Nigeria recorded eight new COVID-19 infections on Wednesday, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has said.
The NCDC said that  the new were reported in Rivers-four, the FCT- three and Kwara-one.
The centre noted that no COVID-19 related fatality was recorded.
It added that 45 people were discharged  after testing negative to the COVID-19 virus.

The Houston Methodist hospital system in Texas has suspended 178 workers for not meeting a deadline to receive the COVID-19 vaccine — a policy that prompted more than 100 employees to file a lawsuit against the hospital. The employees now have until June 21 to be vaccinated, or face being fired.
The standoff represents one of the most high-profile examples of how employers' desire for their workers to be fully vaccinated is being tested by some employees' deeply held vaccine hesitancy — and in this case, the dispute is playing out within the health care system.
Houston Methodist's employees who are unwilling to get vaccinated say the vaccines are unsafe and even "experimental." In response, the hospital notes that hundreds of millions of vaccine doses have been safely administered after a vetting process that included three rounds of clinical trials.
The nearly 200 employees who missed the hospital's vaccination deadline are now suspended without pay. The group, which includes both full- and part-time employees, was given 14 days to comply, or they could lose their jobs.
The holdouts include 27 workers who have already gotten one vaccine dose; they could complete the regimen by the next deadline, according to Dr. Marc Boom, president and CEO of Houston Methodist.
"I am hopeful they will get their second doses soon," Boom said in an email sent to staff this week. In addition, he said that more than 600 employees were granted exemptions or deferrals for the vaccine requirement.
The 117 employees who filed suit reflect a small fraction of Houston Methodist's roughly 26,000 employees, Boom said.



Be sure to ensure the vaccination of medical personnel, only to ensure their vaccination, can go to accept patients, to avoid a large area of infection.

The country continued this week on a path to reopening from the Covid-19 pandemic, with major population centers such as New York and California pulling back on restrictions following increased vaccinations and lowered infections.

Yet with overall vaccination rates in the US slowing this month when compared to highs in April, health officials are raising awareness about the uneven distribution of vaccines in different parts of the country.
"I'm very unconcerned for people who have been vaccinated, and I'm more concerned for people who have not been vaccinated and the communities that are largely unvaccinated," Andy Slavitt, former White House senior adviser for the Biden administration's Covid-19 response, told CNN's Don Lemon on Wednesday.
Slavitt, who earlier described the Delta variant, or B.1.617.2, as "Covid on steroids," noted people who are in high vaccination areas are likely to know others likeminded about inoculations, and places with few vaccinations are more susceptible to clusters of Covid-19 infections.
"In those communities, a Covid that spreads twice as fast is not a good thing," Slavitt said.
The Delta variant, a form of Covid-19 first identified in India, has increased to approximately 10% of coronavirus cases in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The strain has been listed by the CDC as a "variant of concern," meaning scientists believe it is more transmittable and can cause more severe disease.
Recent studies demonstrated the effectiveness of vaccines against variants such as Delta, with many in the health community urging to Americans that the best way to defend against Covid-19 is preemptive vaccination and immunization.
"It's one more reason for people to take this seriously and say, 'Wow, we've got great vaccines, we're so lucky to have them, maybe I should take one or two,'" Slavitt said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Tuesday that the dangerous Indian COVID-19 variant could become the most dominant strain in the US — as the mutation has rapidly spread among younger people in the UK.
The White House chief medical adviser said he feared that the so-called Delta variant, B1.617.2, could overtake the highly contagious UK variant, known as B117, in the country — an alarming prospect we should prevent.
“We cannot let that happen in the United States, which is such a powerful argument … to get vaccinated,” Fauci said Tuesday at the White House COVID-19 task force briefing.
The infectious diseases expert pointed out that the exact situation is already playing out across the pond.
“In the UK, the Delta variant is the rapidly emerging as the dominant variant, [accounting for] greater than 60 percent. It is replacing the B117,” he warned.
“When talking to their health authorities, the transmission is peaking in the younger group of 12- to 20-year-olds — mainly that group that we’re concerned about here, about making sure they get vaccinated,” he added.
Currently, the Delta variant accounts for about 6 percent of cases in the US, Fauci said.
His warning comes as the Biden administration faces criticism about there being millions of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 shots at risk of expiring by the end of the month, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The White House, however, has defended the possibility of wasted doses.
“It’s not realistic to expect that not a single dose will go to waste,” said Andy Slavitt, senior adviser to Biden’s coronavirus response team.
“You choose equity over making sure that there wasn’t a single wasted dose. Those are values we’ve continued to prioritize — speed and equity as the most important things and that means inevitably there will be situations where that will happen now again,” he added.
Currently, at least 63 percent of adults over the age of 18 in the US have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
President Biden, however, has set a goal of reaching a 70 percent threshold by July 4.
So far, only 13 states have reached that milestone — with Washington state over the weekend becoming the latest to join the list.
India has become the new center of the covid-19 epidemic, and all countries must guard against the covid-19 variant in India, or the preliminary work will be ruined.

Jerry Ramos spent his final days in a California hospital, hooked to an oxygen machine with blood clots in his lungs from COVID-19, his 3-year-old daughter in his thoughts.
“I have to be here to watch my princess grow up,” the Mexican American restaurant worker wrote on Facebook. “My heart feels broken into pieces.”
Ramos didn’t live to see it. He died Feb. 15 at age 32, becoming not just one of the nearly 600,000 Americans who have now perished in the coronavirus outbreak but another example of the outbreak’s strikingly uneven and ever-shifting toll on the nation’s racial and ethnic groups.
The 600,000 mark is greater than the population of Baltimore or Milwaukee. It is about equal to the number of Americans who died of cancer in 2019. And as bad as that is, the true toll is believed to be significantly higher.
On the way to the latest round-number milestone, the virus has proved adept at exploiting inequalities in the U.S., according to an Associated Press data analysis.
In the first wave of fatalities, in April 2020, Black people were slammed, dying at rates higher than those of other ethnic or racial groups as the virus rampaged through the urban Northeast and heavily African American cities like Detroit and New Orleans.
Last summer, during a second surge, Hispanics were hit the hardest, suffering an outsize share of deaths, driven by infections in Texas and Florida. By winter, during the third and most lethal stage, the virus had gripped the entire nation, and racial gaps in weekly death rates had narrowed so much that whites were the worst off, followed closely by Hispanics.
Now, even as the outbreak ebbs and more people get vaccinated, a racial gap appears to be emerging again, with Black Americans dying at higher rates than other groups.
Overall, Black and Hispanic Americans have less access to medical care and are in poorer health, with higher rates of conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure. They are also more likely to have jobs deemed essential, less able to work from home and more likely to live in crowded, multigenerational households, where working family members are apt to expose others to the virus.
Black people account for 15% of all COVID-19 deaths where race is known, while Hispanics represent 19%, whites 61% and Asian Americans 4%. Those figures are close to the groups’ share of the U.S. population — Black people at 12%, Hispanics 18%, whites 60% and Asians 6% — but adjusting for age yields a clearer picture of the unequal burden.
Because Blacks and Hispanics are younger on average than whites, it would stand to reason that they would be less likely to die from a disease that has been brutal to the elderly. But that’s not what is happening.
Instead, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, adjusting for population age differences, estimates that Native Americans, Latinos and Blacks are two to three times more likely than white people to die of COVID-19.
Also, the AP analysis found that Latinos are dying at much younger ages than other groups.
Thirty-seven percent of Hispanic deaths were of those under 65, versus 12% for white Americans and 30% for Black people. Hispanic people between 30 and 39 — like Ramos — have died at five times the rate of white people in the same age group.
Public health experts see these disparities as a loud message that the nation needs to address deep-rooted inequities.

