US President Joe Biden ramps up COVID-19 vaccinations but warns 'war far from won'

Washington: US President Joe Biden's administration announced a raft of new actions to expand the national immunization campaign and ensure that 90 percent of adults will be eligible for vaccination against the coronavirus by April 19.

But he warned the "the war against COVID-19 is far from won," and blasted people responsible for "reckless behavior we've seen on television over the past few weeks" that had left the world's worst-hit country on the brink of a fresh surge.

The new vaccination measures include increasing the number of pharmacies participating in a federal immunization program from 17,000 to nearly 40,000, while creating a dozen more mass vaccination sites within three weeks.

It also includes $100 million in funding to help vaccinate vulnerable and at-risk older adults and people with disabilities.

The overall goal is to ensure 90 percent of adults will have a vaccination site within five miles of where they live.

The war against COVID-19 is far from won

Joe Biden | US President

The moves came after Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), highlighted worrying trends in the data that signaled the United States could soon follow Europe into another wave.

The rate of infection in the United States had been plateauing for several weeks, but is now once more on the rise, with the most recent data showing the seven-day average at close to 60,000 new daily cases.

That represents an increase of 10 percent over the prior seven-day period, while hospitalizations are up to 4,800 per day from 4,600 comparing the same timeframes.

Deaths have risen three percent to around 1,000 per day.

'Impending doom'

"I'm going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom," Walensky, a former frontline physician who treated COVID patients earlier on in the pandemic, said in an emotional plea.

"We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope. But right now, I'm scared."

Biden meanwhile called on states that have loosened mask mandates and restrictions on businesses to reverse their orders.

"Please, this is not politics. Reinstate the mandate if you let it down," he said, adding it was every American's "patriotic duty" to wear a mask.

Six states have so far lifted mask mandates and several more plan to do so in the first half of April.

American health workers have now administered 143 million shots, and 16 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, including half of over-65s.

The number of doses injected into arms accounts for some 26 percent of the world's total, despite the fact the country is only four percent of the global population.

But the US is also by far the most affected country, with close to 550,000 deaths and more than 30 million confirmed cases.

In more positive news, a real-world study by the CDC showed that the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines, both based on new messenger RNA technology, were 90 percent effective in preventing coronavirus infection - with and without symptoms.

The results came from 4,000 health workers vaccinated between December 2020 and March 2021, and also showed partial vaccination with one dose resulted in 80 percent protection against infection two weeks after the first shot.

One of the big strengths of the study was that participants self-collected nasal swab tests each week for lab testing, regardless of whether they developed symptoms or not.

This adds to a growing body of evidence that the vaccines halt not just symptomatic disease but infection itself, making them an important tool in stemming the spread of the virus.

The participants included doctors, nurses, first responders and other health care workers from Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, Oregon, Texas and Utah.

The study's authors said they could not make product-specific estimates because of the limited number of infections.

The study is ongoing, and scientists will look to sequence the virus in cases where it was able to infect people despite vaccination, to better understand why this happens in some cases.

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Europe vaccine rollout ‘unacceptably slow’: WHO

Copenhagen: The World Health Organisation on Thursday slammed Europe’s vaccine rollout as “unacceptably slow” which it said was prolonging the pandemic as the region sees a “worrying” surge in coronavirus infections.

“Vaccines present our best way out of this pandemic... However, the rollout of these vaccines is unacceptably slow,” WHO director for Europe Hans Kluge said in a statement.

“We must speed up the process by ramping up manufacturing, reducing barriers to administering vaccines, and using every single vial we have in stock, now,” he said.

To date, only 10 per cent of the region’s total population have received one vaccine dose, and four percent have completed a full vaccine series, the organisation said.

The WHO’s European region comprises 53 countries and territories and includes Russia and several Central Asian nations.

The organisation said the slow rollout was “prolonging the pandemic” and described Europe’s virus situation as “more worrying than we have seen in several months.”

Five weeks ago, the weekly number of new cases in Europe had dipped to under one million, but “last week saw increasing transmission of COVID-19 in the majority of countries in the WHO European region, with 1.6 million new cases,” it said.

The total number of deaths in Europe “is fast approaching one million and the total number of cases about to surpass 45 million,” it said, noting that Europe was the second-most affected region after the Americas.

Worrying new variants

The UN body warned that the rapid spread of the virus could increase the risk of the emergence of worrying new variants.

“The likelihood of new variants of concern occurring increases with the rate at which the virus is replicating and spreading, so curbing transmission through basic disease control actions is crucial,” Dorit Nitzan, WHO Europe’s regional emergency director, said in the statement.

