Abuja — The federal and state governments have commenced critical engagement towards the review of the existing social protection policy.
Speaking at a workshop in Illori, Kwara State, with representatives of various states in the North Central zone of the country, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Olusola Idowu, said the consultation sought to harvest state-level input on social protection issues, gaps and challenges to ensure a robust and all- inclusive policy going forward.
Represented by the ministry's Director, Department of Administration, Mr. Lanre Adekanye, Idowu, however, commended the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UNICEF and other key development partners for their faith and buy-in for the programme.
She said the programme acceptance had been demonstrated by their attendance at the workshop despite obvious challenges.
In a statement by the ministry's Information Officer, Mrs. Imaobong Udoh, the perm sec further urged participants to ensure domestication of the policy in their various states in order to ensure effective implementation and sustainability.
Also, speaking at the workshop, the Director, Department of Social Development, Federal Ministry of Budget and National Planning, Mr. Abdulkadir Sa'adu, pointed out that the zonal consultations on the policy was important for a comprehensive national social protection framework that would convey the needs of Nigerians.
He was represented by Deputy Director, Social Development, Dr. Sanjo Faniran.
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Also, the representative of Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster management and Social Development, who is also the Coordinator of National Safety Net Programme, Alhaji Kabir Abdullahi, enjoined participants to make implementable contributions in order to provide the basis for institutionalising the policy in their states.
He also tasked participants to strive to ensure legislation of the policy as this would guarantee appropriate budgeting provision and cash backing.
According to the statement, representatives of UNDP and UNICEF jointly maintained that social protection policy would boost human capital development, adding that it remained a key aspect of human rights.
The development partners also maintained that all levels of government needed to contribute to the programme.
They commended the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning for coordinating the workshop, stressing that it would offer states opportunity to understand the importance of social protection in the country while identifying challenges peculiar to their various states as well as proffering appropriate solutions.

At a time when COVID-19 cases in the country and elsewhere have reached unprecedented levels, the Federal Government and the United Nations System in Nigeria have agreed to further strengthen collaboration to ensure that Nigerians have access to timely, sustained, uninterrupted supply of affordable COVID-19 vaccines of assured quality.
At a recent strategic meeting to discuss finalization of the national vaccine deployment plans, Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Enahire and UN Resident Coordinator, Mr Edward Kallon promised to “use all platforms, including the expansion of the One UN Basket Fund for COVID-19 as well as bilateral and multilateral and private sector engagements, to ensure vaccine security and equitable access for all Nigerians”.  
They hailed the development and approval of safe and effective vaccines less than a year after the emergence of a new virus as a stunning scientific achievement, and a much-needed source of hope. They jointly expressed their resolve to ensure that Nigeria gets the most potent and efficacious vaccines.
As the country prepares to receive the much-awaited first batch of vaccines through the WHO-led COVAX facility, the Government and UN have called on all stakeholders in the country to join ongoing efforts to boost public acceptance and confidence in COVID-19 vaccine safety.
They stressed the need to step-up high-level advocacy, strengthen leadership and coordination at the highest Federal and State level, and accelerate preparedness for effective and efficient vaccine delivery, including provisions to reach inaccessible areas. Said Dr Ehanire, “vaccine shortages, even for a short period of time, might increase risk of vaccine preventable diseases, including COVID-19, to surge and cause morbidity and mortality among vulnerable persons”.
Earlier, on 20 August 2020, His Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari issued a public statement joining the urgent global call for a People’s Vaccine Against COVID-19. “Now is not the time to allow interests of the wealthiest corporations and governments to be placed above the universal needs to save lives,” proclaimed President Buhari.

Twenty-five out of 200 suspected violators of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) safety protocols arrested by security agencies and COVID-19 Marshals in Kano State have been sentenced.
Governor Abdullahi Ganduje recently inaugurated 2,000 special marshals and enforcement agencies to check the rate of disregard for COVID-19 safety measures.
The Commissioner for Information, Muhammad Garba, said the arrest was in compliance with the Federal Government’s recent law on guidelines and enforcement against COVID-19 in the country.
According to Garba, 102 violators were fined N5,000 each, while 25 others were remanded after their sentence by the mobile courts set up to deal with non-compliance to the protocols.
He said the enforcement measure became necessary to preserve public safety and ensure full compliance with the protocols, particularly the use of face mask.
The Kano State Road Traffic Agency (KAROTA) led the enforcements agencies comprising the police, civil defence, Department of State Services (DSS) and the COVID-19 Marshals. Violators are prosecuted at strategic locations where they are are arrested.
The commissioner noted that despite the new wave of COVID-19, which is reportedly tougher than the first, residents were not observing the Infection, Prevention And Control (IPC) protocols.
Garba warned that any resident caught violating the safety protocols would be arraigned before the mobile court. He called for the cooperation of the public and assured that government would continue to improve enlightenment and persuasion to halt rising cases of death and infections in the state.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is telling California it can’t enforce a ban on indoor church services because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The high court issued orders late Friday in two cases where churches had sued over coronavirus-related restrictions in the state. The high court said that for now, California can’t ban indoor worship in areas where virus cases are surging, but it can cap indoor services at 25 percent of a building’s capacity. The justices also declined to stop the state from barring singing and chanting at services.
The court’s three liberal justices dissented.
The court’s action follows a decision in a case from New York late last year in which the justices split 5-4 in barring the state from enforcing certain limits on attendance at churches and synagogues.
Shortly after, the justices told a federal court to reexamine a similar lawsuit over California’s restrictions in light of the ruling.

