Covid cases have remained equal between men and women throughout the pandemic, but since the football final, cases have increased disproportionately in men.
The latest data comes as the UK prepares to end all lockdown restrictions on Monday, July 19.
Covid rules will be scrapped from law but ministers and other political leaders are urging the public to continue to wear face coverings in crowded spaces and public transport.
No10 has said facemasks were still “expected and recommended” even after July 19.
The Prime Minister has told the public to exercise “extreme caution” and to take “personal responsibility” wherever possible.
The PHE data also suggests the 20-29 age group is now leading Covid cases, as youngsters are the last group to be vaccinated.
Experts have argued the recent rise in Covid cases among young men has been caused by gatherings to watch the football – including revelling in the streets, homes and pubs.
Huge crowds of people gathered across the nation to cheer on the England squad in the Euro 2020 final – many of which did not observe social distancing.
READ MORE: NHS Test and Trace ‘pinged’ neighbours through wall of their home
While there has been no confirmed link between the Euro gatherings and the sudden surge, Scottish scientists have previously made a connection between cases and watching the England v Scotland game on June 18.
Public Health Scotland (PHS) confirmed over 1,200 cases were linked to fans who had travelled to London to watch the Euro 2020 matches.
In a report, the health service said: “PHS is working with Test & Protect and NHS boards to ensure that all public health actions are taken in the close contacts of these Euro 2020 cases as part of the 32,539 cases that were reported to the Test & Protect Case Management System during this period (June 11-28).”
On Thursday, Chris Whitty, the UK’s chief medical officer, warned the epidemic could easily “get into trouble again surprisingly fast.”
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He said: “We are not by any means out of the woods yet on this, we are in much better shape due to the vaccine programme, and drugs and a variety of other things.
“But this has got a long way to run in the UK, and it’s got even further to run globally.”
A global study looking into the association estimated there were more than 740,000 such cases in 2020, including 16,800 in the UK. Experts called for greater awareness of the risk and for government interventions to reduce consumption. The worst-affected regions include Eastern Asia and Central and Eastern Europe. Men were most at risk, accounting for 77 percent of all cases linked to alcohol worldwide, compared with women at just 23 percent.
Booze consumption has been shown to cause DNA damage through increased production of harmful chemicals in the body and can also affect hormone production.
Cancers of the oesophagus, liver and breast made up the largest number of cases in the study. Harriet Rumgay of the French-based International Agency for Research on Cancer said: “We urgently need to raise awareness about the link between alcohol consumption and cancer risk among policy makers and the general public.
“Public health strategies, such as reduced alcohol availability, labelling alcohol products with a health warning and marketing bans could reduce rates of alcohol-driven cancer.”
Research looked at intake per person per country for 2010 and combined this with data for new cancer cases in 2020, allowing time for the effects to be seen.
Risky drinking and heavy boozing led to the largest proportion of alcohol-related cancers. Moderate drinking, defined as around two drinks daily, accounted for one in seven cases.
Four percent of new diagnoses worldwide in 2020 were thought to be linked to drinking – the same figure as in the UK.The proportion ranged from a high of 10 percent in Mongolia to zero in Kuwait.
The figure was six percent in China, five percent in France, four percent in Germany and three percent in the United States.
Cancer Research UK chief executive Michelle Mitchell said: “This demonstrates there’s still lots of work to do to prevent alcohol-related cancers.
“There’s strong evidence that drinking alcohol can cause seven types of cancer and the more someone drinks, the greater their risk.
“There’s no ‘safe’ level of drinking, but whatever your habits, cutting down can reduce your risk of cancer.”
The MacBook Air that launched at the end of last year floored us …it had nothing to do with the design. The model that hit store shelves worldwide in the last few months of 2020 was the first to ship fitted with Apple’s custom-designed M1 processor.
This system-on-a-chip made the MacBook Air anywhere between twice and three times as fast as the previous model, while simultaneously boosting the battery life. It was seriously impressive. Unsurprisingly, the same custom-designed M1 can now be found in the latest MacBook Pro, Mac mini and iMac. However, if there’s one area where the latest MacBook Air model fell down… it was the design.
While performance and battery life enjoyed a huge boost, the design was left unchanged.
That was a little underwhelming. However, it seems Apple has seen the error of its way. The Californian company is believed to be working on an all-new design for the slimmest laptop in its line-up.
