CLEVELAND, Ohio— Baltimore Ravens linebacker Malik Harrison was shot in the leg Sunday by a stray bullet during a shootout in downtown Cleveland, according to police and team officials.
The shooting happened about 8:20 p.m. on East 9th Street and Rockwell, according to police. Harrison was at Sausalito restaurant when he was shot, police said.
The Ravens said in a statement posted on Twitter that a stray bullet hit Harrison’s calf. He was treated and released from a Cleveland hospital and will return to Baltimore on Monday, according to the statement.
Cleveland police arrested four people in connection with the shooting. Formal charges have not been filed.
Harrison told police he was at Sausalito when a fight broke out and everyone was kicked out, according to police reports. Once outside, someone pulled out a gun, police reports said. Harrison told police he started running, heard gunshots and noticed he was shot.
Someone called police and reported someone fired gunshots after a large crowd gathered at the intersection.
Officers reported hearing about 10-15 gunshots as they got close to the area. They reported hearing another 8-10 shots across Rockwell Avenue, according to police.
An off-duty police officer reported a white Dodge Charger was speeding from the area. Officers spotted the car and stopped the car on East 9th Street and Chester Avenue.
Police found a man in the backseat bleeding from an undisclosed head injury. Police found two loaded guns inside the car.
A car parked on East 12th and Rockwell was shot several times. Bullets also hit the Dunkin’ Donuts next to Sausalito, according to police.
The Ravens were on a bye week on Sunday. Harrison, 23, grew up in Columbus and is a former Ohio State Buckeye, who was drafted by Baltimore in the third round of the 2020 NFL Draft.
Harrison was a three-star recruit in the Buckeyes’ 2016 recruiting class from Walnut Ridge High School. He was a three-year starter and recorded 205 tackles, 29 tackles for loss, nine sacks, nine pass breakups, three fumble recoveries and an interception.
OSU went 49-6 during his time, including wins in the Cotton Bowl and Rose Bowl. The Buckeyes during that time twice went to the College Football Playoff, where they lost both times to Clemson.
As a senior in 2019, he earned first-team All-Big Ten honors from the coaches and second team from the media.
cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer reporter Stephen Means contributed to this report.
Read more from cleveland.com:
Cuyahoga County Diversion Center expands to allow self and family member referrals for treatment
Former leader for Ohio Christian youth group accused of sex crimes involving teen girl
Teen female wounded in shooting at Halloween party at Columbus shopping center
NASA recently confirmed the existence of a solar flare occurring on the Sun, which resulted in a plasma wave being launched directly towards Earth.
The space agency explained that Sunspot AR2887 erupted, causing a solar flare and a coronal mass ejection (CME) to be shot towards Earth’s direction. The solar flare was classified as an X1-class flare, X being the highest categorization that is given to a solar flare. For those that don’t know what flares are, they are burst of radiation that can’t pass through Earth’s atmosphere to harm humans. However, its impact on Earth can cause geomagnetic storms that knock out GPS and radio communications and interfere with satellites.
As for the flare that hit Earth’s magnetic field on Oct. 31st at ~10:00 UT, the resulting impact was much less than anticipated as it only caused a G1-class geomagnetic storm. The reason for the weakness, as Spaceweather.com reports, is that majority of the CME missed Earth, which stands as an example that current computer models used to predict the events of the Sun aren’t always 100% correct as there are still many unknowns about the Sun and its processes. More simply put, it’s difficult to predict the motions of a celestial object located 93 million miles away.
The solar flare did cause auroras to appear in the sky in some locations around the world. One photographer, Harlan Thomas, snapped the below image in Alberta, Canada, just before sunrise.
VIEW GALLERY – 2 IMAGES
Thomas said, “It was a short-lived event. The auroras were active and battled the twilight until about 45 minutes before the Sun came up.“
Officials with Maine’s largest hospital system on Tuesday pleaded with the public to get vaccinated as hospitals and intensive care units fill with COVID-19 patients.
The fall surge in COVID-19 patients combined with health care workforce shortages is straining Maine’s hospital systems. Elective surgeries continue to be delayed so that hospitals can care for COVID-19 patients, most of whom are unvaccinated.
