Bill Gates says an approved Covid vaccine means ‘rich countries’ should get their lives back to normal by end of 2021

 

Billionaire Microsoft founder, Bill Gates has claimed that rich countries could return close to normal by the end of 2021 if a coronavirus vaccine is ready soon and distributed properly on a large scale.

COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca/Oxford University are two of the leading candidates in the race to be first to get regulatory approval in the US and other Western countries but according to Gates, the success of the vaccines currently being trialed in the US is not guaranteed. 

 

Gates also warned that stopping transmission worldwide of covid-19 could take up to three years at best. 

 

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Gates, 64, told the US to begin preparing ways to reduce the hesitance of the public to a vaccine, saying politics has reduced people's trust of a vaccine. 

 

Gates also hit out at the Food and Drug Administration who he claimed embarrassed itself by talking about the use of plasma as a COVID-19 treatment. 

'The FDA did embarrass itself pretty badly with the plasma announcement, where they made claims that were just completely wrong. They put a lot of praise of political figures into it so they haven’t been as strong as you would expect,' Gates said.    

'With the vaccine and the idea of the expert panel and the professional team, I do think this is the gold standard that both the US and the world will want to look to before you want to give the vaccine out to millions of people,' he claimed. 

'We still don't know whether these vaccines will succeed,' Gates said. 'Now the capacity will take time to ramp up. And so the allocation within the U.S., and between the U.S. and other countries will be a very top point of contention. 

'If you were going for an elimination where we don’t have any more transmission, that will take two to three years,' he continued.

'In the rich countries, however, if you really in the first months of next year have the vaccine and they’re fairly effective at transmission blocking, then by late next year you could have things going back pretty much to normal, that’s the best case.

Rapper, Scarface reveals he's searching for a kidney donor amid battle with COVID-19 and his fans volunteer to donate

 

American rapper, Scarface is in need of a kidney donor amid his ongoing battle with COVID-19.

Back in April, the Geto Boys rapper, 49, opened up about his diagnosis during an interview with Willie D, revealing that he had suffered kidney failure while battling with coronavirus and had to be placed on dialysis. 

"I fought COVID double bilateral pneumonia—both lungs—and kidney failure in my house," he said.

"I went back to the hospital. I just got out of the hospital [on April 20] ... I gotta change my entire diet, I gotta do dialysis four days a week, three hours a day. That's taking all my blood out, cleaning it and putting it back in my body."

Months after his diagnosis, the rapper told Fox5 DC that his kidneys never fully recovered.

"COVID attacked my lungs first, and then it attacked my kidneys and knocked them out," he said. "I got full lung recovery, but my kidneys never came back ... I'm still a little weak. I don't have a lot of strength in my legs yet. I still haven't got full taste back and sense of smell yet. But I am glad to be alive."

The rapper, whose real name is Brad Terrence Jorda took to Twitter on Wednesday to plead for a kidney donation seven months after contracting COVID-19. 

He wrote:  "I need a kidney y'all any volunteers? B+ blood type." 

 

I need a kidney y’all any volunteers? B+ blood type

— SCARFACE (@BrotherMob) October 7, 2020

The tweet was met with an outpouring of support from friends and fans who have shown interest to help him. 

US VP Debate: Mike Pence slams Kamala Harris for undermining Covid vaccine efforts after she said she wont take it ‘if Trump tells us’

 

US Vice President, Mike Pence, on Wednesday October 7, slammed Democratic challenger Kamala Harris for saying she will not take a coronavirus vaccine if President Donald Trump tells Americans to take one.

 

On Wednesday night both candidates squared off in the first vice presidential debate that held in Utah and were grilled by Moderator and USA Today journalist Susan Page.

 

 

Harris had in the past said that she wouldn't take a Covid vaccine if only the president said so, and she doubled down on her refusal during the debate.

“If the public health professionals, if Dr. Fauci, if the doctors tell us that we should take it, I’ll be the first in line to take it – absolutely,” Harris said.

