Nigeria says that majority of  its ports have been digitalised a move that is aimed at enhancing efficiecy while reducing corruption cases. Hassan Bello,  Executive Secretary, Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) says that ports in Nigeria are now 70 per cent digitalised.
However,  Mr Bello regretted that they did not reach the intended target of 90 per cent.
“We have been working with shipping companies and terminal operators to ensure we make the deadline we set for the first quarter but we saw it was not feasible to attain 90 per cent digitalisation. “What we were able to do on the average was 70 per cent, but digitisation of the ports is a process in the making. We want this to happen as quickly as possible,” he said.
He said that digitisation would make our ports more competitive, noting that the country had competitors in West and Central Africa sub-regions. Bello said that it was not easy to get to the 70 per cent port digitalisation, adding that they had the scorecards of every terminal and shipping companies that led to the tremendous improvement. Speaking on the level of digitalisation of shipping companies, he said that Grimaldi had 88 per cent, Ocean Network Express 76 per cent, and CMA CGM 63 per cent, among others.
He added that some of those that scored 70 per cent had 20 per cent initially, but improved with the guidance of the council.
For seaport terminals, Bello said PTML had 92 per cent, and in Port Harcourt, Intels, BUA and Wact had 70 per cent digitalisation each. “Where we are having problems is on reforms and claims processes which is mostly manual but we have some that scored 50 per cent. “Also, the second phase is the integration of systems because anybody can have online but there is a need to integrate with the banks for example and even the Nigeria Customs Serivces, ” he said. He said that digitalisation would promote cleanliness in the port environment and as well tackle illegal trading activities that degrade the environment.
“We are going to clear the whole port environment, we are going to work with the Nigerian Ports Authority and the Ports and Offences Act will be cited to clear the place. “You cannot go and be selling food or diesel at the corridors of the port because some of these trucks stop requesting for them and a five minute stop will cause a lot of problem so we cannot afford to have such. “The port is a special place that requires speedy execution of transactions, we cannot have people selling engine oil,” he said. He said that for Nigeria to define its role in the transport sector, which would be very significant, there was the need to accommodate bigger ships in our ports and that was the role the Lekki Deep Seaport would play.

At least 21 states have recorded at least a 10% rise in daily average positive cases of Covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins University data Thursday, demonstrating that the fight against the pandemic is far from over.
In Michigan, hospitals are increasingly overwhelmed and reaching full capacities in part due to the influx of new coronavirus cases. State and local officials across the country are attempting to avoid a similar situation and are pushing to increase vaccination levels among adults, which shows continuing signs of improvement.
More than 30% of US adults have been fully vaccinated, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and a CNN analysis has some states being able to vaccinate all willing adults by June.
However, between varying rates of vaccine hesitancy and the pace of vaccinations, the timeline for vaccinating all willing adults varies greatly among states -- a growing concern because, for some locations, a new surge may have arrived.
"We have knocked down this virus already three times, but we have to knock it down a fourth time," Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Thursday, as the state's infection numbers have turned upwards again.

Moderna announced Tuesday that its coronavirus vaccine is 90 percent effective against all forms of COVID-19, reflecting a slight decrease from the previous 94.1 percent effectiveness rate, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in December.
These new results come from the third phase of continuous clinical trials of the vaccine with the participation of more than 30,000 volunteers across the United States.
The press release of the leading biotechnology company did not indicate the reason for the decreased effectiveness, but this may be due to the emergence of new mutations.
Moderna is working on two types of enhancers for the mutated versions of the virus, and the company said that the experiments conducted on mice showed that they triggered an increased immune response. The results of this study have been published on scientific sites, and are awaiting scientists' reviews.
"The new pre-clinical data for our candidate vaccine for mutants gives us confidence that we can proactively address emerging mutants," said CEO Stephane Bancel.
As of April 12, the company said it had delivered 132 million doses of its vaccine worldwide, including about 117 million doses, to the United States.
The company is still on track to deliver 100 million doses by the end of May and another 100 million doses in July.

The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors, NARD, convened an extraordinary National Executive Council meeting on April 7, 2021 to review their ongoing strike and the offers of the Federal Government so far. The NEC, attended by over 100 members from more than 60 centers across the country via zoom after deliberations, voted unanimously that the “total and indefinite strike”, which started on April 1, be continued until the federal and state governments meet their demands.

Lagos — Suleiman Babamanu’s path to the heart of Nigeria’s biggest solar power programme started in disappointment.
After university he worked as a trainee geoscientist for a unit of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. A job in the industry — Nigeria is Africa’s biggest oil producer — would have been a traditional route, and a lucrative one. But he couldn’t find employment.
This was in about 2010, when the growth of clean energy around the world made it start to seem like a potential career path. The industry hadn’t gained much traction in Nigeria, and he set aside the idea, until a conversation with a relative persuaded him to reconsider.
“A cousin told me not to go where the money is but where the money is going,” he said. “I immediately changed my mind and applied for a master’s degree in renewable energy, and I got a scholarship.” That sent him to Newcastle University in the UK and then on to a range of public and private jobs in his home country’s renewables industry, including projects that had received World Bank funding.
Now he’s implementing Nigeria’s largest investment in solar power, part of the country’s Covid economic recovery plan. The project, Solar Power Naija, is also a step towards solving one of Nigeria’s biggest problems: a lack of reliable electricity.
Under the Paris Climate Agreement, Nigeria has pledged to cut carbon emissions 20% by 2030. To get there, it aims to generate 30% of its energy from renewables. To make progress, 10% of the government’s 2.3-trillion naira of spending to spur recovery from the pandemic will be used to install 5-million solar home systems. The aim is to provide electricity to 25-million people in rural communities that now have no access to the grid.
With Solar Power Naija, the government is aiming to fix the development problems that a lack of access to electricity has created, as well as the pollution that fuel-powered generators, one of the most popular power sources, cause.
“Rural communities, the companies, and people that are using generators or even candles would have access to a cleaner and more efficient power supply,” Babamanu said. “Emissions will be greatly reduced.”
The rollout will focus on building stand-alone connections, which use solar panels to charge batteries that can then be used at any time, and mini-grids, which operate in a similar way but can service larger needs. Both will function separately from the national grid.
The project will also give bidders from across the industry low-interest government loans instead of contracts or grants to finance the equipment and construction — a departure from Nigeria’s normal approach to electrification. Companies will repay what they’ve borrowed with income from customers.
“It’s good that the government is trying to use renewables not just as a tool for solving the energy problem but also for poverty alleviation,” said Adedeji Adeniran, a senior fellow at the Centre for the Study of the Economies of Africa in Abuja. “This shows it’s taking the sustainable agenda seriously.”

