- Humanitarian crisis worsens in Gaza as Israel-Hamas fighting intensifies: Live updates CNN
- UN secretary-general invokes rarely used power to demand cease-fire in Gaza Fox News
- Looting, Other Crimes Break Out in Southern Gaza as Israel Presses Assault The Wall Street Journal
- Mr. Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator – Transcript of Press Briefing on the Humanitarian Situation in Gaza – occupied Palestinian territory ReliefWeb
- The humanitarian crisis worsens in Gaza Financial Times
Tag Archives: worsens
Pele’s family gather at hospital as condition worsens
Brazil legend Pele’s family members gathered at the Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo on Saturday, where the 82-year-old, widely considered one of the greatest footballers of all time, has been since late November.
Doctors said this week that Pele’s cancer had advanced and that he requires care related to renal and cardiac dysfunction. His family said he would remain in the Sao Paulo hospital over the festive period.
Pele has received regular medical treatment since a tumour was removed from his colon in September last year.
“Almost all of them. Merry Christmas. Gratitude, love, togetherness, family,” his daughter Kely Nascimento wrote on Instagram with a picture of their family in the hospital.
“The essence of Christmas. We thank you all for all the love and light you send.”
Pele’s son Edinho, who played in goal for Santos in the 1990s, posted a picture of himself holding his father’s hand to Instagram on Saturday, with the caption, “Father… my strength is yours.”
The hospital has not mentioned any signs of Pele’s recent respiratory infection, which was aggravated by COVID-19.
Newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported last weekend that Pele’s chemotherapy was not working and that doctors had decided to put him on palliative care. Pele’s family denied that report.
Information from Associated Press was included in this report.
Ghana to default on most external debt as economic crisis worsens
ACCRA, Dec 19 (Reuters) – Ghana on Monday suspended payments on most of its external debt, effectively defaulting as the country struggles to plug its cavernous balance of payments deficit.
Its finance ministry said it will not service debts including its Eurobonds, commercial loans and most bilateral loans, calling the decision an “interim emergency measure”, while some bondholders criticised a lack of clarity in the decision.
The government “stands ready to engage in discussions with all of its external creditors to make Ghana’s debt sustainable”, the finance ministry said.
The suspension of debt payments reflects the parlous state of the economy, which had led the government last week to reach a $3-billion staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Ghana had already announced a domestic debt exchange programme and said that an external restructuring was being negotiated with creditors. The IMF has said a comprehensive debt restructuring is a condition of its support.
The country has been struggling to refinance its debt since the start of the year after downgrades by multiple credit ratings agencies on concerns it would not be able to issue new Eurobonds.
That has sent Ghana’s debt further into the distressed territory. Its public debt stood at 467.4 billion Ghanaian cedis ($55 billion as per Refinitiv Eikon data) in September, of which 42% was domestic.
It had a balance of payments deficit of more than $3.4 billion in September, down from a surplus of $1.6 billion at the same time last year.
While 70% to 100% of the government revenue currently goes toward servicing the debt, the country’s inflation has shot up to as much as 50% in November.
Ghana has been experiencing what some say is its worst economic crisis in a generation. Last month, more than 1,000 protesters marched through the capital Accra, calling for the resignation of the president and denouncing deals with the IMF as fuel and food costs spiralled.
Its gross international reserves stood at around $6.6 billion at the end of September, equating to less than three months of imports cover. That is down from around $9.7 billion at the end of last year.
The government said the suspension will not include the payments towards multilateral debt, new debts taken after Dec. 19 or debts related to certain short-term trade facilities.
‘NOT COMING OUT OF THE BLUE’
Holders of Ghana’s international bonds confirmed in an emailed statement late on Monday the formal launch of a creditor committee aimed at facilitating the “orderly and comprehensive resolution” of the country’s debt challenges.
Any good faith negotiations, the creditor committee said, would need to avoid unilateral actions and require the timely exchange of detailed economic and financial information between international bondholders, the government and the IMF.
The steering committee was made up of Abrdn, Amundi, BlackRock, Greylock and Ninety One, the group said in its statement.
