Just 9.2 per cent of the US population has been fully vaccinated with against the novel coronavirys, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.
Over 116 million vaccine doses had been distributed across the US as of Monday, and more than 92 million doses have been administered, Xinhua news agency quoted the latest CDC data as saying.
About 31 million people have received two doses of vaccines, the CDC data showed.
There are three Covid-19 vaccines currently authorised for emergency use in the US by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The FDA authorized the one developed by American drugmaker Pfizer in partnership with German company BioNTech, and another by American drugmaker Moderna, in December 2020.
Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine was approved for emergency use on February 27. It is the first single-dose vaccine authorized in the United States.
The vast majority of people need to be fully vaccinated before Covid-19 precautions can be lifted broadly.
Until then, it is important that everyone continues to adhere to public health mitigation measures to protect the large number of people who remain unvaccinated, said the CDC.
President Joe Biden said last week that the country would have enough Covid-19 vaccine doses for every adult American by the end of May.
Former head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi (Xinhua/Lu Yang/IANS)
Former head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi has formally accepted the role of Italy’s next Prime Minister and will be sworn in on Saturday.
Draghi has named his cabinet after meeting the Italian president. He has secured the support of almost all the main political parties, following the collapse of the previous administration last month, the BBC reported.
It was thrown into chaos amid a row over how to spend EU coronavirus recovery funds.
Italy is still grappling with the pandemic and is also facing its worst economic crisis in decades. The country has recorded more than 93,000 deaths, the sixth-highest death toll in the world.
Former Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte
After receiving the support of the largest group in parliament, the Five Star Movement, Draghi now has backing across the broad political spectrum.
It means he will have a large enough majority to push through his agenda. A senior figure in the Five Star Movement, Luigi Di Maio, will stay on as foreign minister in his cabinet.
Meanwhile, Giancarlo Giorgetti, a senior figure in the populist far-right League party, will be industry minister. Andrea Orlando, from the centre-left Democratic Party, will be labour minister.
The government faces a confidence vote next week — a formality given its cross-party backing.
A staff member measures a visitor’s temperature at Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, Italy. (Photo by Alberto Lingria/Xinhua)
An economist with experience at the highest levels of the European Union and as governor of the Bank of Italy, Draghi is being seen as a safe pair of hands.
“Mario Draghi was the Italian who saved Europe, and I think now he is the European who can save Italy,” former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi told the BBC’s Newshour programme last week.
The previous prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, resigned in January after his party lost support for its coalition government over plans for spending EU recovery money.
World Health Organization (WHO) experts came together to review the efficacy of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, after a study showed that it was less effective against a new variant of the virus discovered in South Africa.
At a press briefing here on Monday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said although the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is one of the several that have been shown to be effective in preventing severe disease, hospitalisations and deaths from Covid-19, the emergence of new variants of the virus has raised concerns about their potential impacts on the efficacy of vaccines, reports Xinhua news agency.
He announced that the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) met to review the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and discuss these new developments.
Tedros added that he will meet with the SAGE Chair on Tuesday to discuss its recommendations.
Monday’s development came a day after, South Africa, where the new variant named B.1.351 was found, announced that the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the country would be temporarily put on hold until more clinical efficacy information becomes available.
Frontline workers have been vaccinated
Also at the briefing, Kate O’Brien, director of the Department for Immunization, Vaccines, and Biologicals at the WHO, said SAGE had met investigators from the trials being conducted in Britain and Brazil, as well as AstraZeneca and investigators from South African trials.
In looking at evidence on the AstraZeneca vaccine across a number of trials, it is very clear that it has efficacy against severe disease, hospitalisations and deaths among different variants, said O’Brien, while admitting that “there are some indications of reduction in the efficacy, some more some less, depending on which variant, which population, and also the neutralizing antibody responses”.
“But we also have evidence that there is the likelihood that the retention of meaningful impact against severe disease is a very plausible scenario for the product against the B.1.351 variant,” she added.
O’Brien also noted that “we really have to sort of sail a steady ship, based on the preponderance of evidence and not lurch from one particular report or another report”.
AstraZeneca
Meanwhile, GAVI, the global Vaccine Alliance and a major player in the WHO-led COVAX initiative for Covid-19 vaccines, has decided to continue rolling out the AstraZeneca vaccine.
According to GAVI CEO Seth Berkley, the AstraZeneca vaccine is efficacious and has been reviewed and approved by a number of stringent regulatory authorities.
“Therefore we suspect that we will continue to roll that out, and we’ll continue to follow the effects of that vaccine over time,” he said.
India has warned against chemical weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists noting the reports of the resurgence of the Islamic State (IS) terror group in Syria...writes Arul Louis.
“India remains concerned about the possibility of such dangerous weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorist organisation and individuals,” R. Ravindra, a Deputy Permanent Representative of India, told the Security Council on Wednesday.
