Preliminary tests show two more in Singapore have UK Covid-19 strain - The Straits Times

SINGAPORE - A Singapore Airlines pilot and a work pass holder have tested preliminarily positive for the new B117 strain of the coronavirus that is circulating in the United Kingdom.

They were among 27 new coronavirus cases confirmed on Wednesday (Dec 30), taking Singapore's total to 58,569.

The pilot, a 40-year-old Singaporean man, had travelled to the United Kingdom for work between Dec 19 and 22, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) on Wednesday (Dec 30).

He was tested on Dec 23 as part of rostered routine testing conducted for air crew who travel frequently.

Although he tested negative for Covid-19 upon returning to Singapore, he developed a fever on Dec 26 and sought medical treatment at a general practitioner clinic the next day, where he was swabbed and confirmed positive on Dec 29.

He was then taken to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases by ambulance.

Serological tests indicate that he is likely to have a current infection, said the Health Ministry.

Further tests will be conducted to confirm the Covid-19 strain the man has.

The work pass holder who also tested preliminarily positive for the B117 strain is a 53-year-old man who returned from the United Kingdom.

Although he ended his stay-home notice on Dec 21, he developed body aches the next day and acute respiratory symptoms on Dec 25.

He was then confirmed positive for Covid-19 on Dec 29.

Meanwhile, there were 24 other imported cases, all of whom had been placed on stay-home notice or isolated on arrival in Singapore, said MOH.

Among the imported cases, three are Singaporean, four are permanent residents, five are work pass holders and seven are work permit holders.

Of the seven work permit holders, six are foreign domestic workers.

The imported cases also include three dependant's pass holders, one long-term visit pass holder, one short-term visit pass holder and one special pass holder.

The sole community case announced on Wednesday (Dec 30) is a permanent resident who works as a marine surveyor at Lloyd's Register Singapore.

As part of his job, the 46-year-old man works on board vessels docked at Sembcorp Marine Admiralty Yard.

He had not gone to work since the onset of symptoms on Dec 27.

His case is currently unlinked and epidemiological investigations are ongoing, said MOH.

MOH added that all the identified close contacts of the cases have been isolated and placed on quarantine.

They will be tested at the start and end of their quarantine period so the ministry can detect asymptomatic cases.

Marina Bay Sands, IMM, Takashimaya and Orchard Gateway were among places visited by Covid-19 patients while they were still infectious, said MOH.

MOH provides the list of locations that infectious Covid-19 patients visited for at least 30 minutes and the times they visited them to get people who were at those places at the same time to monitor their health closely for two weeks from the date of their visit.

The full list of locations and times can be found on the gov.sg website.

MOH has said close contacts would already have been notified and that there is no need to avoid those places as they would have been cleaned if necessary.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has remained low,with a total of two cases in the past week who are currently unlinked.

With 11 cases discharged on Wednesday, 58,396 patients have fully recovered from the disease.

A total of 52 patients remain in hospital, while 77 are recuperating in community facilities. None is in intensive care.

Singapore has had 29 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 15 who tested positive have died of other causes.

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2020-12-30 14:49:51Z
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China, EU leaders conclude investment deal talks via video link - South China Morning Post

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1. China, EU leaders conclude investment deal talks via video link  South China Morning Post
2. Are the EU and China on brink of investment deal?  The Straits Times
3. EU seeks to rebalance China ties with investment agreement  CNA
4. Rapid recovery leaves China better placed for 2021 than US or Europe  South China Morning Post
5. EU, China seal long-awaited investment deal to open Chinese market  The Straits Times
6. View Full coverage on Google News

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2020-12-30 14:39:01Z
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US nurse tests positive over a week after receiving first dose of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine - AsiaOne

WASHINGTON - A 45-year-old nurse in California tested positive for Covid-19 more than a week after receiving Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine, an ABC News affiliate reported on Tuesday (Dec 29).

Mr Matthew W., a nurse at two different local hospitals, said in a Facebook post on Dec 18 that he had received the Pfizer vaccine, telling the ABC News affiliate that his arm was sore for a day but that he had suffered no other side effects.

Six days later, on Christmas Eve, he became sick after working a shift in the Covid-19 unit, the report added. He got the chills and later came down with muscle aches and fatigue.

He went to a drive-up hospital testing site and tested positive for Covid-19 the day after Christmas, the report said.

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Dr Christian Ramers, an infectious disease specialist with Family Health Centres of San Diego, told the ABC News affiliate that this scenario was not unexpected.

"We know from the vaccine clinical trials that it's going to take about 10 to 14 days for you to start to develop protection from the vaccine," Dr Ramers said.

