WASHINGTON — Former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, has been partially closed after staff members tested positive for the coronavirus.

That’s according to several people, including one familiar with club operations, who said Mar-a-Lago had “partially closed” a section of the club and quarantined some of its workers “out of an abundance of caution.” The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation by name.

An email sent to members said that service had been temporarily suspended in the club’s dining room and at its beach club because some staff members had recently tested positive. It said the club had undertaken “all appropriate response measures,” including sanitizing affected areas,” and that banquet and event services remain open.

“The health and safety of our members and staff is our highest priority,” it read.

The Florida Department of Health did not immediately respond to a phone call and email.

Trump moved to Mar-a-Lago after leaving Washington in January, and has spent the weeks since then laying low, golfing, dining with friends, meeting with Republican party leaders and plotting his political future as he considers running again in 2024.

Trump was hospitalized with COVID-19 last fall and has since been vaccinated against the virus.

Mar-a-Lago was the site of his first known exposure more than a year ago. A senior Brazilian official tested positive last year after spending time at Mar-a-Lago, where he posed for a photo next to Trump and attended a family birthday party.

The Trump White House was hit with several subsequent outbreaks after it flouted virus precautions by resisting mask-wearing and continuing to hold large events.

The club in Palm Beach has been a flurry of activity in recent weeks, hosting events and fundraisers, including one to benefit rescue dogs. Trump unexpectedly dropped by the event last week.

In January, Palm Beach County issued a warning to Mar-a-Lago’s management after a New Year’s Eve party that violated an ordinance requiring employees and guests to wear masks. Video of the party posted online by Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., showed that few of the 500 guests wore masks as they crowded the dance floor while rapper Vanilla Ice, Beach Boys co-founder Mike Love and singer Taylor Dayne performed. The club was told future violations would result in fines of $15,000.

Royal Caribbean to start cruises from Bahamas in June

More than a year after U.S. cruises shut down – and with no return in sight – the world’s largest cruise line is heading to friendlier waters nearby.

Royal Caribbean International said Friday it will start sailing seven-night voyages from the Bahamas in June, with stops in the Bahamas and Mexico. All adult passengers and crew will have to be vaccinated, and passengers under 18 will have to test negative for the coronavirus.

“We are excited to get back to delivering memorable vacations in the Caribbean, gradually and safely,” Michael Bayley, president and CEO of Royal Caribbean International, said in a statement. “The vaccines are clearly a game changer for all of us, and with the number of vaccinations and their impact growing rapidly, we believe starting with cruises for vaccinated adult guests and crew is the right choice.”

He added: “As we move forward, we expect this requirement and other measures will inevitably evolve over time.”

The announcement comes as cruise operators await more instructions from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how to return to service in the United States. After issuing a no-sail order in March 2020 and extending the order, the agency said in October that it would take “a phased approach to resuming cruise ship passenger operations in U.S. waters.”

More than five months later, the agency is still in an early phase of the process. The CDC still recommends that “all people avoid travel on cruise ships” worldwide.

“I think we’re increasingly anxious and a little impatient waiting for guidance,” Bayley said in an interview Friday morning. He said that since a panel of health experts assembled by Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings submitted recommendations last year for a safe return to sailing, the arrival of vaccines has been transformational. “So we are concerned that the process has been slow. And we’re concerned that it’s going to be based upon the past rather than the future and what we’re seeing with vaccines.”

Royal Caribbean has suspended sailings until May 31, aside from four ships that are scheduled to be sailing in China, Singapore and Israel. The Israel sailings, which the company announced earlier this month, will be open to fully vaccinated locals and will visit Greece and Cyprus.

The Miami-based cruise line will base Adventure of the Seas, a 20-year-old ship that can hold 3,114 passengers at double occupancy, in Nassau from June through August. Seven-night sailings will include stops in Grand Bahama Island, Cozumel and two days at Perfect Day at CocoCay, the cruise line’s private island in the Bahamas. All staff there will be fully vaccinated. An announcement says passengers will be able to “safely explore each destination’s culture, history, cuisine and natural beauty on selected Royal Caribbean shore excursions.”

