Russian professor twice infects himself with COVID-19, says herd immunity won't save us

© Provided by National Post Dr. Alexander Chepurnov infected himself twice with COVID-19 so as to test the antibodies produced by his body to the virus.

Don’t expect herd immunity to save us the COVID-19 pandemic, warned a Russian professor after he deliberately infected himself twice with COVID-19 virus to study the resultant antibodies.

Dr. Alexander Chepurnov, 69, caught the virus for the first time in February while on a flight from France to Novosibirsk with a stopover in Moscow, but was able to recover back home in Siberia without hospitalization.

After recovery, he took a test that detected the presence of antibodies in his system, which he and his team at the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine in Novosibirisk decided to study.

They observed “the way antibodies behaved, how strong they were and how long they stayed in the body,” he told the Daily Mail . But the number of antibodies in his body decreased rapidly, he noted, and three months after he first fell sick, the team could no longer detect any present in his system.

Curious to see what would happen in the event of a re-infection. Chepurnov became his own human guinea pig and deliberately exposed himself to COVID-19 patients without protection. Six months after his first infection, his body’s defences fell and he was again sick with coronavirus.

“The first sign was a sore throat,” he told the Daily Mail.

The second infection was much more serious and Chepurnov had to be hospitalized. “For five days my temperature remained above 39C. I lost the sense of smell, my taste perception changed,” he said.

By the sixth day of the illness, a CT scan of the lungs was clear. By the ninth day, a followup X-ray showed double pneumonia.

However, by the end of two weeks, the virus was no longer detected in the nasopharyngeal tract — the upper throat behind nose — nor in other samples.

Based on his own experience, Chepurnov concluded that it is futile to hope that herd immunity could stop the spread of COVID-19. A vaccine, he said, could garner immunity, but it would be temporary.

“We need a vaccine that can be used multiple times, a recombinant vaccine will not suit,” he said.

Currently, adenoviral vector-based vaccines — vaccines designed to insert a modified COVID-19 gene into the human body to provoke the production of spike proteins that will keep the individual immune against the real virus — are at the forefront of the global race to find a solution to the raging pandemic. However, several researchers, including Chepurnov have expressed concerns that repeated shots of the vaccine could backfire, triggering an immune response against the vaccine instead of the real virus.

“Once injected with an adenoviral vector-based vaccine, we won’t be able to repeat it because the immunity against the adenoviral carrier will keep interfering,” Chepurnov told the Daily Mail.

On my travels, I saw a vision of two Americas – but which one will triumph?

Oliver Laughland in New Orleans THE GUARDIAN


A stilt walker dressed as Uncle Sam lumbered between selfies, a lifesize dummy of Donald Trump – complete with bulging eye bags – sat motionless by the roadside, and families, young and old, waved Trump flags as cars tooted their horns in support

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Ronald W Erdrich/AP

It was a grey autumn Saturday earlier this month at a Republican rally just outside Youngstown, Ohio – a once prosperous city in the heart of America’s rustbelt, embedded in a region that flipped to Donald Trump in 2016.

What started as a casual political gathering, however, descended into a full-throated confrontation that encapsulated the stark divisions that underscore this seminal election, and perhaps the state of the country as a whole.

A bashed up red Chevy pickup daubed in handmade “Dump Trump” signs pulled up slowly. And a lone protester, Chuckie Denison, a former factory worker at a local General Motors plant that closed last year, jumped out to berate the assembled crowd.

“Two-hundred-and-twenty-thousand Americans have died under Trump. And our jobs have gone.” he shouted. “And all we ask is for somebody to represent all of us.”

I’d come to Youngstown because Donald Trump had made direct promises to the people living here; to restore a failing economy and bring back manufacturing jobs after years of decay. But poverty and jobless rates continue to soar here.

In that crowd of Trump supporters were people who had worked at the same plant as Denison, and others who had lost their jobs during the pandemic. And yet they still believed Trump would bring stability to their lives.

“He’s probably paid,” said one Trump supporter – dismissing Denison, who had been accosted by a number of the flag wavers.

Within minutes, Denison’s signs were ripped from his truck and he was sent away in a whirlwind of abusive language.

I have driven thousands of miles throughout this election season, for our Anywhere But Washington film series, visiting the battleground states of Ohio, Georgia, Texas, Florida and North Carolina. And it has often felt like reporting in two parallel dimensions, where common ground between two factions of the same nation can feel nonexistent.

On one end, a feverish loyalty to the president, where not even the most sensational of scandals have a bearing on political belief. And where disinformation has given way to objective fact. On the other what often feels like a greater enthusiasm for removing Trump from office than for the Democrat on the top of the ticket. But still a constituency that increasingly reflects the diversity of the country itself.

© Photograph: Ronald W Erdrich/AP 

Biden-Harris and Trump-Pence supporters stand together at Vera Minter Park in Abilene, Texas last week. Common ground between two factions of the same nation can feel non-existent.

After two months of travel, and with most polls predicting an overwhelming victory for Biden, I’m still unsure who will win and whether any sort of victory has the power to reunite this fractured nation.

***

The passionate public disagreement I saw in Youngstown felt emblematic of a divided country and there are dark forces underpinning much of it.

Donald Trump has weaponized extremist misinformation to bolster his campaign and reverted to pushing conspiracy theories that cast doubt over election integrity, and, most recently, question the ethics of doctors working to save the lives of Covid-19 patients. He has declined to disavow QAnon, a baseless far-right conspiracy movement, which suggests Trump is the victim of a ‘deep state’ plot run by satanic paedophiles tied to the Democratic party. Instead, he described the movement as being filled with patriotic citizens “who love America”.

Recent polling indicates that half of his supporters now believe in the conspiracy movement.

On an intensely humid day in Peach county, central Georgia, I hitched a ride with organizers for Black Voters Matter, a voting rights advocacy group targeting marginalized Black communities in a bid to boost turnout and fight rampant voter suppression. Georgia is a battleground state for the first time in decades, and turning out voters in low-income minority neighborhoods could be the key to swinging it for the Democrats.

But Fenika Miller, a regional organizer, already faces an uphill task – and pervasive disinformation has made it even harder.

Miller remains upbeat, she registers voters with a smile and seems driven to get those in her community out to the polls. She blares James Brown’s funk classic Say It Loud – I’m Black And I’m Proud out of her van to draw people from their homes.

The enthusiasm for Biden is palpable in many of the neighborhoods we visited. But one encounter was chilling.

“Joe Biden, he’s trying to legalize paedophiles,” said one young man as he explained to Miller that he was already registered and voting for Trump.

I ask where he got his information from. “Every morning I get on my phone and watch different videos and stuff. You just put two and two together.”

