AstraZeneca’s Vaccine Does Not Work Well Against Virus Variant in South Africa

The bad news, coming nearly a week after a million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine arrived in South Africa, was a big setback for the country.


Trucks carrying AstraZeneca’s vaccine through Johannesburg last week.

Credit...Phill Magakoe/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


By Benjamin Mueller, Rebecca Robbins and Lynsey Chutel
Feb. 7, 2021 NEW YORK TIMES

South Africa halted use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford coronavirus vaccine on Sunday after evidence emerged that the vaccine did not protect clinical trial volunteers from mild or moderate illness caused by the more contagious virus variant that was first seen there.

The findings were a devastating blow to the country’s efforts to combat the pandemic.

Scientists in South Africa said on Sunday that a similar problem held for people who had been infected by earlier versions of the coronavirus: The immunity they acquired naturally did not appear to protect them from mild or moderate cases when they were reinfected by the variant, known as B.1.351.

The developments, coming nearly a week after a million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine arrived in South Africa, were an enormous setback for the country, where more than 46,000 people are known to have died from the virus.

They were also another sign of the dangers posed by new mutations in the coronavirus. The B.1.351 variant has spread to at least 32 countries, including the United States.


The number of cases evaluated as part of the studies outlined by South African scientists on Sunday were low, making it difficult to pinpoint just how effective or not the vaccine might be against the variant.

And because the clinical trial participants who were evaluated were relatively young and unlikely to become severely ill, it was impossible for the scientists to determine if the variant interfered with the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine’s ability to protect against severe Covid-19, hospitalizations or deaths.

The scientists said, however, that they believed the vaccine might protect against more severe cases, based on the immune responses detected in blood samples from people who were given it. If further studies show that to be the case, South African health officials will consider resuming use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, they said.

Volunteers for coronavirus vaccine trials in Soweto, South Africa.

Credit...Jerome Delay/Associated Press


The new research findings have not been published in a scientific journal. But the discovery that the AstraZeneca-Oxford product showed minimal efficacy in preventing mild and moderate cases of the new variant added to the mounting evidence that B.1.351 makes current vaccines less effective.

Pfizer and Moderna have both said that preliminary laboratory studies indicate that their vaccines, while still protective, are less effective against B.1.351. Novavax and Johnson & Johnson have also sequenced test samples from their clinical trial participants in South Africa, where B.1.351 caused the vast majority of cases, and both reported lower efficacy there than in the United States.

“These results are very much a reality check,” Shabir Madhi, a virologist at University of the Witwatersrand who ran the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine trial in South Africa, said of the findings released on Sunday.

The pause in the country’s rollout of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine means that the first shipments will now be put in warehouses.

Instead, South African health officials said they would inoculate health workers in the coming weeks with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which has shown strong efficacy in preventing severe cases and hospitalizations caused by the new variant.

Johnson & Johnson has applied for an emergency use authorization in South Africa. But health officials there indicated that even before it is authorized, some health workers could be given the vaccine as part of an ongoing trial.

In the AstraZeneca-Oxford trial in South Africa, roughly 2,000 participants were given either two doses of the vaccine or placebo shots.

There was virtually no difference in the numbers of people in the vaccine and placebo groups who were infected with B.1.351, suggesting that the vaccine did little to protect against the new variant. Nineteen of the 748 people in the group that was given the vaccine were infected with the new variant, compared with 20 out of 714 people in the group that was given a placebo.

Unloading cases of vaccines in Johannesburg last week.

Credit...Elmond Jiyane For Gcis/Via Reuters


That equates to a vaccine efficacy of 10 percent, though the scientists did not have enough statistical confidence to know for sure whether that figure would hold among more people.

Researchers also conducted laboratory experiments on blood samples from people who had been vaccinated and found a significant reduction in the activity levels of vaccine-generated antibodies against the B.1.351 variant compared with other lineages.

Beyond the troubling news about the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, Dr. Madhi reported evidence suggesting that past infection by earlier versions of the coronavirus did not protect people in South Africa from the B.1.351 variant.

In order to determine who had previously been infected by the coronavirus, researchers tested blood samples from people who had enrolled in a trial of the Novavax vaccine, but who were given placebo shots and not the vaccine itself.

Covid-19 Vaccines ›
What You Need to Know About the Vaccine Rollout

Providers in the U.S. are administering about 1.3 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines per day, on average. Almost 30 million people have received at least one dose, and about 7 million have been fully vaccinated. How many people have been vaccinated in your state?

