Year: 2021

According to a new report published in a leading medical journal, the symptoms that linger after a person has survived the novel coronavirus are little understood by the medical community.The medical journal The Lancet says the syndrome must be studied and understood by the medical community in order to launch an appropriate response for what the journal calls “a modern medical challenge of the first order.”The syndrome has become known as “long COVID,” and The Lancet said recovery can take more than a year.The lingering symptoms include “persistent fatigue, breathlessness, brain fog, and depression.”Finding answers to the mystery of long COVID “while providing compassionate and multidisciplinary care,” The Lancet said, “will require the full breadth of scientific and medical ingenuity.”Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people in the United States who have not been able to pay their rent during the pandemic are facing evictions after the Supreme Court decided not the extend the nationwide ban on evictions that had been imposed during the pandemic.Three of the justices dissented.Jen Psaki, U.S. President Joe Biden’s press secretary, said in a statement, “As a result of this ruling, families will face the painful impact of evictions, and communities across the country will face greater risk of exposure to COVID-19.”Earlier this week World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, continued to warn about the consequences of inequitable vaccination.Some regions and countries continue to see steep increases in cases and deaths, while others are declining,” the WHO chief said.  “As long as this virus …

When Hong Gang-chul, a North Korean border guard, decided to escape his homeland in 2013, he knew his relationship with his family would never be the same.Hong, who had helped other North Koreans escape, left the country in a hurry, believing he was wanted by North Korean authorities.In doing so, he left two young daughters with their mother in North Korea. When he later began to arrange for them to defect, they refused.A stocky, soft-spoken 48-year-old, Hong now lives in a simple apartment on the outskirts of Seoul, where he looks after his elderly mother, who also fled the North.Like many defectors, Hong at times struggles to adjust to his new life in South Korea.In North Korea, he manned a guard post along the demilitarized zone; now, he hosts a YouTube channel and works as a writer and commentator on North Korea issues.When punditry doesn’t provide enough income, he takes work as a low-skilled laborer at construction sites — anything to scrape together enough to send his daughters money at least once a year.“It’s impossible now for me to do the things a typical father would do for his children,” he told VOA in a matter-of-fact tone that only partly hides his distress. “The only thing I can do to look after them at this point is to send money.”North Korean escapees have long sent funds to relatives back home using a network of brokers who smuggle cash and goods across what used to be a relatively porous border with …

The U.S. is projected to see nearly 100,000 more COVID-19 deaths between now and Dec. 1, according to the nation’s most closely watched forecasting model. But health experts say that toll could be cut in half if nearly everyone wore a mask in public spaces.In other words, what the coronavirus has in store this fall depends on human behavior.”Behavior is really going to determine if, when and how sustainably the current wave subsides,” said Lauren Ancel Meyers, director of the University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium. “We cannot stop delta in its tracks, but we can change our behavior overnight.”That means doubling down again on masks, limiting social gatherings, staying home when sick and getting vaccinated.”Those things are within our control,” Meyers said.The U.S. is in the grip of a fourth wave of infection this summer, powered by the highly contagious delta variant, which has sent cases, hospitalizations and deaths soaring again, swamped medical centers, burned out nurses and erased months of progress against the virus.Deaths are running at more than 1,100 a day on average, turning the clock back to mid-March. One influential model, from the University of Washington, projects an additional 98,000 Americans will die by the start of December, for an overall death toll of nearly 730,000.The projection says deaths will rise to nearly 1,400 a day by mid-September, then decline slowly.But the model also says many of those deaths can be averted if Americans change their ways.”We can save 50,000 lives simply by wearing masks. That’s …

As Israel expands its third COVID booster shot campaign, analysts are pointing to wide disparities between Jews and Arabs when it comes to getting vaccinations. While 80% of eligible Jewish Israelis have been vaccinated, about one-third of Arab citizens of Israel have yet to get their shots. As Linda Gradstein reports from Jerusalem, some root causes are poverty and distrust.Camera:  Ricki Rosen  …

