Ningbo Port Activity Grinds To A Halt As China Outbreak Worsens

 After authorities found more COVID cases in Ningbo, a port city and industrial hub home to one of the world's largest ports, residents are facing a partial lockdown, and reports claim that movement of essential products has been dramatically slowed as the lockdown measures slow activity at the port.

Beijing has managed to keep reports about the situation mostly under wraps, but reports in Bloomberg and several trade journals have warned that the slowdowns at the port could have wide-ranging ramifications for international commerce.

Right now, lockdowns are affecting Xi'an and Yuzhou along with the Ningbo port, Chinese sources said. In Yuzhou, which has a population of 1.1M, authorities shut down its transport system and all but essential food stores closed overnight.

The strict lockdown measures come as Beijing braces for both the Winter Olympics and the Lunar New Year. With exactly a month to go until the Games start, foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin assured reporters China had "formulated an efficient and highly effective defense system".

Part of this system will involve thousands of staff and volunteers entering a bubble on Tuesday, which will see them have no physical contact with the outside world in order to limit the spread.

Athletes and members of the press who cover the Games will also enter the bubble on arrival in China, where they will remain for the duration of their stay.

In Yuzhou, situated some some 434 miles south-west of Beijing, officials said that "to curb and quash the epidemic within the shortest amount of time is a high-priority political task" for the local government.

Some people pointed out that the CCP's lockdown measures might actually be making the situation worse: "People are swapping stuff with others in the same building, because they no longer have enough food to eat," one man who spoke with Radio Free Asia on the condition of anonymity said. 

The news outlet also reported that another man had wanted to trade a smartphone and tablet for rice, according to the BBC.

What Beijing calls its "dynamic zero COVID" strategy combines mass vaccinations with a regime of constant testing, nationwide monitoring of people's movements, temperature-taking and smartphone apps to prove individuals don't pose a threat. This hyper-vigilance has left doctors exhausted.

Perhaps this is why the activity at the Ningbo port has slowed: one trade journal covering the business of commerce said that while no COVID cases have been reported at any of the port's three container terminals, closures at warehouses and the container depot, as well as trucking disruptions, have made it difficult for manufacturers and suppliers to get their goods from the port, or to the port.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ningbo-port-activity-grinds-halt-china-outbreak-worsens

Health care workers struggle to quarantine or show at work amid staff shortages

 

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said health care workers could quarantine for less than seven days following a positive COVID-19 test if there are staffing shortages.
• Some healthcare workers are hesitant about returning to work too soon and potentially putting themselves and patients at risk.
• National Guardsmen have been deployed across the country to try and support severe hospital staff shortages.

As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revised its quarantine recommendations for health care workers, some are struggling to exercise caution while also continuing to support their hospitals.

In late December, the CDC said health care workers that contract COVID-19 and are asymptomatic can return to work after seven days following a negative test, but that isolation period could be shortened if there are staffing shortages.

And staffing shortages are currently rampant, with more than 25 percent of hospitals in 13 states struggling with critical shortages of nurses, doctors and other medical staff, according to Forbes. One hospital in Florida was even forced to temporarily close its labor and delivery unit because so many hospital staff had contracted COVID-19, contributing to a severe staffing shortage.

Some health care workers have found themselves in a precarious position, uncomfortable with a shorter quarantine period but also well aware of the dire staffing shortages their workplace is experiencing. 

Melody Butler, a registered nurse in New York, told NBC News that after testing positive for COVID-19 and spending eight days at home, she returned to work still feeling fatigued. Her hospital didn’t force her to come back to work right away but she said, “I know how tight staffing is right now. I’m very well aware of how many people are out sick.”

Butler emphasized that the new policy allowing health care workers to shorten isolation periods following a COVID-19 infection will pressure health care workers to come back to work sooner than they’re physically ready to.

“It’s really important that they do listen to their body and make sure they are meeting the criteria to return to work,” Butler told NBC.

Franklin Rosenblat is an infectious disease doctor in Michigan who has been fielding concerns and questions from hospital staff regarding quarantine periods. He told NBC, “I think the main fear is always for our patients. Nurses especially have a tight bond with their patients, and they want to make sure that they’re not putting the patients at risk, so that anxiety is really something that I have to respect because they have a patient’s best interest foremost in their mind.”

Back in September of last year, even before omicron was declared a new variant of concern, the American Nurses Association wrote a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra calling for the White House to acknowledge and take concrete action to address the crisis-level nurse staffing shortage.

“The nation’s health care delivery systems are overwhelmed and nurses are tired and frustrated as this persistent pandemic rages on with no end in sight,” the group wrote.

That’s the same situation currently facing the health care system now, as it’s flooded with a record number of COVID-19 patients, with Johns Hopkins University of Medicine recording over 1 million new cases in the U.S. just this week. 

Though the federal government has deployed the National Guard across the country to compensate for health care worker shortages, like in Ohio where more than one thousand National Guardsmen have been sent to hospitals crushed by staffing shortages.

