‘This is fascism’: Trump riles up Minnesota supporters with racist attack on Somali refugees


Published  October 1, 2020 By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

MUSSOLINI INVADED AND OCCUPIED SOMALI, ETHIOPIA, LIBYA PRIOR TO WW II

Just 24 hours after refusing to condemn white supremacists during the first 2020 general election debate, President Donald Trump late Wednesday launched a racist attack on refugees from Somalia and other nations and parroted an unfounded right-wing claim about Rep. Ilhan Omar, sparking “lock her up!” chants from his Minnesota supporters.

“Another massive issue for Minnesota is the election of Joe Biden’s plan to inundate your state with a historic flood of refugees,” Trump said to boos from the crowd gathered at Duluth International Airport. “Coming from the most dangerous places in the world including Yemen, Syria, and your favorite country, Somalia. Right? You love Somalia… Biden will turn Minnesota into a refugee camp.”

In the middle of his xenophobic rant against refugees—which the president has made central to his Minnesota stump speech in recent weeks, given the state’s large Somali population—Trump veered into an attack on Omar, who is herself a Somali refugee.

“And what about Omar, where she gets caught harvesting?” Trump said, referring to a video released Sunday by Project Veritas, a right-wing group that is notorious for spreading deceptive footage purporting to expose Democratic lawmakers and organizations. The video Project Veritas unveiled Sunday—shortly after the New York Times published its bombshell report on the president’s tax returns—was described by researchers as “a great example of what a coordinated disinformation campaign looks like.”

Watch Trump’s comments:

Aaron Rupar

@atrupar

·

Sep 30, 2020

Replying to @atrupar

This stuff that Trump is saying taking credit for "opening up the Iron Range" is completely made up. He's celebrating an event that didn't happen.

Aaron Rupar

@atrupar

"Biden will turn Minnesota into a refugee camp" -- Speaking in a state with one of the largest Somali populations in the country, Trump goads his fans into booing refugees, prompting "lock her up!" chants directed at Ilhan Omar

7:40 PM · Sep 30, 2020

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“This is the overlap between white supremacy, the climate emergency, misogyny, and human rights abuses,” tweeted meteorologist Eric Holthaus in response to Trump’s latest attack on refugees. “This is fascism.”

Journalist Matt O’Brien echoed Holthaus’ characterization of the president’s rally Wednesday night as fascistic. “Demonizing refugees, attacking political opponents based on race, the crowd cheering for those opponents to be locked up,” O’Brien wrote, listing just some of the alarming components of the president’s event.

Trump’s Duluth campaign rally came after the president officially and unlawfully missed the deadline to establish the number of refugees who will be allowed into the United States in fiscal year 2021, effectively bringing the nation’s refugee admissions to a standstill.

“For the third year in a row, this administration is in violation of the immigration laws, specifically the refugee program requirements added by the Refugee Act of 1980,” Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said in a statement Wednesday. “This president has shown on countless occasions that he believes he is above the law. This time, refugees—including many who served alongside our troops—will be the victims of the Trump administration’s lawless approach.”

“The administration’s violations,” the lawmakers warned, “will bring our refugee admissions program to a halt, leaving thousands stranded abroad with their lives at risk.”

In a tweet late Wednesday, Omar said the U.S. refugee program “is a life or death matter to millions of children around the world.”

“I know because I was one of them,” Omar added.

REST IN POWER

Australian feminist singer Helen Reddy dies in LA

September 30, 2020 By Agence France-Presse

Singer Helen Reddy shot to global stardom with the 1971 hit 'I Am Woman' (AFP)

Australian singer Helen Reddy, best known for her feminist anthem “I Am Woman”, has died in Los Angeles aged 78, according to a statement from her children on Wednesday.

“It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved mother, Helen Reddy, on the afternoon of September 29th 2020 in Los Angeles,” the statement on her official Facebook fan page said.

The trailblazing musician from Melbourne shot to global stardom with the 1971 hit “I Am Woman”, which became the rallying cry of the women’s liberation movement.

Born on October 25, 1941, Reddy married three times and had two children, Traci Wald Donat and Jordan Sommers.

“She was a wonderful mother, grandmother and a truly formidable woman,” they said.

“Our hearts are broken. But we take comfort in the knowledge that her voice will live on forever.”

