₦airaland Forum

Ten Republican senators on Sunday requested a meeting with President Biden to detail a smaller counterproposal to his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, an alternative they believe could be approved "quickly by Congress with bipartisan support."
The outreach from more moderate GOP lawmakers, led by Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, came as many Democrats look to a process called budget reconciliation, which would potentially enable Democrats to approve the president's plan without any Republican support.
"We recognize your calls for unity and want to work in good faith with your Administration to meet the health, economic, and societal challenges of the COVID crisis," the GOP senators write in a letter dated Sunday.
Republicans have balked at the price tag of Biden's $1.9 trillion package, especially coming weeks after then-President Donald Trump signed a $900 billion relief measure into law. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who also signed the letter, told Fox News Sunday that the counterproposal would cost about $600 billion.
That 10 Republicans signed on is notable because that's the number that would be needed to combine with Senate Democrats' 50-person caucus to reach the 60-vote, filibuster-proof threshold to pass legislation under regular Senate rules.
In a statement Sunday night, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden "spoke to Senator Collins, and invited her and other signers of the letter to come to the White House early this week for a full exchange of views."
"We're certainly open to input from anywhere where we can find a constructive idea to make this package as effective as possible, but the president is uncompromising when it comes to the speed that we need to act at to address this crisis," Brian Deese, Biden's top economic adviser, told CNN's State of the Union Sunday.
On Friday, Biden himself told reporters at the White House: "I support passing COVID relief with support from Republicans if we can get it. But the COVID relief has to pass."
In the letter Sunday, the senators note that earlier COVID-19 relief packages passed with bipartisan support and that their proposal includes some elements similar to those in Biden's plan, including allocating $160 billion for vaccine development and distribution, testing and tracing, and personal protective equipment.
"Our proposal also includes economic relief for those Americans with the greatest need, providing more targeted assistance than in the Administration's plan," the letter reads. "We propose an additional round of economic impact payments for those families who need assistance the most, including their dependent children and adults."
The lawmakers say their plan also includes extending enhanced federal unemployment benefits and deploying additional resources to help small businesses.
Notably, the letter does not mention state and local aid, which was a key sticking point in past rounds of relief negotiations. Biden's package includes $350 billion in emergency funding for state and local governments.
The letter was also signed by Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Todd Young of Indiana, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Rob Portman of Ohio, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, Mitt Romney of Utah and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia.



After trump left the White House, the Republican Party had to find a chance to show its existence, but we must know that political games can't be at the cost of life! I'm very glad for the current situation in our country. Although there are different views and disputes, the government has done a lot to help fight the epidemic.

The Minister of State for Health, Sen. Olorunnibe Mamora, has assured that COVID-19 vaccines, when received in Nigeria, would be subjected to scrutiny by relevant authorities before usage.
The minister made this known in Abuja on Thursday while on a facility inspection tour of the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD). Mamora said the scrutiny was necessary, because the vaccines were being produced under emergency conditions, adding that countries were required to sign indemnity before receiving the vaccines.

He also said that the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) would subject the vaccines to thorough scrutiny to ascertain their safety. While commending the management of NIPRD for its efforts in developing safe and local pharmaceutical products, he noted that research and development remained important in promoting the good health and economic wellbeing of any nation. He then called on stakeholders to collaborate more with NIPRD in its bid to develop local medicinal products and achieve its other mandates. “Vaccines are being used under emergency condition and they will be subjected to scrutiny in Nigeria; NAFDAC will have to examine them thoroughly before usage.

“All over the world, management of disease conditions and ill health revolves around new technologies and good medicines. “Nigeria has since recognised the important role of research and development in the push to promote good health, wellbeing and economic development. “The country has developed policies, institutions and programmes that support scientific research and development, like NIPRD. “I call on development partners, foundations and philanthropic organisations to collaborate more with NIPRD in its bid to make Nigeria self-sufficient in medicine production,’’ he said. Earlier, the Director-General of NIPRD, Dr Obi Adigwe, commended the minister for the ministry’s efforts at checking the spread of COVID-19 in the country. Adigwe said NIPRD was established to enhance the development and commercialisation of pharmaceutical raw materials, drugs and biological products, using indigenous natural resources. He said that the institute had pioneered research and development of various medicines using local plants. He therefore, called for improved funding to enable the institute deliver more on its mandate. “Prioritisation and adequate funding of the sector are still suboptimal. Partners, such as philanthropic organisations and development partners are yet to align to government position,’’ he said. He then called on all stakeholders to support NIPRD in its efforts at combating COVID-19 and other critical health issues.
Vaccination is the most important thing at present, it is very necessary to check the vaccine before use.

Nigeria recorded four cases of the highly contagious COVID-19 variant B117, first reported in Britain, while still expecting vaccines against the virus, the Nigerian government said on Monday.
Three cases were found in Nigerians who had traveled out of the country and one is a resident, said Boss Mustapha, secretary to the government of the federation and chairman of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, at a daily news conference.
Mustapha said that over the last few weeks, the PTF had been closely following the rising number of infections reported daily in Nigeria while scientists were sequencing the variants of the virus.
“When they were tested, this strain was found in them within a week of returning to Nigeria. This was reported to us through the international health regulations and it is most unlikely this strain was acquired in Nigeria,” said Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), while shedding more light on the new development at the same news conference on Monday.
Ihekweazu said his agency would keep intensifying genomics surveillance and sequencing in collaboration with its partners, as shutting down international travel would not achieve much so long as the virus was still ravaging in other countries.
However, the country is extending its eased lockdown for another month, citing increasing numbers as the reason.
Nigeria is expected to receive 100,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines early next month, with the efforts to deploy them underway, the official said.
“We wish to assure all Nigerians that the vaccines will be safe and effective when eventually it is deployed. We enjoin everyone to join in the campaign to eliminate vaccine hesitancy,” he said.
Health Minister Osagie Ehanire said at the news conference on Monday the government is exploring all options to ensure the vaccination of 70 percent of the Nigerian population within two years.
“With an eye on value-for-money, we are negotiating with many parties and planning for flawless execution using recent experience from polio eradication in the face of a global scramble for vaccines,” Ehanire added.

