COVAX

Will US public support donating COVID-19 vaccines to low- and middle-income countries?

A new study led by VCU researchers surveyed 788 people. Among its findings: Older people were less likely to support donating vaccines, as were Republicans ONE IN THE SAME

VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

The pandemic is affecting every country, but not every country has equal access to the lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines. Recent estimates show that high-income countries -- which have just one-fifth of the global adult population -- have purchased more than half of the world's total vaccine doses, resulting in disparities for low- and middle-income countries.

A new study by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University investigates a key question: Will the U.S. population support donating part of its COVID-19 vaccine stockpile to less prosperous countries?

"COVID-19 is a true global pandemic that has touched every nation on Earth. Borders closed, economic consequences and an incredible level of human suffering, with now more than half a million people who have died of COVID in the U.S. and many more worldwide," said lead author Jeanine Guidry, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture in the College of Humanities and Sciences and director of the Media+Health Lab at VCU. "COVID-19 has shown how interconnected we all are, and to defeat it we will need to work together on a global scale."

For the study, "U.S. Public Support for COVID-19 Vaccine Donation to Low- and Middle-Income Countries during the COVID-19 Pandemic," the researchers conducted a survey of 788 U.S. adults that assessed the support of different population groups for donating vaccines, as well as in what quantity and in what time frame.

It found that older respondents were both less likely to endorse higher levels of COVID-19 vaccine donations and were more likely to want to wait until all in the U.S. who want the vaccine have received it.

"We know that while COVID affects everybody, the majority of the people who die from it are people who are older," Guidry said. "So this finding may reflect that vulnerability."

It also found that respondents who identified as Democrats were more likely to endorse more and faster COVID-19 vaccine donations to low- and middle-income countries than Republicans.

"It is possible that those who identify as Democrats were more likely to support higher levels of donation because it may be connected to a belief in health care as a human right and health care for all," Guidry said.

People without health insurance also were less likely to support donation, and wanted to wait until everyone in the U.S. who wants a vaccine has received it.

The study also found that people who rated higher on the "social dominance orientation" scale were both less likely to endorse higher levels of COVID-19 vaccine donations as well as more likely to want to wait until all in the U.S. who want the vaccine have received it. Social dominance orientation is a personality trait measuring a person's support for social hierarchy and belief that their group is superior to others.

"Social dominance orientation may actually be a fundamental driver of support for vaccine donations during the pandemic," said Paul Perrin, Ph.D., a co-author on the study and an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at VCU. "When people believe in their heart that some individuals are inherently better than others and should therefore be afforded more societal privileges, that is a deep worldview that can color many of their other belief systems."

The study's results also have some encouraging signs, said co-author Bernard Fuemmeler, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Policy in the VCU School of Medicine.

"Despite some of the differences we observed with respect to age, party affiliation or social dominance, it is encouraging that, for the most part, there was a majority support for donating as much as 10% of vaccines we have available in the U.S. to other countries," he said. "Despite some hesitancy among a minority of the sample, many we surveyed recognized the importance of closing the gap. Policymakers should be encouraged that proposals to donate the vaccine will be met with acceptance."

The study's findings could be valuable to policymakers, health care providers and public health communication professionals working to persuade and target key segments of the U.S. public to support the donation of vaccines to countries that lack the resources to develop and purchase sufficient quantities.

"Our goal is to provide indications about how we can best communicate to the public. How can we best say: 'OK, we need to [donate vaccines] but we want your buy-in. We want your support,'" Guidry said. "Having support for these decisions is going to be critically important. [This study] provides an important starting point."

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In addition to Guidry, Perrin and Fuemmeler, the study's authors include VCU researchers Kellie Carlyle, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Policy; Carrie Miller, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Health Behavior and Policy; and Mark Ryan, M.D., associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine; as well as Candace Burton, Ph.D, assistant professor at the University of California at Irvine; Linnea Laestadius, Ph.D., an associate professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; and Emily Vraga, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota.

The study is the second to emerge from the researchers' survey findings. The first study, published in December, analyzed Americans' willingness to get a COVID-19 vaccine with and without emergency use authorization.

The new study will be published in the journal Vaccine, published by Elsevier. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2021.03.027. Copies of the paper are available to credentialed journalists upon request; please contact Elsevier's newsroom at newsroom@elsevier.com or +31 20 485 2719.

