New Coronavirus News from 15 Nov 2021

Katalin Kariko: Scientist who helped bring about mRNA vaccines [CTV News, 15 Nov 2021]

by Avis Favaro, Elizabeth St. Philip & Alexandra Mae Jones

'To be a scientist is a joy': How a Hungarian biochemist helped revolutionize mRNA
TORONTO -- Scientists generally don't seek the limelight, but Dr. Katalin Kariko has been thrust right into it. The once obscure biochemist is now on the covers of magazines and newspapers because of her role in developing mRNA vaccine technology.

An idea she started working on in the 1990s when no one thought it would work.

“They said: ‘Oh, poor Kati,’” Kariko told CTV News. “Because people just knew about [how] the RNA degrades, but I could make RNA and it didn't degrade.”

She grew up daughter to a butcher, in a poor town near Budapest, where she lived in one room with her family for the first 10 years of her life. During this time, she also learned the skills for success there: determination, hard work and a positive attitude.

“We learned from our parents that hard work is part of life,” she said.

Now, she is a senior vice president at BioNtech, the German company that worked with Pfizer to develop one of the vaccines credited with saving lives across the world during this pandemic.

But it took many years of toiling on research others put little stock into before her work bore fruition.

“I was working in the shadow of the gene therapy and people who work with DNA,” she said.
Even though progress on her work was incremental at times, she knew that that progress was still happening.

“That kept me going and I could see that it would be good for something,” she said. “That's what was driving me.”

After earning a PhD in biology, she put in long hours, not for fame or fortune, but because the science was fun for her.

“To be a scientist is a joy,” Kariko said. “I didn't care that my salary was less. That was enough. I didn't starve and so it was good.

“If somebody wants to have a lot of money, [they] shouldn’t be scientists, but if somebody wants to have the joy and fun, everyday life, [they] should be a scientist.”

She worked in Europe and then the U.S. as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, but was denied funding for her own research. Several times, she was demoted or fired.

However, she holds no grudges.

“You will see, every picture I'm smiling, I was happy,” she said, adding that she learned to see every setback or lost job as a new opportunity.

That optimistic outlook kept her going.

“I listened to the constructive criticism because I like to get the advice, but when it was just not that constructive, that I ignored,” she said.

Stress she saw as a motivator, citing the work of Hans Selye, who coined the term.

“He said that you need stress,” Kariko said. “Believe it or not, you need stress because you were not getting up in the morning. The positive stress which encouraged you, that you are [going to] look forward to the day, because you will learn today the result of that experiment, […] so that kind of stimulation you need.”

Then, in 2013, she moved to Germany to work with a little known company -- BioNtech -- to work on an mRNA flu shot technology that quickly pivoted to produce a COVID-19 vaccine when the pandemic struck.

“If I wouldn't have been fired three, four times for my job, I wouldn't be here,” she said. “I had to even thank people, everybody who made my life miserable, because [without them] I wouldn't be here actually.”

Kariko says she is thankful to have been part of the large number of scientists who contributed to create these vaccines, which have shown clear signs of protecting against severe COVID-19.

“I always felt so much respect for all of these people who did work before us,” she said. “I respect all of those people, and I thank them today.”

The work of other scientists in the field and related fields allowed Kariko and a close collaborator, Dr. Drew Weissman, to take their mRNA technology beyond the petri dish and make it start to work in living models. The big step forward was when they swapped a key molecule in their mRNA, which protected it from a body’s immune system.

The concept of being in the spotlight is new to Kariko, who had always been happiest at a lab bench, working away.

“But getting in the spotlight, I also realized that we as scientists did not talk to the public,” she said. “We like to talk to each other because we understand each other easy and we use terms that the average person would not understand.”

She said scientists had to “learn that language,” to try and explain the work to the average person. That barrier of communication is one of the reasons that Kariko is angered by anti-vaxxers who seek to scare people away from getting the vaccine.

She pointed out that unlike scientists, they do not have to worry about communicating accurately and truthfully.

“I watched those anti vaxxers […] they are so calm and they are so confident and they are saying [such] stupid things with [such] conviction,” she said. “And what they say is so trivial. And then everybody will say: ‘Yeah, he is right. Yeah.’ So that's not good.”

She pointed out that big voices in the anti-vaccine world are often motivated by money.

“People always want to make money on other people who believe things, and listen, that's what happened here, in the United States, those doctors who are saying that, do not take the vaccine, they offer you something they sell.

“And so that's horrible because there are innocent people [who] listen, and then they pay the price. So I learned that as a scientist, we have to educate the public.”

The scientist now rarely turns down interview requests.

She’s won more than three dozen awards this year alone, all while becoming a new grandmother and helping to chase treatments for cancer, MS, Lupus and malaria, using the same mRNA technology that might have never come to fruition were it not for an incredibly determined scientist.

Coronavirus latest: Hong Kong Disneyland closed on Wednesday [Nikkei Asia, 15 Nov 2021]

New Zealand to open Auckland to domestic travel; South Korea hits biggest caseload in 2 months

Nikkei Asia is tracking the spread of the coronavirus that was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Cumulative global cases have reached 253,882,518 according to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The worldwide death toll has hit 5,107,258.

For more information about the spread of COVID-19 and vaccination progress around the world, please see our interactive charts and maps.

Wednesday, Nov. 17 (Tokyo time)
11:54 a.m. Hong Kong Disneyland will close for a day on Nov. 17 to allow staff to take compulsory COVID-19 tests after authorities found one person who visited the theme park over the weekend who was infected with the coronavirus. Disneyland, which is majority-owned by the city government, said in a note the closure was out of "an abundance of caution" and advised visitors to reschedule. Any person who visited the park on Nov. 14 between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. will also have to get tested by Nov. 18, the government said in a notice.

