Category: General

Most Americans live in places where healthy people, including students in schools, can safely take a break from wearing masks under new U.S. guidelines released Friday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlined the new set of measures for communities where COVID-19 is easing its grip, with less of a focus on positive test results and more on what’s happening at hospitals.

The new system greatly changes the look of the CDC’s risk map and puts more than 70% of the U.S. population in counties where the coronavirus is posing a low or medium threat to hospitals. Those are the people who can stop wearing masks, the agency said.

The agency is still advising that people, including schoolchildren, wear masks where the risk of COVID-19 is high. That’s the situation in about 37% of U.S. counties, where about 28% of Americans reside.

The new recommendations do not change the requirement to wear masks on public transportation and indoors in airports, train stations and bus stations.

The CDC guidelines for other indoor spaces aren’t binding, meaning cities and institutions even in areas of low risk may set their own rules. And the agency says people with COVID-19 symptoms or who test positive should wear masks.

Risk is generally lower

But with protection from immunity rising — both from vaccination and infection — the overall risk of severe disease is now generally lower, the CDC said.

“Anybody is certainly welcome to wear a mask at any time if they feel safer wearing a mask,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a news briefing. “We want to make sure our hospitals are OK and people are not coming in with severe disease. … Anyone can go to the CDC website, find out the volume of disease in their community and make that decision.”

Since July, CDC’s transmission-prevention guidance to communities has focused on two measures: the rate of new COVID-19 cases and the percentage of positive test results over the previous week.

Based on those measures, agency officials advised people to wear masks indoors in counties where the spread of the virus was deemed substantial or high. This week, more than 3,000 of the nation’s more than 3,200 counties — greater than 95% — were listed as having substantial or high transmission.

That guidance has increasingly been ignored, however, with states, cities, counties and school districts across the U.S. announcing plans to drop mask mandates amid declining COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

With many Americans already taking off their masks, the CDC’s shift won’t make much practical difference for now, said Andrew Noymer, a public health professor at the University of California-Irvine. But it will help when the next wave of infection — a likelihood in the fall or winter — starts threatening hospital capacity again, he said.

“There will be more waves of COVID. And so I think it makes sense to give people a break from masking,” Noymer said. “If we have continual masking orders, they might become a total joke by the time we really need them again.”

Color-coded information

The CDC is also offering a color-coded map — with counties designated as orange, yellow or green — to help guide local officials and residents. In green counties, local officials can drop any indoor masking rules. Yellow means people at high risk for severe disease should be cautious. Orange designates places where the CDC suggests masking should be universal.

How a county comes to be designated green, yellow or orange will depend on its rate of new COVID-19 hospital admissions, the share of staffed hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients and the rate of new cases in the community.

Mask requirements have ended in most of the U.S. in recent weeks. Los Angeles on Friday began allowing people to remove their masks while indoors if they are vaccinated, and indoor mask mandates in Washington state and Oregon will be lifted in March.

State health officials are generally pleased with the new guidance and “excited with how this is being rolled out,” said Dr. Marcus Plescia of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

“This is the way we need to go. I think this is taking us forward with a new direction going on in the pandemic,” Plescia said. “But we’re still focusing on safety. We’re still focusing on preventing death and illness.”

The CDC said the new system will be useful in predicting future surges and urged communities with wastewater surveillance systems to use that data, too.

Source: Voice of America

Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and three major distributors finalized nationwide settlements over their role in the opioid addiction crisis Friday, an announcement that clears the way for $26 billion to flow to nearly every state and local government in the U.S.

Taken together, the settlements are the largest to date among the many opioid-related cases that have been playing out across the country. They’re expected to provide a significant boost to efforts aimed at reversing the crisis in places that have been devastated by it, including many parts of rural America.

Johnson & Johnson, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson announced the settlement plan last year, but the deal was contingent on getting participation from a critical mass of state and local governments.

Friday was the deadline for the companies to announce whether they felt enough governments had committed to participate in the settlement and relinquish the right to sue. The four companies notified lawyers for the governments in the case that their thresholds were met, meaning money could start flowing to communities by April.

“We’re never going to have enough money to immediately cure this problem,” said Joe Rice, one of the lead lawyers who represented local governments in the litigation that led to the settlement. “What we’re trying to do is give a lot of small communities a chance to try to change some of their problems.”