No fewer than 30, 000 residents in Nasarawa State have so far taken a jab of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in the state.
The Commissioner for Health, Ahmed Yahaya, made the disclosure during a news conference on Wednesday in Lafia to mark World Health Day.
He said that out of the 61,000 doses received from the Federal Government, more than 30,000 have been administered to the people.
He said that those who received the vaccines included frontline health workers, government officials, and traditional rulers among others.
"We are wining the war against COVID-19, the number of those receiving the vaccines are encouraging.
"As the world marks the World Health Day, the World Health Organisation is calling on everyone to participate in building a fairer and healthier world.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has shown a light on inequalities between people, amid a shortage of essential supplies.
"As underprivileged people have been pushed to the back of the queue in accessing COVID-19 test kits, personal protective equipment, and now vaccines.
"Out of 548 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered worldwide, only 11 million or 2 per cent have been in Africa, whereas the continent accounts for around 17 per cent of the global population.
"There are several shades of inequalities, discrimination based on gender, place of residence, income, educational level, age, ethnicity, and disability intersect to disadvantage vulnerable populations," he said.
Yahaya noted that investment was needed to accelerate progress towards universal health coverage to protect individuals from financial hardship in accessing needed healthcare.
The commissioner said that leaders needed to work together to address inequalities in their own countries and abroad in the spirit of International solidarity.
He encouraged pharmaceutical companies to expand their manufacturing capacities to overcome current supply shortages.
"We also encourage wealthy individuals to partner with the state, so that the most -at-risk populations can be protected, to save lives and speed up the recovery from this global crisis," he added.
He called on all state and non-state actors, partners, civil society, communities, and other stakeholders to intensify work with the state to achieve universal health coverage.
The commissioner assured that the ministry would continue to remain committed to ensuring that all people in the state have the right to good health.

This is simply good news. We should follow the government's arrangements for the reasonable allocation of vaccines so that the states that are in short supply can receive the vaccines first.

Abuja — The federal government may tinker with the COVID-19 vaccine deployment strategy by redistributing unutilised doses out of the consignments sent to states to others that need them more.
THISDAY investigation revealed that following the unanticipated shortage of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the government is considering rejigging its plan to redistribute yet-to-be utilised doses to states that have already exceeded their limit in administering the first dose.
It was learnt that Kwara State exceeded its limit as it got an allocation of 55,790 doses and administered 34,112 doses before it suspended vaccination.

Several parts of the world are in the grip of a second wave of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Africa, which registered a 30 per cent hike in the number of cases since last year, and continues to be in throes of a poor health infrastructure, faces a mounting challenge.


If we do not pay attention to it, there will be the possibility of an outbreak of the epidemic again, and more people will be injured and economic losses.

The United Kingdom has committed more than £50 million towards strengthening Nigeria’s democratic process since the return to civilian government, UK official has said.
Dr Matthew Ayibakuro of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), made this known on Tuesday in Abuja at the Policy Roundtable on modalities for measuring political parties performance in Nigeria, being sponsored by the Westminster Fund for Democracy (WFD).
He reiterated the commitment of the United Kingdom Government to continue to support the efforts of Nigeria to deepen her democracy, noting that political parties were important in every democratic process of a country.
He spoke while the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it would continue to register new political parties as long as they are able to meet the requirements by the law.

Head, Department of Election and Party Monitoring Department, (INEC) Aminu Idris, speaking at the event, however, said INEC would continue to work towards ensuring political parties in Nigeria are viable, sustainable and efficient in the management of the parties.
Recall that the electoral body had on February 6, last year, de-registered 74 political parties for failing to win any political office in the last general election.
Some of the parties had, however, approached the court to challenge their de-registration by INEC.
But when asked if INEC would still consider the applications from some of the parties who might be seeking to re-register as political parties, Idris who was represented by Shehu Wahab, said the commission will continue to register any association that meets the criteria.
“INEC still operates and will continue to operate by the law. If the laws allow parties to be formed, INEC will not stop the process of party registration. I think the task for us is that we still register parties based on their ability to meet the requirement for registration.”
He said INEC was committed to ensuring that parties are formed in line with the constitution and that they relate within the ambit of the law, in terms of activities that relates to the commission.
He argued that the menace of violence on election day should not be blamed on the commission, rather on politicians who organise thugs to disrupt the process.
The Country Representative of the WFD, Adebowale Olorunmola, while lamenting the incessant defection of politicians from one party to another, decried the dearth of ideology by parties in the country.
He said, “Political parties still remain very important to the democratic process in the country, because, it is the only platform by which leadership can emerge but if we continue to have parties that are so difficult to be distinguished from the other in terms of ideology and principles, it shows we have a lot of work with the parties.
“And if we have top party officials still comfortably moving from one party to the other, on the eve of every election as we have it in Edo State, it is all of concern.”
He said the workshop was organised to bring stakeholders who work with political parties together, to brainstorm and look at the indicators or scorecard that have been developed to help parties to improve their platform.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States squandered both money and lives in its response to the coronavirus pandemic, and it could have avoided nearly 400,000 deaths with a more effective health strategy and trimmed federal spending by hundreds of billions of dollars while still supporting those who needed it.
That is the conclusion of a group of research papers released at a Brookings Institution conference this week, offering an early and broad start to what will likely be an intense effort in coming years to assess the response to the worst pandemic in a century.
U.S. COVID-19 fatalities could have stayed under 300,000, versus a death toll of 540,000 and rising, if by last May the country had adopted widespread mask, social distancing, and testing protocols while awaiting a vaccine, estimated Andrew Atkeson, economics professor at University of California, Los Angeles.
He likened the state-by-state, patchwork response to a car’s cruise control. As the virus worsened people hunkered down, but when the situation improved restrictions were dropped and people were less careful, with the result that “the equilibrium level of daily deaths ... remains in a relatively narrow band” until the vaccine arrived.
Atkeson projected a final fatality level of around 670,000 as vaccines spread and the crisis subsides. The outcome, had no vaccine been developed, would have been a far-worse 1.27 million, Atkeson estimated.
The economic response, while mammoth, also could have been better tailored, argued University of California, Berkeley economics professor Christine Romer. She joins former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and several others from the last two Democratic administrations in criticizing the spending authorized since last spring, including the Biden team’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.
While she said the federal government’s more than $5 trillion in pandemic-related spending won’t likely trigger a fiscal crisis, she worries that higher-priority investments will be deferred because of allocations to initiatives like the Paycheck Protection Program.
Those forgivable small business loans were “an interesting and noble experiment,” but were also “problematic on many levels,” including an apparent cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars for each job saved, she said.
“Spending on programs such as unemployment compensation and public heath was exactly what was called for,” she wrote, but other aspects, particularly the generous one-time payments to families, were “largely ineffective and wasteful.”
“If something like the $1 trillion spent on stimulus payments that did little to help those most affected by the pandemic ends up precluding spending $1 trillion on infrastructure or climate change in the next few years, the United States will have made a very bad bargain indeed,” Romer wrote.
Biden administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, argue the full package was needed to be sure all workers and families are kept economically intact until the job market recovers.
In a separate paper, Minneapolis Federal Reserve researchers Krista Ruffini and Abigail Wozniak concluded the federal programs largely did what they intended by supporting income and spending, with the impact seen in how consumption changed in response to the approval and lapse of different government payments.
But they also found room for improvement.
Evidence of the PPP’s effectiveness in job retention, for example, was “mixed,” they found, and increases in food assistance didn’t account for things like higher grocery prices.
“Food insecurity remained elevated throughout 2020,” they noted.
The aim now, they said, should be on determining what worked in order to make the response to any similar crisis more effective.
“The 2020 social insurance system response had many successes,” they said. “Given the scope and scale of the pandemic response, it is critical we continue to evaluate these efforts to understand the full extent of their reach, which populations were helped, who was left out.”