Not only is President Biden extending former President Trump’s travel bans, but according to Reuters he’s also adding another country to the ban list.
This is in addition to requiring pre-travel coronavirus testing for all US-bound passengers, and the eventual introduction of a quarantine requirement for those arriving in the US (the exact details of this remain to be seen).
Biden plans to introduce a new South Africa travel ban as of January 30, 2021. This would work similarly to other travel bans we’ve seen, meaning that:
Americans would still be allowed to travel to South Africa
With this ban, non-Americans who have been in South Africa in the past 14 days wouldn’t be permitted to enter the United States
Some exceptions would apply, like certain essential travelers, family members of Americans, etc.
Presumably South Africa is being singled out here because the country has a new coronavirus variant that poses even more of a risk.
While I can in theory see the logic of this ban, the problem is that this ban does nothing to discourage or prevent Americans from visiting South Africa. It simply prevents others who had been in South Africa from entering the US. Last I checked, coronavirus doesn’t discriminate based on what country your passport is from. I get that this is probably better than nothing, and that the US can’t really deny Americans entry into “their” country, but…

I think the travel ban should be aimed at both parties. Only unilateral restrictions are inevitably a bit unfair.

The emergence of COVID-19 in January, 2020, has led to the largest pandemic in recent history. With fragile health systems, limited testing capacities, and potentially vulnerable populations, Africa was projected to be the worst affected continent.1 However, as of Dec 31, 2020, the African region, with 14% of the global population and 47 member states, remains among the least affected of the WHO regions, accounting for 2·4% of confirmed cases and 2·4% of deaths globally. In 2020, following substantial increases in June and July, COVID-19 cases declined in August and September, before plateauing in October and steadily increasing again in November and December.
Although several countries in Europe are experiencing second waves of the pandemic,2 there is rising fear of a COVID-19 resurgence in the African region. The recent upsurge seen in South Africa, Nigeria, and Senegal indicates possible resurgence, with notable signs of reduced adherence to public health and social measures (PHSM). As a result, transmission in households, schools, prisons, and other close settings has increased. This increase in transmission might force member states to reinstate lockdown measures with the associated negative socio-economic consequences.
Three interventions are crucial to prepare for and respond to a possible COVID-19 resurgence. First, communities should be empowered as first responders. The experiences during recurrent Ebola outbreaks, and the HIV pandemic, suggest that member states should invest more in engaging the community in the COVID-19 response by involving community leaders as partners, so improving buy-ins for PHSM, and mitigating harm from misinformation. Member states are urged to form local committees responsible for community dialogues on preventive measures with tailored messaging based on feedback around COVID-19 risk perceptions. Second, the risk of continued spread at subnational levels should be assessed to inform tailored responses. We recommend WHO's new guidance on implementing and adjusting PHSM in the context of COVID-19,3 which uses a risk–benefit approach at the lowest administrative level, with transmission intensity and health systems' response capacity used to assign a risk level to each area. Third, member states should plan for the worst-case scenario by anticipating when health system capacity might be overwhelmed, developing contingency plans aimed at improving and adjusting testing strategy and capacity,4 scaling up active case finding in areas with widespread community transmission, increasing capacity to isolate all cases, and maximising the current health workforce including redeploying health workers to high-need areas.
Sustainable and rapidly implemented interventions require strengthened response coordination to reduce transmission to levels that allow economic activity to continue across the region.
We declare no competing interests. The views expressed in this Correspondence are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of WHO.

Acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine continues to soar, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds, but pessimism is also on the rise about when things in the United States will get back to normal.
Both results may be signs that the messages from President-elect Joe Biden are being heard. He has taken the vaccine himself, and on camera – something President Donald Trump hasn't done – and he has cautioned that the pandemic is going to get worse before it gets better. 
Now 56% of those surveyed say they will get the vaccine as soon it was available to them, a jump of 10 percentage points since the USA TODAY poll in December and up 30 points since October. 
"The more people that get a vaccination and they see that it's safe ... then more people are willing to go get it," said Shellie Belapurkar, 50, a nurse-practitioner from Nashua, New Hampshire, who was among those surveyed. She has gotten the vaccine herself and has been volunteering at a clinic each week to give it to others.
"It's all about education, and I don't think we've educated our population nearly enough to the dangers" of the coronavirus, she said in an interview.
Most of the shift has come from those who were reluctant to get the vaccine until others had taken it first. Those who expressed that view made up 47% in October, 32% in December and just 22% now. 
"When they first announced that the vaccine was available, I was a little bit hesitant," said Sandi Bethune, 71, a retired training manager for AT&T from Oakland, California. "I was never not going to get it, but I wanted to wait for a while and let some other people be the guinea pigs." Now, she said, "as soon as I can take it, I'm taking it."
But those who declare they will not get the vaccine has barely budged, edging down to 18% now compared with 20% in October and December.
"There's so much in it that's not good for our bodies," said Brook-lyn Parker, 28, a cosmetologist from Watertown, New York, who said she would never get the shot. "For me, natural immunization is a better way to go as far as COVID goes, kind of like the flu." As evidence, she noted that she has never gotten the flu vaccine but has caught the flu only twice.

President-elect Joe Biden on Friday said he would deploy the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Guard to help set up vaccine clinics across the U.S. as part of an ambitious plan to get shots to millions of Americans.

Reminding the public that help is soon on the way in a speech from Wilmington, Delaware, Biden outlined a five-part plan to turn “frustration to motivation” that will get the U.S. out of the pandemic.

Under the plan, the White House would enlist the support of FEMA and the National Guard to set up thousands of community vaccination sites to help states vaccinate more people. To support states, Biden said the federal government would fully reimburse states for their use of the National Guard.