While none of the settlement money will go directly to victims of opioid addiction or their survivors, the vast majority of it is required to be used to deal with the epidemic. The need for the funding runs deep.

Kathleen Noonan, CEO of the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers, said a portion of the settlement money should be used to provide housing to people with addictions who are homeless.

“We have clients who have a hard time staying clean to make it in a shelter,” she said. “We would like to stabilize them so we can help them recover.”

Dan Keashen, a spokesman for Camden County government, said officials are thinking about using settlement money for a public education campaign to warn about the dangers of fentanyl. They also want to send more drug counselors into the streets, put additional social workers in municipal courts and pay for anti-addiction medications in the county jail.

Officials across the country are considering pumping the money into similar priorities.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget calls for using $50 million of the state’s expected $86 million share this year for youth opioid education and to train treatment providers, improve data collection and distribute naloxone, a drug that reverses overdoses.

In Florida’s Broward County, home to Fort Lauderdale, the number of beds in a county-run detoxification facility could be expanded from 50 to 70 or 75, said Danielle Wang French, a lawyer for the county.

“It’s not enough, but it’s a good start,” she said of the settlement.

With fatal overdoses continuing to rage across the U.S., largely because of the spread of fentanyl and other illicitly produced synthetic opioids, public health experts are urging governments to use the money to ensure access to drug treatment for people with addictions. They also emphasize the need to fund programs that are proven to work, collect data on their efforts and launch prevention efforts aimed at young people, all while focusing on racial equity.

“It shouldn’t be: ready, set spend,” said Joshua Sharfstein, a former secretary of the Maryland Department of Health who is now a vice dean of public health at Johns Hopkins University. “It should be: think, strategize, spend.”

In a separate deal that also is included in the $26 billion, the four companies reached a $590 million settlement with the nation’s federally recognized Native American tribes. About $2 billion is being set aside for fees and expenses for the lawyers who have spent years working on the case.

New Brunswick, New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson has nine years to pay its $5 billion share. The distributors — Conshohocken, Pennsylvania-based AmerisourceBergen; Columbus, Ohio-based Cardinal Health; and Irving, Texas-based McKesson — agreed to pay their combined $21 billion over 18 years. To reach the maximum amounts, states have to get local governments to sign on.

The settlements go beyond money. J&J, which has stopped selling prescription opioids, agrees not to resume. The distributors agree to send data to a clearinghouse intended to help flag when prescription drugs are diverted to the black market.

The companies are not admitting wrongdoing and are continuing to defend themselves against claims that they helped cause the opioid crisis that were brought by entities that are not involved in the settlements.

In a joint statement, the distributors called the implementation of the settlement “a key milestone toward achieving broad resolution of governmental opioid claims and delivering meaningful relief to communities across the United States.”

The requirement that most of the money be used to address the opioid crisis contrasts with a series of public health settlements in the 1990s with tobacco companies. In those cases, states used big chunks of the settlement money to fill budget gaps and fund other priorities.

The amount sent to each state under the opioid settlement depends on a formula that takes into account the severity of the crisis and the population. County and local governments also get shares of the money. A handful of states — Alabama, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Washington and West Virginia — have not joined all or part of the settlement, mostly because they have their own deals or are preparing for trial.

In Camden, Lisa Davey, a recovery specialist for Maryville Addiction treatment Center, was at a needle exchange this week handing out naloxone, a drug that reverses overdoses, and asking people if they wanted to start treatment.

Davey said she wants to see detoxification and treatment programs receive more funding to keep people in them for longer. As it is, she said, users can detox and be back out on the streets in search of drugs within days.

“They need more time to work their recovery,” she said.

A man picking up clean needles who asked to be identified only as Anthony P. said he was 46 and had struggled with addiction since he was a teenager. He said he’d like to see an effort to cut off fentanyl and related synthetic opioids that are driving overdose death rates from the drug supply.

“Fentanyl’s got to go,” he said.

Martha Chavis, president and CEO of Camden Area Health Education Center, which runs the needle exchange, said one need is offering services like hers in more places. Now, users from far-flung suburbs travel into Camden to get clean needles and kits to test their drugs for fentanyl.

