The administration of US President Joe Biden and states are pushing for more vaccinations while the country experiences an increase in coronavirus cases caused by the highly transmissible Delta variant.
“If you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalised, you’re not going to be in the [intensive care] unit, and you’re not going to die,” Mr Biden said at a forum at Mount St Joseph University on Wednesday night, which was organised by CNN.
“So, it’s gigantically important that … we all act like Americans who care about our fellow Americans.”
US hospital admissions and deaths are nearly all among the unvaccinated.
But Covid-19 cases almost tripled in the US over the past two weeks amid vaccine misinformation, with the new surge straining hospitals and exhausting doctors.
Across the US, the seven-day rolling average for daily new cases rose to more than 37,000 on Tuesday, up from fewer than 13,700 on July 6, data from Johns Hopkins University showed.
As the president's wife, Jill Biden, took off on Wednesday on the way to Tokyo for the Olympics, she stopped in Alaska, where she praised efforts to vaccinate residents in the rugged, remote state.
But Dr Biden said the work was not done.
Alaska, like other states in the country, is seeing case numbers rise and health officials have expressed concern over flattening vaccination rates.
Vaccinations are slowing to an average of 443,000 doses administered daily, in a seven-day average recorded by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
This is down from an average of three million daily immunisations in the spring.
“Even as we celebrate the progress we’ve made, we know that this last push is really the hardest of all,” Dr Biden said while visiting the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium in Anchorage.
Having more people vaccinated will mean making the case “person by person", she said.
Some states where vaccine hesitancy remains high have joined others in offering cash prizes for those willing to take the vaccine.
Missouri on Wednesday announced an incentive programme that includes $10,000 prizes and scholarships for 900 winners.
The winners will be chosen every two weeks from August 13 to October 8, with previously and newly vaccinated adults and children eligible.
The state’s vaccination rate is about 40 per cent while the national rate for people over 12 years who have received at least one vaccine dose is about 66 per cent, CDC figures show.
The rise in cases is largely affecting the unvaccinated, but the Delta variant poses some challenges as it has also caused some breakthrough cases in inoculated people.
About 57 per cent of the vaccine-eligible population in the US has been fully vaccinated.
Almost 610,000 people in the US have died from Covid-19, Johns Hopkins University data showed.
Infiniti QX80 specs
Engine: twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6
Power: 450hp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: From Dh450,000, Autograph model from Dh510,000
Available: Now
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Electric scooters: some rules to remember
- Riders must be 14-years-old or over
- Wear a protective helmet
- Park the electric scooter in designated parking lots (if any)
- Do not leave electric scooter in locations that obstruct traffic or pedestrians
- Solo riders only, no passengers allowed
- Do not drive outside designated lanes
Five ways to get fit like Craig David (we tried for seven but ran out of time)
Start the week as you mean to go on. So get your training on strong on a Monday.
Train hard, but don’t take it all so seriously that it gets to the point where you’re not having fun and enjoying your friends and your family and going out for nice meals and doing that stuff.
Think about what you’re training or eating a certain way for — don’t, for example, get a six-pack to impress somebody else or lose weight to conform to society’s norms. It’s all nonsense.
Get your priorities right.
And last but not least, you should always, always chill on Sundays.
The biog
Favourite car: Ferrari
Likes the colour: Black
Best movie: Avatar
Academic qualifications: Bachelor’s degree in media production from the Higher Colleges of Technology and diploma in production from the New York Film Academy
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
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What are NFTs?
Are non-fungible tokens a currency, asset, or a licensing instrument? Arnab Das, global market strategist EMEA at Invesco, says they are mix of all of three.
You can buy, hold and use NFTs just like US dollars and Bitcoins. “They can appreciate in value and even produce cash flows.”
However, while money is fungible, NFTs are not. “One Bitcoin, dollar, euro or dirham is largely indistinguishable from the next. Nothing ties a dollar bill to a particular owner, for example. Nor does it tie you to to any goods, services or assets you bought with that currency. In contrast, NFTs confer specific ownership,” Mr Das says.
This makes NFTs closer to a piece of intellectual property such as a work of art or licence, as you can claim royalties or profit by exchanging it at a higher value later, Mr Das says. “They could provide a sustainable income stream.”
This income will depend on future demand and use, which makes NFTs difficult to value. “However, there is a credible use case for many forms of intellectual property, notably art, songs, videos,” Mr Das says.
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
Director: Scott Cooper
Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Odessa Young, Jeremy Strong
Rating: 4/5