There is some encouraging news in the fight against Covid-19 as more vaccines are being distributed and several states announced they will ease certain coronavirus restrictions amid decreasing case levels and hospitalizations, but despite the promising developments experts insist Americans need to remain cautious, especially with the arrival of differing variants in the United States.
On Thursday, Stefan Pryor, Rhode Island’s Secretary of Commerce, said that starting Friday indoor dining will be allowed at 50% capacity. Catered events, he added, will allow up to 30 people indoors and 50 people outdoors with testing.
In Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker said that starting Monday all businesses limited to operating within 25% capacity can raise that threshold to 40%, including restaurants.
The two states joined New Jersey, which on Wednesday announced it will ease indoor gathering limits and lift the 10 p.m. curfew for restaurants, citing decreasing Covid-19 spreading rates and hospitalization rates. Starting Friday, indoor gathering capacity limits, including for indoor dining, will be raised to 35% from 25%.
And last week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that if the coronavirus positivity rate continued to decline — as of Jan. 29 the rate was at 4.6%, the lowest since Nov. 28 — the state could resume indoor dining at 25% capacity beginning February 14.
Despite the hopeful news, experts insist Americans need to remain cautious.
The emergence of these virus mutations — first detected in the United Kingdom (B.1.1.7), South Africa (B.1.351) and Brazil (P.1), respectively — could mean another surge in cases, according to Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
“What we need to do is anticipate this is coming, and I understand this is hard for the public. They’re saying give me a break, I’m tired of this. But the bottom line is we have to be prepared for what I feel is certain is coming, and that’s the challenge we have right now,” Osterholm said Thursday on CNN’s “New Day.”
It will take much more than a vaccine to “keep this variant at bay and not have potentially a major surge in just the weeks ahead,” Osterholm said, referring to the UK variant.

The Presidency has stated that it is worried that Nigerians are not complying with the new Protective Health regulations signed in an Executive Order by the President which makes mask-wearing and observation of social distancing in public mandatory.
This was disclosed in a social media statement by Presidential media aide Garba Shehu on Sunday.
He said:
The Presidency is worried by reports of non-compliance with just signed Executive Order that makes mask-wearing and observation of social distancing in the public mandatory, appealing to Nigerians to give their maximum cooperation for the success of the policy.
The Presidency appeals to State Governments, traditional rulers and religious leaders to play active roles in the sensitization and enforcement of the Executive Order.
To achieve this, COVID-19 task forces and committees should persuade members of the public to cooperate with the government in achieving compliance and avoid crude methods that may create resistance and resentment, thereby defeating the primary goal of the Executive Order.
Shehu added that the FG is reluctant to enter into another lockdown and continues to emphasize the non-pharmaceutical measures, citing that the way to avert lockdowns is to observe these measures as put in place by the Presidential Task Force.
“Though vaccine availability is within reach, the propensity of the public for noncompliance weakens the fight against the virus,” Shehu said.
He urged Nigerians to know that the virus is also a threat to the Nigerian economy and “Protecting public health is one of the sacred duties of any responsible government and the administration will not abdicate that responsibility.”
What you should know
Recall Nairametrics reported that President Buhari signed the COVID-19 Health Protection Regulations 2021 policy, citing powers conferred to the Presidency, by Section 4 of the Quarantine Act, Cap. Q2 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2010.

Those who do not want to obey the law should know more about the United States and Britain, and learn about the loss of property and the cost of life that COVID-19 has suffered. Our medical conditions and vaccine supply can't compare with those of these countries. Why don't we pay more attention to protective measures?

Sunday said that the COVID-19 Health Protection Regulation 2021 law would help to curb the spread of the pandemic across the country.
Prof. Innocent Ujah, NMA President, said this while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
NAN reports that President Muhammadu Buhari had on Jan. 28, signed COVID-19 Health Protection Regulations 2021, in exercise of the powers conferred on the President by Section 4 of the Quarantine Act, 2010.
Ujah said that the move by the President to ensure an enabling legal framework is in place was a welcome development as it would help in contributing to national response to the curtailment of COVID-19.
“This is coming against the backdrop of President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent signing of the law on health protection regulation
“Now that the President has put a law in place, we should comply by adhering strictly to the law,” he said.
Ujah, who expressed worry over the level of compliance among the citizenry on COVID-19 protocols, called on the law enforcement agents to arrest any erring Nigerian.
“Unfortunately, the most disturbing aspect I see is enforcement; it is going to be a problem, because Nigerians don’t like obeying laws.
“But if we can ensure that the law is fully obeyed, the spread of the pandemic will reduce,’’ he said.
He, however, urged the Federal Government to embrace the use of intentional form of communication through persuasion, advocacy and sensitisation largely from the National Orientation Agency.
He added that religious leaders, opinion leaders and other stakeholders should be engaged for effective sensitisation in order to pass the message across to the people.
Ujah said that the law would also help to reduce the number of people violating the COVID-19 protocols in the country.

A new study published on Nov. 30 indicated the possibility of COVID-19 being in the U.S. in December 2019, earlier than what has been reported by government agencies.
According to the article summary, “Retrospective SARS-CoV-2 serological testing of routine blood donations collected in nine U.S. states from Dec. 13, 2019 to Jan. 17, 2020 suggests that the virus was present in the United States earlier than previously recognized.”
The study was published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America 2020. The American Red Cross and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were key agencies involved in the study.
According to the report, to determine if COVID-19 reactive antibodies were present prior to the first identified case in the U.S. on Jan. 19, 2020, residual archived samples from 7,389 routine blood donations collected by the American Red Cross from Dec. 13, 2019 to Jan. 17, 2020 were tested at the CDC for anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.
The samples were from donors who were residents in nine states; California, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin.