The U.S. is far behind several other countries in getting its population vaccinated.

In the near future, travel may require digital documentation showing that passengers have been vaccinated or tested for the coronavirus.

When can you get the vaccine? What are the vaccine’s side effects? Is it safe to take during pregnancy? We’ve have answers to many of your questions.

The researchers compared the levels of infection by the new variant in people who showed evidence of having previously had Covid-19 with the levels of infection in people who did not, and found no difference.

That suggested, Dr. Madhi wrote on a slide presented Sunday night, that “past infection by ‘original’ variants of SARS-CoV-2 do NOT protect against mild and moderate Covid-19 from the B.1.351 variant.”

He said it was possible that the potential of the B.1.351 variant to evade immune responses in people who had previously been infected accounted at least in part for why South Africa has suffered such a devastating second wave of the virus in recent months.

Researchers from the University of Oxford acknowledged on Sunday that the vaccine provided “minimal protection” against mild or moderate cases involving the B.1.351 variant. They are working to produce a new version of the vaccine that can protect against the most dangerous mutations of the B.1.351 variant, and have said they hope it will be ready by the fall.

“This study confirms that the pandemic coronavirus will find ways to continue to spread in vaccinated populations, as expected,” Andrew Pollard, the chief investigator on the Oxford vaccine trial, said in a statement. “But, taken with the promising results from other studies in South Africa using a similar viral vector, vaccines may continue to ease the toll on health care systems by preventing severe disease.”

Novavax said its vaccine was just under 50 percent effective in 

preventing Covid-19 in its South Africa trial.

Credit...Alastair Grant/Associated Press

Moderna has also begun developing a new form of its vaccine that could be used as a booster shot against the variant in South Africa.

B.1.351 has become the dominant form of the virus in South Africa and has been found in several dozen countries. A small number of cases have been reported in South Carolina, Maryland and Virginia.

Scientists believe that B.1.351 may be more adept at dodging protective vaccine-generated antibodies because it has acquired a mutation, known as E484K, that makes it harder for antibodies to grab onto the virus and prevent it from entering cells.

Novavax said its vaccine was just under 50 percent effective in preventing Covid-19 in its South Africa trial. Johnson & Johnson reported that its single-shot vaccine was 57 percent effective in preventing moderate to severe Covid-19 in South Africa, though it still offered complete protection against hospitalization and death after four weeks.

Another fast-spreading variant of the virus, known as B.1.1.7 and first identified in Britain, does not appear to interfere with vaccines. All five of the leading vaccines, and most recently AstraZeneca’s product, have been found to offer similar levels of protection against B.1.1.7 compared to earlier lineages of the virus.

AstraZeneca’s vaccine has been authorized by around 50 countries, including Britain, which has found dozens of cases of the variant first seen in South Africa.

In the United States, regulators are waiting on data from a large, late-stage clinical trial of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine that is expected to report results in March.
The AstraZeneca-Oxford Vaccine and New Variants

The AstraZeneca vaccine is found to be protective against the coronavirus variant first seen in Britain.
Feb. 5, 2021

As Virus Variants Spread, ‘No One Is Safe Until Everyone Is Safe’
Jan. 31, 2021

How British Scientists Found the More Infectious Coronavirus Variant
Jan. 16, 2021

Benjamin Mueller is a United Kingdom correspondent for The New York Times. Before that, he had been a police and law enforcement reporter on the Metro desk since 2014. @benjmueller

Rebecca Robbins joined The Times in 2020 as a business reporter focused on covering Covid-19 vaccines. She has been reporting on health and medicine since 2015. @RebeccaDRobbins

A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 8, 2021, Section A, Page 5 of the New York edition with the headline: Variant in South Africa Blunts Vaccine by AstraZeneca. 

Coronavirus vaccine strategy needs rethink after resistant variants emerge, say scientists

Oxford vaccine shown to have only limited effect against South African variant of coronavirus

Sarah Boseley Health editor, THE GUARDIAN

Mon 8 Feb 2021 
 

Professor of vaccinology Shabir Madhi at the University of the Witwatersrand says protecting at-risk individuals against severe Covid is more important than herd immunity.

 Photograph: Luca Sola/AFP/Getty Images

Leading vaccine scientists are calling for a rethink of the goals of vaccination programmes, saying that herd immunity through vaccination is unlikely to be possible because of the emergence of variants like that in South Africa.

The comments came as the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca acknowledged that their vaccine will not protect people against mild to moderate Covid illness caused by the South African variant. The Oxford vaccine is the mainstay of the UK’s immunisation programme and vitally important around the world because of its low cost and ease of use.

