Archives for February 2021

ROME (AP) — A rescue ship with 422 migrants aboard, a small number of whom tested positive for COVID-19, was headed to a port in Sicily on Sunday.

SOS Mediterranee, the humanitarian group which operates the rescue ship Ocean Viking, told The Associated Press that Italy had granted the vessel permission to enter the port of Augusta, where it was expected to arrive Sunday evening, just as as rain and strong winds were forecast.

The migrants were rescued in separate operations in the central Mediterranean Sea on Thursday and Friday, including 121 who were crowded into a rubber dinghy. Some of the passengers fell into the sea during that rescue operation but were brought to safety, SOS Mediterranee said in a statement by Luisa Albera, search and rescue coordinator aboard the Ocean Viking.

In all, four distinct rescue operations were carried out over two days. Many of those rescued are women and children.

Originally, a total of 424 were rescued, but a pregnant woman and her companion were evacuated urgently by helicopter to Malta on Saturday, the statement said.

Eight of the rescued migrants have COVID-19, according to tests administered by the crew, and were being isolated on board despite the difficulties of crowded conditions on deck.

“But although strict COVID-19 mitigation protocols apply on board the Ocean Viking, this is a vessel of 69 meters (228 feet) in length,” Albera said. “This situation is a further reason for the remaining 422 survivors, who are in confined space on the aft deck, to be promptly disembarked in a place of safety,” she said.

Among the passengers are other pregnant women, babies and unaccompanied minors among the children.

During the pandemic, Italy has taken to transferring migrants from rescue ships anchored in port to other vessels where the passengers can protectively quarantine, although children are usually taken ashore to shelter.

Most of those who arrive in Italy thanks to sea rescues in recent years aren’t eligible for asylum, because they are deemed to be economic migrants who aren’t fleeing persecution or conflict.

The number of those reaching Italian shores after voyages aboard unseaworthy boats launched by traffickers, usually based in Libya or Tunisia, have dwindled compared to the hundreds of thousands who were rescued at sea a few years earlier.

But another drama of migrant suffering has been playing out on land in Europe. Many have suffered cold and hunger during the winter after they are sent back after crossing into Italy from Slovenia, which then sends them packing to Croatia, which then pushes them back into Bosnia, after their failed attempts to cross into the European Union.

Pope Francis on Sunday made an appeal for help for unaccompanied minors on the Balkans route, lamenting that they are “exposed to many perils.”

“In these days, the dramatic situation of those who find themselves on the so-called Balkan route has been brought to my attention,” Francis said. “But there are so many (unaccompanied minors) on all the routes.”

“Let’s work so that these fragile and defenseless creatures don’t lack dutiful care care and preferential humanitarian channels,” Francis said, without naming any countries.

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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s daily tally of newly confirmed coronavirus cases has fallen below 300 for the first time in more than two months as authorities slightly ease tough physical distancing rules in the country.

Authorities on Monday reported 289 new infections in the past 24-hour period. That is the first time the daily number has been under 300 since Nov. 23.

South Korea’s virus caseload has gradually slowed in recent weeks amid stringent social distancing rules.

On Monday, officials began allowing restaurants, coffee shops, indoor gyms and other facilities outside the densely populous Seoul metropolitan region to stay open an hour longer. Authorities say they’ll maintain a ban on social gatherings of five or more people throughout the Lunar New Year holidays.

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THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:

The UK’s aggressive vaccine gambles have paid off, while EU caution is slowing down its vaccination program. The West African country of Burkina Faso, which at first managed to avoid a catastrophic surge of the coronavirus, is now trying to cope with a much deadlier resurgence. Some California churches opened their doors to worshippers after the state revised its guidelines for houses of prayer following a Supreme Court ruling that lifted a ban on indoor services. And more Americans are deciding to have their terminally ill loved ones die at home rather than in nursing home and hospice settings, fearful of having to say farewell to loved ones behind glass or during video calls.

