Month: October 2020

The COVID-19 vaccines are coming.The question is, who gets them first? And who is next in line?Two companies say that by late November, they expect to have initial results from clinical trials showing whether their vaccines are safe and effective. Several others are not far behind.But there won’t be enough for everyone at first. Hard decisions have to be made about who gets it and who doesn’t. So, public health experts are laying out guidelines that aim to do the most good with a limited resource.Two expert panels have made recommendations already — the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and Johns Hopkins University.But things get complicated quickly.”When you see these kinds of simple frameworks, they’re very important. But the devil’s in the details here,” said William Moss, executive director of the Johns Hopkins University International Vaccine Access Center.Front line, front of the lineFirst in line, experts agree, should be health care workers directly dealing with COVID-19 patients. They’re at high risk of infection and they are also critical to keeping society running.But who, exactly, counts as a health care worker? Doctors and nurses treating COVID-19 patients, clearly. Maintenance workers on the COVID wards, almost certainly. Cooks in nursing homes, possibly. But the farther you get from the bedside, the murkier it gets.”If you are someone who is an administrator, it depends,” said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.For example, maybe office personnel who have patients sign forms should be vaccinated, he said.It may be …

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said he has canceled a deal to buy a Chinese-developed vaccine against the coronavirus, a day after his health minister announced Brazil would purchase millions of doses of CoronaVac.Bolsonaro said Wednesday that the intentions of Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria, one of his leading opponents, were distorted, saying he already canceled the deal before Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello signed it.Pazuello said in a statement that there was “no commitment” to buy the vaccine, only a “non-binding memorandum of understanding between the health ministry and the Butantan Institute” to test and produce the vaccine.Bolsonaro, who said he would not let Brazilians be guinea pigs for the Sinovac drug, is promoting the purchase of another vaccine developed by Oxford University in Britain.Brazil is helping to test both of vaccines in the final stage of clinical trials.Meantime, The Wall Street Journal reports, a Brazilian health regulator says the clinical trials of the vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca PLC will continue although a volunteer died.Both Oxford University and AstraZeneca reportedly found no safety issues which warranted the trial being stopped. …

The number of nations with more than 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases has risen to seven.Spain and France are the latest nations to reach the unfortunate mark, according to data compiled by the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. The United States tops the list with more than 8.3 million total cases, followed by India (7.6 million), Brazil (5.3 million), Russia (1.4 million) and Argentina, which has 1,037,325. Spain is in sixth place with 1,005,325 cases, followed by France with 1,000,369.Spain and France are also the first nations in Western Europe to record more than 1 million COVID-19 infections.Scores of researchers around the world are racing to develop a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19, which has killed more than 1.1 million people around the globe and sickened more than 41.1 million.Brazil’s health authority Anvisa said Wednesday that a volunteer in a late-stage clinical trial of a vaccine developed by British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca had died but gave no further details about the circumstances.The volunteer was one of the 8,000 who either received the actual vaccine or a false drug known as a placebo. Because the testing has not been suspended, sources say the volunteer was likely a part of the control group that received the placebo.The AstraZeneca vaccine, developed in cooperation with Britain’s University of Oxford, is being tested in large-scale Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials in several nations, including the United States, Britain, South Africa and India. The drug maker temporarily put the trial on hold last …

As Australia’s most populous state eases more COVID-19 restrictions, experts say the nation has brought the epidemic “right under control.” One leading commentator says he “can’t find another country that has smashed the virus” as well as Australia.Life in much of Australia is beginning to resemble what it was before COVID-19.On Friday, more restrictions will be relaxed in the state of New South Wales. Places of worship will be allowed to have up to 300 people, while the capacity of gyms will also increase. Some 40,000 sports fans are expected to attend the final of the National Rugby League competition in Sydney on Sunday.Across Australia, a nation of 25 million people, there is cautious optimism that, for now, at least, the coronavirus is being contained. More than 27,400 COVID-19 cases and 900 deaths have been recorded since it was first detected in Australia in late January; 8.3 million tests have been carried out.Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said that the closure of Australia’s borders to foreign travelers in March has also been critical.“What we have seen is that around the country, we have done incredibly well and there are four defenses; our international borders, testing, which has been uniformly good around all of the states and territories, tracing, which has overwhelmingly been outstanding, with New South Wales the gold standard,” he said. “Victoria had real challenges, but it is improving, and I think that is a very important message, and the distancing.”International travel into and out of Australia is expected …