The findings came from a study involving more than 2,000 people in South Africa. They followed results from two vaccines, from Novavax and Janssen, which were trialled there in recent months and were found to have much reduced protection against the variant – at about 60%. Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have also said the variant affects the efficacy of their vaccines, although on the basis of lab studies only.

Play Video
0:47 UK minister defends South Africa's decision to pause rollout of Oxford Covid vaccine – video

All the vaccines, however, have been found to protect against the most severe disease, hospitalisation and death.

South Africa’s health minister, Zweli Mkhize, said in comments reported by Reuters on Sunday that the country would suspend use of the Oxford jab in its vaccination programme while scientists advised on the best way to proceed.

Shabir Madhi, professor of vaccinology at the University of the Witwatersrand who has been chief investigator on a number of vaccine trials in South Africa, including the Oxford one, said it was time to rethink the goals of mass Covid vaccination.

“These findings recalibrate thinking about how to approach the pandemic virus and shift the focus from the goal of herd immunity against transmission to the protection of all at-risk individuals in the population against severe disease,” he said.

The UK vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, said the British public should maintain confidence in the Oxford jab, writing in the Telegraph that the vaccines being deployed “appear to work well against the Covid-19 variants currently dominant in the UK”.

He continued: “In terms of other variants, not in the UK, we need to be aware that even where a vaccine has reduced efficacy in preventing infection there may still be good efficacy against severe disease, hospitalisation, and death.”


Prof Andrew Pollard, chief investigator on the Oxford vaccine trial, emphasised the value of the vaccines in reducing the burden on health systems.

“This study confirms that the pandemic coronavirus will find ways to continue to spread in vaccinated populations, as expected, but, taken with the promising results from other studies in South Africa using a similar viral vector, vaccines may continue to ease the toll on health care systems by preventing severe disease,” he said.

Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at Oxford, said on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that even if vaccines do not bring down the numbers infected with variant strains, they save lives. “We may not be reducing the total number of cases but there’s still protection in that case against deaths, hospitalisations and severe disease,” she said.

“That’s really important for healthcare systems, even if we are having mild and asymptomatic infections. To prevent people going into hospital with Covid would have a major effect.”

Ravi Gupta, professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said that it was pragmatic to adopt the approach that vaccines will prevent severe disease and death rather than enabling herd immunity in countries like South Africa. To stop transmission – if it were possible – would mean delivering huge numbers of vaccine doses, which are not working so well, very rapidly.

“We probably need to switch to protecting the vulnerable, with the best vaccines we have which, although they don’t stop infection, they probably do stop you dying,” he said.

The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is thought to be less effective against the South Africa variant of coronavirus.

Photograph: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images

It was less of an issue for the time being in countries like the UK where vaccines were working and the immunisation programme was reaching millions. “Because we have better access to vaccines, we can be more ambitious but different countries pursue different strategies, then travel resumes and it may be very hard to stop these variants,” he said.

The vaccines perform better against the Kent variant. On Friday, the Oxford team published a study in pre-print, before peer review, showing efficacy dropped from an average of 84% to 75%.

All the vaccine developers are now working on tweaking their vaccines to increase efficacy against variants that have mutations in the spike protein. The protein, which attaches to human cells, is the target of most of the vaccines. Gilbert told the BBC on Sunday that “we have a version with the South African spike sequence in the works.

“It looks very likely that we can have a new version ready to use in the autumn.” This would open up the possibility of some people having a third jab later in the year.

There have been more than 100 cases of the South Africa virus identified in the UK so far. Attempts are being made to prevent the spread with quarantine measures for overseas visitors and house-to-house testing in areas where there has been a case.

Zahawi told the BBC that, in future, people should expect regular booster shots of Covid vaccines, “in the way we do with flu vaccinations, where you look at what variant in virus is spreading around the world, you rapidly produce a variant of vaccine and then begin to vaccinate and protect the nation”.Quick guide
Vaccines: how effective is each one and how many has the UK ordered?Show

All the vaccines, he said, have some effect on the UK and South Africa variants. More data would be available by mid-February that would help decide the pace of the relaxation of lockdowns.

Even though some countries, like Greece, are talking of admitting only tourists who have been vaccinated this summer, Zahawi reiterated there were no plans to introduce a vaccine passport in the UK. It would be discriminatory, he said. People could, however, ask for a certificate of vaccination from their GP if they needed it, he added.