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Follow all of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa has suspended plans to inoculate its front-line health care workers with the AstraZeneca vaccine after a small clinical trial suggested that it isn’t effective in preventing mild to moderate illness from the variant dominant in the country.

South Africa received its first 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine last week and was expected to begin giving jabs to health care workers in mid-February. The disappointing early results indicate that an inoculation drive using the AstraZeneca vaccine may not be useful.

The trial results, which aren’t yet peer-reviewed, suggested the AstraZeneca vaccine “provides minimal protection against mild-moderate COVID-19 infection” among young adults exposed to the South Africa variant.

Oxford University and the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg said in a statement that protection against more severe forms of the disease could not be assessed in the trial because those participating were at low risk.

The variant appears more infectious and is driving a deadly resurgence of the disease in the country, currently accounting for more than 90% of the COVID-19 cases, health minister Zweli Mkhize said Sunday night.

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LOS ANGELES — Some California churches opened their doors to worshippers after the state revised its guidelines for houses of prayer following a Supreme Court ruling that lifted a ban on indoor services during the coronavirus pandemic.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office issued revised guidelines that limit attendance at indoor services in areas with widespread or substantial virus spread. In the most significant legal victory against California’s COVID-19 health orders, the high court said the state couldn’t continue a ban on indoor services, but it can limit attendance to 25% of a building’s capacity and restrict singing inside.

The court was acting on emergency requests to halt the restrictions from Pasadena-based Harvest Rock and Harvest International Ministry, which has more than 160 churches across the state, along with South Bay United Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista.

Che Ahn, Harvest Rock’s senior pastor, told his congregation that the church would defy the ban on singing. Worshippers without masks could be seen on the livestream raising their arms and singing out loud. It wasn’t clear how many people were inside the church, which seats hundreds.

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LOS ANGELES — California’s coronavirus picture remains much improved, but officials expressed concern that Super Bowl gatherings could erase gains made over the past several weeks.

The California Department of Public Health urged residents not to gather for the big game.

The number of people in the hospital with COVID-19 slipped below 11,670 statewide, a drop of nearly 35% in two weeks. The 15,064 new confirmed cases on Sunday represent a drop of more than 30% from the mid-December peak.

Deaths also are starting to fall but remain alarmingly high, however, with a daily average of 511 over the past two weeks. There were 295 deaths reported Sunday.

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VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has resumed greeting the public in St. Peter’s Square, seven weeks after he interrupted the Sunday noon ritual to discourage crowds from gathering during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Smiling broadly, Francis appeared at an Apostolic Palace window overlooking the square and greeted a couple of hundred people standing a safe distance apart in the cobblestone square. Most held umbrellas on a drizzly, windy day.

“In the square again!” Francis said. He appeared on the first Sunday since the Rome area regained Italy’s “yellow zone’’ designation, which carries the least restrictions on movement.

Normally thousands of pilgrims, tourists and locals would turn out in the vast square on Sundays to hear the pope. But Italy isn’t allowing travel between regions in the country, and with stringent measures discouraging arrivals from overseas, tourism and pilgrimages have practically evaporated.

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LONDON — The developers of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine expect to have a modified jab to cope with the South Africa coronavirus variant by autumn, the vaccine’s lead researcher said Sunday.

Health officials in Britain are trying to contain the spread of the variant first identified in South Africa amid concerns that it is more contagious or resistant to existing vaccines. More than 100 cases of the South African variant have been found in the U.K.

Sarah Gilbert, lead researcher for the Oxford team, told the BBC on Sunday that “we have a version with the South African spike sequence in the works.”

“It looks very likely that we can have a new version ready to use in the autumn,” she added.

Her comments came as Oxford University said that early data from a small study suggested that the AstraZeneca vaccine offers only “minimal protection” against mild disease caused by the South Africa variant. The study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, involved 2,000 people, most of whom were young and healthy.

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HELSINKI — Norway says it will apply, effective Sunday, stricter coronavirus restrictions in the southwestern coastal municipality of Bergen and twelve surrounding areas to due to a spread of new COVID-19 variants first detected in Britain and South Africa.