Paylink, Nigerian payment and ecommerce solution for individuals, businesses and non-profits, has partnered with tech giant, Google, to help Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) recover from the impacts of COVID-19 and reposition them to take advantage of opportunities of a post-COVID future. The partnership is particularly geared towards empowering MSMEs with the digital expertise they require to thrive, through the Paylink MSME Digital Bootcamp.
The organiser of the bootcamp, SystemSpecs, providers of Paylink, made this disclosure recently during the formal announcement of the expression of participation to MSMEs across Nigeria for the free seminar supported by Google.
Registration is to take place via /PaylinkBootcamp
As a developing country, MSMEs form the bedrock of enterprise and employment in Nigeria. According to data from the Nigerian Ministry of Trade and Investment, Nigeria’s MSMEs account for more than 84 per cent jobs in the country. MSMEs also account for about 48.5 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP), as well as about 7.27 per cent of goods and services exported out of the country. The Ministry further stated that Micro-enterprises, which are the smallest businesses, account for the bulk of the MSMEs in Nigeria, with 36,994,578 enterprises (about 99.8 per cent).
Through a series of online trainings, MSMEs in Nigeria will be equipped with the relevant digital skills necessary to drive and scale their businesses in the digital era, recover from the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as sustain their business on a long term.
Commenting on the partnership, SystemSpecs’ Executive Director, Corporate Strategy, ‘Deremi Atanda, said: “With more than 41 million MSMEs spread across the length and breadth of the country, it is clear that if these enterprises are empowered to attain their true potentials, they would significantly impact all strata of our economy and society at large.
“This is one of the reasons we have partnered with Google, a reputable organisation that deals with businesses across various segments of the Nigerian marketplace, to equip enterprises in the micro, small and medium-scale cadre with key requirements to thrive in a post-COVID economy. It is our conviction that MSMEs are an essential stakeholder group in the Nigerian project and we are committed to advancing their causes.”
Covering themes that include brand building, business growth and tools for business management and to hold on selected days in the months of March, April and May 2021, the training leverages Google’s Digital Skills Africa programme for existing and prospective Paylink subscribers.
“COVID-19 forced many businesses to re-think their strategies and challenged long-standing entrepreneurial approaches. Among others, it brought forth the need to adopt a digital-first strategy in order to reach an extensive and largely unexplored market and ultimately grow bottom-line,” said Google Nigeria’s Country Director, Juliet Ehimuan.
“While a number of MSMEs are aware of this progressive direction, many are not. As with our other trainings, partnering with SystemSpecs to train current and prospective Paylink customers will go a long way in empowering more stakeholders in Nigeria’s MSMEs space,” Ehimuan added.
Paylink.NG is a secure and seamless solution that helps individuals, MSMEs, religious organisations, not-for-profits, social media sellers, crowd funders, event planners, freelancers and others, to receive payments through multiple means, by sharing a customised link.
SystemSpecs, the provider of Paylink.ng, is a 29-year-old Nigerian technology company, founded by John Obaro, and a foremost provider of financial technology and human resource management technology solutions. SystemSpecs is the provider of leading fintech solutions: Remita, and Paylink; and human capital solution, HumanManager.
Google, a global tech leader, is committed to helping millions of people across the world leverage diverse opportunities available to find jobs and grow their career or business. The firm is now also assisting to accelerate economic recovery through technology, tools and trainings that help businesses, communities and people grow stronger and faster.

Los Angeles coronavirus numbers continue to decline, raising hope for more reopenings

Los Angeles County public health officials continued to report a decline in coronavirus case numbers Sunday, raising hope that more restrictions on businesses might soon be relaxed.
New cases and deaths are always lower on the weekends because not all laboratories report results.
Still, the county recorded just 438 new cases and 20 related deaths, according to the public health department, capping several weeks of sustained declines. The county has logged an average of 590 new cases per day over the last week, a 62% drop from two weeks before, according to The Times’ coronavirus tracker. There were 750 COVID-19 patients in county hospitals as of Saturday, a decline of nearly 33% from two weeks before.
Officials have said that if the downward trend continues, it’s possible L.A. County could move into the less-strict orange tier of the state’s color-coded reopening blueprint next month. That would enable bars to reopen outdoors, lift capacity restrictions on stores and increase limits on restaurants, churches, gyms, museums and movie theaters. The county already has moved out of the strictest purple tier and into the red tier, allowing restaurants, gyms, museums and movie theaters to resume operations indoors at limited capacity.

Health authorities for Nigeria don tok say dem go continue to dey use di Astrazeneca vaccine.

Di National Incident manager of di Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Dr Muhktar Mohammed tok: "Our documentation , so far, don show say e dey safe to use."

"Considering wetin dey happun for some European kontris wia dem don suspend or stop to dey use di Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, for reason wey we never fit confam.

In all of dis issue, we dey look di benefit versus di risk, wetin dem don notice be say dem don administer almost five million doses and only 30 cases don report dis incidents.

Dis incidents dey small compared to even di incidents of di disease itself", Dr Muhktar explain.

E tok say di side effects wey pipo dey worry about, no be wetin pipo suppose dey worried about.

E say Nigeria go continue to dey administer di vaccine and dem go continue to roll am out.

The CDC is reporting they have identified nearly 4,900 cases of the coronavirus variant in the United States.
The vast majority of cases, around 4,700 cases are of the UK variant, known as B117.
That variant, which is more contagious than the most common strain of COVID-19 in the u-s, has been found in 48 states.
24 states have reported cases of the South African variant, but there have only been 143 confirmed cases in patients to date.
Brazil's P1 variant has been identified in ten states with a total of just 25 cases so far.
The CDC admits the numbers do not represent the total number of cases in the US, just those found by analyzing positive samples.

It’s no surprise to see the numbers of infections or variants in the United States. The only thing we can do is to protect ourselves and try not to let bad luck happen to us.

ABUJA, NIGERIA - The COVID-19 pandemic has made life harder for everyone, but especially people with disabilities, who feel more marginalized than ever before. People in a disabled community in Nigeria’s capital are coping as best they can, but are still in need of assistance.
 
Physically challenged Nigerian Salamatu Abubakar has four children and is pregnant with another.
 