Fast, portable test can diagnose COVID-19 and track variants

The field test, called NIRVANA, can simultaneously detect and sequence SARS-CoV-2, influenza and other viruses

SALK INSTITUTE

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE NIRVANA FIELD-TEST KIT view more 

CREDIT: MO LI/KAUST

LA JOLLA--(March 31, 2021) Clinicians using a new viral screening test can not only diagnose COVID-19 in a matter of minutes with a portable, pocket-sized machine, but can also simultaneously test for other viruses--like influenza--that might be mistaken for the coronavirus. At the same time, they can sequence the virus, providing valuable information on the spread of COVID-19 mutations and variants. The new test, dubbed NIRVANA, was described online today by a multi-institution team of scientists in the journal Med.

"This is a virus detection and surveillance method that doesn't require an expensive infrastructure like other approaches," says Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, co-corresponding author and a professor in Salk's Gene Expression Laboratory. "We can accomplish with one portable test the same thing that others are using two or three different tests, with different machines, to do."

Around the world, more than 100 million people have been infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. A staggering 500,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 to date. Testing the population is key to stopping the spread of the virus. In addition, tracking the spread of new SARS-CoV-2 variants--some of which could respond differently to treatments or vaccines--is critical.

Today, the standard approach to determining whether a nasal swab is positive for COVID-19 is to run a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to detect genetic material from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. If the sample is negative, however, patients and clinicians don't get any information on what might be causing the coronavirus-like symptoms--unless they run separate PCR tests, using different swab samples, for other viruses. And if the sample is positive for SARS-CoV-2, they don't learn which COVID-19 variant a patient is infected with unless another set of tests is run; those require a large and expensive next-generation gene-sequencing machine.

Last summer, Mo Li, an assistant professor of bioscience at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, was pondering ways he could lend his expertise in genetic engineering and nanopore sequencing to combatting the COVID-19 pandemic. Li, who previously spent six years as a Salk postdoctoral researcher in the Izpisua Belmonte lab, wondered whether a gene-detection approach called isothermal recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) coupled with real-time nanopore sequencing might be more useful--and faster, cheaper and more portable--than the current COVID-19 testing approach. He teamed up with Izpisua Belmonte to find out.

Unlike PCR, which cycles through lower and higher temperatures to separate DNA strands and copy them, RPA uses proteins--rather than temperature changes--to accomplish the same thing in only 20 minutes. The technology lets researchers copy longer stretches of DNA, and probe for multiple genes at the same time.

"We quickly realized that we could use this technique to not only detect SARS-CoV-2, but other viruses at the same time," says Li.

In the new paper, Li and Izpisua Belmonte describe a small, portable device that can screen 96 samples at the same time using the RPA assay. They call the method NIRVANA, for "nanopore sequencing of isothermal rapid viral amplification for near real-time analysis."

The scientists designed NIRVANA to simultaneously test samples for COVID-19, influenza A, human adenovirus, and non-SARS-CoV-2 human coronavirus. In just 15 minutes, the researchers report, the device begins to report positive and negative results. And within three hours, the device finalizes results on all 96 samples--including the sequences of five regions of SARS-CoV-2 that are particularly prone to accumulate mutations leading to new variants such as the B.1.1.7 variant identified in the UK.

Li and Izpisua Belmonte tested NIRVANA on 10 samples known to be positive for SARS-CoV-2, 60 samples of unknown SARS-CoV-2 status, as well as samples of municipal wastewater harboring the SARS-COV-2 virus and others. In all cases, the assay was able to correctly identify which viruses were present. The sequencing data also allowed them to narrow down the origin of SARS-CoV-2 in positive samples; differentiating strains from China and Europe, for instance.

"The design of this assay is really flexible, so it's not just limited to the examples we've shown," says Li. "We can easily adapt it to tackle another pathogen, even something new and emergent."

With the small size and portability of the NIRVANA workflow, it could be used for fast virus detection at schools, airports or ports, the researchers say. It also could be used to monitor wastewater or streams for the presence of new viruses.

"The pandemic has provided two important lessons: first, test widely and quickly, and second, know your variants. Our NIRVANA method provides a promising solution to these two challenges not only for the current pandemic but also for possible future ones," says Izpisua Belmonte, who holds the Roger Guillemin Chair at Salk. Market analysis would be required to determine whether the initial cost of commercialization--and the constant tweaks to the test needed to make sure it detected new variants or new viruses of interest--are worth it, Belmonte adds.

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In addition to Izpisua Belmonte and Li, other authors on the study were Concepcion Rodriguez Esteban of Salk; Chongwei Bi, Gerargo Ramos-Mandujano, Sharis Hala, Jinna Xu, Sara Mfarrej, Yeteng Tian and Arnab Pain of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST); Estrella Nunez Delicado of UCAM Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia; Fadwa Alofi of King Fahad Hospital; Asim Khogeer of Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health; Anwar Hashem of King Abdulaziz University; and Naif Almontashiri of Taibah University.

