#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

U.K. gets approval to infect healthy volunteers in world’s first coronavirus ‘challenge trial’

InternationalFeb 18. 2021

By The Washington Post · Karla Adam

LONDON – Britain will become the first country to deliberately infect healthy volunteers with the coronavirus, now that the country’s ethics body has approved a “human challenge trial.”

The effort, funded by the British government, aims to accelerate scientific understanding of vaccines and treatments.

The first stage will begin within the month and see up to 90 adults, aged 18 to 30, exposed to the coronavirus “in a safe and controlled environment” to gauge the smallest amount of virus needed to cause infection, the government said in a statement Wednesday.

The government has said that in subsequent stages, which will require further approval, it hopes to quickly assess vaccines and conduct head-to-head comparisons.

Infecting healthy people with a potentially deadly virus – even in small doses and controlled settings – is controversial. And some in Britain have questioned whether there’s still a need, given the rapid authorization and rollout of highly effective vaccines. More than 15 million people in the United Kingdom have already received at least one “jab,” as a vaccine shot is called here.

Clive Dix, the head of Britain’s vaccine task force, said, “We have secured a number of safe and effective vaccines for the U.K., but it is essential that we continue to develop new vaccines and treatments for covid-19.

“We expect these studies to offer unique insights into how the virus works and help us understand which promising vaccines offer the best chance of preventing the infection.”

Robert Read, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Southampton, said the current vaccines, while very good against most of the strains circulating, “may not actually be the last vaccines that we use globally.” The human challenge trials could “give ourselves the potential to test new vaccines very quickly, and that’s really the primary purpose of this effort.”

When the trial gets underway, volunteers will be infected via droplets squirted up the nose and then monitored closely during a hospital stay. In addition to regular blood and heart rate tests, patients will be given scratch-and-sniff cards, to detect loss of smell, and cognitive tests on a tablet, leader researcher Christopher Chiu said.

Peter Openshaw, an immunologist at Imperial College London and a co-investigator on the study, said it was “important to emphasize that the aim of the initial studies are not to produce any great severity of disease.

“Indeed, if we can just demonstrate that the virus grows in the nose, that’s really the endpoint we’re looking for.

“We’re not aiming to make any of the subjects sick, and we’re doing that by very slowly escalating the dose.”

Scientists will use the version of the virus that has been in circulation since March of last year and not any of the more infectious variants.

The volunteers in the first study will receive about 4,500 pounds ($6,243) for their participation over the course of the study, which will involve 17 days of quarantining at the Royal Free Hospital in north London and follow-ups over 12 months.

The study “involves quite an imposition on a young person, 17 days in quarantine when you cannot be visited by any member of your family or friend or relative,” said Terence Stephenson, chairman of the Health Research Authority. “For the first 1,500 pounds for 17 days, we’ve got something like 88 pounds a day, which I don’t think anyone would sense was a ridiculous coercion or inducement.”

Andrew Catchpole, chief scientific officer for hVIVO, a clinical research organization that is recruiting volunteers, said that while “thousands” have offered to participate, the study is still looking for recruits who have not yet been exposed to the virus and who can pass health screening tests.

Jacob Hopkins, 23, is hoping to take part in the trials, and he is waiting to hear back about his background health checks. “I’m not ignorant to the real risks, but I’ve gone through rigorous pre-screening, and the risks are very, very minor for someone who is young, fit and healthy,” he said.

Hopkins said his biggest concern was the potential long-term effects, “but that’s still not enough to make me change my mind. I want to help bring an end to this as soon as possible.”

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

Myanmar’s Suu Kyi appears before court without warning

InternationalFeb 18. 2021

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg

The first court hearing of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi since the Feb. 1 coup began earlier than scheduled and without her lawyer present, further signaling the military’s intention to end her political career.

Speaking by phone on Wednesday, her lawyer Khin Maung Zaw said that Suu Kyi appeared in front of the court via video link without representation. The hearing had earlier been scheduled for Wednesday. He said the court has yet to recognize him as her attorney and he has been barred from seeing her since she was detained by the military.

