#but she’s one of the higher ranking nurses in the local hospital

[psychoticwillgraham]

my sister: ‘yknow, you don’t deserve all of the stuff John’s (dad’s name) been buying you, because he’s just rewarding laziness. he just feels sorry for you and the current state you’re in. it’s not like he’s actually attempting to help you.’

me: ‘I sure don’t see you trying to help’

[hanbintms]

            it  is  eye  ,  kofi  ,  back  on  your  dash  with  my  newest  child  !  as  a  reminder  :  i’m  twenty4  ,  prefer  she / her  or  they / them  pronouns  ,  and  i  reside  in  the  est  timezone  !  the  muse  that  i  have  flowing  for  hanbin  is  truly  unmatched  even  though  i  literally  came  up  with  him  within  like  . . .  three  hours  ,  no  kidding  .  that  being  said  ,  he’s  a  brand  new  muse  and  i  can’t  wait  to  plot  with  everyone  once  again  (  or  for  the  first  time  !  )  i  won’t  talk  your  ears  off  as  i  know  this  intro  might  get  a  little  long  ,  but  aside  from  that  ,  can’t  wait  to  write  hanbin  with  ya’ll  !

            (  SONG  KANG , THIRTY , CIS  MAN , HE / HIM  )  *  hey  ,  i’m  looking  for  the  office  of  HANBIN  KOO  .  they’re  the  EMPLOYEE  /  IN - HOUSE  CHEF  who’s  known  around  the  office  as  THE  EPICURE  ,  if  that  helps  ?  not  to  be  a  gossip  ,  but  i’ve  heard  that  they’re  AFFABLE  but  UNCOUTH  ,  is  that  true  ?  i  also  heard  that  they’re  the  one  who  THREW  ICED  TEA  AT  HIS  EX  IN  THE  LOBBY  .  anyways  ,  here’s  the  coffee  they  ordered  .

statistics.

            name  :  koo  hanbin  .  nicknames  :  han  ,  hannie  ,  hanbinie  ,  +  binnie  .  age  +  date  of  birth  :  thirty  +  january  9th,  1991  .  zodiac  :  capricorn  .  moral  alignment  :  true  neutral  .  gender  +  pronouns  :  cis  man  +  he / him / his .  place  of  birth  :  busan  ,  south  korea  .  place  of  residence  :  west  village  ,  new  york  city  ,  new  york  .  orientation  :  bisexual  biromantic  .  occupation  :  in  house  chef  and  internet  personality  .  nationality  :  korean  (  holds  american  citizenship  )  .  ethnicity  :  korean  .  language(s)  spoken  :  korean  ,  english  ,  conversational  italian  ,  and  conversational  japanese  .

background.

            koo  hanbin’s  life  was  relatively  normal  when  he  was  born  .  his  mom  ,  koo  seonghwa  ,  worked  as  a  nurse  in  the  pediatric  department  of  a  local  hospital  in  busan  while  his  father  ,  koo  kyuchul  ,  was  an  office  worker  .  they  weren’t  the  richest  family  ,  nowhere  near  it  ,  but  the  koo  family  made  it  work  .  hanbin  has  more  memories  of  being  with  his  grandparents  more  often  than  his  parents  simply  because  of  their  demanding  careers ,  but  that’s  not  to  say  that  they  weren’t  loving  and  attentive  parents  when  they  had  time  to  be  with  their  only  son  .  

             however  ,  life  began  to  change  for  him  when  was  six  years  old  .  suddenly  ,  the  money  began  to  dwindle  as  quickly  as  it  was  brought  in  .  the  refrigerator  wasn’t  full  unless  seonghwa’s  mother  would  make  some  things  for  them  ,  and  kyuchul  was  coming  home  later  and  later  .  seonghwa  began  to  work  harder  in  an  attempt  to  break  even  ,  but  she  never  seemed  to  get  her  head  above  water  .  she’d  confront  her  husband  about  the  large  sums  of  money  that  would  disappear  from  their  account  ,  but  he  always  blamed  it  on  higher  bills  ,  raised  rent  ,  or  sudden  payments  that  he  had  to  make  .  it  never  made  any  sense  ,  but  seonghwa  started  a  separate  account  to  ensure  their  son  could  at  least  have  food  on  the  table  and  clothes  for  school  .

            the  next  couple  of  years  go  by  and  the  money  situation  worsens  ,  with  seonghwa  getting  to  her  wits  end  .  she  spends  more  time  with  hanbin  at  her  parents’  place  ,  sleeping  with  her  son  in  her  old  bedroom  and  hoping  he  doesn’t  hear  her  cry  at  night  .  she  struggles  to  understand  why  her  husband  is  keeping  secrets  from  her  ,  especially  as  they’ve  been  married  happily  for  the  last  eleven  years  ,  but  it  takes  some  tough  love  from  her  mother  to  get  seonghwa  to  pick  herself  up  .  so  ,  she  decides  to  confront  her  husband  one  night  when  she  finds  out  his  location  from  one  of  his  co - workers  ,  and  she’s  devastated  .  seonghwa  finds  kyuchul  with  a  younger  woman  ,  gambling  away  her  hard  earned  money  .  like  a  scene  out  of  a  drama  ,  seonghwa  kicks  her  husband  where  the  sun  doesn’t  shine  and  promptly  dragged  the  other  woman  outside  to  wack  her  upside  the  head  with  her  purse  .  seonghwa  was  hurt  ,  but  she  had  finally  gotten  answers  ,  and  she  wasn’t  going  to  be  embarrassed  like  this  ever  again  .

            so  ,  seonghwa  and  hanbin  permanently  move  in  with  her  parents  ,  and  it  takes  some  time  for  seonghwa  to  get  over  kyuchul  .  she  focuses  on  her  child  and  her  job  .  from  the  age  of  ten  ,  hanbin  began  spending  more  time  with  his  grandparents  in  their  small  ,  but  popular  barbecue  meat  restaurant  .  when  he  finishes  his  homework  ,  he  helps  his  grandparents  take  orders  ,  and  he  slowly  begins  to  work  the  kitchen  as  he  gets  older  .  his  grandparents  soon  leave  the  kitchen  work  to  him  as  they  get  up  in  age  ,  and  hanbin  runs  the  kitchen  as  if  he’d  been  doing  it  for  over  twenty  years  .  however  ,  when  he  graduates  from  high  school  ,  hanbin  decides  to  spread  his  wings  .  over  the  last  twelve  years  or  so  ,  hanbin  honed  his  cooking  skills  from  his  grandfather  and  spent  most  of  his  childhood  in  the  kitchen  ,  so  his  grandparents  passed  their  restaurant  down  to  seonghwa’s  brother  ,  and  hanbin  left  for  new  york  .

            eighteen  years  old  and  with  only  enough  money  to  get  a  small  sublet  ,  he  knew  he  needed  to  find  a  job  pronto  .  without  formal  kitchen  training  ,  hanbin  would  often  get  turned  away  from  jobs  (  because  he  was  better  than  a  busboy  !  )  and  eventually  ,  the  fates  was  on  his  side  .  he  forced  his  way  into  the  kitchen  of  a  popular  italian  restaurant  ,  immediately  snagging  the  title  of  junior  chef  .  hanbin  ,  a  fast  learner  with  even  faster  knife  skills  ,  easily  works  his  way  up  the  ranks  within  the  restaurant  .  within  six  years  ,  hanbin  becomes  head  chef  and  is  a  force  to  be  reckoned  with  in  the  kitchen  .  although  his  income  changes  significantly  ,  hanbin  starts  a  youtube  channel  in  hopes  of  sharing  his  love  for  food  and  cooking  .  within  a  year  ,  his  following  grows  substantially  ,  and  he’s  approached  to  broaden  his  efforts  by  working  at  masters  international  .

at masters.

hanbin  has  been  at  masters  for  five  years  .  he  started  working  here  after  his  youtube  channel  expanded  ,  and  he  was  approached  to  create  his  own  cooking  content  for  masters’  youtube  channel  .  

basically  ,  he  has  his  own  version  of  test  kitchen  ,  but  it’s  not  really  the  same  thing  .  he  makes  recipes  for  holidays  ,  celebrations  ,  and  is  constantly  showing  how  to  make  traditional  korean  dishes  (  would  not  be  surprised  if  he  has  a  ‘  cooking  with  my  mom  !  ’  type  series  )  .

gives  food  tips  too  like  which  wines  pair  best  with  certain  foods  or  how  to  make  the  most  out  of  your  first  hosting  gig  .  probably  has  a  video  where  he  shares  his  cooking  playlist  because  he  wants  you  to  get  in  the  mood  😌  .

probably  came  up  with  the  special  lunch  for  Daddy  Masters™  but  gets  ticked  when  he’s  asked  to  cook  it  because  does  that  man  know  a  schedule  ?  probably  not  .  [  ‘  we  were  on  a  break  !  ’  specifically  ,  hanbin2   was  on  his  lunch  break  .  ] 

is  it  true  that  he  threw  an  iced  tea  in  his  ex’s  face  ?  absolutely  ,  and  he  has  no  problem  admitting  it  lmao  .  who  was  said  ex  ?  i  guess  we’ll  never  know  [  this  a  number  one  champion  sound  ]  .

probably  well  received  around  the  office  but  i  wouldn’t  be  surprised  if  people  disliked  him  .  it  could  be  his  off  putting  persona  or  honestly  the  simple  fact  that  he’s  got  a  lot  of  sass  and  no  ass  .

headcanons.

you  can  read  a  full  list  of  headcanons  HERE  ;  below  is  an  abridged  version  .

has  a  gyeongsang  dialect  from  living  in  busan  ,  and  honestly  . . .  that’s  hot  .  so  ,  when  he  speaks  in  korean  it’s  rather  strong  and  aggressive  /  pitch  is  vastly  different  from  other  parts  of  korea  .  

i  literally  have  no  idea  how  to  explain  his  personality  other  than  by  using  his  moral  alignment  :  true  neutral  .  he’s  kinda  that  guy  who  knows  everything  but  won’t  tell  you  that  he  does  ?  did  he  eavesdrop  ?  maybe  ,  but  he  won’t  tell  you  that  .  he’s  largely  indifferent  to  a  lot  of  what  happens  around  masters  and  maybe  it’s  because  he’s  been  here  for  half  a  decade  ;  he’ll  just  make  sure  you  drink  water  if  you’re  drunk  and  crying  .

a  Dog  Father™  to  a  little  re:  big  goldendoodle  named  duri  .  he  is  most  definitely  judging  you  and  can  often  be  found  sunbathing  in  that  solarium  .  

a  very  simple  man  when  it  comes  to  his  coffee  :  caffè  americano  or  an  espresso  macchiato  please  .  and  don’t  forget  the  butter  croissant  !

mostly  expressionless  . . .  like  i  really  have  no  idea  how  to  explain  how  he  looks  at  people  because  i  feel  that  stoic  is  too  harsh  of  a  word  .  if  you  wanna  know  how  he  feels  though  ,  he  has  extremely  expressive  eyes  .

he  won’t  admit  it  but  he  loves  hosting  .  office  potluck  ?  he’s  your  guy  .  having  a  conference  ?  he’ll  make  your  snacks  .  if  you’re  coming  over  he’ll  make  a  charcuterie  board  and  will  lie  saying  he  made  it  with  some  stuff  he  had  on  hand  (  but  that’s  a  lie  ,  he  went  to  the  grocery  store  and  obsessed  over  it  for  a  solid  three  hours  )  .

finds  joy  in  the  mundane  .  some  people  might  think  he’s  weird  because  he  loves  grocery  shopping  ,  and  heavily  judges  people’s  carts  because  processed  food  ?  yuck  !  he  won’t  say  that  to  your  face  though  he’ll  just  be  like  ‘  are  you  sure  you  wanna  buy  that  ?  ’  and  will  sneakily  replace  your  frozen  pizza  with  pizza  ingredients  hehe  .

that  being  said  don’t  take  him  grocery  shopping  with  you  NFUDNSFDS  .  he  gets  ticked  about  food  waste  ,  and  those  who  don’t  use  reusable  bags  .   probably  has  a  lil  garden  at  his  place  and  composts  !  is  angry  about  people  calling  a  chunk  of  cauliflower  a  steak  (  in  other  words  ,  don’t  to  it  )  !

wanted connections.

DISCLAIMER  :  i  will  not  be  plotting  anything  romantic  with  characters  under  the  age  of  twenty - five  due  to  his  age  !

ONE  TRUE  LOVE  :  this  is  open  to  literally  anyone  ,  preferably  like  ,  28  to  30  but  we  can  talk  details  .  truly  ,  they’re  his  one  true  love  as  the  title  states  ,  and  i  like  to  believe  that  they  were  a  really  happy  couple  who  had  a  meet - cute  .  they  moved  in  together  and  things  were  great  ,  but  they  broke  up  when  they  felt  a  mutual  dissolve  in  their  relationship  .  that  being  said  ,  they’re  good  friends  now  !

BEST  FRIEND  :  who  wouldn’t  love  a  best  friend  .  basically  ,  they  get  along  well  ,  and  they  are  used  to  sung’s  non - verbal  communication  NVJCNXJV  .  it’d  be  really  fun  if  they  had  totally  different  personalities  but  somehow  they  managed  to  click  .  TAKEN  BY  GRIFFIN  OLSON  .

TASTE  TESTER  :  someone  who  he  calls  on  to  often  try  his  food  at  the  office  .  they  possibly  will  appear  in  his  videos  on  masters’  youtube  channel  ,  so  i  think  a  relationship  based  around  food  would  be  really  fun  !  TAKEN  BY  KENNEDY  CRAWFORD  /  SORAYA  HATHAWAY  .

HORN  DOGS  (  DEROGATORY  )  :  i  have  no  other  name  for  this  plot  but  i’m  thinking  two  people  who  cannot  keep  their  hands  off  of  one  another  .  i’m  talking  sneaky  touches  in  the  elevator  ,  secret  hook  ups  in  the  seventh  floor  bathroom  ,  quick  makeouts  and  nearly  getting  caught  .  bonus  points  if  people  around  the  office  don’t  believe  they’re  Banging™  because  their  personalities  are  so  different  .  

CRUSH  :  also  known  as  ,  someone  having  a  crush  on  him  ,  but  he  sees  them  as  a  friend  (  or  even  worse  ,  like  a  younger  sibling  )  .  TAKEN  BY  AYLIN  SAHIN  .

PLATONIC  SOULMATE  :  best  friends  ,  but  make  it  sentimental  .  they  are  thicker  than  thieves  ,  get  on  each  other’s  nerves  ,  but  they  don’t  know  what  they’d  do  without  the  other  .  finish  each  other’s  sentences  (  and  sandwiches  .  sung  will  finish  it  )  and  are  borderline  like  an  old  married  couple  with  the  way  they  act  .

that’s  all  i  got  now  but  i’ve  reblogged  some  posts  that  can  be  found  HERE  and  i’m  down  to  fill  any  wcs  that  you  may  have  as  well  !

[dmndmyths]

✨  stana katic, female, she/her    —    whenever i see athena zoric meandering down agnes street keep climbing by delta goodrem starts to play inside my head. maybe it is the vibe they give off. dried flower petals littered everywhere, steady hands in unsteady moments and pieces of hair that continue to escape it’s hold ;   you know ? everybody’s bookstore is what keeps them interested in agnes. i heard they are a forty-two year old nurse. they look like the kind of person who makes the best hot chocolate imaginable.

trigger warnings: war, violence, disability, injury, child loss, ptsd

the name athena says quite explicitly what charles zoric expected of his daughter. it was homage to war which had been ingrained in the blood of the zoric’s for generations. maybe if his wife, valentina had lived beyond her daughter’s birth that he wouldn’t have been so cold. maybe he would have been able to look at her properly and see his child instead of another future soldier.

unfortunately, this was not the case as valentina had indeed passed away after giving birth to athena. as an adult, she would meet those who knew her father before hand and almost every single told that valentina’s broke him, that he’d never been the same since. even so, having a father would have been nice. that was not her fate and as she spent her childhood bouncing around from military base to military base, she learnt to cope. she lost herself in books, taking her to worlds she had never dreamed of and music, which filled the often silent home. 

growing up, there was never in doubt as to what she would do with her life. the moment she hit eighteen and graduated school, she’d be signing up for the military, just like her dad did and his dad before him and his dad before that. if she had siblings, maybe he wouldn’t have expected so much of her but there was no one else. as a teenager, she dared to dream that he might let her do something else. maybe study literature or become a translator, something that wasn’t war. maybe he would have, had she not gotten pregnant. 

her senior year, her and her father spent in tennessee. at seventeen, she was certain that she was in love with her boyfriend at the time. he was bright and shone like the sun. they thought that had done everything right but apparently not as  just before she graduated, she found out she was pregnant. it wasn’t until a few months later when she told her dad and before she could say anything about raising their child, he was declaring that they were going to move away. it didn’t matter that she was almost eighteen, that she was in love and had a semblance of a plan. this was an embarrassment and it could ruin his plan. within a week, they were flying off to the next military base. she never saw her boyfriend again. 

when the child was born, she was given no choice but to give him up. sure, by that point she was eighteen and could legally make her own decisions but charles told her that in no way could she keep her child and no one argued with major general charles zoric. so, she let her baby go. a part of her heart went with them. then, as soon as she was physically able, she enlisted in the military just like she was always meant to. 

she served for about twenty years and only reached the rank of sergeant. she could have gone higher if she wanted but it was the one rebellion against her father. she would serve like he made her, but she would not send men and women to their deaths while she stayed safe. if he wanted her in it, she would stay in it. and that she did, until four and a half years ago that is. 

six months into what was supposed to be a two year tour in afghanistan, her and her team were in a helicopter, being flown to their target when not five minutes into being in the air, they were shot down. she was pinned underneath the nose of the helicopter. two days later, they were found. 

the accident resulted in permanent nerve damage causing chronic pain in her right leg and the need for a cane. on the bad days, she’s in a wheelchair. it took her six months to get to what would be her new normal and upon that, she decided to move to islebury instead of staying in her home town of los angeles. she craved something smaller, something far far away from what she had spent her life doing. 

it was that desire that caused her to instead of taking up some kind of administrative role in the army, she decided to get a nursing degree instead. after years of being involved in creating pain, she desired to help it. like she herself had been helped. it wasn’t easy considering her disability and her age but she was determined and she made it. she completed her degree and is now a general nurse at the local hospital.

athena was not just the goddess of war but of wisdom and after everything she’s been through, athena zoric wants to represent wisdom not war. four years of living in islebury has given her just a little bit of hope that maybe that’s possible. sometimes, anyway.

