Month: September 2021

The U.S. vaccination drive against COVID-19 stood on the verge of a major new phase as government advisers Thursday recommended booster doses of Pfizer’s vaccine for millions of older or otherwise vulnerable Americans — despite doubts the extra shots will do much to slow the pandemic. Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said boosters should be offered to people 65 and older, nursing home residents and those ages 50 to 64 who have underlying health problems that put them at greater risk. The extra dose would be given once they are at least six months past their last Pfizer shot. Deciding who else might get one was far tougher. While there is little evidence that younger people are in danger of waning immunity, the panel offered the option of a booster for those 18 to 49 who have chronic health problems and want one. But the advisers refused to go further and open boosters to otherwise healthy front-line health care workers who aren’t at risk of severe illness but want to avoid even a mild infection. “We might as well just say give it to everyone 18 and older. We have a very effective vaccine, and it’s like saying, ‘It’s not working.’ It is working,” said Dr. Pablo Sanchez of Ohio State University, who helped block the broadest booster option.  Still, getting the unvaccinated their first shots remains the top priority, and the panel wrestled with whether the booster debate was distracting from that goal. All three …

Jets of red hot lava shot into the sky on Spain’s La Palma on Thursday as a huge cloud of toxic ash drifted from the Cumbre Vieja volcano toward the mainland and jeopardized the island’s economically crucial banana crops.   Walls of lava, which turn black when exposed to the air, have advanced slowly westward since Sunday, engulfing everything in their path, including houses, schools and some banana plantations.   Farmers near the town of Todoque raced to save as much as possible of their crop, piling their trucks high with sacks of the green bananas, on which many of the islanders depend for their livelihood.   “We’re just trying to take everything we can,” said a farmer who gave his name as Roberto from the window of his pickup.     Some 15% of La Palma’s 140 million kilogram annual banana production could be at risk if farmers are unable to access plantations and tend to their crops, Sergio Caceres, manager of producer’s association Asprocan, told Reuters.   “There is the main tragedy of destroyed houses — many of those affected are banana producers or employees — but their livelihood is further down the hill,” he said. “Some farms have already been covered.”   Caceres said the farmers already were suffering losses and warned that if lava pollutes the water supply it could potentially cause problems for months to come.   The island produces around a quarter of the Canary Islands’ renowned bananas, which hold protected designation of origin …

The all-amateur crew of the SpaceX Dragon capsule makes it home, but not before a string of first time-ever events. Plus, cosmonauts vote from space, and a film crew readies for a trip to the International Space Station. Buckle up, as VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports on this historic Week in Space. …

As more businesses, universities, and federal and local governments demand proof of inoculation against COVID-19, the black market for fake vaccine cards appears to be booming. U.S. Customs officials in Cincinnati, Ohio, intercepted five shipments containing 1,683 counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination cards and 2,034 fake Pfizer inoculation stickers since August 16. The shipments from China were headed to private homes and apartments in the states o Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, New York and Texas. In August, a Chicago pharmacist was arrested after being accused of selling dozens of authentic Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID-19 vaccination cards on eBay. In July, a naturopathic physician in Northern California was arrested for allegedly selling fake COVID-19 immunization treatments and forged vaccination cards.  ‘A type of fraud’ Legal experts compare phony vaccine cards to counterfeit money or fake drivers’ licenses.  “It’s a type of fraud,” says Wesley Oliver, professor of law at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “There’s another theory that you are stealing from the government their insignia and their imprimatur that you are in fact vaccinated, and both are just sort of different styles of the same crime.” President Joe Biden recently called on all businesses with 100 or more employees to require their workers either be vaccinated or tested for COVID-19 once a week. A global cybersecurity company reports that the price of fake vaccine cards and the numbers of people selling them shot up since Biden announced the vaccine mandate in early September. Pretending to be vaccinated trespasses on other people’s rights, according to Boston University law professor Christopher Robertson.  “Part of the free enterprise system is we decide where we …