“Terrorist groups have taken advantage of the decade-long conflict in Syria to entrench themselves posing a threat to the entire region. Reports of the resurgence of the IS in the region are being heard with increasing frequency,” he said after the Council heard a briefing on the implementation of its resolution against chemical weapons in that country.
That Resolution adopted in 2013 expressly demanded that “non-State actors” or terror groups “not develop, acquire, manufacture, possess, transport, transfer, or use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and their means of delivery”.
Ravindra said: “The world cannot afford to give these terrorists any sanctuary or dilute its fights against these terrorist groups.”
The UN’s High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu, who briefed the Council on the implementation of its resolution, alleged that Syria was not fully in compliance with it.
“At this stage, due to the identified gaps, inconsistencies, and discrepancies that remain unresolved, the declaration submitted by the Syrian Arab Republic cannot be considered accurate and complete in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC),” she said.
She said that there were 19 outstanding issues and one of them was about a chemical weapons production facility that a team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) determined had been used to manufacture such weapons although Damascus has denied such use.
The issue of chemical weapons in Syria has pitted Russia, with some backing from China, against the Western nations which are vehemently opposed to the government of Bashar al-Assad.
With New Delhi in the middle, Ravindra said: “India has consistently underlined the need for impartial and objective investigation into any alleged use of chemical weapons, scrupulously following the procedures and provisions laid down in the (Chemical Weapons) Convention.”
New Delhi also has close ties with Syria.
“India has consistently called for a comprehensive and peaceful resolution of the Syrian conflict through a Syrian-led dialogue,” Ravindra said.
India has “contributed to the return of normalcy and rebuilding of Syria through humanitarian assistance and human resource development” and was now ready to provide it with Covid-19 vaccines, he said.
As for the CWC, Ravindra said India attaches high importance to it.
He said it “is a unique, non-discriminatory disarmament instrument and serves as a model for the elimination of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction”.
He added that India was the first country to be declared the first signatory to the CWC to be declared a chemical weapon-free state.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has again offered his “good offices” to India and Pakistan to resolve their problems, even though New Delhi has rejected his involvement in bilateral disputes....Arul Louis
“Our good offices are always available, and we will insist within it of finding peaceful solutions for problems that have no military solution,” he said on Thursday when he was asked by a Pakistani journalist about Kashmir.
In an apparent reference to their nuclear arms, he warned: “It is clear, when seeing Pakistan and India, any military confrontation between the two would be a disaster of unmitigated proportions for both countries and for the whole world.”
Guterres said that “unfortunately” the call he had made in 2019 for resolving the disputes between the South Asian neighbours is “the same that I can say today”.
“Now, things have not moved in the right direction. I do believe that it is absolutely essential to have a de-escalation of the situation, namely in the Line of Contact (meaning Control). I think it’s absolutely essential for the two countries to be able to come together and seriously discuss their problems,” the UN chief noted.
He added that it was essential for human rights to be “fully respected” in Kashmir.
New Delhi has maintained that under the Simla Agreement of 1972 between then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and then President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan, all disputes between the neighbours are bilateral matters that have to be resolved by themselves without external involvement.
Islamabad has tried to internationalise the bilateral disputes by calling for mediation or other involvement by others.
India has consistently rebuffed offers by outside parties including former US President Donald Trump to mediate.
While welcoming the decision by Presidents Joe Biden of the US and Vladimir Putin of Russia to extend the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) on nuclear weapons and delivery systems, Guterres said that “all the countries that have nuclear weapons today” have to be involved in non-proliferation if progress is to be made.
Regarding social media, Guterres said that he was worried about the power that a few technology companies wield.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan
“I do not think that we can live in a world where too much power is given to a reduced number of companies,” he said.
“I’m particularly worried with the power that they already have. I mean, the volume of information that is being gathered about each one of us, the lack of control we have about our own, the data related to ourselves, the fact that that data can be used not only for commercial purposes to sell to advertising companies, but also to change our behaviour,” Guterres said.
The Secretary-General added that there has to be a serious discussion about the risks from a political point of view of the companies using the trove of data for controlling citizens.
Guterres said that he favoured creating a mechanism with “a regulatory framework with rules” to deal with hate speech.
The Iranian government has said that it will not rest until the assassins of Qasem Soleimani, the former commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), were brought to justice.
“The US violated international law and the UN Charter in clear violation of Iraq’s sovereignty,” Xinhua news agency quoted the Iranian Foreign Ministry as saying on Friday.
“Iran will not give up until the authorities bring this action to justice,” it added.
On January 3, 2020, Soleimani, along with an Iraqi militia commander, were killed near the Baghdad International Airport in an American airstrike.
On Friday, Brigadier General Esmail Qa’ani, the incumbent Commander of the Quds Force, described Soleimani as a “hero of the Islamic nations” who defeated the hegemonic powers through his resistance, according to official IRNA news agency.
