Official: Africa Needs COVID-19 Vaccine for 60% in 2-3 Years

By CARA ANNA

Volunteer Thabisle Khlatshwayo, who received her first shot for a COVID-19 vaccine trial, receives her second shot at a vaccine trial facility set at Soweto's Chris Sani Baragwanath Hospital outside Johannesburg, South Africa, Monday Nov. 30, 2020. Over 2000 South African volunteers are on AstraZeneca's experimental coronavirus vaccine trial. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Africa’s top public health official says 60% of the continent’s population needs to be vaccinated against the coronavirus in the next two to three years.

The director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, John Nkengasong, told reporters on Thursday that if it takes four to five years, “the virus will be endemic in our communities.”

African health officials are taking heart in vaccine progress, but concerns are growing that the continent of 1.3 billion people will be near the end of the line in obtaining doses. Nkengasong isn’t sure whether vaccines will be available in Africa before the second quarter of next year.

But he is pushing back against fears and misinformation around COVID-19 vaccines, saying that “if I had my way today to take a flight to the U.K. and get that vaccine, I would be doing it right now.” He was referring to Britain’s go-ahead for emergency use of the vaccine developed by American drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech.

Nkengasong says the 60% vaccination target is needed to achieve herd immunity in Africa’s 54 countries.

He stressed the challenges ahead, saying “the continent as a whole has never vaccinated 200 million people in one year,” a reference to the goal of reaching about 20% of the population by the end of 2021.

Nkengasong also vowed that “no sub-standard vaccines will be in use in Africa.” The continent can’t afford to do country-by-country regulatory approval, he said, estimating it would take five years or more. Instead, the Africa CDC is offering a platform where national regulatory bodies can agree on a mechanism to approve any vaccines that come to the continent, he said.

“We are stronger when we are together,” he added, as a handful of African countries have started looking into obtaining vaccine doses for their own citizens outside the global initiative aiming at equitable vaccine distribution known as COVAX. “If we go in a dispersed way as a continent, then our overall strategy will suffer.”

The African continent now has close to 2.2 million confirmed virus cases, or about 3.5% of the global total, as health officials warn of signs of a second surge in some countries.

“The next two months are critical because the continent as a whole will go into the holiday season,” meaning more travel from urban to rural areas, Nkengasong said. “My fear is that we will peak, probably have the same peak as in July or August, in the coming months.”

So far, the rate and speed of new cases are not dramatic enough to be called a second wave in Africa, WHO Africa chief Matshidiso Moeti said in a separate briefing. But she warned that “frankly, people are fatigued” with some public health measures and that’s a growing concern.

Vaccine Rollout Could Ease Crisis, But Who Gets it First?

By CARLA K. JOHNSON and NICKY FORSTER

FILE - In this Dec. 2, 2020, file photo, a customer walks past a sign indicating that a COVID-19 vaccine is not yet available at Walgreens in Long Beach, Calif. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, File)

Getting a COVID-19 vaccine to the right people could change the course of the pandemic in the United States. But who are the right people?

As the decision looms for President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming administration, a new analysis argues for targeting the first vaccines to the same low-income Black, Hispanic and Native American households that have disproportionately suffered from the coronavirus. But no one at the federal level has committed to the idea, which would be a significant shift from the current population-based method adopted by Operation Warp Speed.

“It’s not just a math problem. It’s a question of implementing a major social justice commitment,” said Harald Schmidt, a medical ethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, who compared the strategies with colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston College. The Associated Press conducted an independent analysis of the findings and worked with the team to estimate how many disadvantaged people would benefit.

If the shots get to the right people, Schmidt argues, the benefits could extend to the entire nation: Fewer people would get sick, hospital capacity would improve and more of the economy could reopen. Lives would be saved.

In October, a panel advising the federal government suggested setting aside 10% of the vaccine supply to distribute as an extra boost to the states with greater shares of disadvantaged groups. But the idea from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has been largely ignored.

The strategy could get vaccines to 12.3 million more vulnerable people in the early phases of distribution compared with the population-based method, the AP found in a collaboration with Schmidt’s team.

Any distribution system will reverberate across the nation, with consequences for everyone. It will be shaped by the early steps of federal officials and by state leaders who will allocate vaccines in the months when there is not enough supply to go around. California and several other states have stated that they intend to direct some of their supply to disadvantaged neighborhoods, but there’s no national strategy to do so.

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, said Thursday that he looks forward to future recommendations that prioritize people 70 and older who live with younger relatives. “Often our Hispanic, Black and tribal nations families care for their elderly in multigenerational households, and they are also at significant risk,” Redfield said in a statement.

Redfield has approved initial recommendations that put health care personnel and residents of long-term care facilities at the front of the line.

No vaccine has been authorized for use yet in the U.S., but the preliminary results of ongoing clinical trials have been encouraging for Moderna’s and Pfizer’s candidates. If the Food and Drug Administration allows emergency use of one or both of those vaccines, there will be limited, rationed supplies before the end of the year.

Operation Warp Speed officials announced last week that states would receive vaccine in proportion to their adult populations, at least for the first 6.4 million doses and possibly beyond.

“We thought it best to keep it simple,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said. “We thought that would be the fairest approach, the most consistent.”

Fairness isn’t that simple, Schmidt said.

“Allocating vaccines to states according to population does not help reduce inequity,” Schmidt said. Vulnerable people will face more rationing in states such as New Mexico that have higher shares of vulnerable people. “That’s not fair.”

Schmidt worked with Parag Pathak, Tayfun Sonmez and M. Utku Unver, pioneers in devising how to distribute resources in high-stakes systems such as school choice and organ donation. The researchers shared their underlying data with the AP. Their paper was posted online ahead of publication and has not been reviewed by other researchers.

The analysis shows 15 states and Washington, D.C., have the largest shares of vulnerable, low-income minorities. These worse-off populations make up more than 25% of the states’ total populations. Those states stand to gain the most from a distribution method that sets aside a 10% national reserve.

A federal set-aside is not the only way to get vaccine to vulnerable neighborhoods. In their vaccination plans, 18 states have said they will consider race and income as they map out vaccine distribution.

Tennessee plans to reserve 10% of its vaccines for use in targeted areas with high scores on a measurement known as the social vulnerability index, which is based on census data that incorporates race, poverty, crowded housing and other factors. The index was developed by the CDC to help identify communities that may need support in emergencies such as hurricanes.

Vaccines will remain in limited supply for a time after Biden is sworn in, so rationing will continue into the spring.

“I think it’s early to say what the Biden and Harris administration will ultimately do on that front,” said Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, associate dean for health equity research at Yale University’s medical school. She co-chairs Biden’s advisory board on the pandemic and has been a leading voice on reducing health disparities for the transition.

Nunez-Smith said there are several data-based models to consider for distributing vaccines to communities hardest hit by the virus.

“Thinking about equity has to be a top priority and cannot be an afterthought in the work,” she said.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

States Plan for Vaccines as Daily US Virus Deaths top 3,100

By SAM METZ and RYAN J. FOLEY

FILE - In this Nov. 19, 2020, file photo, medical personnel prone a COVID-19 patient at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles. Across the U.S., the surge has swamped hospitals with patients and left nurses and other health care workers shorthanded and burned out. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

States drafted plans Thursday for who will go to the front of the line when the first doses of COVID-19 vaccine become available later this month, as U.S. deaths from the outbreak eclipsed 3,100 in a single day, obliterating the record set last spring.

With initial supplies of the vaccine certain to be limited, governors and other state officials are weighing both health and economic concerns in deciding the order in which the shots will be dispensed.

States face a Friday deadline to submit requests for doses of the Pfizer vaccine and specify where they should be shipped, and many appear to be heeding nonbinding guidelines adopted this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to put health care workers and nursing home patients first.

But they’re also facing a multitude of decisions about other categories of residents — some specific to their states; some vital to their economies.