“Of course you have the evidence that you’ve been vaccinated held by your GP and if other countries require you to show proof of that evidence that is obviously up to those countries …… but we have no plan to introduce a vaccine passport,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.

Case numbers and deaths dropped substantially on Sunday, although some of that will be the weekend effect. There were 15,845 cases, 29,326 people in hospital and 373 deaths reported, according to government figures.

South Africa halts rollout of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine after shot falters against variant

By MATTHEW HERPER @matthewherper

FEBRUARY 7, 2021

A vial of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.VALENTINA PETROVA/AP

South Africa is halting its rollout of the AstraZeneca-University of Oxford Covid-19 vaccine, the country’s minister of health said Sunday, following a new analysis that suggests the shot “provides minimal protection” against mild disease caused by the new coronavirus variant circulating in South Africa.

Two top virologists advising the government said during a press conference that the pause was necessary. They said South Africa would institute a new process in which vaccines are initially studied in a research phase to try and determine that each vaccine reduces Covid hospitalizations in South Africa despite the widespread new variant there.

“The AstraZeneca vaccine rollout needs to be put on a temporary halt while we get the clinical efficacy information in,” said Salim Abdool Karim, an epidemiologist at Columbia University and part of a commission advising the South African government. “And the way that we can do that is with the new approach to rollout.”

Barry Schoub, chair of South Africa’s Ministerial Advisory Committee on vaccines, struck a similar note.

“I think we just need to maybe suspend use of AstraZeneca, but investigate it more and more fully to see, can we utilize it more effectively,” he said.
Related:
The good and the (potentially) bad: What scientists know about variants and Covid-19 vaccines

The news heightens concerns about B.1.351, the variant first seen in South Africa, and will also likely lead to discussions about the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, which is among the least expensive and most widely available of the Covid-19 vaccines that have so far been developed. In addition to AstraZeneca, the vaccine is also being made for much of the world by Serum Institute, a large Indian vaccine maker.

However, the data, which were presented in detail during the livestreamed press conference, do not give clear answers. The results involve only small numbers of patients and may not be enough to draw any conclusions. The data were also submitted as a preprint and have not yet been peer-reviewed.

Shabir Madhi, professor of vaccinology at the University of the Witwatersrand and chief investigator on the new study, said that before B.1.351 became common in South Africa, the vaccine was trending toward reducing mild cases of disease by 75%. But once B.1.351 became prevalent, that number dropped precipitously, and cases were reduced only 22% based on 42 cases of symptomatic Covid


A roundup of STAT's top stories of the day.

Please enter a valid email address.
Privacy Policy


Those data appear unreliable, however. They were given with confidence intervals, which propose a range of plausible outcomes. For the 22% number, those ranged from -50% to 60%, meaning that more data would be needed to be collected to trust the figure.

Researchers and AstraZeneca emphasized in separate statements that the study was a small one, including only 1,765 volunteers with a median age of 31. AstraZeneca said it believes the vaccine will still protect against severe disease caused by B.1.351. The current study gives no information on whether the vaccine prevents severe disease, hospitalization, or death.

AstraZeneca also said that it and Oxford have started adapting their vaccine to B.1.351, and will advance the new vaccine through development so that it is ready for delivery in the fourth quarter of the year if it is needed.

This is the third vaccine, and the first approved vaccine, to show what appears to be reduced efficacy against B.1.351. Johnson & Johnson said that its vaccine, which was 66% effective overall against moderate-to-severe disease, was 57% effective against moderate-to-severe disease due to the variant. Novavax, another vaccine developer, said that its vaccine was 89% effective against mild-to-moderate disease, but in a separate trial in South Africa was 50% effective.

Karim pointed out that only the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been shown to reduce severe disease due to B.1.351. He said that when vaccines are rolled out, South Africa will now look at hospitalization rates in the first 100,000 to receive the vaccine in the hopes that this will provide information on whether the vaccine is proving effective.

Madhi warned that it could be “reckless” to simply let doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine expire without giving them, given the possibility that the vaccine could reduce severe disease.

UK coronavirus strain is doubling in the U.S. every 10 days, study finds

The mutant coronavirus strain first identified in the United Kingdom remains at low levels in the United States but is doubling its reach approximately every 10 days, according to a study published by researchers on Sunday.

The study bolstered modeling done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which predicted last month that the more contagious variant could be the dominant strain in the U.S. by March.

The U.S. still has time to take steps to slow down the new virus strain, the researchers wrote, but they warned that without "decisive and immediate public health action" the variant "will likely have devastating consequences to COVID-19 mortality and morbidity in the U.S. in a few months."