Dr. Andrew Mueller, MaineHealth CEO, said the vaccine mandate imposed by Gov. Janet Mills – which goes into full effect on Oct. 29 – is not contributing to workforce shortages at MaineHealth and is helping keep staff from missing shifts because of exposure to the virus. The MaineHealth network is Maine’s largest and includes Maine Medical Center in Portland.
“It’s clear the vaccine mandate helps protect and preserve our workforce,” Mueller said. All health care workers must be fully vaccinated by Oct. 29 to keep working. Mueller anticipates about 1.5 to 2 percent of MaineHealth’s workforce will resign or be fired because of the mandate. But a fully-vaccinated workforce means there will be far fewer employees who will be absent from work from falling ill with COVID-19.
COVID-19 patients are crowding out services for other patients, including elective surgeries, such as knee and hip replacements, and cancer surgeries that can be safely delayed a few months. About one-third of all elective surgeries at Maine Medical Center are being delayed, hospital officials said, and there’s a backlog of 1,500 surgical procedures.
“It will get worse in terms of some of those delays,” said Dr. Joan Boomsma, chief medical officer at MaineHealth, the parent company of Maine Med and seven other Maine hospitals. “There’s not an easy solution, or easy end in sight.”
The increase in COVID-19 hospitalized patients at Maine Medical Center and other MaineHealth hospitals is taking an emotional toll on health care workers.
“They’re caring for patients, particularly in the ICU, who are as sick as any patients we take care of in the ICU,” said Dr. Joel Botler, chief medical officer at Maine Med. “They have to look at these patients, look at their families knowing that if the (COVID-19 patients) had been vaccinated, this would not be the outcome. For our care team members, it is very, very difficult.”
Maine Med is currently caring for 32 COVID-19 patients, with six additional patients suspected of having the disease. Botler said the total patient count at Maine Med is 643 on Tuesday, straining the hospital’s capabilities.
Meanwhile, Maine on Tuesday reported 882 new cases of COVID-19 over a three-day period, and 25 additional deaths.
The death statistics reflect the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention conducting a periodic review of death certificates, with 19 of the 25 deaths attributed to the records review.
The 882 cases are the result of case counts from Saturday, Sunday and Monday, as the agency no longer reports cases on weekends.
The seven-day average of daily new cases stood at 464 on Tuesday, compared to 527.9 a week ago and 520.7 a month ago.
Since the pandemic began, Maine has reported 101,849 cases of COVID-19, and 1,147 deaths.
Maine reported 215 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 on Tuesday, down from 223 on Monday, but higher than the 201 reported on Sunday. Hospitalizations peaked at 235 patients on Sept. 25, declined to 152 by Oct. 7, but have increased again during the past two weeks.
The overwhelming majority of those hospitalized have either been unvaccinated or are fully vaccinated but older with other serious health conditions, according to health officials.
On the vaccination from 909,948 Maine people are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, representing 67.7 percent of the state’s 1.3 million population. The vaccination numbers have been on a slow but steady climb since the summer, but will likely see a significant bump soon if the Pfizer vaccine is approved for schoolchildren.
Federal regulators are on the verge of approving COVID-19 vaccines for ages 5-11, with a Food and Drug Administration advisory board set to meet Tuesday to potentially recommend the Pfizer vaccine, followed by a similar U.S. CDC advisory committee next week. If the CDC advisory committee gives the green light, federal regulators could approve the vaccine for use quickly.
That means the vaccine rollout for elementary-aged children could begin as soon as next week, setting the stage for a significant increase – possibly 5-7 percent – in the percentage of the state population that is immunized. About 100,000 schoolchildren would become eligible.
The higher the overall vaccination rate, the stronger likelihood that reductions in COVID-19 transmission will be long-lasting, public health experts have said. Also, school children, because they interact with large numbers of children and adults at school, can be vectors of the disease.
Maine is expected to offer the vaccine to newly-eligible schoolchildren at school-based clinics, pediatrician’s offices and drug stores, among other places.
This story will be updated.
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you’ve submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.