YouTube superstar Jon Prosser, who hosts the show FrontPageTech and has a pretty reliable track record when it comes to leaks, has revealed an unofficial glimpse at what he claims is the upcoming redesign. The first thing you’ll notice about the images, which are high-resolution renders produced based on the information gathered by Prosser, are the colours.
Following in the footsteps of the recently-redesigned iMac, Apple will purportedly bring some colour to the MacBook Air line-up. In the images shared by Prosser, there are blue, peach, silver, purple, yellow, green and orange finishes available. As well as seven vibrant colours, the keyboard looks set to switch from black to white.
Just like the white borders found around the screen on the new-look iMac, Apple is purportedly looking to fit its brightly-coloured new laptops with a white keyboard. That’s sure to split opinion but should provide a very different appearance to the models already on shelves. If you’re worried that people won’t know that you’ve got the latest model, the glare from your bright-white keyboard should do the trick.
Next up, the images shared by Jon Prosser reveal that Apple plans to ditch the trademark wedge-like design. Instead of the tapered look, the base of the laptop will remain the same thickness throughout.
In order for the MacBook Air to remain the thinnest, that base will have to be pretty thin. As it stands, the thickest part of the wedge design of the MacBook Air (1.61cm / 0.63-inches) is chunkier than the MacBook Pro (1.56 cm / 0.61-inches) which remains the same thickness throughout.
Finally, the new MacBook Air could see a MagSafe-style charging port return to the laptop. For those who don’t remember, MagSafe was once a staple of Apple laptops, but can now only be found on competitors machines, like the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro range from Microsoft. As the name suggests, MagSafe used magnets to keep the charger connected to the laptop, this allowed the cable to be yanked away when from the laptop without pulling your shiny new £1,000 device onto the floor.
Given how easy it can be to trip over a charging cable in a crowded office or airport, this feature saved a dizzying number of Mac owners from heartbreak. However, Apple dropped the feature in favour of USB-C. Why? Well, USB-C is more versatile and can be used for charging, video output, audio output, data transfer and more.
It’s unclear whether the shiny new design will come with a new more powerful, more efficient chipset from Apple too. With the M1 fast approaching its first anniversary and a new iPhone with, presumably, a new processor under the bonnet coming in September… could we be about to see another speed boost from Apple?
Fingers crossed, we won’t have long to wait before we find out. Express.co.uk will have all of the latest rumours as soon as we hear something, so stay tuned.
In May, Sega held a special Sonic Central broadcast for the blue blur’s 30th anniversary. The live stream went out with a brief teaser of the next mainline entry in the series.
While details are still scarce, during an interview with Game Informer recently, Sonic Team’s head Takashi Iizuka noted how the team had thought a lot about what the modern gameplay experience should be for a Sonic title, along with the path forward for the next decade.
While he can’t say a lot just yet about the upcoming 2022 entry, he believes it’ll likely be an “advancement” for modern Sonic games and what they “can be”:
“There is a lot I can’t say yet about the title, but I do believe we will see an advancement in what a modern Sonic game can be. Of course, we will not deny the high-speed action that characterized previous modern Sonic games like Sonic Generations or Sonic Forces, rather we will create a title that our current gaming fans and new gamers will enjoy.”
Iizuka mentions how one “key point” in the history of the series was the transition from 2D to 3D gameplay, so how can Sega take the next step to truly advance the modern version of Sonic?
If the recent rumours are anything to go by, the next Sonic game (which Sega’s PR reportedly referred to as Sonic Rangers) will be an open-world adventure drawing inspiration The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
In the brief trailer we’ve so far, we can see Sonic running through a forest environment – so who knows how big it might be…
Do you think an open-world adventure could be the next step for modern Sonic the Hedgehog games? How else do you think Sega could take its longtime mascot to new heights after 30 years? Leave your thoughts down below.
For the purposes of historical comparison, it’s also worth noting that the pattern of the dominance chart currently looks much like it did during the earlier part of 2017.
As the markets have gone into meltdown since May 12, Bitcoin (BTC) dominance has fluctuated dramatically, bucking 2021’s prevailing trend. Before the sell-off started in earnest, BTC dominance had been falling pretty steadily from around 70% in January to a low of under 40% by the time the crash was underway. At that point, BTC dominance was at its lowest since the summer of 2018. It has since recovered to above 43%.
If the same pattern is underway this time around, then the market is likely to be at the equivalent of summer 2017 when the alt season was just ramping up, and still some months away from Bitcoin’s price peak of around $ 20,000 in December 2017.
