A Shanghai hospital has told its staff to prepare for a “tragic battle” with COVID-19 as it expects half of the city’s 25 million people to get infected by the end of the year while the virus sweeps through China largely unchecked.

After widespread protests and a relentless rise in cases, China this month took an abrupt shift in policies and began dismantling its “zero-COVID” regime, which has taken a great financial and psychological toll on its 1.4 billion people.

Still, China’s official death count since the pandemic began three years ago stands at 5,241 – a fraction of what most other countries faced.

China reported no new COVID deaths for a second consecutive day for Dec. 21, even as funeral parlour workers say demand has jumped in the past week, pushing fees higher.

Authorities – who have narrowed the criteria for COVID deaths, prompting criticism from many disease experts – confirmed 389,306 cases with symptoms.

Some experts say official figures have become an unreliable guide as less testing is being done across China following the easing of restrictions.

The Shanghai Deji Hospital, posting on its official WeChat account late on Wednesday, estimated there were about 5.43 million positives in the city and that 12.5 million in China’s main commercial hub will get infected by the end of the year.

“This year’s Christmas Eve, New Year’s Day, and the Lunar New Year are destined to be unsafe,” the hospital said.

“In this tragic battle, the entire Greater Shanghai will fall, and we will infect all the staff of the hospital! We will infect the whole family! Our patients will all be infected! We have no choice, and we cannot escape.”

Shanghai residents endured a two-month lockdown which ended on June 1, with many losing income and having poor access to basic necessities. Hundreds died and hundreds of thousands were infected during those two months.

Experts say China could face more than a million COVID deaths next year, given relatively low full vaccination rates among its vulnerable elderly population.

China’s vaccination rate is above 90%, but the rate for adults who have received booster shots drops to 57.9%, and to 42.3% for people aged 80 and above, government data shows.

At a hospital in Beijing, footage from state television CCTV showed rows of elderly patients in the intensive care unit breathing through oxygen masks. It was unclear how many had COVID.

The deputy director of the hospital’s emergency department, Han Xue, told CCTV they were receiving 400 patients a day, four times more than usual.

“These patients are all elderly people who have underlying diseases, fever and respiratory infection, and they are in a very serious condition,” Han said.

The head of the World Health Organization said it is concerned about the spike in infections and is supporting the government to focus on vaccinating those at the highest risk.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters the agency needed more detailed information on disease severity, hospital admissions and requirements for intensive care units for a comprehensive assessment.

China’s policy U-turn caught a fragile health system unprepared, with hospitals scrambling for beds and blood, pharmacies for drugs and authorities racing to build special clinics.

Smaller cities away from the affluent eastern and southern coast are particularly vulnerable. Tongchuan, a city of 700,000 in the northwestern Shaanxi province, called on Wednesday for all medical workers who retired in the past five years to join the battle against COVID.

“Medical institutions at all levels in the city are under great pressure,” it said in a public notice.

State media said local governments were trying to tackle drug shortages, while pharmaceutical companies were working extra-time to boost supplies.

Cities across the country were distributing millions of ibuprofen tablets to medical institutions and retail pharmacies, according to a report in the state-run Global Times.

Germany said it has sent its first batch of BioNTech (22UAy.DE) COVID vaccines to China to be administered initially to German expatriates. Berlin is pushing for other foreign nationals to be allowed to take them.

These would be the first mRNA vaccines, seen as most efficient against the disease, available in China.

China has nine domestically-developed COVID vaccines approved for use.

Some Chinese experts predict the COVID wave to peak in late January, with life likely to return to normal by late February or early March.

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NEW YORK — Two of Sam Bankman-Fried’s top associates secretly pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX and are cooperating with investigators, a federal prosecutor announced Wednesday as the digital coin entrepreneur was being flown in FBI custody to the U.S. from the Bahamas.

Read More: Where Did FTX’s Missing $8 Billion Go? Crypto Investigators Offer New Clues

Carolyn Ellison, the 28-year-old former CEO of Alameda Research, a trading firm started by Bankman-Fried, and Gary Wang, the 29-year-old who co-founded FTX, pleaded guilty to charges including wire fraud, securities fraud and commodities fraud.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

“They are both cooperating with the Southern District of New York,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Wednesday night in a video statement released on social media.

