Death sentence california

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 25: Lorraine Harvey, an in home care worker, receives her first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine from registered nurse Rudolfo Garcia at a clinic at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in South Los Angeles on February 25, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. African Americans and Latinos comprise a majority of the South LA community and are dying of COVID-19 at a rate significantly higher than whites. Vaccine equity has also lagged in South Los Angeles relative to some more wealthy areas. (Mario Tama/Getty Images/AFP)

Brazil hit 250,000 fatalities — the second-highest national death toll after the US — while the worldwide vaccine campaign received the royal endorsement of Queen Elizabeth II, 94, who urged people not to be wary of the injection.

President Joe Biden declared the US rollout is now “weeks ahead of schedule” as he celebrated 50 million vaccines administered since he took office on January 20, but he warned Americans to keep masking up.

“We’re moving in the right direction despite the mess we inherited,” Biden said, referring to the program under his predecessor Donald Trump.

The United States is the world’s hardest-hit country, with coronavirus deaths crossing the 500,000 mark earlier this week.

Biden said that there would be “enough supply” for all adult Americans by the end of July.

The EU announced Thursday it expected to vaccinate 70 percent of adults by the end of the summer, after months of problems and friction.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said fully vaccinating just under three-quarters of adults by late summer was a “goal that we’re confident with.”

But in Brazil, the grim quarter-million deaths milestone came one year after the first Covid-19 case was confirmed in the country, which is struggling with severe vaccine shortages and a devastating second wave.

– Mass graves –

The coronavirus has hit especially hard in Brazil’s impoverished “favelas,” among indigenous communities and in the Amazon rainforest city of Manaus, where there have been haunting scenes of mass graves and patients suffocating to death with no oxygen.

President Jair Bolsonaro has flouted expert advice on managing the pandemic, railing against lockdowns and face masks and instead touting the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, despite studies showing it is ineffective against Covid-19.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth said in a video message Thursday that her coronavirus jab “didn’t hurt at all” and encouraged those reluctant about receiving the vaccine to “think about other people.”

The monarch was vaccinated along with her husband Prince Philip in January.

In total, 2,500,172 deaths and 112,618,488 cases have been reported, with almost half of the fatalities occurring in just five countries: the United States, Brazil, Mexico, India and Britain, according to an AFP count based on official figures.

Vaccine rollouts have been patchy so far, and most of the 217 million vaccine doses administered globally have gone to wealthier countries.

In China, where the virus first emerged in late 2019, the national drug authority approved two more vaccines made by domestic companies for public use, bringing the number of Chinese vaccines to four.

Two Cuban vaccines will undergo advanced clinical trials from March after they reportedly elicited a “powerful immune response” in early tests, one of the scientists in charge of the project said Thursday.

– Focus on long-term symptoms –

In further vaccine developments, frozen vials of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine may be stored at temperatures commonly found in pharmaceutical freezers for up to two weeks, the US Food and Drug Administration said Thursday.

The move loosens a previous requirement that the vaccine should be stored at ultra-low temperatures, between -112 and -76 degrees Fahrenheit (-80 to -60 degrees Celsius).

The World Health Organization (WHO), meanwhile, urged governments to try to better understand the long-term consequences of coronavirus on some sufferers who have prolonged symptoms such as tiredness, brain fog, and cardiac and neurological disorders.

“It’s a clear priority for WHO, and of the utmost importance. It should be for every health authority,” said Hans Kluge, regional director for WHO Europe.

Britain, which has forged ahead with its vaccine drive, said Thursday it was lowering its alert level from the highest tier, citing a dip in cases.

In France, hopes of a return to normal on the sports front were dashed after more than a dozen rugby players and staff tested positive, forcing Sunday’s Six Nations match against Scotland to be scrapped.

In another sign of the toll the pandemic is taking on populations, the number of babies born in France in January also fell by 13 percent, the biggest drop in 45 years.

And in Japan, organisers of the delayed Olympic torch relay said fans could line the route when it kicks off next month, but cheering is strictly banned and social distancing will be enforced.

Some sex workers in Bangladesh’s largest brothel started getting their vaccines, a health official said Thursday.

Beauty, 40, who goes by one name, said she was initially hesitant about getting the shot.