Reddy, who lived in Los Angeles, was diagnosed with dementia in 2015

She was born to show-business parents and began performing as a small child in Australia.

Reddy later moved to the United States where she recorded a string of hits in the 1970s, including “Angie Baby” and “Delta Dawn”, topping the Billboard charts three times.

Accepting a Grammy Award in 1973, she famously thanked God “because she makes everything possible”.

An Australian biopic detailing her rise to fame premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019.

PARKDALE CROMDALE COMMUNITY LEAGUE MY HOOD

 

The whole block continues to be an eyesore. It is definitely doing terrible things for the neighbourhood’s appearance as 86 street is a gateway from downtown to Fort Road, and beyond. Many pass by this area daily and see the negative impact portrayed. One community member says "We definitely need to push for the city to demand demolition before winter." PCCL's Neighbourhood Development Committee is working with the problem property task force, and also drafting a letter for our mayor and councillors. In the meantime, we can report the property by calling 3-1-1 or using the APP, and if you would like to report it right now, please go to https://www.gov.edmonton.ab.ca/residential_neighbourhoods/report-a-problem-property.aspx Please Note! link does give a warning that it could be unsafe, however, it is a City of Edmonton webpage.

Trump plans to slash refugee admissions to US to record low
SAN DIEGO-The Associated Press  

The Trump administration has proposed further slashing the number of refugees the United States accepts to a new record low in the coming year.

In a notice sent to Congress late on Sept. 30, just 34 minutes before a statutory deadline to do so, the administration said it intended to admit a maximum of 15,000 refugees in fiscal year 2021. That's 3,000 fewer than the 18,000 ceiling the administration had set for fiscal year 2020, which expired at midnight on Sept. 30.

The proposal will now be reviewed by Congress, where there are strong objections to the cuts, but lawmakers will be largely powerless to force changes.

The more than 16.5% reduction was announced shortly after President Donald Trump vilified refugees as an unwanted burden at a campaign rally in Duluth, Minnesota, where he assailed his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden. He claimed Biden wants to flood the state with foreigners.

"Biden will turn Minnesota into a refugee camp, and he said that, overwhelming public resources, overcrowding schools and inundating hospitals. You know that. It's already there. It's a disgrace what they've done to your state,'' Trump told supporters.Trump froze refugee admissions in March amid the coronavirus pandemic, citing a need to protect American jobs as fallout from the coronavirus crashed the economy.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration is committed to the country's history of leading the world in providing a safe place for refugees.

"We continue to be the single greatest contributor to the relief of humanitarian crisis all around the world, and we will continue to do so," Pompeo told reporters in Rome on the sidelines of a conference on religious freedom organized by the U.S. Embassy. "Certainly so long as President Trump is in office, I can promise you this administration is deeply committed to that.''

But advocates say the government's actions do not show that. Since taking office, Trump has slashed the number of refugees allowed into the country by more than 80%, reflecting his broader efforts to drastically reduce both legal and illegal immigration.

The U.S. allowed in just over 10,800 refugees, a little more than half of the 18,000 cap set by Trump for 2020 before the State Department suspended the program because of the coronavirus.

The 18,000 cap was already the lowest in the history of the program. In addition, the State Department announced last week that it would no longer provide some statistical information on refugee resettlement, sparking more concerns.

Advocates say the Trump administration is dismantling a program that has long enjoyed bipartisan support and has been considered a model for protecting the world's most vulnerable people.

Scores of resettlement offices have closed because of the drop in federal funding, which is tied to the number of refugees placed in the U.S.

And the damage is reverberating beyond American borders as other countries close their doors to refugees as well.

"We're talking about tens of millions of desperate families with no place to go and having no hope for protection in the near term,'' said Krish Vignarajah, president of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, a federally funded agency charged with resettling refugees in the United States.

Bisrat Sibhatu, an Eritrean refugee, does not want to think about the possibility of another year passing without reuniting with his wife.

For the past 2 1/2 years, he has called the caseworker who helped him resettle in Milwaukee every two weeks to inquire about the status of his wife's refugee case.
The answer is always the same, nothing to report.

"My wife is always asking me: `Is there news?'" said Sibhatu, who talks to her daily over a messaging app. "It's very tough. How would you feel if you were separated from your husband? It's not easy. I don't know what to say to her."