[woliyolu]

Macao Health Code

Someone who satisfies the requirements for being admitted into the locality is given a visa and is permitted to reside permanently in Macao, regardless of the amount of days he has spent in Macao or his immigration status.

https://de.ivisa.com/macao-health-code

The Macao Health Code is the regional health code for the municipalities and autonomous regions of the Republic of Macao, the area where this very small island is located. The regional Macao Health Code regulates the amount of hours of health care employees are permitted to work and the rules regarding their qualifications. The code stipulates that hospital staff members must be adequately trained and that the local people know of the treatment they receive. Healthcare workers that are paid a higher wage than the local individuals have a more stable job and, therefore, are much better able to access healthcare in case of a crisis. Regardless of how the government controls the hospitals, the hospital rooms occupy the lowest positions in the ranking among the public areas of worship in Macao. This standing occurs although the government provides the majority of the funding for these associations.

The primary regulation of this Macao health code is the number of hours of medical care employees are permitted to do the job. In certain municipalities, the very same regulations apply to nuclear medicine specialists that are allowed to work in one practice for up to 3 days. There are also regulations regarding the kind of health care offered in the event that the resident becomes sick or becomes contaminated with a communicable disease. In cases like this, the resident must be admitted to a local hospital before receiving treatment from a specialist. The resident then ought to have a unique identification tag made in the title of the hospital wherein the nurse understands the correct therapy process.

The Macao Health Code also stipulates that the use of a private hand-pans and bowls are strictly prohibited, as it eases the spread of epidemics. In this aspect, the residents need to wash their hands daily with water containing chlorine, and they ought to thoroughly rinse their utensils with hot water. There are also specific rules regarding using the mutual hand-pans and bowls by kids and from domestic animals. Moreover, the quarantine health code system ensures that the resident's palms, bedding, along with any food or water which has been touched by a non-resident during his trip to the village or town, is sterilized with special disinfectants.

The quarantine period is among the most important sections of the Macao Health Code. The law stipulates that throughout the first day of the execution of this Macao Health Code, no non-resident can live in the village or town with no resident accompany him. Throughout the next day, all persons who didn't comply with the provisions of the legislation are exposed to penalties ranging from a good to five days of imprisonment. The conditions of the law regarding the quarantine period aren't limited on the length of the sentence, however, nor are the penalties restricted to the initial fine just.

The quarantine period can be extended by an additional seven days, when the resident does not comply with the terms and conditions of this Macao Health Code. The term,"shutting the door of chance," is the way the Macao Health Code frames the cancellation of Macao's right to take entries if a person fails to abide by the conditions of the law. It's in this context the term"quota system" is used. In the case of the cancellation of Macao's right to accept entries, the authorities of the area where the applicant was admitted, or the delegated authorities, depending upon the Macao Health Code, decide on a fixed quota system depending on the volume of individuals immigrating into the Macao Special Administrative region. A person who fulfills the prerequisites for being admitted into the area is given a visa and is allowed to reside permanently in Macao, whatever the amount of days he's invested in Macao or his immigration status.

The third section of the Macao Health Code provides information on how the quarantine of particular persons arriving at kong (the local term for Macao) ought to be completed. In accordance with this section, the inspecting authority is required to notify the resident of the measures to be taken in case he or she shows signs of their above-mentioned syndromes. This section also clarifies how the prescribed drugs should be administered.

[newstfionline]

Thursday, November 19, 2020

Most expensive cities (CNBC) Zurich and Paris have displaced Singapore and Osaka in a recent report on the world’s most expensive cities. The two Asian cities previously joined Hong Kong at the top of the rankings. That’s based on The Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest Worldwide Cost of Living index which shows how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the prices of goods and services in more than 130 cities as of September 2020. According to the report, Zurich and Paris’ jump to first place was due to the strengthening of the Swiss franc and the euro. “The Covid-19 pandemic has caused the weakening of the U.S. dollar while western European and north Asian currencies have strengthened against it, which in turn has shifted prices for goods and services,” said Upasana Dutt, head of Worldwide Cost of Living at The EIU. New York City is used as the base city in the index. The top ten: Zurich, Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tel Aviv, Osaka, Geneva, New York, Copenhagen, Los Angeles.

U.S., Canada, Mexico to extend border restrictions until late December (AP) U.S. land borders with Canada and Mexico are expected to remain closed to non-essential travel until Dec. 21 at the earliest amid a rising number of U.S. coronavirus cases, officials in Washington and Ottawa told Reuters on Wednesday. Mexico’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the decision later on Wednesday in a post on Twitter. The restrictions were first put in place in March to control the spread of the virus and have been extended on a monthly basis ever since. In Ottawa, a Canadian government source said the travel restrictions in place at the Canada-U.S. land border would remain in effect for at least another month.

Recession With a Difference: Women Face Special Burden (NYT) For millions of working women, the coronavirus pandemic has delivered a rare and ruinous one-two-three punch. First, the parts of the economy that were smacked hardest and earliest by job losses were ones where women dominate—restaurants, retail businesses and health care. Then a second wave began taking out local and state government jobs, another area where women outnumber men. The third blow has, for many, been the knockout: the closing of child care centers and the shift to remote schooling. That has saddled working mothers, much more than fathers, with overwhelming household responsibilities. “We’ve never seen this before,” said Betsey Stevenson, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan and the mother of a second grader and a sixth grader. Recessions usually start by gutting the manufacturing and construction industries, where men hold most of the jobs, she said. The triple punch is not just pushing women out of jobs they held, but also preventing many from seeking new ones.

U.S. to Drop Case Against Mexican Ex-Official to Allow Inquiry in Mexico (NYT) The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to drop drug trafficking and corruption charges against a former Mexican defense minister to allow Mexican officials to investigate him, Attorney General William P. Barr announced Tuesday in an abrupt reversal a month after the official was arrested in Los Angeles. The official, Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, had been Mexico’s defense minister from 2012 to 2018 and was accused of taking bribes in exchange for protecting cartel leaders. But Mr. Barr and Mexico’s attorney general, Alejandro Gertz Manero, stopped short in a statement of promising any charges in Mexico. In a court filing, prosecutors acknowledged that the Trump administration had determined that preserving its relationship with Mexico prevailed over pursuing the case. “The United States has determined that sensitive and important foreign policy considerations outweigh the government’s interest in pursuing the prosecution of the defendant, under the totality of the circumstances, and therefore require dismissal of the case,” they wrote in asking a judge to dismiss the charges.

Biden’s DIY transition proceeds without Trump assistance (AP) President Donald Trump’s refusal to cooperate with his successor is forcing President-elect Joe Biden to seek unusual workarounds to prepare for the exploding public health threat and evolving national security challenges he will inherit in just nine weeks. Blocked from the official intelligence briefing traditionally afforded to incoming presidents, Biden gathered virtually on Tuesday with a collection of intelligence, defense and diplomatic experts. And as the worst pandemic in a century bears down on the U.S. with renewed ferocity, the current administration is blocking Biden from collaborating with its response team. Biden’s representatives instead plan to meet directly with pharmaceutical companies this week to determine how best to distribute at least two promising vaccines to hundreds of millions of Americans, the biggest logistical challenge to face a new president in generations. The moves reflect how Biden is adjusting to a historically tense transition. With no sign that Trump is prepared to facilitate soon a peaceful transfer of power, Biden and his team are instead working through a series of backup options to do the best they can to prepare for the challenges he will face as soon as he takes office in January.

When Trump Goes, Can the Democrats Hold It Together? (NYT) The Democratic Party is struggling with internal contradictions, as its mixed performance on Election Day makes clear. Analysts and insiders are already talking—sometimes in apocalyptic terms—about how hard it will be for Joe Biden to hold together the coalition that elected him as the 46th president. The intraparty dispute burst out full force on Nov. 5 during a three-hour House Democratic Caucus telephone meeting. Moderates angrily lashed out at liberals, accusing them of allowing divisive rhetoric such as “defund the police” and calls for socialism to go largely unchallenged. Those on the left pushed right back, accusing centrists of seeking to downgrade the demands of minorities, including those voiced at Black Lives Matter protests. Abigail Spanberger, who represents the 7th Congressional District in Virginia—which runs from the suburbs of Richmond through the exurban and rural counties in the center of the state—voiced her instantly famous critique of the liberal wing of her party during the phone call: “We have to be pretty clear about the fact that Tuesday—Nov. 3—from a congressional standpoint, was a failure,” she told her Democratic colleagues. “The number one concern that people brought to me” during the campaign “was defunding the police.” And “We need to not ever use the words ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again because while people think it doesn’t matter, it does matter. And we lost good members because of that.” Representative Rashida Tlaib, whose Michigan district is among the poorest in the country, and who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America—directly countered Spanberger and other moderates: “To be real, it sounds like you are saying stop pushing for what Black folks want.” Other Democrats who describe themselves as democratic socialists, including the former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, have become a substantial Democratic constituency.

Pandemic media syndrome? (Scientific American) According to Claudia Wallis, of Scientific American, recent studies have shown that the pandemic’s toll on mental health has been even worse than experts expected, especially among young adults. Roxane Cohen Silver, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, found that “increased engagement with media coverage of the outbreak” is a major driver of anxiety among people of all ages. “If people are engaged with a great deal of media, they are more likely to exhibit and report distress, but that distress seems to draw them further into the media,” Silver says. “It’s a cyclical pattern from which it is difficult to extricate oneself.”

Sweden’s coronavirus strategy (Washington Post) Even Sweden appears to be abandoning the Swedish model. On Monday, the country’s authorities banned gatherings of more than eight people as they grappled with the second coronavirus wave surging through much of Europe. The new restrictions followed other protocols coming into effect this week, including protective measures around nursing homes and bans on alcohol sales at restaurants and bars after 10 p.m. The shift in tone is noteworthy given Sweden’s notorious light-touch approach to the pandemic. “It is a clear and sharp signal to every person in our country as to what applies in the future,” Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said during a news conference Monday. “Don’t go to the gym, don’t go the library, don’t have dinner out, don’t have parties—cancel!” Hospitalizations are rising faster in Sweden than any other European country, and Sweden’s per capita death rate is several times higher than those of its Nordic neighbors Finland, Denmark and Norway.

Amid pandemic, Belgrade street kids find comfort at refuge (AP) In a small, brightly-colored backstreet house in Belgrade a teenage girl is drying her hair, while two others eat lunch in the kitchen. A group of boys are having their temperatures checked at the entrance as a precaution against coronavirus. It’s another busy day for Svratiste, or Roadhouse, Belgrade’s first daily drop-in center for street kids that for years has been a rare oasis of warmth and comfort for the Serbian capital’s most vulnerable inhabitants. Since opening in 2007, Svratiste has welcomed hundreds of children—some as young as five—who have come here to warm up, wash or eat. With social isolation growing and the economic situation worsening in the pandemic, the center’s role has become even more significant. Apart from providing food and clothes, the Svratiste team has also sought to help the children socialize and get to know their town by visiting playgrounds, cinemas and theaters. A key effort has been to include them in the education system and make sure they stay. During the pandemic, the center helped with online classes that most children have no means of following. One of their success stories has been Bosko Markovic, now 18, who first came to Svratiste five years ago. With the center’s help, Markovic has finished high school and now has his eyes set on becoming a policeman, he told the Associated Press. “They (Svratiste) have made me a better person,” he said proudly.

Pompeo To Visit Israeli West Bank Settlements During Farewell Tour (Foreign Policy) U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in Israel today as he continues his whistle-stop tour of U.S. allies. Before he heads to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, he is planning on making history. Pompeo will visit two Israeli settlements both considered in violation of international law, one in the Golan Heights and one in the West Bank. By doing so, he becomes the first U.S. Secretary of State to visit either site. His de facto endorsement of the Israeli occupation stands in contrast to the outgoing Obama administration’s moves in 2016, allowing passage of a United Nations Security Council resolution declaring Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory illegal by abstaining from (rather than vetoing) the vote. His visit also comes as Israel plans to expand a settlement in East Jerusalem, despite outcry from the United Nations and European Union.

Reassured by Biden Win, Palestinians Will Resume Cooperation With Israel (NYT) The Palestinian Authority said Tuesday that it was resuming its cooperation with Israel, ending six months of financial hardship for tens of thousands of West Bank residents and signaling relief over the election of Joseph R. Biden Jr. It was one of the first clear signs that anticipation of a new administration in Washington is having an effect on international relations. The Palestinian announcement undid a set of stringent measures imposed by Mahmoud Abbas, the authority’s president, in May in a desperate protest against plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to unilaterally annex large portions of the occupied West Bank. The Trump administration had indicated it would support some form of annexation, which would have imposed Israeli sovereignty over land that the Palestinians have counted on for a future state. Mr. Abbas cut off security coordination with Israel, raising fears that attacks might go unprevented. He also severed civilian ties, including those that help Palestinians travel into Israel for work or medical treatment. Most painful of all to his own people, Mr. Abbas stopped accepting routine transfers of more than $100 million a month in taxes that Israel collects on the Palestinians’ behalf, funds that account for more than 60 percent of the authority’s budget. The lack of funds forced salary cuts for tens of thousands of public-sector employees, compounding what was already a devastating economic crisis because of the pandemic. “Praise God, I feel so relieved,” Rami Kitaneh, 35, a nurse at the Hugo Chavez Ophthalmic Hospital in the central West Bank, said Tuesday night. “I gave up so much since the start of the crisis, but now I can breathe.”

Security officials worry Israel and Saudi Arabia may see the end of Trump as their last chance to go to war with Iran (Business Insider) European intelligence officials are alarmed about the possibility of military action towards Iran in the waning days of the Trump administration. Concern that Trump—who has pushed for maximum pressure on Iran—or a combination of Israel or Saudi Arabia creating a military confrontation in the waning days of the administration has been a concern for over a week, according to three European intelligence officials who spoke with Insider. The news that last week the president requested a list of military options from his military and diplomatic advisors has sent these concerns into overdrive. One fear is of unilateral action by the US to force a military clash that might make it impossible for the incoming Biden administration to return to the 2015 joint nuclear agreement that traded sanctions relief on Iran for an end to its nuclear weapon programs, all three officials said. They declined to speak on the record in exchange for their candid views on the situation.

People go hungry in Ethiopia’s Tigray as conflict marches on (AP) People are going hungry in Ethiopia’s rebellious northern Tigray region as roads are blocked, airports are closed and the federal government marches on its capital in a final push to win a two-week war. “At this stage there is simply very little left, even if you have money,” according to an internal assessment by one humanitarian group, seen by The Associated Press. The assessment, based on a colleague who managed to get out, said people “will stay where they are, there is no place in Tigray where the situation is any different and they cannot cross over into the other regions of Ethiopia because of fear of what would be done to them.” For more than a week, the United Nations and other aid organizations have been warning of disaster. Long lines formed outside shops within days of the Nov. 4 announcement by Ethiopia’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed that a military offensive had begun in response to an attack by Tigray regional forces on a military base. Trucks laden with food, fuel and medical supplies have been stuck outside the region’s borders. Banks in Tigray were closed for days, cutting off humanitarian cash transfers to some 1 million people. And even before the fighting, a locust outbreak had been destroying crops. Over 27,000 Ethiopians have fled into neighboring Sudan, burdening villages that have been praised for their generosity, though they have little to give.

[lilacsos]

Doctor!SOS

(and Awsten Knight)

A/N: I’m actually super excited to introduce this. I’ve been wanting to do a doctor series since I started this blog and now I’m finally doing it. So this post will be the first instalment to the series and it will be the introductions for all the characters and then next post will be the first writing portion. I’ll have everything sectioned off into the boy they deal with. I hope that makes sense. Anyway, here we go! Also sorry this got long.

Taglist  Masterlist

Dr. Ashton Irwin

Sacred Heart is often sought after for in-patient care for mental illnesses. This is because of Dr. Ashton Irwin. He started at Sacred Heart when the psych ward was in its early stages. He quickly worked his way up in the rankings and soon became head of the whole department. Although most heads of departments tend to “keep their hands clean”, Ashton doesn’t feel the same. He takes time to check on as many patients as he can. Dr. Irwin has admitted in the past that the reason he pursued a career in mental health is because of his own personal struggle. While it may not seem obvious for an aspiring psychologist to apply to a young, hardly existing department, it made sense to Ashton. He wanted to find a new department because he would have a chance to really make the department his own. There wouldn’t be any preconceptions about the department based on previous doctors. With all his training and work under his belt, Dr. Irwin is excited to welcome his newest intern, Dr. Vanessa Calhoun.

