₦airaland Forum

More than 1,000 Columbia University students are withholding this semester's tuition as they demand that the Ivy League school in New York City lower its cost amid financial burdens and the move to online classes prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Students initiated the tuition strike last Friday, when payments for the semester were due. In a sweeping list of demands, students accused the school of demonstrating a "flagrant disregard for initiatives democratically supported within the community." The striking students are asking the school to lower tuition by at least 10 percent and to increase financial aid.
The letter also asks the school to end its expansion into and gentrification of West Harlem, defund its university police force and bargain in good faith with campus unions.
Columbia is making money as its endowment grows in the stock market, but it is providing little additional relief to students, the strikers claim. Columbia has an endowment of more than $11 billion, and it reported more than $300 million in gains during the pandemic.
Tuition for undergraduates is $58,920 for an academic year, and the total costs eclipse $80,000 when fees, room and board, books and travel are factored in, the university estimates. Both undergraduate and graduate students are participating in the strike.
"Online college has made me understand that Columbia does not care for its students," said Matthew Gamero, a sophomore studying political science and history, who withheld his tuition this month because, he said, he feels as though the school is using him to make a profit.
Gamero, 19, from Queens, New York, said he wants the school to be held accountable for its leaders' decisions, for students to have more of a voice in how it is run and for the community that surrounds the campus to benefit from the strike.
"This movement is just as much ours as it is theirs," he said.
The strike has been organized largely by the campus chapter of Young Democratic Socialists of America, which has partnered with other student groups to support the action. Student organizers say they have already won concessions, including the university's agreement to divest from fossil fuels, a longtime demand.
Students at the University of Chicago staged a similar strike in the spring, when about 200 students withheld their tuition.
Activists said they want Columbia to go the way of Williams College in Massachusetts, which announced that it will lower tuition by 15 percent for the 2020-21 academic year. They are also looking to their peers in the United Kingdom, where some students have begun withholding rent on campus housing and more are threatening to do so as the pandemic, they say, steals much of their college experience.
The Columbia students claim that despite reassurances from university leaders that late fees would not be charged for January tuition, some were assessed the $150 penalty.
Columbia said it suspended a 1.5 percent monthly fee on balances due on unpaid charges but made it clear to students that a $150 late payment penalty would be assessed for unpaid charges on bills incurred before Dec. 19.
University leaders also acknowledged that they have heard the students' demands.
"This is a moment when an active reappraisal of the status quo is understandable, and we expect nothing less from our students," a university spokesperson said in an emailed statement. "Their voices are heard by Columbia's leadership, and their views on strengthening the University are welcomed."
Willem Morris, 23, a senior from Montana studying history, said that 4,300 of the more than 30,000 students who attend Columbia support the strike and signed on to the demands but that not all withheld tuition.
The strike demonstrates that students have the power to make ambitious demands on a university that is meant to serve them, said Morris, who wants to become a labor organizer when he graduates in the spring.
"We are inspired by the concessions Columbia has already made, and we are optimistic we will make further gains," he said. "We are willing to continue to strike until the rest of our demands have been met."

On January 25, 2021, President Biden signed a proclamation continuing the suspension of entry of certain travelers from the Schengen Area, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Brazil, China, and Iran, and expanding restrictions to include travelers from South Africa. U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents are not subject to the proclamations.
The full text of the January 25 proclamation is here. It remains in effect until terminated by the President.
Exceptions include:
Sec. 2.  Scope of Suspension and Limitation on Entry. 
(a)  Section 1 of this proclamation shall not apply to:
(i)     any lawful permanent resident of the United States;
(ii)    any noncitizen national of the United States;
(iii)   any noncitizen who is the spouse of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident;
(iv)    any noncitizen who is the parent or legal guardian of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, provided that the U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident is unmarried and under the age of 21;
(v)     any noncitizen who is the sibling of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, provided that both are unmarried and under the age of 21;
(vi)    any noncitizen who is the child, foster child, or ward of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, or who is a prospective adoptee seeking to enter the United States pursuant to the IR-4 or IH-4 visa classifications
(vii)   any noncitizen traveling at the invitation of the United States Government for a purpose related to containment or mitigation of the virus;
(viii)  any noncitizen traveling as a nonimmigrant pursuant to a C-1, D, or C-1/D nonimmigrant visa as a crewmember or any noncitizen otherwise traveling to the United States as air or sea crew;
(ix)    any noncitizen
(A)  seeking entry into or transiting the United States pursuant to one of the following visas:  A-1, A-2, C-2, C-3 (as a foreign government official or immediate family member of an official), E-1 (as an employee of TECRO or TECO or the employee’s immediate family members), G-1, G-2, G-3, G-4, NATO-1 through NATO-4, or NATO-6 (or seeking to enter as a nonimmigrant in one of those NATO categories); or
(B)  whose travel falls within the scope of section 11 of the United Nations Headquarters Agreement;
(x)     any noncitizen who is a member of the U.S. Armed Forces and any noncitizen who is a spouse or child of a member of the U.S. Armed Forces
(xi)    any noncitizen whose entry would further important United States law enforcement objectives, as determined by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or their respective designees, based on a recommendation of the Attorney General or his designee; or
(xii)   any noncitizen whose entry would be in the national interest, as determined by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or their designees.