Already facing as many as three years in prison for allegedly possessing illegally imported walkie-talkies, the police filed an additional charge against Suu Kyi on Tuesday under the Natural Disaster Management Law, a conviction for which carries the same penalty. Under that charge, she is accused of violating covid-19 restrictions while campaigning in last year’s election, which her National League for Democracy won in a landslide.

Detained former President Win Myint, who also appeared virtually in court on Tuesday, faces the same charge but has thus far refused legal representation, Khin Maung Zaw said.

“We will try our best to win this case as our leaders are the lifeblood of the state,” he said.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, said in a statement that he was “terrified” of the “potential for violence on a greater scale” Wednesday with several planned protests amid reports of troops converging in Yangon.

“I am issuing an urgent call on all governments, individuals and entities that may have influence on Myanmar military authorities to use that influence to convince the junta that rallies planned for Wednesday must be allowed to proceed without detentions or violence,” he said in the statement.

Despite the concern, protesters numbering in the hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Yangon Wednesday as drivers used vehicles to block streets in defiance of the military.

Brigadier-General Zaw Min Tun, the lead spokesman for the military-run State Administration Council, said Tuesday during the first briefing since the coup that Suu Kyi was in “good health,” adding that authorities were also investigating money laundering at a foundation she runs. The next hearing for Suu Kyi and Win Myint is scheduled for March 1.

Myanmar’s junta shut down the internet for a third straight night Tuesday as part of efforts to stem nationwide protests that have ballooned across the country, according to a Twitter post by monitoring service NetBlocks. Military leaders have struggled to gain control of the streets since ousting the government led by Suu Kyi. She has urged the country’s 55 million people to oppose the army’s move, calling it “an attempt to bring the nation back under the military dictatorship.”

Suu Kyi and other political leaders are among more than 400 people detained since the coup, a number that keeps rising by the day. During the Tuesday briefing, the junta again defended its move to oust the civilian government in the face of nationwide protests, dismissing the impact of U.S. sanctions while showing no signs of a compromise with demonstrators.

“To ensure democracy and prosperity, people should cooperate with us without being emotional,” Zaw Min Tun said.

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

South Africa begins vaccine rollout after J&J shots arrive

InternationalFeb 18. 2021

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Felix Njini, Mike Cohen

South Africa began administering its first coronavirus vaccines on Wednesday, dispensing Johnson & Johnson shots to health workers and top politicians just hours after they arrived in country from Belgium.

President Cyril Ramaphosa and Health Minister Zweli Mkhize were among those to be inoculated at a hospital in the Cape Town suburb of Khayelitsha. Their inclusion among the first group of people to be vaccinated was aimed at reassuring the public that they are safe, after surveys showed widespread hesitancy about receiving them.

“This is really a milestone for our country,” Ramaphosa said after receiving his shot. “We are going to be rolling out this vaccine throughout our country. I think it is going to be flawless.”

The government had previously faced criticism from scientists and labor unions for being slow off the mark to procure vaccines, after it lagged 79 countries in beginning their rollout. The country has secured enough doses for all those that need them, according to Mkhize.

The process of vaccinating two-thirds of the population of 60 million in order to achieve herd immunity is expected to take 12 to 18 months, said Stavros Nicolaou, head of the health-work unit at lobbying group Business for South Africa.

“Phase one is critically important,” Nicolaou, who also heads strategic trade at Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd., said in an interview with radio 702 on Wednesday. “We need to vaccinate 1.3 million health workers before we get to the third wave.”

South Africa has recorded more than 1.49 million coronavirus cases since March last year, the most on the continent. A total of 48,313 people who were diagnosed with the disease have died, according to the Health Ministry.

South Africa switched to using J&J shots for its initial inoculations, after a small study showed shots developed by AstraZeneca Plc and the University of Oxford had little impact on mild infections caused by a variant of the virus first identified in the country last year. The J&J vaccines are being issued as part of a study, allowing normal regulatory approvals to be bypassed.