Moving for work has never been very easy but when you’re in the middle of trying to become a doctor, it’s even harder. Dr. Vanessa Calhoun was working on applying for internship programs at her local hospitals for psychology. She decided to send in an application to Sacred Heart, not because she thought she would get in but because it can’t hurt to try. Imagine her shock when she received an email from the Dr. Ashton Irwin.  He’s an award-winning psychologist who works at one of the best hospitals in the county, how could she say no? She packed up her life and moved across the country, leaving her friends and family behind. She just hoped it would be worth it. And now it’s her first day and she’s terrified, excited, nervous, and a little lost.

Ashton has a girlfriend. Lucky her. Chloe Owens is possibly one of the luckiest girls on the planet since she gets to kiss and hold Ashton all she wants. She works in the hospital which you think would be a problem for Ashton but it’s not. She’s only a nurse in the P.I.C.U and so Ashton doesn’t technically work with her. But Luke does and he hates her. Not just because she thinks she has special treatment but because she likes to take some of his interns into the on-call room for an “anatomy lesson.”

Dr. Awsten Knight

Dr. Awsten Knight is in his first week of his internship at Sacred Heart Hospital. Awsten graduated top of his class at Dartmouth College. He began his surgical internship hoping that he would get to study under the famous Dr. Leah Rosario, the best attending surgeon at Sacred Heart. While Knight is an amazing surgeon, his cocky attitude will be his downfall. He knows how amazing he is and he uses it to his advantage. He pushes to get the best patients and the best surgeries. His ego has caused all of the attendings and residents to despise him. No one wants to work with him any longer so he’s been sent to work under Dr. Rosario. While that was exactly what he wanted in the first place, Awsten doesn’t know what he’s in for. Dr. Rosario doesn’t take any shit and refuses to allow her interns to be cocky. Awsten is in for quite the ride. Especially since his attending is very attractive.

Dr. Leah Rosario has no time for bullshit. She is a very busy woman and a very busy surgeon. She is one of the attending surgeons at Sacred Heart and she is the best of the best. She is on course to become head of the department possibly within five to seven years. Which is a long time but she’s been through medical school so five years is nothing to her. When Dr. Rosario was first interning at the hospital, so was Calum Hood. The two quickly acknowledged they had feelings for each other and so their fling began. It was a casual, no strings attached relationship that lasted their intern year before they both moved on. Of course, Leah is still a little heartbroken but she has plenty to worry about. Like her current intern Awsten Knight who seems to think he’s hot shit.

Sage Peterson is a surgical intern and she wants to be the best. But Awsten Knight is making that really hard for her. He’s cocky but he’s amazing and while no one wants to deal with him, he gets the best procedures and Sage is sick of it. She has to find a way to knock Awsten down in the ranks and bring herself higher on the list. Maybe if she turns off his pager? Or throw him down a flight of stairs?

Dr. Calum Hood

Cocky doctors are never anyone’s favorite but Dr. Calum Hood has a reason to be cocky. He’s the best neurologist in the state and number four in the country. Calum worked his ass off to move up in the department and at around the same time Ashton became head of psychology, Calum became head of neurology. If anyone in the hospital has to deal with the brain, they come to Calum. Unless it’s an emergency and then they contact him later. But cockiness aside, Calum is amazing at what he does. He has a calming effect on his patients and yet he creates enough stress and worry for his employees so they respect him and do their work well. Calum tends to stay out of surgery now that he runs the department but when his attendings need someone to teach the interns the best way to do their job, Calum is the best person to call. Which does add to his ego but his closest friend, Dr. Rosie Buchanan, is never afraid to knock him down a peg.

Dealing with cancer every day can be hard for anyone but when you’re the best oncologist in the state, everyone wants to see you in case you can save them. But you can’t cure everyone. Dr. Rosie Buchanan has found herself in this position. She worked her way through Sacred Heart Hospital and now she’s the head of the oncology department. She creates treatment plans for every person that walks into her office, sending them to the most capable person in the ward. She sees death around her every day and to cheer herself up, the best trick she’s found is Dr. Calum Hood. They were interns at the same time and while they didn’t see each other very often, he never failed to cheer her up and she never failed to take a shot at his ego.

Evangeline Benton has been working closely with Calum. She’s his number one attending and she totally has the hots for him. She knows its wrong to have a thing for your boss but does it really even matter when Calum hardly works with her? Afterall, he is head of the department and he doesn’t work with her unless she requests him to come by. Which admittedly she does a lot. But of course, he has to have a thing for Buchanan. She’s amazing and his equal and it isn’t fair. Good thing Evangeline can easily steal him away from her with just a quick page about an annoying intern.

Dr. Michael Clifford

Michael Clifford is also just starting his internship at Sacred Heart. Dr. Clifford prefers to work under pressure and since he does so well, he decided that working in the ER would be best for him. He genuinely isn’t too sure exactly where he will go after his year as an intern but he can cross that bridge when he has to. Sacred Heart has a great internship program for those who want to work in the emergency department. Michael is most excited about is getting to do a lot of hands-on experience but he has some fears too. He can’t help but worry about what will happen when he gets a case that he can’t solve. How will he allow a patient to go and pass and then tell the family what happened? Michael is a sweet guy and he wants to save lives but as his resident Dr. Olivia Mercer continues to remind him, you can’t save everyone.

Dr. Olivia Mercer works in the ER at Sacred Heart and she’s currently a trauma resident. She’s been in the company for a while and she loves her job. Although it’s hard sometimes too. This is her first day as a resident and it’s also her first year with interns following her around. She still takes orders from her attending but she is beginning to make the rules. The first thing she has to tell her interns is going to be the most important information they learn this year. It was the only thing that kept her going during her intern year. “You can’t save everyone.” When there was a patient she couldn’t save, this was the only thing that allowed her to move on and try to save someone else. The ER isn’t for the faint of heart and luckily for her, her heart is made of stone and can take quite a beating. Maybe she should see a cardiologist?

Eric Morton is Olivia’s shitty boyfriend. While he doesn’t cheat on her (that we know of) like Ashton’s girlfriend, he doesn’t think Olivia’s job is important. He gets mad when she’s gone all night and day at work, complaining that she’s never home to cook or clean for him. It’s easy to tell why he’s a shithead but Olivia doesn’t see it. He was her first love and she feels like she could never make it without him. And he knows this. Eric knows that no matter what he does, Olivia will still be at his beck and call. Hopefully, the poor girl can find someone that actually loves her.

Dr. Luke Hemmings

Dr. Luke Hemmings has possibly the best and the worst job in the hospital. Hemmings is one of the attendings in the P.I.C.U or the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. His job is amazing because he gets to work with patients aged from infants all the way up to 17-year-olds. Often times, Luke will have to send in specialists for the children that need specific care but that doesn’t stop him from always checking on them. He adores children and the best part of his day is getting to tell the parents and the child that everything will be fine and the child will be home soon. But on the other side of the coin, there are some kids that Luke just can’t fix. There are kids that come in with stage four brain cancer and the only thing he can do for the child and parent is to give them a room to say goodbye in. It’s all very hard for him but he can always count on Dr. Marjorie Webb to comfort him.

Dr. Marjorie Webb thinks that she has the best job in the whole hospital. She’s an OB/GYN and a great one at that. Expectant parents are always requesting for her to be their doctor and deliver their baby. She has the highest successful birth rate in the hospital but because of this, she’s constantly booked. She’s started to only accept high-risk pregnancies while the other OB/GYNs take the more “routine” births. Dr. Webb started at the hospital around the same time that Dr. Hemmings did and the two became close to the other when Luke couldn’t save a four-year-old girl with seizures. Marjorie took Luke to the nursery and the two held newborn babies while Luke poured his heart out. Ever since that day, the two have been extremely close and Luke always knows he can come to her (and the baby room) when he needs some cheering up.

Jayden Ruiz just started as an attending in the N.I.C.U and he works very closely with Dr. Webb. Whenever there is a newborn that needs intensive care, he’s the first person she calls, since obviously he’s the best at his job. Sometimes she even offers her knowledge to him in order to try and save a baby. But of course, she has a thing for Hemmings. There’s a reason all the women on the birthing ward call him Dr. Hunky. He’s handsome, great at his job, and loves kids. But fuck that guy! Jayden is great too and now he just needs Marjorie to see that.

Tags:

@lustingfor5sos​ @mycollectionofnuts​ @ohhmuke​ @softboycal​ @norawashere​ @who-do-you-love-5sos​ @aftermidnightclifford @buggy-blogs​ @astrosashton @katiaw2​ @littlesinnersins​ @bbyboyycal​ @rosecoloredash​ 

[hellofariderp-blog]

Malia Hale - She was never turned into a werewolf for years. Instead, her father Peter raised her and that prompted her to develop a rebellious streak. She’s been kicked out of school several times because of it and feels most at home at her dance studio.

Caroline Forbes - She was never turned into a vampire and her father never died. Instead, the man stayed with her mother until Caroline accidentally walked in on him and his lover Stephen one day, which then caused her mother to divorce him. She’s currently an aspiring singer and attends karaoke and open mic nights in hopes of making it big.

Katherine Pierce - She was born five centuries later and is a witch instead of a vampire. She still had a daughter with someone she had a one night stand with and is currently taking care of baby Nadia.

Elena Gilbert - Her parents never died, so Elena grew up with Miranda, Grayson and Jenna and was never saved by Stefan from the Wickery bridge car crash. She became a huntress to avenge her brother Jeremy when his Gilbert ring killed him. She’s a freelance photographer at the moment.

Stefan Salvatore -  He’s a vampire still and a well known novelist/poet who teaches English at the high school.

Bonnie Bennett - Cassius Lawson got his hands on Bonnie when she was little and kept her as his own live in trainable personal witch and made her evil. She doesn’t know any of her original friends.

Jenna Sommers - Jenna took Jeremy’s ring when he died and wore it ever since, made her go crazy and a killer. She’s now less and less herself, coming out of it only a few hours a week and leaving bodies everywhere. 

Malachai Parker - Born as a normal witch, he opened a video game shop and nerds out.

Olivia Parker - Luke is still alive. They were able to escape Chicago together and moved to Mystic Falls. She works at a magic shop and is as happy as she can be. She’s even thinking of going back to school.

Hayley Marshall - She grew up in Mystic Falls in a loving family who never kicked her out since she never actually triggered her werewolf gene. She dated Derek Hale all through her high school years, eventually marrying him. She decided to become a social worker after graduation and is now pregnant with her and Derek’s first child.

Kol Mikaelson - Kol’s parents gave him away and he has been from foster home to foster home until the age of 16. He ran away believing he needed to take care of himself since he knew no one ever would. Ever since then he has been trying to survive in anyway he can. He is much more silent now and keeps people away never wanting to get to close in fear of getting hurt or abandon. Still a vampire but instead of being killed by his father he was killed during a robbery gone wrong and turned by a unknown vampire.

Davina Claire: She was raised in a loving home. Her father never left her and her mother, and she was just an ordinary human girl. Because of this, Davina develops a bit of a rebellious streak to oppose both her parents due their strict/overly protective nature. She has no recollection of who Marcel is, as he would have never been there to save her from the harvest since there was no harvest. Davina is currently a college freshman, and spends most her time going to college parties, and making the most out of her new college life. Despite being a bit of a party girl, one of her hobbies is painting, which she has a passion for and a natural artistic ability.

Scott McCall - Scott was raised by Raf, who was verbally and physically abusive to him, and Scott moved out as soon as he could. He has anxiety, is a little reclusive and has panic attacks from years of abuse, is resentful to his mom for leaving him. His dad never really taught him much control, trying to make him tough, so his full moons are pretty bad, he’s killed accidentally multiple times and felt awful, and is an omega.

Stiles Stilinski - Caroline ignored him in high school, wasn’t his friend and his mother didn’t die but his father did in line of duty. He becomes a sheriff like his father and is friends with Malia still.

Allison Argent - She never learned about the supernatural, still lived in Mystic Falls and is based there now, but travels a lot. She’s dating Scott and her mom was almost successful in killing him. Victoria was was caught and then sent to jail for murder. Allison trained to become an Olympic archer, winning gold in the last Olympics.

Derek Hale - The Hale fire never happened and Derek grew up with his two sisters, his mother, his father however still passed away. He played basketball all through high school, went to college with scholarships from it and is expecting his first child with his high school sweetheart Hayley Marshall. They’re holding off till after the baby is born for any wedding plans. He coaches basketball at the local college.

Isaac Lahey - His father wasn’t abusive and had a great relationship with him. He is an Alpha to his own pack and still a mechanic. He’s more hostile and unwelcoming to others.  

Theodore Raeken - His parents arrived in time to save Tara from Theo, getting him psychological help for his anger and his delusions of grandeur. He was put on medication to help with his issues at a young age. Because he was never manipulative or deceitful, he joined the McCall pack the first chance he was offered.

Melissa McCall - She gave Scott up as soon as he was born and dumped Rafael, moved to San Francisco and transferred into a good nursing college there, doing so well that she got scholarships to continue higher levels of nursing education. She worked for Doctors Without Borders for years in South American countries before moving back to San Francisco and moved up the rank until she was Director of Nursing for the ED department. Then she moved back to Mystic Falls one year ago after being offered Chief Nursing Officer for Mystic Falls hospital.

Christopher Argent - He’s still a hunter but more so a vampire killer. He doesn’t know much about werewolves yet and doesn’t know he’s a father to Allison as he had only a one night stand with Victoria. Victoria didn’t die, but he sees her around town often.

Joshua Montgomery - He’s a human and a baker. Incredibly confident but humble. Joshua started baking as a hobby until he realized just how much potential he had. He opened a very small bakery when he moved to Mystic Falls and charmed his way into people’s lives with fresh scones and his heart of gold. Nothing brings him more joy than pleasing other people and staying out of people’s way. Very confident in both himself and his profession.

Gabriella McKendrick - She doesn’t know her family’s secret and isn’t aware of the supernatural, but she’s less shy than she is.

Logan Turner - His mom is alive and he’s less closed off and not angry. He’ll be more happy go lucky, flirtatious, promiscuous, high on life Logan with a mother and a job as a hunter. Instead of working at the bar, he will instead be a personal trainer. He never needed quick money or security so ended up setting up his own fitness business.

Emma Montgomery - Before she was a werewolf, she was a huntress who was married to Jake, but that all changed when she turned and she hasn’t really spoken to Jake since. He doesn’t know she’s a werewolf, the other one.

Morgan Adler - Morgan’s family were never hunters, meaning she never killed her brothers and isn’t aware of the supernatural. She’s a gallery owner and a painter.

Gretchen Conrad - Her dad told her about the curse at a young age and reassured her that it was a good thing. She triggered her curse by accidentally killing her mother after an argument - she and her father then fled the state, going to Mystic Falls. Eventually, she murdered her father for his Alpha status, staying in Mystic Falls due to the draw of the Nemeton. She’s generally a little feral and not a good person.

Phoebe Sheridan: Instead of getting attacked by a werewolf in her old city, Phoebe actually got attacked by a vampire who turned her. She still decided to leave her hometown to get away from her friend, whom she was afraid she would hurt. She’s been struggling to adjust to being a vampire since, the bloodlust being overwhelming to her. She’s been staying away from her best friend Felix and has been taking online classes at the local college to avoid as much contact with humans as she could, but she knows she can’t go on living like this.

Felix Townsend: His mother never left him and he was raised with her thinking he was human and as normal as can be, only he has the worse luck ever and things just sort of happen around him. Things falling off shelves, windows breaking and fires just starting. He moved to Mystic Falls once he was done with school working one of the safest jobs he could find, an accountant.

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/covid-19-live-updates-latest-news-on-vaccines-variants-and-cases/

Covid-19 Live Updates: Latest News on Vaccines, Variants and Cases

Here’s what you need to know:

An emergency paramedic takes the temperature of Uwe Einecke, 59, before he is vaccinated in Rostock, Germany.Credit…Lena Mucha for The New York Times

ROSTOCK, Germany — It was barely noon, but Steffen Bockhahn’s phone had not stopped ringing with people wanting to know if they qualified for a vaccination, and if not now, when?

Days earlier Germany had changed its guidance on who qualified for vaccines, resulting in a seemingly endless stream of questions from worried local residents for Mr. Bockhahn, the health minister for this port city in Germany’s northeast.

“No, I’m sorry, but we are not allowed to vaccinate anyone in Category 2 yet, only those nurses or other care givers are who are in the first priority group,” he told a caller. “You have to wait.”

More than two months into the country’s second full lockdown, people across Germany are growing tired of waiting, whether for vaccines, getting their government compensation, or a return to normalcy. It’s a disheartening comedown.

At the start of the pandemic, Germany showed itself to be a global leader in dealing with a once-in-a-century public heath crisis. Chancellor Angela Merkel forged a consensus on a lockdown. Her government’s testing and tracing tools were the envy of European neighbors. The country’s death and infection rates were among the lowest in the European Union. And a generally trustful population abided by restrictions with relatively muted grumbling.

