Unstable Kazakhstan a big risk for energy markets

The central Asian country is the world's biggest uranium exporter and is among the top oil and coal producers. The resource-rich state has seen some of the biggest public protests in years, unnerving energy markets.


Kazakhstan is the top exporter of uranium, which is the most widely used nuclear fuel

Kazakhstan has been an anomaly in an otherwise volatile Central Asia. Years of stability in the country have pushed the resource-rich state's economy to grow manifold over the past two decades, propped up by billions in investments from global firms such as Chevron and France's TotalEnergies.

The former Soviet Union state has been rocked by the worst violence that it has seen in its 30 years of independence. Days of unrest — sparked initially by a rise in fuel prices and eventually turning into an uprising against corruption and nepotism — prompted President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to declare a state of emergency and request troops from Russia and its allies to help quell the protests.

The demonstrations and the subsequent crackdown in the world's top uranium exporter and a major oil and gas producer have left investors anxious amid concerns that the social and political unrest could undermine Kazakhstan's reputation as a reliable investment destination.

"Generally, whichever administration emerges from the unrest, they will be mindful that FDI [foreign direct investment] is the golden goose and will not want to stop it laying eggs," economist Timothy Ash, an expert on the region, told DW. "There is confidence the natural resource sector will remain relatively well insulated, and it is encouraging that there have not been major disruptions to energy and raw material production."

"An interesting question to ask is if the government efforts to quell the protests are very violent, will Western governments be pushed to roll out sanctions as in Belarus. How will this impact investments in Kazakhstan," Ash asked. "I guess the West may well adopt a more pragmatic approach to ESG [Environmental, Social, and Governance] issues, given Kazakhstan's importance for global supply chains."

Watch video02:50 Inequality, corruption led to Kazakhstan unrest

World's top uranium producer

Kazakhstan produces over 40% of the world's uranium, the main fuel for nuclear reactors, making it a key player in the global transition away from fossil fuels. Many governments, including in the European Union, are doubling down on nuclear energy as part of their plans to decarbonize their economies.

State-controlled Kazatomprom, the world's biggest uranium producer, has said the turmoil has had no impact on production or exports so far. However, uranium spot prices rose sharply last week amid worries that the unrest could lead to a major disruption in production.

"Any curtailment of supply from Kazakhstan will clearly be felt across the globe," said Jonathan Hinze, president of nuclear fuel market consultancy UxC. "However, the nuclear fuel market is characterized by very long lead times, so nuclear utilities and upstream processors in the nuclear fuel cycle all hold significant pipeline as well as strategic inventories, which helps insulate them against any near-term supply disruptions."

Cameco, a major Canadian uranium producer and Kazatomprom's joint-venture partner, warned that any disruption in Kazakhstan could be a "significant catalyst in the uranium market."

"If nothing else, it's a reminder for utilities that an overreliance on any one source of supply is risky," a Cameco spokesperson said in a statement.

Kazakhstan, which supplies 20% of Europe's annual uranium needs, has emerged as an outsized player in the uranium market thanks to low costs of production in the country, a key factor for uranium producers in a post-Fukushima world where demand and prices for the nuclear fuel sank.

However, uranium prices have made a comeback in the past few years as countries bet on nuclear power to tackle climate change.

"The recent issues in Kazakhstan could certainly give a big boost to producers outside of Kazakhstan as utilities look to diversify away from overreliance on Kazakh uranium," Hinze told DW.

Rich fossil fuel resources

Kazakhstan, a member of the OPEC+, is the biggest oil producer in Central Asia, extracting about 1.6 million barrels of oil per day. Most of the fossil fuel it produces is shipped abroad, including to the European Union and China. The country has the 12-highest proven oil reserves in the world with 30 billion barrels of crude oil reserves.

The country is also among the top coal suppliers, producing 108 million tons in 2018.

