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4 Reasons Sunday Is the Perfect Day to Take an Updated Pet Photo – wpdh.com

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

Let's face it most of us take a photo of our pet on a regular basis but if you don't All American Pet Photo Day is the one day a year where you should be sure to snap a picture of your pet.

Needing a picture of our pet may seem silly until you give it some thought. Besides the obvious reason which is bragging about how cute they are and comparing photos with your co-workers, there are some more critical reasons you should have an updated photo of your furry or even scaly family member.

If your pet gets lost an updated photo will be a big help in finding them.You will be able to upload it straight to social media from your phone.

Social media is a big reason to have the latest photo of your pet. Using their likeness instead of yours can keep you off the grid a bit from the trolls and the haters.

A happy thought. Having a pet photo loaded on your phone can be a great thing to glance at if your day is going sound. Their gaze will keep you pleasant and hopefully take your mind off the work stress.

If someone has to pick up your pet for you from daycare, the kennel or the vet. You want to be sure to send them a picture so they don't bring home the wrong dog.

So this Sunday, snap away with a real camera or just your cell phone. Tell that animal/critter in your life they matter by taking a photo that you can plan to keep forever. Then stick a reminder in your fun for July 11, 2022.

Why do they meow? Why do they nap so much? Why do they have whiskers? Cats, and their undeniably adorable babies known as kittens, are mysterious creatures. Their larger relatives, after all, are some of the most mystical and lethal animals on the planet. Many questions related to domestic felines, however, have perfectly logical answers. Heres a look at some of the most common questions related to kittens and cats, and the answers cat lovers are looking for.

Check out these 50 fascinating facts about dogs:

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4 Reasons Sunday Is the Perfect Day to Take an Updated Pet Photo - wpdh.com

Making your coding job easier: Where to start – Techaeris

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

Coding a computer program or website can be a complicated, confusing process. There are many pieces you must know and put in the right place for the end product to operate correctly. Knowing the basic languages, learning as much as you can, and practicing when you can make you an expert quickly and allow you to share your knowledge with others. Here are a few ways that you can make your coding job easier.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Your coding job will become far simpler if you have mastered the basic programming languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Knowing how these development products work and practicing them when you can gradually make using them easier as you go. You should also become familiar with other tools that are used extensively when writing code. If you have experience with a python formatter or the different versions of website templates on the market, you can add these to what you are writing and simplify the process for yourself. Make a list of the types of programming that you want to become an expert in, then research the places where you can study them.

Even though you have become an expert at the basic coding languages, you need to keep studying the other aspects of coding a program. Reach out to your local college or community learning center to see what courses they may offer. Register for as many as your schedule permits. Look online for free lessons that experts in the field upload. Take notes on what you experience, and then apply it as soon as you can. Practice these skills whenever you have a free moment. Build your own website on your laptop or desktop to display what you know or offer to design one for a friend or colleague. Keep up with the latest trends and research where you can find out more about them.

While learning everything you can about coding can make you an expert, you must utilize those skills to become great at programming. Set aside a portion of time a day to get on your computer and practice what you know. Repeat lessons that you might have difficulty with, and contact your instructor or someone who knows a great deal about the product if you get stuck. Write the dialogue for a procedure, then test it to see if it works. Get together with others who enjoy creating programs and websites and work together. If you run into an issue, you can collaborate to find the answer. Everyone in attendance will understand what happened and the method that you used to get the correct solution.

Sharing the knowledge that you have learned with others interested in coding can help refresh it in your own mind and make the process simpler for you. Record videos of yourself explaining different methods of writing code and upload them to a platform that others can access. Write a blog post on your own website or offer to provide an article for another site or publication. Volunteer to teach classes and seminars on the aspects of programming that you feel you know well tutor someone who has just started in the field and could use extra assistance to succeed. When you explain what you know to another person, it refreshes it in your mind and allows you to reinforce it in your memory.

Programming a website or computer software program can be a complex undertaking. There are many different languages to know, and you must be aware of where to put them. However, with the right training, a great deal of practice, and collaborating with those who program, you can become a coding expert. Exercising your knowledge as frequently as you can and talking to others about it, and designing courses to share will make writing each web page or program easier every time.

What do you think about these tips for making your coding job easier? Let us know on social media by using the buttons below.

Last Updated on July 11, 2021.

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Making your coding job easier: Where to start - Techaeris

News Asda is offering 10 off tickets to UK attractions for family ‘Fun Packed Summer’ – Deeside.com

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

Deeside.com > News

Posted: Sat 10th Jul 2021

Asda has launched its Fun Packed Summer event, offering 10 off tickets to some of the top attractions in the country to help keep the kids entertained during the Summer months.

With foreign travel still proving difficult, the offer will be welcomed by families who are desperate to get out and about and enjoy the summer in the UK, but are looking to get the best deals on their days out.

Research from Asdas latest Income Tracker* shows that due to covid restrictions, a third of Brits felt they were not getting value for money when it came to days out and that experiences were not what they were before the pandemic.

A sharp rise in the cost of essential spending, in part, due to increases in the price of transport, fuel and energy also means that the cost of living has increased by almost 11.99 per week compared to this time last year, putting an even greater emphasis on value and families getting the most out of days out together.

To help, Asda is offering its customers the opportunity to grab 10 vouchers when they spend 50 on their weekly shop in store, or 100 online.

They can be redeemed at over 2,000 theme parks and attractions around the country until May 2022 from Drayton Manor Theme Park, Flip Out and Go Ape to small local farms, theres plenty to keep everyone busy.

People wont have to travel far to take advantage, as 96% of Asda stores have an average of 40 activity venues within 15 miles, offering plenty of choice for those who want to stay close to home.

All Asda customers have to do is go to https://asdafunpackedsummer.com/and upload a photo of their receipt to redeem their voucher.

Preyash Thakrar, Asdas Chief Strategy Officer said:We know the last 18 months have been really tough for families and as Freedom Day approaches people are wanting to get back out and about again and enjoy time together. But, with the cost of living up 50 a month versus this time last year they need great value for money as well as great fun.

Our Fun Packed Summer event is our way making sure our customers can get the best value on their weekly shop and memory making days out.

The Summer of Fun deal is live until 16th August in all stores and online.

For more information visit:https://asdafunpackedsummer.com/

Vouchers are redeemable until May 2022.

*Asda serves over 18 million customers per week and captures regular feedback from a large pool of customers through its Income Tracker, Asda customer research via Kokoros sentiment tracker, The Score and Asda 1000.

Spotted something? Got a story? Send a Facebook Message | A direct message on Twitter | Email: News@Deeside.com

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News Asda is offering 10 off tickets to UK attractions for family 'Fun Packed Summer' - Deeside.com

Mississippi might have to rethink Confederate statues in US Capitol – Stars and Stripes

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, departs the Capitol after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., appointed him to lead the new select committee to investigate the violent Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, in Washington, Thursday, July 1, 2021. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

JACKSON, Miss. Mississippians find unity in bragging about the state's influence on American culture. The state prides itself on being birthplace of the blues and home of towering literary figures.

Yet, even as the nation reconsiders the public display of Confederate monuments amid a reckoning over issues of racial injustice, Mississippi a state with a 38% Black population still represents itself inside the U.S. Capitol with still-life images of Confederates.

Each state can have two figures in the Capitol's Statuary Hall collection, and Mississippi donated bronze statues of Jefferson Davis and James Zachariah George in 1931.

