Hello, Warren Murray here, pleased to be bringing you this Thursday briefing.
Joe Biden has spent the first hours of his presidency addressing America’s crisis at home and rebuilding its leadership in the world with a series of executive actions, including rejoining the Paris climate accord, calling a halt to Donald Trump’s border wall, initiating urgent action on Covid-19 and renewing US membership of the World Health Organization. If you didn’t catch the inauguration proceedings yesterday afternoon here is a faithful account from Lauren Gambino in Washington. Don’t miss inaugural poet Amanda Gorman’s recitation of her poem The Hill We Climb. “This is America’s day,” Biden said, gazing across the sprawl of the capital city’s national monuments, guarded by a military garrison unprecedented in modern times and devoid of spectators because of the pandemic. “This is democracy’s day”:
London buses turned into ambulances to ease Covid strain
NHS staff are preparing to transport patients using two London buses that have been converted into makeshift ambulances, in another sign of the strain Covid is putting on the capital’s health services.
Most of the seats on the single-decker buses have been removed so that each can carry four patients, in an attempt to relieve the intense pressure on hospitals and the London ambulance service.
Go-Ahead, the bus company which owns the vehicles, has loaned them to the NHS in the capital to help transfer patients, including to the reopened London Nightingale field hospital:
Indonesia plans to start vaccinating general public from late April
Indonesia plans to start giving the general public Covid-19 vaccinations sometime between late April to May, health minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said on Thursday.
“(Vaccinations) will happen for 1.4 million health between January to February, after that 17 million public workers will be vaccinated, then we will provide vaccines for 25 million seniors,” he told a forum, adding he hoped by May or the end of April Indonesia could start vaccinating the general public.
Updated
Turkey has slowed the pace of Covid-19 vaccinations after an explosive start last week, but can quicken it again after the country delivers inoculations to the elderly in care homes and at their houses, the programme’s coordinator said.
Reuters: The nationwide rollout of the CoronaVac vaccine, produced by China’s Sinovac, reached 1 million people in its first week.
After 600,000 health workers were vaccinated in the first two days, the pace slowed to about 100,000 people per day as the campaign moved to care homes across the country.
“Logistically, our capacity is very high. The current dose numbers are considerably low for us,” programme coordinator Tarkan Mustafa Yamanoglu told Reuters on Wednesday.
The need to “properly administer” vaccines and limit contact to avoid spreading infections were other factors constraining the pace of the rollout, he said, as were the demographics of the people being vaccinated.
“We expect fluctuations in vaccination speeds depending on age groups and mobility; this will happen in the coming period,” Yamanoglu said in an interview.
Ankara has agreed to buy 50 million doses of CoronaVac and is in talks with other developers for supplies, but has only received 3 million doses so far. Authorities have not set a date for the next shipment.
Turkey has reported some 24,000 deaths from Covid and more than 2.4 million infections since March, some of the highest figures in the Middle East. A night-time curfew and weekend lockdowns are in place to try to contain the pandemic.
Thailand confirmed 142 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, taking its total infections to 12,795.
There were no additional deaths reported, with total fatalities remaining at 71. Seventeen of the new infections were imported, the Covid taskforce said at a daily briefing.
US retracts World Health Organization withdrawal
US President Joe Biden has signed a letter retracting Donald Trump’s decision to leave the World Health Organization, which would have been effective in July this year.
On 6 July 2020, the US formally notified the WHO of its withdrawal, despite widespread criticism and an almost complete lack of international support for the move in the midst of a pandemic.
Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw in May last year, accusing the WHO, without evidence, of withholding information, and of being too close to China.
“The WHO plays a crucial role in the world’s fight against the deadly Covid-19 pandemic,” Biden wrote, “as well as countless other threats to global health and health security.”
Zeke Miller
(@ZekeJMiller)Biden letter rejoining the WHO pic.twitter.com/wWD7Kz42u1
China’s regional authorities are under pressure to improve their response to the outbreak. Yesterday 16 officials were formally disciplined.
Today, the Global Times reports public security officers are investigating a Hebei village official after he reportedly had a villager tied to a tree. The man had insisted on entering a locked-down area to buy cigarettes, the report said.
