CoronavirusCovid News: Djokovic Will Miss U.S. Tournaments Over Vaccination Status

Djokovic says he won’t attend U.S. tournaments over his vaccination status.

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Novak Djokovic during his second round match at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis ATP Championships last month.Credit...Ali Haider/EPA, via Shutterstock

Novak Djokovic, one of the world’s most prominent sports stars to hold out against getting a coronavirus vaccination, was included in the field for this week’s Indian Wells tennis tournament in Southern California, but said Wednesday that he can’t enter the United States and won’t participate.

Djokovic was deported from Australia in January after immigration officials there ruled that he was a danger to society because they said he could energize the country’s anti-vaccination movement. He was thus unable to defend his Australian Open title, which he has won a record nine times.

Djokovic has expressed reluctance to be vaccinated against coronavirus, saying that he was not convinced by the science. He said the issue was more important to him than adding to the 20 Grand Slam tournaments he has won.

Djokovic told Australian border officials in January that he was unvaccinated, and in recent interviews has given no indication that his status has changed.

Djokovic was the tournament’s second seed. His name and picture appeared on a list of players in the main draw for the BNP Paribas Open, which starts on Wednesday at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Although not one of the sport’s four major Grand Slams, the hardcourt event is considered one of the biggest tournaments in the world.

In a tweet, Djokovic said the Centers for Disease Control and Protection had confirmed that he is barred from entering the United States, and that he would miss tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami.

Under U.S. immigration law, people who are not citizens and also not immigrants must show proof of full vaccination as well as a negative coronavirus test to enter the country by air.

Djokovic spent two years as the game’s No. 1 ranked player until February, when he slipped to No. 2.

In his absence, Rafael Nadal won the Australian Open and moved one ahead of his rival as the men’s player with the most Grand Slam wins. Nadal also is listed among the players at Indian Wells, although Roger Federer, who has also won 20 Grand Slam titles, is not.

Last week, officials in France announced that the country would no longer require visitors to show proof of a coronavirus vaccine to enter indoor establishments after March 14, most likely clearing the way for Djokovic to defend his championship at the French Open this spring.

Democrats scrap a $15.6 billion emergency Covid response package meant to help fund a new Biden strategy.

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President Biden addressing the goverment’s response in January amid a coronavirus surge fueled by the Omicron variant. New cases have since subsided dramatically across the country.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Democrats on Wednesday abruptly jettisoned a $15.6 billion package to fight Covid-19 from a sprawling federal spending bill that includes a huge infusion of aid for war-torn Ukraine and money to keep the government funded through September.

The decision to strip out the coronavirus money came amid disputes about its cost and was aimed at salvaging the $1.5 trillion funding measure before a Friday deadline to avoid a government shutdown. It cleared the way for expected House passage Wednesday night of the first major government spending legislation of the Biden presidency, allowing Democrats to fund their priorities, including climate resilience, public education and child care.

But the demise of the pandemic aid infuriated the White House and frustrated Democratic leaders, leaving the fate of President Biden’s new coronavirus strategy uncertain.

Administration officials have said they are in urgent need of funding for testing, therapeutics, vaccines and efforts to stop new variants. They had initially suggested they needed as much as $30 billion before requesting $22.5 billion, an amount that got whittled down in negotiations with Republicans, who resisted spending any new federal money on the pandemic.

In response, top Democrats had agreed to take the funding from existing programs, including $7 billion set aside under last year’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid law to help state governments. But that approach drew a backlash from many Democrats and governors in both parties, outraged at the idea of clawing back assistance that states had been counting on.

Not long after the 2,700-page spending bill was released early Wednesday and just hours before a scheduled vote, a number of Democrats privately registered their dismay with party leaders, raising the prospect that the entire package could collapse for lack of support. The dispute froze activity on the floor for hours as top Democrats rushed to salvage the spending measure.