10:56 a.m. Internal borders around New Zealand's largest city, Auckland, will reopen on Dec. 15 for fully vaccinated people and those with negative COVID-19 test results, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Wednesday. Auckland is the epicenter of an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant of COVID-19 and the city has been sealed off from the rest of the country for over 90 days. But with more than 80% of Auckland and the rest of country fully vaccinated, it was time to open up the ability to travel again, Ardern said at a news conference.
9:54 a.m. South Korea reports 3,187 new COVID-19 cases, up from 2,125 a day ago, the biggest jump in two months. Total infections in the country have reached 402,775, with 3,158 deaths. South Korea faces a rising number of cases after it loosened social distancing rules on Nov. 1, lifting restrictions on restaurants, cafes, bars and other public facilities.

6:46 a.m. Pfizer says it is seeking U.S. authorization of its experimental antiviral COVID-19 pill that cut the chance of hospitalization or death for adults at risk of severe disease by 89% in a clinical trial. It completed submission of its application for emergency use authorization of the drug, Paxlovid, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

5:18 a.m. Top U.S. infectious disease official Anthony Fauci says it is possible for COVID-19 to be reduced to an endemic illness from the current major health crisis next year if the country ramps up vaccination rates, reports Reuters. Booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccines are vital for reaching that point, he says.

Tuesday, Nov. 16
8:01 p.m. Japan intends to expand its list of international business travelers eligible for relaxed quarantine rules to those inoculated with Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine.

6:22 p.m. Hong Kong's biggest sport event, the Rugby Sevens, will be postponed again from April 2022 to November of that year due to ongoing uncertainty around travel restrictions. The rugby tournament last held in 2019 was canceled two years in a row over COVID-19 concerns.

The Hong Kong Rugby Union said it was a long postponement, but emphasized the games can only be delivered with "confidence that all participating teams can be allowed to travel and the ability to host the event to our own high standard, which we cannot guarantee."

6:20 p.m. Myanmar will reopen its land borders with China and Thailand, starting next month, due to improvements in its COVID-19 vaccination rate, its information ministry says. The reopening, for which no date was set, is to be followed by a resumption of air travel in the first quarter of next year.

4:30 p.m. Over 75% of Japan's entire population has been fully vaccinated as of Monday, the government says, with new infections easing. The country reported just 79 new cases on Monday, the lowest daily count so far this year. Authorities are preparing to administer booster shots from December to prevent a possible resurgence.

1:38 p.m. India logs 8,865 new cases in the last 24 hours, the lowest daily count in over nine months, bringing the country's total to 34.46 million. Fatalities rose by 197 to 463,852.

11:00 a.m. South Korea reports 2,125 new cases, up from 2,006 a day earlier, with the number of patients in serious condition hitting a record high of 495. Deaths from COVID rose by 22 to a cumulative total of 3,137.

10:20 a.m. China reports 22 new cases for Monday, down from 52 a day earlier. Of the new infections, 11 were locally transmitted cases, compared with 32 the previous day. China also reports 13 new asymptomatic patients, which it classifies separately from confirmed cases, compared with 14 the day before. The country has recorded over 1,300 local cases in the latest outbreak since mid-October, forcing authorities to place affected areas under strict curbs as China maintains its zero-COVID policy.

9:30 a.m. Two billion doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine have been supplied worldwide, the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker and its partner say, in just under a year since its first approval. The shot, which is the biggest contributor to the COVAX vaccine sharing scheme backed by the World Health Organization, is being made in 15 countries for supply to more than 170 nations.

5:10 a.m. Japan, India and Pakistan have moved down to the lowest level of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's COVID-19 travel advisory scale. The three countries are now considered "low" risk destinations for the disease. The CDC told Americans to make sure they are fully vaccinated before traveling to these countries. Liberia, Gambia and Mozambique have also been lowered to the Level 1 designation.

1:40 a.m. New York City clears the way for all adults to receive a booster shot of COVID-19 vaccine as the city braces for a wave of new infections amid cold weather. City Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi says he is issuing an official advisory instructing all health care providers in the five boroughs to offer the extra booster dose to any adult who wants one. "There should be no barriers to accessing a booster shot, provided that someone is an adult, meaning 18 or older," Chokshi says.

Monday, Nov. 15
8:00 p.m. Singapore announces the inclusion of Indonesia and several other countries under its Vaccinated Travel Lane program that lets passengers enter the city-state without quarantine.

India is also expected to be included. Fully inoculated travelers from Indonesia can enter Singapore from Nov. 29, subject to COVID-19 tests. Transport Minister S. Iswaran says the goal is to allow travelers from India on the same day. Those from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates can enter starting Dec. 6.

The city-state has already included countries such as Malaysia, Brunei, Germany, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, the U.K. and U.S. under the arrangement, as it moves to revive air travel and rebuild its status as a regional hub.

5:00 p.m. The Japanese government plans to allow booster shots of COVID-19 vaccines to be administered as soon as six months after a second dose has been received. The health ministry has set an eight-month interval between second and third shots, but local governments will be able to shorten the period by two months if they deem it necessary. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has vowed to begin administering them within the year, starting with medical personnel. Individuals aged 18 and older will be eligible.

1:56 p.m. India reports 10,229 new infections for the past 24 hours, down from 11,271 the previous day, pushing the country's total caseload to 34.45 million. Fatalities rose by 125 to 463,655. Active cases account for 0.39% of the total confirmed cases so far, the lowest figure since March 2020, according to a health ministry statement. The daily positivity rate, the number of people testing positive out of every 100 samples per day, currently stands at 1.12%; the rate has remained below 2% for the past 42 days. The country has administered 3 million vaccine doses since Sunday morning and more than 1.12 billion doses overall.