Also, under the plan, Biden would also jump-start efforts to make vaccinations available in all pharmacies across the country and would launch mobile vaccination clinics designed to specifically reach underserved urban and rural areas.

"As we build them, we will make sure it’s done equitably. We’ll make sure there are vaccination centers in communities hit hardest by the pandemic, in Black and Latino communities, and rural communities as well," he said Friday.

The plan would also launch new ways of getting shots to high-risk people, like homeless people, incarcerated people and residents of institutions that serve developmentally and intellectually disabled people.

In addition, Biden vowed to use the Defense Production Act to help ramp up the supply of various vaccines.

“We didn’t get into all of this overnight, we won't get out of it overnight either,” Biden said while unveiling the plan. "But we will get through it."

President-elect Joe Biden is scheduled to receive a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine Monday, a transition official said Friday.
The completed vaccinations for Biden and later for Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, would be done in front of cameras, said Jen Psaki, incoming White House press secretary, during a news conference.
"They’ll both do it publicly to continue to instill confidence in the vaccine’s safety and efficacy," she said.
Biden received his first shot Dec. 21 and Harris on Dec. 29. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the Pfizer shots be administered 21 days apart. As many as 35 other members of the incoming Biden administration will be vaccinated before or near the inauguration, Psaki said. 
The president-elect's vaccination should be the first step for American society to restore rationality, right? Goodbye, crazy Mr. Trump. Why is the US system so fragile in the face of the epidemic? Why do people enthusiastically trust Trump? This is not only worthy of reflection by Americans, but also worthy of reflection by people in other countries!

U.S. lawmakers who were in lockdown when a violent mob breached security at the Capitol last week likely have been exposed to the coronavirus, Congress’ attending physician warned Sunday.
 
“On Wednesday January 6, many members of the House community were in protective isolation in a room located in a large committee hearing space,” Dr. Brian Monahan wrote in an email to lawmakers.
 
“The time in this room was several hours for some and briefer for others. During this time, individuals may have been exposed to another occupant with coronavirus infection.”
Monahan didn’t specify how many members were in the room or who, if anyone, from the room is known to have tested positive.
 
Many lawmakers and staff have expressed outrage as images surfaced of Republican members of Congress not wearing masks during the lockdown.
 
On Wednesday afternoon, hundreds of supporters of President Donald Trump, angry over his loss to Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 election, forced their way into the building that contains the House and Senate while lawmakers were meeting in a joint session to certify Biden’s victory.
 
Many photos show rioters not wearing masks.

A renowned virologist, Prof Sunday Omilabu, has cautioned against vaccinating Nigerians that have acquired natural immunity to the COVID-19 virus.
Omilabu who is the director of the Centre for Human and Zoonotic Virology at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital and the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, said giving the COVID-19 vaccine to such people could jeopardize their natural immunity.
The virologist, who is currently working on the sequencing of the Nigerian variant of the COVID-19 virus discovered recently, warned that Nigeria and other African countries should handle the issue of vaccination cautiously because most Africans have an innate immunity that is playing down on the virulence of the virus.

A Nigerian medical practitioner, Dr. Chigaemezu Edward, has lamented the unpreparedness of Nigeria to tackle emergency health demands created by the coronavirus pandemic, which caused a lot of devastations in the country and globally.
He said: “The COVID-19 pandemic came as a challenge for the Nigerian health system as it wasn’t epidemic prepared as it ought to have been.”
Edward, who described Nigeria as one of the countries with the highest number of reported coronavirus cases in Africa, and one of the African countries most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, said “as of present, Nigeria spends less than 5% of its budget on the health sector.”
Consequently, he said: “It is no wonder that the pandemic hit the nation as much as it did. The pandemic threw up the inadequacies of the Nigerian health sector including that of the primary healthcare.
“The country’s healthcare system has been described as weak. The facilities are run down and are nothing to write home about. With the rising cases of Covid-19, the health system is overwhelmed and many institutions have begun to reject patients.
“Routine health services are not being rendered as they should and hospitals reject patients who have ailments unrelated to Covid-19. With some of the worst health indices in countries at similar stages of development.
“The maternal mortality rate (MMR) is 512 per 100,000 live births, infant mortality is at 67 per 1,000 live births of children 1 years of age, the prevalence of stunting in children under 5 is 36.8% nationwide, the contraceptive prevalence rate is 16.6% and DPT3/Penta 3 vaccine coverage is 50.1% nationwide, although there are regional variations in vaccine coverage.
“Progress has been made in improving health in some of these indices, however this gloomy snapshot of health indicators shows the scale of the health challenges the country is already facing.
“When the COVID-19 outbreak started in Nigeria, many of the existing health issues took a temporary back seat as the country grappled with the COVID-19 response. These issues may have been put to one side, but they have not gone away.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the spotlight on the deficits in the Nigerian health sector, as greater pressure has been put on existing facilities, especially at the primary health care level. Many health facilities are plagued with poor infrastructure, and inadequate number of health workers and medical equipment.
Consequently, the optometrist advised the authorities concerned to ensure that the health sector was well funded for provision of adequate facilities to hospitals.
He also encouraged everyone to respect the Covid-19 protocols and warned that disregard for the use of masks and observance of social distancing could further have devastating effects, noting that, “Nigeria does not have enough facilities to arrest medical emergencies like Covid-19.”

