Month: December 2020

Authorities in Pakistan suspended seven senior officers at a government hospital Monday after an inquiry found their “criminal negligence” resulted in the disruption of oxygen supply to the facility, killing six coronavirus patients.   The deaths occurred the previous day in Peshawar, capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, as the country of about 220 million people battles a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.   “The incident took place due to system failure” said the inquiry report, noting that patient care “badly suffered” in Khyber Teaching Hospital, the city’s largest. The report found that at the time of incident 90 patients were admitted in the coronavirus isolation ward who were left for hours without sufficient oxygen.     The depletion of oxygen supply “went unnoticed, unsupervised and unchecked” and there had been no backup supply system put in place. Provincial Health Minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra told reporters that the government will hold a second inquiry over the next five days.     The hospital director was among those suspended.   Pakistan has reported more than 420,000 COVID-19 infections, with about 8,400 deaths since the pandemic hit the country in late February. The number of cases dropped dramatically in mid-July to several hundred a day.     But the number of people contracting the virus has rapidly increased in the past two months. Officials said they had documented nearly 3,800 new cases in the last 24 hours across Pakistan, with 37 deaths. The national positivity rate stood at almost 10 …

Six months ago, Apple and Google introduced a new smartphone tool designed to notify people who might have been exposed to the coronavirus, without disclosing any personal information. But for the most part, Americans haven’t been all that interested. Fewer than half of U.S. states and territories — 18 in total — have made such technology widely available. And according to a data analysis by The Associated Press, the vast majority of Americans in such locations haven’t activated the tool. Data from 16 states, Guam and the District of Columbia shows that 8.1 million people had utilized the technology as of late November. That’s about one in 14 of the 110 million residents in those regions. In theory, such apps could bolster one of the most difficult tasks in pandemic control: Tracing the contacts of people infected with the coronavirus in order to test and isolate them if necessary. In practice, however, widespread COVID-19 misinformation, the complexity of the technology, overwhelmed health workers needed to quickly confirm a diagnosis, and a general lack of awareness have all presented obstacles, experts and users say. “There’s a lot of things working against it,” said Jessica Vitak, an associate professor at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies. “Unfortunately, in the U.S., COVID has been politicized far more than in any other country. I think that’s affecting people’s willingness to use tools to track it.” Charlotte, North Carolina, lawyer Evan Metaxatos was thrilled to learn in November about his state’s tracking app, …

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden named his top health care officials on Monday, tapping former Congressman Xavier Becerra as his Health and Human Services chief to lead the country’s fight to curb the surging coronavirus pandemic and oversee millions of vaccinations against it in the coming months.  FILE – California Attorney General Xavier Becerra speaks during a news conference in Sacramento, California, March 5, 2019.Becerra currently is attorney general for the western state of California who led the defense last month in the U.S. Supreme Court against a conservative bid to overturn the country’s Affordable Care Act, in a case yet to be decided. During his 24 years as a congressman in the House of Representatives, Becerra worked to win approval for the national health care law that has provided insurance coverage to millions of Americans.   In addition, Biden picked Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, as his chief medical adviser on COVID-19. Biden also asked Fauci to continue in his longtime role as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.   Fauci, 79, has served as a medical adviser to six U.S. presidents and for months has been the face of the U.S. government’s response to the pandemic.     In the months before the presidential election, President Donald Trump grew increasingly peeved at Fauci’s grim assessments of the spread of the virus and sidelined him in favor of more upbeat commentary.  FILE – Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of …

Britain is on the eve of launching a COVID-19 vaccination campaign.   Staffers with the nation’s National Health Service, nursing home residents and their caregivers on Tuesday will begin to receive the first of two doses of a vaccine jointly developed by U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech.  The initiative will start nearly a week after the government’s medical regulatory agency granted emergency approval for the vaccine, making Britain the first western nation ready to begin mass inoculations.  The approval came weeks after Pfizer announced the vaccine had been shown to be over 90% effective after its final, widespread clinical trial. The entrance to the Pfizer UK headquarters is seen in Tadworth, Britain, Dec. 2, 2020.Britain received 800,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine Sunday, the first of a total of 40 million it has purchased. Delivery of the vaccine is complicated by the fact that it must be stored in super-cold refrigerators at temperatures below 70 degrees Celsius.   British news outlets reported Sunday that 94-year-old Queen Elizabeth II and her 99-year-old husband, Prince Philip, will announce when they are to receive the vaccine, hoping to reassure the British public of its safety.  FILE – A research scientist works inside a laboratory of India’s Serum Institute, the world’s largest maker of vaccines, which is working on vaccines against COVID-19 in Pune, India, May 18, 2020.In a separate development, the Serum Institute of India has applied for emergency use of a COVID-19 vaccine under development by British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca in collaboration with …