Edo was the odd one out on Sunday to report COVID-19 fatalities out of Nigeria’s 36 states, as new cases plunged to 964, from the record 2,314 on Saturday.
The state which has an exceptionally high death toll, compared with its caseload of 3,568, reported two new deaths.
They were the only ones reported by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control in its update on Sunday.
Nigeria’s death toll crept to 1,504, while the cases so far recorded jumped to 121,566.
Edo state now has a death toll of 135, second to Lagos, which has 285 fatalities, against its cumulative cases of 44,940.
In cases to death ratio, Edo has 1 death to every 26 cases. In Lagos, it is one death to every 157 cases.
Abuja which has 15,770 COVID-19 cases, the second highest after Lagos has 119 deaths, a ratio of 1 to 132 cases.
Plateau with 7522 cases, the nation’s third highest has 53 deaths, also a ratio of 1-141.
Kaduna with 7,341 cases the fourth highest also has 56 fatalities, working out as one death for every 131 cases.
The ratio of cases to death in the fifth worst hit state of Oyo is also 1-69. Rivers, the sixth state also shares a similar ratio, one to 62.
Only Edo is different. The Nigerian officials have not explained why this is so.
In the daily cases reported on Sunday, Edo posted 20 cases, the 13th on the grim leaderboard.
Lagos reported 360 cases, Abuja 88, Ogun 73 and Imo 72.
According to NCDC data, the discharged increased to 97,228.
The agency said 2,351 of them were cleared on Sunday, with 573 of the discharges in Lagos.

Amazon on Thursday said it will open a pop-up clinic at its downtown Seattle campus Sunday to vaccinate about 2,000 eligible state residents.
"We're eager to help save lives here in our home state," Jay Carney, Amazon senior vice president for global corporate affairs, said at a news conference with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.
The clinic, operated with Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, will operate for only a day, but Amazon said in a statement the two could pair up again for "future pop up clinic opportunities."
On Wednesday, Washington marked one year since federal health officials announced the first known U.S. coronavirus patient, a man who had traveled home to the Seattle area from the origin of the pandemic, Wuhan, China.
Shortly after Joe Biden's inauguration Wednesday, Amazon, which says it has inoculated 1 million employees, offered to help the president accelerate the distribution of coronavirus vaccines.
Inslee, meanwhile, announced the state was moving to its next phase of vaccination, which lowers the age limit from 70 to 65.

Dr Oluwajoba Oroge braced for the week ahead - another long line of coronavirus patients at Abuja’s EHA clinic, and another long wait for news of a vaccine.
Europe has been inoculating its people since December - but African health authorities say it could still be weeks, even months, until they get their first shots.
Every day, said Dr. Oroge, cases are mounting, stocks of protective gear are dwindling and the number of his colleagues with the energy and health to keep fighting is falling.
“The cases will continue to rise if we don’t have a vaccine,” the 30-year-old told Reuters after seeing a patient. “That continues to mean more work stress, more mental stress, more stress on all the resources.”
More than 2,600 Nigerian physicians have contracted COVID-19 and dozens of them have died, said Dr Adetunji Adenekan, chairman of the Lagos state branch of the Nigerian Medical Association. “We are depleted every day by the minute.”
Nigeria’s health minister Osagie Ehanire said last month he was hoping to see the fist vaccines arrive through the global COVAX scheme in January, though he gave no details on precise timing, or which shot Nigeria would get.
African states have accused richer regions of cornering most of the supplies. The head of the World Health Organization - Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus - said last week the world was on the brink of “catastrophic moral failure” when it came to sharing out shots.
Daily tallies of confirmed cases hit record levels across Africa this month, and the second wave is infecting twice as many people per day as the height of last year’s first, according to the African Union’s Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Nigeria has reported 110,387 confirmed cases, and 1,435 deaths, though African officials have warned that low testing could mask more cases.
Privately, some doctors say they worry that when vaccines arrive in Nigeria, they will go first to the rich and powerful.
Dr Ndaeyo Iwot, acting executive secretary of primary health care in Abuja, said the government would track doses to clamp down on any corruption. “It will go through the system,” he said.

New, more contagious variants of the coronavirus will likely accelerate the spread of the virus and that means the US must double down on efforts to protect people, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
A variant first identified in Britain known as B.1.1.7 is being found in the US as well, and modeling indicates it could worsen the already terrible spread of the virus across the country, the CDC researchers said.
That means people need to try harder to wear masks, avoid gatherings and stay socially distant from one another.
"It means that it is going to be harder and harder to control it. Any of those measures we are going to have to do to a higher degree, including vaccination," Dr. Gregory Armstrong, who directs the Office of Advanced Molecular Detection at CDC's respiratory diseases division, told CNN.
"Multiple lines of evidence indicate that B.1.1.7 is more efficiently transmitted than are other SARS-CoV-2 variants," Armstrong and colleagues wrote in the agency's weekly report, the MMWR.
"Variant B.1.1.7 has the potential to increase the U.S. pandemic trajectory in the coming months."
Efforts to vaccinate people -- already slower than the federal government hoped for and promised -- need to be stepped up, CDC said.
"Higher vaccination coverage might need to be achieved to protect the public," the researchers wrote.
The virus has already infected more people in the US and killed more than in any other country. As of Friday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins University, the virus had been diagnosed in 23 million people in the US and killed more than 390,000.
The B.1.1.7 variant appears to more readily infect human cells, which would help it infect more people.
It has been detected in about a dozen US states, but the CDC also knows that surveillance is poor and it is likely far more common than that. It is also possible that the pattern of mutations that makes the virus more transmissible is arising independently as it circulates in people, because the more people are infected, the more chances the virus has to mutate.
The CDC team ran an experimental model to see what might happen in the near future. It's not known how much more transmissible B.1.1.7 is, and it's also not known how much immunity there already is in the US population because of previous infections, so the team made some assumptions. In one scenario, the new variant is 50% more infectious than currently dominant variants circulating.
"In this model, B.1.1.7 prevalence is initially low, yet because it is more transmissible than are current variants, it exhibits rapid growth in early 2021, becoming the predominant variant in March," the CDC team wrote.
"If this behaves like it has so far in the UK, Denmark and Ireland, yes it is going to become a progressively larger and larger proportion of all the cases out there no matter what we do," Armstrong said.
"That's not to say that cases are necessarily going to go up," Armstrong added. "That's not to say we can do nothing."
The new variant does not seem to result in higher rates of hospitalization or higher rates of death, he noted.
"While there is a high probability that this is going to become a larger and larger proportion of all cases, if we can get people to become more adherent to the recommended measures, the number of cases don't need to go up," Armstrong said.
Plus, the CDC needs to do more to keep an eye out for new variants, and for the appearance of this one.
"CDC has also contracted with several large commercial clinical laboratories to rapidly sequence tens of thousands of SARS-CoV-2-positive specimens each month and has funded seven academic institutions to conduct genomic surveillance in partnership with public health agencies, thereby adding substantially to the availability of timely genomic surveillance data from across the United States," the team wrote.
The CDC is also keeping an eye out for a variant first spotted in South Africa and now called B.1.351, plus one spotted among four travelers from Brazil when they landed in Japan, called B.1.1.28
"These variants carry a constellation of genetic mutations," the CDC team wrote.
The worries are that the virus could change in ways that would help it evade the immunity induced by vaccination, or the the immunity introduced with antibody-based treatments. The new coronavirus vaccines are designed to be quick and easy to change to match new circulating strains, but a major change would mean people would need to be re-vaccinated.
It's also possible some of the changes could make the virus harder to detect in standard tests.
And the CDC is also worried that if the virus changes in just the right way, it could re-infect people who have recovered from coronavirus already. Influenza already does this.