Davis served in the U.S. House and Senate from Mississippi before becoming president of the Confederacy. George was a member of Mississippi's Secession Convention in 1861, and he signed the secession ordinance that included these words: "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery the greatest material interest of the world."

On June 29, the Democratic-led U.S. House voted 285-120 in favor of a legislation "to remove all statues of individuals who voluntarily served the Confederate States of America from display in the United States Capitol." The proposal awaits a vote in the Senate.

Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson is the only Black member of Mississippi's four-person House delegation, and he was the only of the four to vote in favor of mandating removal of Confederate statues.

Statues "of those who served in the Confederacy or supported slavery or segregation should not have a place of honor in the U.S. Capitol that's why I voted to #RemoveHate today," Thompson wrote that day on Twitter.

Republican Reps. Trent Kelly and Steven Palazzo voted against the legislation. Republican Rep. Michael Guest missed the vote because a family member had died and he was delayed returning to Washington. However, Kelly said in a statement that he had voted against a similar bill last year.

"I would be opposed to the federal government ordering or dictating Mississippi to remove those statues," Guest said in the statement.

Even among the states that tried to secede from the Union, Mississippi is the only with two Confederate figures in the Statuary Hall collection.

One of Alabama's statues is of a Confederate cavalry leader, "Fighting Joe" Wheeler. The other is Helen Keller, and the base of the statue includes an inscription in Braille.

One of Louisiana's statues is of Edward Douglass White, who was a U.S. Supreme Court justice from 1894 until his death in 1921, spending his final 11 years as chief justice. The other is of former Gov. Huey P. Long.

Virginia currently has one figure in Statuary Hall, and it is George Washington. In December, the state removed its statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that had stood in the nation's Capitol for 111 years.

"The Confederacy is a symbol of Virginia's racist and divisive history, and it is past time we tell our story with images of perseverance, diversity, and inclusion," Virginia's Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, said in a statement.

Guest pointed out in his statement that the legislature of each state already has the power to decide which statues to send to the Capitol.

Mississippi legislators have shown no appetite for this debate, but they took a landmark vote in June 2020 to retire the last state flag that included the Confederate battle emblem. They don't need to wait for a directive from Congress to start discussing other historical figures who could become Mississippi's still-life representatives.

They could consider civil rights leaders Medgar Evers or Fannie Lou Hamer.

The arts world offers several prominent Mississippians: B.B. King, Elvis Presley, Margaret Walker Alexander, Eudora Welty, Richard Wright and William Faulkner.

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Mississippi might have to rethink Confederate statues in US Capitol - Stars and Stripes

Charlottesville Removes Confederate Statues That Sparked A Deadly Rally – NPR

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

Workers remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Market Street Park on Saturday in Charlottesville, Va. Win McNamee/Getty Images hide caption

Workers remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Market Street Park on Saturday in Charlottesville, Va.

The city of Charlottesville, Va., removed a statue of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson on Saturday, toppling symbols that were at the center of the deadly Unite the Right rally in 2017.

The statues will remain on city property until the city council decides what to do with them. Ten groups have expressed interest in the statues, according to a statement from the city.

"Taking down this statue is one small step closer to the goal of helping Charlottesville, Va., and America, grapple with the sin of being willing to destroy Black people for economic gain," Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker said as the crane neared the Lee monument, the Associated Press reported.

Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker (left) speaks to reporters before workers remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from Market Street Park on Saturday. Win McNamee/Getty Images hide caption

Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker (left) speaks to reporters before workers remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from Market Street Park on Saturday.

The removals were set in motion by a 2016 petition started by a local high school student. The city council voted to take the statues down early the next year, but that action was delayed by a legal challenge that was ultimately rejected by the Virginia Supreme Court this April.

The statues of Lee and Jackson and threats to remove them served as a rallying cry for the far right in the summer of 2017. The tension spilled into violence in the Aug. 12, 2017, Unite the Right Rally as neo-Nazis clashed with counter protestors. One woman, Heather Heyer, was killed when a man drove into a crowd of pedestrians. Dozens of others were injured in that attack and other violence.

Another, taller statue of Lee remains standing in Richmond, Virginia's capital., awaiting a final judgment in a separate legal challenge. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has ordered the state-owned statue removed as soon as the case is resolved. Four other Confederate statues that lined the city's iconic Monument Avenue were taken down last summer amid racial justice protests.

Charlottesville's statues of Lee and Jackson were erected in the early 1920s with large ceremonies that included Confederate veteran reunions, parades and balls. At one event during the 1921 unveiling of the Jackson statue, children formed a living Confederate flag on the lawn of a school down the road from Vinegar Hill, a prominent Black neighborhood. The Jackson statue was placed on land that had once been another prosperous Black neighborhood.

Workers remove the monument of Robert E. Lee on Saturday, in Charlottesville. John C. Clark/AP hide caption

Workers remove the monument of Robert E. Lee on Saturday, in Charlottesville.

Their erection coincided with a push across the South to valorize the Confederacy and suppress Black communities, according to Sterling Howell, programs coordinator with the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society.

"This was at the height of Jim Crow segregation, at the height of lynchings in American history," he said. "There was a clear statement that they weren't welcome."

Workers remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson in Charlottesville on Saturday. Win McNamee/Getty Images hide caption

Workers remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson in Charlottesville on Saturday.

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Charlottesville Removes Confederate Statues That Sparked A Deadly Rally - NPR

More heat in the West, Wimbledon finals, Confederate statues’ removal: 5 things weekend – USA TODAY

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

More brutal temperatures hit the West

Another blistering heat wave is in the forecast for the western United States this weekend. All-time record high temperatures could be registered in cities such as Las Vegas and Sacramento, while notorious hotspot Death Valley should see highs approaching 130 degrees just a few degrees short of Earth's hottest temperature ever measured. The heat comes as the country reels from its hottest June on record.

Heat wave brings record highs to Pacific Northwest, residents react

Cities like Seattle and Portland are seeing record-setting temperatures.

Associated Press, USA TODAY

Prefer to listen? Check out the 5 Thingspodcast:

Wimbledon will hold its mens and womens singles finalsthis weekend. On Saturday,current No. 1 Ash Barty of Australia will take on former No. 1 Karolina Pliskovaof the Czech Republic in the womens final (9 a.m. ET, ESPN) as each seeks herfirst Wimbledon title.The men will take the court Sunday (9 a.m. ET, ESPN) with history on the line:Facing No. 7 seed Matteo Berrettini of Italy, the world'sNo. 1 Novak Djokovic seeks his sixth Wimbledon crown, his third major of 2021, and his 20th career Grand Slam singles title, which would tie longtime rivals Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal for the most in men's tennis.

Billionaire Richard Branson is headed to space Sunday in his own rocket. He is due to take off from New Mexico, launching with two pilots and three other employees aboard a rocket carried aloft by a double-fuselage aircraft. It will come only nine days before Amazon's Jeff Bezos plans to ride in his own Blue Origin spacecraft. While Branson's flight will be longer, Bezos' will be higher. Branson considers itvery important to try it out before allowing space tourists on board.

A Confederate monument thatwas the center of a violent 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, leaving one person dead, is expected to come down Saturday. The city said the bronze statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and one of Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson will be removed and stored until the city council decides where to move them. Council members voted to take down the Lee statue in 2017. Several organizations sued in opposition, but the Virginia Supreme Court ruled forthe cityin April.

