Archives for April 2021

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran says three cases of the coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa have been confirmed in the country’s south, state television reported Tuesday.

A state TV broadcast quoted Health Minister Saeed Namaki as saying, “We have received a report that said in one of our southern provinces we have found three cases of South African coronavirus variant for the first time.”

Namaki said the Health Ministry is monitoring the cases and conducting more tests to make sure the variant was identified correctly.

He also said that cases involving a virus variant identified in India have turned up very close to Iran’s border and the government is testing all Indian citizens in Iran.

Iranian officials reported Tuesday that the daily death toll from COVID-19 rose by 462, putting the country’s total in the pandemic at 70,532. Authorities blame the deaths on people disregarding infection-control measures while using public transportation and during family gatherings.

Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said 20,963 new cases were confirmed in 24 hours, bringing that total to more than 2,438,000.

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THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:

— Medical students who are bulwark of India’s COVID-19 response feel betrayed

— In fight against virus, Biden looks for path back to normal

— In Africa, vaccine hesitancy adds to slow rollout of doses

— Lockdown skeptic looks to eclipse far right, silence critics in Madrid election

— Follow more of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine

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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean President Moon Jae-in has met with the CEO of Maryland-based Novavax and promised to push for a swift approval of the company’s coronavirus vaccine, which will be produced through a local biotech firm.

South Korean officials hope that SK Bioscience’s production of the Novavax vaccine will help prevent possible supply shortages in coming months as the United States, European nations, and India strengthen controls on vaccine exports while coping with domestic outbreaks.

Officials say SK Bioscience is contracted to manufacture 40 million doses of the Novavax vaccine this year. Production could begin in June, and as many as 20 million shots could be delivered through September for use in South Korea, according to officials. SK already is producing at its factory in the southern town of Andong the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca.

In his meeting with Novavax CEO Stanley Erck on Tuesday, Moon said his government will establish a special team within the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety to ensure a speedy approval process for the Novavax vaccine, which is currently being reviewed in Britain and Europe, the South Korean government said.

South Korea hopes to get 190 million doses of coronavirus vaccines this year through bilateral deals with pharmaceutical companies and the WHO-backed COVAX program.

Around 2.4 million of South Korea’s 51 million people had received their first shots as of Tuesday.

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PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Police in Pakistan registered a case against a provincial health minister who allegedly hosted a large dinner in violation of social distancing rules in the country’s northwest.

Taimur Saleem Jhagra is a health minister in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan.

The police action on Tuesday came hours after a photo surfaced on social media showing Jhagra breaking a Ramadhan fast with dozens of friends and supporters from the ruling political party.

Jhagra hosted the dinner Monday night as Pakistan is in the middle of a third wave of coronavirus infections. The country on Tuesday reported 142 more virus-related deaths, one of the highest daily death tolls since last year.

The government has deployed troops to ensure people adhere to social distancing rules.

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PARIS — France is sending breathing machines, ICU gear and long-term oxygen equipment aimed at helping hospitals around India treat thousands of virus patients.

The first aid shipment is expected to leave France later this week, bringing eight oxygen generators. Each generator can equip a hospital of 250 beds for several years, French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said.

France will also send breathing machines, pumps and containers of liquid medical oxygen aimed at helping up to 10,000 patients per day, according to the French Foreign Ministry. That first oxygen shipment is expected to arrive from Europe to India next week.

The value of the aid was not released.

The French government said the effort aims to provide long-term help to Indian hospitals both for the crisis they are facing now and beyond the pandemic.

France is still fighting a persistent virus surge at home.

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TOKYO — Japan will set up a large vaccination center in Tokyo and Osaka beginning in late May in a bid to speed up its snail-paced inoculation campaign so that at least the elderly people will finish their second shots by the end of July, officials said Tuesday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told reporters that in Tokyo a vaccination center will be set up as early as May 24 at a government building where the Self-Defense Forces will dispatch its doctors and nurses to give shots for about three months. Kato said a similar vaccination center is also under way in Osaka and that further details are still being decided.