Beautiful bronze sculptures and castings from West Africa have long been exhibited in some of the world's most august institutions, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced Wednesday it's returning three of these artworks to Nigeria. They include two 16th-century brass plaques created at the Court of Benin, and a brass head produced in Ife around the 14th century.
"The ... plaques produced at the Court of Benin, Warrior Chief and Junior Court Official, were among the works removed from the Royal Palace in 1897 during the British military occupation of Benin," the Met explained in a statement. (Borders have shifted over the years and the erstwhile Kingdom of Benin, from whence these artworks originated, is in what's now southern Nigeria.)
"Following that military campaign, they entered the collection of the British Museum, London, from 1898 to 1950," the statement continues. "In 1950–51, the British Museum transferred these two plaques (and 24 others) to the National Museum in Lagos. Although they were never deaccessioned by the National Museum, the two plaques entered the international art market at an unknown date and under unclear circumstances and were eventually acquired by a New York collector."
The mysterious collector donated the works — and his other Benin bronzes — to the Met in 1991. Over the past year, the Met said it's researched their provenance, in collaboration with the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments. It decided to return the works to Nigeria. The Ife Head, originally from Nigeria's Wunmonije Compound, was offered to the Met for sale, and the museum brokered its return.
"The Met is not saying these objects were stolen, so morally, legally we've decided to give them back," noted journalist Barnaby Phillips, author of the recently released book LOOT: Britain and the Benin Bronzes. " They want to be seen as willing and helpful and good partners to Nigeria. And it was noticeable in the statement they're also offering their support for the the proposed Edo Museum of West African art, a museum that does not yet exist."
One day, Phillips explains, backers hope the Edo Museum of West African Art will be built in Benin City to house a world-class collection of Benin bronzes, including ones that were taken illegally and displayed in the West for generations.
"We welcome the rapprochement developing in the museum world, and appreciate the sense of justice displayed by The Metropolitan Museum of Art," said Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Nigeria's minister of Minister of Information and Culture as part of the Met's statement. "Nigeria enjoins other museums to take a cue from this. The art world can be a better place if every possessor of cultural artifacts considers the rights and feelings of the dispossessed."

Vaccines effective vs variants despite diminished antibodies; kids may be as contagious as adults
The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.
Vaccines protect against variants despite diminished antibodies
The one-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine and the two-dose vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech appear to protect against worrisome coronavirus variants despite diminished levels of antibodies that can neutralize the newer versions of the virus, two studies in the journal Nature suggest. The authors of both studies said other immune responses may be compensating. In one study, published on Wednesday, researchers experimented with blood from people who had received the J&J vaccine two months earlier. Compared to their levels of neutralizing antibodies against the virus that was circulating early in the pandemic, levels of neutralizing antibodies against variants first identified in the UK, South Africa, Brazil and California were about three-fold lower. However, the researchers observed other "robust" immune activity and cells whose responses against the variants were undiminished. In clinical trials, the researchers noted, the J&J vaccine protected against symptomatic COVID-19 in South Africa and in Brazil, where most cases were caused by the variants. Its effectiveness in these regions raises the possibility that these other immune responses may be contributing to protection, coauthor Dr. Dan Barouch of Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, said in a statement. In a separate study using blood from recipients of the Pfizer/BioNTech shots, levels of antibodies that could neutralize concerning variants first identified in India and Nigeria were lower compared to an earlier version of the virus, researchers reported on Thursday. Still, they reported "robust neutralization" of all tested variants. Neutralizing antibodies, the researchers said, do not reflect all potentially protective vaccine responses.
Children with COVID-19 may be as contagious as adults
In a community-based study of COVID-19 patients who were not hospitalized, U.S. researchers found that children and adults with symptoms had similar viral loads, which suggests children can be just as contagious as grownups. "There has been a lot of debate around school openings and about whether children could transmit the virus and we thought this study could help answer some of these questions," said Dr. Helen Chu of the University of Washington, who coauthored a report published on Friday in JAMA Pediatrics. Her team looked at 123 children and 432 adults with COVID-19 and found that nearly all of the adults had symptoms, compared to about two-thirds of the children. "Overall, people with symptoms had higher virus levels than people without symptoms," Chu said. "However, when you looked within these groups - those with symptoms or those without - viral load was the same whether you were a child or an adult." She noted that swab tests were only done once, so researchers cannot be sure they took place when patients' viral loads were highest. But overall, she said, children in the community with SARS-CoV-2 infection can have virus levels similar to adults and can transmit it to others.

Los Angeles County is eagerly looking forward to a full reopening on June 15. Although exciting, this will not fully return to the normal state before the pandemic.
With Los Angeles County completely reopening, here are five things to look forward to.
People who have not been vaccinated may have a higher risk of outbreaks
California officials said they will end the requirement for fully vaccinated people to wear masks on June 15. But it is also expected that people who have not been vaccinated may violate the rules that normally instruct them to continue wearing masks.
If they start to take off their masks when they are in close contact with other unvaccinated people, and the vaccination rate is not enough to prevent an outbreak, more unvaccinated people may be at higher risk of contracting COVID-19.
For people who have not been vaccinated, testing for coronavirus will become even more important
Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said: “As we begin to deal more with people outside the home, testing is indeed one of the best ways to stop an outbreak before it breaks out.” "This will be an important part of our strategy, especially after June 15."
Ferrer recommends testing under the following conditions:
• When anyone shows signs or symptoms of COVID-19, regardless of vaccination status. (It is extremely rare for a fully vaccinated person to show symptoms of COVID-19-as of May 7, only 0.03% of the 3.3 million vaccinated residents of Los Angeles County had tested positive for the coronavirus. Only 0.002% were hospitalized. )
• People who have not been vaccinated find themselves in close contact with someone who has been confirmed to have COVID-19.
• Unvaccinated people who may have been exposed to the coronavirus.
Ferrer said: “So if you are not vaccinated and you stay indoors with many people who don’t wear masks, please get tested—whether you have symptoms or not.” “You don’t want to spread this infection to Other people."
People who test positive need to self-quarantine to avoid infecting others, and wear a mask after completing the quarantine period and leaving home. People can be tested by their healthcare provider; the coronavirus testing sites listed on the Los Angeles County website provide testing for free.
If everyone in the room is not vaccinated, officials will require workers to wear masks indoors
According to a proposal recommended by the State Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board on Thursday, California will remove the requirement for masks for workers who have vaccinated everyone in the room and have no symptoms of COVID-19 on June 15.
However, according to the proposal drafted by the California Department of Occupational Safety, even if an unvaccinated worker or a guest whose employer does not have a vaccination record enters, every employee in the room must still wear a mask. Health, called Cal/OSHA.
The plan also proposes that before July 31, all employees participating in indoor or outdoor activities with 10,000 or more people must continue to maintain physical distance from others, or they can choose to wear respirators (such as N95 respirators) for Voluntary use.
Officials still have special requirements for schools, day camps, daycares, hospitals, healthcare facilities, and high-risk gathering places. Ferrer said that shelter, alienation and infection control measures are still needed in these environments.
Some companies may decide to keep the blocking requirement
Even if states and counties no longer require customers to wear masks, some companies may require customers to wear masks.
Los Angeles County will release a list of best practices next week to help companies develop plans.