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s goal for 100 million Covid-19 vaccinations in his first 100 days is “ambitious” but “not our final goal,” White House chief of staff Ron Klain told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
While Klain called the aim “bold,” he said it is just an opening benchmark to show the American people they are moving quickly to vaccinate the country.
“One-hundred million shots is a bold, ambitious goal, but we need to keep going after that. That is our first goal, it’s not our final goal, it’s not the endpoint, it’s just a metric the American people can watch and measure how we are doing.”
The U.S. has hit the pace of 1 million vaccinations per day at the outset of the Biden administration, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine distribution tracker, putting the nation on track to hit that goal even as some experts say the new administration’s goal should be higher.
There had been more than 20.5 million coronavirus vaccine doses administered by Saturday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But there was still a significant gap, more than 20 million, between the number of vaccines distributed and administered.
When asked about the gap, Klain said that the “complex” problem required a host of fixes. And he said that while the Trump administration did make “progress we are building on” with developing the vaccines and beginning the initial wave of distribution, he doubled down on the Biden administration’s criticism of its predecessors and said that a wider distribution plan “did not really exist when we came into the White House.”
“We need more vaccine, we need more vaccinators, we need more vaccination sites. And in the Biden administration, we are tackling all three,” Klain said.
“We are going to set up these federal vaccination centers to make sure that in states that don’t have enough vaccination sites, we fill those gaps. We’re going to work closely with the manufacturers to ramp up production.”
“We’re going to use all the powers we have in the White House," Klain added. "We are going to work with Congress to get more funding to also accelerate this, so we can improve the rate at which we are vaccinating people.”
Covid-19 cases in America hit new peaks both after the Thanksgiving holiday and Christmas, but have started to drop in recent days. After a 16-day stretch in which there were more than 200,000 cases reported in all but one day, there have been six consecutive days with new, daily caseloads below 200,000.
But deaths have not yet seen the same decline. On two separate days last week, the country lost more than 4,100 people to the virus.

A Columbus, Ohio, vaccine distributor has been suspended after authorities said the company mishandled 890 doses of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine.
In a press release Wednesday, the Ohio Department of Health said the provider, SpecialtyRx, received 1,500 vaccine doses to administer to residents of eight long-term care facilities before Jan. 1.
After administering the initial doses, the remaining ones sat in SpecialtyRx's refrigerator and freezer, where the temperatures were not monitored regularly as required to maintain vaccine viability.
"The company was exploring a transfer of the doses to another provider when it was discovered that they had failed to appropriately monitor temperatures in their refrigerator and freezer," the health department said in the release.
The state agency investigated and determined the 890 doses were not viable. Officials also "immediately halted any future allocations to Specialty Rx, and the provider has been instructed to not administer or transfer any of the affected doses and to keep them quarantined in both units until next steps are given," the health department said.
The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines require supercold temperatures for long-term storage and can only spend short periods of time in normal freezers.
"ODH requires all COVID-19 vaccine providers to check and record the minimum and maximum temperatures of cold storage refrigerators and/or freezers each workday," authorities said.
"The first doses of the Moderna vaccine that were administered to the residents and staff of the long-term care facilities were viable," the health department said. "For the second dose, the long term care facilities will have to coordinate with another provider which will likely be the local health department."
According to a count by NBC News, Ohio has recorded 842,433 coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic. Less than 1 percent of the state's population has been vaccinated.
NBC News reached out to SpecialtyRx but did not immediately receive a reply.

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) yesterday shut Nigeria’s border with Niger Republic at Jibia, Katsina State less than 48 hours the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) reopened it in line with the directive of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Consequently, the decision of the customs service sparked mild protest among traders in communities around the border, alleging that the customs officers closed the border to continue their illegal activities in the area.
THISDAY uncovered the contravention of Buhari’s directive yesterday during a visit to the border post at Jibia, Jibia Local Government Area (LGA), Katsina State.
On December 16, 2020, Buhari approved the immediate reopening of four major land borders in Nigeria after 15 months of outright closure that stoked stern criticism across Africa.
While he directed immediate reopening of the land borders, the president did not approve the importation of rice, poultry and other counterfeit products.
Consistent with Buhari’s directive, the Comptroller General of Immigration (CGI), Mr. Muhammed Babandede had on Thursday directed the immediate reopening of the Nigeria-Niger border.
Babandede conveyed this directive in a three-paragraph circular addressed to the Katsina State Comptroller of the Immigration Service.
Babandede was quoted in the circular saying the federal government “has directed the Nigeria Immigration Service to reopen all land borders in the country but with strict adherence to Presidential Task Force protocols on COVID-19 pandemic.”
Consequently, there was ceremonial reopening of the border on Thursday which was well-attended by traders within and outside the country, including the Deputy Comptroller of Immigration in charge of the border, DCI H. Ibrahim, customs officers and police at the frontier of the border.
During the visit to the border post yesterday, however, THISDAY observed that the officials of the customs service restricted human and vehicular movement across the border post while its main entrance was under lock despite the directive of the president.
THISDAY, also, observed that the operatives of the customs service denied traders and travellers entry and exit at the border town.
It equally observed that there was restriction of movement as checking of goods and vehicles remained in place at more than 20 checkpoints mounted by armed customs and police officers along Katsina-Jibia highway.
The customs service, however, justified its action on the ground that it had not received a formal directive from its supervising ministry to reopen the border.
An official of the customs service, who spoke private with THISDAY, said security agencies at the border post were still expecting official directives to reopen the border.
He said: “We heard about the reopening of the land borders from the news, but we are still waiting for directives from our head office in Abuja. We can not just open the border like that.
“As you can see, when the border was closed, the federal government introduced Joint Border Patrol which comprises Army, Immigration, Police and Customs.
So, we must receive an official letter from our head office as members of border drill before we will open it,” the customs officer said anonymously.
Concerned about the conflicting directives, some traders in separate interviews in Jibia yesterday lamented endless extortions by customs officers, claiming that the customs officers closed the border to continue with their illegalities in the area.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - A national study group believes a lot more deaths will occur in the United States due to COVID-19 in the coming weeks and months.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation uses statistical analysis to determine the number of deaths that could happen due to the spread of the pandemic. Some of their projections have been underestimations. The different numbers are due to different enforcement of safety rules and timely reporting.
IHME is now projecting more than a half million deaths in the United States by April 1. Alabama is projected to have more than 7,000 deaths.
Dr. Ali Mokdad with IHME said Alabama and the country is seeing the surge because of the recent holidays and this will lead to more deaths.
The research group makes projections on improvements if there were universal mask wearing and vaccine distribution. Dr. Mokdad said vaccinations will help cut the projections, especially if states would increase the shots and those providing them. He was critical of Alabama for having a small number of vaccinations and people to give them to meet a large demand. Until then, it doesn’t look good in the next couple of weeks.
“It’s going to get bad. It’s going to get worse before it gets better and in the coming two weeks, the number of cases will increase. We are seeing right now in Alabama and the nation record hospitalizations and of course a couple of weeks later we will see more mortality,” Mokdad said.
Dr. Mokdad suggested the state needed to address the vaccine rollout problem. Mokdad said more people should be used to vaccinate people.
More vaccinations will help reduce the projections by summer, but the biggest problem would be if there are major side effects of the vaccines and if they were not addressed.

