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Spain reaches one million confirmed COVID-19 cases

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The country of 47 million is among those hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 34,000 deaths attributed to the disease.

MADRID:Spain this week became the first country in western Europe to record more than 1 million confirmed infections, as it struggles to contain a resurgence of the new coronavirus

The country of 47 million is among those hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 34,000 deaths attributed to the disease.

After being brought under control during a nationwide lockdown in the spring, the virus started spreading again a couple of months after restrictions were lifted and people started to move around and socialize again.

By September, hospitals in Madrid were once again beginning to fill up as Spain recorded the highest numbers of new infections in the 27-country European Union.

Confirmed cases rose beyond the 1 million mark on Wednesday, when nearly 17,000 new infections were added.

Experts say the real number is probably much higher because insufficient testing, asymptomatic cases and other issues impede authorities from capturing the true scale of the outbreak.

Like elsewhere in Europe, the resurgence has prompted authorities to impose restrictions on travel and social gatherings.

Curfews are being considered in some of the most affected areas, including the capital, Madrid.

The northern region of Navarra has prohibited non-essential travel from and to the region.

Oxford COVID-19 vaccine doing ‘everything expected’, independent study finds

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Once inside a human cell the genetic instructions for the spike protein need to be ‘photocopied’ many times — a process known as “transcription”.

LONDON: The Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine undergoing Phase III clinical trials with British pharma giant AstraZeneca is doing “everything expected” which means good news in the fight against the deadly virus, an independent analysis said on Thursday.

A team at Bristol University used recently developed techniques to validate that the vaccine accurately follows the genetic instructions programmed into it by the Oxford University team.

The experts say that the novel analysis provides even greater clarity and detail about how the vaccine successfully provokes a strong immune response.

“This is an important study as we are able to confirm that the genetic instructions underpinning this vaccine, which is being developed as fast as safely possible, are correctly followed when they get into a human cell,” said Dr David Matthews, Reader in Virology from Bristol’s School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine (CMM), who led the research.

“Until now, the technology hasn’t been able to provide answers with such clarity, but we now know the vaccine is doing everything we expected and that is only good news in our fight against the illness,” he said.

The vaccine, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 and also known as AZD1222, is considered among the most advanced in the worldwide hunt for a viable vaccine against the novel coronavirus.

The findings, published on the pre-print server “ResearchSquare’, represent the most in-depth analysis of any of the COVID-19 vaccine candidates, going significantly above and beyond” any regulatory requirements anywhere in the world.

“This is a wonderful example of cross-disciplinary collaboration, using new technology to examine exactly what the vaccine does when it gets inside a human cell,” said Sarah Gilbert, Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Oxford and lead on the Oxford vaccine trial.

“The study confirms that large amounts of the coronavirus spike protein are produced with great accuracy, and this goes a long way to explaining the success of the vaccine in inducing a strong immune response,” she said.

Work on the vaccine, developed by researchers at the University of Oxford’s Jenner Institute and Oxford Vaccine Group, began in January this year.

Now undergoing Phase III clinical trials by the University of Oxford and biopharma giant AstraZeneca, the Bristol researchers’ focus was to assess how often and how accurately the vaccine is copying and using the genetic instructions provided by the Oxford team.

These instructions detail how to make the spike protein from the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19. The Oxford vaccine is made by taking a common cold virus (adenovirus) from chimpanzees and deleting about 20 per cent of the virus’s instructions.

This means it is impossible for the vaccine to replicate or cause disease in humans, but it can still be produced in the laboratory under special conditions. By removing these genetic instructions there is space to add the instructions for the spike protein from SARS-CoV-2.

Once inside a human cell the genetic instructions for the spike protein need to be ‘photocopied’ many times — a process known as “transcription”.

In any vaccine system, it is these so-called photocopies that are directly used to make large amounts of the spike protein. Once the spike protein is made, the immune system will react to it and this pre-trains the immune system to identify a real COVID-19 infection. So, when the person vaccinated is confronted with the SARS-CoV-2 virus their immune system is pre-trained and ready to attack it.

Oxford University said that adenoviruses have been used for many years to make vaccines, and these are always tested to very high standards to make sure every batch of vaccine has the correct copy of genetic instructions embedded in the vaccine.

