TOKYO, Aug 4 (Reuters) – Japan warned on Wednesday that coronavirus infections were surging at an unprecedented pace as new cases hit a record high in Tokyo, overshadowing the Olympics and adding to doubts over the government’s handling of the pandemic. The Delta variant was leading to a spread of infections “unseen in the past”, Health Minister Norihisa Tamura said as he defended a new policy of asking patients with milder symptoms to isolate at home rather than going to hospital. “The pandemic has entered a new phase … Unless we have enough beds, we can’t bring people to hospital. We’re acting pre-emptively on this front,” Tamura told parliament. But he signalled the chance of rolling back the policy, as the decision to ask some sick people to stay at home has drawn criticism from medical experts as putting lives at risk. “If things don’t turn out as we expect, we can roll back the policy,” Tamura said, adding the policy shift was a move to deal with the unexpectedly fast spread of the new variant. Japan has seen a sharp increase in coronavirus cases. Tokyo reported a record 4,166 new cases on Wednesday. Nationwide, newly reported cases totalled a new record of over 14,200, according to public broadcaster NHK. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said on Monday only COVID-19 patients who were seriously ill and those at risk of becoming so would be hospitalised, while others should isolate at home, a shift in policy some fear may lead to an increase in deaths. Officials in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party have agreed to seek to withdraw of the policy, the Jiji news agency reported on Wednesday, joining similar calls made by opposition lawmakers. In response to criticism, Suga told reporters on Wednesday that the new hospitalisation policy was aimed at regions with a surge in COVID-19 cases, such as Tokyo, and not uniform throughout the country. “We’ll thoroughly explain our policy and seek public understanding,” he said. The outcry is another setback for Suga, who has seen support plunge over his handling of the pandemic ahead of general elections to be held this year. Polls have shown many Japanese people opposed to holding the Olympics while the country lagged in efforts to contain the pandemic and vaccinate the population. Suga and Olympics organisers have said there is no link between the July 23-Aug. 8 Games and the spike in cases. But senior medical adviser Shigeru Omi told parliament that hosting the Games may have affected public sentiment and eroded the impact of government requests for people to stay home. Imposing a nationwide state of emergency could be an option to deal with the pandemic, he said. States of emergency are already in place in several prefectures, as well as in Tokyo. NHK reported that the government would expand quasi emergency steps to cover more regions of the country. “Political leaders are sending out messages to the public in earnest but probably not as strongly and consistently as hoped,” Omi said. “We’re seeing COVID-19 clusters emerge more broadly including at schools and offices.”
China to tighten traveling rules as COVID cases rise
Every province has advised residents not to leave as flights are cancelled and Beijing suspends more than a dozen rail line
The latest outbreak has so far infected more than 400 people in 25 cities, including the capital city Beijing, and in Wuhan for the first time since it contained the first Covid-19 outbreak last year. Cases have been reported in 17 of the 31 provinces. A further 71 locally transmitted cases were confirmed on Tuesday, the national health commission said Wednesday – the highest daily count since January. Nearly half were in Jiangsu, the site of the airport cluster to which most cases have been linked, and 15 in Hunan. The governments of all 31 provinces have advised residents to avoid leaving their regions unless necessary, and to stay away from the four high risk – and more than 120 medium risk – regions across China, in a bid to curb further transmission of the highly infectious Delta variant. In addition to various lockdown measures, Nanjing and Yangzhou have since cancelled all domestic flights, while Beijing has suspended 13 rail lines and halted inbound long-distance ticket sales from 23 stations, according to state-run news agency Xinhua. Yangzhou, Wuhan, and the flood-hit city of Zhengzhou have launched citywide testing and Zhengzhou now requires all people to show a negative test result in order to leave the city. Residential areas, including those home to more than 10,000 people in Beijing, have been sealed off for mass testing. Authorities have also begun testing all 11 million residents of Wuhan. China’s top infectious diseases expert, Zhong Nanshan, said most Delta patients had shown mild symptoms and preliminary studies indicated China’s vaccines were effective in reducing the severity of the variant, Xinhua said.
While it has seen several outbreaks since mid-2020, Chinese authorities have contained them through ambitious mass testing drives of entire cities, strict localised lockdowns, and targeted travel restrictions.