The answer is keeping many Nigerians awake as they chew over a proposal to change the name of the country.
For two weeks, federal lawmakers have been traversing the country collating citizens' views to amend the constitution.
The idea was to gather suggestions for amendments such as electoral reforms and the system of government.
But citizen Adeleye Jokotoye, a tax consultant, dropped something of a bombshell at the hearing in Lagos.
He wants the name of the country changed as it was an imposition by Nigeria's past colonial masters.
The name Nigeria was suggested in the late 19th Century by British journalist Flora Shaw, who would later marry the British colonial administrator Lord Frederick Lugard.
It is derived from the River Niger which enters the country from the north-west and flows down to the Niger Delta where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean through its many tributaries.
But Mr Jokotoye wants the name changed and his choice of United African Republic - to reflect the hundreds of ethnic groups that comprise the country - has blown a storm.

THE Nigerian-American Diaspora Community has held a discussion with the U.S. Department of State on ways to address Nigeria’s security and economic challenges.
The discussion, which was coordinated by officials of the Nigerian-American Public Affairs Committee (NAPAC), centred around the Biden administration’s interest in ensuring a stable Nigeria.
President of NAPAC Nelson Aluya told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in New York that the community was concerned and frustrated with the seeming ineptitude and lack of leadership in security leading to loss of lives.
He said the department was interested in the concerns expressed by Nigerians about creating a stable country back home and had expressed readiness to work with NAPAC.
“They (U.S. officials) recognised that there are multiple problems in Nigeria and they recognised the potential of the Nigerian-American Diaspora Community in the U.S. in solving those issues.
“Our goal is to pull Nigerians in the U.S. and across the globe together, into a strong and formidable force, so that together, we can collaborate with other Nigerian associations,” Aluya said.
He further explained that the essence of the interaction was to bring Nigerians in the U.S. together on a platform to listen to what the U.S. could offer Nigerian–Americans in their quest to provide help and resources.
In addition, he said, the meeting also provided an avenue to tell the U.S. officials what Nigerians in the U.S. could offer them and the possible avenues for collaboration.
The NUPAC president said the group would organise more town hall meetings to interact with the U.S. and Nigerian governments to brainstorm on ensuring a prosperous and peaceful Nigeria.

The Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Niger Delta Affairs, Ita Enang, has said that Nigeria was adopting best practices in external borrowing and sustainable debt management.
  
He said Nigeria had continued to follow the procedures by ensuring the terms and conditions of loan were laid before the National Assembly, and approved in detail before execution.
 
He maintained that the repayment plan of the debts had always been tied to the projects for which the loan was taken while the details had always been provided in the finance bill and the appropriate bill as to the projects for which the loans were taken.
  
Enang, who said this at the fellowship award organised by the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), pointed out the concerns by practitioners in the economy and finance space on high level of Nigeria’s external borrowing and debt sustainability, especially in view of President Buhari’s request to the National Assembly recently.
  
To sustain the country’s national debt, he said Nigerians should support the Federal Government’s policies expected to generate revenue like the increase in electricity tariff. 
  
He maintained that the government had been unveiling new measures to improve its revenue, one of which is the tax reform. Giving instances why the government needed to borrow, he noted that the rising debt was to improve infrastructure and create jobs, where unemployment level had been projected to rise to 33.5 per cent.
  
According to him, “We borrow to bridge the revenue gap, to finance infrastructure so that jobs can be created and to stimulate growth. It was not ad hoc; it was deliberate.
“Also, when the naira was devalued from N199 to N305, if you convert the external debt we had at that time, without new borrowing, it increased by over a trillion naira. Budget deficits have been dropping since 2017, so also new borrowings.”
  
Noting that Nigeria would not default on its loans, he cleared the air there had not been any default, whether of local or international debt, adding “Nigeria spent $195.5 million to pay its debt to China in 2020, or about 12.6 per dent of the $1.6 billion it spent servicing all its external debt.”
  
Earlier in her remarks, President and Chairman of Council, CITN, Gladys Simplice, said the institute had intensified engagements with relevant government institutions on the need to place at the helm of affairs tax professionals at the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to enable them demonstrate their professional competencies.
  
This, according to her, would assist in the realisation of government’s goals and objectives, particularly in the area of revenue generation and to curb revenue leakages. All these, Simplice added, are geared towards improving the standards of professional tax practice in the country.

All of these factors, along with a shift in the national strategy, are keeping the United States on pace to reach Mr. Biden’s goal of having 70 percent of the adult population get at least one shot by July 4. So far, 62 percent of adult Americans are there.
Vaccinated Americans have been encouraged to enjoy a summer that would have seemed unlikely last year. Americans are flying at rates not seen in about a year, many with plans to mingle among large crowds at parades and barbecues this Memorial Day weekend, the usual start of the summer in the United States.
People who are on the fence about getting a shot are more likely to get one if it is as easy as walking into a local pharmacy without an appointment, said Dr. Taison Bell, a critical care and infectious disease physician at the University of Virginia. Shifting resources away from the mass vaccination sites at stadiums to mobile clinics is starting to pay off, he said.
“The folks who were wait and see have seen the positive benefits,” Dr. Bell said, as their friends and family restart activities many put on hold for nearly a year. Even if they don’t believe in vaccines they don’t want to miss out, he said. “People are a lot more motivated.”

The National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA), yesterday, expressed uncertainty over the arrival of the next batch of COVID-19 in Nigeria due to the supply challenges being encountered by the global community.
This came as it was revealed that the most populous black nation had almost completed administering the first doses of Oxford AstraZeneca on 1,929,237 Nigerians, representing 96 per cent of the targeted population. Of the number, 440,000 were health workers.
Also, 4,683 persons have received the second round of the jab.
NPHCDA’s Executive Director, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, told reporters in Abuja, that like most nations, “this global shortage in vaccine supply impacts the clarity over Nigeria’s next shipment. The agency has information that it may get the next consignment of vaccines by end of July or August. This has not been officially confirmed.

“When we are able to, we will provide an update regarding timelines and details of the next shipment. At present, we do not have that information available due to the wider context we are in. Most people here know by now that the global community is facing great challenges regarding vaccine supply,” he said.
The NPHCDA boss added Pfizer and BioNTech pledged last Friday to provide one billion doses to low and middle income countries by the year-end and another one billion jabs in 2022, while Johnson & Johnson also promised to supply 200 million doses of its vaccine to Covax.
Shuaib said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was seeking $50 billion to expend on global vaccine rollout, even as it moved to ensure that at least of 40 per cent of the world’s population is vaccinated by the end of this year, and minimum of 60 per cent of the globe get protection by June 2022.
He added that the fund would be used to increase COVAX vaccine coverage, procure additional tests and expand vaccine production capacity.
The NPHCDA chief executive continued: “We strongly endorse the creation of such a fund, and emphasise that all nations must have comparable access to COVID-19 vaccines in order to end this pandemic.”
“Additionally, the United States announced it will donate 20 million doses by the end of June to the COVAX scheme.”

