The new director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control says officials have “scaled up” their surveillance of new coronavirus variants in the United States.
CDC director Rochelle Walensky told ABC’s Good Morning America that previously “there has not been a public health infrastructure” to track such variants. Also, there weren’t resources to do “mass sequencing” of the virus across the country. She noted the coronavirus aid plan pushed by the Biden administration includes funds to improve such tracing.
However, Walensky said it was “concerning” the two South Carolina individuals who were diagnosed with the more virulent strain first identified in South Africa didn’t know each other or travel there, so the “presumption” is there’s “community spread of this strain.”
At a White House coronavirus briefing on Friday, Dr. Anthony Fauci said the emergence and increasing spread of coronavirus mutations means that vaccine makers must be ready to make new shots to stay ahead of the public health crisis.
“This is a wake-up call to all of us,” said the government’s top infectious disease expert, noting government scientists will be working to keep pace with virus mutations.
People wait outside a COVID-19 vaccine distribution centre at the Kedren Community Health Center in Los Angeles on Thursday. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
The nature of viruses is to change in ways that promote their spread, Fauci says. The evolution of mutant versions means scientists need to be “nimble” and ready to make tweaks to vaccines. So far, the mutations haven’t overwhelmed the protective power of vaccines.
Fauci said it’s important to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible to keep new mutations from developing.
-From The Associated Press, last updated at 11:45 a.m. ET
What’s happening in Canada
WATCH | Ottawa offers assurance of Pfizer delivery amid confusion over doses:
As Health Canada considers a Pfizer request to officially recognize its COVID-19 vaccine vials contain six, not five, doses, there’s confusion as some provincial leaders worry fewer doses than originally expected will arrive this quarter. 2:42
As of 2:15 p.m. ET on Friday, Canada had reported 769,408 cases of COVID-19, with 55,429 cases considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths stood at 19,775.
Ontario reported 1,837 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday and 58 additional deaths. Hospitalizations stood at 1,291, a provincial dashboard said, with 360 patients listed as being in Ontario’s intensive care units.
Dr. Adalsteinn Brown, co-chair of the province’s pandemic science advisory table, said the new strain could cause cases to spike again if precautions aren’t taken.
On Friday, public health officials in Waterloo region said a woman in her 30s is the region’s first case of this variant.
In Quebec, health officials reported 1,295 new cases on Friday and 50 more deaths, nine of which occurred in the last 24 hours.
Premier François Legault said on Thursday that while the situation is improving in the hard-hit province, the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations is “too high.” According to Friday’s provincial data, there are 1,217 people in hospital, including 209 in intensive care.
The province had previously suggested it hoped to lift some restrictions by Feb. 8, but the premier on Thursday suggested that was unlikely. “We have to be realistic — most of the measures will continue,” Legault said.
Manitoba reported 157 new cases and three new deaths on Friday, with more than half of the new cases in the province’s Northern Health Region.
A new public health order took effect in the province at 12:01 a.m. Friday, requiring most people travelling to Manitoba for non-essential reasons to self-isolate for two weeks.
WATCH | Increased pressure on B.C. premier to impose travel restrictions:
B.C. Premier John Horgan is facing increasing pressure to introduce travel restrictions for people who don’t live in the province, as COVID-19 cases spike in popular tourist destinations. 2:04
In Atlantic Canada, New Brunswick reported 16 new cases and one additional death on Friday, as the chief medical officer of health warned of an impending third wave of the pandemic that will be “much worse” than the first or second because of new variants.
Dr. Jennifer Russell said that because of the variant threat, no region will move past the orange level of restrictions for “many weeks.”
Newfoundland and Labrador reported four new cases, while Nova Scotia reported one new case.
Here’s a look at what’s happening across the country:
-From The Canadian Press and CBC News, last updated at 2:15 p.m. ET
What’s happening around the world
A health official shows a bottle with a dose of the AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, at Infectious Diseases Hospital in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Friday. (Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters)
As of early Friday morning, more than 101.5 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, with 56.1 million of those considered recovered or resolved, according to a tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The global death toll was approaching 2.2 million.
Europe’s medicines regulator on Friday recommended approving AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine for people over the age of 18.
Europe urgently needs more shots to speed up its inoculation program with suppliers such as AstraZeneca and Pfizer facing difficulties in delivering the quantities promised for the early months of the year.
The shot is the third COVID-19 vaccine given the green light by the European Medicines Agency, after ones made by Pfizer and Moderna. Both were authorized for all adults. The decision requires final approval from the European Commission, a process that occurred swiftly with the other vaccines.
WATCH | EMA executive director Emer Cooke on AstraZeneca vaccine approval:
The European Medicines Agency has approved the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine amid a row over AstraZeneca’s decision to send the European Union less vaccine in the first batch than promised. 2:24
“There are not yet enough results in older participants (over 55 years old) to provide a figure for how well the vaccine will work in this group,” the regulator said, but noted that “protection is expected, given that an immune response is seen in this age group and based on experience with other vaccines.