While sheltering in a secure location as a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Wednesday, House lawmakers may have been exposed to someone who was infected with the coronavirus, Congress’s Office of the Attending Physician said on Sunday.
In an email sent to lawmakers, Dr. Brian P. Monahan, the attending physician, said that while “the time in this room was several hours for some and briefer for others,” during that period, “individuals may have been exposed to another occupant with coronavirus infection.” He told lawmakers to obtain a P.C.R. test as a precaution and continue taking preventive steps against the spread of the virus.
Congress has long struggled to stem the spread of the virus within its ranks, with mixed guidance and a delayed testing regimen. Dozens of lawmakers, staff members and reporters took shelter in the secure room on Wednesday, but a handful of Republicans refused to wear masks, one person there said, even as Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, Democrat of Delaware, tried to pass out masks.
Before the mob breached the Capitol, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, overseeing the certification of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory and debate over a Republican effort to subvert those results in certain states, admonished Republicans for having too many people on the floor and for some objectors refusing to wear masks as they spoke.
As the 117th Congress reconvened a week ago, multiple lawmakers tested positive for the coronavirus after taking their oath. Late Wednesday, one Republican, Representative Jake LaTurner of Kansas, received positive test results after voting on the House floor to overturn Arizona’s results and did not return for a second vote early Thursday. It was unclear where Mr. LaTurner was sheltering in place as the mob tried to break into the House chamber, but in a statement issued shortly before 3 a.m. on Thursday, his office said he was not experiencing symptoms.
Because lawmakers qualified for early access to the coronavirus vaccine, many have received at least one shot of a two-dose vaccine, with some receiving both doses. Some congressional aides have been authorized to receive the two-dose vaccine.
The "sad" U.S. congressmen need to avoid the violence of Trump's fanatical supporters while also avoiding the "dark arrows" shot by the new crown virus. Under the double blow of political chaos and the raging new crown virus, the United States has given the world a new judgment: he is not perfect, he is not perfect.

A pharmacist accused of trying to destroy hundreds of doses of coronavirus vaccine is a conspiracy theorist who believed the medication wasn't safe, Wisconsin authorities alleged Monday.
The man, Steven Brandenburg, 46, was ordered held in lieu of $10,000 bond by Ozaukee County Circuit Court Judge Paul Malloy during a brief appearance.
Police in Grafton, about 20 miles north of Milwaukee, arrested Brandenburg, a pharmacist with Advocate Aurora Health, on Thursday after 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine appeared to have been spoiled. Police said Brandenburg took the vaccine doses from a refrigerator and left them out for 12 hours, possibly rendering them useless.
Each vial contained 10 doses; in total, the material was worth $8,550 to $11,400, according to a probable cause statement by Grafton police Detective Sgt. Eric Sutherland.
Brandenburg is an "admitted conspiracy theorist," and he "told investigators that he believed that Covid-19 vaccine was not safe for people and could harm them and change their DNA," Sutherland wrote.
"He admitted this was an intentional act," the probable cause statement added.
Brandenburg was initially booked on suspicion of recklessly endangering safety, adulterating a prescription drug and criminal damage to property.
However, it wasn't immediately clear whether the actions ruined the doses or whether they could still be effectively administered, Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol said.
Officials from Moderna would have to examine the doses and conclude whether they were ruined, Gerol said.
If the doses were not destroyed despite having been left outside the refrigerator, the charges could be downgraded, prosecutors said.
Brandenburg did not have to enter a plea during this first court appearance Monday. The procedural hearing was held virtually to adhere to coronavirus safety protocols.
While the judge and the prosecutor were in court, Brandenburg appeared from jail and his lawyer appeared from another locale. Brandenburg's lawyer acknowledged his presence on behalf of Brandenburg but did not appear to make any other substantive comments.

U.S. air travel hit its highest level on Saturday since mid-March, raising fears that the spike in holiday travel will result in another surge in Covid-19 cases and deaths in upcoming weeks.
Even as the coronavirus rages across the country, 1,192,881 people passed through security checkpoints in airports on Saturday, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
Air travel is still down significantly compared to previous years, but surged during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays despite warnings from health experts and elected officials to limit travel and family gatherings. 
Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Sunday that the pandemic could likely get worse in the next couple weeks as the U.S. experiences a delayed impact of post-Christmas holiday travel.
“This is what happens. It’s terrible, it’s unfortunate, but it was predictable,” Fauci, one of the nation’s top infectious disease experts, said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” 
December was the most deadly and infectious month of the pandemic in the U.S. The country is averaging more than 2,600 deaths each day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Three states have also now found cases of the new, more transmissible coronavirus strain in people with no travel history.
Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams urged on Sunday that Americans wear masks and social distance to help temper the projected surge in infections.
“What we do now matters,” Adams said during an interview on CNN. “If you gathered over the holidays outside of your household without a mask, there are still measures you can take right now.”
“You still can self-quarantine. You still can get tested, knowing that greater than 50% of the spread now is among people who are asymptomatic,” he added.