At least one person has died and 200 others have been hospitalized due to an unidentified illness in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, reports said Monday. The illness was detected Saturday evening in Eluru, an ancient city famous for its hand-woven products. Since then, patients have experienced symptoms ranging from nausea and anxiety to loss of consciousness, doctors said. A 45-year-old man who was hospitalized with symptoms similar to epilepsy and nausea died Sunday evening, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. Officials are trying to determine the cause of the illness. So far, water samples from impacted areas haven’t shown any signs of contamination and patients have tested negative for COVID-19. State chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy visited a government hospital and met patients who were ill. Opposition leader N. Chandrababu Naidu demanded on Twitter an “impartial, full-fledged inquiry into the incident.” Andhra Pradesh state is among those worst hit by COVID-19, with over 800,000 detected cases. The health system in the state, like the rest of India, has been frayed by the virus. …

President-elect Joe Biden has picked California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be his health secretary, putting a defender of the Affordable Care Act in a leading role to oversee his administration’s coronavirus response.  Separately, Biden picked a Harvard infectious disease expert, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  If confirmed by the Senate, Becerra, 62, will be the first Latino to head the Department of Health and Human Services, a $1-trillion-plus agency with 80,000 employees and a portfolio that includes drugs and vaccines, leading-edge medical research and health insurance programs covering more than 130 million Americans. Biden’s selection of Becerra was confirmed by two people familiar with the decision, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement anticipated Tuesday. Two people also anonymously confirmed the choice of Walensky. The post of CDC director does not require Senate confirmation. Becerra, as the state of California’s top lawyer, has led the coalition of Democratic states defending Obamacare, as the Affordable Care Act is often called, from the Trump administration’s latest effort to overturn it, a legal case awaiting a Supreme Court decision next year.  A former senior House Democrat, Becerra was involved in steering the Obama health law through Congress in 2009 and 2010. At the time he would tell reporters that one of his primary motivations was having tens of thousands of uninsured people in his Southern California district.  Becerra has a lawyer’s precise approach to analyzing problems and a calm demeanor. But overseeing the coronavirus response …

President-elect Joe Biden has picked California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be his health secretary, putting a defender of the Affordable Care Act in a leading role to oversee his administration’s coronavirus response.  If confirmed by the Senate, Becerra, 62, will be the first Latino to head the Department of Health and Human Services, a $1-trillion-plus agency with 80,000 employees and a portfolio that includes drugs and vaccines, leading-edge medical research and health insurance programs covering more than 130 million Americans.As California’s attorney general, Becerra has led the coalition of Democratic states defending Obamacare, as the Affordable Care Act is often known, from the Trump administration’s latest effort to overturn it, a legal case awaiting a Supreme Court decision next year.  A former senior House Democrat, Becerra played a role in steering the Obama health law through Congress in 2009 and 2010. At the time he would tell reporters that one of the primary motivations for him was having tens of thousands of uninsured people in his Southern California district.Overseeing the coronavirus response likely will be the most complicated task Becerra will have. By next year, the U.S. will be engaged in a mass vaccination campaign, the groundwork for which has been laid under the Trump administration. Although the vaccines appear very promising, and no effort has been spared to plan for their distribution, it’s impossible to tell yet how well things will go when it’s time to get shots in the arms of millions of Americans.The core components of …

The Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine against the coronavirus must be stored at extremely cold temperatures, raising some concerns about the difficult task of moving it across the United States for inoculations. But dry ice companies across the U.S. say they’re up for the challenge. Esha Sarai spoke with one such company in Baltimore, Maryland. …

Wood and charcoal burning account for 50% of household energy consumption in Senegal, contributing to air pollution and deforestation. To reduce ecological damage, an association called Nebeday, which means “tree” in Wolof, the predominant local language in Senegal, hires villagers to produce biochar. Estelle Ndjandjo reports from Dakar.Camera: Estelle Ndjandjo …