The hydrocarbons sector has attracted about 60% of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Kazakhstan since 1991 and accounts for more than half of the country's exports revenue. Global oil majors such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, Italy's Eni and France's TotalEnergies have invested billions of dollars in the country over the years, helping foster its oil and gas growth.

In 2018, the country was the world's ninth-largest exporter of coal and crude oil and 12th of natural gas, according to the International Energy Agency. About 80% of Kazakhstan's annual oil exports are shipped to the European Union.

The current protests have yet to impact production at Kazakhstan's largest three oil fields — Tengiz operated by a Chevron-led consortium, plus Shell-owned Kashagan and Karachaganak.

"[The unrest] is coming at a time when OPEC+ is struggling to hit its quotas which is keeping upward pressure on oil prices. Should we see further outages, prices could climb above their October peak and, depending on the level of disruption, triple-digit prices may not be far away," Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA, told DW.


Watch video01:38  A closer look at Kazakhstan's recent history

Edited by: Hardy Graupner

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Kazakhstan: What's behind the unrest?
Kazakhstan is experiencing the heaviest unrest in its history. For a long time, Russia's second most important ally in the post-Soviet realm was known as stable — so what happened? DW has the background.

AUDIOS AND VIDEOS ON THE TOPIC
Protests plunge Kazakhstan into crisis

Kazakhstan Detains Almost 10,000 Over Deadly Unrest

INTERNATIONAL

Reuters Jan 11, 2022

Military vehicles patrol streets in central Almaty, Kazakhstan on Jan. 7, 2022. 

(Alexandr Bogdanov/AFP via Getty Images)

Security forces in Kazakhstan have detained 9,900 people regarding last week’s unrest, the interior ministry of the central Asian nation said on Tuesday.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who called the violence a coup attempt, nominated Alikhan Smailov for prime minister on Tuesday, and the lower house of parliament swiftly voted him in during a session broadcast live on state television.

Smailov, 49, served as first deputy prime minister in the previous cabinet which Tokayev dismissed last week amid violent unrest.

The oil-rich former Soviet republic says government buildings were attacked in several major cities after initially peaceful protests against hikes in the price of car fuel turned violent.

Tokayev has said Islamist militants from regional nations and Afghanistan, as well as the Middle East, were among the attackers.

He dismissed his cabinet amid the unrest, along with a number of security officials and detained on suspicion of treason the most senior among them, Karim Masimov, a former head of the national security committee.

Protesters attend a rally triggered by energy price hikes in Almaty,

 Kazakhstan, on Jan. 4, 2022. (Abduaziz Madyarov/AFP via Getty Images)

The demonstrations began on Jan. 2 over a near-doubling of prices for vehicle fuel and quickly spread across the country, with political slogans reflecting wider discontent with Kazakhstan’s authoritarian government.

In a concession, the government announced a 180-day price cap on vehicle fuel and a moratorium on utility rate increases. As the unrest mounted, the ministerial cabinet resigned and the president replaced Nursultan Nazarbayev, former longtime leader of Kazakhstan, as head of the National Security Council.

One of the main slogans of the past week’s protests, “Old man out,” was a reference to Nazarbayev, who served as president from Kazakhstan’s independence until he resigned in 2019 and anointed Tokayev as his successor. Nazarbayev had retained substantial power at the helm of the National Security Council.

Despite the concessions, the protests turned extremely violent for several days. In Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, the protesters set the city hall on fire and stormed and briefly seized the airport. For several days, sporadic gunfire was reported in the city streets.

A burned-out administrative building is seen behind a fence in central Almaty, Kazakhstan on Jan. 6, 2022. 

(Alexandr Bogdanov/AFP via Getty Images)

The authorities declared a state of emergency over the unrest, and Tokayev requested help from the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Russia-led military alliance of six former Soviet states. The group has authorized sending about 2,500 mostly Russian troops to Kazakhstan as peacekeepers.