Without her sight and any source of income, Abubakar says she has trouble getting by, and sometimes has to beg to survive.  
 
She also notes the coronavirus pandemic has made the challenge even harder.  
 
She says since the pandemic began, "we've struggled to feed our children, we don't have any money. We had to stop our children from going to school."
 
About 27 million Nigerians live with disabilities and constitute a third of the country's poorest people, according to aid and advocacy groups focusing on disabled people.
 
Abubakar lives at an Abuja community for the disabled, where there are 600 people, most of whom depend in some way on support from aid groups.
 
Community secretary Mohammed Dantani says even that is hard to come by since the pandemic started a year ago.
 
"Before you [could] see somebody come to this community to give help, before it used to be every two or three days but now it takes three to four weeks before you see some assistance,” Dantani said.
 
To manage the situation, some women in the community are tackling the pandemic with a savings cooperative plan, with each person contributing money each week.   
 
Since it began last August, women like Abubakar say they have benefited from the plan.   
 
"I'm very happy about this contribution. One time when my child was sick, they gave me about 14 dollars. I used the money to take my child to the hospital," Abubakar said.
 
Nigeria passed its disability bill into law in 2019 and created a National Disability Commission last August to address issues facing the disabled.  
 
Commission member Musa Muazu says the government’s coronavirus response has not taken deaf people and other disabled into account.  
   
"In the issue of the information dissemination, there are a lot of programs around sensitizing people, but the question is how inclusive are the programs? Do we have sign language interpreters?" Muazu asked.
 
Advocates like Muazu are ensuring the commission promotes the interests of people like Abubakar to get the support they desperately need.  

People with disabilities already have a hard life, and the epidemic has aggravated the situation, so I hope everyone will lend a helping hand and help together with the government.

When Haley Griffis got her first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, she cried in relief.
Griffis, a 36-year-old stay at home mother of three, is one of the 5,129 McLennan County residents who have been fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. She was diagnosed with heart failure in late 2019. She said in the pandemic’s early days, when she and the public were still learning about the virus, doctors, friends, and the news media would send her constant reminders of one fact: People with heart conditions like her are more at risk for serious illness or death.
“I have been terrified, or some level of terrified, for a year at this point,” Griffis said. “Really, March 12 and 13 was when the news articles started popping up everywhere. You couldn’t avoid reading about or hearing about coronavirus, it was just everywhere.”
Griffis' heart issues began with symptoms like exhaustion, rapid weight gain and loss, rapid breathing, low blood pressure and a pounding heart in September 2019, but the healthy 35-year-old chalked the symptoms up to anxiety until they began to worsen.
In November 2019, a doctor told her to see a cardiologist after emergency surgery on her gall bladder, then called the next morning to tell her the heart wasn’t his area of expertise, but something was clearly wrong. In between doctor’s visits, she was rushed to the emergency room and spent a week at Ascension Providence Waco, where she was diagnosed with heart failure. After more tests, doctors settled on viral cardiomyopathy, heart failure caused by a virus after the illness has passed.
“The most logical explanation is that, at some point in time, I caught a virus,” Griffis said. “It could have been the common cold. For whatever reason, my body couldn’t fight and it wound up making its way and settling into my heart, and doing damage because my heart couldn’t fight that damage and function at a normal level.”
Even an illness like the flu is dangerous to someone with heart failure, and could end in Haley needing a heart transplant. After months of being careful, the Griffis family spent spring break of 2020 in Colorado.
Haley said she remembers hearing about the virus’ progression through other countries but she and her family were mostly concerned with the possible impact of the altitude on her heart.
“Basically, my heart functions at lower efficiency and capacity than other people’s, even much older people’s,” Griffis said.
After the 14-hour drive home her mother-in-law Marlene Griffis was the first in the family to test positive, followed by Haley's husband, Jud, and eventually one of her daughters. At the time doctors were still rationing what tests they had for the virus, and her 41-year-old husband’s symptoms weren’t considered enough justification for a test until his mother received her diagnosis.
“Your body can’t take an infection of any sort," Griffis said. “We were sufficiently scared into taking the words of doctors and scientists very, very seriously."
Jud quarantined nearby at his mother’s house while Griffis stayed at home with her 7-year-old twin girls, Jo Jo and Caroline, and her 6-year-old son, Rhett.
Haley checked on her husband and mother-in-law daily through a closed glass door and checked her children’s’ temperatures every morning and night, which is how she caught Caroline’s low-grade fever, the only COVID-19 symptom Caroline ever developed.
“I gave her Tylenol once and her fever never came back, it was so mild,” Haley said. “I never would have known, under normal circumstances.”
Her doctor told her he didn’t even want Haley to drive Caroline to the testing facility. With her family sick, her parents living in another city and travel restricted, she wore a mask and drove to Ascension Providence’s Lakeshore location.
“When you pair that with the still fairly new discovery of a life-altering heart condition … It was such a weird feeling, knowing I was in one of those categories early on and knowing I had been exposed,” Griffis said.
Haley and her other two kids tested negative, but Caroline joined her dad and grandmother in quarantine.
“I couldn’t be there at all for them,” Griffis said. “I was in shock, so much shock.”
Griffis said the multiple doctors she met throughout her medical ordeal, as well as other friends who happen to be doctors, called to check on her constantly. They were concerned for her and anxious to learn more about the virus.
She said her family maintained the same heightened level of isolation they did in March for months afterward and still don’t take many chances.
“Our experience ended in everyone surviving, but it was miserable,” Griffis said. “It was scary.”
She said while most of her friends and family have been understanding, she knows people who’ve been outspoken about wanting to end the statewide mask mandate.
“Wearing a mask is really a pretty minor inconvenience if it could potentially keep someone from having to go through what my husband and mother-in-law went through," Griffis said.
Griffis received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in January and the second in February from an Ascension Providence vaccination clinic.
"I think this past year has been so traumatic for everyone," Griffis said. "It's had such an effect on people's livelihoods, people are losing loved ones or aren't able to see loved ones... and it was just this huge relief."
Griffis said after receiving the vaccine she vowed to her heart transplant surgeon that she would continue to wear her mask in public to keep herself as safe as possible.
"I feel like my peers... it's sometimes hard for them to wrap their heads around why it's such a big deal to me," Griffis said. "But I can usually remind them pretty easily."
Griffis is grateful her children's school district will still require them when Gov. Greg Abbott's decision to end Texas' mask mandate takes effect on Wednesday.
She said she's especially worried about the threat to herself and others posed by COVID-19 variants that spread more easily that previous strains.
"The governor made his decision and made his announcement, because he's allowed to do that, because he's a politician and that's his role," Griffis said. "But that's not his expertise. We have so many fabulous epidemiologists right here in Waco who've devoted their lives to studying the spread of infectious diseases. I just don't understand how we're not listening to them, first and foremost."