After a pair of extra time wins in the semifinals, England and Italy take the field Sunday for the final of the UEFA European Championship. Italy reached the final by defeating Spain in a penalty shootout in the semifinal, and England held off Denmark in extra time. The English are aiming for their first major international tournament since the 1966 World Cup, while Italy is looking to claim silverware for the first time since winning the 2006 World Cup. The matchup also presents a compelling matchup, with England allowing the least amount of goalsat Euro 2020 and Italy being the second-highest scoring team at the tournament.

Greenpeace parachuting protestor injures Euro 2020 fans in Munich

Several spectators were injured after a protestor parachuted into the stadium.

API Global

The Associated Press contributed.

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More heat in the West, Wimbledon finals, Confederate statues' removal: 5 things weekend - USA TODAY

‘Drug deal gone bad’ leads to shooting on Confederate Drive – Port City Daily

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

WILMINGTON The police secured warrants for the arrest of 20-year-old Lorenzo Angelo Patrick as part of a drug deal gone bad, according to the Wilmington Police Department.

Tavon White and his girlfriend met up with Patrick in a parking lot on Confederate Drive, police reported. Patrick drew a gun and demanded the couple to give up everything. It led to a dispute between White and Patrick, who fought over the weapon when it went off and struck White in the torso. The 25-year-old victim went to NHRMC.

On July 9, the police showed up to the hospital after being called about a gunshot victim at the hospital. White remains in ICU in stable condition.

The police secured warrants for robbery with a dangerous weapon, assault with a deadly weapon, and intent to kill inflicting serious injury.

Anyone with information should call the Wilmington PD or anonymously through 411. WPD stated the community is not in immediate danger from this event.

Tips or comments? Email info@localdailymedia.com

Subscribenowand then sign up for our newsletter,Wilmington Wire, to get the headlines delivered to your inbox every morning.

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'Drug deal gone bad' leads to shooting on Confederate Drive - Port City Daily

Neo-Confederates worked with other far-right groups in failed efforts to preserve monuments – The Guardian

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

North Carolina members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) collaborated with other neo-Confederate and far-right groups in failed efforts to preserve Confederate monuments in the state, according to emails, documents and videos reviewed by the Guardian.

Members of the coalition of groups protesting the removal of Confederate monuments include a man with simultaneous membership in SCV and League of the South (LOS), and at least one person who attended the rally at the Capitol in Washington DC on 6 January, which turned into an attack on the building.

The SCV is a neo-Confederate group dedicated to preserving what it sees as southern heritage, in particular Confederate statues and war memorials, in spite of the rise of Black Lives Matter antiracism protests, which frequently target such statues as memorials to racism and slavery.

James Smithson, a member both of SCV and the SCVs Mechanized Cavalry (SCVMC), a motorcycle-riding special interest group attached to the organization, sent an after-action email to members after a 14 September 2019 rally in Pittsboro, North Carolina, organized in defense of a statue of a Confederate soldier that had stood outside the citys courthouse since 1907. The email reported on the rally as a win for the organization, though the statue was removed by the city the following November.

Smithson noted the presence of 32 SCV members at the event, including James Shillinglaw, an SCV and SCVMC member who is also a member of LOS, which the Southern Poverty Law Center defines as a hate group. Shillinglaw, who attended the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017, was also in attendance at subsequent rallies in Pittsboro, even after the SCV had ordered members to stand down from the increasingly contentious events.

Smithson also noted the presence of Steve Marley and Laura Ray of ACTBAC, or Alamance County Taking Back Alamance County, another SPLC-designated neo-Confederate hate group. ACTBAC has been active in statue protests in North Carolina at locations including Pittsboro, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Graham.

In Graham on 20 May 2017 more than two years before the event where SCV rubbed shoulders with identified members, and just weeks before Unite the Right an ACTBAC rally was attended by Kyle Rogers, the former webmaster for the Council of Concerned Citizens (CCC). The CCC is the neo-Confederate group whose online propaganda was credited by Dylann Roof as playing a central part in his radicalization in the lead-up to his massacre of black churchgoers in Charleston in 2015.

Also present at the Graham event were two men who were arrested after unfurling a flag associated with white nationalism groups.

Marley, who was a central organizer of the 2019 Pittsboro protest, thanked SCV and SCVMC for their participation in the complete success of the rally in a Facebook post after the event.

He also thanked a range of more radical neo-Confederate groups, including the Hiwaymen, an Arkansas group led by Billy Helton, also known as Billy Sessions. Members of the Hiwaymen have attended contentious protests over statues throughout the south, and have also appeared at violent rallies as far away as Portland, Oregon. Helton has frequently endorsed political violence in social media videos.

Earlier this year, Marley posted footage of his own participation in the Capitol riot on 6 January. In the footage, provided to the Guardian by North Carolina antiracist activist Lindsay Ayling and filmed from Marleys perspective, a large group of people can be seen approaching the Capitol from the exterior, and at one point a mans voice can be heard saying, Were storming the Capitol.

In a post accompanying the video, Marley wrote, If youre one that thinks storming the Capital House was wrong, you might want to quietly exit my FB, and, We made the charge to let the tyrants know that we are here.

The email as seen by the Guardian was forwarded to SCV members by the organizations state leader, R Kevin Stone.

Stone is also the co-founder and self-styled general of SCVMC. That groups motto, Ride as you would with Forrest, refers to Nathan Bedford Forrest, a prominent Confederate cavalry officer whose troops massacred hundreds of men who had already surrendered at the Battle of Fort Pillow, and who was the founder of the Ku Klux Klan. He was its leader when it adopted terror tactics in the face of Reconstruction from the late 1860s.

Stone also sits on the SCVs national executive council, as department commander of the Army of Northern Virginia Department, one of a number of regional sub-groupings of several states whose arrangement is patterned on the command structure of the Confederate army during the US civil war.

Stone works as a probation officer for the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, in a state where, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, 61% of incarcerated people are black.

Stone has reportedly been implicated in an investigation by the North Carolina Board of Elections into the SCV-connected NC Heritage PAC, which has allegedly illegally shuffled money from SCV members to state Republicans.

Smithson and Stone did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.

A spokesman for the North Carolina elections board said that campaign finance investigations are confidential under North Carolina law and offered no further comment. The North Carolina department of public safety did not immediately respond to a question on Stones employment status with the agency.

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Neo-Confederates worked with other far-right groups in failed efforts to preserve monuments - The Guardian

How We’ll Know When The COVID-19 Crisis Is Over – NPR

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

People relax at the Georgetown Waterfront Park on Monday in Washington, D.C. While pandemic restrictions have been lifted for much of the country, the Delta variant of COVID-19 is hospitalizing thousands of people in the U.S. who have so far not gotten a vaccine. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images hide caption

In many ways, American life is returning to normalcy: Masks are no longer required in many locations, schools and universities are slated to re-open, and the days of social distancing begin to fade as concerts and sporting events bring spectators back.

In the U.S., we're now averaging 154 deaths a day from COVID-19 a tiny fraction compared to the pandemic's peak -- and there are still some safety measures and restrictions in place. Late pandemic American life hasn't quite returned to the status quo, but it feels much closer to normal than it did six months ago.

But while we may long for authorities to give an all-clear and say the pandemic is history, the crisis isn't over, in the U.S. or abroad.

The question of when the crisis will actually be over is a layered one with different answers from a local, national and global perspective.