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

From vaccines to masks, Fed’s prescription for the economy ventures far beyond interest rates

InternationalFeb 18. 2021Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell

By The Washington Post · Rachel Siegel

A sprawling stimulus package may be the next shot in the arm for the economy, but the Federal Reserve is making it clear the recovery also hinges on literal shots in Americans’ arms.

Central bankers tend to talk about interest rates and asset purchases when it comes to policy. But in a downturn as unusual as the covid-19 pandemic, the Fed is increasingly leaning on a new vocabulary set – one that may seem drawn from a medical textbook instead of an economics one.

Whether talking about mask-wearing or social distancing, the Fed’s message increasingly is that healing the economy will require ending the public health crisis. And at their January policy meeting, Fed leaders discussed speedy vaccine delivery as a must-do to carry the economy through to the other side, according to meeting notes released Wednesday.

Policymakers pointed to risks tied to new covid-19 strains, possible public resistance to vaccines and issues with production and distribution of the shots. On the flip side, an effective vaccine program, mixed with aid from Congress, could improve the outlook ahead, the notes said.

“There’s nothing more important to the economy right now than people getting vaccinated,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said at a news conference following last month’s meeting.

Powell and his colleagues are quick to leave medical advice to the experts. But their overarching point is that the economy and public health are intertwined like never before.

“Using traditional metrics to gauge or understand the path of the economy has not proven very effective,” said Tim Duy, an economist at SGH Macro Advisors and the University of Oregon. “It’s a very large change in how the Fed views its role in supporting the economy in a much more diverse and inclusive fashion.”

Powell and other Fed leaders have long argued that basic health protocols go hand-and-hand with monetary policy or more aid from Congress. But the vaccine push has been viewed by some economists as an endorsement of the stimulus package currently working its way through Congress. President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus proposal includes hundreds of billions of dollars toward the pandemic response, including a national vaccine program, expanded testing and funding to help schools safely reopen. The White House said last week that it will have enough vaccines for 300 million people by end of July.

“The virus is the bottleneck in the economy,” said David Beckworth, a monetary policy expert at the Mercatus Center, a libertarian think tank at George Mason University. The Fed’s focus on vaccines and other health tools is “a consistent but more focused message that ‘we’ve got to get the virus taken care of,'” Beckworth said.

At the Fed, that message mission is core to restoring the 10 million jobs still missing from the labor force and pumping momentum into a recovery that shows signs of leveling off. And Powell and others have signaled that their job doesn’t stop when the workforce is back to its pre-pandemic strength.

In a speech last week, Powell said that steady employment “improves mental health” and “increases life spans” – goals that stretch far beyond the Fed’s more traditional role.

“Our job is not to replace Dr. (Anthony) Fauci,” Powell said last week. “It really is to understand the implications for the economy, and in this particular case, the risks seem to be to the downside, from a slower rollout of the vaccination, or less successful rollout or the new strains. So we monitor all of that.”

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

In Texas’ blackout, everything went wrong at once

InternationalFeb 18. 2021A utilities truck drives down the street during a power outage on Feb. 16, 2021, in McKinney, Texas, about 30 miles north of Dallas. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Cooper Neill

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Rachel Adams-Heard, Naureen S. Malik, Brian Eckhouse

The finger-pointing began immediately: It was the freezing of the wind turbines that foolishly replaced traditional sources. No, fossil fuels were at fault. No, Texas’s deregulated power market, unique in the country, had allowed companies to skimp on maintenance and upgrades.

As the hours ticked by and millions more were plunged into frozen darkness, a more sober reality emerged. The greatest forced blackout in U.S. history, as this event has almost certainly become, was the result of a systemic and multifaceted failure. There are no promises of when power will be restored and little likelihood that the episode won’t be repeated in a corner of the country hard hit by climate change.

“This feels like a technical design failure,” said Michael Webber, who founded the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas at Austin and serves as chief science and technology officer at French utility Engie.