“EMA’s scientific experts considered that the vaccine can be used in older adults.”
Denmark will extend its current coronavirus restrictions by three weeks in order to curb the spread of a more contagious coronavirus variant first registered in Britain.
Portugal, which is facing serious strain on its health-care system, extended a nationwide lockdown until mid-February and announced curbs on international travel.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Vietnam’s health minister said on Friday a new COVID-19 outbreak was “basically under control” in the areas most affected, as cases spread to Hanoi, the capital.
Vietnam reported 53 new cases on Friday, including one in Hanoi and eight in nearby Haiphong city and Hai Duong, Quang Ninh and Bac Ninh provinces. That brought the total number of cases in the outbreak that began on Thursday to 149, the government said in a statement.
A health worker takes a swab sample of a member of the press to test for COVID-19 in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Friday. (Hau Dinh/The Associated Press)
Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long told reporters on the sidelines of the Communist Party congress, which is being held in Hanoi, that 3,674 tests had been conducted. Testing capacity was 50,000 a day, and the outbreak was under control in areas where the most cases had been found, Long said.
Sri Lanka on Friday began inoculating front-line health workers, military troops and police officers against COVID-19 amid warnings that the medical sector faces a collapse because of health personnel being infected with the coronavirus.
Sri Lanka on Thursday received 500,000 vaccine doses as a donation from neighbouring India. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, also known as the Covishield, is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.
In the Americas, Mexico’s death toll from COVID-19 surpassed India to be the third highest in the world. The country has seen more than 1.8 million cases and more than 155,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.
Health workers are seen at the 22 Battalion of the Military Police Hospital, in Mexico City, on Thursday. Mexico’s COVID-19 death toll has surpassed 155,000. (Pedro Pardo/AFP/Getty Images)
Power outages in Rio de Janeiro may have spoiled hundreds of doses of COVID-19 vaccines, city health officials told Reuters on Friday, in a fresh setback for Brazil’s hamstrung immunization efforts.
Up to 720 doses of the CoronaVac vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech may need to be thrown out after a power outage at the federal hospital in the city’s Bonsucesso neighbourhood left them stored at an inappropriate temperature.
In the Middle East, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister and its president on Friday condemned overnight violence in the city of Tripoli, where protesters angry over a strict lockdown clashed with security forces and set the municipality building on fire.
Lebanese anti-government protesters clash with security forces in the northern port city of Tripoli, following a demonstration to protest against the economic situation on Thursday. (Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images)
Thursday was the fourth straight night of unrest in one of Lebanon’s poorest cities, after the Beirut government imposed a 24-hour curfew to curb a surge in the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 2,500 people and compounded an economic crisis.
In Africa, the African Union secured another 400 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine in a push to immunize 60 per cent of the continent’s population over a three-year period.
-From The Associated Press and Reuters, last updated at 2:15 p.m. ET
OTTAWA – Canada is still not on track to meet its commitments under the Paris climate agreement, federal Environment Commissioner Jerry DeMarco said in a new report on Thursday.
Ottawa has promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to be 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, but so far they have only fallen seven per cent below 2005 levels.
In a news conference after the reports were tabled in Parliament, DeMarco said it is still possible to meet those targets but the “task is much harder because there’s only six years left to do essentially 20 or 30 years’ worth of reductions.”
“It’s not time to give up,” he said.
While progress is “painfully slow” on some of the government’s policies, DeMarco said, “that’s not a reason to just throw up our hands and say we won’t make it.”
“We owe it to our children and our grandchildren to make as great an effort as possible to meet these global challenges.”
The report looked at 20 of the 149 measures from the government’s 2030 Emission Reductions Plan progress report, and found they were being implemented too slowly to fulfil their intended goal.
Only nine of those were on track and another nine were facing challenges.
The other two had significant barriers like delays in meeting milestones, including the initiative to get Indigenous communities off diesel fuel, and the oil and gas emissions cap. The government only published the cap’s draft regulations on Monday, after promising the measure in the 2021 election.
“Overall, the federal government had advanced a variety of mitigation measures to support progress towards a net-zero transition but had still not made sufficient progress to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to meet its 2030 target,” the report reads.
The report also zeroed in on whether Environment and Climate Change Canada has reported on its progress with enough transparency. In 2021, Parliament passed a law requiring the department to set emission targets and to publish emissions reduction plans and progress reports.
That law requires the department to include in its progress report what additional measures could be taken if Canada is not on track to meet its 2030 targets. As such, DeMarco said he expected more measures to be included in last year’s progress report since Canada clearly knew it wasn’t doing enough to meet the target.
