Villagers returning home from quarantine site register in Lianqin Village of Beicai Town in Pudong New Area, east China's Shanghai, April 24, 2022. Villagers of Lianqin Village started returning home from quarantine site on Sunday. The village conducted thorough disinfection after villagers were transported to quarantine site a week ago due to the emerging of COVID-19 cases here. (Xinhua/Li He/IANS)
China is now at a critical point if it wants to defend its position as the world’s major supplier of various materials…reports Asian Lite News
Fresh Covid outbreak has further hampered China’s supply chain, leaving foreign investors worried and weakening the country’s competitiveness, the media reported on Wednesday.
China is now at a critical point if it wants to defend its position as the world’s major supplier of various materials, according to The South China Morning Post.
“China is racing against time to stabilise its workforce and domestic production, as widespread Covid-19 infections test the country’s capability to fulfil overseas orders and threaten its status as the world’s pre-eminent manufacturing hub,” the report mentioned.
The country is now planning to reopen borders on January 8 and abandon quarantine after it downgrades its treatment of Covid-19.
Strict control measures including compulsory quarantine for travellers coming to China will also be removed after the downgrade.
Workers in protective suits stand at an entrance to a university’s residential area under lockdown following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Xian, Shaanxi province, China December 20, 2021. Picture taken December 20, 2021. China Daily via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. CHINA OUT. – RC28IR9DTSQW
According to the report, the country’s chaotic reopening comes amid falling overseas orders and forecasts of global recession next year.
“Major Western economies are also encouraging reshoring or near-shoring to ensure supply chain security,” it added.
Local authorities have stopped publishing official estimates of Covid-19 infections or the impact on supply chains.
Some coastal authorities in provinces like Guangdong are “scrambling to keep as many workers as possible to fulfil overseas orders”.
Many industries have reported lower output, partly because of the infections but also because of the slower winter season.
Automaker BYD said last week that its December output will decrease by about 8 per cent.
Workers line up for nucleic acid testing at the construction site of a residential area in Jiangdong New Area of Haikou, south China's Hainan Province, Sept. 2, 2022.(Xinhua/Yang Guanyu/IANS)
A surge of coronavirus cases has been sweeping across China since the government eased its strict lockdowns and measures to contain the spread of the virus…reports Asian Lite News
Shanghai, China’s megacity with a 25 million-strong population has been hit by a surge in coronavirus cases, reported NHK World.
Case numbers have been growing since last week in Shanghai, where staff shortages are causing delays in delivery services. Shanghai has the largest Japanese population among cities in China. The city’s Japanese consulate-general said the virus is spreading among employees at Japanese and other businesses, reported NHK World.
This comes months after Shanghai endured a brutal lockdown to stop the spread of Covid. Hospitals are struggling to cope with the number of infected patients, pharmacies are turning customers away empty-handed, businesses are shutting because staff are off sick, most schools have closed and usage of public transport is plummeting, the report claimed.
But officials at the mission said there have been no reports suggesting production lines or distribution have been severely affected by the surge. They say this is partly because there are no longer restrictions on people’s movements, reported NHK World.
A medical worker leads recovered COVID-19 patients leaving a makeshift hospital in Shanghai, east China, April 23, 2022. Huang Dongfang, who lives in a three-and-a-half-story old apartment in Guangfu residential area, recovered from COVID-19 infection and returned her home on Saturday evening. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang/IANS)
A surge of coronavirus cases has been sweeping across China since the government eased its strict lockdowns and measures to contain the spread of the virus, on December 7.
Meanwhile, Chinese media outlets reported that infections are spreading among civil servants in several provinces, including Henan and Shandong. They said local authorities have closed their offices to the public and are calling on citizens to use online services instead, reported NHK World.
Officials of Chengdu in the inland province of Sichuan said at a news conference on Thursday they have set up 300 fever clinics across the city. They said up to 42,000 people are visiting the facilities everyday.
People in China have also raised a fresh chorus for the resignation of Premier Xi Jinping over his failure to rein in the pandemic in the country.