Tokayev has said the demonstrations were instigated by “terrorists” with foreign backing, although the protests have shown no obvious leaders or organization. On Friday, he said he ordered police and the military to shoot to kill “terrorists” involved in the violence.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

Kazakhstan unrest: Thousands detained, gov't reforms regarded as 'relatively cosmetic'

Issued on: 11/01/2022 


President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Monday described the unrest that followed initially peaceful protests against rising energy prices as a “terrorist aggression" and dismissed reports that authorities targeted peaceful demonstrators as “disinformation.” Dr. Assel Tutumlu, Assistant Professor at Near East University, says that the president refuses to cede any ground and continues to rule with an iron fist. So-called government reforms still do "not allow the grassroots movement to communicate with the regime," explains Dr. Assel Tutumlu. Until there's authentic reform of Kazakhstan's political and socioeconomic system, she doesn't think "we are going to see the termination of protests."

Back to school: Omicron already keeping Edmonton teachers and staff at home
Kellen Taniguchi 

 Alberta Teachers’ Association president Jason Schilling.
As students across Alberta returned to the classroom on Monday, Edmonton’s school divisions reported hundreds of absent staff members.

As of Monday morning, Edmonton Public Schools had 454 teacher absences, with 22 of those absences going unfilled, said Megan Normandeau, communications consultant for the division. She added 124 educational assistant absences were unfilled.

However, no classes, grades or schools have been moved online, said Normandeau.

Christine Meadows, communications and engagement services manager for Edmonton Catholic Schools, said 420 staff members were absent on Monday, including 217 teachers.

The president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) said the staffing shortages will continue to be a concern.

“We know operationally this is going to be extremely difficult because what happens now is we have a short supply of substitute teachers who also have a lot of concerns about working during a pandemic as well,” said ATA president Jason Schilling.

“We’ve been encouraging government and school boards to put substitute teachers on contract so that they have benefits and income security in case they themselves become sick. So, some of them are hesitant about entering classrooms without that type of security.”

Leading up to the return of in-person learning, Schilling said teachers were nervous with the high number of COVID-19 cases and the Omicron variant spreading across the province. However, he said teachers also want to be in the classroom for face-to-face learning because it’s the ideal situation.

The provincial government promised 8.6 million rapid tests and 16.5 million medical-grade masks for students and teachers returning to school on Monday, however, the supply has not been completely delivered. Education Minister Adriana LaGrange said during a media availability last Wednesday all schools should have their first shipment by the end of this week.

“You listen to the government say that, ‘We’re doing everything possible to keep schools safe and we’re going to provide these two tools for teachers and students to use when they return on Jan. 10, but they won’t be there,’ is a really bad message to send to teachers, students and their families,” said Schilling, who added people are expecting these tools to be stocked to help them through the pandemic and keep schools open.

Schilling said the masks provided by the government also might not be high-quality enough, with experts suggesting KN95 or N95 masks are more effective.

Contact tracing is one measure not being done at schools this year. Schilling said it is important to keep track of cases through contact tracing.

“That information is really important for schools and school boards to know within their communities so they can better address COVID within their areas, ” he said.

“And the fact that the government has decided they’re not going to do that, and not include those who are working in schools in the high-risk category for PCR testing, I think is a mistake.”

ktaniguchi@postmedia.com

Chicago union leaders OK plan to resume in-person class

By SOPHIA TAREEN

1 of 9

Cheri Warner, left, stands with her daughter, Brea, and speaks calling for the Chicago school district and teacher's union to focus on getting students back in the classroom Monday, Jan. 10, 2022, in Chicago. Hundreds of thousands of Chicago students remained out of school for a fourth day Monday, after leaders of the nation's third-largest school district failed to resolve a deepening clash with the influential teachers union over COVID-19 safety protocols. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

CHICAGO (AP) — Students are poised to return to Chicago Public Schools after leaders of the teachers union approved a plan with the nation’s third-largest district over COVID-19 safety protocols, ending a bitter standoff that canceled classes for five days.