Of course, while the patterns draw some interesting parallels, BTC dominance doesn’t necessarily tell that much about price. But it does offer insights into how the flagship asset is performing in relation to the rest of the markets, underpinning certain trends. So, what are the likely scenarios for BTC dominance, and what would it mean for the markets?
Follow the money flow
The money flow model is one potential predictor of where the markets could go. The model states that money flows from fiat into Bitcoin, and then down from large caps, through mid-caps to small-cap altcoins before redirecting back to BTC and, ultimately, back to fiat.
This model is interesting because it pretty much sums up what happened in 2017, except that the cycle played out twice as BTC surged toward the end of the year. So, if the 2017 scenario repeats itself, BTC dominance could continue to rise until the flagship asset sees another price peak, then fall as alt season accelerates once again.
Along with the eerie similarities of the dominance charts, the behavior of the alt markets also offers some indication that they could be performing according to historical cycles. In early May, Cointelegraph reported that altcoins had flipped their previous cycle high to support — a move that last happened in 2017.
If the cycle repeats, it could still launch the alt markets to stratospheric new heights in 2021. While the performance observed during May may not offer much reassurance in this regard, there’s also nothing yet to indicate that BTC and the broader markets won’t perform according to long-term trends. Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of exchange FTX and Alameda Research, told Cointelegraph:
“If we enter a prolonged bear market, I would expect BTC dominance to rise, as it did in 2018–2019; but the correction we’ve seen so far isn’t enough to trigger that.”
But wait…
For individual investors looking to follow the money flow, there is one big consideration. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Robert W. Wood, managing partner at Wood LLP, warned: “The elephant in the room for diversification is taxes.” He added: “Up until 2018, many investors could claim that a swap of one crypto for another was nontaxable under section 1031 of the tax code. But the law was changed at the end of 2017.”
Indeed, Omri Marian, director of the Graduate Tax Program at University of California, Irvine School of Law, confirmed that crypto-to-crypto transactions are likely to trigger tax obligations, explaining to Cointelegraph:
“Any reading of one crypto asset for another is a taxable event. So whatever the profit motivation is, a cryptoassets investor must account for the fact that rebalancing of the portfolio may have a tax cost.”
Shane Brunette, CEO of CryptoTaxCalculator, put it into practical terms, telling Cointelegraph: “If an investor switches between BTC and altcoins, the capital gain/loss would be realized in this financial year, regardless of whether or not they’ve ‘cashed out’ to fiat.” Furthermore, he clarified that “The activity would reset the length of time the investor has been holding the asset which would impact the eligibility to claim a long-term capital gains discount.”
So, be mindful that following the money flow may come with its own set of costs, and as a result, there are no guarantees that the pattern may repeat, as new variables may have an effect.
The unknown quantity
The most critical difference between 2017 and now is the presence of institutions in the markets. At least, that’s true for Bitcoin and, to some extent, large-cap altcoins such as Ether (ETH). Large swathes of the alt markets, including almost all low-cap coins and memecoins like Dogecoin (DOGE), are dominated by retail traders and investors.
Examining the dominance charts, BTC seemed to get a boost at the end of 2020 as institutional interest in cryptocurrencies started to pique. Its dominance continued to rise until around January.
But there’s some evidence that institutions could be behind the recent boost to BTC dominance. On May 21, it emerged that whales had bought $ 5.5 billion worth of BTC while prices were below $ 36,000; two days later, crypto hedge funds MVPQ Capital, ByteTree Asset Management and Three Arrows Capital all confirmed they were dip buyers.
So, there’s a chance that Bitcoin’s sudden dominance recovery may not come down to regular market cycles but instead be influenced by institutional whales scooping up discounted BTC.
Risk-off, but how far?
The question is: To what extent will the involvement of institutions make a difference to BTC dominance patterns compared with what was seen in 2017? Perhaps the most critical difference between institutions and retail investors is that institutions are far more likely to follow prevailing market conditions and go risk-off accordingly. Therefore, BTC dominance is rising as investors choose to step away from risk-on alts.
However, based on the “buying the dip” reports, it seems there’s no reason to assume that investors are going as far as going risk-off from crypto itself — at least for now. Furthermore, bullish sentiments continue to swirl around, undeterred by the market chaos of recent weeks as seen by the reports that interest in BTC appears to still be on the rise.
