Month: June 2021

The White House has announced it will deliver the bulk of its first 25 million donated doses of COVID-19 vaccine through COVAX, the United Nations-backed program delivering vaccines to low- and middle-income countries. That’s according to a White House announcement on Thursday. It’s part of a down payment on a pledge to donate 80 million doses by the end of June. The Biden administration has been under pressure to share its vaccine supply. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more. …

U.S. traffic deaths soared after coronavirus lockdowns ended in 2020, hitting the highest yearly total since 2007 as more Americans engaged in unsafe behavior on U.S. roads, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Thursday.For all of 2020, 38,680 people died on U.S. roads, up 7.2%, or nearly 2,600 more than in 2019, even though Americans drove 13% fewer miles, preliminary data showed. The fatality rate hit 1.37 deaths per 100 million miles, the highest figure since 2006.In the second half of 2020, the number of traffic deaths was up more than 13%.NHTSA said the main behaviors that drove this increase included impaired driving, speeding and failure to wear seat belts.Deaths involving motorists not wearing seat belts were up 15%, speeding-related deaths jumped by 10% and fatal crashes involving alcohol rose 9%.Michigan said traffic deaths in the state rose 10% in 2020 to the highest number since 2007, even as crashes fell 22% and injuries fell 22%.”We intend to use all available tools to reverse these trends and reduce traffic fatalities and injuries,” said acting NHTSA Administrator Steven Cliff.In an open letter to drivers in January, NHTSA said “fewer Americans drove, but those who did took more risks and had more fatal crashes. … It’s irresponsible and illegal to drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol, which not only puts your life at risk but the lives of others.”Some experts said that as U.S. roads became less crowded, some motorists engaged in more unsafe behavior, including those who …

New annual infections with HIV fell by 73% between 1981 and 2019, according to a new analysis by U.S. health authorities released Thursday.But the proportion of infected minority Black and Latino people has risen, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which published its first report on the then-new and mysterious virus almost 40 years ago, on June 5.”Reductions are due to the decades-long work of and collaboration with scientists, patients, patient-advocates and communities,” said CDC director Rochelle Walensky in a statement.She reflected on her experience as a young physician in Baltimore at the height of the epidemic when “all I had to give my patients was my outstretched hand and my presence at their bedside,” before the mid-1990s when the first highly effective treatments were approved.There are an estimated 1.2 million people living with human immunodeficiency virus in the United States, about 13% of whom aren’t aware they have the virus.According to the new report, annual HIV incidence increased from 20,000 infections in 1981 to a peak of 130,400 in 1984 and 1985.The rate stabilized between 1991 and 2007, with approximately 50,000 to 58,000 infections annually, and then decreased in recent years to 34,800 infections in 2019.But over time, disparities have widened. The proportion of HIV infections among Black people increased from 29% in 1981 to 41% in 2019, and among Hispanic people from 16% to 29% in the same period.Male-to-male sexual contact continues to account for the majority of infections: 63% in 1981 and 66% in …

Space junk finally hits its mark.  Plus, NASA now eyes Venus after its first major flight issue on Mars. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space.Produced by: Arash Arabasadi …

The Biden administration on Thursday announced it will share 80 million excess doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of June, with FILE – A health worker talks to colleagues as they prepare to receive a coronavirus vaccine at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, March 5, 2021.Approximately 7 million doses will head to Asia, including to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Maldives, Nepal, the Pacific Islands, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Five million vaccine doses will be shared with Africa in coordination with the African Union.  In a briefing to reporters, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the administration will continue to donate excess supply as it becomes available.  “This is just the right thing to do,” Sullivan said. “And as the president has said, [the] United States will not use its vaccines to secure favors from other countries.” Of the 80 million doses — or 13 percent of the total U.S. vaccine production — that the Biden administration has committed so far to share worldwide — 75 percent will be donated through COVAX, prioritizing Latin America and the Caribbean, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa. The rest will be shared directly with places experiencing surges, immediate neighbors, and other countries that have requested immediate U.S. assistance.  Sullivan said that the U.S. will have the authority to determine where the doses distributed via COVAX will be allocated. “But that will be done in very close consultation in partnership with COVAX, …

Just six months after receiving two shots of China’s Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine, some people in Bahrain are being offered booster doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.The decision to mix vaccines comes as the Gulf state is experiencing a wave of virus infections despite having a very high per capita vaccination rate. The booster is being recommended for people who are over 50, obese or have weakened immune systems.Waleed Khalifa Al Manea, Bahrain’s undersecretary of health, told The Wall Street Journal that Sinopharm accounted for 60% of vaccinations in the country and that it offered high levels of protection. He said 90% of those being hospitalized in the current wave had not been vaccinated.The country will continue to offer a choice between Sinopharm and Pfizer-BioNTech, the Journal reported.Both Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates used Sinopharm heavily. Last month, both announced they would offer a booster of the same vaccine amid growing concerns that two doses did not trigger enough antibody response.The World Health Organization approved Sinopharm for emergency use in May, sparking hope that vaccines would better reach the world’s poorer countries.  …