Wood and charcoal burning account for 50% of Senegal’s household energy consumption, contributing to air pollution and deforestation. To reduce ecological damage, an association called Nebeday, which means “tree” in Wolof, the predominant local language in Senegal, hires villagers to produce an innovative energy alternative. Half of Senegal’s households rely on wood or wood charcoal. To combat air pollution and deforestation, a cooperative of women produce biochar, an energy source made from straw. They burn it and mix the charred straw with clay and water. The end result is a carbon-neutral organic charcoal that does not involve chopping down trees. The mixture is pressed and stored, resulting in about 150 pallets of biochar per day. The initiative is diversifying the economy of a rural region where many eke out a living from livestock and fishing. Mariama Camara is head of the local women’s cooperative. She used to chop trees in the forest, but now biochar production provides her a sustainable job. She says that first of all, this biochar protects the forest, it protects their homes, it protects their supplies, it protects women, it protects the forest that no longer burns, it protects their lives. “It is healthy, and thanks God for this,” she said. Biochar production has been launched in 18 villages in the region by the Nebeday ecological association, a name that means “tree” in the Wolof language. To fight deforestation, the group also plants trees in big cities and small villages alike. Since the beginning of the year, they have planted more than a …

Wood and charcoal burning account for 50% of household energy consumption in Senegal, contributing to air pollution and deforestation. To reduce ecological damage, an association called Nebeday, which means “tree” in Wolof, the predominant local language in Senegal , hires villagers to produce biochar. Estelle Ndjandjo reports from Dakar.Camera: Estelle Ndjandjo …

Wood and charcoal burning account for 50% of Senegal’s household energy consumption, contributing to air pollution and deforestation. To reduce ecological damage, an association called Nebeday, which means “tree” in Wolof, the predominant local language in Senegal, hires villagers to produce an innovative energy alternative. Half of Senegal’s households rely on wood or wood charcoal. To combat air pollution and deforestation, a cooperative of women produce biochar, an energy source made from straw. They burn it and mix the charred straw with clay and water. The end result is a carbon-neutral organic charcoal that does not involve chopping down trees. The mixture is pressed and stored, resulting in about 150 pallets of biochar per day. The initiative is diversifying the economy of a rural region where many eke out a living from livestock and fishing. Mariama Camara is head of the local women’s cooperative. She used to chop trees in the forest, but now biochar production provides her a sustainable job. She says that first of all, this biochar protects the forest, it protects their homes, it protects their supplies, it protects women, it protects the forest that no longer burns, it protects their lives. “It is healthy, and thanks God for this,” she said. Biochar production has been launched in 18 villages in the region by the Nebeday ecological association, a name that means “tree” in the Wolof language. To fight deforestation, the group also plants trees in big cities and small villages alike. Since the beginning of the year, they have planted more than a …

Japanese space officials said they are excited about the return of a capsule that safely landed in Australian Outback on Sunday while carrying soil samples from a distant asteroid so they can start analyzing what they say are treasures inside.The capsule’s delivery by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft completes its six-year sample-return mission and opens the door for research into finding clues to the origin of the solar system and life on Earth.”We were able to land the treasure box” onto the sparsely populated Australian desert of Woomera as planned, said Yuichi Tsuda, Hayabusa2 project manager at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, adding that the capsule was in perfect shape. “I really look forward to opening it and looking inside.”The capsule will be packed in a container as soon as its preliminary treatment at an Australian lab is finished and brought back to Japan this week, Satoru Nakazawa, a project sub-manager, said during an online news conference from Woomera.Hayabusa2 left the asteroid Ryugu, about 300 million kilometers (180 million miles) from Earth, a year ago. After it released the capsule on Saturday, it set off on a new expedition to another distant asteroid.Scientists say they believe the samples, especially ones taken from under the asteroid’s surface, contain valuable data unaffected by space radiation and other environmental factors. They are particularly interested in organic materials in the samples to find out how the materials are distributed in the solar system and related to life on Earth.”We have high expectations that the …

