Year: 2021

COVID-19 cases among U.S. service members have been on a steady decline over the last month, as more service members have become vaccinated ahead of the Defense Department’s fast-approaching vaccination compliance deadlines. The number of cases reached 4,902 the week of Sept. 8 but dropped to 863 cases last week, the military’s lowest number of cases since early June, according to DOD data obtained by VOA. “The decline, it’s exactly how we wanted it to go,” Defense Department spokesperson Major Charlie Dietz told VOA on Wednesday. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a memo Aug. 25 requiring service members to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or face penalties, leaving deadlines for vaccination compliance to the service branches. DOD’s vaccination mandate came during a summer surge of the coronavirus across the country that was particularly hard-hitting for unvaccinated people. Nearly as many service members died in August as in all of 2020. More service members died in September than in August, and none of those who died in September were fully vaccinated, Dietz said. According to data on active-duty troops obtained Wednesday by VOA, 91% of the Army, 99% of the Navy, 96% of the Air Force and Space Force, and 91% of the Marine Corps are fully or partially vaccinated. But active-duty troops are vaccinated at a much higher rate than their Reserve and Guard counterparts, some of whom have deadlines as late as June 30, 2022. With less than three weeks until the first of the military’s COVID-19 vaccination compliance dates, …

Finance ministers from the Group of 20 economies Wednesday pledged to keep economic stimulus policies in place to ensure a recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Amid ongoing risks, “We will continue to sustain the recovery, avoiding any premature withdrawal of support measures,” according to the official communique released after the G-20 meeting. While the global recovery has been solid, the statement notes that it has been “highly divergent” among countries. “We reaffirm our resolve to use all available tools for as long as required to address the adverse consequences of COVID-19, in particular on those most impacted,” the statement continued. At the same time, officials are closely watching rising prices, the statement said. The meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors is being held at a time when suppliers are struggling to meet renewed demand and bottlenecks are causing shortages of key materials and pushing prices higher. Oil prices, notably, have spiked above $80 a barrel for the first time in years. The World Bank estimates 8.5% of global container shipping is stalled in or around ports, twice as much as in January. Italy’s central bank chief Ignazio Visco agreed with the International Monetary Fund and others who have said the inflation pressures are mostly the result of transitory factors like the surge in demand. But he acknowledged that “these may take months before fading away.” G-20 central bankers are studying the issue to see if there are “more structural factors at work” in the bigger-than-expected inflation spike, and …

People who got Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine as a first shot had a stronger immune response when they boosted it with the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, a study by the National Institutes of Health showed Wednesday. The study, which is preliminary and hasn’t been peer reviewed, is the latest challenge to J&J’s efforts to use its COVID-19 vaccine as a booster in the United States. The study, which included more than 450 adults who received initial shots from Pfizer, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson, showed that “mixing and matching” booster shots of different types is safe in adults. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are based on messenger RNA, while J&J’s uses viral vector technology. The finding comes as an advisory group to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration prepares to meet later this week to discuss the merits of a booster shot for Moderna and J&J vaccines. FDA officials on Wednesday said J&J’s regulatory submission for its booster raised red flags such as small sample sizes and data based on tests that had not been validated. U.S. health officials have been under pressure to offer advice on booster doses of the J&J and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines since the White House announced in August that it planned to roll out boosters, beginning last month, for most adults. The NIH study contrasted the safety and immune responses of volunteers who were boosted with the same shot used in their initial vaccination with those of volunteers who received a different type of …

The chief of the World Health Organization on Wednesday honored the late Henrietta Lacks, an American woman whose cancer cells were taken without her knowledge during the 1950s and ended up providing the foundation for vast scientific breakthroughs, including research about the coronavirus.    The recognition from WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus came more than a decade after the publication of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” Rebecca Skloot’s book about the discrimination in health care faced by Black Americans, the life-saving innovations made possible by Lacks’ cells and her family’s legal fight over their unauthorized use.    “What happened to Henrietta was wrong,” Tedros said during a special ceremony at WHO Geneva headquarters before handing the Director-General’s Award for Henrietta Lacks to her 87-year-old son Lawrence Lacks as several of her other descendants looked on. Reproduced infinitely ever since, HeLa cells have become a cornerstone of modern medicine, including the development of the polio vaccine, genetic mapping and even COVID-19 vaccines.  Tedros noted that Lacks lived at a time when racial discrimination was legal in the United States and that it remains widespread, even if no longer legal in most countries. “Henrietta Lacks was exploited. She is one of many women of color whose bodies have been misused by science,” he said. “She placed her trust in the health system so she could receive treatment. But the system took something from her without her knowledge or consent.”    “The medical technologies that were developed from this injustice have been used to perpetuate …