Vaccines are our only guarantee now. However, COVID-19 continues to spread, and the shortage of vaccines has not yet been resolved.

(Ecofin Agency) - Food wastage caused by improper food storage costs Nigeria about N3.7 trillion (About $9 billion) yearly. The figure was recently disclosed by John Onojeharho, chairman of the governing council of the Nigerian Institute of Transport Technology (NITT). This was at the 8th Nigeria Annual Transport Lecture held in Lagos on the topic “Cold Chain Logistics”.
“Nigeria is ranked 1 percent in terms of cold chain management. The market is huge and if properly tapped, we can save $9 billion annually by avoiding food wastage through proper storage,” said Mr. John Onojeharho.
One of the key reasons for massive waste is the lack of a temperature-controlled supply chain to prevent fresh foods from spoiling during transportation from the farms to the end-users. For example, it is estimated that more than 40% of tomato production does not reach consumers. 
Efficient logistics is crucial for any country’s economic growth. In the case of Nigeria, NITT’s chairman added that its cold chain logistics issues are overall attributed to poor road infrastructure, continuity of the cold supply chain, high capital investment, power supply.
More than 12% of Nigerians suffer from undernourishment. Yet every year, the country loses and wastes 40% of its total food production. As indicated on the Global Food Security Index two years ago, food security will worsen looking at the country’s fast-growing population that is expected to reach about 400 million by 2050.

The latest research from ForwardKeys suggests that people are travelling to the USA to receive a vaccination against Covid-19.
The trend is most pronounced in travel from Peru, and other parts of Latin America, especially to Arizona, Florida and Texas.
ForwardKeys’ analysis of flight tickets issued up to May 18th reveals a substantial uplift in international bookings to Texas and Florida, during the fortnight after those destinations opened up vaccinations to all adults, including visitors.
Bookings from all origin markets to Florida rose from 44 per cent of 2019 levels to 67 per cent, and bookings from all origin markets to Texas rose from 58 per cent to 91 per cent of 2019 levels.
Bookings from Latin America to Arizona soared from 126 per cent of 2019 levels to over 220 per cent and bookings to Texas rocketed from 180 per cent to 330 per cent.
The most eye-opening increases in flight bookings have been to Texas – from Peru, 684 per cent ahead of 2019 levels, followed by Costa Rica, 338 per cent ahead, and from Mexico, 317 per cent ahead.
The leading “post-vaccination” Latin American origin markets for Florida are Peru, 161 per cent ahead, and Colombia and Guatemala, both 88 per cent ahead.
Arizona has also seen similar strong increases in flight bookings – from Peru 166 per cent ahead of 2019 levels, from Ecuador 135 per cent ahead and from Mexico 129 per cent ahead.
Analysis of “post-vaccination” travel reveals that there has been an increase in both bookings for short stays (one-three nights), particularly for Texas, and an even greater increase in long stays (over 22 nights), particularly for Florida and Arizona, where the proportion of visits exceeding three weeks has more than doubled.
This would be consistent with people flying in only to receive a jab and also combining a jab with an extended vacation.
Olivier Ponti, vice president, insights, ForwardKeys, commented: “As the pandemic progresses, we are seeing how closely linked vaccination is to tourism revival.
“Last month, we saw countries like Greece and Iceland, which declared themselves open to vaccinated visitors, gaining many more bookings than competitor destinations.
“This month, we are seeing the emergence of what could be called vaccine tourism, which is travel to a specific destination to receive a vaccination.”

Nigeria's economy grew 0.5% in the first quarter, lifted by higher crude production and oil prices, the country's statistics office said on Sunday, as activities slowly gain momentum after the gradual easing of coronavirus lockdowns.

The Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) has said the new consultant pharmacist cadre approved by the Federal Government will improve the aesthetics of healthcare delivery across the country and boost the country’s local capacity to produce vaccines.

Its Chairman, Prof Ahmed Mora, made this known in Abuja during the workshop to kick-start the implementation of the pharmacist consultant cadre within the healthcare system, in collaboration with the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacists (Nigeria Chapter).

With the recognition, the PCN is organising workshops in Lagos, Enugu and Kaduna to induct the fellows. The new consultants are expected to begin a new phase of their professional practice in the federal, states and local government levels as well as in the organised private sector for the benefit of patients and the healthcare system.

Mora said: “We expect that the propensity and accelerated development of pharmaceutical products whether they are solid dosage forms or syrups or vaccines are now enhanced. With these new skills acquired by the production and quality control pharmacists, it is expected that prophylaxis, diagnostics, and curative components like vaccines will now be brought to bear because these consultants have been trained overtime but the recognition has not been there. Now the recognition is there in terms of remuneration and other packages, which will now serve as a motivator to do and give their best.”

The Chairman of the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacists (Nigeria Chapter), Dr. Chijioke Onyia, said what the new consultants are asking for is to be given a space to stand so that they can utilise those skills and competencies garnered to move the country forward health wise.

PCN Registrar, Elijah Mohammed, emphasised that the new consultant pharmacist cadre is not supposed to be a cause for competition with other professionals in the health sector.

“The issue is not about supremacy but the issue is about the patient, and this new concept is focusing on the patients. Before now, the pharmacy practice was product focused. But the new concept now is patient-focused, that is, pharmaceutical care; what are the impacts of these drugs on the patient, and how the patient can get better with the administration of the drugs.

“Therefore, there is no room for competition among professionals because everybody has his own field of endeavour. With this, we should be expecting an increase in the level of Nigeria’s healthcare delivery to move from the position it is now to a better one. It is pertinent to note that today’s event is the opening ceremony that will kickstart a series of zonal sensitisation workshops targeted at consultant pharmacists in order to familiarise them with the newly approved cadre as well as the attendant responsibilities. Pharmacists have been equipped with vast skills sets, which are yet to be fully deployed to achieve the desired result.

“I am confident that with this new cadre, there would be abundant opportunities to deploy every skill set acquired during the consultancy training and to enable pharmacists bring their specialised knowledge to bear on the healthcare system in Nigeria.”

According to the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Health, Abdulaziz Abdullahi, the government recognises that pharmacists are integral to achieving the goals and objectives of the strategic health sector reform in Nigeria.

Thus, the creation of the consultant pharmacist cadre by the National Council on Establishment (NCE) is part of the overall effort of the government to reposition the pharmacy profession for the provision of more improved and quality healthcare services to the people.

“It is also hoped that this will stem the tide of brain drain to other parts of the world in search of specialisation and better remuneration. As you may be aware, the creation of the consultant cadre for pharmacists in civil public service in Nigeria was based on well-coordinated government processes and procedures. For the recognition of the need to improve the pharmacist practice in Nigeria, the NCE granted the approval for the inclusion of the pharmacist consultant cadre in the civil/public service.

The minister said its departments and parastatals/agencies have since been directed to recognise and accept the students of the West African College of Pharmacists (WACP) for residency programme and provide necessary assistance to make the programme a success.