He added that anyone else who participated in the fraud should reach out to his office because “our patience is not eternal” and further criminal charges against others were possible.

The surprise guilty pleas were announced as Bankman-Fried was being extradited from the Bahamas by U.S. law enforcement to answer to charges tied to his role in FTX’s failure. He was expected to appear in a federal court in New York City on Thursday.

Before Bankman-Fried was in the air, U.S. prosecutors hadn’t publicly revealed that Ellison and Wang were facing potential criminal charges or that they had pledged to work with investigators.

It was unclear whether Bankman-Fried, who has apologized for FTX’s collapse but denied defrauding anyone, was also in the dark.

Ellison and Wang signed plea agreements on Dec. 19, partially in exchange for a promise that prosecutors would recommend a reduction in their sentences if they cooperate fully in the investigation.

Without such a deal, Ellison, who also faces a money laundering conspiracy charge, could face up to 110 years in prison. Wang could get up to 50 years.

Both were released on $250,000 bail after their secret court appearances with travel restricted to the continental United States.

“Gary has accepted responsibility for his actions and takes seriously his obligations as a cooperating witness,” said Wang’s lawyer, Ilan Graff.

A lawyer for Ellison did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

In a parallel civil complaint filed Wednesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Wang and Ellison were “active participants” in what it said was Bankman-Fried’s scheme to defraud FTX investors and swindle its customers.

Wang created the software code that allowed Alameda to divert FTX customer funds. Ellison then used the misappropriated funds for Alameda’s trading activity, the SEC said.

Bahamian authorities arrested Bankman-Fried last week at the request of the U.S. government. U.S. prosecutors allege he played a central role in the rapid collapse of FTX and hid its problems from the public and investors.

The SEC and prosecutors said Bankman-Fried illegally siphoned off customer deposits on the FTX platform and used it to enable Alameda’s trading, buy real estate and make huge campaign donations to U.S. politicians.

The 30-year-old could potentially spend the rest of his life in jail.

Bankman-Fried was initially denied bail by a Bahamian judge. The founder and former CEO of FTX, once worth tens of billions of dollars on paper, was then held in the Bahamas’ Fox Hill prison, which has been cited by human rights activists as having poor sanitation and as being infested with rats and insects.

On Wednesday, Bahamian Attorney General Ryan Pinder said Bankman-Fried had agreed to be transferred to the U.S.

Reporters witnessed Bankman-Fried leaving a Magistrate Court in Nassau in a dark SUV earlier Wednesday after waiving his right to challenge the extradition.

At his initial appearance in a U.S. courtroom, Bankman-Fried’s attorney will be able to request that he be released on bail.

Bankman-Fried was one of the world’s wealthiest people on paper, with an estimated net worth of $32 billion. He was a prominent personality in Washington, donating millions of dollars toward mostly left-leaning political causes and Democratic political campaigns. FTX grew to become the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.

He has said that he did not “knowingly” misuse customers’ funds, and said he believes his millions of angry customers will eventually be made whole.

At a congressional hearing last week, the new FTX CEO John Ray III, who is tasked with taking the company through bankruptcy, bluntly disputed those assertions: “We will never get all these assets back,” Ray said.

South Korea and the United States are considering staging their first large-scale joint live-fire demonstration in six years in 2023 amid North Korea’s growing military threats, Seoul’s defence ministry said on Thursday.

The drills have been floated as South Korea and the United States discuss preparations for the 70th anniversary of their alliance next year, ministry spokesperson Jeon Ha-gyu said.

“Marking that occasion, we are exploring various ways to showcase our military’s presence and the alliance’s overwhelming deterrence capabilities against North Korea,” Jeon told a regular briefing.

“A combined joint live-fire demonstration can be one of the options.”

The demonstration would be another joint display of force to be resumed following a years-long hiatus under new South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who pledged to bolster military capabilities and readiness to deter North Korea’s weapons development.