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss Deby and Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni are set to address the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.  Access to COVID-19 vaccines has been one of the major topics of the annual meeting in New York and is likely to be one of the most discussed again Thursday as leaders from African nations make up a large portion of the day’s list of speakers.  While some countries such as the United States have had vaccine doses widely available to their populations for months, other countries have struggled to access COVID-19 vaccine supplies.  The African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 4% of the population is fully vaccinated.  Ramaphosa was among a group of leaders who participated in a virtual summit Wednesday convened by U.S. President Joe Biden to discuss boosting efforts to vaccinate people all over the world. Biden announced the United States was buying another 500 million doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to distribute to other countries.  “Of the around 6 billion vaccine doses administered worldwide, only 2% of these have been administered in Africa, a continent of more than 1.2 billion people,” Ramaphosa said. “This is unjust and immoral.”  Other speakers Thursday include Iraq’s President Barham Salih, Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi.  The coronavirus pandemic has prompted a number of world leaders to pre-record their remarks instead of traveling to New York to speak in person. About half of …

Thailand’s COVID vaccination rate currently stands at less than 25% of the population as the government says it is ramping up inoculations ahead of a planned reopening of several key tourist regions. Chiang Mai and its surrounding areas in the northern part of the country are among the locations included in the plan to reopen by Oct. 15. Steve Sandford visited Chiang Mai and has this report for VOA. Camera: Steve Sandford …

The southeastern U.S. state of Florida says parents or legal guardians can decide whether or not to quarantine their children if they have been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19. Dr. Joseph Lapado, the state’s newly appointed surgeon general, signed new guidelines Thursday that will allow students to continue attending in-person classes “without restrictions or disparate treatment” as long as they have no symptoms of the virus. The parent or legal guardian can decide to keep their child at home for seven days from the date of last contact with someone who tested positive. The new guidelines replace a previous one that mandated students enter quarantine for at least four days after being exposed to someone who had tested positive. It does maintain the previous rule that students who test positive either quarantine for 10 days, test negative for the disease and remain free of symptoms or show a doctor’s note giving them permission before returning to school. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis defended the new guidelines during a press conference Wednesday. “Quarantining healthy students is incredibly damaging for their educational achievement,” DeSantis said. “It’s also disruptive for families,” he added, saying the state would follow a “symptoms-based approach.” The new guidelines run counter to recommendations issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control for unvaccinated people to isolate for 14 days if they have been within 2 meters of someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. The new guidelines also prompted a judge to dismiss a court challenge …

This week, Pfizer released promising news in the effort to end the coronavirus pandemic, saying its COVID-19 vaccine works for young children. VOA’s Carol Pearson has more on this development. …

U.S. President Joe Biden convened a virtual COVID-19 summit Wednesday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, aiming to rally world leaders, philanthropists, civil society, nongovernmental organizations and industry to defeat the virus by the end of 2022. He also announced an additional donation of half a billion doses of the Pfizer vaccine. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has more. …

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized a third shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech two-dose COVID-19 vaccine for Americans 65 years old and above and adults at high risk of severe illness. Wednesday’s decision also approved a booster shot for people in certain occupations, such as health care workers, teachers, grocery store employees and those in homeless shelters or prisons. The authorization will likely pave the way for Thursday’s vote by an advisory committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on which group of Americans will be eligible to receive the Pfizer booster shots. A CDC panel met Wednesday to discuss who should be first in line to receive booster shots — a controversial decision that comes over a month after President Joe Biden first announced plans to administer booster shots eight months after the second dose. An FDA panel last week overwhelmingly voted to reject the White House plan to give boosters to most Americans, citing a lack of data on the safety of boosters, as well as a lack of evidence of their value. The panel did endorse booster shots for those 65 and older and those at high risk of severe illness. Scientists emphasized that the country’s main concern should still be vaccinating those who have not received any doses. “I want to highlight that in September of 2021 in the United States, deaths from COVID-19 are largely vaccine preventable, with the primary series of any of the three vaccines available,” said Dr. Matthew Daley, …