However, the high transmissibility of the Delta variant has seen the number of cases rise rapidly and spread far. Most cases have been linked to Nanjing and Lukou airport staff who cleaned an incoming plane from Russia, as well as domestic planes. China has reportedly introduced lockdowns in more than 7,000 villages in order to stop the spread of the COVID-19 Delta variant, while 144 localities in the country have been designated as at-risk areas. A cluster of infections among tourists who went to a concert in Zhangjiajie, Hunan, travelling through Lukou has also spread to multiple provinces. “Zhangjiajie has now become the new ground zero for China’s epidemic spread,” Zhong said earlier this week. In an editorial on Sunday, state tabloid the Global Times said China could not afford to make errors like those identified in Nanjing, given the high rates of infections around the world. “The challenge for China is to open controllable windows between our closed anti-epidemic system and the turbulent outside world, which can not only guarantee the openness of Chinese society, but also maintain China’s capability of dynamically clearing Covid-19 cases,” it said. There are also two other Delta outbreaks linked to Myanmar, including the border province Yunnan, and Zhengzhou which received air passengers from Myanmar.
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Automakers mandate masks at all U.S. plants but not requiring vaccines
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Detroit’s Big Three automakers and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union said on Tuesday they will reinstate requirements to wear masks at all U.S. plants, offices and warehouses beginning on Wednesday, but are not requiring workers to be vaccinated. The move is in response to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) change in COVID-19 guidance for masks for fully vaccinated people related to the Delta variant, General Motors Co, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler parent Stellantis NV said in a joint statement with the union. Toyota Motor Corp said effective Wednesday it will reinstate mask requirements at nearly all U.S. facilities, with the exception of two Michigan facilities that are in counties with moderate transmission rates. Nissan Motor Co also said Tuesday it was reinstating its mask requirements for all U.S. employees. Volkswagen AG said it was requiring masks at U.S. facilities in COVID-19 hot spots, while Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz U.S. unit said it had reinstated mask requirements at U.S. plants late last week. The UAW does not support requiring all workers to be vaccinated for COVID-19 and U.S. automakers have not mandated vaccines. The union and automakers are strongly encouraging workers to get vaccinated. “We are urging all UAW members and their families to get vaccinated. The science is telling us very clearly that the only way to get back to normal is to reach a heightened level of immunity,” UAW President Ray Curry told members in a letter Tuesday. “However, we also know that for some, there are religious and health reasons for not getting vaccinated.”
The CDC said last week fully vaccinated people should wear masks indoors in public spaces in places with substantial or high COVID-19 community transmission rates. The CDC said on Monday that almost 80% of U.S. counties are now at those levels.
In June, the U.S. automakers and UAW announced that fully vaccinated workers at their U.S. factories would not have to wear masks on the job beginning on July 12. Numerous automakers operating in the United States had already begun lifting pandemic mask mandates as cases declined. Other companies as well as federal, state and local governments are putting more pressure on individuals to get vaccinated. New York City on Tuesday said it will require proof of vaccination for people engaged in indoor activities such as dining, working out in a gym, or seeing a show. Meat packer Tyson Foods said it will require workers to get COVID vaccinations, joining companies including Walt Disney Co and Walmart Inc in instituting such a requirement for some parts of their workforces. U.S. President Joe Biden has ordered workers at federal agencies to get vaccinated or submit to regular testing.
UK to Offer Vaccine Booster for 32 Million Next Month… Sweden plans to offer majority COVID booster shots in 2022
https://youtu.be/1TYZizyBQz0
Aug 1 (Reuters) – Britain will offer COVID-19 booster vaccines to 32 million Britons starting early next month with up to 2,000 pharmacies set to deliver the programme, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The campaign could start as soon as Sept. 6, which would see the rollout completed by early December if it goes to plan, the report added.
Sweden plans to offer majority COVID booster shots
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – The majority of Swedes will be offered a booster shot against COVID in 2022, while high risk groups could get a third shot during autumn of this year, the country’s health authority said on Tuesday. The authority did not give an exact figure for how many people would get a third shot next year, but said that a large part of the population would be offered another jab. Groups seen as high-risk, such as the elderly or people with underlying health conditions, will continue to be prioritised as booster vaccines are rolled-out, the authority added. “The assessment is that it is not possible to eradicate the virus and therefore vaccination work should be long-term and focused on reducing serious illness and death,” state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said in a statement. The authority said it expected Sweden’s entire adult population will have received two shots of the vaccine by autumn, and that there will be a good supply of vaccine over the coming years.
