European Union Considers Vaccine Export Limits

The European Union will introduce a proposal Wednesday that could allow it to restrict exports of COVID-19 vaccine manufactured within the 27-nation bloc for six weeks.The legislation is aimed at addressing an acute shortage of vaccine across the continent that has slowed the inoculation effort in many EU nations. Many European nations have grown especially frustrated with British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca, which has cut its planned deliveries by more than half in the first quarter of 2021.  Europe is facing a third wave of the coronavirus that is once again overwhelming hospitals and prompting a new round of lockdowns.  The situation threatens to aggravate already tense relations between the EU and its former member, Britain.  The proposed legislation could seriously disrupt supplies of COVID-19 vaccine to Britain, which is a major recipient of EU exports.   EU and Pfizer-BioNTech Sign Deal for 4 Million More DosesAdditional doses to be delivered before the end of MarchMeanwhile, Hong Kong has suspended use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine after it discovered some packaging defects in one shipment.  Hong Kong authorities say they had received a letter from BioNTech, Pfizer’s German-based partner, about problems it discovered with the seal on a batch of individual vials.  The neighboring gambling city of Macau is also suspending the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine due to the packaging issues.  U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center says there are now about 124.2 million total COVID-19 infections, with more than 2.7 million deaths.  The United States leads the way in both categories with 29.9 million total infections and 543,849 deaths.Brazil …

Years-Long US Pressure Campaign Chokes Huawei’s Growth

When Joe Biden took office as president, the Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei Technologies saw at least a glimmer of hope that the U.S.-led campaign to shut it out of international markets might be eased somewhat. Once a global leader in smartphone sales, Huawei has seen its market share outside China plummet since the Trump administration began choking off its supply of technology key to producing modern 5G handsets. Likewise, the company’s business installing mobile telecommunications infrastructure, and especially new 5G-capable systems, has been severely damaged by a U.S. campaign against it.Biden had not signaled that he would be particularly easy on China — his appointment of China hawk Katherine Tai as U.S. Trade Representative confirmed that. But Huawei and other Chinese firms thought that, if nothing else, the two countries could step back from a Trump-era trade war footing.Huawei Executive Back in Court to Fight US ExtraditionUS wants Meng Wanzhou, daughter of Chinese telecom’s founder and chief financial officer of the company, extradited to face fraud chargesBiden tightens restrictionsEarlier this month, Huawei’s prospects for relief dimmed considerably when the Biden administration announced that it would not only continue some of the Trump administration’s export bans, but would tighten them.“The Biden administration appears to be maintaining the final Trump policy regarding which Huawei-related export licenses to approve or deny, which is more restrictive than the 2020 license policy,” said Kevin Wolf, a former assistant secretary of commerce for export administration in the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security.Now a partner with …

Plan for COVID-19 as Chronic, but Manageable Threat, Experts Say  

Vaccines to combat COVID-19 are on the cusp of turning the tide of the global pandemic. But experts say not to expect total victory.  While things may never again get as bad as they have been the last year, experts expect that in time, COVID-19 will become a chronic, but manageable, threat. Societies need to plan for how to cope with inevitable resurgences, they say. “We’re not going to see cases plummet to zero. That’s magical thinking,” said epidemiologist Michael Mina of Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health.  “Which is why I really think it’s important for us to take a step back as a society and just ask the question, what do cases mean? How are they going to impact us?”  Here to stay There are several reasons why the coronavirus behind COVID-19 is not likely to disappear anytime soon. First, rates of vaccine hesitancy are declining but still high. In a FILE – Healthcare workers get ready to collect samples during proactive testing of migrant workers at their work place, amid the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak in Samut Sakhon province in Thailand, Jan. 27, 2021.A recent poll found 18% of U.S. health care workers were not planning to get vaccinated, and another 12% were undecided. Meanwhile, vaccine access is extremely unequal around the world. Many countries may not get any vaccines at all this year. That leaves vast areas where the coronavirus can continue to spread and mutate. “The longer transmission happens around the world, new variants are going to …