Power plants weren’t fully weatherized, wiping out generation capacity. The ones that were still standing struggled to get enough fuel, with shale wells experiencing so-called freeze-offs. Many wind turbines stopped spinning. Texas, with a grid notoriously isolated from the rest of the U.S., was unable to call on neighboring states for help.

Still, as the pressure dropped last week and frigid air descended from the north, some saw what was coming and felt as if they were witnessing a train crash. They lay part of the blame on ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the flow of power to consumers and says the extreme nature of the weather made it hard to be ready.

“We were woefully unprepared for this kind of cold,” said Texas state Rep. Ron Reynolds, D, whose own house is without power. “They got caught with their pants down and now millions of Texans have no power. This is a matter of life and death.”

ERCOT officials couldn’t say when power would be restored. “I know it’s frustrating we can’t offer a time certain, but it’s a process we’re engaged in to get the grid back in balance,” ERCOT CEO Bill Magness said during a news conference Tuesday.

Adam Sinn, owner of Aspire Commodities LLC, a power and gas trader, was one of those wondering why so little was being done. He said that a week ago, when the seven-day outlook hit, ERCOT’s own projections showed too little supply to meet soaring demand.

“We were looking at this week thinking, they are going to have to cut 10,000 megawatts of consumers,” he said. “I really think ERCOT is to blame on this one.” He said there were spare megawatts that weren’t brought online. For example, Vistra Corp., a large generator, had 4,000 megawatts offline for maintenance in four plants that could have been turned on quickly, he said, citing data from Genscape Inc.

Sinn said ERCOT either failed to order the megawatts back on or was told not to, which should have generated publicity so residents could prepare.

ERCOT and Genscape didn’t respond to requests for comment. Vistra declined to comment.

If ERCOT knew what was in store, it wasn’t apparent in its messaging to Texans. Over the weekend, recommendations from its official Twitter account included closing the blinds and unplugging unused kitchen gadgets. “Laundry on Valentine’s Day?” it said in another post. “No.”

Idle oil drilling rigs in the snow at a lot near Midland, Texas,on Feb. 13, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Matthew Busch

On Tuesday, Dan Woodfin, a senior director for ERCOT, attributed the main factors to frozen instruments at natural gas, coal and nuclear plants. He and other ERCOT officials said they believed generators had prepared better for such cold.

ERCOT’s authority is somewhat limited. In 2011, the last time freezing weather caused rolling outages, it released recommendations for power generators but could not require they be followed, said Adrian Shelley, Texas office director of Public Citizen, an advocacy group.

Federal energy regulators also issued a 357-page report that recommended generators winterize their equipment, including insulating pipes.

“The financial incentive isn’t there to harden that infrastructure,” he added. “From a generator perspective, the only incentive is to bring energy to market as cheaply as possible.”

Power prices spiked on several days to the price cap in Texas — a staggering $9,000 per megawatt-hour.

A 100-megawatt wind farm in the state that might have normally made almost $40,000 over a two-day period in February could reap more than $9.5 million on Monday and Tuesday alone, Nicholas Steckler, a power-markets analyst at BloombergNEF, said. On Monday, electricity sales likely totaled $10 billion, according to Wood Mackenzie.

While some pointed to wind power as a culprit, as of early Tuesday wind shutdowns accounted for 3.6 to 4.5 gigawatts — or less than 13% — of the 30 to 35 gigawatts of total outages, ERCOT’s Woodfin said. Gas produced 35% of the power in January.

Others said Texas’s problems were wide-ranging.

“Everyone wants to blame someone, so they blame ERCOT,” Webber said. “But if the gas can’t come out of the ground, is that ERCOT’s fault? If we have sloppy building codes that don’t properly insulate homes, is that ERCOT’s fault?”

He suggests a combination of upgrades and expansions nationally at a cost of trillions of dollars over decades. Roughly 10% of that will need to take place in Texas. That’s a lot of money, which is why little was done the last time Texas saw a major test of its grid in the cold a decade ago.