When children and teens are overwhelmed with anxiety, depression or thoughts of self-harm, they often wait days in emergency rooms because there aren’t enough psychiatric beds in the U.S.The problem has only grown worse during the pandemic, reports from parents and professionals suggest.With schools closed, routines disrupted and parents anxious over lost income or uncertain futures, children are shouldering new burdens many are unequipped to bear.And with surging numbers of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, bed space is even scarcer.By early fall, many ERs in the northeastern state of Massachusetts were seeing about four times more children and teens in psychiatric crisis than usual, said Ralph Buonopane, a mental health program director at Franciscan Hospital for Children in Boston.”I’ve been director of this program for 21 years and worked in child psychiatric services since the 1980s, and it is very much unprecedented,” Buonopane said. His hospital receives ER transfers from around the state.While ER visits for many health reasons other than COVID-19 declined early in the pandemic as people avoided hospitals, the share that were for kids’ mental health-related visits climbed steadily from mid-April through October, according to a recent federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. Of the kids who showed up, more were for mental health than in the same period last year, although that might reflect that others stayed away, the authors cautioned.Claire Brennan Tillberg’s 11-year-old daughter was one of those kids who sought care. The Massachusetts girl has autism, depression and anxiety, and has been hospitalized twice …

Coronavirus infections across the U.S. continue to rise as the country moves deeper into a holiday season when eagerly anticipated gatherings of family and friends could push the numbers even higher and overwhelm hospitals.Vast swaths of southern and inland California imposed new restrictions on businesses and activities Saturday as hospitals in the nation’s most populous state face a dire shortage of beds. Restaurants must stop onsite dining, and theaters, hair salons and many other businesses must close in the sprawling reaches of San Diego and Los Angeles, along with part of the Central Valley.Five counties in the San Francisco Bay Area were set to impose their own lockdowns Sunday.A new daily high of nearly 228,000 additional confirmed COVID-19 cases was reported nationwide Friday, eclipsing the previous high mark of 217,000 cases set the day before, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.The seven-day rolling average of deaths attributable to COVID-19 in the U.S. passed 2,000 for the first time since spring, rising to 2,011. Two weeks ago, the seven-day average was 1,448. There were 2,607 deaths reported in the U.S. on Friday, according to Johns Hopkins.Johns Hopkins had previously reported Wednesday daily COVID-19 deaths at 3,157. That was later updated to 2,804 because of a change in numbers from Nevada, a spokesperson said Saturday.The U.S. set a new record Thursday with 2,879 COVID-19 deaths, according to the university’s coronavirus resource center.Much of the nation saw surging numbers in the week after Thanksgiving, when millions of Americans disregarded warnings to …

Scientists are seeing promising early results from the first studies testing gene editing for painful, inherited blood disorders that plague millions worldwide, especially Black people.Doctors hope the one-time treatment, which involves permanently altering DNA in blood cells with a tool called CRISPR, may treat and possibly cure sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia.Partial results were presented Saturday at an American Society of Hematology conference and some were published by The New England Journal of Medicine.Doctors described 10 patients who were at least several months removed from their treatment. All no longer needed regular blood transfusions and were free from the pain that plagued their lives before.Victoria Gray, the first patient in the sickle cell study, had long suffered bouts of severe pain that often sent her to the hospital.”I had aching pains, sharp pains, burning pains, you name it. That’s all I’ve known my entire life,” said Gray, 35, of Forest, Mississippi. “I was hurting everywhere my blood flowed.”Since her treatment a year ago, Gray has weaned herself from pain medications she depended on to manage her symptoms.”It’s something I prayed for my whole life,” she said. “I pray everyone has the same results I did.”Who’s affectedSickle cell affects millions, mostly Black people. Beta thalassemia strikes about one in 100,000 people. The only cure now is a bone marrow transplant from a closely matched donor without the disease, like a sibling, which most people don’t have.Both diseases involve mutations in a gene for hemoglobin, the substance in red blood cells …