12:22 p.m. Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda says the country's economy is likely to recover to pre-pandemic levels in the first half of 2022. Kuroda said, "The economy's recovery has been somewhat slower than initially expected," as COVID-19 curbs and parts shortages hit consumption and output. "But the mechanism for an economic recovery remains intact," he said in a speech at a meeting with business leaders in Nagoya.

11:40 a.m. Thailand's economy returned to year-on-year contraction in the three months ending September due to the country's delta outbreaks that led to business lockdowns in heavily affected provinces, including Bangkok. Gross domestic product shrank 0.3% in the third quarter year on year, according to data released by the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council.

10:45 a.m. China's new home prices fell 0.2% in October from the previous month -- the biggest decline since February 2015 -- amid weakening demand, as authorities maintain purchase restrictions to deter speculators. New home prices rose 3.4% year on year in October, slower than the 3.8% in September, according to Reuters calculations released by the National Bureau of Statistics.

10:00 a.m. China reports 52 cases for Sunday compared with 89 a day earlier. Of the new infections, 32 were locally transmitted, down from 70 the previous day. The city of Dalian in the northeastern province of Liaoning accounted for 25 of the local cases. The country also reports 14 new asymptomatic patients, which it classifies separately from confirmed cases, compared with 25 a day earlier.

9:30 a.m. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's approval rating has fallen to its lowest level in 18 months, a poll conducted for The Australian newspaper shows. Satisfaction with Morrison's performance dropped to 44%, the lowest level since March 2020 when he faced criticism over his response to devastating bush fires. The findings are a blow to Morrison's hopes that easing COVID curbs and signs of a stronger economy will aid his reelection prospects in May 2022.

8:56 a.m. Japan's economy shrank 0.8% in the July-September quarter from the previous quarter, equal to an annualized pace of 3.0%. The economy struggled as exports fell and consumer spending remained sluggish amid the pandemic. The result compares with an average forecast of an annualized 0.56% decline, according to a survey of 37 economists by the Japan Center for Economic Research.

5:00 a.m. Israel says children aged 5 to 11 will be eligible for vaccination and that a starting date for the inoculation campaign would be announced within days. The decision followed approval by an expert panel on vaccinations last week after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine for the age group at a 10-microgram dose. The jab given to those aged 12 and older is 30 micrograms. The two companies have said their vaccine showed 90.7% efficacy against the coronavirus in a clinical trial of children aged 5 to 11.
0:20 a.m. Singapore reports 1,723 cases compared with 2,304 the previous day, with 10 new deaths.

Sunday, Nov. 14
5:56 p.m. Cambodia will stop requiring quarantine for vaccinated travelers from Monday, Prime Minister Hun Sen says. The announcement was made via social media in a voice message. The country had previously required a lengthy quarantine of more than 18 months. Travelers will have to show a negative test 72 hours prior to travel and have had two jabs. Unvaccinated travelers will have to quarantine for 14 days.

1:29 p.m. The city of Beijing says people who recently visited China's ports of entry should avoid coming to the capital, as the country remains concerned about infections from abroad amid a monthlong outbreak. The small northern administrative divisions of Heihe, Erenhot and Ejina, along China's borders with Russia and Mongolia, were among the hardest-hit areas in an outbreak since mid-October that has seen more than 1,200 domestically transmitted cases.

1:25 p.m. Australia could start administering jabs for children under age 12 in January. Health Minister Greg Hunt said medical regulators are reviewing the health and safety data for vaccines targeting children between the ages of 5 and 11 and are unlikely to decide this year.
"The expectation that they have set is the first part of January, hopefully early January," Hunt told the Australian Broadcast Corporation. "But they're going as quickly as possible."

2:35 a.m. Young children in Vienna can start getting coronavirus vaccinations next week as part of a pilot project, Austria media reports. Broadcaster ORF reported that about 200 children between the ages of 5 and 11 can get jabs of the Pfizer vaccine each day in the Austrian capital starting Monday. The pilot project is limited to Vienna only and doesn't apply to the rest of the country.

1:57 a.m. Morocco will conduct rapid COVID-19 tests to passengers arriving in its airports and ports, and will deny access to any visitor with a positive result, the government says. The measure, which strengthens an existing requirement of a negative PCR test 48 hours before departure, aims to protect the country amid a surge of cases in Europe. Travelers with positive tests must be returned at the cost of the airline that brought them into the country, unless they have a permanent residency document, the government says.

Saturday, Nov. 13
11:51 p.m. Singapore's Health Ministry reports 2,304 new cases compared with 3,099 the previous day, along with 14 deaths. Of the new cases, 2,179 are reported in the community, 120 in the migrant worker dormitories and five are imported cases. The weekly infection growth rate is 0.98.

10:15 p.m. German Chancellor Angela Merkel calls on all unvaccinated Germans to get their shots as quickly as possible as the country's infection rate hit the latest in a string of new highs and death numbers were growing, the Associated Press reports. "If we stand together, if we think about protecting ourselves and caring for others, we can save our country a lot this winter," Merkel says in her weekly podcast.

6 p.m. Thailand will delay the reopening of nightlife entertainment venues to Jan. 15 despite pleas from the industry to open sooner. A spokesman for the government's COVID-19 administration cited concerns about ventilation and inefficient prevention measures in pubs, bars and karaoke joints, the Associated Press reports. The Thailand Nightlife and Entertainment Business Association had hoped that nightlife businesses, shut since April, would reopen next month.

5:43 p.m. According to Reuters, Russia reports a record one-day death toll of 1,241 from COVID-19 as well as 39,256 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours.

Florida Gov. DeSantis: 'We Chose Freedom Over Fauci-ism, and We're Better Off for It' [Daily Signal, 15 Nov 2021]

By Rob Bluey

ORLANDO, Fla.—Gov. Ron DeSantis delivered a blistering critique of President Joe Biden and his authoritarian policies, warning Americans they need to fight against the radical left to preserve our freedom.