A researcher who identified a novel coronavirus variant in Nigeria has cautioned against automatic assumptions that it poses similar risks to strains that have emerged elsewhere.
The new strain was uncovered last week by scientists at the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID) in southeastern Nigeria.
ACEGID director Christian Happi said the variant was found in two out of 200 samples of virus collected from patients between August 3 and October 9.
The two samples were taken from the same state in Nigeria at different times.
They show a variant "different to the one that has been circulating in Nigeria, different from the one in South Africa and different from the one in the UK," he said in an interview with AFP.
Britain tightened restrictions after finding a new strain there that it said was more contagious than initial forms of the virus.
South Africa says a new strain detected there could explain the rapid spread of a second wave that has especially affected younger people.
Happi stressed that scientists were racing to unlock knowledge about the Nigeria strain and urged people not to "extrapolate."
"We have no idea, no evidence to say that this variant is linked to the spike we are seeing in Nigeria or not," said Happi, explaining that samples from the latest cases were being analysed for an answer.
Nigeria has recorded more than 82,000 cases of Covid-19, of which 1,246 were fatal.
Compared to the country's population of some 200 million people, this number is tiny.
However, the tally of cases has been rising by several hundred a day since the start of December. There has been a major increase in Lagos, Nigeria's economic capital, prompting the authorities there to reinstate a curfew and gatherings of more than 50 people.
But the number of deaths in Nigeria has not experienced a proportionate surge.
"A lot of the models drawn at the onset of the pandemic, all got it wrong," he said.
"They were saying by now that a third of the African population would be dead. So people need to think," he said.
"It is very wrong to assume models based on knowledge that are not accurate or on assumptions that are dependent on data obtained from Europe or the US and transpose it to a continent like Africa -- we are genetically different, we are immunologically different."
All of Africa has recorded 2.4 million cases, according to an AFP tally -- just 3.6 percent of the global tally, although testing is also far less widespread. The continent's death toll of 57,000 is less than a fifth of that of the United States.
John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the African Union's health agency, also urged patience as scientists worked to understand the Nigerian variant.
"Give us some time," he said in a videoconference from Addis Ababa. "It's still very early."
Nkengasong appealed to Africans not to let down their guard, warning of the danger of a second wave of infection.

Mutated viruses have appeared in more and more countries, which proves that Covid-19 is developing in a direction that people cannot predict, and the degree of harm cannot be estimated!

COVID-19 has killed one of every 1000 people in the United States, slightly more than 11 months since the first case was reported.
According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, there were 331,561 confirmed coronavirus fatalities in the nation as of Saturday afternoon.
The US Census Bureau estimates that the population is currently about 330,750,000.
Almost 19 million people have been infected with the deadly coronavirus in the US.
The number of infections in the United States is by far the highest in the world - more than the two countries with the second and third-highest rate, India and Brazil, combined.
The grim milestone comes less than a year after the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported the first confirmed infection with the virus, in a patient in the state of Washington, on January 20.
The first coronavirus-related death in the country occurred just a few days after that, on February 6 in California.
Infections and fatalities slowed down over the summer but have spiked again recently,
The death toll hit 100,000 in May. Six months later, the country surpassed 200,000 deaths.
Death rates have accelerated since November - the next 100,000 deaths were reported just 11 weeks after that, on December 14.
A recent analysis released by The COVID Tracking Project found the during the first three weeks of December "we've seen more COVID-19 deaths ... than in any other month in the US pandemic."
During that period, the country averaged 2506 deaths. In April, "when the country was still reeling from the pandemic's initial surge, we saw an average of 1,842 deaths reported each day."

This is a deadly virus. Everyone should be vigilant, and the government should set an example and take responsibility. The US government has left the virus alone for so long, and how many innocent lives have been sacrificed!

As Nigerians join the rest of the world to celebrate the availability of effective COVID-19 vaccines, human behaviour is expected to continue to drive the spread of the virus until the vaccines are widely available.

Although it is cheering news that at least two of the COVID-19 vaccine candidates have been approved, they are not yet widely available, hence Nigerians need to appreciate that vaccine protection is a long process and that a vaccine is not a magic bullet that would make the infection disappear in an instant.

In the wake of the onset of the second wave infections in the country, the federal government has advised against all forms of non-essential traveling during the Christmas season as a measure to curtail a further transmission of the coronavirus.

The $900 billion stimulus package agreed to by U.S. lawmakers over the weekend could keep the economy from contracting again, but pandemic-related risks remain if activity doesn’t start to bounce back next year.
The fiscal relief package includes $600 one-time checks to individuals, more funding for the Paycheck Protection Program and an extension of unemployment benefits through March, with each week supplemented by a $300 payment. Those measures -- which Congress may approve Monday -- could help prop up a U.S. economy that’s been deteriorating in recent weeks.
The relief is less than what Democratic Party lawmakers proposed, and President-elect Joe Biden’s administration will likely seek additional stimulus when he takes office in January.
Initial jobless claims are at a three-month high, November’s payroll gains were well below expectations and retail sales declined in both October and November. The passage of additional fiscal support, combined with increasing numbers of Americans being vaccinated, means the economic recovery should be off and running by mid-2021, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said in a note.
The stimulus deal “has come just in time to forestall a double-dip recession,” Zandi said. The package will add approximately 1.5 percentage points to annualized real GDP growth in the first quarter of 2021, and about 2.5 percentage points to next year’s growth, he said.
The relief package “should be very helpful for the economy,” Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co., said on Bloomberg Television. He estimated that it could boost GDP by as much as 3% over time. Morgan Stanley economists said in a note that the stimulus outcome “lowers the risk of a negative GDP print” in the first quarter of 2021.
Still, many of the protections expire in the first quarter, meaning additional relief could be needed by March. While the Covid-19 vaccine rollout is expected to pick up by spring, the sectors most impacted by the pandemic are unlikely to approach full reopening until later in the year, Andrew Husby, economist at Bloomberg Economics, said in a note.