Kathryn Exum, who co-leads Gramercy’s Sovereign Research department, was hopeful about debt restructuring, noting that it should prove easier for creditors than other recent emerging market restructurings.
“It is more straight forward than the likes of Sri Lanka and Zambia, in the respect that there is not a lot of China debt,” Exum said on Friday in comments anticipating the external restructuring.
One bondholder who requested anonymity said the lack of detail in the announcement could be cause for concern for investors.
Ghana’s external bonds, which are trading at a deeply distressed level of 29-41 cents in the dollar, dropped with the 2034 bond losing more than 3 cents, Tradeweb data showed.
Nonetheless, some investors said the suspension of external debt payment was expected.
“It is in line with Ghana getting into talks about restructuring with various debt holders, so not coming out of the blue,” Rob Drijkoningen, co-head of emerging market debt at Neuberger Berman, which holds some Ghanaian Eurobonds.
Ghana did pay a Dec. 16 coupon due on a 2049 Eurobond, according to a person familiar with the matter.
It was not immediately clear if the debt service suspension would include a $1 billion 2030 bond that has a $400 million World Bank guarantee .
“We will not be commenting on the specifics of any particular bond or debt owed at this time, but… we are fully engaging all stakeholders,” a finance ministry spokesperson told Reuters.
($1 = 8.5000 Ghanaian cedi)
Reporting by Christian Akorlie and Cooper Inveen; Additional reporting by Rachel Savage, Marc Jones and Jorgelina do Rosario; Writing by Rachel Savage and Cooper Inveen; Editing by Karin Strohecker, Ed Osmond, Arun Koyyur and Aurora Ellis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Children dying in Somalia as food catastrophe worsens
MOGADISHU, Dec 13 (Reuters) – More than 200,000 Somalis are suffering catastrophic food shortages and many are dying of hunger, with that number set to rise to over 700,000 next year, according to an analysis by an alliance of U.N. agencies and aid groups.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which sets the global standard for determining the severity of food crises, said its most acute level, “IPC Phase 5 Famine”, had been temporarily averted but things were getting worse.
“They have kept famine outside of the door but nobody knows for how much longer,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson of the U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA).
“That people are dying from hunger, there’s no doubt about it, but I cannot put a number on it,” he told a news briefing in Geneva after the latest IPC analysis on Somalia came out.
A two-year drought has decimated crops and livestock across Horn of Africa nations, while the price of food imports has soared because of the war in Ukraine.
In Somalia, where 3 million people have been driven from their homes by conflict or drought, the crisis is compounded by a long-running Islamist insurgency that has hampered humanitarian access to some areas.
The IPC had previously warned that areas of Somalia were at risk of reaching famine levels, but the response by humanitarian organisations and local communities had staved that off.
“The underlying crisis however has not improved and even more appalling outcomes are only temporarily averted. Prolonged extreme conditions have resulted in massive population displacement and excess cumulative deaths,” it said.
Somalia’s last famine, in 2011, killed a quarter of a million people, half of them before famine was officially declared.
Fearful of a similar or even worse outcome this time, humanitarian chiefs were quick to say the situation was already catastrophic for many Somalis.
‘STOP WAITING’
“I have sat with women and children who have shown me mounds next to their tent in a displaced camp where they buried their two- and three-year-olds,” said James Elder, spokesperson of the U.N. children’s charity UNICEF, at the Geneva briefing.
“Whilst a famine declaration remains important because the world should be past this, we also do know that children are dying now.”
The IPC Acute Food Insecurity scale has a complex set of technical criteria by which the severity of crises are measured. Its Phase 5 has two levels, Catastrophe and Famine.
The Somalia analysis found that 214,000 people were classified in Catastrophe and that number was expected to rise to 727,000 from April, 2023 as humanitarian funding dropped off.
Catastrophe is summarised on the IPC website as a situation where starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident.
It said famine was projected from April onwards among agropastoral populations in the districts of Baidoa and Burhakaba, in central Somalia, and among displaced populations in Baidoa town and the capital Mogadishu.
