The Health Ministry today reported 1,063 new Covid-19 cases, which is the lowest figure for daily new infections since Dec 9 last year. 

Malaysians made up the majority (76.9 percent) of new cases as opposed to foreigners, who were usually infected while working in construction sites or factories.

• Active cases: 15,204
• Patients in ICUs: 152
• Intubated: 68

Deaths

There were five new Covid-19 deaths reported today. Three were reported in Sarawak while Selangor and Kuala Lumpur reported one death each.

Sarawak has reported 94 Covid-19 related deaths and ranks fifth after Johor (103), Kuala Lumpur (112), Selangor (312) and Sabah (382).

The national Covid-19 death toll stood at 1,218.

Clusters

There are currently 428 active Covid-19 clusters of which 55 saw new cases.

The cluster with the highest new cases was Medan Bayan Lepas (58 new cases). This cluster was first reported on March 9 involving factory workers at the Bayan Lepas Free Industry Zone in Penang.

The Health Ministry classified five new clusters today of which none were the result of targeted screening of workplaces, unlike all the others this month.

There were three new clusters in Sarawak alone, of which one supermarket cluster saw all 19 people tested for Covid-19 returning positive.

Jalan Kampung Hilir cluster
District(s): Sibu, Sarawak
Locality/Source: Vicinity of Jalan Kampung Hilir
Cluster category: Community
First case: March 12, index case with symptoms
Total infected: 35 out of 41 screened

Nanga Bulo cluster
District(s): Julau, Sarawak
Locality/Source: Vicinity of Nanga Bulo
Cluster category: Community
First case: March 9, index case with symptoms
Total infected: 34 out of 160 screened

Banggol Chicha cluster
District(s): Pasir Mas, Kota Bharu and Tumpat, Kelantan
Locality/Source: Vicinity of Kampung Banggol Chicha, Pasir Mas
Cluster category: Community
First case: March 13, index case detected during pre-hospitalisation screening
Total infected: 17 out of 87 screened

Jalan Sanyan cluster
District(s): Sibu, Sarawak
Locality/Source: Supermarket in Jalan Sanyan
Cluster category: Workplace
First case: March 4, close contact screening
Total infected: All 19 screened

Jalan Taiping cluster
District(s): Kepong, Cheras and Titiwangsa, Kuala Lumpur
Locality/Source: Government office near Jalan Taiping
Cluster category: Workplace
First case: March 10, index case with symptoms
Total infected: 8 out of 137 screenedhttps://newslab.malaysiakini.com/covid-19/embed/en/states-chart

Source : Malaysiakini

JALJULIA, Israel: It had been days since 14-year-old Mohammed Adas was shot dead outside his home in Israel, but his mother Suheila couldn’t bear to wash his scent off his clothes.

Mohammed’s killing was just the latest chapter in a crime epidemic ravaging Israeli Arabs – many of whom blame police racism.

“No one knows who shot him or why,” his father Abdelrazak told AFP at the family’s home in Jaljulia, near Tel Aviv.

“What I do know is that the police are 20 metres from here and if my son was Jewish there would be helicopters everywhere.”

Tackling the crime wave among the minority has become a political flashpoint ahead of Mar 23 elections.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has demonised Arab voters in the past, has pledged action as he looks for support in a community that has traditionally rejected him and his right-wing Likud party.

Most Arab Israeli leaders scoff at the suggestion that Netanyahu can ease the crisis, insisting the solution lies in tackling police prejudice against Arabs – something that has proliferated during the prime minister’s 12-year tenure.

READ: Netanyahu eyes COVID-19 vaccine victory as Israel heads for fourth vote

90 PER CENT OF SHOOTINGS

The night he died, Mohammed Adas had gone out for pizza with a friend.

Shortly afterwards, Suheila and her husband Abdelrazak heard gunshots.

Twenty minutes later, they found Mohammed lying in a pool of blood, behind a car a few metres from their home.

Suheila has since been inconsolable. Abdelrazak finds himself popping into his son’s room, desperately hoping someone is there.