“However, thanks to very recent advances in genetic sequencing and protein analysis technology, researchers at Bristol were for the first time also able to directly check thousands and thousands of the ‘photocopied’ instructions produced by the Oxford vaccine within a cell. In this way they were able to directly validate that the instructions are copied correctly and accurately, providing greater assurance that the vaccine is performing exactly as programmed,” the university explained.

At the same time, the researchers checked the spike protein being made by the vaccine inside human cells also accurately reflects the instructions as programmed. This brand-new approach may be more routinely used in the future to help researchers finetune the performance of these kinds of vaccines.

The study was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

US proposes not to issue business visa for H1B speciality occupations

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Washington: The State Department has proposed not to issue temporary business visas for H-1B speciality occupations which allowed several companies to send their technology professionals for a short stay to complete jobs on site in the US, a move which could affect hundreds of Indians.

The proposal, if finalised, will eliminate any misconception that the “B-1 in lieu of H policy” provides an alternative avenue for foreign professionals to enter the US to perform skilled labour that allows, and potentially even encourages them and their employers to circumvent the restrictions and requirements relating to the H non-immigrant classification established by Congress to protect the US workers, the State Department said.

The move, made public on Wednesday, less than two weeks ahead of the November 3 presidential election, is likely to impact several Indian companies which send their technology professionals on B-1 visas for a short stay to complete jobs on site in the US.

On December 17, 2019, the Attorney General of California announced a USD 800,000 settlement against Infosys Limited to resolve allegations that approximately 500 Infosys employees worked in the state on Infosys-sponsored B-1 visas rather than H-1B visas, the State Department said.

“The proposed changes and the resulting transparency would reduce the impact of foreign labour on the US workforce of aliens performing activities in a specialty occupation without the procedural protections attendant to the H-1B classification,” it said.

In its federal notification issued on Wednesday, the State Department said the US architecture firm seeking protection from rising labour costs in the country might believe it could lay off its US architects and contract for the same professional architectural services to be provided by a foreign architecture firm.

If the foreign firm sought H-1B visas for its architects, it would be required to pay the prevailing wage for architects in the area of intended employment in the United States, presumably the same wage the US architects had been paid, and meet the other requirements enacted by the Congress to protect US workers.

But under the B-1 in lieu of H policy, the foreign architects could ostensibly seek B-1 visas and travel to the US to fill a temporary need for architecture services, as long as they retained a residence in the foreign country and continued to receive a salary, perhaps significantly lower than what is customary for US architects, dispersed abroad by the foreign firm (or under the auspices of a foreign parent or subsidiary), the State Department said.

Under the Department’s guidance, visas could be issued for multiple architects planning temporary work in the US in certain situations. However, a foreign employer may succeed in undermining the US immigration law and policy by rotating architects between the US and the foreign country to effectively fill the position of one US architect at a significantly lower cost, the notification said.

“If the architects who intended to perform skilled labour were “of distinguished merit and ability… seeking to perform (temporary architectural services) of an exceptional nature requiring such merit and ability, one might argue the current regulatory language suggests this type of labour is a permissible basis for B-1 non-immigrant visa issuance,” the State Department said.

This potential outcome is harmful to the US workers and contrary to the policies of the Trump administration, it said.

The State Department said the application process for a B-1 visa does not include similar procedural requirements to protect the US workers like that of H-1B visas.

Also, the fees for the B-1 visas are far less than that of H-1B visas.

While Congress required H-1B employers to pay significant fees to fund assistance to the US workforce as well as prevention and detection of fraud related to skilled labour, employers are not required to pay comparable fees to employ skilled workers under the B-1 in lieu of H policy, it said.

According to the notification, the State Department estimates that this proposal will affect not more than 6,000 to 8,000 foreign workers per year, specifically aliens intending to provide services in a specialty occupation in the US.

As per its estimate, up to 28 per cent of the approximately 8,000 annual B-1 visa issuances under the B-1 in lieu of H policy were to foreign workers who applied for a visa to perform services in a specialty occupation for a small entity in the US.

India-born US Judge Amit Mehta assigned Justice Department’s lawsuit against Google

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New York: India-born US District Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee, has been assigned the Justice Department’s crucial lawsuit against internet search giant Google. Mehta was appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on December 22, 2014.

Born in Patan, Gujarat, Mehta received his BA in Political Science and Economics from Georgetown University in 1993 and his JD from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1997.