Of the 32 additional measures the department published — in addition to the 149 existing ones — DeMarco found only seven were new measures. Three of them enhanced existing measures, and the other 22 were ones the department had already reported.
That included continuing to develop the Canada Green Buildings Strategy, which was already in the original plan.
DeMarco found the government has made strides in consulting with the provinces, territories and Indigenous Peoples, and that the department met its legislative reporting requirements. However he was critical of the government’s transparency with regards to its modelling data — concerns which he also raised in his report last year.
“Although the department made marginal transparency improvements on modelling assumptions for federal measures in the emissions projection report, it still provided insufficient details,” DeMarco’s latest report read, noting the department only provided details for one-third of the measures it included in its modelling.
“This issue of the lack of transparency in the modelling continues to be an ongoing concern, which can undermine the trust and credibility in the reported progress,” the report read.
Speaking to reporters outside the House of Commons on Thursday, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said the government could do better on transparency, and reiterated the work already done to bring emissions down.
“I agree with (DeMarco). We need to continue moving forward to implement measures to reach our 2030 target,” Guilbeault said.
“I should point out it’s the first time in Canada’s history emissions are going down because of measures that the government is taking.”
Guilbeault said final regulations for clean electricity standards will be released in the coming weeks.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars broadcasts could end next week as he faces a court-ordered auction of his company’s assets to help pay the more than $1 billion defamation judgment he owes families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
Or maybe not.
Both opponents and supporters of the bombastic internet show and radio host have expressed interest in bidding on the Infowars properties he has built over the past 25 years. They include Roger Stone, an ally of Jones and Donald Trump, and anti-Jones progressive media groups. If Jones supporters buy the assets, he could end up staying on Infowars.
Up for sale are everything from Jones’ studio desk to Infowars’ name, video archive, social media accounts and product trademarks. Buyers can even purchase an armored truck and video cameras. For now, Jones’ personal social media, including his account on X, formerly known as Twitter, with 3 million followers, are not up for sale, but court proceedings on whether they should be auctioned are pending.
The auctions resulted from Jones’ personal bankruptcy case, which he filed in late 2022 after the Sandy Hook families were awarded nearly $1.5 billion in damages in lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas over his claims that the school shooting was a hoax. Many of Jones’ personal assets also are being liquidated to help pay the judgment.
The deadline to submit bids and nondisclosure agreements on the Infowars assets is Friday afternoon. After the bids are reviewed, prospective buyers deemed qualified will be invited to a live auction that could see multiple bidding rounds next Wednesday. Any items not sold will be put up at another auction on Dec. 10.
Jones has expressed confidence that supporters — whom he did not name — will buy the assets of Infowars and its parent company, Free Speech Systems, allowing him to continue using its platforms. He also appears to be preparing for losing the brand because he has set up new websites and social media accounts and has been directing his audience to them.
“There’s a lot of buyers, people that are patriots that want it and will come in,” Jones said on his show in August. “If not … we’ll work with somebody else, fire something up. And it’ll be a little bit of a hiccup for the crew, and things. But that will just make us bigger.”
Email messages to Infowars and Jones’ bankruptcy lawyer were not returned.
It’s not clear how much money the auctions might bring in. In court documents, Free Speech Systems listed the total value of its properties and holdings at $18 million. Proceeds from the sales will go to creditors including the Sandy Hook families, who have not yet received any money from Jones and his company.
Confidentiality agreements and sealed bids generally are used in auctions to maximize bid amounts while preventing bidders from talking to each other and driving down the offers. The trustee in Jones’ bankruptcy case said in court documents that the procedures for the Infowars auction were designed to attract the highest possible bids.
Christopher Mattei, a Connecticut lawyer representing the Sandy Hook families, called the auctions an important milestone in their yearslong fight to hold Jones accountable. He also said the families will be seeking a portion of all Jones’ future income.
“From the beginning, the Connecticut families have sought to hold Jones fully accountable for his lies and to protect other families from him,” Mattei said. “Stripping Jones of the corrupt business he used to attack the families while poisoning the minds of his listeners is an important measure of justice.”
The families sued Jones and his company for defamation and emotional distress for repeatedly saying on his show that the 2012 shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax staged by crisis actors to spur more gun control.
Parents and children of many of the victims testified that they were traumatized by Jones’ hoax conspiracies and threats by his followers.
Jones, who has since acknowledged that the shooting did happen, is appealing the judgments.
Jones has made millions of dollars from his internet and radio shows, primarily through sales of nutritional supplements, survival gear, clothing and other merchandise.
Stone, the Jones and Trump ally and a conservative commentator, said on his X account and on Jones’ show that he would like to put together a group of investors to buy Infowars. He did not return email and social media messages on Thursday.
“I understand the importance of Infowars as a beacon of the truth, as a beacon of truthful information. And therefore, I would like to do whatever I possibly can to ensure, if possible, that Infowars survives,” Stone said on Jones’ show in September.