YouTube videos that cause an autonomous sensory meridian response, or ASMR, are likely something school-age kids know all about. Their parents? Not so much. Karina Bafradzhian looks at a new trend that some people say helps them deal with pandemic-induced stress. Camera: David Gogokhia        …

The World Health Organization’s program to secure and distribute billions of COVID-19 vaccine doses to the world’s poorest countries has received a major financial boost.   The COVAX initiative received nearly $2.4 billion in pledges Wednesday during a virtual summit hosted by Japan, which made the largest pledge with $800 million. The program also received significant financial pledges from Canada, France, Spain and Sweden.  COVAX has raised $9.6 billion since its creation.      Several nations also pledged to donate millions of doses from its domestic stockpiles to COVAX, with Japan also leading the way with a promise to donate 30 million doses.      COVAX, the acronym for COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility, is an alliance that includes the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, an organization founded by Bill and Melinda Gates to vaccinate children in the world’s poorest countries. The program has so far distributed 77 million vaccine doses to 127 countries, far below its initial pledge of up to 2 billion doses this year.      U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris reminded the summit that the Biden administration has pledged $4 billion to COVAX this year and for 2022, but made no fresh pledges of additional financial or vaccine donations. President Joe Biden has also pledged to donate 80 million doses from the U.S. COVID-19 vaccine stockpile. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.   The Reuters news agency is reporting that India has signed a contract with domestic biotechnology firm …

Britain is hosting a two-day summit of health ministers from the Group of Seven nations, with a focus on sharing vaccines and better identifying threats to global health security. The talks in Oxford on Thursday and Friday come ahead of a summit of G-7 leaders next week in Cornwall. Countries that have carried out large-scale vaccination efforts against COVID-19 are facing pressure to do more to help other parts of the world where vaccine supply has been short. World Health Organization Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said “we need doses to be shared right now.” Vaccine equity is “critical to end the pandemic,” he added.  British health minister Matt Hancock said more than 75% of adults in the U.K. have received their first dose. In the United States, another G-7 member, about 63% of adults have received a COVID-19 vaccination. FILE – Workers load boxes of Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines, part of the Covax program, into a truck after they arrived by plane at the Ivato International Airport in Antananarivo, Madagascar, May 8, 2021.The United States has pledged $4 billion to the COVAX global vaccine-sharing program. The goal of the global program is to deliver vaccine doses to people in lower-income countries by the end of 2021. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday the Biden administration would announce in the next week or two its plans for distributing 80 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to other countries. Ahead of Thursday’s start of the G-7 summit, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said his country’s government would add another …

The new White House science adviser hopes that for the next pandemic, a vaccine will be ready in 100 days. Eric Lander tells The Associated Press in his first interview since he was sworn in that he’s pushing for better preparedness for the next pandemic. He says that includes the type of vaccine where researchers can plug in genetic material from the new viral threat and be ready to fight that disease. He also hopes that approach can make a dent in cancer. Lander paints a rosy future where science better fights disease, curbs climate change and further explores space. The new White House science adviser wants to have a vaccine ready to fight the next pandemic in just about 100 days after recognizing a potential viral outbreak. In his first interview after being sworn in Wednesday, Eric Lander painted a rosy near future where a renewed American emphasis on science not only better prepares the world for the next pandemic with plug-and-play vaccines, but also changes how medicine fights disease and treats patients, curbs climate change and further explores space. He even threw in a “Star Trek” reference. “This is a moment in so many ways, not just health, that we can rethink fundamental assumptions about what’s possible and that’s true of climate and energy and many areas,” Lander told The Associated Press. Lander took his oath of office on a 500-year-old fragment of the Mishnah, an ancient Jewish text documenting oral traditions and laws. He is the first director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy to be promoted …

In the span of just five days last month, China gave out 100 million shots of its COVID-19 vaccines.After a slow start, China is now doing what virtually no other country in the world can: harnessing the power and all-encompassing reach of its one-party system and a maturing domestic vaccine industry to administer shots at a staggering pace. The rollout is far from perfect, including uneven distribution, but Chinese public health leaders now say they’re hoping to inoculate 80% of the population of 1.4 billion by the end of the year.As of Tuesday, China had given out more than 680 million doses — with nearly half of those in May alone. China’s total is roughly a third of the 1.9 billion shots distributed globally, according to Our World in Data, an online research site.The call to get vaccinated comes from every corner of society. Companies offer shots to their employees, schools urge their students and staffers, and local government workers check on their residents. That pressure underscores both the system’s strength, which makes it possible to even consider vaccinating more than a billion people this year, but also the risks to civil liberties — a concern the world over but one that is particularly acute in China, where there are few protections.“The Communist Party has people all the way down to every village, every neighborhood,” said Ray Yip, former country director for the Gates Foundation in China and a public health expert. “That’s the draconian part of the system, but …