NCDC Director-General, Chike Ihekweazu wey tok dis one for di daily briefing of di Presidential Taskforce on Covid-19 say dis warning na because pipo no dey obey di protocols wey di health joinbodi and Nigerian government don put in place.
Dis comments from di NCDC DG dey come as Nigeria don witness sharp increase in positive cases of di virus
Oga Ihekweazu tok say: "We just face di worst week since we start to respond to dis outbreak. We record more cases for Nigeria last week than in any other previous week since di beginning of di outbreak.
"Pictures and videos from across di country paint a very disheartening situation because e look like say our messages, our appeals to Nigerians over di last few months pipo no follow am and we don go ahead with business as usual.
"Unfortunately, January go be tough month for all of us, event centres dey full; our treatment centres dey fill up. We dey struggle to keep up, we dey struggle to find di facilities to manage, di oxygen to manage.
"Every night we dey face phone calls from patients wey dey desperate for care. E go dey tough but we still get opportunity to do wetin we need to do by liaising with di executive governors of states across di country to dey more purposeful in implementing di measures wey all of us don agree on.
Di NCDC boss add say dem don notice say some states don begin torchlight di matter and dem don even begin put measures to control di spread but for odas, im say dem dey do like say consequences no go dey.
"We don see some of dem dey do that [on implementing measures]. But many of di states in di country never do am and dem dey pretend as if consequences no go dey."

The relevance of water to Nigeria’s national development is very pivotal to population growth, urbanization and increased efforts at agriculture and industrial development.
This relevance has increasingly brought to the fore very key issues of the country’s existence, thus occasioning the need for increased access to water for Nigerians.
The water sector is a pillar for food security, job creation, water supply, sanitation and hydropower generation.
President Muhammadu Buhari has described the statistics on open defecation and access to pipe borne water service and sanitation as disturbing, and has declared commitment to implement the National Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Action Plan.
The President also declared a state of emergency on Nigeria’s WASH sector, as the action being imperative, would reduce the high prevalence of water-borne diseases in different parts of the country, which have caused preventable deaths.
In an effort to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, which has impacted on all aspects of lives, causing untold hardship and stress to the populace; potable WASH practices are critical to eradication of the virus.
This made the Federal Ministry of Water Resources to develop a proposal for financing National WASH response to COVID-19 and secure its inclusion in the National Economic Sustainability Plan.
This also led to the inauguration of a National WASH Response Committee for COVID-19 chaired by the Honourable Minister, Mr Suleiman Adamu with all state commissioners responsible for water supply and sanitation as members.
The guidelines for the response were implemented with the rehabilitation of no fewer than 185 solar powered water supply projects (five per state and the FCT).
These interventions also included the construction of 370 public sanitation facilities (10 per state and the FCT), and provision of support to states’ water agencies for their operations to ensure uninterrupted water supply.
In its efforts to promote sanitation and hygiene, the ministry donated 370 contactless hand washing facilities with soap and sanitizers (10 per state and FCT), and engaged 77,400 youth volunteers for hand washing and Open Defecation Free (ODF) Campaigns.

Gombe State Governor, Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya, has declared that Nigeria is facing the worst security challenge in its history.
The Governor was speaking, on Monday, while swearing-in local government Chairmen elected last Saturday, declared that: “We must therefore put in place necessary measures to protect the lives and property of our people.”
“I call on the new Chairmen to ensure that any measures taken are fully implemented and sustained in order to ensure the security and well-being of the lives and property of the people.
“As agents of change at the grassroots, you are expected to come up with constructive and workable ideas for the development and transformation of your respective Local Governments. I implore you to use your wealth of experience in order to speedily move our Local Governments forward and provide the much-needed dividends of democracy to our people.”
He also reiterated that his APC led Government will not tolerate corrupt practices under whatever guise warning all elected officials to shun corruption or get themselves into trouble with the law.
Inuwa Yahaya stated that “Therefore, you must all strive to live above board and ensure transparency in the conduct of your duties. I charge you to be fair, equitable and just to all citizens irrespective of political or cultural differences. The relative peace and harmony that is prevailing in the state must be guarded jealously.”
The Governor strongly urged the Local Government Chairmen to extend genuine hands of reconciliation and partnership to all those who lost out in the electoral process, regardless of party affiliation stressing that, “let us all join hands in order to collectively contribute to the development of our dear state.”
“Let me warn that with the resurgence of COVID-19 pandemic, the world is gradually walking back into another lockdown. I, therefore, urge all of us to ensure that the identified protocols of minimizing its spread are strictly adhered to.”
He also urged entire people to cooperate with the newly sworn-in Chairmen to enable them to perform their duties effectively saying that, “I am confident that with the quality of their pedigree and that of our great party, the people of Gombe State will not be disappointed.”

Initial shipments of the second COVID-19 vaccine authorised in the United States left a distribution centre on Sunday, a desperately needed boost as the nation works to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control.
The trucks left the Memphis-area factory with the vaccine developed by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health. The much-needed shots are expected to be given starting on Monday, just three days after the Food and Drug Administration authorised their emergency roll-out.
Also on Sunday, an expert committee recommended frontline essential workers and persons 75 years and older should be next in line to receive early doses of the Moderna vaccine and a similar one from Pfizer and BioNTech.
Pfizer’s shots were first shipped out a week ago and started being used the next day, kicking off the nation’s biggest vaccination drive.
The frontline group includes 30 million workers such as first responders, teachers, food and agriculture, manufacturing, US Postal Service, public transit, and grocery store workers, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel decided.
The panel voted 13-1 in favour of the move that, in all, would make 49 million people eligible to receive the vaccine in the next round.
Other 57 million non-frontline workers like those in media, finance, energy and IT & communication industries, and persons in the age group of 65-74 and those aged 16-64 years with high-risk conditions are proposed to receive the vaccine in the ensuing round.
There will not be enough shots for the general population until spring, so doses will be rationed at least for the next several months. President-elect Joe Biden pledged earlier this month to have 100 million vaccine doses distributed in his first 100 days in office, and his surgeon general nominee said Sunday that it is still a realistic goal.
But Vivek Murthy, speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, said it is more realistic to think it may be midsummer or early fall before coronavirus vaccines are available to the general population, rather than late spring. Murthy said Biden’s team is working towards having the shots available to lower-risk individuals by late spring but doing so requires “everything to go exactly on schedule”.
“I think it’s more realistic to assume that it may be closer to mid-summer or early fall when this vaccine makes its way to the general population,” Murthy said. “So, we want to be optimistic, but we want to be cautious as well.”