Global TB Fight Set Back 12 Years by COVID Pandemic, Doctors Warn

Ahead of World Tuberculosis (TB) Day on March 24, doctors are warning that progress in the global fight against the disease has been set back more than a decade by the coronavirus pandemic.In nine countries with a high prevalence of TB — including Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, South Africa, Tajikistan and Ukraine — diagnosis and treatment fell by an average of 23%, according to Health workers screen people for tuberculosis and leprosy in Dharavi, one of Asia’s biggest slums, in Mumbai, India, Dec. 1, 2020.Tuberculosis killed 1.4 million people worldwide in 2019. The report from the Stop TB Partnership says that in 2020, “COVID-19 overtook TB globally as the most common cause of death from an infectious disease, but in low- and middle-income countries, TB deaths remain far higher than those from COVID-19. As the number of people vaccinated against COVID-19 grows, the number of COVID-19 deaths decrease while TB will continue to kill roughly 4,000 people every day.”Like COVID-19, tuberculosis is a disease of the lungs, though it is caused by bacteria rather than a virus. “A lot of the people that are dealing with TB — doctors, nurses, health-care workers, providers — were shifted from TB to COVID,” explains Ditiu.Hospital wards used for TB patients were rapidly converted into emergency COVID-19 units. As countries imposed lockdowns to fight the pandemic, TB diagnosis and treatment were again hit hard.“Usually, people with TB are the ones that are most vulnerable and are the ones that have a lot …

Press Freedom Group Sues Facebook Over Misinformation, ‘Hate Speech’

Press freedom advocate Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is suing Facebook in France, saying the social media platform spreads misinformation. The suit was filed Monday with the Paris public prosecutor.  “Reporters Without Borders accuses Facebook of ‘deceptive commercial practices’ on the grounds that the social media company’s promises to provide a ‘safe’ and ‘error-free’ online environment are contradicted by the large-scale proliferation of hate speech and false information on its networks,” the group said in a press release. Specifically, the group says Facebook allows “hate speech” against the media, as well as misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic. The group said Facebook allowed posts that were insulting and threatening against French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, as well as targeting the TV program “Quotidien” and a regional newspaper, L’Union. Facebook said in a statement that it “has zero tolerance for any harmful content on our platforms,” Bloomberg reported. “Over the last few years, we’ve tripled the size of our safety and security team to 35,000 and built artificial intelligence technology to proactively find and remove harmful content,” the statement continued, according to Bloomberg. “While nobody can eliminate misinformation and hate speech from the internet entirely, we continue using research, experts and technologies to tackle them in the most comprehensive and effective way possible.” Should RSF win its case, the decision could have global repercussions for Facebook, as its terms of service are similar worldwide. Any change in France could trigger changes elsewhere. Facebook and other Big Tech companies have been under intense pressure to stop what some call …

Extremist Groups Thrive on Facebook Despite Bans

A new outside report found that Facebook has allowed groups — many tied to QAnon, boogaloo and militia movements — to glorify violence during the 2020 election and in the weeks leading up to the deadly riots on the U.S. Capitol in January. Avaaz, a nonprofit advocacy group that says it seeks to protect democracies from misinformation, identified 267 pages and groups on Facebook that it says spread violence-glorifying material in the heat of the 2020 election to a combined following of 32 million users. More than two-thirds of the groups and pages had names that aligned with several domestic extremist movements, the report found. The first, boogaloo, promotes a second U.S. civil war and the breakdown of modern society. The second is the QAnon conspiracy, which claims that Donald Trump is waging a secret battle against the “deep state” and a sect of powerful Satan-worshipping pedophiles who dominate Hollywood, big business, the media and government. The rest are various anti-government militias. All have been largely banned from Facebook since 2020. But despite what Avaaz called “clear violations” of Facebook’s policies, it found that 119 of these pages and groups were still active on the platform as of March 18 and had just under 27 million followers. Facebook acknowledged that its policy enforcement “isn’t perfect,” but said the report distorts its work against violent extremism and misinformation. The company said in a statement that it has done more than any other internet company to stanch the flow of harmful material, …

Troubled Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Faces New Setback

Just hours after AstraZeneca said late-stage trials of its COVID-19 vaccine prove it has “100% efficacy against severe or critical disease and hospitalization,” a key U.S. government oversight group expressed concern about the drugmaker’s information.  The Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB), an advisory arm of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, issued a statement early Tuesday that the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant “may have included outdated information” from the late-stage clinical trial, “which may have provided an incomplete view of the efficacy data.”AstraZeneca said Monday that its analysis of the safety and efficacy of its vaccine, developed jointly with Britain’s University of Oxford, was based on more than 30,000 participants in U.S. trials. Researchers at Oxford also said the vaccine is 79% effective against preventing symptomatic coronavirus.FILE – Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson receives the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine administered by nurse and Clinical Pod Lead, Lily Harrington at St.Thomas’ Hospital in London, March 19, 2021.The DSMB urged AstraZeneca to work with it to review the data and “ensure the most accurate, up-to-date efficacy data be made public as quickly as possible.”The statement from the independent board of experts is the latest setback for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which has had a troubled rollout.  Several European countries recently stopped its use because of reports that it was associated with blood clots in recipients. And South Africa stopped using the shot due to concerns about its efficacy against a local variant of the coronavirus. The country sold at …