Speaking to roughly 800 supporters of The Heritage Foundation and its grassroots partner, Heritage Action for America, DeSantis took aim at Biden’s recently announced COVID-19 vaccine mandate. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

The emergency rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires employers with 100 or more employees to make sure that those workers get the COVID-19 vaccine or submit to weekly testing.

“If the federal government can get away with this, they’re going to be able to get away with a lot more,” DeSantis, a Republican, warned in his Thursday speech. “Next year, maybe it’s something you care about, or two years from now. It’s important that we take a stand, and it’s important that we say, ‘No, no mandates, no restrictions. We’re not going to let you take away our freedom.’”

From the early days of the pandemic, DeSantis has attracted headlines for what admirers call his balanced approach—a contrast to other states that embraced lockdowns, school closures, and restrictive policies.

“While other states kept locking people down, Florida lifted people up. We did not subcontract out leadership to Dr. Fauci,” DeSantis said. “I saw governor after governor just hide behind the bureaucrats and do all these destructive things.”

DeSantis, who is in his third year as governor, said he wanted Americans to associate Florida with freedom—a state that wouldn’t impulsively follow orders from Washington. He singled out Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to Biden and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“We chose freedom over Fauci-ism, and we’re better off for it. In fact, you will never see this on the media: For the last many weeks, Florida has had the lowest COVID rate in the entire nation. They don’t want to tell you that. They don’t want to talk about it.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Florida is the only state with a “moderate” level of community transmission. The CDC determines the level of such transmission “based on the number of cases in the last seven days per 100,000 population and the number of tests in the last seven days that have a positive result,” according to the CDC’s website.

As of Monday, the other 49 states, plus the District of Columbia, have either a “high” or “substantial” level of community transmission. (The map below is from the CDC’s website.)

“The left learned a valuable lesson from COVID, and the lesson is if you can whip up enough fear in the population, you can really push the envelope,” DeSantis said. “In times like these, there’s no substitute for courage. Courage to stand up against hostile political forces, courage to stand in the face of things like cancel culture, courage to stand up against a dishonest and corrupt corporate media, and courage to be a voice for those who are voiceless in this society.”

DeSantis cited Biden’s vaccine mandate as an example of the left’s overreach. OSHA announced its emergency rule Nov. 4 and set a deadline of Jan. 4 for companies and other organizations to comply. At least 27 states and numerous private employers are challenging the OSHA rule, arguing it is unlawful and the federal government lacks the authority to impose a vaccine mandate.

In a ruling Friday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit—covering Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas—blocked OSHA from implementing its rule. Other cases are pending in other circuit courts.

DeSantis said Biden’s mandate would have far-reaching consequences at a time when many employers are already struggling to find workers and navigate the supply chain crisis.

“When you look at how this would impact key sectors—health care with these nurses, truckers, all these other areas—if just 1% of them fall off and lose their jobs, you’re going to see huge problems,” he said. “That’s going to have a ripple effect all throughout the American economy.”
There’s also a disregard for science, DeSantis said. He pointed to medical research on natural immunity from Israel and the Cleveland Clinic, showing it is as effective or more effective than a COVID-19 vaccine.

“They literally want to fire somebody who’s immune already for not getting the jab, even though that person has better protection than the people that have something like the Pfizer,” DeSantis said. “It makes no sense.”

Dr. Martin Makary, a surgeon who is a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Carey Business School and editor of Medpage Today, recently spoke at The Heritage Foundation about natural immunity. He noted in a Wall Street Journal commentary that natural immunity “is effective and durable, and public-health leaders should pay it heed.”

Yet despite the scientific evidence and large number of vaccinated Americans—nearly 60% are fully vaccinated—DeSantis also predicted Americans would be asked to make more sacrifices in the future. (The vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna require two doses; the vaccine from Johnson & Johnson requires one dose.)

“I said this the other day and the media got mad, but it’s true. Six months from now, if you have two shots, you are going to be considered unvaccinated. They will deny that now. I understand that,” DeSantis said. “But just remember they said it was only going to be 15 days to slow the spread, and look where we are.”

Coronavirus CT: Latest Advice From Fauci For Holiday Gatherings [Patch.com, 15 Nov 2021]

By Rich Kirby

Speaking to the Bipartisan Policy Center, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that cases of COVID-19 are rising again in certain parts of the country.

DANBURY, CT — We are hitting a patch of turbulence following a coronavirus calm, according to the Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and the White House chief medical advisor.

Speaking to the Bipartisan Policy Center on Monday, Fauci warned that cases of COVID-19 are rising again in certain parts of the country, after peaking during the summer's delta surge.

The COVID-19 pandemic has eased its grip somewhat on the South, where cases and hospitalizations have fallen off sharply from their Summer of Delta highs. But the Northeast and Midwest are suffering a surge in coronavirus cases that is chewing away at the gains made in the South.

This past weekend, cases were down 57 percent last week from the summer's high, but the number of Americans hospitalized with the coronavirus grew last week for the first time in nearly 10 weeks. The 7-day average of 82,000 cases is up 11 percent from the week before.
Still, the pandemic remains a crisis mostly for the unvaccinated, according to Fauci:
"If you get vaccinated and your family's vaccinated, you can feel good about enjoying a typical Thanksgiving, Christmas with your family and close friends."

With 2,179 cases confirmed over the weekend, out of 75,526 tests taken, Connecticut's daily coronavirus positivity rate reported Monday afternoon was 2.89 percent, a rise of 0.28 percent from Friday.

Hospitalizations climbed 13 beds over the weekend. As of Monday, there are 238 people being treated for the virus inside Connecticut hospitals.

Most of those hospitalized (70) are in New Haven County.