© Provided by CNBC A traveler takes a photo of a Covid-19 testing sign at the Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT) amidst travel restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on February 4, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.

The mutant coronavirus strain first identified in the United Kingdom remains at low levels in the United States but is doubling its reach approximately every 10 days, according to a study published by researchers on Sunday.

The study bolstered modeling done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which predicted last month that the more contagious variant could be the dominant strain in the U.S. by March.

The U.S. still has time to take steps to slow down the new virus strain, the researchers wrote, but they warned that without "decisive and immediate public health action" the variant "will likely have devastating consequences to COVID-19 mortality and morbidity in the U.S. in a few months."

The research, funded in part by the CDC and the National Institutes of Health as well as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, was posted to medRxiv, a preprint server, and has not yet been peer-reviewed.

The new coronavirus strain, also known as B.1.1.7, spread rapidly through the United Kingdom and has become the dominant strain in that country, which is by some measures the hardest hit in Europe.

Health officials have said that existing vaccines are likely to work against new strains, though their efficacy may be somewhat reduced.

The study found that there is "relatively low" amounts of B.1.1.7. in the U.S. at the moment but that, given its speedy spread, it is "almost certainly destined to become the dominant SARS-CoV-2 lineage by March, 2021."

The new strain accounted for 3.6% of coronavirus cases in the U.S. during the last week of January, according to the study.

The researchers noted that tracking the nationwide spread of the strain is complicated by the lack of a national genomics surveillance program like those found in the U.K., Denmark and other countries.

They wrote that they had "relatively robust" estimates from California and Florida, but that data outside those states was limited.

The growth rate of the virus diverged in the two states, with B.1.1.7. appearing to spread somewhat slower in California. The study authors wrote that the strain was doubling about every 12.2 days in California, 9.1 days in Florida, and 9.8 days nationally.

The study supports the conclusion that the new strain is already spreading via "significant community transmission."

The authors suggest that the virus was introduced to the country via international travel, and spread via domestic travel as millions of Americans traversed the country around the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's holidays over the fall and winter.

The authors also found that the variant was growing somewhat slower than it has in European countries, a fact they said that requires further investigation but may be the result of the sparsity of current data or other factors — including "competition from other more transmissible" variants.

Other worrisome coronavirus strains have been detected in South Africa and elsewhere.

The researchers warned that their findings "reinforce the need" for robust surveillance in the U.S. of possible new and emerging coronavirus variants.

"Because laboratories in the U.S. are only sequencing a small subset of SARS-CoV-2 samples, the true sequence diversity of SARS-CoV-2 in this country is still unknown," they wrote.

"The more established surveillance programs in other countries have provided important warnings about variants of concern that can impact the U.S., with B.1.1.7 representing only one variant that demonstrates the capacity for exponential growth," they added.

"Only with consistent, unbiased sequencing at scale that includes all geographic and demographic populations including those often underrepresented, together with continued international scientific collaborations and open data sharing, will we be able to accurately assess and follow new variants that emerge during the COVID-19 pandemic," the researchers wrote.

DEAD CAPITAL

Posthaste: Canada Inc. sitting atop $140B cash mountain — but here's why it's reluctant to unleash the funds to power the economy

 


Canadian companies are sitting atop a $140-billion cash mountain, but they may be reluctant to unleash those funds to power the economy any time soon, according to Bank of Montreal.

BMO chief economist Doug Porter and senior economist Sal Guatieri estimate that Canadian non-financial corporations’ financial assets rose to $206.6 billion in the first three quarters of 2020, compared to an average $131.5 billion in the past decade.

“Much of the increase was in currency and deposits, which rose by $139.6 billion to a record high, versus an average of just $27.5 billion in the past decade,” the analysts wrote in a report on Friday. “So yes, there is plenty of extra cash on hand, but it’s largely for precautionary reasons.”

Savings by Canadian consumers and corporations have been touted as key drivers of a much-anticipated economic rebound, and is also known as a ‘pre-loaded’ fiscal stimulus.

Last November, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce economists estimated Canadian households had a cash hoard of $170-billion. But the cash has only slowly trickled into the economy due to continued lockdowns and lack of opportunities to spend.

BMO analysts believe that the business sector will also remain reluctant to inject funds into the economy too quickly.

Much of the cash buildup is due to a rebound in commodity prices, but also due to companies tapping loans and debt securities that would have inflated many companies’ cash accounts.