More Australia Flood Evacuations Possible as Rains Remain Heavy

Australian authorities said Tuesday that more evacuation orders may be issued as relentless rains pummeled the country’s east coast, with several regions in Sydney’s west facing the worst floods in half a century. The wild weather system pounding New South Wales (NSW) over the last three days was expected to gather more strength in the next 24 hours thanks to the combination of a tropical low over northern Western Australia and a coastal trough off the east. “Overnight, unfortunately, some weather conditions have worsened, and those weather conditions are likely to worsen during the day so many communities will experience increasing heavy rainfall,” NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters. Berejiklian said 15,000 more residents may need to be evacuated soon after authorities moved 18,000 to safe zones Monday.Severe flooding in Sydney, March 22, 2021.With 38 disaster areas declared in the state, authorities Tuesday described the next 24 hours as critical, as fast-moving flood waters overflowed riverbanks and inundated houses, farms and bridges across large swathes of the state. Though the weather system is likely to start easing starting late Wednesday, officials warned that residents may not be able to return to their homes immediately as incessant rains dump more water in river catchment areas. “Some of you may be wondering why you can’t go back home because it’s a sunny day. It’s because conditions are unsafe for that to occur,” Berejiklian said. Neighboring Queensland was also bracing for heavy showers Tuesday in the southern parts of the state, with the weather system expected to shift south to parts of Victoria and the island state of Tasmania …

NOAA Announces Major Upgrades to US Weather Model

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Monday it will be upgrading its Global Forecast System, one of the primary computer models used to predict weather across North America and the world.The update went live early Monday and is designed to predict more accurate forecasts as far out as two weeks into the future. NOAA says the update will lead to better predictions of hurricanes and other extreme weather events, ocean waves, and weather systems up high in the atmosphere.“This substantial upgrade to the GFS, along with ongoing upgrades to our supercomputing capacity, demonstrates our commitment to advancing weather forecasting to fulfill our mission of protecting life and property,” said Louis Uccellini, director of NOAA’s National Wether Service, in a media teleconference Monday.The upgrade focuses on underlying physics and adjusts how current weather information is inputted and processed by the model while integrating other sources of data from satellites and ordinary aircraft.The Global Forecasting System will now be combined with a global wave model called WaveWatch III, which will extend current wave forecasts to 16 days and improve predictions of ocean waves forced by the atmosphere.“These upgrades are part of the Next Generation Global Prediction System within the Unified Forecast System (UFS) framework, which is an ongoing effort to leverage the expertise of the broader weather community and expedite the research to operations pathway,” said Vijay Tallapragada, chief of the Modeling and Data Assimilation Branch at NOAA’s Environmental Modeling Center (EMC).  …

US CDC Director Concerned About New Surge in Coronavirus Cases

The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday she is concerned the United States could be headed for an avoidable surge in coronavirus cases as more states relax prevention measures and more people travel around the country. During a virtual White House COVID-19 Response Team briefing, Rochelle Walensky said the U.S. saw the seven-day average of new daily cases climb to 53,800 over the past week, while the two-week average has wavered between 50,000 to 60,000 cases per day.  FILE – Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 18, 2021.Meanwhile, the CDC director said U.S. states are seeing an increasing number of new cases attributed to variant strains of the virus, particularly in California — the nation’s most populous state — where a new variant accounts for 52 percent of new infections. Walensky said, taken together, these statistics should be a warning sign to all Americans that the pandemic is not over.  “I get it. We all want to return to our everyday activities and spend time with our family, friends and loved ones,” she said. Walensky said the U.S. is at a critical point in the pandemic and is worried if the nation does not take the correct actions, it is headed for an “avoidable surge, just as we are seeing in Europe right now, and just as we are so aggressively scaling up vaccinations.” The coronavirus causes the COVID-19 disease. The White House task force …

AstraZeneca: Vaccine Provides ‘100% Efficacy’ Against Severe, Critical COVID-19 Disease