Having a cold might protect sufferers from a severe case of COVID-19, new research shows.COVID-19 patients who had recently been infected with a common cold virus were less likely to die or require intensive care compared with those who did not have a recent cold, according to the study published recently in the Medical staff of the intensive care unit of the Casalpalocco COVID-19 Clinic in the outskirts of Rome tend to patients, Oct. 21, 2020. (Associated Press)Sagar and his colleagues compared people who’d had a recent common cold infection with those who had not. They found that both groups contracted COVID-19 at the same rate, but people who had recently beaten a common cold experienced less severe COVID-19 symptoms.“They were much less likely to require admission to the intensive care unit. And they were much less likely to die from the infection,” said Sagar.For many adults and most children, COVID-19 causes only minor coldlike symptoms or no symptoms at all. In these people, the immune system effectively clears away virus particles and destroys infected cells, preventing serious disease.But the “immune system is a double-edged sword,” said Andrea Cox, professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Exaggerated or poorly regulated immune responses can cause inflammation that leads to breathing troubles, organ failure and death. These severe outcomes usually occur in the elderly or people with other conditions, such as obesity and diabetes.Such vastly different responses to the COVID-19 virus could be explained, in part, by the immune system’s past experiences, experts say. …

The U.S. Justice Department said Wednesday that Purdue Pharma, maker of the powerful opioid painkiller OxyContin, pleaded guilty to three federal criminal charges and agreed to pay more than $8 billion in fines.   OxyContin is a prescription drug that many experts said helped spark a nationwide opioid epidemic in the U.S. that is responsible for more than 470,000 overdose deaths since 2000.   As part of the settlement, Purdue Pharma admitted that it misled the federal government by falsely stating it maintained a program to avoid the transfer of controlled substances from individuals for whom they were prescribed to other people for illicit use.   Purdue Pharma also admitted it violated federal laws by paying physicians to write more prescriptions for its opioids and to use electronic health records software to influence the prescription of pain medication.   The company also admitted to violating federal law by “knowingly and intentionally” conspiring to “aid and abet” the dispensing of medication from doctors “without a legitimate medical purpose.”   The plea agreement does not protect the company’s executives or members of the Sackler family, which owns the company, from criminal liability.   When announcing the settlement in Washington, Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said, “Just as the department prosecutes illicit drug traffickers, the department is committed to doing the same with respect to abuse and diversion of prescription opioids.”   Rosen added, “Today’s announcement focuses on the problems from wrongful activities in the prescription opioids realm, so let me note that …

British Prime Boris Johnson pushed back again Wednesday on opposition efforts to implement a two-week “circuit-breaker” nationwide lockdown to stem the spread of coronavirus cases in the country.In the House of Commons, Opposition Labor Party leader Keir Starmer said Johnson’s regional three-tiered alert system has not been working and that more drastic measures need to be put in place.The system, implemented more than a week ago, classifies regions of the country as medium, high or very high virus risk, based on their levels of new cases. In the highest risk areas, pubs are closed, residents from one household are barred from mixing with another, and travel in and out of the area is discouraged.An information on COVID-19 sign is seen during stricter restrictions due to the coronavirus disease outbreak in Sheffield, Britain, Oct. 21, 2020. (Reuters)Starmer said infection rates continue to surge — locking some regions in the northeast, especially, into Tier Three, while moving others from Tier Two to Three — indicating to him that none of the measures is working. He said the measures are “the worst of both worlds,” causing “significant economic harm without getting the virus sufficiently under control” to lift the restrictions.Starmer accused Johnson of having no exit strategy for the government’s plan and said there is a clear choice: weeks of prolonged agony under the tiered system, or a two-week, nationwide “circuit breaker” lockdown. He noted that Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each had announced either lockdowns or near-lockdowns beginning Friday.Johnson defended the government’s …

