BEIJING: China has begun using anal swabs to test those it considers at high risk of contracting COVID-19, state TV reported, with social media users and travellers squirming over the invasive procedure which doctors say can be more effective in detecting the virus.
Officials took anal swabs from residents of neighbourhoods with confirmed COVID-19 cases in Beijing last week, broadcaster CCTV said, while those in designated quarantine facilities have also undergone the test.
Small, localised outbreaks in recent weeks have seen multiple cities in northern China sealed off from the rest of the country and prompted mass testing campaigns - which up until now have mostly been conducted using throat and nose swabs.
But the anal swabs method "can increase the detection rate of infected people" as traces of the virus linger longer in the anus than in the respiratory tract, Li Tongzeng, a senior doctor from Beijing's You'an Hospital, told CCTV.
Users of China's popular Twitter-like Weibo social media platform reacted to the method with a mix of mirth and horror.
"So lucky I returned to China earlier," one user wrote.
"Low harm, but extreme humiliation," another said, using a laughing emoticon.
Others who had undergone the procedure chimed in with dark humour.
"I've done two anal swabs, every time I did one I had to do a throat swab afterwards - I was so scared the nurse would forget to use a new swab," one Weibo user joked.
CCTV said on Sunday anal swabs would not be used as widely as other methods, as the technique was "not convenient."
As cases rise around the world, China has imposed stricter requirements on international arrivals in an effort to keep domestic transmission close to zero.
The country has also tightened restrictions domestically, with Beijing announcing that people from medium- or high-risk areas will be barred from the city from Thursday to reduce the risk of virus transmission over the Lunar New Year period.
Meanwhile, arrivals into the country must have multiple negative test results and quarantine for at least 14 days in a designated hotel on arrival, with many cities and regions imposing additional home observation requirements.
SINGAPORE: Singapore started vaccinating seniors in the community against COVID-19, with those in Tanjong Pagar and Ang Mo Kio receiving their first dose on Wednesday (Jan 27).
For 64-year-old masseuse Angeline Ko, she decided to get vaccinated because she encounters many customers in her line of work.
“So to protect myself and those around me, I thought I should take it. We will probably have to take it sooner or later anyway, so I might as well come now,” she told CNA in Mandarin.
As a volunteer with Tanjong Pagar CC who interacts with members of the public, she was eligible for the vaccine even though she is below 70.
After receiving the invitation to take the vaccine last Friday, she visited her family physician on Monday to ask more questions about whether she should take the jab.
“He has all my records, and said I should have no problem, so I decided to take the vaccination. I don’t take any medicine but I wanted to get reassurance from the doctor because I’ve been going to him for very long, and he has also taken the vaccine,” she added.
She also was not concerned about the side effects of the vaccination.
“We’ve all seen news about some of the side effects, and obviously some of these are true. But if you read the news properly, there are a lot of people who have taken the vaccination overseas, and just a few cases had really bad side effects,” she told CNA.
“The percentage is very small, and any kind of medical treatment or medicine will have risks. So I don’t think we should think that it will definitely happen to us.”
The registration counters at Tanjong Pagar CC community vaccination centre. (Photo: Jeremy Long)
When CNA visited the community vaccination centre at Tanjong Pagar Community Club on Wednesday at lunchtime, there was a steady flow of seniors coming to get the jab or make their vaccination appointment. Some were accompanied by family members.
There were about 300 appointments made for the first day on Wednesday at Tanjong Pagar CC and the turnout was “very good” and “very encouraging”, said lead physician for the vaccination centre Dr Tan Joo Peng.
Six out of the 12 vaccination stations were running, with six registration counters open as well, he added.
“All the elderly I’ve met, although they have a lot of questions and queries about the vaccination, they’re all very positive and ready to take the vaccine. So I think that’s something very heartwarming to me,” he said.
The Tanjong Pagar CC community vaccination centre. (Photo: Jeremy Long)
Retiree Richard Lim, 70, said he was prepared to take the vaccine once he was became eligible to do so.
“I thought to support the Government and support everybody, and make sure Singapore is safe,” he said, adding that he had no concerns about the vaccine as he trusts the decision to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
He made his appointment after a volunteer from the People’s Association visited his home and invited him to get the jab.
“In fact, the Government makes it so easy and seamless for us, I didn’t even have to come down to do registration,” he said, adding that his family members were supportive of his decision, and that he would also encourage them to take the vaccine when they become eligible for it.
Seniors waiting under observation after taking the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at Tanjong Pagar CC community vaccination centre. (Photo: Jeremy Long)
Mdm Nancy Yeo, 73, was not home when volunteers visited her on Monday. After reading the letter, she decided to visit the centre on Wednesday to find out more about the vaccine.