"That first dose we think gives you somewhere around 50 per cent, and you need that second dose to get up to 95 per cent," Dr Ramers added.

For the latest updates on the coronavirus, visit here.

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2020-12-30 09:26:50Z
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US nurse tests positive over a week after receiving first dose of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine - The Straits Times

WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - A 45-year-old nurse in California tested positive for Covid-19 more than a week after receiving Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine, an ABC News affiliate reported on Tuesday (Dec 29).

Mr Matthew W., a nurse at two different local hospitals, said in a Facebook post on Dec 18 that he had received the Pfizer vaccine, telling the ABC News affiliate that his arm was sore for a day but that he had suffered no other side effects.

Six days later, on Christmas Eve, he became sick after working a shift in the Covid-19 unit, the report added. He got the chills and later came down with muscle aches and fatigue.

He went to a drive-up hospital testing site and tested positive for Covid-19 the day after Christmas, the report said.

Dr Christian Ramers, an infectious disease specialist with Family Health Centres of San Diego, told the ABC News affiliate that this scenario was not unexpected.

"We know from the vaccine clinical trials that it's going to take about 10 to 14 days for you to start to develop protection from the vaccine," Dr Ramers said.

"That first dose we think gives you somewhere around 50 per cent, and you need that second dose to get up to 95 per cent," Dr Ramers added.

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2020-12-30 08:40:36Z
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Britain first to approve AstraZeneca-Oxford Covid-19 vaccine - The Straits Times

LONDON (REUTERS) - Britain on Wednesday (Dec 30) became the first country in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca as it battles a major winter surge driven by a new, highly contagious variant of the virus.

AstraZeneca said the authorisation was for a two-dose regime, and that the vaccine had been approved for use for emergency supply.

Britain has ordered 100 million doses of the vaccine. 

“The government has today accepted the recommendation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to authorise Oxford University-AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine for use,” the health ministry said.

The pandemic has already killed 1.7 million people around the world, sown chaos through the global economy and upended normal life for billions since it began in Wuhan, China, a year ago. 

Britain and South Africa in particular are grappling with new variants of the coronavirus, which the government and scientists say are more contagious; many countries have responded by banning passenger flights and blocking trade.

AstraZeneca and other developers have said they are studying the impact of the new variant but expect that their shots will be effective against it. 

Regulatory endorsement is a welcome boost for AstraZeneca and the Oxford team, which have been accused of a lack of clarity about the results from late-stage trials.

Pooled results from those trials show it had overall efficacy was 70.4 per cent. Efficacy was 62 per cent for trial participants given two full doses, but 90 per cent for a smaller sub-group given a half-dose, then a full dose.

Researchers said that the finding of 90 per cent efficacy for the low-dose-high-dose regime needed more investigation. 

AstraZeneca did not specify which dose regime had been approved. 

“Today is an important day for millions of people in the UK who will get access to this new vaccine,” AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot said.  “It has been shown to be effective, well-tolerated, simple to administer and is supplied by AstraZeneca at no profit.” 

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2020-12-30 07:11:10Z
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NCID healthcare staff become first in Singapore to receive COVID-19 vaccine - Yahoo Singapore News

South China Morning Post

China’s P2P purge leaves millions of victims out in the cold, with losses in the billions, as concerns of social unrest swirl