Norwegian health officials said the restrictions mean, among other things, that all events outside home are prohibited with a few exceptions including funerals.

Schools are required to switch to remote teaching and universities will close for students. Officials said residents of the 13 areas should work remotely from home as much as possible and most shops will be closed.

The restrictions will apply from 6 pm Sunday for one week.

Some 315 cases of the British and South African variants of COVID-19 have so far been detected in Norway. On Saturday, eight additional cases of the new COVID-19 variants were recorded in the Bergen region

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LONDON — A British official says the country is not considering issuing so-called “immunity passports” for those who have been given the coronavirus vaccine but they could ask their doctor for written proof of their vaccine status if they need to travel.

Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said Sunday that vaccine passports would be discriminatory and officials did not want getting vaccinated to be “made in some way mandatory through a passport.”

Countries including Greece have said they will waive quarantine requirements for those who have had their jabs.

Zahawi said some 1,000 vaccines were given in an hour on Saturday, as the U.K. races to meet its target of giving all over-70s and frontline health care workers their first dose by Feb.15.

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TEHRAN, Iran — Iran has unveiled its second homemade coronavirus vaccine and says it has begun human trials, state TV reported Sunday.

The Razi Cov Pars vaccine manufactured by the Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute is both injectable and inhalable. Ali Eshaqi, the institute’s manager, said the vaccine will be tested on 13 people within eight days and then if there are no serious reactions, it will be tested on groups of 20 to 120 persons.

Eshaqi said the vaccine has already been tested on animals including mice, rabbits, hamsters and monkeys. The country is also working on a joint vaccine with Cuba.

Iran plans to import 17 million doses of vaccine from the international COVAX program and millions more from other countries.

Iran, with a population of more than 83 million, has struggled with the worst outbreak in the Middle East. Its confirmed virus death toll is 58,469.

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JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia’s Food and Drug Authority has announced an emergency use authorization to give the COVID-19 vaccine produced by China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd. to people over 60.

“The death rate due to COVID-19 shows the statistical data that the elderly people make up a high portion,” the chief of Indonesia Food and Drug Monitoring Agency, Penny Lukito, told a news conference Sunday.

She added that the agency green-lighted the vaccination based on the clinical trials in China and Brazil.

Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said vaccinations for the elderly will begin Monday.

Indonesia began a mass vaccination program for health care workers and public service officers in January. More than 700,000 people have received their first vaccination shot.

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KABUL, Afghanistan — Some 500,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine arrived Sunday in Afghanistan from the government in India.

The news was announced by Wahid Majroh, acting public health minister.

Ghulam Dastagir Nazari, an official from the public health ministry, said the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is from the Serum Institute of India and is the first to arrive in the country.

Afghanistan will store the vaccine until it gets approval from the World Health Organization and then it will give it first to front-line health workers and the elderly, said Majroh.

Afghanistan has recorded 55,300 positive cases and 2,410 deaths. Experts say a lack of testing and missed cases have lead to undercounting the toll of the virus around the world.

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JERUSALEM — Israel has started to ease restrictions nearly six weeks after entering its third nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Some businesses began reopening on Sunday and people are now allowed to move more than a kilometer (half a mile) from their homes. But schools remain shuttered and international flights are severely restricted.

Israel instituted its third national lockdown in late December as new infections spiraled out of control. Israel has recorded over 686,000 cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic last year and 5,074 deaths, according to Health Ministry figures.

At the same time, the country has launched a major vaccination campaign. More than 3.4 million Israelis have received the first shot of the Pfizer vaccine, and at least 2 million have received a second dose.

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CAIRO — Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi says his country needs 70 millions shots of coronavirus vaccine to inoculate between 30-35 million people in the first stage of a campaign his government launched last month.

El-Sissi said in televised comments late Saturday that the first stage of the country’s vaccination campaign targets health care workers, elderly people and those suffering from chronic diseases.

