Year: 2021

Swashbuckling entrepreneur Richard Branson hurtled into space aboard his own winged rocket ship Sunday, beating out fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos.The nearly 71-year-old Branson and five crewmates from his Virgin Galactic space-tourism company reached an altitude of about 85 kilometers (53 miles) over the New Mexico desert — enough to experience three to four minutes of weightlessness and witness the curvature of the Earth — and then safely glided to a runway landing.”The whole thing, it was just magical,” a jubilant Branson said after the trip home aboard the gleaming white space plane, named Unity.  The brief, up-and-down flight — the space plane’s portion took only about 15 minutes, or about as long as Alan Shepard’s first U.S. spaceflight in 1961 — was a splashy and unabashedly commercial plug for Virgin Galactic, which plans to start taking paying customers on joyrides next year.Branson became the first person to blast off in his own spaceship, beating Bezos by nine days. He also became only the second septuagenarian to go into space. Astronaut John Glenn flew on the shuttle at age 77 in 1998.Bezos sent his congratulations, adding: “Can’t wait to join the club!” — though he also took to Twitter a couple of days earlier to enumerate the ways in which he believes his company’s rides will be better.With about 500 people watching, including Branson’s family, Unity was carried aloft underneath a twin-fuselage aircraft. Then, at an altitude of about 13 kilometers (8½ miles), Unity detached from the mother ship and fired …

As the United Nations marks World Population Day on July 11, its experts say there is no perfect population number and that human innovation will continue to manage and outpace the growth in the number of humans living on the planet. VOA’s Laurel Bowman has more. …

In Malawi, a survey by the Ministry of Health to help ascertain the efficacy of AstraZeneca vaccine has shown its effectiveness in fighting the coronavirus. The survey was based on current hospital admissions of COVID-19 patients across the country.The preliminary results of the findings released Saturday were based on COVID-19 admissions between June 26 and July 8 of this year.   Image of the preliminary findings of the survey by Malawi Ministry of Health. (Courtesy: Malawi Ministry of Health)These results show that over 80% of 227 COVID-19 patients admitted during the period were those not vaccinated.   And those who have only had one AstraZeneca jab were 12% while those fully vaccinated only accounted for 4%.   The secretary of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Charles Mwansambo, says it’s still too early to measure the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine based on these findings. “We are still vaccinating more and presently our vaccination status is still low. But what we have found out so far is that the majority of those that are coming in those that are not vaccinated,” he said.    However, he says the findings would help end fears and doubts some Malawians had over the vaccine, which prevented them from getting vaccinated. Malawi has currently vaccinated about 400,000 people of the 11 million needed to reach herd immunity.   “So we encourage more people to come for vaccination because obviously this is strongly putting a case for vaccination. So I encourage citizens to make sure that they come for vaccination,” said Mwansambo.  In May, Malawi destroyed about 20,000 doses of …

After a lifetime of yearning to fly in space, Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson was poised to blast off aboard his own rocket ship Sunday in his boldest, grandest adventure yet. The thrill-seeking billionaire joined five company employees also assigned to the test flight to the edge of space high above the southern desert of New Mexico. Ever the showman, Branson dramatically counted down the days to liftoff via Twitter. He viewed the brief up-and-down trip as a confidence builder — not only for the 600-plus people already holding reservations and waiting in the wings, but potential space tourists willing to plunk down a few hundred-thousand dollars for a shot at space. The London-born founder of the Virgin Group, who turns 71 in a week, wasn’t supposed to fly until later this summer. But he assigned himself to an earlier flight after Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos announced plans to ride his own rocket into space from West Texas on July 20. Virgin Galactic doesn’t expect to start flying customers before next year. Blue Origin has yet to open ticket sales or even announce prices, but late last week boasted via Twitter that it would take clients higher and offer bigger windows. Unlike Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which launch capsules atop reusable booster rockets, Virgin Galactic uses a twin-fuselage aircraft to get its rocket ship aloft. The space plane is released from the mothership about 44,000 feet (13,400 meters) up, then fires its rocket motor to streak straight to space. Maximum altitude is roughly 55 …

