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Wednesday, March 23, 2022
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THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

 * liveCovid-19 Updates
 * Coronavirus Map and Cases
 * Vaccine Tracker
 * Should You Get a 4th Shot?


COVID NEWS: C.D.C. DROPS CONTACT TRACING RECOMMENDATION

President Biden unveiled a plan aimed at ushering the United States into what
some are calling a “new normal.” Covid has hit pregnant women especially hard in
Latin America, the W.H.O. says.

Published March 2, 2022Updated March 14, 2022




HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

 * The C.D.C. no longer recommends universal contact tracing.

 * All of Australia is now reopened to vaccinated travelers.

 * The White House unveils a new Covid strategy, but it will need congressional
   funding.

 * A Virginia senator reveals he has long Covid and unveils a bill devoted to
   the illness.

 * The W.H.O. says the pandemic has hit women in the Americas hard, especially
   pregnant women.

 * As some New York State public schools shed masks, elation mixes with
   trepidation.

 * The head of a popular brewery in Brooklyn resigns after his attacks on
   vaccine mandates drew criticism.


THE C.D.C. NO LONGER RECOMMENDS UNIVERSAL CONTACT TRACING.

Image

A public health nurse with the Salt Lake County Health Department in Utah
explained contact tracing in 2020.Credit...Rick Bowmer/Associated Press

Almost two years after the director of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention called for 100,000 contact tracers to contain the coronavirus, the
C.D.C. said this week that it no longer recommends universal case investigation
and contact tracing. Instead it encourages health departments to focus those
practices on high-risk settings.

The turning point comes as the national outlook continues to improve rapidly,
with new cases, hospitalizations and deaths all continuing to fall even as the
path out of the pandemic remains complicated. It also reflects the reality that
contact-tracing programs in about half of U.S. states have been eliminated.

Britain ended contact tracing last week, while Denmark and Finland are among
other nations that have scaled back the use of contact tracers. New York City
announced on Tuesday that it was ending its main contact-tracing program in late
April and moving toward treating the coronavirus as another manageable virus.

“This is a big change,” Crystal Watson, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins
Center for Health Security, said in an interview on Tuesday. “It does reflect
what’s already happening in states and localities, particularly with Omicron.
There was no way contact tracing could keep up with that. Many of the cases are
not being reported, so there’s no way of knowing the incidence.”

The original goal of contact tracing in the United States was to reach people
who have spent more than 15 minutes within six feet of an infected person and
ask them to quarantine at home voluntarily for two weeks even if they test
negative. The aim was to reduce transmission while Americans who tested positive
monitored themselves for symptoms during their isolation. Case investigation is
used to identify and understand cases, clusters and outbreaks that require
health department intervention.

But from the start of the pandemic, states and cities struggled to detect the
prevalence of the virus because of spotty and sometimes rationed diagnostic
testing and long delays in getting results.

Now the C.D.C. is pushing health departments to focus solely on high-risk
settings, like long-term care facilities, jails and prisons, and shelters. Many
immunocompromised Americans, though, feel left behind by the lifting of
precautions and restrictions across the country.

“The updated guidance is in response to changes in the nature of the pandemic
and the increasing availability of new tools to prevent transmission and
mitigate illness,” Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for the C.D.C., said Tuesday.

She said that the dominance of variants with very short incubation periods and
rapid transmissibility combined with high levels of infection- or
vaccine-induced immunity and the wide availability of vaccines for most age
groups made the change possible.

Dr. Watson, who was the lead author of a 2020 report recommending that the
country have 100,000 contact tracers, said that she was worried that the new
guidance might lead to a dismantling of the infrastructure that was put into
place to support as many as 70,000 contact tracers, the peak number the country
reached during the winter surge of 2020.

“We anticipate that there will be a need for contact tracing,” she said, “so
some of the investments made in rebuilding the public health work force should
be used more broadly so we can call on them in the next emergency.”