« Previous
Portland’s unsheltered homeless population is on the rise as temperatures drop
Next »
Maine using lottery to give out new scallop licenses
Pro-Iran outlets say drone attack on Americans, Syrian allies at al-Tanf was in response for Israeli strike on Palmyra.
United States officials believe Iran was behind a drone attack last week at a military outpost at al-Tanf in southern Syria where American troops are based.
Officials said Monday the US believes that Iran provided resources and encouraged the attack, but that the drones were not launched from Iran, The Associated Press news service reported.
The drones were Iranian, and Iran appears to have facilitated their use, officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss details that have not been made public.
Officials said they believe the attacks involved as many as five drones laden with explosive charges, and that they hit both the US side of al-Tanf garrison and the side where Syrian opposition forces reside.
There were no reported injuries or deaths as a result of the attack but it comes in a period of rising tensions between the US and Iran. The Biden administration this week said international diplomatic efforts to get Iran back into a 2015 nuclear deal were at a “critical place” and that US patience was wearing thin.
US and coalition troops are based at al-Tanf to train Syrian forces on patrols to counter Islamic State militants. The base is located on a road that serves as a vital link for Iranian-backed forces from Tehran to southern Lebanon and Israel.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard unveiled a new drone in May that has a 35-hour flight duration and is capable of carrying 13 bombs more than 2,000 kilometres ( 1,240 miles) [Sepahnews via AP]
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby declined to provide details when asked about the report during a news conference Monday.
Kirby called it a “complex, coordinated and deliberate attack” and said the US has seen similar ones before from Shia militia groups that are backed by Iran. But he would not go into specifics and said he had no update on the munitions used in the attack.
Kirby also declined to say if troops were warned ahead of time, or whether the US intends to make a military response.
“The protection and security of our troops overseas remain a paramount concern for the secretary,” Kirby said.
If there is to be a response, it will be at a time and a place and a manner of our choosing, and we certainly won’t get ahead of those kinds of decisions,” Kirby said.
Pro-Iran media outlets have been saying that the attack on al-Tanf was carried out by “Syria’s allies” – an apparent reference to Iran-backed groups – in retaliation for an Israeli strike days earlier near the ancient historic Syrian town of Palmyra. Israel has been blamed for the attack, but US officials say the US military was not involved.
The US provides $3.5bn a year in support of Israel’s military. The Israeli airstrike near Palmyra killed one Syrian soldier and three pro-Iranian fighters, according to a UK-based war monitor.
“You can consider that the strike on al-Tanf was an implementation” of previous promises by Syrian allies to retaliate for Palmyra, according to an official with the so-called Axis of Resistance, an anti-Western political-military alliance that includes Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and other groups fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.
The last major Iranian attack on US forces was in January 2020, when Tehran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles on al-Asad air base in Iraq.
US and coalition troops were warned of the incoming missiles and were able to take cover, but more than 100 US service members received traumatic brain injuries as a result of the blasts.
The Iran attack was in response to the US drone strike earlier that month near the Baghdad airport that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Two months after the al-Asad assault, US fighter jets struck five sites in retaliation, targeting Iranian-backed Shiite militia members believed responsible for the January rocket attack.
There were no reported injuries or deaths as a result of the attack.
U.S. and coalition troops are based at al-Tanf to train Syrian forces on patrols to counter Islamic State militants. The base is also located on a road serving as a vital link for Iranian-backed forces from Tehran all the way to southern Lebanon and Israel.
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby declined to provide details when asked about the report during a news conference Monday. He called it a “complex, coordinated and deliberate attack” and said the U.S. has seen similar ones before from Shia militia groups that are backed by Iran. But he would not go into specifics and said he had no update on the munitions used in the attack.
Kirby also declined to say if troops were warned ahead of time or whether the U.S. intends to make a military response.
“The protection and security of our troops overseas remains a paramount concern for the secretary,” Kirby said, referring to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, “and that if there is to be a response, it will be at a time and a place and a manner of our choosing, and we certainly won’t get ahead of those kinds of decisions.”
