Day: December 26, 2021

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Australia’s New South Wales Sets Daily COVID Case Record

Australia’s most populous state reported a record number of new COVID-19 cases on Sunday and a sharp jump in hospitalizations while thousands of people were isolating at home after contracting the virus or coming into contact with someone who has.

New South Wales reported 6,394 new infections, up from 6,288 a day earlier. Case numbers in the state have surged over the past two weeks but hospitalizations have lagged behind new infections.

More than 70% of cases in some Australian states are the omicron variant of the coronavirus but New South Wales does not routinely carry out genome testing to identify the variant. State Health Minister Brad Hazzard indicated Sunday that omicron is widespread.

“We would expect that pretty well everybody in New South Wales at some point will get omicron,” Hazzard said. “If we’re all going to get omicron, the best way to face it is when we have full vaccinations including our booster.”

Health officials reported 458 active cases in hospitals across the state, up sharply from 388 the day before. There were 52 people in intensive care in New South Wales.

A major laboratory in Sydney, which is located in New South Wales, said Sunday that 400 people who’d been informed a day earlier they had tested negative for COVID-19 had in fact tested positive. The lab’s medical director said those people were being contacted and informed of the error.

“An emergency response team is now investigating the cause of this mistake, which is believed to be due to human error. We sincerely apologize,” said SydPath medical director Anthony Dodds.

Doctors and pharmacists in New South Wales have said they are running short of vaccine doses amid a rush for shots spurred by concern over the omicron variant.

Victoria, the country’s second most populous state, reported 1,608 new COVID-19 cases and two deaths on Sunday, with 374 people in hospitals, including 77 in intensive care.

More than 30,000 people in Victoria spent Christmas isolating at home, unable to celebrate with family or friends. Of those, about half were reported to be active cases who contracted the virus in the days leading up to Christmas.

Source: Voice of America

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Desmond Tutu: Timeline of a Life Committed to Equality

1931 – Oct. 7 – Desmond Mpilo Tutu is born in Klerksdorp, near Johannesburg.

1947 – Contracts tuberculosis, as he recuperates, he is visited by Trevor Huddleston, a British Anglican pastor working in South Africa.

1955 – Marries Nomalizo Leah Shenxane and begins teaching at a secondary school in Johannesburg.

1961 – Is ordained as a minister in the Anglican church, after quitting teaching in disgust at South Africa’s apartheid government’s inferior education for Blacks.

1962 – Studies theology at King’s College London.

1966 – Returns to South Africa to teach at a seminary in the Eastern Cape.

1975 – Becomes the Anglican Church’s first Black dean of Johannesburg.

1976 – Serves as Bishop of Lesotho and voices criticism of apartheid in South Africa.

1978 – Becomes general-secretary of the South African Council of Churches and achieves global prominence as a leading opponent of apartheid, supports economic sanctions to achieve majority rule in South Africa.

1984 – Wins Nobel Peace Prize – “There is no peace in southern Africa. There is no peace because there is no justice. There can be no real peace and security until there be first justice enjoyed by all the inhabitants of that beautiful land,” Tutu says in his acceptance speech.

1985 – Becomes the first Black bishop of Johannesburg.

1986 – Is ordained the first Black Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town.

1989 – Leads anti-apartheid march of 30,000 people through Cape Town.

1990 – Hosts Nelson Mandela for his first night of freedom after Mandela is released from prison after being held for 27 years for his opposition to apartheid. Mandela calls Tutu “the people’s archbishop.”

1994 – Votes in South Africa’s first democratic election in which all races can cast ballots.

1995 – President Nelson Mandela appoints Tutu to be chairman of the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

1996 – Tutu retires as prelate, the Anglican Church gives him the title of Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town.

1997 – Is diagnosed with prostate cancer and announces it to help with public awareness of the disease.

1998 – Truth and Reconciliation Commission publishes its report, putting most of the blame for abuses on the forces of apartheid, but also finds the African National Congress guilty of human rights violations. The ANC sues to block the document’s release, earning a rebuke from Tutu.

2009 – Aug. 12 – Receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from U.S. President Barack Obama.

2010 – July 22 – Retires from public life, tells press: “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

2013 – Launches international campaign for LGBTQ rights in Cape Town. “I would not worship a God who is homophobic.”

2014 – July 12 – Urges the British parliament to allow assisted dying, saying, “The manner of Nelson Mandela’s prolonged death was an affront.”

2021 – Oct. 7 – Frail, in a wheelchair, Tutu attends his 90th birthday celebration at St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town.

2021 – Dec. 26 – Tutu dies in Cape Town.

Source: Voice of America