More than 20 states still have statewide contact-tracing programs, according to
Hemi Tewarson, the executive director of the National Academy for State Health
Policy.

“I actually think that the federal government move is consistent with what
states are doing,” she said in an interview on Tuesday. “They’re already
concentrating contact tracing on high-risk settings.”

Ms. Tewarson said that contact tracing could not keep up with the Omicron surge,
and that it was no longer as effective a tool if people are testing at home and
not reporting results.

“As a longer term plan, this is going to be more sustainable,” she said. “We’re
at a different stage of the pandemic.”

— Adeel Hassan


ALL OF AUSTRALIA IS NOW REOPENED TO VACCINATED TRAVELERS.

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Western Australia Reopens to Vaccinated Travelers

By Reuters and The Associated Press

0:53Western Australia Reopens to Vaccinated Travelers

Arrivals at Perth Airport reunited with their loved ones for the first time in
two years after the state of Western Australia lifted the remaining pandemic-era
border restrictions for vaccinated travelers.CreditCredit...Paul Kane/Getty
Images

After 697 days, the last of Australia’s strict pandemic-era border restrictions
have been lifted as the state of Western Australia reopens itself to vaccinated
travelers.

Starting on Thursday, people arriving from other parts of Australia can enter
Western Australia without quarantining if they have received three coronavirus
vaccine doses and test negative for the virus upon arrival. Vaccinated
international travelers need only have received two doses and a negative test
result to enter without quarantining, while unvaccinated foreigners need an
exemption to enter the country.

On Thursday, arrivals at Perth Airport, in the state’s capital, were greeted
with hugs and tears, many reuniting with family or loved ones for the first time
in two years. State authorities expect about 5,000 domestic and international
travelers to flood into the state in the first 24 hours of the reopening.

“Tomorrow, we take a big step forward as our border controls come down,” the
state’s premier, Mark McGowan, said at news conference on Wednesday. “Families
can reunite without unduly risking the health of the state. It’s going to be
good to see.”

At the beginning of the pandemic, Australia slammed shut its borders, banning
both international travel and movement between some states in an attempt to slow
the spread of the coronavirus. Western Australia restricted travel in and out of
the state in April 2020 for all but exceptional circumstances.

As the months stretched on, the tough measures came under fire for separating
Western Australians from loved ones. Criticism intensified at the end of last
year when other states began to lift their domestic border restrictions and
reopen to international students and some visa holders. Then on Feb. 21,
Australia celebrated as it welcomed international travelers across the country —
except in Western Australia.

Mr. McGowan has defended the border closures, saying they have saved lives and
allowed Western Australians to live the past two years largely without pandemic
restrictions, avoiding the harsh lockdowns that states like Victoria, which
includes Melbourne, went through. Western Australia, which has a population of
2.7 million, has only had 11 coronavirus-related deaths since the start of the
pandemic, according to the state government.

Western Australia had planned to start easing border restrictions in February,
but the move was delayed as the Omicron variant spread along Australia’s east
coast. Omicron entered the state despite the border closure, and cases are still
increasing in Western Australia.

— Yan Zhuang


TRACKING THE CORONAVIRUS ›

United States › United StatesAvg. on Mar. 22 14-day change New cases 29,288 –26%
New deaths 1,009 –30%

World › WorldAvg. on Mar. 22 14-day change New cases 1,736,701 +8% New deaths
6,736 –6%


U.S. HOT SPOTS ›


VACCINATIONS ›


GLOBAL HOT SPOTS ›


GLOBAL VACCINATIONS ›

 * County lookup
 * Hospitals

 * County lookup
 * Hospitals
 * Global vaccinations




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PHILADELPHIA DROPS ITS MASK MANDATE.

Image

Philadelphia lifted its indoor mask mandate on Wednesday, effective
immediately.Credit...Matt Rourke/Associated Press

Philadelphia residents no longer need to wear masks in most indoor settings,
starting immediately, the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Cheryl Bettigole,
announced on Wednesday.