By midafternoon, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California notified Democrats in a brief letter that the coronavirus money would be dropped.

“It is heartbreaking to remove the Covid funding, and we must continue to fight for urgently needed Covid assistance, but unfortunately that will not be included in this bill,” Ms. Pelosi wrote.

The episode underscored the deep and persistent political divides over the pandemic, and the federal government’s role in responding to it. But it also demonstrated that as infections and deaths subside, Covid-19 is no longer the dominant priority in Washington.

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Ontario will drop its indoor mask mandate weeks after trucker protests.

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An usher at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto in December. The province of Ontario will end its universal mask mandate on March 21, officials said on Wednesday.Credit...Nick Turchiaro/USA Today Sports, via Reuters

Officials in Ontario said on Wednesday that the province was dropping its universal mask mandate, weeks after truckers paralyzed Ottawa during their protests over coronavirus restrictions.

Dr. Kieran Moore, the province’s chief medical officer of health, said at a news briefing that the province would end its mask requirement in most places on March 21, although he added that “removing the mask mandate does not mean the risk is gone.”

The move comes about a month after a caravan of truckers occupied Ottawa’s streets for three weeks, enraging residents and encouraging copycat movements, while they protested over the Canadian government’s pandemic measures.

Ontario did not immediately change its policies, but on March 1 the health authorities lifted a vaccine-verification requirement at local businesses and removed capacity limits indoors.

New reported cases by day
Feb. 2020
Sept.
Apr. 2021
Nov.
Jun. 2022
Jan. 2023
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000 cases
7-day average
1,234
Source: Data for Canada comes from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Population data from Statistics Canada. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the last seven days.

Dr. Moore said on Wednesday that because case trends had generally been “downward or stable” since those restrictions were lifted, most people would not be required to wear masks indoors, including in schools.

Masks will still be required on public transportation and at health care facilities, Dr. Moore said.

“We are now learning to live with and manage Covid-19 for the long term,” he said, adding that he expected to see a small increase in cases and hospitalizations as more people interacted with one another.

However, Dr. Moore said that people in Ontario should be prepared to wear masks indoors again if another variant emerges or if cases surge during the winter.

San Francisco will end its proof of vaccination requirement.

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A restaurant in San Francisco in August 2021. San Francisco was the first major U.S. city to require proof of full vaccination to enter businesses, but is now rescinding that requirement.Credit...John G Mabanglo/EPA, via Shutterstock

San Francisco, one of the first U.S. cities to require Covid vaccine verification at businesses, on Wednesday became the latest to drop the requirement.

Starting on Friday, the city will no longer require people to present proof of vaccination before they enter businesses such as restaurants, bars and gyms, the city’s public health department said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Rolling it back is part of coming out of crisis mode and learning to live with the virus,” Dr. Susan Philip, the city’s health officer, said in the statement.

In August, San Francisco became one of the first cities in the country to require vaccine verification at certain businesses.

Local and state authorities across the United States have eased pandemic restrictions as the Omicron wave has rapidly receded. In the last week, Los Angeles County and New York City stopped requiring proof of vaccination to enter certain businesses. But the city of Los Angeles still requires proof.

San Francisco lifted its blanket indoor mask mandate last month.

Although the vaccine-verification requirement is lifting in San Francisco, the authorities said that individual businesses can still require masks or ask patrons to show proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test.

The requirement still extends to indoor gatherings of 1,000 or more people, the statement said.

San Francisco has long led the country in its pandemic response. The city was among the first to declare a state of emergency two years ago, and it now has one of the highest vaccination rates in the country.

Cases swelled after the city reported the United States’ first Omicron case in December but have since plummeted, according to a New York Times database.

In New York City, about 20 people protested Tuesday night outside a restaurant that requests that indoor diners provide proof of vaccination, a day after the city dropped its vaccine mandate.

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Truckers gather near Washington to protest pandemic restrictions, without creating much disruption.