African countries have committed to ending all forms of polio after cases of vaccine-derived polio increased last year, partly because of disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, Africa had been declared free of the wild poliovirus, after four years without a single case. But a variant has since returned in communities where not enough children have received the vaccine against it.Addressing a session of the World Health Organization’s regional committee for Africa, the director of Uganda’s Health Ministry, Henry Mwebesa, said his country would carry out a national campaign to vaccinate children against polio before the end of the year.“The challenges we anticipate is vaccine hesitancy, which has been common even with the COVID vaccines, and we expect to continue during this period. But we will try our best to mobilize the whole country, cultural leaders, the political leadership and professional associations to assist us to mobilize the communities to address the challenge, the hesitance, to make sure that all our children below five years have received this novel OPV,” Mwebesa said.The novel Oral Polio Vaccine is key to stopping polio outbreaks. Last year, Africa was declared free of wild poliovirus.In the last three years, however, 23 African states have experienced outbreaks of vaccine-derived poliovirus 2. That’s a strain of weakened poliovirus that was included in the oral virus but mutated over time and now behaves like the wild or naturally occurring virus. WHO regional director Matshidiso Moeti said the continent needs to do more to eradicate that form of …

A Taiwanese company, TiSPACE, plans to launch Australia’s first commercial rocket later this year.The rocket is called Hapith, which means “flying squirrel” in a Taiwanese Indigenous language.So far, no specific date for the rocket’s launch has been given. However, officials say an experimental flight is planned this year from a private facility on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. Official approval was granted by the Australian government this week.Developers hope the vehicle will reach outer space, at least 100 kilometers above sea level, before falling back to Earth, over the sea. The rocket’s data, navigation and propulsion systems will be scrutinized.James Brown, the chief executive of the Space Industry Association of Australia, said it will be a significant mission.“This is the first, sort of, major rocket launch in about 40 years for Australia,” he said. “So, this is a rocket that is about 10 meters high, it’s got two stages, it’ll be launched from South Australia out over the ocean and it will get to about 100 kilometers high. It is basically testing this Taiwanese technology, which is a rocket built around a hybrid engine, and if that works well, if it is all safe, if it’s all reliable, then the plan is for this company to come back and launch a bigger rocket that is about 20 meters high that can carry up to 400 kilograms worth of satellite payload into space, so it is a really exciting development for the industry.”TiSPACE is Taiwan’s first private space company, which …

Vietnam is facing challenges in its COVID-19 vaccination efforts from global shortages and anti-Chinese vaccine sentiment as it tries to reach herd immunity by the end of next year’s first quarter.“Shot or no shot?” Chau Nguyen asked her sister after spending nights thinking about whether to get vaccinated and whether to accept the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine. While not a vaccine skeptic, the restaurant owner in the city’s Go Vap District worried about her health after she ultimately got the vaccination.Her reluctance is understandable given the anti-Chinese vaccine sentiment circulating on social media; many Vietnamese worry about Chinese vaccines’ safety and efficiency.Chau’s dilemma came as Ho Chi Minh City entered the vaccination campaign, targeting at least one shot for 70% of its population in August. The month kicked off with controversy as authorities announced a plan to purchase and use 5 million doses of Chinese Sinopharm vaccine.On Aug. 25, Vietnam reported 12,096 new COVID-19 cases and 335 deaths, marking the seventh day in a row the country recorded more than 10,000 cases a day.The latest number brings the total number of cases in the fourth COVID-19 wave to 377,245. The COVID-19 death tally was at 9,349.Ho Chi Minh City continued to see spikes in COVID-19 cases. As of Aug. 25, the city reported 5,294 new cases and 266 deaths.From March to mid-August, Ho Chi Minh City, with a population of about 10 million, vaccinated more than 4.3 million people, more than 100,000 of whom received the full two shots, Vice Chairman …

A Spanish judge in a decision cheered by environmentalists has put a halt to backup plans for the construction of a giant telescope in the Canary Islands — eliminating at least for now the primary alternative location to the preferred spot in Hawaii, where there have been protests against the telescope.  Construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope, or TMT, on Hawaii’s tallest mountain, Mauna Kea, has been stalled by opponents who say the project will desecrate land held sacred to some Native Hawaiians.Telescope officials had selected the alternate location near an existing scientific research facility on the highest mountain of La Palma, one of the Spanish islands off the western African coast, in the Atlantic Ocean. But an administrative court in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the capital of the Spanish archipelago, ruled last month that the 2017 concession by local authorities of public land for the tentative project was invalid. The ruling was dated on July 29, but only became public this week after local media reported about the decision.  In the ruling obtained by The Associated Press, Judge Roi López Encinas wrote that the telescope land allocation was subject to an agreement between the Canary Astrophysics Institute, or IAC, and the telescope’s promoter, the TMT International Observatory (TIO) consortium.  But the judge ruled that the agreement was not valid because TIO had not expressed an intention to build on the La Palma site instead of at the Hawaii site. The judge also sided with the plaintiff, the environmental group Ben Magec-Ecologistas en Acción, in rejecting arguments by TIO’s legal team and the …