Scientists with the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in the U.S. state of Colorado said Wednesday that, as summer was ending in the Northern Hemisphere, Arctic sea ice had shrunk less in 2021 than in other recent years.  Supported by NASA and other federal agencies, the NSIDC is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado in Boulder. It is among the research organizations that monitor the ebb and flow of the Arctic ice pack. Scientists with the center determined the ice pack reached its minimum extent for the year on September 16. Sea ice extent is defined as the total area in which ice concentration is at least 15%  This year, satellite observations determined Arctic ice covered a minimum of 1.82 million square kilometers, which NSIDC scientists said was the highest minimum coverage since 2014, and the 12th lowest in 43 years of satellite records.  In a statement, NSIDC Director Mark Serreze said, “We had a reprieve this year — a cool and stormy summer with less ice melt. But the amount of old, thick sea ice is as low as it has ever been in our satellite record.”  The NSIDC said the last 15 years have produced the lowest 15 sea ice extents in the satellite record. The amount of old, multiyear ice — that is, ice that has remained frozen through at least one summer melt season — is at one of the lowest levels in the ice age …

Scientists have found evidence of a resistant form of malaria in Uganda, a worrying sign that the top drug used against the parasitic disease could ultimately be rendered useless without more action to stop its spread. Researchers in Uganda analyzed blood samples from patients treated with artemisinin, the primary medicine used for malaria in Africa in combination with other drugs. They found that by 2019, nearly 20% of the samples had genetic mutations, suggesting the treatment was ineffective. Lab tests showed it took much longer for those patients to get rid of the parasites that cause malaria. Drug-resistant forms of malaria were previously detected in Asia, and health officials have been nervously watching for any signs in Africa, which accounts for more than 90% of the world’s malaria cases. Some isolated drug-resistant strains of malaria have previously been seen in Rwanda. “Our findings suggest a potential risk of cross-border spread across Africa,” the researchers wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine, which published the study Wednesday. The drug-resistant strains emerged in Uganda rather than being imported from elsewhere, they reported. They examined 240 blood samples over three years. Malaria is spread by mosquito bites and kills more than 400,000 people every year, mostly children under 5 and pregnant women. Resistance has ‘a foothold’ Dr. Philip Rosenthal, a professor of medicine at the University of California- San Francisco, said that the new findings in Uganda, after past results in Rwanda, “prove that resistance really now has a foothold in Africa.” …

The World Health Organization is issuing new guidelines on improving global air quality, which it says could save many of the seven million lives that are lost each year to pollution. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says inhaling dirty air increases the risk of pneumonia, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, as well as noncommunicable ailments including heart disease, stroke and cancers.  “Air pollution is a health threat in all countries but especially for vulnerable groups in low- and middle-income countries with poor air quality due to urbanization and rapid economic development and air pollution in the home caused by cooking, heating and lighting,” he said.  Since the WHO’s last global update in 2005, a new body of evidence has emerged showing that humans suffer damage to their health at lower concentrations of air pollution than previously believed.  Consequently, the WHO recommends lower air quality levels for five key pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and carbon monoxide.  Maria Neira, director of the WHO’s department of environment, climate change and health, says a changeover to cleaner energy will improve people’s health and mitigate global warming. “Moving to renewable and clean sources of energy because [of] this will have a very positive impact on reducing the greenhouse gases emission and tackling the causes of climate change and reducing air pollution,” she said. “Both are critical pillars of our health.”  Besides improving health and saving lives, reducing air pollution could also have enormous economic benefits. The World Bank estimates the global cost …