AstraZeneca said Monday that the results of its COVID-19 vaccine trials provide evidence that its shot provides “100% efficacy against severe or critical disease and hospitalization.”  AstraZeneca said in a statement that the safety and efficacy analysis was based on 32,449 participants in U.S. trials. “Vaccine efficacy was consistent across ethnicity and age. Notably, in participants aged 65 years and over, vaccine efficacy was 80%,” the statement said.  “The vaccine was well tolerated, and the independent data safety monitoring board (DSMB) identified no safety concerns related to the vaccine,” AstraZeneca said.  The U.S. trials also show the AstraZeneca COVID shot is safe and 79% effective against preventing symptomatic coronavirus, according to Britain’s University of Oxford, the developers of the pharmaceutical company’s vaccine.  Several European countries had recently stopped use of the AstraZeneca vaccine because of reports that it was associated with blood clots in recipients. The European Medicines Agency (EMA), however, said the vaccine is safe and does not raise the overall risk of blood clots.Last week, France, Germany and Italy resumed use of the vaccine.FILE – A member of the medical staff holds a vial of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine at the South Ile-de-France Hospital Group in Melun, in the outskirts of Paris, Feb. 8, 2021.The World Health Organization (WHO) has subsequently recommended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine against variants of the coronavirus. It has also said it considers that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh its risks.South Africa stopped using the shot due to concerns about …

EU Solidarity Breaks Down, States Complain of Unfair Vaccine Distribution

European Union solidarity is breaking down amid a vaccine debacle that analysts say may have long-lasting repercussions for the future of European political integration.Member states are divided over the wisdom of imposing a vaccine export ban threatened by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The ban is mainly focused on Britain, a bid to secure more vaccines for the EU, but critics warn it could backfire on the bloc and tarnish its much vaunted commitment to free trade and internationalism.And there is also an emerging dispute on whether the vaccines the bloc is receiving are being distributed fairly by the European Commission among the EU’s 27 member states.Five central European and Baltic countries, led by Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, have complained of unequal treatment and plan to raise more forcefully their objections over the apportionment at a summit Thursday of EU heads of state and government.“The last few weeks have shown that deliveries are currently not being made according to population keys and that this is set to intensify in the coming months,” reads a complaint signed by Kurz and four other national leaders.The disgruntled national leaders added: “This approach clearly contradicts the political goal of the European Union — the equal distribution of vaccine doses to all member states. If the distribution were to continue in this way, it would result in significant unequal treatment — which we must prevent.”Cases and frustration growingThe mood in European capitals is turning sour. Locals complain they can’t see the light at …

Australia Floods Disrupt COVID-19 Vaccinations

Widespread flooding is disrupting the rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations in Australia as thousands of people are forced to leave their homes.Emergency crews in eastern Australia have responded to thousands of calls for help.  The rain in many areas has been unrelenting. For the first time in years, Sydney’s main reservoir is overflowing, putting suburbs at risk of flooding. Authorities are reporting once-in-a-century downpours north of Sydney, and thousands of people have been told to leave their homes.     Near the town of Taree, a house occupied by a young couple was washed away down a river by floodwaters on what was supposed to have been their wedding day.    The bride, Sarah Soars, told Australian television the property was swept away within minutes.  “I am lost for words. I do not know even what to say, like, everything that we owned, everything that we worked hard for (has) gone within ten minutes and it was out of our sight,” Soars said.Campaign group Greenpeace has linked the severe storms in eastern Australia to climate change, and the burning of coal, oil and gas.   The wild weather is disrupting Australia’s mass coronavirus inoculation program. More than six million Australians are now eligible for an injection in the next phase of the vaccination rollout. Australia’s medical regulator has approved domestic production of the AstraZeneca vaccine.   Federal health minister Greg Hunt says the drug is safe.    “This is a fundamental decision which locks in for Australia access to 50 million units of domestically produced vaccines. It means that the manufacturing process has been approved. It is safe, effective (and) meets all of the requirements from …