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Several convoy groups led by American truckers traveled from Hagerstown, Md. to the Capital Beltway in Washington to protest Covid-19 mandates and restrictions on Tuesday.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times

A caravan of semis, pickups and R.V.s that had driven across the United States to protest vaccine mandates and other Covid restrictions reached the capital region this week, but as the convoy circled the city, downtown Washington was business as usual.

The convoy’s organizers say that it is early, that their restraint has been strategic and that protesters are in it for the long haul. They have managed to obtain audiences with various Republican politicians, including Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who nodded approvingly.

And though mask mandates and local vaccine requirements have been rolled back across the country, including in Washington, the convoy’s leaders insist they are not leaving until all vaccine mandates are lifted.

“We’re going to continue to increase that pressure,” said Brian Brase, a trucker from northwestern Ohio who is one of the convoy’s organizers. “They understand that we’re in their backyard.”

Austria abandons its sweeping vaccine mandate, citing milder Omicron symptoms.

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A vaccination center in Austria in November.Credit...Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times

Four months ago, Austria made headlines when it announced plans to become the first Western democracy to impose a general vaccine mandate to fight the coronavirus, a measure that would have hit adults who refused to be inoculated with fines of up to 3,600 euros (about $4,000).

That was a different time, one before the highly contagious Omicron variant of the coronavirus became seemingly omnipresent.

Calling the law “not proportionate” given the relatively mild symptoms experienced by most people with the variant, Karoline Edtstadler, the minister responsible for Austria’s constitutional affairs, said the country was doing a U-turn on its policy.

The mandate for Austria, where about 74 percent of the population has received at least two doses, officially took effect early last month, but enforcement was not scheduled to begin until next Tuesday.

New reported cases by day
Mar. 2020
Oct.
May 2021
Dec.
Jul. 2022
Feb. 2023
20,000
40,000 cases
7-day average
4,999
Source: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the last seven days.

Austria’s announcement of the change also came a week before German lawmakers are set to discuss a proposed vaccine mandate in their country. The German mandate, which appeared to be inevitable when it was first announced late last year and was publicly supported by government parties as the highly transmissible Omicron variant spread through Western Europe, also appears to be faltering. Lawmakers who would be needed for its passage in Parliament have recently expressed doubts about its necessity now.

Ms. Edtstadler announced the move after a panel of independent experts released a report recommending such a change while warning that the mandate could be necessary in the future if a new, more dangerous variant reaches the country.

The commission plans to meet again in three months to make an updated recommendation about vaccine mandates. Around 74 percent of Austrians are now fully vaccinated, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford.

After reaching a peak in cases in early February, reported infections in Austria have plateaued. The authorities registered about 30,500 new cases on Monday, and the number of patients in intensive-care-unit beds has remained steady since a wave driven by the Delta variant subsided in December.

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Most of the world’s new known virus cases this year emerged in the Americas, W.H.O. officials say.

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A cemetery worker placed flowers in November on the graves of people who died from Covid-19 in San Salvador, El Salvador.Credit...Jose Cabezas/Reuters

The Americas continue to be disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and it is too soon for countries in the region to relax public health measures, World Health Organization officials warned on Wednesday.

Though the region is home to less than 13 percent of the world’s population, the Americas reported 63 percent of the world’s new known coronavirus cases in the first two months of 2022, Dr. Carissa Etienne said at a news conference Wednesday. Dr. Etienne is the director of the Pan American Health Organization, a regional arm of the W.H.O.

Of the six million people known to have died around the world from Covid-19 so far, more than 2.6 million have been in the Americas. Peru leads the world with the highest number of known deaths per 100,000 people over the course of the pandemic.

“This is a tragedy of enormous proportions, and its effects will be felt for years to come,” Dr. Etienne said.

She noted that more than 148 million people in the region, which includes the United States, had contracted the virus in the two years since the W.H.O. officially declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020, and that many of them are likely to face long-term effects on their health.

