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- Weather service: 7 tornadoes hit Alabama, killing at least 5
- Mexico tops 200,000 Covid-19 deaths, but real toll is higher
- AstraZeneca confirms strong vaccine protection after US rift
| Weather service: 7 tornadoes hit Alabama, killing at least 5 Posted: 25 Mar 2021 08:07 PM PDT A string of deadly tornadoes roared through Alabama on Thursday, toppling trees, demolishing homes and knocking out power to thousands, part of a broad swath of violent weather sweeping across the Deep South. At least five fatalities and an unknown number of injuries were reported. The confirmed deaths were in Calhoun County, in the eastern part of the state, where one of multiple twisters sprang from a "super cell" of storms that later moved into Georgia, said John De Block, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Birmingham. Pat Lindsey, a resident of the county's hard-hit town of Ohatchee, told The Associated Press that a neighbor of his was killed when a twister destroyed his mobile home. "He was good as gold," Lindsey said. Farther west, vast areas of Shelby County near Birmingham were badly damaged. In the city of Pelham, James Dunaway said he initially ignored the tornado warning when it came over his phone. But it wasn't long before he could hear the twister approaching, so he left the upstairs bedroom where he had been watching television and entered a hallway — just before the storm blew off the roof and sides of his house, completely exposing the bedroom. All three of his vehicles were undriveable. "I'm very lucky to be alive," the 75-year-old Vietnam War veteran told Al.com. Pelham authorities posted video of large trees blocking roads and utility poles leaning menacingly over debris-littered streets. Firefighters outside a flattened home in the Eagle Point subdivision, also in Shelby County, said the family that lived there made it out alive before they arrived. Nearby homes were roofless or missing their second stories. Shelby County Sheriff John Samaniego told the AP that some houses in the county "have been completely destroyed." Search and rescue efforts were complicated by strong weather that continued to rake across the region. Radar "debris signatures" showed a tornado that formed in southwest Alabama traveled roughly 100 miles (161 kilometers) and stayed on the ground for about an hour and 20 minutes, De Block said. He said on-sight investigations would determine the strength of the storms, but based on the debris signatures, "we're pretty confident we will find at least seven tornadoes" passed through the state on Thursday. The twisters ripped through towns from west to east. In the western city of Centreville, south of Tuscaloosa, Cindy Smitherman and her family and neighbors huddled in their underground storm pit as the twister passed over their home. A tree fell on the shelter door, trapping the eight of them inside for about 20 minutes until someone came with a chain saw to remove the tree, said Smitherman, 62. The twister downed trees, overturned cars and destroyed a workshop on the property. "I'm just glad we're alive," she said. "Praise the Lord." Centreville Mayor Mike Oakley told ABC 33/40 news that a local airport was hit hard. "We have airplanes torn apart like toys. We've got homes along here that are totally destroyed, trees down, power lines down. It's pretty devastating," Oakley said. More than 35,000 customers were without power in Alabama. First lady Jill Biden postponed a trip to Birmingham and Jasper, Alabama, that she had planned for Friday because of the severe weather, her office said in a news release. While Alabama was bearing the worst of Thursday's weather, forecasters warned of dangerous thunderstorms, flash floods and possible twisters from eastern Mississippi into western Georgia, and northward into Tennessee and Kentucky. Also, flash flood warnings and watches extended to the western Carolinas. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey issued an emergency declaration for 46 counties as the severe weather approached, and officials opened shelters in and around Birmingham. Flash floods were a problem in parts of Alabama at times. State troopers closed all lanes of a section of Interstate 65 near Cullman after floodwaters covered the roadway. The highway was reopened later in the day. Mississippi had a storm-related death on Wednesday. Ester Jarrell, 62, died when a large tree toppled over onto her mobile home after heavy rain soaked the ground, a Wilkinson County official told The Associated Press. (AP)  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Mexico tops 200,000 Covid-19 deaths, but real toll is higher Posted: 25 Mar 2021 06:58 PM PDT MEXICO CITY — As Mexico surpassed 200,000 test-confirmed deaths from Covid-19 Thursday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador framed ramped up vaccination efforts as a race against time. The president prepared to call out more military, state and local personnel to spur the vaccination effort as more doses arrive, including a shipment of 1.7 million AstraZeneca shots the United States has "loaned" Mexico. Mexico's total 200,211 confirmed Covid-19 deaths announced Thursday trail only the United States and Brazil, countries with larger populations. The real death toll is believed to be drawing closer to 300,000, due to the country's extremely low rate of testing. "I think it is more. I think, for example, that the numbers on the news are not correct, I think it is higher," funeral home worker Benigno Clemente Zarate said of the death toll. Zarate said he has tended to multiple deaths in a single household. "We have had some jobs where two or three people have died in the same household, in the same family," he said. The Mexican government stopped publishing numbers on excess deaths at the end of 2020; the last time the numbers were reported was at the start of January, before the worst of the second wave of deaths hit. But authorities in Mexico City have published excess death figures through the end of February, and they show that January's deaths were almost 46% higher than in the city's first wave in June. It is a dance of figures. Mexico's Health Department acknowledges almost 220,000 'estimated' Covid-19 deaths as of mid-March, but that estimate is not based on excess death reports and probably doesn't include the considerable number of people who die at home in Mexico. Mexico City was among the hardest-hit cities in the world. Mexico City's 9 million inhabitants suffered 38,627 deaths; with only 7.1% of the country's population, the capital has had 19.3% of the country's total deaths. While large, closely packed cities with intensive mass transit systems may have suffered more across the globe, Mexico City also has far better health care facilities than the rest of the country. Still, the capital saw about 430 confirmed Covid-19 deaths per 100,000. The human toll is overwhelming. Patricia Silva Caudillo, 46, went to a dusty cemetery on the eastern edge of the city to bury her husband, construction worker Pedro