BREAKING Louis Gossett Jr., 1st Black man to win supporting actor Oscar, dies at 87
Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries 'Roots,' has died. He was 87.
Within days, China will reach a staggering 1 billion doses in its COVID-19 vaccination drive -- a scale and speed unrivalled by any other country in the world.
As of Wednesday, China had administered more than 945 million doses -- three times the number delivered in the United States, and almost 40% of the 2.5 billion shots given globally.
The number is all the more remarkable given its rollout had a slow start. China only reached its first million doses on March 27 -- two weeks behind the U.S. But the pace picked up significantly in May, with more than 500 million shots given over the past month, according to data from China's National Health Commission.
On Tuesday alone, it administered more than 20 million doses. At that rate, it is likely to exceed 1 billion doses this weekend.
Vaccinating a country of 1.4 billion people against COVID-19 is a massive undertaking. Due to China's successful containment of the coronavirus, many residents initially saw little urgency in getting vaccinated. A history of safety scandals involving domestic vaccines also contributed to public hesitancy.
But several recent local outbreaks, including in the northern Anhui and Liaoning provinces and Guangdong in the south, have fueled fears of infection, prompting a rush to get vaccinated in affected regions.
For those still reluctant, China has a powerful tool in its arsenal: a top-down, one-party system that is all-encompassing in reach and forceful in action, and a sprawling bureaucracy that can be swiftly mobilized.
The top-down approach has been touted by officials as a strength of the Chinese system that helped curb the virus -- and has again been deployed to accelerate inoculations.
The all-out campaign to "vaccinate all who can be vaccinated" is being carried out across the country, in major cities and tiny villages alike, with government workers descending on neighbourhoods to convince people to get vaccinated. In state-owned companies, meanwhile, employees are urged by their bosses to take the shots, while vaccination sites offer benefits, ranging from shopping vouchers to free groceries and ice cream.
Governments around the world have tried both carrot and stick-type approaches to encourage people to get vaccinated. But in China, punitive measures can sometimes take a darker turn.
Some residential compounds have warned residents they will be barred from reentering unless they are vaccinated, according to residents' posts on social media. One shopping mall in Shanghai put up a sign at its entrance, requiring customers to show their vaccination certificate for entry. A city park in northern Hebei province turned away unvaccinated visitors and guided them to nearby inoculation sites.
As the number of vaccinations exploded, some local governments even suspended the inoculation of the first dose this month, in order to make sure there were enough for people to get their second does in time.
China's National Health Commission does not offer a breakdown on how many people have been fully vaccinated. But the distribution is uneven. By the first week of June, the major cities of Beijing and Shanghai had fully inoculated nearly 70% and 50% of their residents respectively. But the rate in Guangdong and Shandong provinces remained below 20%, according to Reuters.
Zhong Nanshan, a top epidemiologist and government adviser, said China is aiming to fully vaccinate 40% of its population by the end of the month, and double that percentage by the end of the year.
Due to its huge population, China's doses per 100 people is still behind countries such as the US and Britain. But if its inoculation drive can keep up the current pace, it will be catching up fast.
Get your Christmas shopping done earlier this year -- like, really early.
A coronavirus outbreak in southern China has clogged ports critical to global trade and caused a shipping backlog that could take months to clear.
That's because authorities in the province of Guangdong -- home to some of the world's busiest container ports -- were forced to lock down communities and suspend trade so they could bring the outbreak under control.
While the number of cases has abated, major ports are still operating below capacity, creating a domino effect of delays across the entire region. And that's particularly bad news when you're home to Shenzhen and Guangzhou, the fourth- and fifth-largest comprehensive container ports in the world.
The upshot: The pain from this backlog could soon be felt by retailers and consumers, leading to a shortage of goods and price increases all the way through the end of the year.
The clog "is adding extra disruption on an already stressed out global supply chain, including the significant seaborne leg of it," Peter Sand, chief shipping analyst for the shipowners association Bimco, told CNN Business.
He warned that people "may not find all they were looking for on the shelves when shopping for Christmas presents later in the year."
Read more about the latest threat in the ongoing supply chain crisis on CNN Business.
Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries 'Roots,' has died. He was 87.
Warnings of up to 60 millimetres of rain and other alerts have been issued for seven Canadian provinces and one territory ahead of the Easter weekend.
Jameek Lowery was among more than 330 Black people who died after police stopped them with tactics that aren’t supposed to be deadly, like physical restraint and use of stun guns, The Associated Press found.
Luxury operator Regent Seven Seas Cruises is raising their price tag to eye-watering levels, with a suite on an upcoming 140-day world voyage costing US$1.7 million.
The Canada Revenue Agency announced Thursday it will not require 'bare trust' reporting from Canadians that it introduced for the 2024 tax season, just four days before the April 2 deadline.
A Filipino villager has been nailed to a wooden cross for the 35th time to reenact Jesus Christ’s suffering in a brutal Good Friday tradition he said he would devote to pray for peace in Ukraine, Gaza and the disputed South China Sea.
An Ontario man who built a garage on his property has been locked in a battle with his electricity provider for a year and half over a severed power line.
Millions of people in parts of Eastern and Atlantic Canada will be able to see the rare solar eclipse happening on April 8. But they should only look up if they have proper eye protection, experts say.
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
B.C. conservation officers recently seized a nine-foot-long Burmese python from a home in Chilliwack.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
The Ontario government is introducing changes to auto-insurance, but some experts say the move is ill-advised.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
Newfoundland’s unique version of the Pine Marten has grown out of its threatened designation.
A Toronto man is out $12,000 after falling victim to a deepfake cryptocurrency scam that appeared to involve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.
There’s a group of people in Saskatoon that proudly call themselves dumpster divers, and they’re turning the city’s trash into treasure.
Ontario is facing a larger than anticipated deficit but the Doug Ford government still plans to balance its books before the next provincial election.