Colorado’s draft plan, which is being revised, puts ski resort workers who share close quarters in the second phase of vaccine distribution, in recognition of the $6 billion industry’s linchpin role in the state’s economy.

In Nevada, where officials have stressed the importance of bringing tourists back to the Las Vegas Strip, authorities initially put nursing home patients in the third phase, behind police officers, teachers, airport operators and retail workers. But they said Wednesday that they would revise that plan to conform to the CDC guidance.

In Arkansas, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said health care and long-term care facility workers are the top priority, but the state was still refining who would be included in the next phase. A draft vaccination plan submitted to the CDC in October listed poultry workers along with other essential workers such as teachers, law enforcement and correctional employees in the so-called 1B category.

Poultry is a major part of Arkansas’ economy, and nearly 6,000 poultry workers have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began, according to the state Health Department.

“We know these workers have been the brunt of large outbreaks not only in our state, but also in other states,” said Dr. Jose Romero, the state’s health secretary and chairman of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

Plans for the vaccine are being rolled out as the surging pandemic swamps U.S. hospitals and leaves nurses and other medical workers shorthanded and burned out. Nationwide, the coronavirus is blamed for more than 275,000 deaths and 14 million confirmed infections.

The U.S. recorded 3,157 deaths on Wednesday alone, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. That’s more than the number of people killed on 9/11 and shattered the old mark of 2,603, set on April 15, when the New York metropolitan area was the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak.

The number of Americans in the hospital with the coronavirus likewise hit an all-time high Wednesday at more than 100,000, according to the COVID Tracking Project. The figure has more than doubled over the past month. And new cases per day have begun topping 200,000, by Johns Hopkins’ count.

The three main benchmarks showed a country slipping deeper into crisis, with perhaps the worst yet to come — in part because of the delayed effects from Thanksgiving, when millions of Americans disregarded warnings to stay home and celebrate only with members of their household.

Keeping health care workers on their feet is considered vital to dealing with the crisis. And nursing home patients have proven highly vulnerable to the virus. Patients and staff members at nursing homes and other long-term care centers account for 39% of the nation’s COVID-19 deaths.

As authorities draw up their priority lists for the vaccine, firefighter groups asked the Minnesota governor to placed in the first group. The Illinois plan gives highest priority to health care workers but also calls for first responders to be in the first batch to get the shot. Other states are struggling with where to put prisoners in the pecking order.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey said he wants teachers to get priority so schools can stay open. Two California lawmakers asked for that, too, saying distance learning is harming students’ education.

“Our state’s children cannot afford to wait,” wrote Republican Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham and Democratic Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell. “This is too important to overlook or sweep aside.”

Texas is putting hospital staff, nursing home workers and paramedics at the top of the list, followed by outpatient medical employees, pharmacists, funeral home workers and school nurses. Nursing home patients did not make the cut for the first phase.

Likewise, Utah officials said Thursday that frontline health care workers will take top priority, with the five hospitals treating the most COVID-19 patients getting the first doses. State health officials said that additional doses likely will be available in February and March for more hospital workers, and essential workers — including police officers, firefighters and teachers — also will be prioritized.

Advocates strongly expressed frustration over the way some states are putting medical workers ahead of nursing home residents.

“It would be unconscionable not to give top priority to protect the population that is more susceptible or vulnerable to the virus,” said John Sauer, head of LeadingAge in Wisconsin, a group representing nonprofit long-term care facilities.

He added: “I can’t think of a more raw form of ageism than that. The population that is most vulnerable to succumbing to this virus is not going to be given priority? I mean, that just says we don’t value the lives of people in long-term care.”

Iowa, which expects to get 172,000 doses over the next month, will make them available first to health care workers and nursing home residents and staff, while an advisory council will recommend who comes next to “minimize health inequities based on poverty, geography” and other factors, state Human Services Director Kelly Garcia said.

For example, prison inmates and residents of state institutions for the disabled aren’t in the first round but will be put ahead of others, she said.

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Foley reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Associated Press writers Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Geoff Mulvihill in Davenport, Iowa; Jim Anderson in Denver; Bob Christie in Phoenix; Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis; Sophia Eppolito in Salt Lake City, Utah; and Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan, contributed to this story.

Mekelle Returning to Normalcy, Federal Police in the City

Places under the control of Ethiopian Defense Forces including Mekelle city will be accessible to UN humanitarian agencies  

Members of Federal Police special forces. (Photo credit : FP commission)

Borkena

December 2, 2020

 Federal Police Commission criminal investigation team and special forces on Wednesday arrived in Mekelle City.

 According to a report by the state media, Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporate (EBC), the special forces have already launched hunting criminals in coordination with the Ethiopian Defense Force. 

Federal police deployment to Mekelle was difficult in the past due to a militant from Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). In July 2018, about 40 highly armed Federal Police members were reportedly detained upon arrival at Alula Aba Nega International Airport. They were deployed with a court order to arrest TPLF leaders implicated in criminal activities.

The Federal police undisclosed specificities of criminals for whom the operation is needed. It is, however, understood that the Ethiopian government has been searching for TPLF leaders who refused to surrender to the Ethiopian Defense Forces.

The Ethiopian Defense Force took control of Mekelle City on Saturday after TPLF forces lost the war to the Ethiopian Defense Forces.

Meanwhile, residents of Mekelle city on Wednesday told an EBC reporter that normalcy is restored to the city. A resident who did not tell her name said “we were scared when the planes were hovering. Now it is peaceful and businesses are re-opening.”

Another resident of Mekelle said that the Ethiopian Defense Force has been peaceful but looting in the neighborhoods has become a problem. He said that the government needs to do something about it. 

The Ethiopian government granted access to the UN nations humanitarian agencies in areas under the control of the Ethiopian Defense Forces. 

There has been a communication blackout as the Ethiopian government was undertaking a “law enforcement operation” to hunt TPLF leadership which turned out to be a full-fledged war with TPLF forces that lost the war in a matter of two weeks.

TPLF leaders justify the loss with the claim that they were facing Eritrean armies as well. They vow to launch guerrilla warfare.

Unconfirmed: South Sudan Reportedly Facilitated Debretsion’s Escape 

There are also claims that Debretsion Gebremichael met with Egyptian president who visited South Sudan on Saturday

Borkena

November 29, 2020

A report by “Sudans Post”, seemingly Cairo based Sudanese news source, said on Sunday that South Sudanese Diplomatic Mission in Addis Ababa is given seventy-two hours to leave the country.

The source quoted anonymous South Sudan embassy staff in Addis Ababa as saying “We have been given 72 hours to leave. That that decision was delivered to us in a letter this morning by the Ethiopian security body and they told us that they don’t want us here ‘until further notice’”

However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia did not release a statement on Sunday regarding the South Sudan Diplomatic Mission in Addis Ababa.

“Sudans Post”(https://www.sudanspost.com/breaking-ethiopia-expels-south-sudan-diplomats/) also claimed that Ethiopian Ambassador to South Sudan left Juba ” to protest reported presence of leader of Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Debretsion Gebremichael, in Juba.”

What is implied is that TPLF chairman Debretsion Gebremichael was in South Sudan. The website went further to claim that Debretsion met with Egyptian leader, Sisi, who visited South Sudan on Saturday.

However, chances for Debretsion to escape to South Sudan is almost impossible as Mekelle, from where he was leading the war against the Ethiopian Defense Force, was encircled from four directions for several days before it was finally captured by the Ethiopian Defense Forces on Saturday.

The story would have made a little sense if it claimed that Debretsion fled to Sudan disguised as a refugee from the Tigray region of Ethiopia and then to South Sudan.

No other news sources reported either about the alleged development regarding the South Sudanese diplomatic mission or about Debretsion’s escape to Egypt.

Meanwhile, Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) intelligence Division, said on Saturday that it has seized large quantities of smuggled heavy weaponry in Kassala. The weapons are smuggled from Ethiopia, according to RSF.