Miller is coming into contact with these dangerous falsehoods on a daily basis.

“We’re living in dangerous times under a dangerous administration,” she said. “It’s intentional misinformation they’re putting out specifically targeting young voters and Black voters.”

She hugged the young man and asked him to be careful where he reads his news. But it was clear his mind was already made up. He was not the last person I came into contact with expressing belief in QAnon.

***

Away from the sinister conspiracy movements, my travels through the US have often felt like wading through a sea of alternative facts, where flat-out lies and mistruth have become mainstream Republican talking points and often the only way to excuse the president’s catastrophic policy failures.

In Texas, which for the first time in generations is now a battleground state after record early voter turnout, I met Rick Barnes, chairman of the Tarrant County Republican Party in suburban Dallas. I asked him if Trump’s child separation policy at the southern border had ever given him pause to question the morality in his party.


Away from the conspiracy movements, my travels have often felt like wading through a sea of alternative facts

“That was not a policy that Trump put in place. That was a policy of the predecessor,” he replied.

I pointed out this was untrue and that Trump’s former attorney general Jeff Sessions had specifically instructed his Justice Department to separate children from their parents as a deterrence, something unprecedented in US history.

“That’s something we’d have to agree to disagree on,” he replied.

In Florida, a critical swing state, I met Malcolm Out Loud, a conservative radio host who argued that Dr Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert is “a fraud” and that the official Covid-19 death toll is inflated.

“This entire pandemic has been a setup,” he said.

I pointed out he had no public health background or any expertise to make such a claim.

“We can agree to disagree,” he replied, mirroring the refrain from Barnes.

***

The extreme policy and dark rhetoric of the past four years has punished the most vulnerable in US society. And it’s in many of these communities where I found the most fervent faith in Joe Biden and, more pointedly, a vision of America that marked a return to societal norms.

In the southern border city of McAllen, Texas I visited the Ramirez family who have for six generations maintained a small chapel close to the US-Mexico border. It was once a site on the underground railroad, offering safe haven to escaped slaves. Dozens of the family’s ancestors are buried in its graveyard. But Donald Trump’s wall is being built just a few feet away.

If building goes ahead – the foundations have been laid but not the wall itself – the family chapel will be effectively partitioned from the United States, and the Ramirez family will be forced to go through customs checks to visit their ancestors.

“We are praying for Joe Biden, because him winning is the only thing that will stop this wall,” said Silvia Ramirez as she stood at the graveyard, now surrounded by rubble.

Biden has pledged to immediately end construction of Trump’s wall if elected, which would most likely save the family’s chapel.

Prayer for Biden is ongoing in the battleground state of North Carolina as well. Here I met a group of traveling evangelical preachers desperate to convince others in their denomination to change their minds. In 2016 white evangelicals made up over a quarter of voters in the country and 81% of them voted for Donald Trump.

Many of the pastors on this national bus tour, named Vote Common Good, had themselves been loyal Republicans until Donald Trump came to office but his child separation policy along with attempts to ban Muslims from entering the country, inspired a number of them to speak out.

“This is a diagnostic election that’s going to show us who we are,” said pastor Doug Pagitt, the group’s founder. “And if the Christian community in this country says: ‘this [Trump] is our guy’ again, that is an indictment.”

***

Although opposition to Trump has galvanized a base of moral support for Biden, the former vice-president was far from a consensus candidate among progressives.

But it is not simply Biden and Trump on the ballot this year, the president’s challenger is joined all over the country by a field of Democratic Party candidates that increasingly represent the diversity of America.

2020 sees the largest number of Black women running for Congress and not all of them are full throated Biden backers.

In Texas’s 24th congressional district, a stretch of suburban sprawl outside of Dallas, I met Candace Valenzuela, vying to become the first Afro-Latina elected to Congress. A few years ago this district was solid Republican, but now it’s a toss-up, a marker of the state’s rapidly evolving demographics and many suburban voters’ deep dislike of Trump.

She is diplomatic when discussing whether a 77-year-old white man is really representative of the change occurring at the grassroots of her party.

“I don’t think any one of us captures the essence of it,” she says. “It’s something that’s happening in aggregate.”

But Ebony Carter, a 25-year-old first time candidate and Black Lives Matter activist, is more direct when describing the presidential candidate she will share a ballot with.

I asked if she thought that Biden’s candidacy spoke to younger people of color in America.

“No,” she replied. “I’ll be clear with that one.

“However, I believe that Joe Biden is overwhelmingly the best choice for the job and I’m honored to be on any ticket with anyone who is actually going to fight for American lives, and I think that’s what he’s going to do.”

Throughout my journey finding authentic, representative politics has been tough – given the nation’s monumental divisions.

But Ebony Carter’s candidacy, in Georgia’s 110th statehouse district outside of Atlanta, another of those run by Republicans for decades, felt like a shining example of how this country might be unified.

Related: Obama lends a hand as Biden and Trump launch final campaign blitz

She is out every day canvassing in both Democratic and Republican neighborhoods with her mother Deborah, who serves as her unofficial campaign manager, and her one year-old daughter Nairobi, who sleeps in a pram as Ebony tries to convince anyone who will listen to turn up and vote. She is pushing healthcare reform and better funding for public education.

But most importantly she is pushing to build a grassroots movement from the bottom up, trying to engage those who do not normally participate in the electoral process.

“Why am I doing this?” she said as the sun began to set after a full day of canvassing and Nairobi began to wake up. “Because somebody has to. I want to show people that it’s possible. And I’m doing it for her.”

Mexico protesters burn Trump effigy, slam U.S. border policy

By Jorge Nieto

© Reuters/JORGE DUENES Migrants and members of civil society hold pinatas during a protest in Tijuana

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - Protesters in Mexico burned effigies of Donald Trump and a border patrol agent on the U.S. border on Saturday, condemning President Donald Trump's migration policies and urging Americans to reject him at the ballot box on Tuesday.

A few dozen migrant activists marched to the beach fence separating Mexico from the United States at the border city of Tijuana chanting, "Trump, we won't pay for your wall," then set fire to a crude, besuited effigy of the president on a stick.

© Reuters/JORGE DUENES Migrants and members of civil society hold pinatas during a protest in Tijuana

"We're calling on people to vote against Trump and in favor of hope. Biden has promised us a humanitarian migration reform, we'll be watching to ensure the promises are kept this time," said Hugo Castro, a Mexican-American migrant activist.

© Reuters/JORGE DUENES Migrants and members of civil society hold pinatas during a protest in Tijuana

Trump, a Republican, is battling Democratic opponent Joe Biden, seeking re-election as president four years after he won office pledging to stop illegal immigration from Mexico, which he has accused of sending rapists and murderers north.