While school districts nationwide have faced similar concerns amid skyrocketing COVID-19 cases, the labor fight in union-friendly Chicago amplified concerns over remote learning and other pandemic issues.

The deal approved late Monday would have students in class Wednesday and teachers back a day earlier. It still requires approval with a vote of the union’s roughly 25,000 members. Issues on the table have been metrics to close schools amid outbreaks and expanded COVID-19 testing

Neither side immediately disclosed full details of the proposal Monday evening, but leaders generally said the agreement included metrics to close individual schools and plans to boost district COVID-19 testing. The district notified parents in the largely low-income Black and Latino school district of about 350,000 students that classes would resume Wednesday.

“We know this has been very difficult for students and families,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said at an evening news conference. “Some will ask who won and who lost. No one wins when our students are out of the place where they can learn the best and where they’re safest.”

In a dueling news conference, union leaders acknowledged it wasn’t a “home run” but teachers wanted to be back in class with students.

“It was not an agreement that had everything, it’s not a perfect agreement, but it’s certainly something we can hold our heads up about, partly because it was so difficult to get,” Union President Jesse Sharkey said.

The Chicago Teachers Union’s house of delegates voted Monday evening to suspend their work action from last week calling for districtwide online learning until a safety plan had been negotiated or the latest COVID-19 surge subsided. The district, which has rejected districtwide remote instruction, responded by locking teachers out of remote teaching systems two days after students returned from winter break.

While there has was some progress on smaller issues like masks, negotiations over the weekend on a safety plan failed to produce a deal and rhetoric about negotiations became increasingly sharp. Some principals canceled class Tuesday preemptively and warned of further closures throughout the week.

Earlier Monday, Union President Jesse Sharkey said the union and district remained “apart on a number of key features, accusing Lightfoot of refusing to compromise on teachers’ main priorities.

“The mayor is being relentless, but she’s being relentlessly stupid, she’s being relentlessly stubborn,” Sharkey said, playing on a reference the former prosecutor mayor made about refusing to “relent” in negotiations. “She’s relentlessly refusing to seek accommodation and we’re trying to find a way to get people back in school.”

Coronavirus pandemic in Africa: Two years after first deaths due to virus

Issued on: 11/01/2022 

Africa has registered a total of more than 10 million coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic, according to figures from the African Union's health watchdog. Vaccine uptake in Africa, home to nearly 1.2 billion people, has been low, due to poor access to jabs and some vaccine hesitancy. FRANCE 24's Nadine Theron reports from Cape Town, South Africa.

U.S. sets new COVID hospitalization record, signaling Omicron surge could be less mild than experts hoped

Andrew Romano

·West Coast Correspondent

Tue, January 11, 2022

The U.S. set a new COVID-19 hospitalization record Monday, exceeding 140,000 patients for the first time since the start of the pandemic — a warning sign, experts say, that the nation’s Omicron surge is already more severe than in other countries and will only get worse as it spreads from highly vaccinated cities to less protected parts of the U.S.

America’s previous.hospitalization peak came on Jan. 6, 2021, when 139,781 COVID patients were hospitalized nationwide, according to New York Times data. But that was several months before a mass vaccination effort kicked in and shielded recipients from the vast majority of severe disease.

On Monday, the number of Americans hospitalized with COVID-19 hit 142,388.

Word of a new U.S. hospitalization record may surprise Americans who have repeatedly heard that the hypermutated Omicron variant — which has triggered an unprecedented wave of breakthrough cases in vaccinated and previously infected individuals — is ultimately milder because it’s less likely to seriously sicken those who catch it.

“I think people have fixated on this idea that it’s mild,” New York University epidemiologist Céline Gounder recently told New York magazine. “Mild means mild — relatively mild — for the individual who’s infected. But it does not necessarily mean mild at a population level.”

The new U.S. hospitalization numbers — including rising ICU admissions in the cities Omicron has struck first — suggest just that: If even a milder variant infects enough people, the resulting surge can be anything but “mild.”