Wuhan to test entire population for COVID and lock them down
Authorities in the Chinese city of Wuhan will begin testing its entire population, after just 6 positive coronavirus cases were detected there
Wuhan has recorded seven locally transmitted cases – the first local infections in more than a year. The city of 11 million people shot into the spotlight after the coronavirus was first detected there in 2019. China is currently seeing one of its biggest outbreaks in months, with 300 cases detected in 10 days. Some 15 provinces across the country have been affected, which has led to the government rolling out mass testing measures and lockdown restrictions. Authorities have attributed the spread of the virus to the highly contagious Delta variant and the domestic tourism season. The announcement in Wuhan came as China reported 90 new virus cases on Tuesday. The National Health Commission said 61 of these were locally transmitted – compared with 55 local cases a day earlier. China had been largely successful in controlling the virus within its borders. However, this new spread, which was first detected among workers at a busy airport in Nanjing, has sparked concern. Authorities have tested the 9.2 million residents of Nanjing three times and imposed lockdown on hundreds of thousands of people. But over the weekend the spotlight turned to popular tourist destination Zhangjiajie in Hunan province, where many of the latest cases have emerged. Travellers from Nanjing were thought to have visited the city recently. Health officials have zeroed in on a theatre in Zhangjiajie, and are now trying to track down about 5,000 people who attended performances and then travelled back to their home cities. “Zhangjiajie has now become the new ground zero for China’s epidemic spread,” Zhong Nanshan, China’s leading respiratory disease expert, told reporters.The new outbreak has also reached the capital Beijing, with the city reporting several locally transmitted infections.
US Senator Graham tests positive for coronavirus… was fully vaccinated
WASHINGTON, Aug 2 (Reuters) – Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham announced on Monday that he has tested positive for COVID-19 despite being vaccinated, has flu-like symptoms and will be self-quarantining for 10 days. “I am very glad I was vaccinated because without vaccination I am certain I would not feel as well as I do now. My symptoms would be far worse,” Graham, 66, wrote on Twitter. The South Carolina Republican, a leading conservative voice in the Senate, said he began experiencing flu-like symptoms on Saturday and sought medical attention on Monday morning. He was later informed by a congressional physician that he had tested positive. “I feel like I have a sinus infection and at present time I have mild symptoms,” Graham, a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, wrote in a pair of tweets. “I will be quarantining for ten days.” His announcement comes at a crucial time for the closely divided Senate, where Democratic leaders hope to advance President Joe Biden’s agenda in coming weeks by pushing through a roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. Graham is among a group of 17 Senate Republicans who have backed the bipartisan infrastructure legislation in procedural votes. The measure needs Republican votes to achieve the 60-vote threshold required for most legislation in the 100-seat chamber. The Senate is split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, who control the chamber only because of Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote. It was not clear how much contact Graham has had recently with other members of the Senate. A spokesman for Senator Joe Manchin, a leading Democrat on infrastructure, could not confirm whether Graham attended a recent private gathering hosted by Manchin, but added: “Senator Manchin is fully vaccinated and following the CDC guidelines for those exposed to a COVID positive individual.” Graham’s office did not respond to questions about the gathering. Graham did not say whether he had tested positive for the Delta variant of the coronavirus, which has been blamed for a recent surge in infections in the United States, particularly Southern states with relatively low vaccination rates. Forty-six percent of South Carolina’s population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, well below the national average of 58%, according to the Reuters COVID-19 Vaccination Tracker.
CDC Says Vaccinated Can Be Super-Spreaders (Are Vaccines Failing?)
Via the words of the CDC’s own director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the official narrative on vaccines and covid has just self-destructed. While in March of this year, Walenksy had publicly promised that vaccinated people could not spread the virus and infect others.
This week the CDC publicly stated that vaccines are failing, and that vaccinated people may now carry higher viral loads than unvaccinated people, contributing to the spread of covid.
Even Yahoo News, which typically shills for Big Pharma, could not sugarcoat the devastating narrative shift, reporting:
The CDC updated its guidelines on Tuesday to recommend masks indoors, even for vaccinated people. The Delta variant makes it easier for vaccinated people to transmit the virus, the CDC said. Vaccinated and unvaccinated people infected with Delta may have similar viral loads.