The people have also demanded an end to the one-party rule of the Communist Party of China (CCP), with many raising slogans such as ‘Step down, Xi Jinping! Step down, Communist Party!’ and ‘We don’t want lifelong rulers. We don’t want emperors’, as per a Insideover news report.
China’s sudden Covid surge also point towards a lack of effectiveness of its vaccines. This acts as a cause of concern, especially for countries to which China supplies its vaccines, reported Tibet Press.
According to a recent report by Voices Against Autocracy, Chinese citizens have been left to fend for themselves after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), amid widespread protests against the government’s ‘Zero-Covid’ policy, suddenly lifted its stringent Covid regulations.
Covid has been rapidly spreading in China. Unofficial reports claim that about 40 per cent of Beijing’s residents are currently infected with Covid. The CCP, according to reports, has shifted its stance on Covid, claiming it to be a mere flu.
As cases rise in major Chinese cities, even people with mild symptoms are rushing to hospitals. Emergency call operators are receiving 30,000 calls a day, six times the average number of calls received.
According to Voices Against Autocracy, there are queues outside fever clinics in various cities. Drugs and medicines are in short supply and hospitals are under stress as doctors and nurses catch the virus. Doctors who have tested positive or are asymptomatic are also being asked to come to work, risking further transmission. (ANI)
The WHO chief said one of the most important lessons from the pandemic is that all countries need to strengthen their public health systems..reports Asian Lite News
The chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said that he hopes that Covid-19 will no longer be a global health emergency sometime next year.
Addressing a press briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the WHO Covid-19 Emergency Committee will discuss next month the criteria for declaring an end to the Covid-19 emergency, Xinhua news agency reported.
“We’re hopeful that at some point next year, we will be able to say that Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency,” he said.
He added, however, that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the culprit behind the Covid-19 pandemic, will not go away.
People walk past a COVID-19 testing site in New York, the United States, on Dec. 7, 2022. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua/IANS)
“It’s here to stay, and all countries will need to learn to manage it alongside other respiratory illnesses including influenza and RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus), both of which are now circulating intensely in many countries,” he said.
The WHO chief said one of the most important lessons from the pandemic is that all countries need to strengthen their public health systems to prepare for, prevent, detect and respond rapidly to outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics.
Another key lesson is the need for much stronger cooperation in collaboration, rather than competition and confusion that marked the global response to Covid-19.
Meanwhile, Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, warned waves of infection and re-infection would continue around the world, as the number of weekly new deaths reported by countries still hovers between 8,000 to 10,000.
Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, warned that the world still does not know how the SARS-CoV-2 virus will evolve in the future, and such uncertainties add to risks.
Before the WHO chief ends the Covid-19 emergency, a balance needs to be stricken between the virus — including its impact and unpredictability — and “whether or not we have dealt with the vulnerabilities and the resilience issues in our health systems,” Ryan said.
Experts believe the real count of cases are much higher as many were underreported due to at-home Covid-19 tests…reports Asian Lite News
Another Covid-19 winter surge is brewing in the US as the key indicators — cases, hospitalisations and deaths — are all increasing, straining hospitals with record number of patients infected by respiratory diseases.
The country averaged about 65,569 new cases each day in the week ending December 7, a 49.6 per cent surge from the previous week, according to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday.
Experts believe the real count of cases are much higher as many were underreported due to at-home Covid-19 tests.
The country has also continued to see an increase in hospitalizations.
An average of more than 4,800 virus-positive Americans were admitted to hospitals each day in the week ending December 6, a 13.8 per cent increase over the week prior, CDC data showed.
Workers in protective suits stand at an entrance to a university’s residential area under lockdown following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Xian, Shaanxi province, China December 20, 2021. Picture taken December 20, 2021. China Daily via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. CHINA OUT. – RC28IR9DTSQW
Daily Covid-19 deaths were also rising. The country averaged over 420 fatalities in the most recent week, a 61.7 per cent surge over the previous week.