The two biggest economies and largest carbon polluters in the world announced separate financial attacks on climate change Tuesday.  Chinese President Xi Jinping said his country will no longer fund coal-fired power plants abroad, surprising the world on climate for the second straight year at the U.N. General Assembly. That came hours after U.S. President Joe Biden announced a plan to double financial aid to poorer nations to $11.4 billion by 2024 so those countries could switch to cleaner energy and cope with global warming’s worsening impacts. That puts rich nations close to within reach of its long-promised but not realized goal of $100 billion a year in climate help for developing nations.  “This is an absolutely seminal moment,” said Xinyue Ma, an expert on energy development finance at Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center.  This could provide some momentum going into major climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, in less than six weeks, experts said. Running up to the historic 2015 Paris climate deal, a joint U.S.-China agreement kickstarted successful negotiations. This time, with China-U.S. relations dicey, the two nations made their announcements separately, hours and thousands of miles apart.  “Today was a really good day for the world,” United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is hosting the upcoming climate negotiations, told Vice President Kamala Harris.  United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who has made a frenetic push this week for bigger efforts to curb climate change called the two announcements welcome news, but said “we still have a long way to …

Amnesty International is accusing the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies of creating an “unprecedented human rights crisis” by failing to provide enough COVID-19 vaccines for the world’s poorest nations.  In a report issued Wednesday, the human rights advocacy group says AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Novavax and the partnership of Pfizer and BioNTech have “failed to meet their human rights responsibilities” by refusing to participate in global vaccine sharing initiatives and share vaccine technology by waiving their intellectual property rights. Amnesty says only a “paltry” 0.3% of the 5.76 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines distributed around the world have gone to low-income countries, while 79% have gone to upper-middle and high-income countries. It says the disparity is “pushing weakened health systems to the very brink and causing tens of thousands of preventable deaths every week,” especially in parts of Latin America, Africa and Asia.  The organization says Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna alone are set to make $130 billion combined by the end of 2022. “Profits should never come before lives,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general.  Amnesty is calling on governments and pharmaceutical companies to immediately deliver 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to low and lower-middle income countries to meet the World Health Organization’s goal of vaccinating 40% of the population of such countries by the end of the year.  COVID Summit The report was issued ahead of U.S. President Joe Biden’s virtual COVID Summit, held in conjunction with this week’s United Nations General Assembly. Biden is expected to announce a global …

The delta variant of the coronavirus has overtaken all other variants of concern, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.  “Less than 1% each of alpha, beta and gamma are currently circulating. It’s really predominantly delta around the world,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead on COVID-19.  According to Van Kerkhove, the delta variant is so highly transmissible it has replaced other variants circulating around the world.  Hundreds of people demonstrated Tuesday in Australia’s second-largest city against coronavirus restrictions the government imposed on the construction industry.  Officials announced that construction sites in Melbourne would be closed for two weeks amid concerns that the movement of workers was contributing to the spread of COVID-19.  Construction workers are also now required to have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine before being allowed to return to work.  Victoria state, where Melbourne is located, reported 603 new cases on Tuesday, the most infections there in a single day this year.  In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Tuesday that fines for breaking coronavirus protocols would increase starting in November.  The changes would increase the fine for someone intentionally failing to comply with a COVID-19 order from about $2,800 to $8,400. Those breaking the restrictions could also face up to six months in prison.  Businesses that violate coronavirus restrictions could face fines of up to $10,500.  “Our success has been really based on the fact that people by and large have been compliant,” Ardern said at a news …

Fast-food giant McDonald’s said Tuesday it would phase out plastic toys from its signature Happy Meals by 2025.  “Starting now, and phased in across the globe by the end of 2025, our ambition is that every toy sold in a Happy Meal will be sustainable, made from more renewable, recycled, or certified materials like bio-based and plant-derived materials and certified fiber,” the company said in a statement.  McDonald’s said that this process had already begun in Britain and Ireland, and that all its Happy Meal toys in France were already made sustainably.  The signature meal for children typically contains a plastic toy, often an action figure. But the new plan means that figurines may be made of cardboard for the child to assemble. McDonald’s, which has been serving Happy Meals since 1979, said that its new plan to make toys out of renewable materials will reduce fossil fuel-based plastic in its toys by 90%.  But a large part of McDonald’s packaging remains plastic, the company acknowledges, saying that it has “set goals” for all its packaging to be from “renewable, recycled, or certified sources” by 2025.      …