The CDC is currently hiding these data from the public, by the way, most likely because they know that once the data are revealed, any remaining shred of their pro-vaccine narrative will spontaneously collapse.
CDC “Confession” Just Obliterated All The Promises Made To The Vaccinated… Now They Are Slowly Realizing They’re The Doomed Super-Spreaders
In making these public statements, the CDC just admitted that the entire promise that vaccinated people were immune to covid and couldn’t spread it to others just unraveled. Immediately, the CDC demanded that the entire nation revert to neanderthal mask mandates, even for those who have been “fully vaccinated.”
But It’s Even Worse: CDC Director Just Admitted The Vaccines Will Soon Be Obsolete
If you can imagine it, the situation is actually far worse than what’s been covered here so far. In her public confessions this week, CDC director Walensky also admitted that covid is “just a few mutations away” from rendering all existing vaccines completely obsolete. She added:
The largest concern that I think we in public health and science are worried about is that virus and the potential mutations. We have a very transmissible virus, which has the potential to evade our vaccines in terms of how it protects us from severe disease and death…
we obviously need “booster shots,” vaccine companies are now openly stating that the mutated Delta strains means people will need booster shots to be protected
The “high wave of morbidity and mortality,” it seems, has only just begun.
Dr. Robert Malone Warns Of “Worst Case Scenario” And Cites First Evidence Showing Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE) Now Emerging
Over the next 12 months or so, we are likely going to see a wave of post-vaccine deaths that mirrors the wave of people obtaining vaccines earlier this year. Even Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of the mRNA vaccine technology, warns that the CDC’s admission is essentially a confirmation that Antibody Dependent Enhancement effects have begun.
Pfizer protection is waning at six months. Those who received Pfizer, that are now in the waning phase, seem to be getting infected. This exactly what you would anticipate is the window of greatest susceptibility to antibody dependent enhancement, in this long tapering phase as the vaccine response declines.
Delta strain worries could slow recovery – Fed’s Kashkari
(Bloomberg) — Sign up for the New Economy Daily newsletter, follow us @economics and subscribe to our podcast. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said the spread of the delta variant of Covid-19 could keep some Americans from looking for work, potentially harming the U.S. recovery. “I was very optimistic the fall would be a strong labor market with many of those Americans coming back to work. That’s still my base case scenario,” he said Sunday during an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “But if people are nervous about the delta variant, that could slow some of that labor market recovery and therefore be a drag on our economic recovery.” Fed officials took a step last week toward eventually scaling back their pandemic support for the U.S. economy. They held interest rates near zero and repeated a pledge made in December to maintain $120 billion in monthly asset purchases until “substantial further progress” was made on employment and inflation. But they also said that the economy had made progress toward these goals, and that policy makers would continue to assess progress at upcoming meetings. Economists took that as a clear signal they were leaning towards scaling back the bond buying later this year or early next, provided surging infection rates from the Delta variant of Covid-19 don’t stall the economy recovery. Kashkari, not a voter this year on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, said they were not there yet. “We’re about a third of the way back from where the hole was in December, so we’ve made progress but we are still in a deep hole,” Kashkari said. “We have 7 to 9 million Americans who are still out of work that we need to get back into the job market.” His comments dovetailed with remarks on Friday evening from Fed Governor Lael Brainard, who said “employment has some distance to go” to meet that test, noting that millions of Americans still remain out of work.In contrast, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard told reporters earlier in the day that he wanted the central bank to decide in September to begin reducing its asset purchases.