No more. In the virus’s second wave, Germany now finds itself swamped like everyone else. A host of tougher new restrictions has stretched on, amid loud complaints, and even occasional protests before everything was shut down again. Still, infection rates hover around 10,000 new cases per day.

And as fears grow over the new variants first identified in England and South Africa, Germany’s vaccination program, lashed to the fortunes of the European Union, has floundered. Only 3.5 percent of Germans have received their first shots, and just 2 percent, roughly, have been fully immunized.

A survey by the Pew Research Center shows that while more Germans feel confident in their country’s handling of the pandemic than Americans or Britons, their approval dropped 11 percentage points between June and December 2020.

The mood has only soured further as Germans watch other countries, especially Britain, step up their vaccination campaigns with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine — developed with the help of German taxpayers — while they have been left waiting for doses to arrive.

Beyond that, mayors are warning of the death of inner cities if small stores are not allowed to reopen. Some states have reopened schools, while others remain shuttered. Doctors are warning of the lockdown’s lasting psychological damage to children.

Parents are frustrated with the lack of support for online learning. Germany’s stringent data protection laws prevent Germans from using U.S.-based digital learning platforms, but local solutions do not always function smoothly. In many public schools, education now consists of teachers sending lessons as email attachments for students to work through on their own.

Ms. Merkel has done her best to buck up a weary public. Over the past month, the normally reserved chancellor has chatted by video with overwhelmed families, appeared before the Berlin news corps and given two interviews on prime time television.

“I wish that I had something good to announce,” she said, addressing the nation.

United States › United StatesOn Feb. 19 14-day change New cases 78,018 –45% New deaths 2,626 –34%

World › WorldOn Feb. 19 14-day change New cases 408,714 –24% New deaths 11,009 –25%

U.S. vaccinations ›

A drive-through coronavirus testing site in Bozeman, Mont., in December.Credit…Janie Osborne for The New York Times

Not three months ago, the coronavirus had so ravaged South Dakota that its packed hospitals were flying patients to other states for treatment. An analysis of data collected by Johns Hopkins University had shown that the mortality rates from Covid-19 in North and South Dakota were the world’s highest. In one Montana county, the rate of hospitalization for the virus was 20 times the national average.

As in some earlier hot spots like Arizona and Florida, the surge mushroomed as most leaders and residents in these states resisted lockdowns and mask mandates for months. In South Dakota, no statewide mask mandate was ever issued.

The spike in these states was as brief as it was powerful. Today, their rates of new cases are back roughly to where they were last summer or early fall. In North Dakota, which mandated masks at the height of its surge in mid-November, the turnaround has been especially dramatic: the daily average deaths per person is now the country’s second lowest, according to a New York Times database.

By some measures, the three-state hot spot’s trajectory has mirrored the nation’s. After the daily U.S. average for new cases peaked on Jan. 9, it took 37 days — until last Monday — for the rate to drop by two-thirds. It took South Dakota and Montana 35 days to reach the same mark after cases peaked in those two states in November. (North Dakota did it in 24.)

Deaths remain high nationally, because it can take weeks for Covid-19 patients to die. The country continues to average more than 2,000 deaths each day and is on pace to reach 500,000 deaths in the next week.

Experts say the spikes in the Northern Great Plains ebbed largely for the same reason that the U.S. caseload has been falling: People finally took steps to save themselves in the face of an out-of-control deadly disease.

“As things get worse and friends and family members are in the hospital or dying, people start to adjust their behavior and cases go down,” said Meghan O’Connell, an epidemiologist in South Dakota and an adviser on health issues to the Great Plains Tribal Leaders Health Board, which represents Native American populations in the area. Native Americans, who represent about 5 percent to almost 10 percent of the population all three states, have been infected by the virus at far higher rates than the general population.

During the outbreak’s worst weeks, from early November to late December, mask use rose 10 to 20 percentage points in South Dakota and 20 to 30 percentage points in North Dakota, according to survey data from the University of Maryland.

Since then, the U.S. vaccination drive has been gathering speed. North Dakota ranks fifth among states for giving its residents at least one shot; South Dakota is seventh and Montana is 11th.

Some experts see the coronavirus’s race through these states as a rough test of the widely rejected idea that the pandemic should be allowed to run its course until the population gains herd immunity.

While the region did not reach herd immunity, it may have come closer than anywhere else in the United States.

The outbreak in November vaulted North and South Dakota to the top of the list in cumulative cases per person, where they remain, according to a New York Times database, with 13 and 12.5 percent of their residents known to have been infected. Montana, at about 9.2 percent, is close to the middle of the national pack.

Just over 8 percent of Americans — about 27.9 million — are known to have had the coronavirus, but for many reasons, including that asymptomatic infections can go undetected, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that the real rate is 4.6 times that.

By those measures, as least six in 10 Dakotans — and most likely more — could have gained some immunity to the virus by the end of 2020, according to Jeffrey Shaman, a Columbia University professor of environmental health sciences who is modeling the future spread of the virus. And in some places, he noted, the share could be even higher.

Motorists lined up for a Covid-19 shot at a mass vaccination site in Los Angeles this month.Credit…Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

With the vaccine rollout gaining steam and coronavirus cases declining after a dark winter surge, it may seem as though the end of the pandemic is in sight for the United States. In reality, how soon could we get there?

One answer lies in herd immunity, the point when enough people are immune to the virus that it can no longer spread through the population. Getting there, however, depends not just on how quickly we can vaccinate but on other factors, too, like how many people have already been infected and how easily the virus spreads.

The exact threshold for herd immunity for the coronavirus is unknown, but recent estimates range from 70 percent to 90 percent.

If the rate of vaccinations continues to grow, one model shows we could reach herd immunity as early as July. But a lot could happen between now and then. The speed and uptake of vaccination, and how long immunity lasts are big factors. The rise of new virus variants and how we respond to them will also affect the path to herd immunity.

In most scenarios, millions more people will become infected and tens or hundreds of thousands more will die before herd immunity is reached.

Ginés González García, Argentina’s health minister, on Wednesday. He was asked to resign amid a vaccine scandal.Credit…Matias Baglietto/Reuters

BUENOS AIRES — Argentina’s health minister, Ginés González García, resigned on Friday at the request of the president over revelations that people with close ties to the government were given early access to Covid-19 vaccines.

The resignation came just hours after a well-known journalist incited nationwide outrage by revealing that he had been vaccinated at the health ministry. The journalist, Horacio Verbitsky, who is seen as pro-government, said he had called Mr. Gónzalez García, an old friend, to find out where he could get vaccinated and was directed to the ministry’s headquarters.

Mr. González García presented his resignation on Friday. Carla Vizzotti, who as the No. 2 official at the health ministry has played a visible role during the pandemic, is expected to be sworn in as the new health minister on Saturday afternoon.

The scandal in Argentina comes amid a similar controversy in Peru, where several high ranking officials, including the foreign and health ministers, were forced to step down after it was revealed that around 500 officials jumped the line to receive the vaccines before health care workers.

Mr. Verbitsky’s revelation led to widespread outrage on social media, which for days had been rife with rumors that well-connected Argentines had been quietly getting vaccinated. Local news media outlets quickly followed up with reports that Mr. Verbitsky was one of several government allies, naming lawmakers and business leaders, who received a shot at the ministry.

In his resignation letter, Mr. González García blamed his private secretary for an “involuntary confusion” that led to people being vaccinated at the ministry and said he would take responsibility “for the mistake.”

A prosecutor has opened a preliminary investigation and leaders of the opposition have called for congressional hearings.

Argentina began its vaccination campaign in late December with Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, and until recently, most doses had been reserved for health care personnel and certain government officials.

Older Argentines became eligible for the vaccine this past week, but appointments are scarce.

Argentina, a nation of about 45 million, has received some 1.2 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine, and earlier this week received a shipment of 580,000 doses of the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine from India’s Serum Institute. The country has administered more than 445,000 first doses and more than 261,000 second doses, according to the country’s health ministry.

The coronavirus has sickened more than two million people in the country, and more than 50,000 have died.

Applications have soared at Cornell University, which dropped its requirement for standardized test scores during the pandemic.Credit…Christopher Gregory for The New York Times

Prestigious universities like Cornell never have a hard time attracting students. But this year, its admissions office is swimming in 17,000 more applications than it has ever received before, driven mostly by the school’s decision not to require standardized test scores during the pandemic.

“We saw people that thought ‘I would never get into Cornell’ thinking, ‘Oh, if they’re not looking at a test score, maybe I’ve actually got a chance,’” said Jonathan Burdick, Cornell’s vice provost for enrollment.

But while selective universities like Cornell and its fellow Ivy League schools have seen unprecedented interest after waiving the requirement for SAT or ACT test scores, smaller and less recognizable schools are dealing with the opposite issue: empty mailboxes.

A drop in applications does not always translate into lower enrollment. But at a time when many colleges and universities are being squeezed financially by the pandemic and a loss of public funding, the prospect of landing fewer students — and losing critical tuition dollars — is a dire one at schools that have already cut programs and laid off staff.

The California State system extended the application deadline for all of its schools by two weeks, and Cal Poly Pomona managed to close the gap. But its herculean effort, at a time when Ivy League schools had to add an extra week just to consider their influx of applicants, further underscored inequities in higher education that have been widened by the pandemic.

“It’s impacting both students from an equity perspective,” said Jenny Rickard, the chief executive of the Common Application, which is used by colleges across the country, “and then it’s also showing which colleges and universities are more privileged.”

Many institutions outside the top tier were struggling even before the pandemic, and a smaller freshman class could mean further distress.

“Covid didn’t create this challenge, but it certainly exposes and exacerbates the risk that institutions face financially,” said Susan Campbell Baldridge, a former provost of Middlebury College and an author of “The College Stress Test,” a book that examines the financial threats to some American colleges and universities.

And the experiment with ignoring test scores could extend beyond the coronavirus crisis, some admissions officers said.

“For us,” said Luoluo Hong, who oversees admissions at the Cal States, “what is ultimately going to matter is: You’re admitted to college. But do you go?”

Credit…Matt Chase

There are many ways to assess how the coronavirus has affected the U.S. economy. The pandemic has decimated the labor market, driving the unemployment rate to 6.3 percent in January, nearly twice what it was a year earlier. Restrictions on activities led Americans to spend less money, pushing the savings rate to extraordinary heights. As people have fled to places with more space and fewer people, home prices have surged.

Another way the pandemic has affected the economy is by making people bored.

By limiting social engagements, leisure activities and travel, the pandemic has forced many people to live a more muted life. The result is a collective sense of ennui — one that is shaping what we do and what we buy.

Boredom’s impact on the economy is under-researched, experts say, possibly because there has been no modern situation like this one, but many agree that it’s an important one. How people spend money is a reflection of their emotional state — the answer to “How are you?” in Amazon packages and Target receipts.

Among the most vivid examples of boredom’s economic influence occurred late last month when amateur traders piled into shares of GameStop, a down-for-the-count retailer for gamers. These investors pushed its stock to astronomical highs before it crashed back to earth.

“Im bored i have 8k in free money what can i invest in that will make at least a little profit,” a Reddit user who goes by biged42069 wrote on Wall Street Bets at the height of the stock market frenzy. The response was unanimous: GameStop.

Of course, millions of people have been busier than ever during the pandemic. Essential workers have hardly experienced lockdown tedium. Women who have left the work force to take care of children who cannot go to school are frequently overwhelmed, their days a stream of Zoom classes and dinners and bedtimes. Boredom, in some ways, is a luxury.

And some groups of people are more likely to experience boredom than others. People who live alone, for instance, are more likely to be bored, said Daniel Hamermesh, an economist at Barnard College who has studied loneliness during the pandemic lockdowns.

Early in the pandemic, bread-making fervor prompted stores across the country to sell out of yeast. Puzzle sales have skyrocketed. Gardening has taken off as a hobby.

Home improvement, too, has boomed. According to the NPD Group, 81 percent of consumers in the United States purchased home improvement products in the six months than ended in November. Sherwin-Williams said it had record sales in the fourth quarter and for the year, in part because of strong performances in its do-it-yourself and residential repaint businesses.

Pandemic boredom evidently has nothing on watching paint dry.

A Covid vaccination being administered in Fargo, N.D., in December.Credit…Tim Gruber for The New York Times

New studies show that people who have had Covid-19 should only get one shot of a vaccine, a dose that is enough to turbocharge their antibodies and destroy the coronavirus — and even some more infectious variants.

Some researchers are trying to persuade scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend only one dose for those who have recovered from Covid-19, a move that could free up millions of doses at a time when vaccines are in high demand.

At least 30 million people in the United States — and probably many others whose illnesses were never diagnosed — have been infected with the coronavirus so far.

The results of these new studies are consistent with the findings of two others published over the past few weeks. Taken together, the research suggests that people who have had Covid-19 should be immunized — but a single dose of the vaccine may be enough.

A person’s immune response to a natural infection is highly variable. Most people make copious amounts of antibodies that persist for many months. But some people who had mild symptoms or no symptoms of Covid-19 produce few antibodies, which quickly fall to undetectable levels.

The latest study, which has not yet been published in a scientific journal, analyzed blood samples from people who have had Covid-19. The findings suggested that their immune systems would have trouble fending off B.1.351, the coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa.

But one shot of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine significantly changed the picture: It amplified the amount of antibodies in their blood by a thousandfold.

In another new study, researchers at New York University found that a second dose of the vaccine did not add much benefit at all for people who have had Covid-19 — a phenomenon that has also been observed with vaccines for other viruses.

In that study, most people had been infected with the coronavirus eight or nine months earlier, but saw their antibodies increase by a hundredfold to a thousandfold when given the first dose of a vaccine. After the second dose, however, the antibody levels did not increase any further.

what we learned

President Joe Biden makes remarks after touring the Pfizer manufacturing site in Kalamazoo, Mich. on Friday.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

In his first trips as president, President Biden traveled to Wisconsin and Michigan to promote his vaccination rollout plan and the $1.9 trillion relief bill he hopes can restore the American economy.

After an optimistic vow on Tuesday that any American who wanted a vaccine “could have one by the end of July this year,” Mr. Biden was asking for patience on Friday, saying the United States could be“approaching normalcy” by the end of the year. The week ended as winter storms hitting much of the country delayed the delivery of six million vaccines.

Mr. Biden addressed the virtual G7 summit and said that his administration would make good on a U.S. promise to donate $4 billion to the global vaccination campaign over the next two years. Mr. Biden’s engagement in the global fight against the pandemic is in stark contrast to the approach of former President Donald J. Trump, who withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization.

In other news this week:

Israel has raced ahead with the fastest Covid vaccination campaign in the world, inoculating nearly half its population with at least one dose. Now, new government and business initiatives are moving in the direction of a two-tier system for the vaccinated and unvaccinated, raising legal, moral and ethical questions.

Cuba is getting closer to achieving the mass production of a coronavirus vaccine invented on the island. If the vaccine proves safe and effective, it would hand the Cuban government a significant political victory — and a shot at rescuing the nation from economic ruin.

Life expectancy in the United States fell by a full year, the federal government reported Tuesday. The report also showed a deepening of racial and ethnic disparities between Black and white Americans. Life expectancy of Black population declined by 2.7 years in the first half of 2020. Another study, released Tuesday, showed that Latino and Black residents of New York City have fallen behind in vaccination rates.

Two developments this week could potentially expand access to the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine: The vaccine works well after one dose, and doesn’t always need ultracold storage. A study in Israel showed that the vaccine is 85 percent effective 15 to 28 days after receiving the first dose, raising the possibility that regulators in some countries could authorize delaying a second dose instead of giving both on the strict schedule of three weeks apart. And Pfizer and BioNTech also announced on Friday that their vaccine can be stored at standard freezer temperatures for up to two weeks.

House Republican leaders have called Biden’s $1.9 trillion rescue plan a “payoff to progressives.”Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

Republicans are struggling to persuade voters to oppose President Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic rescue plan, which enjoys strong, bipartisan support nationwide even as it is moving through Congress with just Democratic backing.

Democrats who control the House are preparing to approve the package by the end of next week, with the Senate aiming to soon follow with its own party-line vote before unemployment benefits are set to lapse in mid-March. On Friday, the House Budget Committee unveiled the nearly 600-page text for the proposal, which includes billions of dollars for unemployment benefits, small businesses and stimulus checks.

Republican leaders on Friday said the bill spends too much and includes a liberal wish list of programs like aid to state and local governments — which they call a “blue state bailout,” though many states facing shortfalls are controlled by Republicans — and increased benefits for the unemployed, which they argued would discourage people from looking for work.

The arguments have so far failed to connect, in part because many of its core provisions poll strongly — even with Republicans.

More than 7 in 10 Americans now back Mr. Biden’s aid package, according to new polling from the online research firm SurveyMonkey for The New York Times. That includes support from three-quarters of independent voters, 2 in 5 Republicans and nearly all Democrats.

In the poll, 4 in 5 respondents, including nearly 7 in 10 Republicans, said it was important for the relief bill to include $1,400 direct checks. A similarly large group of respondents said it was important to include aid to state and local governments and money for vaccine deployment.

On Friday, House Republican leaders urged their rank-and-file members to vote against the plan, billing it as Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California’s “Payoff to Progressives Act.” They detailed more than a dozen objections to the bill, including “a third round of stimulus checks costing more than $422 billion, which will include households that have experienced little or no financial loss during the pandemic.” Ms. Pelosi’s office issued its own rebuttal soon after, declaring, “Americans need help. House Republicans don’t care.”