U.S.-based pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson said Tuesday new “real world” and phase 3 study data show a second shot of its single-dose vaccine about two months after the initial shot increased its effectiveness to 94%. In a news release on its website, the company said its clinical trial in the United States showed the booster shot also provided as much as 100 percent protection against severe or critical COVID-19 symptoms beginning at least 14 days after final vaccination.   The company also said there was no evidence of reduced effectiveness over the study duration, including when the delta variant became dominant in the U.S. They said tests performed outside the U.S. showed it provided up to 87% protection against severe or critical COVID-19. The company also said a booster given six months after the initial dose saw antibody levels increase by nine times one week after the booster and continued to climb as high as 12-fold. On Friday, an FDA advisory committee voted to recommend emergency authorization of additional Pfizer shots for Americans 65 and older and those at high risk of severe illness, but voted to recommend against broader approval, saying it wants to see more data. J&J said it has submitted data to the FDA and plans to submit it to other regulators, the World Health Organization and other vaccine advisory groups worldwide to inform their decision-making. Some information in this report came from the Associated Press and the Reuters.   …

Hundreds of people demonstrated Tuesday in Australia’s second-largest city to protest coronavirus restrictions the government imposed on the construction industry. Officials announced construction sites in Melbourne would be closed for two weeks amid concerns that the movement of workers was contributing to the spread of COVID-19. Construction workers are also now required to have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine before being allowed to return to work. Victoria state, where Melbourne is located, reported 603 new cases on Tuesday, the most infections there in a single day this year. In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Tuesday that fines for breaking coronavirus protocols would increase starting in November. The changes would change the fine for someone intentionally failing to comply with a COVID-19 order from about $2,800 to $8,400. Those breaking the restrictions could also face up to six months in prison. Businesses that violate coronavirus restrictions could face fines of up to $10,500. “Our success has been really based on the fact that people by and large have been compliant,” Ardern said at a news conference. “However, there has been the odd person that has broken the rules and put others at risk.” Meanwhile, Governor Jay Inslee, of the western U.S. state of Washington, is asking the federal government for help dealing with the strain on hospitals as the delta variant drives large numbers of infections. Inslee sent a letter Monday to Jeffrey Zients, the White House pandemic coordinator, saying hospitals in his state are …

When Italian reporter Francesco Giovannetti told protesters that he was covering them for the left-leaning daily La Repubblica, insults poured out with abandon. It was August 30 in Rome, outside the Ministry of Public Education, and demonstrators were speaking out against Italy’s “green pass,” a COVID-19 measure requiring workers to show proof of vaccination, a negative COVID-19 test, or that they had recovered from the virus. The verbal assault soon escalated into a physical one when one man, who moments earlier had threatened to kill Giovannetti, began to attack the journalist. “He beat me in the face,” Giovannetti told VOA. “He landed four or five of these hits.” The police soon intervened.  Attacked during protests The attack occurred two days after Italian journalist Antonella Alba was harassed and assaulted while covering similar protests in Rome. Neither journalist was seriously injured, but Giovannetti’s and Alba’s experiences underscore a broader danger for journalists who cover the pandemic in Europe and the United States. Journalists have been harassed and attacked over reporting on COVID-19, especially when it comes to coverage of anti-masking campaigns, anti-vaccine campaigns and other forms of COVID-19 denialism. “We are seen as propaganda right now,” Giovannetti said. “We are a target.”  Anti-media sentiment was on the rise before the pandemic, according to press freedom analysts. But it has intensified in part due to pressure from extremist and populist groups energized against public health mandates and vaccines, said Attila Mong, a correspondent in Berlin for the advocacy group Committee to Protect …