With Philadelphia reporting an average of 295 new coronavirus cases per day,
down from almost 4,000 during the Omicron peak, city authorities say it is safe
to stop enforcing the mandate.

The change in policy came as other U.S. cities and counties have rapidly relaxed
their mask mandates, including Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles County,
New York City and Boston.

Last month, Philadelphia announced a new tiered Covid response system, which
ties restrictions to specific benchmarks for new daily cases, hospitalizations,
test positivity rates and the rate at which cases are rising. The metrics have
improved enough that Philadelphia can move to the “all clear” level, where
vaccines and masks are no longer required in most indoor spaces, the Health
Department said.

The mask mandate remains in place in health care settings and on public transit,
and businesses and other institutions are allowed to require masks or proof of
vaccination if they choose to do so.

Masks will no longer be required in Philadelphia schools starting March 9, if
the situation continues to improve.

“Philadelphia is unique in that we are the poorest big city in the country,
making us more vulnerable to Covid-19 than many other places,” Dr. Bettigole
said. She added that Philadelphians had shown a commitment to each other during
the pandemic, “perhaps best demonstrated by our willingness to wear masks for
the past six months to help decrease transmission to those that remain at risk.”

Almost 70 percent of Philadelphians are fully vaccinated, according to a New
York Times database, but the number of people receiving their first doses has
stalled, as they have nationally.

Other places in the United States that announced changes to mask policies this
week:

 * Children were allowed to shed their masks on Wednesday in public schools
   across New York State where there were no local mandates, after Gov. Kathy
   Hochul announced on Sunday that she was rolling back the statewide school
   mask mandate. Children in some child care centers can now also go maskless.

 * Maine’s state government said on Wednesday that it would lift its statewide
   mask requirement for schools on March 9, after which school districts will be
   responsible for setting mask policies.

 * Education officials in Chicago, one of the largest U.S. public school
   systems, say they might soon end the city’s mandate in schools.

 * Los Angeles County is poised to lift its indoor mask requirement for
   unvaccinated residents on March 4.

— Ada Petriczko


THE WHITE HOUSE UNVEILS A NEW COVID STRATEGY, BUT IT WILL NEED CONGRESSIONAL
FUNDING.

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Biden Announces Covid ‘Test to Treat’ Initiative for Pharmacies

By Reuters

1:34Biden Announces Covid ‘Test to Treat’ Initiative for Pharmacies

In his State of the Union address, President Biden outlined a program that would
allow Americans to be tested for the coronavirus at pharmacies and given free
antiviral treatments on the spot if they test positive.CreditCredit...Sarahbeth
Maney/The New York Times

The White House unveiled its long-awaited new coronavirus response strategy on
Wednesday, a 96-page plan aimed at turning the corner on the worst public health
crisis in a century, while preparing for the next threat — in part by
accelerating research into vaccines that could be deployed within 100 days of
the arrival of a new variant.

“We’ve reached a new moment in the fight with Covid-19,” Jeffrey D. Zients,
President Biden’s coronavirus coordinator, said in releasing the plan.

The plan, aimed at ushering the United States into what some are calling a “new
normal,” has four main goals: protecting against and treating Covid-19;
preparing for new variants; avoiding shutdowns and fighting the virus abroad.

But there is a big hitch: Much of the plan requires funding from Congress. The
administration recently told congressional officials it could need $30 billion
to boost funding for the pandemic response. One outside adviser to the White
House, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, said in an interview that the United States needs to
spend on the order of $100 billion over the next year to be fully prepared, and
billions more after that.

“Congress has to think of this as an investment in biosecurity for the country,”
said Dr. Emanuel, who led a team of experts in developing a far-reaching plan it
shared with the White House.

The strategy comes on the heels of the president’s State of the Union address
Tuesday night and as U.S. new cases decline, though deaths remain high. Mr.
Biden used the speech to spotlight a key component: a new a “test to treat”
initiative that he said would enable Americans to get tested at a pharmacy and,
if they are positive, “receive antiviral pills on the spot at no cost.”