RSF said, “the seized weapons included 3 sp.g.9 cannons, 3 820 ml. cannons, 7 machine guns, 11 RBJ 7 cannons, 1 G3 machine gun, 25 mines 23 of which are  MD Iranian made mines,  and 3 made in Belgium, 8 boxes of machine guns’ 12/7 strings, 8 strings of bombs, 12 fuses of mines, 1 doska cannon 12/7 MT, 65 mortars bullets, 5 mortars  60/75, 3 packets of mines’ wires, 25 bullets of cannon 9 GPS, 31 boxes of cannons’ ammunitions, 38 capsules of mortars 82 ml, 7 containers of 9 GPS, machine gun 50, 7 spare pipes of machineguns 82ml , 1 telescope,   and 2 remote wireless communication apparatus.”

TPLF Militia Leaders Reportedly Arrested in Sudan, Five Billion Pounds Seized

Borkena

December 1, 2020

Sudan Tribune reported on Monday that the Sudanese army arrested a senior TPLF “militia leader” along with his family members and a large amount of money.

The Militia leader was arrested in Gedaref, a capital Al Qadarif regional state.

While the sources cited what it called “reliable security sources,” the identity of the arrested leader is unspecified.  However, it said that “The militia leader owned about five thousand acres of agricultural land in the Al-Allaw area for decades. He used to cultivate it and sell its products to the western Tigray region.”

Furthermore, the source reported that Sudanese security authorities seized 5 billion pounds (apparently Sudanese currency), large quantities of gold, furniture, and two luxury cars.

According to Sudan Tribune, Khartoum pledged support to Addis Ababa in the hunt for TPLF criminal elements by way of ensuring that they will not have a place to hide in Sudan.

Secretary of the Ethiopian Emergency Fact Check, Ambassador Redwan Hussien, said told Reuters this week that those who perpetrated the Maikadra Massacre may have fled to Sudan as refugees.

Humanitarian organizations claim that as many as 46,000 Ethiopian have crossed the border to Sudan seeking refugees after the Ethiopian government launched a law enforcement military operation in Tigray after TPLF forces attacked military bases of the Ethiopian Defense Force in the region on November 4.

Top TPLF Official Surrenders to the Ethiopian Defense Force

TPLF executive committee member and former speaker of the House of Federation Keria Ibrahim is now in the hands of the Ethiopian Defense Force. Unclear, if she is flown to Addis Ababa

Borkena

December 1, 2020

Former speaker of the Ethiopian Upper House – House of Federation – and one of the top TPLF officials Keria Ibrahim on Tuesday surrendered to the Ethiopian Defense Force.

Ethiopia State of Emergency Fact Check, a body entrusted to share verified information about the state of emergency and law enforcement campaign, has confirmed the news but did not specify whether she surrendered in Mekelle or else in Tigray.

Keria Ibrahim resigned from her role as the speaker of the House of Federation in June 2020 protesting the decision to postpone the sixth general election. At the time, the house said that the election was postponed due to the Coronavirus situation in the country.

“I cannot oversee a process as speaker of the Federation, a decision that endangers the constitution,” she said when she announced her resignation.

Subsequently, she retreated to Mekelle where the rest of the TPLF leadership tried to reorganize and prepare themselves for war against the Ethiopian government. As it turns out, TPLF lost the war despite deploying 250,000 special forces and militia. 

The Ethiopian Defense Force took control of Mekelle last Friday but most of the TPLF leaders remain at large. The Ethiopian government claims that it is aware of their whereabouts and that it would act if they do not surrender peacefully.

Meanwhile, TPLF chairman Debretsion Gebremicael reportedly said on Monday that his organization is embarking on a guerrilla war. TPLF, once the ruling party in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, has lost control of much of the region after it launched an attack on the military base of the northern command on November 4.

Google Illegally Surveilled and Fired Organizers, NLRB Complaint Alleges

BY CHRIS MILLS RODRIGO 

12/02/20 09:40 PM EST 

The National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against Google on Wednesday alleging that the company illegally spied on and then fired two employees for organizing.

The complaint says that Google violated labor laws by surveilling and terminating Laurence Berland and Kathryn Spiers, both former engineers at the company's San Francisco office, in 2019.

Berland was fired after organizing against Google's decision to hire the notorious union-busting firm IRI Consultants. He had found out about the work with IRI from colleague's calendar events, which Google claimed was in violation of their policies.

“Google’s hiring of IRI is an unambiguous declaration that management will no longer tolerate worker organizing," he said in a statement Wednesday. "Management and their union busting cronies wanted to send that message, and the NLRB is now sending their own message: worker organizing is protected by law."

Spiers had created a pop-up for Google employees visiting IRI's website that reminded them of their “right to participate in protected concerted activities.”

“This week the NLRB issued a complaint on my behalf," she said. "They found that I was illegally terminated for trying to help my colleagues."

Google has previously defended the firings, arguing that the two workers had violated company policy.

"We strongly support the rights our employees have in the workplace, and open discussion and respectful debate have always been part of Google," a company spokesperson told The Hill. "We’re proud of our culture and committed to defending it against attempts by individuals to deliberately undermine it -- including by violating security policies and internal systems."

The NLRB determined that accessing internal calendars and reminding workers of their rights were not grounds for retaliation. The agency opened the investigation last December.

Google has until Dec. 16 to respond to the complaint. A hearing in the case has been set for mid-April 2021.

UN, Ethiopia Sign Deal for Aid Access to Embattled Tigray

By CARA ANNA

Tigray refugees who fled the conflict in the Ethiopia's Tigray carry their furniture on the banks of the Tekeze River on the Sudan-Ethiopia border, in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020. The elderly woman waits for her family with their two cows they brought with them at center. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — In a breakthrough a month after deadly conflict cut off Ethiopia’s Tigray region from the world, the United Nations on Wednesday said it and the Ethiopian government have signed a deal to allow “unimpeded” humanitarian access, at least for areas under federal government control after the prime minister’s declaration of victory over the weekend.

This will allow the first food, medicines and other aid into the region of 6 million people that has seen rising hunger during the fighting between the federal and Tigray regional governments. Each regards the other as illegal in a power struggle that has been months in the making.

For weeks, the U.N. and others have pleaded for access amid reports of supplies running desperately low for millions of people. A U.N. humanitarian spokesman, Saviano Abreu, said the first mission to carry out a needs assessment would begin Wednesday.

“We are of course working to make sure assistance will be provided in the whole region and for every single person who needs it,” he said. The U.N. and partners are committed to engaging with “all parties to the conflict” to ensure that aid to Tigray and the neighboring Amhara and Afar regions is “strictly based on needs.”

Ethiopia’s government did not immediately comment.

For weeks, aid-laden trucks have been blocked at Tigray’s borders, and the U.N. and other humanitarian groups were increasingly anxious to reach Tigray as hunger grows and hospitals run out of basic supplies like gloves and body bags.

“We literally have staff reaching out to us to say they have no food for their children,” one humanitarian worker told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

“We have been urging, waiting, begging for access,” another aid official, Jan Egeland with the Norwegian Refugee Council, told the AP. “We’re ready to go tomorrow. ... It has been heartbreaking to be forced to wait.”

More than 1 million people in Tigray are now thought to be displaced, including over 45,000 who have fled into a remote area of neighboring Sudan. Humanitarians have struggled to feed them as they set up a crisis response from scratch.

Communications and transport links remain almost completely severed to Tigray, and the fugitive leader of the defiant regional government this week told the AP that fighting continues despite Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s declaration of victory.

It remains almost impossible to verify either side’s claims as the conflict threatens to destabilize both the country and the entire Horn of Africa.

“It is critically important to get objective information as to what is going on,” the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Tibor Nagy, told the BBC. “The active military phase is basically over. I’m not saying the fighting is over. So at this point, the humanitarian phase is the most important one.”

Nagy added that “now the danger is this evolving into a long-term insurgency.” He also disagreed with Ethiopia’s description of the conflict as a “law enforcement operation” to arrest the Tigray leaders, saying that “it was obviously a military operation.” The fighting between two heavily armed forces has seen airstrikes, rocket attacks and tanks.