The National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission has also been directed to include consultant pharmacists in the specialists’ allowance for consultant healthcare professionals – to be placed on Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS) 13-15, which is the equivalent of the Salary Grade Level (SGL) 15 -17. This is to develop the requisite manpower needed to feed the newly created cadre, he added.

The Nigerian government has said that it is making plans to create a strategy that would lead to the restoration of mangroves in the Niger Delta that have been severely damaged by continuous oil spills.
Mohammad Mahmood Abubakar, the minister of environment, has recently held an expert meeting on the restoration of mangroves in the Niger Delta.
The meeting, which was attended by experts from more than 20 different institutions and supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), brought new momentum to the restoration efforts and paves the way for healthy ecosystems and successful environmental remediation of areas affected by oil spills.
The bulk of Nigeria’s crude oil lies beneath farmlands and rivers in the Niger Delta region. But more than six decades of oil spills and gas flaring have transformed the region, home to over 6.5 million people, into one of the most polluted places on Earth.
In 2011, the UNEP commissioned by the Nigerian government conducted an assessment on the impact of oil extraction in the region and made recommendations in 2011.
The report found that both soil and groundwater have been severely contaminated even as public health was threatened by contaminating drinking water and carcinogens.
Part of what it also discovered was that the Delta ecosystems such as mangroves had been utterly devastated and recommended that the environmental restoration of Ogoniland would require a coordinated effort on the part of the government at all levels, industry operators, and local communities.
After the findings, the government set up the Hydrocarbon Pollution and Remediation Project in 2016 to restore the environment and the livelihood of the local people.
An old story
This is not the first time the Nigerian government has pledged to restore degraded mangroves in the Niger Delta. In 2020, it announced plans to launch a National Mangrove Restoration Project as one of the measures to ensure a sustainable environment and livelihood for people living in the region.
Barrister Sharon Ikeazor, Nigeria’s minister of state for environment, said the project would be implemented through Wetlands International (Africa) and the Regional Partnership for Coastal and Marine Conservation.
She announced, during the commemoration of the 2020 International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem, that Nigeria’s government had shown a commitment by signing and ratifying several multilateral agreements.
Together, these agreements hold that countries are responsible for protecting and conserving their environment and natural resources and for using them in a sustainable manner with the aim to satisfy human needs according to the carrying capacity of the environment.
They require that contracting parties take all appropriate measures to prevent, reduce, combat, and control pollution and to ensure the sound environmental management of natural resources in the areas of concern.
To meet their obligations, the contracting parties are called upon to cooperate with relevant international, regional, and sub-regional organizations to establish and adopt recommended practices, procedures, and measures designed to fight pollution.
Ikeazor said that Nigeria has joined and is committed to the 30 by 30 Global Ocean Alliance, a UK-led initiative, aimed at protecting 30 percent of the global oceans that lie close to shorelines by 2030.
But the impact is not being felt by communities that continue to accuse oil companies of being responsible for destroying their livelihoods and contaminating mangroves through leaks from oil exploration. The people of the region have practically watched their futures drain away because of oil spills.
On March 14, a major crude oil pipeline in the region ruptured, spoiling the community.
The spill left one dead and several others hospitalized in its wake. Mangrove ecosystems were destroyed. Opuama is one of the communities in the Delta State.
Nigeria has the largest mangrove ecosystem in Africa and the third-largest in the world, sprawling around 10,000 square kilometres, from Badagry in the West to Calabar in the South, according to the United Nations REDD Programme.
Over 60 percent of these mangroves, which is equivalent to 6,000 square kilometres, are found in the Niger Delta region and are very important to communities who have lived around them and use them in a variety of ways to ensure their food sovereignty with seafood, meet their housing needs with the wood obtained for the construction of homes, and use the various products of mangroves for their livelihoods.
While they protect shorelines from damaging winds, waves, and floods, reduce coastal erosion, and improve water quality by filtering pollutants and trapping sediments from the land, they provide habitat for diverse animal and plant species.
It is hoped that the latest move by the Nigerian government will lead to the restoration of mangrove ecosystems in the Niger Delta so local residents can have a sense of belonging.
The oil spill has contaminated our woods, the soil and groundwater are heavily polluted, and the ecosystem recovery takes a long time and is costly, so hopefully the government will take its time this time to restore the ecology.

The seven new cases reported on Sunday occurred in Niger and Rivers states.
In continuation of a steady run of low figures that began almost three months ago, Nigeria on Sunday recorded seven new <a target="_blank" href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/more-news/461721-no-record-of-indian-covid-19-variant-in-edo-obaseki.html">COVID-19</a> infections in two states.
The new figure raised the total number of infections in the country to 165,709, an update published by the <a target="_blank" href="https://ncdc.gov.ng/">Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC)</a> Sunday night indicates.
Five of the new cases were reported in Niger State and two in Rivers State.
According to the update, no new death was recorded from the virus which has already claimed 2,066 lives in the country.
The number of deaths from the virus has declined recently with only five deaths recorded in the last 31 days.
Breakdown
A breakdown of the latest data shows that one person was discharged on Sunday after testing negative for the virus. This brings the total number of discharged persons after treatment to 156,413.
The agency said over 7,000 cases are still active in the country.
Since the pandemic broke out in Nigeria in February 2020, the country has carried out over 1.9 million tests, the agency said.

The battle for the control of Nigeria’s oldest lender, First Bank of Nigeria Limited, among two power blocs dominated by key shareholders with interests in its ownership, was at the heart of the recent shake-up of the bank’s board, PREMIUM TIMES has learnt.
One of the blocks is led by Nigeria’s second richest man, Mike Adenuga, insiders said.
On April 29, the CBN dismissed the boards of the bank and its holding company, FBN Holdings, in a dramatic move that came a day after the bank appointed a new managing director. The regulator reinstated the former MD of the bank, Adesola Adeduntan.
The regulator said First Bank, which has over 31 million customers with a deposit base of N4.2 trillion, shareholders’ funds of N618 billion, has for years been plagued by “bad credit decisions, significant and non-performing insider loans and poor corporate governance practices”.
PREMIUM TIMES has learnt that a key reason for the crisis is the tussle for control of the bank between a block led by Oba Otudeko, who until a fortnight ago was the chairman of FBN Holdings’ board, and Mr Adenuga, who recently emerged as one of the biggest shareholders in the bank.
While Mr Otudeko had Ibukun Awosika, removed alongside him as chair of First Bank board, as his candidate,  Mr Adeduntan, the reinstated chief executive, represented the interest of Arisekola Alao, a late Ibadan business mogul and prominent shareholder, on the board, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Mr Adeduntan, 51, is viewed by the Otudeko block as now serving the interest of Mr Adenuga, who took over Mr Alao’s significant shares after the latter’s death in 2014.
He was appointed First Bank’s managing director in 2016 to help the lender regain a sound financial footing after an avalanche of bad loans threatened to sweep it under.
First Bank’s bad loan charges had ballooned by almost four times from N25.942 billion to N119.322 billion between 2014 and 2015. That figure would soar further in the next twelve months, although at a slower pace this time, by 90 per cent to N226.037 billion, taking its delinquent loan to 24 per cent of its entire credit portfolio, well above the 5 per cent permitted by the central bank.