“I got the invitation to come and do it, but now I don’t know whether I want to do it. But most probably I have to do it. So I’m trying (to decide) now that Chinese New Year is so near, whether I should do it now or after Chinese New Year,” she told CNA, while waiting for her turn to speak to volunteers at the Tanjong Pagar CC community booking centre.
“I’m concerned about the side effects I might get from the job and if I don't feel well as a result. I still have quite a lot of things to do for Chinese New Year, like cleaning and all,” she said, adding that she also helps to take care of her grandson on weekdays.
“If I want to do it now and get this out of my mind for a peace of mind, then most probably I will take Friday, then I can rest on Saturday and Sunday.”
WASHINGTON: All but five Senate Republicans voted in favour of an effort to dismiss Donald Trump's historic second impeachment trial on Tuesday (Jan 26), making clear a conviction of the former president for “incitement of insurrection” after the deadly Capitol siege on Jan 6 is unlikely.
While the Republicans did not succeed in ending the trial before it began, the test vote made clear that Trump still has enormous sway over his party as he becomes the first former president to be tried for impeachment.
Many Republicans have criticised Trump's role in the attack - before which he told his supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat - but most of them have rushed to defend him in the trial.
“I think this was indicative of where a lot of people’s heads are," said South Dakota Senator John Thune, the No 2 Republican in the Senate, after the vote.
Late on Tuesday, the presiding officer at the trial, Senator Patrick Leahy was taken to the hospital for observation after not feeling well at his office, spokesman David Carle said in a statement.
The 80-year-old senator was examined by the Capitol's attending physician, who recommended he be taken to the hospital out of an abundance of caution, he said.
Leahy presided over the trial's first procedural vote, a 55-45 tally that saw the Senate set aside an objection from Kentucky Senator Rand Paul that would have declared the impeachment proceedings unconstitutional and dismissed the trial.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (centre) walks with reporters on Jan 26, 2021, as he leaves the Senate floor on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Photo: AP/Jacquelyn Martin)
The vote means the trial on Trump's impeachment will begin as scheduled the week of Feb 8. The House impeached him Jan 13, just a week after the deadly insurrection in which five people died.
What seemed for some Democrats like an open-and-shut case that played out for the world on live television is running into a Republican Party that feels very different. Not only do senators say they have legal concerns, but they are wary of crossing the former president and his legions of followers.
It's unclear if any Republicans would vote to convict Trump on the actual charge of incitement after voting in favour of Paul's effort to declare it unconstitutional.
Ohio Senator Rob Portman said after the vote that he had not yet made up his mind, and that constitutionality “is a totally different issue” than the charge itself.
But many others indicated that they believe the final vote will be similar.
The vote shows that “they've got a long ways to go to prove it,” Iowa Senator Joni Ernst said of House Democrats' charge. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, said he thinks the vote was “a floor not a ceiling.”
Oklahoma Senator James Lankford said he thinks that most Republicans will not see daylight between the constitutionality and the article of incitement.
“You’re asking me to vote in a trial that by itself on its own is not constitutionally allowed?” he asked.
Conviction would require the support of all Democrats and 17 Republicans, or two-thirds of the Senate - far from the five Republicans who voted with Democrats Tuesday to allow the trial to proceed.
They were Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania - all recent critics of the former president and his effort to overturn President Joe Biden's win.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who has said Trump “provoked” the riots and indicated he is open to conviction, voted with Paul to move toward dismissing the trial.
Democrats rejected the argument that the trial is illegitimate or unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office, pointing to an 1876 impeachment of a secretary of war who had already resigned and to the opinions of many legal scholars.
Democrats also say that a reckoning of the first invasion of the Capitol since the War of 1812, perpetrated by rioters egged on by a president as Electoral College votes were being tallied, is necessary.
“It makes no sense whatsoever that a president, or any official, could commit a heinous crime against our country and then defeat Congress’ impeachment powers - and avoid a vote on disqualification - by simply resigning, or by waiting to commit that offence until their last few weeks in office,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Before the vote, the senators officially opened the trial by taking oaths to ensure “impartial justice” as jurors.
Senator Mark Kelly (left) and Senator Roy Blunt leave after taking an oath and voting on how to proceed on the impeachment against former President Donald Trump, at the Capitol in Washington on Jan 26, 2021. (Photo: AP/J Scott Applewhite)
The nine House Democrats prosecuting the case against Trump carried the sole impeachment charge across the Capitol on Monday evening in a solemn and ceremonial march along the same halls the rioters ransacked three weeks ago.
The lead House prosecutor, Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, stood before the Senate to describe the violent events of Jan 6 and read the House resolution charging “high crimes and misdemeanours.”
For Democrats the tone, tenor and length of the trial so early in Biden's presidency poses its own challenge, forcing them to strike a balance between their vow to hold Trump accountable and their eagerness to deliver on the new administration's priorities following their sweep of control of the House, Senate and White House.
