05-01-2022

New cruises in Brazil suspended
amid spread of omicron
Cruise ship activity has been temporarily
suspended along Brazil's shores until Jan. 21
due to the spread of the coronavirus' omicron
variant, according to a statement the federal
government published Monday night,
reports UNB.
The decision came after a recommendation
from the nation's health regulator, which said
in a separate statement Monday night that it
took into account the "spiraling increase of
COVID-19 cases on board ships in recent
days, which indicates a radical change in the
epidemiological scenario."
The agency highlighted an "accentuated
explosion" starting Dec. 26, with almost 800
cases detected on cruise ships in just nine
days - 25 times the total seen over the prior 55
days and likely stemming from spread of the
omicron variant, it said.
Members of the government met with
representatives of the cruise companies
earlier Monday, according to the federal
government's statement. A statement from
the Brazilian office of the Cruise Lines
International Association said the suspension
was a voluntary measure adopted by the
Thousands of flights canceled, delayed
at start of workweek in US
A winter storm that hit the mid-Atlantic
on Monday combined with pandemiccaused
shortages of airline workers to
push flight cancellations to a holidayseason
high, creating more frustration
for travelers just trying to get home,
reports UNB.
More than 3,000 U.S. flights and
about 4,800 worldwide were canceled
by late afternoon Monday on the East
Coast, according to tracking service
FlightAware. Another 13,000 flights
were delayed, including more than
6,000 in the U.S.
Travelers could take hope from an
improving weather forecast: Airlines
had canceled fewer than 400 U.S. flights
scheduled for Tuesday.
First, however, they had to contend
with a winter storm that dumped several
inches of snow on the District of
Columbia, northern Virginia and central
Maryland before quitting Monday
afternoon.
The cancellations and delays added to
the despair felt over the weekend by
holidays travelers trying to get home.
Jason Pevitt was stuck at the Atlanta
airport for eight hours - and counting -
by Monday evening, trying to get home
companies as a means to align themselves
with federal government, the health
regulator, states and municipalities.
Its statement said no new departures will
take place until Jan. 21, but that ongoing
cruises will finish their itineraries as planned.
Cruise lines MSC Cruzeiros and Costa
Cruzeiros operate in Brazil.
"In recent weeks, the two affected cruise
companies have experienced a series of
situations that directly impact ships'
operations, making continuation of the cruise
ships impractical at this moment," the
statement said. "Moreover, operational
uncertainty has caused significant
inconvenience for guests."
Yesterday in Rio de Janeiro, health
authorities inspected an MSC vessel and
found more than two dozen passengers
infected. Passengers aboard waited six hours
to disembark and the health regulator
ordered those who tested positive to
quarantine at home or in hotels. The ship was
allowed to continue operating and, after
others embarked, headed for northeastern
Bahia state.
to Virginia after spending the holidays
with his family in Tampa, Florida. He
was growing increasingly anxious about
the risk of COVID-19 transmission in the
terminal.
American Airlines canceled Pevitt's
original flight to Washington's Reagan
National Airport long before a winter
storm system hit the Washington area
Monday. He rebooked on Delta Air
Lines but got hit with more cancellations
after a stopover in Atlanta - this time
clearly due to the storm.
"There is just never a reason given for
anything. That's my biggest issue," said
the 28-year-old, who works for an
accounting company.
Many other travelers tweeted at the
airlines to complain about last-minute
cancellations and long delays, lost bags
and hourslong hold times to reach
anybody in customer service. Some said
they slept in airports.
The toll of grounded flights in the U.S.
was in the few hundreds per day the
week before Christmas, then soared past
1,000 a day. Airlines blamed crew
shortages on the spreading virus,
including the highly transmissible
omicron variant - new cases tripled over
weDneSDAY, JAnUArY 5, 2022
7
Cruise ship activity has been temporarily suspended along Brazil's shores until Jan. 21 due to the spread of the coronavirus'
omicron variant, according to a statement the federal government published Monday night.
Photo : AP
the past two weeks, according to figures
from Johns Hopkins University.
Airlines and passengers lucked out for
several days with mostly favorable
weather, but that changed when a winter
storm hit the Midwest on Saturday and
caused cancellations to spike again to
new holiday-season highs.
Over the weekend, about 5,400 U.S.
flights were canceled - nearly 12% of all
scheduled flights - and more than 9,000
worldwide, according to FlightAware. By
Monday afternoon, about 18,000 U.S.
flights had been canceled since
Christmas Eve.
Many of the cancellations were made
hours or even a day in advance. Airline
believe they have a better chance to keep
lighter schedules on track, and it saves
passengers from making needless trips
to the airport.