The emergence of new infectious coronavirus mutations means that it has become more difficult to completely eliminate the virus. It is not clear whether the vaccines that have been developed have the same effect on the mutant virus. The situation is getting worse!

The closure of the border between the U.S. and Canada has once again been extended amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Canada’s Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair announced on Jan. 12 that the U.S.-Canada border will remain closed until Feb. 21, 2021, in order to “ensure the safety of Canadians” against COVID-19.
“We are extending restrictions on non-essential travel with the United States until February 21st, 2021. Our Government will continue to ensure the safety of Canadians against #COVID19 and base our decisions on the best public health advice available,” Blair tweeted Tuesday.
The same rules will still apply: Essential travel, including certain workers and transportation of goods, is still allowed to cross the border between the neighboring countries. Nonessential travel is prohibited across the U.S.-Canada border.
Canada and the U.S. have limited border crossings since March 2020, extending the restrictions each month. Before Friday’s announcement, the latest closure extension was slated to expire on Jan. 21.
On Dec. 1, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the ban on nonessential travel with the United States will not be lifted until COVID-19 is significantly more under control around the world.

A regional government in Nigeria has imposed a nighttime curfew to contain the rising spread of coronavirus.
"The Government of Ekiti State has imposed a curfew from 8.00 p.m. to 6.00 a.m. and banned all gatherings of more than 20 people until further notice," it said in a statement on Sunday.
The new guidelines were announced citing an "alarming rate at which the second wave of COVID-19 is spreading in Nigeria and elsewhere."
Nigeria’s health authorities have so far confirmed 100,087 COVID-19 infections and 1,358 related deaths. A record 1,664 infections were registered in the West African country on Jan. 6. Ekiti has seen 439 cases.
Cases, however, have witnessed a fall as 1,024 infections were registered in the last 24 hours, compared to 1,585 the day before.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control said that starting from today, all incoming travelers require a COVID-19 test done not more than four days before boarding.
Last week, immigration chief Muhammed Babandede had warned that foreign visitors who fail to present their COVID-19 test certificates on arrival could have their visas revoked.

The health system and health workers in Nigeria are under incredible strain, as a more and more very ill patients are now presenting themselves to the hospitals.
Dr Adedamola Dada, the Medical Director, Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Ebute Meta, Lagos, made the assertion in Lagos on Wednesday,. He spoke while commenting on the raging second wave of COVID- 19 pandemic in the country. According to him, we very urgently need to help the health workers  cope better by reducing the number of infections and therefore patients they see.
Having a vaccine is definitely a good thing, but we cannot relax our vigilance and must abide by the COVID guidelines. This is closely related to each of us.

Public health officials in Harris County, Texas, said Thursday they have logged the first known case in the state of the Covid-19 variant that was initially discovered in the United Kingdom.
The male patient is between the ages of 30 and 40 with no known travel history, and remains in stable condition, health officials said. Epidemiologists in Harris County, the third-largest county in the nation, said they were conducting a review with state health officials to notify those who may have come into contact with the patient.
Harris County, which is home to Houston, has seen its Covid-19 positivity rate climb above 15 percent in recent days, with nearly 250,000 confirmed cases as of Thursday, according to county data.
The new Covid-19 strain, which was first detected in England in November, is considered to be more contagious, but does not necessarily result in more severe symptoms of the coronavirus. So far, the variant has been discovered in more than a dozen countries and at least five other states, including California, Colorado, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania.