Insisting Mexico will pay for the border wall he is building between the two countries, Trump has pushed and threatened President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador into tightening up Mexico's borders against migrants from Central America.

© Reuters/JORGE DUENES Migrants and members of civil society burn pinatas during a protest in Tijuana

Alongside the Trump effigy, the demonstrators torched a pinata of a border patrol agent, a week after a Mexican man was killed in an altercation with U.S. officials attempting to cross into the United States on the Tijuana-San Diego border.

© Reuters/JORGE DUENES Migrants and members of civil society hold pinatas during a protest in Tijuana

(Reporting by Jorge Nieto; Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by William Mallard)

Shakira slams 'unimaginably cruel' U.S. family separations at border

Shakira, a Grammy-winning singer and activist, is publicly slamming the United States for "unimaginably cruel immigration policies" that have resulted in the separation of thousands of children from their families at the southern border.

© Provided by NBC News

In an open letter published Friday by Time Magazine, Shakira points out that lawyers tasked with identifying migrant families separated under President Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" policy still haven’t been able to track down the parents of 545 children.

About two-thirds of those parents have already been deported to Central America.

"In 'the land of the free,' there are 545 children now stuck in no-man’s-land, at risk of growing up without a mom or dad, 545 children who have to go to sleep without someone to reassure them that they aren’t in danger at any given moment, 545 children who can’t hug, laugh or have any contact with the people they love most," Shakira writes.

The Trump administration instituted a "zero tolerance" policy in 2018 that separated 2,800 migrant children and parents at the southern U.S. border. It later confirmed it had actually begun separating families in 2017 along some parts of the border under a pilot program.

Many of the more than 1,000 parents separated from their children under the pilot program had already been deported before a federal judge ordered that they be found.

Lawyers can’t find parents of 545 migrant children separated by Trump administration

Approximately 60 of these children were under the age of 5 when they were first separated from their parents, Shakira writes. "As a mother, I think about my youngest son, who is now 5. I think about how he cries for me when he skins his knee, and the pain I feel if I am not there to comfort him. Who answers the cries of the children left without their parents?"

The Colombian recording artist, who is of Lebanese heritage, asks how can a nation "that purports to hold family values in such high regard, have such unimaginably cruel immigration policies? What rationale could justify separating children from their families, with no intention of ever reuniting them, when the U.S. has prided itself on being a beacon of hope for those who come from places where not even basic needs or safety are a guarantee?"

"Policies like family separation are born out of cruelty," says the musician and philanthropist, whose full name is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll. "This policy is not about protecting people or making communities safer. The unspeakable tragedy taking place at America’s southern border is about hate and the denial of basic human rights."

Medical groups have unanimously denounced the family separations, citing the harmful effects on children's emotional and psychological development and well-being, including post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues.

"This is not about politics. There is simply no justification for the harm caused to these innocent children, and the people responsible for this cruel policy must be held accountable," Shakira writes, urging the public to speak up in order "to bring them back together."

"Speaking up isn’t always easy, especially when one is not an American citizen and can be perceived as an outsider commenting on domestic policies. However, the United States’ decisions affect us all, even more so when children’s lives are on the line. So it becomes a common and urgent responsibility to share the stories of these families, no matter where they are from," Shakira writes. "Now is not the time to be silent."

For many Latinos, virus deaths loom over Day of the Dead

PHOENIX — Matilde Gomez wants her mother, Gume, to know how much she appreciates her love and sacrifices. So, she's putting her feelings into a letter.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Only Gume Salazar will never get to read it.

Instead, it's going on a table in Gomez's home in Arizona that's dedicated to her mother, who died of COVID-19. It will sit alongside fresh flowers and Salazar's blouse on Day of the Dead, a holiday that Salazar actually didn't care for much.

“I would think she would be OK with it,” Gomez said. “She would see this as a way for me to heal."

Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos, the annual Mexican tradition of reminiscing about departed loved ones with colorful altars, or ofrendas, is typically celebrated Nov. 1-2. It will undoubtedly be harder for Latino families in the U.S. torn apart by the coronavirus. Some are mourning more than one relative, underscoring the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on communities of colour. Adding to the misery, people can’t gather for the holiday because of the health risks.

Gomez's mother and uncle died of the virus a month apart this summer. The siblings in their 50s had no underlying health conditions. Gomez only spoke to her mother on the phone once before she died in a California hospital. On top of that, Gomez, 41, was diagnosed with breast cancer this month. She decided not to schedule surgery until after Day of the Dead because she wanted to honour her mother properly.

“I want to celebrate her memory in my household with Dia de los Muertos,” said Gomez, who lives in the Phoenix suburb of El Mirage. “She’s never going to be forgotten.”

Day of the Dead usually revolves around an altar in the home or at a graveside of photos of the dead, their important belongings and even favourite foods. They often are adorned with marigolds, which are believed to draw the souls of the dead.

Normally, the holiday would bring processions in cities with large Latino communities, and mourners would eat, sing and share memories. COVID-19 has scuttled those plans but hasn't stopped people from erecting altars to enjoy online or outdoors.

Mother and daughter Chicana artists Ofelia and Rosanna Esparza have overseen the design of an altar at Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles since 2013. It's one of 11 huge altars on display in a collaboration between the county park and Self Help Graphics, an organization highlighting Latino artists and social justice. Ofelia, 88, is a fifth-generation altar-maker, and both were cultural advisers on Disney-Pixar's “Coco," a movie centred around Day of the Dead.

They built a 24-by-14-foot (7-by-4-meter) ofrenda of photos contributed by the community, candles, votives and tissue-paper marigolds. Besides the pandemic-induced sadness, the Esparzas believe Latinos are more interested in observing Day of the Dead.

“Because of the quarantine and the COVID, there’s this heightened awareness of the losses that are occurring not just in our city but around the globe," said Rosanna Esparza, whose cousin died of a suspected coronavirus infection, while four other relatives recovered from COVID-19. “I just feel like there’s a heightened awareness and more of a sense of reverence for life.”

For Sebastian Diaz Aguirre, the altar in his Brooklyn apartment that's stocked with Mexican sweet bread, coffee and a shot of tequila comforts him as he grieves his father. His father didn't die from COVID-19, but Aguirre believes the isolation hastened his decline at a senior living facility.

“I realize this year in a very special way, how important my Mexican roots and this tradition was to me,” Aguirre said. “I do feel a connection with my dad.”

Of the more than 6.8 million COVID-19 cases recorded so far by the Centers for Disease Control, about half noted racial identity. Of those 3.6 million-plus infections, 990,000 affected Hispanic people. And Hispanics made up the highest percentage of confirmed deaths in children 5-17 and adults 40-49.