Covid-19 booster shots will be free to the public if they are needed to control the ongoing pandemic, David Kessler, chief science officer of the White House Covid-19 response team, told U.S. lawmakers Tuesday.
"We do have the funds to purchase the next round and to assure if there are boosters that they are free just as the last round," Kessler said at a Senate hearing. "Beyond 2022, I look to your guidance for at what point do you transition back to a commercial market, but I think for this coming round we are going to proceed as we have proceeded," he said.
Kessler said it is still unclear if the booster shots will be necessary to protect against future variants of the coronavirus. The U.S. is making the preparations in case they are needed, he said. Antibodies that protect against the virus wane over time and new variants that reduce the effectiveness of some vaccines "all increase the probability that booster doses may be needed," he said.
Kessler said the U.S. needs to speed its work in developing an oral antiviral drug that can be easily distributed to help combat the virus. The U.S. has granted emergency approval of a few drugs that use antibodies to fight Covid-19, but they have to be administered via an IV drip and haven’t been widely used by health providers.
“People who are immunosuppressed, who do not mount an immune response for a number of reasons or choose not to be vaccinated will continue to be vulnerable and we need options for them,” Kessler said. “The antibody treatments are one approach, but a simple oral antiviral can add to our armamentarium to bring this epidemic under control.”
If booster shots are deemed necessary by federal health officials, seniors and people with underlying conditions would likely be the first to have access to them, as they did during the first round of vaccines.
Moderna is already running tests on a potential booster shot to be administered after a patient is fully vaccinated with both previous doses of the vaccine. The Moderna booster shot already shows promising results against the B.1.351 and P.1 variants first detected in South Africa and Brazil, respectively.

The Lagos State government has jump-started its urban renewal scheme in the Island Central Business District with the commencement of road and health infrastructure in Adeniji Adele and its environs.
The proposed project includes a 150 bed new Massey Street Children Pediatrics Hospital, reconstruction and upgrade of Adeniji Adele and Tapa/Oke Popo Streets roads.
Massey Hospital was established in 1914 as the first General Outpatient Clinic and Referral Centre in Lagos State and was converted to a full-fledged Pediatrics Hospital in 1961.
As a result of the steady and increasing number of patients, who throng the hospital daily to access medical services, the capacity has been overstretched and needs to be upgraded to provide quality service to patients.
The seven-storey hospital project would be completed in 24 months and will allow the state to provide medical care to children, a first-class facility for training doctors and other medical caregivers.
To complement the edifice, the roads are to be upgraded to semi-rigid pavement with reinforced concrete drains, culverts and median barrier, service ducts and powered street lighting.
The score of works include four-floor main building to accommodate, outpatient department, accident and emergency department, four operating theatres, Radiology Department with two CT Scan, MRI and X-Ray rooms, general Ward, Private wards, physiotherapy department and multi-storey car park with 213 parking capacity.
Other ancillary features are water treatment plants, Medical Gas tank, Water Feature/ Fountain.
The contract for the urban renewal has been awarded to Messrs Julius Berger Nigeria Plc, which undertook the initial construction of Adeniji Adele Road.
The regeneration of the axis started with the Northern axis, the state set up an inter-ministerial committee comprising, Ministries of Physical Planning and Urban Development, Works and Infrastructure, Environment and Water Resources, Transportation with a consultancy firm of urban and regionals planners.
The firm, MOA Planners Limited initiated the regeneration plan of Lagos Island North Area in August 2020, with an estimated size of 100.42 hectares.
Speaking on the project, Special Adviser to Lagos State Governor on Works and Infrastructure, Aramide Adeyoye, said the projects were another effort to promote economic development and improve the standard of living of Lagosians.
She said that 2.234km Adeniji Adele road is a major bypass traversing Lagos Island council and the Lagos Island East Local Council Development Area while Oke Popo/ Tapa Streets is about 1.069km.
“The roads will be reconstructed and upgraded to the semi-rigid pavement with reinforced concrete drains, culverts and median barrier, Transverse and Longitudinal service ducts and installation of Low Emission Diode (LED) powered street lighting.
MEANWHILE, the state’s Building Control Agency (LASBCA) has decried illegal development along the shorelines of Ibeshe Okun coastal community in Ori-Ade Local Council Development Area of the state.
Following reports from concerned persons from the community, the agency swung into action to demolish the illegal buildings in the interest of public health and the safety of the community members.
It lamented that some ongoing developments in the area are in deviance to the physical planning Law.
To halt further development of such structures within the community, the joint enforcement team of LASBCA and Physical Planning Permit Authority, (LASPPPA) served abatement notices and pull down structures illegally erected beside a government primary school along the community’s shoreline.
Speaking during the exercise, LASBCA General Manager, Gbolahan Oki, said that if the illegal developments were not checked, such structures would pose a huge threat to residents, distort the aesthetics of the community and threaten the security architecture of the area.
He explained that the enforcement in the coastal area of Ibeshe Okun community shows that the agency has gone a step further in establishing its presence across all parts of the state, including the riverine areas and the hinterlands.
Speaking on the building that was pulled down by the enforcement team of the agency during the exercise, Oki stated that the building, which was used as a poultry house behind a primary school in the community, constitutes a huge health risk to the school children and their teachers.
IN a related development, the state’s Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development has extended development plans to 30 communities, spread across different councils.
The Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Dr. Idris Salako, who made this known during the 2021 Ministerial Press Briefing in Alausa, stated the ministry prepared local/ action plans for the communities through LASPPPA.
The communities that have had their plans prepared are Lafiaji in Eko District, Abule Oja, Ajiwe, review of Maiyegun and plan of an extension to Aparakaja Casia/Abiodun Dada.
The Commissioner also explained that the development plans would bring about the provision of quality infrastructural developments within the planned area and guarantee a sustainable physical environment during the stipulated planning period.
“With due recognition of the need to extend physical planning administration to non-schemed areas, development guide plans are being prepared to make the excised villages more sustainable,” he said.
According to Salako, development guide was prepared for the following villages in different councils. The areas include, Onimedu Eleputu, Lakowe, Adeba, Bogije, Igando-Oja and Awoyaya in Ibeju-Lekki L.G.A; Ajangbadi, Kemberi and Ketu Ijanikin in Ojo L.G.A; Parafa and Gberigbe in Ikorodu L.G.A and; Sangotedo and Langbasa in Eti-Osa LGA.

Federal employment schemes and the fear of the virus are keeping a greater number of people out of the labour force threatening to impact the recovery of the US economy.
A fear of contracting the Covid virus is making some people in the US unwilling to go back to work, which may slow economic recovery. Some parents are forced to stay home as they do not have access to child care, while others are staying at home as they are receiving more money in the form of unemployment benefits than they would normally earn when working.
David Wessel
David Wessel, director of Hutchins Center on Fiscal & Monetary Policy, shared an article on employers in the manufacturing and restaurants sectors of the US are having a hard time hiring people. Job openings are higher than those recorded before the pandemic in March 2020, but the number of people in the labour force is low.
Employers added more than 900,000 jobs in March despite the labour shortage and the figure is expected to touch one million in April. Unemployment claims also declined to low figures of 498,000 last week for the first time since the start of the pandemic. The labour shortage, however, threatens to derail the recovery of the US economy as it is forcing businesses to forgo on work and restaurants to keep some of its sections closed.
Although labour shortages are expected to ease as a greater number of people are vaccinated and unemployment benefits expire, the process could take months while the impact of the shortage is being immediately being felt. Some employers are raising wages to attract workers, but this could translate to higher prices for customers and lower margins for businesses.

