Black Immigrant Daily News

News

File photo

COME July 17, the wearing of masks in public will no longer be mandatory and as such, people not wearing any, will no longer be liable to police action including fixed penalty fines.

This was confirmed by Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh who in the weekly Wednesday covid19 virtual press conference, said the ministry would be issuing guidelines to groups in society which it recommends should still be masked in public.

He said under the new regulations to be issued, masking will remain mandatory for any visit to public health centres.

Deyalsingh said there are four vulnerable groups which the ministry recommends should continue to wear masks.

“These are the unvaccinated, who comprise 49 per cent of the population and who will now have to take special care when the mandate is lifted.

“The second is immunocompromised people, especially those with non-communicable diseases like cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, those who are overweight and obese; the elderly; and the pregnant population.

“We are asking people to do a risk-based survey of themselves to assess whether they need to continue wearing masks. This risk should be based on your vaccination status, your medical history, your age, and the composition of your household,” Deyalsingh said.

His ministry is recommending people continue to wear masks in geriatric homes, children’s homes, in all forms of public transportation, at religious services, and all places where people are congregating indoors with inadequate ventilation and where there is difficulty in maintaining physical distancing.

Deyalsingh said the updated guidelines would be posted on the Health Ministry’s website by July 13.

He said the ministry felt the healthcare system would be able to deal with any spike in covid19 cases resulting from the lifting of this final restriction.

“Our hospitalisation numbers have dipped below 100, and our intensive care and high dependency unit numbers are low, with hospital occupancy at 15 per cent and positivity at 26 per cent. We feel these trends are sustainable at this point in time.”

DELTA STILL IN TT

Chief Medical Office Dr Roshan Parasram said that out of 18 covid19 samples sent for genomic testing last week, the majority of cases were of the omicron BA2 variant; one case of the omicron BA4 variant – which is behind current infection spikes in other countries; and one case of the dangerous delta variant.

“Just to underscore, we still have the delta variant of concern in circulation, although at a very low level, in TT, and of course the predominant variant of concern right now is the omicron variant, and the variant sub-lineage is the BA2 type,” Parasram said.

“If we have discovered a BA4 type in that small sample, it suggests that it would have been in circulation for at least a couple of weeks in TT,” he added.

Epidemiologist Dr Avery Hinds said looking at the decrease in cases in the latter part of June, and taking into account the additional movement and gatherings taking place in that time frame, there was a balance to be considered.

“We’re looking at the balance between enhanced interaction, relaxation of restrictions and transmission of a respiratory transmissible virus.

“We’re observing the effects of the virus on the population, levels of severe illness arising out of and the ongoing ability of the health system to deal with the current levels of transmission.

“Individuals not testing in the public system and not becoming ill enough to require care at any level are people we’re not as worried about at a public health level. Once they don’t need to seek care, that’s a good thing for the population in general,” Hinds said.

NewsAmericasNow.com

Black Immigrant Daily News

La Policía investiga el miércoles, un incidente donde una adolescente de 16 años supuestamente por accidente dio muerte a su hermano de 18 años con un arma de fuego en Luquillo.

Según las autoridades, en una residencia de la carretera 992, la menor de 16 años tomó un arma de fuego supuestamente mientras jugaban y le disparó a su hermano.

Trascendió que la pistola no tenía el magazine, pero sí tenía una bala en la recámara.

Se desconoce a quién pertenece el arma y si se posee licencia.

El Cuerpo de Investigaciones Criminales (CIC) de Fajardo asumió la investigación.

NewsAmericasNow.com

Black Immigrant Daily News

 The curtains have officially come down on this country’s premier cultural festival –Vincymas.

NBC News took to the streets this morning to hear people’s perception on this Year’s festivities.

Rawdica Stephen tells us more in NBC’s Carnival Update.

https://www.nbcsvg.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/VINCYMAS-DONE-UPDATE.mp3

NewsAmericasNow.com

Black Immigrant Daily News

World hunger rose in 2021, with around 2.3 billion people facing moderate or severe difficulty obtaining enough to eat — and that was before the Ukraine war, which has sparked increases in the cost of grain, fertiliser and energy, according to a UN report released Wednesday.

“The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World” paints a grim picture, based on 2021 data, saying the statistics “should dispel any lingering doubts that the world is moving backwards in its efforts to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms.”

“The most recent evidence available suggests that the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet around the world rose by 112 million to almost 3.1 billion, reflecting the impacts of rising consumer food prices during the (COVID-19) pandemic,” the heads of five UN agencies that published the report said in the forward.

They warned that the war in Ukraine, which began on February 24, “is disrupting supply chains and further affecting prices of grain, fertiliser and energy” resulting in more price increases in the first half of 2022. At the same time, they said, more frequent and extreme climate events are also disrupting supply chains, especially in low-income countries.

Ukraine and Russia together produced almost a third of the world’s wheat and barley and half of its sunflower oil, while Russia and its ally Belarus are the world’s No. 2 and 3 producers of potash, a key ingredient of fertiliser.

According to the report, hunger continued to rise in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean in 2021, but at a slower pace than from 2019 to 2020.

“In 2021, hunger affected 278 million people in Africa, 425 million in Asia and 56.5 million in Latin America and the Caribbean,” it said.

UN development goals call for ending extreme poverty and hunger by 2030, but the report says projections indicate that 8 per cent of the world’s population — nearly 670 million people — will be facing hunger at the end of the decade. That’s the same number of people as in 2015 when the goals were adopted.

The gender gap in food insecurity, which grew during the COVID-19 pandemic, widened even further from 2020 to 2021, the report said.

Driven largely by widening differences in Latin America and the Caribbean as well as in Asia, it said that “in 2021, 31.9 per cent of women in the world were moderately or severely food insecure compared to 27.6 per cent of men.”

In 2020, the report said, an estimated 22 per cent of children under the age of 5 — or 149 million — had stunted growth and development while 6.7 per cent — or 45 million — suffered from wasting, the deadliest form of malnutrition. At the other end of the scale, it said 5.7 per cent of youngsters under 5, or 39 million, were overweight.

“Looking forward, the gains we made in reducing the prevalence of child stunting by one-third in the previous two decades — translating into 55 million fewer children with stunting — are under threat by the triple crises of climate, conflict, and the COVID-19 pandemic,” the five UN agency chiefs said. “Without intensified efforts, the number of children with wasting will only increase.”

The heads of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, World Food Program, UN Children’s Fund, World Health Organization and International Fund for Agricultural Development said the intensification of these three crises combined with growing inequalities require “bolder action” to cope with future shocks.

With forecasts for global economic growth in 2022 revised downward significantly, the five agencies expected more limited financial resources to invest in “agrifood systems” — the production, handling, transportation, processing, distribution, marketing and consumption of agricultural products.

But the agency chiefs said the almost $630 billion annually that governments spend to support food and agriculture globally can be invested “in agrifood systems equitably and sustainably.”

Currently, they said, “a significant proportion of this support distorts market prices, is environmentally destructive, and hurts small-scale producers and indigenous peoples, while failing to deliver healthy diets to children and others who need them the most.”

The five agency heads said evidence shows that if governments redirect their resources to prioritise consumers of food and give incentives for producing and supplying nutritious foods “they will help make healthy diets less costly and more affordable for all.”

The report said a key recommendation “is that governments start rethinking how they can reallocate their existing public budgets to make them more cost-effective and efficient in reducing the cost of nutritious foods and increasing the availability and affordability of healthy diets.”

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press

NewsAmericasNow.com