More people of colour are essential workers and live in multigenerational households, which could contribute to higher rates of infection and death, experts say.

Consuelo Flores, a Chicana artist featured in Self Help Graphics' exhibition, created an altar with photos she found by searching “Black or Latino victims of COVID."

“It’s a realization the people that have died to serve the community and to ensure everybody’s well-being ... they look like me. They look like my family,” Flores said. “It tells you how imbalanced our society is.”

In Mexico, authorities have mostly closed cemeteries to keep families from congregating. Most U.S. cemeteries and funeral homes weren't closing but cancelled large events. Some, like Perches Funeral Homes in El Paso, Texas, invited people to post altar photos on Facebook.

CEO Salvador Perches said that with a rise of cases in El Paso and neighbouring Juarez, Mexico, it's been hard for grieving families to avoid gathering.

“People can’t celebrate their loved ones, we can’t mourn,” Perches said. “Just like Mother's Day and Father’s Day this year, this is when people go visit their loved ones.”

Ultimately, some say pageantry isn't what's important. An understated ofrenda at home is enough because it's the bridge between the living and the dead, Ofelia Esparza said. It should remind people to focus on how their loved ones lived.

“When you honour them, you're not going to talk about how they died,” she said. “You want to remember how you loved them and how they loved you.”

___

Associated Press journalist Emily Leshner in New York and Report for America/Associated Press journalist Acacia Coronado in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report. Tang is a member of The Associated Press Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ttangAP.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Dr. Anthony Fauci unleashes on White House coronavirus approach days before election

As President Donald Trump fights his way through the final days of the presidential campaign denying the pandemic — by lashing out at doctors, disputing science and slashing the press for highlighting rising coronavirus case counts — the long-running rift between the White House and Dr. Anthony Fauci burst into the open Saturday night.

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 17: (L-R) U.S. President Donald Trump, joined by members of the Coronavirus Task Force, speaks as National Institute Of Allergy And Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci looks on during a press conference about the coronavirus outbreak in the press briefing room at the White House on March 17, 2020 in Washington, DC. The Trump administration is considering an $850 billion stimulus package to counter the economic fallout as the coronavirus spreads. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

For months as Trump undercut his own medical experts, sidelined scientists and refused to take basic steps to control the virus while mocking former Vice President Joe Biden for wearing a mask, the nation's top infectious disease specialist held his tongue and took the President's attacks in stride as he continued to plead with the American people to socially distance and wear masks.

But Fauci's restraint appeared to have evaporated in a Washington Post interview that was published Saturday night, in which he called out the White House for allowing its strategy for fighting the virus to be shaped in part by a neuroradiologist with no training in the field of infectious disease and said he appreciated chief of staff Mark Meadows' honesty when he admitted to CNN's Jake Tapper during a recent interview that the administration has given up controlling the spread of the virus.

At a time when Trump is downplaying the rising cases in the vast majority of states, dangerously holding huge rallies with few masks and no social distancing, and lodging the false and outlandish claim that doctors are exaggerating the number of Covid deaths for profit, Fauci told the Post that the nation is "in for a whole lot of hurt."

"All the stars are aligned in the wrong place" as the country heads indoors in colder weather, Fauci told the newspaper in an interview late Friday -- a day when the US set a global record for the most daily cases and the nation surpassed 229,000 deaths. "You could not possibly be positioned more poorly."

Fauci, who is widely trusted by the public after a lengthy career serving under six presidents from both parties, said Meadows was being candid in the interview last weekend where he told Tapper it was not possible to control the virus. Fauci has adopted the polar opposite strategy by repeatedly telling Americans that they can change the trajectory of the virus and save lives if they adhere to mask use, social distancing protocols and other safety precautions.

"I tip my hat to him for admitting the strategy," Fauci told the Post of Meadows' admission to Tapper. "He is straightforward in telling you what's on his mind. I commend him for that."

Fauci did not mince words describing what he views as the untoward influence of Dr. Scott Atlas, a controversial figure who has become the President's de facto Covid adviser. Atlas, a White House coronavirus task force member who took on more prominence as Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx receded from public view at the White House, has misrepresented the effectiveness of masks and discouraged testing of asymptomatic people, even though most medical experts believe it is a critical element of stopping the spread of the virus.

"I have real problems with that guy," the Washington Post quoted Fauci as saying about Atlas. "He's a smart guy who's talking about things that I believe he doesn't have any real insight or knowledge or experience in. He keeps talking about things that when you dissect it out and parse it out, it doesn't make any sense."

Fauci and Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator for the White House task force, were fixtures at the White House in the early days of the pandemic, often appearing alongside Trump at White House briefings to detail the administration's efforts to fight the virus. But Trump grew increasingly frustrated with Fauci's media appearances and what he viewed as the doctor's negative tone about the trajectory of the virus. (Fauci told the Washington Post he was choosing his words carefully so as not to be prohibited from doing future interviews.)

During a call with campaign staff in October, Trump referred to Fauci and other health officials as "idiots" and said Americans were tired of hearing about the pandemic, according to CNN's Kaitlan Collins and Kevin Liptak. Birx, who has also expressed concerns about Atlas to her confidantes, has taken her expertise and influence out on the road, meeting with state and local officials to try to help shape their strategies for fighting the virus.

Atlas responded to Fauci Saturday night in a tweet comprised of a series of hashtags that accused him of engaging in politics and mocked Fauci for the ceremonial first pitch that he threw at the opening game of the Washington Nationals.

"#Insecurity #EmbarrassingHimself #Exposed #CantThrowABall #NoTimeForPolitics," Atlas tweeted.

In a statement, White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere sharply criticized Fauci, claiming he was inappropriately playing politics a few days before Election Day.

"It's unacceptable and breaking with all norms for Dr. Fauci, a senior member of the President's Coronavirus Taskforce and someone who has praised President Trump's actions throughout this pandemic, to choose three days before an election to play politics," Deere said in the statement. "As a member of the Task Force, Dr. Fauci has a duty to express concerns or push for a change in strategy, but he's not done that, instead choosing to criticize the President in the media and make his political leanings known by praising the President's opponent— exactly what the American people have come to expect from The Swamp."

But it was Trump's campaign that tried to play politics with Fauci when it featured him in a campaign ad without his consent and took his words out of context.

Deere appeared to be referring to the contrast that Fauci drew in the interview between the Trump and Biden campaign's differing approaches to the pandemic. Biden's campaign, he was quoted as saying, "is taking it seriously from a public health perspective," while the Trump campaign is viewing the virus through the lens of "the economy and reopening the country."