The Egyptian leader, however, said the response among health care workers has been between 45% and 50%. “There are people who say we do not want” to be vaccinated, he said.

The Arab world’s most populous country with more than 100 million people, Egypt received a 50,000-dose shipment of the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine in December and another 50,000-dose shipment of AstraZeneca vaccines last month.

The government has said it reserved 100 million doses of the approved vaccines, according to the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper.

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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan health authorities say they will begin inoculating the general public against the COVID-19 from next month.

At present, the ministry is conducting a vaccination drive to inoculate more than 260,000 frontline health workers and selected military and police officers.

The vaccination began last week after neighboring India donated 500,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZenica vaccine, which is the only vaccine approved by the regulatory body in Sri Lanka.

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PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The U.S. Postal Service’s stretch of challenges didn’t end with the November general election and tens of millions of mail-in votes. The pandemic-depleted workforce fell further into a hole during the holiday rush, leading to long hours and a mountain of delayed mail.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has vowed to make improvements after facing withering criticism and calls for his removal for his actions that slowed delivery of mail before the election. Some critics hoped President Joe Biden would fire DeJoy, but a president can’t do that. Instead, Biden could and likely will use appointments to reshape the Board of Governors, which meets Tuesday for the first time since his election.

It’s unclear how swiftly Biden’s administration will move. A White House spokesperson declined to comment on upcoming appointments.

Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, said he’s hoping for some “bold appointments” by Biden.

“We want a Board of Governors that understands fundamentally this is not called the United States Postal Business,” he said. “It’s not a profit-making business. It’s here to serve the people.”

A change in tone, at the least, would be welcomed by postal workers after former President Donald Trump called the Postal Service “a joke” last year in criticizing business practices that led to a growing operating deficit.

Despite the pandemic, on-time rates for first-class mail topped 90% for most of the year until DeJoy took office in June and began instituting changes that raised concerns about the delivery of mail-in election ballots. Workers decried DeJoy for limiting overtime and late or extra trips, resulting in delayed mail, and the dismantling of sorting machines ahead of the election.

All told, the Postal Service successfully delivered more than 130 million ballots to and from voters during the general election.

But by the time Christmas arrived, it had gotten so bad that more than a third of first-class mail was late, a dismal performance, even though DeJoy had backtracked on some of his changes by then.

At the holiday peak, tractor-trailers chock full of mail were left idling outside some postal-sorting facilities across the country because there was no room inside. Packages and letters piled up in distribution hubs. Delays grew by days, and then weeks.

A number of factors contributed to the nightmare.

Americans were using the Postal Service at unprecedented level because of the pandemic. Overtime couldn’t make up for the impact of postal workers’ COVID-19 illnesses and quarantines. Commercial flights that transport mail operated on reduced schedules. And FedEx and UPS dumped packages on the Postal Service when they reached their limit.

“At Christmastime, you could barely move in the facility,” said Scott Adams, local president of the American Postal Workers Union in Portland, Maine. “Aisles were blocked with mail.”

Jay Geller said it took 30 days for a birthday card mailed after Christmas from his mother-in-law in Iowa to reach her 8-year-old grandson at his home in Cleveland. And don’t get him started on the homemade scones from Minnesota, which were late and inedible.

“By the time they arrived, they were hard as rocks and smushed flat,” he said.

Terri Hayes experienced “Christmas in January” when many of her packages arrived late in Medina, Ohio. The last gift to arrive was a necklace and charm sent by a friend in Maryland on Dec. 5. It arrived on Jan. 28.

She sympathizes with overworked postal workers but also worries about more important items, like bills, being delayed.

“I just wish that they would put things back to the way they were when it worked,” Hayes said. “Put the sorting machines back. Let them work the overtime hours.”

The Postal Service contends it has now returned to “pre-peak” conditions, and DeJoy and six members of the board said they’ve learned from the election and the record holiday season in which more than 1.1 billion packages were delivered. The postmaster general and board are working on a 10-year plan that will include improvements.