According to the Abraham Initiative, a civil society group that promotes social cohesion between Arabs and Jews in Israel, Mohammed Adas was the 23rd Arab killed in the country so far this year.

A 24th was killed this week.

In 2020, more than 90 per cent of shootings in Israel took place in Arab communities, according to police.

READ: Women crowd-source their own security on Tel Aviv’s streets

“THEY HAVE CAMERAS EVERYWHERE”

Arab Israelis, Palestinians who stayed on their land following Israel’s creation in 1948, currently account for around a fifth of its population.

In Israel’s last election a year ago, Arab parties united as the Joint List coalition, securing a record 15 seats in the 120-member parliament.

But the Joint List has splintered amid ideological divisions, creating a possibility that some Arab votes may be up for grabs.

That has put the spotlight on the violence rocking the country’s Arab communities.

Kifah Aghbaria, who lives in the northern city of Umm el-Fahm, lost four relatives to crime last year.

She has demonstrated outside the city’s police station every Friday for weeks, with portraits of her dead relatives, all in their 20s and 30s, under her arm.

They were killed, she said, because they stood up to local mafia.

Solving the crisis would mean addressing police discrimination against Arabs, she said.

“They have cameras everywhere. How can they not find the criminals?”

“The fight against crime in Arab cities is a war and we are going to win it,” she added.

But she insisted that re-electing Netanyahu will not help.

Police spokesman Wassim Badr rejected accusations of inaction, telling AFP that officers were working “around the clock” to solve such crimes and had made arrests in connection with 19 of this year’s murders.

“RIDICULOUS”

The collapse of the Joint List was partly triggered by Arab lawmaker Mansour Abbas, of the conservative Islamic Raam movement, suggesting he was open to supporting Netanyahu in order to address crime.

Netanyahu’s government on Mar 1 approved a 150 million shekel (US$45 million) crime-fighting proposal for Arab communities, including expanding police stations and creating a new dedicated unit.

Netanyahu called it “major news for the Arab society in Israel”.

But Yousef Jabareen, a Joint List lawmaker with strong support in Umm el-Fahm, rejected the proposal.

He said that the prime minister is “trying in a ridiculous way to get some (political) help from within the Arab community, as if we have a short memory and don’t remember that he’s responsible for these racist (laws) and policies towards us”.

READ: Arab League and Palestinians condemn opening of Czech Jerusalem office

Netanyahu’s backing for the 2018 Nation State Law, which enshrined Israel as a state for Jews while downgrading Arabic’s status as an official language, was widely perceived as legally downgrading Arabs.

“The issue is not about adding more police, but to change the policies vis-a-vis the Arab communities,” Jabareen told AFP.

He said unemployment, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, was fuelling the violence.

And as the country gears up for elections next week, Abdelrazak Adas is waiting for answers as to why his son ended up lying dead in the street.

When Arabs kill each other, he said, “nobody cares”.

Source: AFP/kg

BERLIN: Germany, France and Italy said on Monday (Mar 15) they would suspend AstraZeneca COVID-19 shots after several countries reported possible serious side-effects, but the World Health Organization (WHO) said there was no proven link and people should not panic.

Still, the decision by the European Union’s three biggest countries to put inoculations with the AstraZeneca shot on hold threw the already struggling vaccination campaign in the 27-nation EU into disarray.

Denmark and Norway stopped giving the shot last week after reporting isolated cases of bleeding, blood clots and a low platelet count. Iceland and Bulgaria followed suit and Ireland and the Netherlands announced suspensions on Sunday.

Spain will stop using the vaccine for at least 15 days, Cadena Ser radio reported, citing unnamed sources.

The top WHO scientist reiterated on Monday that there have been no documented deaths linked to COVID-19 vaccines.

“We do not want people to panic,” Soumya Swaminathan said on a virtual media briefing, adding there has been no association, so far, pinpointed between so-called “thromboembolic events” reported in some countries and COVID-19 shots.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said an advisory committee meeting on AstraZeneca would be held on Tuesday. EU medicines regulator EMA will also convene this week to assess the information gathered into whether the AstraZeneca shot contributed to thromboembolic events in those inoculated.