Pro-Iran media outlets have been saying that the attack on Tanf was carried out by “Syria’s allies” — an apparent reference to Iran-backed groups — in retaliation for an attack days earlier near the historic Syrian town of Palmyra. Israel has been blamed for the attack, but U.S. officials say America was not involved with it.
“You can consider that the strike on Tanf was an implementation” of previous promises by Syrian allies to retaliate for Palmyra, according to an official with the so-called Axis of Resistance, an anti-Western political-military alliance that includes Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and other groups fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.
The al-Tanf attack came in a period of rising tensions with Iran. The Biden administration this week said international diplomatic efforts to get Iran back into negotiations to return to a 2015 nuclear deal were at a “critical place” and that patience Is wearing thin.
The last major Iranian attack on U.S. forces was in January 2020, when Tehran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles on al-Asad air base in Iraq. U.S. and coalition troops were warned of the incoming missiles and were able to take cover, but more than 100 U.S. service members received traumatic brain injuries as a result of the blasts.
The Iran attack was in response to the U.S. drone strike earlier that month near the Baghdad airport that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Two months after the al-Asad assault, U.S. fighter jets struck five sites in retaliation, targeting Iranian-backed Shiite militia members believed responsible for the January rocket attack.
It is unclear if the military is there to protect Hamdok, of if he is under house arrest in the capital
Various top government officials have also reportedly been arrested and taken to prison by men wearing military police uniforms, according to witnesses to the arrests posting on social media as well as Reuters and other media on the ground, citing unnamed government sources.
Those arrested reportedly include government ministers and members of the Sovereignty Council of Sudan. CNN cannot independently verify the arrests.
Witnesses said as of Monday morning local time, demonstrators are gathering in the streets of the capital in protest of the arrests, lighting bonfires and setting up roadblocks.
It comes after the Sudan Professionals’ Association, a Sudanese pro-democratic political group, called on people to take to the streets to resist “the military coup.”
Internet monitoring site NetBlocks reported internet disruption in Sudan on Monday, saying: “Sudan amid reports of military coup and detention of Prime Minister; real-time network data show national connectivity at 34% of ordinary levels; incident ongoing.”
A source in Khartoum told CNN calls are not connecting for people in Sudan and the internet is down.
Political crisis
Military and civilian groups have been sharing power in the east African country in an uneasy alliance, dubbed the Sovereign Council, since the toppling of long-standing President Omar al-Bashir in 2019.
But following a failed coup attempt in September attributed to forces loyal to Bashir, military leaders have been demanding reforms to the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) coalition and the replacement of the cabinet.
Civilian leaders, however, have accused them of aiming for a power grab — and with Sudan now grappling with the biggest political crisis in its two-year-old transition.
Thousands of demonstrators gathered in front of the presidential palace in Khartoum on October 17 calling for the military to seize power. They were organized by a military-aligned faction of the FFC, and called for General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the armed forces and Sudan’s joint military-civilian Sovereign Council, to initiate a coup and overthrow the government.
Days later, thousands of Sudanese protesters took to the streets of Khartoum and other cities to voice their support for civilian rule within the country’s power-sharing government.
More than half of US states have introduced new laws to restrict public health actions, including policies requiring quarantine or isolation and mandating vaccines or masks. Between the new laws and the massive workforce departures during the pandemic, public health in America is now in crisis, experts say.
The new restrictions and shortages not only affect responses to the coronavirus but also make it harder to contain outbreaks of the flu, measles and other health crises, and they put the US in a weaker position to combat future pandemics.
“We’re very, very concerned about the rolling back of public health powers,” Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, told the Guardian. “We thought there was going to be a renaissance for public health, and we may be at the cusp of a major decline.”
Separate investigations by Kaiser Health News and the New York Times found that at least 32 states have introduced about 100 new laws to restrict state and local authorities from addressing health crises.
“It’s a pretty grim future,” David Rosner, a public health and social historian at Columbia University, told the Guardian. “This is an eye-opening moment in American history, where we see all of these traditions and ideas being mobilized to basically create discord rather than harmony around disease. I’ve just never seen this before.”
Legislators in every US state have proposed bills to permanently limit officials’ ability to protect the public’s health. Some did not make it through the legislature or were vetoed by governors, while others are mired in legal battles.