Fauci: Vaccinated families can 'feel good' about Thanksgiving gatherings | TheHill [The Hill, 15 Nov 2021]

BY JUSTINE COLEMAN

Anthony Fauci said on Monday that families who are vaccinated against COVID-19 can “feel good about enjoying a typical” Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.

President Biden’s chief medical adviser warned that the U.S. is still counting tens of thousands of new cases per day and recommended masks in indoor congregate settings. But he said the fully vaccinated should feel comfortable gathering with other vaccinated family and friends in private settings this holiday season.

"If you get vaccinated and your family's vaccinated, you can feel good about enjoying a typical Thanksgiving, Christmas with your family and close friends,” he said at a Bipartisan Policy Center event.

“When you go to indoor congregate settings, go the extra mile, be safe, wear a mask,” he added. “But when you are with your family at home, goodness, enjoy it with your parents, your children, your grandparents. There's no reason not to do that.”

Almost 200 million Americans are considered fully vaccinated, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, including 70 percent of adults and 86 percent of those aged 65 and older.

The vaccine also became available to about 28 million children aged 5-11 years old earlier this month after the CDC recommended the Pfizer vaccine for that age group.

Still, almost 60 million Americans aged 12 and older remain unvaccinated, leaving some worried about their holiday plans.

The U.S. has seen a very slight uptick in cases in early November, according to data from The New York Times, reaching a seven-day average of about 80,000 new cases per day. Almost 30 states have seen an increase in their average case count in the past two weeks.

Meanwhile, deaths have continued their decline since the delta variant surge, although the country still sees more than 1,000 COVID-19 fatalities per day.

Fauci, who directs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, emphasized that the pandemic is not permanent.
"This will end, we are not going to be going through this indefinitely," Fauci said. "How quickly we get to the end depends on us, how well we vaccinate, how well we get boosted and how well we do the kinds of things to protect ourselves.”

Health officials have been keeping an eye on COVID-19 data as the country heads into the winter, warning that the colder weather could bring more cases.

“As winter approaches again and as people get prepared for the holidays ... we should be prepared for the fact that there may be an uptick in cases that we see in various parts of the country with cold weather,” Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told "Fox News Sunday" this week.

Dr. Fauci says Covid cases are starting to climb in some areas of the U.S. [CNBC, 15 Nov 2021]

By Robert Towey & Nate Rattner

Covid-19 cases are starting to climb again in select regions across the U.S. after stabilizing at a high level following this summer's delta surge, White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday.

Fauci's comments came just a day after the country reported a seven-day average of more than 82,000 new cases, up 11% from the week before, according to a CNBC analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University. Nationwide cases were down 57% last week from the delta wave's peak this summer, but a jump in Covid patients in the Midwest and Northeast is fueling the sudden increase.

"The only thing that's a little bit disconcerting is that we're beginning to plateau," Fauci said during an interview hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center. "In other words, the deceleration of cases is now plateaued, and in some areas of the country, we're starting to see a bit of an uptick."

Infections had been on the decline for weeks after hitting a delta wave peak of 172,500 new cases per day on Sept. 13. They flattened out at a high level, bouncing between 70,000 and 75,000 new cases a day for nearly three weeks through most of last week, and are now once again increasing.

Average daily cases have jumped by 19% and 37% in the Midwest and Northeast over the last week, respectively, according to Johns Hopkins data. Hospitalizations, which lag an increase in infections, are up 11% over that same period in the Midwest, while the number of currently hospitalized patients with Covid is flat in the Northeast.

Cases and hospitalizations have fallen sharply in the South, where the delta wave hit earliest and hardest over the summer.

About 47,000 patients with the virus are currently hospitalized nationwide, according to a seven-day average of data from the Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. is reporting an average of roughly 1,150 Covid fatalities per day, according to Johns Hopkins data. Both figures are flat over the past week.

Besides the plateauing cases, Fauci, also director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the U.S. must focus on vaccinating the roughly 60 million people nationwide who have not yet been immunized. That excludes 28 million children ages 5 to 11 who became eligible to receive Pfizer's two-dose Covid vaccine earlier this month, he noted.
"There's a lot of good news, but some challenging news that we really need to address as we go into the winter months," Fauci said.

Fauci added that those who've been fully vaccinated for Covid can gather for the holiday season without concern. But he recommended wearing a mask in indoor congregate settings with cases still hovering at a high level nationwide.

"When you're with your family at home, goodness, enjoy it with your parents, your children, your grandparents," he said. "There's no reason not to do that."

Dr. Fauci says he won’t step down until COVID is in ‘rearview mirror’ [The Atlanta Journal Constitution, 15 Nov 2021]

By Shant Shahrigian

He’s not going anywhere.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert who has provided reassurance to many Americans during the pandemic, says he won’t quit until the country gets past COVID-19.

“I’m the head of an institute that actually played the major role in the development of the vaccines that have saved now millions of lives from COVID-19,” he told CBS’ “Face the Nation” in an interview that aired Sunday. “I’m the director of the institute that has now been very important in the basic research in leading to the drugs that will now have an important impact in the treatment of COVID-19. That’s what I do.

Explore Complete coverage: Coronavirus in Georgia
“So, I’m going to keep doing that until this COVID-19 outbreak is in the rearview mirror, regardless of what anybody says about me, or wants to lie and create crazy fabrications because of political motivations,” concluded Fauci, the chief White House medical adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The comments came as Fauci is approaching his 81st birthday.

Asked whether passing the baton to someone else could lessen the divisiveness around the government’s pandemic response, he answered in the negative.

“I didn’t create political divisiveness,” Fauci said. “And that’s the thing we’re dealing with. We’re dealing with the uncomfortable but real element of political divisiveness at a time when we are in the middle of a war against a virus.”