The U.S. declared COVID-19 a national emergency on March 13, 2020.

After many months in which the U.S. led the world in coronavirus cases, the virus is now under much better control, due to wide availability of COVID-19 vaccines.

That federal emergency status is still in effect it has been renewed several times, most recently in April. It can be extended by the Secretary of Health and Human Services for as long as the emergency is deemed to exist.

Healthcare workers, first responders and essential workers are honored for their service during the COVID-19 pandemic at the "Hometown Heroes" ticker tape parade in Manhattan on Wednesday. Newsday LLC/Newsday via Getty Images hide caption

Healthcare workers, first responders and essential workers are honored for their service during the COVID-19 pandemic at the "Hometown Heroes" ticker tape parade in Manhattan on Wednesday.

It's not clear whether the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will issue any sort of all-clear. The CDC did not respond to NPR on the matter.

Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington, hopes that the CDC will eventually give Americans that go-ahead sign. He previously served in numerous roles over nearly 20 years at the CDC.

When the time comes, Mokdad tells NPR, "It's very important for our own CDC ... to say 'We're out of danger right now. We should move on with our lives.' "

He says there aren't set-in-stone metrics to determine when a pandemic is over, because the situation is dynamic and changing so fast. And the virus itself is evolving, too.

"When you look at the genetic makeup and sequencing of the virus ... and how it has been changing, there's still a lot of room for it to mutate. It's not at the end of the mutation cycle that it can do. So that virus could still carry a lot of surprises," he says.

The Foo Fighters reopened Madison Square Garden last month in New York City. The concert, with all attendees vaccinated, was the first in a New York arena to be held at full capacity since March 2020. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for FF hide caption

The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11 last year the same day that life began to change dramatically in much of the U.S.

So when the virus eventually is under control, will WHO declare the pandemic over?

Basically, yes.

When the worldwide spread of COVID-19 stops, it will no longer be considered a pandemic. "In general, if the worldwide spread of a disease is brought under control to a localized area, we can say that it is no longer a pandemic but instead, an epidemic," WHO tells NPR.

But it emphasized that the characterization of the outbreak as a pandemic has no formal meaning under international law.

What does have a formal meaning is a "public health emergency of international concern" a status assigned to COVID-19 at the end of January 2020. That's the highest level of health alarm under international law.

WHO convenes an international committee every three months to determine if an outbreak should still be considered such a global health emergency. When it's over, WHO says it's over. That's what it did last summer regarding an Ebola outbreak in Africa.

But it will most likely be a while before that happens.

As WHO's Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus frequently states: none of us will be safe until everyone is safe.

The Delta variant has spread just as fast through the U.S. as epidemiologists feared it would. It now accounts for more than half the cases in the U.S., and far more than that in certain states.

Lynn Goldman, an epidemiologist and dean of the school of public health at George Washington University, says the U.S. has certain things working for it, and some against it.

The good news is we've shown the ability to lower rates of transmission and deaths from the virus. And of course, Americans have widespread access to COVID-19 vaccines.

The bad news is there's resistance to the two main ways to prevent transmission getting vaccinated and wearing a mask.

"And unfortunately, those two attributes tend to coincide within the same people and within the same population subgroups," Goldman says. In other words, many of the same people who don't want to get a vaccine also don't want to wear a mask.

Graduates participated in a USC commencement ceremony at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in May. Al Seib/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag hide caption

Graduates participated in a USC commencement ceremony at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in May.

As a result, Goldman says, we're likely to see continued transmission of the virus in the U.S., concentrated in the areas with lowest rates of vaccination.

The current vaccines are highly effective against COVID-19, including the Delta variant. That means vastly different outcomes for those who are vaccinated and those who aren't. Last month, for example, 92 people died of COVID-19 in the state of Maryland. All of them were unvaccinated.

The most precise indicators of progress or problems are very local.

National and even state-level metrics for infection or vaccination rates can be misleading, Mokdad says. A state's overall vaccination rate can disguise much lower numbers in certain pockets that remain highly vulnerable to outbreaks.

Low vaccination rates make it easier for fast-spreading variants to take hold.

While there are many ways to track progress (or not) in controlling the virus, Mokdad says one especially useful metric is hospitalizations.

"There is no way to make a mistake or underreport hospitalization for COVID-19, because everybody who goes to a hospital right now is being tested for COVID-19," says Mokdad.

That's in contrast to cases, which can go uncounted due to a lack of testing, and the number of deaths, which can spike weeks behind other indicators when an outbreak hits.

Accompanied by his family, a student gets vaccinated at a pop-up COVID-19 vaccination clinic on Tuesday in Winnetka, Calif. Mario Tama/Getty Images hide caption

Accompanied by his family, a student gets vaccinated at a pop-up COVID-19 vaccination clinic on Tuesday in Winnetka, Calif.

Even though U.S. cases are much improved from the peak, unvaccinated people will continue to die from COVID-19 until we successfully control transmission.

Experts say the next big challenge will come this winter. Another wave is expected as people move inside during colder months. There will likely be some outbreaks as students go back to school children under 12 are not yet eligible for the vaccines.

How dangerous the virus continues to be will depend on vaccination levels of the population and the lethality of the variant circulating when winter comes. How quickly a state or local government is willing to go back into restrictive measures like wearing masks indoors will play a role, too.

"For the short term, it will be seasonal, like what we see with the flu, simply because we don't have enough vaccine to vaccinate everybody in the world," Mokdad says.

If we do the right things like increasing production of the vaccine, he says, it's possible we eventually won't have to worry about COVID-19 anymore.

Goldman sees two possible scenarios for the U.S. in the near future.

One is that the virus evolves to more readily evade the vaccines that have been administered.

If that happens, she says, "then we'll have to go into a whole other round of re-vaccinating everybody." Drugmakers are already working on booster shots in case they become necessary.

On the other hand, that might not happen, and the current vaccines will continue to be highly effective.

In that case, Goldman believes that within the next several months "we'll see near elimination of the pandemic, certainly in the United States and Europe, other wealthy countries, Japan, Taiwan," while efforts will continue to immunize people in the rest of the world.

It's very likely, Goldman says, that even when we can say the pandemic is over, transmission will continue in parts of the country that have low rates of vaccination.

But one thing is clear. No matter what happens, the effects of the pandemic including long COVID, mental health issues, and economic fallout won't end when the official emergency does.

The rest is here:

How We'll Know When The COVID-19 Crisis Is Over - NPR

Bat Scientists Warn That the World May Never Know Covid-19 Origins – The Wall Street Journal

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, scientists all over the world have been struggling to pin down the origin of the coronavirus that caused it.

Linfa Wang knows they may never succeed.

Dr. Wang, a professor in the emerging infectious diseases program at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, is an expert in bat viruses. He has joined the hunt for the origin of Covid-19 even though he and fellow scientists are still searching for the precise source of a different coronavirus: the one that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. That virus emerged in 2002 and killed nearly 800 people world-wide.

Research on the origin of SARS and other deadly viruses offers a cautionary example of the manifold challenges that confound the pursuit of the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

SARS started as an outbreak in China, rapidly traveled around the world infecting and killing people, and disrupted the global economy. The Chinese government was criticized at home and abroad for not sharing information quickly enough with the public and with World Health Organization officials trying to get a handle on the disease.