A Senegalese anti-cancer group is encouraging women to get mammograms after a drop in the number of women getting screened because of coronavirus concerns, as Estelle Ndjandjo reports from Dakar.Camera: Estelle NdjandjoProduced by: Barry Unger …

A spacecraft from the U.S. space agency NASA briefly touched an asteroid Tuesday on a mission to collect dust and pebbles to bring back to Earth.The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft — an acronym for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer — carried out the operation on the asteroid Bennu located about 321 million kilometers from Earth.NASA said telemetry data from the spacecraft indicated the mission went as expected, but that scientists will need a week to confirm how much material the spacecraft was able to collect.NASA Plans to Land First Woman on the Moon in 2024Lunar landing will be America’s first since 1972If the amount is not enough, the spacecraft will carry out a second attempt at another location on Bennu in January.Scientists are interested in Bennu because they believe it contains material from the early solar system and may contain the molecular precursors to life and Earth’s oceans.  “A piece of primordial rock that has witnessed our solar system’s entire history may now be ready to come home for generations of scientific discovery, and we can’t wait to see what comes next,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.The asteroid is about as tall as the Empire State Building and could potentially threaten Earth late in the next century, with a 1‐in‐2,700 chance of affecting our planet during one of its close approaches.  The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will orbit the asteroid until next year, when it will begin its journey home to Earth. It is expected to land with the …

A FILE – Personnel at the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention work at the Emergency Operations Center in response to the 2019 novel coronavirus, Feb. 13, 2020, in Atlanta.The CDC found that the number of excess deaths of adults between 25 and 44 years of age rose 26.5 during that time frame, the biggest increase among all age groups.  There was also a high percentage of excess deaths among people of color: Hispanics experienced a 56% increase, while Blacks sustained a 33% rise, far higher than the 12% increase among white Americans. Hispanics and Blacks, as well as elderly Americans, have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. FILE – A ‘promotora’ (health promoter) from CASA, a Hispanic advocacy group, tries to enroll Latinos as volunteers to test a potential COVID-19 vaccine, at a farmers market in Takoma Park, Md., on Sept. 9, 2020.The United States officially leads the world with more than 221,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s FILE – Police check details of residents in the Melbourne central business district in Australia’s worst-hit Victoria state, Aug. 9, 2020, as the city struggles to cope with COVID-19 pandemic.Experts are conducting genomic sequencing and other tests to determine if the man has been reinfected. If the preliminary diagnosis is confirmed, the man would be the first Australian to be reinfected with the disease, and just the sixth case of reinfection in the world.   Impact on travel industry The global coronavirus pandemic continues to extract …

A day after donning a face mask for the first time during a liturgical service, Pope Francis was back to his mask-less old ways Wednesday despite surging coronavirus infections across Europe and growing criticism of his behavior and the example he is setting. Francis shunned a face mask again during his Wednesday general audience in the Vatican auditorium, and didn’t wear one when he greeted a half-dozen mask-less bishops at the end. He shook hands and leaned in to chat privately with each one. While the clerics wore masks while seated during the audience, all but one took his mask off to speak to the pope. Only one kept it on, and by the end of his tete-a-tete with Francis, had lowered it under his chin. Vatican regulations now require facemasks to be worn indoors and out where distancing can’t be “always guaranteed.” The Vatican hasn’t responded to questions about why the pope wasn’t following either Vatican regulations or basic public health measures to prevent COVID-19. Francis has faced sharp criticism even from his most ardent supporters and incredulousness from some within the Vatican for refusing to wear a mask. Just this week, the Vatican expert and columnist, the Rev. Thomas Reese, wrote a blistering, tough-love open letter to the pope offering him six reasons he should wear a mask and urging like-minded faithful to troll the pope’s @Pontifex Twitter feed to shame him into setting a better example. “You’re the boss; you should follow your own rules,” Reese wrote. …

Doctors know that viruses can affect pregnant women and their developing fetuses. They are scrambling now to understand the effects of COVID-19 on pregnancies. VOA’s Carol Pearson has more.Producer: Bronwyn Benito   …

