing ahead with the recovery fund without the two eastern holdouts. That would open a breach at the heart of the EU, fuel concerns that more member states could ultimately follow Britain’s exit, and interrupt the reintegration of former Communist states that has been a leitmotif throughout the chancellor’s political career.

“We had imagined our presidency differently,” Merkel told European lawmakers last week. “The presidency is marked by the pandemic. That’s just the way it is, and you have to take things as they are.” Dissenters within her party say the chancellor should also shoulder some of the blame.

Inside the concrete edifice of Berlin’s chancellery, Merkel has been switching between crisis meetings over the mounting number of covid-19 cases in Germany and phone calls with EU leaders aimed at finding ways forward, according to an official, who asked not to be identified discussing internal deliberations.

Normally, her spokesman Steffen Seibert issues a statement after such conversations, but during the budget crisis, there’s been little communication — a sign of just how sensitive the issue has become. Even when French President Emmanuel Macron mentioned he’d be speaking to the chancellor on Monday, Seibert refused to comment.

In an effort to resolve the stalemate, Merkel is resorting to an old trick, said the official familiar with her thinking. She tries to get herself into the mind-set of her opponent to understand their weaknesses and find an opening for a compromise.

The threat of EU funds drying up is one obvious pressure point, but for Hungary’s Viktor Orban and his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki, there’s more at stake, including national identity and a cultural agenda that collides with EU principles. That’s tough for the notoriously pragmatic German leader to crack.

Making Merkel’s position more difficult is that she let Orban flout the rules for years without suffering any consequences, his party Fidesz even remained a member of the same European grouping as Merkel’s Christian Democrats. During the refugee crisis of 2015, which marked a watershed in Merkel’s relationship with German voters, Orban refused to take on Hungary’s allotment of migrants even when threatened with a cut in EU funding. And he ultimately suffered no repercussions.

This time it’s not just the EU’s moral authority at stake, this fight is about its economic and political future. And the chancellor’s normally unflappable demeanor is starting to show the strain.

Her frustration was evident when she addressed European parliamentarians last week on the results of the German presidency. She bemoaned her lack of progress and unusually complained about the demands put on her.

“There are those who tell me: don’t make a compromise here and don’t change a single comma there. And then the same people tell me: but please come back with a result,” the 66-year-old chancellor said. “Without compromise from all sides, this won’t work.”

Back home in Germany, some in her political movement are suggesting the chancellor carries some of the responsibility for her problems. In the Christian Social Union — the Bavarian sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democrats — many officials say she misjudged support for the recovery fund and put Germany into an untenable position, just like she did with her open-door refugee policy.

EU leaders should have known that the connection between the budget and democratic standards would provoke a hard confrontation, according to Alexander Dobrindt, leader of the CSU caucus in the Bundestag.

Her most prominent critic is Ralph Brinkhaus, who leads the CSU and Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union in Germany’s lower house. Brinkhaus spent political capital persuading conservatives in their party to support the EU’s controversial joint-debt plan only to see the agreement among leaders fall apart.

When the recovery fund was agreed in July, Merkel was also winning plaudits for the low rate of infection during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. But the country has been hit much harder during the fall and Merkel’s partial lockdown policy has come in for heavy criticism while failing to bring the virus under control.

That’s another point of friction for German conservatives — already on edge as they struggle to chart a path for the post-Merkel era. The country’s soft shutdown is costing the federal government at least 15 billion euros a month to support affected bars, gyms and cinemas.

At a meeting in November, state leaders rejected and openly criticized the chancellery’s push for harsher restrictions, including limiting kids to one playmate. By proposing measures that were too ambitious for the states to accept, Merkel wound up empty-handed, delaying a longer term strategy and leaving Germany most likely facing tighter curbs.

Tension in the ranks over the disjointed strategy erupted at a closed-door meeting of CDU leadership last week. Volker Bouffier — the state premier of Hesse, home of the Frankfurt financial center — shouted down Brinkhaus over his criticism of the lack of state financing for pandemic support.

“Let me make it clear we are no longer willing to watch your grandstanding,” he said, while Merkel sat quietly as the exchange unfolded, according to an official familiar with the meeting. A spokesman for Bouffier didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Her pending departure from the political scene after elections in the fall is also playing into her fading authority. Markus Soeder, the Bavarian premier who’s the front-runner to succeed her, has grabbed the coronavirus spotlight. He preempted harsher national rules by implementing a state of emergency starting Wednesday, including a strict curfew in hard-hit areas.

At a meeting with Merkel last week, which extended national curbs to Jan. 10, he slammed the current approach as too timid.

“The question is whether we can keep the country in this kind of half-sleep all the time, or whether we will have to think again at some point to take a very clear and consistent deeper approach in some places,” he said.

Merkel shot him an irritated look, but her own plans for tougher measures on a national level had been shot down by state premiers in November. They both knew she was powerless to change things.

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Women in Asia often abused online but find limited recourse: UN Women study (nationthailand.com)

Women in Asia often abused online but find limited recourse: UN Women study

InternationalDec 08. 2020

By The Daily Star

Civil society activists say that women commonly face online violence in Asian countries but for many victims, fear and distrust make reporting these attacks to authorities “often the last resort,” a new UN Women study has found.

Countries should respond by strengthening prosecutions and sanctions against perpetrators and increasing efforts to correct the gender inequality and misogynistic norms in society that drive the violence, the report says.

The report — “Online Violence against Women in Asia” — focused on situations in India, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Republic of Korea. It was funded by the Government of the Republic of Korea.

It is set to be released today at the Online Violence against Women in Asia Cyber Café event, organised as part of the United Nations Secretary-General’s annual 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence (November 25 to December 10).

The report was done before the COVID-19 pandemic but is even more relevant now when lockdowns have pushed so much of communication, business and services online, possibly increasing the risk of online attacks against women.

The report says the violence includes digital voyeurism, morphing of women’s bodies into composite images, harassment of women over clothing and behaviour deemed “inappropriate,” dissemination of rape video footage, and live-streaming of child sexual abuse.

It says people with limited digital skills — mostly women and girls  — are more at risk. Also at risk of sexual exploitation, it says, are children who are now spending more time online.

Civil society activists interviewed by the researchers said victims preferred to confide in friends, work colleagues and civil society organisations and “rarely or never” report attacks to the authorities.

“Fear of reprisals from perpetrators, lack of confidence in police, the high cost of civil legal action and a lack of confidence in the judicial process are significant barriers to complaining to authorities,” the report says.

The report says that according to activists, online violence against women “is a low priority for the police and prosecutors, and there is an unhealthy level of victim blaming.”

It further says specific legal provisions are needed to respond to online violence against women, including specialised courts and specially trained investigators and prosecutors.

Governments also need to do more to educate people about proper Internet etiquette, toxic online behaviour, and the prohibition of online violence against women, the report says.

“Online presence, an essential during the COVID-19 pandemic, is crucial for obtaining and maintaining a job, accessing information, exercising democratic rights, having a voice, getting an education and conducting commercial transactions,” said Sarah Knibbs, UN Women Deputy Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific.

 “For the survivor, reporting the attack requires courage and confidence that the system will protect and support to see her through the process. It is imperative that online violence receive the same legal treatment as other forms of violence. If offline sexual harassment and stalking are crimes, online harassment and cyberstalking should similarly be criminalised.”