The work described in the current paper was supported by a competitive research grant from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.

About the Salk Institute for Biological Studies:

Every cure has a starting point. The Salk Institute embodies Jonas Salk's mission to dare to make dreams into reality. Its internationally renowned and award-winning scientists explore the very foundations of life, seeking new understandings in neuroscience, genetics, immunology, plant biology and more. The Institute is an independent nonprofit organization and architectural landmark: small by choice, intimate by nature and fearless in the face of any challenge. Be it cancer or Alzheimer's, aging or diabetes, Salk is where cures begin. Learn more at: salk.edu.

Sarah Everard and the Atlanta shooting are reminders that women are not safe

By Savannah Hopkinson, Opinion writer@savannahmhops  Mar 31, 2021, 

THE DESERT NEWS, UTAH

People gather to view and read inscriptions on floral tributes for Sarah Everard, at the bandstand in Clapham Common, London, on March 16, 2021. A body found in woodland south of London was identified as 33-year old Sarah Everard, who went missing while walking home on March 3, and a serving police officer stands charged with her kidnap and murder. Jonathan Brady, Associated Press

Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old who was abducted off the streets of London, did everything a woman is advised to in order to stay safe in a city — wearing identifiable clothing, staying in busy areas, talking to someone on the phone — but that didn’t stop her from disappearing and her body being discovered days later. Even worse, the alleged perpetrator is a police officer, the very person sworn to protect her from harm.

Then news broke of the shootings in Atlanta where minority women were the primary victims. As the Wall Street Journal put it: “The killings claimed the lives of four women born in Korea, two from China, a mother getting a massage with her husband and a handyman originally from Detroit.”

Twice, the more vicious dangers of misogyny were illuminated and had many women around the country pondering their safety.

Women’s History Month in March was meant to be a celebration of women’s accomplishments and contributions. But it’s hard to feel celebratory each week when the headlines cover a story that put a glaring spotlight on dangers for women.

Earlier this month Aubrey Eyre and I discussed the lingering barriers facing women in the workforce. I’ve commented on the future of women post-COVID-19 and the need for their contributions to economies across the globe

Women were hit hard last year. They’ll also be the key to rebuilding economies post COVID-19

In all of these I have touched on how remaining sexism can be a detriment to female progress, which in turn hinders progress for all of us. But I have not dived deeply into the reality that every woman has had to grapple with the need to constantly look over their shoulder.

No, women do not walk around with wide eyes, clutching their pearls to keep from fainting. On the contrary. Most of us go about our daily routine without thinking about being in danger.

Then we are faced with the reminder that simply being a woman can make you a target. And we remember.

I remember the night a man started riding circles around me on a bicycle when I was walking home from a concert, and it took another group of people coming by and intervening to make him leave.

I remember the first time I was catcalled — when I was just 12 — and the feeling of shame that came with it.

I remember how I changed the route I walked to work just two years ago when a man started waiting on the same corner every morning and would follow me and ask prying questions.

I remember being nervous to walk through the underpass to the train station in the fall and winter, when it was already dark by the time I left the office.

The fear is not always a dominant feeling, but it’s always tethered in the subconscious.

One in 3 women experience sexual violence involving physical contact during their lifetime. That means that even if every woman “does everything right” there is a strong chance she will be a victim. It means that, statistically, each of us know multiple victims.

No, not all men are perpetrators, but it sure seems like it’s just about every woman feels impacted. So how can we tell the difference? I once saw a video that illustrated the point well: Not all bees will sting you and not all spiders or snakes will bite. But the majority of us avoid all bees, snakes and spiders — just in case.

When it could be a family member, a friend, a complete stranger or even a police officer, it feels as though there is no safe place. We can’t blame the victim for getting stung.

Women have been the victims of this warped thinking, and the responsibility for their safety cannot rest on their shoulders alone. We must all work to eradicate the menacing behaviors and thoughts that continue to manifest in brutal ways.

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Where does the problem-solving start? Certainly in the home to a large degree, where children are taught and observe such ideas and behaviors. And in the media, where women are still often portrayed in two-dimensional, stereotypical ways that are a result of the male gaze.

We emulate what we see. If we do not see victims being treated seriously or healthy examples of equality and respect, then how can one expect things to change?

With the right approach, existing problems can still be fixed and future ones can be prevented.