For weeks, the U.N. and others have been increasingly insistent on the need to reach some 600,000 people in Tigray who already were dependent on food aid even before the conflict.

Now those needs have exploded, but Abiy has resisted international pressure for dialogue and de-escalation, saying his government will not “negotiate our sovereignty.” His government regards the Tigray regional government, which dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition for more than a quarter-century, as illegitimate after months of growing friction as he sought to centralize power.

Amid the warring sides’ claims and counter-claims, one thing is clear: Civilians have suffered.

The U.N. says food has run out for the nearly 100,000 refugees from Eritrea whose camps close to the Tigray border with Eritrea have been in the line of fire as the fighting swept through. Reports that some refugees have been killed or abducted, if true, “would be major violations of international norms,” the U.N. refugee chief said over the weekend in an urgent appeal to Abiy.

These are “extremely vulnerable people” who fled persecution in Eritrea, Egeland said. “It’s been extremely frustrating to lose access and communication.”

With infrastructure there and elsewhere in Tigray damaged, the U.N. has said some people are now drinking untreated water, increasing the risk of diseases.

In the largest hospital in the Tigray capital, Mekele, staff had to suspend other activities to focus on treating the large number of wounded from the conflict, the International Committee for the Red Cross said.

The ICRC, the rare organization to travel inside the Tigray region and its borderlands, has reported coming across abandoned communities and camps of displaced people.

No one knows the true toll of the fighting. Human rights and humanitarian groups have reported several hundred people killed, including civilians, but many more are feared.

Inside Tigray, and among the majority ethnic Tigrayan refugees in Sudan, people are exhausted.

“The world hasn’t seen anything like this year. I have never seen anything like this,” said one refugee who gave his name as Danyo, standing on the edge of a river that people on Tuesday were crossing to seek safety.

“When Dr. Abiy came, we saw him as a good thing,” he said. “Our hopes were fulfilled, because his talk in the beginning was as sweet as honey, but now the honey has gone sour.”

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Fay Abuelgasim in Hamdayet, Sudan, contributed.

Nearly 100 World Leaders to Speak at UN Session on COVID-19

By EDITH M. LEDERER

In this photo provided by the United Nations, Volkan Bozkir, President of the seventy-fifth session of the United Nations General Assembly, chairs the General Assembly: General Debate, during the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020, at UN headquarters in New York. The U.N.'s first virtual meeting of world leaders started Tuesday with pre-recorded speeches from some of the planet's biggest powers, kept at home by the coronavirus pandemic that will likely be a dominant theme at their video gathering this year. (Rick Bajornas/UN Photo via AP)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Nearly 100 world leaders and several dozen ministers are slated to speak at the U.N. General Assembly’s special session starting Thursday on the response to COVID-19 and the best path to recovery from the pandemic which has claimed 1.5 million lives, shattered economies, and left tens of millions of people unemployed in countries rich and poor.

Assembly President Volkan Bozkir said when he took the reins of the 193-member world body in September that it would have been better to hold the high-level meeting in June. Nonetheless, he said Wednesday it “provides a historic moment for us to come together to beat COVID-19.”

“With news of multiple vaccines on the cusp of approval, and with trillions of dollars flowing into global recovery efforts, the international community has a unique opportunity to do this right,” he said. “The world is looking to the U.N. for leadership. This is a test for multilateralism.”

When financial markets collapsed and the world faced its last great crisis in 2008, major powers worked together to restore the global economy, but the COVID-19 pandemic has been striking for the opposite response: no leader, no united action to stop the pandemic that has circled the globe.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sent a letter to leaders of the Group of 20, the world’s richest nations responsible for 80 percent of the global economy ahead of their summit in late March as COVID-19 was starting its killing spree urging that they adopt a “wartime” plan and cooperate on an international response to suppress the coronavirus. But there was no response.

The two-day special session will not be raising money to finance vaccine immunizations or taking any political action, and there will be no final declaration, just a summary document from Bozkir.

“The real point of this special session is to galvanize concrete action to approach our response to COVID-19 in a multilateral and collective way,” General Assembly spokesman Brenden Varma said Wednesday. He added that there are currently many responses to the pandemic, but what’s needed now is to bring together all countries, U.N. actors, the private sector and vaccine developers.

Leaders and ministers from over 140 countries will deliver pre-recorded speeches on Thursday after an in-person opening in the General Assembly including speeches by Bozkir and Guterres.

Among the leaders slated to address the session are French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, and European Union chief Charles Michel. The United States will be represented by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.

Friday’s session will focus on three virtrual panels, the first on the U.N.’s response to COVID-19 and the second on vaccines that will include representatives from producers BioNTech and Oxford University-AstraZeneca, and the World Health Organization’s ACT-Accelerator which is working to get vaccines to the world’s poorest people. The final panel is on recovery from COVID-19. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is expected to participate in all three panels.

Canada’s U.N. deputy ambassador Louise Blais, who organized the special session with Azerbaijan’s Ambassador Yashar Aliev, said it will be the first time that the U.N. system is bringing key players together to focus on COVID-19′s “myriad impacts.”

“Countries around the world are facing their own internal impacts, but it’s important that the U.N. continue to advocate ... that this crisis impacts us all and the solutions are global,” she told The Associated Press in an interview. “So, we have to work together in order to ensure that all of us get out of this, because until everyone does, no one is really safe.”

Blais said the session is “an important step” and will focus on implementing the three resolutions adopted by the General Assembly on COVID-29, especially the wide-ranging measure approved in September.

The special session “comes at a critical time,” Blais noted, “because we now know that there are a number of vaccines that have proven to be effective.”

“Now, all eyes are on the critical distribution of vaccines,” she said, adding that this is expected to be a key them during the special session and it’s one “where the world is expecting us to work together and make sure that we have an equitable distribution of vaccine globally.”

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said secretary-general Guterres will be focusing on the need for all countries and people everywhere to have access to vaccines.

“The vaccine needs to be treated as a `global public good’ and that will be the basis of the secretary-general’s message” on Thursday, Dujarric said.

Stay Home for the Holidays or Get Tested Twice, CDC Urges

By LINDSEY TANNER

Don’t travel over the upcoming holidays. But if you must, consider getting coronavirus tests before and after, U.S. health officials urged Wednesday.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the best way to stay safe and protect others is to stay home.

The agency also announced new guidelines that shorten recommended quarantines after close contact with someone infected with coronavirus. The agency said the risk in a shorter quarantine is small, but that the change makes following the guidance less of a hardship.

The no-travel advice echoes recommendations for Thanksgiving but many Americans ignored it. With COVID-19 continuing to surge, the CDC added the testing option.

“Cases are rising, hospitalizations are increasing , deaths are increasing. We need to try to bend the curve, stop this exponential increase,” the CDC’s Dr. Henry Walke said during a briefing.

He said any travel-related surge in cases from travel would likely be apparent about a week to 10 days after Thanksgiving.

The virus has infected more than 13.5 million Americans and killed at least 270,000 since January.

“The safest thing to do is to postpone holiday travel and stay home,” said Dr. Cindy Friedman, another CDC official. “Travel volume was high over Thanksgiving,″ and even if small numbers were infected, that could result in ”hundreds of thousands of new infections.”

’’Travel is a door-to-door experience that can spread virus during the journey and also into communities that travelers visit or live,” she added.

For those who decide to travel, COVID-19 tests should be considered one to three days before the trip and again three to five days afterward, the CDC said. The agency also recommended travelers reduce non-essential activities for a full week after they return or for 10 days if not tested afterward. And it emphasized the importance of continuing to follow precautions including masks, social distancing and frequent hand-washing.

The revised quarantine guidance says people who have been in contact with someone infected with the virus can resume normal activity after 10 days, or seven days if they receive a negative test result. That’s down from the 14-day period recommended since the pandemic began.

The change is based on extensive modeling by CDC and others, said the agency’s Dr. John Brooks..

