Year: 2021

The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rochelle Walensky, said Thursday the delta variant of the coronavirus that results in COVID-19 “is one of the most infectious respiratory viruses we know of and that I have seen in my 20-year career.”Officials in Washington on Thursday urged people to get COVID vaccinations to protect themselves from the variant and to curb the spread of the coronavirus.China is not happy that the World Health Organization wants to continue to investigate whether the coronavirus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, resulting in the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.The vice minister of the Chinese National Health Commission, Zeng Yixin, said Thursday WHO’s proposal to reopen its investigation into a Chinese lab leak as the source of the global outbreak lacked “respect for common sense and an arrogant attitude toward science.”  He said China “can’t possibly accept such a plan.”An investigation China and WHO conducted earlier this year concluded that it was “extremely unlikely” that a Wuhan lab leak was the source of the virus. International experts say, however, that Chinese scientists wielded too much influence in determining the results of the investigation.After a one-year pandemic delay, the Tokyo Olympics formally opens Friday.The event will be held amid tens of thousands of empty seats in Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium, with only about 900 dignitaries and other officials attending because of COVID-19 precautions.The Japanese public is broadly opposed to holding the Games, fearing they will worsen Japan’s already deteriorating pandemic situation.Tokyo on Thursday reported nearly …

Confronting the historic drought that has a firm grip on the American West requires a heavy federal infrastructure investment to protect existing water supplies but also will depend on efforts at all levels of government to reduce demand by promoting water efficiency and recycling, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said Thursday.Haaland told reporters in Denver that the Biden administration’s proposed fiscal 2022 budget includes a $1.5 billion investment in the Bureau of Reclamation, which manages water and power in the Western states, and more than $54 million for states, tribes and communities to upgrade infrastructure and water planning projects.”Drought doesn’t just impact one community. It affects all of us — from farmers and ranchers to city dwellers and Indian tribes. We all have a role to use water wisely,” Haaland said at the start of a three-day visit to Colorado to address the U.S. response to the increasing scarcity of  water and the massive wildfires burning throughout the region.The American West, including most of western Colorado, is gripped by the worst drought in modern history. The northern part of the state is experiencing deadly flash flooding and mudslides after rain fell in areas scarred by massive wildfires last year. Fires are burning across the West, most severely in Oregon and California, while the drought stresses major waterways like the Colorado River and reservoirs that sustain millions of people.FILE – In this July 28, 2014, photo, lightning strikes over Lake Mead near Hoover Dam that impounds Colorado River water at the Lake …

Over 600,000 users of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service’s (NHS) COVID-19 test and trace app were “pinged” alerts recommending self-isolation earlier this month.In what has been dubbed the “pingdemic,” the app told users to begin a 10-day quarantine if they tested positive for the coronavirus or had been in close contact with someone who did.The mass alerts have had significant repercussions for supermarkets and other businesses in the U.K. Stores warn that products are running low, and staff shortages have affected restock abilities. Some shops are altering their hours of operation in response to the challenge.Grocery store chain Lidl indicated a worker shortage was “starting to have an impact on our operations.”People walk past a sign, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in St Albans, Britain, July 21, 2021.Supermarkets are hiring large numbers of temporary employees to overcome staffing challenges. After 1,000 staff members were unable to return to work, the Iceland grocery chain is hiring 2,000 interim workers.Photographs of empty shelves were widely shared on social media, but supermarkets downplayed the shortages, with Iceland declaring them “isolated incidents.”Driver shortages and a rising number of workers required to self-isolate have also led to fuel supply issues.BP announced that a “vast majority” of the shortages were going to be resolved “within the day,” but a “handful” of their gas stations will be temporarily closed.According to the BBC, isolation is only legally required when instructed by the NHS test and trace program. A ping from the NHS COVID-19 app …

Space tourism notches another win after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos follows fellow billionaire Richard Branson in rocketing to weightlessness.  Plus, the hunt for ancient life on Mars is about to begin, and wildfires rage out of control in the U.S.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space …