Qa’ani said that the Quds Force will support any act seeking to punish the culprits of the assassination of Soleimani.
He also said that “the US has failed to influence the objectives of the resistance front” by assassinating Soleimani.
The path of IRGC Quds Force and the resistance front will not change with the US “acts of mischief”, he was quoted as saying by Press TV on Friday.
Also, Iranian Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi said on Friday that the “the perpetrators of the assassination won’t be safe anywhere in the world”, according to Press TV.
The fast-spreading Omicron variant is “nothing more than a seasonal cold virus” and there is little we can do to stop this virus from infecting people, claims a US-based doctor…reports Asian Lite News
Afshine Emrani, MD, who holds a Fellowship in the American College of Cardiology (FACC) from the US, said that people who are vaccinated have a much lower chance of dying or getting hospitalised. But there is little it can be done to stop this virus from infecting over 80 per cent of the population, he said.
“Masks, vaccine card mandates will make no difference,” Emrani said in a tweet.
“Vaccinated people still get infected and pass the virus to others,” he added.
He also mentioned that soon the US will have two million positive cases a day for weeks, after which the numbers will drop dramatically.
“The biggest threat in my opinion remains in over-reaction and over-reach by government agencies, causing panic, providing misinformation, leading to closures that hurt those most vulnerable among us,” Emrani said.
Meanwhile, a team of experts in Singapore has warned that the Omicron variant is likely to soon replace the Delta strain globally, as countries after countries have reported a record surge in Covid cases.
The warning comes as the World Health Organisation (WHO) has cautioned that the more transmissible Omicron together with the currently circulating Delta variants might lead to “a tsunami of cases,” putting immense pressure on national health systems.
In India, the Omicron infection tally has climbed to 961, of which 320 patients have been discharged from hospitals.
A Covid-19 tracker, developed by the UK’s University of Cambridge, has predicted that India may soon see an intense but short-lived virus wave “within days”, even as the highly transmissible Omicron variant of Covid is spreading like wildfire in the country.
India was elected for the eighth time to the Council polling 184 votes of the 192 votes cast for the non-permanent seat to represent Asia…reports Arul Louis
India became a non-permanent member of the Security Council on Friday taking a seat at the UN’s highest decision-making body at a time of changing reality even as it presses ahead with its quest for a permanent seat.
As a member, India will be able to push its agenda of promoting the ethos of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” — the world is one family — while being the leading voice on combating terrorism, and also confronting China’s attempts to bring up Kashmir.
During the crucial phase of the world emerging from the trauma and chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic to face change realities, New Delhi can help shape the new order.
With T.S. Tirumurti as the permanent representative, India will formally take its seat on Monday morning when the Council meets for its first meeting of the year in a closed session presided over by Tunisia’s Permanent Representative Tarek Ladeb, the president for the month of January.
India’s flag will go up in front of the Council chamber at a televised ceremony at noon local time (10.30 p.m. in India) proclaiming its membership.
India was elected for the eighth time to the Council polling 184 votes of the 192 votes cast for the non-permanent seat to represent Asia.
T.S. Tirumurti, India’s Permanent Representative at UN
Indonesia retired at the end of 2020, leaving India to succeed it on the Council. Vietnam is the other Asian country holding a non-permanent seat on the 15-member Council.
As historically the biggest contributor of troops to UN peace-keeping, India will have an input into determining how the operations are mandated. India has complained that the process driven by the permanent members does not adequately consult with the troop-contributors or take their experiences into account.
India has warned about the Council’s mission-creep a” taking on issues like climate change for which it does not have a mandate under the UN Charter. Now, India can voice its reservations in the Council.
During the past two years, China has tried to bring up the Kashmir issue in the Council as a favour to its client Pakistan. Because of the opposition of the other members, Beijing has not been able to hold an open session and has had to settle for informal consultations without any statement or record.
If Beijing tries again to bring up Kashmir, India will be able to directly deal with the attempts and should informal sessions be held, it can answer right there.
A view of the United Nations Security Council in November 2012 with India’s then-Permanent Representative Hardeep Puri at the centre when India was last a non-permanent member of the Council. (Photo: UN/IANS)
Being on the Council will mean taking positions and setting out its stand almost daily on global issues, sometimes in real-time.
The Indian mission has been reinforced with at least four more diplomats to take care of the increased workload.
The hot spots confronting the Council right now are Yemen, Syria, North Korea, Ethiopia, Iran, Myanmar, Afghanistan and the Central African Republic. When it was out of the Council, India did not have to take a stand, for example, on issues like the Ethiopian crisis or expound it to the world, but it will now have to react.
There are also confrontations involving permanent members a” Russia with Ukraine, and China with India and several Indo-Pacific countries.