The moves by some of Europe’s largest and most populous countries will deepen concerns about the slow rollout of vaccines in the region, which has been plagued by shortages due to problems producing vaccines, including AstraZeneca’s.

Germany warned last week it was facing a third wave of infections, Italy is intensifying lockdowns and hospitals in the Paris region are close to being overloaded.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn said that although the risk of blood clots was low, it could not be ruled out.

“This is a professional decision, not a political one,” Spahn said, adding he was following a recommendation of the Paul Ehrlich Institute, Germany’s vaccine regulator.

France said it was suspending the vaccine’s use pending an assessment by EMA.

“The decision taken, in conformity also with our European policy, is to suspend, out of precaution, vaccination with the AZ shot, hoping that we can resume quickly if the EMA’s guidance allows,” French President Emmanuel Macron said.

Italy said its halt was a “precautionary and temporary measure” pending EMA’s ruling.

“The EMA will meet soon to clarify any doubts so that the AstraZeneca vaccine can be resumed safely in the vaccination campaign as soon as possible,” said Gianni Rezza, Director General of Prevention at Italy’s Ministry of Health.

Austria and Spain have stopped using particular batches and prosecutors in the northern Italian region of Piedmont earlier seized 393,600 doses following the death of a man hours after he was vaccinated. It was the second region to do so after Sicily, where two people had died shortly after having their shots.

The WHO appealed to countries not to suspend vaccinations against a disease that has caused more than 2.7 million deaths worldwide. WHO Director-General Tedros said systems were in place to protect public health.

“This does not necessarily mean these events are linked to COVID-19 vaccination, but it’s routine practice to investigate them, and it shows that the surveillance system works and that effective controls are in place,” he told the media briefing.

The United Kingdom said it had no concerns, while Poland said it thought the benefits outweighed any risks.

The EMA has said that as of Mar 10, a total of 30 cases of blood clotting had been reported among close to 5 million people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca shot in the European Economic Area, which links 30 European countries.

Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton, said the decisions by France, Germany and others looked baffling.

“The data we have suggests that numbers of adverse events related to blood clots are the same (and possibly, in fact lower) in vaccinated groups compared to unvaccinated populations,” he said, adding that halting a vaccination programme had consequences.

“This results in delays in protecting people, and the potential for increased vaccine hesitancy, as a result of people who have seen the headlines and understandably become concerned. There are no signs yet of any data that really justify these decisions.”

READ: WHO urges world not to halt COVID-19 vaccinations as AstraZeneca shot divides Europe

A senior German infectious diseases physician, however, said the background incidence of 2-5 thromboses per million per year was significantly lower than the number of 7 out of 1.6 million vaccinated people cited by Germany’s health ministry.

“This should be the reason to suspend the vaccination in Germany until all cases, including suspected cases in Germany and Europe, have been completely cleared up,” said Clemens Wendtner, head of the special unit for highly contagious life threatening infections at the Schwabing Clinic in Munich.

‘UNUSUAL’ SYMPTOMS

AstraZeneca’s shot was among the first and cheapest to be developed and launched at volume since the coronavirus was first identified in central China at the end of 2019, and is set to be the mainstay of vaccination programmes in much of the developing world.

Thailand announced plans on Monday to go ahead with the Anglo-Swedish firm’s shot after suspending its use on Friday, but Indonesia said it would wait for the WHO to report.

The WHO said its advisory panel was reviewing reports related to the shot and would release its findings as soon as possible. But it said it was unlikely to change its recommendations, issued last month, for widespread use, including in countries where the South African variant of the virus may reduce its efficacy.

The EMA has also said there was no indication the events were caused by the vaccination and that the number of reported blood clots was no higher than seen in the general population.

But the handful of reported side-effects in Europe have upset vaccination programmes already stumbling over slow rollouts and vaccine scepticism in some countries.

The Netherlands said on Monday it had seen 10 cases of possible noteworthy adverse side-effects from the AstraZeneca shot, hours after putting its vaccination programme on hold following reports of potential side-effects in other countries.