The problem, as Gounder and others have pointed out, is twofold.

First, there is a ton of virus circulating right now, with an average number of new daily cases (the current 7-day average stands at 677,243) that’s nearly three times higher than ever before. Virologist Trevor Bedford of the Fred Hutchinson institute in Seattle has calculated that tests are now catching just one in four or five U.S. infections — which means that Omicron is actually infecting more than 3 million Americans each day.

Medical staff treat a COVID patient at Western Reserve Hospital in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

Second, this once unthinkable level of spread guarantees that Omicron is finding as many people at increased risk of hospitalization as possible: the entirely unvaccinated (83 million Americans); the vaccinated but unboosted (132 million Americans); and especially seniors who are not boosted (26 million) or even fully vaccinated (7 million) and who remain most susceptible to severe disease.

Then, just like earlier versions of the virus, Omicron is sending far too many of them — nearly all of whom are unvaccinated or undervaccinated — to the hospital.

“If a lot of people get infected, even if it’s a relatively benign virus, enough of those people will still [get] hospitalized and die that this is really going to be very overwhelming for the health care system,” Grounder explained.

Not all of the news about U.S. hospitalizations is grim. Doctors are reporting fewer patients on ventilators and shorter hospital stays in comparison to past waves, data that is consistent with higher population immunity and a variant that doesn’t latch onto lung cells as well as its predecessors. And data from various states show a significant fraction of COVID-19 patients tested positive “incidentally” upon admission for some other ailment, meaning that Omicron isn’t the thing that’s making them sick enough to seek care.

Unfortunately, as New York City emergency room doctor Craig Spencer explained Monday on Twitter, “entering the hospital WITH Covid versus FOR Covid isn’t a relevant distinction if the hospital doesn’t have the beds or providers needed to care for its patients. And the distinction isn’t always clear even to providers. Nor does it matter practically.”

“Every Covid + patient requires the same isolation to protect other patients from getting infected,” Spencer continued. “They require the same use of PPE. And they all represent another infection risk to providers. Most importantly they all require the same space in a bed. And that’s in short supply.”

In a New York Times op-ed published Monday titled, “As an E.R. Doctor, I Fear Health Care Collapse More Than Omicron,” Spencer elaborated on why U.S. hospitals trying to treat more than 140,000 COVID-19 patients at once represents an “unfolding tragedy.”

Among the reasons he mentioned: “‘classic’ COVID-19 patients, short of breath and needing oxygen,” all of whom are unvaccinated; “elderly patients for whom Covid rendered them too weak to get out of bed”; “people with diabetes in whom the virus caused serious and potentially fatal complications”; and on top of that “many hospitals [now] seeing their highest levels of employee infections of the pandemic,” with some having “lost 15 percent of their workforce or more.”

Medical workers confer in the ICU ward at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Mass.(Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)

“The Omicron surge is real — and even if Omicron is ‘milder,’ it's not mild,” Spencer concluded on Twitter. “It causes severe disease half as often as Delta, but infects 2-4x as many people, potentially washing out any potential 'benefit.’”

The data from early U.S. Omicron hot spots is starting to bear this out. In Chicago, hospitalizations have surpassed 150 percent of last winter’s peak; today, there are already more Chicagoans in the ICU or on ventilators than there were one year ago.

Hospitalizations have also topped last winter’s highs in New York City and Washington, D.C. — and ICU and ventilator numbers are following the same, nearly vertical trajectory.

Initially, experts were encouraged by reports out of London showing that “despite steep rises in cases and patients, the number on ventilators has barely risen,” as Financial Times data journalist John Burn-Murdoch tweeted last Tuesday. Meanwhile, Burn-Murdoch continued, “the number of people in London ICUs has fallen in recent weeks, and is not following the same path as last winter.”