Travelers will have to fly to the Bahamas to take the cruises, though flights are quick from South Florida, a source for many cruise passengers.

Happiness Report: World shows resilience in face of COVID19

STOCKHOLM  — The coronavirus brought a year of fear and anxiety, loneliness and lockdown, and illness and death, but an annual report on happiness around the world released Friday suggests the pandemic has not crushed people’s spirits.

The editors of the 2021 World Happiness Report found that while emotions changed as the pandemic set in, longer-term satisfaction with life was less affected.

“What we have found is that when people take the long view, they’ve shown a lot of resilience in this past year,” Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, one of the report’s co-author, said from New York.

The annual report, produced by the U.N Sustainable Development Solutions Network, ranks 149 countries based on gross domestic product per person, healthy life expectancy and the opinions of residents. Surveys ask respondents to indicate on a 1-10 scale how much social support they feel they have if something goes wrong, their freedom to make their own life choices, their sense of how corrupt their society is and how generous they are.

Due to the pandemic, the surveys were done in slightly fewer than 100 countries for this year’s World Happiness Report, the ninth one compiled since the project started. Index rankings for the other nations was based on estimates from past data.

The results from both methods had European countries occupying nine of the top 10 spots on the list of the word’s happiest places, with New Zealand rounding out the group. The top 10 countries are Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Austria.

It was the fourth consecutive year that Finland came out on top. The United States, which was at No. 13 five years ago, slipped from 18th to 19th place. On a shortened list ranking only those countries surveyed, the U.S. placed 14th.

“We find year after year that life satisfaction is reported to be happiest in the social democracies of northern Europe,” Sachs said. “People feel secure in those countries, so trust is high. The government is seen to be credible and honest, and trust in each other is high.”

 

CDC relaxes social distancing guidelines for schools

NEW YORK  — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention relaxed its social distancing guidelines for schools Friday, saying students can now sit 3 feet apart in classrooms.

The revised COVID-19 recommendations represent a turn away from the 6-foot standard that has forced some schools to remove desks, stagger scheduling and take other steps to keep children away from one another.

Three feet “gives school districts greater flexibility to have more students in for a prolonged period of time,” said Kevin Quinn, director of maintenance and facilities at Mundelein High School in suburban Chicago.

In recent months, schools in some states have been disregarding the CDC guidelines, using 3 feet as their standard. Studies of what happened in some of them helped sway the agency, said Greta Massetti, who leads the CDC’s community interventions task force.

While there is evidence of improved mental health and other benefits from in-person schooling, “we don’t really have the evidence that 6 feet is required in order to maintain low spread,” she said.

Read the full story here.

Fauci says Sen. Paul is ‘dead wrong’ about the need for masks

Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease official and Biden’s chief medical adviser, pulled no punches Friday in recounting an exchange with Sen. Rand Paul at a hearing this week when the Kentucky Republican repeatedly suggested there’s no need for people to wear masks if they’ve previously contracted the virus or been vaccinated.

“He’s dead wrong,” Fauci said during an appearance on “CBS This Morning.”

Fauci was asked if he was taken aback by Paul’s comments, which included saying Fauci, a witness at the Senate hearing, was engaging in “theater” by wearing a face mask even though he has been vaccinated.

“He was quoting literature selectively and leaving out important studies which actually show that people actually can get reinfected,” Fauci said of Paul on CBS. “His point was if you’re vaccinated, you shouldn’t be wearing a mask. … That’s ridiculous.”

Fauci pointed to a recent paper showing the elderly in particular have a high incidence of getting reinfected.

Paul “was saying if you’ve been infected or vaccinated, don’t wear a mask, which is completely against all public health tenets,” Fauci said.