A report marking the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction finds many deaths and economic losses from natural disasters could be averted by investing in preventive risk reduction measures.  Climate-related disasters have nearly doubled over the past 20 years, with developing countries bearing the brunt of the damage. Though extreme weather events and other emergencies are growing, the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction says little money is being allocated to help countries prevent or reduce risks.  The report finds $133 billion of official development assistance was allocated for disaster-related aid between 2010 and 2019, but only $5.5 billion was invested in measures to reduce the risks and lessen the impact of disasters.  For every $100 spent on disaster-related development aid, only 50 cents goes toward protecting development from the impact of disasters, according to the report.  Ricardo Mena, director of the Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, said even that low-level funding should be better targeted to address the needs of poorer, more vulnerable countries.  “One would think that countries that are more prone to disasters and that experience higher mortality rates would be the ones where DRR, disaster risk reduction, financing would be allocated the most. But that is unfortunately not the case,” he said. “Insufficient investment is being provided to prevent future disasters in areas where high mortality is likely.”  Mena said failure to invest in DRR is like buying a nice car that has no brakes. “Investing in DRR, we know it makes sense and, in terms …

Two Israeli scientists have grown a group of date palms from 2,000 year-old seeds. This year, one of the trees produced a harvest of hundreds of dates that until now had been considered extinct. Linda Gradstein reports from Kibbutz Ketura in Israel’s Arava desert. …

Hurricane Pamela came ashore on Mexico’s Pacific coast Wednesday, bringing with it strong winds and rain.  The Category 1 storm had just regained hurricane strength before hitting 65 kilometers north of Mazatlan, a port city and tourist destination.  The storm has the potential for strong storm surge and possible flooding.  At landfall, the storm had winds of 120 kph, but that was anticipated to dissipate quickly as the storm moves inland. The remnants of the storm, which is expected to bring heavy rains across much of Mexico, could hit Texas on Thursday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.  Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press.  …

A tropical storm set off landslides and flash floods as it barreled over the tip of the northern Philippines, leaving at least 11 people dead and seven missing, officials said Tuesday.  More than 6,500 villagers were evacuated from homes in several towns and cities swamped by floods and battered by pounding rains and wind that toppled trees and knocked down power.   Tropical Storm Kompasu was last tracked over the South China Sea heading toward China’s Hainan island and later Vietnam with sustained winds of 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour and gusts of 125 kph (78 mph), government forecasters said.   Six villagers died in landslides that hit their houses in the northern mountain province of Benguet and three others in the region remain missing. A security guard was swept away by strong waves while inspecting a seaport and drowned in Claveria town in Cagayan, disaster response officials said.   In western Palawan province, four people died and four others went missing in flash floods in Narra town, which was drenched by monsoon rains enhanced by the storm.  The coast guard its personnel rescued elderly residents and children trapped in submerged homes Monday and carried them through floodwaters in a rural village in Brooke’s Point town in Palawan.  About 20 storms and typhoons each year lash the Philippines, which also lies in the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a region often hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, making the Southeast Asian archipelago one of the most disaster-prone in the world.  …

