covid-19

Six employees who have refused the mandate to get the Covid-19 vaccination have been fired. RWJBarnabas Health has asked that its employees at the supervisory level and above get vaccinated before the end of June, but six employees have refused to be vaccinated, and therefore have been asked to stop working.

In a statement released by the company, it wrote:

Thanks to the incredible commitment of our leaders, the vast majority of our management team has been vaccinated against Covid-19. As of July 14, 2,979 staff members, or 99.7 percent, who are at the supervisor level and above, have been fully vaccinated or received medical and religious exemptions or a deferral. 

Regrettably, six staff at the supervisor level and above have not complied with the mandate and are no longer employees of RWJBH, per our policy.

New Jersey has 26,500 deaths from Covid-19, and only 55% of its residents have now been vaccinated. The company has also now announced that all staff and physicians must get vaccinated to be able to protect patients and allow for a safer environment.

Is China a racist country? Do they really hate blacks? These and many more questions is the question on the lips of different Africans, especially Nigerians, after a new video surfaced yesterday that shows the Chinese authority pursuing the Africans in the city of Xiaobei Road, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.

In the video shown via Twitter, a note was released to landlords in Xiaobei, asking them to evacuate every Africans they have rented their apartment, and also told hotels and other places not to harbour Africans that has been pushed out, exposing these young men and women to the Corona Virus epidemic that has ravaged China in the past week. The document called for asking all Africans to leave the community, and in some universities, the Chinese authority of Guangzhou city have asked that the school ask Africans in their institution to present themselves for a mandatory Nucleic acid test. 

The forced testing to be done by Chinese does not exclude people with no travel history, and have only asked for African students. More especially Nigerians, this created an influx of Nigerians and other Africans with their bags moving around aimlessly on the road, and further risking the health and contracting of the virus had started in China since December.

In another video that had appeared, Mr Lawal Bapah, Minister, Public Communications, Nigerian Embassy in China, said the Chinese government had initially asked them to ask their citizens to cooperate with the Health authorities in China for testing, and also another 14-day quarantine, which they had passed same to the Nigerians in China, and the citizens of Nigeria had complied, afterwards, the city government in Guangzhou was deceitful and later asked the Africans for another 14 days quarantine, plus testing, and when they feel this wasn't right as other countries were not getting such treatment, the city witheld the passport of these Nigerians and would later asked them and other Nigerians to move out of their places of abode, hence the question to the article, Is China racist a racist country?

 In a strong confrontation by Mr Lawal Bapah, he criticized the deceitful policy of the Guangzhou government and the mistreatment of the Nigerians, and asked that the Chinese government unless under necessary circumstances have no rights to seize a passport of Nigerians, as it is the property of the Nigerian government, and not the Chinese, he claimed he had only collected this document when he arrived after the director initially denied seizing the passport. Mr Bapah claimed that the 14-days quarantine was acceptable when communicated, and also a certificate that shows negative result was also sent to Nigerians, and the new 14 days was never communicated.

The Chinese government will now target and prosecute thousands of Chinese that went online to berate the government's handling of the Covid-19 epidemic. The government has started this tough measure to clamp down on speech by different doctors, nurses, independent journalists, foreign journalists are kicked out of the country and critics of the government have now been detained.

More than 5,000 people have gone missing, detained, and information they had put online deleted, in a war led himself by the Chinese President Xi Jinping himself. Also, around 897 cases have been documented for different online speeches and information they had shared during the epidemic in Wuhan.

According to the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), 467 in February were sanctioned and some of the punishments they have melted out includes, administrative detention, criminal detention, enforced disappearance, fines, warnings/interrogations, forced confessions and 'educational reprimand. 

The charges brought against people includes, "rumour-mongering," "fabricating false information," “sowing panic,” “disturbing public order,” and "breach of privacy." Seven doctors were also warned not to speak publicly again about the virus after questioning.

Citizen journalist and lawyer Chen Qiushi have not been reachable since February 6th after he started a live streaming in a hospital in Wuhan, rights activist and citizen journalist Fang Bin have also been detained since Feb 9th and former anchor with state broadcaster CCTV, Li Zehua, can't be reached as well since Feb. 26th.

Property tycoon Ren Zhiqiang is now under party investigation after an essay where he criticized President Xi on March 12.