President Joe Biden is launching a monthlong nationwide push to get 70% of American adults vaccinated by Independence Day on July 4. But the administration has not yet outlined its vaccine-sharing strategy with the rest of the world. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report. …

NASA is returning to sizzling Venus, our closest yet perhaps most overlooked neighbor, after decades of exploring other worlds.The space agency’s new administrator, Bill Nelson, announced two new robotic missions to the solar system’s hottest planet, during his first major address to employees Wednesday.”These two sister missions both aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world capable of melting lead at the surface,” Nelson said.One mission named DaVinci Plus will analyze the thick, cloudy Venusian atmosphere to determine whether the inferno planet ever had an ocean and was possibly habitable. A small craft will plunge through the atmosphere to measure the gases.It will be the first U.S.-led mission to the Venusian atmosphere since 1978.The other mission, called Veritas, will seek a geologic history by mapping the rocky planet’s surface.”It is astounding how little we know about Venus,” but the new missions will give fresh views of the planet’s atmosphere, made up mostly of carbon dioxide, down to the core, NASA scientist Tom Wagner said in a statement. “It will be as if we have rediscovered the planet.”NASA’s top science official, Thomas Zurbuchen, calls it “a new decade of Venus.” Each mission — launching sometime around 2028 to 2030 — will receive $500 million for development under NASA’s Discovery program.The missions beat out two other proposed projects, to Jupiter’s moon, Io, and Neptune’s icy moon, Triton.The U.S. and the former Soviet Union sent multiple spacecraft to Venus in the early days of space exploration. NASA’s Mariner 2 performed the first …

U.S. President Joe Biden is concerned about the nation splitting into two groups: the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.”I don’t want to see the country that is already too divided become divided in a new way, between places where people live free from fear of COVID, and places where … the fall arrives and death and severe illnesses return,” Biden said Wednesday as he announced new coronavirus vaccination initiatives with inducements.”Getting the vaccine is not a partisan act,” added Biden, noting production of the vaccines was done under presidents from both parties. “We need to be one America — united, free from fear.”FILE – Members of the Nevada National Guard offer coronavirus vaccines at a mobile vaccination clinic held at a tribal health center on the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Reservation and Colony on May 18, 2021 in Fallon, Nev.Biden has set a goal of vaccinating 70% of adults in the United States with at least one injection by July 4, when the country celebrates its Independence Day. The rate is currently 63%.With COVID-19 vaccination rates lagging, especially in some minority communities, Biden recommends the Shots at the Shop program, which includes more than 1,000 neighborhood barbers and hairstylists. The hair professionals will attend training sessions this month about coronavirus vaccines and then hold vaccination clinics in their establishments.”Barbershops, beauty shops are hubs of activity and information in Black and brown communities particularly,” Biden said at the White House.The administration’s National Month of Action will also include several “national organizations, local government leaders, …

Oxygen levels have dropped in hundreds of lakes in the United States and Europe over the last four decades, a new study found.   And the authors said declining oxygen could lead to increased fish kills, algal blooms and methane emissions.   Researchers examined the temperature and dissolved oxygen — the amount of oxygen in the water — in nearly 400 lakes and found that declines were widespread. Their study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, found dissolved oxygen fell 5.5 % in surface waters of these lakes and 18.6% in deep waters.   The authors said their findings suggest that warming temperatures and decreased water clarity from human activity are causing the oxygen decline.   “Oxygen is one of the best indicators of ecosystem health, and changes in this study reflect a pronounced human footprint,” said co-author Craig E. Williamson, a biology professor at Miami University in Ohio.     That footprint includes warming caused by climate change and decreased water clarity caused in part by runoff from sewage, fertilizer, cars and power plants.   Dissolved oxygen losses in Earth’s water systems have been reported before. A 2017 study of oxygen levels in the world’s oceans showed a 2% decline since 1960. But less was known about lakes, which lost two to nine times as much oxygen as oceans, the new study’s authors said.   Prior to this study, other researchers had reported on oxygen declines in individual lakes over a long period of time. But none have looked …