These measures include banning mask and vaccine mandates, overturning public health orders, curbing emergency powers and wresting control over school, church and business closures, among others.
Local health officials are particularly worried about not being able to impose quarantines for those who have been exposed or isolation for those who test positive for the coronavirus or other infectious diseases, which allow them to spread unchecked.
“Isolation and quarantine are really, really important steps that a public health department will take when there’s any kind of infectious disease outbreak,” Plescia said. “These are the kinds of powers that allow us to act very quickly and resolve infectious disease threats before they become more widespread.”
Montana, for instance, has seen some of the greatest restrictions, with limits on quarantine and isolation requirements, new control from elected officials over health boards, and a ban on requiring vaccinations in workplaces – even in health systems. The new laws make it harder to isolate or quarantine patients with the flu or measles, and they could contribute to the spread of many vaccine-preventable illnesses.
Montana is now experiencing one of the biggest surges of the pandemic, with the highest rate of new cases and the second-highest rates of hospitalizations and deaths at this time. Health systems across the state have enacted crisis of care standards.
While some US states are seeing declines in cases, others are recording surges. New Mexico on Monday also cleared health systems to implement crisis of care standards as patients continue filling beds and worker shortages persist. Covid was still the leading cause of death in the US this week, according to a scientific model.
The St Louis county health director, Dr Faisal Khan, answers questions posed by council members said he was called racial slurs and physically assaulted at a meeting in July after defending a mask mandate. Photograph: Laurie Skrivan/AP
Local leaders need to be able to make decisions that will help the communities in which they live and work, Blair Bryant, associate legislative director for health at the National Association of Counties, told the Guardian. “We never want to take away local control from any county official, much less a local public health official, in a pandemic.
“There’s going to be a tremendous impact on how we’re able to respond to this pandemic, the next epidemic, as well as other infectious disease outbreaks,” Bryant said.
Public health in the US was already poorly funded and understaffed before Covid hit. Many public health workers have faced long hours and short budgets while carrying out historically wide-scale campaigns around contact tracing, testing and vaccinating – all while seeing precipitous drops in public support and facing threats and harassment.
More than 500 health officials have left the field through resignation, retirement or termination since the beginning of the pandemic. More than one in five Americans have seen a local health official depart during the biggest health crisis in a century, taking with them decades of invaluable experience. In North Dakota, three consecutive state health officers resigned in 2020.
Overstretched health departments have also led to a surge in overdoses and a rise in sexually transmitted diseases, lead poisoning and more.
About 80,000 more health workers – an 80% increase – are needed to continue providing basic health services, one report concluded.
But little of the funding offered by the federal government has gone toward long-term public health planning, and it’s not clear if health departments will continue to have enough funding after the pandemic.
And there’s the issue of finding people who want to work in the field at all, after witnessing the long hours and threats against health officials.
“A lot of the really capable and talented people that you’d like to be able to have in these jobs are probably going to think twice about whether they would want to take the job,” Plescia said. “Some professionals are going to see these jobs as too risky.”
Despite its troubled present, public health can still turn a corner and come out of the pandemic stronger, experts said.
“The Covid-19 pandemic shed a light on the importance of public health,” Bryant said. Despite resistance, the measures and precautions that were implemented “are really making an impact on the spread of the virus”.
“We have an opportunity to really make the system better,” Plescia said. But if restrictions and shortages are not reversed, “we’re going to be in trouble when the next pandemic comes along – much worse trouble than we were in this time.”
Public health measures have been in effect in the US since the country’s founding, and Americans have long had an attitude of individualism that permeates health as well, Rosner said. But “emphasizing personal rights over collective responsibility” is a new phenomenon.
“Health has always been something that we basically unite around. It’s the one function of government that usually is not questioned in any great degree – the right of the government to protect the health of its people,” Rosner said.
Now, that’s changing – and the repercussions will reverberate.
“It’s not just that public health has failed. It’s that the crisis of public health is a signal of a coming crisis in political culture,” Rosner said.“Ultimately, we’re dependent on all of us acting in a certain way, especially with infectious diseases. And if you have a lot of distrust – of the government, of authorities, if you have politicians mobilizing to engender that distrust – you’re in trouble. Which is what we are.”