The settlement with J&J and the three distributors marks a major step toward resolving the vast constellation of lawsuits in the U.S. over liability for an epidemic that has been linked to the deaths of more than 500,000 Americans over the past two decades.

Other companies, including business consultant McKinsey and drugmakers Endo, Mallinckrodt and Teva, have reached national settlements or a series of local ones. OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and a group of states are in mediation through U.S. Bankruptcy Court to try to reach a nationwide settlement.

The crisis has deepened during the coronavirus pandemic, with U.S. opioid-related deaths reaching a high of more than 76,000 in the 12 months that ended in April 2021, largely because of the spread of fentanyl and other lab-made drugs. A recent report from a commission by The Lancet medical journal projected that 1.2 million Americans could die of opioid overdose between 2020 and 2029 without policy changes.

John F. Kelly, a professor of psychiatry in addiction medicine at Harvard Medical School, said he wants to see money from the settlements go not just for treatment, recovery and support efforts but also to build systems designed to prevent this sort of epidemic from happening again.

“Some kind of national board or organization could be set up … to prevent this kind of lack of oversight from happening again — where industry is allowed to create a public health hazard,” he said.

Source: Voice of America

Over 4.84 million people, representing 66.03% of population in the country, have been vaccinated with at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine, according to the National Taskforce Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control.

Some 4.28 million people, equivalent to 58.42% of the population, have been given all recommended doses of Covid-19 vaccine. Meanwhile, the vaccination of children aged between 12 and 17 with at least one dose has reached 5.48 million.

Covid-19 infection in the Lao PDR is trending downward with an average of less than 300 per day. However, some provinces have a higher infection ratio as compared to the number of samples collected for Covid-19 test.

Yesterday, Attapeu reported 12 new infections out of 26 samples tested. Meanwhile, Borikhamxay reported 41 transmissions out of 181 samples, and Xaysomboun documented 9 cases out of 24 samples tested for Covid-19.

Laos has reported 239 new cases and one new death attributed to Covid-19 over the past 24 hours with the total reaching 141,933 including 1,629 active cases and 617 deaths.

The newly infections were detected among 2,684 people tested for Covid-19 yesterday. Of the new confirmed cases, 198 were classified as domestic infections including 53 cases in Vientiane, 34 in Borikhamxay, 29 in Savannakhet, 16 in Huaphan and 12 in Attapeu.

Wednesday witnessed 294 Covid-19 patients discharged from hospitals nationwide.

Source: Lao News Agency

Hong Kong rolled out vaccine passports on Thursday requiring people aged 12 and above to have at least one COVID-19 jab, and paved the way for mainland China manpower to help bring a worsening outbreak under control.

Residents will have to show their vaccine record to access venues including supermarkets, shopping malls and restaurants, a major inconvenience in a city where malls link train stations to residences and office buildings.

Separately, city leader Carrie Lam used emergency powers granted under British colonial-era laws to exempt mainland Chinese staff and projects from any licensing or other legal requirements to operate in Hong Kong.

City authorities have asked their mainland Chinese counterparts for help to build additional isolation, treatment and testing facilities, and boost the workforce as Hong Kong’s health system is increasingly overwhelmed.

“Hong Kong’s healthcare system, manpower, anti-epidemic facilities and resources … will soon be insufficient to handle the huge number of newly confirmed cases detected every day,” the government said in a statement.

On Wednesday, Hong Kong reported a record 8,674 new COVID-19 infections as the global financial hub prepares for compulsory testing of its 7.4 million people – part of its “dynamic zero COVID” strategy similar to mainland China.

Allowing mainland doctors to practice in Hong Kong has been a controversial issue in the global financial hub, which for decades had some of the toughest licensing standards as a way to preserve excellence in its public health system.

The city last year passed a law allowing overseas-trained doctors to practice without taking a local licensing exam, in a move contested by many local doctors.

Hong Kong’s medical front lines have been weakened sharply by the latest outbreak, with some 1,200 medical staff infected as of Wednesday.

Authorities also tightened restrictions from Thursday in a city that already has some of the most stringent rules in the world. Residents will have to wear masks for all outdoor exercise and will not be allowed to remove them to eat or drink on public transport.

With bars, gyms and other businesses already closed and shopping malls deserted while many residents work from home, the government said on Tuesday schools would break early for summer and resume the new year in August.