More than three-quarters of Monday's
scheduled flights at Ronald Reagan
Washington National Airport and nearly
half of those at nearby
Baltimore/Washington International
Thurgood Marshall Airport were
scrubbed, according to FlightAware.
Both airports received more than six
inches of snow.
A winter storm that hit the mid-Atlantic on Monday combined with pandemic-caused shortages of
airline workers to push flight cancellations to a holiday-season high, creating more frustration for
travelers just trying to get home.
Photo : AP
Climate change, new
construction mean
more ruinous fires
NEW YORK : The winter
grassland fire that blew up
along Colorado's Front
Range was rare, experts say,
but similar events will be
more common in the
coming years as climate
change warms the planet -
sucking the moisture out of
plants - suburbs grow in fireprone
areas and people
continue to spark
destructive blazes.
"These fires are different
from most of the fires we've
been seeing across the West,
in the sense that they're
grass fires and they're
occurring in the winter,"
said Jonathan Overpeck, a
professor in the School for
Environment and
Sustainability at the
University of Michigan.
Why are so many vaccinated
people getting COVID-19 lately?
A couple of factors are at play, starting with
the emergence of the highly contagious
omicron variant. Omicron is more likely to
infect people, even if it doesn't make them
very sick, and its surge coincided with the
holiday travel season in many places, reports
UNB.
People might mistakenly think the
COVID-19 vaccines will completely block
infection, but the shots are mainly designed
to prevent severe illness, says Louis Mansky,
a virus researcher at the University of
Minnesota.
And the vaccines are still doing their job on
that front, particularly for people who've
gotten boosters.
Two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or
Moderna vaccines or one dose of the
Johnson and Johnson vaccine still offer
strong protection against serious illness from
omicron. While those initial doses aren't very
good at blocking omicron infection, boosters
- particularly with the Pfizer and Moderna
vaccines - rev up levels of the antibodies to
help fend off infection.
Omicron appears to replicate much more
efficiently than previous variants. And if
infected people have high virus loads, there's
a greater likelihood they'll pass it on to
others, especially the unvaccinated.
Vaccinated people who get the virus are
more likely to have mild symptoms, if any,
since the shots trigger multiple defenses in
your immune system, making it much more
difficult for omicron to slip past them all.
Advice for staying safe hasn't changed.
Doctors say to wear masks indoors, avoid
crowds and get vaccinated and boosted.
Even though the shots won't always keep you
from catching the virus, they'll make it much
more likely you stay alive and out of the
hospital.
US close to ending
buried nuke waste
cleanup at Idaho site
BOISE : A lengthy project to
dig up and remove
radioactive and hazardous
waste buried for decades in
unlined pits at a nuclear
facility that sits atop a giant
aquifer in eastern Idaho is
nearly finished, U.S. officials
said, reports UNB.
The U.S. Department of
Energy said last week that it
removed the final amount of
specifically-targeted buried
waste from a 97-acre (39-
hectare) landfill at its 890-
square-mile (2,300-squarekilometer)
site that includes
the Idaho National
Laboratory.
The targeted radioactive
waste included plutoniumcontaminated
filters,
graphite molds, sludges
containing solvents and
oxidized uranium generated
during nuclear weapons
production work at the Rocky
Flats Plant in Colorado. Some
radioactive and hazardous
remains in the Idaho landfill
that will receive an earthen
cover.
The waste from Rocky Flats
was packaged in storage
drums and boxes before
being sent from 1954 to 1970
to the high-desert, sagebrush
steppe of eastern Idaho
where it was buried in
unlined pits and trenches.
The area lies about 50 miles
(80 kilometers) west of the
city of Idaho Falls.
The cleanup project, started
in 2005, is named the
Accelerated Retrieval Project
and is one of about a dozen
cleanup efforts of nuclear waste
finished or ongoing at the
Energy Department site.
Chinese mainland reports
101 locally transmitted
COVID-19 cases
BEIJING : The Chinese
mainland on Sunday
reported 101 new locally
transmitted COVID-19
cases, the National Health
Commission said in its daily
report on Monday.
Of the new local cases, 92
were reported in Shaanxi,
and nine were reported in
Zhejiang, the commission
said.
Also reported were 60 new
imported cases in 13
provincial-level regions,
according to the
commission.
No new suspected cases or
new deaths from COVID-19
were reported on Sunday, it
added.
The total number of
confirmed COVID-19 cases
on the mainland had
reached 102,666 by Sunday,
including 3,127 patients still
receiving treatment, of
whom 22 were in severe
condition.
A total of 94,903 patients
had been discharged from
hospitals on the mainland,
and 4,636 had died as a
result of the virus.