Throughout the pandemic, Fauci has led efforts to get Americans to wear masks, practice social distancing and, for nearly a year now, get vaccinated.

“So, I'm going to keep doing that until this COVID-19 outbreak is in the rearview mirror, regardless of what anybody says about me, or wants to lie and create crazy fabrications because of political motivations."

- Dr. Anthony Fauci
In the process, he became a lightning rod for right-wing criticism of public safety measures. More than half of respondents to a small Hill-HarrisX poll recently said he should step down.

Fauci on Sunday lamented former President Donald Trump’s handling of the outbreak, in which Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the threat and resisted safety steps.

“When you have leadership ... denying that something is as serious as it is, then you have a real problem. So, in that respect, it could have gone differently,” he said.

Outcry in China after Covid health workers kill dog while owner was in quarantine [The Guardian, 15 Nov 2021]

By Helen Davidson

Authorities say health worker has been dismissed from role, amid accusations they are overreacting as China pursues zero-Covid strategy

The killing of a pet dog whose owners were in quarantine has sparked outrage on Chinese social media and raised questions about extreme measures health authorities are taking to battle a continuing Delta outbreak.

On Friday a resident of Shangrao, in Jiangxi province, posted allegations on Weibo that her pet dog was beaten to death by health workers inside her apartment while she was quarantining in a hotel that didn’t allow animals. In video purportedly from her apartment’s security camera posted online, one of two PPE-wearing individuals is shown hitting the dog with what looks like a crowbar.

Shangrao city authorities apologised on Saturday night for not communicating with the dog’s owner and said the worker in question had been dismissed from the role. It claimed the dog had been dealt with through “harmless treatment”.

The notice said people in quarantine were supposed to leave their apartment doors open for quarantining but hers had been locked. With the assistance of police the workers accessed her apartment and discovered the dog.

A hashtag related to the response was viewed about 210m times. Commenters questioned the suggestion the worker had acted without authority and also criticised the censoring of online posts about the incident.

“Without the instructions of the leaders above, who would dare to pry the door and kill the dog?” said one.

It follows a similar case earlier this month when cats belonging to a Chengdu resident quarantining as a close contact were euthanised. The animals had not been tested for the virus.

After the cat case, An Xiang, director of a Beijing law firm, said on Weibo the science around pet infection was not conclusive. “Emergency measures such as hunting and killing should not be taken … The relevant unit has no evidence to prove that these pets have been infected.”

In September, Harbin officials were accused of overreacting when they euthanised three cats that had returned positive readings for the virus while their owner was in hospital.

The cases have prompted waves of fear among pet owners and confusion among local authorities about laws and official processes, the South China Morning Post reported. Local media noted previous measures to care for the animals while owners were quarantined. As China pursues a zero-Covid strategy and battles a stubborn outbreak of the Delta variant, the criteria for people to be quarantined have widened.

There is no conclusive research on the risk of Covid-19 transmissions from pets to their owners. Advice from various national disease control centres is that a Covid patient should be isolated from both people and animals.

In July the BBC reported that a study by researchers at Utrecht University found rates up to 18% of Covid in animals belonging to patients, but that the most likely transmission path was from humans to animals. No case of a pet infecting an owner has been recorded.

The killing of a corgi shows how government power has grown unchecked in China in the name of Covid prevention [CNN, 15 Nov 2021]

by Nectar Gan and Steve George

Hong Kong (CNN)A series of loud bangs startle the sleeping corgi, driving it out of its bed. The door opens and two people dressed in full hazmat suits enter the living room, one carrying a crowbar and another a yellow plastic bag.

"Did the leader say we need to settle it right here on the spot?" one of them can be heard asking. "Yes," the other replies, as he proceeds to move a table the corgi was hiding under, and strike the animal on the head with the crowbar. The dog whimpers and runs off camera to another room.

The unsettling scene, captured by a security camera and shared online by the dog's owner, shows the last moments before the pet was killed in its home by Covid prevention workers in the Chinese city of Shangrao, in southeastern Jiangxi province, on Friday, while the corgi's owner was undergoing compulsory quarantine in a nearby hotel.

The killing of the dog, which triggered a massive outcry on Chinese social media over the weekend, is the latest example of the extreme measures taken by local authorities in China in pursuit of zero-Covid.

Local authorities in China are under tremendous pressure to curb infections, as a renewed Delta variant outbreak continues to spread across the country. So far, more than 1,300 cases have been reported in about two-thirds of provinces in the country.

Amid the outpouring of shock and anger, the dog's death has sparked heated debate about animal rights, as well as no shortage of reflection on just how far unchecked government power can be expanded during the pandemic at the expense of individual rights.

The residential community where the dog lived is under lockdown due to a handful of confirmed Covid-19 cases. All residents were required to enter into government quarantine on Friday, and were not allowed to bring their pets with them, the owner said on Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform.

The owner, whose surname is Fu and has so far tested negative for the virus, said community workers had repeatedly reassured her before she left for quarantine on Friday morning that they would not take away or kill the dog during the building's disinfection. But by the afternoon, Covid prevention workers had barged into her apartment to hit the dog, according to the owner.

"The dog tried to avoid the beating and fled into the bedroom, and therefore it wasn't recorded by surveillance camera, but (I) could hear faint wails. A few minutes later, they said they've dealt with it and would take it away, holding a yellow plastic bag in their hands," she wrote in a since-deleted post.

"Even now I don't know whether my dog is alive or dead, and where it has been taken," she added.

In a statement late on Saturday, the local government of Xinzhou district, where the complex is located, confirmed the dog was killed as part of the need to "thoroughly disinfect" homes in the community.

But it admitted Covid prevention workers had "safely disposed" of the dog without communicating fully with the owner. The workers involved had been criticized and removed from their positions, it said, adding they had apologized to the owner and gained her understanding.