Hundreds of Zimbabweans protested Wednesday about a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines as the country awaits more doses from China.  The government wants to inoculate at least 60% of Zimbabwe’s more than 14 million people by the end of the year but has struggled to get the necessary supplies.  Claudina Maneni brought her 60-year-old mother to get her second vaccine dose Wednesday at Wilkins Hospital, Zimbabwe’s main COVID-19 vaccination center.  She was among people who arrived at 4 a.m. but waited in vain for hours.  The crowd demanded to see authorities and began to protest but dispersed upon hearing police were on their way.  Maneni says she wonders why Zimbabwe’s finance minister, Mthuli Ncube, has not imported more vaccines to avert shortages. “That’s the problem with freebies. Shortages must affect those who want their first jabs,” she said. “I hear some private points are selling it. I will pass through to check. It must be them — government officials — taking vaccines to those places. They are not ashamed at all. There will be chaos here. Why did they call us to come for vaccination?” On Wednesday, Dr. John Mangwiro, Zimbabwe’s junior health minister, refused to comment. Tuesday, he told state-controlled media that government would redistribute COVID-19 vaccines from areas with lower demand to those where uptake has been high to avert current shortages. He said Zimbabwe still had more than 400,000 doses from the 1.7 million COVID-19 vaccines it got from China, Russia and India since February.  Zimbabwe’s Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa was mum about the …

Authorities in Australia’s southern state of Victoria have extended a one-week lockdown for its capital, Melbourne, to contain the spread of a new COVID-19 outbreak. The lockdown was initially imposed across the entire state last week after health officials detected a highly infectious variant of the coronavirus that was rapidly spreading across Victoria state.  The latest outbreak has been linked to an overseas traveler who became infected with a variant first detected in India during his mandatory hotel quarantine phase. FILE – A mostly-empty city street is seen on the first day of a seven-day lockdown as the state of Victoria looks to curb the spread of a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Melbourne, Australia, May 28, 2021.Health officials announced six new locally acquired COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number of confirmed infections to 60.   “If we let this thing run its course, it will explode,” Victoria state Acting Premier James Merlino told reporters in Melbourne.  “We’ve got to run this to ground because if we don’t, people will die.”   Although Melbourne’s 5 million residents will remain under strict restrictions until June 10, the lockdown measures have been lifted for residents in regional Victoria, with limits on public and private gatherings and restaurant capacity.   The new lockdown is the fourth one imposed on Melbourne and Victoria state since the start of the pandemic.  The most severe period occurred in mid-2020, which lasted more than three months as Victoria was under the grip of a second wave of COVID-19 infections that …

Australian scientists are leading an international consortium that is building one of the world’s most powerful ground-based telescopes. It promises to see further and clearer than the Hubble Space Telescope and unlock mysteries of the early Universe.The telescope is called MAVIS, or Multi-conjugate-adaptive-optics Assisted Visible Imager and Spectrograph. It’s a long name for a highly complex instrument that will be the first of its kind. It aims to remove blurring from conventional telescope images caused by turbulence in Earth’s atmosphere, which is why the stars appear to twinkle in the night sky. Scientists in Australia say the new technology will allow them to “peer back into the early Universe” and help them explore how the first stars formed 13 billion years ago, as well as monitoring changes in the weather on planets and moons in our solar system.  Images produced by MAVIS will be three times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope that was launched into Earth’s low orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. Associate Professor Richard McDermid, a scientist based at Sydney’s Macquarie University, says the new telescope will change the way we explore space. “The clarity gives us two things,” he said. “It helps us see a sharper image, but it also helps us gain in sensitivity, so we can see fainter things and we can see them more clearly. That allows us to push into a new frontier of the furthest and faintest things we can see. So, for example the first stars in formation, inside the first galaxies because when …

US President Joe Biden’s administration announced Tuesday it was halting petroleum development activity in the Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, reversing a move by former president Donald Trump to allow drilling. The Interior Department said it was notifying firms of the freeze, pending a comprehensive environmental review that will determine whether leases in the area known as ANWR should be “reaffirmed, voided or subject to additional mitigation measures,” the agency said in a statement. The announcement deals a blow to the long-contested quest of oil companies to drill in the sensitive territory. The push for development picked up momentum after Trump announced the leasing plan last November shortly after losing reelection to Biden. At a lease sale in January over some 1.6 million acres, US officials auctioned off 11 oil tracts. Major oil companies sat out the bidding, and nine of the leases went to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a state agency, while two went to small companies. Biden had promised to protect ANWR during the presidential campaign. White House climate advisor Gina McCarthy noted Biden’s promise and said the move reflected his belief that “national treasures are cultural and economic cornerstones of our country,” according to a White House statement. Biden “is grateful for the prompt action by the Department of the Interior to suspend all leasing pending a review of decisions made in the last administration’s final days that could have changed the character of this special place forever,” McCarthy added. Environmentalists have long argued that safeguarding ANWR is critical to protect …