Just a few days into the historic rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine, there have already been some hitches and confusion over when and how many doses will be distributed in the coming weeks.
Several governors have reported that half as many Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine shots as expected are going to be delivered in the next few weeks and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has suggested that Pfizer is having manufacturing problems.
The federal Department of Health and Human Services, however, released a statement Thursday denying the number of doses are being reduced.
“Reports that jurisdictions’ allocations are being reduced are incorrect,” an HHS spokesperson said in a statement. “As was done with the initial shipments of Pfizer vaccine, jurisdictions will receive vaccine at different sites over several days.”
This, the spokesperson said, “eases the burden on the jurisdictions and spreads the workload across multiple days.”
Meanwhile, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla insisted via Twitter on Thursday that the company is “not having any production issues with our Covid-19 vaccine, and no shipments containing the vaccine are on hold or delayed.”
“This week, we successfully shipped all 2.9 million doses that we were asked to ship by the U.S. Government to the locations specified by them,” an official Pfizer statement read. “We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses.”
The confusion appears to have started Wednesday during a briefing led by Gen. Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, when it was announced that some 2 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine would be allocated next week. That is 900,000 fewer doses than this week.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Pfizer was contending with some production challenges.
“As you know, they ended up coming short by half of what they thought they’d be able to produce, and what they’d announced they’d be able to produce” in 2020, he said.
This was after DeSantis said Tuesday that Florida is getting 450,000 fewer doses in the next few weeks because Pfizer is having production problems.
“We were supposed to get for next week 205,000 Pfizer (doses) and then next week 247,000,” he said at a press conference. “Those next two shipments of Pfizer (vaccine) are on hold right now. We don’t know whether we will get any or not. And we’re just going to have to wait.”
Later, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said his state is getting a little less than half of the 8.8 million coronavirus vaccine doses that were supposed to be delivered in the next two weeks.
“Per the direction of Operation War Speed’s Gen. Perna, that estimate was tightened significantly down to 4.3 million doses shipped nationally next week,” Pritzker said Wednesday. “The following week, originally projected for another 8.8 million, is also now scheduled to be 4.3 million.”
That same day, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services announced that its vaccine allotment was shrinking by 29 percent next week from 84,000 doses to 60,000.
“This is decided at the federal level and subject to change,” Lynn Sutfin said in an email to Crain’s Detroit Business.
Pfizer’s manufacturing plant and vaccine distribution center is located on a campus just outside Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee was the most recent to say that his state’s vaccine allotment will be cut -- without any explanation -- by 40 percent next week “and all states are seeing similar cuts.”
“This is disruptive and frustrating,” Inslee tweeted. “We need accurate, predictable numbers to plan and ensure on-the-ground success.”
In addition to the confusion over dose distribution, some 39,000 Pfizer shots bound for Alabama and California were sent back to the manufacturer because they had been stored in conditions that were even colder than the minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit that Pfizer recommends, Perna said Wednesday.
“We were taking no chances,” he said.
Pfizer’s vaccine was the first to get emergency authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. And unlike other vaccine developers, Pfizer did not take any federal funds for research or development from Operation Warp Speed.

The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, on Wednesday, said Nigeria should be taking delivery of COVID-19 vaccine by January 2021.
He said a committee set up for that purpose was already working with a view to deciding the kind of vaccine that will be suitable for Nigeria.
Ehanire disclosed this in an interview with State House correspondents after the weekly meeting of the Federal Executive Council presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.
The minister said the need to make a choice among the vaccines currently available was necessary because of the different temperatures needed to preserve them.
He said Nigeria has signed up with the World Health Organisation and the GAVI Alliance for access to vaccines immediately they are available.
While saying that the countries where they are being manufactured will naturally give their citizens priority, he expressed the hope that the pressure from the WHO and GAVI will be able to get reserves for other countries that are not manufacturing.
The minister said, “We signed up for advanced market participation in COVAX. So, if we will be able to get our own, I think it will be in January.
“But there are two types of vaccines. There are those that have to be in ultra-deep freezers – the MRA type of vaccines. That is the freezer that must give you -80 per cent type of degree.

With the opening of travel corridors, people will travel, cross-country and across the globe, for a variety of reasons. Inevitably, such criss-crossings will include to and fro coronavirus hotspots. And justifiably, there has been genuine concerns about such movement driving another spread of the virus around. This time last year, that was the pattern of spread, mostly through international travel. However, between last December and now, the world has learnt enough about the novel coronavirus, to contain its spread, if not totally rein it in by prevention or curative means.
While there has been cheering news about a couple of vaccines that may eventually become game-changers against the scythe currently wielded by the pandemic, the world is still a long way from having assurance of curbing what has been one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. As for now, the requirement for COVID-19 tests prior to travel date is one of the essential instruments in the toolbox being deployed to combat COVID-19.
Sadly, this measure had been rendered ineffective even before it took off. The issue is the cost of the tests to the traveller. Someone travelling from London, UK to Lagos, Nigeria pays £154 for a COVID-19 test and another upfront payment of £105 for another COVID-19 test after seven days of arriving in Nigeria, totalling £259. How many travellers will be able to afford that after paying the same amount for a seat on a flight, when indeed, 95 per cent of travellers travel economy class?
With the future uncertain, one can boldly argue for free COVID-19 tests for international travellers. Such a move will encourage travellers to readily submit themselves to tests at designated certified test centres or at the certified test airports, while their national governments pick up the tab. A small travel tax included in the travel fares should be able to cover for this. That way, it is easier to identify and eliminate from the loop bugs that might otherwise truncate the objectives of the COVID-19 test. When international travellers test positive for COVID-19, they postpone their travel until they have shed the virus and test negative. With the world standing on the precipice for one whole year, enough lessons ought to have been learnt, especially about the need to have well-thought plans that do not leave room for unnecessary rebounds that will further jeopardise the world. Making the COVID-19 test free is a small price to pay in this long, unpredictable fight against the novel coronavirus.