Many of the other initiatives — including the plan to quickly develop vaccines,
which was announced in November — are not new. But taken together, they amount
to a blueprint for the next phase of the response, though the White House
insists the fight against Covid is far from over.

“Make no mistake, President Biden will not accept just ‘living with Covid’ any
more than we accept ‘living with’ cancer, Alzheimer’s, or AIDS,” the plan
declares.

The health secretary, Xavier Becerra, who has not joined regular Covid news
briefings and has been criticized lately for keeping too low a profile, made a
rare appearance on Wednesday with other top health officials.

He highlighted the plan to boost research into long Covid, the long-term
symptoms that some people experience after infection, pledging to open “new
centers of excellence” to provide high quality care, but that will also require
congressional buy-in.

The idea behind the strategy is to get the nation out of crisis mode and to a
place, Mr. Biden has said, where the virus will no longer disrupt everyday life.
The plan included a pledge for the administration to work with Congress to “give
schools and businesses guidance, tests and supplies to stay open, including
tools to improve ventilation and air filtration.”

In interviews, experts generally lauded the plan as a good step forward. But Jay
A. Winsten, director of the Harvard Initiative on Media Strategies for Public
Health, said even the 100-day timeline for vaccine development might not be fast
enough for a highly transmissible variant like Omicron. The first Omicron sample
was collected in South Africa on Nov. 8, he said; the United States reached the
peak of the Omicron wave just 67 days later, on Jan. 14.

Mr. Biden came into office more than a year ago with a 200-page plan to combat
Covid, which was the most pressing challenge in his nascent presidency. But a
lot has changed since then.

More than 200 million Americans have been vaccinated. Two new waves — one fueled
by the Delta variant, the other by Omicron — have driven up deaths to nearly 1
million. Covid treatments have been developed, including the Pfizer drug
Paxlovid, which will be integral to the “test and treat” initiative.

Although those pills have been relatively scarce since they were authorized late
last year, Mr. Biden said in his speech Tuesday night that “Pfizer is working
overtime to get us one million pills this month and more than double that next
month.”

Even as the White House asserts that things are getting better and new federal
guidelines suggest 70 percent of Americans can stop wearing masks for now, large
groups of people remain at risk. Children under 5 are not yet eligible for
vaccinates.

And an estimated seven million Americans have weak immune systems, illnesses or
other disabilities that make them more vulnerable to severe Covid. The White
House announced last week that it was taking several steps to make masks and
tests more accessible to those groups.

Asked about the status of federal air and rail travel mask mandates, Mr. Zients
noted they were being evaluated while they were in place until March 18.

— Sheryl Gay Stolberg


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A VIRGINIA SENATOR REVEALS HE HAS LONG COVID AND UNVEILS A BILL DEVOTED TO THE
ILLNESS.

Image

Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, announced in May 2020 that he had
tested positive for the coronavirus. Nearly two years later, he says he is still
experiencing symptoms.Credit...Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times

Nearly two years after testing positive for the coronavirus, Senator Tim Kaine
of Virginia said he still experiences mild symptoms of long Covid.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Mr. Kaine, a Democrat, described
feeling as if his nerves have been jolted with five cups of coffee.

Though little is known about the exact cause of long Covid, it is estimated to
affect millions of people, even months after their infections. Its symptoms,
which include brain fog and fatigue, can vary widely in severity.

A new bill, introduced on Wednesday by Mr. Kaine and Senators Tammy Duckworth of
Illinois and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, takes aim at the unknowns swirling
around long Covid. It calls for expanding and accelerating research into the
phenomenon, improving education about it and better connecting patients with
services.

Across the United States, states are easing pandemic restrictions, such as mask
mandates and vaccination requirements for select employees. On Tuesday, during
his State of the Union address, President Biden spoke of the progress the
country has made over the past year in battling the virus’s spread. As a result,
he said, “Covid-19 no longer need control our lives.”

