Archives for February 2021

Music to my fears: Man swallows earbud while sleeping

BOSTON (AP) — A man is warning people against using headphones while falling asleep after health care workers had to remove a wireless earbud from his esophagus.

Worcester resident Brad Gauthier, who detailed his bizarre experience in a Facebook post, went to bed Monday listening to music. He woke up Tuesday, shoveled snow for about an hour, and then went inside to take a sip of water. But the liquid wouldn’t go down, and he had to lean over to drain it from his throat.

Gauthier also noticed he was missing one of his two wireless earbuds, which he said typically uses as he falls asleep.

Gauthier’s son suggested that perhaps his father had swallowed the earbud, which is exactly what an X-ray at a local emergency clinic revealed. The small plastic device was lodged in his lower esophagus.

Gauthier said he never experienced more than minor discomfort. He told NBC Boston 10 that he wanted to share his experience to caution others not to sleep with their headphones.

Correa, Astros reach deal on $11.7 million, 1-year contract

HOUSTON (AP) — Shortstop Carlos Correa and the Houston Astros settled their arbitration case Saturday, reaching a deal on a one-year contract for $11.7 million.

Correa had asked for $12.5 million and the Astros had offered $9.75 million.

The 26-year-old All-Star had an $8 million salary that became a prorated $2,962,963 during the pandemic-shortened season.

Correa hit .264 with five home runs and 25 RBIs in 58 games last year, then excelled in the postseason. He hit .362 with six homers and 17 RBIs in 13 playoff games as Houston came within one win of reaching the World Series.

Correa led major league shortstops with a .995 fielding percentage, making just one error.

“Going through the arbitration process is necessary sometimes and it’s there for a reason,” Astros general manager James Click said. “But we’re all glad to have it behind us so we can focus on our top priority, which is getting out there to compete for a championship with Carlos and the rest of the team.”

Correa said he was glad to take care of business.

“I’m happy that we were able to come to an agreement and avoid arbitration,” he said. “Arbitration is not a good process.”

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More AP baseball: https://apnews.com/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Myanmar junta blocks internet access as coup protests expand

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar’s new military authorities appeared to have cut most access to the internet on Saturday as they faced a rising tide of protest over their coup that toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government.

Numerous internet users noted a slow disappearance of data services, especially from mobile service providers, that accelerated sharply late Saturday morning. Broadband connection also later failed, while there were mixed reports on whether landline telephone service and mobile voice connections were still working.

Netblocks, a London-based service that tracks internet disruptions, said Saturday afternoon that “a near-total internet shutdown is now in effect” in Myanmar, with connectivity falling to just 16% of normal levels.

The broad outage followed Friday’s military order to block Twitter and Instagram because some people were trying to use the platforms to spread what authorities deemed fake news. Facebook had already been blocked earlier in the week — though not completely effectively.

The communication blackout is a stark reminder of the progress Myanmar is in danger of losing after Monday’s coup plunged the nation back under direct military rule after a nearly decade-long move toward greater openness and democracy. During Myanmar’s previous five decades of military rule, the country was internationally isolated and communication with the outside world strictly controlled.

Suu Kyi’s five years as leader since 2015 had been Myanmar’s most democratic period despite the military retaining broad powers over the government, the continued use of repressive colonial-era laws and the persecution of minority Rohingya Muslims.

The blockages are also adding greater urgency to efforts to resist the coup. In one of the largest protests so far, about 1,000 people — factory workers and students prominent among them — marched down a main street in Yangon, the country’s biggest city, and were met by more than 100 police in riot gear.

They shouted “down with dictatorship” and other slogans, marched with their hands in the air and flashed three-fingered salutes, a symbol of defiance adopted from protesters in neighboring Thailand. There was no violence reported.

Similar-sized demonstrations took place in at least two other areas of the city. At Yangon’s City Hall, protesters presented flowers to police, some of whom carried assault rifles.

Other reports that slipped through the communications blockade said protests were held in other cities, including Mandalay, the second largest.