Japan’s space agency said its helicopter search team has spotted a capsule carrying asteroid samples that could explain the origin of life. It landed on a remote area in southern Australia as planned Sunday.Hayabusa2 successfully released the small capsule Saturday and sent it toward Earth to deliver samples from the distant asteroid that could provide clues to the origin of the solar system and life on our planet, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said.Early Sunday, the capsule briefly turned into a fireball as it reentered the atmosphere 120 kilometers (75 miles) above Earth. About 10 kilometers (6 miles) above ground, a parachute opened to slow its fall, and beacon signals were transmitted to indicate its location.”It was great. … It was a beautiful fireball, and I was so impressed,” said JAXA’s Hayabusa2 project manager, Yuichi Tsuda, as he celebrated the successful capsule return and safe landing from a command center in Sagamihara, near Tokyo. “I’ve waited for this day for six years.”The capsule landed safely in a remote, sparsely populated area of Woomera, Australia, said JAXA official Akitaka Kishi.Searchers spot capsuleAbout two hours after the capsule’s reentry, JAXA said its helicopter search team found the capsule in the planned landing area. A retrieval of the pan-shaped capsule, about 40 centimeters (15 inches) in diameter, will start after the sunrise, Kishi said.The fireball could be seen from the International Space Station. Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, who is now on a six-month mission there, tweeted: “Just spotted #hayabusa2 from #ISS! Unfortunately not …

A Nigerian yellow fever outbreak detected early last month is worsening and causing many cases and deaths across five of the country’s 36 states.  The World Health Organization says 530 suspected cases, including 172 deaths, have been reported in Delta, Enugu, Benue and Ebonyi states in southern Nigeria and Bauchi in the north. Bringing this epidemic under control is difficult because Nigeria is facing     many simultaneous outbreaks of other infectious diseases, including Lassa fever, vaccine-derived polio virus, measles, monkey pox and cholera.    NigeriaWorld Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic says the northeast of the country is also facing a humanitarian crisis largely caused by Boko Haram militants.“The response is particularly challenging in a COVID-19 context because it requires an extraordinary amount of time and resources from the country’s health system,” said Jasarevic. “…National and state authorities are currently focused on the COVID-19 pandemic response, limiting the human resources required to conduct investigations and response activities for the yellow fever outbreaks.”   Nigeria has been battling successive yellow fever outbreaks since 2017.  The deadly disease is caused by a virus spread through the bite of infected Aedes aegypti mosquitos, which bite during the day.  Jasarevic says vaccination is of key importance in preventing outbreaks in high-risk countries.FILE – An Aedes aegypti mosquito.“In Nigeria, these efforts are based on the introduction of the yellow fever vaccine into the routine immunization program,” said Jasarevic. “This started in 2004, and also carrying preventive campaigns to rapidly increase protection.  But still the population, entire population of Nigeria has …

Japan’s space agency said the Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully separated a capsule and sent it toward Earth to deliver samples from a distant asteroid that could provide clues to the origin of the solar system and life on our planet.The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said the capsule successfully detached Saturday afternoon from 220,000 kilometers away in a challenging operation that required precision control. The capsule is now descending to land in a remote, sparsely populated area of Woomera, Australia, on Sunday.Hayabusa2 left the asteroid Ryugu a year ago. After releasing the capsule, it is now moving away from Earth to capture images of the capsule descending to the planet.Yuichi Tsuda, project manager at the space agency JAXA, stood up and raised his fists as everyone applauded the moment command center officials confirmed the successful separation of the capsule.Hayabusa2’s return with the world’s first asteroid subsurface samples comes weeks after NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made a successful touch-and-go grab of surface samples from asteroid Bennu. China, meanwhile, announced this week its lunar lander collected underground samples and sealed them within the spacecraft for return to Earth, as nations compete in space missions.Many Hayabusa2 fans gathered to observe the moment of the capsule separation at public viewing events across the country, including one at the Tokyo Dome stadium.In the early hours of Sunday, the capsule, protected by a heat shield, will briefly turn into a fireball as it reenters the atmosphere 120 kilometers above Earth. At about 10 kilometers above ground, a parachute will …

The California city of San Francisco and several Bay Area counties said Friday that they will begin imposing stay-at-home orders this weekend as part of their battle against the coronavirus.California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that the state was on the verge of imposing stay-at-home orders on a regional basis once intensive care units in the state’s five regions reached more than 85% capacity.San Francisco and the Bay Area counties, however, are not waiting for the hospital capacity threshold and are instead voluntarily opting into the state’s regional stay-at-home order.”We are in our worst surge yet of COVID-19. It is stressing health care systems across the state of California and taxing our health care workers,” Dr. Grant Colfax, San Francisco’s director of health, said Friday. “We need urgent intervention now if we want to be able to care for the sick in mid-to-late December. We do not want your parent, your spouse, your child, your grandparent or any loved one to be in need of help and our hospitals too overwhelmed to properly care for them.”FILE – California Street, usually filled with cable cars, is seen empty in San Francisco, Calif., on March 18, 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.Starting Sunday night, the order will close all outdoor dining, public outdoor playgrounds, outdoor museums, zoos and aquariums, drive-in theaters, and open-air tour buses and boats. Pet grooming and electronics or shoe repair, considered low-contact retail, will be allowed to operate on a curbside-dropoff basis. All other retail, including grocery stores, will …