Campaigns clash over Covid-19

At the end of one of the worst weeks for the US in daily coronavirus case counts, the Trump and Biden campaigns continued to clash over the President's handling of Covid-19 on the trail Saturday as Biden campaigned in Michigan and Trump held four rallies in Pennsylvania.

Trump once suggested that the virus had not been a serious problem for himself, first lady Melania Trump or his teenage son Barron, glossing over the fact that the first family receives the highest caliber of medical care in the country and had access to experimental treatments that are not available to most Americans.

Failing to acknowledge the grave risks of the virus to older Americans and those with pre-existing conditions, Trump falsely claimed Saturday that "because of our relentless efforts, the recovery rate right now on Covid, or China virus, or the China plague, is 99.7%," using a racist term to describe the virus.

Not only is there not enough data yet to understand the long-term consequences on patients who have contracted the disease, but about 2.5% of people in the US who tested positive for Covid-19 have died from it, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Trump, who pledged to "terminate" the virus Saturday with "science, medicine and groundbreaking therapies," was also critical of Biden's relentless focus on Covid-19 in the closing days of the campaign.

"All he does is talk about Covid, Covid," Trump said of Biden. "He has nothing else to talk about. ... We agree it's serious and we've done an incredible job. And at some point they are going to recognize that."

Both Biden and former President Barack Obama, who campaigned with Biden in Michigan on Saturday, issued a sharp rebuke to Trump for his false claim Friday that US doctors are profiteering off of Covid patients. Obama seemed incredulous that the attack was part of the President's closing argument and framed it as evidence of Trump's lack of character.

"He's jealous of Covid's media coverage and now he's accusing doctors of profiting off this pandemic -- think about that," Obama said. "He cannot fathom, he does not understand the notion that somebody would risk their life to save others without trying to make a buck."

Obama argued that if Trump had been focused on halting the spread of Covid-19 from the beginning of this year, "cases wouldn't be reaching new record highs" and noted that some of the areas where the President has held rallies have seen spikes in cases. He mocked Trump's "obsession" with crowd size in the midst of a pandemic.

"You know when a country is going through a pandemic, that's not what you're supposed to be worrying about," Obama said. "And that's the difference between Joe Biden and Trump right there. Trump cares about feeding his ego. Joe cares about keeping you and your family safe. And he's less interested in feeding his ego with having big crowds than he is making sure he's not going around making more and more people sick. That's what you should expect from a president."

Trump's America First presidency all but ended US global leadership. The world was outgrowing it anyway

The United States was never expected to last this long as the world's leader. For more than seven decades, America has buttressed the "rules-based order," acting as the world's police and its moral champion, whether its allies and enemies liked it or not. That's no longer the case.

© Christian Hartmann/Pool/AFP/Getty Images TOPSHOT - France's President Emmanuel Macron (L) and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) look at US President Donald Trump (C) walking past them during a family photo as part of the NATO summit at the Grove hotel in Watford, northeast of London on December 4, 2019.

In the past four years, Donald Trump's "America First" presidency has challenged the post-war spirit of cooperation more aggressively than any leader before him. One by one, he has defunded and abandoned the multilateral agreements and institutions created by his predecessors. His courtship of strongman leaders has allowed autocrats to exploit this extraordinary moment in time to further their own interests and roll back democratic freedoms in their countries.

But the global instruments Trump deserted haven't crumbled, nor is the world crashing and burning with its long-time leader in the back seat. Strongman leaders may be emboldened, but they aren't going entirely unchallenged. And old US allies have not fallen straight into the arms of China, as many analysts fear.

Instead, the world is adapting these agreements, it's reshaping its institutions and, as for China, most countries are finding ways to balance their relations with Beijing as both a friend and foe.

This shift has been a long time coming. While US grand strategists who believe American world leadership is exceptional argue it could go on in its role indefinitely, most international relations experts agree that all unipolar models must come to an eventual end, as other powers rise and challenge its primacy.

After assuming the role of leader following World War II, the US proved its dominance with its victory in the Cold War, a consolidation of power that experts described as a "unipolar moment." That moment has lasted 30 years.

There have been clear signs over the past two decades, however, that Americans are tiring of taking on this role, while much of the world, equally, is cooling on the US as its hegemon, and is eager to step into its shoes.

Germany, for example, is pitching itself as a global health leader. Even before the pandemic, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had put global health on the agenda at G20 meetings for the first time as the Trump administration showed signs of retreat from international cooperation. Germany has boosted funding for health research and development, and was even able to treat patients from neighboring countries for Covid-19 early in the European outbreak, so well-resourced were its hospitals at a time of crisis.

As the US attempted to lead reforms of the World Health Organization — despite its decision to abandon it — Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron proposed their own an alternative plan, after rejecting Washington's, as Reuters reported.

Germany has pledged an extra 200 million euros ($234.1 million) to the WHO this year, making for a total of 500 million euros, to help plug the gap left by the US, traditionally the organization's biggest donor. It's not the only one. The UK announced last month it would boost its WHO funding by 30% over the next four years, which would make it the biggest donor, should the US follow through with its withdrawal.

China, under international pressure to resource the global response, has also pledged additional funding, as has France, Finland and Ireland, among others. It's unclear whether they will be able to make up for the US' shortfall in the years to come, but it's at least a good start.

Merkel — often described as the world's "anti-Trump" — said in May she wanted the European Union to take on more global responsibility for the pandemic and for the bloc to harness a more powerful voice overall on the values of "democracy, freedom and the protection of human dignity," describing cooperation with the US as "more difficult that we'd like."

© Handout/Jesco Denzel/Bundesregierung/Getty Images German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, deliberating with US President Donald Trump, right, at the G7 summit on June 9, 2018 in Charlevoix, Canada.

Making comments in a speech ahead of Germany assuming the six-month presidency of the European Union, Merkel said she saw her country's presidency as an opportunity to be an "anchor of stability" in the world that could shape change and assume responsibility for global peace and security.

"Itself a project between individual states, the European Union is inherently a supporter of rules‑based multilateral cooperation. This is truer than ever in the crisis," Merkel said.

Macron too tried to pitch himself as the next leader of the free world in the earlier days of Trump's presidency. His campaign lost steam, but he still often plays the democratic defender in the room where the US is missing, having confronted Russia's Vladimir Putin on his country's role in the Syrian conflict and on the deterioration of gay rights in Russia, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the murder of his critic, Jamal Khashoggi, at a Saudi consulate in Turkey.

© OMAR HAJ KADOUR/AFP/AFP/Getty Images Rescuers search for victims after an air strike in the Syrian city of Idlib on March 15, 2017. Russia has propped up President Bashar al-Assad's with air power.