However, the future of the health care industry isn’t looking up either, with Mercer, a national consulting firm, estimating that by 2025 the demand for health care workers will outpace supply. The group says home health aides, nursing assistants, medical and lab technicians and nurse practitioners will all face shortages in the thousands. 

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/588470-health-care-workers-struggling-to-quarantine-or

3 Mass. schools using dogs to detect COVID

 Three schools in Massachusetts are using dogs to seek out potential cases of the coronavirus as scientists say the animals can detect the virus with 99 percent accuracy.

The Freetown, Lakeville and Norton school districts are having dogs from the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office come in to detect the virus, WBZ-TV reported.

“I see it as a great opportunity for kids to recognize that we are doing everything we can to mitigate the risk and I want them to feel secure and safe and not anxious about their surroundings,” Fairhaven School Superintendent Tara Kohler said.

The dogs can detect COVID-19 on any surface and will sit when they smell the virus to alert the officers, according to the local outlet. 

“With COVID, whether it’s the Omicron, whether it’s the Delta, our dogs will hit on it,” Bristol County Capt. Paul Douglas said. “And if there’s a new variant that comes out in six months, hopefully there isn’t, but if there is one, COVID is COVID.”

“One good thing about COVID is it’s easy to destroy,” Douglas added. “It doesn’t like chemicals. Spray it down, wipe it and it eliminates the virus.”

The police department announced back in July the two dogs, Huntah and Duke, were the first law enforcement K9s trained to detect COVID-19. 

“BCSO K9s Huntah and Duke are the first law enforcement K9s in the country trained to detect COVID. We celebrated at a small graduation ceremony yesterday. Huntah is Capt. Douglas’ partner and Duke is paired with Officer Santos,” the department said.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/588453-three-massachusetts-schools-using-dogs-to-detect-covid-19

First Two 'Flurona' Cases Detected In US

 by Jack Philips via The Epoch Times

A Los Angeles County COVID testing site confirmed the first local case of “flurona,” or influenza combined with the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus that causes COVID, coming after a teen in Texas confirmed he was diagnosed with the two viruses.

Authorities at the 911 COVID testing site in Brentwood, California, confirmed a child tested positive for COVID and influenza A. The boy’s mother also tested positive for COVID.

“It was a family visiting from Mexico, from Cabo San Lucas,” Steve Farzam, the head of 911 COVID Testing, told KNBC-TV. “Some very mild symptoms, almost could be easily confused with sinusitis."

The pair had recently returned from a vacation in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, the company said.

Farzam said the child did not require hospitalization and went home with their parents after the testing was completed.

The Epoch Times has contacted the Los Angeles County Department of Health, which has not yet commented on the diagnosis.

COVID and the flu are two respiratory diseases caused by separate viruses.

In Houston, Texas, a 17-year-old boy told ABC13 that he was diagnosed with both COVID and the flu but said it was mild.

“I ended up getting tested the day before Christmas for strep throat, flu, and COVID,” said Alex Zierlein.

“I didn’t think I had any of the three. It felt like a mild cold."

Reports last week said a pregnant woman in Israel tested positive for COVID and the flu. The unidentified woman was diagnosed with the rare double infection when she arrived last week at the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikvah, officials told the Times of Israel.

“She was diagnosed with the flu and coronavirus as soon as she arrived,” said Arnon Vizhnitser, director of the hospital’s Gynecology Department, told the Hamodia news outlet. 

“Both tests came back positive, even after we checked again,” he continued, adding that “the disease is the same disease. They’re viral and cause difficulty breathing since both attack the upper respiratory tract."

The woman only experienced mild symptoms for both the flu and COVID, authorities said.

About 85,000 Americans are in the hospital with COVID, just short of the Delta-surge peak of about 94,000 in early September, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The all-time high during the pandemic was about 125,000 in January of last year.

But the hospitalization numbers do not tell the full story. At least some cases in the official count involve mild or symptom-free infections that weren’t what put the patients in the hospital in the first place.

Dr. Fritz François, chief of hospital operations at NYU Langone Health in New York City, said about 65 percent of patients admitted to that system with COVID recently were primarily hospitalized for something else and were incidentally found to have the virus.

Joanne Spetz, associate director of research at the Healthforce Center at the University of California, San Francisco, said the rising number of cases like that is both good and bad.

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/first-2-cases-flurona-virus-detected-us

Walensky Vs. Fauci Continues After CDC Director Says 'No Plans' To Change Definition Of 'Fully Vaccinated'

 Update (1605ET): After a week of America's top health officials talking across each other, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky stated on Wednesday that the agency won't change the definition of "fully vaccinated" to include a Covid-19 booster shot - once again 'clarifying' for comments made by Dr. Anthony Fauci (see below), who suggested on Tuesday the the language was being replaced.

So while the definition of fully vaccinated will continue to mean one has received their primary course of vaccines, the CDC will start pushing the term "up to date," to encourage people to get boosted.

White House Covid-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients elaborated, saying "Someone is considered fully vaccinated if they have received their primary series of vaccines, so if you think about the different requirements that you mentioned, travel, [Occupational Safety and Health Administration], [and Centers for Medicaid & Medicare] rules and other examples, that has not changed and we do not have any plans to change that."