Therefore, there’s still every chance that if interest in BTC continues to hold, and no major bad news comes in to destroy the sentiment around crypto, the money flow model may still play out once again. For now, if history holds firm, some further increases in BTC dominance will take place before investors once again start to expand into large-cap altcoins.
Author: Cointelegraph By Nikolai Kuznetsov
This post originally appeared on Cointelegraph.com News
It was Doge day afternoon all over again on Wednesday as Dogecoin (DOGE) continued its assault on the cryptocurrency market capitalization rankings. The meme coin overtook XRP to become the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by implied market capitalization after climbing to a per-coin valuation of $ 0.69 — a target that was specifically set by traders on social media.
But cryptocurrency’s latest media darling may not be as wholesome as it seems. For all the hype surrounding Dogecoin (and its de facto master, Elon Musk), publicly available data suggests relatively few people are actually using the blockchain, and those who do use it account for an incredibly large portion of its overall activity.
Consider that the dollar value of coins sent across the Dogecoin blockchain on Tuesday exceeded $ 58 billion. That figure was 70% higher than the amount transferred on Bitcoin ($ 34 billion) and 260% higher than on Ethereum ($ 16 billion).
Digging into on-chain data further, we see that despite Dogecoin moving a higher value of coins than the two largest cryptocurrencies in the world, it achieved this with a mere fraction of their transactions.
Over 1.4 million transactions were counted on the Ethereum blockchain yesterday, according to data from Bitinfocharts, while close to 300,000 were counted on Bitcoin. Compare this to just 76,000 recorded on the Dogecoin blockchain, and an apparent wealth gap begins to emerge.
Indeed, when looking at Dogecoin’s average transaction value on the day in question, it stood at almost double that recorded on Bitcoin (BTC). The average DOGE transaction value stood at $ 800,000, compared to $ 420,000 on BTC. Its statistics relative to Ethereum paint an even more dire picture — Dogecoin’s average transaction value exceeded Ethereum’s by 8,000%, despite processing only 5% of the number of transactions.
Combined with the long-standing reality that one single address holds 28% of all coins in existence, while just 12 account for 67%, it becomes clear that Dogecoin isn’t exactly the people’s champion that interested parties would have the public believe.
A recently published report by Galaxy Digital piled on the misery regarding Dogecoin’s general lack of authenticity as a true cryptocurrency project. Titled “Dogecoin: The Most Honest Sh*tcoin,” the report highlighted the fact that Dogecoin’s GitHub repository (where updates to the blockchain’s code are logged by developers) hasn’t been touched since 2017. What’s more, the number of fully synced nodes (computers running copies of the Dogecoin blockchain) is just 26% of the overall node count, suggesting few people are willing to make the effort to maintain the blockchain’s network security.
But even if the Dogehouse seems like a ghost town, the glaring reality remains that Dogecoin is the best performing digital asset in the cryptocurrency space. The coin has recorded 14,000% growth since Jan. 1, when it was priced at a fraction of a cent.
Both credit and blame for Doge’s seemingly irrational ascent have been placed on the “Dogefather” himself, Elon Musk, who has taken great pleasure in posting Doge memes to his 52 million followers on Twitter throughout much of 2021.
However, it should also be noted that the coin’s recent peak of $ 0.69 is the same price target set by Reddit traders intent on artificially pumping DOGE’s valuation. The price point was originally intended to be reached on April 20 — a joke on top of a joke on 4/20 day. Dogecoin only reached a price of $ 0.420 at the time (boom), but now, a little over two weeks later, it has finally achieved its jocular goals. The ultimate price point being pursued by traders is $ 1.
If more evidence is needed that markets are not always rational, look no further than this year’s GameStop pump, where the share price of a near-dead brand increased by over 9,000%.
“Dogecoin has always been a joke, and the joke keeps getting funnier,” stated the Galaxy Digital report. Author of the report and head of firmwide research at Galaxy Digital Alex Thorn did praise Dogecoin for its lack of pretense, noting that the coin’s fortunes weren’t tied to foundation announcements or developer promises and that its only goal was to elicit a reaction.
“Dogecoin’s longevity is ensured so long as one truism remains: people love a good joke,” Thorn ended.
Author: Cointelegraph By Greg Thomson
This post originally appeared on Cointelegraph.com News
Prior to his death on March 14, 2018, the English theoretical physicist created a theory that changed the way we think about the universe. Working with Belgian professor, Thomas Hertog, from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven), Hawking theorised that our three-dimensional reality is an illusion.