The Ambassador of Israel to Nigeria, Shimon Ben-Shoshan, says Israel-Nigeria cooperation through Innovation Fellowship for Aspiring Inventors and Researchers (i-FAIR), will boost E-Learning amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ben-Shoshan made this known in his address at the official inauguration of pilot FCT-Universal Basic Education Board Centre for Science, Technology and Innovative Training Centre, on Tuesday in Gwagwalada, Abuja.
The centre was rehabilitated, equipped and donated by Skill “G”, a private sector-based organization.

WASHINGTON — The State Department will be receiving its first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine this week, according to internal agency communications obtained by NBC News. 
The “very limited number,” of the vaccines received by the department in the first tranche will be administered to a small prioritized group of staff undertaking “mission critical” work, according to an email sent to employees Tuesday by Under Secretary of State Brian Bulatao. He did not say how many doses would be immediately available to diplomats, but noted more would arrive “incrementally over the next several months.”
Frontline medical personnel are among those first to receive the vaccine as well as State Department employees serving on the frontlines in Kabul, Afghanistan; Baghdad, Iraq and Mogadishu, Somalia, where poor healthcare systems put them even more at risk. Diplomatic Security agents in Washington, D.C. performing critical operations and coming into close contact with the Secretary of State will also be a priority for vaccinations.  
“While we would have preferred to vaccinate our entire Department workforce at once, we will have to do so incrementally based on vaccine availability,” Bulatao said in the State Department-wide email. In the meantime, Bulatao advised employees “to continue to wear face coverings, physically distance, and follow [Department] guidance.”
Bulatao noted the State Department is working closely with Operation Warp Speed, as well as the Department of Health and Human Services, and will “deploy the Covid-19 vaccine to the broader workforce as soon as it is made available.”
A State Department spokesperson declined to expand on the timing or logistics of agency’s plan due to “operational sensitivity,” but said vaccine distribution “will allow the Department to advance U.S. national security interests and ensure America’s essential diplomacy continues unimpeded.”
The State Department prioritization comes as officials across the U.S. government, in particular at national security agencies, are working to decide how and when to dole out the vaccine to critical staffers while avoiding the perception that government workers are skipping the line. 
President Donald Trump has said White House staffers should get it “somewhat later in the program” and that he isn’t currently scheduled to do so until “the appropriate time.” Two sources familiar with the matter said Tuesday that Vice President Mike Pence will get the vaccine by week’s end. Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller received the Covid-19 vaccine on camera on Monday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

A committee of leading U.S. vaccine scientists recommended Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration authorize the first COVID-19 vaccine for Americans.
The endorsement paves the way for a final decision by the FDA and mass vaccinations to begin within days in thousands of front-line heath care workers and nursing home residents.
After an eight-hour public hearing, the independent Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee voted 17 to 4 with 1 abstention to recommend the vaccine made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech called BNT162b2.
Members found the benefits of the vaccine outweighed the risks for most people 16 years old and older.
"It's a huge milestone," said Dr. Ofer Levy, a pediatric infectious disease expert and head of the precision vaccine program at Boston Children's Hospital.
While some committee members struggled with whether to authorize the vaccine for use in teenagers ages 16 and 17, Levy argued that it was important to include children.
Most vaccines in the world are delivered to children, and their vaccination rates are far higher than adults', he said. To reach the kind of vaccination rates needed to stop widespread transmission of COVID-19 will require minors to be vaccinated he said.
Sixteen and 17 year-olds were added to the study this fall, so there was less long-term safety data available for them than for adults. Levy, who has treated teens with a complex immune problem caused by COVID-19, said he doesn't see any reason why a 17-year-old would be any different than an 18-year-old, and was comfortable with the FDA's recommendation that 16 and 17 year-olds be included in the authorization.

Right from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, health experts have warned of a ticking time bomb in Africa as many feared that the coronavirus would overwhelm the continent’s fragile health care systems, resulting in massive fatalities.
Ten months into the pandemic, the continent of over a billion people appears to be coping better compared to Europe and America where the second wave of infections have already begun.
While researchers are still struggling to understand why the numbers have been low in the continent, health experts in Nigeria are raising concerns over the collateral damage caused by the outbreak – pushing the country further off its existing health targets including on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) 2030, maternal deaths, child deaths under age five, malaria, pneumonia, malnutrition, and HIV infections.
The pandemic has also been blamed for making access to essential health services extremely difficult and escalating existing health challenges especially due to high levels of infodemic – poor perceptions, poor awareness, misconceptions, and misinformation – about COVID-19.
A PREMIUM TIMES report revealed how the pandemic put breastfeeding programmes in the country under severe threat due to misinformation and poor access to hospitals.
But the pandemic also provided enough lessons to help in planning the future of health services in the country, according to the health experts who spoke during the virtual conference organized by the Nigeria Health Watch and their affiliates last week.
Speakers at the event alluded to the disruptions on meeting health targets and the economic disaster occasioned by the outbreak. They however underlined innovative technology as the silver bullet in the pandemic era and for the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought great challenges to the world. In the process of seeking drugs, medical technology will rely on modern high technology.