Recent information indicates “a very special, rarely occurring form of thrombosis, of which some cases appear to have occurred shortly after vaccination. This is of course suspicious and should be investigated,” said Anke Huckriede, vaccinology professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Denmark reported “highly unusual” symptoms in a 60-year-old citizen who died from a blood clot after receiving the vaccine, the same phrase used on Saturday by Norway about three people under the age of 50 it said were being treated in hospital.

One of the three health workers hospitalised in Norway after receiving the AstraZeneca shot had died, health authorities said on Monday, but there was no evidence the vaccine was the cause.

AstraZeneca said earlier it had conducted a review covering more than 17 million people vaccinated in the EU and the UK which had shown no evidence of an increased risk of blood clots.

Long-awaited results from AstraZeneca’s 30,000-person US vaccine trial are now being reviewed by independent monitors to determine whether the shot is safe and effective, a top US official said on Monday.

Source: channelnewsasia

SINGAPORE and HONG KONG: As an urban farmer, Andrew Tsui values his relationship with food. And he frets that many humans of Hong Kong and Singapore, the two cities he grew up in, do not. 

The problem, according to the 43-year-old, is the “instant-noodle city lifestyle”.

“If we need something today … we can either use our smartphone (or) go downstairs. There’s always a convenience store,” he said. “Food becomes a lifeless thing that’s being put on the shelf.

“And the moment we kind of productise food, it’s the start of the broken relationship.”

It is this “consumer mindset”, for one thing, that leads to over 3,600 tonnes of food — the weight of about 250 double-decker buses — being thrown into Hong Kong’s landfills every day.

READ: Why so much edible food is thrown away in Asia, and how to fix it

In cities like Hong Kong and Singapore, more than half of food wastage happens at the retail and consumer stage.

Ever tossed half-eaten food into the bin? Or stuck some vegetables in the fridge and forgot about them until they had wilted, only to shrug it off and buy new provisions?

Singaporean Amanda Woon remembers one time she was with her boyfriend at a supermarket. “I dropped this apple … and he was like, ‘(It’s) spoilt already, don’t buy,’” recounted the 24-year-old.

Changing these mindsets to rebuild city dwellers’ relationship with food is one of the solutions that Andrew and others like him have been pursuing for some time. And they are doing it by bringing food production to the city.

The urban farming movement is not only catching on, but also addressing several issues at the heart of food wastage, CNA Insider finds out.

WATCH: Can urban farming fix our broken relationship with food? (17:00)https://www.youtube.com/embed/Cmh3S9EpvXA

CULTIVATING AN ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT

While food loss happens at every stage of the supply chain, attitudes in industrialised countries often cause wastage at dining tables.

“Perhaps one of the most important reasons for food waste at the consumption level in rich countries is that people simply can afford to waste food,” stated a report from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation.

There is also a danger of children growing up “largely desensitised to the issue of food waste”, warned Singapore University of Social Sciences senior lecturer and psychologist Tania Nagpaul.

“Generational amnesia is something that scientists are talking about a lot these days … Younger generations are completely oblivious to what life was perhaps 20 years before they were born.”

In the context of food, affordability is not the only salient fact — with food so conveniently at hand, people do not need to think about how it is actually grown, even animals.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the way supermarkets portray food becomes the norm for our younger generations because this is what chicken means to them, and they’ve not really ever seen a live chicken,” said Nagpaul.

In short, the effort and resources needed in food production may be beyond their imagination, for example the time it takes to grow potatoes (up to 120 days) and the amount of water to produce a kilogramme of apples (822 litres).

Is there a way, however, for things like that to come into people’s mind, say, when they see a bruised apple? Michelle Hong thinks so.

“The main solution that I could see was to bring the farms into the city rather than bringing the people into the farms out there,” said the Singaporean co-founder of Hong Kong social enterprise Rooftop Republic.

“The idea for us when we first started out … was to make farming very commonplace.”

Since 2015, Rooftop Republic has been helping organisations to design and run their own urban farms on top of their office buildings, hoping to expose city folk to the basics of food production.