“But the health officials reassured us. Now we understand it is important as we meet many people every day,” she said.

Syria will start giving coronavirus vaccines to its healthcare workers across the war-ravaged country from next week.

AFP

A man posthumously tested negative for the novel coronavirus after being found dead at a hotel in Tam Dao Town, a popular tourist destination in the northern Vietnamese province of Vinh Phuc.

The deceased man has been identified as Nguyen The D., a 46-year-old resident of Hanoi, Nguyen Thanh Hai, director of the Vinh Phuc Department of Health, confirmed to Tuoi Tre ( Youth) newspaper on Saturday afternoon.

D. was discovered dead in his hotel room in Tam Dao Town on the early morning of the same day.

Police officers and health workers later arrived to probe the scene and collect his samples for COVID-19 testing.

All residents and visitors were not allowed to enter or exit Tam Dao Town following the discovery of his death.

Local authorities also asked all tourists and employees of local hotels, restaurants, and karaoke parlors to fill out health declaration forms at the town’s medical center.

The temporary lockdown was lifted after D.’s test result came back negative for the novel coronavirus on Saturday afternoon.

According to preliminary information, D. previously traveled to Tam Dao with his wife and child.

Prior to his death, the man had consumed a lot of alcohol.

He had a history of high blood pressure and might have died from a stroke, according to officers.

Further investigation is ongoing.

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The trial of a Japanese man accused of killing a 9-year-old Vietnamese girl will start in three months time, a Japanese court said on Monday.

Yasumasa Shibuya, 46, has been charged with murder and abandoning the girl’s body, the Chiba District Court said, as cited by Japanese media reports.

Prosecutors allege that Shibuya strangled the third-grader to death and left her body near a drainage ditch after abducting her on the morning of March 24, 2017, the Japan Times reported.

Shibuya has refused to speak since his arrest in April, it said.

Media reports did not mention rape charges, although autopsy results suggested the girl had been sexually abused.

The victim, Le Thi Nhat Linh, went missing after she left home for school in Matsudo City, one hour northeast of Tokyo, on March 24. Her body was discovered two days later. Shibuya was her neighbor and head of the parents’ association at her school at the time.

The case had shocked both the Japanese and Vietnamese public.

Linh’s parents have been gathering tens of thousands of signatures from both countries, hoping that public pressure will prompt prosecutors to call for Shibuya to be sentenced to death.

In Japan, murder can be punished with death sentence and executions are carried out by hanging. The punishment is usually imposed in cases of multiple murders, though some single murderers have also been hanged when their crime was considered serious.

On February 15, CNN reported more than 53,800 new Covid-19 infections in the U.S., its lowest daily case count since October 2020 and a vastly different number from just the previous month, when infections were topping 200,000 a day.

The number of new cases remained under 80,000 for the fourth day in a row Wednesday, while hospitalizations fell to their lowest level since November 10. The number of Covid-19 patients requiring treatment in intensive-care units (ICU) also fell, to 13,103, the sixth consecutive day the total has been below 15,000.

Travelers wearing protective face masks at the airport in Denver, Colorado, U.S., November 24, 2020. Photo by Reuters.

There were other signs that the pandemic situation was improving.

“The situation in California is getting better, with the number of patients in ICU declining,” said Ton That Binh, a Vietnamese man working in the medical sector in San Jose.

He guessed that the state’s pandemic level could move soon from purple (widespread) to red (substantial). Under California’s color code, purple is applied for counties with more than seven daily new cases per 100,000 residents or a higher than 8 percent positivity rate; and red means four to seven new cases per 100,000, or a 5-8 percent positivity rate.

Binh felt a key reason for the improvement was the higher numbers of people wearing masks and following social distancing rules. Also, herd immunity may have occurred in several areas where the number of cases was high enough.

Remarkably, Americans have not had big crowd gatherings and protests since the inauguration of President Joe Biden, another factor leading to the declining cases.

However, Binh also feared that the situation could be reversed in the next few weeks because of winter storms and power cuts; and a further case reduction could only be seen in the spring.