The White House released a multipronged coronavirus response strategy on
Wednesday that commits to hastening efforts to “detect, prevent, and treat long
Covid.” The 96-page plan details several proposals, including developing an
interagency research plan to investigate the illness and creating “centers of
excellence” to provide care for patients. These plans are dependent on funding
from Congress.

Still, millions of Americans will continue to experience long Covid, Mr. Markey
said in a news release.

“Long Covid can be serious and devastating, from neurological and respiratory
symptoms to impacts on mental health,” he said, adding that the long-term
effects of infection should be addressed just as “aggressively” as infection
itself.

— Christine Chung


THE W.H.O. SAYS THE PANDEMIC HAS HIT WOMEN IN THE AMERICAS HARD, ESPECIALLY
PREGNANT WOMEN.

Image

At the height of the pandemic in 2020, the National Perinatal and Maternal
Institute in Lima, Peru, set up a tent in its emergency area to receive women in
labor who had tested positive for the coronavirus. Olinda Tafur, 20, waited in
the tent to be seen by an obstetrician.Credit...Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press

Women, and particularly pregnant women, have been disproportionately affected by
the coronavirus pandemic in the Americas, and countries in the region need to
give women’s health higher priority, World Health Organization officials said on
Wednesday.

For example, 72 percent of the Covid-19 cases among health professionals in the
region have been women, officials said.

And while women in general are less likely than men to develop severe disease,
some studies found that migrant women and women of African or Indigenous descent
in the region are often at greater risk because of “the overlap of gender and
social factors,” Dr. Carissa F. Etienne, the director of the Pan American Health
Organization, a division of the W.H.O., said at a news conference.

She said the pandemic has had a “staggering impact” on maternal deaths, by
reducing prenatal health services and cutting off access to care. “Covid-19
morbidity and mortality rates among pregnant women are significantly higher in
the Americas, as compared to other W.H.O. regions,” Dr. Etienne said.

Since the start of the pandemic, more than 365,000 coronavirus cases have been
reported among pregnant women in the region, and more than 3,000 of those women
died, according to P.A.H.O. data.

Though most countries in the Americas have made access to vaccines for pregnant
women a priority, many pregnant women have been hesitant to receive a dose.

As the Omicron surge recedes, Dr. Etienne said, countries across the region need
to resume providing health services that were interrupted during the height of
the pandemic.

“Routine checkups, family planning services and pregnancy-related care are
lifesaving services that should remain open now, more than ever,” Dr. Etienne
said. “Post-rape care has been particularly disrupted by the pandemic. It is
unacceptable that women who have been raped do not get the care and support they
need.”

Reports of new coronavirus cases and deaths are declining in most of the Western
Hemisphere, but there are exceptions. Ten countries in the region reported more
deaths last week than the week before, officials said, and Central America as a
whole reported an increase in deaths of nearly 16 percent.

“The number of weekly deaths remains elevated in some countries of the
Caribbean, like Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, when you analyze these numbers
in the context of the entire pandemic timeline,” said Sylvain Aldighieri,
P.A.H.O.’s incident manager for Covid-19. P.A.H.O. officials have warned that
Caribbean nations remained particularly vulnerable to the virus.

— Daniel Politi


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AS SOME NEW YORK STATE PUBLIC SCHOOLS SHED MASKS, ELATION MIXES WITH
TREPIDATION.

Image

At Guggenheim Elementary School on Long Island, some children were elated to
remove their masks.Credit...Johnny Milano for The New York Times

For the first time since schools reopened during the pandemic, public school
students across New York State entered homerooms, gymnasiums and class without
masks. Citing low virus caseloads and a desire to return to a sense of normalcy,
Gov. Kathy Hochul lifted the state’s school mask mandate starting Wednesday,
leaving local officials to decide mask policy in their schools.

But with vaccination rates still low among children and the threat of the
coronavirus still present, if lessened, a moment that had once been anticipated
as a milestone was met with a mixed response.