More from Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times:

Inside the United States, a growing number of businesses and organizations—namely universities—have begun to mandate boosters as a condition for employment or for entering buildings.

Among those businesses, Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer, who is the CEO of the Union Square Hospitality Group, said on Dec. 22 that starting “immediately,” several of his businesses “are going to be requiring that 100 percent of our staff members have a booster within 30 days of their eligibility.”

Already in Israel, individuals have to show proof they’ve received a booster dose, or a third shot, of the Pfizer vaccine in order to enter certain businesses including gyms and restaurants. No cities or municipalities in the United States have issued similar mandates yet, although New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, said he is weighing COVID-19 boosters for city employees.

“If we feel we have to get to the place of making that mandatory, we’re willing to do that, but we’re encouraging them to do that now,” Adams told ABC News. “If we close down our city, it is as dangerous as COVID,” Adams added. “That’s what our focus must be. So that proper balance of safety [and] keeping our economy operated is going to allow us to get through.”

*  *  *

A few weeks ago, Dr. Anthony Fauci hinted that the federal government would soon change its definition of "fully vaccinated" to include not just the two original shots but at least one booster dose as well.

But in the latest indication that Dr. Fauci has succeeded in pushing this scheme, the good doctor said Tuesday during a lecture at the National Institutes of Health that new terminology would be used in place of the "fully vaccinated" language. Instead of referring to somebody as "fully vaccinated", they will be referred to as having their vaccinations "up to date" to reflect the notion that they have gotten their booster shots.

"We’re using the terminology now 'keeping your vaccinations up to date,' rather than what 'fully vaccinated' means," Fauci said during a National Institutes of Health lecture Tuesday.

"Right now, optimal protection is with a third shot of an mRNA or a second shot of a J&J."

This follows a decision by the CDC on Tuesday to shorten the time frame for Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID booster jab, which can now be administered within five months of the initial two-shot series, instead of six. Meanwhile, a CDC advisory panel is expected to recommend boosters for teenagers during a meeting on Wednesday.

According to certain research studies, Pfizer's vaccine provides a 25x increase in neutralizing antibodies that fight the variant while Moderna's booster produces a 37x increase in antibodies. Meanwhile, two doses of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine cut hospitalizations in South Africa by 85%.

"We are continuing to follow that science and it is literally evolving daily. And as that science evolves, we will continue to review the data and update our recommendations as necessary," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said at a White House briefing Dec. 15.

Dr. Fauci made his remark about the new terminology for people who have had all their shots in response to a question about Israel's plans to dole out a fourth shot.

"We need to find out what the durability of protection of the third shot is before we start thinking about the fourth shot," Dr. Fauci replied.

The only question now is how much longer until the US green lights a fourth shot (and then a fifth, and then a sixth) much like Israel is doing...

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/keeping-shots-date-replaces-fully-vaccinated-dr-fauci-says

AMA Latest To Oppose CDC’s Shorter Covid Isolation Guidelines

 The American Medical Association opposes new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that shortens the time for isolation and quarantine for those infected with Covid-19, saying it puts “patients at risk and could further overwhelm our health care system.”

In the CDC’s new guidance, asymptomatic patients only need to isolate for five days rather than 10. These asymptomatic individuals do, however, need to continue wearing a mask for another five days when around others.

But the AMA, which represents more than a quarter of a million physicians, on Wednesday said the CDC’s new recommendations on quarantine and isolation are “not only confusing, but are risking further spread of the virus.” The AMA’s statement comes after the American Nurses Association said last month that the CDC’s guidance is “ is premature and tips toward economic needs as opposed to the health of nurses.”

“According to the CDC’s own rationale for shortened isolation periods for the general public, an estimated 31 percent of people remain infectious 5 days after a positive Covid-19 test,” said AMA president Dr. Gerald E. Harmon. “With hundreds of thousands of new cases daily and more than a million positive reported cases on January 3, tens of thousands – potentially hundreds of thousands of people – could return to work and school infectious if they follow the CDC’s new guidance on ending isolation after five days without a negative test.”

Rather, the AMA says a negative test should be required for “ending isolation after one tests positive for COVID-19,” the nation’s largest doctor group said in its statement. “Reemerging without knowing one’s status unnecessarily risks further transmission of the virus.”

The AMA acknowledged that test availability remains a challenge across the U.S., but the group’s president said “a dearth of tests at the moment does not justify omitting a testing requirement to exit a now shortened isolation.”

The CDC, which issued the new guidance last month, said the change is “motivated by science demonstrating that the majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs early in the course of illness, generally in the 1-2 days prior to onset of symptoms and the 2-3 days after.”

At that time, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the updated guidance ensure people can “safely continue their daily lives.” “The Omicron variant is spreading quickly and has the potential to impact all facets of our society,” Walensky said.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2022/01/05/american-medical-association-latest-big-health-group-to-oppose-cdcs-shorter-covid-isolation-guidelines/

Acadia Pharma upped to Buy from Neutral by Citi

 Target $30

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