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China Studying 'Extraordinary' Support for Manufacturers: State Media BloombergPeople infected with the earliest version of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, first identified in South Africa in November, may be vulnerable to reinfection with later versions of Omicron even if they have been vaccinated and boosted, new findings suggest.
Vaccinated patients with Omicron BA.1 breakthrough infections developed antibodies that could neutralize that virus plus the original SARS-CoV-2 virus, but the Omicron sublineages circulating now have mutations that allow them to evade those antibodies, researchers from China reported on Friday in Nature.
Omicron BA.2.12.1, which is presently causing most infections in the United States, and Omicron BA.5 and BA.4, which now account for more than 21% of new U.S. cases, contain mutations not present in the BA.1 and BA.2 versions of Omicron.
Those newer sublineages “notably evade the neutralizing antibodies elicited by SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination,” the researchers found in test-tube experiments.
The monoclonal antibody drugs bebtelovimab from Eli Lilly and cilgavimab, a component of AstraZeneca’s Evusheld, can still effectively neutralize BA.2.12.1 and BA.4/BA.5, the experiments also showed.
But vaccine boosters based on the BA.1 virus, such as those in development by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, “may not achieve broad-spectrum protection against new Omicron variants,” the researchers warned.
Previous research that has not yet undergone peer review has suggested that unvaccinated people infected with Omicron are unlikely to develop immune responses that will protect them against other variants of the coronavirus.
“My personal bias is that while there may be some advantage to having an Omicron-specific vaccine, I think it will be of marginal benefit over staying current with the existing vaccines and boosters,” said Dr. Onyema Ogbuagu, and infectious diseases researcher at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut who was not involved in the new study.
“Despite immune evasion, the expectation can be that vaccines will still protect against serious disease,” Ogbuagu said. “If you’re due for a booster, get a booster. What we’ve learned clinically is that it’s most important to stay up-to-date with vaccines” to maintain high levels of COVID-19 antibodies circulating in the blood.
Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, a microbiology and infectious diseases researcher at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, suggested that better protection might be seen with vaccines that target multiple strains of the virus or with intranasal vaccines that would increase protection from infection and transmission by generating immunity in the lining of the nose, where the virus first enters.
Garcia-Sastre, who was not involved in the research, said by the time one variant-specific vaccine becomes available, a new variant may well have taken over.
(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Christine Soares and Alistair Bell)
© 2022 Reuters
"This coming week, parents will be able to start scheduling appointments at places like pediatricians’ offices, children’s hospitals, and pharmacies," Biden said in a statement on Saturday.
"Appointments will ramp up as more doses are shipped out, and in the coming weeks, every parent who wants a vaccine will be able to get one. As the vaccination program ramps up, Vaccines.gov will be live next week with vaccine availability and appointments increasing throughout the week."
While many parents in the United States are eager to vaccinate their children, it is unclear how strong demand will be for the shots. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was authorised for children aged 5 to 11 in October, but only about 29 per cent of that group is so far fully vaccinated, federal data shows.
CVS Health Corp plans to provide vaccines to children aged 18 months and older while Rite Aid Corp and Walmart Inc plan to offer these shots for kids who are at least three years old. Infants are traditionally vaccinated at a doctor's office.
Public health officials have been pushing for childhood vaccinations ahead of the new school year as they hope shots for the age group will help prevent hospitalisations and deaths if COVID-19 cases rise again.
COVID-19 is generally more mild in children. Still, since March 2020 it has been the fifth leading cause of deaths in children aged one to four and the fourth leading cause of death in children younger than one, according to the CDC.
The CDC advisers will meet again next week to consider whether to back use of the Moderna vaccine for children and adolescents aged six to 17. There has been some concern about the rate of rare cases of heart inflammation in teenage boys and young men from the Moderna vaccine, and the advisers are expected to consider that data.
However, Mr Poh said that it was unrealistic to have the Government sit on the SHPL board as it was also a key client.
“The reason why the board does not consist of the Government is also because of the contract structure. In this public-private partnership, the Government is the client in the contract, and SHPL sits on the other side of the contract. In the contract, there are KPIs and deliverables and there are penalties if SHPL does not deliver.
“So you can’t have a situation where the Government is also on the board, then the Government is on two sides of the contract,” Mr Poh said.
The need to work with various different private partners was another sticking point raised by ex-staff such as Sharon and Michael.
This had led to occasions when partners made business plans to bolster their own profit margins, but not for the good of the Sports Hub as a whole.
For instance, Timothy recalled one occasion where a partner planned to charge customers for a service that was not conventionally chargeable.