“We must confidently plan for our future — which we believe is bright for the Postal Service and for America,” they said in a statement.

Critics have called for DeJoy to be fired. And Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., a New Jersey Democrat, wants Biden to fire the entire Postal Service Board of Governors for what he called dereliction of duty.

The Board of Governors, which selects the postmaster general, is currently made up of Trump appointees. The vice chair resigned in protest over the Trump administration’s actions. That leaves a chairperson, Robert Duncan, who is a former Republican National Committee chair, along with three other Republican members and two Democratic members.

If Biden fills all vacancies, then Democratic members would hold a majority, though the board is officially bipartisan. No party may hold more than five seats on the nine-member board.

The postmaster general and deputy postmaster general vote on some but not all issues brought before the board.

Dimondstein said the recent announcement of more than 10,000 more permanent jobs in distribution hubs is a down payment on addressing problems. DeJoy has to come around to further changes to improve service and morale, he said.

“He’s either going to do right by the people of the country. Or he needs to go,” Dimondstein said.

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QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuador will choose a new president Sunday facing unprecedented health measures due to the coronavirus pandemic and the influence of a populist former head of state who was blocked from a place on the ballot due to a corruption conviction.

Sixteen candidates are vying to succeed President Lenín Moreno, a protege-turned-rival of former President Rafael Correa, who governed Ecuador for a decade and remains a major force despite a criminal conviction that blocked him from seeking the vice presidency this year.

The leaders in the campaign have been a Correa-backed candidate, Andrés Arauz, and a conservative former banker who finished second twice before, Guillermo Lasso.

To avoid an April 11 runoff, a candidate who doesn’t reach the 50% threshold can still win by securing at least 40% while also being 10% ahead of the rival in second place.

Voters have been ordered to wear a mask, bring their own bottle of hand sanitizer and pencil, keep a 5-foot (1.5-meter) distance from others and avoid all personal contact in the polling place. The only time voters will be allowed to lower their mask will be during the identification process.

The winner will have to work to pull the oil-producing nation out of a deepening economic crisis that has been exacerbated by the pandemic. The South American country of 17 million people had recorded more than 253,000 cases and nearly 15,000 deaths of COVID-19 as of Friday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University in the United States.

Arauz, a 35-year-old former culture minister who attended the University of Michigan, faces Lasso, who at 65 is making a third run for the presidency after a long career in business, banking and government. Indigenous rights and environmental activist Yaku Pérez has been trailing in third place.

Arauz has proposed making the wealthy pay more taxes and strengthening consumer protection mechanisms, public banking and local credit and savings organizations. He has said he will not comply with agreements with the International Monetary Fund.

Lasso, favors free-market policies and Ecuador’s rapprochement with international organizations. He has promised to create more jobs and attract international banks. He also wants to boost the oil, mining and energy sectors through the participation of private entities to replace state financing.

Hovering over the election is the future of Correa, a leftist who is still only 57. He governed from 2007 to 2017 as an ally of Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, both now deceased.

He remains popular among millions of Ecuadorians after overseeing a period of economic growth driven by an oil boom and loans from China that allowed him to expand social programs, build roads, schools and other projects. But he increasingly cracked down on opponents, the press and businesses during his latter stage in office and feuded with Indigenous groups over development projects. His appeal also has been tarnished by a corruption conviction he says was a trumped up product of political vengeance.

Correa was sentenced in absentia in April to eight years in prison for his role in a scheme to extract millions of dollars from businessmen in exchange for infrastructure projects — money allegedly used for political purposes.

That conviction barred him from running as Arauz’s vice presidential candidate.

An earlier attempt by Ecuadorian prosecutors to extradite him from Belgium in an unrelated kidnapping case was rejected by Interpol on human rights grounds.

Moreno won office four years ago with the backing of Correa but broke with him, pursuing business-friendly policies as the nation’s economy was hit by a slide in oil and commodities prices. While eligible to seek reelection, he chose not to run.

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Regina Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City.

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