Telenor Myanmar, a major mobile operator, confirmed it had received Friday’s order to block Twitter and Instagram. In a statement, Twitter said it was “deeply concerned” about the order and vowed to “advocate to end destructive government-led shutdowns.”

“It undermines the public conversation and the rights of people to make their voices heard,” its spokesperson said.

Since the coup, social media platforms have been major sources of independent news as well as organizing tools for protests.

Amnesty International called the shutdown “a heinous and reckless decision” at a time when Myanmar was coping with the coup, years of civil conflict and the COVID-19 crisis.

Those opposed to the coup and the arrests of activists and politicians have also been gathering at night at windows and on balconies around Yangon, banging on pots and pans.

On Friday, nearly 300 elected lawmakers from Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party who met in an online meeting declared themselves as the sole legitimate representatives of the people and asked for international recognition as the country’s government.

They were supposed to have taken their seats Monday in a new session of Parliament following November elections when the military announced it was taking power for a year.

The military accused Suu Kyi and her party of failing to act on its complaints that last November’s election was marred by fraud, though the election commission said it had no found no evidence to support the claims.

Suu Kyi and President Win Myint are also under house arrest and have been charged with minor offenses, seen by many as merely providing a legal veneer for their detention.

In addition to the 134 officials and lawmakers who were detained in the coup, some 18 independent activists were also held, said the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Myanmar. Some have been since released.

The office of Australia’s foreign minister said in a statement Saturday that the government was “deeply concerned about reports of Australian and other foreign nationals being detained arbitrarily in Myanmar.”

The statement said the government was concerned in particular about one Australian who was detained at a police station. The statement did not provide details on the identities of those being held or the reasons for their detention.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pledged Friday that the United Nations will do everything it can to unite the international community and create conditions for the military coup in Myanmar to be reversed.

Guterres said Christine Schraner Burgener, the U.N. special envoy for Myanmar, had a first contact with the military since the coup and expressed the U.N.’s strong opposition to the takeover.

The Latest: Calif. Gov. will issue revised church rules

SAN FRANCISCO — California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office says it will issue revised guidelines for indoor church services after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted the state’s ban on indoor worship during the coronavirus pandemic. In the most significant legal victory against California’s COVID-19 health orders, the high court told California it can’t continue with a ban on indoor services during the coronavirus pandemic, but it can limit attendance to 25% of a building’s capacity and restrict singing and chanting inside. Newsom’s office said it will continue to enforce the restrictions the high court left in place.

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THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:

The U.S. aims to rely on more rapid home tests to fight pandemic. AP analysis: Federal executions likely a COVID-19 superspreader. California adding more mass vaccination clinics. China gives broader approval for the domestic-made Sinovac coronavirus vaccine. Supreme Court: California can’t enforce indoor church service ban, but can limit capacity at 25%.

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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:

SANTA FE, N.M. — New Mexico on Saturday reported 424 additional confirmed COVID-19 cases and eights deaths as the coronavirus outbreak in the state slows.

The latest figures released by the Department of Health increased the state’s pandemic totals to 177,214 cases and 3,386 but rolling two-week averages of daily new cases and daily deaths dropped over the past two weeks.

According to data from The COVID-Tracking Project, the rolling average of daily new cases dropped from about 847 on Jan. 22 to around 571 on Friday and the rolling average of daily deaths dropped from 29 to 18.6.

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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — There were 58 fewer people hospitalized in Arkansas on Saturday as the number of hospitalizations continues a recent decline, according to the Arkansas Department of Health. There were 750 hospitalizations, down from 808 on Friday, while the number of reported cases rose by 1,341 and there were 11 more deaths due to COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, according to the health department. Overall, the number of both deaths and cases have declined during the past two weeks, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The seven-day rolling average of deaths in the state has dropped from 40.86 per day on Jan. 22 to 31.29 and the average number of new cases has fallen from 1,963.86 per day to 1,737.14 during the same time period, the Johns Hopkins data showed. There have been 306,064 total virus cases and 5,061 COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began in March, according to the state health department.