Many in the city are growing fatigued with the situation, as most other major cities learn to live with the virus.

As the urgency grows, construction work has started on a facility on Lantau Island to build about 10,000 isolation units, while private hospitals will take in patients from public hospitals.

With the city’s testing, treatment and isolation capacity already stretched to the maximum, University of Hong Kong researchers predicted new infections could peak at 180,000 a day next month.

Source: Voice of America

Chaired by Dr Bounpanh Xaymountry, Director General, Department of Planning, Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) and co-chaired by Ms Sylvia Bitter team leader of the Basic Education Quality and Access in the Lao PDR (BEQUAL), BEQUAL technical meeting was held in Vientiane on Feb 24 with representatives from MoES departments, 18 Provincial Education and Sports Departments (PESD) and eight Teacher Training Colleges (TTC) joining face to face or online. Dr Bounpanh acknowledged the continuous achievements amid the COVID-19 crisis: “Despite the ongoing challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia through the BEQUAL team together with concerned MoES departments, and colleagues from PESD and TTCs have made excellent progress on BEQUAL programme implementation since our last meeting in October 2021. This is a great achievement and I congratulate everyone involved for their ability to adapt and maintain services, productivity and commitment despite the difficulties caused by COVID-19.”

On behalf of the Australian Embassy, Ms Sylvia Bitter reaffirmed Australia’s support and congratulated the Ministry on the Gender and Inclusive Education progress: “Australia is very pleased to be partnering with the Ministry of Education and Sports to support the development of the new curriculum, its implementation and the training and continuous professional development of the primary teachers. Australia and Laos share a mutual interest in improving learning outcomes for more girls and boys of primary-school age, particularly those experiencing disadvantage. The Embassy is particularly pleased to see the ongoing efforts to address inequities related to remoteness, gender, disabilities and ethnicity.”

During the last six months, Australia through the BEQUAL program, supported the Ministry of Education and Sports with the finalization and national implementation of the pre-service diploma, provided extra in-semester support to primary teachers in six target provinces with a greater priority for low performing schools from remote areas, finalized the development of the Grade 4 curriculum with teaching and learning materials for three subjects (Lao Language, Science and Environment and English), produced four new modules of Teacher support Packs to answer the most common teaching challenges encountered by the primary teachers, continued the revision on the Spoken Lao Pilot programme for non-Lao speaking Grade 1 students and finalized 1 teacher training videos and launched the production of two more.

Until the end of BEQUAL Phase I in June 2022, the main focus of activities will be the production and nation-wide distribution of the Grade 4 materials, the preparation for the Grade 4 curriculum orientation training for all grade 4 teachers, continued in-semester support to primary teachers in target provinces, production of four teacher training videos and commencing the writing of the grade 5 curriculum materials.

Dr Bounpanh concluded the meeting by thanking Australia for their on-going strong support that will continue into BEQUAL Phase 2: “During 2022 the BEQUAL programme will transition to Phase 2, with another four years of support for ESSDP 9 implementation and primary sector development in the Lao PDR. I would like to thank the Government of Australia for their continued support to MoES through the BEQUAL programme, and I look forward to continuing to work together to achieve our shared goal of improving learning outcomes for all primary school students in the Lao PDR, especially those facing educational disadvantage.”

Source: Lao News Agency

Khammuan provincial authorities held last week an inauguration ceremony for the Ho Chi Minh Memorial renovation project in Xieng Wang, Nongbok district, Khammuan Province.

The renovation project is funded with a financial grant of VND13 billion (over US$ 569,000) from the Vietnamese government.

The renovation will be carried out by the Vietnam Company of Economic Cooperation (COECCO) and the Vietnam Urban Architecture Joint Stock Company.

“It’s my pleasure to represent the Ho Chi Minh Museum, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to organize an opening ceremony for the renovation and upgrading of President Ho Chi Minh Memorial in Khammuan Province, the Lao PDR,” said Director of the Ho Chi Minh Museum Wu Ming.

He expressed thanks to the Party, government and local authorities of the Lao PDR for supporting and creating favourable conditions for the renovation project.

‘I believe that this project, funded by the Vietnamese government, will contribute to enhancing the friendly relations and comprehensive cooperation between the two Parties, governments and peoples of Laos and Vietnam,” said Wu Ming.

Source: Lao News Agency