March, as Women’s History Month, was a great reminder of how capable and valuable women have always been, but it was simultaneously an example of how, despite those achievements, there is room for progress.

Sarah Everard was the epitome of the everyday woman — one that we all know and love. A vibrant young marketing executive in a busy city with a loving family, boyfriend and friends. We all know — or are — a Sarah.

Her loss has reignited a movement that, if successful, can make the world better for our own loved ones. For everyday women, we must make every day safer.

There are X-rays coming from Uranus

Image source: NASA, ESA, A. Simon, and M.H. Wong and A. Hsu

By Mike Wehner @MikeWehner
March 31st, 2021 

Uranus is big, cold, and mysterious. As the second-furthest planet from the Sun, it’s rather difficult for researchers here on Earth to study it without sending spacecraft to get a closer look. The only probe to ever make a relatively close flyby of the planet was Voyager 2, and that was over three decades ago. Recently, data beamed back to Earth from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory — a large space telescope that was launched 21 years ago — has helped scientists learn a bit more about the frozen planet.

Using the telescope, which as its name implies is designed to detect X-ray emissions, researchers were able to spot X-ray emissions coming from the planet for the first time. It might sound crazy to think that data gathered back in 2002 was only recently analyzed, but scientists are busy people, and when they finally began comparing images taken from 2002 to 2017 they found clear indications that Uranus was beaming X-rays into space.

In the original images taken in 2002, the scientists say they found “a clear detection” of X-rays, and in the images taken in 2017, they think they might have even spotted an X-ray flare. The image below is the 2002 capture layered over an image of Uranus from a different telescope. The pink you see is the X-ray energy.



Uranus is weird, rotating at a 90-degree angle to all the other planets in our system, but that doesn’t explain the X-rays. Detecting X-ray emissions on Uranus isn’t an entirely unexpected development, as planets like Saturn have been found to do the same. The real question is what is generating that X-ray energy in the first place.

As NASA explains in a new blog post, the biggest source of that energy is likely the Sun itself. Uranus does get sunlight despite being way, way out there, and when that light hits the planet it can scatter. The telescope picks up the wavelengths that it can, and those happen to be X-rays. However, the researchers believe that the Sun isn’t the only source of energy, and it’s possible that the rings around Uranus are helping to produce X-rays of their own.

In a paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, a large team of scientists explains how charged particles that surround the planet may be helping to produce X-rays. When those particles interact with the material in the planet’s ring structure, the collisions between the two could be generating X-rays as well. Combined with the X-rays from scattered sunlight, there’s a relatively healthy source of X-ray energy coming from Uranus.

More work needs to be done to confirm this and, ideally, more observations would help. There aren’t currently any plans to visit Uranus on NASA’s short-term roadmap, so for the time being, staring at it from afar is the best we can hope for.

South African rock shelter artifacts show early humans colonized inland areas

Archaeologists found evidence that humans have been using a rock shelter on Ga-Mohana Hill, positioned at the edge of South Africa's Kalahari Desert, for at least 105,000 years. Photo by Jayne Wilkins

March 31 (UPI) -- Archaeological evidence from a rock shelter in South Africa suggests early humans colonized a variety of environments, including inland settings, undermining theories linking the origins of our species to the coast.

For generations, the rock shelter on Ga-Mohana Hill, positioned at the edge of South Africa's Kalahari Desert, has served as a spiritual site for local people. But until now, researchers weren't sure how long the shelter has been used by humans.

To find out, archaeologists excavated a collection of white calcite crystals and ostrich eggshell fragments, thought to be used as water vessels.

Researchers detailed their excavation and analysis efforts in a new paper, published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

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"The crystals point towards spiritual or cultural use of the shelter 105,000 years ago," co-author Sechaba Maape said in a news release.

"This is remarkable considering that site continues to be used to practice ritual activities today," said Maape, a researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

Scientists were able to estimate the age of the crystals by analyzing signals produced by light exposure in sedimentary quartz and feldspar grains.

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"Our analysis indicates that the crystals were not introduced into the deposits via natural processes, but were deliberately collected objects likely linked to spiritual beliefs and ritual," said lead author Jayne Wilkins, archaeologist at Griffith University in Australia.

Researchers imaged the grains and their geochemical signatures using the Optically Stimulated Luminescence, a powerful laboratory instrument at the University Innsbruck in Austria.

"You can think about each grain as a miniaturized clock, from which we can read out this natural light or luminescence signal, giving us the age of the archaeological sediment layers," said co-author Michael Meyer, head of the OSL Laboratory.