Each of the large inoculation centers are expected to accommodate about 10,000 people and will use the Moderna vaccine, whose approval by the health ministry is expected in May.

Japan’s attempts to develop its own vaccines are still in the early stages. Japan has so far approved only the Pfizer Inc. vaccine, with approval for Moderna and AstraZeneca pending.

Inoculations started in mid-February and have covered only about 1% of the Japanese people. Inoculations for 36 million elderly people started in mid-April and only a fraction of them got their first shots.

Japan’s started its third state of emergency in Tokyo, Osaka and two neighboring areas Sunday to curb a rapid resurgence three months ahead of the Tokyo Olympics. Japan has reported more than 567,000 cases and about 10,000 deaths since the pandemic began last year.

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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka on Tuesday closed schools in the capital and suburbs for four days and issued work-from-home plans for government workers in the latest moves to contain the rising number of COVID-19 positive cases.

After weeks of reporting fewer than 300 new cases per day, Sri Lanka confirmed 997 during the past 24 hours. The highest number were in the Colombo district which includes the capital.

Health officials have warned of a rapid increase to come because people engaged in crowded celebrations and shopping during the traditional new year festival that fell on April 14.

From Tuesday, half of state employees would be called to offices while the balance would work from home.

Already, the government has imposed lockdowns on nearly a dozen of villages in different parts of the country.

Sri Lanka has reported more than 102,376 virus cases with 642 fatalities.

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NEW DELHI — India recorded more than 320,000 new cases of coronavirus infection as a grim surge weighed on the country’s sinking health system.

Tuesday’s 323,144 new infections raised India’s total past 17.6 million. It ended a five-day streak of recording the largest single-day increases in any country throughout the pandemic, but the decline likely reflects lower weekend testing rather than reduced spread of the virus.

The health ministry also reported another 2,771 deaths, with roughly 115 Indians succumbing to the disease every hour. The latest fatalities pushed India’s total to 197,894, which experts say are probably an undercount.

Foreign ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi tweeted photos Tuesday of the first shipment of medical aid India received from Britain. It included 100 ventilators and 95 oxygen concentrators.

Other nations like the U.S., Germany and Pakistan have also promised medical aid to India.

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SAN FRANCISCO — Officials at the University of California, San Francisco say a man in his 30s is recuperating after developing a rare blood clot in his leg within two weeks of receiving the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine.

As of Friday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had reported the rare clots in 15 people, all women, after 8 million doses of the vaccine were administered nationally.

Federal officials lifted an 11-day pause on use of the single-shot vaccine Friday, saying the benefits outweighed the very rare risks.

The university said Monday that “to the best of our knowledge, this is the first male patient with VITT syndrome in the U.S.” It says the man was admitted 13 days after receiving the vaccination and should be released shortly.

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NEW DELHI (AP) — India recorded more than 320,000 new cases of coronavirus infection Tuesday as a grim surge of illness and death weighed on the country and its sinking health system started getting much-needed support from foreign nations.

Tuesday’s 323,144 new infections raised India’s total past 17.6 million, behind only the United States. It ended a five-day streak of recording the largest single-day increases in any country throughout the pandemic, but the decline likely reflects lower weekend testing rather than reduced spread of the virus.

The health ministry also reported another 2,771 deaths in the past 24 hours, with roughly 115 Indians succumbing to the disease every hour. The latest fatalities pushed India’s deaths to 197,894, behind the U.S., Brazil and Mexico. Experts say even these figures are probably an undercount.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi tweeted photos Tuesday of the first shipment of medical aid India received from Britain. It included 100 ventilators and 95 oxygen concentrators.

Other nations including the U.S., Germany, Israel and Pakistan have also promised medical aid. The countries have said they will supply oxygen, diagnostic tests, treatments, ventilators and protective gear to help India’s crisis, which World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called “beyond heartbreaking.”

The surge, spurred by new variants of the coronavirus, has undermined the government’s claims of victory over the pandemic. The country of nearly 1.4 billion people is facing shortages of space in intensive care wards. Hospitals are experiencing oxygen shortages and many people are being forced to turn to makeshift facilities for mass burials and cremations.