China has rejected the World Health Organization’s proposal for a second phase of its investigation into the origin of the novel coronavirus pandemic.Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of the Chinese National Health Commission, told reporters in Beijing Thursday that he was extremely surprised when he read the proposal offered by the U.N. health agency includes audits of laboratories in the city of Wuhan, where the virus was first detected in late 2019 that led to more than 192 million infections around the globe, including 4.1 million deaths. Zeng said the WHO’s origin-tracing proposal lacks “common sense” and displays a disrespect toward science that makes it “impossible” for Beijing to accept. A team of WHO researchers visited Wuhan earlier this year to research the initial cause of the virus. The team concluded the virus likely jumped from animals to humans and that it was “extremely unlikely” that it leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology as some experts have speculated. But WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has criticized China for not fully cooperating with investigators by not sharing raw data, and has called for a continued probe of all theories, including a lab accident.Chinese officials and news outlets have begun speculating that the virus may have escaped from a U.S. military laboratory, a theory that has been widely dismissed by the scientific community.Meanwhile, a new study says that two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine are effective against the highly contagious delta variant of the disease. In a study published Wednesday in The New …

Asian countries are reporting record COVID-19 waves this year compared to 2020, as vaccination drives fall short and governments lose hope that mass closures and border controls can keep the coronavirus away, observers in the region say.Spread of the delta variant from India, infections among airline personnel and citizens who brought back the virus from trips spread COVID-19 in parts of Asia with recent outbreaks. Containment measures had relaxed in some spots after months of low caseloads while domestic travel picked up.Officials from Bangkok to Taipei sidelined vaccine procurement last year while Western countries were preparing to make shots so widespread that England is now 87% vaccinated and in the United States just about any adult can get shots from a local drugstore.Many Asian countries held back the respiratory disease in 2020 by barring foreign tourists and shutting down places where people gather. Manufacturing-reliant Asian economies held up economically last year for lack of long-term work stoppages.“I call this a complacency curse,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political science professor at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.“Thailand did so well during virus stage last year that it sat on its laurels and got behind the curve on vaccine procurement,” he told VOA.Thailand has fully vaccinated just 5% of its population, with Vietnam at around 1%, according to the Our World in Data research website. Vietnam hit a one-day coronavirus infection record of 5,926 on July 18, while Thailand posted its own record of 11,397 the same day.In Taiwan, which reported its first major …

U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday he will continue “this encounter with China” to attempt to stem the flow of deadly drugs being smuggled into the United States via Mexico.Biden, during an appearance on a CNN “town hall”-style program from Cincinnati, said his administration is “dealing with the whole opioid issue” by significantly increasing the number of people in the Justice Department working on it.Fentanyl is considered 50 to 100 times stronger than heroin. The health crisis in America caused by synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, was frequently raised by Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump.The former president repeatedly criticized China, the primary exporter of fentanyl or its precursor chemicals to Mexico, where cartels smuggle it into the United States, for not cracking down on the drug trafficking.A 1,500-word background memo issued ahead of Biden’s third visit to Ohio during his 6-month-old presidency, covered key concerns in the state ranging from repairing highway bridges to combating childhood obesity. It did not mention the opioid crisis, although Ohio has one of the highest per capita rates of overdose deaths, which have been the leading cause of fatal injuries in the state for more than a decade.Asked by VOA on the Air Force One flight Wednesday to the event whether — in view of this — the issue remains a priority for the Biden administration, White House press secretary Jen Psaki responded: “Absolutely, it’s a top priority, and there’s no question it is an issue that has impacted people across Ohio and continues to. Any health …

The U.S. has averaged more than 26,000 new COVID-19 cases per day over the past week — more than double the number it was a month ago — with the more contagious delta variant making up over 80% of cases. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara looks at the Biden administration’s strategy for dealing with the surge, as misinformation continues to drive anti-vaccination sentiments in certain groups. Producer: Kimberlyn Weeks …

A senior Chinese health official said Thursday he was shocked by the World Health Organization’s plan for the second phase of a COVID-19 origins study.National Health Commission Vice Minister Zeng Yixin dismissed the lab leak theory as a rumor running counter to common sense.The head of the WHO acknowledged last week that it was premature to rule out a potential link between the pandemic and a leak of the coronavirus from a Chinese lab.Zeng said that the lab in the city of Wuhan has no virus that can directly infect humans.He said that China has made repeated clarifications and does not accept the WHO plan.  …

Excitement is building over the Tokyo Olympics, despite more athletes testing positive for COVID-19. While the Games are set to begin Friday, the head of the Tokyo organizing committee says there is still a chance they could be canceled due to the virus.  Still, sports fans in the U.S. are eagerly gearing up to watch, as VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports. …