As of December 8, counties, districts, or territories with a high or medium Covid-19 Community Level increased by 3.6 per cent and 10.3 per cent, respectively.
Currently, about 64 per cent of sites across the country have reported moderate to high SARS-CoV-2 levels in wastewater. About 38 per cent of sites reporting wastewater data have seen some of the highest levels for those sites since December 1 last year.
Easing restrictions, broader immunity in the general population and mixed messages about whether the pandemic is over have softened the sense of threat for the public, especially younger adults.
The Covid-19 surge came as people are traveling for holidays and colder winter are pushing for growing indoor gatherings.
The climbing of Covid-19 related hospitalizations and deaths are posing severe threats to older adults and those with existing health problems.
The US authorised new Covid-19 booster shots which targets both Omicron and the original coronavirus, and has expanded the use of the booster to include children as young as 6 months.
In addition, only 13.5 per cent of the US population ages 5 years and older have received the updated booster doses since they became available in September, CDC data showed.
Protect yourself from Covid-19 and flu this winter with the best protection on offer – VACCINES
As the weather gets colder, more of us naturally take to gathering indoors, especially as the festive celebrations get underway. However, the reality is that with Covid-19 and flu around, the most vulnerable amongst us, including those with long-term health conditions, are still at risk of getting seriously ill from these viruses.
There are many health conditions like diabetes, cardiovascular and kidney diseases that put people at increased risk of flu and Covid-19, which is why they are eligible for a free flu vaccine and a Covid-19 booster.
Nadia Ali
“It’s so important that myself and people around me are vaccinated to keep us all healthy and safe”. Says Nadia Ali, a BBC broadcaster whose husband has Crohn’s disease, a long term health condition with treatment that means his immune system is compromised, and sadly lost both grandmothers to Covid. “After having our vaccines, this autumn we feel a lot safer as a family. I now have the freedom to socialise, which is important because my job means I am always around people.”
Like many people living with someone whose immunity is compromised, Nadia is acutely aware she needs to help protect him by having these essential vaccines. She is one of many millions across the UK who have had both their Covid-19 booster and flu jab this autumn/winter season.
Data shows that protection provided by Covid-19 vaccines decreases over time, so it is essential to keep your immunity ‘topped up’ by having a Covid-19 booster this autumn/winter. The flu virus can change each year and can cause severe illness and hospitalisation for those most at risk, so those eligible also need a flu vaccine every year. Unvaccinated people are at a much higher risk of being hospitalised with Covid-19 or flu. Vaccines are our best protection.
This winter, the NHS is urging those with certain long term health conditions to get their Covid-19 booster and flu vaccine now. Evidence shows that, for example, those with diabetes are six times more likely to die from flu and are also at higher risk from Covid-19, whilst those with heart disease are 11 times more likely to die from flu and are also at increased risk from Covid-19.
Dr Henna Anwar
Dr Henna Anwar, a GP in West Yorkshire who has been active within the community encouraging vaccine uptake, said: “There are a number of health conditions that are more common within the South Asian community like diabetes or coronary heart disease that put them at higher risk of serious illness and even hospitalisation from Covid-19 and flu. That’s why it’s so important that we encourage people with these conditions to protect themselves by getting vaccinated.”
“I am a firm believer that prevention is better than cure. These vaccines offer the best protection from Covid-19 and flu, they have good safety records, and millions of people have had them globally. We owe it to each other as a community to do everything we can within our power to protect not just ourselves but each other, and these vaccines offer a way to do this”.
More mixing indoors and intergenerational living can also increase the spread of these viruses, especially among children. That’s why young children are eligible for the free flu nasal spray vaccine.
Kirit Mistry
Kirit Mistry, the founder of South Asian Health Action, has type 2 diabetes, along with his twin. His twin was in ICU for almost two weeks with Covid-19, and now suffers from long Covid. Kirit also lost his cousin, aged 42, from Bradford to Covid. He knows the importance of protecting himself and his brother, and said, “Last year, I was unable to travel and do things like swimming, but now both my brother and I can continue to enjoy what we love with confidence and peace of mind. Soon I will be in India, so to protect myself and others, I recently had my Covid-19 booster and flu vaccine.”