India’s top health official on Monday urged Indians to wear masks at home to prevent the spread of the virus. “It’s time people start wearing masks inside their homes as well,” said Dr. V.K. Paul, the head of a government committee on medical emergency preparedness.

India has also called on its armed forces to help. India’s chief of Defense Staff, Gen. Bipin Rawat, said oxygen supplies will be released from armed forces reserves and its retired medical personnel will join health facilities to ease the pressure on doctors.

Meanwhile, in a bid to tackle the shortage of beds, authorities are turning to train carriages which have been converted into isolation wards. India has also started airlifting oxygen tanks to states in need. Special trains with oxygen supplies are also running in the country.

France is sending breathing machines, ICU gear and eight oxygen generators in a shipment expected to be sent later this week. Each generator can equip a hospital of 250 beds for several years, French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said.

France will also send breathing machines, pumps and containers of liquid medical oxygen aimed at helping up to 10,000 patients per day, according to the French Foreign Ministry.

The White House was moving to share raw materials for the AstraZeneca vaccine by diverting some U.S. orders to the Serum Institute of India. White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients told The Associated Press the administration was working on other requests for personal protective equipment, tests and oxygen supplies.

In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:

— Japan will set up a large vaccination center in Tokyo and Osaka beginning in late May in a bid to speed up its snail-paced inoculation campaign so that at least the elderly people will finish their second shots by the end of July, officials said Tuesday. Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told reporters a Tokyo vaccination center will be set up as early as May 24 to give shots for about three months. Details for the Osaka center are still being decided. Each will use the Moderna vaccine, whose approval by the health ministry is expected in May. Inoculations so far have covered only about 1% of Japanese people. Japan started its third state of emergency in Tokyo, Osaka and two neighboring areas Sunday to curb a rapid resurgence of the virus three months ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.

— Sri Lanka on Tuesday closed schools in the capital and suburbs for four days and made work-from-home plans for state workers to contain a growing outbreak. After weeks of reporting fewer than 300 new cases daily, Sri Lanka confirmed 997 during the past 24 hours. Most were in the Colombo district that includes the capital. Health officials have warned of an expected increase because people engaged in crowded celebrations and shopping during the traditional new year festival that fell on April 14. From Tuesday, half of state employees would be called to offices while the balance would work from home. Already, the government has imposed lockdowns on nearly a dozen of villages in different parts of the country.

— Philippine officials are assessing whether to extend a monthlong lockdown in the Manila region amid a grim spike in cases or relax it to fight a recession, joblessness and hunger. The country has recorded more than 1 million cases, including more than 16,800 deaths. A spike last month prompted President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration to reimpose a lockdown in the Manila region, where several hospitals reported being overwhelmed. Cabinet officials and medical experts are to meet Tuesday to recommend whether to continue the lockdown, and Duterte may announce the decision Wednesday.

— Australia will halt flights from India for two weeks due to its virus surge. Prime Minister Scott Morrison also announced Australia will give India 509 ventilators and 100 oxygen concentrators with tanks as well as personal protection equipment. Morrison said further aid would follow. Morrison announced last week plans to reduce the number of Australian citizens and permanent residents returning from India by 30%. But the number of travelers testing positive in Australian hotel quarantine jumped from 90 to 143 in a week, Morrison said.

— South Korean President Moon Jae-in has met with the CEO of Maryland-based Novavax and promised to push for swift approval of the company’s coronavirus vaccine that will be produced through a local biotech firm. South Korean officials hope that SK Bioscience’s manufacture of the Novavax vaccine will help ease concerns over possible supply shortages in coming months. According to officials, SK Bioscience is contracted to manufacture 40 million doses of Novavax vaccine this year. Production could begin in June and as many as 20 million shots could be delivered through September, all of which will be used locally, they say. SK Bioscience is already producing vaccine developed by AstraZeneca at its factory in the southern town of Andong. South Korea hopes to obtain 190 million doses of coronavirus vaccines this year through deals with pharmaceutical companies and the World Health Organization-backed COVAX program. Around 2.4 million South Koreans have received their first doses as of Tuesday. Officials hope to vaccinate 70% of the country’s 51 million people by November.