Overall, new case reports and deaths are declining in the Americas, as they are globally, though Dr. Etienne noted that new cases were still rising in the Caribbean. A decrease in testing may be masking the true prevalence of the virus in the Americas, she said.

Dr. Etienne said countries in the region should remain cautious. “We all want the pandemic to be over, but optimism alone cannot control the virus,” she said. “It is too soon to lower our guard.”

Though some countries in the region, and many parts of the United States, have been easing public health measures recently, “I’m afraid there’s no going back to normal at this time,” Dr. Etienne said. “We need to continue with some of the measures that have proven to be effective, and in particular we need to ramp up the vaccination coverage.”

Some 248 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean have yet to receive a single dose of vaccine, according to P.A.H.O., with wide disparities in vaccination rates from country to country. Of the more than 40 countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean, just 14 have managed to fully vaccinate 70 percent of their residents or more, according to P.A.H.O. data; Haiti has fully vaccinated less than 2 percent.

“We must build on lessons from the past two years to prepare for quick action if a new variant emerges, or outbreaks happen among those who remain vulnerable,” Dr. Etienne said.

Netanyahu tests positive for the virus.

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Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel during a ceremony to honor medical teams dealing with the pandemic in Jerusalem last summer.Credit...Abir Sultan/EPA, via Shutterstock

JERUSALEM — Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister of Israel, tested positive for the coronavirus on Wednesday, according to a statement from his conservative Likud party.

A party spokesman, Yonatan Ulrich, said in the statement that Mr. Netanyahu, 72, “feels well” and that he was acting according to the country’s coronavirus guidelines. The former prime minister was in Parliament on Wednesday morning before being informed that he had tested positive in a routine P.C.R. test, according to Mr. Ulrich.

Under Ministry of Health guidelines, Mr. Netanyahu must now stay in isolation for at least five days and conduct rapid home tests on the fourth and fifth evenings of isolation. If the results of both tests are negative and no symptoms have appeared for 48 hours, Mr. Netanyahu will be able to leave isolation at the end of Day 5. A positive result would require him to remain in isolation until the end of Day 7.

Israel is just emerging from a fifth wave prompted by the Omicron variant of the virus, which saw confirmed cases soar to nearly 100,000 a day in the country. That number has now dropped to a daily average of about 6,500 new cases.

Mr. Netanyahu has received four vaccination shots, according to Mr. Ulrich. In January, Israel began offering fourth shots to people aged 60 and over as the country braced for a surge of infections from the highly contagious Omicron variant.

Israel lifted many of its remaining Covid restrictions on March 1, including ending limitations on gatherings, opening up the country to unvaccinated tourists and eliminating the need to present a digital proof of vaccination to enter restaurants and most other venues.

Another member of Israel’s Parliament — Shirly Pinto, of the small, right-wing Yamina party led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett — said on Twitter on Wednesday that she, too, had tested positive for the virus. She said she was the 61st lawmaker in Parliament to have been infected, though she didn’t specify what time period she was referring to.

Parliament has 120 seats, but two elections in the country since March 2020 have changed the makeup of the house during the course of the pandemic. Asked how many lawmakers had been infected in the current Parliament, a parliamentary spokesman, Uri Michael, said, “Sorry, we’re not counting.”

New reported cases by day
Mar. 2020
Oct.
May 2021
Dec.
Jul. 2022
Feb. 2023
50,000
100,000 cases
7-day average
491
Source: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the last seven days.

Mr. Netanyahu was prime minister from 2009 until 2021 after serving a previous three-year term in the 1990s, making him the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history. He is now the leader of the opposition in Parliament.

Alongside his parliamentary role, Mr. Netanyahu is fighting corruption charges in a trial now underway in the Jerusalem District Court. He was charged with bribery, breach of trust and fraud in three separate cases in 2019, accused of providing lucrative official favors to wealthy businessmen in exchange for material gifts like expensive cigars and Champagne, and less-tangible ones such as control over coverage of him and his family in a major news outlet.

