Day: July 18, 2021

WASHINGTON – U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said Sunday he is worried about the increasing number of new coronavirus cases in the country and laid part of the blame on social media companies for not doing enough to remove misinformation about the need to get vaccinated.

“I’m concerned about what we’re seeing,” Murthy told “Fox News Sunday,” as about 29,000 new cases are being diagnosed every day in the United States, roughly the same level as in April 2020, when the pandemic first swept through the country. The highly contagious delta variant has been particularly problematic.

“This pandemic isn’t over,” he said.

“The good news is that the vaccinated are still highly protected,” he said. But he noted that 95% of the deaths occurring now in the U.S., more than 250 a day, are of people who have not been vaccinated.

Echoing recent remarks by President Joe Biden, Murthy said people are being “inundated with misinformation,” about the available vaccines being unsafe or unnecessary.

President Biden last week said misinformation posted to social media sites was “killing people,” and that, “The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated.”

The Facebook site used by millions of Americans says it has removed 18 million pieces of COVID-19 misinformation. Murthy said, “Despite what they’ve done, it’s not enough. The intention is good, but I’m asking them to step up” and do more.

In a separate interview on ABC’s “This Week” show, Murthy urged people using social media sites to “verify their sources before posting” comments about the efficacy of the shots.

Analyses have shown that the vaccination rate in the U.S. is markedly lower in states that voted in last November’s election for then-President Donald Trump, who at times downplayed the severity of the pandemic, and now often the number of new cases is higher in the Trump states.

Biden set a goal several months ago of having at least 70% of adults in the U.S. getting at least one vaccine shot by the annual July 4th Independence Day holiday. The U.S., however, fell short of that objective and the number now stands at 68.1%, according to government statistics.

Facebook on Saturday pushed back against claims that it is to blame for people not getting vaccinated.

In a blog post, Facebook said Biden and his aides should stop “finger-pointing” and detailed what it had done to encourage inoculations.

“The Biden administration has chosen to blame a handful of American social media companies,” said Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president of integrity. “The fact is that vaccine acceptance among Facebook users in the U.S. has increased.”

Rosen said the company’s data showed that 85% of its U.S. users had been or wanted to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. “Facebook is not the reason (the 70% goal) was missed,” Rosen said.

Over a period of months, Facebook has acted against misinformation on its site, banning anti-vaccination ads and later removing posts with false claims about vaccines, such as that they cause autism or that it is safer for people to contract the coronavirus than to be inoculated.

Source: Voice of America

VIENNA – Major oil producers seeking to boost output will meet on Sunday, OPEC said, after negotiations earlier this month became deadlocked over plans to gradually ease production cuts.

The OPEC+ grouping, which includes Saudi Arabia and Russia, will meet via videoconference at 1000 GMT on Sunday, the Vienna-based OPEC Secretariat said in a statement.

The group’s 23 members canceled a meeting on July 5 that was supposed to overcome an impasse over crude output levels.

Since May, the group has raised oil output bit by bit, after slashing it more than a year ago when the coronavirus pandemic crushed demand.

At stake is a proposal that would see the world’s leading oil producers raise output by 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) each month from August to December.

That would add 2 million bpd to markets by the end of the year, helping to fuel a global economic recovery as the coronavirus pandemic eases.

A further proposal seeks to extend a deadline on capping output from April 2022 to the end of 2022.

But holding out against the new deal was the United Arab Emirates, which criticized the terms of the extension as unjust.

Oil prices, which had already been sliding owing to concerns about the global economy, plummeted in April 2020 as coronavirus spread around the world and battered global consumption, transport and supply chains.

OPEC+ decided to withdraw 9.7 million bpd from the market and to gradually restore supplies by the end of April 2022. Benchmark oil prices rebounded as a result.

Source: Voice of America

Michael Phelps reached for his mother’s hand through a chain-link fence near the pool. The 19-year-old swimmer had just won his first Olympic medal — gold, of course — at the 2004 Athens Games, and he wanted to share it with the woman who raised him on her own.

That kind of moment between loved ones won’t be happening at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics.

No spectators — local or foreign — will be allowed at the vast majority of venues, where athletes will hang medals around their own necks to protect against spreading the coronavirus. No handshakes or hugs on the podium, either.

“I like to feed off of the crowd,” defending all-around champion gymnast Simone Biles said, “so I’m a little bit worried about how I’ll do under those circumstances.”