A Dallas Morning News newspaper half-covered in snow on Feb. 16, 2021, in McKinney, Texas, about 30 miles north of Dallas. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Cooper Neill

Texas lacks the long-term planning processes that other parts of the country employ. In the east, grid operators run capacity markets that act like insurance policies. Generators are paid to guarantee that their supplies will be available on the most extreme hot and cold days. If they don’t show up, they face stiff penalties. Texas has instead left it up to prevailing prices and industry.

That deregulated and competitive nature of the markets stands to exacerbate massive price run-ups. More than 100 electric suppliers compete for customers who churn power companies like credit cards. They take big risks to attract new customers, offering incredibly low rates and allowing unlimited power use on weekends. But when the wholesale markets backfire, they bail on them.

The state also refuses to connect its grid with neighbors in part out of fear that the system will fall under federal oversight and regulation. But its politicians are coming to realize that independence has a down side.

Natural gas played an outsize role in the disaster. As early as last Thursday, Energy Transfer LP sent a warning to customers on its Transwestern natural gas pipeline: It was going to be cold, and if producers’ shipments were to deviate from their normally scheduled flows, they needed to let the operator know.

Maybe the North Dakota oil field could withstand frigid temperatures, but the infrastructure that connects the Permian Basin in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico is exposed to the elements. Drilling liquids freeze inside pipes, forcing wells and gas processing plants shut.

By Friday, temperatures had dropped to 24 degrees in Dallas. Texans were told to start conserving energy. Physical gas prices soared to more than $500 in Oklahoma from less than $4 at the start of the week. As of Tuesday, they had doubled to roughly $1,000 per million British thermal units. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, R, asked a major gas exporter to limit their intake.

All of this is to speak nothing of the human toll.

“It’s mentally draining, the constant thought of wondering, ‘When will the power come back on, how can I get us out of this situation?'” said Alton McCarver, 30, an IT worker who led his family into his Dodge Charger for hours at a time to blast the heater and charge phones. “It’s been an uphill battle to stay warm.”

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

Trump casino implodes, literally, in Atlantic City

InternationalFeb 18. 2021A composite image of the Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino being imploded in Atlantic City, N.J., on Feb. 17, 2021. The demolition of the one-time jewel of former President Donald Trump’s casino empire clears the way for a prime development opportunity on the middle of the boardwalk. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Angus Mordant

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Tina Davis, Sophie Alexander, Christopher Palmeri

Trump Plaza, the first casino Donald Trump ever built and a faded vestige of Atlantic City’s glamorous past, came crashing to earth Wednesday morning in a cloud of dirt, dust and noise.

Carefully placed explosives imploded the 39-story white tower on the Atlantic Ocean, which stood empty for years. City officials were keen to destroy it amid complaints that chunks of concrete were falling off the building. A few hundred people in cars paid $10 to park at a former airfield less than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away on a freezing, winter morning to watch the Plaza’s final destruction.

While Trump’s faded name could still be seen in the outlines of giant letters that once branded the building, he hasn’t owned it in years. Carl Icahn acquired it when he bought Trump Entertainment Resorts out of bankruptcy in 2016. Icahn hasn’t disclosed plans for the property. The mayor of Atlantic City, who fought to tear down the Plaza, said he wants it replaced with a mixed-use development, perhaps something centered on family entertainment. “The last thing we need right now is another casino,” Mayor Marty Small, D, said in an interview.

Taking down the building represents “turning the page, the dawn of a new era,” Small said. “The Trump era in Atlantic City will be officially over.”

The Plaza opened in 1984, the first of three casinos Trump would eventually own in Atlantic City. All of them would end up in bankruptcy.

“I like the casino business,” Trump wrote in his 1987 book, “The Art of the Deal.” “I like the scale, which is huge, I like the glamour, and most of all, I like the cash flow.”