An increasingly polarizing figure as he clung to power, Mr. Netanyahu led Israel into four tumultuous election cycles within two years. Unable to form a majority coalition after the last election in March 2021, he was eventually replaced by Mr. Bennett.

On Wednesday, Mr. Bennett, a former political ally who sat in several Netanyahu-led governments, wished Mr. Netanyahu, who is now a bitter rival, a speedy and complete recovery, writing on Twitter, “Feel well!”

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Empty stores and a bridge to China’s mainland: Hong Kong faces its largest Covid outbreak yet.

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The possibility of a lockdown in Hong Kong has set off a run on groceries and other supplies.Credit...Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York Times

HONG KONG — With nearly 600,000 cases recorded so far in Hong Kong’s current coronavirus outbreak, officials in the semiautonomous Chinese territory have been rushing to build temporary isolation facilities and makeshift hospitals with the help of Chinese companies. And last week officials agreed to let Chinese workers erect temporary bridges to connect Hong Kong to the Chinese city of Shenzhen, just north of its border.

Tens of thousands of new Omicron cases are being reported each day, and deaths have surged amid the city’s worst Covid outbreak ever. So Hong Kong officials, under pressure from Beijing to eliminate infections, have also vowed to test all 7.4 million residents — an operation that would require restricting people’s movements, although the government has been ambiguous about whether it would impose a lockdown, and if so, when.

Just the possibility of one has set off the run on groceries and other supplies. And the anxiety gripping Hong Kong is not just about the explosion of cases, but also about what the government will do next. Mixed messages from officials have left residents wondering: Will we be sent into isolation facilities? Will our children be taken from us if they test positive?

New reported cases by day
Feb. 2020
Sept.
Apr. 2021
Nov.
Jun. 2022
Jan. 2023
20,000
40,000
60,000 cases
7-day average
0
Source: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the last seven days.

“I’ve been here most of my life, through everything, and it’s never come to something like the panic I’ve seen by the public,” said Allan Zeman, 72, a property developer and an adviser to Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam.

Hong Kong is one of the last places in the world that is still trying to eradicate the coronavirus rather than live with it, and residents have been particularly alarmed by the government’s approach to children who test positive.

Foreign governments have also responded to Hong Kong’s pandemic measures with concern. Citing the risk of familial separation, the United States Consulate last week warned Americans not to travel to Hong Kong. The French consul general acknowledged that the latest measures would “profoundly affect everyone’s life, with a price to pay that has been steadily increasing for two years, especially for families with children.”

U.S. children are severely behind in reading, studies find, and there aren’t enough teachers.

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Students reading during class at Garrison Elementary School in Washington early this year.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

The kindergarten crisis of last year, when millions of 5-year-olds in the United States spent months outside classrooms, has become this year’s reading emergency.

As the pandemic enters its third year, a cluster of new studies show that about a third of children in the youngest grades are missing reading benchmarks, up significantly from before the pandemic.

In Virginia, one study found that early reading skills were at a 20-year low this fall, which the researchers described as “alarming.”

Children in every demographic group have been affected, but Black and Hispanic children, as well as those from low-income families, those with disabilities and those who are not fluent in English, have fallen the furthest behind.

Children spent months out of the classroom, where they were supposed to learn the basics of reading. Many first and second graders returned to classrooms needing to review parts of the kindergarten curriculum.

But nearly half of public schools have teaching vacancies, especially in special education and the elementary grades, according to a federal survey conducted in December and January.

Schools are under pressure to boost literacy as quickly as possible so that students gain the reading skills they need to learn the rest of the curriculum, like math word problems and civics lessons. Billions of federal stimulus dollars are flowing to districts for tutoring and other supports, but their effect may be limited if schools cannot find high-quality staff members to hire.

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