The hope was that the pattern would repeat itself in the U.S. because of Omicron’s relative mildness. But it hasn’t. Before Omicron arrived, the number of U.S. COVID patients in the ICU (per capita) was about twice as high as the number of U.K. COVID patients in the ICU. Today, two months later, that disparity is more than five times as high. While the U.K.’s ICU curve has remained flat, the U.S. curve has gone up about 100 percent — to the point where it’s just 21 percent lower than last winter’s pre-vaccination peak.

Why? Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has theorized that “lower U.S. vax/booster rates” may be to blame.

“U.S. decoupling between cases, hospitalizations, deaths, while measurable vs prior waves, isn't as strong as UK; perhaps due to lower U.S. vax/booster rates (50% eligible adults boosted),” Gottlieb tweeted Sunday. “Our protracted wrangling over boosters may have sowed confusion, sapping consumer interest.”

Indeed, while America’s two-dose vaccination rate (62 percent of the total population) is somewhat lower than the U.K.’s (69 percent), its boosted rate is less than half as high: 23 percent here vs. 52 percent there. U.K. data shows that three vaccine doses prevent 88 percent of Omicron hospitalizations while two vaccine doses prevent just 52 percent.

At the ICU ward at UMass medical center. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)

What this means for U.S. Omicron deaths remains to be seen. A New York Times analysis published Monday shows the trajectory of COVID deaths rising steeply in New York City, Boston and Washington, D.C. — and tracking closely with the trajectory of cases from three weeks earlier. (It typically takes a terminal COVID patient about that long to succumb to the disease.)

And while those cities have been suffering fewer deaths per case so far this winter than last, they’re also reporting far more cases now than there were then — more than six times as many per day in New York City, for instance. Once the worst of those cases work their way through the overloaded hospital system, the absolute number of deaths may also wind up being higher this winter.

On the other hand, the deadlier Delta variant was already spurring its own wave in the Northeast when Omicron took hold. So, lingering Delta cases may be making Omicron look worse than it is.

Either way, the next few weeks will see Omicron spreading from cities like New York, where 74 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, to places like Mississippi, where just 49 percent of the population is fully vaccinated — and where COVID cases have increased by 702 percent over the last two weeks, more than any other state.

In fact, every state where Omicron is now spreading the fastest is a low-vax state like Mississippi: Texas (+678 percent), South Carolina (+652 percent), Kentucky (+578 percent), Louisiana (+546 percent), Arkansas (+526 percent) and Alabama (+522 percent).

“As Omicron advances into less vaccinated rural regions with more limited health systems capacity, it will overwhelm already strained hospitals, exacerbate sharp rural disparities in COVID deaths, and further constrain access to non-COVID care,” Anne Sosin, a public health researcher at Dartmouth College, predicted Monday.

Meanwhile, 20 percent of hospitals in a state like Maryland are reporting staff shortages — and the COVID-19 Hospital Capacity Circuit Breaker dashboard shows that every single county there appears to have reached or exceeded its hospital capacity.

“I can attest the situation in Maryland is [expletive] horrendous,” one physician wrote to the dashboard’s creator. “The state has been maxed out for about 2 weeks. Multiple hospitals are operating under crisis standard of care. EMS [i.e. ambulances] is now so taxed that Baltimore County started transporting people in fire trucks last week. This is absolutely unheard of and absurd. Reports of people waiting over 1-2 hours on scene with fire fighters before an EMS unit gets there. Then when they get to the hospital they wait literally hours for a bed. Transfer centers now just laugh when you call, the system is so backlogged. It’s mind-boggling to me how none of this has been national news.”

US on 'threshold' of living with coronavirus: Fauci

Top US scientist Anthony Fauci said personal attacks by Senator Rand Paul distracted from the important work of tackling the pandemic, and made him a personal target for violence 

(AFP/Greg Nash)

Issam AHMED
Tue, January 11, 2022

Despite soaring cases and record-high Covid-19 hospitalizations, the United States is approaching the "threshold" of transitioning to living with the coronavirus as a manageable disease, Anthony Fauci said Tuesday.