On Tuesday, the United States flew its F-22 Raptor stealth fighters for joint drills with South Korea for the first time since 2018, hours after North Korea criticised both countries and vowed more missile tests.

In September, the allies staged their first exercises with a U.S. aircraft carrier since 2018.

Such exercises were halted under Yoon’s predecessor, Moon Jae-in, who had prioritised engagement with the North, which denounced them as a rehearsal for invasion.

North Korea has tested an unprecedented number of missiles this year, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) designed to strike the U.S. mainland. It has also completed preparations for what would be its first nuclear test since 2017, Seoul and Washington officials said.

A Shanghai hospital has told its staff to prepare for a “tragic battle” with COVID-19 as it expects half of the city’s 25 million people to get infected by the end of the year while the virus sweeps through China largely unchecked.

After widespread protests and a relentless rise in cases, China this month took an abrupt shift in policies and began dismantling its “zero-COVID” regime, which has taken a great financial and psychological toll on its 1.4 billion people.

Still, China’s official death count since the pandemic began in early 2020 stands at 5,241 – a fraction of what most other countries faced.

China reported no new COVID deaths for a second consecutive day for Dec. 21, even as funeral parlour workers say demand has jumped in the past week, pushing fees higher.

Authorities, who have narrowed the criteria for COVID deaths, confirmed 389,306 cases with symptoms.

Some experts say official figures have become an unreliable guide as less testing is being done across China following the easing of restrictions.

The Shanghai Deji Hospital, posting on its official WeChat account late on Wednesday, estimated there were about 5.43 million positives in the city and that 12.5 million in China’s main commercial hub will get infected by the end of the year.

“This year’s Christmas Eve, New Year’s Day, and the Lunar New Year are destined to be unsafe,” the hospital said.

“In this tragic battle, the entire Greater Shanghai will fall, and we will infect all the staff of the hospital! We will infect the whole family! Our patients will all be infected! We have no choice, and we cannot escape.”

In an effort to prevent the virus from letting rip across China, Shanghai residents endured a two-month lockdown which ended on June 1, with many losing income and having poor access to basic necessities. Hundreds died and hundreds of thousands were infected during those two months.

Experts say China could face more than a million COVID deaths next year.

The head of the World Health Organization said it is concerned about the spike in infections and is supporting the government to focus on vaccinating those at the highest risk.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters the agency needed more detailed information on disease severity, hospital admissions and requirements for intensive care units for a comprehensive assessment.

China’s policy U-turn caught a fragile health system unprepared, with hospitals scrambling for beds and blood, pharmacies for drugs and authorities racing to build special clinics.

Smaller cities away from the affluent eastern and southern coast are particularly vulnerable. Tongchuan, a city of 700,000 in the northwestern Shaanxi province, called on Wednesday for all medical workers who retired in the past five years to join the battle against COVID.

“Medical institutions at all levels in the city are under great pressure,” it said in a public notice.

State media said local governments were trying to tackle drug shortages, while pharmaceutical companies were working extra-time to boost supplies.

Dongguan, a sprawling city in southern China, said a total of 100,000 ibuprofen tablets had arrived in the city, and will be distributed to 41 state drug stores this week, before being made available for free, the Global Times reported.

In Wuhan, the central city where the virus was first discovered in late 2019, 3 million ibuprofen tablets have been supplied to medical institutions and retail pharmacies each day since Dec. 17, the report said.

Authorities in Sanya on the southern Hainan island have lined up 18 pharmacies to distribute free drugs, while pharmacies in Zhoukou are giving as many as 10 free tablets a day to residents who present an ID card.

mRNA VACCINES FOR GERMANS

Germany said it has sent its first batch of BioNTech (22UAy.DE) COVID vaccines to China to be administered initially to German expatriates. Berlin is pushing for other foreign nationals to be allowed to take them.

These would be the first mRNA vaccines, seen as most efficient against the disease, available in China.

China has nine domestically-developed COVID vaccines approved for use.

Some Chinese experts predict the COVID wave to peak in late January, with life likely to return to normal by late February or early March.

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Caroline Ellison.