The International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL) has alerted Nigeria, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and 190 other countries of threat from organised criminal groups during the upcoming COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, including fake vaccines and the theft of supplies.
The alert came as the UK yesterday became the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for widespread use.
The need for a vaccine has become more urgent globally and nationally with Nigeria recording over 67,000 COVID-19 infections and over 1,000 associated fatalities, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has so far identified 49 "candidate vaccines" at the stage of clinical trials in humans.
Hopes are high that shots could be ready for use before the end of the year as two frontrunner vaccines - by Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer - already reported that phase 3 trials for their mRNA vaccine showed 95 per cent efficacy in preventing Covid-19 symptoms and did not produce adverse side effects among thousands of volunteers.

People trying to kill the coronavirus with ultraviolet C germicidal lamps may risk painful eye injuries if they aren't careful, a recent study finds.
Florida researchers report at least seven cases of patients with UVC damage to the cornea, the eye's outer layer, that left them with burning sensations and sensitivity to light after they used the lamps, according to a report published in Ocular Immunology and Inflammation.
"The clear part of the surface of the eye happens to be very susceptible to the wavelength of the light from these lamps," said Dr. Jesse Sengillo, an ophthalmologist at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of the University of Miami Health System.
The eye damage is "like a sunburn to the cornea," Sengillo said. "It's quite painful, and it takes a couple of days to heal. People often have trouble opening their eyes because they are sensitive to light and their eyes are red and itchy. One patient said, 'My eyes are on fire.'"
The burning sensation doesn't occur immediately, so some of the patients didn't realize they had damaged their eyes using UVC lamps hours earlier.
People who want to use the lamps should turn them on and then leave the room until it's time to turn them off, Sengillo said.
Sengillo suggests that anyone who has eye pain after having used the germicidal lamps see a doctor for ointments to ease the burning sensation and to get antibiotics, because such injuries are susceptible to infection.
Patients have continued to trickle into the Eye Institute, Sengillo said. "We have noticed that they seem to come in waves," he said. "We noticed, as Covid-19 infections have increased in Miami, cases of cornea damage are starting to pick up again."
"We're all trying now to increase safety for the public, and these UVC devices can be very helpful antimicrobials," said Dhaliwal, a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The light they emit "looks relatively harmless, and if people aren't aware they shouldn't be looking directly into the light, they may not realize that it's harmful."
The Food and Drug Administration suggests that UVC radiation might inactivate SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, but it warns about reports of skin and eye burns caused by improper installation of UVC lamps in rooms.
"People understand that when they go out in the sun, they can get sunburned," Dhaliwal said. "What they may not realize is that, even though this is UVC, it can also cause damage. The eye is vulnerable, and if you're going to use this kind of device, you should wear eye protection."
It's also possible that people might be somewhere that has a UVC lamp and not realize that it could hurt their eyes, Dhaliwal said. "If you enter a room and see a funny-looking light, don't look directly at it, and use eye protection."
This is America, the incredible America! I wonder who invented the use of ultraviolet light to eliminate the covid-19 virus from humans? UV light is used to disinfect the environment! Could it be that Mr. Trump has created a new treatment option in addition to his invention of "sterilized water for neocoronavirus"?

WE are on the same page with President Muhammadu Buhari who, in a recent tweet, warned that the Nigerian economy is too fragile to contemplate another lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. The president had sent the tweet on October 29, 2020.
The Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 led by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, regularly warns of the possibility of another lockdown because of the general carefree attitude of Nigerians to the core protocols required to contain the pandemic.
This call for caution was also recently emphasised by the Lagos State Commissioner of Health, Dr. Akin Abayomi.
Abayomi, a frontline leader of the fight against the pandemic, warned in a statement: "The continuous flagrant disregard of safety guidelines by citizens heralds danger and may lead to a second wave of infections in Lagos", adding that "a resurgence of cases in Lagos may lead to the reversal of the strategically-calculated measures put in place by government to open up the economy".
We acknowledge the importance of these warnings by the health authorities and scientific experts. Even though Nigeria and most of Africa have been fortunate enough to escape the benumbing infection rates and second waves that have challenged the more advanced continents of America, Europe and Asia, our people must be constantly kept aware that the pandemic is still very much with us.
However, the issue of another possible lockdown does not arise. Wisdom dictates that the delicate balance between fighting the virus and keeping the economy going to avoid the "hunger virus" is maintained.

In our own case, the scale has since tipped against the economy, and the hunger virus is ravaging the populace.
The Nigerian chapter of the International Food Policy Research Institute, IFPRI, says that the six-week lockdown between April and May this year zapped $16bn loss to our GDP.
The modest efforts being made by government to steer the economy from imminent recession was thwarted by the three-week #EndSARS protests and subsequent burning and looting of private and public property by hoodlums.
The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, has just announced that Nigeria has plunged into another recession within five years.
The skyrocketing of inflation rate (especially food inflation) and price increases in power and petroleum products have left the populace reeling and gasping for survival.
We must gather and focus all efforts to economic recovery and speedy exit of the recession.
Apart from the fact that we now understand the coronavirus pandemic much better and can live with it, there are also several vaccines waiting to be deployed worldwide.
Adherence to COVID-19 protocols should become second nature to everyone even after the pandemic. It is a sure way of keeping infections at bay.

As they brace for the holiday rush, grocery store and other frontline workers are demanding hazard pay, better cleaning of their workplaces and the mandatory wearing of masks to improve safety amid the spike in coronavirus cases across the country.
Leaders and members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which represents more than 1 million food, retail and meatpacking plant workers, said Monday that many major employers have grown lax, cutting wages and protections put in place when the coronavirus first began to spread in the spring.
“We’re entering what could prove to be the riskiest and deadliest phase of this pandemic for million of essential frontline workers,’’ says Marc Perrone, UCFW International's president, adding that as the holidays begin, grocery stores are in the midst of their busiest five-week period of the year. "The fear that they feel is as great if not greater than it was in the early days of this ....pandemic."
Perrone says that at least 350 of his union's members have died from COVID-19 including 109 grocery store employees, and more than 48,000 members have become ill or been exposed to the virus. 
"Unless we take immediate actions beginning this holiday week, many more essential workers will become sick and more tragically may die,’’ Perrone says.
Perrone says most major retailers stopped offering hazard pay in June, and he called out Amazon, Kroger, and Walmart in particular for not paying that additional compensation while they see their profits soar.
In addition to restoring hazard pay and providing paid sick leave, the union is calling on food retail executives to provide free coronavirus testing and protective equipment to all workers, and to enforce the wearing of masks among customers as well as employees,  among other demands.