“The next question is whether they will be willing to take that step (to spend),” BMO analysts said. “Some sectors face such extreme uncertainty and/or challenging backdrops in the current environment that it is highly unlikely that there will be a significant pickup in capital outlays in highly affected industries, while many are just trying to survive.”

Companies may also be looking to pay off debts accumulated during the crisis before investing in new projects, programs and products. Canadian corporate debt currently stands at 128 per cent of GDP, compared to global average of around 100 per cent.

In addition, business capital spending has been at record lows even before the pandemic, and that’s unlikely to change amid continued economic uncertainty.

AND THE SOLUTION IS; TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS

The economist argue that the government will need to ease taxes to encourage companies to plough funds back into the economy.

EXPROPRIATION NOT TAX BREAKS

“The takeaway question for policymakers looking beyond the pandemic is thus: what are the more fundamental conditions that are acting as a constraint on business investment?,” Porter and Guatieri wrote. “Improve the climate in which businesses operate, say regarding taxes and infrastructure, and the spirit will follow.”

Lowering taxes may be hard for federal and provincial governments that have seen their own fiscal situation deteriorate to support the economy. They can, however, boost infrastructure in targeted areas and devise non-tax incentives to encourage Canada Inc. to unleash its cash hoard.

Amazon reportedly upgrading its truck fleet

with hundreds of vehicles that run on natural gas

© ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images 

Amazon ordered over 700 compressed natural gas trucks, according to Reuters.

The trucks will use engines provided by a joint venture between Cummins Inc and Westport Fuel Systems.

The company previously pledged to become carbon neutral by 2040.

Amazon is upgrading its truck fleet to add hundreds of vehicles that run on natural gas as it explores new ways to reduce carbon emissions, according to Reuters.

The tech company ordered over 700 compressed natural gas trucks that would run from warehouses to distribution centers, the report said. The company is testing new vehicle types including electric, compressed natural gas, among others, Reuters reported.

Amazon did not immediately comment to Insider about the report.

Read More: Amazon unveils its first custom electric delivery vehicle, complete with a driver 'dancefloor,' built-in Alexa, and 360-degree exterior cameras

The trucks will be supplied by a joint venture between Cummins Inc and Westport Fuel Systems Inc, Reuters said.

Amazon has been exploring avenues to become carbon neutral by 2040 in support of the Climate Pledge commitment, according to its statement in October.

Panic buying caused by the pandemic increased trucking volumes by around 30% in 2020 as delivery activity surged, according to a June report by McKinsey & Company.

Read More: Amazon's first electric delivery vans are now making deliveries - see how they were designed

Most of the country's freight is delivered through medium and heavy-duty trucks which make over 20% of the industry's greenhouse gas emissions although they make up only 5% of the road fleet, according to Reuters.

Earlier this month, Amazon said that its electric delivery vehicles began making deliveries in Los Angeles. The company plans to expand the vehicles in 15 more cities in 2021 and have 10,000 on the road by 2022 and 100,000 by 2030.

Amazon first showcased its planned custom electric delivery vehicles in October and it first announced in February 2020 that it ordered the vehicles from electric automaker Rivian.

Read More: Amazon-backed Rivian closes $2.65 billion funding round as it prepares to ship its first electric SUVs and pickups

The online retailer reportedly delivers 2.5 billion packages per year.

Amazon reported its fourth-quarter 2020 results in February with a sales volume increasing to 39%.

Devastation in northern India Sunday. Over 100 feared missing or dead after a Himalayan glacier burst in Uttarakhand, wiping out a hydro dam and nearly everything in its path. Megan Robinson reports.

CIA Officer Will No Longer Provide Biden's Daily Intelligence Briefings After It Emerged He Defended Agency's Alleged 'Torture Program'

TEHRAN (FNA)- Morgan Muir who has been in charge of overseeing President Joe Biden's daily intelligence briefings will no longer do so.

Muir will be moved to a new role within the White House and is now expected to oversee the assembly of the written President's Daily Brief instead, The Daily Mail reported.

The brief is assembled from various reports from across the intelligence community, but he will no longer lead the in-person briefings.

The move comes after it was revealed on Saturday that Muir, who was formerly a senior CIA analyst, was part of a group advocating for the agency with regards to false claims about its torture program to a powerful Senate committee.

Muir essentially put together what would become the report on the agency's torture program in 2013.

An article by BuzzFeedNews quoted Daniel J. Jones, one of the lead committee staff members at the time, who noted how Muir had defended the value of the CIA's torture program in private talks with Senate aides and made false claims.

Jones told the publication that Muir could no longer be trusted to "convey accurate information".