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About the only certainty in the confounding 2021 NFL draft is Trevor Lawrence going to the Jaguars with the first overall pick.

Beyond that, it’s really anybody’s guess following the most unorthodox of run-ups to the league’s annual parade of prospects.

COVID-19 opt-outs and shortened or shelved seasons in the fall were followed by the combine cancellation and the elimination of in-person interviews this spring because of the pandemic.

Teams had to rely on Zoom calls to get to know players.

“I’ve said this before: what we’re doing is educated guessing,” Giants general manager Dave Gettleman said. “So, this makes us a little more uneducated, not having this personal touch with these players.”

Although all 32 teams received the videos from all 103 pro days, the lack of uniform, electronic timing resulted in suspect 40-yard dashes on fast surfaces clocked by hand.

“It’s hard to compare apples to oranges. You’d like to have everybody run on the same surface,” Chargers GM Tom Telesco said. “That’s the biggest part of the Indianapolis combine when the players go in and get their physicals done.”

Only 150 players went to Indy this month for physicals, leaving spotty medical reports on many of the athletes heading into the 259-pick draft.

All of this should result in a wild weekend of buildup for the 2021 season, when the NFL hopes sellouts replace opt-outs and normalcy returns in sports and society alike.

“It’s a very complicated draft,” ESPN analyst Mel Kiper Jr. said. “I always say, ‘mysterious/complicated’ draft” because teams didn’t have uniform 40-yard dash times and other measurements and didn’t get to poke and prod the prospects themselves.

“The opt-outs complicate things even more,” added Kiper.

“It’s a year like no other,” agreed Bengals player personnel director Duke Tobin. “There are players in this draft who have really only played one year of college football. You’re projecting.”

More so than ever.

“There are guys in this draft that (come) August it’ll be the first time in 20 months they’ll have put pads on,” Gettleman marveled. “And some of those guys are very, very highly rated.”

Hall of Fame executive Bill Polian called this year’s draft a throwback to a bygone era before technology changed the scouting world.

“I think it will probably be less homogenous than it’s been in the past — which is not a bad thing,” Polian said.

NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah said consensus this year was as elusive as Tyreek Hill is in man coverage.

“Look, group think is a real thing,” Jeremiah said. “When you get scouts that pal around together, we go to the same schools and you’d be at the same places watching the same players. Everybody ends up talking and and you kind of end up getting some consensus on some players.”

Same thing at the combine.

“So there’s just been less gathering. I think in some ways it’s better because you get individual evaluations,” Jeremiah said. “But I can’t remember more variance just talking to buddies around the league about specific players where the (evaluations) are so wildly different.”

Jeremiah also considers this shakeup a positive development.

“That makes it fun,” he said. “I think a lot of teams that I’ve talked to have really tried to shrink their draft board more so than in years past.”

You know what else has dwindled?

The entire pool of candidates.

With the NCAA granting an extra year of eligibility because of the pandemic, a crush of players stayed in school. By mid-April, fewer than 700 players had signed a standard representation agreement with an NFL agent, about one-third the usual number.

That left this thinnest of draft classes with their college pro day performances to replace the one-stop scouting combine — unless they were lucky enough to get invited to the Senior Bowl, where every team got 15 minutes of face time with them.

The result of all these factors is a puzzling draft loaded at the top but blindfolded at the bottom.

“We had so many kids go back to school. That’s what’s going to impact the bottom half of the draft,” Jeremiah said. “That’s why everybody that I talk to around the league just says, ‘We don’t know what the heck we’re going to do with the sixth- and seventh-round picks. If I can get rid of them I’m going to get rid of them’ just because next year’s class, with those sixth- and seventh-round picks, are going to be really valuable.”

Risk-takers might find gems this year, but the temptation will be to load up on 2022 picks when the pool of prospects will be much deeper — and, the hope is, better vetted.