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The name Kalahari comes from the Tswana word Kgala, which means "great thirst," but paleoclimate data suggests the semi-arid landscape once hosted an abundance of water.

"This is a story of water in what we know now as a dry landscape, and of adaptable people who exploited the landscape to not only survive but to thrive," said co-author Robyn Pickering, director of the Human Evolution Research Institute at the University of Cape Town.

Previously, archaeologists have recovered evidence of early human activity from a variety coastal sites in Southern Africa, but the latest findings suggest our early ancestors were not confined to the coast.

"Our findings from this rockshelter show that overly simplified models for the origins of our species are no longer acceptable. Evidence suggests many regions across the African continent were involved, the Kalahari being just one," Wilkins said.

Researchers worked with the local community to ensure their excavation work had minimal impacts on the local community's spiritual activities at the rock shelter.

"Leaving no visible trace and working with the local community is critical for the sustainability of the project," Wilkins said. "So that Ga-Mohana Hill can continue to provide new insights about the origins and evolution of Homo sapiens in the Kalahari."

Ancient meteoritic impact over Antarctica 430,000 years ago

Date: March 31, 2021

Source:University of Kent

Summary:

A research team of international space scientists has found new evidence of a low-altitude meteoritic touchdown event reaching the Antarctic ice sheet 430,000 years ago.

FULL STORY

A research team of international space scientists, led by Dr Matthias van Ginneken from the University of Kent's School of Physical Sciences, has found new evidence of a low-altitude meteoritic touchdown event reaching the Antarctic ice sheet 430,000 years ago.

Extra-terrestrial particles (condensation spherules) recovered on the summit of Walnumfjellet (WN) within the Sør Rondane Mountains, Queen Maud Land, East Antarctica, indicate an unusual touchdown event where a jet of melted and vaporised meteoritic material resulting from the atmospheric entry of an asteroid at least 100 m in size reached the surface at high velocity.

This type of explosion caused by a single-asteroid impact is described as intermediate, as it is larger than an airburst, but smaller than an impact cratering event.

The chondritic bulk major, trace element chemistry and high nickel content of the debris demonstrate the extra-terrestrial nature of the recovered particles. Their unique oxygen isotopic signatures indicate that their interacted with oxygen derived from the Antarctic ice sheet during their formation in the impact plume.

The findings indicate an impact much more hazardous that the Tunguska and Chelyabinsk events over Russia in 1908 and 2013, respectively.

This research, published by Science Advances, guides an important discovery for the geological record where evidence of such events in scarce. This is primarily due to the difficult in identifying and characterising impact particles.

The study highlights the importance of reassessing the threat of medium-sized asteroids, as it likely that similar touchdown events will produce similar particles. Such an event would be entirely destructive over a large area, corresponding to the area of interaction between the hot jet and the ground.

Dr van Ginneken said: 'To complete Earth's asteroid impact record, we recommend that future studies should focus on the identification of similar events on different targets, such as rocky or shallow oceanic basements, as the Antarctic ice sheet only covers 9% of Earth's land surface. Our research may also prove useful for the identification of these events in deep sea sediment cores and, if plume expansion reaches landmasses, the sedimentary record.

'While touchdown events may not threaten human activity if occurring over Antarctica, if it was to take place above a densely populated area, it would result in millions of casualties and severe damages over distances of up to hundreds of kilometres.'


Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Kent. Original written by Olivia Miller. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:
M. Van Ginneken, S. Goderis, N. Artemieva, V. Debaille, S. Decrée, R. P. Harvey, K. A. Huwig, L. Hecht, S. Yang, F. E. D. Kaufmann, B. Soens, M. Humayun, F. Van Maldeghem, M. J. Genge, P. Claeys. A large meteoritic event over Antarctica ca. 430 ka ago inferred from chondritic spherules from the Sør Rondane Mountains. Science Advances, 2021; 7 (14): eabc1008 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abc1008

Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai, Martin Lee convicted over 2019 democracy protests

By Zen Soo and Kari Lindberg
Updated April 1, 2021 — 

Hong Kong: Seven pro-democracy advocates were convicted on Thursday for organising and participating in an unlawful assembly during massive anti-government protests in 2019 as Hong Kong continues its crackdown on dissent.

The seven activists include media tycoon and Apple Daily chief Jimmy Lai, as well as 82-year-old Martin Lee, a veteran of the city’s democracy movement. Lai had already been held without bail on other charges.

Lee, who helped lead the pro-democracy camp during the former British colony’s transition to Chinese rule, was convicted in a court in the West Kowloon area along with Lai and fellow activists Albert Ho, Leung “Long Hair” Kwok-hung, Lee Cheuk-yan, Cyd Ho and Margaret Ng. It was unclear when they would be sentenced.