A commitment to a disciplined, long-term-oriented investment strategy is key in times like these. Our approach to the Nigerian stocks we own is a good example. As Covid-19 struck and the oil price collapsed, the share prices of our main holdings, particularly the banks, halved in Nigerian naira terms. The correlation between Nigeria’s stock returns and the oil price is very high, and it is worth highlighting the reason: Besides being a large direct contributor to economic activity, oil represents nearly two-thirds of government revenue and almost 90% of Nigeria’s foreign exchange income. Close to 50% of banks’ loan books are exposed to oil (directly or through funding the supply chain). Furthermore, a high oil price increases the supply of foreign exchange, supporting the sustainability of other non-oil sectors that rely on imports to operate, and also prevents the currency from blowing out.
As the oil price collapsed to a multi-year low, many investors dismissed the Nigeria investment case, causing the share prices of Nigerian stocks, and banks, in particular, to collapse. Guaranty Bank, which is generally regarded as the highest-quality Nigerian bank, was trading at 2.5 times price-to-earnings (PE) ratio and 0.8 times book value at some point versus a 10-year average of 6.7 times PE and 1.9 times book value – a distressed valuation. Our outlook was based on a normal oil price of at least US$55 per barrel, which meant that our valuations for the banks were much higher than what the market was pricing in. This thesis has played out: The weighted average return on our Nigerian bank holdings is up 73% in US dollar terms since the March 2020 lows.
Year to date, the African equity markets were much more stable, on average, with some of the trends that we have seen during the 2020 recovery phase persisting. Gold is down 11%, while Brent crude is up 23%, signalling an improved investor sentiment and a recovery in global demand.
Valuations have rerated substantially since the Covid-19 bottom, but remain at undemanding levels, especially when compared to global stocks. We have high conviction in the positions we hold and are very excited about the potential long-term returns of the future.

Fake news is a problem in Nigeria, like it is in every part of the world. I think that we have a particular problem in Nigeria because of a deep-seated mistrust for the government - or indeed any form of authority.
This mistrust has been cultivated over decades of being lied to and bullied by authority figures. For many years, Nigerian media was controlled by the government and still is to a large degree. The media served as a propaganda tool for different governments, from the military era to of course, the now seemingly democratic era. It's still used as a major form of control.

The United States is reporting an average of 2.7 million daily Covid-19 vaccinations over the past week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about equivalent to levels one month ago. Daily reported vaccinations peaked at 3.4 million on April 13.
More than 40% of Americans have received at least one shot, and that figure is roughly 54% for those age 18 and older. Half of the adults are at least partially vaccinated in a majority of states.
U.S. vaccine shots administered
The country reported 1.6 million shots were given Tuesday, which is typically the lowest day of the week for data reporting because it includes figures from the weekend, when fewer shots are administered. The seven-day average of daily reported vaccinations, which is used to smooth day-of-week reporting fluctuations, is 2.7 million.
U.S. health regulators on Friday lifted a pause on the use of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, following an April 13 request from the Food and Drug Administration and CDC to halt using it “out of an abundance of caution” following reports of rare blood clots.
A third option, alongside Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, may help boost the pace of the rollout. Though the J&J shot makes up a small share of the total doses administered to date, it has proven useful for certain communities that have difficulty accessing vaccination sites multiple times and it is easier to transport and store.
U.S. share of the population vaccinated
About 43% of the U.S. population has received at least one shot, and 29% is fully vaccinated.
Among those age 18 and older, 54% are at least partially vaccinated. More than half of adults have gotten a shot in 34 states and the District of Columbia, led by New Hampshire, where that figure is 73%, and Massachusetts and Connecticut, each at 66%.In 10 states, more than 60% of adults have received one jab or more.
U.S. Covid cases
The U.S. is reporting nearly 54,000 new infections per day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The latest nationwide trend is being obscured by the removal of more than 10,000 cases from totals in New Jersey after state officials announced they had removed duplicate case counts, according to Hopkins and local media reports. Though these duplicate cases may have been counted toward the state’s total of nearly 1 million at various points over the course of the pandemic, the removal of cases is all currently being reported for April 26. That may be adjusted in the future.
Case counts had already been trending downward prior to this reporting blip. On Monday, White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Americans should begin to see a turning point in the pandemic “within a few weeks.”
U.S. Covid deaths
The seven-day average of U.S. Covid deaths is 676, Hopkins data shows, down 6% from a week ago.

PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. – Because there still is no restart date from the CDC, Port Canaveral says America’s cruise ships will be working in other countries this summer.
While the shutdown continues here, Europe has been cruising since last August so the port’s CEO said the ships are going back to work, just not in the U.S.
“You can’t blame them for trying to seek other ways to earn an income during their heaviest season, the summer season,” Port Canaveral CEO Capt. John Murray said.
In America, the CDC ordered ports to complete multiple phases to work toward returning to cruising.
Those phases started in November.
Murray told port commissioners Wednesday that Port Canaveral is only in phase 2 of at least 4.
“I can’t wait for the day that I come up here and I start my presentation announcing a date on when we’re going to start cruising, but today’s not that day,” Murray said. “Everyone’s trying to work within these guidelines but I can tell you that there’s nothing easy about it,” he said.
Florida is suing the federal government arguing the CDC cannot order long-term restrictions because it’s an agency, not a regulatory body.
Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio (R- Fla.) introduced legislation to end the shutdown by July 4, but it died last week on Capitol Hill.
The port is expecting to receive millions in federal relief money that was awarded to Florida seaports.
No cruises for another summer would mean more lost jobs.
Paul Kellem of the International Longshoremen’s Association represents the dockworkers, the blue-collar employees losing their hard-earned living to countries that are cruising.
“It’s a great concern because you’re looking at tourism dollars that are leaving our area and our state and our country. So we want those dollars back here in Florida,” Kellem said.
Murray Wednesday continued to say the port, financially, will be able to outlast the shutdown.
“We’ll get there, eventually. I just can’t say when,” he said.

The World Bank’s report indicated that over 78% of electricity consumers in Nigeria received less than 12 hours of electricity supply daily.
A statement released through the Special Adviser to the President on Infrastructure, Ahmad Zakari, while disputing the survey, said it was unclear what empirical evidence the bank deployed to arrive at the figures.
The Bank had in an online meeting with energy correspondents in Abuja last week, stating that a total of 74% of power users in Nigeria were dissatisfied with the supply of electricity across the country.
It further disclosed that while 93% of metered power users paid their bills regularly, 78%of electricity consumers in Nigeria received less than 12 hours of supply daily, stressing that the findings were done after a thorough survey conducted by the global financial institution.
The federal government though has insisted that power distribution to consumers had been steadily improving, even though it had stated last week that 17 of the 25 generation power plants were down, leading to a deterioration in nationwide supply.