___

Follow AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner at @LindseyTanner.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Nurses Wanted: Swamped Hospitals Scramble for Pandemic Help

By GRANT SCHULTE and AMY FORLITI

FILE - In this Nov. 24, 2020, file photo, registered nurse Chrissie Burkhiser puts on personal protective equipment as she prepares to treat a COVID-19 patient in the emergency room at Scotland County Hospital in Memphis, Mo. U.S. hospitals slammed with COVID-19 patients are trying to lure nurses and doctors out of retirement and recruiting nursing students and new graduates who have yet to earn their licenses. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — U.S. hospitals slammed with COVID-19 patients are trying to lure nurses and doctors out of retirement, recruiting students and new graduates who have yet to earn their licenses and offering eye-popping salaries in a desperate bid to ease staffing shortages.

With the virus surging from coast to coast, the number of patients in the hospital with the virus has more than doubled over the past month to a record high of nearly 100,000, pushing medical centers and health care workers to the breaking point. Nurses are increasingly burned out and getting sick on the job, and the stress on the nation’s medical system prompted a dire warning from the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The reality is December and January and February are going to be rough times. I actually believe they are going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation,” Dr. Robert Redfield said.

Governors in hard-hit states like Wisconsin and Nebraska are making it easier for retired nurses to come back, including by waiving licensing requirements and fees, though it can be a tough sell for older nurses, who would be in more danger than many of their colleagues if they contracted the virus.

Iowa is allowing temporary, emergency licenses for new nurses who have met the state’s educational requirements but haven’t yet taken the state licensing exam. Some Minnesota hospitals are offering winter internships to nursing students to boost their staffs. The internships are typically offered in the summer but were canceled this year because of COVID-19.

Methodist Hospital in Minneapolis will place 25 interns for one to two months to work with COVID-19 patients, though certain tasks will remain off-limits, such as inserting IVs or urinary catheters, said Tina Kvalheim, a nurse who runs the program.

“They’ll be fully supported in their roles so that our patients receive the best possible, safe care,” Kvalheim said..

Landon Brown, 21, of Des Moines, Iowa, a senior nursing student at Minnesota State University, Mankato, recently accepted an internship at the Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato. He was assigned to the pediatric unit’s medical-surgical area but said he might come across patients with the coronavirus.

Brown’s resolve to help patients as a nurse was reaffirmed after his 90-year-old grandfather contracted the virus and died over the weekend.

“The staff that he had were great, and they really took a lot of pressure off of my folks and my family,” he said. “I think that if I can be that for another family, that would be great.”

The University of Iowa’s College of Nursing is also trying to get graduates into the workforce quickly. It worked to fast-track students’ transcripts to the Iowa Board of Nursing so they could get licensed sooner upon graduating, said Anita Nicholson, associate dean for undergraduate programs.

Nicholson said the college also scheduled senior internships earlier than normal and created a program that allows students to gain hospital experience under a nurse’s supervision. Those students aren’t caring for coronavirus patients, but their work frees up nurses to do so, Nicholson said.

“The sooner we can get our graduates out and into the workforce, the better,” she said.

Wausau, Wisconsin-based Aspirus Health Care is offering signing bonuses of up to $15,000 for nurses with a year of experience.

Hospitals also are turning to nurses who travel from state to state. But that’s expensive, because hospitals around the country are competing for them, driving salaries as high as $6,200 per week, according to postings for travel nursing jobs.

April Hansen, executive vice president at San Diego-based Aya Healthcare, said there are now 31,000 openings for travel nurses, more than twice the number being sought when the pandemic surged in the spring.

“It is crazy,” Hansen said. “It doesn’t matter if you are rural or urban, if you are an Indian health facility or an academic medical center or anything in between. ... All facilities are experiencing increased demand right now.”

Nurses who work in intensive care and on medical-surgical floors are the most in demand. Employers also are willing to pay extra for nurses who can show up on short notice and work 48 or 60 hours per week instead of the standard 36.

Laura Cutolo, a 32-year-old emergency room and ICU nurse from Gilbert, Arizona, began travel nursing when the pandemic began, landing in New York during the deadliest stretch of the U.S. outbreak last spring. She is now working in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and soon will return to New York.

She said she hopes her work will be an example to her children, now 2 and 5, when the crisis passes into history and they read about it someday.

“If they ask me, ’Where were you?′ I can be proud of where I was and what I did,” Cutolo said.

Doctors are in demand, too.

“I don’t even practice anymore, and I’ve gotten lots of emails asking me to travel across the country to work in ERs,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

The outbreak in the U.S. is blamed for more than 270,000 deaths and 13.8 million confirmed infections. New cases are running at over 160,000 a day on average, and deaths are up to more than 1,500 a day, a level seen back in May, during the crisis in the New York City area. Several states reported huge numbers of new cases Wednesday, including a combined 40,000 in California, Illinois and Florida alone.

States are seeing record-breaking surges in deaths, including Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky in the middle of the country. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said the virus is “spreading like wildfire.”

A COVID-19 vaccine is expected to become available in a few weeks, and health care workers are likely to be given priority for the first shots. That could make it easier for hospitals to recruit help.

To make room for the sickest, hard-hit institutions are sending home some COVID-19 patients who otherwise would have been kept in the hospital. They are also canceling elective surgeries or sending adult non-COVID-19 patients to pediatric hospitals.

A hospital system in Idaho is sending some COVID-19 patients home with iPads, supplemental oxygen, blood pressure cuffs and oxygen monitors so they can finish recovering in their own beds. The computer tablets enable nurses to check in with them, and the oxygen monitors automatically send back vital information.

Across the U.S., hospitals are converting cafeterias, waiting rooms, even a parking garage to patient treatment areas. Some states are opening field hospitals.

But that does nothing to ease the staffing shortage, especially in rural areas where officials say many people aren’t taking basic precautions against the virus.

Dr. Eli Perencevich, an epidemiology and internal medicine professor at the University of Iowa, said health care workers are paying the price for other people’s refusal to wear masks.

“It’s sending everyone to war, really,” he said. “We’ve decided as a society that we’re going to take all the people in our health care system and pummel them because we have some insane idea about what freedom really is.”

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Forliti reported from Minneapolis. Associated Press writers Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan; Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland; John O’Connor in Springfield, Illinois; and Ken Kusmer in Indianapolis contributed to this story.

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Follow Grant Schulte on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GrantSchulte

Stay Home for the Holidays or Get Tested Twice, CDC Urges

By LINDSEY TANNER

FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020 file photo, travelers walk through the Salt Lake City International Airport in Salt Lake City, a day before Thanksgiving. On Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are urging Americans to stay home over the upcoming holiday season and consider getting tested before and after if they do decide to travel. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Don’t travel over the upcoming holidays. But if you must, consider getting coronavirus tests before and after, U.S. health officials urged Wednesday.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the best way to stay safe and protect others is to stay home.

The agency also announced new guidelines that shorten recommended quarantines after close contact with someone infected with coronavirus. The agency said the risk in a shorter quarantine is small, but that the change makes following the guidance less of a hardship.

The no-travel advice echoes recommendations for Thanksgiving but many Americans ignored it. With COVID-19 continuing to surge, the CDC added the testing option.

“Cases are rising, hospitalizations are increasing , deaths are increasing. We need to try to bend the curve, stop this exponential increase,” the CDC’s Dr. Henry Walke said during a briefing.

He said any travel-related surge in cases from travel would likely be apparent about a week to 10 days after Thanksgiving.

The virus has infected more than 13.5 million Americans and killed at least 270,000 since January.

“The safest thing to do is to postpone holiday travel and stay home,” said Dr. Cindy Friedman, another CDC official. “Travel volume was high over Thanksgiving,″ and even if small numbers were infected, that could result in ”hundreds of thousands of new infections.”

’’Travel is a door-to-door experience that can spread virus during the journey and also into communities that travelers visit or live,” she added.