Pro-democracy lawmaker Martin Lee, left, and Albert Ho arrive at a court in Hong Kong on Thursday, April 1, 2021. CREDIT:AP/VINCENT YU

The activists were convicted for their involvement in a protest held on August 18, 2019. Organisers of the protest say that 1.7 million people marched that day in protest of a proposed bill that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial.

Ahead of the trial, supporters and some of the defendants gathered outside court, shouting slogans such as “Oppose political persecution” and “Five demands, not one less,” in reference to demands by pro-democracy supporters that include amnesty for those arrested in the protests as well as universal suffrage.

“So on this day, in a very difficult situation in Hong Kong, political retaliation is on us,” said Lee Cheuk-yan, one of the defendants ahead of the court session.

“We will still march on no matter what lies in the future. We believe in the people of Hong Kong, in our brothers and sisters in our struggle, and the victory is ours if the people of Hong Kong are persistent,” he said.

Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and media tycoon Jimmy Lai is escorted to a prison van before appearing in a court, in December.CREDIT:AP

The verdict is the latest in a series of historic setbacks in recent weeks for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy camp. The group on trial comprised veteran activists who have for years supported causes such as human rights and women’s rights and organised vigils commemorating the 1989 crackdown on student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.

The decision comes shortly after top Chinese politicians approved a sweeping plan that effectively ends open elections in Hong Kong. The city’s government separately charged some 47 prominent opposition figures with “conspiracy to commit subversion” under a national security law imposed last year that carries sentences as long as life in prison.

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Hong Kong was rocked by months of protests in the second half of 2019, sparked by the extradition bill. The bill was eventually withdrawn, but the protests expanded to include full democracy and other demands and at times descended into violence between protesters and police.

In the aftermath of the protests, Beijing has taken a tougher stance on dissent, implementing a national security law on Hong Kong and approving electoral reforms that would reduce the public’s role in voting in lawmakers for the city’s legislature.

Taking part in an unlawful assembly or a riot in Hong Kong can result in a maximum sentence of up to 10 years imprisonment for serious offences.

Hong Kong police have swept up many of the city’s established opposition leaders among the more than 10,000 activists arrested since the protests erupted in June 2019. Some, such as Lai, face multiple prosecutions, including charges under the national security law.

Two former opposition lawmakers, Au Nok-hin and Leung Yiu-chung, had previously pleaded guilty to charges related to the August 2019 protest.

A police decision to ban or restrict the protests failed to stop large numbers of people coming onto the streets for an eighth week on Sunday to express unhappiness at Carrie Lam's government.

Lai, 73, faces other charges under Hong Kong’s new security laws as well as fraud charges that he denies.

He has pushed other countries to punish China for its erosion of freedoms in Hong Kong. He travelled to the United States in 2019 to meet officials including then vice-president Mike Pence. And he has called for sanctions on Chinese officials.

Lee, a London-trained lawyer, has stoked Beijing’s ire for more than three decades, dating back to his support for the Tiananmen Square protests and subsequent defeat of the pro-establishment camp in Hong Kong’s first direct legislative elections. He sat on the committee that drafted Hong Kong’s post-handover charter, founded the Democratic Party and served as a lawmaker until his retirement in 2008.

Chinese authorities have accused him of being a “traitor” for testifying before the U.S. Congress, and in August 2019 labelled him as part of a “New Gang of Four” in a publication under the Communist Party’s top legal body. The piece also named Lai and Ho, a former Democratic Party leader and chief executive candidate, as members of the “gang” - a reference to a Communist Party faction jailed for attempting to seize power after Mao Zedong’s death in 1976.

New Mexico primed to join US recreational pot wave

Tourist Rene Greenmyer takes a picture of her friend Dawn Plonkey, outside the state capitol building on Tuesday, March 30, 2021, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Arizona residents happened to pass by the 1999 bronze sculpture "Passage," by Dan Namingha as New Mexico lawmakers met in a special session to revisit a sprawling set of marijuana legalization proposals that led to a deadlock during the regular session earlier in March. Plonkey says she doesn't use marijuana but voted in favor of a ballot initiative to legalize it in Arizona. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio) | Photo: AP


By MORGAN LEE and CEDAR ATTANASIO
Updated: March 31, 2021 

SANTA FE, N.M (AP) - New Mexico is joining a wave of states that are legalizing recreational marijuana as its Democrat-dominated Legislature sent a package of cannabis bills Wednesday to a supportive governor.