A Nigerian doctor, Dr. Onyema Ogbuagbu, is at the centre of the Pfizer-led research, development and trials that have culminated in a breakthrough for COVID-19 vaccines.
Pfizer, after the conclusion of its trials, recently announced that its COVID-19 vaccine was more than 90 per cent effective.
A few days after, Moderna also reported that its own version of the COVID-19 vaccine was 94 per cent effective.
The announcement by Pfizer, followed by Moderna, remains a game changer in the quest for COVID-19 vaccine.
Ogbuagbu, however, said he had been involved in the trials of the vaccines by Pfizer
An Associate Professor of Medicine and infectious disease specialist at Yale School of Medicine, Ogbuagbu, in an interview with ABC News, said he was super excited by the results, because having a very effective vaccine would help in achieving the so-called herd immunity.
A 2003 graduate of medicine from the University of Calabar, he noted that currently, there were insufficient doses of the vaccine for everyone at the moment, but contended that enough doses should be available by the first quarter of 2021.
He was of the belief that if a lot of people received the vaccine and were protected against the virus, it would go a long way in containing its spread, which has been ravaging the world since the outbreak of the virus in Wuhan, China.
Pfizer has said it would launch a pilot in four states in the United States, but there have been concerns as the vaccine needed to be stored at -94 degrees Fahrenheit (-70 degree Celsius).
But Ogbuagbu has said preparations were being made already to surmount those challenges.
Ogbuagbu is in the clinician-educator track and Director of the HIV Clinical Trials programme of the Yale AIDS Programme, Section of Infectious Diseases of the Yale School of Medicine.
His profile obtained from the website of Yale School of Medicine revealed that in response to the COVID pandemic, he was the Yale principal investigator on multiple investigational therapeutic and preventative clinical trials for COVID-19, including remdesivir (now FDA approved), leronlimab and remdesivir and tocilizumab combination therapy as well as the Pfizer/BioNTech Vaccine trial.

A recent Ohio wedding attended by 83 people has become the latest super-spreader event amid a nationwide surge in Covid-19 after nearly half of them tested positive for coronavirus, the newlywed couple said.
Among the 32 people to contract the virus were the couple, Anthony and Mikayla Bishop, and three of their grandparents, two of whom visited the emergency room, the Bishops said in an interview with NBC affiliate WLWT of Cincinnati.
“I didn't think that almost half of our wedding guests were gonna’ get sick,” Mikayla Bishop told the station. “You're in the moment. You're having fun. You don't think about COVID anymore."
The outbreak linked to the Oct. 31 event comes as states across the country see surging case counts, overwhelmed hospitals and officials imposing new stay-at-home orders and fresh restrictions on venues like indoor businesses and schools.
Ohio is one of a dozen states where the number of new cases has spiked in the last two weeks, jumping from 221,000 on Nov. 2 to 305,000 on Monday, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University. Gov. Mike DeWine on Tuesday said Ohio will now be under a curfew in an attempt to halt the surge in his state.
In Cleveland, officials recorded so many new infections over the weekend that they couldn’t count them all in time for a briefing Monday.
“The City of Cleveland is experiencing an unprecedented surge in coronavirus cases, unlike anything yet reported during this pandemic,” the city said in a statement.
Public health experts have warned against holding large weddings amid surging case counts. Events in Washington State, New York and Minnesota have led to outbreaks, and after one ceremony in Maine, 176 people tested positive for the virus and seven died.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's leading infectious disease expert, said Sunday that it is "obvious" that delaying the presidential transition is not good from a public health perspective as daily Covid-19 case numbers continue to soar and set records.
"I have been through multiple transitions now, having served six presidents for 36 years," Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CNN's "State of the Union." "And it's very clear that that transition process that we go through, that time period of measured in several weeks to months, is really important in a smooth handing over of the information."
Comparing the transition process to "passing a baton in a race," he said, "It certainly would make things more smoothly if we could do that."
Asked whether he thinks it would be a good idea if his team could work with President-elect Joe Biden's transition team now, Fauci said, "Of course."
"That is obvious," he added. "Of course it would be better if we could start working with them."
President Donald Trump's refusal to concede the election and his continued legal battles across several battleground states have delayed the start of the formal transition process, blocking Biden from gaining access to key information. Biden's team has said the transition is progressing in spite of Trump, but officials have acknowledged that the longer the delay goes on, the worse its effects will be.
Meanwhile, case counts have surged nationwide, with record day following record day. On Friday, cases nationwide neared 180,000 in a single day, up by nearly 20,000 from Thursday. Hospitalization numbers are rapidly increasing, too.

Nearly eight months after it was declared a pandemic, COVID-19 rages on, and there is no global consensus on the right policy mix for addressing the public health crisis. But on how to deal with the economic fallout, the winning strategy is clear: Spend early and spend big. And no major economy has done that better than the United States.
Washington’s secret weapon has been the support for consumers. In late March, Congress overcame partisan differences to pass the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, rushing out $2.1 trillion of public money, or more than 10 percent of GDP, to support households, small businesses, and larger corporations. At the same time, the Federal Reserve put in place a series of emergency lending programs to keep the money flowing.

Nigeria recorded 156 new cases of COVID-19 and one death from the virus, on Friday, new data by the country’s infectious disease agency, NCDC, showed Friday night.