Fauci said he doesn’t hold anything personally against Paul “but he’s just, quite frankly, incorrect.”

Facing vaccine skepticism, one corner of the Army is trying something new

In early February, as military officials faced a wave of skepticism among service members about the coronavirus vaccine, leaders at Fort Bragg took a hard look at what soldiers were hearing.

The feedback was concerning. Misinformation on social media fueled doubt about its safety and efficacy, and endorsements from experts were not getting through. By the end of February, fewer than half of the soldiers at Fort Bragg, N.C., said they would get the vaccine, an Army official said. The vaccine is voluntary for troops at the moment.

So officials at the Army’s most populated installation developed a solution they say has shown promise: listen to soldiers, walk them through concerns and mint ambassadors out of skeptical soldiers who changed their minds.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has encouraged service members to get vaccinated, joining leaders who point to inoculations as a way to help prepare troops for worldwide missions. The virus has strained global movement, has delayed training with key allies and took an aircraft carrier out of commission for weeks last spring, when a quarter of the roughly 4,900 sailors aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt were infected.

Hesitancy among service members – who have said they fear the vaccine was rushed, believe it has been politicized and worry about long-term effects – in many ways mirrors doubts in the civilian population. About a third of U.S. troops opted out of the vaccine, defense officials testified last month, using preliminary data.

Read the full story here.

Europe to resume use of AstraZeneca vaccine after blood clot concerns

Much of Europe on Friday was restarting use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine after the European Union’s pharmaceutical regulator declared the shot “safe and effective.”

France, Germany, Italy and Spain said they would resume administering the vaccine following temporary suspensions over fears that the shot may have caused rare blood clot disorders. The European Medicines Agency said Thursday that the vaccine, jointly developed by Oxford University and British-Swedish pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca, is safe but that it could not rule out a link to the small number of blood clot cases.

On Friday, the prime ministers of Britain and France were scheduled to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot as a way to boost confidence in the vaccine.

Zoos are trying to prevent people from giving virus to animals

SAN DIEGO — The coughing among the western lowland gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in January was the first warning sign. Soon the fears were confirmed: A troop of gorillas became the first apes known to test positive for the coronavirus.

Around the world, many scientists and veterinarians are now racing to protect animals from the coronavirus, often using the same playbook for minimizing disease spread among people: That includes social distancing, health checks and, for some zoo animals, a vaccine.

Karen, a 28-year-old orangutan, became the first ape in the world to get a coronavirus vaccine on Jan. 26 at the San Diego Zoo.

San Diego’s virus outbreak was linked to a zookeeper who was infected but had no symptoms. Seven gorillas recovered after a mild cases of sniffles, but one elderly silverback had pneumonia, likely caused by the virus, as well as heart disease. He was put on antibiotics and heart medication, and received an antibody treatment to block the virus from infecting cells.

About three dozen zoos across the United States and abroad have put in orders for the Zoetis vaccine, which is formulated to elicit a strong immune response in particular animal species.

“We will jump at the opportunity to get the Zoetis vaccine for our own great apes,” said Oakland Zoo’s veterinary director Alex Herman, who is ordering 100 doses.

Zoetis got a permit from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide the doses on an experimental basis to the San Diego Zoo. The company will need to apply for the same permission to provide vaccine to additional zoos.

Scientists believe the coronavirus likely originated in wild horseshoe bats, before jumping — perhaps through an intermediary species — to humans. Now many researchers worry that humans may unwittingly infect other susceptible species.

“Right now, humans are the main vectors of SARS-CoV-2, with consequences for many animal species,” said Arinjay Banerjee, a disease researcher at McMaster University in Canada.

Great apes such as gorillas, which share 98% of their DNA with humans, are especially susceptible, as are felines. So far, confirmed coronavirus cases include gorillas, tigers and lions at zoos; domestic cats and dogs; farmed mink, and at least one wild mink in Utah.

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