While EU leaders' will to replace American leadership is strong, the lack of progress in the areas Macron has tried to address are a sobering reminder of the limited power the world has to uphold democratic values without the United States at the helm.

Putin had his wrist slapped, but the abuse of gay Russians continues, and Russia and its firepower has all but won the war for Syrian President Bashir al-Assad. Bin Salman has been forced to keep a lower profile, but Macron's confrontation has done little to threaten his position of power.

The European Union is also losing its battle with the rise of autocracy in some of its eastern states, like Hungary and Poland, or countering Russian influence in that part of their bloc.

But they continue to try and their own alliances are strengthening. Take the E3. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson should be Merkel's and Macron's worst enemy, as tense Brexit trade talks crash out ahead of the UK's December 31 withdrawal from the EU. Remarkably, the three are still chummy on topics other than Brexit.

The E3's whole raison d'etre has been to counter US foreign policy, coming together informally during the Iraq war and to engage Iran on nuclear proliferation where the US wouldn't. But it has become tighter knit in the Trump era — the trio have openly opposed US sanctions on Iran and increasingly cooperate in areas like Beijing's territorial expansionism in the South China Sea and the Syrian conflict as the US shows less interest in those security challenges.

Members of the trans-Atlantic defense alliance, NATO, have also had to adapt to a less present US. The alliance has had plans to boost funding since Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, an audacious move that the Obama administration did little about. Trump's aggressive criticism of member nations contributing below their commitments of 2% of GDP applied further pressure on several members to pay their share.


A long time coming

There may be no easy replacement for US leadership, but Scott Lucas, a professor of international politics at the University of Birmingham, points out that Washington hasn't achieved many of its recent international security objectives, either. "Asia, the Middle East, Africa, in many parts, disorder continues to a great extent," he said.

© NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images China's President Xi Jinping proposes a toast at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on April 26, 2019.

The list of US failures in international security is long. The US hasn't been able to build legitimate states in Iraq and Afghanistan, as it sought to. Israelis and Palestinians are no closer to peace deal. Both Iran and North Korea have developed nuclear weapons. The US hasn't prevented Russia from exerting influence in Eastern Europe. It hasn't convinced China to end its military aggressions in Asia. These were all true before Trump's rise.

Lucas said that the Trump presidency hasn't really been the turning point in this shift. President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq was the "critical moment."

"A lot of countries were discomforted, to say the least. They felt the war wasn't justified — countries like France, Germany, Australia -- that a unipolar America with the UK tagging along wasn't working, especially when Iraq turned so horribly wrong, with so many people dying, and the instability that continues. So, the notion that the US leads and everyone follows was shot," Lucas said.

Some experts say China is the only real contender here, and that a bipolar world in which the US and China compete is inevitable. Like in the Cold War, other countries will be forced to choose sides.

China too is finding areas in which to assert its growing power on the world stage with an increasingly absent US. At the UN General Assembly in September, Chinese President Xi called for the world to "join hands to uphold the values of peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom shared by all of us." In contrast, Trump devoted much of his speech to attacking China over its handling of the coronavirus, playing to his supporter base at home ahead of the November election.

Xi's comments need to be taken with a grain of salt — Beijing has also taken elements of Trump's presidency as an opportunity to vindicate its own heavy-handedness at home, in Hong Kong, for example, with its draconian national security law. But Xi does have a genuine appetite to be welcomed as a world leader, a role that will require him to conform somewhat to the rules-based order.

In the same speech in September, Xi made a pledge for China to become carbon neutral by 2060, an ambitious goal that has been met with both excitement and skepticism. Critics point out that China "off-shores" its carbon emissions, largely through its multi-trillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative, which includes development projects across more than 120 countries.



But Beijing is looking at ways to make these development endeavors more sustainable, and Xi's announcement at least shows that China, the world's biggest carbon emitter, is willing to lead and engage with the world on this crucial issue, where the US, the second-largest emitter, is not.

Shaun Breslin, a professor of politics and international studies at the University of Warwick, disagrees that the long-term future is necessarily a bipolar one where countries must choose sides between a competing China and US. Instead, he thinks the transition from a unipolar world will be "messy" and more likely give way to clusters of power.

"My problem with poles is we're trying to use language from a different era and wedge the current era on that linguistic basis. What I think we'll see is looser constellations of power and interests dependent on specific issue areas," he said.

The world will see countries continuing to engage China in areas like trade and technology, but not necessarily replacing Washington with Beijing on issues like security or moral leadership. In many ways, that shift has already happened.

Democratic candidate Joe Biden is among those who believe the US should continue to lead. Though he has promised to rejoin institutions like the WHO and the Paris climate accord should he win on Tuesday, he won't be able to reverse every foreign policy decision Trump has made.

For instance, it will be difficult for Biden to invest the troops and weapons needed to regain the influence the US once had in Syria. He may also find the US' former Kurdish allies unwilling to work with him, having for years fought alongside the US to defeat ISIS, only to be abandoned last year as Trump gave Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the green light to invade their territory in a quick phone call.

Biden's comments during a debate last week on North Korea also suggest he may have no policy that differs from Obama's, which did little to deter the pariah state.

Regardless of who wins the vote, the US' role in the world has changed profoundly. Returning to where it was four years ago won't be easy. Returning to its post-Cold War primacy is near impossible.

Why NASA's moonshot, Boeing, Bezos and Musk have a lot riding on U.S. election

By Joey Roulette and Eric M. Johnson

© Reuters/Joe Skipper FILE PHOTO: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from pad 39A with the seventh batch of SpaceX broadband network satellites, at the Kennedy Space Center, in Cape Canaveral

WASHINGTON/SEATTLE (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's differences with rival presidential candidate Joe Biden extend far beyond planet earth.

President Trump's plans to win the race in space call for a 2024 moon mission, and ending direct U.S. financial support for the International Space Station in 2025 - turning over control of the decades-old orbital laboratory to private space companies.

Biden, on the other hand, would likely call for a delayed moonshot and propose a funding extension for the International Space Station if he wins the White House, according to people familiar with the fledging Biden space agenda.

Pushing back the moon mission could cast more doubt on the long-term fate of Boeing Co's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, just as Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin scramble to bring rival rockets to market as soon as next year.

Extending support for the space station for a decade would also be a major boost for Boeing, whose $225 million annual ISS operations contract is set to expire in 2024 and is at the depths of a financial crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the 737 MAX grounding after fatal crashes.

Boeing and SpaceX are already supplying spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the ISS under a program begun under the Obama administration and supported by both Trump and Biden.