On Weibo, however, the owner claimed she was pressured by local authorities and her employer to delete her posts. CNN has reached out to the owner, who was not named by the government, and the Jiangxi provincial government for comment.

It's not the first time Chinese authorities have killed pets as part of their stringent Covid response. In September, three cats in the northeastern city of Harbin were killed after testing positive for the virus without consent from their owner, who was in hospital quarantine after contracting the virus.

Not all local governments are as stringent when it comes to dealing with pets, however. In January, Shanghai authorities were widely praised for allowing residents to bring their pets into centralized quarantine with them.

Animals in different countries have contracted Covid-19, including domestic pets, zoo animals and livestock, with humans the primary source of these infections.

But although scientists say Covid-19 likely originated in animals before becoming widespread among humans, there is no evidence animals are playing a significant role in the spread of the virus to people, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And in the latest incident, the dog was killed before it was even tested for Covid, according to the owner.

"When they hadn't even confirmed whether the dog was negative or positive (for Covid), they barged into the owner's home and beat the dog to death. Is this the management level of the government?" a top comment on Weibo said.

In its statement, the district government said residents had been asked not to lock their doors before they left for quarantine, and Covid prevention workers opened the owner's door by force under the witness of police officers.

The move has sparked a fierce backlash from pet owners and sympathizers, while others see it as a necessary sacrifice for the "greater good" of society, arguing that human lives are more important than animals'.

But for some, there is another crucial question to be asked: just how much more power has the government amassed in the name of Covid prevention, at the cost of individual rights and liberties?

"From the earlier killing of the three cats to today's killing of the dog, it's getting worse and worse. The so-called debate around 'animal rights' is merely a camouflage -- the issue at heart here has always been the wanton infringement of individual (rights) by the endlessly expanding state power," a comment on Chinese social media site Douban said.

Xi's China is closing to the world. And it isn't just about borders [CNN, 15 Nov 2021]

by Nectar Gan

Hong Kong (CNN)It's been nearly two years since China shut its international borders as part of its efforts to keep Covid-19 out.

China tamed the initial outbreak in Wuhan by locking down the city of more than 10 million people, confining residents to their homes for weeks and suspending public transportation.

Since then, Beijing has adopted a zero-tolerance playbook to quell resurgences of the virus.
Harnessing the reach and force of the authoritarian state and its surveillance power, it has imposed snap lockdowns, tracked close contacts, placed thousands into quarantine and tested millions.

Before anywhere else in the world, China's economy roared back to growth and life returned to something approaching normal — all within a bubble created to shield its 1.4 billion people from a raging pandemic that has wreaked havoc and claimed millions of lives across the globe.

The ruling Communist Party has seized on that success, touting it as evidence of the supposed superiority of its one-party system over Western democracies, especially the United States.

But as the pandemic drags on, local outbreaks have continued to flare up, frustrating the government's mission to eliminate the virus within China's borders.

And now, as much of the world starts to reopen and learn to live with Covid, China is looking increasingly isolated by comparison — and determinedly inward-facing.

This apparent inward turn is evident in the itinerary of the country's supreme leader Xi Jinping, who hasn't left China for almost 22 months and counting.

It is manifest in the drastic reduction in people-to-people exchanges between China and the rest of the world, as the flow of tourist, academic and business trips slows to a trickle.

But it is also reflected in parts of the country's national psyche — a broader shift that has been years in the making since Xi took the helm of the Communist Party nearly a decade ago, yet accentuated and exacerbated by the pandemic and the politics around it.

While taking increasing pride in China's traditional culture and growing national strength, many Chinese people are turning progressively suspicious, critical or even outright hostile toward the West — along with any ideas, values or other forms of influence associated with it.

In a sense, the closed borders have almost become a physical extension of that insular-leaning mentality taking hold in parts of China, from top leaders to swathes of the general public.

For now, Beijing's zero-Covid policy still enjoys overwhelming public support, even as China shows no sign of reopening in the foreseeable future. But analysts question how sustainable it is for the country to remain shut off from the world — and whether there could be considerations other than public health at play.

Sealed behind China's borders
For nearly two years, most people in China have been unable to travel overseas, due to the country's stringent border restrictions: international flights are limited, quarantine upon reentry is harsh and lengthy, and Chinese authorities have ceased issuing or renewing passports for all but essential travel.

Foreign visitors, from tourists to students, are largely banned from China. Those few who are allowed to enter, as well as returning Chinese citizens, must undergo at least 14 days of strict centralized quarantine. And that can be extended to up to 28 days by local authorities, often followed by another lengthy period of home observation.

The Chinese government has ordered local authorities to build permanent quarantine facilities for overseas arrivals, following the example of the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, which erected a 5,000-room quarantine center spanning an area the size of 46 football fields.

With the borders virtually sealed, even China's top leaders are bunkering down in the country. Neither Xi nor Premier Li Keqiang, or the other five members on the party's top decision-making Politburo Standing Committee, are known to have made foreign visits during the pandemic.

Xi's last trip abroad was in January 2020, when he made a two-day visit to Myanmar to promote his signature Belt and Road Initiative — an ambitious program to boost infrastructure and trade across Asia, Europe and Africa, which has lost much of its steam since Covid-19 emerged.

The border closure has also come as China is turning inward on itself ideologically under Xi, said Carl Minzner, a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"Ideologically, China is slowly becoming more insular compared to the reform and opening up era of the '80s and '90s — this is a hallmark of Xi's new era," he said.

Over the past years, a revival of traditional culture has taken hold across Chinese society, particularly among the younger generation who are proud of their cultural roots.

The trend is encouraged and heavily promoted by the party, in what Minzner calls "a strategic effort to deploy Chinese tradition as an ideological shield against foreign values, particularly Western ones."