He said the couple fled Eritrea's authoritarian government and went to neighboring Ethiopia, which hosts more than 170,000 Eritrean refugees and asylum-seekers. Between 2017 and 2019, his wife, Ruta, was interviewed, vetted and approved to be admitted to the United States as a refugee. Then everything came to a halt.

Sibhatu, who works as a machine operator at a spa factory, sends her about $500 every month to cover her living expenses in Ethiopia.

"I worry about her, about her life," Sibhatu said, noting Ethiopia's spiraling violence and the pandemic. "But there is nothing we can do."

He hopes his wife will be among the refugees who make it to the United States in 2021.

Migrants,

Marine Corps Times busts Trump for lying about Biden ‘killing’ hundreds of thousands of troops


September 30, 2020 By Brad Reed

President Donald Trump on Tuesday night tried to deflect from the mounting death toll in the novel coronavirus pandemic by claiming that Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden was somehow responsible for the deaths of over 300,000 American troops.

However, the Marine Corps Times did a thorough fact check of the president’s claims and determined that they are false.

In fact, the Marine Corps Times has found that Trump’s entire claim rests on “a five-year-old inspector general report that found widespread problems with Veterans Affairs record keeping but does not directly connect deaths to delayed care from department officials.”

What’s more, the IG report uncovered problems in the VA that went back decades and didn’t only occur under the Obama administration.

“In one case, a veteran who died in 1988 was listed as awaiting enrollment approval until January 2015,” the Marine Corps Times writes.

In another case, the publication writes, “one veteran… who appeared to have died waiting for care was shown applying for VA enrollment for the first time in 2009, and failing to receive any help for the next five years… however, the patient actually died in 1993.”

The IG report concluded that the VA’s records system was “generally unreliable for monitoring, reporting on the status of health care enrollments, and making decisions regarding overall processing timeliness,” but it did not say that Biden was personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of troops.

Chemical detective work shows its power in latest Novichok saga

BY PATRICK WALTER1 OCTOBER 2020

Source: © Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny is reported to be recovering well after being poisoned with an unspecified Novichok nerve agent

Following the 2018 poisonings in Salisbury, this time it’s Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny who has been on the receiving end of a cold war relic – Novichok nerve agents. Once again chemists find themselves on the front line dealing with these weapons as another chemical detective story begins.

One of the earliest stories of chemical forensics uncovering a crime occurred in the UK almost 200 years ago. Chemist James Marsh was called upon by the prosecution in a murder trial to assess whether a man had been poisoned by his grandson using arsenic – also known then by the grisly nickname inheritance powder. His first efforts were not totally successful. Despite being able to infer the presence of arsenic by the formation of arsenic trisulfide as a result of passing hydrogen sulfide through tissue samples, the compound decayed before the trial and the jury was left unimpressed. Spurred on by this failure Marsh went on to develop a much more sensitive test using acid and zinc to liberate arsine gas from samples containing arsenic. When subsequently burnt the arsine left behind a telltale silvery–black residue.

Back then Marsh was searching for a single specific chemical. In Navalny’s case the forensic chemists would not have known what they were looking for. The fact that they were able to find it – quite likely at parts per billion levels – days after Navalny was exposed is incredible. The Novichok was likely first extracted from blood samples from Navalny using antibodies to target enzyme–nerve agent conjugates. Following removal of the protein the isolated nerve agent would have been subject to a battery of tests with the lab workhorse of GC-MS probably giving the team the first idea of exactly what they were looking at. Not only were the German scientists able to confirm that the weapon was a Novichok, but also that its structure was, reportedly, unknown to anyone except those who made it.

It is a testament to the trust that we have in analytical chemistry that we are now unsurprised that such rapid chemical detective work is possible. I’m certain Marsh would have been astounded by the molecular forensics that are possible today. We can marvel at how things have changed so much in such a relatively short amount of time.

The idea of a perfect poison has been a trope in literature for decades. The simple truth now is that there’s no such thing. The truth will out, and we have some incredible chemists and their tools to thank for that

Jumping the vaccine queue

BY PHILLIP BROADWITH Business editor, Chemistry World

25 SEPTEMBER 2020


Deals between companies and rich governments offset manufacturing risks, but must not compromise supplies to those in need

How much should a Covid-19 vaccine cost? And who should get it first? These are thorny problems that governments, companies and groups striving to secure equitable vaccine supplies are wrestling with as we inch slowly closer to a viable vaccine becoming available.