The difference that makes, she said, is “you’re connected to food on a daily basis, in proximity to where you live, where you work and where you play”.

And it fits into the sustainability practices of more and more companies nowadays, like developer Sino Group, which is integrating urban farming across its property portfolio.

“We treasure the food and the produce that we can harvest together,” said the company’s senior sustainability manager, Melanie Kwok.

“In a city area like this, we can actually set aside our worries … and just enjoy nourishing the mind and body.”

Over in Singapore, Edible Garden City is on a similar mission, helping to set up farms in schools, malls and office buildings since 2012. Both Rooftop Republic and Edible Garden City are DBS Foundation grant winners.

“We want people to experience the entire process of growing their own food and … how hard it is,” said Bjorn Low, the social enterprise’s 39-year-old co-founder.

“It’s that individual journey they have to go through to make them appreciate food a little more.”

HOME GROWERS

There is also a movement of home growers building up in Singapore, going by the urban farming groups sprouting online, with members ranging from beginners to advanced gardeners and living even in small flats.

Woon, for example, started growing pak choi and kangkong (water spinach) on her balcony in September.

“I wanted to engage with the process of growing (food) so that I could understand what it feels like, what it means to produce my own food and to allow that to feed my family,” she said.

But her first few attempts did not go smoothly. “Every single morning, I’d wake up and (be) like, ‘Why aren’t you sprouting yet?’” she recalled. “You should be germinating in three days, and why aren’t you doing that?”

After having to wait, her seedlings turned out limp. “I got very anxious. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t fail,’” she said.

I think I put more effort into growing kangkong and bok choy than I did for my A levels.

When she finally got to see her plants grow from “this small dot” into luscious vegetables, she was “wowed”.

But did growing her own food really make her waste less? “When I was younger, I didn’t eat a lot of stems … Now I’m like, ‘You know what? Just eat it,” she cited.

“I appreciate what I’m eating and therefore I just eat the bulk of it as much as I can.”

Another home grower, Gerald Foo, realised that with his own vegetables, fruits and herbs within reach, he buys less in the supermarket and thus wastes less.

“In the past, when I wanted to cook a pasta or something, and I needed … basil or parsley, (I’d) pop down to the shops. And you know you’ve got to buy a whole packet,” said the 44-year-old.

“The rest (of the packet) ends up going to waste, whereas now I grow my own stuff … I just go and cut up (what’s needed).”

It makes his family more aware of their “impact on nature”, like the carbon miles of their food purchases.

“We’d think about … the meals that we’re going to cook in the next two or three days. And what do we need to make those meals? And then we’d buy just those things,” he added.

Having become conscious of every bit of waste they generate at home since they started growing food, both Woon and Foo are composting their scraps.

“We most recently thought about food waste as … the ends of our vegetables (that we cut off). That’s also food, and it’s now being used productively,” said Foo. “It becomes fertiliser for the next thing that I want to grow.”

Woon even has about 100 worms to produce vermicompost. “My parents also started saving their food peels for my worms,” she said proudly. “They’re aware that this is important for growing.

“Food isn’t a linear process … There’s a way of making things exist in a more circular manner.”

GOING NATIVE

Urban farming is not just about changing the way city folk value food, however; it has a hand in reducing global food wastage because “it offers an alternative supply chain”, said food waste expert Daisy Tam.

Singapore and Hong Kong currently import more than 90 per cent of their food, and this supply chain is flawed.

READ: Why our food supply chain is flawed, and these champions’ efforts to stop the waste

“In the global food system, food loss and food waste happen at every step of the way, from the field — from production — to distribution to storage,” noted Tam, an assistant professor at Hong Kong Baptist University.

“Because the supply chain is so long, we’re inevitably participating in a very wasteful system. So shortening the supply chain is one way of not participating in that.”

Notably, urban farming is one of the areas in Singapore’s Green Plan — unveiled last month — where there will be initiatives to strengthen the Republic as a location for global and local companies to develop new sustainability solutions.

READ: Singapore unveils Green Plan 2030, outlines green targets for next 10 years

Growing the demand for native edible plants may have a part to play in that effort.