Mr. Biden has said he will not wait for Republicans to join his effort, citing the urgency of the economy’s needs.

The Republican pushback is complicated by the pandemic’s ongoing economic pain, with millions of Americans still out of work and the recovery slowing. It is also hampered by the fact that many of the lawmakers objecting to Mr. Biden’s proposals supported similar provisions, including direct checks to individuals, when Mr. Trump was president.

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California Will Reserve Vaccine Doses for Teachers and School Staff

Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Friday that, starting on March 1, California will set aside 10 percent of the state’s first doses of Covid-19 vaccine for educators and school employees.

Thirty-five counties in the state of California currently are prioritizing vaccinations for teachers and educators. We want to operationalize that as the standard for all 58 counties in the state. So effective March 1, not only are we doing that through our third-party administrator, but we are also setting aside 10 percent of all first doses, beginning with a baseline of 75,000 doses every single week that will be made available and set aside for those educators and childcare workers that are supporting our efforts to get our kids back into in-person instruction. That’s effective March 1. And the reason we can do that more formally, even though we have allowed for it over the course of the last number of weeks, is the window of visibility into the future with more vaccinations that we know are now coming from the Biden administration.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Friday that, starting on March 1, California will set aside 10 percent of the state’s first doses of Covid-19 vaccine for educators and school employees.CreditCredit…Dean Musgrove/The Orange County Register, via Associated Press

Under pressure to reopen classrooms in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Friday that, starting March 1, the state will reserve 10 percent of its first doses of Covid-19 vaccines for teachers and school employees.

Noting that the federal government has been steadily increasing the state’s vaccine allotment, the governor said he would set aside 75,000 doses each week for teachers and staff planning to return to public school campuses in person. Although California prioritizes teachers for the vaccine, supply has been an issue. Only about three dozen of the state’s 58 counties have had enough doses on hand to immunize those who work at public schools.

Most of California’s large school districts — including those in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco — have been operating remotely for the majority of students for almost a year. Mr. Newsom said reopening schools would be particularly important for single parents whose children have been learning from home.

As big school districts up and down the West Coast have mostly kept their buildings closed, Boston, New York, Miami, Houston and Chicago have been resuming in-person instruction.

New guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that urge school districts to reopen have not changed the minds of powerful teachers’ unions opposed to returning students to classrooms without more stringent precautions.

In Oregon, the governor prioritized teachers and school staff members for vaccination — ahead of some older people, which went against C.D.C. guidelines.

Mr. Newsom’s announcement was aimed at appeasing California’s teachers’ unions, which have demanded vaccination as a condition of returning to what they regard as a potentially hazardous workplace. The California Teachers Association this week began airing statewide television ads noting that the coronavirus is still a threat and demanding that the state not reopen classrooms without putting safety first.

The governor, who faces a recall effort over the state’s lockdowns, was also responding to fellow Democrats who control the Legislature and who on Thursday introduced a fast-track bill to reopen schools by April 15, using prioritized vaccines for teachers and hefty financial incentives.

The legislative plan calls for spending $12.6 billion in state and federal funding to help districts cover reopening costs, summer school, extended days and other measures to address learning loss. It largely aligns with the priorities of the unions, and state lawmakers said they expect it to pass swiftly.

On Friday, Mr. Newsom said he was very pleased with the plan but felt it didn’t push districts to open fast enough, and threatened to veto the bill if it passes.

“April 15!” he exclaimed. “That’s almost the end of the school year.”

The governor also noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued new guidelines saying that teacher vaccination need not be a prerequisite to reopening schools, as long as other health measures were enforced.

In New Hampshire, Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, issued an emergency order on Friday requiring schools to offer in-person instruction to all students starting March 8.

“The data and science is clear — kids can and should learn in-person, and it is safe to do so,” said Mr. Sununu in a statement. “I would like to thank all school districts, teachers and administrators who have been able to successfully navigate this path.”

Taylor Erexson greeted a student in Chicago this month. Many states have included teachers in the most highly prioritized category for vaccination, allowing them to receive shots immediately. Still, many have not.Credit…Taylor Glascock for The New York Times

This week, with vaccine production continuing to ramp up, President Biden declared that vaccines would be available for 300 million Americans “by the end of July” — enough to reach a critical mass. And on Friday, as Mr. Biden was headed to Michigan to tour a Pfizer vaccine plant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report stating that the available vaccines were quite safe, with only minor side effects.

Mr. Biden had put coronavirus relief at the center of his campaign, and his promise of additional stimulus checks for Americans was seen as particularly crucial to the Democratic Senate candidates’ wins in Georgia last month.

The president is working to deliver on his promises before voters lose faith — and he’s also facing down a stark deadline: Some key provisions in the latest round of economic relief, passed just before he took office, will run out in less than a month.

House Democrats on Friday released a nearly 600-page proposal for the legislation, and the president virtually dared Republicans in Congress to oppose the bill. “Critics say that my plan is too big, that it costs $1.9 trillion,” Mr. Biden said. “Let me ask them: What would they have me cut? What would they have me leave out? Should we not invest $20 billion to vaccinate the nation? Should we not invest $290 million to extend unemployment insurance for the 11 million Americans who are unemployed, so they can get by?”

But there’s one big campaign promise that continues to be particularly thorny: the dilemma of how quickly to reopen schools. As he was careful to note on Friday, those decisions will ultimately be made at the state and local levels, but Mr. Biden has stood by a promise to safely reopen most schools nationwide within the first 100 days of his presidency — meaning by late April.

But some experts remain skeptical about the feasibility of classrooms fully reopening by April without more concerted federal action to bring vaccines into schools. Some states have included teachers in the most highly prioritized category for vaccination, allowing them to receive shots immediately. Still, many have not.

“I can’t set nationally who gets in line when, and first — that’s a decision the states make,” Mr. Biden said in response to a reporter’s question, adding, “I think it’s critically important to get our kids back to school.”

Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting F.D.A. commissioner, is considered to be one of the front-runners for the permanent role.Credit…Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

One month into his presidency, President Biden still has not named a candidate to head the Food and Drug Administration, a critical position at a time when new vaccines and coronavirus treatments are under the agency’s review.

The vacancy is glaring, given that the president has made selections for most other top government health posts, and the gap has spurred a public lobbying campaign by supporters of the two apparent front-runners, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a former high-ranking F.D.A. official and Dr. Janet Woodcock, the agency’s acting commissioner.

The absence of a nominee has also exposed rifts among congressional lawmakers and within public health and medical communities, as well as inside the health and drug industries that depend on the F.D.A. for approval of their products. In particular, some public health officials have used the open position to debate the leadership qualifications needed to restore the agency’s morale and credibility after a year fighting both a pandemic and a president who often belittled the F.D.A.’s process for approving treatments and vaccines.

“Every month is a crucial month in the pandemic,” said Scott Becker of the Association of Public Health Laboratories. “There is so much going on regarding the vaccine, and new drugs and diagnostics. The time to have permanent leadership is now.”

Administration officials attributed the delay to the overwhelming focus on solving Covid-19 vaccine shortages and distribution problems.

The F.D.A. plays a key role in the nation’s pandemic response: vetting vaccines that are in development and under review as well as treatments, protective gear and devices. The agency also monitors the safety of new vaccines and therapies as they are distributed and administered to the public.

Interviews with several officials and other people familiar with the leading candidates indicate that the primary disagreement centers on how each would manage the inherent tensions between the agency’s mission to get drugs onto the market quickly and ensuring they are safe and will work.

Dr. Woodcock commands deep support, especially within the vast network of cancer-related patient advocacy groups, researchers and the drug companies that help finance them. But her decades of service at the F.D.A. have made her more of a target for critics, and she has drawn particular fire over her time as chief of the agency’s drug division during the opioid crisis.

Dr. Sharfstein held the No. 2 slot at the F.D.A. for nearly two years in the Obama administration and has extensive public health interests. He now works at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he is vice dean for public health practice and community engagement. He often criticized the Trump administration’s pandemic response, and called for the F.D.A. to “stand up for itself and for science, not politics.”

The last time his name was seriously floated for the top post, back in 2008, Dr. Sharfstein drew opposition from the pharmaceutical industry, which protested his criticism of off-label drug marketing and gifts from pharmaceutical companies to physicians.

Neither Dr. Woodcock nor Dr. Sharfstein would comment publicly because the selection process was under way.

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Moderna Shot Expected to Bolster U.S. Vaccine Efforts

A green light for Moderna’s vaccine would help meet a federal goal of getting a vaccine to anyone who wants one by the spring or summer of 2021.

Photo: Hans Pennink/Associated Press

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Peter Loftus

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Peter Loftus

Updated Dec. 18, 2020 7:58 pm ET

Health officials across the U.S. are counting on the arrival of a second Covid-19 vaccine to boost scarce supplies and sidestep logistical issues encountered by the first vaccine, which began distribution this week.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the vaccine from Moderna Inc. MRNA -2.62% on Friday after an advisory panel recommended the agency approve its use. It will join a vaccine from Pfizer Inc. PFE -0.92% and BioNTech SE BNTX -2.06% that received authorization on Dec. 11.

The green light should nearly double this month’s expected U.S. supply of Covid-19 vaccine doses and help meet a federal goal of getting a vaccine to anyone who wants one by the spring or summer of 2021. Moderna expects to add 20 million doses of its vaccine to Pfizer’s expected U.S. supply of 25 million in December.

A Food and Drug Administration vaccine-advisory panel voted in favor of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine for broad distribution, clearing the way for the FDA to grant an emergency-use authorization for the second vaccine in the U.S. Photo: Henry Ford Health System/AP

“The addition of the Moderna vaccine to the response will be huge,” said Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers, whose members direct state vaccination efforts. Not only will the Moderna vaccine boost the supply of doses, but also it will “be much easier to send [it] to smaller providers and rural areas,” she said.

Moderna’s vaccine has easier storage and handling requirements and will be shipped in smaller quantities, health officials say. It can be stored in most standard medical freezers, while Pfizer’s must be shipped and kept at ultracold temperatures requiring either specialized freezers or dry ice, resources more common in large hospital systems and urban areas.

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Once thawed, Moderna’s vaccine can be kept refrigerated for 30 days, while Pfizer’s can stay refrigerated for only five days after thawing.

Moderna’s vaccine also can be shipped in containers with as few as 100 doses, while Pfizer’s minimum order size is about 975 doses.

Pfizer’s larger minimum order size “poses challenges especially in rural areas of the country where that volume of product is more difficult to manage,” Anita Patel, deputy of the vaccine task force at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during an FDA advisory panel meeting on Dec. 10.

“This ultracold really, really makes it difficult to plan, based on the large quantity, and then also the ability of our partners to vaccinate during that time frame,” said Rich Lakin, immunization director for the Utah Department of Health. It is directing doses to hospitals, local health departments and pharmacies in the state.

Both vaccines are highly effective in preventing Covid-19 and use a similar gene-based technology. Pfizer’s vaccine was 95% effective at preventing disease in a study of 44,000 people, while Moderna’s was 94.1% effective in a 30,000-person study. Both vaccines were developed and tested at unprecedented speed.

Both vaccines also require people to come back three or four weeks later for a second dose. However, Moderna’s can be injected into people as is, while Pfizer’s has to be diluted in a separate solution before injection.

“Moderna definitely makes it easier from a logistics standpoint,” said Kristen Ehresmann, director of the infectious disease division with the Minnesota Department of Health. “It will help to fill in gaps for greater Minnesota, for the more rural parts of our state. Some areas of the state may not have access until the Moderna vaccine comes along.”

Federal and state officials said they have shaped their distribution strategies around the different features of the vaccines.

A delivery of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine is delivered to Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego on Thursday.

Photo: K.C. Alfred/San Diego Union-Tribune/Zuma Press

A Pfizer spokesman said the company’s supply-chain infrastructure is designed to ensure that people can get access to vaccine doses that meet its temperature requirements. A Moderna spokesman said the company has worked to improve the storage and shipping requirements for its vaccine, and stability testing this year has shown that it can be kept at higher temperatures.

A Covid-19 vaccine authorization is Moderna’s first government clearance for a drug or vaccine in the 10 years since the company was formed to try to exploit an emerging gene-based technology. Anticipation of the Covid-19 vaccine has catapulted Moderna into the ranks of the most highly-valued drug companies, giving it a market capitalization of $54 billion.

The authorization also validates the gene-based technology that Moderna has used to develop more than 20 other products for various diseases. FDA approval signals that the technology could yield future vaccines and drugs using the same basic building blocks behind the Covid-19 vaccine.

Moderna and Pfizer are ramping up production, but so far the U.S. has committed to buying more of Moderna’s vaccine. On Dec. 11, the U.S. government agreed to double its purchase of Moderna’s vaccine to 200 million doses by the end of June. Pfizer has agreed to supply 100 million doses, though federal officials are in talks to secure additional doses, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar told reporters on Wednesday.

Initially, when supplies are limited, both vaccines are being reserved for health-care workers and residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. As more doses become available, next in line are expected to be other essential workers, like police and teachers, senior citizens and people with underlying health conditions that put them at higher risk of severe Covid-19 disease.

Additional vaccines could also boost the mass immunization campaign if they prove successful in testing and are authorized for use.

Johnson & Johnson is testing a single-dose vaccine and expects to have results of a study of its vaccine in more than 40,000 people in January. That vaccine, unlike Pfizer’s and Moderna’s, wouldn’t require patients to take a second dose, and the company may seek U.S. authorization in February, if results are positive.

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More on the Covid-19 Vaccines

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Write to Peter Loftus at peter.loftus@wsj.com

Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the December 19, 2020, print edition as ‘Moderna Approval To Double Supply.’

[billyagogo]

Coronavirus is surging in college towns. The worst spot? Texas

New Post has been published on https://newsprofixpro.com/moxie/2020/10/24/coronavirus-is-surging-in-college-towns-the-worst-spot-texas/

Coronavirus is surging in college towns. The worst spot? Texas

As football fans tailgated without masks outside Texas Tech University’s 60,000-seat stadium in West Texas this weekend ahead of the Red Raiders’ homecoming game, it was easy to forget that Lubbock — a rural county of 310,000 — has one of the highest coronavirus infection rates in the country.

The outbreak at Texas Tech, which has infected at least 2,200 students, comes as the U.S. reported a national single-day record of new infections — 83,757 — Friday. Part of what’s driving the national increase in infections has been a surge in college towns where restrictions have eased since students returned this fall. And nowhere is it more prevalent than in Texas — which has more infected college students than any other state in the country, 17,133, according to a New York Times database — and at Texas Tech itself, with more infected students than any other school statewide.

Texas Tech fans file into the Red Raiders’ Jones AT&T Stadium, where they were required to wear masks until seated.

(Molly Hennessy-Fiske / Los Angeles Times)

As at many Texas high schools, canceling football wasn’t seen as an option by officials at Texas Tech or other universities in the Big 12 Conference. On Friday, the Big Ten also started its season — but with empty stadiums.

At Texas Tech, though the traditional homecoming parade was called off, last year’s king and queen still met this year’s winners in person wearing masks for the crowning. And 15,000 fans, 25% of the stadium’s capacity, were allowed to attend Saturday’s football game, with tailgating OK’d for small groups outside.

Officials at Texas Tech, like those at other universities, say they’re trying to preserve as much of campus life as possible at the behest of students, parents and alumni.

“Students consider the culture of a place when they select a university. I also think this is important for the continued connection to alumni,” Texas Tech President Lawrence Schovanec said as he watched Saturday’s game from a suite atop the stadium, where masks and temperature checks were required. “We’re trying to balance safety with some sense of normalcy.”

Texas Tech President Lawrence Schovanec and his wife, Patty Schovanec, center, talk to tailgaters outside the stadium Saturday.

(Molly Hennessy-Fiske / Los Angeles Times)

As COVID-19 has surged on college campuses, some have moved to reevaluate their responses. This month, University of Michigan students were ordered to stay home until election day by health authorities because they accounted for 60% of local infections. In upstate New York, the president of SUNY Oneonta resigned after 700 of its 6,000 students tested positive.

At Texas Tech, where 60% of classes have met in person this fall, it’s full speed ahead, with Schovanec saying he hopes to expand to 75%, including hybrid classes.

“People have different levels of anxiety regarding COVID-19,” he said. “We were very flexible.”

Joyce Zachman, executive director of the nonprofit Texas Tech Parents Assn., said she hears more concern from parents about students being forced to take classes online than about them catching COVID-19.

“It’s not the college experience that parents had hoped for their kids,” said Zachman, who’s asthmatic but still attended Saturday’s game, where fans sang the school fight song with its chorus of “Wreck ’Em!” and pointed their trigger fingers in the Texas Tech “guns up” victory sign.

Russ Smith, 49, a truck driver based near Fort Worth, traveled to tailgate Saturday with a group that included his son, a freshman attending his alma mater. They didn’t wear masks, and he noticed the students were not maintaining social distance as they played cornhole and snapped selfies.

Officials at Texas Tech say they’re trying to preserve as much of campus life as possible at the behest of students, parents and alumni.

(Molly Hennessy-Fiske / Los Angeles Times)

“There’s some pandemic fatigue,” he said.

Though studies this month show enrollment has dipped slightly at universities nationwide since the pandemic began, Texas Tech’s is up 4%, and applications for next year have increased 10%.

