Dry Creek school | | americanpress.com - American Press

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• Dry Creek school | | americanpress.com - American Press
• AP PHOTOS: Migrants evade Libyan coast guard to reach Europe - American Press
• Scotland vaccinations lead to sharp drop in hospitalizations - American Press

Dry Creek school | | americanpress.com - American Press Posted: 19 Feb 2021 12:00 AM PST Area wide sales of generators in anticipation of Laura making landfall are the hot item. Stine's has currently sold 9 truck loads and are expecting 18 more trucks to serve the area at Stine Lumber in Sulphur, Louisiana on Monday, August 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Lake Charles American Press, Kirk Meche)

AP PHOTOS: Migrants evade Libyan coast guard to reach Europe - American Press Posted: 24 Feb 2021 11:47 PM PST ABOARD THE OPEN ARMS (AP) — The February storm is unforgiving, violently shaking the humanitarian rescuers' vessel as they try to revive a faulty engine and save African migrants drifting in the Mediterranean Sea after fleeing Libya on unseaworthy boats. Not only must they brave 70 kph (43 mph) winds and 4-meter (13-foot) waves, but also win the race against the Libyan coast guard, which has been trained and equipped by Europe to keep migrants away from its shores. In recent days, the Libyans had already thwarted eight rescue attempts by the Open Arms, a Spanish NGO vessel, harassing and threatening its crew in the international waters of the central Mediterranean where 160 people have died so far this year. The latest tragedy took place on Feb. 20, when a rubber boat carrying 120 people started taking in water and waited for hours until a commercial ship in the area arrived to help. Forty-one people drowned, including three children and four women, said the U.N.'s migration agency, the International Organization for Migration. Those who are saved at sea are not necessarily safe. According to IOM, from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22 nearly 3,600 people, including dozens of women and children, have been intercepted and forcibly returned to Libya. There, they are placed in squalid detention centers and are subject to abuse, torture, extortion and rape. About 2,530 people have made it to Europe after departing Libya so far this year. Among them is 3-month-old Moise, whose chubby cheeks barely stood out from underneath the oversized lifejacket that rescuers strapped on him as they transferred the baby and his Cameroonian mother to safety aboard the Open Arms rescue ship. A day later, rescuers plucked 5-year-old Timi from a rubber dinghy under the intimidating gaze of the Libyan coast guard a few yards away. Together with her mother, she had embarked on the risky route to Europe through the Libyan desert six months ago to flee female genital mutilation in their native Ivory Coast, where the practice affects 55% of young girls, according to UNICEF. Despite nausea and vomiting caused by the rough seas, the prospects of a safer future in Europe, together with warm blankets, helped Timi fall asleep on the overcrowded deck of the Open Arms ship. It would take another three days of stormy navigation for the 146 people rescued by the group on its 80th mission in the central Mediterranean to reach a safe harbor in Sicily. But before they can even begin the challenging process of starting a new life on European soil, they must board yet another ship and undergo a 14-day quarantine, a preventive measure imposed by the Italian government to curb the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic. Until then, they can still only dream of a better life. ——— Brito reported from Barcelona, Spain.

Scotland vaccinations lead to sharp drop in hospitalizations - American Press Posted: 22 Feb 2021 06:33 AM PST LONDON (AP) — Scotland's COVID-19 vaccination program has led to a sharp drop in hospitalizations, researchers said Monday, boosting hopes that the shots will work as well in the real world as they have in carefully controlled studies. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine reduced hospital admissions by up to 94% four weeks after people received their first dose, while the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine cut admissions by up to 85%, according to scientists at the University of Edinburgh, the University of Strathclyde and Public Health Scotland. The preliminary findings were based on a comparison of people who had received one dose of vaccine and those who hadn't been inoculated yet. The data was gathered between Dec. 8 and Feb. 15, a period when 21% of Scotland's population received their first vaccine shot. "These results are very encouraging and have given us great reasons to be optimistic for the future,'' said Professor Aziz Sheikh, director of the University of Edinburgh's Usher Institute. "We now have national evidence — across an entire country — that vaccination provides protection against COVID-19 hospitalizations." About 650,000 people in Scotland received the Pfizer vaccine during the study period and 490,000 had the AstraZeneca shot, according to the Usher Institute. Because hospitalization data was collected 28 days after inoculation, the findings on hospital admissions were based on a subset of 220,000 people who received the Pfizer vaccine and 45,000 who got the AstraZeneca shot. U.K. regulators authorized widespread use of the AstraZeneca vaccine on Dec. 30, almost a month after they approved the Pfizer vaccine. Outside experts said while the findings are encouraging, they should be interpreted with caution because of the nature of this kind of observational study. In particular, relatively few people were hospitalized after receiving the vaccines during the study period. Stephen Evans, a professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, urged those making political decisions about the pandemic to be cautious. "It will be important that euphoria, especially from political sources that do not understand the uncertainty in the numerical values, does not cause premature decisions to be made,'' he said "Cautious optimism is justified." Earlier this month, Israel reported encouraging results from people receiving the Pfizer vaccine. Six weeks after vaccinations began for people over age 60, there was a 41% drop in confirmed COVID-19 infections and a 31% decline in hospitalizations, according the country's Ministry of Health. ———— Follow all of AP's pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

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