UK finance minister presses for travel rules easing
LONDON, Aug 1 (Reuters) – Britain’s Finance Minister Rishi Sunak has pressed for an easing of travel restrictions to offer respite to the tourism sector amid concerns that the country is not reaping the benefit of its vaccination programme, the Sunday Times reported. Sunak had written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson warning of the impact that Britain’s strict border controls were having ahead a meeting of ministers on Thursday to consider changes, the newspaper said, citing a source familiar with the letter.The Treasury declined to comment. England last month lifted the requirement for fully vaccinated Britons returning from medium-risk countries to have to quarantine. Visitors from the EU and United States with the same status will also be exempt from Monday. However, travellers still have to take expensive tests before departure and shortly after arrival. Separately, the bosses of Britain’s biggest airlines and travel companies urged Transport Minister Grant Shapps to add more countries to the “green list” that have fewer restrictions. They said green status should increasingly become a default, given that nearly 90% of British adults had been given one vaccine and more than 70% had two, and domestic restrictions had eased. “On this basis there is no reason why, and it is essential, that much of Europe including the key volume markets, the U.S., Caribbean and other major markets, cannot turn green next week in time for the remainder of the summer peak,” bosses of Virgin Atlantic, easyJet, British Airways, Jet2.com, Loganair, Ryanair and TUI UK & Ireland said in a letter shared with media. They said a continued requirement for expensive COVID-19 tests would have a huge impact on aviation. “We have seen no evidence that this regime is necessary for fully vaccinated travellers or those from Green countries, or that effective, cheaper rapid tests cannot be used from higher risk destinations,” they said.
CDC leak, summary and full report
An internal report presented to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates the Delta coronavirus variant is far more transmissible than older lineages, may cause more severe disease, and that when it causes breakthrough infections, may be as easily transmitted as when it infects unvaccinated people.
What the document shows:
- The slideshow dated Thursday and first obtained by The Washington Post, appears to provide some data backing CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky’s controversial decision on Tuesday to change the agency’s guidance on mask use.
- It says the Delta variant is about as transmissible as chickenpox, with each infected person, on average, infecting eight or nine others. The original lineage was about as transmissible as the common cold, with each infected person passing the virus to about two other people on average.
- And if vaccinated people get infected anyway, they have as much virus in their bodies as unvaccinated people. But vaccinated people are safer, the document indicates. It says vaccines reduce the risk of severe disease or death 10-fold and reduce the risk of infection three-fold.
- The CDC, the document advises, should “acknowledge the war has changed.” It recommends vaccine mandates and universal mask requirements.
How the CDC reacted:
- Walensky confirmed to CNN that the slideshow was presented to her at a noon briefing on Thursday. “I think people need to understand that we’re not crying wolf here. This is serious,” Walensky told CNN Thursday night. “It’s one of the most transmissible viruses we know about. Measles, chicken pox, this – they’re all up there,” she said.
- Walensky noted that the R0 for the Delta variant – a measure of its transmissibility – is estimated to be 5-9, meaning each infected person can be expected to infect 5-9 other people. “When you think about diseases that have an R0 of 8 or 9 – there aren’t that many.”
- Asked about the contents of the slide deck, Walensky said, “There weren’t any surprises. It was the synthesis of the data all in one place that was sobering.”
What comes next:
- The CDC is scheduled to publish additional data Friday that will back Walensky’s controversial decision to change guidance for fully vaccinated people. She said Tuesday the CDC was recommending that even fully vaccinated people wear masks indoors in places where transmission of the virus is sustained or high. The data behind an internal US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document that suggests fully vaccinated people might spread the Delta variant at the same rate as unvaccinated people is, according to the Washington Post, based on a Covid-19 cluster that emerged from July 4 weekend festivities in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Alex Morse, Provincetown’s town manager, told CNN’s “New Day” that there are 112 active cases right now in the town, but the overall cluster number is more than 880 since July 1.
Vaccination by itself is not enough to stop the spread of Covid-19 variants, study finds
Vaccination alone won’t stop the rise of new variants and in fact could push the evolution of strains that evade their protection, researchers warned Friday. They said people need to wear masks and take other steps to prevent spread until almost everyone in a population has been vaccinated. “When most people are vaccinated, the vaccine-resistant strain has an advantage over the original strain,” Simon Rella of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, who worked on the study, told reporters. “This means the vaccine resistant strain spreads through the population faster at a time when most people are vaccinated.”
The findings suggest that policymakers should resist the temptation to lift restrictions to celebrate or reward vaccination efforts. This is likely to be especially true with a more transmissible variant such as the Delta variant, said Fyodor Kondrashov, also of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria. “Generally, the more people are infected, the more the chances for vaccine resistance to emerge. So the more Delta is infectious, the more reason for concern,” Kondrashov told reporters. “By having a situation where you vaccinate everybody, a vaccine resistant mutant actually gains a selective advantage.” People should not complain, he said. “The individual who already vaccinated and putting on a mask should not think this is pointless but should think that there is a vaccine resistant strain running around,” he said.