Pfizer and BioNTech have reached an agreement with a South African company to produce their COVID-19 vaccine for distribution in Africa, the biotechnology companies said Wednesday.The Biovac Institute in Cape Town will manufacture 100 million doses of the vaccine annually starting in 2022. The company will mix vaccine ingredients it receives from Europe, place them in vials and package them for distribution to the 54 countries in Africa.The agreement may eventually help alleviate vaccine shortages on a continent where the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says less than 2% of its population of 1.3 billion has received at least one dose. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said the company’s goal is to provide people throughout Africa with the vaccine, a departure from previous bilateral agreements that saw most doses being sold to wealthy countries.The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is already being manufactured in South Africa in a similar “fill and finish” process that has the capacity to produce more than 200 million doses annually. The vaccines are also being distributed across the African continent. …

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan has moved away from her predecessor’s pandemic denial to urge social distancing, handwashing and mask-wearing.  But as the third wave of coronavirus sweeps across Africa, it seems the measures are being ignored by most of the public. Charles Kombe reports from Dar es Salaam.Camera: Rajabu Hassan     …

A finger-sized fossil from 308 million years ago unearthed in the United States gives tantalizing clues to the habits of tiny dinosaurlike creatures that may be the forerunners of reptiles, researchers revealed Wednesday. The new species is a microsaur — small lizardlike animals that roamed the Earth well before proper dinosaurs made their appearance.The find sheds important light on the evolution of different animal groups, including amphibians and reptiles, scientists wrote in the journal Royal Society Open Science. Microsaurs lived during the Carboniferous period, when the forebears of modern mammals and reptiles, called amniotes, first appeared.”Many details of that transition aren’t well known,” study co-author Arjan Mann, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Smithsonian Institution, told AFP.”Microsaurs have recently become important in understanding the origins of amniotes,” he said. “A lot of these microsaurs have been thought to be either ancestors of amphibians or ancestors of reptiles.”Encased in a bog in what is today the central United States, the specimen’s serpentlike body measures about 5 centimeters (2 inches). The animals had four short, plump legs.In deference to its tiny size, researchers dubbed the new species Joermungandr bolti, after a giant sea serpent from Norse mythology who did battle with Thor.Scientists were astonished to discover the fossil also contained the animal’s skin.”Areas of the skin had only been known from fragmentary fossils before,” Mann said.”This microsaur is the whole shebang. … That’s very rare for these fossils. It’s very rare for anything 300 million years old to have skin with it!”Contrary to previous ideas …

Canada’s western province of British Columbia declared a state of emergency Tuesday, with wildfires expected to grow even larger in the coming days due to high heat and winds.   “We have reached a critical point,” said provincial public safety minister Mike Farnworth. “Based on the advice of emergency management and wildfire officials, and my briefing last night on the worsening weather, I am declaring a provincial state of emergency.”   The decision empowers officials to organize mass-scale evacuations and to provide emergency accommodation for evacuees, he added. Some 5,700 people were under evacuation orders in the province Tuesday — more than double the previous day’s tally, as the threatened region grew in size. Around 32,000 more residents have been placed on alert.   “Please have an evacuation plan ready for your family,” said Cliff Chapman, the director of operations for British Columbia’s wildfire service. “From working in this branch for 20 years, I would be taking my family out if I was on an evacuation order today.” Fires have been ravaging western Canada and the U.S. West Coast for several weeks following a scorching heat wave in late June that experts have tied to climate change. Chapman said around 1,200 square miles (3,000 square kilometers) has already gone up in smoke in British Columbia — more than three times higher than the average area typically burnt by this point in the year.    The province has nearly 300 active wildfires, spurred by hot, dry weather that is expected to continue in the coming days, in addition to rising winds that may spread the flames.   The …