Put simply, Professors Hawking and Hertog speculated that all information in the universe is stored on a flat 2D surface and our so-called “solid” world around us is then projected from that information.
Back in 2018, Professor Hertog said: “It’s a very precise mathematical notion of holography that has come out of string theory in the last few years, which is not fully understood but is mind-boggling and changes the scene completely.
“The key point is that we’re not projecting out a spatial dimension. We are projecting out the dimension of time from ‘before’ the Big Bang.”
Published a month after his death in the Journal of High Energy Physics, the theory is compatible with eternal inflation and Einstein’s theory of General Relativity.
Defining what makes a hologram, Professor Hertog explained that it can be viewed as a kind of dimensional change.
Professor Hertog added: “It’s a theory that envisages a beginning to the universe where time is not present but our notion of time crystallises.
“And it’s saying that time is fundamentally coming out of some other state for which we have no words.
“Some very abstract timeless state – that’s the best we can do.”
His final published theory is not the first to imagine the universe as a form of pseudo-existence as theories have arisen over the last few decades indicating that humanity is living in a ‘Matrix-like’ simulation.
Roy Keane feels Manchester United will continue to be restricted with their team selection in big matches so long as they stick with the same centre-back pairing.
Harry Maguire and Victor Lindelof have faced frequent criticism over recent seasons, including from Keane, who previously suggested Eric Bailly would be a more ideal partner for United’s captain.
But the current pairing seem to have improved over the back half of this campaign, with United chasing silverware in Europe and close to cementing second place in the Premier League.
However, Keane feels United’s problems against better opposition will be ongoing until a better replacement is recruited, to enable Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to give the rest of his side more freedom.
“They do need another centre-half, with a bit more pace,” Keane told Sky Sports. “That’s the problem for United as they will want to be able to push higher up the pitch.
“They’re constantly worried in the big games using two sitting midfielders and that’s because they’re worried about the two centre-halves – more with their pace than anything else.
“They’re good solid defenders, particularly [Harry] Maguire, but when you talk about the really big games, it’s a problem for Manchester United. They will have to get somebody, of course.”
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Several defenders have been linked with a move to Old Trafford, including Real Madrid’s Raphael Varane and Sevilla’s Jules Kounde, though United appear to be focusing their efforts on other areas of the team.
Bailly is currently in talks over a long-term contract extension, while Solskjaer seems prepared to back Maguire and Lindelof for at least another season.
Signing a right winger and a striker are still thought to be priorities for United this summer, particularly with Edinson Cavani potentially moving on.
United are trying desperately to keep the 34-year-old, but Keane feels they should let him go and set their sights on two blockbuster targets to stand a chance of winning the title next season.
“I still think they need two or three players before challenging Man City. They are short. They still need a world-class striker and another midfielder and a centre-half,” Keane said.
“I would prioritise a striker and midfielder. I would love to see Harry Kane up front —whatever it costs. And I would also go for Jack Grealish.
“I think United are still short of special players and Grealish would give them that. I think he’d enjoy playing at Old Trafford and the fans would love him.
“He has great courage on a football pitch; he always wants the ball in tight areas. His end product has improved and I think Jack would be ready for Man United.
“Having Kane here with him would guarantee goals.”
SEATTLE — When a U.S. Marshals task force killed a self-described antifa activist in Washington State in September, the Trump administration applauded the removal of a “violent agitator” who was suspected of murder. Last week, local investigators concluded a monthslong homicide inquiry with the announcement that the activist, Michael Reinoehl, had most likely fired at authorities first, effectively justifying the shooting.
But a review of investigation documents obtained by The New York Times suggests that investigators for the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office discounted key pieces of contradicting evidence that indicate Mr. Reinoehl may never have fired or pointed a gun.
While investigators found a spent bullet casing in the back seat of Mr. Reinoehl’s car, and pointed to that as evidence he probably fired his weapon, the handgun they recovered from Mr. Reinoehl had a full magazine, according to multiple photos compiled by Thurston County authorities showing Mr. Reinoehl’s handgun. The gun was found in his pocket.
The federally organized task force, made up primarily of local law enforcement officers from Washington, had been seeking to arrest Mr. Reinoehl for the Aug. 29 shooting death of a supporter of the far-right group Patriot Prayer during the summer’s raucous street protests over race and policing. The arrest operation quickly erupted into gunfire[1], and Mr. Reinoehl died in the street near his car in a residential neighborhood in Lacey, Wash.
