Raphael Stevens

Denmark has become the first country to halt its Covid vaccination program, saying it is doing so because the virus has been brought under control.
“Spring has arrived, vaccine coverage in the Danish population is high, and the epidemic has reversed,” Danish Health Authority said in a statement Wednesday announcing the move.
Far from scrapping its vaccination program altogether, however, the Danish Health and Medicines Authority said there will probably be a need to vaccinate against Covid-19 again in the fall.

Health personnel are preparing injection syringes with Covid-19 vaccine in 2021 in Copenhagen, Denmark. the country has now announced it will suspend its vaccination program and will review whether it’s needed later in the year.
Ole Jensen | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Denmark has become the first country to halt its Covid vaccination program, saying it is doing so because the virus is now under control.
“Spring has arrived, vaccine coverage in the Danish population is high, and the epidemic has reversed,” the Danish Health Authority said in a statement Wednesday.

“Therefore, the National Board of Health is now ending the broad vaccination efforts against Covid-19 for this season,” it said. People will not be invited for vaccines from May 15, it said, although everyone will be able to finish their course of vaccination.

Denmark’s Covid vaccination campaign began soon after Christmas in 2020. Some 4.8 million citizens have been vaccinated, the health authority said, with over 3.6 million people receiving a booster shot.
At the same time, many people have been infected since the omicron variant became the dominant strain of the virus, it said, meaning immunity levels among the population are high.
“We are in a good place,” Bolette Soborg, unit manager at the National Board of Health commented. 
“We have good control of the epidemic, which seems to be subsiding. Admission rates [to hospital] are stable and we also expect them to fall soon. Therefore, we are rounding up the mass vaccination program against Covid-19.”

Soborg insisted that the public can still be vaccinated over the spring and summer if they want, and that vaccination sites will remain open around the country.
He added that immunization was still recommended to people for whom Covid poses a heightened risk, such as those over the age of 40 and for unvaccinated pregnant women. “We also continue to recommend that you complete your started vaccination course,” he said.

Vaccinations likely to resume

Denmark’s move to suspend its vaccination program comes as the Covid situation around the world remains mixed. Europe and the U.S. have abandoned most Covid restrictions, but China is still imposing (or considering) lockdowns as the virus spreads in major cities like Shanghai and Beijing.
Far from scrapping its vaccination program altogether, however, the Danish Health and Medicines Authority said there will probably be a need to vaccinate against Covid-19 again in the fall as the virus continues to mutate.

New variants have emerged over the course of the pandemic, which is now into its third year. These have eroded the efficacy of the Covid vaccines that were developed in record time in 2020, although the shots authorized for use in the West remain effective at preventing serious infection, hospitalization and death from Covid-19.
With the vaccination program likely to restart in a few months’ time, Denmark’s health experts will be looking at who should be vaccinated, when the shots should be given and which vaccines should be used.
The Danish Health and Medicines Authority said it would continue to follow the development of the epidemic closely, and is ready to restart vaccination efforts again if there is a need to immunize additional target groups before the fall.

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A new study shows American travelers view many Asian nations as safer travel destinations now than they did four years ago.
South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, China and Vietnam rose in the annual safety rankings published by travel insurance provider Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection.

The survey in the 2022 “State of Travel Insurance Report” also showed that some of America’s favorite travel destinations in Europe and the Caribbean — namely Italy, Bahamas, Spain, Jamaica and the United Kingdom — lost ground in terms of perceived travel safety.
Australia also took a hit. From 2018 to 2022, the country fell from No. 1 to No. 10 in the survey.

‘Safest’ places for travel

Three Asian nations ranked among the top 10 safest travel destinations in the survey of more than 1,500 Americans conducted in September 2021.
The survey asked travelers about their perceptions related to crime, terrorism, transportation and health as well as the safety of travelers who are female, people of color or LGBTQ people.

Singapore — a city-state which was not included in the survey’s country ranking — ranked No. 3 on the safest city rankings — ahead of Tokyo (No. 5) and Bangkok (No. 11).

Singapore finished 21st (out of 56) in 2020 and 25th (out of 53) in 2019 on Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protections list of safest destinations, the company said.
Taiwan was not included in the survey, according to a company representative.

Women and millennials were more likely to view Asian destinations as safer, according to the survey.
After Iceland (No. 1), millennials ranked South Korea and Thailand as the next two safest travel destinations in the world. Composite scores also showed they view Vietnam (No. 6) to be slightly safer than Greece (No. 7).
Millennials — those currently between 27 and 42 years old — also rated Singapore No. 1 for “overall safety” in the city survey, ahead of Montreal and Amsterdam.