“Misinformation has prevented many people with long term health conditions from making the right choices. I strongly advise them to speak to healthcare professionals and get their flu vaccine and Covid-19 booster. They are offered these vaccines to provide the very best protection that they need due to their health condition.”
To find out if you’re eligible for a free flu vaccine and Covid-19 booster and to book your appointments, visit: nhs.uk/wintervaccinations
Weiss shares a screenshot on her Twitter, which shows Bhattacharya’s account marked as having a “recent abuse strike” and as being on a “trends blacklist”…reports Asian Lite News
Jay Bhattacharya, an Indian-origin Stanford University professor, who had said that Covid lockdowns would harm children, was placed on a “Trends Blacklist”, internal Twitter documents have revealed
The second installment of “Twitter Files” released by journalist Bari Weiss on her social media platform took the lid off cases where the microblogging website prevented the tweets from trending.
Weiss shares a screenshot on her Twitter, which shows Bhattacharya’s account marked as having a “recent abuse strike” and as being on a “trends blacklist”.
“…Take, for example, Stanford’s Dr Jay Bhattacharya who argued that Covid lockdowns would harm children. Twitter secretly placed him on a “Trends Blacklist”, which prevented his tweets from trending,” Weiss wrote on Twitter.
Weiss said that the “investigation reveals that teams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavoured tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics — all in secret, without informing users”.
“This secret group included the Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust (Vijaya Gadde), the Global Head of Trust & Safety (Yoel Roth), subsequent CEOs Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal, and others,” she mentioned in a tweet thread.
Twitter always denied that it did such things.
In 2018, Gadde and Kayvon Beykpour, Head of Product, said: “We do not shadow ban. And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.”
After Weiss’ revelations, Bhattacharya took to his Twitter to say: “Still trying to process my emotions on learning that @twitter blacklisted me. The thought that will keep me up tonight: censorship of scientific discussion permitted policies like school closures & a generation of children were hurt.”
“I’m curious about what role the government played in Twitter’s suppression of covid policy discussion. We will see with time, I suppose,” Bhattacharya said in an earlier tweet.
The “Twitter Files 2” came after former CEO Jack Dorsey challenged Elon Musk to stop creating sensation around the ‘Twitter Files’ and make everything public instead “without filter”.
Musk last week released the first episode of ‘The Twitter Files’ into the controversial decision to suppress Hunter Biden’s laptop story on the platform.
A teacher guides students to line up for their snacks at Montrara Ave. Elementary School in Los Angeles, California, the United States, on Aug. 16, 2021. (Xinhua/IANS)
A total of 28,600 child Covid-19 cases were reported in the latest week ending December 1..reports Asian Lite News
Over 15 million children in the US have tested positive for Covid-19 since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, according to the latest report by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children’s Hospital Association. About 114,000 of these cases have been added in the past four weeks.
A total of 28,600 child Covid-19 cases were reported in the latest week ending December 1, said the report, adding that cases are likely a substantial undercount of the ones among children.
There is a need to collect more age-specific data to assess the severity of illness related to new variants as well as potential longer-term effects, said the report.
“It is important to recognise there are immediate effects of the pandemic on children’s health, but importantly we need to identify and address the long-lasting impacts on the physical, mental, and social well-being of this generation of children and youth,” said the AAP.
People wait to be vaccinated at a monkeypox vaccination site in Los Angeles, California, the United States, on Aug. 11, 2022. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua/IANS)
The County recorded 76 Covid-19 deaths for the week ending Monday, up from 53 fatalities reported in the prior week…reports Asian Lite News
Los Angeles is experiencing another Covid-19 surge, with cases rising by 75 per cent in the last week. The Los Angeles County reported an average of 3,721 daily coronavirus cases in the seven-day period ending on Monday, up from 2,128 the prior week.