Among students, teachers and parents, the rush of fresh-faced jubilation on
Wednesday was tempered by concerns. On one side was a belief that the decision
to lift the mask mandate was long overdue; on the other was a fear that it was
dangerously premature.

— Sarah Maslin Nir




THE HEAD OF A POPULAR BREWERY IN BROOKLYN RESIGNS AFTER HIS ATTACKS ON VACCINE
MANDATES DREW CRITICISM.

Image

Threes Brewing operates a popular brew pub on Douglass Street in the Gowanus
neighborhood of Brooklyn. Credit...Aaron Zebrook for The New York Times

The chief executive of a popular brewery in Brooklyn, who attracted wide
criticism last month when he called coronavirus vaccine mandates a “crime
against humanity” and drew comparisons to the Jim Crow South and Nazi Germany,
is leaving his post, the company announced on Tuesday.

In a statement posted on its social media accounts, the company, Threes Brewing,
said the executive — Josh Stylman, one of the brewery’s founders — had decided
to resign.

“This decision was not made lightly, and comes after careful consideration,”
Threes Brewing said. “He believes that his fiduciary responsibilities as C.E.O.
of Threes Brewing are in conflict with his duties as a parent and a citizen.”

Jared Cohen, the brewery’s chief operating officer, will take over as chief
executive, the company said.

In a post on Substack titled “New York, I Love You (But You’re Bringing Me
Down),” Mr. Stylman said he wanted to be free to speak his mind “without fearing
that my place of employment — and most importantly, the team of people who work
there — will be held responsible for my personal views.”

Mr. Stylman’s comments last month led to a wave of criticism, with some patrons
threatening to withhold their business. Lincoln Restler, a City Council member
from Brooklyn, said he changed his mind about plans to host an event at Threes
when he learned of Mr. Stylman’s remarks about vaccine mandates.

In an interview with The Times, Mr. Stylman said he was vaccinated and that the
brewery had complied with a city mandate that restaurants and bars require
patrons to show proof of full vaccination to enter.

Mayor Eric Adams said on Sunday that he intended to let that policy expire next
week, if reports of new coronavirus cases remain relatively low.

Mr. Stylman said in the interview that when he angrily compared the city
proof-of-vaccination policy to the Holocaust and segregation in the Jim Crow
South, “I guess I acted out, and wanted to share a point of view publicly to try
to preserve any level of personal integrity or humanity.”

Employees of Threes Brewing condemned Mr. Stylman’s remarks in a statement on
Feb. 17. “We do not stand by our C.E.O. Joshua Stylman’s comparisons of the
mandate to historic atrocities based on religion or race,” they said. “We think
the comparisons are inappropriate and inaccurate.”

Threes Brewing has locations in the Gowanus and Greenpoint neighborhoods of
Brooklyn, on Governors Island and in Huntington, N.Y.

— Precious Fondren


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IN A SYMBOLIC VOTE, THE SENATE REJECTS A VACCINE MANDATE FOR HEALTH WORKERS.

Image

A pharmacist preparing coronavirus booster shots at Meritus Medical Center in
Hagerstown, Md. The vaccine mandate applies to workers at hospitals and other
health care facilities that receive funding through Medicare and
Medicaid.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times

The Senate voted on Wednesday to roll back President Biden’s coronavirus vaccine
mandate for health care workers at federally funded facilities, in a symbolic
move orchestrated by Republicans who are pushing to weaponize pandemic
precautions against Democrats in this year’s midterm congressional elections.

In a vote forced by Republicans, the measure passed 49 to 44 along party lines,
after six Democratic absences left the majority party short of the votes needed
to defeat it. The measure was all but certain to die in the
Democratic-controlled House; even if it cleared that chamber, the White House
said on Wednesday that Mr. Biden would veto it.

But Republicans relished the opportunity to hit back against vaccine mandates
across the country, seeking to advance their argument that the Biden
administration and Democrats have overstepped in their efforts to control the
spread of the coronavirus.