Source: © Gary Waters/Ikon Images

With the whole world waiting for Covid-19 vaccines, getting the early supplies to those who are most vulnerable must be the first priority

Well-off countries have rushed to strike deals with the various developers, to secure their own supplies. And alliances between states and non-government organisations are forming to try to ensure that those countries not in a position to commit to such deals themselves can still be provided for, rather than being sidelined by those with cash on hand.

At first glance, those huge orders resemble a kind of grossly unfair land-grab. But there is another side to these deals. Companies are committing to manufacturing vaccines before they are formally approved. That’s a big risk – developing manufacturing processes and building physical capacity is a significant cost. Guaranteed sales offset some of that risk, helping the whole system move faster – a good thing for everyone in a pandemic.

And as deal details emerge, there are signs that (at least in some cases) measures are in place to ensure the early doses are not simply doled out to governments who have splashed their cash, but distributed more according to need. Those who have pre-reserved their doses should, of course, get them in due time. But making sure the most vulnerable worldwide are at the front of the queue, regardless of where they live, will benefit us all in the long run. Time will tell how effective such measures will be.

Which brings us to prices. This is not the time for profiteering, and several companies have pledged to make minimal or zero profit from their sales during the pandemic. This virus is unlikely to be eradicated, so there will be time for more profitable sales to control future outbreaks or maintain vaccine-derived herd immunity once this pandemic is controlled.

In the meantime, the deals being struck clearly show that there are different interpretations of a ‘reasonable price’. The US deals (for which most financial details have been disclosed), range from £15–16 per dose for a Sanofi–GSK or Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine, to just over £3 for the University of Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine. Oxford–AZ’s deal with Gavi, the Vaccines Alliance is less than £2 per dose.

Clearly, the costs associated with developing and scaling up vaccines based on different technology could be wildly different – some may be able to use existing infrastructure and capacity, while others may not. And of course, not all the costs are determined yet. It will be important to scrutinise companies’ claims about their profits, or lack thereof, in due course. But the first priority should be to get safe and effective vaccines out into the world.

Covid-19 vaccine deals risk skewing supply

International accords including Covax aiming to ensure equitable distribution to poorer countries

SOURCE: © STUART KINLOUGH/IKON IMAGES

BY ANGELI MEHTA 25 SEPTEMBER 2020 CHEMISTRY WORLD

It will be months (at best) before we know if any of the vaccines being developed to protect us against Covid-19 are going to be effective, but the wealthiest nations are committing billions of pounds to secure access to them.

There are 36 candidate vaccines in human trials, with nine already in phase 3 trials with tens of thousands of volunteers. These frontrunners employ five different approaches, from established mechanisms using weakened or inactivated versions of the virus; to new technologies that introduce snippets of the virus genetic material into human cells, where they make proteins that mimic it. Another 146 vaccine candidates are in animal trials.

To speed up availability, pharmaceutical companies have begun manufacturing in parallel with clinical trials, rather than waiting for their outcomes and regulatory approval – a process that would otherwise take years. While that adds significantly to overall development costs, those costs pale into comparison with the pandemic’s global economic and health impacts.

AstraZeneca (AZ), which has the exclusive license to make a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, UK, has signed deals to supply more than two billion doses. It’s scaling up its own manufacturing capacity as well as contracting with organisations in India, Latin America and China to make approaching three billion doses by the end of 2021. AZ says it is committed to broad and equitable access to the vaccine, although distribution is up to individual governments.



Source: © Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images

Vaccine developers are tying up with contract manufacturers across the globe to secure capacity to produce the billions of doses that will eventually be required

Another contender, US-based biotech Moderna – working with the US National Institutes of Health – is developing what would be the first ever mRNA vaccine. It has signed deals to supply at least 276 million doses of its vaccine across the EU, Japan, Canada and the US. Through its multi-agency operation Warp Speed, the US government also has an option for another 400 million doses, assuming the vaccine gets regulatory approval. Alongside, Moderna has negotiated manufacturing capacity so supply can begin this year.