“There was a huge outcry about it… that particular partnership was made so that the (product) can be provided for free around the stadium.
“That was just one example where there was a misalignment,” said Timothy, who noted that the product was offered for free in the end.
Agreeing, Michael said that such negotiations happened for almost every event that took place at the Sports Hub.
“After every event, or before the next event, we need to align the KPIs and the operational details (between all the partners involved) such that everybody is happy,” he said.
“The model probably has too many partners, and if they bring it back and consolidate it into one entity, it’s much better off from an operational point of view.”
However, Mr Poh felt that having many partners was necessary as each brought with them the expertise that was necessary in the early stages of the project, as banks would have to assess the consortium’s ability and expertise to carry out the project.
“When the contract is awarded to the consortium, we are starting a S$200 million business overnight… You don’t have time to grow a company, you are giving birth to a big company overnight.
“So the consortium had to be that way because you needed all the expertise from day one,” he said.
Other than the deep rooted issues that were raised by former staff, another contentious point that was brought up was the lack of subsidies and funding for less-profitable, community-centric events.
Other than the Singapore Athletics’ failed bid to host the Asia Masters Athletics Championships at the Sports Hub due to high costs, plans to host the Merlion Cup, an invitational football tournament, also did not materialise.
Talks in 2015 broke down after there had been disagreements over a force majeure clause in the contract, which meant that the organisers would have to bear the third-party costs incurred if the tournament were unable to kick off due to unforeseen circumstances.
Former Sports Hub staff told TODAY that there was a fund that had initially been set up with the intention of financing less-profitable projects, such as those that were more accessible to the community.
This fund, named the “Premiere Park Foundation”, was first mentioned publicly over a decade ago by then Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Vivian Balakrishnan.
Dr Balakrishnan said in a 2008 speech announcing the Sports Hub tender award that the foundation was proposed to receive a “significant portion of the revenues accruing from the facilities and these funds would be pumped back into funding events, activities and other facilities”.
It was envisaged that this would set up “a virtuous cycle in which the more activities there are, the more revenue that flows, the more revenue is then also available to invest in attracting and bringing other events and activities”.
However, the former SHPL staff interviewed said that the money initially set aside for the fund had quickly “evaporated”.
A former senior executive at one of SHPL's partners said that there were a “number of miscalculations” that cemented the fate of the fund.
“There were certain commercial arrangements that the consortium felt that they had access to that were later denied,” he said.
For example, he said that a multi-million commercial deal was in the works to secure the naming rights of both the Sports Hub and the Singapore Indoor Stadium, but this deal eventually fell through.
There were also many unexpected costs that arose due to maintenance issues, such as the estimated seven-figure sum to replace the grass on the football pitch.
“In our calculations, the revenue would be made available, (but) those expectations were downsized, and that created the shortfall in the ability to fund certain aspects, the foundation being one of them,” he said. “The foundation funding effectively evaporated."
From China to the United Kingdom, several stadiums around the world have been financed through PPPs or similar arrangements, with mixed results, sports experts told TODAY.
The 18,000-seater Mercedes Benz Arena in Shanghai is one prominent example of how a private firm has successfully gained the trust of the local government in its operation of the venue, said Mr James Walton, sports business group leader of Deloitte Southeast Asia.
While most sports venues in China are considered state-owned assets, the Mercedes Benz Arena operates differently. It is co-owned by Anschutz Entertainment Group, a private overseas sport and entertainment company, and PAC-Shanghai Oriental Pearl (Group), a state-owned media group.
This led to a “ a clear division of responsibilities and mutual understanding and usage of relationship building methods”, said Mr Walton.
For instance, the private firm was a leader in professional venue management and “their focus is on the day-to-day management, sponsorship sales and event programming”.
Meanwhile, the state-owned media group, being one of the most influential state-owned enterprises in Shanghai, was effective in “assisting with government relations and local community engagement”, said Mr Walton.
CNA938 producer Ernest Puey, who narrated the piece, said he was inspired to produce the programme after noticing a “staggering” rate of increase in cryptocurrency scams.
“In 2018, cryptocurrency scams made up just 4 per cent of all reported fake gambling platform and investment scams. In 2020, almost three in every 10 were. Add to that the rising adoption among Singaporeans and the eye-watering gains seen in crypto markets, as well as how easy it was to create your own scam coin - all this made for an important story that I felt needed to be told.”
The programme features a cryptocurrency scam victim sharing his story, analysts who give a behind-the-scenes look at enforcement and recovery investigations, and a developer who created an unexpected viral hit in Singapore’s cryptocurrency space, the Umbrage Coin.