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Bat Scientists Warn That the World May Never Know Covid-19 Origins - The Wall Street Journal

New Zealand, where Covid-19 is dormant, fights another respiratory virus, and other news from around the world. – The New York Times

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

Strict lockdowns in New Zealand last year appear to have contributed to a recent outbreak in children of respiratory syncytial virus, or R.S.V., a highly contagious, flulike illness whose symptoms include a runny nose, coughing, sneezing and fever.

Children in New Zealand were mostly stuck indoors amid lockdowns last autumn, which runs from March to May in the Southern Hemisphere. After the country reopened last winter, health officials say, few of them contracted seasonal viruses and infections, probably because they had been underexposed to germs.

In a typical year, New Zealand sees a peak of cases of respiratory infections from June to September. But in 2020, the country experienced the complete absence of an annual winter influenza epidemic, with a 99.9 percent reduction in flu cases and a 98 percent reduction in R.S.V., according to a study published in Nature in February.

This year, however, the same children have been more vulnerable than usual to those same ailments.

Since the start of winter five weeks ago, during which there have been no coronavirus restrictions, childrens wards in New Zealand have seen dozens of patients, many of them infants, battling the sometimes deadly disease, while some elementary schools have reported having as many as half their students absent because of respiratory illnesses.

The country has reported 969 cases of R.S.V. in five weeks, compared with an average of 1,743 cases over the entire 29-week winter season in the five years before the pandemic, according to New Zealands Institute of Environmental Science and Research.

The recent surge has yet to reach a plateau, said Dr. Sue Huang, a virologist at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research and the lead author of the Nature study.

The exponential increase is very sharp, she said in a statement. The absence of R.S.V. last winter meant there is a young cohort of children from last year, plus a new cohort this year, who have not been exposed to the seasonal virus.

Doctors around the world have warned of the risk of immunity debt, when a decline in the number of viral and bacterial infections during lockdowns is followed by more sickness once restrictions are lifted.

In a paper published in May in the journal Infectious Diseases Now, a team of French medical researchers suggested that less exposure to microbial agents could create a lack of immune stimulation for susceptible people, particularly in children. The longer these periods of viral or bacterial low-exposure are, the greater the likelihood of future epidemics, they wrote.

New Zealand closed its borders early in the pandemic, unveiling stringent lockdown measures that were lifted last April and May and have allowed the country to all but eliminate coronavirus transmission. No community cases have been reported for more than four months.

In other developments around the world:

Hundreds of Cubans took to the streets in cities around the country on Sunday to protest food and medicine shortages brought on by the pandemic, in a remarkable eruption of discontent not seen in nearly 30 years. Hundreds of people marched through San Antonio de los Baos, southwest of Havana, with videos streaming live on Facebook for nearly an hour before they suddenly disappeared. As the afternoon wore on, other videos appeared from demonstrations elsewhere, including Palma Soriano, in the countrys southeast. Hundreds of people also gathered in Havana, where a heavy police presence preceded their arrival.

Spain is facing a further hit to its summer tourism season after Germany classified the entire country as a risk area. As of Sunday, travelers entering Germany from anywhere in Spain, including its Balearic and Canary archipelagoes, will have to provide a negative coronavirus test or proof of vaccination or recovery to avoid quarantine. The Italian government also warned on Saturday that it was considering greater restrictions on travelers from Spain as well as Portugal. Both countries have been grappling with a surge in coronavirus cases fueled by the highly contagious Delta variant, particularly among unvaccinated young people.

Raphael Minder contributed from Madrid.

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New Zealand, where Covid-19 is dormant, fights another respiratory virus, and other news from around the world. - The New York Times

Lambda Variant Of Covid-19 Coronavirus Is Spreading, What You Need To Know – Forbes

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

The Lambda variant has become the dominant version of the Covid-19 coronavirus in Peru. Here a poll ... [+] worker sanitizes a polling station in Lima on April 10, 2021. (Photo by ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP via Getty Images)

Compared to all the attention that the Alpha and then Delta variants have been getting, theres been relative silence of the Lambda until now.

The Lambda variant of the Covid-19 coronavirus is not to be confused with the lambada, which is the forbidden dance. But this variant has been progressively dancing its way around the globe. Its already become the dominant strain in Peru, which has had the highest Covid-19 case fatality rate and deaths per capita in the world. It has also spread to at least 29 countries in five different World Health Organization (WHO) regions. So the question is: will this version of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) Lambda the world into even more trouble?

Its hard to say right now. Much to learn about the Lambda variant there is, as Yoda would say. Currently, the Lambda variant is like your dad wearing a one-legged cat suit thats way too tight for the first time. You can see some disturbing signs but you cant quite see or figure out everything thats going on yet.

The Lambda variant has been around for while. It was first detected in Peru back in August 2020 and has steadily grown in presence there. Eventually, the Lambda variant became the alpha or the top dog of Covid-19 coronavirus strains in Peru. Since April 2021, sequencing of Covid-19 coronavirus cases in the country has found the Lambda variant in over 80% of the samples. The Covid-19 pandemic has hit Peru particularly hard too. As of July 9, Peru has had a total of 2,074,186 reported Covid-19 cases with 193,909 of those resulting in death, yielding a 9.3% case fatality ratio and a 596.45 deaths per 100,000 people in the population, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Those numbers have made Peru number one globally in both categories. And in this case, being number one is not good.

Peru has had the highest per capita Covid-19 death toll in the world. (Photo by Raul Sifuentes/Getty ... [+] Images)

A June 15 WHO report noted elevated prevalence of the Lambda variant in multiple other South American countries as well, including Chile, Ecuador, and Argentina. According to a Public Health England report, as of June 24, 2021, this variant has appeared in 525 samples from the U.S., 87 in Germany, 86 in Argentina, 57 in Mexico, 43 in Spain, 19 in Israel, 15 in Colombia, 13 in France, eight in Egypt, seven in Switzerland, six in the United Kingdom, five in Italy, three in Brazil, and three in Canada as well as in single samples from the Netherlands, Aruba, Portugal, Denmark, Czech Republic, Turkey, Australia, Curacao, and Zimbabwe.

This version of the virus, otherwise known as the C.37 variant, made the WHOs Variants of Interest (VOI) list on June 14, 2021, joining other variants like the Eta, Iota, and Kappa ones. These Greek lettered names all may sound like fraternities or sororities but if someone asks you to rush the Lambda variant, its better to say, get the heck away from me. In this case, interest doesnt mean oh, that would be cool like a statue of Ariana Grande made out of hot dogs. Instead, interest here means that public health officials should watch the variant very closely because it could become a major threat. A VOI is a version of the virus that, in the words of the WHO, has genetic changes that are predicted or known to affect virus characteristics such as transmissibility, disease severity, immune escape, diagnostic or therapeutic escape and that is spreading so that it may be an emerging risk to global public health.

A VOI is one step below a Variant of Concern (VOC). The Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Gamma variants have already made the VOC list. The Lambda variant doesnt qualify as a VOC at this moment because studies have not yet confirmed that it is more transmissible, causes worse illness, or better able to get past the Covid-19 vaccines or treatments than other versions of the virus.

The key words here are have not yet confirmed. There just havent been enough studies so far to draw any strong conclusions about the Lambda variant. The situation in Peru does raise concerns that the Lambda variant may be more transmissible and more likely to result in worse Covid-19 outcomes. However, other factors can affect the spread of the virus and resulting death rates such as access to health care and the presence or lack of control measures such as social distancing and face mask use. Therefore, Perus higher death rates may not be solely due to the characteristics of the virus. The spread of this variant to so many other countries does lend more support, though, to the possibility that it is indeed more transmissible.