The sheriff’s office in Thurston County, where the shooting occurred, was not part of the task force.
A photo released by the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office showing Mr. Reinoehl’s handgun with a full clip.Credit…Thurston County Sheriff’s Office
In announcing its conclusions, the sheriff’s office wrote that “witness statements indicate there was an exchange of gunfire, which was initiated by Reinoehl from inside his vehicle.” A spokesman, Lt. Cameron Simper, said that while investigators could not conclude for certain that Mr. Reinoehl had fired his weapon, he said it was “highly likely.”
But one of the witnesses that Thurston County investigators relied on to reach their conclusion that Mr. Reinoehl had fired his gun was an 8-year-old boy. His father, Garrett Louis, who had rushed to his son’s side at the time of the shooting, has consistently said he believed that officers opened fire first without shouting any warnings.
Of the two other witnesses who investigators cited to support the conclusion that Mr. Reinoehl fired his gun, one did not see it happen and the other was not sure.
Fred Langer, a lawyer representing Mr. Reinoehl’s family, said the law enforcement conclusions defy common sense.
“They are covering for themselves,” Mr. Langer said. “The physical evidence doesn’t support what they are saying.”
Mr. Reinoehl had been a consistent fixture at racial justice protests in Portland, Ore., last summer, carrying a gun as a volunteer security officer among the protesters and writing online that the protests were part of a war with the potential to “fix everything.” On Aug. 29, when a caravan of Trump supporters drove into downtown Portland, clashing with left-wing activists, Mr. Reinoehl was on the streets.
Mr. Reinoehl was a consistent fixture at racial justice protests in Portland, Ore., last summer.Credit…Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian, via Associated Press
Video footage shot by bystanders appears to show that Mr. Reinoehl approached Aaron J. Danielson, the Patriot Prayer supporter, as Mr. Danielson walked through the area with a can of bear repellent and an expandable baton. Mr. Reinoehl appears to have shot Mr. Danielson, killing him, before running into the night. He later claimed in an interview with Vice News that he had fired in self-defense.
Five days after the shooting, Portland police issued a warrant for Mr. Reinoehl’s arrest on suspicion of murder. The Pacific Northwest Violent Offender Task Force, whose local law enforcement officers were deputized as federal marshals, traced Mr. Reinoehl’s path up to Washington State and prepared a plan to take him into custody.
The investigation by Thurston County investigators that was obtained by The Times provided key new details, including witness statements, from their monthslong inquiry into the events preceding Mr. Reinoehl’s death.
Officers believed that Mr. Reinoehl had a .380-caliber handgun, an AR-style rifle and a shotgun, according to the accounts they gave to investigators. They said they had received information — apparently from an informant — that Mr. Reinoehl had said he would not be taken alive. Officers described their concern that Mr. Reinoehl was associated with “antifa,” the loose network of activists who have mobilized to confront far-right groups and protest law enforcement violence.
On Sept. 3, the officers took up surveillance positions near the apartment where Mr. Reinoehl was staying, according to their statements. Once on the scene, their chosen radio frequency only worked for a few officers, leaving the others unable to communicate.
Just before 7 p.m., the team watched as Mr. Reinoehl exited the apartment and headed toward his vehicle. Sgt. Erik Clarkson of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, a senior officer on the scene, told the others “to let him drive if no one was close enough to interdict him,” but his command was not heard as a result of the radio problem, according to his statement.
Officer Michael Merrill of the Lakewood Police Department decided to move in, and gunned his Ford Escape toward Mr. Reinoehl’s parked Volkswagen Jetta.
No video has emerged to show what transpired next, and a murky mix of sometimes contradictory information has been used to explain it. None of the officers wore a body camera, nor were cameras mounted on their vehicles. One of the officers on the scene, a deputy U.S. marshal named Ryan Kimmel who did not fire his weapon, declined to provide a statement during the investigation.
James Oleole, a Pierce County sheriff’s deputy in the passenger seat of Officer Merrill’s Ford Escape, said that as law enforcement vehicles pulled up and officers announced themselves, Mr. Reinoehl was in the driver’s seat of his Jetta and made moves with his arms “consistent with the moves that someone makes when they are attempting to grab a gun they have on their person.”