Abuja (Reuters - Nigeria may be on the verge of a second wave of COVID-19 infections, the health minister warned on Thursday, as another official said the country expects to roll out a vaccine by April next year.
Osagie Ehanire, speaking at a news conference in the capital Abuja, said 1,843 cases were recorded last week compared with 1,235 two weeks before that.
"We may just be on the verge of a second wave of this pandemic," he said. His comments came a day after South Africa said it had officially entered a second wave.
Ehanire, in a weekly briefing by Nigeria's COVID-19 task force, said the rise in cases was mostly driven by an increase in infections within communities and, to a lesser extent, by travellers entering Nigeria.
He said he had ordered the reopening of all isolation and treatment centres that had been closed due to falling patient numbers.
Nigeria, with a population of around 200 million people, has had 70,669 confirmed cases which resulted in 1,184 deaths as of Thursday.
Looking ahead to a vaccine, Faisal Shuaib, executive director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), said Nigeria planned to access one through the Covax initiative backed by the World Health Organization.
"We are on course to access safe and efficacious COVID-19 vaccines in the first quarter of 2021," he said.
The health minister later in the briefing said Nigeria hoped to start with at least 20 million doses from the Covax facility, initially covering healthcare workers and vulnerable people who would be most at risk if infected, such as the elderly.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention urged rich countries that have ordered more COVID-19 vaccines than they need to consider distributing excess doses to Africa.

Lockdown measures to contain the spread of the virus and safeguard healthcare systems reduced global energy demand, resulting in a steep drop in the price of oil. As a result, Africa’s oil industry, which accounts for 40% of the continent’s exports, has seen an abrupt and severe drop in revenue, increasing fiscal pressures on major producers like Nigeria, Angola and Algeria.
At the same time, the pandemic has impacted supply chains for African energy projects and prevented workers from travelling. Moreover, financial resources intended for major energy developments have been redirected towards healthcare or used to ease the pressure on government budgets, particularly in heavily indebted Sub-Saharan countries. This has affected the financial health of state-owned energy companies, many of which were under pressure before the pandemic struck.
All this offers Africa the chance to accelerate its use of renewable energy, which in turn should make the continent more resilient to future economic shocks.

Healthcare workers and others recommended for the first COVID-19 inoculations could start getting shots within 24 hours after the vaccine receives regulatory authorization, the chief adviser for the U.S. government's Operation Warp Speed program said on Tuesday.
Moncef Slaoui, a former GlaxoSmithKline executive overseeing the vaccine portion of the U.S. program, said he hopes 20 million people will have been vaccinated by the end of this year.
"Within 24 hours, maybe at most 36 to 48 hours, from the approval, the vaccine can be in people's arms," Slaoui said at an event conducted by The Washington Post.
Slaoui said practice shipping runs - without vaccines - have been conducted to prepare for initial distribution expected to begin in mid-December once Pfizer Inc receives an emergency use authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its vaccine.
Pfizer applied for the EUA on Nov. 20 after publishing data that showed the vaccine developed with German partner BioNTech SE was 95% effective in preventing COVID-19.
A committee of outside expert advisers is scheduled to meet on Dec. 10 to discuss the data and make a recommendation to the FDA on whether to grant authorization. The agency typically follows the advice of these expert committees.
States will be in charge of distributing vaccines to their populations. Slaoui said the federal government will ship doses to the locations identified in state plans.
The United States should have 60 million to 70 million doses a month by January, between both the Pfizer and Moderna Inc vaccines, Slaoui said. Moderna's vaccine, which was about equally effective, will be reviewed by the expert panel a week after Pfizer's.
Both vaccines require patients to receive two doses about a month apart.
If experimental vaccines from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca Plc also receive emergency approval, Slaoui said that will add 30 million to 50 million additional doses.
If there are four approved vaccines by early next year, manufacturing of doses should ramp up significantly in about March or April to about 150 million shots per month, he said.
J&J has said that it is on track to release an interim analysis of its large vaccine trial late this year or early next year. It would likely then need full data from the trial before applying for authorization.
Speedy U.S. clearance for the AstraZeneca vaccine appears unlikely. The company and Oxford University researchers released interim data on Nov. 23 that showed its vaccine was on average 70% effective and could be up to 90% effective against the virus with an alternate dosing regimen.
Some scientists have raised doubts about the strength of AstraZeneca's data after it turned out that patients in the UK part of the trial that showed 90% efficacy had accidentally received a half dose of the vaccine followed by the full dose.
AstraZeneca said that it will likely run an additional global trial using that dosing regimen to confirm those results.

Commissioner for Health, Abia State, Dr Joe Osuji has disclosed that 17 members of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, currently at the orientation camp at Umunna, Bende council area, have tested positive for COVID-19.
Osuji, who stated this in an interview with journalists, explained that the corps members underwent compulsory testing on arrival at the orientation camp where it was discovered that 17 of them tested positive for COVID-19.
He added that seven of those who tested positive have been treated and discharged, two on self-isolation while five are at the state isolation centre, Umuahia.
The commissioner lamented that people are no longer observing the COVID-19 protocol in wearing face masks while those who wear masks, do wear it halfway.
He warned that the pandemic was not yet over as the virus is still ravaging many countries across the world.
The Commissioner lauded the government for easing the difficulty in transporting samples of the COVID-19 test to Irua Edo State, Abakaliki, Ebonyi State and a laboratory centre at Owerri, as Gov Okezie Ikpeazu established a molecular laboratory at Amachara General hospital, Umuahia as well as the infectious Disease Hospital and treatment centre, Aba.
Osuji also noted that within the period of time the state set up a test centre, about 10,864 samples were collected and 947 tested positive.
Stressing that Abia has the highest sample testing centres in the South East and South-south zones, the Commissioner further stated that the state government provided medication adding that 925 persons have been treated and discharged, 11 patients on self-isolation under close monitoring while 7 are currently at the treatment centres.
"In the month of July till date, testing is still ongoing in the entire 17 LGAs. If somebody tests positive, we immediately begin contact tracing from family to where he or she works, that is how we have been able to contain the virus. As I speak we have almost flattened the curve, all these were made possible through the governor's efforts."