Of course, every time a new variant emerges, a big question is how well currently available Covid-19 vaccines may protect against the variant. Early indications are that the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines may still offer good protection, as you can see by this tweet from Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine:

Hotez cited a pre-print thats been uploaded on to the bioRxiv website. This pre-print describes a study that took antibodies from the blood of people who had had Covid-19 previously or had received the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines and determined whether these antibodies were able to neutralize the Lambda variant of the Covid-19 coronavirus. The not so good news is that the Lambda variant was able to infect cells more readily than the original version of the virus. The good news is that the antibodies seemed to neutralize the Lambda variant. This provided evidence that the currently available Covid-19 mRNA vaccines may offer good protection against the Lambda variant and that the Regeneron monoclonal antibody therapy cocktail would remain effective against this version.

Keep in mind though that a pre-print is not the same as a peer-reviewed publication in a respectable scientific journal. All you need to upload a pre-print is a computer, Internet access, and someone besides a hamster to press the right keys on the keyboard. Hamsters are not always great with keyboards because they can end up typing out expletives. They also may trade dogecoin if they can access your computer. More studies are needed to determine whether the Lambda variant is actually more transmissible and more likely to cause more severe Covid-19 and whether it can get around the protection offered by currently available Covid-19 vaccines.

Anyone who understands the science of coronavirus replications and mutation will understand that variants will be a continuing threat until enough people are vaccinated and pubic health officials get the pandemic under control. Variants are not a scare campaign as the following tweet suggests:

The media isnt rolling out these variants, its viral replication thats doing this. Again, this is science. Continuing to overlook the science will continue to extend the current situation:

The emergence and spread of the Lambda variant is a reminder that the Covid-19 coronavirus is not going to stay the same. The virus is not like that adult who peaked in high school and still insists that beer funneling and giving people atomic wedgies are cool. Instead, the Covid-19 coronavirus is more like Madonna in that it continues to evolve and adapt to the times. Like a drunk person trying make photocopies of his or her butt, every time the virus replicates or makes more copies of itself, it can make mistakes. These mistakes result in mutations in the genetic codes of the resulting copies of the virus. Such mutants are in effect new variants.

Thats why its so important to slow the spread of the virus as much as possible at least until enough people can be vaccinated to break the chains of transmission. As long as the Covid-19 coronavirus remains so widespread, unvaccinated people can serve as variant factories. In other words, when you dont protect yourself against the virus, your body serve as a cheap motel. The viruses can essentially say, your body is a wonderland, I'll use my spike proteins. This isnt exactly what John Mayer has sung about because he is not a gigantic virus. But its close. Getting vaccinated wont completely protect you against getting infected, since the vaccine is not like a impenetrable concrete full-body condom. However, the vaccines do offer very good protection and may make the virus effectively say, Damn, baby, you frustrate me.

If you arent vaccinated, its best to maintain other Covid-19 precautions like wearing face masks and social distancing. This not only will protect you but also protect the rest of society by slowing the emergence of variants. Not slowing the emergence of variants could prolong the pandemic and get us to a point where we have fewer and fewer Greek letter to name the new variants.

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Lambda Variant Of Covid-19 Coronavirus Is Spreading, What You Need To Know - Forbes

Breath-Based Coronavirus Tests Are Being Developed – The New York Times

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

Scientists have long been interested in creating portable devices that can quickly and painlessly screen a person for disease simply by taking a whiff of their breath. But delivering on this dream has proved to be a challenge. Different diseases may cause similar breath changes. Diet can affect the chemicals someone exhales, as can smoking and alcohol consumption, potentially complicating disease detection.

Still, scientists say, advances in sensor technology and machine learning, combined with new research and investment spurred by the pandemic, mean that the moment for disease-detecting breathalyzers may have finally arrived.

Ive been working in the area of breath research for almost 20 years now, said Cristina Davis, an engineer at the University of California, Davis. And during that time, weve seen it progress from a nascent stage to really being something that I think is close to being deployed.

In May, when musicians from dozens of countries descended on Rotterdam, the Netherlands, for the Eurovision Song Contest, they had to pass a breath test before they were allowed onstage. The musicians were asked to exhale into a device the size of a water bottle called the SpiroNose, which analyzed the chemical compounds in their breath to detect signatures of a coronavirus infection. If the results came back negative, the performers were cleared to compete.

The SpiroNose, made by the Dutch company Breathomix, is just one of many breath-based coronavirus tests under development across the world. In May, Singapores health agency granted provisional authorization to two such tests, made by the domestic companies Breathonix and Silver Factory Technology. And researchers at Ohio State University say they have applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for an emergency authorization of their coronavirus breathalyzer.

Its clear now, I think, that you can detect this disease with a breath test, said Paul Thomas, a chemist at Loughborough University in England. This isnt science fiction.

Fauci says there should be more coronavirus vaccine mandates at the local level – Anchorage Daily News

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

Anthony Fauci, the White Houses chief coronavirus medical adviser, said there should be more coronavirus vaccine requirements at the local level, though he has continued to insist that the federal government will not mandate them.

I have been of this opinion, and I remain of that opinion, that I do believe at the local level, there should be more mandates. There really should be, Fauci said Sunday on CNNs State of the Union, when host Jake Tapper asked whether he thought it would be a good idea for businesses and schools to require coronavirus vaccinations.

Were talking about life-and-death situations, Fauci added. Weve lost 600,000 Americans already, and were still losing more people. There have been 4 million deaths worldwide. This is serious business. So I am in favor of that.

As he has in recent weeks, Fauci, the nations top infectious-disease expert, expressed concern about vaccine hesitancy, even as the coronaviruss more contagious delta variant becomes dominant in the United States. Fauci also alluded to recent polling that shows such vaccine hesitancy has been driven by Republicans, which he suggested Sunday was because of ideological rigidity.

Why are we having red states and places in the South that are very highly ideological in one way not wanting to get vaccinations? Vaccinations have nothing to do with politics, Fauci said. Its a public-health issue. It doesnt matter who you are. The virus doesnt know whether youre a Democrat, a Republican or an independent . . . And yet there is that divide of people wanting to get vaccinated and not wanting to get vaccinated, which is really unfortunate, because its losing lives.

Fauci has in the past pointed to organizations and local entities that would probably require proof of vaccination, including cruise lines and universities.

So, notwithstanding guidelines from the [Centers of Disease Control and Prevention], there is going to be a situation where there are going to be requirements, he said in a conversation with The Washington Post in May. Its not going to be centrally mandated from the federal government, but almost certainly, individual organizations are going to want to require proof of vaccination before they allow people to come into their establishment without having to wear a mask.

In recent weeks, some GOP governors have been imploring residents anew to get vaccinated, calling it a race against the fast-spreading delta variant. One of those governors, Arkansass Asa Hutchison, said Sunday that he plans to travel to six cities in the state next week to promote the vaccines, because the uptake rate there remains lower than the national average.

There shouldnt be a partisan divide, first of all, Hutchinson said on ABC Newss This Week on Sunday. In the Southern states and some rural states, you have that more conservative approach, skepticism about government. And we just have to answer it just like we have all through history, that you overcome skepticism and mistrust by truth. You overcome resistance and obstinance with saying its important for our community, and its important for the health of our state and nation.