Lawmakers used a marathon two-day legislative session to push through marijuana legalization for adults over 21 and a companion bill that automatically erases many past marijuana convictions, overriding skeptical Republicans.


By signing the bills, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham would extend legal recreational pot sales in the American Southwest by April 2022, when the New Mexico legislation kicks in, and join 16 states that have legalized marijuana, mostly through direct ballot initiatives. California and Colorado were among the first in the U.S. to legalize marijuana, with Arizona becoming one of the latest in the region to follow suit earlier this year. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a legalization bill Wednesday, and a proposal in Virginia is awaiting the governor's signature.

The New Mexico initiative would reconsider criminal drug sentences for about 100 prisoners, and give the governor a strong hand in licensing the industry and monitoring supplies.

New Mexico flirted with cannabis legalization in the 1990s, when then-Gov. Gary Johnson challenged taboos against decriminalization in defiance of Republican allies. The state's medical marijuana program founded in 2007 has attracted more than 100,000 patients.

The Legislature was reticent to legalize until now. Several hardline opponents of legalization in the state Senate were voted out of office by Democrats in 2020 primary elections, in a shift that paved the way for Wednesday's historic vote.

Under the advancing legalization package, New Mexico would levy an initial excise tax on recreational marijuana sales of 12% that eventually rises to 18%. That's on top of current gross receipts on sales that range from roughly 5% to 9%.

Possession of up to 2 ounces (57 grams) of marijuana would cease to be a crime, and people would be allowed six plants at home - or up to 12 per household.

The reforms would eliminate taxes on the sales of medical marijuana and seek to ensure adequate medicinal supplies.

"The United States of America is in the midst of a sea change when it comes to this," said Democratic state Rep. Javier Martinez of Albuquerque, lead sponsor of the legalization bill. "This bill begins to repair the harms of prohibition."

State oversight would largely fall to the governor-appointed superintendent of the Regulation and Licensing Department that would issue licenses for a fee to marijuana-related businesses. The agency initially would have the authority to limit marijuana production levels by major producers - a lever over market supplies and pricing.

Several senators warned against the production cap as a recipe for creating a government sanctioned monopoly, amid lobbying for price supports by some incumbent medical marijuana producers.

The legalization bill creates a cannabis control division to oversee 10 types of industry licenses. Those include micro-licenses with low annual fees for small producers to grow up to 200 marijuana plants and also package and sell their products.

Bill sponsor Martinez says that provides an important measure of equity, within a bill designed to support communities that suffered from criminalization of marijuana and tough policing.

Past drug convictions don't automatically disqualify applicants for marijuana business licenses. The odor of marijuana or suspicion of possession are no longer legal grounds to stop, detain or search people.

Legalization bill co-sponsor Rep. Deborah Armstrong says New Mexico will respond to early pitfalls of legalization in other states as it mandates child-proof packaging for marijuana products.

Public health advocates condemned provisions that allow public consumption lounges for recreational cannabis, citing the dangers of second-hand smoke and vapor to workers and patrons.

Lawmakers discarded a Republican-sponsored bill from Sen. Cliff Pirtle of Roswell that emphasized low taxes in an effort to stamp out illicit weed and would have provided low-cost licenses to small pot farmers by linking fees to the number of plants in cultivation.

Local governments cannot prohibit pot businesses but can regulate locations and hours of operation, under the proposal. Bill sponsors say that sheriffs and police want consistency from town-to-town on rules and enforcement.

Republican state Sen. Gay Kernan of Hobbs voted against legalization and said she was amazed that legislative colleagues would support the freedom to buy mind-altering drugs amid New Mexico's struggles with poverty and opioid overdoses.

"I just think it's terribly unfair to impose this kind of significant change in our way of life and areas of the state that clearly do not welcome this," Kernan said.

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Attanasio is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues. Follow Attanasio on Twitter.


(Copyright 2021 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Company at heart of J&J vaccine woes has series of citations


BY RICHARD LARDNER AND LINDA JOHNSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
MARCH 31, 2021 

FILE - In this March 25, 2021 file photo, a box of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine is shown in a refrigerator at a clinic in Washington state. A batch of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine failed quality standards and can’t be used, the drug giant said late Wednesday, March 31, 2021. The drugmaker didn’t say how many doses were lost, and it wasn’t clear how the problem would impact future deliveries. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) TED S. WARREN AP


The company at the center of quality problems that led Johnson & Johnson to discard an unknown amount of its coronavirus vaccine has a string of citations from U.S. health officials for quality control problems.