US-based Pfizer is working with Germany’s BioNTech on another mRNA candidate and has agreed to supply 270 million doses across the UK, US, Japan and Canada. The partners plan to make 100 million doses by the end of the year, and 1.3 billion by the end of 2021. On 18 September, the European commission signed a deal with Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for 300 million doses of their recombinant DNA vaccine. An upfront payment of €324 million (£297 million) will support manufacturing scale-up in Europe. The commission says vaccines will be distributed to member states based on population size.

Well-off nations are hedging their bets, to make sure their citizens get early vaccine access. The UK alone has options on 340 million doses from a mixture of frontrunners and less advanced candidates – including French group Valneva’s, which won’t go into clinical trials until the end of the year.


Ensuring there is ample supply for the rest of the world is a complex problem. World Health Organization (WHO) secretary general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has expressed concern that ‘excess demand and competition for supplies is already creating vaccine nationalism and price gouging’. The WHO has had to rethink its risk-sharing Covax initiative – which aims to pool global resources to get two billion doses of approved vaccines by the end of 2021 – after the US refused to sign up, and others delayed. By paying more up front, richer countries now get to choose which vaccines they want.


Ideally you would have one global allocation mechanism – unfortunately that is not likely to happen

The UK signed up at the last minute, meaning 64 self-financing nations will contribute, with another 38 expected to sign. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which is co-leading the initiative, said it would now start signing formal agreements with vaccine developers. Covax is supporting research, development and manufacturing of vaccines, as well as negotiating their prices, and hopes to have at least three safe and effective vaccines to offer. So far it’s raised $1.4 billion (£1.1 billion, including £250 million from the UK government) to support R&D, but requires another $800 million.

As vaccines become available, they would be distributed equitably until every country has enough for 20% of their population, to cover priority groups like healthcare workers. It’s not clear how that allocation will happen in practice, or how much the vaccines will cost, but countries will be able to opt out if prices are more than double what was expected. Thomas Cueni, director general of the International Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, told a recent panel organised by European Health Forum Gastein that ‘ideally you would have one global allocation mechanism – unfortunately that is not likely to happen … and of course, vaccine manufacturers have to respond to where do they get the support, where they get the orders from’. He added that ‘you need a mix of rich country solidarity with poor countries – only then will we be able to meet that objective of … a minimum of two billion, hopefully three billion [doses]’.

A separate mechanism aims to raise $2 billion by the end of the year for the 92 low- and middle-income countries (such as Afghanistan and Yemen) that cannot fully fund their vaccine requirements. However, by mid-September just $700 million had been pledged, leaving it unclear how much those countries will be asked to pay. The European commission has promised €400 million to the initiative, and stressed it wants manufacturers it contracts with to commit to providing future doses through Covax. The EU’s deals will also enable member states to donate some of their contracted supplies to low- and middle-income countries.

China has been engaging in its own vaccine diplomacy outside of Covax. It has four candidates in late stage trials, and is offering loans to Latin American and Caribbean nations to buy its vaccines; while promising priority access to others, such as the Philippines. However, phase 1 trials in Canada of CanSino’s candidate had to be abandoned after the Chinese government refused the company permission to ship the vaccine.


When we started talking with companies, some asked us for more than $100 per dose

One of the hallmarks of deals struck between governments and companies is a lack of transparency. Companies haven’t clearly disclosed what they’ll be paid, in spite of a hefty commitment of public funds to their vaccine endeavours. ‘Perhaps what’s so particularly stinging about that lack of transparency, is that some of these initiatives were launched with transparency cited as a key principle of their efforts, and it just hasn’t been upheld,’ says Kate Elder, senior vaccines policy adviser at Médicins Sans Frontiers (MSF). ‘That’s not in the interest of equitable access for countries in the future – it’s terribly disappointing.’

‘So the European commission is negotiating as a bloc with industry – are they communicating the prices that industry is quoting them to Gavi, which is also negotiating with the same companies? Because [otherwise] they could be inadvertently working against one another and driving up the prices.’ AZ and Johnson & Johnson have said they won’t seek to make a profit on their vaccines during the pandemic, but Elder wants them to substantiate that commitment by setting out their costs, and the funding they’ve received.