Nguyen Quynh, a staff at the University of Missouri, Missouri, said Columbia City recorded an infection rate of 2.25 cases/1,000 residents on February 18, lower than the proportion of seven cases/1,000 in mid January. Consequently, students could go back to school and patients in medical centers could meet one family member.

Quynh thought vaccination was a key factor in helping reduce infections in her city. Not only were more and more people getting injected, people were wearing masks everywhere and working more from home.

Ninh Pham, a medical interpreter at the Fulton State Hospital in Missouri, said it seemed that doctors now understand the virus better and had come up with different methods of treating it, and there was increased availability of personal protective equipments (PPE). As a result, the number of patients in ICUs was reducing.

Ninh also believed that the pandemic situation was gradually coming under control, with the “anti-mask attitude” no longer mainstream as it was last year. The Biden’s administration is boosting scientific support for the community, she felt.

In Illinois, Nguyen Trung, with the University of Chicago, presumed that the smaller number of infections was an outcome of fewer people traveling after the Christmas and New Year holidays at the end of last year.

He said the habit of wearing masks and washing hands frequently has improved his family’s health, no one getting sick recently. In general, people’s voluntary actions were the most important factor in containing the Covid-19 pandemic, Trung said. Some were complying with the rules because they do not want violations listed on their CV, reducing their employment chances later, he added.

Vaccination side effects

Trung admitted that he’d been quite reluctant to take the Covid-19 vaccine at the beginning because he’d heard about dangerous side effects. Then he thought he should consider vaccination a benefit he is getting because his work is related to the Chicago University’s hospital. He got the two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in mid December 2020 and mid January 2021.

He suffered fatigue, headache and nausea after the first shot and a mild fever after the second one. The symptoms lasted for about 24 hours.

Since then, he was “confident that the vaccine will bring positive results in Covid-19 controlling in the U.S.”

Most states in the U.S. are giving vaccination priority to people on the frontline in the Covid-19 fight, including medical staff, police and people over 65.

Quynh in Missouri said she felt good after receiving two doses except for achy muscles on the arm that received the shot. She did acknowledge that others have had more serious side effects depending on their physical condition.

Ninh, who has had one dose, felt grateful for the advancement of science and hoped that the second shot next week would be fine for her. She has never had any allergic reactions to medicines before, she said.

In California, Binh noted that vaccinated people still carry the risk of transmitting the virus, so they should use masks and keep distance from others. These are critical measures in reducing infection cases, while vaccines help to decrease the number of deaths, he said.

Le Tuan Anh, a freelance photographer in New York, expected to get vaccinated early April following the priority order because he is under 65.

On Feb 16, a CNN report said that the U.S. was still months away from having most Americans vaccinated. About 14 million Americans have been fully vaccinated with both doses of their Covid-19 vaccines. That’s only about 4 percent of the U.S. population. And it takes weeks for vaccines to fully kick in. More than 11 percent of Americans have received at least one dose of a vaccine.

A USA Today report quoted Jeff Zients, White House Covid-19 response coordinator, as saying the U.S. was on track to have enough vaccine supply for 300 million Americans by the end of July.

Cautious optimism

Tuan Anh noted that the number of infections in the U.S. was still high and state authorities were under pressure as they pondered whether or not to open up the localities. Businesses and employees were in financial difficulties.

In addition, he worried the pandemic would be hard to contain worldwide without enough effective vaccines for poor countries.

Quynh was also cautiously optimistic. She hoped to see that vaccination program speeded up in the U.S., with the government playing a key role. She also wanted to see a safe opening for businesses and workers in many sectors. Furthermore, research on the vaccines’ sustainable effectiveness should be enhanced to remove people’s doubts, she said.

“If vaccines do not have long-lasting effects, the early economic opening up could be counter-productive.”

However, William Le, living in Sacramento, California, expressed his optimism about the new policies. He felt people were obeying the social distancing rules because they were getting support packages from the government. More packages were coming, he’d heard. Small and medium enterprises were getting various assistance programs at state level.

“I see a very promising recovery in the coming time,” he said.

Ninh described the situation in the U.S. as “a light at the end of the tunnel” as the administration boosted the vaccination program to achieve real herd immunity in the near future. She looked forward to normal life returning before Christmas this year as President Biden has forecast.

“I want to see nothing more than that.”