Still, scenes from the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas this weekend indicated that overcoming some Republicans refusal to get vaccinated may be a tall hurdle. At one CPAC panel Saturday, Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter who has been spreading anti-vaccination and other misinformation about covid on Twitter, falsely proclaimed that masks do nothing, nothing to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

He also scoffed onstage at the government hoping that they could sort of sucker 90% of the population into getting vaccinated.

And it isnt happening, right? Berenson asked the audience. Many in the crowd cheered in response.

Showed a clip of that exchange Sunday, Fauci said it was horrifying.

I mean, they are cheering about someone saying that its a good thing for people not to try and save their lives, he told Tapper. I mean, if you just unpack that for a second, Jake, its almost frightening to say, Hey, guess what, we dont want you to do something to save your life. Yay! Everybody starts screaming and clapping. I just dont get that.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., also had strong words Sunday for his Republican colleagues who have been sowing fears about the coronavirus vaccines, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., comparing those going door to door to encourage people to get vaccinated to medical brown shirts from the Nazi era.

Its insanity. Its absolute insanity, Kinzinger said on CNNs State of the Union. At no point was anybody saying theyre going to break down your door and jam a vaccine in your arm despite your protests.

Kinzinger called on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and every other leader in the GOP to call out these garbage politicians playing on vaccine fears for their own selfish gain, saying such rhetoric would end in Americans dying if it did not stop.

This plane is going to crash into the ground, he said. Listen, if you are a Republican voter, do not listen to people like Marjorie Taylor Greene. The vaccine is safe. Covid is real. Get vaccinated.

The Washington Posts Tony Romm contributed to this report.

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Fauci says there should be more coronavirus vaccine mandates at the local level - Anchorage Daily News

FLORIDA Florida reports rise in coronavirus cases over the past week WINK NEWS – Wink News

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP)

Florida health officials reported an increase in COVID-19 cases and a higher positive test rate over the past week.

The number of virus cases in Florida rose by about 8,000 compared with the week before, for a total of 23,747 new cases, the state Department of Health reported Friday.

New cases of the coronavirus have been on the rise in Florida over the past month. The rate of positive tests was 7.8% last week after trending at about 4% positivity in recent weeks.

There were 172 deaths in Florida from COVID-19 last week, the health department reported.

More than 2,300 people were hospitalized in Florida with COVID-19 for the week of June 30 to July 6, according to the latest White House report. In comparison, 1,868 were hospitalized the previous week.

The state has recorded at least 2.4 million coronavirus cases and 38,901 deaths since the pandemic began, state figures show.

Officials also said the total number of Floridians who have been fully or partially vaccinated at around 11 million, or 58% of Floridians who are 12 and older.

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FLORIDA Florida reports rise in coronavirus cases over the past week WINK NEWS - Wink News

South Africa extends tight COVID-19 restrictions for another 14 days – Reuters

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

A person crosses the street during sunset, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Soweto, South Africa, April 1, 2021. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

JOHANNESBURG, July 11 (Reuters) - South Africa extended tight COVID-19 rules on Sunday for another 14 days, maintaining restrictions that include a ban on gatherings, a curfew from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. and a prohibition on the sale of alcohol.

The country, the worst-hit on the African continent in terms of recorded cases and deaths, is in the grip of a third wave of infections driven by the more infectious Delta coronavirus variant.

"Our health system countrywide remains under pressure," President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a televised address to the nation.

Early this month South Africa recorded a new record of over 26,000 daily cases, stretching hospitals to breaking point. read more

Ramaphosa moved the country to the fourth level of a five-tier restriction scale in late June as infections climbed, promising to review the restrictions after two weeks. read more

On Sunday he said the cabinet had decided to maintain "adjusted alert level 4" for another 14 days, although restaurants would be able to serve food on their premises again subject to strict health protocols. Gyms would also be allowed to reopen under certain conditions.

Ramaphosa added that a government advisory committee was working on how soon to bring Sinovac's CoronaVac vaccine into the COVID-19 immunisation programme.

So far the vaccine campaign has been slow, with 4.2 million doses administered out of a population of 60 million, but officials are hoping to ramp up daily vaccinations to at least 300,000 by the end of August.

Ramaphosa said the African Union and European Union had reached an agreement for local pharmaceutical company Aspen(APNJ.J) to deliver more than 17 million Johnson & Johnson(JNJ.N) vaccine doses to South Africa and other African countries over the next three months.

Aspen is sourcing vaccine ingredients from J&J to package them in South Africa, a process known as fill and finish.

Ramaphosa said his country was negotiating for the drug substance to be produced locally, "so that we have a fully-owned African vaccine manufactured on African soil".

Reporting by Alexander WinningEditing by Peter Graff

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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South Africa extends tight COVID-19 restrictions for another 14 days - Reuters

COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 9 July – World Economic Forum

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 185.5 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths stands at more than 4.01 million. More than 3.32 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.

US COVID-19 cases are up around 11% over the previous week, almost entirely among people who have not been vaccinated, officials said on Thursday, as the highly infectious Delta variant becomes the dominant COVID-19 strain in the country.

Viet Nam is aiming to vaccinate 50% of residents aged 18 or older by the end of this year and 70% by the end of March 2022, the health ministry said on Friday. It comes as tighter coronavirus curbs were imposed in more cities.

On Thursday, Indonesia reported a new daily record of 38,391 COVID-19 infections, plus 852 new fatalities, its second-highest daily death toll, official data showed.

Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths globally and in selected countries.

Image: Our World in Data

Africa has seen its worst pandemic week ever, as it passed the second-wave peak during the seven days ending on 4 July 2021. More than 251,000 new COVID-19 cases recorded on the continent.

Sixteen African countries are now in resurgence - with Malawi and Senegal added this week. The Delta variant has been detected in 10 of these countries.

Africa has just marked the continents most dire pandemic week ever. But the worst is yet to come as the fast-moving third wave continues to gain speed and new ground, said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa.

The global vaccine distribution scheme COVAX aims to deliver 520 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Africa this year, its managing director said, with supplies ramping up from September after delays caused by Indian export restrictions.

In a news conference on Thursday organized by the World Health Organization's Africa region, Aurelia Nguyen, managing director of COVAX, said that the scheme had delivered around 25 million doses to 44 African countries so far, but she was not happy with the progress.

By the end of the first quarter of 2022, COVAX aims to supply nearly 850 million vaccine doses to the African continent, which has some of the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates worldwide.

COVID-19 vaccine doses administered by continent

Image: Our World in Data

As part of work identifying promising technology use cases to combat COVID, The Boston Consulting Group recently used contextual AI to analyze more than 150 million English language media articles from 30 countries published between December 2019 to May 2020.

The result is a compendium of hundreds of technology use cases. It more than triples the number of solutions, providing better visibility into the diverse uses of technology for the COVID-19 response.

To see a full list of 200+ exciting technology use cases during COVID please follow this link.

The Olympics will take place without spectators in host city Tokyo, organisers said on Thursday, as a resurgent coronavirus forced Japan to declare a state of emergency in the capital that will run throughout the Games.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said it was essential to prevent Tokyo, where the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 variant was spreading, from becoming a flashpoint of new infections.

People will also be asked not to gather for events on public roads, such as the triathlon, though officials said some venues outside the greater Tokyo metropolitan area would allow small numbers of spectators.