Speaking to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the top US scientist said eliminating Covid was unrealistic and that "Omicron, with its extraordinary, unprecedented degree of efficiency of transmissibility, will ultimately find just about everybody."

"There's no way we're going to eradicate this" virus, he said, given its contagiousness, its propensity to mutate into new variants and the large pool of unvaccinated people.

Those up to date with their vaccines remain well protected against severe outcomes, but vaccine efficacy against infection has fallen.

But "as Omicron goes up and down," the country will hopefully enter a new phase "where there'll be enough protection in (the) community, enough drugs available so that when someone does get infected and is in a high risk group, it will be very easy to treat that person," said Fauci.

"When we get there, there's that transition, and we may be on the threshold of that right now," he said, while also stressing that with the country currently recording almost a million infections a day, nearly 150,000 people in hospital and more than 1,200 daily deaths, "we're not at that point."

Official data showed there are currently 145,982 Covid hospitalizations, even though a significant percent are thought to be hospitalized "with" the disease rather than because of it.

Earlier, the 81-year-old director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases slammed vaccine skeptic Republican Senator Rand Paul for unleashing "crazies" who were threatening his life and harassing his family, in unusually emotional congressional testimony.

President Joe Biden's top officials, including his chief medical advisor Fauci, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Rochelle Walenksy and acting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) head Janet Woodcock were summoned to testify before the Senate about the pandemic.

While many fellow lawmakers focused their questions on the lack of adequate testing and confusing new guidelines on how infected people should end their isolation, Paul, who has railed against vaccine mandates and refused to get vaccinated, said Fauci was personally to blame for people's deaths.

Paul faulted Fauci for hundreds of thousands of deaths that occurred since Biden took office -- although the vast majority of those fatalities were unvaccinated and health officials, including Fauci, have consistently advocated for vaccines.

- 'Kindles the crazies' -

"You personally attack me and with absolutely not a shred of evidence of anything you say," Fauci responded.

"All of a sudden that kindles the crazies out there and I have life threats upon my life, harassment of my family and my children with obscene phone calls."

Fauci recalled that in late December, a man was arrested on his way from California to the capital Washington armed with an AR-15 assault weapon and multiple rounds of ammunition.

The man said he wanted to kill Fauci, because of what he said was blood on the scientists' hands.

Fauci then brandished a printout from Paul's website that showed the banner "Fire Dr Fauci" next to an invitation to donate to the Republican's campaign.

Though Omicron causes severe cases at a lower rate than Delta, it is reaching more people because of its extreme infectiousness.

By December 27, the age-adjusted vaccine efficacy against hospitalization was 92 percent, according to data from New York state.

ia/sw

Omicron pushing Covid out of pandemic phase: EU agency


The Omicron variant of Covid-19 was first reported in South Africa in November

 (AFP/Lionel BONAVENTURE)

Tue, January 11, 2022, 

The spread of the Omicron variant is pushing Covid towards being an endemic disease that humanity can live with, although it remains a pandemic for now, the EU's drug watchdog said Tuesday.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) also expressed doubts about giving a fourth vaccine shot to the general population, saying repeated boosters were not a "sustainable" strategy.

"Nobody knows exactly when we will be at the end of the tunnel but we will be there," Marco Cavaleri, head of vaccine strategy at the Amsterdam-based regulator, told journalists.

"With the increase of immunity in population -- and with Omicron, there will be a lot of natural immunity taking place on top of vaccination -- we will be fast moving towards a scenario that will be closer to endemicity," he added.

But he stressed that "we should not forget we are still in a pandemic", noting the huge burden on healthcare from the surge in Omicron.

The World Health Organization said earlier Tuesday that more than half of people in Europe were on track to catch the variant in the next two months.

The WHO also warned that repeated Covid boosters were not a viable strategy, comments the EU's medicines regulator echoed.