Vaccinated Americans can gather inside without masks or social distancing in certain circumstances, CDC guidelines say


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released guidelines Monday designed to ease restrictions for Americans who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
The agency’s guidance says those who have received a full course of COVID-19 vaccine may get together with other fully vaccinated individuals in small groups inside their homes without masks or physical distancing. They can visit with unvaccinated people from one other household who are at low risk for severe disease.
The guidelines say fully vaccinated people don’t need to quarantine or take a COVID-19 test if they’ve been exposed, unless they’re symptomatic. They should still monitor for symptoms for 14 days even if they're not in quarantine. 
“You can visit your grandparents if you’ve been vaccinated and they have been, too,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a White House briefing Monday. “If grandparents have been vaccinated, they can visit their daughter and her family even if  they have not been vaccinated, so long as the daughter and her family are not at risk for severe disease.”
Vaccinated individuals should still wear a mask and social distance in public settings and avoid medium to large gatherings. The agency has yet to release updated guidelines on travel for those who have been vaccinated. CDC guidelines recommend delaying travel but provide a list of public health measures in the case that someone must travel. 
“The new guidance from CDC on what people can do if they are fully vaccinated is welcome news to a nation that is understandably tired of the pandemic and longs to safely resume normal activities,” said Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  
Experts said the announcement may be the agency's attempt to clear up confusion created by some states rolling back coronavirus safety measures despite public warnings from health officials.
Five states – Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Montana and Iowa – announced plans to rescind mandates on wearing masks. President Joe Biden said Wednesday it’s a “big mistake” for states to lift pandemic restrictions, calling it a result of “Neanderthal thinking.”
Whether the guidelines will clear things up is still up for debate, said Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, professor of epidemiology and medicine at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
The difference in tone from last week's White House briefing, when Walensky urged Americans to keep their guard up on the virus and “not give in to a sense of false security," may only further confuse Americans. 
“It’s almost two different pathways here,” El-Sadr said. “Imploring people to stay with it, continue to be guarded and careful, while at the same time realizing that people are fatigued (and) ease restrictions for this subset of (vaccinated) individuals.”
Though she recognizes the need for national guidance, El-Sadr said it may be a bit premature to allow people to gather inside without masks as there’s no data on asymptomatic transmission and only about 18% of the U.S. population has received one or more doses of vaccine, according to CDC data. 
Other experts disagree.
"People are tired and there’s a lot of pandemic fatigue, and it’s really important that we don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good," said Dr. Carlos del Rio, executive associate dean of Emory University School of Medicine, who wrote a viewpoint published in JAMA Network on Thursday that said it's "likely safe" to gather with other vaccinated individuals. 
“People are going to do things whether we like it or not, and it’s important to tell people what they can do safely instead of what not to do," he said. 
The pace of vaccinations has ramped up to more than 2 million Americans getting vaccinated per day. 
The Biden administration said Tuesday there will be enough vaccine for every adult in the USA by May, thanks to a deal brokered between pharmaceutical giants Merck and Johnson & Johnson, but health experts said that milestone could be reached by mid-April.

LAGOS (Reuters) - When Lagos imposed a lockdown last year, Nigerian civil servant Ruth Oladimeji saw a way to earn extra money. With people unable to visit banks due to the coronavirus pandemic, she became an agent providing local banking services.
Oladimeji signed up with Moniepoint, a mobile money platform on whose behalf she helps customers with services such as opening accounts and withdrawing cash.
“It has increased my standard of living. It has helped me be able to support people financially,” said the mother-of-two, adding that she previously struggled to pay school fees and support elderly relatives on her civil service salary.
Oladimeji has set up six kiosks in her community in just under a year and, in a country where most people live on less than $2 a day, said she earns more than 60,000 naira ($160) every day.
While people can visit banks again, social distancing rules make it a time-consuming business and the local mobile money kiosks are more easily accessible.
Mobile money firms across Africa are ramping up plans to bring banking to millions after the pandemic caused a surge in the use of digital financial services. Firms in Nigeria say they have recruited more agents to meet demand.
Solomon Amadi, vice president of Moniepoint, said the company’s banking agents had increased from 8,000 in 2019 to more than 50,000 in February 2021.
Similarly, Dotun Adekunle, vice president of product engineering at payment platform OPay, said it had nearly 400,000 agents nationwide, up from 290,000 in February 2020.
“The demand increased for financial services. People could not go to the banks. Naturally the agency then also increased,” said Adekunle.
However, a preference for cash is deeply entrenched in Nigeria.
Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access (EFInA), a research body that monitors financial inclusion in Nigeria, said a survey it conducted in 2018 showed only 3.3% of Nigerian adults reported having mobile money accounts.
But its chief executive officer, Ashley Immanuel, said there had been a “steady increase in digital and mobile financial services” in recent years.
Standing in an orange roadside kiosk featuring a sign with bank logos, Oladimeji’s thoughts have turned to offering more services.
“I see myself developing into a microfinance business ... helping people with finance, getting their daily savings,” she said.

The world is in an unprecedented time as it grapples with the scourge and consequences brought upon it by COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic has exacerbated the existing socio-economic and environmental challenges faced by the world and more importantly in developing countries. The virus has continued to spread – and the spread has entered multiple phases across the globe as it wreaks havoc on global economies with a huge effect on African countries.
Many countries especially in Africa have embarked on economic recovery plans to recover better and create a buffer that will stimulate rapid economic growth and recovery across all sectors. I am delighted that Nigeria, through the leadership of the President has also put forward a bold economic plan for recovery in the form of the Nigerian Economic and Sustainability Plan (NESP). Before COVID-19 shocked the world, the Nigerian government had in place, the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) which was targeted to run between 2017 and 2020. The plan was meant to provide a buffer to the already fragile economy and highly constrained fiscal space. The ERGP highlighted a number of initiatives and projects that were consistent with the effort to tackle climate change and other environmental issues in the country. These include the Great Green Wall initiative to address land degradation and desertification, and support communities adapting to climate change; implement environmental initiatives, and continuation of the Ogoni Land cleanup while reducing gas flaring. It also sets a target to raise a Green Bond to finance environmental projects while establishing one forest plantation in each state. The ERGP also planned to rehabilitate all forest reserves and national parks to enhance eco-tourism as it establishes a functional database on drought and desertification while encouraging and promoting the development of green growth initiatives. Although COVID-19 may have slowed down economic growth, it is still important that action on climate change and other environmental issues are not reversed as the country charts a course for economic recovery. The world has coined the term “build back better” as a means of making the point that governments around the world should use the opportunity of rebooting their economies from the impact of Covid-19 as a means to also take action on climate change and put their economies on the path to long term sustainability. I am delighted that the government has demonstrated vision and leadership in this regard. It is heartwarming to see that many of the key projects in the Nigerian Economic and Sustainability Plan have the potential, if implemented in a good faith, to enhance green recovery in the country. These include the mass agricultural programme, road construction using indigenous materials, mass housing Programme, the 5million Home Solar Power, SME/MSMEs Support, Survival fund, Promoting domestic gas utilization and digital technology and social intervention programme. On the other hand, it should be stressed that climate change also has multi-dimensional security implications and that the failure to address these security issues will hinder our ability to build back better. The Nigerian government is also working very hard to revise and enhance its national climate change pledge through the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC).  Through an ambitious NDC, the government will continue to demonstrate leadership in determination to tackle climate change which, like the Covid-19 can be a major constraint to economic growth.  Connecting the NDC with the National Economic and Sustainability Plan will help to maximize the synergies and ensure that our recovery plan also helps us to meet our Paris Climate Accord Obligations.