For those who decide to travel, COVID-19 tests should be considered one to three days before the trip and again three to five days afterward, the CDC said. The agency also recommended travelers reduce non-essential activities for a full week after they return or for 10 days if not tested afterward. And it emphasized the importance of continuing to follow precautions including masks, social distancing and frequent hand-washing.

The revised quarantine guidance says people who have been in contact with someone infected with the virus can resume normal activity after 10 days, or seven days if they receive a negative test result. That’s down from the 14-day period recommended since the pandemic began.

The change is based on extensive modeling by CDC and others, said the agency’s Dr. John Brooks..

___

Follow AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner at @LindseyTanner.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

US Aims to Distribute Vaccines to 100 Million by End of February

BY NATHANIEL WEIXEL - 12/02/20 06:38 PM

The U.S. is hoping to give a COVID-19 vaccine to 100 million people by the end of February, the head of the administration's Operation Warp Speed told reporters Wednesday.

Moncef Slaoui said that number essentially represents all of the nation's front line health workers, the elderly and people with underlying conditions. 

Slaoui, who was tapped by the Trump administration in mid-May to help lead the effort to quickly develop coronavirus vaccines and treatments, said he is basing the 100 million people estimate on the number of vaccines that could be available from Moderna and from Pfizer and BioNTech.

If Johnson & Johson's vaccine is authorized before then, there is the potential for even more people to be vaccinated, he said. Slaoui said that based on how quickly the coronavirus is spreading, he expects the company to release late-stage trial data on efficacy in January.

According to Slaoui, the companies have manufactured and stockpiled enough doses that the government can send 40 million doses to states in December, 60 million doses in January and 100 million doses by the end of February. 

Operation Warp Speed CEO Gen. Gustave Perna said the government plans to ship out 6.4 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine within 24 hours of it getting the green light from the Food and Drug Administration. Officials plan to send 12.5 million doses of the Moderna vaccine in the same period. 

Perna noted that the initial allocations to states will be sent in separate shipments because the Pfizer vaccine requires two doses administered three weeks later, and the Moderna vaccine requires a second dose four weeks later. 

Perna said giving states separate shipments will help make sure the limited storage capacity and capability isn't overwhelmed, especially with the deep-freeze requirements of the Pfizer vaccine. 

Both Moderna and Pfizer have requested emergency clearance from the Food and Drug Administration for their respective COVID-19 vaccines. The agency has scheduled a meeting for Dec. 10 to discuss Pfizer’s request for authorization and Moderna's for a week later. Authorization could occur days after the meetings. 

Wednesday's briefing comes a day after an independent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) panel recommended the first limited doses be prioritized for health workers and for residents and staff of long-term care facilities. 

CDC Director Robert Redfield formally adopted the recommendation on Wednesday, but states will have the final say in their own distribution plans. They face a Friday deadline to submit final plans to the administration.

The CDC has allocated just $200 million to jurisdictions for vaccine preparedness, with an additional $140 million coming this month. State public health officials said they need at least $8 billion in additional funding. 

110 Rice Farmers Killed in Boko Haram Attack

01 DEC, 2020 - 00:12 

Muhammadu Buhari & Edward Kallon

ABUKA. — An attack by Boko Haram Islamist insurgents on rice farmers in Nigeria’s northeast left at least 110 of them dead, a United Nations official said.

“I am outraged and horrified by the gruesome attack against civilians,” Edward Kallon, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria said in an emailed statement.

“At least 110 civilians were ruthlessly killed and many others were wounded in this attack.”

Governor of the Borno state, Babagana Zulum, where the attack occurred, said 43 victims were buried on Sunday at the Koshobe village in the Jere district.

Insurgents ambushed farmers who were bringing in their rice harvest Saturday.

“I condemn the killing of our hardworking farmers by terrorists,” President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement released by his official spokesman.

“The entire country is hurt by these senseless killings.”

Boko Haram militants have waged a campaign of violence since 2009 to impose their version of Islamic law on Africa’s most populous country of more than 200 million people.

The government estimates that more than 30,000 people have died in the conflict.

At the burial of the 43 victims on Sunday, residents of the affected community told Governor Zulum they expected the death toll to rise, as many people were still missing.

“Our people are in a very difficult situation,” Zulum told reporters. “If they stay at home they may be killed by hunger. They go out to their farmlands and risk getting killed by the insurgents.” 

— Bloomberg.

‘Very Dark Couple of Weeks’: Morgues and Hospitals Overflow

By TAMMY WEBBER and HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH

FILE - In this Nov. 19, 2020, file photo, EMT Giselle Dorgalli, second from right, looks at a monitor while performing chest compression on a patient who tested positive for coronavirus in the emergency room at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles. Amid the coronavirus resurgence, states have begun reopening field hospitals to handle an influx of sick patients that is pushing health care systems — and their workers — to the breaking point. Hospitals are bringing in mobile morgues. And funerals are once again being livestreamed or performed as drive-by affairs. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Nearly 37,000 Americans died of COVID-19 in November, the most in any month since the dark early days of the pandemic, engulfing families in grief, filling newspaper obituary pages and testing the capacity of morgues, funeral homes and hospitals.

Amid the resurgence, states have begun reopening field hospitals to handle an influx of patients that is pushing health care systems — and their workers — to the breaking point. Hospitals are bringing in mobile morgues. And funerals are being livestreamed or performed as drive-by affairs.

Health officials fear the crisis will be even worse in coming weeks, after many Americans ignored pleas to stay home over Thanksgiving and avoid people who don’t live with them.

“I have no doubt that we’re going to see a climbing death toll ... and that’s a horrific and tragic place to be,” said Josh Michaud, associate director of global health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “It’s going to be a very dark couple of weeks.”

November’s toll was far lower than the 60,699 recorded in April but perilously close to the next-highest total of almost 42,000 in May, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Deaths had dropped to just over 20,000 in June after states closed many businesses and ordered people to stay at home.

The fast-deteriorating situation is particularly frustrating because vaccine distribution could begin within weeks, Michaud said.

At Mercy Hospital Springfield in Missouri, a mobile morgue that was acquired in 2011 after a tornado ripped through nearby Joplin and killed about 160 people has been put into use again. On Sunday it held two bodies until funeral home workers could arrive.

At the Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis, burials are up by about one-third this year compared with last year, and the cremated remains of about 20 people are sitting in storage while their families wait for a safer time to hold memorial services. The dead include a husband and wife in their 80s who succumbed to COVID-19 five days apart.

“You want to be safe at the gravesite so you don’t have to do another graveside service” for another family member, said Richard Lay, Bellefontaine Cemetery’s vice president.

The Star Tribune in Minneapolis-St. Paul saw a 40% increase in the number of pages dedicated to paid obituaries in November, largely because of COVID-19, a spokesman said. By Nov. 29, the newspaper had 11 pages of obituaries, compared with about half that many on a typical Sunday.

In Worcester, Massachusetts, the National Guard trucked in cots, medical supplies, tables and other items needed to operate a 250-bed field hospital in the event the state’s medical centers become overwhelmed.

Rhode Island opened two field hospitals with more than 900 beds combined. The state’s regular hospitals reached their coronavirus capacity on Monday. New York City, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak earlier in the year, reopened a field hospital last week on Staten Island. Wisconsin has a field hospital in West Allis ready to take overflow patients. A Nevada hospital has added hospital bed capacity in an adjacent parking garage.

“Hospitals all around the country are worried on a day-to-day basis about their capacity ... and we’re not really even into winter season and we haven’t seen the impact of Thanksgiving travel and Thanksgiving gatherings,” said Dr. Amesh Adlaja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

The number of hospital beds is just one concern. Many hospitals are scrambling to find enough staff to care for patients as the virus surges almost everywhere at once, Adlaja said.

“You can’t just say we’ll have doctors and nurses from other states come because those other states are also dealing with COVID patients,” he said.