Changing perceptions of ‘safety’

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, terrorism and violent crime were travelers’ top safety concerns, said Carol Mueller, vice president of Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection.
But in the 2022 survey, travelers said they were most concerned about “being able to move about freely” and staying “free from disease,” she said. Survey responses indicated getting stuck in a country even eclipsed fears of getting sick there, she said.
“It became a concern of, okay, I’m going to travel. I’m vaccinated, I feel comfortable,” she said. “But … what happens if I get stuck?”
That’s likely why Canada tops the list, she said. Canada reopened to vaccinated Americans in August 2021, the month before the survey was conducted. Its proximity to the United States worked for travelers wanting to “stay closer to home,” she said.
Australia’s decline in safety perception “could be because of … their tight Covid restrictions — the safety of not being able to get home when you want to get home,” she said. Australia’s borders were closed at the time the survey was taken.  

Movement in the rankings

Iceland and Sweden held their rankings as safe travel destinations, while Italy — which has always scored high — dropped because of the difficulty of getting into the country and “because of what was going on with Covid,” said Mueller.

Mueller said the survey “can’t get into the minds” of the survey respondents, but she noted that places that were prominently in the news for Covid outbreaks — such as the United Kingdom — could have been affected by the coverage.     
She also said rankings could have been affected by a change in survey methodology in 2022.
“Only people who had actually visited a destination could weigh in on its safety,” she said. “From a distance, it’s easy to think that European countries are safer. But, people who’ve actually visited many Asian countries know first-hand how safe they are.”
Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection also released a separate set of rankings for the safest countries and cities, which combined the survey results with crime statistics and Covid performance factors, said Mueller.

Will perceptions last?

Many of the Asian nations that rose in the rankings were praised by medical experts for the tactics they employed to handle the Covid-19 pandemic.
Following Abu Dhabi, Singapore ranked No. 2 and Seoul No. 3 in a global ranking by the London-based analytical agency Deep Knowledge Analytics that analyzed pandemic responses in 72 cities.
Both countries, along with Japan, have some of the lowest Covid-related death rates in the world among nations with at least 1,000 reported cases, according to the data research website Statista.
How countries responded to Covid will affect how tourists perceive their travel safety, both before and during their trips, said Rachel Fu, director of the University of Florida’s Eric Friedheim Tourism Institute. 
She said that will be important for regional and international tourists alike.
“The facts will be recorded with historical value when future generations look back about how each country … dealt with the pandemic,” she said. “History will be holding us accountable.” More

Ford is cutting 580 U.S. salaried employees and agency workers as part of its ongoing Ford+ turnaround plan, the company confirmed Wednesday night.
The cuts include approximately 350 salaried and 230 agency positions.
The reductions occurred largely in engineering, as the Detroit automaker pivots to electric vehicles.

Ford CEO Jim Farley at the company’s Dearborn, Michigan, plant where it’s building the electric F-150 Lightning on April 26, 2022.
CNBC | Michael Wayland

DETROIT – Ford Motor is cutting 580 U.S. salaried employees and agency workers as part of its ongoing Ford+ turnaround plan, the company confirmed Wednesday night.
The cuts include approximately 350 salaried and 230 agency positions, according to an emailed statement. The reductions occurred largely in engineering, as the Detroit automaker pivots from vehicles with traditional internal combustion engines to electric cars and trucks that can require different skill sets.

“We continue to align staffing around the critical skills needed to deliver our products, services, and the Ford+ plan,” the company said. “As part of the ongoing management of our business, we will continue to align our staffing to meet our future business needs and plans.”
The automaker said impacted employees and the agencies for the non-Ford employees were notified Wednesday – the same day the automaker reported a net loss of $3.1 billion in the first quarter, largely due the loss in value of a 12% stake in EV start-up Rivian Automotive.
The cuts, which will be completed by the end of the week, come less than two months after Ford said it would reorganize operations to separate its electric and internal combustion engine businesses into different units within the automaker.

Ford said eligible employees will receive benefits continuation and severance equal to up to nine months of pay based on service and “career transition services.” A spokeswoman declined to estimate how much the packages will cost the automaker.
The employee cuts, which were first reported by the Detroit Free Press, are only about 1% of the company’s roughly 31,000 U.S. salaried workforce. As of the end of last year, Ford had 186,769 employees globally, with 90,873, or 48.7%, hourly and salaried workers located in the U.S.

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In a first for China, Baidu’s Apollo Go and Pony.ai received permission from Beijing city to remove the safety driver for part of their robotaxi business in a suburb.
The cars will still need a staff member to sit inside, but not necessarily in the driver’s seat anymore.
In the U.S., Alphabet’s Waymo and GM’s subsidiary Cruise can already run public robotaxis with no human staff in the vehicles.