Said Mr Puey: "The (research) process also uncovered just how simple it was to commit fraud through cryptocurrencies and the challenge of regulating the space against bad actors who seek to exploit the anonymity and decentralised nature of cryptos. We found no less than a dozen tutorial videos on YouTube that offered a step-by-step guide on how to create these coins, market them, and siphon funds from victims.”
A key challenge was taking a niche area of the complex cryptocurrency market and making it accessible to a general news audience, Mr Puey said. “As one of the analysts in the radio documentary shared, even sophisticated market participants are struggling to get up to speed with the innovations and technology in the decentralised finance and cryptocurrency space,” he said.
He added that getting recognition for his work from SOPA was a “total shock and absolute honour”. “It's humbling to be standing among giants in the industry, many of whom have put far more than me on the line, in pursuit of the truth and to tell stories that change lives,” Mr Puey said.
“For CNA938, I'm proud that we broadcast award-winning content that pushes the envelope in radio journalism. This is affirmation that our station is at the cutting edge of reporting the pressing stories of the day to audiences both local and abroad.”
SOPA is a Hong Kong-based not-for-profit organisation dedicated to pursuing excellence in journalism. Its awards recognise outstanding works of journalism over the past year in the Asia-Pacific region.
The SOPA awards were announced at a ceremony in Hong Kong. This year’s winners include the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, Reuters and Bloomberg.
The Wall Street Journal took home an award for Public Service Journalism for its coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in an entry titled “Of Unknown Origin” and Myanmar Now won the top regional Human Rights Reporting award for its coverage of people impacted by the Myanmar coup.
An international consortium of investigative journalists, The Washington Post and The Sunday Times of Sri Lanka was recognised with the Carlos Tejada Award for Excellence in Investigative Reporting for their work on the Pandora Papers.
TAIPEI: Taiwan's Foreign Ministry expressed thanks on Thursday (Jun 16) after organisers of the World Cup in Qatar removed a reference to China for Taiwanese visitors applying for an identification card that doubles as an entry visa.
All World Cup ticketholders must apply for the Hayya card used to identify fans, which also serves as their Qatar visa, but Taiwan's government expressed concern after discovering the online application system made no mention of the island.
It was subsequently listed as, "Taiwan, Province of China", terminology that equally angers Taiwan's government and many of its people.
However, late on Wednesday the system began listing the island simply as "Taiwan", complete with the Taiwanese flag.
It marks a rare victory for Taiwan, whose government and many of its people bristle at China's sovereignty claims.
Taiwan Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou told reporters this was a "positive development", and expressed appreciation for the fast reaction by the organisers.
"We express our thanks and affirmation for this goodwill," Ou added.
The World Cup organisers have yet to comment on the change.
When asked about the complaints made to the Qatar World Cup organisers by Taiwan officials, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Wednesday he wished to reiterate that "Taiwan is part of China".
Taiwan competes at most international sporting competitions like the Olympics as "Chinese Taipei" to avoid political problems. It has not qualified for the Qatar World Cup, but soccer is popular in Taiwan.
Taiwan has never played at the World Cup finals and crashed out in the second round of Asian qualifying for the 2022 tournament last year after losing all eight matches.
Taiwan has no diplomatic relations with Qatar, which, like most countries, only recognises China's government.
China, seeking to assert its sovereignty claims, has been stepping up pressure for countries and foreign companies to refer to Taiwan as part of China in official documents and on websites, often using the wording "Taiwan, Province of China", or "Taiwan, China".
Taiwan's representative office in Saudi Arabia, which oversees Qatar, has been trying to find out what was happening, said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou.
"At present we are still awaiting a response from the relevant body in Qatar," she added.
Saeed Al-Kuwari, director of the Hayya programme for Qatar's World Cup organisers, told reporters he "believed" the card system was likely to list "China" as the nationality of Taiwan passport holders.
"Or maybe we will supply something specially for them," he added later, without elaborating.
Holders of Taiwanese passports should upload a copy of the document to the system without selecting a nationality from the drop-down menu, he said.
Organisers have programmed the optical character recognition system to collect the right data that is needed, he added.
"So, whatever nationality it will say, it's fine. It's going to be approved and he will enter the country based on this information."
Taiwan has no diplomatic relations with Qatar, which, like most countries, only recognises China's government.
China, seeking to assert its sovereignty claims, has been stepping up pressure for countries and foreign companies to refer to Taiwan as part of China in official documents and on websites.
Taiwan has never played at the World Cup finals and crashed out in the second round of Asian nations qualifying for the 2022 tournament last year after losing all eight matches.