New infections were increasing in every age group except in people aged 80 years and older, as vaccinations of that age group begin to show effect.

The WHO said the British variant of the virus was now the predominant one in Europe, and was present in 50 countries.

“As this variant is more transmissible and can increase the risk of hospitalisation, it has a greater public health impact and additional actions are required to control it,” it said.

Those actions included expanded testing, isolation, contact tracing, quarantine and genetic sequencing.

Meanwhile, the WHO said lockdowns “should be avoided by timely and targeted public health interventions”, but should be used when the disease “overstretches the ability of health services to care for patients adequately.”

It said 27 countries in its European region were in partial or full nationwide lockdown, with 21 imposing nighttime curfews.

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Germany limits use of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine over health concerns

Berlin: Germany will from Wednesday limit the use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine to people aged 60 and above as well as high-priority groups following further reports of a rare brain blood disorder.

“We have to be able trust the vaccines,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told journalists at a news conference on Tuesday. “And transparency is the best way to deal with such a situation,” she added.

Acting on advice from Germany’s vaccine committee, known as STIKO, Germany’s federal and state health ministries agreed that under 60-year-olds should only receive the AstraZeneca vaccine if they belong to high-priority groups, which include high-risk patients and medical workers, in consultation with a doctor.

People aged below 60 who have already received a first AstraZeneca shot have the option of either receiving their second shot as planned, if they are high priority, or to wait for STIKO to issue its recommendation, which it is expected to do by the end of April.

The new limit on the use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine is another setback in Germany’s already sluggish vaccination campaign.

Earlier, STIKO recommended the shot only be used for people aged 60 and above “on the basis of available data on the occurrence of rare but very severe thromboembolic side-effects”.

STIKO is also looking into the possibility of administering a second shot with a different COVID vaccine.

In a statement responding to the STIKO recommendation, AstraZeneca said patient safety was its highest priority and noted the European and UK medical agencies had not been able to establish a causal relationship between the shot and clotting.

“We will continue to work with German authorities to address any questions they may have,” it added.

Germany will, however, allow anyone 60 and over to be given the AstraZeneca shot in an effort to speed its vaccination campaign. So far, it has only been vaccinating people aged over 70 and those in high priority groups.

Back and forth

Germany’s decision followed further reports by the country’s vaccine regulator, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, of cases of blood clots known as cerebral sinus vein thrombosis.

PEI said it had registered 31 cases of CSVT, which resulted in nine deaths, out of some 2.7 million people who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine. With the exception of two cases, all reports involved women aged between 20 and 63.

Because use of the vaccine in Germany was initially limited to those under 65, the shot has been administered among younger women, particularly medical staff and teachers.

Many European countries briefly stopped using AstraZeneca’s vaccine earlier this month while investigating rare cases of blood clots.

Both the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the World Health Organization said this month the benefits of AstraZeneca’s vaccine outweighed the risks.

An EMA review covering 20 million people who took the AstraZeneca shot in Britain and the European Economic Area found seven cases of blood clots in multiple blood vessels and 18 cases of CVST.

Millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been safely administered around the world.

Nearly all countries have since resumed use of the vaccine.

But France broke with guidance from the EMA and said on March 19 it should only be given to people aged 55 or older. France said the decision was based on evidence that the clotting affected younger people.

Canadian health officials said on Monday they would stop offering AstraZeneca’s shot to people under 55 and require a new analysis of the shot’s benefits and risks based on age and gender.

Bavarian Premier Markus Soeder criticised the “back and forth” around the vaccine, saying all recommendations showed that the danger of severe illness from the coronavirus outweighed any side-effects linked to the shot.

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Sakura selfies: Tokyo enjoys cherry blossoms despite COVID-19 warning

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Newlywed suicide bombers identified in Indonesia church attack

Jakarta: Two suicide bombers who attacked an Indonesian cathedral on Palm Sunday were newlyweds who joined a pro-Daesh, police said Monday, as they arrested others suspected in the plot.

About 20 people were wounded in the powerful explosion outside the church in Makassar city on Sulawesi island while worshippers celebrated the start of Holy Week.

Both suspects were killed instantly after they rode a motorbike into the church compound and, when challenged by security, detonated a bomb packed with nails, police said.

They were the only fatalities.

About 15 victims remained in hospital Monday, with two in intensive care for burn injuries. Four have been discharged.

On Monday, Indonesian authorities said the pair, identified through DNA and fingerprint testing, had been married for about six months.

The male suspect, who was in his mid-twenties, left his family a suicide note that said he was ready to die as a martyr.

The couple belonged to an Islamic study group along with several of nine other suspects arrested since Sunday over their alleged roles in the attack, police said.