The Supreme Court, which blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a much
broader vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers, said in January that the
mandate for health workers could remain in place. It applies to hospital workers
and those at other health care facilities that receive funding through Medicare
and Medicaid.

Vaccines have been proven safe and effective in stemming the spread of the
coronavirus, and several medical experts said the mandates had been successful
in persuading more people to get vaccinated.

But opponents of the mandate for health workers have cited concerns about
staffing shortages at hospitals, as well as the fear of penalizing workers who
have been on the front lines battling the spread of the virus.

— Emily Cochrane




VIOLENCE BREAKS OUT IN NEW ZEALAND AS THE POLICE MOVE TO END A PROTEST AGAINST
VACCINE MANDATES.

Image

A man facing off with the police as officers tried to clear protesters in
Wellington, New Zealand, on Wednesday.Credit...Dave Lintott/Agence France-Presse
— Getty Images

For more than three weeks, hundreds of protesters have disabled the center of
New Zealand’s capital city, occupying the area in front of Parliament and
issuing increasingly violent threats to politicians and other public figures in
an ostensible battle against the country’s vaccine mandates.

New Zealand’s highly restrictive pandemic approach — which allowed the country
to go months without a single case of community transmission — appears to have
alienated a small group of New Zealanders, many of whom have been left without
work after refusing to abide by the sweeping vaccine mandates.

The occupation was inspired by the recent antigovernment protest by truck
drivers in Canada, and as in Canada, a segment of demonstrators were gradually
subsumed into the far right.

On Wednesday, the police began an aggressive clampdown, descending on the site
in Wellington at 6 a.m., dismantling tents, toilets, a kitchen and other camp
infrastructure, and urging the demonstrators to leave. Eventually, most did —
but not without a fight.

New Zealand Coronavirus Cases
New reported cases by day
All timeLast 90 days
Mar. 2020
Jul.
Nov.
Mar. 2021
Jul.
Nov.
Mar. 2022
7–day average
10,000
20,000 cases
19,928
Source: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins
University. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the
last seven days.


In chaotic and sometimes bloody clashes, protesters wielded fire extinguishers,
paint-filled projectiles, homemade plywood shields and pitchforks. Some lobbed
cobblestones at officers. Others piled detritus onto gas-fueled fires, including
one that caused an explosion at a playground near Parliament.

Officers, many bearing riot shields, responded with pepper spray and rubber
bullets. At least 60 people were arrested, and three officers were taken to
hospitals.

Such scenes are rare in New Zealand, and its prime minister, Jacinda Ardern,
expressed hope that the day’s events would not change how New Zealanders
recalled the pandemic response.

— Natasha Frost and Pete McKenzie




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COVID IN HONG KONG: THE POOR BEAR THE BRUNT OF THE WORST WAVE, AND THE U.S.
ISSUES A TRAVEL ADVISORY.

Image

Constructing a Covid isolation facility in Hong Kong this week. Poor residents
have spread the virus to their families because the government has run out of
such facilities.Credit...Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York Times

The State Department has advised Americans not to travel to Hong Kong because of
restrictions imposed by the city and other risks, as case records in the
territory reached record highs.

Hong Kong’s “‘zero-tolerance’ approach” to the pandemic has hindered travel and
access to public services, the travel advisory issued on Tuesday said, and “in
some cases, children in Hong Kong who test positive have been separated from
their parents and kept in isolation until they meet local hospital discharge
requirements.”

Hong Kong has also extended its suspension of all passenger flights from the
United States — as well as Australia, Britain, Canada, France, India, Nepal,
Pakistan and the Philippines — until April 20, citing virus concerns. And this
month, its more than seven million residents will be required to be tested.

The State Department warning came as Hong Kong was battling its worst
coronavirus wave, with the most vulnerable — migrants, racial minorities, the
working class — bearing the brunt.

Hong Kong Coronavirus Cases
New reported cases by day
All timeLast 90 days
Feb. 2020
Jun.
Oct.
Feb. 2021
Jun.
Oct.
Feb. 2022
7–day average
20,000
40,000
60,000 cases
18,567
Source: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins
University. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the
last seven days.