"I would not trust him," Jones said, given Muir's past statements, adding, "There's no room for you in senior positions anymore."

CIA Spokesperson Timothy Barrett has called Jones' characterizations "baseless" and defended Muir calling him "an exemplary career intelligence officer whose strength of character is unquestionable".

A Senate report which was finally issued in 2014, was a sweeping indictment of the CIA and outlined the clear abuses and torture by the agency while interrogating terrorism suspects in the years after the September 11th terror attacks alongside a pattern of misleading Congress and the White House about it.

The article reveals how in 2013, there was a dramatic standoff between the Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA in which Muir played a pivotal role.

After the senate committee found "enhanced interrogation techniques" against terror suspects were not effective, Muir led a series of tense meetings in which the CIA attacked the findings.

A 6,700-page report was produced, yet Muir continued to defend the value of the torture program and based his assertions on information the CIA later admitted was inaccurate.

The 2013 meetings which were led by Muir continued for a month at the Hart Senate Office Building, where classified information is discussed.

Jones recalled how those on either side of the argument were so far apart that even discussing basic facts was a challenge.

"We would say, 'Here's a piece of paper. It is red. We can all see that it is red," Jones said, adding, "And they would say, 'No, it's blue.'"

Muir continued to defend the CIA's response to the torture report despite being shown a version of the agency's own records that contradicted its claims.

"He continued to double down on the false assertions," Jones said.

After the Senate report into torture was released, the CIA then quietly posted a series of three pages of corrections but it was almost a full year before the Senate Intelligence Committee and public even learned of its existence.

With Muir now working in the Biden White House, former Democratic Senator Mark Udall also expressed reservations over Muir's suitability to be compiling intelligence reports for the president.

"President Biden has assembled a strong national security team, but he should have serious concerns about entrusting his Presidential Daily Briefing to anyone who may have helped cover up this dark chapter in our nation's history," Udall wrote in a statement.

"I can attest that it's critical that intelligence agencies provide the president and other leaders with unbiased, factual and honest information. As we now know, the CIA and its leadership misled the public, senators, and Senate staff for years about the CIA's systematic and brutal torture of detainees," Udall added.

After the publication of the BuzzFeed article, officials insisted Muir's interactions with the Senate committee had nothing to do with the decision to change how and by whom Biden was being briefed.

"Morgan Muir is a widely respected intelligence officer who has demonstrated the highest standards of integrity and professionalism throughout his career," Amanda J. Schoch, the spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said to the New York Times.

"He is not the President's briefer as that term is generally understood, and there are no plans for him to be in the oval," she added

It Looks Like The UAE Is About to Win The 'Race to Mars'


(UAE Space Agency)

SPACE


DANA MOUKHALLATI, AFP
7 FEBRUARY 2021

The first Arab space mission, the UAE's "Hope" probe, is expected to reach Mars' orbit on 9 February, making it the first of three spacecraft to arrive at the Red Planet this month.

The United Arab Emirates, China, and the United States all launched projects to Mars last July, taking advantage of a period when the Earth and Mars are nearest.

If successful, the wealthy Gulf state will become the fifth nation to ever reach Mars – a venture timed to mark the 50th anniversary of the unification of the UAE – with the China mission due to become the sixth the following day.

Landmarks across the UAE have been lit up in red at night, government accounts emblazoned with the #ArabstoMars hashtag, and on the big day Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest tower, will be at the centre of a celebratory show.

Hope, known as "Al-Amal" in Arabic, will orbit the planet for at least one Martian year, or 687 days, while the Tianwen-1 from China and the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover from the US will both land on Mars' surface.

Only the US, India, the former Soviet Union, and the European Space Agency have successfully reached the Red Planet in the past.
Risky manoeuvre

After blasting off from Japan last July, the Hope mission now faces its "most critical and complex" manoeuvre, according to Emirati officials, with a 50-50 chance of successfully entering a Mars orbit.

The spacecraft must slow significantly to be captured by Martian gravity, rotating and firing all six of its Delta-V thrusters for 27 minutes to reduce its cruising speed of 121,000 kilometres (about 75,000 miles) per hour to about 18,000 km/h (11,200 mph).

The process, which will consume half of its fuel, will begin on Tuesday, Feb. 9, at 15:30 GMT (15:30 UTC) and it will take 11 minutes for a signal on its progress to reach ground control.

Omran Sharaf, the UAE mission's project manager, said it was a "huge honour" to be the first of this year's missions to reach Mars.

"It is humbling to be in such auspicious and skilled company as we all embark on our missions," he said. "It was never a race for us. We approach space as a collaborative and inclusive effort."