The virus is blamed for over 268,000 deaths and more than 13.5 million confirmed infections in the United States. A record 96,000 people were in the hospital with the virus in the U.S. as of Monday. The U.S. is seeing on average more than 160,000 new cases per day and almost 1,470 deaths — equal to what the country was witnessing in mid-May.

State and local officials also are responding with shutdowns, curfews, quarantines and mask mandates.

California officials said the state could see a tripling of hospitalizations by Christmas and is considering stay-home orders for areas with the highest case rates. Los Angeles County already has told its 10 million residents to stay home.

In Oklahoma, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt declared Thursday a day of prayer and fasting as the state’s confirmed coronavirus infections neared 200,000. State health authorities Tuesday reported a one-day high of over 1,700 hospitalizations.

Stitt, who tested positive for the virus in July, has donated plasma to help other patients recover and said he will do it again.

“I believe we must continue to ask God to heal those who are sick, comfort those who are hurting and provide renewed strength and wisdom to all who are managing the effects of COVID-19,” he said in a statement.

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Webber reported from Fenton, Michigan, and Hollingsworth from Mission, Kansas. Associated Press writers Alan Clendenning in Phoenix; David Caruso and Jeff McMillan in New York City; and Juliet Williams in San Francisco contributed to this story.

Disputing Trump, Barr Says No Widespread Election Fraud

By MICHAEL BALSAMO

FILE - In this Oct. 15, 2020, file photo Attorney General William Barr speaks during a roundtable discussion on Operation Legend, a federal program to help cities combat violent crime in St. Louis. Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday, Dec. 1, that the Justice Department has not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud and has seen nothing that would change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Disputing President Donald Trump’s persistent, baseless claims, Attorney General William Barr declared Tuesday the U.S. Justice Department has uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election.

Barr’s comments, in an interview with the The Associated Press, contradict the concerted effort by Trump, his boss, to subvert the results of last month’s voting and block President-elect Joe Biden from taking his place in the White House.

Barr told the AP that U.S. attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up specific complaints and information they’ve received, but “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”

The comments, which drew immediate criticism from Trump attorneys, were especially notable coming from Barr, who has been one of the president’s most ardent allies. Before the election, he had repeatedly raised the notion that mail-in voting could be especially vulnerable to fraud during the coronavirus pandemic as Americans feared going to polls and instead chose to vote by mail.

More to Trump’s liking, Barr revealed in the AP interview that in October he had appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham as a special counsel, giving the prosecutor the authority to continue to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe after Biden takes over and making it difficult to fire him. Biden hasn’t said what he might do with the investigation, and his transition team didn’t comment Tuesday.

Trump has long railed against the investigation into whether his 2016 campaign was coordinating with Russia, but he and Republican allies had hoped the results would be delivered before the 2020 election and would help sway voters. So far, there has been only one criminal case, a guilty plea from a former FBI lawyer to a single false statement charge.

Under federal regulations, a special counsel can be fired only by the attorney general and for specific reasons such as misconduct, dereliction of duty or conflict of interest. An attorney general must document such reasons in writing.

Barr went to the White House Tuesday for a previously scheduled meeting that lasted about three hours.

Trump didn’t directly comment on the attorney general’s remarks on the election. But his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and his political campaign issued a scathing statement claiming that, “with all due respect to the Attorney General, there hasn’t been any semblance” of an investigation into the president’s complaints.

Other administration officials who have come out forcefully against Trump’s allegations of voter-fraud evidence have been fired. But it’s not clear whether Barr might suffer the same fate. He maintains a lofty position with Trump, and despite their differences the two see eye-to-eye on quite a lot.

Still, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer quipped: “I guess he’s the next one to be fired.”

Last month, Barr issued a directive to U.S. attorneys across the country allowing them to pursue any “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities before the 2020 presidential election was certified, despite no evidence at that time of widespread fraud.

That memorandum gave prosecutors the ability to go around longstanding Justice Department policy that normally would prohibit such overt actions before the election was certified. Soon after it was issued, the department’s top elections crime official announced he would step aside from that position because of the memo.

The Trump campaign team led by Giuliani has been alleging a widespread conspiracy by Democrats to dump millions of illegal votes into the system with no evidence. They have filed multiple lawsuits in battleground states alleging that partisan poll watchers didn’t have a clear enough view at polling sites in some locations and therefore something illegal must have happened. The claims have been repeatedly dismissed including by Republican judges who have ruled the suits lacked evidence.

But local Republicans in some battleground states have followed Trump in making unsupported claims, prompting grave concerns over potential damage to American democracy.

Trump himself continues to rail against the election in tweets and in interviews though his own administration has said the 2020 election was the most secure ever. He recently allowed his administration to begin the transition over to Biden, but he still refuses to admit he lost.

The issues they’ve have pointed to are typical in every election: Problems with signatures, secrecy envelopes and postal marks on mail-in ballots, as well as the potential for a small number of ballots miscast or lost.

But they’ve gone further. Attorney Sidney Powell has spun fictional tales of election systems flipping votes, German servers storing U.S. voting information and election software created in Venezuela “at the direction of Hugo Chavez,” – the late Venezuelan president who died in 2013. Powell has since been removed from the legal team after an interview she gave where she threatened to “blow up” Georgia with a “biblical” court filing.

Barr didn’t name Powell specifically but said: “There’s been one assertion that would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results. And the DHS and DOJ have looked into that, and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that.”

In the campaign statement, Giuliani claimed there was “ample evidence of illegal voting in at least six states, which they have not examined.”

“We have many witnesses swearing under oath they saw crimes being committed in connection with voter fraud. As far as we know, not a single one has been interviewed by the DOJ. The Justice Department also hasn’t audited any voting machines or used their subpoena powers to determine the truth,” he said.

However, Barr said earlier that people were confusing the use of the federal criminal justice system with allegations that should be made in civil lawsuits. He said a remedy for many complaints would be a top-down audit by state or local officials, not the U.S. Justice Department.

“There’s a growing tendency to use the criminal justice system as sort of a default fix-all,” he said, but first there must be a basis to believe there is a crime to investigate.

“Most claims of fraud are very particularized to a particular set of circumstances or actors or conduct. ... And those have been run down; they are being run down,” Barr said. “Some have been broad and potentially cover a few thousand votes. They have been followed up on.”

___

Associated Press Writers Lisa Mascaro and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

Egypt Reports 392 New Coronavirus Cases, 16 Deaths on Tuesday

Ahram Online 

Wednesday 2 Dec 2020

Egypt reported 392 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday bringing the total infection tally to 116,303 since the outbreak began in February.

The health ministry also reported 16 new deaths, bringing the total number of deaths from the virus to 6,666.

The statement said that 98 patients have been discharged after recovering from the virus, bringing the total number of recoveries to 102,816.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/395966.aspx

Egypt, Saudi Arabia Support Establishing Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its Capital: Joint Statement

Ahram Online 

Tuesday 1 Dec 2020

Foreign Minister Shoukry traveled to Riyadh on Tuesday morning, where he discussed with his Saudi counterpart a number of regional issues as well as boosting bilateral cooperation

Egypt and Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday that they consider the Palestinian cause a central issue for the Arab world and that both countries support an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

In a joint statement issued by the Egyptian-Saudi political consultation committee led by Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, both countries said that they support an independent Palestinian state based on the Saudi Arab Peace initiative and related UN Security Council resolutions.

Foreign Minister Shoukry traveled to Riyadh on Tuesday morning to chair the Egyptian-Saudi political consultation committee along with his Saudi counterpart, where they discussed a number of regional issues as well as boosting bilateral cooperation during the coming period, as per the directives of the two countries' political leaders.

Both Shoukry and Farhan asserted their countries’ complete rejection of foreign interference in the internal affairs of Arab countries as well as attempts to destabilise the region.

They also stressed the important role of the Arab League in solving crises in the region as well as the importance of boosting joint Arab work.

Both parties also agreed on the importance of guaranteeing freedom of navigation in the Arabian Gulf, the Bab El-Mandab strait and the Red Sea, and stressed that they reject any attempt to hinder navigation there.