Japan Car Makers Scramble to Assess Impact of Renesas Auto Chip-plant Fire

Toyota, Nissan, Honda and other Japanese automakers scrambled on Monday to assess the production impact of a fire at a Renesas Electronics automotive chip plant that could aggravate a global semiconductor shortage. “We are gathering information and trying to see if this will affect us or not,” a Honda spokesperson said. Other car makers including Toyota and Nissan said they too were assessing the situation. The effect on car makers could spread beyond Japan to other auto companies in Europe and the United States because Renesas has around a 30% global share of micro control unit chips used in cars. Renesas said it will take at least a month to restart production on a 300 mm (millimeter) wafer line at its Naka plant in northeast Japan after an electrical fault caused machinery to catch fire on Friday and poured smoke into the sensitive clean room. Two-thirds of production at the affected line is automotive chips. The company also has a 200 mm (millimeter) wafer line at the Naka plant, which has not been affected. Concerns on the impact of the fire on production sent auto shares sliding in Tokyo on Monday, with the big three, Toyota, Honda and Nissan, down more than 2% by the midday break. Renesas shares tumbled as much as 5.5% and were down 3.9% midday. The benchmark Topix index shed 1.1%. “It will probably take more than a month to return to normal supply. Given that, even Toyota will face very unstable production in April and May,” said Seiji Sugiura, senior analyst at Tokai Tokyo Research Institute. “I think Honda, Nissan and other makers will also be facing a difficult situation.” Semiconductors such as those made by Renesas are used extensively in cars, including to monitor engine performance, manage steering or automatic windows, …

Australia to Evacuate Thousands as Sydney Faces Worst Floods in 60 Years

Australian authorities are planning to evacuate thousands of more people Monday from Sydney’s flooded western suburbs, in the worst flooding the city has seen in 60 years with another day of drenching rain expected. Unrelenting rains over the past three days swelled rivers in Australia’s most populous state of New South Wales (NSW), causing widespread damage and triggering calls for mass evacuations. “Flooding is likely to be higher than any floods since Nov 1961,” NSW emergency services said in a tweet late Sunday. Authorities expect the wild weather to continue until Wednesday. The fast-moving flood waters detached houses, swept away vehicles and farm animals, and submerged roads, bridges, houses and farms, television and social media footage showed. Nearly 2,000 people have been evacuated from low lying areas, NSW emergency services said. Large parts of the country’s east coast will receive more heavy rains from Monday thanks to the combination of a tropical low over northern Western Australia and a coastal trough off NSW, the weather bureau said. “These two moisture feeds are merging and will create a multistate rain and storm band from Monday,” the Bureau of Meteorology said in a statement. A severe flood warning has been issued for large parts of NSW as well as neighboring Queensland. “These are very, very serious and very severe storms and floods, and it’s a very complex weather system, too. … So, this is a very testing time,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told radio station 2GB on Monday. Sydney on Sunday recorded the wettest day of the year with almost 111 mm (4.4 inches) of rain, while some regions in NSW’s north coast received nearly 900 mm (35 inches) of rain in the …

Environmentalists: Life on Earth Hinges on Restoration of World’s Forests

In marking the International Day of Forests, environmentalists are calling for the restoration of forests and their life-giving biodiversity systems which, they say, are under increasing threat from illegal exploitation. Forests are the lungs of the earth. They help provide the air we breathe and play a major role in providing clean water. The United Nations reports more than a billion people depend on forest foods and 2.4 billion people use fuel wood and charcoal to cook their daily meals.Additionally, the health of the world is largely dependent on the forests’ so-called green pharmacies. The U.N. reports up to 25 percent of medicinal drugs in developed countries and 80 percent in developing countries are plant-based.Unfortunately, the oxygen that sustains 80 percent of all known terrestrial plants and animal species on the planet is under threat. The Food and Agriculture Organization’s director of forestry, Mette Wilkie, said the forests and biodiversity they contain are at risk from actions to convert the land to agriculture and other exploitative usage.“Each year, the world loses more than 10 million hectares of forest. That is an area of about twice the size of Costa Rica. This is having negative impacts on the climate, biodiversity and people. We know that deforestation and land degradation are affecting the well-being of at least 3.2 billion people across the world and costing more than 10 percent of annual global GDP in lost ecosystem services,” she said.Wilkie said one in three outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases is directly linked to land …

Largest Vaccine Producer Delays Shipments to Some Countries

The world’s largest vaccine producer has told at least three countries that their COVID-19 vaccine shipments will be delayed.The Serum Institute of India has informed Brazil, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia that India’s overwhelming need for the vaccine is the cause of the delay.India is experiencing a surge in infections. The South Asian nation has the third-highest number of coronavirus cases, with 11.6 million. Only the United States and Brazil have more, at 29.7 million and 11.9 million, respectively.India’s Serum Institute has come under criticism for selling or donating more vaccines than inoculations put in arms in India.Meanwhile, Brazil is in talks with the United States to import excess doses of coronavirus vaccines, its Foreign Ministry tweeted Saturday.The South American nation recorded 79,069 new cases of coronavirus infections in a 24-hour period, its Health Ministry said Saturday, and reported more than 2,400 COVID-19 deaths.The talks between the U.S. and Brazil began March 13. On Friday, the U.S. said it was lending 4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Canada and Mexico but did not mention Brazil.The U.S. has millions of doses of vaccine developed by Britain’s University of Oxford and the pharmaceutical giant that have been approved by the World Health Organization and the European Medicines Agency but not for use in the U.S. yet.Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who famously told his country to “stop whining” about the country’s deaths from “a little flu,” has signed three measures to speed the purchase of vaccines, including those from Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson …

Miami Beach Imposes Curfew on Spring Break Crowds

Throngs of revelers flocking to Miami Beach, Florida, for spring break have become so uncontrollable that authorities imposed a curfew Saturday that they hope will spoil the party.For the next 72 hours, visitors will have to leave the streets and restaurants will close their doors at 8 p.m. in the main tourist areas of South Beach, the epicenter of the city’s party scene, authorities announced.In addition, the three bridges that connect the island with mainland Miami will be closed to traffic after 10 p.m.Only residents, workers and hotel guests will have access.”This is all about the public safety, folks,” said acting City Manager Raul Aguila.Referring to photos of huge crowds gathering on the main Ocean Drive strip, he added: “It looked like a rock concert. You couldn’t see pavement and you couldn’t see grass.”The move followed weeks of wild partying in Miami Beach, which is no stranger to uncontrollable spring break crowds.But this year the volume is clearly higher than in previous years, said Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber.”I think it is in part due to the fact that there are very few places open elsewhere in the country, or they’re too cold, or they’re not open and they’re too cold,” he said.Over the last several days viral videos have emerged showing fights in restaurants that caused serious damage in addition to prompting diners to flee without paying expensive bills, according to local press reports.Miami Beach Police Chief Richard Clements said he is concerned the situation will become unmanageable.On Thursday …

Climate Change Intensifying Water-Related Disasters

Ahead of World Water Day Monday, the World Meteorological Organization warns climate change is intensifying water-related disasters, threatening the lives and livelihoods of billions of people worldwide.   Climate-related hazards include increased flooding and longer-lasting droughts. Climate change also is altering rainfall patterns, affecting water availability and worsening the damage floods and drought cause worldwide.   The WMO says increased flooding threatens to destroy water points and sanitation facilities and contaminate water sources. As a consequence, WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis says billions of people have limited or no access to clean water and sanitation.   “So, 39 percent of the global population does not have access to safe drinking water. We expect this problem to be exacerbated because of socio-economic changes, of population growth, and obviously, changes in sources of water, such as glaciers,” Nullis said.The WMO calls glaciers the water towers of the world. It warns the melting of ice cover and glaciers is leading to more hazards and threatening the long-term water security of hundreds of millions of people.   Nullis said one of the most dramatic examples of how this is playing out can be seen in Tajikistan, a country that had more than 14,500 glaciers in the 20th century.   “Today, more than a thousand of these have completely melted and the total volume of the mass has decreased by one-third. This in the short term leads to more hazards like avalanches, mud flows, flooding—what we call glacial outbursts,” Nullis said.   Glaciers are a key …

Zoos, Scientists Aim to Curb People Giving Virus to Animals

The coughing among the western lowland gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in January was the first warning sign. Soon the fears were confirmed: A troop of gorillas became the first apes known to test positive for the coronavirus.Around the world, many scientists and veterinarians are now racing to protect animals from the coronavirus, often using the same playbook for minimizing disease spread among people: That includes social distancing, health checks and, for some zoo animals, a vaccine.Karen, a 28-year-old orangutan, became the first ape in the world to get a coronavirus vaccine on Jan. 26 at the San Diego Zoo.Two shots for KarenKaren has received two shots of a vaccine from Zoetis, a veterinary pharmaceutical company in New Jersey, and has shown no adverse reactions. Since then, nine other primates at the San Diego Zoo have been fully vaccinated: five bonobos and four orangutans. Four more animals — one bonobo and three gorillas — got their first shot this month and will get a second one in April.“I was really convinced that we wanted to get that to protect our other great apes,” said the zoo’s wildlife health officer Nadine Lamberski, who explained she felt urgency to act after the eight gorillas fell sick.That virus outbreak was linked to a zookeeper who was infected but had no symptoms. Seven gorillas recovered after a mild cases of the sniffles, but one elderly silverback had pneumonia, likely caused by the virus, as well as heart disease. He was put …