Though slowing the moonshot would push back contracts for moon landers and related equipment the companies aim to win, the emerging Biden space agenda appears broadly set to promote competition between traditional defense contractors like Boeing and "new space" rivals like SpaceX who promise lower-cost and reusable rocket systems and space vehicles.

CRAVING CONSISTENCY

For the commercial space industry, "consistency is key," said Mike French, a vice president at the Aerospace Industries Association trade group who earlier served as NASA chief of staff under Obama.

"If you shake the etch-a-sketch now, you will (be) risking a series of potentially historic accomplishments and the strong and sustained bipartisan support NASA has seen across its portfolio," French told Reuters.

Roughly 20 former senior NASA officials and scientists have assembled as a volunteer subgroup under the Biden campaign's science committee to informally help draw up ideas for a space platform.

Many held jobs in the Obama administration and are jockeying for influential roles on the transition team or in a Biden administration.

Reuters spoke to three of those people, as well as over a dozen lobbyists, industry executives, and former NASA officials who have held their own discussions with Biden's campaign.

Members of the subgroup also want to boost NASA funding for Earth science and support partnerships with other nations. They stressed that Biden's space agenda, and the staff assignments to lead it, were in a formative stage as his campaign prioritizes more pressing issues, like the coronavirus pandemic and joblessness.

A Biden campaign spokesman pointed to earlier remarks from Biden. In August, after SpaceX launched and returned the first astronauts from U.S. soil on a trip to the ISS in nearly a decade, Biden said he looked forward to "leading a bold space program that will continue to send astronaut heroes to expand our exploration and scientific frontiers."

Representatives for Blue Origin and Boeing declined to comment. SpaceX and the Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

FIGHT OVER BOEING ROCKET

But the Biden space group is divided on what to do about Boeing's SLS, several sources said.

The super heavy-lift rocket has been beset by development delays and cost overruns, but supports tens of thousands of jobs in Alabama and California and is seen by backers as central to NASA's exploration plans and the only path to Trump's 2024 timeline for the Artemis mission.

Critics say the rocket's ageing technology and launch costs of $1 billion or more per mission should prompt a formal White House or Congressional review of the program, particularly if SpaceX and Blue Origin are able to offer new rockets at lower cost.

It costs as little as $90 million to fly Musk's massive but still less-powerful Falcon Heavy, and some $350 million per launch for United Launch Alliance's legacy Delta IV Heavy.

Whether a Biden space policy would be more friendly to SLS or to newer commercial alternatives from "new space" players will be heavily influenced by his choice for NASA administrator, a role the campaign wants to be filled by a woman, two people said.

NASA views SLS as its only human-rated ride to the moon in the near term, said Doug Loverro, the former NASA head of human spaceflight.

"But is that the long-term direction to continue to pursue?" Loverro asked.

(Reporting by Joey Roulette in Washington, D.C. and Eric M Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Greg Mitchell and Edward Tobin)

Algerians vote on constitution with president in hospital
By Hamid Ould Ahmed and Lamine Chikhi 1 hour ago

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Algerians vote on constitution with president in hospital

By Hamid Ould Ahmed and Lamine Chikhi

© Reuters/Ramzi Boudina FILE PHOTO: 

A demonstrator stands on a street pole as he carries a national flag during a protest to push for the removal of the current political structure, in Algiers

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Polls opened in Algeria on Sunday in a referendum on constitutional changes pushed by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and the powerful military as a way to turn the page on last year's popular unrest.

The referendum is seen as a test of strength for both Tebboune and the leaderless opposition "Hirak" protest movement that brought thousands of people onto the streets weekly to demand radical change, and which rejects the vote.

Tebboune, who has been in hospital in Germany since last week after saying aides had tested positive for COVID-19, has pushed for a big turnout, which would demonstrate popular support for his strategy of moving on from the demonstrations.

In a statement late on Saturday to commemorate the anniversary of Algeria's war of independence from France, read out on his behalf because of his absence in Germany, he again urged people to vote.

However, there was little evident enthusiasm for the ballot on Sunday morning amid strict health measures because of the global pandemic.

"There is no point in voting. This constitution will not change anything," said 30-year old bus driver Hassan Rabia, sitting with two friends at a cafe in central Algiers.

At the Ali Chekir school at Ouled Fayet west of Algiers, about 10 people were waiting to vote. "Let's hope for the better and pray for Tebboune's speedy recovery," said Ahmed Slimane, 60.

Referencing Tebboune's hospitalisation in Germany, a cartoon in el Watan newspaper showed a man standing at a polling booth and sweating, looking at ballots marked 'yes' and 'no' in German rather than in Algeria's official languages of Arabic and French.

Tebboune has presented the changes as addressing - at least in part - the wishes of the protesters who last year forced his predecessor Abdelaziz Bouteflika to step down after 20 years in office.

However, their demands - replacing the ruling elite that has governed since independence in 1963, the military's withdrawal from politics and an end to corruption - have been at best only partly met.

Many of Bouteflika's closest allies and other top officials, including his brother Said and the former intelligence chief Mohamed Mediene, as well as major business tycoons, have been jailed on corruption charges.

The new constitution includes presidential term limits and more powers for the parliament and judiciary.

However, the military remains the most powerful institution in Algerian politics, though it has played a less prominent role since Tebboune's election.

The new constitution gives it a new power - the right to intervene outside Algeria's borders under certain conditions, with the generals concerned about insecurity in neighbouring Libya and Mali.

(Reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed and Lamine Chikhi, writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Grandma Wong was a key figure in Hong Kong's protest movement -- until she disappeared

With her gray hair and huge British flag, 64-year-old Alexandra Wong was a striking figure on the frontlines of last year's pro-democracy protests -- until she disappeared.

© cnn photo illustration/getty images
By Rebecca Wright, Ivan Watson, Nectar Gan, and Jenni Marsh, CNN 

Affectionately nicknamed Grandma Wong by other protesters, she attended nearly every demonstration last year, commuting from the nearby mainland city of Shenzhen, where she moved to 14 years ago.

Her presence for many symbolized how political dissatisfaction in Hong Kong cut across age groups, even if those on the streets were most often young people dressed in black. Her flag was an incendiary taunt implying to many that the city was governed better under British colonial rule than Chinese.

Last month after a long absence, Wong resurfaced in Hong Kong, alleging that she had been detained in mainland China for 14 months by the authorities there.

She says that late one night in August last year, after being discharged from a Hong Kong hospital where she was treated for injuries sustained when riot police stormed a subway station, she was prevented from entering Shenzhen.

© Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images Alexandra Wong poses next to the government headquarter's driveways in Hong Kong, on the eve of the second anniversary of the Umbrella Movement.

"I (was) frightened, I feel my hand was shaking," she says.