While the city has long been one of the most unequal on earth, rarely has the
cost of that inequality been so steep.

That is, in part, because of the sheer scale of this wave, which in two months
has led to more than 250,000 cases and 800 deaths — multiple times as many as in
the previous four waves combined. Bodies have piled up in hospital hallways
because morgues have no room. Older patients have been left on gurneys outdoors.

But the suffering has also been aggravated, some say, by government policy.
Under direction from the central Chinese authorities, Hong Kong officials have
insisted on some of the world’s most stringent social distancing rules,
crippling many service industries. Yet, they have failed to contain the virus.

As a result, poor residents have been forced to choose between infecting their
families or sleeping outdoors because of cramped living quarters and a lack of
isolation facilities. Migrant domestic workers have been fired after getting
sick and forced to sleep on the streets. (Hong Kong law requires the workers —
who make up about 10 percent of the working population — to live in their
employers’ homes.) Residents who recover cannot return to work because the
testing jam means they cannot prove they are negative. And even those who have
avoided infection are straining under the pandemic’s economic burden.

— John Yoon, Vivian Wang and Joy Dong




CASES CONTINUE TO DECLINE AROUND THE WORLD, BUT THE W.H.O. SAYS GAPS IN MENTAL
HEALTH CARE PERSIST.

Image

The pandemic has taken a toll on mental health around the world.Credit...Kieran
Kesner for The New York Times

The global outlook for the pandemic continues to brighten, with the spread of
the once-surging virus steadily declining, from the United States to the
Philippines. New cases fell by 16 percent last week, according to new data from
the World Health Organization released on Tuesday.

Deaths dropped by 10 percent, in a continuation of the downward trends reported
by the agency the previous week.

As of Tuesday, the daily average number of cases was about 1.5 million, a 27
percent decrease from two weeks ago, according to the Center for Systems Science
and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

Not all countries saw improvement. The W.H.O.’s Western Pacific region reported
a 32 percent increase in new weekly cases. Despite high vaccination rates in
China and Vietnam, new cases have multiplied rapidly over the past two weeks.
And in South Korea, cases have climbed to their highest levels.

Vaccine coverage around the world has been rising. Vaccine supply and delivery
constraints have improved, W.H.O. officials said at a Wednesday news conference,
adding that 56 percent of the global population is now fully vaccinated. More
than 10 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered, according to Our
World in Data.

Leaders of countries and municipalities have interpreted the decline in cases
and deaths as a signal that life could return to normal in the near future. In
recent weeks, pandemic restrictions such as mask mandates governing public
spaces and schools have fallen away in many communities.

But the toll on mental health has been steep and gaps in care persist, the
W.H.O. said in a report on Wednesday. The agency found that in the pandemic’s
first year, depression and anxiety had increased by 25 percent. The data
represented “just the tip of the iceberg,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,
the W.H.O.’s director general.

“This is a wake-up call to all countries to pay more attention to mental health
and do a better job of supporting their populations’ mental health,” he added.

The report named a long list of stressors aggravating mental health issues,
including social isolation, loneliness, fear of infection, financial duress, the
suffering and death of loved ones and grief after bereavement. While people with
pre-existing mental health disorders were not predisposed to contracting the
virus, they were more likely to be hospitalized, become severely ill and die if
infected, the data suggested.

The pandemic has also disproportionately affected the mental health of young
people and women, the report said.

And pregnant women have been particularly vulnerable, according to W.H.O.
officials. Over the past two years, more than 365,000 coronavirus cases have
been reported among pregnant women in the Americas, according to data from the
Pan American Health Organization, a division of the W.H.O. More than 3,000 of
them died.

Correction: 
March 3, 2022

An earlier version of this post misstated the number of vaccine doses
administered worldwide. It is more than 10 billion, not more than 10 million.

— Christine Chung






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