“The Party chief of the village, surnamed Yan, instructed anti-epidemic workers on duty at the scene to tie Cao to a tree and verbally abused him, according to a notice released by the local government on Wednesday morning.”
A video circulating on social media showed three anti-epidemic workers wearing red jackets tying an elderly man to a tree while another worker scolded him, saying, “You dare to walk around… son of a bitch… how can you still hang around at this critical time!”
Yan is under investigation for allegedly imposing illegal restrictions on another person’s freedom, and has been suspended, the notice said.
More on China now:
Beijing is under partial lockdown after China reported 144 new cases on Wednesday, including 126 locally transmitted infections.
Among the local cases, 68 were in Heilongjiang province, 33 in Jilin, 20 in Hebei, and two in Beijing. There were also 113 asymptomatic cases, which are counted separately.
The two cases in Beijing’s Daxing district were found to be of the UK variant of the virus, the head of the city’s health authority said. As a result, all 1.6 million residents of Daxing are banned from leaving the city without special permission and a negative Covid-19 test.
Residents in five Daxing neighbourhoods have been ordered to stay inside their homes. School students have been told to study at home, gatherings of more than 50 are banned, and people have been told to postpone weddings and simplify funerals.
Millions of people in other provinces are already under varying lockdown conditions as authorities grapple with the latest outbreak, the worst since early 2020, albeit still in far small numbers.
The national health commission has also announced strict new rules for migrant workers returning to their home villages for the Spring festival, which starts next month. The commission is also encouraging colleges, universities and businesses to stagger the start of holidays and classes.
Beijing News reported: “After returning home, 14 days of home health monitoring will be carried out. During the period, there will be no social gathering, and nucleic acid testing will be carried out every seven days.”
Each street and neighbourhood committee is responsible for implementing the new system and managing the returning residents, including registration and health monitoring.
Once a dashing young senator, now a lion in winter, Joe Biden walked up the presidential lectern he could finally call his own after half a century of striving.
The message that the 46th US president wanted to send a pained nation was the one that has defined his own life in the face of incalculable personal and political loss: resilience.
“We will press forward with speed and urgency, for we have much to do in this winter of peril and possibility,” Biden told the audience at the US Capitol in Washington on Wednesday, as the sun finally broke through clouds that had brought fleeting snow. “Much to repair. Much to restore. Much to heal. Much to build. And much to gain.”
That winter of peril includes a raging pandemic that has killed more than 400,000 Americans and a fraying body politic: two weeks after a mob encouraged by Donald Trump sacked the Capitol, this could no longer be described as a peaceful transfer of power.
Now it is Biden’s great misfortune to have realised, at 78 years old, a lifetime ambition at a moment of what he called “the cascading crises of our era”. It is also his good fortune to have no alternative but to think big and aim high. The quintessentially moderate, middle-of-the-road candidate might go down as radical and transformational because that is what the moment demands:
President Joe Biden’s proposal for a $1.9tn Covid relief package was based on an assessment of specific needs, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday, when asked about Republican objections about the total cost.
“The package wasn’t designed with the $1.9tn as a starting point. It was designed with the components that were necessary to give people the relief that they needed,” she told reporters during her first briefing after Biden’s inauguration.
Psaki said it was challenging to think about which components of the proposal could be eliminated since all were based on recommendations from economists and health professionals, but acknowledged that the final version of any legislation rarely looked exactly like the initial proposal.
Biden, a longtime US lawmaker was no stranger to congressional negotiations, and would be closely involved in the process, Psaki said, adding: “It’s a conversation, and he is no stranger to the process of deal-making.”
She said the president’s clear preference was to move ahead with a bipartisan bill, but the White House was “not going to take any tools off the table” for the House and Senate – which will both be controlled by the Democrats – to get it done.
She also cited an outpouring of support from US business groups to Senator Bernie Sanders for the proposal.
Biden was committed to invoking the Defense Production Act to ensure the supplies and materials needed to achieve his goal of having 100 million people vaccinated in the first 100 days of his presidency.
Further details would be released on Thursday, Psaki said.