Chief Justice John Roberts is not presiding at the trial, as he did during Trump’s first impeachment, potentially affecting the gravitas of the proceedings. The shift is said to be in keeping with protocol because Trump is no longer in office.
Instead, Leahy, who serves in the largely ceremonial role of Senate president pro tempore, was sworn in on Tuesday.
Leaders in both parties agreed to a short delay in the proceedings, which serves their political and practical interests, even as National Guard troops remain at the Capitol because of security threats to lawmakers ahead of the trial.
The start date gives Trump’s still-evolving legal team time to prepare its case, while also providing more than a month's distance from the passions of the bloody riot. For the Democratic-led Senate, the intervening weeks provide prime time to confirm some of Biden’s key Cabinet nominees.
VILNIUS: Europe urged pharmaceutical companies on Tuesday (Jan 26) to honour their commitments to supply coronavirus vaccines, as delivery cuts and delays dim hopes of a quick fix to COVID-19 and increase talk of blocking protectionism and hoarding.
Countries around the world, anxious to reboot economies and restart travel by the European summer, hailed the rapid development of vaccines as the best chance of escaping the year-long pandemic, which has killed more than 2.1 million people.
But vaccine roll-outs in the European Union have been slow compared with countries in some other regions and fraught with problems, not least interruptions to supply chains.
AstraZeneca, which developed its shot with Oxford University, said last Friday it would cut supplies to the EU in the first quarter of this year, a move that a senior EU official said meant a 60 per cent reduction to 31 million doses for the bloc.
US drugmaker Pfizer said there would be a temporary impact on shipments in late January to early February.
"Europe invested billions to help develop the world's first COVID-19 vaccines. To create a truly global common good," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at a virtual meeting of the World Economic Forum.
"And now, the companies must deliver. They must honour their obligations," the head of the EU executive added.
EU member states could take AstraZeneca to court for breach of supply contracts if it did not honour its schedule, Latvian Foreign Affairs Minister Edgars Rinkevics said.
"The possibility should be evaluated, and it should be coordinated among the EU countries," the minister told Reuters, via his spokesman.
The European Commission will finalise a proposal by the end of the week to require pharmaceutical firms to register their vaccine exports from the EU, and says it has no plans to impose an export ban.
EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said the aim was merely to increase transparency.
AstraZeneca said initial deliveries to the EU would fall short of the targeted volumes because of a production glitch.
"Initial volumes will be lower than originally anticipated due to reduced yields at a manufacturing site within our European supply chain," a company spokesman said in a written statement last Friday, but declined to provide details.
UK 'CONFIDENT' OF SUPPLIES
AstraZeneca has offered to bring forward some deliveries to the EU and the bloc has asked the company if it can divert doses from Britain to make up for the shortfall, European officials told Reuters.
Health minister Matt Hancock said Britain, which has left the EU, would be able to work with the bloc to ensure there is no disruption, and that rejecting vaccine nationalism and protectionism was important.
"I'm sure that we can work with the EU to ensure that, whilst transparency is welcome, .... no blockers are put in place," he told an event hosted by Chatham House think tank, adding he had spoken to the chief executives of Pfizer and AstraZeneca.
"... But I would urge all international partners in fact to be collaborative and working closely together, and I think protectionism is not the right approach in the middle of a pandemic," Hancock said.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described unequal access to vaccines last week as a "catastrophic moral failure", and urged countries and manufacturers to spread doses more fairly around the world.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel also said it was crucial to ensure fair distribution.
"It has become even clearer to me than it was before that we need to choose a multilateral approach, that a self-isolating approach won't solve our problems," she told the World Economic Forum's virtual summit by video link.
"We see that first of all in the question of vaccination since it is the route out of the pandemic."
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, speaking at the same forum, urged wealthy countries not to hoard vaccines.
"The rich countries of the world went out and acquired large doses," he said. "... Some countries even acquired up to four times what their population needs ... to the exclusion of other countries."
BRUSSELS: The European Union on Tuesday (Jan 26) warned pharmaceutical giants that develop coronavirus vaccines to honour their contractual obligations after slow deliveries of shots from two companies hampered the bloc's vaunted vaccine rollout in several nations.
The bloc already lashed out Monday at pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, accusing it of failing to guarantee the delivery of coronavirus vaccines without a valid explanation. It also had expressed displeasure over vaccine delivery delays from Pfizer-BioNTech last week.
“Europe invested billions to help develop the world‘s first COVID-19 vaccines. To create a truly global common good," EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the World Economic Forum's virtual event in Switzerland . “And now, the companies must deliver. They must honour their obligations."
The statement Tuesday highlighted the level of distrust that has grown between the 27-nation bloc and pharmaceutical companies over the past week. On Monday, the EU threatened to impose strict export controls on all coronavirus vaccines produced in the bloc to make sure that companies honour their commitments to the EU.