The IPC data showed 5.6 million Somalis were classified in Crisis or worse (Phase 3 or above) and that number would rise from April to 8.3 million — about half the country’s population.
The OCHA is appealing for $2.3 billion to respond to the crisis in Somalia, of which it has so far received $1.3 billion, or 55.2%.
David Miliband, head of aid group the International Rescue Committee, said the underfunding of the appeal showed the world was not treating this as an urgent moment.
“The time for action is now in Somalia,” he told Reuters in an interview, adding that what happened in 2011 should serve as a warning. “Stop waiting for the famine declaration,” he said.
Reporting by Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu, Bhargav Acharya and Alexander Winning in Johannesburg and Sofia Christensen in Dakar and Emma Farge in Geneva; Writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by James Macharia Chege and Ed Osmond
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Key cause of type 2 diabetes confirmed: Chemicals produced to break down sugar worsens condition
How high blood sugar REALLY causes type 2 diabetes: Chemicals produced when glucose is broken down are to blame, study finds
- Oxford University researchers looked into how type 2 diabetes progresses
- Found chemicals released when sugar is broken down cause patients’ decline
- Discovery could lead to new treatments that could slow the condition’s effects
For decades, scientists have been puzzled over how exactly high blood sugar causes type 2 diabetes.
But Oxford University researchers may finally have the answer.
Tests revealed it wasn’t the elevated glucose levels that were directly to blame for the pancreas being robbed of its insulin-making ability.
Instead, they found glucose metabolites — the chemicals released when sugar is broken down — rather than glucose itself is behind the decline.
The discovery could lead to diabetes patients being given new treatments to slow down glucose metabolism, preventing the condition getting worse, they said.
Type 2 diabetes affects approximately 2million people in Britain and 37million in the US. It occurs when blood sugar is too high, which can lead to complications including blindness, kidney failure and nerve damage if left uncontrolled.
Patients are currently encouraged to eat well and exercise to maintain a healthy weight to slow its progression.
Medication like Glucophage to improve insulin function is usually prescribed later on if diet and exercise is not effective alone.
However, the latest research could lead to new drugs that could stop the disease getting to that point in the first place.
Oxford University researchers found glucose metabolites — the chemicals released when sugar is broke down — rather than glucose itself is behind type 2 diabetes progression
Co-author Professor Frances Ashcroft, a physiologist, said: ‘This is potentially a useful way to try to prevent beta-cell decline in diabetes.
‘Because glucose metabolism normally stimulates insulin secretion, it was previously hypothesised that increasing glucose metabolism would enhance insulin secretion in T2D [type 2 diabetes] and glucokinase activators were trialled, with varying results.’
She added: ‘Our data suggests that glucokinase activators could have an adverse effect and, somewhat counter-intuitively, that a glucokinase inhibitor might be a better strategy to treat T2D.
‘Of course, it would be important to reduce glucose flux in T2D to that found in people without diabetes — and no further.
‘But there is a very long way to go before we can tell if this approach would be useful for treating beta-cell decline in T2D.
‘In the meantime, the key message from our study if you have type 2 diabetes is that it is important to keep your blood glucose well controlled.’
The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, looked at the effects of hypoglycaemia — high blood sugar — in diabetic mice.
They measured how much insulin the mice released when given sugar for those with low blood glucose and those with chronic hypoglycaemia.
Mice were given drugs that blocked glucokinase — an enzyme that aids the break down of blood glucose — for two days to see whether it was glucose or the break down of glucose that causes the normally lower levels of insulin in those with hypoglycaemia.
Results showed the drug had little effect on the low blood sugar mice but ‘largely prevented the dramatic reduction in GSIS and insulin content produced by chronic hyperglycaemia’.
This lower levels of insulin in those with hypoglacaemia was being caused by the breakdown of glucose, not the sugar itself, the team said.
When people eat carbohydrates, the food is broken down into blood sugar. This tells the pancreas to release insulin, which allows glucose to enter the body’s cells.
But over time, high blood sugar levels can cause insulin resistance.