With the latest update, Nigeria’s COVID-19 total case count increased to 64,884, keeping it fifth on the list of African countries hit hardest, behind Ethiopia, Egypt, Morocco, and South Africa.

The total death toll is now 1,163 after Saturday’s death is added to the tally.

Meanwhile, there have been more recoveries from the virus amidst fears of an imminent and more devastating second wave.

Of the 64,884 total, about 60, 936 persons have been discharged from hospitals, after treatment, while nearly 4, 000 active cases remain in the country.

The 156 new cases were reported from 11 states – Lagos (70), FCT (22), Kaduna (18), Rivers (15), Plateau (11), Ogun (10), Bauchi (3), Katsina (3), Kano (2), Ekiti (1) and Osun (1).

With 70 new infections on Friday, Lagos further stretched its lead on the number of infections to over 22,000, about a third of the country’s total.

Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, and the second-most impacted city, with a total of over 6,000 cases, also came second on Friday with 22 infections.

Currently, Nigeria has tested about 697,544 of its 200 million population.

The Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 has expressed concern over the mental state of survivors of COVID-19 in the country.

Boss Mustapha, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Chairman of the task force, expressed the concern in Abuja at the joint national briefing of the taskforce.

"The PTF is still very much concerned about the mental health of survivors of the COVID-19 virus.

"In this regard, the PTF is following reports from researches around the world regarding the state of psychiatric health of survivors and has intensified plans for in-country response under the treatment and post-treatment regimes," Mustapha said.

The COVID-19 pandemic may have worsened Nigeria’s poverty level, but experts say investing in Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) elimination will improve the nations economy, preventing disability of millions of Nigerians. 
 
Recent figure from The World Poverty Clock shows that about 51 percent of Nigeria’s population have been living in extreme poverty since November 2019. According to projections, the effect of COVID-19 pandemic will be worsening this situation unless government chooses to intervene through measures such as funding NTDs elimination Programme.
NTDs, which are a group of infectious parasitic and bacterial infections such as elephantiasis, Buruli ulcer, river blindness and leprosy, among others, that disproportionally affect the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations, have caused severe lifelong impairment on victims. 
According to experts, more than half of Nigeria’s population are at risk of one or more of the NTDs- and are also at risk of low productivity and disability. 
Explaining more about this after a two-day media deliberation on NTDs, in Nigeria organised by the Federal Ministry of Information (FMoI) in collaboration with United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), in Ibadan, Oyo State, the National Coordinator, Neglected Tropical Diseases Elimination Programme (NTDEP) of the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), Dr. Chukwuma Anyaike, said NTDs have kept millions of Nigerian parents out of work – limiting their potentials and leaving communities stuck in poverty. 
According to him, an estimated 122 million Nigerians from all the states of the federation are at risk of one or more of the NTDs. 
But those affected are not the only ones that are less productive; their family members who may have to stay at home to take care of the infected member also have their potentials limited, he said.   
“NTD interventions should be mainstreamed with the Northeast Development/Rehabilitation Programme, Niger Delta/Ogoni Clean Up Project, Sustainable Development Goals Project in Nigeria and Home Grown School Feeding Project. The office of the Sustainable Development Goal Programme can be mandated to include funding for NTD activities on an annual basis.” 
Recall that the FMoH launched the 2016-2020 elaborate five-year-plan to eliminate NTDs by 2020, but as the year winds down, this target has yet to be met.  Reliable information reveals that no money has been released for this yet. According to the Strategic Plan, the funding gap is about $400 million. 
Anyaike appealed to government at all levels to pay more attention to NTDs and increase budget for it to save lives, banish poverty and improve the economy.
“There is need for government at all levels to release a proportion (0.05 per cent) of the total budget annually to implement critical activities, to fast-track NTDs elimination in Nigeria,” he said. 
Pointing out the impact of the disease on children, the Head, Child Rights Information Bureau (CRIB) of the FMoI, Mrs. Mercy Megwa, explained: “NTDs keep children out of school and limit the potentials of parents hence the need to eliminate them.” 
Also, a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Specialist with UNICEF, Bioye Ogunjobi, said when you eliminate NTDs, you are likely to bring a lot of people out of poverty, mostly in rural communities.
“Because these diseases do not allow people to be productive, there’s need for government to do something about it. There is need for public awareness on NTDs that will enlighten people about the diseases and how people can be affected by it. A lot of people have one of these diseases and think it is spiritual, that someone has attacked them. And this is why we have the WASH-NTDs integration designed to prevent NTDs. Adherence to proper hygiene and safe sanitation, including use of toilet, regular hand washing and clean environment could assist in eliminating NTDs.

A two-week state of emergency sparked by a surge in new Covid-19 cases went into effect Monday in Utah and the governor there has ordered residents to mask up “for the foreseeable future.”
Gov. Gary R. Herbert, a Republican who has supported wearing masks but had resisted imposing a mandate, reversed course after the state experienced a 46 percent increase in new cases in the last two weeks, the latest NBC News figures showed.
“We cannot afford to debate this issue any longer,” Herbert said in a video posted Sunday to Twitter. “Individual freedom is certainly important, and it is our rule of law that protects that freedom.”
Herbert signed the order on the same day that Covid-19 cases topped 50 million around the world and before the electrifying news from drug company Pfizer Monday that an early analysis of its potential coronavirus vaccine showed it was 90 percent effective at preventing infections.
The Pfizer announcement came on the heels of Joe Biden's projected victory over President Donald Trump in a presidential election that became a referendum on the Trump administration’s much-criticized response to a pandemic that has killed nearly 240,000 people in the United States and infected more than 10 million. Both are world-leading figures.
"Today is a great day for science and humanity," Albert Bourla, Pfizer's chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. "We are reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development program at a time when the world needs it most with infection rates setting new records, hospitals nearing over-capacity and economies struggling to reopen."