Firefighter Matt Smither is seen working alongside critical care nurses in the Intensive Care Unit at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth, southern England.
ADRIAN DENNIS | AFP | Getty Images
LONDON — An increasing number of doctors in the U.K. are warning that the country, and its health service, are facing a renewed health crisis due to rampant Covid-19 infections and a rising number of hospitalizations and deaths.
The warnings, from several big British medical bodies over the last couple of days, come as government officials have insisted that more restrictions on public life are not yet necessary, despite Health Secretary Sajid Javid warning Wednesday that Covid cases could reach 100,000 a day as we enter the winter period.
Making matters potentially even worse, U.K. experts are now monitoring a mutation of the delta variant that could be making the virus even more transmissible.
Read more: The delta variant has a mutation that’s worrying experts: Here’s what we know so far
‘Incredibly concerning’
The British Medical Association slammed the government’s sanguine perspective on the situation, stating Wednesday that it was “incredibly concerning” that Javid was not, as the association viewed it, “willing to take immediate action to save lives and to protect the NHS.”
“Especially as we head into winter, when the NHS is in the grips of tackling the largest backlog of care, with an already depleted and exhausted workforce,” it added in a statement, echoing numerous reports of exhausted frontline health staff.
Read more: UK doctors call for urgent return of Covid restrictions as experts monitor new mutation
The BMA backed calls, made earlier this week by the NHS Confederation (which represents organizations across the U.K. health care sector) for the government to trigger its “Plan B,” which it had said last month that it would do if Covid cases threatened to severely impact the health care service’s ability to function.
“The reality today is an unacceptable rate of infections, hospitalisations and deaths, unheard of in similar European nations. In comparison to France, we have more than 10 times the number of cases and almost four times as many deaths per million,” the BMA said.
The U.K. has been recording between 40,000 to 50,000 new daily infections in the last week. While the number of daily deaths and hospitalizations remain far below earlier peaks in the pandemic thanks to Covid vaccines, data shows these numbers are climbing too.
On Thursday, the U.K. reported 52,009 new cases and 115 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test. In addition, another 959 people were admitted to hospital, official data shows.
The government has rebuffed concerns over whether the health service can cope. Health Minister Edward Argar told the BBC Thursday that the NHS is not under “unsustainable pressure,” noting that there were about 95,000 beds in NHS hospitals, with 7,000 occupied by Covid patients and 6,000 currently empty.
“We know how those numbers can rise swiftly, which is why we’re looking at that day-by-day, hour-by-hour. But at the moment we do have the ability to manage,” he said.
Other experts beg to differ and say the data could be worse than it appears.
‘The UK really is in trouble’
The U.K.’s Zoe Covid Study, which collects and analyses Covid data with help from King’s College London, estimated Thursday that the number of daily positive tests in the country is much higher than government data suggests. The data suggested there were 81,823 new daily symptomatic cases, on average, based on PCR and LFT (lateral flow test) test data from up to five days ago. That’s an increase of 17% from 69,993 new daily cases last week.
Dr. Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London who runs the study, commented that “with over 80,000 new cases a day the U.K. really is in trouble.”
“This hasn’t happened overnight, but frustratingly our calls for a more cautious approach to Covid management have gone unheeded, despite the upward trends we’ve reported now for several weeks … The U.K. needs to act now to prevent the situation from escalating out of control ahead of winter,” he said.
Stalling vaccinations
Medical experts also agree that the U.K.’s vaccination program, which got off to a flying start back in Dec. 2020, has stalled. Official data shows 79% of the population aged 12 and over is fully vaccinated.
“There are a number of developments that lie behind the dramatic rise in U.K. infections. Adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions such as mask wearing has declined; the favorable summer seasonal is fading; and a new sub-lineage of the Delta variant, known as AY.4.2, is increasing modestly,” JPMorgan Chief European Economist David Mackie said in a note Thursday.
“But, in our view, the main issue is the combination of a stalled main vaccination programme, fading vaccine protection and an only modest start to the booster programme.”