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RIO DE JANEIRO — Normally, Rio de Janeiro’s Sambadrome would be preparing for its greatest time of the year: The world’s most famous Carnival parade.

But a week before the start, the coronavirus pandemic has replaced the pageantry. The celebration is on hold until next year as Rio struggles with a rise in coronavirus cases. The city on Saturday opened a drive-thru immunization station at the Sambadrome, where a line of cars queued up on a broad avenue built for floats.

“This is usually a place of pleasure. Today it is too, because we are exercising an act of citizenship and we are opening the Sambadrome to vaccinate, ” said Paulo Roberto Machado, a 68-year-old nurse who teaches at the Veiga de Almeida University.

Machado has taken part in 40 years of Carnival parades here. But on Saturday, he was coordinating 20 volunteer nursing and medical students to vaccinate people over age 90.

Rio has recorded more than 17,600 confirmed deaths — the most of any city in Brazil, even topping Sao Paulo, which has nearly twice the population.

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OKLAHOMA CITY — The number of reported coronavirus cases in Oklahoma has surpassed 400,000.

The state health department reported 2,053 new cases on Saturday. An additional 51 deaths raised the confirmed death toll to 3,761.

Data from Johns Hopkins University shows Oklahoma was fourth in the nation in the number of new cases per capita, with 855 cases per 100,000 residents. The data shows the seven-day rolling average of deaths in the state fell during the past two weeks from 37 to 34 deaths per day.

More than a half million Oklahoma residents have received the coronavirus vaccine, including 114,208 who have received both doses, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control.

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WASHINGTON — The nation’s top health officials are sounding the alarm about Super Bowl gatherings as a potential coronavirus superspreader event.

They’re urging people to gather with friends over Zoom, not in crowds or at bars and parties. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs will play Sunday in a partly filled stadium in Tampa, Florida. The city has acquired 150,000 donated masks that officials will be handing out.

The game is happening during a drop in new coronavirus cases — a sign the infection spike from December holiday gatherings may be easing. However, health officials are concerned Super Bowl parties with people outside their household could spread new cases.

“We’ve seen outbreaks already from football parties,” said Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “So, I really do think that we need to watch this and be careful.”

The seven-day rolling average for daily new cases decreased from 180,489 on Jan. 22 to 125,854 on Friday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

However, the coronavirus is killing more than 3,000 Americans a day. The nation’s confirmed total death toll is 460,000.

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PHOENIX — Arizona’s death toll from the coronavirus pandemic surpassed 14,000 on Saturday.

The Department of Health Services reported 63 new deaths, increasing the state’s confirmed total to 14,011. It also reported 3,471 more cases on Saturday.

Health officials are urging football fans to forego Super Bowl gatherings with members outside of their own households.

Arizona has registered decreases in cases, hospitalizations and deaths since the December holiday surge. However, public health officials have warned against complacency and urged caution on Super Bowl weekend.

Arizona has the 11th highest death toll in the U.S. New York leads with 44,000 deaths, followed by California (43,00), Texas (39,000), Florida (27,000) and Pennsylvania (22,000).

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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden vows to get younger students back to the classroom by spring, and some health experts look forward to the U.S. refocusing coronavirus tests to rapid home screenings.

Biden is using the Defense Production Act to scale up supplies needed for rapid tests. On Friday, the White House announced six manufacturers will mass produce the tests, with the goal of providing 60 million by the end of the summer.

Some experts say rapid home tests are cheaper, faster and may improve the chances of identifying sick people during the early days of infection, when they are most contagious.

Dr. Michael Mina, a Harvard University testing specialist, calls the rapid tests a “public health screening test.” An estimated 40% of people infected don’t develop symptoms. Mina says rapid tests have the clear advantage over the predominant genetic lab tests, which are more accurate but can take several days for results and allow for silent spreading of the virus.

Some universities and school systems have used rapid tests to help stay open during the pandemic.