Because the insulin isn’t as effective at breaking down the sugars, it causes the body to produce more and more of it.
Eventually, this leads to the pancreas becoming worn out, sending the system out of whack and causing blood sugar levels to stay high.
Covid outbreak worsens in southern Chinese city of Guangzhou
Guangzhou city in the southern province of Guangdong is the hardest hit in the latest Covid outbreak. Pictured here are closed stores in part of the city on Oct. 31, 2022.
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images
BEIJING — Covid infections are surging in the capital of China’s export-heavy Guangdong province, raising concerns of another drag on the national economy.
Schools in eight of 11 districts in the city of Guangzhou moved classes online for most students as of Thursday. In the last few days, more parts of the city have ordered people to stay home, and non-essential businesses to close.
“As things stand, it is hard to tell whether Guangzhou will repeat the experience of Shanghai in spring this year,” Nomura’s chief China economist Ting Lu and a team said in a note late Wednesday. “If Guangzhou repeats what Shanghai did in spring, it will lead to a new round of pessimism on China.”
Earlier this year, the metropolis of Shanghai locked down for about two months and broader Covid controls resulted in a second-quarter national GDP that grew by only 0.4%, according to official figures. GDP bounced back in the third quarter with 3.9% growth, but then exports unexpectedly dropped in October.
It was not immediately clear to what extent Guangzhou’s latest business restrictions affected the ability of factories to operate. Many manufacturers are located outside the city but in the same province.
State-owned automaker GAC Group said its manufacturers in Guangzhou were operating normally as of Thursday morning. “The epidemic has not caused substantial impact,” the company said in a statement.
In just a week, the number of Covid infections with symptoms in Guangdong has multiplied five times to 500 as of Wednesday. During that time, infections without symptoms surged seven times to about 2,500 cases.
The latest outbreak prompted the American Chamber of Commerce in China to postpone an event in Guangzhou, which was already delayed from September, Michael Hart, president of the chamber, said Thursday. He expects two more of the chamber’s events in the city this year will be postponed.
“These travel impacts are hurting the abilities of local governments to pitch for investments,” Hart said, noting such investments were not lost but delayed.
“I’ve canceled more travel than I’ve actually been able to do,” he said.
Late fall is a popular time for conferences and business travel in China.
Notably, Guangzhou has indefinitely delayed its auto show that was set to kick off next week. The country’s biggest auto show that Beijing was supposed to host earlier this year was never rescheduled.
More travel restrictions
“Probably a bigger concern [than getting sick] is what does [travel] do to your Beijing health code and can you get back?” Hart said, referring to a government smartphone app for tracking Covid exposure.
The city requires anyone entering a shopping mall, taxi or public space to use the app. The venue can deny entry if the app shows the individual does not have a negative Covid test result from within the last three days — or bears a “pop-up window” that’s supposed to indicate suspected contact with a Covid infection.
The pop-up window prevents people from entering Beijing.
Its appearance has become so frequent and somewhat unpredictable that a Chinese commentator said in a widely shared video that every business trip outside of Beijing was a choice between family and work. The video was removed from public view by Thursday morning.
The Beijing health code app’s pop-up window also affects the mobility of people within the capital city, which has reported a growing number of infections over the last several days.
“In Beijing, you just assume a certain percentage of the workforce is going to have pop-up window issues,” Hart said, noting virus testing requirements for some office buildings has increased to once every 24 hours. “Instead of getting looser it’s getting tighter in some areas.”
Pakistan’s Lake Manchar bursts its banks as flooding worsens
A local agricultural department official confirmed the break but said it was unclear whether it occurred because of water pressure or if residents of a nearby town had damaged the wall to divert floodwaters from their area.
Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
“It’s not possible to fix the wall now,” the irrigation official said. He said the government is unable to protect villages in the flood path, and he estimated that families would have four to five hours to evacuate.
Minister of Irrigation Jam Khan Shoro confirmed to The Post the occurrence of the new breach in the flood wall but maintained that no further evacuations would be necessary because all the downstream settlements already had been emptied.
