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Concerns mount that Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine doses could go to waste

NEW YORK (NYTIMES) – US state health officials are growing increasingly concerned about whether doses of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine may expire this month, warning they could go to waste if they go unused in the coming weeks or are not sent elsewhere. Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio has pleaded with health providers in his state to use around 200,000 doses of the vaccine that he said on Monday (June 7) were set to expire on June 23. The state’s health department directed providers to adopt a “first-in, first-out” process for the shot to ensure doses with earlier expiration dates were used first. Arkansas’ state epidemiologist said last week that as many as 60,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson may not be used there in time. Dr Marcus Plescia, who represents state health agencies as the chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, said he believed the expiration risk for Johnson & Johnson was a problem in every state. Over 10 million doses of the vaccine have been delivered to states but not administered, according to data collected by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Mr Andy Slavitt, a

FDA Approves Pfizer's Pneumococcal 20-valent Conjugate Vaccine For Adults

(RTTNews) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Pfizer Inc.’s (PFE) PREVNAR 20 or Pneumococcal 20-valent Conjugate Vaccine for the prevention of invasive disease and pneumonia caused by the 20 Streptococcus pneumoniae or pneumococcus serotypes in the vaccine in adults ages 18 years and older. It is the first approval of a conjugate vaccine that helps protect against 20 serotypes responsible for the majority of invasive pneumococcal disease and pneumonia, including seven responsible for 40% of pneumococcal disease cases and deaths in the U.S. PREVNAR 20 includes capsular polysaccharide conjugates for the 13 serotypes already included in Prevnar 13. The vaccine also contains capsular polysaccharide conjugates for seven additional serotypes. It is expected that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet in October to discuss and update recommendations on the safe and appropriate use of pneumococcal vaccines in adults.

Coronavirus: Hong Kong construction costs slip as Covid-19 pandemic stifles activity, putting some pressure on house prices

US forming expert groups on safely lifting global Covid-19 travel restrictions

WASHINGTON (REUTERS) – The Biden administration is forming expert working groups with Canada, Mexico, the European Union and Britain to determine how best to safely restart travel after 15 months of pandemic restrictions, a White House official said on Tuesday (June 9). Another US official said the administration will not move quickly to lift orders that bar people from much of the world from entering the United States because of the time it will take for the groups to do their work. The White House informed airlines and others in the travel industry about the groups, the official said. “While we are not reopening travel today, we hope that these expert working groups will help us use our collective expertise to chart a path forward, with a goal of reopening international travel with our key partners when it is determined that it is safe to do so,” the White House official said, adding “any decisions will be fully guided by the objective analysis and recommendations by public health and medical experts”. The groups will be led by the White House Covid-19 Response Team and the National Security Council and include the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) and

Singapore Stock Market May Spin Its Wheels On Wednesday

(RTTNews) – The Singapore stock market has alternated between positive and negative finishes through the last seven trading days since the end of the six-day winning streak in which it had jumped almost 75 points or 2.4 percent. The Straits Times Index now rests just above the 3,165-point plateau and now it’s expected to see little movement on Wednesday. The global forecast for the Asian markets offers little guidance on a lack of catalysts. The European and U.S. markets were mixed and little changed and the Asian bourses are expected to open in similar fashion. The STI finished modestly lower on Tuesday following losses from the properties and mixed performances from the financials. For the day, the index shed 8.67 points or 0.27 percent to finish at 3,167.14 after trading between 3,157.32 and 3,181.36. Volume was 2.54 billion shares worth 1.18 billion Singapore dollars. There were 253 decliners and 247 gainers. Among the actives, Ascendas REIT fell 0.34 percent, while CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust lost 0.47 percent, City Developments sank 0.52 percent, Comfort DelGro declined 0.60 percent, Dairy Farm International retreated 0.68 percent, DBS Group skidded 1.02 percent, Keppel Corp tumbled 1.12 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust advanced 0.50 percent, Oversea-Chinese

Ready to travel abroad again? Watch out for superbugs, study says

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Newly vaccinated travellers enjoying a return to trips abroad may find a drug-resistant “superbug” hitching a ride in their gut, a study in Genome Medicine says. US and Dutch researchers studying the effects of travel on the bacteria in our stomachs were unnerved to find that a third of their subjects who travelled to South-east Asia carried a bacterial gene resistant to “last resort” antibiotics for infections such as pneumonia and meningitis. “These findings provide strong support that international travel risks spreading antimicrobial resistance globally,” said Mr Alaric D’Souza, a researcher studying microbial genomics and ecology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis who co-authored the study published this week. The team, which studied the faeces of 190 Dutch travellers before and after travel to parts of Africa and Asia, found international travellers to be “reservoirs and spreaders” of drug-resistant superbugs. When the travellers returned home, their faecal test kits revealed a “significant amount” of antimicrobial resistant, or AMR, genes that do not respond to commonly used antibiotics. The genes of these drug-resistant “superbugs” usually develop naturally over millennia when exposed to antibiotics produced by other bacteria in their environment.

3-child policy: China’s median home size may have to grow by a third to 120 square metres to house larger families

Senate Passes Bill to Bolster Competitiveness With China

The wide margin of support reflected a sense of urgency among lawmakers in both parties about shoring up the technological and industrial capacity of the United States to counter Beijing.WASHINGTON — The Senate overwhelmingly passed legislation on Tuesday that would pour nearly a quarter-trillion dollars over the next five years into scientific research and development to bolster competitiveness against China.

US state sues to have Google declared a public utility

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – The state of Ohio on Tuesday (June 8) filed an unprecedented lawsuit calling on a local court to declare Google as much a public utility as an electric company. Google should be designated a public utility subject to government regulation regarding its search engine and other services, Ohio attorney general Dave Yost contended in the legal filing. Public utilities typically supply essential goods or services, such as water or power, and tend to have naturally monopolistic characteristics. “When you own the railroad or the electric company or the cellphone tower, you have to treat everyone the same and give everybody access,” Mr Yost said in a release announcing the suit. Mr Yost accused Google of favouring its own products, websites, and services in search results, putting competitors at a disadvantage. Ohio late last year was among some three dozen US states that filed a federal lawsuit accusing Google of abusing its market dominance. That case is still pending. France’s competition regulator fined Google 220 million euros (S$355 million) on Monday for favouring its own services for placing online ads at the expense of rivals, as US tech giants face growing

New Zealand Manufacturing Sales Rise 0.4% On Quarter In Q1

(RTTNews) – Manufacturing sales volume in New Zealand was up a seasonally adjusted 0.4 percent on quarter in the first quarter of 2021, Statistics New Zealand said on Wednesday – rising NZ$113 million to a record NZ$27.0 billion. On a yearly basis, manufacturing sales rose 4.2 percent or NZ$1.1 billion. By industry, transport equipment, machinery, and equipment manufacturing had the largest increase, up 6.9 percent (NZ$208 million) in the March quarter. Meat and dairy products manufacturing sales volumes rose 1.3 percent (NZ$104 million) in the quarter, the second largest industry rise.