“I was going to do community college if it was all online,” said Emma Thompson, 18, a Texas Tech freshman from Boerne, Texas, during lunch at the student union Friday.

Across the table, classmate Major Thurman, 18, of Austin said his father had warned that if Texas Tech classes were all online, he wouldn’t pay the tuition. Thurman has since had a friend test positive for the virus, and his roommate had symptoms but tested negative.

“We have a lot of corona scares,” said Thompson, who joined a sorority and goes to bars with friends but said they wear masks.

Lubbock County ranked 10th in the country for per capita coronavirus infections this week, with 1 in 18 residents infected, at least 30% of them in their 20s. Because student testing is voluntary, the number of infections could actually be significantly higher. As in other college towns that have seen infections surge since students returned to campus this fall, most of the 175 people who have died of COVID-19 in Lubbock were older than 70, about 68%.

Like several other schools in the Big 12 Conference, Texas Tech is selling tickets to its football games with capacity limited to 25%, or 15,000 fans at Jones AT&T Stadium.

(Molly Hennessy-Fiske / Los Angeles Times)

Lubbock is a medical hub amid the oil fields of West Texas, more than 300 miles from the nearest major city, but its hospitals have been challenged by the influx of COVID-19 patients. For nearly the past week, more than 15% of those hospitalized had COVID-19, a threshold set by the governor that local officials expect will soon force them to halt elective surgeries, close bars and reduce restaurant capacity from 75% to 50%.

“We’re on a trajectory to reach that trigger,” said Steve Massengale, a Lubbock City Council member and Texas Tech alumnus who owns the Matador, a Texas Tech-themed store across from the university’s entrance.

Massengale said that he believes university officials have done all they can do to prevent the virus from spreading but that having in-person classes and football fans in the stands is vital given his business is already down by half because of the pandemic. Still, he said, students’ off-campus parties are concerning.

“We know that it does seem to be spreading at some of these small gatherings. They just don’t contemplate that they may be endangering other people,” Massengale said before attending Saturday’s game.

Of Texas Tech’s 40,322 students, 7,000 live in the dorms, with the rest living nearby. Although the university has isolated sick students at dorms and local hotels, it hasn’t mandated testing of potentially asymptomatic students or shut down off-campus parties, although Schovanec said the university has worked with fraternities and Lubbock police to curtail them.

Critics say the school and local officials are more worried about their bottom line than lives and fear the COVID-19 outbreak will spread farther across Texas and beyond as students — many of whom live in major cities or out of state — head home for Thanksgiving.

“It doesn’t sound like Lubbock is doing its due diligence in terms of keeping its students safe,” said Corina Flores, 43, a Dallas healthcare worker whose 22-year-old son is studying nursing at Texas Tech.

Flores said she was aghast seeing this season’s Texas Tech football crowds on television.

“How are they allowing all these people to be there?” she said.

Flores was also shocked to read a Twitter page created by an anonymous Texas Tech student replete with videos and texts showing scores of students at parties without masks or social distancing, some of the gatherings sponsored by Texas Tech fraternities and sororities. At least one Texas Tech student posted a video on Twitter this fall in which she claimed to be partying after testing positive for the virus.

“What are they going to do when some of these parents come back and say you didn’t protect my child?” Flores asked.

Schovanec said that officials were aware of the Twitter posts and parties and that some student groups have faced discipline for violating COVID-19 safety guidelines. But, he said, “it’s difficult to control people’s behavior off campus.”

“I believe our student body has been responsible,” he said, adding that although he’s concerned about the case increase in the surrounding county, based on contact tracing, “the problem is certainly not Texas Tech University.”

Experts disagree.

A. David Paltiel, a professor of health policy at the Yale School of Public Health, said universities need to proactively test students to prevent those who are asymptomatic from spreading the virus.

With the holiday season approaching, experts worry that college students returning home could spread the coronavirus to family members.

(Molly Hennessy-Fiske / Los Angeles Times)

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers broad guidelines for universities to prevent and respond to the coronavirus, but many schools go further, Paltiel said. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has tested 20,000 students daily, he said, “identified them, isolated them and gotten them contained.” In California, Paltiel noted, UC San Diego has been monitoring wastewater for signs of outbreaks.

By contrast, Paltiel said, “Most of the schools in Texas and Florida have been shielding themselves in the CDC guidelines and saying we don’t have to do anything. They’re just hoping that everything that could go wrong will go right.”

He said voluntary coronavirus testing at Texas Tech and other schools wasn’t helpful because those without symptoms probably won’t get tested.

“Waiting until you have symptoms with a disease that’s such a silent spreader is like waiting to call the fire department until a house is ablaze,” he said. “Who is a voluntary program going to bring out? The worried well or the kid with the runny nose. That’s not who I want. I want the asymptomatic spreader. I want the kid toddling off to do Jell-O shots in an unventilated room.”

Paltiel said universities also need to test students before allowing them to return home for Thanksgiving, when they could expose relatives.

“What’s concerning to me is schools will say as long as you don’t have symptoms, you’re good to go. You could be sending home silent spreaders,” he said. “I’m not sure people understand how much risk a returning college student poses to elderly relatives.”

More than 80% of Texas Tech students come from more than 200 miles away, twice as far as the average U.S. college student, Schovanec said. Most are from Texas, thousands from the state’s largest cities: Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston. Hundreds also come from out of state, primarily New Mexico (744) and California (408).

“Honestly, I feel we shouldn’t be here on campus,” said freshman Timothy Odusola-Stephen, 18, while eating lunch with two fellow freshmen from Houston at the student union Friday.

The trio said they had been partying and planned to party this weekend and to return home for Thanksgiving.

Sophomore Tayvion Wheeler, 21, an information technology major, lives off campus and has tried to isolate, but he has one class in person. He was debating how to return safely to Dallas next month.

“I have a grandmother that stays at my mom’s house. I’m scared to go back home,” he said by phone last week.

Wheeler also worries there will be further outbreaks after the holidays when students return to campus.

“People are going to get things and then come back,” he said.

Read More

[newstfionline]

Thursday, August 12, 2021

So much for ‘post-pandemic’ travel (Washington Post) The summer started on a hopeful note. Coronavirus cases were falling, and inoculation rates were rising on both sides of the Atlantic. The European Union moved to lift its restrictions on travel from the United States, and newly vaccinated tourists eagerly embarked on their first “post-pandemic” trips. But now three months later, the United States still hasn’t lifted the Trump-era rules banning most European travelers, the State Department is telling citizens to avoid 10 of the continent’s countries, and the European Union is considering shutting its doors once again to Americans, as U.S. cases soar. On Monday, after rumors circulated that the European Union would reimpose restrictions on U.S. travelers, the bloc decided against it, for now, allowing Americans to continue flocking to European cities and beaches, which have been desperate to revive tourism-starved economies. But the 27-member club also signaled that policy could soon change. The Council of the European Union, the body through which member states coordinate policy, said it would continue monitoring the countries, including the United States, where “the covid situation has deteriorated,” an official told The Post.

Hospitals run low on nurses as they get swamped with COVID (AP) The rapidly escalating surge in COVID-19 infections across the U.S. has caused a shortage of nurses and other front-line staff in virus hot spots that can no longer keep up with the flood of unvaccinated patients and are losing workers to burnout. Florida, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oregon all have more people hospitalized with COVID-19 than at any other point in the pandemic, and nursing staffs are badly strained. Michelle Thomas, a registered nurse and a manager of the emergency department at a Tucson, Arizona, hospital, resigned three weeks ago after hitting a wall. “There was never a time that we could just kind of take a breath,” Thomas said Tuesday. “I hit that point … I can’t do this anymore. I’m so just tapped out.” She helped other nurses cope with being alone in rooms with dying patients and holding mobile phones so family members could say their final goodbyes. “It’s like incredibly taxing and traumatizing,” said Thomas, who is unsure if she will ever return to nursing.

Pacific Northwest braces for another multiday heat wave (AP) People in the Pacific Northwest braced for another major, multiday heat wave starting Wednesday, just over a month after record-shattering hot weather killed hundreds of the region’s most vulnerable when temperatures soared to 116 degrees Fahrenheit (47 Celsius). In a “worst-case scenario,” the temperature could reach as high as 111 F (44 C) in some parts of western Oregon by Friday before a weekend cooldown, the National Weather Service in Portland, Oregon, warned this week. It’s more likely temperatures will rise above 100 F (38 C) for three consecutive days, peaking around 105 F (40.5 C) on Thursday. Seattle will be cooler than Portland, with temperatures in the mid-90s, but it still has a chance to break records, and many people there, like in Oregon, don’t have air conditioning.

A man claiming to be a Mexican cartel leader threatened to kill a TV anchor. She returned to her nightly broadcast. (Washington Post/BBC) Hours after receiving a death threat from a man claiming to be one of Mexico’s most dangerous criminals, the news anchor took to the air again. At 9:59 p.m. Monday, Milenio Television anchor Azucena Uresti posted a photo of herself smiling, sitting on a desk in an airy dress and impeccable makeup on Twitter and said she would be on her news show as usual. A minute later, the broadcast began. “This morning, an alleged criminal group issued threats against several media outlets and against myself for the journalistic work we do in Michoacán,” she said, delivering the news as if she wasn’t now at the center of country’s biggest story. Early Monday morning, a video began circulating on social media in which a man claiming to be Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the head of Mexico’s notorious Jalisco New Generation cartel, promised to murder her. He was surrounded by seven masked men armed with assault rifles. Even in a country ranked among the world’s most dangerous for journalists, the scene was striking: One of the Western Hemisphere’s most powerful criminal organizations threatening a national television news anchor over “biased media coverage.” One hundred and twenty-four reporters and media workers have been killed in Mexico since 2000. Groups representing journalists have supported her and demanded the government offer her protection. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that Uresti “was not alone,” and that she “could count on us” without providing any details of what the government would do to protect her.

Afghan officials: 3 more provincial capitals fall to Taliban (AP/Washington Post) The Taliban seized three more provincial capitals in Afghanistan and a local army headquarters in a blitz across the country’s northeast, officials said Wednesday, with the insurgents now controlling some two-thirds of the nation as the U.S. and NATO finalize their withdrawal after its decades-long war there. While Kabul itself has not been directly threatened in the advance, its stunning speed raises questions of how long the Afghan government can maintain control of its countryside. The multiple fronts of the battle have stretched the government’s special operations forces—while regular troops have often fled the battlefield—and the violence has pushed thousands of civilians to seek safety in the capital. The U.S. military, which plans to complete its withdrawal by the end of the month, has conducted some airstrikes but largely has avoided involving itself in the ground campaign. Hundreds of Afghan forces surrendered to the Taliban in northern Afghanistan on Wednesday. After holding out for days at a military base on the edge of Kunduz, an entire Afghan army corps surrendered to Taliban fighters Wednesday morning, handing over valuable equipment—much of it American.

Chinese court sentences Canadian Michael Spavor to 11 years in prison (Washington Post) A Chinese court on Wednesday sentenced Canadian businessman Michael Spavor to 11 years in prison, in a case widely seen as retribution against Canada’s arrest of a senior Huawei executive wanted by the United States. The Intermediate People’s Court of Dandong City said that Spavor was sentenced to the prison time for espionage and transferring state secrets overseas. The trial was held in March, but the judgment was not released until now, as the extradition hearing of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou enters a crucial stretch in Canada. Spavor will be able to appeal the judgment to a higher-level court in China, and it may be years before a final decision. Spavor and former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig were detained in China at the end of 2018, days after Meng was arrested in Canada at the behest of the United States on fraud charges linked to Huawei’s business in Iran. The cases of the “Two Michaels”—as they are called in Canada—and Meng have significantly strained relations between Ottawa and Beijing.

North Korea tensions (Foreign Policy) South Korean officials say a recently reopened phone hotline with North Korea has now gone quiet, soon after Pyongyang expressed displeasure at plans for joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises next week. The usually twice-daily phone calls have not been answered for the past two days, Yonhap reports, as senior North Korean official King Yong Chol warned that its southern neighbor would “realize by the minute what a dangerous choice they made and what a serious security crisis they will face because of their wrong choice.” U.S. State Department Spokesman Ned Price has attempted to assuage North Korean concerns about the drills, saying the United States “harbors no hostile intent towards” the country, and that exercises are “purely defensive.”

Wildfires in Algeria leave 32 dead, including 25 soldiers (AP) At least 25 Algerian soldiers were killed saving residents from wildfires ravaging mountain forests and villages east of the capital, the president announced Tuesday night as the civilian death toll from the blazes rose to at least 17. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune tweeted that the soldiers saved 100 people from the fires in two areas of Kabyle, the region that is home to the North African nation’s Berber population. Eleven other soldiers were burned fighting the fires, four of them seriously, the Defense Ministry said. The Kabyle region, 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Algeria’s capital of Algiers, is dotted with difficult-to-access villages and with temperatures rising has had limited water. Some villagers were fleeing, while others tried to hold back the flames themselves, using buckets, branches and rudimentary tools. The region has no water-dumping planes.

Ethiopia’s prime minister calls for mass enlistment amid battlefield losses to Tigray rebels (Washington Post) Amid a string of battlefield losses that have allowed rebels from Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region to move into neighboring areas and down a key highway leading to the capital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s prime minister called Tuesday for a national war effort, including mass enlistment. “Now is the right time for all capable Ethiopians who are of age to join the Defence Forces, Special Forces and militias and show your patriotism,” Abiy Ahmed’s office said in a lengthy statement. He alleged that the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a political party that controlled Ethiopia for three decades and has been fighting the government for the past nine months, is being aided by “foreign hands.” In recent weeks, the war in Tigray has spread into the Amhara and Afar regions as the TPLF’s militia has pursued its stated aim of debilitating the military capabilities of Ethiopia’s government and defeating aligned forces from neighboring Eritrea and ethnic militias that support the government. The increased fighting has deepened an already dire humanitarian catastrophe. Millions of people in Tigray are relying on aid to survive, but obstructionism that each warring side blames on the other has severely hampered aid deliveries. Now, hundreds of thousands more civilians in Amhara and Afar have been affected.

[worldnews-blog]