After law school, Mehta worked in a law firm in San Francisco before clerking for Susan Graber of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Following his clerkship, Mehta worked at a Washington, DC-based law firm. In 2002, Mehta joined the District of Columbia Public Defender Service as a staff attorney.

Mehta served on the Board of Directors of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project and is the former co-chair of the District of Columbia Bar’s Criminal Law and Individual Rights Section Steering Committee. He is also a former Director of Facilitating Leadership in Youth, a non-profit organization dedicated to after-school activities and mentoring for at-risk youth, according to his profile on the website of US District Court, District of Columbia.

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice – along with 11 state Attorneys General – filed a civil antitrust lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia to stop Google from unlawfully maintaining monopolies through anticompetitive and exclusionary practices in the search and search advertising markets and to remedy the competitive harms.

The participating state Attorneys General offices represent Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina, and Texas.

As one of the wealthiest companies on the planet with a market value of $1 trillion, Google is the monopoly gatekeeper to the internet for billions of users and countless advertisers worldwide. For years, Google has accounted for almost 90 percent of all search queries in the United States and has used anti-competitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in search and search advertising, the Justice Department said.

A report in The Washington Post said, absent a settlement, the outcome could rest in the hands of Amit Mehta, a federal judge in a Washington, D.C., district court. Appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama, he was randomly selected Wednesday to hear the Google case.

Trump says will win by ‘bigger’ margin, seeks ‘thundering’ defeat for rival Biden

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WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has exuded confidence that he will win the November 3 election by a bigger margin than that of 2016 and urged his supporters to deliver a “thundering” defeat to his Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

In his hour-long speech at an election rally here, Trump reiterated that his challenger Biden and his running mate Senator Kamala Harris, if elected, would convert the US into a socialist country.

“It’s time to send a message to these wealthy liberal hypocrites by delivering Joe Biden, sleepy Joe, a thundering defeat on November 3rd. Got to get out and vote,” Trump told his supporters in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.

Encouraged by the high level of energy and enthusiasm of thousands of his supporters, with a large number of them waiting for hours on a chilly night, Trump asserted that his victory on November 3 is going to be bigger than that of 2016.

“This is going to be bigger than four years ago. There is more enthusiasm,” he said amidst a huge applause from his supporters.

“The crowds are bigger. They will never be forgotten again not after this one. They tried to find out, who are all these people that showed up last time. Now they are finding out again except even more so. Now you see what’s going on though with the lines and everything,” he said.

Biden, 77, is leading the polls. However, Trump’s rallies in particularly in the battle ground States have been attracting massive crowds. The hour-long speech of the US President was marked with applause and cheers from his supporters.

“In our lifetimes, we’ll never see a president like Donald Trump again,” Congressman Mike Kelly said in his brief remarks reflecting the sentiments of his supporters.

At one point of time, as Trump was speaking, the mike suddenly stopped working apparently due to a technical snag. The crowd shouted “fake news turn it back on!” The microphone was back in about a minute and the president quipped that the brief outage was likely caused by “crooked Hillary.” Trump reiterated that his challenger Biden and his running mate Senator Harris, if elected, would convert the US into a socialist country.

“Only by voting for me can you save your fracking in Pennsylvania. We are going to have a great time because you are going or reject the radical left. The United States I’ll say and I’ll say it a thousand times, the United States will never be a socialist nation,” he asserted.

Listing out his achievements, Trump asserted that his administration has revived the country’s economy, that was badly hit by COVID-19, in less than six months. The next years is going to be the greatest. Unemployment rate is now in single digits and will drop further, he said.

The president accused China of spreading coronavirus in the US and the world. He said that if not for the virus, he would not have to campaign in places like Erie because he would be so far ahead of his rivals. Trump claimed the coronavirus pandemic was nearing its end.

“We’re rounding the turn on the pandemic,” Trump said.

According to Philadelphia Inquirer, Erie as is one of the most hotly contested and symbolically weighted parts of Pennsylvania.

“Erie County became a symbol of Trump’s white, working class support in 2016, and is being nationally watched for clues about how strongly he has retained his hold on those voters,” the daily reported. Trump exuded confidence of winning this battle ground State.

“If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole thing,” he said.

Interestingly, the campaign played a video of Biden on fracking during Trump’s speech. Biden and Harris want to ban fracking and kill American jobs, Trump said.  The president slammed Biden for his policies and continued to raise the allegations of corruption against him and his son Hunter Biden.