Catching sight of familiar faces during competition can bolster an athlete on a big stage. It helped Matthew Centrowitz at the U.S. track trials, where fans were allowed.

“Seeing my family in the crowd and hearing them gave me a little sense of comfort, and what I needed to hear and see to calm my nerves a little bit,” said Centrowitz, the defending Olympic 1,500-meter champion.

The youngest athlete on the U.S. team in Tokyo calls it “weird” that her family won’t be in the stands.

“They’re usually at all my meets,” said Katie Grimes, a 15-year-old swimmer from Las Vegas.

Katie Hoff was the same age as Grimes when she was the youngest member of the U.S. team in Athens. Nerves got to her in her first event, and Hoff hyperventilated and vomited on the pool deck.

“I hope us older swimmers can show them the ropes a little bit and create that family environment,” three-time Olympian Katie Ledecky said. “We will make sure we stay in touch with our families and keep them connected to what we’re doing.”

The decision to prohibit fans was made for health and safety concerns. The Games will be held during a state of emergency in Tokyo, with rising coronavirus infections in a country where 16.8% of the population is fully vaccinated. Variant strains of the coronavirus are emerging around the world, too.

Those reaction shots of excited, shocked or crying family members in the stands? Forget it. Singing, chanting and cheering among flag-waving fans at the venues? TV producers will have to look elsewhere. Phelps’ son, Boomer, who was 3 months old at the time, became an adorable sight at the Olympic pool in 2016. No kids allowed this time.

The people who raised them, comforted them, financed them, and encouraged them through injury and defeat will have to be content to keep up with their athletes through calls, texts and video chats, when they’re not watching the competition on various devices.

“She said, ‘On TV, I can see it better anyway,'” Dutch swimmer Kira Toussaint said of her mother, Jolanda de Rover, a gold medalist swimmer at the 1984 Olympics.

Building support and camaraderie among athletes who usually compete individually has taken on new importance for coaches during the pandemic. They’re turning to veterans to inform and reassure younger first-timers.

“We’re going to have to rely on each other a lot more than we would have to if our loved ones were able to come to Tokyo to watch,” said Lindsay Mintenko, national team director for the American swimmers. “The bond might be stronger because we don’t have that outlet.”

American high jumper Vashti Cunningham will have her coach, Randall Cunningham, who is also her father, on hand. But she’ll be missing the rest of the family.

“It just feels good to go and eat with them, for them to be at the Bible studies with me, just everything, going to the stores,” she said. “But it doesn’t really matter to me if there are fans or not. I’m just really excited to go out there and jump. I do wish that our families could come and watch, though.”

American discus thrower Mason Finley is prepared to hunker down at the athletes village with his Nintendo Switch for endless gaming while his pregnant wife and two dogs wait at home.

“I’m just going to kind of nest in there and stay entertained,” he said.

Some athletes’ families will host watch parties back home. Biles’ mother, Nellie, won’t attend.

“I will be home watching gymnastics by myself,” she said. “I just get too nervous.”

The family of swimmer Chad le Clos is flying to the United States to watch on TV because the competition will air at 3 a.m. in their native South Africa.

“It must be terrible to watch me at 3 in the morning,” Le Clos said. “Then what do you do afterwards?”

Caeleb Dressel, the world’s dominant male swimmer, barely gets to see, let alone spend time, with his wife and family at major meets.

“It’s not something I’m dependent on,” he said. “I know they will be back home and you can feel that energy, and I can text or FaceTime whenever I need to.”

Nellie Biles and her husband run a gymnastics training center in Spring, Texas, so she knows about COVID-19 protocols and restrictions. Still, she thinks having spectators in the 12,000-seat venue in Tokyo would have worked.

“We could social distance and not see each other. That’s how huge their complex is, their venues are,” she said. “It’s hard for me to understand that they cannot make accommodations. Of course, that’s just me being selfish. This will be one gymnastics event that I will never forget because I will not be present.”

Source: Voice of America

The National Taskforce Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control has placed a daily number of Covid-19 infections at 131 and one more death today.

The newly reported cases of Covid-19 infection were nominated by imported cases including 76 in Savannakhet, 22 in Champassak, 10 in Saravan, seven each in Vientiane and Khammuan, and one in Bolikhamsay.

Eight local transmissions were recorded over the past 24 hours. All were in Champassak.

The new infections have brought the total accumulated since March 2020 to 3,426 including 1,132 active cases and five deaths.

Source: Lao News Agency