The coronavirus is killing more than 3,000 Americans per day. The nation’s confirmed death toll is 460,000.

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WUHAN, China — The message was tucked into a bouquet of chrysanthemums left by a mourner at the back of Wuhan Central Hospital to honor a Chinese whistleblower doctor who died from the coronavirus a year ago.

It was simply the number of a Bible verse: “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

A year ago, Dr. Li Wenliang died from the virus first detected in this Chinese city. A small stream of people marked the anniversary at the hospital. The 34-year-old became a beloved figure in China after it was revealed that he was one the whistleblowers who authorities had punished early for “spreading rumors” about the virus in a social media group.

The Chinese public embraced Li, whose presence online had painted a picture of an ordinary person who was soon to be a father.

China has reported more than 100,300 confirmed coronavirus cases and 4,822 deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

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PARIS — French health facilities received their first batches of AstraZeneca vaccines on Saturday, with the first shots delivered at a Lyon hospital.

The batch for 117 facilities was small, 273,600 doses, and all reserved for health professionals under 65 years old. France is currently restricting the vaccine to those ages 50 to 64, despite guidance from the European Medicines Agency that it could be used for all adults.

It gives France a third vaccine and helps bolster a promise by President Emmanuel Macron that all French who wish will be vaccinated by summer’s end.

Austria received the first 36,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines on Saturday, public broadcaster ORF reported.

France gets a second batch of 304,800 doses next week. So far, about 1.8 million people had been vaccinated. The nation is still under a 12-hour curfew starting at 6 p.m., with restaurants and cultural venues closed for months and a full border closure with countries outside the EU.

France has registered 3.5 million confirmed cases and more than 78,700 confirmed deaths.

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WASHINGTON — The executions at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency likely acted as a superspreader event.

That’s according to records reviewed by The Associated Press. It was something health experts had warned could happen when the Justice Department insisted on resuming executions during a pandemic.

Of the 47 people on death row, 33 tested positive for the coronavirus between Dec. 16-20. Guards were ill. Traveling prisons staff on the execution team caught the virus. So did media witnesses, who may have unknowingly infected others when they returned home because they were never told about the spreading cases.

Records obtained by The Associated Press show employees at the Indiana prison complex where the 13 executions were carried out over six months had contact with inmates and other people infected with the coronavirus. However, they refused testing, declined to participate in contact tracing and were still permitted to return to their work assignments.

The Bureau of Prisons has repeatedly refused to say how many people tested positive for the coronavirus after the last three federal executions last month.

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NEW DELHI — Some poorer countries are getting tired of waiting to get vaccines through a United Nations program, so they are striking out on their own.

Countries including Honduras, Serbia and Mexico have cut their own private deals. Experts are increasingly concerned that these go-it-alone efforts could undermine a United Nations-backed program to get COVID-19 shots to the neediest people worldwide.

In past disease outbreaks, less wealthy countries generally waited for vaccines to be delivered by the U.N. and others. Many are now taking matters into their own hands. Those deals could leave fewer vaccines for the program known as COVAX.

However, COVAX’s stated goal is to vaccinate less than 30% of people in poor countries, meaning that governments must seek other sources to obtain enough shots to achieve herd immunity.

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TAIPEI, Taiwan — China has given broader approval for the domestic-made Sinovac coronavirus vaccine.

The decision on the Sinovac vaccine was announced Saturday. It expands who can receive the vaccine beyond the high-risk and priority groups already allowed under an emergency clearance.

The Sinovac vaccine has already been sold to at least 10 other countries and is being administered to people in at least five other countries.

In China, the shot was given emergency approval last July, allowing groups such as medical workers and employees of state-owned firms to receive it. The conditional approval means the vaccine now can be given to the general public.

It is the second locally made vaccine to be given conditional approval. Beijing authorized the state-owned Sinopharm vaccine in December.

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California is adding more mass vaccination clinics amid short supplies.

Santa Clara County and the San Francisco 49ers will open the state’s largest vaccination site next week at Levi’s Stadium. It can handle up to 15,000 shots a day.