Since taking office in late 2012, Xi has repeatedly warned against the "infiltration" of Western values such as democracy, press freedom and judicial independence. He has clamped down on foreign NGOs, churches, as well as Western textbooks — all seen as vehicles for undue foreign influence.

That has fueled a growing strand of narrow-minded nationalism, which casts suspicion on any foreign ties and views feminism, the LGBTQ movement, and even environmentalism as stooges of Western influence designed to undermine China.

Since the pandemic, that intolerance has only grown.

In June, nearly 200 Chinese intellectuals who participated in a Japanese government-sponsored exchange program were attacked on Chinese social media and branded "traitors" — for trips they took years ago.

In July, journalists from several foreign media outlets covering deadly floods in northern China were harassed online and at the scene by local residents, with staff from the BBC and Los Angeles Times receiving death threats, according to the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China.

And in August, a Chinese infectious disease expert was called a "traitor" who "blindly worshiped Western ideas" for suggesting China should eventually learn to coexist with Covid. Some even accused him of colluding with foreign forces to sabotage China's pandemic response.

While it is unclear to what extent these nationalist sentiments represent mainstream opinion, they've been given overriding prominence in China's government-managed public discourse, where most liberal-leaning voices have been silenced.

Victor Shih, a China expert at the University of California, San Diego, said while Xi's predecessors had "grudgingly tolerated" Western reporters, NGO workers and sometimes even welcomed academics to China, the current administration now views their presence as sources of undesirable influences.

And Covid measures have become a convenient way to keep them out. Since the pandemic, most academics and non-profit workers have stopped going to China due to the border restrictions and quarantine requirements, Shih said.

"This heavy filter that is applied today — and had been applied prior to the pandemic — will help filter out what (Chinese leaders) see as undesirable elements from coming into China and polluting the values of the Chinese people," Shih said.

But even after the border reopens, it remains to be seen how the Chinese government will allow foreign visitors to return — and whether some sort of additional screening might stay in place.

"The question is how quickly it'll want to relax restrictions on the flows of people into and out of China. Currently, that's primarily a health-related issue. But I do think the longer it takes, it also begins to get fused into political issues," said Minzer, from the Council on Foreign Relations.

"It totally seems possible to me that the relaxations happen for different groups at different times," he said, adding that foreign researchers who focus on topics the Chinese government deems politically sensitive could be among the last to be allowed in.

But Shih noted that attempts to eliminate "foreign influence" were unlikely to work, when China eventually resumes contact with the world.

Despite Beijing's deteriorating relations with the United States, Britain, Australia and other Western countries, large numbers of Chinese students are still likely to pursue their studies there.

When the US Embassy and consulates in China resumed issuing student visas to Chinese nationals in May, they were flooded with applications. In August, before the start of the new academic year, the Shanghai Pudong International Airport saw long lines of students and parents with big suitcases stretching hundreds of meters at check-in.

"China cannot do without its best and brightest. They will go back to China — having lived in the West, some of them will love China even more, others will gain this skepticism about the Chinese political system," he said.

Public support for zero Covid
For now, Chinese authorities are doubling down on their resolve to eliminate the virus, resorting to increasingly extreme measures to curb local flare-ups.

Public health experts have attributed China's reluctance to relax its zero-Covid policy partly to uncertainty about the efficacy of Chinese vaccines, especially in face of the highly infectious Delta variant.

But political considerations have also played a role. Since containing the initial outbreak in Wuhan, the Chinese government has held up its effective containment efforts as proof of the supposed superiority of the country's authoritarian political system. The success of zero-Covid is thus hailed as an ideological and moral victory over the faltering response of the US and other Western democracies.

And there is plenty of public support for the hardline approach, too. In China, public tolerance toward infections is extremely low, and fear of the virus still runs high -- partly caused by scarring memories of the devastation in Wuhan, but also fed by unrelenting state media coverage on the horror of rampaging infections abroad.


Beijing has repeatedly blamed local flare-ups on the import of coronavirus from overseas, either through air passengers, frozen food or other goods. On social media, calls have been growing for authorities to extend the already lengthy quarantine for overseas arrivals, as many blamed Chinese travelers returning from abroad for bringing the virus to China.

"In mainstream opinion, Covid-19 is still regarded as an extremely deadly disease -- even if you don't die from it you'll suffer from some kinds of serious health problems for the rest of your life -- people are genuinely afraid," said Lucas Li, a software engineer from southern Guangdong province.

Li, who works in California, has had a tough time traveling between China and the US over the past two years. After returning home for Lunar New Year in 2020, he was trapped for eight months in China due to the US travel ban. Then in May, he had to rush home again for family reasons, but flights to China were hard to come by. He ended up paying $4,800 for a one-way ticket -- about seven times the price of a round trip in usual times -- and underwent two weeks of hotel quarantine.

Li said while he doesn't necessarily agree with zero-Covid, he understands why the government is sticking to it. The border closure has had limited impact on the Chinese economy, and the lack of international travel or exchanges is hardly a concern for most people, he said.

While overseas vacations had become a common part of life for China's growing middle class, the country's vast size and rich diversity provides plenty of options for domestic tourism as an alternative. And for people like Li, essential travel outside of China is still possible, albeit troublesome.

"I'm very sure the mainstream public opinion will choose to continue with the border closure -- this is without a doubt," Li said.

But experts say that could come at a political cost for China, which has seen its international image plummet since the start of the pandemic. Unfavorable views of China have reached record highs among much of the developed world, according to surveys conducted by the Pew Research Service.

"Other political parties, or even maybe Xi's predecessors, might have seen this dramatic reduction in contact between China and the rest of the world as a big problem. But for now, the Xi administration does not seem to recognize this as a problem," University of California's Shih said.

"(If) China wants to persuade the world that it is a benign power ... it needs to engage the world."

But right now, that seems a long way off.