The number of fully vaccinated individuals in the U.K. reached 45 million at the start of October, Mackie noted but by Oct.19, 45.4 million people had been fully vaccinated, “representing an average daily pace over the past few weeks of only 27,600. The main vaccination programme has effectively stalled,” he said.
Spector agreed that “the two main reasons we’re seeing cases back at January peaks are the U.K.’s flagging vaccine programme … and lifting most restrictions too early.”
He said the government needed to encourage the unvaccinated to take up shots, and to reintroduce “simple measures, such as wearing masks on public transport and in crowded, poorly-ventilated places, avoiding large indoor gatherings and working from home where possible.”
“Doing nothing now will just make it worse. This pandemic is far from over, and whilst it seems some would rather bury their heads in the sand, Covid-19 and its new variants have other plans.”
Amid fears of an outbreak of a new coronavirus subvariant and ahead of an expected easing of entry rules for tourists, the Health Ministry will recommend that visitors from countries where the strain has been found be tested every 48 hours for the duration of their stay, according to Thursday reports.
It was unclear how this intensive testing could be carried out on a practical level.
Currently, anyone who enters Israel — regardless of their citizenship or vaccination status — must undergo a PCR test before departing from a foreign country and after landing at Ben-Gurion Airport.
Israel has been weighing reopening its borders to vaccinated tourists next month, a step it has delayed numerous times throughout the year, as COVID infections waxed and waned. Since March 2020, Israel has been effectively shut to general tourism, allowing in only non-citizens granted special permission to enter.
The Prime Minister’s Office said Wednesday night that the proposed tourism framework slated to be presented to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Thursday would be “updated in accordance with the existing information of the new variant.” The proposed intensive testing framework will be discussed at that meeting, Channel 12 news reported.
Get The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories
By signing up, you agree to the terms
Health officials said Thursday that five cases of AY4.2 had been retroactively diagnosed since the first known case in Israel was confirmed on Tuesday in a sample taken from a young boy who returned to Israel from Moldova.
Bennett this week instructed officials to boost epidemiological investigations and genetic testing of those who were diagnosed with the strain, as well as to maintain close cooperation and information-sharing with countries where the subvariant has been identified.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett speaks during the weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, October 17, 2021. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner, Pool)
Health officials are considering mandating quarantine for anyone who comes in contact with someone who tests positive for the AY4.2 subvariant, even if they are fully vaccinated and otherwise exempt from quarantine, Channel 12 said on Wednesday. The health authorities, however, only selectively perform genetic sequencing for those diagnosed with the coronavirus.
The new variant of the Delta strain, dubbed AY4.2, was identified recently in a number of Eastern European nations and the United Kingdom. On Wednesday, the Center for Diseases Control said the first cases had been found in the United States.
Francois Balloux, director of the University College London Genetics Institute, said this week the subvariant might be slightly more transmissible and was being “closely monitored.”
Worker takes a COVID-19 rapid antigen sample in Lod, on October 17, 2021 (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)
Israel appears to be at the tail end of its fourth coronavirus wave, as new infections and serious cases have ticked down over the past few weeks.
On Tuesday, 20 people who entered the country tested positive for the coronavirus, as did 22 on Monday and 27 on Sunday, representing less than 0.1% of all those who entered Israel each day.
As of Thursday, there were 331 serious COVID-19 cases in Israel, down from close to 750 a month ago.
Just 1.05 percent of those tested on Wednesday came back positive, a rate that stands at its lowest point since the start of July.
There were 1,021 new diagnoses of the coronavirus on Tuesday, taking the total caseload since the start of the pandemic to 1,320,563.
Three deaths on Wednesday took the reported death toll to 8,030.
Learn Hebrew in a fun, unique way
You get Israel news… but do you GET it? Here’s your chance to understand not only the big picture that we cover on these pages, but also the critical, juicy details of life in Israel.
In Streetwise Hebrew for the Times of Israel Community, each month we’ll learn several colloquial Hebrew phrases around a common theme. These are bite-size audio Hebrew classes that we think you’ll really enjoy.