"It is regrettable that we are delivering the Games in a very limited format, facing the spread of coronavirus infections," Tokyo 2020 President Seiko Hashimoto said, following talks between government officials, Tokyo organisers and Olympic and Paralympic representatives.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 9 July - World Economic Forum

Coronavirus cases in the Netherlands surge more than 800% in one week – BNO News

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

The Netherlands reported more than 10,000 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, an eightfold increase when compared to last week after most restrictions were lifted despite the rise of the fast-spreading Delta variant.

The National Institute for Public Health (RIVM) said 10,345 new cases were reported on Saturday, the biggest one-day increase since December 25. This compares to 1,146 new cases on the same day last week.

The coronavirus infection rate in the Netherlands has increased much faster than expected since society reopened almost completely on 26 June, the government said in a statement on Friday. Most infections have occurred in nightlife settings and parties with high numbers of people.

Even though the current surge is not posing a threat to vulnerable groups or the capacity of the healthcare system, such high numbers create a risk for people who are not (fully) vaccinated and raises the possibility of new variants, the government said. Some may also suffer from long COVID.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced new measures on Friday in an attempt to stop the unprecedented surge in new cases. These measures focus mainly on nightclubs, music festivals, and restaurants because most of the spread is occurring among young adults.

Fridays announcement followed an urgent advice from the Outbreak Management Team, which expects that pressure on the healthcare system will soon increase, even though it is currently declining. On Friday, only 12 people were admitted to hospital.

If the increase among teenagers and people in their early twenties continues, it will increasingly spread among the unvaccinated population and the vulnerable, and this group amounts to more than 3 million people, the team said in its advice. The pressure on the healthcare system will increase substantially in parallel.

Virologist Marion Koopmans, who is part of the Outbreak Management Team, said tougher restrictions cannot be ruled out if cases continue to rise in the coming days. We are closely watching what happens next week, she told local media.

More than 1.7 million people in the Netherlands have been infected with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, including 17,765 people who died, according to NewsNodes. Nearly 6.5 million people, or 37.1% of the population, is fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

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Coronavirus cases in the Netherlands surge more than 800% in one week - BNO News

Israel offers third shot of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to adults at risk – Reuters

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

JERUSALEM, July 11 (Reuters) - Israel said on Sunday it will begin offering a third dose of Pfizer Inc's (PFE.N) vaccine to adults with weak immune systems but it was still weighing whether to make the booster available to the general public.

The rapid spread of the Delta variant has sent vaccination rates in Israel back up as new infections have risen over the past month from single digits to around 450 a day, and the country has moved to fast-track its next Pfizer shipment.

Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said that effective immediately, adults with impaired immune systems who had received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine could get a booster shot, with a decision pending on wider distribution.

Pfizer and partner BioNTech SE , the main suppliers in a swift Israeli vaccination rollout that began in December, said on Thursday they will ask U.S. and European regulators within weeks to authorize booster shots.

The two companies cited an increased risk of infection after six months in seeking permission for a third shot.

Drawing criticism from some scientists and officials, the companies did not share the data showing that risk, but said it would soon be made public. They also cited recent Israeli data. read more

"We are examining this issue and we still do not have a final answer," Horowitz, speaking on Kan public radio, said about a booster for the general population in Israel.

"In any case we are administering as of now a third shot to people suffering from immunodeficiency."

About half of the 46 patients presently hospitalised in Israel in severe condition are vaccinated, and the majority are from risk groups, according to the health authorities. About 5.7 million out of Israel 9.3 population has received at leas one dose.

Israel was not going to rush into any decision on booster shots for the general public, Sharon Alroy-Preis, head of public health at the Health Ministry said.

"It's rather complex. We're presently seeing outbreaks largely among children and their parents who weren't necessarily vaccinated in January and February and we need to identify the (statistical) biases," Alroy-Preis told Kan.

It was still unclear, Alroy-Preis added, whether the vaccine was simply less effective against the Delta variant and if illness rates among those vaccinated in January and February were higher than for those who were inoculated later.

SUPPLY GAP

Horowitz said that separately, the health ministry would plug a Pfizer supply gap for ongoing two-dose inoculations of the general adult population by using Moderna Inc (MRNA.O) vaccines already in stock.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in broadcast remarks to his cabinet on Sunday that he has agreed with Pfizer to bring forward the next delivery of doses to Aug 1. The shipment had been widely expected to arrive in September.

There was no immediate response from Pfizer to a request for comment.

Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Raissa Kasolowsky

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Israel offers third shot of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to adults at risk - Reuters

COVID outbreaks: Where are the worst COVID-19 surges in the world? – Deseret News

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Danzig

The coronavirus pandemic is not over. The trending Twitter hashtag #CovidisNotOver and fresh waves of outbreaks around the world have sent a strong message.

With increasingly transmissible COVID-19 variants including the delta and delta plus variants and the newer lambda variant becoming more prevalent and faltering vaccination campaigns, many places around the world are experiencing renewed outbreaks, reported the Deseret News.

Even previous pandemic success stories have begun to falter.

Currently, these are the top five worst outbreaks in the world.

Last week, the Southern African country of Namibia recorded the highest average rate of infections in the world, reported The Telegraph. Almost half of Namibias total COVID-19 cases have come in the last two months.

Mohammed Patel, a local paramedic, spoke to CNN about the straining health care system.

Delta has caused a whole lot of chaos, a whole lot of patients are suffering, their oxygen levels are dropping drastically daily there are patients that are suffering and there is no space in hospital, there is no ventilators available, Patel said. Its complete chaos.

According to Dr. Yakub Essack, the medical coordinator of a charity called Gift of Givers, the situation in Namibia is unlike any emergency situation hes ever dealt with.

In Thailand, coronavirus cases and deaths have more than doubled this week compared to last week, said Newsweek. Friday, the country reported more than 9,000 new cases and 72 new deaths, per Yahoo News. The health care system has begun to buckle under the increased demand.

The archipelago nation has now imposed a partial lockdown, but the restrictions are too little too late, said Newsweek. Cases are expected to continue rising.

Over the last two weeks, COVID-19 cases in Tunisia have increased by 138% to hit all-time highs, according to Our World in Data. Friday, Tunisia reported 9,823 new cases and 134 new deaths Thursday, per WHO data.

We are in a catastrophic situation, Nisaf Ben Alaya, a Tunisia health ministry spokesperson, said, per Al Jazeera. The health system collapsed.

The country has reimposed a total lockdown across most of the country and a partial lockdown on the capital, according to Al Jazeera. So far, only 4% of the population has received a coronavirus vaccination.

By absolute numbers, Indonesias outbreak is large and deadly. Previously called a coronavirus time bomb, the worlds fourth most populous country is being devastated by the current surge in cases, reported the Deseret News.

Hospitals have begun running low on or completely out of necessary oxygen. Some hospitals have temporarily closed or turned patients away due to staff and supply shortages, said The Guardian. One hospital even began using the front yard to treat emergency patients while using the building to isolate COVID-19 patients.

Thursday, Brazil reported the highest number of new COVID-19 cases and new deaths in the world, per WHO data. The country currently has the second-highest death toll in the world after the U.S., but experts predict that fatalities in Brazil will soon surpass the U.S., said BBC.

Professor Pedro Hallal, an epidemiologist leading the largest COVID-19 research study in Brazil, spoke to BBC about the outbreaks.

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COVID outbreaks: Where are the worst COVID-19 surges in the world? - Deseret News

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