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern Monday that the world is not on track to meet several urgent targets in the fight against climate change.    “Based on the present commitments of member states, the world is on a catastrophic pathway to 2.7-degrees [Celsius] of heating, instead of 1.5 we all agreed should be the limit,” Guterres told reporters. “Science tells us that anything above 1.5 degrees would be a disaster.”   To get to 1.5 degrees, the U.N. says wealthier nations need to step up with $100 billion a year between now and 2025.    Greenhouse gas emissions also need to be cut by nearly half by 2030 to enable nations to reach carbon neutrality by the 2050 target. This includes the difficult job of getting countries to phase out the use of polluting coal plants.    “Where I believe there is still a long way to go is in relation to the reduction of emissions,” Guterres said.    Nearly 80% of emissions are from G-20 countries.   Review conference   In November, nations will meet in Glasgow, Scotland, for a key climate conference to review progress on commitments since the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. On Monday, Guterres co-hosted with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson a small meeting of key countries for one of the final gatherings ahead of the conference. Guterres and Johnson have both raised alarms that the review conference, known as COP26, cannot fail and that ambitious commitments are needed.    “I think that Glasgow — COP26 — is …

Pfizer says its COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective for 5-11-year-olds. The company said trials showed the vaccine was safe, well tolerated and showed robust neutralizing antibody responses at the lower dose levels necessary in younger children. Pfizer says it plans to seek authorization for the vaccines use for the younger age group soon. The governor of the U.S. state with the highest COVID deaths per capita rate said he sees President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for all federal workers as “an attack,” not a preventive measure meant to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves told CNN’s State of the Union Sunday the mandate is “an attack by the president on hardworking Americans and hardworking Mississippians who he wants to choose between getting a jab in their arm and their ability to feed their families.” According to data compiled by The New York Times, Mississippi has a COVID death rate of 306 deaths per 100,000 people. Biden has defended his recent call for businesses with 100 or more workers to mandate coronavirus vaccinations for their workers or require weekly testing, and mandatory jabs for some 2.5 million federal government workers, without the option of weekly tests for COVID-19. In Britain, the COVID vaccination campaign for children between the ages of 12 to 15 begins Monday at schools around the country. Meanwhile, some private hospitals in Kolkata, bracing for a possible surge in pediatric COVID cases, have enhanced their facilities and provided additional training for their healthcare …

Within 40 years, more than 800,000 Australians — twice as many as now — will be living with dementia, unless a cure is found, according to a new government-sponsored report.  Dementia is the second leading cause of death in Australia.   A new study by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, a government agency, has forecast that 1.1 million Australians will live with dementia by 2058, unless major new treatments are discovered.   Dementia is a broad term for a number of conditions that impair the functions of the brain.   In 2019, $2.1 billion was spent in Australia on residential and community-based services, and hospital care for dementia patients, two-thirds of whom are women.   The release of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare study has coincided with a new awareness campaign by Dementia Australia, a non-profit organization.  Its chief executive, Maree McCabe, says exercise and a sensible diet can offer protection against several types of dementia.  “The main type is Alzheimer’s disease but there are about 100 different types and about 60% of people with dementia have Alzheimer’s disease. But there’s types such as frontotemporal dementia, dementia with lewy bodies, vascular dementia, just to name a few. We can definitely reduce our risk of developing dementia by ensuring that we eat well, that we exercise our body and our brain,” McCabe said. The World Health Organization has said there are currently more than 55 million people living with dementia globally.   Almost 10 million new cases are diagnosed every year. About a quarter of those are detected in China, the world’s most populous country.  It is estimated that 10 million people currently suffer from the degenerative brain disorder in China. As its population …