“But if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it, I’m not taking it.”

 

 

Pence slammed her response, and accused her of "undermining the public confidence in a vaccine.”

"Stop playing politics with people's lives, the reality is that we will have a vaccine by the end of this year," he said.

"Your continuous undermining of the promise of a vaccine is unacceptable."

 

During the debate, both candidates sat 12 feet apart between plexiglass barriers.

 

Ahead of the debate in Salt Lake City, Utah, Harris and Pence released updated Covid test results, both of which were negative as at Tuesday.

 

Harris also blasted the White House minutes into the debate and blamed the US outbreak on the "ineptitude" of the Trump administration.

“The American people have had to sacrifice far too much because of the incompetence of this administration,” Harris said. 
“That is asking too much of the people.”

 

Pence then tried to avoid Page's question about what would happen if Trump can't adequately perform his duties due to illness, instead he attacked Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama for their handling of the H1N1 pandemic in 2009.

 

Another topic was Trump's taxes, which Harris attacked the president for after the New York Times reported that he paid only $750 in federal taxes in 2017.

“We now know Donald Trump owes and is in debt for $400 million,” Harris said.

“It’d be really good to know who the commander in chief owes money to because the American people have a right to know what is influencing the president’s decisions.”

 

The president has branded the report as "totally fake news".

 

Pence asserted that he and Trump would win the presidential election, then accused Biden of planing to pack the courts if the Democrats “somehow win this election.”

“I tell you people across this country, if you cherish your Supreme Court, if you cherish the separation of powers, you need to reject the Biden-Harris ticket come November,” he said.

Pence promised to keep the court a nine-member panel if Trump is reelected.
When addressing criminal justice reform, Harris said she doesn’t believe justice has been done in the case of Breonna Taylor, who was fatally shot in by Policemen this year.

"A Joe Biden administration would ban chokeholds and require a national registry for police officers who break the law", she said.

Pence was also asked if justice was done in the Taylor case and said Taylor’s family “has our sympathies, but I trust our justice system, a grand jury that reviews the evidence.”

As Harris and Pence battled it out on stage, Trump offered words of praise for Pence, slamming Harris as a "gaffe machine" on Twitter.

"Mike Pence is doing GREAT! She is a gaffe machine," Trump said.

NULGE President, Ibrahim Khaleel is dead

 

 

The National President of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Ibrahim Khaleel is dead.

 

According to family sources, Khaleel who is also the National Treasurer of the Nigeria Labour Congress NLC, slumped on Wednesday, October 7 and was rushed to National Hospital Abuja, where he was confirmed dead.

 

Confirming his passing to newsmen, the chairman of NULGE in Kano state, Abdullahi Muhammad Gwarzo, said that the deceased would be buried in Wudil, local government area of Kano State today Thursday, October 8.

 

Australia to introduce English language test for foreign spouses seeking visas to join their partners from 2021

 

Foreign spouses of Australians will have to pass an English language test before they are allowed to stay in the country permanently from late 2021. 

Acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge made the announcement on Thursday, October 8, while disclosing new details of the English language requirements for people applying for partner visas.

The test also applies to current permanent residents, who are not citizens of the country. 

“We will require an applicant and a sponsor to have met functional level English or to have at least made reasonable efforts to learn English,” Tudge told national broadcaster ABC on Thursday.

“For most people that would mean doing about 500 hours of free English language classes,”Mr Tudge said.

"This will apply to prospective partner visa applications, from about the middle of next year," the minister added.

Mr. Tudge said there are almost one million people living in Australia with poor or no English and that language skills were necessary for finding work and staying safe.

 

"In some cases, the husband will not want his partner or wife to learn English. And in part that's for control reasons," he said.

 

"And we want to encourage everybody to be able to learn English so that they can fully engage in Australian life, in every aspect of it, from employment markets, to our democracy, to our society, to community activity.

"English is absolutely essential in order to do all of that."