Hispanics, Blacks and Asian Americans in the U.S. have been dying at disproportionately higher rates from the coronavirus compared to white Americans, government health experts reported Tuesday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a new report that from late January — when the pandemic first hit U.S. shores from China and Europe — through early October, deaths of white people were about 12% higher than in the same months of the four previous years. But the CDC said deaths of Hispanics in that 2020 timeframe were 53.6% higher than in recent years, with deaths of Blacks up 32.9% and Asian Americans by 36.6%. “These disproportionate increases among certain racial and ethnic groups are consistent with noted disparities in COVID-19 mortality,” the CDC said. The federal health agency said the largest percentage increase in deaths was seen among individuals ages 25 to 44. In absolute numbers, people under age 25 fared best with 841 excess deaths. The total number of excess deaths compared to recent years ranged from 841 fatalities in people younger than 25 to 94,646 among those ages 75 to 84. The U.S. has now recorded more than 220,000 coronavirus deaths and 8.2 million infections, according to Johns Hopkins University. Both figures are the highest of any country across the globe.    …

The World Food Program reports food insecurity is increasing worldwide because of the devastating socio-economic impact of COVID-19, with tens of millions of people on the verge of famine.Hunger is on the rise as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage across the world. Last year, the World Food Program, the world’s largest humanitarian operation fighting hunger, provided food aid to nearly 100 million people.  Amer Daoudi is WFP senior director of operations and corporate response.  He tells VOA the number of people who do not know where their next meal is coming from has risen by 39 percent this year.“So, the global figure is the immediate need 138 million but if the situation continues to deteriorate, we can end up with almost 260 million people in critical need,” Daoudi said.   The latest Integrated Phase Classification, a system that gauges the severity of food emergencies finds 146 million people in 49 countries are facing an acute food and livelihood crisis.  The IPC finds another 29 million people in 36 countries are on the verge of famine.Daoudi says WFP will need $5.1 billion to deal with this hunger crisis over the next six months.  He says countries in Africa are among those in greatest need.  He notes 13 million people in the Central Sahelian countries of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have been laid low by the pandemic as well as by conflict and climate change.  He says they will require life-saving food assistance.“We are seeing the knock-on effect of COVID, whether it is on …

The British government is supporting human trials for a potential COVID-19 vaccine in which healthy human subjects will be infected with the virus to accelerate the process.The tests will be conducted by Imperial College London as part of a partnership between government, laboratory and trial services company hVIVO and the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.The government is providing $43.5 million to fund the project, which, if approved by regulators and an ethics committee, would start in January with results expected by May 2021.Researchers say they are seeking recruits between the ages of 18 and 30 with no previous history or symptoms of COVID-19 and no underlying health conditions or adverse factors. They say in the initial phase of the testing, their goal would be to discover the least amount of the virus it takes to infect a person.Once that phase is complete, the researchers say they would study how the vaccine works in the body to stop or prevent COVID-19 and investigate possible treatments.The risk for the volunteers is that at the time of their infection, there will be no known cure. The Imperial College lead researcher on the project, Dr. Chris Chiu, insists the safety of the volunteers is the number one priority.  He said while no study like this is risk free, but scientists would work as hard as possible to limit the risks.The upside, Chiu says, is that these so-called “human challenge studies” can increase understanding of a virus like COVID-19 in unique ways and accelerate …

U.S. first lady Melania Trump will not join President Donald Trump on the campaign trail Tuesday because of a lingering cough from COVID-19, according to her chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham. Grisham said Tuesday that Mrs. Trump’s health continues to improve daily after she and the president announced in early October that they had contracted the infectious disease. The first lady has decided not to accompany Trump to a campaign rally Tuesday night in Erie, Pennsylvania, “out of an abundance of caution,” Grisham said. Melania Trump, who announced last week that she had recovered from COVID-19, made her last public appearance during the September 29 debate between Trump and Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden.   …