Regarding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), Farhan said that Saudi Arabia supports Egypt’s rights to preserve its water security.

Minister Farhan also asserted his country’s support of Egypt’s aim to reach a legally binding agreement on the GERD through serious talks.

Minister Shoukry expressed Egypt’s total support for Saudi Arabia protecting its national security and rejects any attack on Saudi territories, asserting that the national security of the kingdom is connected to that of Egypt.

The two sides also agreed on the importance of preserving Libya’s security and rejecting all foreign interference in its affairs, and stressed that they support a comprehensive political solution based on the Berlin Conference and the Cairo Declaration.

Shoukry and Farhan also agreed that Egypt and Saudi Arabia should work to boost economic cooperation and work on removing any obstacles standing in the way of increasing commercial and investment exchange.

They also discussed the latest developments concerning the coronavirus pandemic and its impact.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/395994.aspx

France Stresses Commitment to Boosting Economic Cooperation with Egypt

Doaa A.Moneim

Tuesday 1 Dec 2020

The total cooperation portfolio between Egypt and France is worth €7.5 billion

Ambassador of France to Egypt Stéphane Romatet has asserted the continued commitment of France to strengthening economic cooperation with Egypt over the coming period.

Romatet made the comments during a meeting with Egypt’s Minister of International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat held to discuss tapping new opportunities and expanding cooperation between Egypt and France.

Al-Mashat said that during the coming period, Egypt and France will establish a new bilateral dialogue that covers healthcare, energy, technology, agriculture and transport.

During the meeting, the minister reviewed the ongoing projects within the framework of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in January 2019 worth €1 billion, including the second tranche of €75 million from the energy sector budget support programme worth €150 billion, and a grant worth €1 million to provide technical support for the electricity and renewable energy sector within the framework of the energy sector budget support programme.

In March, a tripartite partnership agreement was inked for the implementation of the technical assistance programme for the development of wholesale trade in food markets in Egypt between the government of Egypt, Agence Française de Développement and the French company Semaris, with a grant worth €700,000.

In June, agreements were also signed with Agence Française de Développement worth €200 million to finance, develop and modernise the first line of the Cairo metro alongside a programme to support policies in the energy sector. Additionally, €150,000 also went to providing job opportunities for youth in terms of training and establishing companies in collaboration with the Ministry of Youth and Sports, according to the international cooperation ministry.

The total cooperation portfolio between Egypt and France is worth €7.5 billion, covering the transport and electricity, housing, sanitation, health, agriculture, small and medium enterprises, environment, basic and technical education sectors, according to the ministry.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/395946.aspx

What's Next for Nagorno-Karabakh?

AFP

Tuesday 1 Dec 2020

The decades-old dispute over Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian region that broke away from Azerbaijan during a war in the 1990s, is far from resolved

The Azerbaijani takeover of Lachin, the last of three districts handed back by Armenia under a deal to stop fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, ends the first stage of a Russian-brokered peace process.

But the decades-old dispute over Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian region that broke away from Azerbaijan during a war in the 1990s, is far from resolved.

Here's what to expect next:

Return to homes

Armenia agreed to hand over three districts -- Aghdam, Lachin and Kalbajar -- as part of the November deal that stopped an Azerbaijani offensive that saw Baku reclaim swathes of territory lost to Armenian separatists in the war.

Lachin was ceded on Tuesday, Kalbajar on November 25 and Aghdam on November 20.

Azerbaijan won back four other districts during the fighting and is now in control of all seven around Karabakh that Armenian forces seized in the 1990s as a buffer zone.

Tens of thousands of Azerbaijanis who fled these districts are expected to return, though Baku says the desolate areas first need to be made habitable by clearing landmines and rebuilding infrastructure.

The separatists are retaining control over most of Karabakh's Soviet-era territory and there too residents are returning.

Up to 90,000 people fled Karabakh during the fighting -- some 60 percent of the population.

Russia, which deployed peacekeepers under the deal, is helping them to go home and said Tuesday more than 26,000 had returned.

Living side-by-side

Nearly 2,000 Russian soldiers have been deployed for a renewable five-year mandate to keep the peace between the two sides.

Oil-rich Azerbaijan has vowed to invest huge sums in rebuilding the reclaimed districts, but the economic future of the Karabakh Armenians is far less certain.

The region has long relied on financial help from Armenia, itself struggling with a weak economy.

How Azerbaijan, Armenia and the separatist authorities will work together is also an open question, and tensions are sure to arise.

"The Moscow-brokered agreement... is ambiguous on a number of aspects such as the mandate of Russian peacekeepers and how the life of the local population, both Armenian and Azerbaijani, will be organised," says Olesya Vartanyan of the International Crisis Group.

"In case the ambiguity persists, that will be potentially a source of tensions and destabilisation."

What future for Karabakh?

The agreement also does not spell out how the most difficult question will be dealt with: Karabakh's long-term future.

Decades of talks chaired by France, Russia and the United States -- the so-called Minsk Group -- failed to find a political settlement over the region's status.

Russia's crucial role in ending the latest fighting has moved it to the forefront and Azerbaijan is very keen for key ally Turkey to be involved in mediation efforts.

The credibility of the Minsk Group is also being called into question, in particular by Azerbaijan which last week lashed out at France after its Senate passed a resolution calling for the recognition of Karabakh as independent.

Experts say a different diplomatic format may be possible and that the new status quo could present an opportunity as a major sticking point in talks -- the return of the seven districts around Karabakh -- has been removed.

But mistrust in the region runs deep and decades of enmity will be hard to overcome.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/395984.aspx

FMs Shoukry, Al-Zayani Criticise Qatari Interception of 2 Bahraini Vessels

Ahram Online

Tuesday 1 Dec 2020

Al-Zayani has also voiced his support to all requirements of Egyptian national security and hailed the Egyptian role in backing stability with in the region

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Bahraini counterpart, Abdullatif Al-Zayani, crtiticised Qatar's interception of two Bahraini vessels last week in Bahraini waters.

Shoukry and Al-Zayani agreed on Monday at a meeting in Cairo that "such acts contradict the conventions and treaties of the International Law of the Sea," a statement by the Egyptian foreign ministry read.

The Bahraini interior ministry said last week that Qatari patrols had intercepted, seized and threatened with weapons two Bahraini coastguard vessels while returning from maritime exercise "Al-Manaa Al-Bahary," before they then let them go.

Al-Zayani has also voiced his support to all requirements of Egyptian national security and hailed the Egyptian role in backing stability in the region.

The ministers discussed regional and international issues of mutual concern, the statement read, noting that the discussion reflected their similar opinions on these issues.

Shoukry reiterated Egypt's support to Bahrain as well as the security and stability of the Arab gulf.

He praised the level of bilateral relations with Bahrain and affirmed Egypt's keenness on enhancing them in various fields.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/395923.aspx

Cairo International Film Festival to Open 42nd Edition on Wednesday

Ahram Online

Sunday 29 Nov 2020

83 films from across 43 countries, including 20 world premieres, are scheduled to screen and compete, in addition to a few workshops, honouring ceremonies, and other activities

The 42nd edition of the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) will open on Wednesday, 2 December, amid strict safety measures against the global pandemic, with tens of activities taking place at the Cairo Opera House and other venues until 10 December.

83 films from across 43 countries, including 20 world premieres, are scheduled to screen and compete, in addition to a few workshops, honouring ceremonies, and other activities.

The CIFF is one of the oldest and most prestigious festivals in the Arab world and Africa. It is also the only festival in both regions accredited as 'category A' by the International Federation of Film Producers, alongside 14 other film festivals.

Egypt resumed public cultural activities in July following the COVID-19 lockdown, with all events held under strict safety measures that include social distancing, obligatory face masks, and sanitising.

The CIFF has launched a mobile application where updates on the festival can be found. Booking for the limited seats available will open on Tuesday through Tazkarti.com, with more info available on CIFF.org.eg.

The CIFF's full programme has been announced on Saturday.