Normal official work hours na still from Monday to Friday but sake of di second wave of covid-19, work life go change a bit as goment kontinu to announce new guidelines to epp offices check di spread of di virus.
For goment offices, public servant below grade level 12 no suppose come work except dem be essential staff
Offices must encourage staff to work from home
Business and office must ensure say sanitisers dey for offices
Dem must ensure mandatory use of non-medical face mask/ covering for all staff at all times
Dem must ensure say physical distancing measures dey ground including seating arrangements for staff and visitors
Ensure temperature checks for di front of dia offices from of dia offices on arrival
Ensure say dem get hand washing facilities and promote through frequent washing wit soap and water for at least 20 seconds
Develop physical distancing strategies for di office to safeguard di health and safety of employees.
Wia staff members get regular face-to-face contact with customers, di business must ensure say dem get di necessary protective equipment to keep dem safe.
All Business must develop an infectious disease preparedness action plan to reduce di risk of exposure for work place and inform di staff members.
Ensure say staff members know how to spot the symptoms of coronavirus and dem get clear understanding of wetin to do wen dem dey sick and encourage dem to stay at home.
Display signs for offices or business premises to remind staff and visitors to maintain good and respiratory hygiene.
Discourage staff make dem no share work equipment and tools like computers, phones and desks
Offices and business to limit di number of visitors to dia office
Take advantage of delivery companies to limit staff movement outside the office

A Wisconsin hospital employee has been fired and arrested after removing dozens of vials of the coronavirus vaccine from a pharmacy refrigerator, intentionally destroying more than 500 doses, a hospital investigation found.
The incident happened over the weekend at the Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, north of Milwaukee. Grafton police announced the arrest of the pharmacist Thursday, but did not name the man or identify a motive.
Police said in a statement they arrested the former employee on suspicion of recklessly endangering safety, adulterating a prescription drug and criminal damage to property. The damage he caused "was estimated to be between $8,000 and $11,000," police said.
Initially, it appeared that the 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine — which must be kept between 36 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit — had been left out overnight accidentally, hospital officials said. Each vial holds approximately 10 doses of the vaccine.
But Wednesday, the Aurora Medical Center announced the hospital worker involved "acknowledged that they intentionally removed the vaccine from refrigeration."
"We continue to believe that vaccination is our way out of the pandemic. We are more than disappointed," the hospital said in a statement, adding that the employee has been terminated. "This was a violation of our core values."
The Moderna vaccine has a 12-hour window once it has been thawed. Most doses of the vaccine that had been left out of the pharmacy refrigerator had to be discarded, although hospital officials later believed they could salvage some. After the hospital administered more than 50 doses of the vaccines that had been thawed, it learned the shots had actually been thawed twice, rendering them ineffective, a hospital official said Thursday at a press conference. The hospital said all those who received an ineffective vaccination have been notified and that those individuals are not at risk.
News of the spoiled vaccine doses in Wisconsin comes as the United States struggles to meet its goals for vaccination. So far, only about 2.8 million people have been vaccinated, far short of the 20 million the Trump administration had hoped for by year-end.
The vaccine is not yet widely available, and health care workers and nursing home residents have priority for the first doses.
On Wednesday, Advocate Aurora Health, the health system that Aurora Medical Center is part of, said it has vaccinated more than 21,000 health care workers so far.
The pharmacist is currently being held at Ozaukee County Jail.

A Wisconsin-based hospital on Wednesday said an employee who removed 57 vials of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine from the refrigerator earlier this week which resulted in 500 doses being discarded, acted intentionally.
In a statement to Fox News, Advocate Aurora Health said it was led to believe the act was an error, but the employee in question "today acknowledged that they intentionally removed the vaccine from refrigeration."
The employee is no longer with the company, it said. 
"We continue to believe that vaccination is our way out of the pandemic," the company said. "We are more than disappointed that this individual's action will result in a delay of more than 500 people receiving their vaccine."
Aurora officials initially said the employee at the Aurora Medical Center in Grafton forgot to put the vials back in refrigeration after removing them. Each vial contained 10 doses of the vaccine, according to local reports. 
The former employee's actions were "a violation of our core values" and have been reported to authorities for further investigation, the company said.

(CNN)A Colorado man has the variant of the coronavirus from the United Kingdom that health officials say is more transmissable than other strains of the virus, Gov. Jared Polis announced Tuesday.
It is the first known case of the UK coronavirus variant in United States.
The man, who is in his 20s and in isolation in Elbert County, has no travel history, Polis' office said in a news release.
"We will closely monitor this case," Polis said, "as well as all COVID-19 indicators, very closely."
The statement said public health officials are working to identify potential contacts and potential cases through contact tracing interviews.
Health authorities from around the world have said the variant does not appear to be more deadly than previously identified Covid-19 strains.
Many countries have banned flights from the United Kingdom. Several airlines recently announced passengers from London to the United States will need a negative coronavirus test.
The variant has been around since September, and US health officials have said in recent days as it became prevalent in the United Kingdom that it is probably already in the United States.
Public Health England said initial analysis showed that while the variant appears to be more transmissible, there is no evidence it is linked to a higher risk of hospital admission or death.

(Reuters) - Americans marked a grim Christmas Eve on Thursday as coronavirus infections exploded nationwide, political leaders warned them not to travel or gather in large groups and a highly contagious variant of the virus spread further in Europe.
More than one million people have received the first of two vaccine doses since Dec. 14, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the vaccinations have so far had little effect on the latest surge in cases spiraling nationwide.
Achieving herd immunity against the virus could require vaccination of up to 90% of Americans, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the most prominent U.S. infectious disease expert, told the New York Times in an interview.
“We really don’t know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent,” Fauci said,
Fauci, who is advising both Republican President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden, a Democrat, on the pandemic, acknowledged that he had revised his estimates upward from earlier in the year, when he said the nation would reach herd immunity by inoculating 60% to 70% of the population.
Fauci was vaccinated earlier this week on live television.
The United States recorded more than 3,000 deaths for the second consecutive day on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally. The U.S. death toll since the pandemic broke out in March has surpassed 326,000.
The states of Tennessee and California have emerged as the epicenters of the latest surge
“Our state is ground zero for a surge in COVID-19 and we need Tennesseeans to their part,” Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, a Republican, said in a tweet on Wednesday. Lee asked residents of the southern state to wear masks and avoid large gatherings over the holidays.

For American citizens, every day is a day of freedom, and freedom and death can coexist.