A Belgian-African company operating in Burkina Faso is planting trees to help curb desertification and open up lands for grazing cattle and farming. The project by the company, Hommes et Terre (Men and Earth), is taking place in Burkina Faso’s dangerous conflict zones where expanding desertification is a cause for strife. Henry Wilkins reports from Ouagadougou.Camera: Henry Wilkins       …

The U.S. intelligence community has reportedly told President Joe Biden that it has not reached a definitive conclusion after reviewing available information on the origins of the COVID-19. The pandemic has sickened more than 213.2 million people around the globe since late 2019 and killed more than 4.4 million, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. President Biden ordered the nation’s intelligence agencies in May to deliver a report within 90 days on whether the virus, which was first detected in Wuhan, China, was the result of an animal-to-human transmission or an accidental leak from a Wuhan laboratory.   FILE – Security personnel gather near the entrance of the Wuhan Institute of Virology during a visit by the World Health Organization team in Wuhan, China, Feb. 3, 2021.The president ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to examine the origins of the outbreak after the World Health Organization issued a report based on its own investigation. The WHO report, which found that the outbreak more likely began as an animal-to-human transmission, was criticized as incomplete, mainly due to the Chinese government’s failure to cooperate with the global health agency’s investigation.The director of national intelligence presented a classified report to Biden on Tuesday, U.S. news outlets reported. Unidentified officials said parts of the report will be declassified and released to the public in the coming days. Vaccine diminishing efficacy Meanwhile, a new study out of Britain reveals that the effectiveness of both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines diminishes after six months.The study found that protection from …

The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday announced a new kind of climate observatory near the headwaters of the Colorado River that will help scientists better predict rain and snowfall in the U.S. West and determine how much of it will flow through the region. The multimillion-dollar effort led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory launches next week. The team has set up radar systems, balloons, cameras and other equipment in an area of Colorado where much of the water in the river originates as snow. More than 40 million people depend on the Colorado River. Alejandro Flores, an associate professor of hydrology at Boise State University, said the weather in mountainous areas is notoriously difficult to model and the observatory will be a “game changer.” “We have to think about the land and the atmosphere as a linked system that interact with each other,” he said in a call with reporters. “Up until now, there have been a lack of observations that help us understand this critical interface.” The West is in the midst of a more than 20-year megadrought that studies link to human-caused climate change. That, along with increased demand on the Colorado River led to the first-ever shortage declaration in August, and there is an increasing threat of deeper, more widespread water cuts. Arizona, Nevada and Mexico will not get their full allocations of river water next year. Scientists will use the observatory to gather data on precipitation, wind, clouds, tiny particles, humidity, soil moisture and other things. Along with a better understanding of the hydrology, they hope to learn more about how …

Geologists on Tuesday said they had detected a swarm of earthquakes at Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, though it is not erupting.  The quakes began overnight and continued into the morning, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said.  More than 140 earthquakes were recorded as of 4:30 a.m. The largest was magnitude 3.3. Most were less than magnitude 1.  At the same time as the swarm, scientists recorded changes to the ground surface of the volcano. That may indicate magma was moving beneath the south part of Kilauea’s caldera, the observatory said. There’s been no evidence of lava at the surface.  The observatory changed its volcano alert level to watch from advisory, meaning Kilauea is showing heightened or escalating unrest with more potential for an eruption.  Kilauea is one of the world’s most active volcanoes, having erupted 34 times since 1952.  In 2018, about 700 homes were destroyed when lava surged through volcanic vents in a residential neighborhood during the final year of an eruption that lasted more than three decades.  Kilauea is about 200 miles south of Honolulu, on the Big Island of Hawaii.  …

The British government is considering plans to release beavers back into the wild across England some four centuries after the dam-building mammals became extinct in Britain. The proposals, described as a cautious step toward establishing a native beaver population, would see the animals allowed to be introduced if strict criteria were met along with an assessment of their impact on the surrounding land and other species. It comes after a successful five-year trial on the River Otter in Devon, a rural county in southwest England, concluded a family of beavers had a beneficial effect on the local ecology in what was the first legally sanctioned reintroduction to England of an extinct native mammal. “Today marks a significant milestone for the reintroduction of beavers in the wild,” environment minister George Eustice said on Wednesday at the start of a 12-week consultation on the plans. “But we also understand that there are implications for landowners, so we are taking a cautious approach to ensure that all potential impacts are carefully considered.” The government said beavers could play a hugely significant role in helping to restore nature, creating dams from trees, mud and rocks, which raise water levels and create wetland habitats that support the recovery of a wide range of native species. The semi-aquatic vegetarian mammals were hunted to extinction in Britain about 400 years ago because people wanted their meat, fur and castoreum, a secretion that was used in medicine and perfumes. The government said it also planned to make it an offense to capture, kill, disturb or …