"If we have a strategy in which we give boosters every four months, we will end up potentially having problems with immune response," the EMA's Cavaleri said.

"And secondly of course there is the risk of fatigue in the population with continuous administration of boosters."

Countries should instead start thinking about spacing out boosters at longer intervals, and synchronising them with the start of the cold season in the way that flu vaccines are currently administered, Cavaleri said.

The EMA separately said that studies had confirmed that despite being more infectious, the risk of hospitalisation from the Omicron variant was between one third and one half of that posed by the Delta strain.

dk/jj

Third Covid infection for Bolivian VP who touts traditional medicine


An Aymara woman hold medicinal plants as she takes part in a march against decrees that make the Covid-19 vaccination pass compulsory at public places, in La Paz, on January 10, 2022

 (AFP/Jorge BERNAL)

Tue, January 11, 2022,

Bolivia's vice president David Choquehuanca, who touts indigenous treatments for Covid-19, has contracted the virus for a third time, the government said Tuesday, with six government ministers also testing positive.

All are self-isolating and working from home, with no major symptoms, the president's office said in a statement. All had been vaccinated against the coronavirus, although Choquehuanca -- a member of the Aymara indigenous group -- has had only one jab.

Last month, he revealed he had contracted Covid-19 twice, and recovered after taking what he called traditional medicine.

Choquehuanca said he had consumed a mixture of turmeric, ginger, onion, garlic, and honey in the mornings, as well as honey with lemon.

He said he chewed coca leaves mixed with bicarbonate, an ancient practice among Bolivia's Aymara and Quechua indigenous groups who have largely resisted coronavirus vaccines.

"Coca with 'bico' (bicarbonate), that’s very good," he told a local radio channel, adding "I’ve even eaten grass."

The politician claimed at the time to have acquired immunity through infection, the "natural" way.

But he said he would get a vaccine to put an end to the controversy about his unjabbed status, as Bolivia's opposition urged him to set an example amid a fourth infection wave sweeping the country.

Choquehuanca got his first jab, with China's Sinopharm vaccine, on January 3, just days after his radio interview.

The others infected included Foreign Minister Rogelio Mayta, who tested positive in Argentina after taking part in a meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the government said.

His peers in the portfolios of defense, development planning, justice, education and the ministry of government, have also tested positive.

Bolivia has registered some 686,000 coronavirus infections and almost 20,000 deaths among its nearly 12 million inhabitants.

jac/llu/mlr/dw

Quebec seeks to tax the unvaxxed as Omicron hits

Tuesday, January 11, 2022

MONTREAL, Canada (AFP)— The Canadian province of Quebec, struggling to control the Omicron variant, will impose a new health tax in the coming weeks on those who are not vaccinated against COVID-19.

"We are working on a health contribution for all the adults who are refusing to get vaccinated" because they represent a "financial burden for all Quebecois," said Quebec Premier Francois Legault.

The 10 per cent of Quebecois who have not yet received any vaccine doses must not "harm" the 90 per cent who have, he said.

"It is not on all Quebecois to pay for that," he said during a press conference, specifying that the government of the French-speaking province wanted the tax to represent a "significant amount".

"I feel this discontent with regard to the unvaccinated minority which, all things considered, clogs our hospitals," he said.

The Quebec premier explained that these 10 per cent of unvaccinated adults represent 50 per cent of people in intensive care, calling it a "shocking" situation.

He said that those who are unvaccinated for medical reasons will be exempt from the move.

In an attempt to stem the new wave, Quebec announced on December 30 the return of certain restrictions, including a 10 pm curfew and a ban on private gatherings.

In total, 2,742 people with COVID are hospitalised and some 255 people are in intensive care in Quebec, which has about 8 million inhabitants.

Hospitalisations also continue to increase in neighbouring province Ontario, the most populous in Canada, with 3,220 people hospitalised and 477 people in intensive care.