The Nigerian president on Tuesday extended the mandate of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 till the end of March 2021 as the West African country faces a second wave of coronavirus.
The task force was established by Muhammadu Buhari on March 9, 2020 to coordinate and oversee Nigeria's multi-sectoral inter-governmental efforts to contain the spread of the novel virus.
In a series of tweets, Buhari said he took the decision because of a surge in the number of cases, and to procure vaccines.
Nigeria has recorded more than of 78,790 COVID-19 infections and 1,227 related deaths across all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).
"Nigeria cannot afford to lose the gains of the last nine months," he said. "I have critically evaluated the situation and remain convinced that urgent measures have to be taken to halt the spread of the coronavirus and the attendant fatalities."
Buhari urged all citizens to be vigilant and stay safe as the festive season approaches. "Non-essential trips and large social gatherings should be avoided or shelved completely."
In a statement, the NCDC said it is escalating its ongoing public communication efforts through a new campaign themed #CelebrateResponsibly.
"In the last two weeks, there has been a rapid increase in the number of COVID-19 cases across the country. On the 17th of December, a record daily number of 1,145 new confirmed cases was recorded.
"This increase is as a result of a convergence of circumstances which includes increased local and international travels, business and religious activities with minimal compliance with COVID-19 safety measures by the members of the public," it said.

The coronavirus pandemic unleashed record levels of joblessness in America. The unemployment rate in April – 14.7% – was the highest it has been since the federal government began collecting the data in 1948, according to a report this month by the Congressional Research Service. Workers of color were hit the hardest: Black Americans registered 16.7% unemployment in April, compared with 14.2% for white workers and 18.9% for Hispanic workers that month, according to the report.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also placed a moratorium on evictions, but that was set to expire Dec. 31, possibly leaving millions of people on the streets.
Congress was expected to pass this week a roughly $900 billion COVID-19 stimulus deal featuring another round of stimulus checks and other much-needed benefits, including a boost to unemployment insurance benefits.
If Congress doesn't act, federal unemployment benefits are set to expire by the end of December, leaving an estimated 12 million people without any source of income.
None of these factors make it easier for the millions of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits months ago but never received a reply or payment.
The U.S government doesn’t keep clear tallies of workers who don't receive unemployment benefits or a denial. But the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank that tracks the payments, estimates that 3 million to 7 million people who qualify for unemployment never received a rejection letter or payment. About 50 million people have applied for the benefits since the start of the pandemic.
Reasons for the unpaid benefits include outdated systems, robust protection against fraud and the sheer volume of requests that have overwhelmed state systems, said Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation.
Before the pandemic, states processed about 200,000 requests a week for unemployment benefits, he said. In a recession, that number could climb to 300,000 to 400,000 a week. Since the start of the pandemic, the U.S has seen about 1 million claims a week, far more than any time in recent memory.
“It was definitely a perfect storm,” Stettner said. “A system that wasn’t in good shape was being flooded with so many claims. It was much worse than anything we’ve ever experienced.”
Unemployment insurance benefits are distributed by individual states using funds administered by the federal government. Federal assistance programs, like the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, which offered $600 a week to qualifying claimants, also were distributed by states. Workers who weren’t able to access unemployment benefits through their states likely also missed out on federal assistance, Stettner said.

COVID-19 has exposed the shortcomings of the United States. A large number of Americans are unemployed and waiting for relief, but the US government has done nothing. The loss of income of tens of millions of people will cause great social unrest. I hope our government can take this as a warning, stabilize the people and restore the economy.

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Kentucky can force parochial as well as public schools to close temporarily because of the coronavirus pandemic, but only because those restrictions are set to expire early next year.
Gov. Andrew Beshear ordered all public and private K-12 schools closed for in-person instruction beginning Nov. 23, limiting them to remote or virtual learning. The order allowed elementary schools that are not in hard-hit areas to reopen Dec. 7 but kept middle and high schools closed until Jan. 4.
Because the schools begin a holiday recess Friday, the justices did not insist that religious schools be allowed to open now. Instead, they denied a challenge from the state's Republican attorney general and a religious school that argued the closings violated the Constitution's promise of freedom of religion.
"We deny the application without prejudice to the applicants or other parties seeking a new preliminary injunction if the governor issues a school-closing order that applies in the new year," the court said in an unsigned order.
Conservative Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito dissented publicly. Gorsuch said the challengers deserve an answer to their assertion that the executive orders "discriminate against religion." None of the court's other justices announced their votes.
Noting the high court only last month ruled that New York could not severely limit religious worship during the pandemic, Gorsuch wrote, "I would not leave in place yet another potentially unconstitutional decree, even for the next few weeks."
Since the COVID-19 virus first led states to implement restrictions in March, the nation's highest court has weighed in on policies affecting religious services, retail shopping, prison housing and the administration of elections. This was the first time it dealt specifically on education.
In recent weeks, the court's conservatives freed churches, synagogues and mosques from strict attendance limits imposed by Democratic governors in New York and, by extension, California, Colorado and New Jersey.

California’s governor said Tuesday that the state has ordered thousands of body bags in the face of soaring covid-19 deaths — echoing grim messages from leaders nationwide as a massive vaccination effort begins in the coronavirus pandemic’s darkest days. The country is breaking records for new daily deaths and hospitalizations.
The Food and Drug Administration is likely to authorize another vaccine candidate as soon as Friday, but experts say the fast-tracked vaccines will come too late to prevent a deadly winter wave.
Here are some significant developments:
Congressional negotiations on spending and economic relief legislation picked up speed on Tuesday.
Wall Street snapped its losing streak as investors cheered progress in stimulus negotiations and the likely approval of a second vaccine.
The FDA authorized the first rapid coronavirus test that can be taken at home without prescription and that yields immediate results.
More than 70 percent of Americas say they will “definitely or probably” get a coronavirus vaccine, if determined to be safe by scientists and available free.
The World Health Organization is in talks with Pfizer to make its vaccine more affordable to poorer nations.