A total of 35 asymptomatic
cases were newly reported
Sunday, 31 of whom arrived
from outside the mainland.
Fighting intensifies in eastern
Colombia; at least 23 killed
BOGOTA : At least 23 people were killed in
Colombia this weekend and 20 had to flee their
homes as fighting between rebel groups
intensified in the eastern state of Arauca,
Colombia's Defense Minister said Monday,
reports UNB.
The killings mark a setback for Colombia's
government, which was able to bring down
homicide rates in much of the country
following a 2016 peace deal with the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. But
it is now struggling to control violence in rural
pockets of the country where smaller rebel
groups and drug trafficking organizations are
fighting over smuggling routes, coca fields,
illegal mines and other assets.
Arauca is home to some of Colombia's
largest oil wells and is also crossed by a pipeline
that is regularly attacked by rebel groups that
steal its oil. The state borders Venezuela and
drug trafficking groups have been fighting over
its smuggling routes for decades.
In a statement Monday, Colombia's army
said the latest outbreak of violence was caused
by fighting between the National Liberation
Omicron upends return to
US schools and workplaces
Some school systems around
the U.S. extended their
holiday break Monday or
switched back to online
instruction because of the
explosion in COVID-19 cases,
while others pressed ahead
with in-person classes amid a
seemingly growing sense that
Americans will have to learn
to co-exist with the virus,
reports UNB.
Caught between pleas from
teachers fearful of infection
and parents who want their
children in class, school
districts in cities such as New
York, Milwaukee, Chicago,
Detroit and beyond found
themselves in a difficult
position midway through the
academic year because of the
super-contagious omicron
variant.
New York City, home of the
nation's largest school
system, reopened classrooms
to roughly 1 million students
with a stockpile of take-home
COVID-19 test kits and plans
to double the number of
random tests done in schools.
"We are going to keep our
schools open and ensure that
our children are in a safe
environment," newly swornin
Mayor Eric Adams said.
New Yorker Trisha White
said that she feels the risk is
the same for her 9-year-old
son in or out of school and
that being with classmates is
far better for him than
remote learning.
"He could get the virus
outside of school," she said as
she dropped the boy off. "So
what can you do? You know,
I wouldn't blame the school
system. They're trying their
best."
While the teachers union
had asked the mayor to
postpone in-person learning
for a week, city officials have
long said that mask
requirements, testing and
other safety measures mean
that children are safe in
school. The city also has a
vaccination mandate for
employees.
New cases of COVID-19 in
the city shot up from a daily
average of about 17,000 in
the week before the holidays
to nearly 37,000 last week.
Across the U.S., new
COVID-19 cases have tripled
in the past two weeks to over
400,000 a day, the highest
level on record, amid a rush
Army, or ELN, guerrilla group and former
members of the FARC who refused to join the
peace deal. The army said that both groups are
currently fighting for dominance over the
area's drug trade.
Juan Carlos Villate, a human rights officer in
the town of Tame, told Colombia's Blu Radio
that he received reports of civilians who were
dragged out of their homes and executed on
Sunday by members of armed groups. Villate
said that he had reports of 50 people who went
missing and 27 who were killed over the
weekend. Human Rights Watch said it has
received reports of 24 deaths, as well as forced
displacements and abductions.
"It appears that the alliance between the
ELN and dissidents with the 10th Front of the
FARC in the zone has broken," said the group's
Colombia expert, Juan Pappier.
Arauca last year received hundreds of
refugees who fled from neighboring
Venezuela following fighting between the
Venezuelan army and FARC splinter groups
that also operate on the Venezuelan side of the
border.
by many Americans to get
tested.
The high infection rates
and resulting worker
shortages are putting a heavy
burden on employers large
and small. Thousands of
airline flights have been
canceled in recent days, and
many businesses have
shelved return-to-work
plans.
Weekend garbage
collection was delayed in
New Orleans, and jury trials
in several Colorado counties
were suspended. Some
libraries on New York's Long
Island and a ski resort in New
Hampshire had to close. A
restaurant owner in Atlanta
has spent $700 on rapid test
kits and resorted to testing
workers in the parking lot to
make sure he had enough
help to staff a recent dinner
shift.
Dawn Crawley, CEO of
House Cleaning Heroes, a
cleaning service based in
Herndon, Virginia, said she
had to cancel four of 20
cleaning jobs for Tuesday
because four employees
were sick - three with
COVID-19.
Some school systems around the U.S. extended their holiday break Monday or
switched back to online instruction because of the explosion in COVID-19 cases,
while others pressed ahead with in-person classes amid a seemingly growing
sense that Americans will have to learn to co-exist with the virus. Photo : AP