Britain’s finance minister Tuesday defended the government’s localized three-tiered approach to fighting the spread of COVID-19 in the country, saying another national lockdown would carry too heavy a cost.Finance Chief Rishi Sunak, also known as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, spoke to the House of Commons Tuesday about the government’s approach and said the government did not rule out tougher restrictions. But when opposition party members called for a temporary two-week “circuit breaker” lockdown — as suggested last week by Britain’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), Sunak asked the members to “acknowledge the stark reality” of the economic impact of such a lockdown.   He said the circuit breaker lockdown would cause unnecessary pain and suffering on those in parts of the country where the virus prevalence is low. A localized approach is the best approach,” he said.   Opposition Labor Party Leader Keir Starmer last week called for the circuit breaker lockdown after SAGE made the recommendation. But Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has resisted that recommendation in favor of a three-tiered COVID-19 alert system.   Johnson’s plan includes areas classified as medium, high or very high virus risk. In the top tier, pubs must close, and people are barred from mixing with members of other households. So far, only the Liverpool and Lancashire regions of northwest England have been placed in Tier 3, the highest level.   Nearby Greater Manchester, with a population of almost 3 million, has been holding out for more support for workers and businesses …

A spacecraft from U.S. space agency NASA is set to touch an asteroid, break off a sample and bring it back to Earth for the first time during a history-making mission that culminates Tuesday.The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft — an acronym for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer — is set to attempt a touch-and-go sample collection on the asteroid Bennu later Tuesday afternoon. Starting at just before 2 p.m. Eastern time, the spacecraft will begin its set of maneuvers to slowly descend to the Nightingale landing spot on the surface of the asteroid to collect the sample. The event is expected to take more than four hours.In a statement on its website, NASA says OSIRIS-REx is about the size of a large passenger van, has been orbit orbiting the asteroid since 2018 and is now more than 321 million kilometers from Earth. Scientists are interested in Bennu because they believe it contains material from the early solar system and may contain the molecular precursors to life and Earth’s oceans.The asteroid is about as tall as the Empire State Building and could potentially threaten Earth late in the next century, with a 1‐in‐2,700 chance of affecting our planet during one of its close approaches.The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will orbit the asteroid until next year, when it will begin its journey home to Earth. It is expected to land with the sample in 2023.  …

Former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya is taking part in Phase 3 trials of a potential coronavirus vaccine.  Venezuelan state television showed Zelaya receiving a shot of Russia’s experimental Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in Caracas on Monday.  Venezuela is the first Latin American country to participate in the testing process.FILE – A Russian medical worker administers a shot of Russia’s experimental Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in Moscow, Russia, Sept. 15, 2020.Western experts raised questions over the Sputnik V vaccine’s readiness for mass trials, citing the fact that Russia had tested the vaccine on just a small sample group before launching widespread testing. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro discounted the criticism, expressing satisfaction Zelaya is taking part in the trials.  So far, Venezuela has confirmed more than 87,000 coronavirus cases and at least 736 deaths.  …

Argentina is now the world’s fifth country with more than one million confirmed COVID-19 cases.  Data collected by Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center shows the South American country has 1,002,662 total cases.  Argentina is in fifth place behind the United States (8.2 million), India (7.5 million), Brazil (5.2 million) and Russia (1.4 million).   The one million coronavirus cases in Argentina include 26,716 deaths.   The new figures from Argentina push the total number of worldwide coronavirus infections to more than 40.4 million cases, including 1.1 million deaths. FILE – Scientists and researchers work on a potential vaccine for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at a Pfizer’s laboratory.Reuters news agency says U.S.-based pharmaceutical firm Pfizer and German-based BioNTech have begun a combined Phase One and Phase Two trial of an experimental coronavirus vaccine in Japan.  The study will recruit 160 people between the ages of 20 and 85 to take part in the study.   The United Nations Children’s Fund says it will stockpile 500 million syringes by the end of the year, and one billion by 2021, as part of its preparations for an eventual COVID-19 vaccine.  According to U.N. News, the stockpile of one billion syringes to support the agency’s coronavirus vaccination drive is in addition to the 620 million syringes UNICEF plans to purchase for its normal vaccination programs. UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore says the push to vaccinate billions of the world’s children against COVID-19 “will be one of the largest mass undertakings in human history, and we will need to …