Thomas Triomphe, executive vice president for vaccines at Sanofi, told the European Parliament committee on health that his company will make the prices of its vaccines public, but the cost will depend the number of doses required and yield from the manufacturing process. Under Sanofi’s deals, doses have been reserved, not bought outright, to ensure manufacturing can start at scale. Countries will only take what they need and not necessarily the full amount of reserved doses, Triomphe explained.

Knowledge Ecology International (KEI), a Washington, DC-based group that advocates for better use of knowledge, complained that Moderna hadn’t acknowledged that its vaccine development was funded by US government agencies. Moderna is one of seven companies that have received a combined $10 billion in funding from the US government. On top of its almost $1 billion in research funding, the company has a deal worth up to $1.5 billion to supply 100 million doses – around $15 a dose. ‘You’d think a pandemic would require the most transparency: everyone has a stake in knowing what’s going on,’ says KEI director James Love. ‘People funding research have also failed to require companies to share their knowhow globally, so you can have the maximum amount of capacity to manufacture as fast as possible, and the lowest prices by having competition.’

Pfizer’s US deal puts its vaccine at $19.50 per dose; while AZ’s deal with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Gavi works out at $2.50 per dose. The European commission agreed a €336 million downpayment, but what it will ultimately pay for its first 300 million doses is unclear. However, Sandra Gallina, the commission’s deputy director-general for health and food safety, told a parliamentary committee that the EU would be paying €5–15 per dose. Clemens Auer, who is negotiating for the 27 EU member states, told the Gastein panel that ‘when we started talking nationally, bilaterally with companies, some … asked us for more than $100 per dose’.

Company	Platform	UK	US	EU	Canada	Japan	Others
AstraZeneca/ University of Oxford	Adenoviral vector	100m	300m (£930m)	300m (+100m option)		120m	Australia 33.8m; CEPI/Gavi: 300m (£584m);
BioNTech/Pfizer	mRNA	30m	100m (£1.5bn) + 500m option		20m	20m
Johnson & Johnson	Adenoviral vector	30m	100m (£780m)	200m*	38m
Moderna	mRNA		100m (£1.2bn) + 400m option	80m*	56m	40m*
Novavax	Protein + adjuvant	60m			76m
Sanofi/GSK	Protein + adjuvant	60m	100m (£1.6bn)	300m
Valneva	Inactivated virus	60m (£430m) + 130m option
* in negotiations
AZ manufacturing  agreements	Adenoviral vector	India: 1bn; Brazil: 110m (£280m); Latin America: 150–250m; China: 200m; South Korea: 100m

Another sticking point in the EU negotiations has been the question of liability. No vaccine is going to be 100% safe. And no vaccine will ever have been made so quickly. ‘If you move from phase 3 with 30,000 [people] to hundreds of millions, you will have adverse reactions and potential litigation,’ said Cueni. However, ‘limited liability does not mean you are exempted if you do something sloppily or do something wrong’. But the commission has insisted there would be no change to current legislation – if something goes wrong manufacturers can be taken to court, Gallina told MEPs.

All the manufacturing of candidate vaccines is ‘at risk’ – if a vaccine doesn’t work, the doses that have been made are wasted. Adar Poonawalla, chief executive of the Serum Institute of India, which AZ has contracted to make 1 billion doses for low- and middle-income countries, told the BBC it would cost $400–450 million to make the vaccine. If it fails, they’ll have wasted about $100 million, but the plant and equipment can be repurposed for another vaccine.

How easy would it be to pivot? Take the two leading mRNA vaccine developers, suggests Prashant Yadav, an expert in healthcare supply chain management at the Centre for Global Development in Washington, DC, US. ‘Imagine a scenario in which one of them has a successful vaccine and the other has an unsuccessful mRNA. The world would benefit by reconfiguring all of the capacity for the failed candidate and make it available for the successful one. That is easier said than done.’

Intellectual property, the nature of any contracts in place and the interchangeability of manufacturing steps all have a bearing. A new process configuration will take time to set up. ‘Can we start making plans for it now? It’s difficult to ask the manufacturer and the contract manufacturer – already scaling up to make one billion doses – to also get ready for the eventuality that you have to make something else instead.’ The trial results may not be clear-cut either, and a manufacturer might not be willing to reconfigure. ‘The more we can produce of the successful candidates, the better off we are,’ Yadav says. But at the same time, manufacturers’ incentives are aligned to deliver their own vaccine, not just whichever vaccines are successful.