The latest case rate doubled what it was just before Thanksgiving, and tripled the rate recorded in the first week of November. Covid-19 deaths have also started to increase.
The County recorded 76 Covid-19 deaths for the week ending Monday, up from 53 fatalities reported in the prior week.
“While there still is uncertainty about what the impact of Covid-19 will be this winter, there is mounting evidence that we are entering another Covid-19 surge,” the county’s Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said in a statement.
“There is a common line of thinking that the pandemic is over, that Covid-19 is no longer of concern,” she said.
“But given both the increases in hospitalizations and the lack of certainty in the winter trajectory for Covid-19, it’s important to continue common-sense mitigation strategies that we know work to limit transmission and illness, including masking and being up-to-date on vaccines and boosters.”
Officials have urged the public to get Covid-19 vaccines and boosters to prevent severe illnesses.
Fatality rates are highest among those who either have not been vaccinated or are not up to date on their booster shot, according to health officials.
Seoul :Bandaranaike international airport officials wears masks as they direct tourists after they went through a temperature scanner at Bandaranaike international airport in Katunayake, Sri Lanka, Jan. 24, 2020.(Yonhap/IANS)
The requirement for a negative Covid-19 test on arrival or before boarding, includingPCR and rapid antigen tests (RAT), was no longer required…reports Asian Lite News
Sri Lanka’s Health Ministry on Wednesday said it has removed Covid-19 restrictions that were in place on for foreign arrivals.
In a statement, the Ministry that the requirement to produce a Covid-19 vaccination certificate by any person arriving from overseas has been removed with immediate effect, reports Xinhua news agency.
Also, the requirement for a negative Covid-19 test on arrival or before boarding, including polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and rapid antigen tests (RAT), was no longer required.
If foreign nationals or tourists test positive for the virus after landing in Sri Lanka, they should isolate themselves for seven days in a private hospital, hotel, or where they reside, said the Ministry.
It added that the cost of treatment or isolation should be borne by themselves.
People wearing face masks are seen at a COVID-19 vaccine clinic in Los Angeles, California, the United States, on Aug. 5, 2022. (Xinhua/IANS)
WHO’s statistics has shown that the number of weekly deaths reported to it has declined slightly over the past five weeks, but more than 8,500 people lost their lives last week…reports Asian Lite News
The World Health Organization (WHO) said that although the world is “much closer” to end the emergency phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, it warned that Omicron was still circulating rampantly and continues to cause significant mortality.
“We are much closer to being able to say that the emergency phase of the pandemic is over — but we’re not there yet,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press briefing here.
The reason behind is that “Omicron has proved to be significantly more transmissible than its predecessor, Delta, and continues to cause significant mortality due to the intensity of transmission”.
Meanwhile, “gaps in surveillance, testing, sequencing and vaccination are continuing to create the perfect conditions for a new variant of concern to emerge that could cause significant mortality”, Tedros added.
Pedestrians pass a sign advertising a COVID-19 testing site in New York, the United States, on May 12, 2022. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua/IANS)
WHO’s statistics has shown that the number of weekly deaths reported to it has declined slightly over the past five weeks, but more than 8,500 people lost their lives last week.
It’s “not acceptable three years into the pandemic, when we have so many tools to prevent infections and save lives”, he said.
The WHO chief, however, admitted that Omicron, of which over 500 sublineages are circulating, tends to cause less severe disease than previous variants of concern.
WHO estimates that at least 90 per cent of the world’s population now has some level of immunity to SARS-CoV-2, due to prior infection or vaccination.
According to Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, at least 2.5 million cases worldwide were reported to WHO in the last week alone, but that number was a gross under-estimate of the circulation of the virus around the world.
Some estimates from wastewater data has suggested that the number of new cases could be as much as five times higher in some countries, meaning the virus is still circulating rampantly around the globe.
“So people over the age of 60, people with underlying conditions, immunocompromised and our frontline workers… We have not yet reached that target of a hundred percent of (vaccinating) at-risk people around the world in every country. And this is what we want governments to focus on,” said Van Kerkhove.