Emergent BioSolutons, a little-known company at the center of the vaccine supply chain, was a key to Johnson & Johnson's plan to deliver 100 million doses of its vaccine to the U.S. by the end of May. But the company has been cited repeatedly by the Food and Drug Administration for problems such as poorly trained employees, cracked vials and mold around one of its facilities, according to records obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act. The records cover inspections at Emergent facilities since 2017.

Johnson & Johnson said Wednesday that a batch of vaccine made by Emergent at its Baltimore factory, known as Bayview, can't be used because it didn't meet quality standards. It wasn't clear exactly how many doses were involved or how the problem would affect future delivers of J&J's vaccine. The company said in a statement it was still planning to deliver 100 million doses by the end of June and was “aiming to deliver those doses by the end of May.”


J&J locked arms with Emergent in April 2020, enlisting the lesser-known company to manufacture the vaccine J&J was developing with federal funding. At the time, Emergent’s Bayview facility wasn’t scaled for making millions of doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine, according to the FDA records that describe the plant as a contract testing laboratory that “did not manufacture products for distribution.” Upgrades in technology and personnel were required before Bayview could begin making what’s known as “drug substance” material for the vaccine, a two-month process during which the required biological cells are grown.

The FDA inspected Emergent’s Bayview plant in April 2020, just as the agreement with J&J was being announced. The federal agency criticized the company for problems with its testing of a potential treatment for anthrax, according to the records obtained by the AP. The FDA’s lead investigator cited the company for failing to train employees “in the particular operations they perform as part of their function and current good manufacturing practices.”

On the same day, Johnson & Johnson, in a separate news release, heralded its partnership with Emergent as a step toward the pharmaceutical giant’s goal of supplying more than 1 billion doses of the vaccine globally by the end of 2021.

Other problems cited by the FDA during the April 2020 inspection included failures by the Bayview plant “to ensure that electronically held data generated during analytical testing” of material “was protected from deletion or manipulation.” The FDA’s lead investigator, Marcellinus Dordunoo, wrote that Emergent hadn’t investigated what he described as “data integrity concerns.”

The inspection was the most recent in a series of critical reports from the FDA about Emergent, including one following a December 2017 inspection at a plant in Canton, Massachusetts, in which the FDA said the company hadn’t corrected “continued low level mold and yeast isolates” found in the facility. Nearly a year later, agency investigators questioned why Emergent had “an unwritten policy of not conducting routine compliance audits” at a separate plant in Baltimore, known as Camden, where an anthrax vaccine is filled into vials.

Emergent’s revenues skyrocketed during the Trump administration, jumping from around $523 million in 2015 to more than $1.5 billion in 2020. The company has invested heavily in lobbying the federal government, according to disclosure records, which show the company spent $3.6 million on lobbying in 2020 alone.

Emergent is one of about 10 companies that Johnson & Johnson is using to speed up manufacturing of its recently approved vaccine, the company said. The Bayview factory where the tainted vaccine ingredient was found had not yet been approved by the FDA, so no vaccine in circulation is affected. Emergent declined to comment.

President Joe Biden has pledged to have enough vaccines for all U.S. adults by the end of May. The U.S. government has ordered enough two-dose shots from Pfizer and Moderna to vaccinate 200 million people to be delivered by late May, plus the 100 million single-dose shots from J&J.

A federal official said Wednesday evening the administration’s goal can be met without additional J&J doses.

A J&J spokesman said earlier Wednesday that the company met the end-of-March goal, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s online vaccine tracker showed J&J had provided about 6.8 million doses to the U.S. vaccine effort. J&J has been shipping finished vaccines from its factory in the Netherlands to the U.S.

J&J said it was putting more of its manufacturing and quality experts inside Emergent’s factory to supervise production of the COVID-19 vaccine, a move meant to enable delivery of an additional 24 million vaccine doses through April.

J&J said it still expects to deliver more than 1 billion vaccine doses globally by the end of the year.

The J&J vaccine has been viewed as crucial for vaccination campaigns around the world, because only one shot is required and it can be shipped and stored at standard refrigeration temperatures, unlike some other vials that must be kept frozen. The company also has pledged to sell the vaccine without a profit, but only during the pandemic emergency.

The problem with the vaccine batch was first reported by The New York Times. The FDA said it was aware of the situation but declined further comment.

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Johnson reported from Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania, and Lardner from Washington. Associated Press writers Matt Perrone and Zeke Miller in Washington and Jason Dearen in New York contributed to this report.

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Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org. Follow Richard Lardber on Twitter at @RPLardner.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.




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