Screenshot from Caroline Ellison’s Twitter, @carolinecapital

• Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, is facing up to 110 years in prison.
• Per her plea deal, Ellison has pleased guilty to seven charges, including wire, securities, and commodities fraud.
• She has also agreed to pay restitution of an amount to be determined by the courts.

Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, faces a maximum sentence of 110 years in prison after striking a plea deal with the Department of Justice.

That’s according to Ellison’s plea agreement with prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, dated December 18.

According to the plea agreement, Ellison faces seven charges that collectively carry a maximum prison sentence of 110 years. These include conspiracy to commit wire fraud, securities fraud, and commodities fraud. She also faces a charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Ellison has agreed to waive any defenses to the charges. Per her deal with prosecutors, she also agrees to make restitution, the amount of which the courts will determine.

As part of her plea deal, Ellison must cooperate fully with prosecutors, the FBI, and any other law enforcement agencies. She must also provide documents, records, and evidence to prosecutors, and testify to a grand jury or at court trials when requested.

A lawyer for Ellison did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

Ellison was FTX cofounder Sam Bankman-Fried’s on-off girlfriend. She was the chief of Alameda Research, the trading firm Bankman-Fried launched. Also working with Bankman-Fried and Ellison at Alameda Research was FTX cofounder Gary Wang.

Wang, like Ellison, has pleaded guilty to fraud, per a Wednesday announcement from the US attorney for the Southern District of New York. 

In November, Reuters reported that Bankman-Fried secretly moved $10 billion in customer funds from FTX to Alameda Research. A large chunk of that money has gone missing, Reuters’ sources said, pegging the amount between $1 and $2 billion. 

Bankman-Fried told Reuters that he “disagreed with the characterization” of the $10 billion transfer.

“We didn’t secretly transfer,” he told Reuters in text messages at the time. “We had confusing internal labeling and misread it.”

On Wednesday night, Bankman-Fried was extradited from the Bahamas and landed back in the US.

FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11 after it imploded, decimating billions in customer funds overnight. Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO the same day.

A fair in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, where homeownership costs less than 15% of a typical annual paycheck.

MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images/Contributor

• Nearly every US county is less affordable today than its historical average, according to Attom.
• There are places where a typical wage earner still won’t bust his housing budget, however.
• Here are five counties where homeowners should have plenty of money to live on, after housing.

Homeownership is not impossible everywhere. 

Despite the fact that median-priced homes in 99% of US counties are now less affordable than their historical averages, there are some beautiful places in the northern part of the country where just 15% of a typical income is needed for housing payments, according to a new report from housing data company Attom.

If you’re planning on moving to these counties you’ll be surrounded by nature: from the lakes, rivers and streams of upstate New York to the forests and parks of Illinois. But you’ll definitely have to buy a good winter coat — temperatures in all five of these counties drop below freezing between December and March. 

Still, these Attom findings are refreshing at a time when homeownership can feel impossible due to high prices and mortgage rates. The affordability crisis is especially severe in places like luxe Marin County, California, where the typical home payment takes nearly 110% of annualized weekly wages, and tropical Maui County, Hawaii, where the typical worker would need to put 104% of their income to housing costs, the data show.

Those numbers are staggering against recommendations cited by Insider’s personal finance team. Its research suggests that people should spend no more than 30% of their salaries on housing costs.

But for those that live and work in places like Canton, a college town in upstate New York, or Pottsville, in Pennsylvania’s coal region, owning a home at a reasonable cost should be within reach.

5. Cambria County, Pennsylvania

Percent of wages needed to afford a home: 14.1% 

Typical annual wage: $44,746

Typical mortgage payment per month: $525

 

4. St. Lawrence County, New York

Percent of wages needed to afford a home: 13.6% 

Typical annual wage: $55,172

Typical mortgage payment per month: $623

 

3. Peoria County, Illinois 

Percent of wages needed to afford a home: 13.5% 

Typical annual wage: $69,238

Typical mortgage payment per month: $780

 

2. Schuylkill County Pennsylvania 

Percent of wages needed to afford a home: 12.8% 

Typical annual wage: $50,336

Typical mortgage payment per month: $536

 

1. Macon County, Illinois 

Percent of wages needed to afford a home: 12%

Typical annual wage: $62,686

Typical mortgage payment per month: $625

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the U.S. Congress that aid to Ukraine was an investment in democracy and “not charity” as he invoked American battles against the Nazis in World War Two to press for more assistance for his country’s war effort.