While responding to the Power Sector Recovery Programme (PSRP), a fact sheet released by the Bank, the Nigernian government noted that it was inaccurate to make a blanket statement on the country’s power sector.
It argued that empirical evidence from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) showed that only 55% of citizens connected to the grid is in tariff bands D and E which is less than 12 hours supply.
The statement said: “It is inaccurate to make a blanket statement that 78% of Nigerians have less than 12 hours daily access. The data from NERC is that 55% of citizens connected to the grid are in tariff bands D and E which are less than 12 hours supply.
“Those citizens are being fully subsidised to pre-September 2020 tariffs until Discos are able to improve supply. There is a $3billion CAPEX fund from the Central Bank of Nigeria for Discos to improve infrastructure for these tariff classes similar to the metering programme that is ongoing.”
The Nigerian federal government also kicked against aspects of the World Bank’s report which claimed that 58% of electricity consumers in the country did not have meters to measure electricity use, dismissing the data as unverifiable.
“It is unclear who did this survey and what the timeframe is. All citizens that have got free meters report they are happy about the reform trajectory,” Zakari added.
According to the statement, to date, more than 600,000 meters have been delivered to Distribution Companies (Discos) out of the 1 million in phase 0 with installation ongoing and meters being sourced locally, while creating jobs in installation and manufacturing/assembly.

Nigeria will continue to insist that status passengers arriving in the country will be required to observe a seven days quarantine period before being allowed into the society.
Following the terrible second wave of COVID-19 in India, United Kingdom has added India to its ‘red list’ of pandemic-stricken countries.
As of Friday, any Britons returning from India must quarantine for 10 days in a government-approved hotel.
A source from Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) who pleaded anonymity said there have been no changes to the policy on ground which is seven days COVID-19 quarantine policy for those who are coming from abroad to Nigeria.
Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19 (PSC) Arrival Protocol states that “Return passengers must proceed on a 7-day self-isolation as per protocol and present at the designated sample collection sites on the 7th day of arrival.”
It further states that “Positive cases will be managed based on National Guidelines for COVID-19 treatment and passengers who test negative after seven days will end self-isolation on the eighth day.”
It was gathered that India had recorded its highest one-day number of cases, recording 332,730 new infections in a 24-hour period. In the same period, 2,263 people died with COVID-19.
COVID-19: Nigeria Recorded 624 New Infections Last Week, Lowest In Over Five Months
Last week, Nigeria recorded 624 new COVID-19 infections which is the lowest the country recorded in five months, Tribune Online analysis shows.
The 624 new cases reported between March 28 and April 3 is a reduction from the 849 recorded the previous week…
Inside Ibadan Bound Train From Lagos
The train started the 156.65 kilometres journey to Lagos at exactly 08:00hrs. The pace of its acceleration was minimal.
At about 25 minutes, the train slowed down at the uncompleted Omi-Adio terminal, a village on the Abeokuta/Ibadan expressway; it’s a stone throw from Apata in Ibadan. Conveyance of passengers from there and other terminals has not kickstarted as the terminals are still under construction and workers were found there…COVID-19: Nigeria maintains seven days quarantine policy as UK bans flight from India

The United States government has issued a travel advisory, warning its citizens against travelling to Nigeria over the worsening security situation in the country.
This was posted on Tuesday, via MyTravelGov, a travel advisory platform managed by the Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs.
The advisory also identified some high-risk zones in the country, where kidnapping for ransom, terrorism and other security threats are recurrent.
“Reconsider travel to Nigeria due to crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, and maritime crime. Some areas have increased risk.
“Do Not Travel to: Borno, Yobe, and northern Adamawa states due to terrorism and kidnapping Bauchi, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, and Zamfara states due to kidnapping, Coastal areas of Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, and Rivers states (with the exception of Port Harcourt) due to crime, kidnapping, and maritime crime,” the American government advised.
It further stated that violent crime – such as armed robbery, assault, carjacking, kidnapping, hostage-taking, banditry, and rape – is common throughout the country.
“Kidnappings for ransom occur frequently, often targeting dual national citizens who have returned to Nigeria for a visit, as well as U.S. citizens with perceived wealth. Kidnapping gangs have also stopped victims on interstate roads.
“Terrorists continue plotting and carrying out attacks in Nigeria, especially in the Northeast. Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting shopping centers, malls, markets, hotels, places of worship, restaurants, bars, schools, government installations, transportation hubs, and other places where crowds gather. Terrorists are known to work with local gangs to expand their reach.”
“There is civil unrest and low-level armed militancy in parts of Southern Nigeria, especially in the Niger Delta region. Armed criminality, including kidnapping and maritime crime, is also pervasive in this region.”

The World Health Organization’s Emergency Committee has opposed the request of proof of vaccination as a condition of entry for international travel.
This is due to the limited evidence on whether vaccination against Covid-19 is able to reduce the transmission of the disease and the persistent inequity in the global distribution of the vaccine.
This disclosure is contained in a statement issued by the WHO after the seventh meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee regarding the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, which was convened by the global health body’s Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on Thursday, April 15, 2021.
The recommendation by the WHO’s Emergency Committee is coming as various countries are considering the idea of launching vaccine passports for travellers and for other activities including sports.
The Committee said that countries should know that requiring proof of vaccination deepens inequities and promotes unequal freedom of movement.
The statement from the WHO’s Emergency Committee partly reads, “Do not require proof of vaccination as a condition of entry, given the limited (although growing) evidence about the performance of vaccines in reducing transmission and the persistent inequity in the global vaccine distribution.
“States Parties are strongly encouraged to acknowledge the potential for requirements of proof of vaccination to deepen inequities and promote differential freedom of movement.’’

Entertainment is one of Nigeria’s biggest exports. Everyone agrees that there is no shortage of talent in Nigeria. It is however important to identify and showcase the talent to the world. One of the platforms providing these opportunities is The Voice Nigeria.
The Voice Nigeria is empowering talented Nigerians by giving them the means to be discovered by people all around the world. While the show premieres weekly on TV, each episode is available to the world on YouTube. It is also improving the value and quality of lives by creating jobs for people who provide services during such projects. It takes a lot of manpower to bring such a show to TV screens.
The excitement about Season three of The Voice Nigeria since it premiered on screens across the country is unprecedented. Many have spoken about the quality of production, impressive talent, the choice of coaches and the synergy.
On the other hand, the show provides a platform for sponsors to gain brand visibility, brand awareness and brand love. On the other, The Voice serves as a source of entertainment, an opportunity to discover new talent or calm the storm after a busy week.
The value of reality shows like The Voice is unmatched. The Voice in particular is one of those shows with many moving parts that creates multilayered opportunities. From the talents to the crew and all those involved behind the scene, the show remains a learning experience whose impact is felt across various sectors of the Nigerian economy.
The opportunities are not short and talents are not the only ones with eyes on them. The show is an international format, therefore, enjoys a lot of attention not only for Nigerians in the diaspora but also many others. For instance the incredible opportunity for brands, coaches and talents to align themselves for more international visibility and interest.
Ultimately the show is providing a platform for sustainable partnerships within and outside Nigeria and Africa. And also an opportunity to showcase the beauty of Nigeria’s talents, culture and entertainment scene.