Trump thanked his countrymen for electing a non-politician like him.

“If I don’t sound like a typical Washington politician, it’s because I’m not a politician. And if I don’t always play by the rules of the Washington establishment, it’s because I was elected to fight for you and nobody has ever fought for you harder than I have. That I can tell you. I’m fighting so hard because I love my country,” Trump said.

“Joe Biden has made a corrupt bargain exchange for his party’s nomination. He’s handed control of his party over to socialists. I added another word, communists, Marxists, left-wing extremists. And they’re full of hate and rage and scorn for the middle class and for everybody. Frankly, for the middle class and for everybody,” he said.

“The fact is whether you like it or not, whether you want to hear it or not, Biden is a corrupt politician. He is a corrupt politician. And smoking gun emails show that the Biden family sold the Vice Presidency for a very, very substantial amount of money,” Trump claimed.

“More money than anybody would believe. He let China plunder our jobs while his family raked in millions of dollars from China and foreign nations,” Trump alleged.

“The Bidens got rich while Pennsylvania got robbed and so did the rest of our country. If Biden wins, China wins. If Biden wins, China will own the USA and you know it,” he alleged.

Australia will participate in Malabar naval exercise with India, US and Japan: Govt

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For the last few years, Australia has been showing keen interest in participating in the high-end naval exercise.

MELBOURNE: Australia will participate in the Malabar naval exercise next month involving India, the US and Japan that will bring the four key defence partners and democracies in the region together, demonstrating their collective resolve to support an open and prosperous Indo-Pacific.

In a significant move that comes amid a Sino-India border row, India on Monday announced Australia’s participation in the upcoming Malabar exercise along with the US and Japan, effectively making it the first military-level engagement between the four-member nation grouping — the Quad.

The invitation by India to the Australian navy for the exercise came two weeks after the foreign ministers of the Quad held extensive talks in Tokyo with a focus on enhancing their cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, a region that has been witnessing increasing Chinese military assertiveness.

In a joint statement with Australian Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the announcement was another important step in Australia’s deepening relationship with India.

The government said that following an invitation from India, Australia will participate in the Malabar-2020 exercise, which is likely to take place next month in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.

The exercise will bring together four key regional defence partners India, Japan, the United States and Australia in November, it said.

Reynolds said Malabar-2020 marked a milestone opportunity for the Australian Defence Force (ADF).

“High-end military exercises like MALABAR are key to enhancing Australia’s maritime capabilities, building interoperability with our close partners, and demonstrating our collective resolve to support an open and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Reynolds said.

For the last few years, Australia has been showing keen interest in participating in the high-end naval exercise. Australia will be returning to the joint manoeuvres after its participation in 2007.

The US has been pushing for a deeper military collaboration with Japan, India and Australia against China’s growing regional influence.

Beijing claims almost all of the 1.3 million square-mile South China Sea as its sovereign territory.

China has been building military bases on artificial islands in the region which, in parts, is claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Beijing has impeded commercial activity like fishing and mineral exploration by neighbouring nations in recent years, saying the ownership of the resource-rich maritime territory belongs to China for hundreds of years.

Foreign Minister Payne said that the Malabar exercise also “showcases the deep trust between four major Indo-Pacific democracies and their shared will to work together on common security interests”.

“This builds on the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, to which Prime Minister (Scott) Morrison and Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi agreed on June 4, 2020, and which I progressed with my counterpart, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, this month when we met in Tokyo,” she said.

“It will bolster the ability of India, Australia, Japan and the United States to work together to uphold peace and stability across our region,” Payne asserted.

Participation in the naval exercise demonstrates Australia’s enduring commitment to enhancing regional security, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific, and increasing the capability and interoperability of the ADF, she said.

Johnson & Johnson pauses COVID-19 vaccine trial as participant becomes ill

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The pause means the online enrollment system has been closed for the 60,000-patient clinical trial while the independent patient safety committee is convened.

“We have temporarily paused further dosing in all our Covid-19 vaccine candidate clinical trials, including the  Phase 3 ENSEMBLE trial, due to an unexplained illness in a study participant,” the company said in a statement.

The pause means the online enrollment system has been closed for the 60,000-patient clinical trial while the independent patient safety committee is convened.