Some of the vegetables Singaporeans like to eat, such as choi sum, pak choi and kailan, “aren’t climatically suited for Singapore”, pointed out Low. “They’re nicer to grow in colder climates.”

On the other hand, food such as sayur manis, ulam raja (a herb) and cat’s whiskers (another herb) grow well on the island. “(It’s) so much more ecological to grow those because they’re perennials — they don’t need re-seeding,” he said.

Paying more attention to long-neglected local species could then be a way to replace more imports. The idea is to “create a more productive landscape” beyond just urban farms.

“Instead of growing an ornamental tree, perhaps we could be growing a food-producing tree,” he suggested. “Instead of having a green plot ratio, could we come up with a nutritional index?

So if we plant one moringa tree (horseradish tree), how much protein is that producing for the community?

There are already more than 1,600 community gardens across Singapore, so he has hopes of seeing increased decentralisation in the food system. “Perhaps more community farms can also be their (supermarkets’ and wet markets’) source of supply,” he added.

These are opportunities not to be sniffed at in cities like Singapore or Hong Kong, believes Tsui — not when the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that relying “so heavily” on the “global industrial food chain” can leave populations vulnerable to disruptions.

“There are a lot of other untapped spaces, like car parks, like playgrounds, like other open areas,” said the chief executive officer of Rooftop Republic and also Hong’s husband.

“We truly believe that (by) tapping into those untapped resources … we’re able to actualise and implement a local, decentralised food system.”

So far, the social enterprise has converted 65 rooftop spaces into productive farms spanning 70,000 square feet, and worked with clients including hotels and restaurants. The potential cultivable space on Hong Kong’s rooftops, however, soars to six million square metres.

“That area is equivalent to the land that’s currently being farmed in Hong Kong,” noted Hong. “Essentially, if we were to convert all the rooftops into farms, we’d be doubling the amount of food that Hong Kong is producing.”

MORE WAYS TO GET INVOLVED

To get more people involved and create more talent for future urban farms, the Rooftop Republic Academy was started in 2019 with support from the DBS Foundation. It offers workshops for beginners as well as professional vocational courses.

“The idea behind the academy is … for city dwellers from all walks of life to get their foot in the door,” said Rooftop Republic co-founder Pol Fabrega, 56.

Looking at how far they have taken urban farming, Hong said the co-founders are “very encouraged”.

“I quit my job (in communications and advertising) to start Rooftop Republic. And I was like, ‘Oh dear, after … one year, am I going to (have to) eat my own veggies to survive?’” she recalled with a laugh.

Like her, Low quit the advertising industry when he became an urban farmer. At this point, he is also striving to “build capacity within local people and local spaces”, to ensure that there is “knowledge”, “infrastructure” and “excitement”.

“So when there’s a time of need, everyone can go out and participate in that process. Everyone will have some knowledge of sowing a seed and growing food,” he said.

It may take “some time to unlock it”, thinks Nagpaul, but she does not doubt that urban farming “has a lot of potential” to create a ripple effect.

It helps that growing food at home “doesn’t cost much”, said Woon, who recommended starting with kangkong to those thinking of giving it a shot.

“Even if you fail … it’s a matter of just being okay with failure,” she added. “That was also something that I learned.”

Still, not everybody gets to grow their own food at home. And one group in Taiwan has found another way to connect consumers directly with their food supply, by letting them share in the experiences of farmers.

On the Buy Directly From Farmers e-commerce platform, consumers can adopt a plot of land and watch, in real time, as farmers battle with the elements to plant and harvest crops.

“You’d be able to better understand the difficulties,” said the social enterprise’s founder, King Hsin I. “Then (consumers) would cherish their food better. When they make their choices, they won’t choose perfectly round pears or perfectly red apples.”

Also, while shopping on the site, they can get to know the growers and put a face to the food they buy.

Buy Directly From Farmers goes so far as to advise consumers that every bit of their vegetable or fruit, right down to its skin, can be eaten.

For example, one can fry eggs with dragon fruit peel or cornsilk, and “it’s delicious”, cited King. “Then you’d reduce a lot of food waste — you make good use of the food that’s grown … for months.”