Although he did not see a gun, Deputy Oleole said, he began firing his AR-15 rifle through his own windshield at Mr. Reinoehl. Officer Merrill, thinking the glass shards from the windshield meant he was under fire, exited the Ford Escape, saw what he believed was Mr. Reinoehl reaching for a gun, and also opened fire. A third officer, also from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, had followed the others in an S.U.V. and blocked Mr. Reinoehl’s Jetta from an angle. Also believing that Mr. Reinoehl was reaching for a gun, he opened fire with his 9-millimeter handgun.
As the officers unleashed a hail of bullets, a total of 40 in all, Mr. Reinoehl exited the Jetta, shielding himself, and ran for cover behind a truck parked behind him. The three officers reported that he was continuously reaching around his waistband or pocket. A Washington State Department of Corrections officer, who had arrived in a third vehicle, saw Mr. Reinoehl round the rear of the truck and begin to pull “a small dark item” from his pocket. That officer also fired, and Mr. Reinoehl fell.
Although no officer said Mr. Reinoehl shot at them, and only one described him raising something that might have been a gun, investigators concluded that Mr. Reinoehl had most likely fired a shot — pointing to a spent shell casing they found in the back seat of the Jetta that matched the .380-caliber handgun found in his pocket.
Investigators never found a bullet matching it amid the dozens sprayed around the scene, and all of the gunshots that pierced the Jetta’s front windshield were determined to be incoming rounds fired by officers. Lieutenant Simper of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office said it was possible that Mr. Reinoehl fired through an open passenger-side window.
The final report also does not address the fact that the handgun’s six-round magazine was still full when officers recovered it. Lieutenant Simper said it was possible that Mr. Reinoehl had loaded an extra round in the chamber before firing and that the gun had malfunctioned and failed to load a round from the magazine after he took a shot.
To reach their conclusion that Mr. Reinoehl fired his gun, investigators also cited the accounts of three witnesses. One of them, Chad Smith, had initially told journalists that he saw Mr. Reinoehl shooting at officers but later said he did not see Mr. Reinoehl shooting. He reported to investigators that he believed that Mr. Reinoehl shot first because the first shot he heard sounded less powerful than later ones.
Another witness told investigators he believed there was an exchange of gunfire. The man, who asked not to be identified publicly, said in an interview on Friday that he could not be sure Mr. Reinoehl had fired a weapon.
Mr. Louis’s 8-year-old son told officers that Mr. Reinoehl was shooting at the agents. But when asked what kind of gun Mr. Reinoehl fired, he described it as “big” and “two-handed,” a description that did not match Mr. Reinoehl’s pocket-size handgun.
Mr. Louis said his children were taught that police officers were “heroes” but that the investigator who interviewed his son had phrased his questions in a way that prompted the boy to say that Mr. Reinoehl had fired his weapon.
“He initially told me for the first 24 hours that he didn’t know that guy had a weapon,” he said.
Pfizer and BioNTech said on Thursday[1] that a recent trial suggests that protection from the companies’ COVID-19 vaccine lasts at least six months, and may also be effective against the coronavirus variant first found in South Africa.
The companies in a press release said data from a 12,000 person trial in South Africa, where the B.1.351 strain is prevalent,found that their vaccine was 100 percent effective at preventing cases of the disease.
The variant has raised concerns across the world, as it has proved to be resistant to some of the protections generated by therapeutics and vaccines.
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The trial also found that safety and efficacy of the vaccine hold up over time. There were no serious safety concerns observed in trial participants six months after being immunized, and overall effectiveness was more than 91 percent against disease with any symptoms for six months, the companies said.
“These data confirm the favorable efficacy and safety profile of our vaccine and position us to submit a Biologics License Application to the U.S. FDA,” Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement. “The high vaccine efficacy observed through up to six months following a second dose and against the variant prevalent in South Africa provides further confidence in our vaccine’s overall effectiveness.”
The data have yet to be peer-reviewed and published, but the companies said that they plan on submitting their findings to regulatory agencies around the world soon. Pfizer has said they aim to file for full approval in April. The vaccine is currently available under an emergency use authorization.
“It is an important step to further confirm the strong efficacy and good safety data we have seen so far, especially in a longer-term follow-up,” Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech, said. “These data also provide the first clinical results that a vaccine can effectively protect against currently circulating variants, a critical factor to reach herd immunity and end this pandemic for the global population.”
In the U.S., nearly 77 million doses of the Pfizer and BioNTech coronavirus vaccine have been administered, making it the most widely used coronavirus vaccine.