At least 12 people are dead in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou after massive floods triggered by several days of heavy rains. The rains washed out streets throughout the capital of Henan province, forcing stranded motorists to wade through waist-deep waters that submerged cars and even sent them floating away. The floods also washed out Zhengzhou’s subway system, with riders posting videos on social media awaiting rescue in waist-high muddy waters. A passenger named Xiaopei posted on Weibo that “the water in the carriage has reached (their) chest.”   Dozens of reservoirs and dams have reached critical levels, with local authorities warning that the Yihetan dam in the nearby city of Luoyang had sustained a 20-meter breach and was on the verge of imminent collapse. Authorities have evacuated 100,000 residents to safe zones.  Henan province, home to about 94 million people, has experienced severe rains through the past week. Forecasters say Zhengzhou received as much rainfall in three days as it normally gets in a year.  A representative of the city of Xu Liyi, a member of the Standing Committee of Henan Provincial Party Committee, and secretary of the Zhengzhou Municipal Party Committee said the high levels of rainfall were unusual. Extreme weather events have surged this summer in China, with recent flooding in Sichuan province killing hundreds of citizens and forcing thousands to evacuate the area. Officials of Greenpeace International, an environmental group, warn that China’s rapid urbanization will increase the frequency of climate disasters.  Speaking to the Chinese media, Liu Junyan of Greenpeace said, “because of the highly concentrated population, infrastructure and economic activity, the exposure and vulnerability of climate hazards are higher …

Ecologists in a vast region of wetlands and forest in remote Oregon have spent the past decade thinning young trees and using planned fires to try to restore the thick stands of ponderosa to a less fire-prone state. This week, the nation’s biggest burning wildfire provided them with an unexpected, real-world experiment. As the massive inferno half the size of Rhode Island roared into the Sycan Marsh Preserve, firefighters said the flames jumped less from treetop to treetop and instead returned to the ground, where they were easier to fight, moved more slowly and did less damage to the overall forest. The initial assessment suggests that the many years of forest treatments worked, said Pete Caligiuri, Oregon forest program director for The Nature Conservancy, which runs the research at the preserve. “Generally speaking, what firefighters were reporting on the ground is that when the fire came into those areas that had been thinned … it had significantly less impact.” FILE – The Bootleg Fire burns at night near Highway 34 in southern Oregon, July 15, 2021, in this photo provided by the Bootleg Fire Incident Command.The reports were bittersweet for researchers, who still saw nearly 51.7 square kilometers of the preserve burn, but the findings add to a growing body of research about how to make wildfires less explosive by thinning undergrowth and allowing forests to burn periodically — as they naturally would do — instead of snuffing out every flame. The Bootleg Fire, now 1,569 square kilometers in size, has ravaged southern Oregon and …

The yearslong effort by state and local governments in the U.S. to force the pharmaceutical industry to help pay to fix a nationwide opioid addiction and overdose crisis took a major step forward Tuesday when lawyers for local governments announced they were on the verge of a $26 billion settlement with the nation’s three biggest drug distribution companies and the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson. Under the deal, Johnson & Johnson would not produce any opioids for at least a decade. And AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson share prescribing information under a new system intended to stop the avalanches of pills that arrived in some regions about a decade ago. FILE – A Johnson & Johnson logo appears on the exterior of a first aid kit in Walpole, Mass., Feb. 24, 2021.Lawyers for local governments said full details could be shared within days. That would not be the end of the deal though; each state would have 30 days to decide whether to join. And local governments will have five months after that to decide. If governments don’t opt in, the settlement total would go down. “This is a nationwide crisis, and it could have been and should have been addressed perhaps by other branches of government,” Paul Geller, one of the lead lawyers representing local governments across the U.S., said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday. “But this really is an example of the use of litigation for fixing a national problem.” If approved, the settlement will likely be the biggest of many …

The delta variant of the coronavirus now accounts for 83% of new cases in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the week of July 3, the variant accounted for 50% of new cases. “The best way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 variants is to prevent the spread of disease, and vaccination is the most powerful tool we have,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a U.S. Senate hearing Tuesday. The delta variant, which was first detected in India, reportedly spreads more easily than other iterations of the COVID-19 virus. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department is urging Americans not to travel to Britain because of the rising levels of new COVID-19 cases there. The State Department raised its travel advisory for Britain to its highest level on Monday, following a similar action taken by the CDC earlier in the day. A Yeoman Warder, Barney Chandler gestures as he leads the first ‘Beefeater’ tour of the Tower of London in 16 months, at the Tower of London, July 19, 2021.Both agencies said if people must travel to Britain to make sure they are fully vaccinated before their journey.   The revised advisories were issued as the British people celebrated “Freedom Day,” the official end of nearly all coronavirus lockdown restrictions, including mandatory mask wearing and social distancing. FILE – People drink shortly after the reopening at The Piano Works in Farringdon, in London, July 19, 20.But Prime Minister Boris Johnson likely cast a pall over …