Karen Kong has not got a restful night’s sleep in the past half a year, after learning that her mother invested all of the family’s savings – more than 1 million yuan (US$153,000) – in a little known peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform.Worries soon turned into anger and despair as the Beijing-based Jieyue United made its way onto the Chinese government’s liquidation list, and the chance of getting their money back appears to be dwindling.“No one can give us a clear timetable for the settlement, or even a reply,” she said, pointing to a stack of petition papers signed by investors, appeal letters and photocopied evidence – all of which were rejected by local government agencies in Beijing.Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China.“A lot of the investments are life savings and the pensions of senior citizens. How can they make a living,” asked Kong, who lives in the eastern province of Shandong. “They must give us an explanation and a solution.” China’s P2P ‘financial refugees’ face never ending wait to recover lost US$120 billionThe shroud over P2P firms has fallen, with China’s banking regulator announcing last month that it had shut down all such platforms. However, the financial time bomb is far from being defused for millions of families who invested billions of yuan, and a very real concern exists that mishandling the situation could lead to social unrest.Countless investors are anxiously waiting for their life savings to be returned, trying every means – reporting to police, filing complaints and lawsuits, and even protesting in the street – to get back as much as possible.The regulator said in August that about 800 billion yuan (US$122.7 billion) worth of investor funds have not yet been retrieved.The first of China’s P2P platforms sprang up 14 years ago, and the industry experienced explosive growth after support for internet financing was written into the government’s 2014 work report. Beijing hoped they would lead to greater financial inclusiveness and help solve the decades-old funding problems for small businesses.In short, P2P lending platforms were touted as a model to reshape the nation’s financial landscape.More than 10,000 such online platforms sprang up in China, government data showed. In their heyday, these companies occupied luxurious offices in big cities, and some extended their operations to remote counties, with annual transactions valued at 3 trillion yuan (US$460 billion).CreditEase, one of the world’s first P2P companies when it launched in 2006, even rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange in December 2015, to celebrate the initial public offering of Yirendai, its online platform. The stock price surpassed US$50 in October 2017. Today it is worth just over US$3.The turning point for the sector indeed came in late-2017, when China’s leadership recognised the growing risk associated with numerous fly-by-night P2P platforms and vowed to squeeze them out of the financial system. Guo Shuqing shouldered the de-risking task in his dual role as chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and as party chief of the People’s Bank of China, the nation’s central bank.Speaking at the Lujiazui Forum in June 2018, he flagged the large risk embedded in the high return products offered by P2P platforms and warned that many could be illegally raising funds, or were simply Ponzi schemes, using new income to pay off older investors.If [a product’s promised] return is above 10 per cent, you should be prepared to lose all of your principalGuo Shuqing, party chief of central bank“You need to question [a product] if its return surpasses 6 per cent. If its return is higher than 8 per cent, the product is dangerous. If its return is above 10 per cent, you should be prepared to lose all of your principal,” Guo said.According to Wdzj.com, which compiles data on P2P platforms, about 56 per cent of their investors are salary earners, mostly with undergraduate degrees and monthly incomes ranging from 5,000 yuan (US$767) to 10,000 yuan.Fraser Howie, co-author of Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China’s Extraordinary Rise, said the popularity of P2P platforms highlighted how Chinese “innovation” used mobile connectivity to carve out a niche business when the banking sector was not adequately serving the needs of the private sector nor those of a consumer base seeking returns on their investments.However, “the elites don’t suffer when all the laobaixing [ordinary people] lose their savings in get-rich-quick schemes,” he added.In Kong’s case, she said about 80,000 investors tried to retrieve 14.1 billion yuan (US$2.2 billion) from two platforms of Beijing-based Jieyue United, and many of those individuals are financially and technologically unsophisticated senior citizens struggling amid the coronavirus shock. A 71-year-old victim’s tale reveals extent of greed in China’s US$30 billion peer-to-peer lending fiascoPanic set in among the group after they were told that they might be able to retrieve only 20-30 per cent of their original investments, leaving them with few options – none of which will see them made whole again. Adding to their frustration is that Kong says they have been left in the dark about how much money remains for repayment, even though the government has stepped in and taken over the accounts.“We demand an open and equal dialogue with the government disposal team,” says an appeal letter representing about 200 investors, including housewives, apple farmers, seafood traders and small businesspeople, who claim they are owed a combined 60 million yuan. “The fraud must be investigated, while loan recovery and repayment data must be published regularly.”The Post was unable to independently verify such claims, but similar problems are widely said to be plaguing investors in all of the platforms awaiting liquidation.As a result, demonstrations have been staged, including in Beijing’s financial district, over the past two years. At times, police have intervened to quell the crowds.You realise how humble you are as an individual. Eventually, it’s us, the most humble citizens, who pay the priceIvy Meng, Shaanxi province“We must unite together and show our determination,” an investor in the Nasdaq-listed financial services company 9F Group wrote this month on Weibo, China’s equivalent to Twitter, as hundreds of people protested outside the company’s Beijing headquarters. A video clip of the incident circulated on social media.A survey by Wdzj.com indicated that investors primarily want to know more about repayment details, including the timetable, and who is supervising the process. About 58.3 per cent of investors said they could accept a “haircut” but insisted that it must be less than 30 per cent. Nearly a third of respondents rejected the idea of not recouping all of their losses, and the remaining respondents were open to alternatives.No details have been made public on the size of haircuts sustained in previous resolutions, but they are thought to vary depending on the financial capability of controlling shareholders, government endeavours and the bargaining power of individual investors.Details gleaned from those involved in earlier cases suggest the process is likely to be lengthy, with only a small chance of retrieving losses. And as time goes on, the bargaining power of individuals seems to wane. Beijing’s P2P owners and senior executives hit with travel ban as China cracks down on online lendingIvy Meng’s mother in Shaanxi province invested all her life savings in a platform called Jucaimao, which Shanghai police investigated in 2018. Meng said not a single penny has been recouped by investors.“This is the cruel reality. We have largely given up,” she said, trying not to recall the traumatic experience. “You realise how humble you are as an individual. Eventually, it’s us, the most humble citizens, who pay the price.”Meng, however, also said she did not believe there would have been such large-scale defaults and collapses if regulators had not rushed to reduce debt in the financial system.Two years ago, thousands of desperate P2P investors occupied Beijing’s Financial Street, where the office of regulators is located, and which is only hundreds metres away from the Zhongnanhai leadership compound.This served as a sign of the threat posed to social stability, and it helped justify the subsequent nationwide purge of P2P platforms.More from South China Morning Post: * China to focus on domestic consumption in 2021 as US trade war fades from priorities * More Chinese cities ease residency rules to boost local economies * China’s pensioners get tech savvy as Beijing chases the ‘silver dollar’ * China’s latest digital currency test doubles down on previous trial, nudging merchants and consumers to embrace e-yuan * China FDI up 6.3 per cent in 2020, with November up 5.5 per centThis article China’s P2P purge leaves millions of victims out in the cold, with losses in the billions, as concerns of social unrest swirl first appeared on South China Morning PostFor the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2020.