The Biden administration will distribute millions of face coverings to thousands of community health centers and food banks in an effort to help vulnerable Americans more easily mask up, officials said on Wednesday.
The federal government will distribute some 25 million masks to more than 1,300 community health centers and 60,000 food pantries and soup kitchens across the country, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said at a briefing. The White House said in a press release that the masks will be available between March and May, and are expected to benefit some 12 to 15 million Americans.
"Not all Americans are wearing masks regularly, not all Americans have access, and not all masks are equal," Zients said. "With this action, we are helping to level the playing field, giving vulnerable populations quality, well-fitting masks."
Anyone who needs a mask will be able to pick one up at participating locations, Zients said, adding that the "high-quality, American-made" masks will be free, washable and available in both adult and children sizes.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends mask-wearing as a simple, effective step in preventing the spread of COVID-19. Earlier this month, it said layering a cloth mask over a surgical mask and tying knots on the ear loops of surgical masks can offer even better protection in the face of transmissible new variants.
Biden has consistently emphasized the importance of wearing masks, and issued executive orders requiring face coverings on federal property and during interstate travel shortly after taking office.
The initiative will not impact the availability of masks for healthcare workers, according to the White House.
The Department of Health and Human Services will partner with the Department of Defense to deliver the masks to federally qualified community health centers, where staff will distribute them to recipients. Two-thirds of the people served by these health centers are living in poverty, 60% are racial and/or ethnic minorities, and nearly 1.4 million are unhoused, the White House said. Meanwhile, the DOD will also work with the Department of Agriculture to deliver masks through the nation's vast food bank and food pantry system.
At the same time, Zients said, the federal government will continue ramping up its efforts to get Americans vaccinated quickly and equitably.
He said the weather-related backlogs in vaccine distribution have been resolved, with some 14.5 million doses allocated to states, tribes and territories this week, and 2.1 million more going to select pharmacies.
While last week's extreme winter weather created a backlog of millions of doses, closed down clinics and lowered the 7-day average for daily vaccinations — it stands at 1.4 million doses, down from 1.7 million — Zients said that number is expected to start rising again shortly.

FBNInsurance, and a member of the SANLAM group, said it is partnering Collinson, a global leader in travel, international health insurance and assistance solutions to launch SmartHealth International, an international health insurance product for critical medical conditions.
The companies said they would through the partnership programme address the health insurance gap in the Nigerian market.
The two firms noted that the SmartHealth International would deliver a suite of new affordable health insurance products aimed at Nigerian employers desirous of protecting and giving peace of mind to its employees and their families.
According to FBN, the product which has been approved by NAICOM, was designed to complement local healthcare cover by providing cover for treatment abroad should an employee or family member develop a critical medical condition that cannot be adequately treated in Nigeria.
FBNInsurance, said it wish to ride on its leadership position in Nigerian Life insurance market to deliver products that would help its customers enjoy the peace of mind that comes from managing the risks of everyday life through the introduction of a health insurance proposition to complements its portfolio strategy.
“With national presence in strategic geographical locations across the country, FBNInsurance will market SmartHealth International across Nigeria, whilst partnering with Collinson to leverage its in-house international insurance and assistance expertise to provide international access to an extensive network of Collinson certified medical providers,” said the Managing Director of FBNInsurance, Mr. Val Ojumah.
He said understanding the drivers for affordability, was important at a time when provision for adequate healthcare and peace of mind has never been more top of mind.
He maintained that SmartHealth International is an affordable solution for the treatment of complex and critical care treatments, adding that the proposition has been designed to cater for specific critical complex medical events such as cancer and those requiring renal, orthopaedic and neurosurgery, as well as serious trauma injuries sustained in road traffic accidents. “These collectively are the primary medical conditions for which Nigerians are currently leaving the country to seek medical care abroad,” he observed.
He explained that each case would be individually case managed and assessed, working closely with attending doctors in conjunction with Collinson’s expert international medical team.
He, however, said everything depends on the level of cover purchased, but added that eligible policyholders will be flown to South Africa, India or the UK, and even North African countries, where Arabic speaking is required.
Speaking about the Launch, the FBNInsurance boss said “At FBNInsurance, one of our primary objectives is to help people, businesses and communities get back on their feet when the unexpected happens and it has never been more pertinent than now to offer our customers more choice and peace of mind when it comes to their healthcare.
“We are delighted to be launching this proposition in partnership with Collinson. Our teams have collaborated to develop a unique and affordable international healthcare solution that not only caters for critical medical conditions that cannot be adequately cared for in Nigeria, but also delivers innovation locally across health insurance product design,” he stated.
Also speaking, Head of Insurance at Collinson, Lawrence Watts, said “Our health and the health of our loved ones has never been more top of mind and so Collinson is proud to be partnering with FBNInsurance to give their Nigerian clients access to optimum international healthcare whilst maintaining value for money.”
He noted that at a time when the demands of even the best of healthcare systems globally are under pressure, it’s vital to provide healthcare alternatives to consumers, particularly in markets where we have identified a gap between domestic and international cover.”

In one year, COVID-19 has left more than 500,000 dead in the United States.
It’s a milestone so large that the number of Americans who have died compare to just two other events in U.S. history: the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic (675,000 lives lost) and the Civil War (between 618,000 - 750,000 lives).
Half a million also approaches those who died in 2019 of the first- and second-leading causes: heart disease (659,041) and cancer (559,601).
The first reported death in the U.S. was a Washington state man in his 50s on Feb. 29, 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the year since, the number of deaths in the U.S. is equal to two-thirds the population of Seattle, the country’s 18th-largest city, with 753,675.
At such scale, the profiles of people who have died in the past year begin to disappear — much like the red figure in the center of the chart above.
So who have we lost?
If we were to bring them together, the resulting community would be filled with grandparents, great-uncles and aunts, making it the oldest large city in America.
Early in the pandemic, the virus flourished in cities with higher percentages of people of color. For example, New York, the initial epicenter of the virus, is 55.3% white, 19.3% Latino and 17.6% Black, according to Census Bureau estimates.
As the virus spread across the nation in the intervening months, the deaths and infections have more closely mirrored U.S. demographics. 
But gaps remain between white Americans and people of color.
When adjusted for age, Black Americans are hospitalized with COVID-19 at 2.9 times the rate of white Americans, and die at 1.9 times the rate, according to CDC data. Latinos are hospitalized at more than three times the rate and die at more than twice the rate of white Americans.
Taken all together, here's what the community of Americans who have died in the past year looks like:
With such large losses in the past year, actual communities throughout the U.S. have been ravaged by the pandemic.
In Jerauld County, South Dakota, one of in every 126 people has reportedly died of COVID-19. It’s one in 139 people in Gove County, Kansas, and one in 514 in Los Angeles County.
Of the 30 largest counties, 15 account for nearly 20% of all the deaths in the U.S. while they comprise just 15% of the country's 328 million residents.
In smaller counties across the U.S., the numbers are not nearly as large, but the impact has been just as significant.
When USA TODAY visited Gove in December, the county was the deadliest place in America — coronavirus had killed a higher percentage of the county's residents than any other. Jerauld has since surpassed it.
The 10 counties with the highest COVID-19 death rates all have populations under 10,000 residents.