As William Shatner prepares to be beamed up Wednesday for his first real-life spaceflight, and to become at 90 the oldest person ever to enter the final frontier, he’s bringing out the awe in the small handful of people around a rural Texas spaceport.  Shatner’s 10-minute trip with three others on the second passenger flight from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin will be more like the first space launches of the 1960s than the fictional galactic voyages of the Starship Enterprise on “Star Trek,” but the very idea of him leaving the atmosphere is powerful.  “It’s time Captain Kirk actually physically got up into space. I’m kind of excited about that,” said Becky Brewster, mayor of Van Horn, a rural town of about 1,800 people on what was once desolate desert ranchland in far West Texas that has been transformed by the presence of the Blue Origin spaceport facilities 25 miles away.  The mayor, a lifelong “Star Trek” fan, said she was disappointed she wasn’t invited to the launch site but is savoring the moment anyway. She’s planning to watch from her backyard with the livestream playing.  “He and Mr. Spock were the ones that got me interested in space and science fiction and and everything else,” Brewster said. “So, from junior high age up to now where William Shatner is actually in our town fixing to go up into space. You know, it’s kind of like the whole circle now for me.”  Beyond his celebrity identity, Shatner being space-bound at his age …

Heath officials on Tuesday authorized the first electronic cigarettes in the United States, saying the R.J. Reynolds vaping products can benefit adult smokers. The Food and Drug Administration said data submitted by the company showed its Vuse e-cigarettes helped smokers either quit or significantly reduce cigarette use, the leading preventable cause of death in the U.S. Tuesday’s first-of-a-kind decision is part of a sweeping effort by the FDA to bring scientific scrutiny to the multibillion-dollar vaping industry after years of delays. In September, the agency said it had rejected applications for more than a million e-cigarettes and related products, mainly because of their potential appeal to underage teens. But regulators delayed deciding on most of the major vaping companies, including market leader Juul. The FDA’s decision applies only to Vuse’s refillable Solo Power device and its tobacco-flavored nicotine cartridges. The FDA said it rejected 10 other requests from the company for other flavored products, but it did not disclose details. The agency is still reviewing the company’s request to sell a menthol-flavored nicotine formula. “Today’s authorizations are an important step toward ensuring all new tobacco products undergo the FDA’s robust, scientific premarket evaluation,” said Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s tobacco center, in a statement. “The manufacturer’s data demonstrates its tobacco-flavored products could benefit addicted adult smokers who switch to these products — either completely or with a significant reduction in cigarette consumption.” E-cigarettes first appeared in the U.S. more than a decade ago with the promise of providing smokers …

People over the age of the 60 without heart disease should not take low-dose aspirin daily to prevent a first stroke or heart attack, according to an independent panel of U.S. health experts. In a draft of new guidelines released online Tuesday, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said bleeding risks caused by aspirin outweigh any potential benefits for adults in their 60s who have not had a heart attack or stroke. Low-dose aspirin has long been recommended for people with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity or other maladies that increase their risks of a heart attack or stroke.  “Aspirin use can cause serious harms, and risk increases with age,’’ said task force member and Tufts Medical Center primary care expert Dr. John Wong. Wong said adults of all ages should consult with their doctors before deciding to start or stop taking aspirin, a pain reliever and blood thinner. If the guidelines are finalized, they would mark a reversal of the group’s 2016 recommendations for preventing a first heart attack and stroke. But they would be more consistent with more recent guidelines issued by other medical organizations. Public comments on the guidelines are allowed until Nov. 8, after which the group will consider before making a final decision. …

Brain computer interfaces, where computers analyze brain signals and help paralyzed people to write and carry out other actions, is a burgeoning area of research. VOA’s Deana Mitchell has the story of one breakthrough. …

A group of World Health Organization experts is calling for 70 percent of the global population to be fully vaccinated by mid-2022 to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic from progressing in more dangerous ways. The 15-member Strategic Advisory Group of Experts, known as SAGE, which makes recommendations to WHO on vaccine policy and strategy, just concluded a four-day meeting. The experts say more than enough vaccines are available to cover everyone by the middle of next year if the doses are not hoarded by wealthy countries and are shared equitably with poorer nations which as of yet do not have them.  WHO director of immunization vaccines and biologicals Katherine O’Brien says it is urgent to get the doses to places that are falling behind in the race to vaccinate. “Unless we do that, we will continue to have transmission and transmission will lead to more variants and the issue of the variants is that there is the potential for those variants to escape immune pressure and to undo much of the progress that has been made,” O’Brien said. The experts recommend people who are moderately and severely immune compromised should be offered an additional or third dose of all COVID-19 vaccines.  O’Brien says the third dose should be administered one to three months after people have received their second shot.  “The intent of the third dose is to induce that person’s immune system to have protection that would be at the level that was demonstrated to prevent against severe disease, hospitalization, and death in the clinical trials, which excluded …