While the Hope probe is designed to provide a comprehensive image of the planet's weather dynamics, it is also a step toward a much more ambitious goal – building a human settlement on Mars within 100 years.

While cementing its status as a key regional player, the UAE also wants the project to serve as a source of inspiration for Arab youth, in a region too often wracked by sectarian conflicts and economic crises.

Hope will use three scientific instruments to monitor the Martian atmosphere, and is expected to begin transmitting information back to Earth in September 2021, with the data available for scientists around the world to study.

Close behind

China's Tianwen-1, or "Questions to Heaven", has already sent back its first image of Mars – a black-and-white photo that showed geological features including the Schiaparelli crater and the Valles Marineris, a vast stretch of canyons on the Martian surface.

The five-tonne Tianwen-1 includes a Mars orbiter, a lander and a solar-powered rover that will for three months study the planet's soil and atmosphere, take photos, chart maps and look for signs of past life.

China hopes to land the 240-kilogramme (529-pound) rover in May in Utopia, a massive impact basin on Mars. Its orbiter will last for a Martian year.

Tianwen-1 is not China's first attempt to reach Mars. A previous mission with Russia in 2011 ended prematurely when the launch failed.

  

Tianwen-1's first photo of Mars. (China National Space Administration/AFP)

NASA's Perseverance, which is set to touch down on the Red Planet on February 18, will become the fifth rover to complete the voyage since 1997 – and all so far have been American.

It is on an astrobiology mission to look for signs of ancient microbial life and will attempt to fly a 1.8 kilogram helicopter-drone on another world for the first time.

Perseverance, capable of autonomously navigating 200 meters (650 feet) per day, will collect rock samples that could provide invaluable clues about whether there was ever past life on Mars.

About the size of a small SUV, it weighs a metric tonne, has 19 cameras and two microphones – which scientists hope will be the first to record sound on Mars.

The mission is set to last at least two years.

© Agence France-Presse

Rolls-Royce hoping to prevent further rounds of job losses by shutting its factories for first time ever this summer

The aerospace giant will close plants in its jet engine division for two weeks to save cash on salaries, energy and other costs 

Dates for the two-week shutdown have not been decided yet by chief executive Warren East

It will affect all 19,000 staff in its civil aerospace arm worldwide – though the bulk of these operations are concentrated around its Derby HQ

By FRANCESCA WASHTELL FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 7 February 2021

Rolls-Royce is hoping to prevent further rounds of job losses by shutting its factories for the first time ever this summer.

The aerospace giant will close plants in its jet engine division for two weeks to save cash on salaries, energy and other costs.

Rolls has already announced plans to axe 9,000 staff from its 52,000 pre-pandemic workforce. Around 7,000 of employees have been let go.




But it is hoping the drastic action later this year means it will avoid needing to cut any further roles.

Aerospace analyst Howard Wheeldon said the move 'should secure skilled jobs' at the company and that it was 'perfectly logical' to stall production for a short time.

Wheeldon said: 'They have to put every measure possible through to maintain the people they need. No one can be quite sure when the recovery in aerospace will come and anybody who thinks they know the answer to that is in cloud cuckoo land.'

Rolls gets paid for the hours its engines are used on planes such as Boeing 787s and Airbus A350s. The collapse in air travel since early 2020 means that it has lost one of its key revenue streams. In August it swung to a dizzying £5.4billion first-half loss. Annual figures are released next month.

Although Rolls works in other areas such as nuclear energy and defence, it usually makes around half of its turnover from the civil aerospace division.

Dates for the two-week shutdown have not been decided yet by chief executive Warren East. It will affect all 19,000 staff in its civil aerospace arm worldwide – though the bulk of these operations are concentrated around its Derby HQ.

Rolls has about 12,500 UK employees. The company, which said it is in 'complex and constructive discussions' with unions, will spread the two weeks' pay employees will lose during the shutdown across the year.

Rolls was forced to halt manufacturing for a week at the start of the pandemic last year. It previously promised not to announce any new job losses until 2022. But it warned last month that its finances had been set back further by the second wave hitting travel again.

The travel industry believes short-haul flying should be back at 2019 levels by 2023. But this is not expected for long-distance routes, which use the large aircraft Rolls supplies, until 2025.

Many manufacturing companies, for example car makers, shut down their factories during quiet periods.

As well as cutting jobs in its restructuring, the company raised £5billion last year, partly by selling new shares. It aims to sell off businesses and divisions worth another £2billion.