Other issues are availability of adjuvants (used to boost the immune response) – some of these come from naturally occurring substances, and can’t yet be made synthetically. Then there are the logistics of vaccine distribution: nucleic acid vaccines require ultra-cold storage, which will make distribution challenging, even in the developed world. Even getting enough glass vials to fill with vaccines is going to be a challenge. It’s clear that having a successful vaccine get through trials and regulatory hurdles won’t be the end of the story.

Coronavirus: More than 170 test positive at meat plant in Cornwall

Most cases were asymptomatic, local public health team says
Zoe Tidman

More than 170 people have tested positive for Covid-19 at a meat plant in Cornwall(Getty Images)

More than 170 people at a meat processing plant in Cornwall have tested positive for Covid-19.

Hundreds of staff were tested at the food factory in Pool, a village near Redruth.

Most of the positive cases at the Pilgrim's Pride meat plant were asymptomatic, according to the local public health team.

The company says it has introduced additional measures and checks its compliance with Covid-19 controls on a daily basis.

An alert to the national test and trace service from a single member of staff led to 500 colleagues at the plant being tested.
Read more

Coronavirus: Thousands of meat plant workers infected at dozens of outbreaks in Europe and US, research finds

Coronavirus: Why are there so many outbreaks at meat factories?

Coronavirus: Yorkshire meat factory locked down after becoming centre of outbreak

A spokesperson for Pilgrim's Pride added: "From the outset we have worked conscientiously to do all we can to protect our workforce and the local community.

"Our teams have been working extremely hard in collaboration with the local authority and public health to manage this challenging situation, and have bravely conducted themselves with professionalism and integrity as they continue to play their important role in maintaining the UK food supply chain."

Rachel Wigglesworth, interim director for public health for Cornwall Council, said her team had strengthened the “local Covid-19 contact tracing approach to help detect cases early, prevent spread and support people to self-isolate”.

“We've quickly identified and tested hundreds of people, and in finding people who weren't displaying symptoms we have potentially stopped much wider spread in our communities,” she said.

“We continue to closely monitor the situation and appreciate the cooperation of Pilgrim's Pride Ltd. and their employees.”

It is not the first time coronavirus clusters have been reported at food factories in the UK.

A chicken plant in Wales temporarily shut in June after more than 150 employees tested positive.

Around the same time, a meat-packing plant in West Yorkshire dealt with a Covid-19 outbreak.

Additional reporting by Press Association

Pilgrim’s Pride factory has more than 170 cases of coronavirus, tests confirm

A single alert led to the discovery of the infections at the former Tulip premises at Pool


Lee Trewhela Chief reporter
 30 SEP 2020

It has been verified by Cornwall Council’s public health team that over 170 staff at the Pilgrim’s Pride food factory in Pool have tested positive for COVID-19.

A single alert from the national NHS Test and Trace service resulted in the identification of more than 170 cases among staff at Pilgrim's Pride – which bought bacon producer Tulip last year – who were unaware that they had the virus and were not displaying symptoms

The public health team provided an update on the situation at a meeting of the COVID-19 Local Outbreak Engagement Board yesterday (Tuesday, September 29) and outlined what they said was intensive testing being carried out to help limit the transmission of the virus.

A spokesman said the council's public health team along with Public Health England SW and the NHS have been working closely with Pilgrim’s Pride Ltd in order to take proactive action to reduce the likelihood of transmission in the local community.

The spokesman added: “The public health team provides an enhanced contract tracing service where they contact the individual identified to us by NHS Test and Trace and interview them about their recent activities. In this case the individual revealed to us that they worked at the factory, and so further investigations were carried out and testing procedures 

In total, almost 500 employees at the factory have been tested and the vast majority of the cases who tested positive were not displaying symptoms.

Swift identification of the initial case has helped to limit the transmission of COVID-19 in the local community. All employees who have tested positive are isolating in line with government guidelines, as are those found to have been in close contact with them.

The information on cases of coronavirus in Cornwall is updated weekly and can be found here. The data shows a sharp rise in cases in Cornwall over the past two weeks, the majority of which can be attributed to this outbreak.