Severe storms brought suspected tornadoes and baseball-sized hail to parts of Oklahoma, but there were no reports Monday of deaths or injuries.  The severe weather system that hit Oklahoma late Sunday also brought heavy rain, lightning and wind to parts of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Texas, and more stormy weather is predicted later this week in parts of the central United States.  Severe weather is not unusual in the Southern Plains in October, said Chuck Hodges, senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tulsa. But Sunday’s storm “was kind of more of a spring setup,” he said.  “We had unusually high moisture and a very, very strong weather system that came through,” he said.  Tornado warnings and reports of damage popped up across Oklahoma beginning Sunday afternoon, and survey crews with the weather service will head out Monday to determine how many tornadoes struck, Hodges said.  A possible tornado hit the Tulsa suburb of Coweta late Sunday, causing significant damage to a high school, homes and a gas station, news outlets reported, and Coweta Public Schools classes were canceled Monday.  Building damage was also reported in Anadarko, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of Oklahoma City.  Earlier, baseball-sized hail shattered windows and dented cars in Norman, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Oklahoma City.  The National Weather Service confirmed two small tornadoes touched down in rural areas of southwestern Missouri — an EF-1 twister in Newton County around 1 a.m. and an EF-0 in Jasper County around 4:45 …

The World Health Organization said Monday that constructive action against climate change could save “millions” of lives.  Ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, scheduled for October 31, the WHO is urging governments to reach concrete agreements to combat climate change.  “Countries must set ambitious national climate commitments if they are to sustain a healthy and green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic,” the WHO said Monday in a statement announcing a new report on climate change and health.  Amid the pandemic, climate crises including droughts, heat waves, flooding and hurricanes have ravaged all parts of the world. “Changes in weather and climate are threatening food security and driving up food-, water- and vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, while climate impacts are also negatively affecting mental health,” the WHO statement read.  The WHO report came on the same day that an open letter signed by more than 400 health bodies representing over 45 million health care professionals was released, calling for urgent action against climate change.  At this year’s COP26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland, participants will spend two weeks discussing the measures needed to avoid what some are calling an “unprecedented ecological crisis.”    …

A key U.N. summit tasked with protecting biodiversity officially opens in China and online Monday, as countries meet to tackle pollution and prevent mass extinction weeks before the COP26 climate conference. Beijing, the world’s biggest polluter, has sought to position itself in recent years as a world leader on climate issues after Washington’s withdrawal from international commitments under the Trump administration. The online session that begins Monday afternoon — setting the stage for a face-to-face meeting in April — will see parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) working out the details of a new document that will set targets for protecting ecosystems by 2030. Up for debate are the “30 by 30” plan to give 30% of lands and oceans protected status — a measure supported by a broad coalition of nations, as well as a goal to stop creating plastic waste. China has not yet committed to the “30 by 30” plan. This year’s COP15 gathering, hosted in the southwest city of Kunming, was originally set for 2020 and postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Around one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction amid human encroachment on habitats, over-exploitation, pollution, the spread of invasive species, and climate change.  The CBD has been ratified by 195 countries and the European Union — although not the United States, the world’s biggest historical polluter — with parties meeting every two years. Division over targets China said on Friday it has “given high priority to the protection of …

Some days, all Tsimamorekm Aly eats is sugary water. He’s happy if there’s a handful of rice. But with six young kids and a wife to support, he often goes without.  This is the fourth year that drought has devastated Aly’s home in southern Madagascar. Now more than one million people, or two out of five residents, of his Grand Sud region require emergency food aid in what the United Nations is calling a “climate change famine.”  “In previous years there was rain, a lot of rain. I grew sweet potatoes and I had a lot of money… I even got married because I was rich,” said Aly, 44.    “Things have changed,” he said, standing on an expanse of ochre dirt where the only green to be seen is tall, spiky cacti.  Climate change is battering the Indian Ocean island and several U.N. agencies have warned in the past few months of a “climate change famine” here.  “The situation in the south of the country is really worrying,” said Alice Rahmoun, a spokeswoman with the United Nations’ World Food Programme in Madagascar. “I visited several districts… and heard from families how the changing climate has driven them to hunger.”    Rainfall patterns in Madagascar are growing more erratic — they’ve been below average for nearly six years, said researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara.  “In some villages, the last proper rain was three years ago, in others, eight years ago or even 10 years ago,” said Rahmoun. “Fields are bare, seeds do not sprout and there is no food.”    Temperatures in southern Africa are rising at double the global rate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate …

From the door of the expedition base, a few small steps to the left an autonomous rover passes by. A few giant leaps to the right is an array of solar panels. The landscape is rocky, hilly, tinged with red. Purposefully it resembles Mars. Here, in the Ramon Crater in the desert of southern Israel, a team of six – five men and one woman – has begun simulating what it will be like to live for about a month on the red planet. Their AMADEE-20 habitat is tucked beneath a rocky outcrop. Inside they sleep, eat and conduct experiments. Outside they wear mock space suits fitted with cameras, microphones and self-contained breathing systems. “We have the motto of fail fast, fail cheap, and have a steep learning curve. Because for every mistake we make here on Earth, we hope we don’t repeat it on Mars,” said Gernot Gromer, director of the Austrian Space Forum. The Austrian association is running the project together with the Israel Space Agency and local group D-MARS. A number of recent Mars probes have captivated astronomy fans across the world with robotic rovers like NASA’s Perseverance and, for the first time, the helicopter Ingenuity, offering a glance of the planet’s surface. But a manned mission is likely more than a decade off. With AMADEE-20, which was supposed to happen in 2020 but was postponed due to COVID-19, the team hopes to bring new insight that will help prepare for that mission, when it comes. “The …

The World Health Organization is calling on governments to allocate the money needed to increase access to mental health treatment.  WHO has published a new Mental Health Atlas marking World Mental Health Day Sunday.    Data collected from 171 countries show none of the World Health Assembly targets for the provision of mental health care by 2020 has been achieved.  Therefore, WHO says it is extending its Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan to 2030.   Fahmy Hanna is a technical officer in WHO’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Use. He says lack of money is a major reason these goals have been missed.  He says governments allocate just 2.1% of their overall health budgets to mental health services.  “And in the majority of the countries, most of this budget goes to psychiatric hospitals—long-stay, in-patient facilities instead of being spent on community-based mental health services, which are more human-rights-oriented and less decentralized and more accessible to the population,” Hanna said. The WHO reports more than a billion people globally suffer from mental health illness.  The most common such illnesses include anxiety disorders, depression, bipolar and eating disorders, as well as psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia. The data in the atlas was collected in 2019 and reflects the status of pre-pandemic mental health services.  However, health officials agree COVID-19 is having a major impact on people’s mental health and more investments must be made in treating them. Hanna says WHO has carried out two surveys during the pandemic.  He says the findings show major …

A report in The New York Times says that the manufacturers of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine which “appears to be the world’s best defense against COVID-19, has been supplying its shots almost exclusively to wealthy nations, keeping poorer countries waiting and earning billions in profit.” The newspaper said their report is based on information from Airfinity, a data firm that tracks vaccine shipments.  According to the Times account, Moderna has shipped approximately a million shots of its vaccines to poor countries. In comparison, Pfizer has shipped 8.4 million shots and Johnson and Johnson has delivered about 25 million doses to low-income countries. In addition, the Times said government officials in some middle-income countries have reported that their countries have had to pay more for Moderna’s shots than the U.S. and the European Union. Protests in Rome Meanwhile, thousands of protesters took the streets of Rome Saturday to protest Italy’s new “Green Pass” vaccine certification that becomes mandatory for public and private workplaces, beginning October 15. Workers and employees will be fined if they do not comply with the certification requirements. Government workers face suspension, if they come to work five times without the pass that documents that the holder has been inoculated with at least one COVID vaccine or recovered from the coronavirus in the last six months or has tested negative in the last 48 hours. The pass is already a requirement for many indoor venues, including restaurants, museums and theaters. It is also needed for long-distance train and …