The Pakistani government is already struggling to respond to what has been described as a “catastrophic” crisis, and the Lake Manchar breach is likely to further impede access to those in need. Anger is growing among displaced Pakistanis, hundreds of villages remain underwater, and the people who have made it to dry land are desperately seeking shelter and relief.
Water from the lake could be seen coursing over highways and overflowing drainage canals just north of Sehvan, threatening to cut off a key supply route to some of the country’s hardest-hit villages in Dadu and beyond. Roads leading south were lined with farmers moving their livestock to safety.
Muhammad Nawaz Shahani said government vehicles drove through his village Tuesday morning using loudspeakers to order an immediate evacuation. “They told us to leave our houses at once and to only take our valuables and livestock with us,” he said. He walked with his extended family to an elevated road and then began herding his livestock in search of grazing space.
By evening, the highway was packed with water buffaloes, goats and cows. Some 350 villages around the lake were inundated Tuesday, bringing water levels as high as six feet, according to the irrigation official.
Floodwaters continued to rise into the night, but many families refused to leave their homes, he said.
The unprecedented flooding in Pakistan has killed more than 1,300 people and affected some 33 million since it began in June. Government relief efforts are overwhelmed, although international aid and supplies are starting to enter the country.
The United States, the European Union and Britain have pledged millions of dollars in humanitarian assistance to Pakistan in the past week. And the United Nations launched an emergency plan to deliver assistance, but as the waters continue to sweep across the country, the areas in greatest need are increasingly inaccessible.
“This is a mountain of human suffering and a road map of unending tragedy,” said U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) on a recent visit to the country to survey damage and discuss with Pakistani authorities how U.S. aid money will be spent.
“You have people who have lost their livelihoods and a country that has really lost its heartland,” she said, referring to the millions of acres of crops now in ruin.
“It is our intent that these funds go directly to the people,” she said, adding that Pakistani officials expressed the same commitment. “We are going to have to hold them to their word,” Jackson Lee added.
The Pakistani government must act fast to divert the water escaping Lake Manchar to keep roads open and prevent a massive wave of displacement, the agriculture official said. He said additional controlled breaches must be dug along the lake and more canals constructed to prevent over 100,000 more people from being displaced.
Trucks carrying massive boulders lined up along Sehvan’s main highway — just a few kilometers from the lake’s edge — to build a new retaining wall Tuesday.
Further north, water submerged one of two highways running through the town of Dadu, where thousands who have already fled their villages are seeking refuge, according to Irfan Ali Samo, a senior police official there.
The city, now on high alert, is nearly surrounded by water, Samo said. He doesn’t know what the latest water levels are, “but they are definitely high enough for us to worry.”
Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad, Pakistan contributed to this report.
The Flash Fate Up in the Air as Ezra Miller Problem Worsens for Warners – The Hollywood Reporter
The fate of Warner Bros.’ The Flash hangs in the balance as actor Ezra Miller continues to make headlines for their controversial behavior and various arrests. An outright shelving of the film is not off the table, though it would be a last resort.
Warners — and its new parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery — had hoped to avoid the line of fire, because its big-budget DC superhero tentpole isn’t scheduled to hit theaters until June 23, 2023. But the pressure is mounting by the day.
On Monday, the actor was charged with a felony burglary, and on Wednesday, Rolling Stone reported that Vermont’s child services department is attempting to locate a mother and three children who have allegedly been residing at Miller’s farm in the state.
A source with knowledge of the situation says the studio appears to be preparing for three possible scenarios.
First, Warners has received indications that the 29-year-old Miller, whose mother has accompanied the actor in recent days, will seek professional help after returning home to their farm in Vermont after being away. If that help happens, Miller, who goes by they/them pronouns, could give an interview at some point explaining their erratic behavior over the past few years. The actor could then do limited press for The Flash, and the movie would open in cinemas as planned.
The second scenario: Even if Miller doesn’t reach out for help, Warners could still release the film. But don’t expect Miller to play a prominent role in terms of marketing and publicity. Nor would Miller be The Flash going forward, as the role would be recast in future projects.
