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Our 166th Year
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More popular than ever St. Vincent’s fashion show breaks its record for fundraising
COVID-19’s Omicron variant worries health officials ‘Variant of concern’ spurs rapid new travel restrictions By KATHERINE ZEHNDER News-Press Correspondent
KENNETH SONG / NEWS-PRESS
Children show off their outfits during the St. Vincent’s fashion show at the Rosewood Miramar Hotel on Saturday. The children’s portion of the fashion was new this year, and proved to be a particularly popular portion of the event.
By KATHERINE ZEHNDER NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT
St. Vincent’s, a Santa Barbara nonprofit, has hosted the most successful fashion show in its history. Proceeds from Saturday’s show and luncheon go to St. Vincent’s Family Strengthening Program, which provides housing, childcare and job search assistance to mothers and their children. The event usually raises more than $30,000. This year’s fashion show, which was packed with 250 guests, easily surpassed that number with over $53,800. This is the most that the fundraiser has raised during its 12-year history, Dr. Regina Ruiz, vice president of development and marketing for St. Vincent’s, told the News-Press Please see ST. VINCENT’S on A2
Omicron, a new variant of Covid19 first identified in South Africa and now detected in at least a dozen other countries around the world, has been identified as a potentially more transmissible strain, and has already led to a new wave of travel restrictions in the U.S., Canada, the European Union, Japan and Australia. Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton, told CNN that the emergence of new variants like Omicron is connected to a failure to vaccinate the world quickly enough once vaccines became available, allowing the virus time to mutate. Director of the NIH (National Institute of Health), Dr. Francis Collins says that there is no evidence yet to suggest that the Omicron variant causes more serious illness than previous variants. “I do think it’s more contagious when you look at how rapidly it spread through multiple districts in South Africa. It has the earmarks therefore of being particularly likely to spread from one person to another,” Dr. Collins told Dana Bash on CNN’s SOTU. Dr. Collins told Mr. Bash that “we have no evidence that it is here in the United States,” although multiple media sources have reported at least two cases in the Canadian province of Ontario. Both were detected in people who had recently traveled from Nigeria. Dr. Collins agreed with other experts who are encouraging Americans to use the weapons that we have already engineered to effectively fight this disease, including vaccines, booster shots and masks. In an interview on CBS’ ‘Face the Nation,’ Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former FDA commissioner and current Pfizer board member, said that at this time the most critical
questions are whether the strain is more virulent, if it escapes natural or vaccine-delivered immunity and whether it possesses increased transmissibility. Scientists around the world are racing to answer those questions, but answers are so far not forthcoming due to the recent discovery of the variant. Many, however, have expressed concern due to the high number of mutations observed in Omicron, particularly to the spike protein targeted by MRNA vaccines. According to a report by the Washington Post and other national media outlets, the U.S. is planning to ban travel from South Africa and seven other countries starting Monday. Many other countries are implementing travel bans as well, going against the recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO), strongly warning against any knee-jerk reaction before more is known about this variant. “The speed and transparency of the South African and Botswana governments in informing the world of the new variant is to be commended. WHO stands with African countries which had the courage to boldly share lifesaving public health information, helping protect the world against the spread of COVID-19,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa in a statement issued by the WHO. The “variant of concern” is already spreading across the globe, however, as cases have already been found in South Africa, Botswana, Belgium, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Czech Republic and Hong Kong, according to a report by CNN. Ultimately this new variant was only discovered days ago, and even the experts don’t have the answers yet as to what its ultimate impact may be. email: kzehnder@newspress.com
Janice Noll shows off her outfit during the fashion show.
Oyster industry still suffers from pandemic’s impact By BOB PEPALIS THE CENTER SQUARE CONTRIBUTOR
(The Center Square) — Restaurant closures during the pandemic had an impact on the oyster industry at every level, and it’s struggling to recover even as restaurants reopen, a state fisheries expert said. As the Chesapeake Bay watershed changed significantly with population density and development, the fisheries that rely on it have been challenged by water quality issues and loss of habitat. Allison Corden, Maryland’s senior fishery scientist, told The Center Square the pandemic had a tremendous impact on the industry, encompassing both wild harvest fishermen and the oyster aquaculture industry where people farm and cultivate oysters
Attendees check out the raffle prizes offered during the event.
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for harvest. Once the pandemic hit and restaurants were forced to close overnight, both restaurants and fishermen were impacted. “More than a couple other sectors of the seafood industry were hit really hard because oyster aquaculture in particular tend to be this high value commodity product that is specifically designed for the half shell market,” Ms. Corden said. “And so the oyster market has still been struggling a little bit to come back even as restaurants have opened back up again,” she said. In 2020, oysters were being harvested a couple days a week, Ms. Corden said. Seafood processors weren’t buying as many oysters. And other external, larger market forces are currently challenging the industry as well,
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