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2020-12-30 02:57:00Z
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US detects first case of Covid-19 variant as Biden offers gloomy vaccine outlook - The Straits Times

WILMINGTON, Delaware/WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - The first known US case of a highly infectious coronavirus variant was detected in Colorado on Tuesday (Dec 29), and President-elect Joe Biden said that it could take years for most Americans to be vaccinated for the virus at current distribution rates.

Biden's prediction of a grim winter appeared aimed at lowering public expectations that the pandemic will be over soon after he takes office on Jan 20, while also sending a message to Congress that his administration will want to significantly increase spending to expedite vaccine distribution, expand testing and provide funding to states to help reopen schools.

Biden, a Democrat, said some 2 million people have been vaccinated, well short of the 20 million that outgoing Republican President Donald Trump had promised by the end of the year. Biden defeated Trump in a November election.

"As I long feared and warned, the effort to distribute and administer the vaccine is not progressing as it should," Biden said in Wilmington, Delaware.

At the current rate, "it's going to take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people."

Shortly after his remarks, Colorado's Governor Jared Polis announced on Twitter that his state had discovered a case of a highly infectious coronavirus variant B.1.1.7 first detected in the United Kingdom.

Biden's goal of ensuring that 100 million shots are administered by the end of his 100th day in office would mean"ramping up five to six times the current pace to 1 million shots a day," Biden said, noting that it would require Congress to approve additional funding.

"Even with that improvement, even if we boost the speed of vaccinations to 1 million shots a day, it will still take months to have the majority of the United States' population vaccinated," he said.

He predicted that the situation may not improve until "well into March." Biden also said he plans to invoke the Defence Production Act, which grants the president the power to expand industrial production of key materials or products for national security or other reasons, to "accelerate the making of materials needed for the vaccine."

Trump himself has invoked the law during the pandemic.

To reopen schools safely, Biden said Congress will need to provide funding for such things as additional transportation so students can maintain social distancing and improved ventilation in school buildings.

Congress also needs to help make Covid-19 tests more easily available and help pay for protective equipment for healthcare workers, Biden added.

Harris gets the vaccine

Earlier in the day, Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris received a Covid-19 vaccination live on television in a bid to boost confidence in the inoculation even while warning it will be months before it is available to all.

Harris, who is Black and Asian American, received the Moderna Inc Covid-19 vaccine from a nurse wearing a mask and a face visor at a medical centre in predominantly Black southeast Washington.

The Biden team has emphasised the importance of encouraging vaccine distribution and inoculation in non-white groups especially hard hit by the coronavirus.

Biden has vowed to make a top priority of fighting the coronavirus, which has infected more than 19 million people in the United States and killed over 334,000. He received his first injected dose of the vaccine live on television last week. Two doses are required for full protection.

Trump, who had Covid-19 in October, has often played down the severity of the pandemic and overseen a response many health experts say was disorganised and cavalier and sometimes ignored the science behind disease transmission.

Biden repeated his call that people wear masks and listen to the advice of medical experts to avoid spreading infection.

Dr Atul Gawande, a member of Biden's Covid-19 advisory board, told CBS News the transition team still did not have all the information it needed to understand the bottlenecks hampering vaccine distribution.

He said the Trump administration may have set unrealistic expectations that everyone who wanted to get vaccinated could do so by the end of June 2021.

Separately on Tuesday, US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put off a vote on Trump's call to boost Covid-19 relief checks for Americans to US$2,000 (S$2657.7), in a rare challenge to his fellow Republican. Biden has said he favours the increase from an already approved US$600.

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2020-12-29 23:39:37Z
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