People on social media also have urged billionaire Elon Musk, owner of Tesla and X, to buy Infowars, an idea Jones has backed but Musk has not publicly responded to.
On the other side, Jones’ detractors have shown interest in buying Infowars, kicking Jones out and turning it into something else, such as a news site that debunks conspiracy theories or even a parody site. They include officials at two progressive media sites, The Barbed Wire and Media Matters for America.
An opinion piece by The Barbed Wire in September by publisher Jeff Rotkoff had a headline that read, “Let’s Buy Infowars. Alex Jones used these exact materials to exploit his viewers, peddle conspiracy theories, and damage the lives of grieving parents. We want revenge.”
Rotkoff urged readers to donate money to help put in bids, but he said Thursday that The Barbed Wire, based in Jones’ home state of Texas, was now unlikely to make any offers.
“But we have talked to a number of similarly ideologically aligned bidders and we are certain we will be outbid,” Rotkoff said in an email. “We’re thrilled that there appear to be multiple well-resourced bidders who share our interest in undoing much of the damage to our country done by Alex Jones. We’ll be rooting for those folks to be successful.”
He declined to say who the other potential bidders were.
Who exactly has submitted bids so far has not been disclosed. Jeff Tanenbaum, president of ThreeSixty Asset Advisors, which is helping to run the auction along with Tranzon Asset Advisors, would only say there have been a large number of inquiries.
If detractors buy up Infowars’ properties and Jones gets the boot, he should be able to build new platforms fairly quickly, said Melissa Zimdars, an associate professor of communication and media at Merrimack College in Massachusetts.
“As long as there is an audience hungry for his content — and there is — he’ll be able to utilize X and various fringe social media platforms,” she said in an email.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s states and territories on Friday unanimously backed a national plan to require most forms of social media to bar children younger than 16.
Leaders of the eight provinces held a virtual meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to discuss what he calls a world-first national approach that would make platforms including X, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook responsible for enforcing the age limit.
“Social media is doing social harm to our young Australians,” Albanese told reporters. “The safety and mental health of our young people has to be a priority.”
The government leaders had been discussing for months setting a limit, considering options from 14 to 16 years of age.
While Tasmania would have preferred 14, the state was prepared to support 16 in the interests of achieving national uniformity, Albanese said.
The legislation will be introduced into Parliament within two weeks, and the age ban would take effect a year after it passes into law, giving platforms time to work out how to exclude children. The government has yet to offer a technical solution.
The delay is also intended to allow time to address privacy concerns around age verification.
The main opposition party has given in-principle support to the 16-year age limit since it was announced on Thursday, suggesting the legislation will pass the Senate.
The minor Greens party was critical, saying the ban would prevent the emergence in Australia of future child environmental activists like Sweden’s Greta Thunberg.
More than 140 academics with expertise in fields related to technology and child welfare signed an open letter to Albanese last month opposing a social media age limit as “too blunt an instrument to address risks effectively.”
Critics say most teenagers are tech savvy enough to get around such laws. Some fear the ban will create conflicts within families and drive social media problems underground.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, argues that stronger tools in app stores and operating systems for parents to control what apps their children can use would be a “simple and effective solution.”
The government likens the proposed social media age limit to the laws that restrict the sale of alcohol to adults aged 18 and older across Australia. Children still find ways to drink, but the prohibition remains.
“We think these laws will make a real positive difference,” Albanese said.
But Lisa Given, professor of information sciences at RMIT University, described the legislation as “really problematic.”
“Many of our social networks are actually about the provision of extremely critical information to kids,” Given told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“There’s no doubt that they’re also facing bullying and other challenges online, but they actually need the social supports to know how to navigate the platforms safely and so they need more support from parents, from care-givers, not less access to a single or multiple platforms,” Given added.
Tama Leaver, professor of internet studies at Curtin University, described the government’s plan to remove 14 and 15-year-olds from their already established social media accounts was “strange.”
“If you’ve already developed that space in that world, to have it taken away really could do as much harm as the harms that are purportedly being fixed,” Leaver said.
“There are so many questions about this that have yet to be answered, but even if we had solid answers about how this might work technically and how this might get implemented socially, it’s still hard to believe that this would actually keep kids safe online,” he added.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said children would retain access to online education and health services.
The legislation would also include strong privacy protections surrounding age verification.
“Privacy must be paramount, including that of children,” Rowland said. “We should also be very clear about the realities. These platforms know about their users in a way that no one else does.”
Rowland said YouTube would likely be included among the mainstream platforms defined under the legislation as age restricted services.
But YouTube Kids could be exempted. Gaming and messaging services would not face age restrictions, she said,
“This legislation would strike a balance between minimizing the harms experienced by young people during a critical period of their development while also supporting their access to benefits as well,” Rowland said.