“They each had their own role, including buying the ingredients, teaching bomb making, creating the explosives and using them,” National Police Chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo told reporters.

Raids at several locations including at the couple’s home in Makassar and others in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta turned up a cache of powerful explosives and bomb-making ingredients, authorities said.

Sunday’s attack came after the arrest of dozens of suspected militants in recent months by Indonesia’s counter-terror squad.

A Makassar resident said the male bomber was a street food seller who lived in a rented house near his parents’ home.

“He was nice as a kid... but when he got older he didn’t really socialise around here,” Nuraini, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told AFP.

Police said the couple were members of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), an extremist group blamed for series of attacks, including 2018 suicide bombings at churches in Indonesia’s second-biggest city Surabaya, which killed a dozen congregants.

Sunday’s explosion at the main Catholic cathedral in Makassar happened just after congregants finished celebrating Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week, which commemorates Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem.

It comes a week before Easter.

JAD was also implicated in a 2019 cathedral suicide bombing in the Philippines committed by a married Indonesian couple. That attack killed worshippers and security forces.

Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim majority nation, has long struggled with attacks by Islamist extremists, including the 2002 Bali bombings which killed more than 200, mostly foreign tourists.

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Study links stress with allergies

Tokyo: Increased allergic reactions may be tied to the corticotropin-releasing stress hormone (CRH), suggests a new study.

The hormone is the main element that drives the body's response to stress. It is also present in diseases that cause inflammation.

The study, published in the ‘International Journal of Molecular Sciences’, suggests that the findings may help clarify the mechanism by which CRH induces proliferation of mast cells (MC) - agents involved in the development of allergies in the human nasal cavity.

"In my daily practice, I meet many patients with allergies who say their symptoms worsened due to psychological stress," said lead researcher Mika Yamanaka-Takaichi from the Osaka City University in Japan.

The team hypothesised that due to its role in inducing MC degranulation in human skin, "CRH may also be involved in stress-aggravated nasal allergies," the researchers said.

When the team added CRH to a nasal polyp organ culture, they saw a significant increase in the number of mast cells, a stimulation both of MC degranulation and proliferation, and an increase of stem cell factor (SCF) expression, a growth factor of mast cells, in human nasal mucosa- the skin of the nasal cavity.

In exploring possible therapeutic angles, "we saw the effect of CRH on mast cells blocked by CRHR1 gene knockdown, CRHR1 inhibitors, or an addition of SCF neutralizing antibodies," said Yamanaka-Takaichi.

In vivo, the team found an increase in the number of mast cells and degranulation in the nasal mucosa of mouse models of restraint stress, which was inhibited by the administration of CRHR1 inhibitor, antalarmin.

"In addition to understanding the effects stress has on our allergies, we have also found promising therapeutic potential in candidates like antalarmin," Yamanaka-Takaichi noted.

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New Pakistan finance minister Hammad Azhar hopes to strengthen economic growth

Islamabad: In the latest cabinet reshuffle, Prime Minister Imran Khan has appointed Hammad Azhar as the new finance minister in place of Abdul Hafeez Shaikh.

Azhar, who has been serving as federal minister for industries and production, has been given the additional portfolio of minister for finance. Hammad Azhar is the third finance minister since Khan’s government came to power in 2018.

Azhar said the country’s economy had made “significant gains towards stabilisation since 2018” and expressed resolve to “consolidate these gains and strengthen the growth momentum.” Pakistan government navigated the economic fallout of COVID-19 “fairly well” and will “endeavour to protect our people from these shocks,” at a time when “the world is witnessing supply chain disruptions and rise in food prices”, he said.

The official announcement came after Hafeez Shaikh, a former World Bank executive with over 30 years of experience in the field, lost the Senate elections earlier this month. The parliament seat was mandatory for him to keep the office constitutionally.

Control inflation

The reshuffle is part of government’s policies to control surging inflation and prices of essential food items ahead of Ramadan. “There has been rising inflation, and the prime minister wants to bring in a fresh team to devise pro-poor policies that are rooted in the ground realities,” PTI leader Senator Shibli Faraz told media.

The government is currently under severe criticism over inflation particularly the spike in process of food commodities and electricity tariff at a time when people are struggling with pandemic shocks.

Meanwhile, Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Power Tabish Gauhar was given additional charge as the premier’s aide on petroleum, replacing Nadeem Babar who was asked to step down last week as the government launched an investigation into the June 2020 fuel crisis. More changes in the cabinet are anticipated this week. Local media reports claim that new appointments are expected in the information, energy, aviation, communication and maritime affairs ministries.

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