Last year, when the social enterprise launched food boxes that included seemingly unusable products, DBS was “very supportive” in buying boxes, she added.

Consumers, too, can support enterprises like this that are fighting against food wastage. They can also shop differently by buying only the groceries they need and not throw away food that is slightly blemished or close to expiry.

It seems such a big, global problem, but the man or woman in the street can make a difference.

“Whether (by) exercising our consumer rights and requesting different practices (in) the shops, to voting with your dollar and buying in different places … to lobbying or advocating different practices, these are all ways in which we can participate,” said Tam.

Source: CNA/dp

HONG KONG: The United States on Tuesday (Mar 16) accused Chinese state media of publishing “disinformation” about its diplomats in Hong Kong as it denied its staff invoked immunity to avoid isolating after positive COVID-19 tests.

Washington temporarily closed its consulate on Monday to conduct deep cleaning and contact tracing after two employees were infected with the virus.

The consulate – and Hong Kong health authorities – have said the pair were headed to a hospital isolation ward as required by the city’s anti-coronavirus rules.

But state media outlets and a leading pro-Beijing trade union have accused the employees of invoking diplomatic immunity, which US officials flat out rejected.

READ: US closes consulate in Hong Kong after two employees test positive for COVID-19

“The disinformation from PRC state media about these two cases not complying with quarantine is false,” a US State Department spokesperson told AFP.

“We reject these efforts to spread disinformation about a critical public health issue.”

The reports of diplomatic immunity first ran on Monday in Dot Dot News, an online news outlet in Hong Kong.

It is part of an opaquely owned media group that answers to Beijing’s Liaison Office.

Following the reports, China’s state-run Global Times tabloid repeated the diplomatic immunity accusation, and accused the US diplomats of “arrogant outlaw behaviour”.

Hong Kong’s largest pro-Beijing labour group – the Federation of Trade Unions – said it would stage a protest outside the US consulate later on Tuesday.

When reached for comment on Tuesday morning by AFP, one of the protest organisers, who gave only his surname Zhang, said the group would still go ahead with its rally.

Public gatherings of more than four people are currently banned in Hong Kong because of COVID-19.

Hong Kong has kept infections low thanks to some of the strictest quarantine measures in the world, recording some 11,000 infections and 200 deaths since the pandemic began.

READ: US slams China’s Hong Kong move, to raise Xinjiang genocide charge in talks

Relations between the US and China have plunged in recent years, partly because of Beijing’s crackdown against dissent in Hong Kong following huge and often violent protests in 2019.

BOOKMARK THIS: Our comprehensive coverage of the coronavirus outbreak and its developments

Download our app or subscribe to our Telegram channel for the latest updates on the coronavirus outbreak: https://cna.asia/telegram Source: AFP/kg

WASHINGTON: Vaccination of about 88 per cent of Americans who received the first dose of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines was complete, a study of over 12 million people by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed.

Both vaccines, among the firsts to receive US emergency use authorisation, require two shots. The vaccines’ high efficacy is based on trials with interval between the shots of 21 days for Pfizer-BioNTech and 28 days for and Moderna’s vaccine.

According to the analysis, about 3 per cent of people in the United States who received the first dose of either of the vaccines did not get the second dose needed to complete vaccination, the agency said on Monday.

The agency said 8.6 per cent had not received the second dose, but were still within the allowable interval to receive it.

The analysis was conducted in 58 jurisdictions in the United States among people who got their first shot between Dec 14 and Feb 14. The data was published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on Monday.

A second analysis of 14.2 million people who have received the second dose showed that 95.6 per cent received the dose on time, the agency said.

The CDC considered a second shot on time, or within the recommended interval, if it was given within 17-25 days after the first dose for Pfizer-BioNTech, and 24-32 days for Moderna vaccine.

Other countries, such as the United Kingdom, have stretched the time period between doses to months rather than weeks in order to vaccinate more people as they deal with supply shortfalls. US public health officials have said they do not intend to make any changes in their recommendations.

Source :channelnewsasia