A representative from Pilgrim’s Pride Ltd said: “These are the first positive cases we have experienced at our site in Redruth since the outbreak of COVID-19 in the UK and appear to coincide with the outbreaks seen more widely around the county.

“To put this into context, we have seen significantly more cases of COVID-19 in Cornwall over the past 14 days than we have experienced within our business of 6,000 employees located in 13 sites across the UK – including Manchester, West Midlands and Leicestershire – since the onset of this pandemic.

“We recognise our role and responsibilities within our community and continue to follow and exceed government guidelines as we have been since March when COVID-19 restrictions were introduced. We have also implemented additional measures where they bring benefit to particular situations. We audit our own compliance of all COVID-19 controls daily.

“From the outset we have worked conscientiously to do all we can to protect our workforce and the local community. Our teams have been working extremely hard in collaboration with the local authority and public health to manage this challenging situation, and have bravely conducted themselves with professionalism and integrity as they continue to play their important role in maintaining the UK food supply chain.”

Julian German, leader of Cornwall Council, added: “This case demonstrates how the strategy of proactive testing is helping us to take action quickly to limit the spread of COVID in our communities. The council’s public health team review the situation daily and if any additional actions are needed the team stands ready to put them in place quickly.

“Our key message to residents is that we all need to play our part in limiting the virus – by following the guidance and doing our bit to protect ourselves and each other.”

Rachel Wigglesworth, interim director for public health for Cornwall Council, said: “Our team has been working tirelessly since the beginning of the pandemic, and have strengthened our local COVID-19 contact tracing approach to help detect cases early, prevent spread and support people to self-isolate.

“We’ve quickly identified and tested hundreds of people, and in finding people who weren’t displaying symptoms we have potentially stopped much wider spread in our communities. We continue to closely monitor the situation and appreciate the cooperation of Pilgrim’s Pride Ltd. and their employees.

“It’s really important that everyone, no matter where they live Cornwall, follows the government guidance of good hand hygiene, wearing of face masks in enclosed public spaces, keeping two metres apart, and not gathering in groups of more than six people, to help us stop the spread of the virus.

“If anyone does develop symptoms, which include a new continuous cough, high temperature or loss or change to their sense of taste or smell, they should self-isolate straight away and book a test. Please stay at home until you receive the results. If they are positive, please make sure you isolate for 10 days, and close contacts or people you live with should isolate for 14 days.”

Covid-hit factory Pilgrim's Pride slammed for discarded PPE and poor distancing

'The staff were stood outside across the path in big groups smoking, chucking their masks, gloves, hairnets, tissues, cans, etc, all along that stretch of road. It's disgusting and very unhygienic

Charlotte Becquart 27 SEP 2020

A food factory in Cornwall hit by an outbreak of coronavirus has been slammed by members of the public who claim appropriate measures to stop the spread of the virus are not being taken.

In the last couple of weeks several coronavirus cases were confirmed at Pilgrim's Pride in Pool, with staff members claiming that as many as 88 employees tested positive last Saturday alone.


Pilgrim's Pride, which bought bacon producer Tulip last year, confirmed that staff members at its site in Pool, between Redruth and Camborne, have tested positive for the virus.

However the company has not confirmed how many have tested positive.

After the news broke, several members of the public contacted Cornwall Live about discarded PPE and a lack of distancing measures at the factory.

Pilgrims Pride said that all of its employees are reminded about their obligations as responsible members of the local community.


A woman who lives nearby and wishes to remain anonymous said: "I want to make known the mess outside of Tulip (Pilgrim's Pride) in Pool, Cornwall (...). I walked past the building last night with my dog and there is no social distancing within the staff.


"The staff were stood outside across the path in big groups smoking, chucking their masks, gloves, hairnets, tissues, cans, etc, all along that stretch of road. It's disgusting and very unhygienic.

"People have to walk past there. It's no wonder they have a case of Covid there. They need to be shut down and it needs to be deep cleaned, it is absolutely gross. I think this should be made public knowledge for everyone's safety as they obviously are not taking the virus seriously."

Former employee, Jason Kay said he left the factory after working there for a month over concerns about what he saw as a lack of protective measures against the potential spread of Covid-19.

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