In early February, three bills in front of the North Dakota Legislature were defeated. The bills, which were quietly introduced last month, aimed to block businesses from requiring their employees or customers to get coronavirus vaccinations.
North Dakota is not the first state to take up the issue of requiring vaccinations; as vaccinations roll out across the country, lawmakers and public health experts are looking at whether new legislation can or should mandate them. Or, as was the case in North Dakota, whether legislation can block a vaccination requirement.
Since the pandemic began, dozens of bills addressing vaccination laws have been introduced across the country, many of which would make it more difficult to administer or enforce vaccinations for adults. Legislators in at least 27 states have introduced bills that would block employers from requiring vaccinations. Many of the bills have been rejected. Some states, like Florida, have also sought to prevent businesses, such as airlines, from denying services to people who have not been vaccinated.
No vaccinations — against the viruses that cause Covid-19 or any other disease — are mandated by the federal government. Nor do state governments dictate that all residents get certain vaccinations.
Where the government does come into play is for certain groups of people — specifically, children attending public school and health care workers. Most states have vaccination requirements for both groups, although whether people can be exempt on religious or philosophical grounds varies state to state.
Private businesses, however, are allowed to require vaccinations as they see fit, under the protection of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. People with disabilities or certain medical conditions and those whose religious beliefs do not allow vaccinations are federally exempt from the mandates. Beyond that, state laws can determine what other types of exemptions are permitted.
"We have a long history of vaccine requirements in the workplace. It's a health and safety rule, just like wearing gloves," said Dorit Reiss, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, who focuses on legal and policy issues related to vaccines. "Employers have a baseline duty to create a safe environment for their employees and patrons."
That is why airplane pilots are tested for drugs and certain states require hospital workers to get the flu vaccination, Reiss said. If reasonable accommodations cannot be made for someone who is legally exempt from vaccinations to safely work for a business — such as working from home or wearing extra protective equipment — the employer has a right to terminate the employee.
"Accommodating doesn't mean you treat everyone the same," said Reiss, giving the example of someone who is unable to wear a mask in a grocery store. "You can bring groceries outside to someone rather than allowing them in the store without a mask."
The pandemic has sparked a newfound interest in vaccination legislation among some legislators, some of whom also pushed back against mask mandates and other prevention strategies.
"There is a small but loud group of people who are against vaccination in any way, shape or form," said Kylie Hall, a project manager at the North Dakota State University Center for Immunization Research and Education, who is working with the North Dakota Health Department on coronavirus vaccinations and operations.
"That group of people is small, but with Covid-19, we've also seen a movement of people who don't believe that the virus is real or don't believe that masks work or are dangerous and don't believe the tried-and-true science behind the recommendations," Hall said. "A subset of these people are latching onto this small subset that oppose all vaccinations, and, though still a minority, that movement is pulling in more people than we would usually have with just the people who are against vaccines."
Republican state Rep. Jeff Hoverson was among a group of North Dakota legislators who consulted with the Informed Consent Action Network, an anti-vaccination organization, when they drafted and defended six vaccination-related bills, all which were defeated in early February. Three of the bills addressed businesses' right to mandate vaccinations, either among employees or patrons.
"I believe that the virus is real, but my concerns get back down to the government mandating things. Masks, lockdown and vaccines are particularly troublesome from my perspective," Hoverson said. He also said he is worried that businesses such as airlines will require mandatory vaccinations, although no airline so far has said it will.
Hall said it is premature to introduce legislation that would prevent employers or businesses from mandating vaccinations before there are enough vaccine doses to go around and before companies have implemented such mandates for patrons.
She said she also worries that misinformation that inaccurately suggests that vaccines are unsafe is driving legislation that would limit vaccination mandates and may deter people from getting vaccinated.

Vaccination against Covid-19 is the only way to get rid of this pandemic. Vaccination will not only protect you, but also those who cannot be vaccinated.

The provincial health officer says 47 cases of COVID-19 variants have been identified in the province, including the first case in Canada of a variant believed to be linked to Nigeria.
Dr. Bonnie Henry said Friday the new variant, labelled B.1.525, was recently found in a young person from the Interior Health region who is currently self-isolating.  The variant is under investigation but so far it has not been linked to any transmission in B.C.
“We aren’t entirely clear yet whether this variant also has increased transmissibility or causes more severe illness, but our lab team is working with their counterparts across the country and internationally to get a better understanding of what this can mean,” Henry said, adding scientists need to know whether it is more easily transmissible or causes more severe illness.
It is the first time that particular variant has been identified in Canada.
B.C. also has 29 cases related to a variant first identified in the United Kingdom and 17 associated with South Africa.
She says variants of concern do transit more quickly and cause more severe illness though it’s reassuring that only three cases were recently identified among 3,099 cases that were tested for the variants.
This week, the B.C. Centre for Disease Control has been ramping up screening for new COVID mutations to determine how many variants of concern are circulating throughout the province. Henry said this week B.C. is also monitoring for the California variant CAL.20C, which has been linked to a surge in cases in Southern California.
Henry reported 445 new cases of COVID-19, for a total of 72,750 cases in the province so far, along with 10 more deaths, totalling 1,288 fatalities since the start of the pandemic.
She urged residents to maintain restrictions on gatherings during the Family Day long weekend, which coincides with Lunar New Year celebrations, but says colder weather may reduce travel, meaning “Mother Nature is going to be on our side.”
“We are trending in the right direction, pushing our curve down, but slowly. And we need to ensure our success sticks, which means staying the course with our layers of protection and continuing to follow all of the public health restrictions and guidance.”
Henry says first doses of COVID-19 vaccines in long-term care and assisted-living facilities have meant a dramatic drop in outbreaks at facilities across the province.
She says second doses still must be administered to most residents and staff but there’s clear evidence that first doses have slowed down transmission of the virus.
Henry says an increasing number of vaccine doses are expected to arrive in B.C. next week and onward after a slowdown in deliveries.
It is hoped that these variants of the virus will not increase the infectivity, otherwise the situation will be too bad. The vaccine has slowed the spread of the virus. Hope that the vaccine can be popularized to more people.