Zelenskiy’s comments on Wednesday come as Republicans – some of whom have voiced increasing scepticism about sending so much aid to Ukraine – are set to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives from Democrats on Jan. 3.

Some hardline Republicans have even urged an end to aid and an audit to trace how allocated money has been spent.

“Your money is not charity. It is an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way,” Zelenskiy told a joint session of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, speaking in English.

The world is too interconnected to allow any country to stand aside and feel safe, Zelenskiy said as he appealed for bipartisan support.

Earlier, Zelenskiy, wearing his trademark olive green trousers and sweater on his first foreign wartime visit, met President Joe Biden, who called for support to keep flowing in 2023.

The United States also announced another $1.85 billion in military aid for Ukraine, including a Patriot air defence system to help it ward off barrages of Russian missiles.

Zelenskiy said the Patriot system was an important step in creating an air shield.

“This is the only way that we can deprive the terrorist state of its main instrument of terror – the possibility to hit our cities, our energy,” Zelenskiy told a White House news conference, standing next to Biden.

“We would like to get more Patriots … we are in war,” Zelenskiy told reporters at the White House.

Russia says it launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine in February to rid it of nationalists and protect Russian-speaking communities. Ukraine and the West describe Russia’s actions as an unprovoked war of aggression.

Ukraine has come under repeated Russian strikes targeting its energy infrastructure in recent weeks, leaving millions without power or running water in the dead of a freezing winter.

TASS news agency cited Russia’s U.S. ambassador as saying that Zelenskiy’s visit confirmed that U.S. statements about not wanting a conflict with Russia were empty words.

America’s provocative actions in Ukraine were leading to an escalation the consequences of which were impossible to imagine, TASS cited Anatoly Antonov as saying.

Russia said last week, Patriot systems, if delivered to Ukraine, would be a legitimate target for Russian strikes.

Zelenskiy joined a long list of world leaders to address joint meetings of the U.S. Senate and House, a tradition that began in 1874 with a visit by Hawaiian King Kalakaua and included almost legendary wartime visits by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, kings, queens and one pope.

House members and senators from both parties leaped to their feet to cheer parts of Zelenskiy’s speech as he likened his country’s battle to World War Two and even the American Revolution.

Referencing former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who served between 1933 and 1945, and efforts to liberate Europe from Nazi occupation, Zelenskiy appealed to Americans as they gathered with family for Christmas.

“Just like the brave American soldiers, which held their lines and fought back Hitler’s forces during the Christmas of 1944, brave Ukrainian soldiers are doing the same to Putin’s forces this Christmas,” he said.

Congress is on the verge of approving an additional $44.9 billion in emergency military and economic assistance, on top of some $50 billion already sent to Ukraine this year as Europe’s biggest land conflict since World War Two drags on.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Washington was seeing no sign that Russian President Vladimir Putin was willing to engage in peacemaking.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said more Western arms supplies to Ukraine would lead to a “deepening” of the conflict.

Zelenskiy said a “just peace” with Russia meant no compromises on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Russian forces attacked targets in the Zaporizhzhia region and pushed to advance near the battered eastern front-line towns of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, the focal point of fighting in the Donetsk region, Ukraine’s military said on Wednesday evening.

The commander of Ukraine’s “Freedom” battalion, Petro Kuzyk, helping to defend Bakhmut, told the website of Espreso TV: “Each day, there are anywhere from seven to 10 attempts to storm our positions. And it’s the same at night.”

“They won’t be able to take Bakhmut, but if they take the heights above it and set up their artillery and cut our logistical arteries, that will make the situation much more difficult,” Kuzyk said.

Putin has promised to give his military whatever it needs to prosecute the war nearing the end of its 10th month and backed a plan to boost the size of the armed forces by more than 30%.

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