The third case: Things go from bad to worse, with the situation with Miller deteriorating. This would see Warners killing the movie outright, as it could not be reshot with a different actor. Miller plays multiple characters and is in almost every scene. Scrapping a $200 million film would be an unprecedented move.
All of this comes amid change at Warners. Earlier this month, newly minted Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav stunned Hollywood when shelving Batgirl, a $90 million movie made for HBO Max. Unlike The Flash, there was no individual controversy involved; rather Zaslav opted to take a tax write-down on the project and pivot away from making streaming films for DC.
Miller was cast as The Flash in 2014, the same year a solo The Flash film was announced. The development process has been long, with multiple directors coming and going over the years until It filmmaker Andy Muschietti finally got the project off the ground. The film also stars Michael Keaton, back as Batman for the first time in 30 years, and Ben Affleck as a different version of Batman.
Miller began their time as The Flash with cameos in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad, both released in 2016, before having a main role in Justice League a year later.
The Flash is a key film for Warners, as it is expected to chart a new course for the DC Extended Universe. The film has been testing well, even as Miller’s legal woes continue to mount.
Earlier this week, word broke that they have been charged with felony burglary for allegedly stealing bottles of alcohol from a Vermont home. According to a police report posted online, Vermont State Police were notified May 1 of a potential burglary when residents on County Road in Stamford, Vermont, reported that “several bottles of alcohol were taken from within the residence while the homeowners were not present.” Following an investigation that included taking statements and reviewing surveillance videos, police found probable cause to charge Miller.
The latest charge comes after Miller was arrested in April in Hawaii and booked on suspicion of second-degree assault, per the Hawaii Island Police Department. The incident reportedly occurred when Miller was attending a get-together at a private residence and “became irate after being asked to leave and reportedly threw a chair, striking a 26-year-old female on the forehead,” per police.
That came on the heels of a March arrest on charges of disorderly conduct and harassment following an incident at a karaoke bar in Hilo, Hawaii.
At least one project has already distanced itself from Miller. On Tuesday, the Salvador Dali Biopic Daliland left Miller out of its press release in an announcement about its debut at the Toronto Film Festival. The actor plays a young version of the artist in the project, which stars Ben Kingsley as an older version.
Despite the arrests and headlines about Miller’s alleged behavior, Warner Bros. Discovery chief Zaslav said last week that the studio is committed to theatrical releases for a number of DC films including The Flash.
“We’ve seen them. We think they are terrific, and we think we can make them even better,” Zaslav said of DC’s upcoming slate, including The Flash.
CAA, which represents Miller, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Coinbase to cut almost a fifth of staff as crypto crunch worsens
Coinbase will cut almost a fifth of its workforce after sharp price declines and a downturn in cryptocurrency trading volumes rocked some of the industry’s biggest players.
The Nasdaq-listed exchange said on Monday it would cut 1,100 employees as it grappled with a slowdown in trading that has forced it to abandon its growth plans.
Bitcoin has lost more than 60 per cent of its value since November, when it hit an all-time high almost $69,000. On Tuesday Bitcoin dipped below $21,000. Other coins, including ether, have been hit by even more severe declines.
The Coinbase move follows cuts at rival exchanges such as Gemini and Crypto.com, as well as crypto lending platform BlockFi, which have all announced plans to lay off large swaths of their workforces in recent weeks.
It also follows turmoil at Celsius Network, one of the world’s biggest crypto lending services, which this week blocked all customer withdrawals.
Coinbase, a platform that lets retail traders bet on a range of digital assets, derived about four-fifths of its revenue from retail trading in the first quarter. But volumes have cooled sharply as crypto prices have fallen. Coinbase’s shares have tumbled 79 per cent so far this year as investors have soured on its prospects.
Brian Armstrong, chief executive, said the cuts were an attempt to “stay healthy during this economic downturn” following an aggressive hiring spree that lifted the number of employees to 6,000 from 3,730 at the end of last year.
“I am the CEO, and the buck stops with me,” he said, adding that Coinbase “grew too quickly”.