Hospitals in Washington state discovered their supply of N95 masks contained counterfeits after 3M, a company that manufactures the masks, said on Saturday at least some of the vital stockpile for Covid-19 frontline workers were fakes.
The Washington State Hospital Association (WSHA) said 3M notified them about possible knock-off masks circulating in the national supply of personal protective equipment. The association then asked hospitals on Friday to pull the masks from their inventory.
WSHA sent samples to 3M’s fraud department where the company confirmed some of the masks were counterfeit, according to a statement from the hospital association.
"It's a stunning feeling… Just to think that there are people that will do that — out manufacturing counterfeit personal protective equipment that we need right now so badly during this pandemic,” Cassie Sauer, the hospital association president and CEO, told NBC News affiliate KING5.
While the group has yet to confirm the number of knock-offs, they purchased 300,000 masks from a believed third party supplier of personal protective equipment, which added up to about $1.4 million. Of the hundreds of thousands of masks purchased, 60,000 were not distributed.
Sauer said all of the masks had “appropriate paperwork” and passed “physical inspection” and “testing.”
“These N95s are precious resources we need to keep staff safe. It is reprehensible that counterfeiters are selling fake goods,” Sauer said.
3M has flagged several lot numbers, located on the individual masks and the boxes they were shipped in, potentially used by counterfeiters. According to WSHA, some of the lot numbers were among the stock purchased by Washington State hospitals and the hospital association.
The group said that they are waiting on 3M’s investigation into the remaining lot numbers. So far, dozens of hospitals in Washington state have been impacted.
Despite the counterfeit supplies hitting the state, 3M has expedited an order of 1 million masks to help backfill supplies, according to the hospital association.

In 2020, UNICEF Nigeria Humanitarian Action for Children (HAC)’s response reached:
A total of 2,627,536 conflict-affected people (including 53 per cent children) with integrated primary health care services, and an additional 277,047 children received measles vaccination;
Almost 900,000 conflict-affected persons were reached with water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services;
More than 200,000 girls and boys accessed critical child-protection services;
At least 272,799 children with severe acute malnutrition (SAM) received treatment at UNICEF-supported treatment centres in both north-east and north-west; and - A total of 799, 102 accessed education and learning through formal and alternative basic education model.
COVID-19 created a myriad of challenges for humanitarian response as violence escalated between Non-State Armed Groups (NSAGs) and the Government across the north-east and north-west, resulting in displacement, access challenges and increased humanitarian needs.

Florida health officials are demanding an audit of the Health Care District of Palm Beach County after over 1,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine were recently spoiled.
On Wednesday, the Florida Department of Health asked the Health Care District to conduct a full accounting of all vaccine-related equipment and procedures since the district said the power to the refrigerator storing the vaccines was "unintentionally turned off."
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference in Palm Beach County that he supports the health officials' probe.
"I think it's 100 percent appropriate to do. We know that there are certain storage requirements with these," DeSantis said Wednesday. "People are very conscious about that by-and-large, so I think we need to get answers."
A spokesperson for the district told NBC News in a statement that while the staff was conducting a standard quality assurance check on Jan. 22, they identified 232 refrigerated vials containing 1,160 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine outside of the required temperature control range. Staff then verified the doses were not usable and, as a result, the vials were destroyed.
Florida State Surgeon General Dr. Scott Rivkees said in a statement on Wednesday that it was a "tragedy" that the vaccines were damaged.
"While we must rely on partners to distribute this critical resource, we expect that every provider treat the vaccine as the precious commodity that it is," Rivkees said. "We hope to see this situation rectified and addressed immediately to ensure the Palm Beach County Health Care District does not let one more dose go to waste."
This kind of bad information makes people angry. Some countries haven't got a vaccine so far, and Americans have begun to waste resources. It's a life-saving drug! Our country does not know how many vaccines are available for people who need them now?

Counting the dead is one of the first, somber steps in reckoning with an event of enormous tragic scope, be that war, natural disaster or a pandemic.
This dark but necessary arithmetic has become all too routine during the COVID-19 outbreak.
January was the deadliest month so far in the U.S.; the virus killed more than 95,458 Americans.
The total U.S death toll has now surpassed 441,000.
Each death is unique, a devastating loss that ripples through a family, a network, a community. But in the aggregate, the national death toll can feel abstract, and its constant repetition in the news can become numbing. Journalists, commentators and public officials are left searching for new ways to convey the deadliness of this pathogen, and the significance of its mounting fatality rate.
Many have turned to history, citing Pearl Harbor (2,403 killed) or the 9/11 attacks (2,977 killed), as a way of providing perspective when the number of daily COVID deaths in the U.S. reached those levels. (Currently, more than 3,000 Americans are dying from COVID every day.)
Jan. 21, 2021 offered another opportunity for historical comparison: That was the day when the COVID death toll in the U.S. reached — and then exceeded — the 405,399 Americans who died in World War II.
For many, attempting to compare the two death tolls — or even take note of their brief conjunction — is misguided or even offensive. It is certainly a morally fraught exercise. The true emotional and social impact of either event can never be quantified, but many media outlets still mentioned it.
Which raises the question: Are we as a society too quick to reach for these historic comparisons? Should a politically driven world war and a biologically driven pandemic, more than seven decades apart, be put side by side at all?
"This is comparing apples to oranges," wrote NPR listener Kris Petron last month in response to a story that made use of that comparison. "It is extremely disrespectful to our nation's veterans, who write a blank check with their lives, to defend our Constitution."
Petron is not alone.
This type of response, over time, has convinced medical historian Dr. Howard Markel to make it a practice of never drawing parallels between the death toll from war and a pandemic.
"I try not to make comparisons to an event or group that I know contains within it a great deal of sentiment, feeling and pain," says Markel, a professor at the University of Michigan and author of When Germs Travel: Six Major Epidemics That Have Invaded America and the Fears They Have Unleashed.
The notion that combat deaths carry a unique meaning or value is deeply rooted in human culture. Societies tend to valorize those who died for a cause on a battlefield.
But in this pandemic it's the frail elderly — many of them living in nursing homes and assisted living facilities — who have died in vast numbers.
"To the watching world, that's not the same as the death of a young soldier in their 20s, let's say, on the front lines in a war," says Yale historian Frank Snowden, author of Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present.
"But, I don't think we have a right to weigh up lives and say which is more important," Snowden added.
Unlike COVID-19, the global influenza pandemic of 1918-19 killed many people who were in their 20s and 30s — yet as Snowden notes, there wasn't much collective mourning for those young adults, despite dying in the prime of life.
"People were so used to mortality because of the [first world] war that even the horrible tallies that were coming with the Spanish influenza had lost their capacity to horrify the way that one might expect," he says.