The Pentagon announced troops will start arriving in a little over a week to run a new site that opens Feb. 16 at California State University, Los Angeles. Other federal employees will head to a second 6,000-shots-a-day site at Oakland-Alameda Coliseum.

Los Angeles County says it will limit new vaccinations to ensure people can get their second doses. The state is reporting about 14,500 new cases daily, down by nearly half from two weeks ago.

Other mass vaccination centers include Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Petco Park in San Diego, Disneyland in Orange County, Oakland-Alameda Coliseum and Cal Expo state fairgrounds in Sacramento.

Kaiser Permanente opened two mass vaccination centers under an agreement with the state, one at Moscone Center in San Francisco and the other at Cal Poly Pomona. Each has the capacity to administer up to 10,000 doses a day.

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Things to Know: Virus experts hope Super Bowl won’t sack US

Here’s what’s happening Saturday with the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.:

THREE THINGS TO KNOW TODAY:

— Health officials are on edge as the coronavirus clashes with a Sunday sports event that typically brings millions of people together: the NFL Super Bowl. They fear that the game could seed new COVID-19 cases if fans attend parties to watch Tampa Bay play Kansas City. The new coronavirus strain that spread quickly in the United Kingdom was confirmed in Kansas after turning up in several other states. States, meanwhile, are in a race to vaccinate. The game will be played in front of about 22,000 masked fans in Tampa, many of them vaccinated health workers.

— Virus deaths won’t be reflected in the 2020 census, a step that will have an impact on where congressional seats get apportioned, experts say. The important reference date for answering census questions was April 1, soon after U.S. deaths began. New York state, which has had about 44,000 deaths, is expected to lose a House seat due to population shifts but it could have lost two if the census date was later, said Kimball Brace, a redistricting expert at Election Data Services. The Census Bureau releases apportionment numbers by April 30.

— Make a deal or stick to his guns? President Joe Biden spent decades shaking hands on bipartisan fixes, first as a senator and then as vice president. But now the Democrat seems to be favoring quick action in Congress on a $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid bill, even if Republicans get left behind. The administration has encouraged Democratic senators to prepare a plan that combines money to address the virus and vaccines with money to fulfill a progressive agenda that includes a higher federal minimum wage.

THE NUMBERS: According to data through Feb. 5 from Johns Hopkins University, the seven-day rolling average for daily new cases in the U.S. fell over the past two weeks, from 180,489 on Jan. 22 to about 125,854 on Feb. 5. Over the same period, the seven-day rolling average for daily new deaths rose from 3,088 to roughly 3,250.

QUOTABLE: “I’m still riding high,” Michele Voelkert told the Sacramento Bee. The California woman who was laid off because of the pandemic was referring to a pep talk from Biden. The White House released a video of the phone call. The president called Voelkert after getting a letter from her. She lost her job in July at a startup clothing company. Biden recalled his father saying a job is about dignity and respect as much as it is about a paycheck.

ICYMI: Federal executions at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency likely acted as a superspreader event, according to the records reviewed by The Associated Press. It was something health experts warned could happen when the Justice Department insisted on resuming executions during a pandemic. Of the 47 people on death row, 33 tested positive between Dec. 16 and Dec. 20, becoming infected soon after executions of two men, according to attorney Madeline Cohen, who compiled the names. Many staff from prisons in other states with their own virus outbreaks traveled to the Terre Haute, Indiana, prison.

ON THE HORIZON: Some experts believe rapid tests could be better at at identifying sick people when they are most contagious. North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University said it crushed the spread of an outbreak by using rapid screening after a Halloween party last fall. Rapid tests might be technically less accurate but they’re fast. The U.S. reports about 2 million tests per day, the vast majority of which are known as PCR, the polymerase chain reaction test. The Food and Drug Administration said it supports “innovation in testing” but has only approved about a dozen rapid tests.

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Find AP’s full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic: https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

Archives for February 2021

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