This weekend, “there’s going to be less to know about the character of a person because you just haven’t spent time around them,” ex-NFL executive Mark Dominik said.

“The Senior Bowl was 15 minutes, and a lot of GMs didn’t even go to the Senior Bowl. So, they haven’t really met the players.”

Teams were allowed up to five one-hour videoconferences with prospects this spring, so that softened the blow of not getting to fly them in or interview them at the combine.

Still, team doctors couldn’t get their hands on them.

Last year things didn’t shut down until after the combine, so teams had good medical reports on the top 330 or so prospects. This year, it’s less than half that.

“You’ve got incomplete medical information on these guys, and nothing scares a general manager more,” said Jeremiah, who added that teams “aren’t freaked out about the football side of the evaluation. (They’re) majorly freaked out about the medical stuff.”

However it all shakes out, Kansas State tight end Briley Moore has a bold prediction for this year’s draft class that had to navigate such an unusual path to the pros.

“Ten years from now,” Moore said, “this class is going to be special just because of the mental toughness that everyone has built to go through to play a full season and offseason with the climate of the world right now.”

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More AP NFL coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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TIRANA, Albania (AP) — An exit poll for Albania’s parliamentary election on Sunday suggests that the ruling Socialist Party is in a tight race with the opposition Democratic Party.

The exit poll run for Euronews Albania from the MRB, part of the London-based Kantar Group, projects that the left-wing Socialists will win about 46% of the vote while the Democrats are expected to capture about 42%. It is still unclear whether Socialists will get 71 seats in the 140-seat parliament to govern alone.

Some 3.6 million eligible voters in Albania and abroad voted to elect 140 lawmakers for a four-year mandate in the Balkan nation.

“The process was characterized by a calm situation, security and integrity,” said Ilirjan Celibashi, head of the Central Election Commission. He said the winner would be known in 48 hours.

Albania, a NATO member since 2009, is looking forward to launching full membership negotiations with the 27-member European Union later this year and Sunday’s vote is considered a key milestone on that path.

The hope is that post-communist Albania’s 10th parliamentary election will be free and fair. To date, voting always has been marred by irregularities.

Preliminary turnout Sunday was almost 48%, slightly higher than four years ago.

There were some glitches. The electronic identification machines did not operate in 167 out of 5,199 polling stations after no operators to work them were found in those remote areas, according to Celibashi.

A police officer was injured with a knife attack in northern Puke town. The reason why he was attacked by a man at a polling station is not clear.

There were also some efforts to photograph ballots, which is not allowed by law, and a few physical arguments among opposing political supporters.

Prime Minister Edi Rama of the Socialists, who are seeking their third consecutive mandate, wants to boost Albanian efforts in tourism, energy, agriculture and digital projects.

“Now let’s listen to the people,” Rama said after the polls closed. He also claimed victory saying “Albania will come out victorious from this process, not only the party that will keep on governing the country.”

Lulzim Basha of the Democrats has accused the government of corruption and links to organized crime, and has pledged to lower taxes, raise salaries and provide more social support.

Speaking to supporters Basha claimed that his party had won but said counting should be held in line with the law.

Confrontations between supporters culminated Wednesday in the central city of Elbasan, where a Socialist Party activist died. Police said the victim was shot, allegedly by a member of the Democratic Party, during an argument.

Though officially impartial, President Ilir Meta turned into a strong government opponent, accusing Rama of concentrating legislative, administrative and judicial powers in his hands and running a “kleptocratic regime” that has bungled Albania’s pandemic response and delayed the country’s EU integration.

Scores of foreign observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and Western embassies monitored the vote.

U.S. Ambassador Yuri Kim urged candidates and political leaders “to accept the judgment of voters” while EU Ambassador Luigi Soreca also urged them to respect ”the voice of the Albanian citizens.”

Albania has seen a significant fall in daily coronavirus cases in the past week despite political rallies being held around the country. More than 400,000 people have received a vaccine jab. An overnight curfew has been enforced with restrictions on gatherings and mandatory mask-wearing.

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Follow Semini at http://twitter.com/lsemini

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