The job cuts at Coinbase underscore the abrupt change of fortunes in the crypto market. Just months ago crypto firms including Coinbase and FTX went on a marketing blitz, buying ad spots in the Super Bowl, while Crypto.com bought the naming rights to the sports arena that is home to the Los Angeles Lakers basketball franchise.
The pullback in the crypto market has mirrored the sell-off in traditional asset markets triggered by rising inflation and a sharp tightening of monetary policy by global central banks.
The Federal Reserve’s policy-setting panel concludes a two-day meeting on Wednesday, where it is expected to raise rates by as much as 0.75 percentage points, which would be the steepest increase in almost 30 years.
Coinbase first indicated that it might cut jobs last month when it fell to an unexpected first-quarter net loss of $430mn. It also angered some Coinbase employees recently by rescinding some existing job offers.
Armstrong said on Tuesday that the company had already cut access to Coinbase systems for affected employees. He defended it as the “only practical choice, to ensure not even a single person made a rash decision that harmed the business or themselves”.
Coinbase expects to incur about $40mn-$45mn in restructuring expenses related to the lay-offs, the group said in a regulatory filing.
Last week, an anonymous employee petition called for the removal of three senior Coinbase executives for the failure of several product launches, overseeing a toxic work culture and aggressively hiring for thousands of roles, “despite the fact that it is an unsustainable plan”.
Armstrong called the petition “really dumb on multiple levels”, and invited unhappy employees to “quit and find a company to work at that you believe in”.
Video: Highlights from the FT crypto and digital assets summit | FT Live
COVID worsens asthma in children; booster after infection not as beneficial vs Omicron
By Nancy Lapid
(Reuters) – The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that has yet to be certified by peer review.
COVID-19 worsens asthma in children
Asthma in children may worsen after an infection with the coronavirus, doctors warn.
They studied nearly 62,000 U.S. children with asthma who had PCR tests for the virus in the first year of the pandemic, including more than 7,700 who tested positive. Infected children had significantly more asthma visits, hospitalizations, emergency inhaler use, and steroid treatments during the six months after their illness compared to children who tested negative and to their own prior history, researchers reported in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice https://www.jaci-inpractice.org/article/S2213-2198(22)00360-9/fulltext. Children who tested negative for the virus “had improved asthma control for the next six months, meaning fewer emergency department visits and hospitalizations for asthma, and less asthma treatment,” said Dr. Christine Chou of Children’s Health of Orange County, in California.
Results of earlier studies showing improvement in asthma control in the early part of the pandemic were likely due to public health measures like staying home and masking, which curbed exposure to asthma triggers, she said. Despite the overall impression that children with asthma did well during the first year of the pandemic, Chou added, the new study shows “longer lasting harm of COVID on children’s asthma control.”
Booster after infection adds little extra benefit vs Omicron
Among people who were previously infected with the coronavirus, a third dose of an mRNA vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna may not boost their protection against the Omicron variant of the virus, according to new data.
Researchers studied nearly 130,000 people tested for COVID in Connecticut from November 2021 through January 2022, including 10,676 with Omicron infections. Roughly 6% to 8% had been infected with previous versions of the coronavirus, according to a report posted on medRxiv https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.04.19.22274056v3 ahead of peer review. Two doses of an mRNA vaccine did help protect against Omicron among people with prior infections, but “we did not detect an additional benefit of receiving a third booster dose among this population,” said Margaret Lind of Yale University.
A separate study from Canada, also posted on medRxiv https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.04.29.22274455v1 ahead of peer review, similarly found that more than two vaccine doses “may be of marginal incremental value” for protecting previously-infected individuals against Omicron. The message, Lind said, “should be that (1) people should get two doses of mRNA vaccine regardless of if they have had a prior infection or not, that (2) people without prior infections should get a booster dose and that (3) people with prior infections should consider a booster dose, especially if they are in a high risk group for life threatening complications, but recognize that it may not provide significant additional protection against infection above two doses.”
Click for a Reuters graphic https://tmsnrt.rs/3c7R3Bl on vaccines in development.
(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)