Learn more
Learn more
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You’re serious. We appreciate that!
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we come to work every day – to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Artist’s illustration of the final phase of deploying the solar arrays on NASA’s Lucy spacecraft. Credit: NASA
A NASA official said Monday there is “widespread optimism” that a solar array snag discovered on the Lucy asteroid probe after its launch over the weekend will not jeopardize the spacecraft’s 12-year exploration mission.
Lucy’s two solar arrays were folded up on each side of the box-shaped spacecraft during launch Saturday from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas 5 rocket. One of the two solar array wings fully unfurled and latched after launch, but NASA says it did not receive confirmation that the other wing latched into place.
The Atlas 5 deployed the Lucy probe nearly an hour after liftoff, sending the 3,300-pound (1,500-pound) spacecraft on an escape trajectory into the solar system. The launch kicked off a $981 million mission to explore the Trojan asteroids, a primordial population of small worlds leading and trailing Jupiter in its orbit around the sun.
Lucy is the mission is the first to explore the Trojan asteroids, which scientists say are leftover building blocks similar to objects that came together to form the solar systems giant outer planets. The probe will fly by seven Trojan asteroids between 2027 and 2033, plus one object in the main asteroid belt in 2025.
A few minutes after separating from the Atlas 5 launcher, Lucy began a pre-programmed sequence to unfold the solar arrays like giant Chinese fans. Fully deployed, the UltraFlex solar wings span about 24 feet (7.3 meters) in diameter, the circular power arrays to ever fly in space.
Both solar arrays are generating power, and Lucy’s batteries are fully charged, said Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary science division.
“The spacecraft is stable and healthy, and it’s safe,” Glaze said Monday in a virtual town hall meeting by NASA’s science mission directorate. “It’s not in any danger, at this point, in this configuration. So we are taking our time in determining what’s going on with the solar array, and developing a path forward on how to remediate.”
“We’re very happy to report that we are getting most of the power we expected at this point in the mission,” said Joan Salute, associate director for flight programs at NASA’s planetary science division. “It’s not 100%, but it is fairly close. So that is great news.’
In an interview with Spaceflight Now, Salute said the power output from the solar arrays appears to be “most likely above 90%” of the expected level of 18,000 watts.
“We don’t know if it’s a latch problem, or that it is only partially deployed,” Salute said.
Lucy will become the farthest spacecraft from the sun to ever rely on solar power, reaching a maximum distance of 530 million miles (853 million kilometers), nearly six times farther than Earth’s orbit. When it reaches the Trojan asteroids, Lucy’s solar arrays were expected to generate just 500 watts of power.
That level power output is sufficient to feed Lucy’s three science instruments, which only need about 82 watts of power during each asteroid encounter. Lucy’s flight computer, communications system, and other components will also draw on power generated by the UltraFlex arrays.
Salute said controllers may attempt to command Lucy to re-attempt a full deployment of the solar array.
“They’re checking different analyses, making sure that that would be safe to implement,” she said. “One of the steps that they would be taking in the fairly short term would be to provide a second attempt at full deployment and latching.”
The UltraFlex solar arrays on NASA’s Lucy spacecraft unfold during a ground test at a Lockheed Martin test facility in Colorado. Credit: Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the Lucy spacecraft, oversees mission operations from a control center near Denver.
Although the solar arrays are generating sufficient power, engineers are also evaluating whether it is safe to fire the spacecraft’s main engine with an unlatched solar array. The mission’s first major deep space maneuver is tentatively scheduled for mid-November.
“At this point in time, they hope to go ahead with that maneuver, but it is too early to tell,” Salute said.
The spacecraft has continued firing its smaller attitude control thrusters without any issues, she said.
“They just want to really get a little more understanding under their belt about which would be safer — to re-deploy or to operate as is,” Salute said. “And I don’t think they have a firm answer on that option quite yet.”
Managers have postponed one other major post-launch activity to allow engineers to address the solar array issue. Lucy’s instrument platform was supposed to release and deploy two days after launch. That has been temporarily put on hold, according to Salute.
“There’s still widespread optimism that this can be overcome, or worked with,” Salute said.
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you’ve submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.