U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law Friday a bill that lets U.S. justice officials pursue criminal penalties against those involved in doping conspiracies at international events involving American athletes, sponsors or broadcasters.The Rodchenkov Act, named after the whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov who helped expose Russia’s state-sponsored doping, empowers prosecutors to seek fines of up to $1 million and jail terms of up to 10 years, as well restitution to victims.”(The law gives) the Department of Justice a powerful and unique set of tools to eradicate doping fraud and related criminal activities from international competitions,” said Rodchenkov’s lawyer, Jim Walden, according to Inside the Games.It is now up to the Justice Department to develop a robust program, cooperating with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and international law enforcement, to bring the guilty to justice and create zero tolerance for doping in sports, he added.The bill, passed unopposed by the U.S. Senate last month, was opposed by the International Olympic Committee, who have questioned why American professional and college athletes are exempt.The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) said there was no need to include U.S. professional and college sports in the legislation as existing law allows their prosecution.The World Anti-Doping Agency also expressed concerns that the bill would destabilize the global anti-doping effort by extending U.S. jurisdiction beyond its own borders.”No nation has ever before asserted criminal jurisdiction over doping offenses that occurred outside its national borders — and for good reason,” the agency said last month when the bill passed the Senate.”WADA …

Officials with the World Health Organization cautioned Friday that approval of a vaccine for use in Britain this week does not mean the COVID-19 pandemic is over.Speaking at the organization’s regular briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said many places around the world are facing very high transmission rates of coronavirus, and even as vaccines are approved, people must still follow national and local measures to limit the spread of infection.He said decisions made by citizens and governments would determine its course in the short run and when the pandemic would ultimately end.WHO Health Emergency Executive Director Mike Ryan concurred, saying the presence of vaccines does not equal zero COVID-19. He said that while “vaccines and vaccination provide a major, powerful tool to the toolkit that we have, but by themselves, they will not do the job.”Ryan said people will have to continue to work on managing their personal behavior and hygiene. He said they will also need to recognize that the vaccine will not be available to everyone for a while.Tedros was asked if he would, as many world leaders have offered to do, take the vaccine to show that it is safe. He said he would, but only if it was his turn, “because I don’t want to take anybody’s vaccine.”   …

The head of the World Health Organization said Friday that with a COVID-19 vaccine on the horizon, nations must start investing and preparing for the next pandemic.“Despite years of warnings, many countries were simply not ready for COVID-19,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a special session of the U.N. General Assembly on the coronavirus. “Many mistakenly assumed their strong health systems would protect them.”He said countries that have dealt with recent coronaviruses, including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) as well as other infectious diseases, have done better in containing COVID-19.“Now all countries must develop that same muscle memory and invest in the measures that will prevent, control and mitigate the next crisis,” Tedros said. “It is also clear the global system for preparedness needs attention.”FILE – President-elect Joe Biden departs a news conference after introducing his nominees and appointees to economic policy posts at The Queen theater, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020, in Wilmington, Del.Biden said in an interview Thursday that he will ask Americans to wear masks for 100 days when he assumes office on January 20, in order to reduce infections.California Governor Gavin Newsom says his state is on the verge of imposing stay-at-home orders. He says he will do so once hospital intensive care units in the state’s five regions reach more than 85% capacity, which is expected soon. In South Korea, a spike in COVID-19 cases has public health officials urging people to move Christmas and New Year’s festivities from …

Nearly a year into the global coronavirus pandemic, doctors are monitoring patients they call COVID long haulers: people who suffer from symptoms months after they recovered from the immediate effects of the virus. Anna Nelson has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Natalia Latukhina, Vladimir Badikov, Dmitrii Vershinin    …