Chinese tech companies Baidu’s Apollo Go and Pony.ai announced Thursday they received permission from Beijing city authorities to remove the safety driver for part of their robotaxi business in a suburban part of the city.
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images

BEIJING — China’s capital city has moved one step closer toward letting ordinary people take robotaxis with no driver in them.
In a first for the country, two Chinese companies — Baidu’s Apollo Go and Pony.ai — announced Thursday they received permission from Beijing city authorities to remove the safety driver for part of their robotaxi business in a suburban part of the city.

The cars will still need a staff member to sit inside, but not necessarily in the driver’s seat anymore.
It’s a move toward letting the companies run a robotaxi business without having to pay for staff to man the cars — fully eliminating the cost of a taxi driver. It remains unclear when the Chinese government would allow robotaxis to charge fares for rides without any human staff in the cars.
In the U.S., Alphabet’s Waymo and GM’s subsidiary Cruise can already run public robotaxis with no human staff in the vehicles. Laws for testing robotaxis and charging riders vary by city and state.
Waymo can charge customers for its robotaxis that operate in Arizona, while Cruise is waiting for approval on a final permit to charge riders in San Francisco.

Tu Le, founder of Beijing-based advisory firm Sino Auto Insights, pointed out that GM’s Cruise can only operate its driverless robotaxi service in San Francisco at night, while the latest loosening of restrictions in Beijing allows the nearly driverless robotaxis to operate during the day.

That would allow the Chinese operators to collect more data during higher-traffic periods.
Under Beijing city’s new permit, Baidu said it can operate 10 robotaxis without safety drivers, and plans to add 30 more such vehicles at an unspecified later date.

Pony.ai can initially operate four robotaxis without safety drivers under the new rules, and expects to add more in the future, a spokesperson said.
Beijing authorities in the suburban Yizhuang district confirmed Baidu and Pony.ai received the new robotaxi approvals in a press conference Thursday. The government added the operational area tripled to the equivalent of about 23 square miles.

A busy six months for China robotaxi rule changes

Rules for testing and operating robotaxis also vary by region in China.
Beijing city’s latest move comes less than six months since the municipality allowed Baidu and Pony.ai to charge fees for robotaxis in the suburban district of Yizhuang. The approval to charge fares was the first by a major city in China.
Baidu said its Apollo Go robotaxi business subsequently began to charge fares in the municipality of Chongqing in southwestern China and a smaller, central China city of Yangquan in February. The cars still require a safety driver.
On Sunday, the Nansha district of the southern city of Guangzhou gave Pony.ai’s tech-powered robotaxis the same designation as traditional taxis — the first such license in China. The license lets Pony.ai charge fares in the district. The cars currently have safety drivers.
— CNBC’s Michael Wayland contributed to this report.

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According to Logan City Council, the facility “blasts sewage with extremely high heat.”
The end product from the process is an odorless biochar which can be used as a fertilizer in agriculture, among other things.
The council is describing the facility as “the first of its kind in Australia.”

A sewage treatment plant. The idea of reusing organic matter or waste in industrial processes and other initiatives is not a new one, and the last few years have seen a number of interesting projects take shape.
Thomas Imo | Photothek | Getty Images

An Australian plant that converts human waste into fertilizer and energy has been opened, with those involved in the project hoping it will reduce carbon emissions and save money.
Located at the Loganholme Wastewater Treatment Plant in Logan City, Queensland, the biosolids gasification facility was developed by Logan Water, the water business of Logan City Council.

According to the council, the 28 million Australian dollar (around $20 million) facility “blasts sewage with extremely high heat.” The Australian Renewable Energy Agency provided $6 million in funding for the project.
The end product from the process is an odorless biochar which can be used as a fertilizer in agriculture, among other things. In a statement Tuesday, the council described the facility as “the first of its kind in Australia.”
Logan Water collaborated with a range of partners to deliver the project’s gasifier. A key component of the project was the installation of two industrial strength driers constructed in Germany by ELIQUO, a Dutch firm. The driers each weigh 34 metric tons and are 18 meters in length.

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“The gasification process involves biosolids (sewage sludge) being dewatered, dried and treated at high temperatures,” the council said. “Heat created from the process is then captured and used in the drying phase.”
Prior to the facility’s opening, trucks had taken the sewage sludge to another site where it was repurposed as low-grade fertilizer.

“Operational cost savings and carbon credits will return almost $1 million annually to the City of Logan while a new revenue stream will be created from biochar sales,” according to the council. Carbon emissions would be lowered by roughly 6,000 metric tons per year, it added.

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