A new study finds the number of people with hypertension has doubled over the last 30 years to 1.28 billion, mostly in developing countries.  The study led by Imperial College London and the World Health Organization is the first comprehensive global analysis of trends in hypertension prevalence, detection, treatment and control.Data from more than 100 million people aged 30 to 79 in 184 countries showed that more than 700 million people with hypertension, a life-threatening illness, go untreated. Most do so because they are undiagnosed and do not know they have this condition.Bente Mikkelsen, director of WHO’s department of noncommunicable diseases, said lack of knowledge can have deadly consequences.”First of all,” Mikkelsen said, “we know that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of deaths. In the last global health estimates, we know that 17.1 million people are dying from cardiovascular diseases every year. And we know that hypertension is the main reason among those.”Hypertension significantly increases the risk of heart, brain and kidney diseases and is a leading cause of death worldwide. Major risk factors include unhealthy diets, lack of physical activity, consumption of tobacco and alcohol, and obesity, regarded by some as the tsunami of risk factors.Besides advocating healthy lifestyles, authors of the report say hypertension can be easily detected by measuring blood pressure and often can be effectively treated with low-cost medications.Over the past three decades, the study found, the burden of hypertension has shifted from wealthy nations to low-and-middle-income countries.  Majid Ezzati, professor of global environmental health at Imperial College London, …

The judge overseeing Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy said Monday that some members of the Sackler family who own the OxyContin maker face a “substantial risk” of liability and could be on the hook for “huge amounts of money” over claims the company fueled the opioid epidemic. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, New York, made the remark during closing arguments in a trial over Purdue’s proposed reorganization plan. Drain said he believes some Sacklers face liability, but that “the question is where you draw the line.” Under the deal, which Purdue said is worth more than $10 billion, the Sacklers would contribute approximately $4.5 billion and would receive legal protections against future opioid-related litigation. Drain did not explicitly state how he would rule but suggested he finds the deal sufficient. The judge is expected to issue a formal ruling on the deal later this week. The money would go toward various entities and private individuals with opioid claims, as well as state and local opioid abatement programs. Critics of the settlement argue that the liability releases are too broad. An attorney representing the states of Washington and Oregon, which oppose the plan, told Drain on Monday that approving the deal would be a “historic mistake.” The judge also stated that appeals courts generally support the types of releases the Sacklers would receive if they meet certain standards. At the outset of Monday’s hearing, a lawyer for the Sacklers said they had agreed to narrow the litigation releases to exclude protections for the family against non-opioid-related claims. But the crux of …

Igor Vovkovinskiy, the tallest man in the United States, has died in Minnesota. He was 38.His family said the Ukrainian-born Vovkovinskiy died of heart disease on Friday at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. His mother, Svetlana Vovkovinska, an ICU nurse at Mayo, initially posted about his death on Facebook.Vovkovinskiy came to the Mayo Clinic in 1989 as a child seeking treatment. A tumor pressing against his pituitary gland caused it to secrete abnormal levels of growth hormone. He grew to become the tallest man in the U.S. at 2 meters, 34.5 centimeters (7 feet, 8.33 inches) and ended up staying in Rochester.His older brother, Oleh Ladan of Brooklyn Park, told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis that Vovkovinskiy was a celebrity when he arrived from Ukraine because of his size and the flickering Cold War of the late 1980s. But Ladan said Vovkovinskiy “would have rather lived a normal life than be known.”Vovkovinskiy appeared on “The Dr. Oz Show” and was called out by President Barack Obama during a campaign rally in 2009, when the president noticed him near the stage wearing a T-shirt that read, “World’s Biggest Obama Supporter.” In 2013, he carried the Ukrainian contestant onto the stage to perform in the Eurovision Song Contest.When he was 27, Vovkovinskiy traveled to New York City and was declared America’s tallest living person by a Guinness World Records adjudicator on Oz’s show. He edged out a sheriff’s deputy in Virginia by one-third of an inch.He issued a plea in 2012 to …

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given full approval to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.  “The public can be very confident that this vaccine meets the high standards of safety effectiveness and manufacturing quality the FDA requires of an approved product,” acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said in a statement Monday.The vaccine produced by Pfizer-BioTech was approved for emergency use last December.  More than 200 million doses have been administered in the U.S. and hundreds of millions more worldwide.Information from AP and Reuters was used in this report. …