The Trump Plaza casino looms above the colorful facade of the Bally’s Casino in Atlantic City, N.J., on Feb. 28, 2004. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Emile Wamsteker

Trump became interested in casinos early in his career. The idea of getting into the business first came to him in late 1975, when he heard a radio report about how a strike by hotel workers in Las Vegas had sent Hilton’s stock price sinking — even though the two casino hotels were a small portion of the company’s portfolio.

“It occurred to me that even if I finally got the hotel built and it became a major success in the greatest city in the world, it still wouldn’t be nearly as profitable as a moderately successful casino hotel in a small desert town in the Southwest,” Trump wrote in the book. “What I did shortly after I heard that radio report, was take a trip down to Atlantic City.”

He admits in the book to some bluffing to secure his future partner in Trump Plaza. Early on in the project, he invited executives from Holiday Inn to come see how much work had been done on the site. In fact, the building had barely been started, but Trump gathered “every bulldozer and dump truck” his construction manager could find to make it look like they were busy at work when the Holiday Inn reps came to visit.

“If they got some actual work accomplished, all the better, but if necessary, he should have the bulldozers dig up dirt from one side of the site and dump it on the other,” he said. Holiday Inn decided to team up with Trump on the project. The partnership didn’t last long — in 1986, Trump bought out Holiday Inn’s stake.

The initial success of Trump Plaza would spur more spending. Trump took on more debt, buying and finishing the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City after famously getting in a bidding war over the parent company, Resorts International, with Merv Griffin. At its peak, Trump’s portfolio consisted of four casinos, three in Atlantic City and one in Indiana. The expansion was costly, however, and his company’s high debt load make it difficult to compete with rivals. At one point, Trump’s New Jersey casinos lacked money to put stools in front of slot machines.

Atlantic City was the sole place to gamble legally in the eastern U.S., and it was for a time the largest gaming market after Las Vegas. Atlantic City’s casino revenue peaked at $5.2 billion in 2006. The expansion of legalized betting in neighboring states led to a collapse of traffic to the remote New Jersey beach resort, with more than half of the properties changing hands or shutting down. The city’s nine casinos generated $1.5 billion in sales last year, although online casino games and sports betting delivered another $1.4 billion in revenue statewide.

Tilman Fertitta bought the Trump Marina in Atlantic City for $38 million in 2011, rebranding it as the Golden Nugget. In a recent presentation, Fertitta said he has increased sales by 36% since acquiring the casino and generated a 15% return on investment on the once-money losing operation. Fertitta also used it to build an online betting business with a current market value of more than $800 million.

Hard Rock International bought the Trump Taj Mahal, remodeled and rebranded it. It’s now the second-highest grossing casino in the city after MGM Resorts International’s Borgata. Joe Lupo, President of Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City, said at a news conference Feb. 2 that the company was so pleased with the financial performance they’d seen in an otherwise difficult 2020 they were paying out $1 million in employee bonuses.

In 2014 Trump sued to have his name taken off the two remaining New Jersey resorts, saying they had fallen into disrepair. The Indiana riverboat casino was also sold. Now, the Trump empire includes no casinos — not even at Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, which advertises itself as “a sophisticated, non-smoking and non-gaming” luxury hotel.

When Icahn acquired Trump Plaza, it had already been shut for two years. The building had been deemed an “imminent safety hazard,” according to the mayor. “You had chunks of concrete falling from the top floor.”

Small said that in his first state of the city address last year, “the thing that got the biggest applause when we put the slide up was a bulldozer going through Trump Plaza.” He initially proposed a charity auction, where the winner would get the chance to hit the button that would bring the building down. That was scrapped last month due to safety concerns, but Small said Icahn matched the highest bid and donated $175,000 to the Boys & Girls Club of Atlantic City.

It seems fitting the casino’s last act would be to help a city where Small said Trump had a history of “stiffing so many small businesses, mom-and-pop shops.”

In July 2016, Hillary Clinton used the hotel as a backdrop during her failed presidential campaign to give a speech highlighting Trump’s multiple bankruptcy filings.

That prompted a swift Trump response via Twitter: “I made a lot of money in Atlantic City and left 7 years ago, great timing (as all know).”