Former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya is taking part in Phase 3 trials of a potential coronavirus vaccine.  Venezuelan state television showed Zelaya receiving a shot of Russia’s experimental Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in Caracas on Monday.  Venezuela is the first Latin American country to participate in the testing process.FILE – A Russian medical worker administers a shot of Russia’s experimental Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in Moscow, Russia, Sept. 15, 2020.Western experts raised questions over the Sputnik V vaccine’s readiness for mass trials, citing the fact that Russia had tested the vaccine on just a small sample group before launching widespread testing. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro discounted the criticism, expressing satisfaction Zelaya is taking part in the trials.  So far, Venezuela has confirmed more than 87,000 coronavirus cases and at least 736 deaths.  …

The world has now surpassed 40 million confirmed cases of coronavirus infections, as surges of cases in Europe and the United States have led to more restrictions on residents. According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, 40.2 million people have been infected with the virus as of Monday evening, and more than 1.1 million have died from COVID-19.   Ireland announced some of the strictest measures in Europe this fall to combat a surge in cases. The government told residents not to travel more than 5 kilometers from their home, closed nonessential retail businesses, and limited restaurants and pubs to takeout only.Part of Germany’s Bavaria region will go into a strict lockdown Tuesday. Officials in Berchtesgadener Land district announced Monday that residents will not be able to leave their homes without a valid reason for two weeks. Schools, restaurants and hotels will be closed to stop the spread of the virus.   FILE – A medical staff member performs a COVID-19 test at a coronavirus test center in Cologne, Germany, Oct. 15, 2020. (AP)Wales became the second nation in Britain to lock down large parts of its economy, even as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson resisted calls to do the same throughout England. The Welsh government announced Monday it would close nonessential retail, hospitality and tourism businesses, beginning Friday.  Northern Ireland recently ordered new lockdown measures, closing schools for two weeks and shutting down many businesses, including bars and restaurants, for a month. Poland’s government said Monday it is transforming its National Stadium …

The World Health Organization says 184 countries have now joined the COVID-19 global vaccine alliance, known as COVAX, designed to speed development and ensure distribution of viable vaccines and treatments for the ailment caused by the coronavirus.At the organization’s Monday briefing at its headquarters in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Ecuador and Uruguay are the most recent nations to join the cooperative program.The WHO chief said that with more than 100 COVID-19 vaccine candidates under development, COVAX represents “the largest portfolio of potential COVID-19 vaccines and the most effective way to share safe and effective vaccines equitably across the world.”Tedros maintains that the “equitably sharing of vaccines is the fastest way to safeguard high-risk communities, stabilize health systems and drive a truly global economic recovery.”The United States is not part of the COVAX program, calling it too constraining. Earlier this year, the Trump administration said it was withdrawing support for WHO, saying they were too heavily influenced by China, which last month announced it would be part of the COVAX program. Trump has blamed China for the global spread of the disease.In his recorded remarks from Beijing to last month’s U.N. General Assembly, Chinese President Xi Jinping said any attempt to politicize the pandemic should be rejected. He said the WHO should be given a leading role in the international response to the coronavirus.  Tedros said that as the virus spreads in Europe and other parts of the world, “sharing lifesaving health supplies globally, including personal protective equipment, supplies …

Kenya is facing a second wave of coronavirus infections, just weeks after lifting tough restrictions meant to limit its spread. Kenya’s health minister on Sunday warned the country was headed for tough times after reporting more than 600 new cases and several deaths. Some experts say it might be challenging to reimpose restrictions.In late July, Wanjohi Githae, a Kenyan journalist, was at a social gathering when he hugged a friend.“In fact, it was not only me. It was a group of us who got sick. Social friends, so we realized that we were in a social place and someone came and hugged us. Then that individual told us that they had been tested in the office, and we don’t know what is happening,” he said.Githae became sick and was admitted to the hospital, where he was administered oxygen to help his breathing.The journalist said that after months of the coronavirus, people have forgotten all health protocols.“People have lowered their guard, and it’s unfortunate. I think this is because the reason why people seem to be lowering their guard is we do not know who got sick. People will say they don’t know anyone who is infected, but for the few people who had someone, a family relation or a colleague, they are taking precautions,” he said.Health officials raised the alarm after the country recorded hundreds of new cases in recent weeks and eased protocols meant to limit transmission.Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe said the country recorded seven deaths on Sunday and …