At the Council, India will find its emerging foreign policy outlook of assertive independence with primacy to its perceived interests tested as its diplomacy is stretched while balancing its strategic interests amid competing pulls.
For instance in Yemen, where there has been a fresh round of violence this week, India will have to deal with the seepage of Middle Eastern rivalries into the conflict with Saudi Arabia as a key player of interest to India.
In Syria, there is the line up of Russia versus the western nations and that is the case also with Moscow’s dispute with Kyiv.
The degree of polarisation at the Council is likely to lessen on one front with the change in the United States presidency and India will not face the same degree on pressures on issues like Iran and Venezuela.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan with Chinese Preisident Xi Jinping
The distinctive division in the Council is between the western countries and Russia, with China being on the side of Russia most of the time, although often not as assertively.
While India has drifted closer to Western European positions on some issues like Israel, on others like Syria, it is closer to Russia’s.
And on the Rohingya refugee crisis, New Delhi’s stance is closer to Beijing’s, rather than the West’s.
India first served on the Council in 1950 and 16 years elapsed before its next turn in 1967. Since then, it has been been on the Council six more times with increasing frequency, the last one in 2011.
More than 10 million children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), northeast Nigeria, the Central Sahel, South Sudan and Yemen will suffer from acute malnutrition in 2021, the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) said.
All of these countries and regions are experiencing “dire humanitarian crises”, while also grappling with intensifying food insecurity, the coronavirus pandemic and, with the exception of the Central Sahel, “a looming famine”, the Unicef said in a statement on Wednesday.
“For countries reeling from the consequences of conflicts, disasters and climate change, Covid-19 has turned a nutrition crisis into an imminent catastrophe,” Unicef Executive Director Henrietta Fore said.
“Families already struggling to feed their children and themselves are now on the brink of famine. We can’t let them be the forgotten victims of 2020,” she added.
Severe acute malnutrition is the most extreme and visible form of under nutrition.
Children with severe acute malnutrition have very low weight for their height and severe muscle wasting.
It is a major cause of death in children under five, and its prevention and treatment are critical to child survival and development.
Through 2020, in spite of Covid-19 challenges, Unicef and its partners continued to deliver lifesaving assistance to the most vulnerable children and their families in the hardest to reach areas through adjustments on the existing programs to maintain and increase access.
With the situation feared to worsen in 2021, Unicef called on humanitarian actors on the ground in these countries as well as the international community to urgently expand access to and support for nutrition, health and water and sanitation services for children and families.
Unicef has appealed for more than $1 billion to support its lifesaving nutrition programs for children in countries affected by humanitarian crises over 2021.
US President Donald Trump has urged the Congress to amend a $900 billion coronavirus relief bill to more than triple its stimulus payments to Americans.
In a video message posted on Twitter, he said the package “really is a disgrace”, full of “wasteful” items, the BBC reported on Wednesday.
“It’s called the Covid relief bill, but it has almost nothing to do with Covid,” he said.
The $900 billion bill includes one-off $600 payments to most Americans but Trump said the figure should be $2,000.
The Republican president, who leaves office on January 20, had been expected to sign the sprawling legislation into law following its passage through Congress on Monday night.
But in Tuesday night’s message from the White House, Trump baulked at spending in the bill on other countries, arguing that this money should go to struggling Americans.
Combo photo shows U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden (L) and U.S. President Donald Trump attend their respective events on different occasions.
He said: “This bill contains $85.5 million for assistance to Cambodia, $134 million to Burma, $1.3 billion for Egypt and the Egyptian military, which will go out and buy almost exclusively Russian military equipment, $25 million for democracy and gender programmes in Pakistan, $505 million to Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama.”
The president questioned why the Kennedy Center, a performing arts complex in Washington DC, was set to receive $40 million when it is not open, and more than $1 billion has been allocated to museums and galleries in the capital.
Trump concluded: “Congress found plenty of money for foreign countries, lobbyists and special interests, while sending the bare minimum to the American people who need it. It wasn’t their fault. It was China’s fault.”
“I am asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000 or $4,000 for a couple.
“I’m also asking Congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation and to send me a suitable bill, or else the next administration will have to deliver a Covid relief package.”
Trump’s statement stunned Capitol Hill, plunging the long-awaited aid bill into turmoil.
If the president vetoes the legislation the US government could shut down on December 29 because the package was attached to a $1.4 trillion spending measure to fund federal agencies for the next nine months.
Republicans and Democrats have been negotiating a coronavirus stimulus rescue since July. Trump largely stayed out of the talks.
On Monday afternoon, congressional leaders unveiled a 5,593-page package and voted on it several hours later.
Several lawmakers protested that they had not been given an opportunity to read the contents.
Nevertheless the bill sailed through the House of Representatives by 359-53 and the Senate by 92-6.