The New Orleans Saints and the New England Patriots have been ordered to pay major fines for violating the NFL's Covid-19 protocols, the official NFL website said Sunday.
The Patriots were fined $350,000 after quarterback Cam Newton's Covid-19 diagnosis led the league to push back a Week 4 game between the Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs, NFL.com reported.
Newton tested positive for the coronavirus in early October. "I never will question God's reasoning, just will always respond with 'YES LORD!!'" he said at the time of his diagnosis.
The Saints face a steeper fine of $500,000 for a "maskless locker room celebration" that followed their Week 9 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, according to the league's site. The team, which was reported to also have held a maskless meeting, was also docked a seventh-round draft pick.
The Saints posted videos of the celebration on social media, which clued the league in to the policy violations.
The NFL previously issued a $100,000 fine to New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton and a $250,000 fine to the team in September after Payton, who announced in March that he had tested positive for the coronavirus, did not wear a mask on the sidelines during a game.
The Baltimore Ravens and the Denver Broncos are also reported to be under investigation for Covid-19 policy violations.
More than 20 members of the Ravens are on the Reserve/Covid-19 list after a team outbreak — including MVP quarterback Lamar Jackson — and the team released a statement Wednesday saying it had disciplined a staff member for conduct surrounding the recent outbreak.
Spikes in case numbers both within the NFL and nationally prompted the league to close all facilities Monday and Tuesday to curb the spread.

The actual number of coronavirus infections in the U.S. reached nearly 53 million at the end of September and could be approaching 100 million now, according to a model developed by government researchers.
The model, created by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, calculated that the true number of infections is about 8 times the reported number, which includes only the cases confirmed by a laboratory test.
Preliminary estimates using the model found that by the end of September, 52.9 million people had been infected, while the number of laboratory-confirmed infections was just 6.9 million, the team reported in the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
"This indicates that approximately 84% of the U.S. population has not yet been infected and thus most of the country remains at risk," the authors wrote.
Since then, the CDC's tally of confirmed infections has increased to 12.5 million. So if the model's ratio still holds, the estimated total would now be greater than 95 million, leaving about 71% of the population uninfected.
The model attempts to account for the fact that most cases of COVID-19 are mild or asymptomatic and go unreported.
Scientists used studies looking for people who have antibodies to the coronavirus in their blood – an indication that they were infected at some time — to estimate how many infections went undetected. Some of these antibody studies have suggested that only about one in 10 coronavirus infections is reported.
The goal in creating the model was to "better quantify the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the healthcare system and society," the authors wrote.
The model also estimated that official counts do not include more than a third of the people hospitalized with COVID-19.

Alexa Aragonez said her family prided themselves on following COVID-19 precautions for months before a dozen of them gathered Nov. 1 for a "low-key" get-together.
Now the family is warning others to not make the same mistake.
Within days, everyone who attended had tested positive and, soon, three other family members became sick as well.
Weeks later, the family is still reeling from the outbreak, and those sickened are still battling symptoms, Aragonez told USA TODAY. Her mother, one of those who attended, was hospitalized for a week and may be on medication for the rest of her life because of damage from the virus.
"Please don't be like my family and ignore the CDC guidelines. By staying apart, we can fight this virus together," Aragonez said in a public service announcement published by the City of Arlington, Texas, her employer.
Multiple family members joined her in the video to echo the same message: Encouraging listeners to wear a mask, maintain social distance and wash their hands.
It's an example of how easily the virus can spread, even in a family that made a habit of staying home and wearing masks.
"My family took great precautions … taking every precaution with the exception of gathering is not enough,” Aragonez said. “My family learned the hard way.”
It seems that the United States has not paid attention to the COVID-19 virus! Everyone must keep their distance! There are so many such cases, and it is really sad! A family may be killed by carelessness once. Don’t underestimate the COVID-19 virus, it is terrible!

As Thanksgiving approaches, some conservatives in the United States are boasting online of the mass gatherings they plan to hold in defiance of social distancing measures. This strange civil disobedience, even as the country’s coronavirus cases and deaths soar, has become a bizarre mark of status for them, as they plan public events that are likely to led to people’s deaths. The denial of facts and science extends to the deathbed, as the South Dakota nurse Jodi Doering told CNN: “People are still looking for something else, and they want a magic answer, and they don’t want to believe that COVID is real. … Their last dying words are, ‘This can’t be happening. It’s not real.’”
The outright denialists are only the crudest representative of an idea that has dominated American (and to some degree, European) responses since the start of the pandemic: This can’t really be happening. As the second wave of the pandemic crashes down, the U.S. government has essentially surrendered: The Republican Party is adamantly anti-lockdown, and the country’s coronavirus task force is advised by a crank the president saw on TV. Usually, this kind of denial of reality is associated with authoritarian states and leaders who don’t need to answer to anyone. But American denialism hasn’t been driven by dictatorship or control of the media—although Donald Trump and Fox News have played a critical part in worsening things. Instead, the primary driver behind America’s current predicament has been the fundamental distrust of government itself—and the deep conviction that disaster is something that happens to other people.
The playbook for control of the coronavirus is, as countries across the Asia-Pacific have shown, simple—and painful. It begins with sharp lockdowns, pioneered by China’s near-total closure of the country for 76 days but also carried out skillfully in New Zealand, Taiwan, Vietnam, and elsewhere. In countries where the virus hasn’t taken a strong foothold, such as Japan and Australia, enforced social distancing, rather than a full lockdown, can work. During that lockdown, economic support has to flow from the government to a frozen private sector, whether through wage subsidies, direct payments, or, as in China, targeted business aid combined with restrictions on layoffs.

As COVID-19 deaths topped 250,000 today, the White House coronavirus task force signaled that the nation's pandemic situation is worsening, with more overrun hospitals and deaths potentially approaching 2,000 a day in the lead-up to Christmas—unless strong mitigation measures are taken.

Meanwhile, the global COVID-19 total topped 56 million today, as Europe's cases slowed but its deaths rose.