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to pummel the United States, Las Vegas seems to be operating business as usual. Casinos have been open since June 4—undeterred by the 123 visitors who have tested positive for the highly contagious virus and the 51-year-old Caesars employee who died in late June.But it’s not business as usual for doctors and nurses in Las Vegas’ besieged health-care system, who say they are “overwhelmed and terrified” about the massive influx of new cases in a state officially deemed a “red zone” by the White House. “I would say in the last month we’ve been completely overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients and our hospital is running out of space,” one Las Vegas emergency room doctor, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of professional retaliation, told The Daily Beast on Friday. “Not only are we overwhelmed and terrified, but based on the numbers for the rest of the country, it’s only going to get worse for us.”'A Sinking Ship’: Arizona Docs Say Ducey Steered State Into COVID-19 SurgeOne of the states that loosened coronavirus restrictions in May, Nevada has set records for new cases throughout July. The rate of new cases per 100,000 residents is higher than the national average, putting Nevada in the top ten states for cases per capita—alongside Arizona, Texas, and Florida, now the epicenter of the pandemic. In Las Vegas, where local officials protested against the stay-at-home order, the hospital system is starting to feel the effects of the cascading outbreak. The Las Vegas area set a new record of 1,315 new cases on Thursday, according to the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services.And Sin City is a microcosm for the whole state—which also shattered COVID-19 numbers on Thursday with 1,447 new cases and six new deaths. ICUs are at about 84 percent capacity. “It’s even more troubling that COVID-19 in Nevada is disproportionately impacting communities of color,” Bethany Khan, the communications director for the Culinary Union in Las Vegas, told The Daily Beast on Friday. “Workers fear that they will contract the virus and bring it home to their families or possibly die from it.”At least 626 people have died from the coronavirus and 31,915 have been infected in Nevada—continuing a trend across much of the South and West after states lifted lockdown measures. Worse still, the rate of positive COVID-19 test results has reached a staggering 24.3 percent, rising continuously over the last month.Las Vegas Not-So-Politely Declines Mayor’s Bonkers Offer to Become Virus ‘Control Group’To curtail the surge, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak has rolled back premature reopening plans, introduced a mask mandate, and closed down bars in seven counties, including Vegas. But he left it up to local leaders to enact more restrictive measures—and Las Vegas seems to be operating as usual. In the weeks after Nevada’s casinos reopened on June 4, after being shuttered for three months, at least 123 visitors have tested positive for the coronavirus.Brian Labus, a professor of public health and outbreak investigation at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told The Daily Beast that while cases in the state are surging, state officials have “stepped up” and taken “the main steps” to ensure the spread is curtailed. “The problem comes down to the fact that people didn’t take the social distancing seriously when we reopened,” Labus said. “I think the mask mandate will have a big dent on cases.”Labus also stressed that Sin City “exists for tourism” and therefore has a unique issue of balancing “its economy with the safety issues.”“You have to remember the kind of people who are coming to Las Vegas right now. It’s the people who are the least concerned about this outbreak right now—least likely to follow the social distancing,” he said, noting that tourists are not counted in Nevada’s numbers.“When you are on vacation, you want to forget about all your problems—and that includes the coronavirus. But there is still a pandemic, and not following health guidelines puts everyone at risk.”Khan said the pressure on reopening the strip has meant “hotel and casino workers are working in fear every day.” Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman has been notably silent after calling the state shutdown in March “total insanity” and suggesting Las Vegas could be a “control group” to test the impact COVID-19 would have on a community that didn’t close its doors. Over 500 Employees at Trump’s Las Vegas Hotel Have Been Laid Off Amid Coronavirus“We would love to be that placebo side so you have something to measure against,” she said during a wild April interview on CNN that prompted residents to begin efforts to remove her. Goodman’s office did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.Late last month, Adolfo Fernandez, a 51-year-old employee at Caesars Entertainment on the strip, died after testing positive for COVID-19. The utility porter died just two days after getting his virus diagnosis—and before the casino implemented a company-wide mask policy.The Culinary Union has since filed a lawsuit against several major casinos—including The Signature at the MGM Grand—to protect workers returning to work. The lawsuit states that the casino hotels have not adopted precautions to address the virus, have not conducted adequate tracing, and haven’t informed employees of positive tests among co-workers. Khan, who said 20 union members and their spouses or kids had died from COVID-19 in the last three months, stressed that the lawsuit was aimed at ensuring that hotel and casino workers don’t have to live “with the same fear every day they go to work.”The White House, according to a report obtained by the Center of Public Integrity, believes Nevada is already facing catastrophic virus consequences. In a July 14 document from the White House Coronavirus Task Force, public health officials said Nevada had reached “red zone” status—meaning there were more than 100 new cases for every 100,000 residents in the prior week. Nevada had about 173 new cases per capita in the previous week, compared to the national average of 119. “Las Vegas continues to have [a] concerning rise in cases,” the report said, noting that its county is one of the top three in the state with the highest COVID-19 cases. (Clark County, Washoe, County and Elko County represent 97.9 percent of the new cases in Nevada.)In order to combat the surge, the White House document suggested Nevada—and 17 other states—limit large gatherings, close down indoor establishments, and issue a mask mandate. A New York Times study also showed Nevada’s surge to be among the highest in the world. The study of the number of daily infections between June 28 and July 5 showed Arizona and Florida are the two most infected places in the world. Nevada placed ninth, before Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, and the country of Panama. Nevada also ranked before Brazil, a country seen as one of the world's most severe hot spots with more than 2 million cases recorded since March. “The big surge in cases in Nevada [is] among Las Vegas residents—but even if Las Vegas puts a bunch of measures in place, it wouldn’t matter unless it was implemented statewide. You can’t just focus on one jurisdiction, because people move around,” Labus said. Las Vegas hospitals are feeling the surge of new cases and are overwhelmed, understaffed, and short on supplies—unable to keep up with what researchers believe is the “tipping point” before a state loses control of the pandemic. For the ER doctor, who said he had worked over 100 hours this week alone, the fear is knowing that the worst of the virus is yet to come for Las Vegas. He also said that some of the hospital’s beds are being taken up by patients from out-of-state, like Arizona.“This is uncharted waters and it seems like everyone in Las Vegas has been too lax about the pandemic,” the doctor said, stressing that local officials have not taken the necessary precautions to ensure they “stop the virus in its tracks months ago.”“People here in Las Vegas don’t see this pandemic as an issue—well, once the hospitals are filled and there is nowhere to go, they will realize they should have been more careful.”A spokesperson for University Medical Center in Las Vegas confirmed to The Daily Beast the hospital’s ICU occupancy had exceeded 90 percent but stressed they “have the ability to significantly expand this capacity.” “Following a detailed planning process, we have teams in place to activate alternative surge space throughout UMC as needed. We are currently using extra space within a large PACU [post-anesthesia care unit] to care for a small number of patients with non-COVID-related medical concerns,” the spokesperson said, adding that the hospital had not received any virus patients from Arizona. The hospital does take out-of-state trauma patients who need additional care.According to the Nevada Hospital Association, the state recorded its highest day for hospitalizations this week, with 1,051 on Tuesday. By Thursday, about 77 percent of staffed beds across the state were occupied, and 785 confirmed virus patients were admitted. About 40 percent of the state’s ventilators are in use.Sixto Zermeno, a bellman at The Signature at MGM Grand, said in a video announcing the union’s lawsuit, that he hadn’t been able to see his daughter for three weeks while he recovered from COVID-19.“[G]etting this disease has been extremely difficult for me and my family,” he said. “I have not been able to see my nine-year-old daughter in person since I tested positive—I haven’t been able to hug my daughter or see her for 3-weeks now.“The Signature at MGM Grand had three months to prepare and they didn’t. None of our upper management had a clue what to do and that’s unfortunate. They put a lot of us and our families at risk.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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[tendance-news]

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to pummel the United States, Las Vegas seems to be operating business as usual. Casinos have been open since June 4—undeterred by the 123 visitors who have tested positive for the highly contagious virus and the 51-year-old Caesars employee who died in late June.But it’s not business as usual for doctors and nurses in Las Vegas’ besieged health-care system, who say they are “overwhelmed and terrified” about the massive influx of new cases in a state officially deemed a “red zone” by the White House. “I would say in the last month we’ve been completely overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients and our hospital is running out of space,” one Las Vegas emergency room doctor, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of professional retaliation, told The Daily Beast on Friday. “Not only are we overwhelmed and terrified, but based on the numbers for the rest of the country, it’s only going to get worse for us.”'A Sinking Ship’: Arizona Docs Say Ducey Steered State Into COVID-19 SurgeOne of the states that loosened coronavirus restrictions in May, Nevada has set records for new cases throughout July. The rate of new cases per 100,000 residents is higher than the national average, putting Nevada in the top ten states for cases per capita—alongside Arizona, Texas, and Florida, now the epicenter of the pandemic. In Las Vegas, where local officials protested against the stay-at-home order, the hospital system is starting to feel the effects of the cascading outbreak. The Las Vegas area set a new record of 1,315 new cases on Thursday, according to the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services.And Sin City is a microcosm for the whole state—which also shattered COVID-19 numbers on Thursday with 1,447 new cases and six new deaths. ICUs are at about 84 percent capacity. “It’s even more troubling that COVID-19 in Nevada is disproportionately impacting communities of color,” Bethany Khan, the communications director for the Culinary Union in Las Vegas, told The Daily Beast on Friday. “Workers fear that they will contract the virus and bring it home to their families or possibly die from it.”At least 626 people have died from the coronavirus and 31,915 have been infected in Nevada—continuing a trend across much of the South and West after states lifted lockdown measures. Worse still, the rate of positive COVID-19 test results has reached a staggering 24.3 percent, rising continuously over the last month.Las Vegas Not-So-Politely Declines Mayor’s Bonkers Offer to Become Virus ‘Control Group’To curtail the surge, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak has rolled back premature reopening plans, introduced a mask mandate, and closed down bars in seven counties, including Vegas. But he left it up to local leaders to enact more restrictive measures—and Las Vegas seems to be operating as usual. In the weeks after Nevada’s casinos reopened on June 4, after being shuttered for three months, at least 123 visitors have tested positive for the coronavirus.Brian Labus, a professor of public health and outbreak investigation at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told The Daily Beast that while cases in the state are surging, state officials have “stepped up” and taken “the main steps” to ensure the spread is curtailed. “The problem comes down to the fact that people didn’t take the social distancing seriously when we reopened,” Labus said. “I think the mask mandate will have a big dent on cases.”Labus also stressed that Sin City “exists for tourism” and therefore has a unique issue of balancing “its economy with the safety issues.”“You have to remember the kind of people who are coming to Las Vegas right now. It’s the people who are the least concerned about this outbreak right now—least likely to follow the social distancing,” he said, noting that tourists are not counted in Nevada’s numbers.“When you are on vacation, you want to forget about all your problems—and that includes the coronavirus. But there is still a pandemic, and not following health guidelines puts everyone at risk.”Khan said the pressure on reopening the strip has meant “hotel and casino workers are working in fear every day.” Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman has been notably silent after calling the state shutdown in March “total insanity” and suggesting Las Vegas could be a “control group” to test the impact COVID-19 would have on a community that didn’t close its doors. Over 500 Employees at Trump’s Las Vegas Hotel Have Been Laid Off Amid Coronavirus“We would love to be that placebo side so you have something to measure against,” she said during a wild April interview on CNN that prompted residents to begin efforts to remove her. Goodman’s office did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.Late last month, Adolfo Fernandez, a 51-year-old employee at Caesars Entertainment on the strip, died after testing positive for COVID-19. The utility porter died just two days after getting his virus diagnosis—and before the casino implemented a company-wide mask policy.The Culinary Union has since filed a lawsuit against several major casinos—including The Signature at the MGM Grand—to protect workers returning to work. The lawsuit states that the casino hotels have not adopted precautions to address the virus, have not conducted adequate tracing, and haven’t informed employees of positive tests among co-workers. Khan, who said 20 union members and their spouses or kids had died from COVID-19 in the last three months, stressed that the lawsuit was aimed at ensuring that hotel and casino workers don’t have to live “with the same fear every day they go to work.”The White House, according to a report obtained by the Center of Public Integrity, believes Nevada is already facing catastrophic virus consequences. In a July 14 document from the White House Coronavirus Task Force, public health officials said Nevada had reached “red zone” status—meaning there were more than 100 new cases for every 100,000 residents in the prior week. Nevada had about 173 new cases per capita in the previous week, compared to the national average of 119. “Las Vegas continues to have [a] concerning rise in cases,” the report said, noting that its county is one of the top three in the state with the highest COVID-19 cases. (Clark County, Washoe, County and Elko County represent 97.9 percent of the new cases in Nevada.)In order to combat the surge, the White House document suggested Nevada—and 17 other states—limit large gatherings, close down indoor establishments, and issue a mask mandate. A New York Times study also showed Nevada’s surge to be among the highest in the world. The study of the number of daily infections between June 28 and July 5 showed Arizona and Florida are the two most infected places in the world. Nevada placed ninth, before Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, and the country of Panama. Nevada also ranked before Brazil, a country seen as one of the world's most severe hot spots with more than 2 million cases recorded since March. “The big surge in cases in Nevada [is] among Las Vegas residents—but even if Las Vegas puts a bunch of measures in place, it wouldn’t matter unless it was implemented statewide. You can’t just focus on one jurisdiction, because people move around,” Labus said. Las Vegas hospitals are feeling the surge of new cases and are overwhelmed, understaffed, and short on supplies—unable to keep up with what researchers believe is the “tipping point” before a state loses control of the pandemic. For the ER doctor, who said he had worked over 100 hours this week alone, the fear is knowing that the worst of the virus is yet to come for Las Vegas. He also said that some of the hospital’s beds are being taken up by patients from out-of-state, like Arizona.“This is uncharted waters and it seems like everyone in Las Vegas has been too lax about the pandemic,” the doctor said, stressing that local officials have not taken the necessary precautions to ensure they “stop the virus in its tracks months ago.”“People here in Las Vegas don’t see this pandemic as an issue—well, once the hospitals are filled and there is nowhere to go, they will realize they should have been more careful.”A spokesperson for University Medical Center in Las Vegas confirmed to The Daily Beast the hospital’s ICU occupancy had exceeded 90 percent but stressed they “have the ability to significantly expand this capacity.” “Following a detailed planning process, we have teams in place to activate alternative surge space throughout UMC as needed. We are currently using extra space within a large PACU [post-anesthesia care unit] to care for a small number of patients with non-COVID-related medical concerns,” the spokesperson said, adding that the hospital had not received any virus patients from Arizona. The hospital does take out-of-state trauma patients who need additional care.According to the Nevada Hospital Association, the state recorded its highest day for hospitalizations this week, with 1,051 on Tuesday. By Thursday, about 77 percent of staffed beds across the state were occupied, and 785 confirmed virus patients were admitted. About 40 percent of the state’s ventilators are in use.Sixto Zermeno, a bellman at The Signature at MGM Grand, said in a video announcing the union’s lawsuit, that he hadn’t been able to see his daughter for three weeks while he recovered from COVID-19.“[G]etting this disease has been extremely difficult for me and my family,” he said. “I have not been able to see my nine-year-old daughter in person since I tested positive—I haven’t been able to hug my daughter or see her for 3-weeks now.“The Signature at MGM Grand had three months to prepare and they didn’t. None of our upper management had a clue what to do and that’s unfortunate. They put a lot of us and our families at risk.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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[saadullah-faisal-world]

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to pummel the United States, Las Vegas seems to be operating business as usual. Casinos have been open since June 4—undeterred by the 123 visitors who have tested positive for the highly contagious virus and the 51-year-old Caesars employee who died in late June.But it’s not business as usual for doctors and nurses in Las Vegas’ besieged health-care system, who say they are “overwhelmed and terrified” about the massive influx of new cases in a state officially deemed a “red zone” by the White House. “I would say in the last month we’ve been completely overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients and our hospital is running out of space,” one Las Vegas emergency room doctor, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of professional retaliation, told The Daily Beast on Friday. “Not only are we overwhelmed and terrified, but based on the numbers for the rest of the country, it’s only going to get worse for us.”'A Sinking Ship’: Arizona Docs Say Ducey Steered State Into COVID-19 SurgeOne of the states that loosened coronavirus restrictions in May, Nevada has set records for new cases throughout July. The rate of new cases per 100,000 residents is higher than the national average, putting Nevada in the top ten states for cases per capita—alongside Arizona, Texas, and Florida, now the epicenter of the pandemic. In Las Vegas, where local officials protested against the stay-at-home order, the hospital system is starting to feel the effects of the cascading outbreak. The Las Vegas area set a new record of 1,315 new cases on Thursday, according to the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services.And Sin City is a microcosm for the whole state—which also shattered COVID-19 numbers on Thursday with 1,447 new cases and six new deaths. ICUs are at about 84 percent capacity. “It’s even more troubling that COVID-19 in Nevada is disproportionately impacting communities of color,” Bethany Khan, the communications director for the Culinary Union in Las Vegas, told The Daily Beast on Friday. “Workers fear that they will contract the virus and bring it home to their families or possibly die from it.”At least 626 people have died from the coronavirus and 31,915 have been infected in Nevada—continuing a trend across much of the South and West after states lifted lockdown measures. Worse still, the rate of positive COVID-19 test results has reached a staggering 24.3 percent, rising continuously over the last month.Las Vegas Not-So-Politely Declines Mayor’s Bonkers Offer to Become Virus ‘Control Group’To curtail the surge, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak has rolled back premature reopening plans, introduced a mask mandate, and closed down bars in seven counties, including Vegas. But he left it up to local leaders to enact more restrictive measures—and Las Vegas seems to be operating as usual. In the weeks after Nevada’s casinos reopened on June 4, after being shuttered for three months, at least 123 visitors have tested positive for the coronavirus.Brian Labus, a professor of public health and outbreak investigation at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told The Daily Beast that while cases in the state are surging, state officials have “stepped up” and taken “the main steps” to ensure the spread is curtailed. “The problem comes down to the fact that people didn’t take the social distancing seriously when we reopened,” Labus said. “I think the mask mandate will have a big dent on cases.”Labus also stressed that Sin City “exists for tourism” and therefore has a unique issue of balancing “its economy with the safety issues.”“You have to remember the kind of people who are coming to Las Vegas right now. It’s the people who are the least concerned about this outbreak right now—least likely to follow the social distancing,” he said, noting that tourists are not counted in Nevada’s numbers.“When you are on vacation, you want to forget about all your problems—and that includes the coronavirus. But there is still a pandemic, and not following health guidelines puts everyone at risk.”Khan said the pressure on reopening the strip has meant “hotel and casino workers are working in fear every day.” Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman has been notably silent after calling the state shutdown in March “total insanity” and suggesting Las Vegas could be a “control group” to test the impact COVID-19 would have on a community that didn’t close its doors. Over 500 Employees at Trump’s Las Vegas Hotel Have Been Laid Off Amid Coronavirus“We would love to be that placebo side so you have something to measure against,” she said during a wild April interview on CNN that prompted residents to begin efforts to remove her. Goodman’s office did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.Late last month, Adolfo Fernandez, a 51-year-old employee at Caesars Entertainment on the strip, died after testing positive for COVID-19. The utility porter died just two days after getting his virus diagnosis—and before the casino implemented a company-wide mask policy.The Culinary Union has since filed a lawsuit against several major casinos—including The Signature at the MGM Grand—to protect workers returning to work. The lawsuit states that the casino hotels have not adopted precautions to address the virus, have not conducted adequate tracing, and haven’t informed employees of positive tests among co-workers. Khan, who said 20 union members and their spouses or kids had died from COVID-19 in the last three months, stressed that the lawsuit was aimed at ensuring that hotel and casino workers don’t have to live “with the same fear every day they go to work.”The White House, according to a report obtained by the Center of Public Integrity, believes Nevada is already facing catastrophic virus consequences. In a July 14 document from the White House Coronavirus Task Force, public health officials said Nevada had reached “red zone” status—meaning there were more than 100 new cases for every 100,000 residents in the prior week. Nevada had about 173 new cases per capita in the previous week, compared to the national average of 119. “Las Vegas continues to have [a] concerning rise in cases,” the report said, noting that its county is one of the top three in the state with the highest COVID-19 cases. (Clark County, Washoe, County and Elko County represent 97.9 percent of the new cases in Nevada.)In order to combat the surge, the White House document suggested Nevada—and 17 other states—limit large gatherings, close down indoor establishments, and issue a mask mandate. A New York Times study also showed Nevada’s surge to be among the highest in the world. The study of the number of daily infections between June 28 and July 5 showed Arizona and Florida are the two most infected places in the world. Nevada placed ninth, before Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, and the country of Panama. Nevada also ranked before Brazil, a country seen as one of the world's most severe hot spots with more than 2 million cases recorded since March. “The big surge in cases in Nevada [is] among Las Vegas residents—but even if Las Vegas puts a bunch of measures in place, it wouldn’t matter unless it was implemented statewide. You can’t just focus on one jurisdiction, because people move around,” Labus said. Las Vegas hospitals are feeling the surge of new cases and are overwhelmed, understaffed, and short on supplies—unable to keep up with what researchers believe is the “tipping point” before a state loses control of the pandemic. For the ER doctor, who said he had worked over 100 hours this week alone, the fear is knowing that the worst of the virus is yet to come for Las Vegas. He also said that some of the hospital’s beds are being taken up by patients from out-of-state, like Arizona.“This is uncharted waters and it seems like everyone in Las Vegas has been too lax about the pandemic,” the doctor said, stressing that local officials have not taken the necessary precautions to ensure they “stop the virus in its tracks months ago.”“People here in Las Vegas don’t see this pandemic as an issue—well, once the hospitals are filled and there is nowhere to go, they will realize they should have been more careful.”A spokesperson for University Medical Center in Las Vegas confirmed to The Daily Beast the hospital’s ICU occupancy had exceeded 90 percent but stressed they “have the ability to significantly expand this capacity.” “Following a detailed planning process, we have teams in place to activate alternative surge space throughout UMC as needed. We are currently using extra space within a large PACU [post-anesthesia care unit] to care for a small number of patients with non-COVID-related medical concerns,” the spokesperson said, adding that the hospital had not received any virus patients from Arizona. The hospital does take out-of-state trauma patients who need additional care.According to the Nevada Hospital Association, the state recorded its highest day for hospitalizations this week, with 1,051 on Tuesday. By Thursday, about 77 percent of staffed beds across the state were occupied, and 785 confirmed virus patients were admitted. About 40 percent of the state’s ventilators are in use.Sixto Zermeno, a bellman at The Signature at MGM Grand, said in a video announcing the union’s lawsuit, that he hadn’t been able to see his daughter for three weeks while he recovered from COVID-19.“[G]etting this disease has been extremely difficult for me and my family,” he said. “I have not been able to see my nine-year-old daughter in person since I tested positive—I haven’t been able to hug my daughter or see her for 3-weeks now.“The Signature at MGM Grand had three months to prepare and they didn’t. None of our upper management had a clue what to do and that’s unfortunate. They put a lot of us and our families at risk.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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[jobsearchtips02]