Capilla, 51. Capilla, a diabetic, was getting dialysis treatment at a local hospital where he was apparently infected with Covid-19. "He was everything to me," said Silva Caudillo. "He was my companion, my support." Raquel Díaz also came to the cemetery to bury a relative. "This has left a lot of pain, a lot of tragedy, it has left so many people orphaned or widowed," Díaz said. "I don't think this pandemic has brought anything good." López Obrador said Thursday he views it as a race against time to get all people over 60 vaccinated with at least one dose by the end of April, before a possible third wave hits. "We have to avoid any rebound, an undesired, extraordinary situation of a rebound in infections like those that are occurring in some other parts of the world," López Obrador said. "We do not want a resurgence." It is unlikely that Mexico's approximately 6 million vaccines delivered so far have played much of a role in the statistical reduction in deaths in recent weeks, and it is unclear how many Mexican will take the shots. The Mexican government has been widely using two Chinese-made vaccines, but suspicion remains due to a lack of information on their effectiveness, something that could encourage already widespread skepticism. In a March 6-9 poll, only 52% of the 1,000 Mexicans surveyed said they were willing to get vaccinated, according to the GEA-ISA polling firm; 20% said they weren't sure, and 28% said they would not get vaccinated. The poll had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.1 percentage points. (AP)  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| AstraZeneca confirms strong vaccine protection after US rift Posted: 25 Mar 2021 05:36 AM PDT ASTRAZENECA insists that its Covid-19 vaccine is strongly effective even after counting additional illnesses in its US study, the latest in an extraordinary public dispute with American officials. In a late-night news release Wednesday, March 24, the drugmaker said it had analyzed more data from that study and concluded the vaccine is 76 percent effective in preventing symptomatic Covid-19, instead of the 79 percent it had reported earlier in the week. Just a day earlier, an independent panel that oversees the study had accused AstraZeneca of cherry-picking data to tout the protection offered by its vaccine. The panel, in a harsh letter to the company and to US health leaders, said the company had left out some Covid-19 cases that occurred in the study, a move that could erode trust in the science. Some experts said the new data provided by AstraZeneca was "reassuring" and that the information was likely solid enough for US regulators to authorize the vaccine. "AstraZeneca may have just been too hasty in submitting the earlier, incomplete interim analysis rather than waiting to analyze and submit the full dataset," said Julian Tang, a virologist at the University of Leicester who was not connected to the research. He said the updated details didn't look substantially different from what was published earlier this week. Data disputes during ongoing studies typically remain confidential but in an unusual step, the National Institutes of Health publicly called on AstraZeneca to fix the discrepancy. AstraZeneca had been counting on findings from a predominantly US study of 32,000 people to help rebuild confidence in a vaccine that, despite being widely used in Britain, Europe and other countries, has had a troubled rollout. Previous studies have turned up inconsistent data about its effectiveness, and then last week a scare over blood clots had some countries temporarily pausing inoculations. Most have since restarted after the European Medicines Agency said the vaccine doesn't increase the overall incidence of blood clots, though it did not rule out a connection to some rare clots. On Thursday, Denmark announced it would continue its suspension of the vaccine, with officials saying they needed more information before making a decision. The question now is whether the company's newest calculations can end the tension in the United States. Even before the latest spat, experts had expressed concern that missteps in the vaccine's rollout could undermine confidence in the shot, which is crucial to global efforts to end the coronavirus pandemic since it is cheap, easy to store and a pillar of the Covax initiative aimed at bringing vaccines to low- and middle-income countries. Earlier Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, told reporters he hoped that when all the data was publicly vetted by federal regulators, it would dispel any hesitancy caused by the spat. He predicted it would "turn out to be a good vaccine." AstraZeneca's newest calculations were based on 190 Covid-19 cases that occurred during the study, 49 more than it had included earlier in the week. The vaccine appears especially protective against the worst outcomes, with no severe illnesses or hospitalizations among vaccinated study volunteers compared to eight severe cases among those given dummy shots, the company said. It didn't provide a breakdown of the rest of the cases. Some European authorities have questioned how protective the vaccine is in older adults. In the US study, it was 85 percent effective in volunteers 65 and older, the company said. The study didn't turn up safety concerns. The updated information "confirms that our Covid-19 vaccine is highly effective in adults, including those aged 65 years and over," AstraZeneca research chief Mene Pangalos said in a statement. He said the company looks forward to "the rollout of millions of doses across America." The study hasn't ended, so additional Covid-19 cases can still accrue. AstraZeneca cautioned that 14 additional possible cases already are being examined and that could lead to further changes in the data. The company intends to seek Food and Drug Administration clearance of the vaccine within a few weeks. The FDA will publicly debate all the evidence with its outside advisers before making a decision. Stephen Evans, a vaccines expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said it was difficult to understand why the dispute between AstraZeneca and US officials spilled into the public. "Given the details given here, it seems an unnecessary action to have raised concerns in public," he said. "Results fluctuate as data accumulate ... what counts will be the FDA assessment and that will be done based on scrutiny of the full data and not press releases." He said any vaccine with an efficacy rate higher than 60 percent is useful. He said it was unclear why there was "a breakdown in relations" between AstraZeneca and the independent US data experts monitoring the trial and worried that could undermine confidence in the vaccine. "This vaccine is so important for global health, and the disputes do not promote global health," he said. "At least in the short term, (this) will undermine confidence both in the US and more importantly in the rest of the world." (AP)  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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