French President Emmanuel Macron has dismissed the possibility of locking down unvaccinated people in France, claiming the move would not be necessary because of the success of the Covid-19 ‘health pass’.
Speaking to La Voix du Nord newspaper in an interview published on Thursday, Macron said there was no need for France to follow Austria’s lead by locking down its unvaccinated citizens.
“Those countries locking down the non-vaccinated are those which have not put in place the [health] pass. Therefore, this step is not necessary in France,” Macron claimed.
The president’s health pass, which was the target of much criticism when it was introduced, requires people to provide proof of vaccination or a recent negative test before undertaking certain normal activities.
The ‘Pass Sanitaire’ is required if citizens wish to go to restaurants, cafes, cultural venues, or cinemas. It’s also required to take long-distance trains, among other activities.
Austria has led the way by starting a partial lockdown of the unvaccinated amid a surge in Covid-19 cases. The Czech Republic will follow suit next week, while Germany decided on Thursday to introduce similar measures in areas where Covid incident rates exceed the threshold.
Earlier in November, Macron made the continued use of the Covid health pass for over 65s dependent on getting a booster jab.
Some 20,366 new infections were registered in the last 24-hour recording period. Case numbers have risen steeply in recent weeks.
An Argentinian woman has become the second-ever HIV-infected person whose immune system helped defeat the virus without requiring additional medical treatment. She was first diagnosed with the AIDS-causing infection in 2013.
Scientists have dubbed the 30-year-old mother the “Esperanza patient,” after her hometown. The word ‘esperanza’ translates to ‘hope’ in English. Publishing their findings in the Annals of Internal Medicine journal on Monday, the researchers said the discovery boosts hope for a “sterilizing cure” for the estimated 38 million people with the life-long infection.
“I enjoy being healthy,” the Esperanza patient told NBC News over email. “I have a healthy family. I don’t have to medicate, and I live as though nothing has happened. This already is a privilege.”
The study found no intact remnants of the virus in the 1.5 billion blood and tissue cells the researchers analyzed – confirming the discovery first announced in March at an international meeting of HIV experts.
No additional information about the woman has been made public, but she was described at the time as “athletic and beautiful” and revealed to have an HIV-negative boyfriend and newborn baby.
Only one other person, identified in August 2020 as 67-year-old Loreen Willenberg from San Francisco, has been confirmed to have overcome the virus without medical intervention. The two women have been labeled ‘elite controllers’, referring to a rare subset of HIV patients who show no signs of the infection despite not undergoing antiretroviral treatments.
Typically, an HIV-infected person requires constant drug therapy to prevent the virus from attaching to their immune cells’ DNA and replicating. But, in the eight years since she was diagnosed, the Esperanza patient only received medication for six months during pregnancy to ensure her baby would be healthy.
In all, there have been four patients cured of HIV, two of whom – the ‘Berlin patient’ Timothy Ray Brown and the ‘London patient’ Adam Castillejo – were also cancer patients who received risky bone marrow transplants from donors with HIV-resistant genes. However, the success of their procedures is yet to be replicated.
“This is really the miracle of the human immune system that did it,” Dr. Xu Yu, an immunologist at the Ragon Institute in Boston, who co-authored the study, told NBC.
The EU Commission has released draft legislation aimed at tackling the destruction of woodland by introducing import restrictions on products not certified as ‘deforestation-free’.
The draft proposal, which the commission hopes will become binding rules for all member states, seeks to limit the import of beef, cocoa, coffee, palm, soy, and wood if it is not proven “deforestation-free.”
Outlining the legislation, the EU commissioner for climate action policy, Virginijus Sinkevicius, called it a “ground-breaking” proposal that will help fight “illegal deforestation” and “deforestation driven by agricultural expansion.”
Our proposal to fight deforestation will help us protect 1/3 of 🌎 lands.
We don’t only target illegal deforestation but 𝙖𝙡𝙡 deforestation driven by agricultural expansion.
We start with 6 products that must be deforestation-free 👉🏼 beef, wood, palm oil, soya, coffee, cocoa. pic.twitter.com/Cs9POoydNX
The bill comes after nations at the COP26 summit agreed to work to end deforestation by 2030. It would impose two criteria on imports, requiring items to have been produced in accordance with the origin country’s laws, and not on land that has been deforested or degraded since the start of 2021.
It is not clear when the rules would come into effect; legislative proposals by the commission have to be debated and considered by both the EU Parliament and the Council of the EU before they are passed. The implementation of measures could potentially impact the EU’s trade relations with countries like Brazil, where clearing of the Amazon rainforest hit a new record in October.
During the recent COP26 climate summit, 110 world leaders – whose countries contain around 85% of the world’s woodland – committed to ending and reversing deforestation by 2030, pledging around £14 billion ($18.84 billion) of public and private funds towards the goal.
The stars of the Harry Potter films will reunite for a 20-year anniversary special on HBO, minus author JK Rowling. Fans and commenters wondered if Rowling’s absence had anything to do with her views on transgender issues.
‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ premiered 20 years ago this week, catapulting actors Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson to superstardom. Warner Bros announced on Tuesday that the three stars – as well as a whole range of supporting actors from the franchise – will travel back to Hogwarts for an “enchanting making-of story” airing on New Year’s Day, entitled ‘Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts’.
Conspicuously absent from the production is author JK Rowling. A Warner Bros’ press release made no mention of Rowling, and a lengthy Instagram post by actress Emma Watson thanked fans and fellow cast members, but also made no mention of Rowling, whom other Harry Potter actors said they “owe everything” to.
Rowling’s PR team did not comment on the author’s absence, and the Hollywood Reporter claimed that the author will only appear in the show in archival footage.
Commentators online reckoned that Rowling had been canceled from the retrospective special due to her high-profile clashes with transgender activists. A self-described feminist, Rowling has spoken out against gender-neutral language, arguing that it “erases” the concept of sex and therefore the concept of womanhood. She has also stated that sex is a binary concept, and argued against gender-neutral bathrooms, claiming that by allowing men into women’s bathrooms, women are made less safe.
If I owed my entire career to 1 person, if I’d known her since I was 8, if I was worth $90m because of her, then not only would I defend her when maligned but I would refuse to take part in any reunion that excluded her. But that’s just me. #JKRowlinghttps://t.co/0ay5mhQ1FE
I can’t believe they’re actually shunning JK Rowling
“No you can’t participate in something celebrating the world you made because we are the new Amish but with more Puritan soul and no redeeming features”.
Rowling’s comments on gender issues generated intense backlash from LGBT organizations, and death and rape threats from the most zealous transgender ideologues online. Actors Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson also both spoke out against Rowling’s defense of biological sex last year, with Radcliffe declaring that “transgender women are women,” and apologizing to upset fans “for the pain [Rowling’s] comments have caused you.”
“Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are,” Watson chimed in.
Rowling has repeatedly stated that she is against anti-trans discrimination, but would not change her position on sex. “I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it,” she wrote last year.
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