I just want to say! Is vaccination random? Will not be vaccinated in a limited way? It's hard to imagine this unexpected operation.

Super-cooled shipments of a newly approved coronavirus vaccine rolled out of a Pfizer manufacturing facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Sunday for rapid air freight distribution to regional hubs across the United States.
Inoculations against the virus that causes the deadly COVID-19 disease will begin “very expeditiously, hopefully Monday,” Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, told CNN. More than 184,000 vials were on the first trucks leaving the Pfizer vaccine production facility.
Health care workers and elderly people in long-term care facilities will be first in line to receive the first round of 2.9 million doses at a time when cases are surging in the United States. 
Senior government officials including some White House staff will also have access to the first round of vaccines and may be inoculated as early as this week.
Staff who work closely with President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence would be among the first in the nation to receive the vaccine. According to news reports, the goal is to prevent further spread of the coronavirus in the White House after multiple events there led to outbreaks.
It was not immediately clear how many staffers or who exactly would receive the vaccine.
The U.S. has recorded more cases than any other country, with nearly 300,000 deaths from the virus and more than 16 million infections, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
Hahn said it is possible that 20 million Americans will be able to get vaccinated with the first of two required doses by the end of December. Moncef Slaoui, the chief adviser to the government’s vaccine development, told the “Fox News Sunday” show that 100 million Americans might be vaccinated by the end of March.
But on the ABC News show “This Week,” Hahn said it was a “significant problem” that a quarter to half of Americans, according to polls, are wary of the vaccine produced by the American-German corporate tandem of Pfizer and BioNTech, despite being approved by U.S. health regulators, or have vowed to not get inoculated.
Hahn said the government has “to be transparent on the safety” of the Pfizer vaccine, as well as on a vaccine produced by biotechnology company Moderna that is being reviewed by regulators this week. Clinical tests showed both were 95% effective.
Slaoui said that for the U.S. to acquire "herd immunity," which would halt transmission of the deadly virus, the country needs about 75% or 80% of the population immunized. He said he hopes that point could be reached between May and June.
"It is, however, critical that most of the American people decide and accept to take the vaccine," Slaoui said. "We are very concerned by the hesitancy that we see."
Governor Phil Murphy of the eastern state of New Jersey told ABC, “We’ve got to deal with a skeptical anti-vaccination bloc” of people.
But he added, “We believe in these vaccines. They’re safe.”
Murphy warned, however, that even as Americans begin to get vaccinated, the coronavirus danger remains daunting.
“The next six to eight weeks are going to be hell,” he said. But Murphy said that by April or May, “everyone will have access to these vaccines.” The chief officer of Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s vaccine development program, Army General Gustave Perna, said at a news conference Saturday that shipping companies will initially deliver doses to nearly 150 distribution centers, and an additional 450 or so facilities will have the vaccine by Wednesday.
The Food and Drug Administration late Friday approved the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for emergency use. The vaccine must be kept at minus 70 degrees Celsius before being used. BioNTech Chief Executive Ugur Sahin said the vaccine “will help to save lives across the United States and could accelerate a return to normality.”
The U.S. federal government is planning to accelerate vaccinations in the weeks ahead, particularly if a vaccine by Moderna is also approved soon.
A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory group met Saturday and recommended the vaccine for widespread use for those 16 and older. It will later address whether groups such as pregnant women and those younger than 16 should be vaccinated.
Those two groups were excluded from initial trials until researchers could determine if the vaccine was relatively safe in healthy adults before testing it on more vulnerable populations.
The top U.S. infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Thursday that regulators and drug makers will begin new clinical trials in January, testing the safety of vaccines on pregnant women and young people.
The vaccine was first approved in Britain earlier this month, and British residents began receiving vaccinations last Tuesday. Canada also approved the vaccine and expects to begin inoculations in the coming days.
Bahrain, Mexico and Saudi Arabia have also authorized the use of the Pfizer vaccine.

(CNN) — There's no "best way" to get across the United States during a pandemic.
So when I was faced with moving all my possessions from one coast to the other, while also working remotely, I could only hope my most affordable option -- driving the 2,517 miles -- was also the safest.
I had made the long road trip twice before from Los Angeles to Atlanta, where I had lived and worked the past five years, but never the other way. And never while working 10-hour international breaking news shifts from the road.
Luckily my roommate and fellow CNN producer Artemis Moshtaghian had been wanting to do a road trip back to our hometown of Los Angeles before she left Atlanta to work from New York -- even if it meant practically sitting knees to chest in my passenger seat for an entire week on the road.
What we discovered along the way were unique work-from-anywhere opportunities, remote desert landmarks, spectacular landscapes and the lesson that wildlife could care less about social distancing. We also witnessed firsthand the patchwork and divisions of the US coronavirus response and met a wide range of characters that spanned from tremendously helpful to a little too cordial.

The Oxford University team at Jenner Institute that developed the Astra-Zeneca vaccine against Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) is now set to begin phase-3 human trials of a promising shot against malaria, which will be tested on 4,8000 children in Africa in early 2021.
“It’s going to be available in very large amounts — it works pretty well. And it’s going to be very low-priced,” Jenner Institute director Professor Adrian Hill told The Times (of London) in an interview. The malaria vaccine is likely to be ready for public use by 2024.
“Malaria is a public health emergency. A lot more people will die in Africa this year from malaria than will die from Covid. I don’t mean twice as many – probably 10 times,” said Professor Hill.
Covid-19 deaths crossed 1.5 million worldwide on December 3, which is close to four times the 411,000 malaria deaths, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) World Malaria Report 2020 released on November 30.
Malaria is declining globally, with the disease claimed 4,09,000 lives last year, compared to 411,000 in 2018, according to the WHO report, which has used data from national malaria control programmes from 87 malaria-endemic countries, including India. Children under 5 years, mostly in Africa, account for the majority of deaths.
National malaria-control efforts worldwide have averted 1.5 billion cases and 7.6 million deaths since 2000 has been hit hard by Covid-19, said the report, but poor access to prevention tools and health services in many parts of the world have led to avoidable deaths remaining high among vulnerable and underserved populations.
In India, malaria deaths have declined from about 29,500 in 2000 to about 7,700 last year, with the country recording the largest reduction in cases in the WHO South-East Asia region, of which it is apart, where cases declined from 20 million in 2000 to about 5.6 million last year.