Moderna said Monday its COVID-19 vaccine is proving to be highly effective in a major trial, another dash of hope in the global race to tame the coronavirus.
The company revealed its vaccine appears to be 94.5% effective, according to preliminary data. Last week, Phizer announced its own vaccine is similarly effective.
A vaccine can’t come fast enough, as virus cases topped 11 million in the U.S. over the weekend — 1 million of them recorded in just the past week — and governors and mayors are ratcheting up restrictions ahead of Thanksgiving. The pandemic has killed more than 1.3 million people worldwide, over 245,000 of them in the U.S.
If the FDA allows emergency use of Moderna’s or Pfizer’s candidate, there will be limited, rationed supplies before the end of the year.
Both vaccines require people to get two shots, several weeks apart. U.S. officials said they hope to have about 20 million Moderna doses and another 20 million doses of the vaccine made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech to use in late December.
According to the CDC, when a vaccine is authorized or approved in the United States, there may not be enough doses available for all adults. “Supplies will increase over time, and all adults should be able to get vaccinated later in 2021,” the CDC wrote on the official Operation Warp Speed website. “However, a COVID-19 vaccine may not be available for young children until more studies are completed.”
On Sunday,  Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel told Business Insider a vaccine will be available to anyone who wants it by the end of May 2021.
“What I believe is that by Memorial Day, in the US, anybody who wants a vaccine will get a safe and efficacious vaccine,” Bancel said on Sunday.
Bancel made the estimate based on production estimates at Moderna and Pfizer.
Once submitted, experts say it should take 10 days for the FDA to review Pfizer’s clinical trial data. This data is not yet available. The data released by Pfizer last week was only “preliminary.”
Pfizer is not expected to receive authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration before the last two weeks of December.

euters) - The city of Philadelphia will ban indoor gatherings altogether and the nearby state of New Jersey will strictly limit their size as U.S. officials struggle to slow a COVID-19 surge that could overwhelm hospitals and kill thousands.
Philadelphia, the nation’s sixth-largest city, is strongly urging residents to shelter at home and “prohibiting indoor gatherings of any size in any location, public or private,” health commissioner Thomas Farley said at a news conference on Monday.
“We need to keep this virus from jumping from one household to another,” Farley said. If “exponential” growth of cases continues, hospitals will soon become overwhelmed and more than 1,000 people could die in Philadelphia over the next six weeks before the end of the year, he said.
In neighboring New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy on Monday said a maximum of 10 people will be allowed to gather indoors, down from 25. On Nov. 23, the limit for outdoor gatherings will drop from 500 to 150.
“It’s gotten worse and it’s gonna get worse,” the Northeastern state’s Democratic governor said in an interview with MSNBC.
By Monday, more than 70,000 people were hospitalized with coronavirus infections in the United States, an all-time high, according to Reuters tally.
Total U.S. infections crossed the 11 million mark, just over a week after hitting 10 million, the fastest time it took the country to report an additional 1 million cases since the pandemic began. States across the nation have re-imposed restrictions to stem the resurgent virus straining many healthcare systems.
In California, Governor Gavin Newsom tightened restrictions on the state, ordering many non-essential businesses to close in 41 counties where the vast majority of the state’s 40 million residents live.
Newsom reactivated plans to add additional capacity to the hospital system, amid a doubling of COVID-19 cases in the past ten days.

Despite the impact of the pandemic on businesses and income, fintechs in Africa have been in the spotlight recently, due to news of recent growth, acquisition and merger.
In a recent development, Kuda, a Nigerian startup that operates a popular mobile-first challenger bank consumers, has announced raising $10 million. This is the biggest seed round ever to be raised in Africa, according to reports by Tech Crunch
The recent announcement is a sequel to an upsurge in the demand for the firm’s services and its ambition of becoming the ‘go-to bank’ not just in the continent, but for Africans living in the diaspora also.
Kuda joins the list of other notable startups like Paystack (which was recently acquired by Stripe) and Interswitch that crossed the $1billion valuation benchmark in the list of startups that make the continent proud.
Experts have attributed the recent upsurge and remarkable performance of fintech in Africa to the growing population, as Africa is one of the most populous continents in the world.
In addition, digital inclusion has become intertwined with financial inclusion. So, as the population begins to adopt mobile technology in fullest, those users represent a big potential or market.
There is pent-up demand, and competition is relatively sparse. This has resulted in a number of innovative efforts which leveraged on the growing number of mobile phone users to adapt high demand technological services which make financial transactions cheaper, easier and more efficient.
Lastly, Nigeria being one of the biggest single economies in Africa — has also been at the centre of a lot of fintech activity, and Kuda has been taking that opportunity by the horns.
This is good news and will help our country further enhance its economic vitality.

To millions of Nigerians, the nation has moved past the worst of the coronavirus. That is even if the virus is “real and potent” in the country in the first place, many will argue.
After months of lockdowns with the attendant economic downturn, job losses, rise in domestic violence and health emergencies coupled with biting hunger, things appear to be fully returning to normal.
With Yuletide fast approaching, Nigerians now reckon it is safe to let their guards down – hands are no longer washed often, facemasks are almost forgotten, mass gatherings are no longer a problem, parties, weddings and even protests are back on the cards.
But it could just be a matter of small time before this comes back to bite us even harder and more devastating this time, health experts warn. As it is happening across Europe and the U.S., the dreaded second wave of coronavirus has commenced.
When it became clear that COVID-19 would be a global pandemic, public health experts warned of the devastating effect it would have on Nigeria and much of Africa. That forecast has not materialised compared to the havoc the deadly contagion is wrecking in the western world and many scientists are still struggling to figure it out.
But as the numbers begin to pick pace gradually in Nigeria, worries are rife that the second wave could be well on its way and would be more deadly especially now that we have lowered our guard.
Nigeria’s new COVID-19 infections have increased in the last two weeks, a PREMIUM TIMES review of official data shows, suggesting a possible resurgence in cases after weeks of low numbers.
Last week (November 1-7), the country recorded 937 new cases, a two per cent increase from the previous week’s record of 923 cases which was a 32 per cent increase from the preceding week.
Nigeria recorded its highest daily figure of confirmed infections in three months with the 300 reported cases on Sunday, raising the total tally to over 64, 000.