Wong says that after being held for 24 hours at the border, she was sent to two detention centers, before being released on bail for a year. "(I was) so frightened every second," she says of the ordeal.

Wong, who claims she did not have access to a lawyer throughout the process, says the Chinese authorities questioned her about her role in the protests, repeatedly asking: "Why do you fly your British flag? You are Chinese." She says she was threatened with 10 years imprisonment if she didn't talk. Wong says she told the authorities she always protested alone, and never joined a political organization or protest group.

The Chinese authorities did not reply to CNN's request for comment.

A protester is born

© Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images Pro-democracy protester Alexandra Wong, nicknamed Grandma Wong, who disappeared midway through the city's democracy protests in 2019 and resurfaced in Hong Kong two days ago after 14 months away, posing for a photo in her hotel room in Hong Kong.

Wong wasn't interested in politics growing up. She says she had even felt patriotic to the mainland, where both her parents were born and had fled from to Hong Kong during the second Sino-Japanese War.

But all that changed for Wong in 1989.

She had only recently returned to Hong Kong from Vienna, Austria, where she had been studying music, when soldiers opened fire on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing. "I felt really sad when I saw the bloody scenes on television," she says. "The bloodiness and chaos stuck with me, so did the protesters' reluctance to leave (Tiananmen Square)." When Hong Kongers took to the streets in solidarity with the victims, Wong joined them. It was her first protest -- and sparked a lifetime of political activism.

She later spent a decade drifting through jobs in Austria and Hawaii, before working for an NGO in mainland China. "Gradually, I started to compare these places with Hong Kong: Why in some places people live so happily, and places like the countryside on the mainland are so miserable?" she says

.

© Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images 

Activist Alexandra Wong waves a British Union Jack flag during a gathering outside the government headquarters to mark the fourth anniversary of mass pro-democracy rallies, known as the Umbrella Movement, in Hong Kong on September 28, 2018.

In 2006, Wong bought a 29-square-meter (312-square-foot) flat in Shenzhen for 90,000 yuan ($13,447) at auction. In Hong Kong, she says an apartment of that size would have cost close to 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($129,000), depending on the location. "The longer I lived in Shenzhen, the more I felt something was not right with the mainland, and the more I hoped I could do something to safeguard Hong Kong. I began going back to Hong Kong more and more often," she says

.

© Josh Berlinger/CNN 

A protester is seen carrying a flag that says "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times," an act that could now be considered a crime under the city's new national security law.

In Hong Kong, the inoffensive-looking, gray-haired flag-flying Wong became a fixture of the city's pro-democracy movement, first at its initial Occupy Central movement in late 2011. Wong later joined the protests against the national education curriculum in 2012, which launched the political career of activist Joshua Wong, and was regularly photographed at the Umbrella movement of 2014, which shut down a central thoroughfare of the city for months. She often camped out on the street for several nights in a row. 

© ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP/Getty Images 

Attendees from various forces stand next to a banner supporting the new national security law during a flag-raising ceremony to mark China's National Day celebrations early morning in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020.

Her appearances during that movement earned her the moniker Grandma Wong, although she is neither a grandma or a mother. The term speaks to her figure as an older member of society who has a broader perspective on the city's history, and future.

"I want to tell the middle-aged and old people to come out, (and) stand with the young people together," Wong says. "I must take care of the young people."

Captured in China

As the pro-democracy protests swept Hong Kong last summer, frequently erupting into violence, for many crossing the city's busy border with Shenzhen became increasingly sensitive. In August, British consulate worker and regular protester Simon Cheung was detained at the border for 15 days. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said he had been held for violating China's Security Administration Punishment Law, which covers a range of offenses deemed too minor to be crimes.

Reports emerged of people's phones being checked for materials related to the protests. This October, a Taiwanese man who disappeared after crossing from Hong Kong into Shenzhen last August turned up on Chinese state media. State broadcaster CCTV aired footage of Lee Meng-chu in a prison uniform, apologizing for endangering Chinese national security. China accused Lee of taking photos of Chinese troops on the border and protesters in Hong Kong. It is not clear if Lee's confession was made under duress.

Wong says she was also detained in August as she tried to cross the border back into Shenzhen.

Officers told her she was charged with "picking quarrels and provoking trouble." She says she didn't tell her family what had happened to her, for fear of getting them into trouble.

Wong was sent to a detention center where she shared a cell with 16 women -- she says they all shared a bed. The women were monitored by police officers 24 hours a day via a small window, and the washing area at one end of the room had two security cameras, she says.

"(There was) no privacy," she adds.

The hardest part was the sleep deprivation, she says. "(They) never turn the lights off," she says. "I could not sleep well. Every day, only three or four hours on average."

Wong was released on bail after signing a confession, and taken on a five-day patriotic tour of Xi'an, in central China. Accompanied by three national security police officers, she says she had to wave the national flag, sing the national anthem, and watch a film. They told her to respect the Chinese flag.

She was then told she could not leave Shenzhen for one year.

"The national security policemen (would) come to my own apartment, or they called me to the small police station," she says. "Sometimes they scared me at that police station."

After her bail period ended, she says she had to wrangle with officials for several days to get a bail completion certificate. When she finally received it on October 2, she hurriedly packed her belongings and went straight to the border with Hong Kong.

Back in Hong Kong

When Wong was finally able to cross into Hong Kong last month, it was a huge relief, she says. "That moment (of returning) was really, really happy," she says. "But I did feel sorrow, because the Hong Kong policemen (could) immediately bring me back to the police station ... it's possible."

While she was in the mainland, Hong Kong had changed -- in June, Beijing imposed a national security law on the city, which has made it easier to punish protesters and reduced the city's autonomy.

Now living in temporary accommodation in Hong Kong, she is trying to catch up with the events of the past year and is enjoying being able to read the news without Chinese online censorship, as she works out her next steps. Wong says she won't return to mainland China unless the political system changes.

She also says she will not stop protesting. She even wears a necktie embossed with the words "liberate Hong Kong" -- a popular protest slogan that has now been effectively outlawed by the national security law, as it is deemed as supporting separatism.

This week, she was at the court house in Hong Kong to support Tony Chung, the first public political figure to face charges under the national security law, and she has publicly supported 12 young people who were arrested on the mainland trying to flee Hong Kong by boat for Taiwan earlier this year.

Wong is urging other young people who can leave legally to try to start a life elsewhere. She says it's too late for an "old woman" like her to do the same -- so she will stay to fight. "I want to protect the young people," she said, so they can "emigrate to other countries."

All of this may attract the ire of the Hong Kong authorities but it is a risk she says she is willing to take.

"It's impossible for me to be quiet," she says. "I'm ready to go to jail again."