J&J said that serious adverse events (SAEs) are “an expected part of any clinical study, especially large studies.” Company guidelines allowed them to pause a study to determine if the SAE was related to the drug in question and whether to resume study.

The J&J Phase 3 trial had started recruiting participants in late September, with a goal of enrolling up to 60,000 volunteers across more than 200 sites in the US and around the world.

The other countries where the trials were taking place are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and South Africa.

Second Cabinet minister in Nepal tests positive for coronavirus

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Pokharel, who was admitted to Patan Hospital on Saturday evening after developing mild fever, tested positive for the virus on Sunday afternoon during a PCR test, MyRepublica reported on Sunday.

KATHMANDU: Nepal’s education minister Giriraj Mani Pokharel has tested positive for COVID-19 — the second Cabinet minister to have contracted the deadly viral infection.

Pokharel, who was admitted to Patan Hospital on Saturday evening after developing mild fever, tested positive for the virus on Sunday afternoon during a PCR test, MyRepublica reported on Sunday.

His health is stable, according to a member of the minister’s secretariat.

Pokharel is the second minister in the Cabinet of Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli to have contracted the contagion, which has so far infected over 107,750 people and claimed 636 lives in the Himalayan nation.

On Saturday, Nepal’s tourism minister Yogesh Bhattarai announced on social media that he has tested positive for the COVID-19 and requested all those who came in his contact to be on alert.

According to a report in The Himalayan Times, both Bhattarai and Pokharel had attended a meeting of the Council of Ministers on Thursday.

Bhattarai had also met India’s Ambassador to Nepal Vinay Mohan Kwatra on Friday to discuss ways to promote tourism in both countries.

Kwatra has quarantined himself.

However, his health is good and he has not developed any symptoms of infection, Indian Embassy spokesperson Abhishek Dubey said on Sunday.

Trump free of COVID-19 symptoms since 24 hours, didn’t show fever in four days: Doctor

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The president is confronted by dire polling numbers ahead of the November 3 election, which comes as the economy struggles to recover from COVID shutdowns.

US President Donald Trump removes his mask as he stands on the Blue Room Balcony upon returning to the White House in Washington

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has been free of COVID-19 symptoms for 24 hours and has not had a fever in four days, his doctor said Wednesday. “The president this morning says ‘I feel great,'” doctor Sean Conley said in a brief update.

Trump tested positive last week and was hospitalized at the Walter Reed military medical center late Friday evening, returning to the White House on Monday evening. “His physical exam and vital signs, including oxygen saturation and respiratory rate, all remain stable and in normal range,” the doctor’s statement said.

Canada to ban single-use plastics such as bags, straws by end of 2021

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According to Ottawa, Canadians throw away three million tonnes of plastic waste each year — including 15 billion bags annually, and 57 million straws daily.

PLastic straws

OTTAWA: Checkout bags, straws and four other single-use plastic items will be banned in Canada by the end of 2021, the environment minister announced Wednesday, while acknowledging the nation is trailing Europe in recycling efforts.

The ban – which also targets stir sticks, six-pack rings, cutlery, and food ware made from hard-to-recycle plastics – is part of a broader plan to eliminate plastics waste by 2030, which is at the heart of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s climate and environmental agenda.

But Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson acknowledged, “We are not leading the world in this. Many countries in Europe, including the United Kingdom, have gone down this path and we’ve certainly learned from the work that they have done.”

According to Ottawa, Canadians throw away three million tonnes of plastic waste each year — including 15 billion bags annually, and 57 million straws daily. Only nine percent of it is recycled. Ottawa, said Wilkinson, aims to hike that to 90 percent, in line with European targets for 2029.

Wilkinson said that of the six plastic items that will be prohibited, there are already “readily available and affordable alternatives”. “There are lots of (plastics) that are going to have to continue to be single use,” he added, “But they need to be the kinds of things that we are able to recycle, that we are able to keep in the economy and not end up in the environment where they cause problems,” he said in a news conference.

Plastic lids on coffee cups was highlighted as the most visible plastic garbage in city dumps. Wilkinson said he’s still working on a fix.

Ottawa proposed as well to establish recycled content requirements in products and packaging, hoping to boost recycling and invite better product design to extend the life of plastic materials. “This could include a minimum requirement of recycled content in new products and greater responsibility for producers and sellers to collect and recycle plastics,” he said.

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