13 pictures shows how Mexico is becoming the brand-new coronavirus hotspo

Rosa Leyva (R) and her nephew Viridiana wait on consumers at her stall where she offers plastic flower arrangements and religious images, outside the San Rafael cemetery, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on May 7,2020

Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters.

With the seventh-highest global death toll worldwide, Mexico is catching up to Brazil as one of the worst-affected Latin American nations.

The country has actually been slow in clamping down on the outbreak after many public officials, consisting of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, declined to acknowledge its intensity for a long time.

However the government’s handling has not been the only problem: Lots of Mexicans have actually established a preconception around the infection, and believe that it is a scam or not as bad as it seems.

It has likewise affected the country’s health care workers, who are dealing with widespread abuse from people who think they are assisting spread out the infection.

While Mexico has yet to reach peak infections, authorities are pressing ahead with plans to resume the economy.

Pictures reveal what it resembles in the nation as it attempts to deal with the coronavirus amid the turmoil.

Check out Company Insider’s homepage for more stories

With more than 15,000 deaths, it officially has the seventh-highest worldwide death toll, according to a tracker by John Hopkins University.

However as the numbers continue to climb, the nation still plans to gradually reopen its economy as it deals with mounting pressure from United States officials to power up factories operating at the US-Mexico border.

Photos show what it resembles in Mexico as it deals with one of the worst crises in the history of its country.

Like much of Latin America, Mexico is currently becoming the new center of the unique coronavirus.

Monica Samudio, 46, whose spouse Jorge Garcia passed away from COVID-19, watches out of her new house in Mexico City on April 29,2020 Samudio stated she moved from her previous house after feeling victimized when she and her husband contracted the illness.

Edgard Garrido/Reuters.

Mexico has the second-worst death toll in South America after Brazil, according to John Hopkins University.

Throughout the pandemic, Mexico has been extremely sluggish to react. For a long period of time, public officials– consisting of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador– did not take the virus seriously and were adamant about prioritizing the economy.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador speaks at the National Palace in Mexico City on April 5,2020

Associated Press.

Up till the last week of March, the country was still operating as regular in an effort to keep the economy running.

And it’s paying the rate. To date, the nation has almost 130,000 validated coronavirus cases and more than 15,000 deaths, although the figures are feared to be much higher.

A crematory employee pushes the body of an individual who passed away of the coronavirus into a cremation oven at a crematory in Nezahualcoyotl in Mexico City on May 19,2020

Edgard Garrido/Reuters.

According to an investigation by Sky News, government experts say the figures are “hopelessly incorrect” and are underestimated by at least a factor of 5.

Source: Worldometer

The number of infections and deaths is only anticipated to rise, with health authorities predicting the nation is still weeks away from its peak.

Marco bids farewell after a video call with his partner Carla, a patient contaminated with the coronavirus, as part of a support strategy families at Ajusco General Hospital in Mexico City, Mexico, on May 15,2020

Edgard Garrido/Reuters.

Mexico’s Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said in a press conference on Tuesday: “We still haven’t reached the maximum point. For several more weeks, we will keep announcing these are more cases today than yesterday,” according to Reuters.

However regardless of the alarming boost in cases, the government is continuing to promote a progressive resuming of the economy.

Nogales Medical facility doctor Javier Martinez consumes outside his house while his family observes him, prior to returning to operate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on April 25,2020

Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters.

Source: Los Angeles Times

The nation has actually been under increasing pressure from US officials to resume factories that run on the border. Some organisations never closed down in the first location, which caused lots of deaths.

Employees from U.S. car parts maker Aptiv Plc arrive at the plant in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico May 18,2020

Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters.

Border states in the country are house to more than 6,000 “maquiladoras”, which are mostly foreign-owned factories that make products for exports.

Baja California, the Mexican state with the largest number of maquiladoras, has the second-greatest variety of Covid-19 deaths, according to the Guardian

Source: The Guardian

Outside the factories, the virus is likewise running rampant. In bigger cities, many individuals reside in poverty and can’t pay for to stay inside your home. When market-goers in Mexico City were asked whether they were frightened of the infection, they “shrugged their shoulders and stated they have higher issues to worry about– like getting food.”

Rosa Leyva (R) and her nephew Viridiana await customers at her stall where she offers plastic flower arrangements and religious images, outside the San Rafael cemetery, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on May 7,2020

Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters.

Source: Sky News

A big part of the problem is that locals appear to not be taking the pandemic seriously. Since the start of the break out, there has actually been a social stigma attached to being infected with the virus, causing lots of people not to confess they are ill in the first location.

Mourners pass up social distancing and dance throughout a ceremony adhering to native Mazahua tradition following the burial of Horacio Servando Parada, 65, who died of the coronavirus, in San Antonio Pueblo Nuevo, Mexico on May 21,2020

Gustavo Graf/Reuters.

Source: Sky News

.

.

One doctor who operates in Mexico City told Sky News:” Some people don’t even believe

it[coronavirus] exists. Patients come here and I inform them, it’s most likely COVID, they state no, that does not exist. The nationwide federal government made that up.”

.

.

Source: Sky News

The preconception has likewise led to health care workers ending up being the topic of a series of attacks, which has included attacking them, kicking them off public transport, and barring them from leaving their houses.

Healthcare employees wearing protective suits transfer a man believed of being contaminated with the coronavirus in Mexico City on May 11,2020

Edgard Garrido/Reuters.

Mexican authorities think that the attacks are more than likely connected to reports that physicians and nurses are accountable for spreading the infection.

The country has recorded at least 44 attacks against medical personnel in between mid-March and mid-April, according to data provided to CNN by Mexico’s National Council to Avoid Discrimination.

Numerous health care workers have died, and there have been many protests requiring more personal protective devices (PPE).

A ballet dancer carries out outside a private medical facility in Monterrey, Mexico, on May 15,2020

Daniel Becerril/Reuters.

Source: New York Times

There has also been little efforts to evaluate individuals for the infection. Mexico ranks among the most affordable in Latin America, with simply 0.4 tests per 1,000 people.

Relative of a patient suffering from COVID-19 pray together outside the healthcare facility where he is interned for treatment, in Mexico City on May 19,2020

Luis Cortes/Reuters.

Source: The Guardian

The coronavirus outbreak in Mexico is revealing no indications of slowing down. Cristian Morales, the World Health Company’s Agent in Mexico, said this week: “We are experiencing one of the most complicated and most harmful minutes of the epidemic.”

The coffin of Horacio Servando Parada, 65, who passed away of COVID-19, is carried to a grave during his burial according to the native Mazahua tradition, in San Antonio Pueblo Nuevo, Mexico, on May 21,2020

Gustavo Graf/Reuters.

Source: CNN

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[businessliveme]

Trump Postpones G-7 Meeting; India Eases Lockdown: Virus Update

(Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump said he will host a meeting of Group of Seven leaders in autumn, postponing a plan to hold the event in June. Brazil has the world’s fourth-highest death toll, overtaking France, as the outbreak spreads in Latin America’s biggest economy.

India announced a phased lifting of its nationwide lockdown by allowing malls, restaurants and places of worship to open, even as cases surge. U.S. infections rose faster than the one-week daily average.

The U.K.’s scientific advisers urged caution in the pace of lifting the country’s lockdown.

Key Developments:

Virus Tracker: Cases top 6 million; deaths over 369,000

Indonesia to open malls, entertainment sites as cases rise

China factories are humming but not everyone is buying

India to exit lockdown in phases as infections surge

South Korea’s baseball plays through outbreak

Subscribe to a daily update on the virus from Bloomberg’s Prognosis team here. Click VRUS on the terminal for news and data on the coronavirus. For a look back at this week’s top stories from QuickTake, click here.

Hong Kong Reports First Local Case in 17 Days: Local Media (10:45 a.m. HK)

A 34-year-old woman tested preliminary positive on Saturday evening and is in a critical condition in intensive care, Cable TV and other local media reported. She has no recent travel history.

If confirmed at the health department’s daily briefing at 4:30 p.m., that would be the first local case after the city had no new community transmission for the past 16 days.

South Korea’s Numbers (10:25 a.m. HK)

South Korea reported one new coronavirus-related death for a total of 270. The country reported 27 new cases in 24 hours for a total of 11,468.

Trump Postpones, Expands G-7 Meeting (9:18 a.m. HK)

President Donald Trump said he’s planning to host an expanded Group of Seven leaders meeting in the autumn, postponing efforts to hold the event in June at Camp David.

Trump, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, said he would extend an invitation to leaders from Russia, Australia, India and South Korea as well the current participants. The coronavirus and relations with China are likely to be major topics.

The move to invite Russia will be controversial. Russia was suspended from what was then the Group of Eight major economies in 2014 after its annexation of Crimea. Trump has mused before about bringing Moscow back into the fold.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated this weekend that she was hesitant to travel to the U.S. in June for a physical G-7 meeting, one that Trump saw as a sign of normalization after the coronavirus pandemic shut down major economies.

Mylan’s Pakistan Partner to Sell Covid-19 Drug (8:27 a.m. HK)

Pakistan’s AGP Ltd., a partner of Mylan NV, plans to sell the Covid-19 treatment remdesivir, which has been shown to improve recovery of coronavirus patients, within one to two months in the Asian nation.

AGP plans to seek permission from the country’s drug authority to import the medicine, Chief Executive Officer Nusrat Munshi said in an interview. It has a similar arrangement for the Hepatitis C treatment Sovaldi, which it will import from Mylan. AGP is Mylan’s exclusive distributor in Pakistan.

U.K. Scientists Urge Cautious Opening (7:15 a.m. HK)

The U.K. government came under pressure from its own scientific advisers to show caution in easing the pace in lifting the lockdown, and from senior scientists and academics concerned about the public’s wellbeing.

Speaking at the daily briefing, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van-Tam said the easing must go “painstakingly” slowly.

John Edmunds and Jeremy Farrar, members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, told Sky News that an “untested” system to track and trace the virus exacerbated the risk of wider contagion. A group of more than 20 scientists and senior academics wrote to the Observer newspaper, flagging similar concerns and noting that the medical needs of those with other diseases are being neglected.

Brazil Passes France to Rank Fourth in Deaths (6:40 a.m. HK)

Brazil reported a 3.4% rise in new deaths on Saturday, to 28,834. It surpassed France and now has the fourth-most fatalities worldwide. The Latin American nation’s toll trails the U.S., U.K. and Italy. France has 28,774 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins data.

New cases increased 7.2% to 498,440, trailing only the U.S.

NYC Subway to Be Ready: Cuomo (6 a.m. HK)

The New York subway system will be prepared when the city reopens on June 8, Governor Andrew Cuomo said, although transit officials have yet to provide detailed plans to reduce risks to public health.

“They’re disinfecting trains like never before but they have another week of work to do and they will be ready,” he told reporters Saturday. Mayor Bill de Blasio was less sure on Friday, saying the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that oversees subways and buses hasn’t provided enough information.

City officials expect 200,000 to 400,000 workers back in construction, manufacturing, wholesale and curbside retail jobs when reopening begins.

Cuomo said the state plans to get New York City reopened by focusing on “hotspots” — neighborhoods where positive cases can be nearly 50% and are largely in minority communities. The city average rate is about 20%.

New York reported 67 new deaths, Cuomo said. The figure is the same as reported on Friday and the fifth straight day below 75 fatalities. The state reported 1,376 new cases, for a total of 369,660.

U.S. Cases Rise 1.7%, Above Week’s Average (4 p.m. NY)

U.S. cases increased 1.7% from the same time Friday, to 1.76 million, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg News. The national increase exceeded the average daily increase of 1.3% for the past week and was the biggest percentage rise since May 22. Deaths climbed 1.2% to 103,389.

New York reported 1,376 new cases, for a total of 369,660, with 67 deaths — the same as Friday and the fifth day of fatalities under 75. Deaths totaled 23,848.

New Jersey had 910 new cases, pushing the total to 159,608, with 113 new deaths for a total of 11,634, Governor Phil Murphy reported.

California reported 2,992 new cases, for a total of 106,878, and added 88 deaths, with the fatality count at 4,156.

Pennsylvania reported 680 new cases, for a total of 71,415, and 73 new deaths, to total 5,537, the state health department said.

Florida’s cases rose 1.7% to 55,424 and deaths rose to 2,447, the health department said.

Greece Allows More Flights from Mid-June (3:30 p.m. NY)

Greece will allow visitors from more nations, including the U.S. and U.K., to arrive at Athens and Thessaloniki airports starting June 15, the Foreign Ministry said. After July 1, flights can land at all Greek airports.

The government will use the European Union Aviation Safety Agency’s list of airports to determine testing for arriving passengers. If travel originates at an airport not on the affected-area list, then visitors are subject to random tests, the Foreign Ministry said. If the journey begins at an airport on the EASA list, then visitors who test negative will self-quarantine for seven days and if positive will be under supervised quarantine for 14 days.

Greece will reopen borders with Albania, Bulgaria and North Macedonia on June 15, the Foreign Ministry said with visitors subject to random tests. Arrivals by sea will begin July 1.

French Cases Inch Higher (2:10 p.m. NY)

France reported 57 new deaths, raising the total to 28,771, based on hospital data, with reporting of nursing-home fatalities delayed to Tuesday. New cases climbed by 1,828, or 0.8%, to 225,898.

FDA Authorizes Siemens Antibody Test (2:10 p.m. NY)

Siemens Healthineers AG received U.S. Food and Drug Administration emergency use authorization for a coronavirus antibody test, used to identify recent or prior infection in humans. The company had expected the test to be available by late May and aims to produce more than 50 million tests a month starting in June.

Italy Cases on Declining Trend (12:01 pm NY)

Italy reported 416 new cases, up from 516 a day earlier, confirming a declining trend as the total reached 232,664. Total deaths rose to 33,340. The government confirmed plans to allow travel between regions starting June 3 even as some regional governors opposed letting people from the hard-hit Lombardy region move freely.

India to Ease Lockdown in Stages (8:52 a.m. NY)

India announced a phased lifting of the nationwide lockdown by allowing malls, restaurants and places of worship to open from June 8, the interior ministry said in a statement.

The country, which had enforced sweeping and strict stay-at-home orders from March 25, will limit the stringent rules to areas that have a large number of active cases. Authorities will decide to open schools and colleges in July, while international air travel will resume in the final phase. The exit plan comes even as India has been unable to flatten its curve despite the restrictions which have left its already troubled economy in deep disrepair.

EU Urges U.S. to Reconsider WHO Decision (8:24 a.m. NY)

The European Union called on the U.S. to reconsider its decision to terminate its relationship with the World Health Organization, which President Donald Trump has accused of being too deferential to China.

“Global cooperation and solidarity through multilateral efforts are the only effective and viable avenues to win this battle the world is facing,” according to a joint statement Saturday from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the bloc’s chief foreign envoy, Josep Borrell. “We urge the U.S. to reconsider its announced decision.”

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