WASHINGTON – President-elect Joe Biden said he would publicly take a vaccine when it's available to encourage the public to get vaccinated, joining three former presidents who recently pledged to do the same.
Biden said he'd "be happy" to join former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in getting the vaccine in public to prove it is safe.
More:Former Presidents Obama, Clinton and Bush say they'd get a COVID-19 vaccine on camera to prove safety
"When Dr. Fauci says we have a vaccine that is safe, that's the moment in which I will stand before the public," Biden said during an interview on CNN Thursday night.
“People have lost faith in the ability of the vaccine to work,” Biden told CNN, pointing to the high number of cases. "It matters what a president and vice president do. I think my three predecessors have set the model on what should be done."
The former presidents said this week they are willing to get a coronavirus vaccine to prove the treatment is safe and effective. They may even film themselves getting injected.
Some states and biopharmaceutical companies already planning on mass distribution of vaccines throughout the country during the early months of next year.
Biden reiterated Thursday that he would not hesitate to get the vaccine if experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci said it was safe, who has offered assurances that vaccines regulated by the federal government will be safe.

The US has recorded its biggest daily death toll of the pandemic so far, on the same day it also reached a record number of COVID-19 patients in hospital.
More than 2,670 coronavirus deaths were reported on Wednesday - the equivalent of nearly two deaths a minute - according to Johns Hopkins University.
The widely-respected COVID Tracking Project also found the number of coronavirus patients in hospital had surpassed 100,000 for the first time.
It follows a warning from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director that the pandemic will pose the greatest health threat the US has ever faced in the next few months.
Urging Americans to redouble their efforts in keeping the virus at bay, CDC director Dr Robert Redfield said: "The reality is that December, January and February are going to be rough times.
"I actually believe they're going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation."
He said the latest surge in cases has already proved more devastating than previous wave, with a steeper trajectory of deaths and hospital admissions.
In a solemn warning, he added: "We're potentially looking at another 150,000 to 200,000 people [dead] before we get into February."
More than 270,000 people have died in the US since the start of the pandemic and there have been 13.8 million confirmed infections.
New cases are currently averaging about 160,000 a day, with deaths averaging more than 1,500 a day.
In particular, cases are surging in places such as Illinois, California, Indiana, Kentucky and Texas.
Kentucky governor Andy Beshear said the virus is "spreading like wildfire" and the rapid increase in cases has left some hospitals struggling to cope.
Across the US, hospitals have been converting cafeterias, waiting rooms and even a car park to makeshift treatment areas.
Officials say people are still not taking basic precautions against the virus, particularly in rural areas, and healthcare workers say they are paying the price.
Dr Eli Perencevich, an epidemiology and internal medicine professor at the University of Iowa, said: "It's sending everyone to war, really.
"We've decided as a society that we're going to take all the people in our healthcare system and pummel them because we have some insane idea about what freedom really is."

The Nigerian macroeconomy remains poor as the GDP recorded a consecutive negative growth rate of 6.10 and 3.62 percent in the second and third quarters of 2020, respectively, pushing the economy into recession. The persisting weak economic performance is mainly attributable to the low global crude oil price on the international market, the continued indirect impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and recent protests, further limiting economic activity. The annual inflation rate increased for the fourteenth consecutive month, up to 14.23 percent in October from 13.71 percent in September, the highest increase since 2016. Similarly, the NGN depreciated to 482 NGN/USD on the parallel market in late November from 461 NGN/USD in October 2020.

Many households have limited ability to engage in income opportunities across northeastern Nigeria, such as petty trade, firewood sales, and unskilled labor. This, coupled with well-above-average staple food prices, is restricting purchasing power and market food access. While humanitarian food assistance in September 2020 across Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states was nine percent higher than the previous month though did not significantly improve food access. As a result, many rural areas are expected to continue facing Crisis (IPC Phase 3), with inaccessible areas most likely facing Emergency (IPC Phase 4) outcomes. A risk of Famine (IPC Phase 5) continues, where Famine is possible in the event there is a shift in conflict that isolates households from typical food and income sources for a prolonged period of time.

Banditry, kidnapping, and communal conflict persists and is at higher levels than in recent months, driving displacement. Moreover, this, coupled with flooding, is driving a below-average harvest with many displaced and conflict-affected households dependent on markets for food. Similarly, kidnapping and banditry levels increased in November 2020, with most communities being affected, leading to increased displacement. Flood damage to farmlands and infrastructure worsen the situation, and substantial populations are facing Crisis (IPC Phase 3), and others are in Stressed (IPC Phase 2) during the harvest.

The harvest of staples such as millet, rice, sorghum, and tubers such as yams and cassava is underway across the country. The sorghum harvest just started, while maize harvest is concluded in most areas. Market stocks are below pre-conflict levels across most conflict-affected areas. Despite the improvement in market stocks, staple prices are atypically high due to atypically high market demand, land border closures, and poor macroeconomic conditions. In Lagos, Ibadan, Maiduguri, and Damaturu markets, food prices are higher than the previous year and the five-year average.