The EU said it provided 2.7 billion euros to speed up vaccine research and production capacity and was determined to get some value for that money with hundreds of millions of vaccine shots according to a schedule the companies had committed to.
“Europe is determined to contribute to this global common good, but it also means business," von der Leyen said Tuesday via videolink.
And Germany was firmly behind von der Leyen's view.
“With a complex process such as vaccine production, I can understand if there are production problems - but then it must affect everyone fairly and equally,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn told ZDF television. “This is not about EU first, it’s about Europe’s fair share.”
The EU, which has 450 million citizens and the economic and political clout of the world’s biggest trading bloc, is lagging badly behind countries like Israel and Britain in rolling out coronavirus vaccine shots for its health care workers and most vulnerable people. That’s despite having over 400,000 confirmed virus deaths since the pandemic began.
The EU has committed to buying 300 million AstraZeneca doses with option on 100 million extra shots. Late last week, the company said it was planning to reduce a first contingent of 80 million to 31 million.
The shortfall of planned deliveries of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is expected to get medical approval by the bloc on Friday, combined with hiccups in the distribution of Pfizer-BioNTech shots is putting EU nations under heavy pressure. Pfizer says it was delaying deliveries to Europe and Canada while it upgrades its plant in Belgium to increase production capacity.
The European Medicines Agency is scheduled to review the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine Friday and its approval is hotly anticipated. The AstraZeneca vaccine is already being used in Britain and has been approved for emergency use by half a dozen countries, including India, Pakistan, Argentina and Mexico.
The delays in getting vaccines will be make it harder to meet early targets in the EU’s goal of vaccinating 70 per cent of its adults by late summer.
The EU has signed six vaccine contracts for more than 2 billion doses, but only the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been approved for use so far.
BEIJING: China said on Tuesday (Jan 26) it will conduct military exercises in the South China Sea this week, just days after Beijing bristled at a US aircraft carrier group's entry into the disputed waters.
A notice issued by the country's Maritime Safety Administration prohibited entry into a portion of waters in the Gulf of Tonkin to the west of the Leizhou peninsula in southwestern China from Jan 27 to Jan 30, but it did not offer details on when the drills would take place or at what scale.
A US carrier group led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt entered the South China Sea on Saturday to promote "freedom of the seas", the US military said, days after Joe Biden began his term as president.
The contested waters have become another flashpoint in the increasingly testy bilateral relationship between Beijing and Washington. The US military has steadily increased its activities there in recent years as China asserts its territorial claims in the area in conflict with neighbouring countries including Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan.
China on Monday complained that the United States frequently sends aircraft and vessels into the South China Sea, through which trillion dollars in trade flow every year, to "flex its muscles" and said such actions are not conducive to peace and stability in the region.
HONG KONG - The government will soon announce compulsory testing in more areas in Hong Kong as pressure mounts for it to keep the pandemic under control, with the city's leader saying there could be more targeted lockdowns in future.
Hong Kong now has two specified areas, one in Jordan and another in Sham Shui Po, where mandatory testing has been ordered.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Tuesday (Jan 26) said the government has earmarked "a number of other specified areas" and that announcements will be made shortly.
She added that future lockdowns in the city would be on a smaller scale than the one in Jordan over the weekend.
The government last Saturday locked down an area in Jordan, a neighbourhood on the Kowloon peninsula, to get everyone in the area tested for Covid-19.
Part of the Yau Tsim Mong district, Jordan has recorded a higher number of cases than other parts of the city in recent weeks.
"Taking stock of our experience, we should be more focused in future testing operations to narrow the scope of the area to, say, just a couple of streets or blocks. More of these smaller-scale operations can be done at different locations. This is something we will consider," Mrs Lam said at her weekly briefing ahead of the Executive Council meeting.
She said lessons learnt from the weekend operation in Jordan's restricted area include reviewing the timing of the announcements of such lockdowns, being more "proactive and aggressive" in identifying carriers in the community, and shortening the time taken for communicating, testing and notification of test results.
More than 7,000 people were tested in the Jordan operation, with 13 cases detected.
Rising case numbers in recent weeks from the locked-down area - a densely built neighbourhood of old developments with cramped living conditions - had officials worried.
From Jan 1 to 20, the specified Jordan area alone recorded 162 confirmed cases involving 56 buildings.
Some of the city's health experts have said the Jordan operation - a huge logistical undertaking that involved door-to-door round-ups of residents for testing, 3,000 civil servants and 6,500 food packs - was not cost-effective. They said that existing measures, including issuing mandatory testing notices, such as those in the Yau Tsim Mong and Sham Shui Po districts, have been effective.
Hong Kong recorded 73 confirmed cases on Monday, of which 69 are local, bringing the total tally to 10,158 and 170 deaths.