British billionaire Richard Branson was due on Sunday to climb into his Virgin Galactic passenger rocket plane and soar more than 50 miles above the New Mexico desert in the vehicle’s first fully crewed test flight to the edge of space. Branson, one of six Virgin Galactic Holding Inc. employees strapping in for the ride, has touted the flight as a precursor to a new era of space tourism, with the company he founded poised to begin commercial operations next year. A discount travel service it is not. But demand is apparently strong, with several hundred wealthy would-be citizen astronauts already having booked reservations, priced at around $250,000 per ticket.   The Swiss-based investment bank UBS has estimated the potential value of the space tourism market reaching $3 billion annually by 2030. Proving rocket travel safe for the general public is key, given the inherent dangers of spaceflight. An earlier prototype of the Virgin Galactic rocket plane crashed during a test flight over California’s Mojave Desert in 2014, killing one pilot and seriously injuring another. Branson’s participation in Sunday’s flight, announced just over a week ago, is in keeping with his persona as the daredevil executive whose Virgin brands — from airlines to music companies — have long been associated with ocean-crossing exploits in sailboats and hot-air balloons. His ride-along also upstages rival astro-tourism venture Blue Origin and its founder, Amazon mogul Jeff Bezos, in what has been popularized as the “billionaire space race.” Bezos has been planning to fly aboard his own suborbital rocket ship, the New Shepard, later this month.   Branson, a …

A Northern California wildfire exploding through bone-dry timber prompted Nevada authorities to evacuate a border-area community as flames leapt on ridgetops of nearby mountains.The Beckwourth Complex — a merging of two lightning-caused fires — headed into Saturday showing no sign of slowing its rush northeast from the Sierra Nevada forest region after doubling in size only a few days earlier.The fire was one of several threatening homes across Western states that are expected to see triple-digit heat through the weekend as a high-pressure zone blankets the region.On Friday, Death Valley National Park in California recorded a staggering high of 54.4 Celsius. If verified, it would be the hottest high recorded there since July 1913, when the same Furnace Creek desert area hit 56.6 degrees Celsius, considered the highest reliably measured temperature on Earth.California’s northern mountain areas already have seen several large fires that have destroyed more than a dozen homes. Although there are no confirmed reports of building damage, the fire prompted evacuation orders or warnings for hundreds of homes and several campgrounds in California along with the closure of nearly 518 square kilometers of Plumas National Forest.Firefighters work to stop the Sugar Fire, part of the Beckwourth Complex Fire, from spreading near Frenchman Lake in Plumas National Forest, Calif., on July 8, 2021.On Friday, ridgetop winds up to 32.2 kph combined with ferocious heat as the fire raged through bone-dry pine, fir and chaparral. As the fire’s northeastern flank raged near the border, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office asked people to …

A new type of malaria vaccine is showing promise in FILE – A worker sprays insecticide for mosquitoes at a village in Bangkok, Thailand, Dec. 12, 2017.”Malaria has been a really tricky infection to make a vaccine against,” said Alexis Kaushansky, a malaria researcher at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Research Institute who was not involved in the new study. “I think this vaccine is really exciting and promising.” ‘A game changer’ Earlier studies have shown that people can develop immunity to malaria, but it requires exposure to many more parasites than mosquito bites deliver. The new vaccine, developed by biotechnology company Sanaria, involves directly injecting large doses of parasites and administering antimalarial drugs to prevent patients from getting sick. Mass producing enough parasites for a vaccine is a challenge, however. Over many years, Sanaria developed a process to grow, feed and extract parasites from large numbers of mosquitoes at its facility. Sanaria’s manufacturing process has made it possible to test this type of vaccine made of live, purified parasites, said Patrick Duffy, an internal medicine physician at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a co-author of the study. “That’s been a game changer.” FILE – A woman carrying a baby holds a treated mosquito net during a malaria prevention action at Ajah in Eti Osa East district of Lagos, Nigeria, April 21, 2016.In the latest clinical trial on a small number of volunteers, at least 77.8% of the participants who received the vaccine with chloroquine or pyrimethamine were protected against …

The acting head of the Food and Drug Administration on Friday called for a government investigation into highly unusual contacts between her agency’s drug reviewers and the maker of a controversial new Alzheimer’s drug. Dr. Janet Woodcock announced the extraordinary step via Twitter. It’s the latest fallout over last month’s approval of Aduhelm, an expensive and unproven therapy that the agency OK’d against the advice of its own outside experts. Woodcock made the request to the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general, the watchdog agency that oversees the FDA and other federal health agencies. The move comes after numerous calls for a probe into the approval from medical experts, consumer advocates and members of Congress. Two congressional committees have already launched their own review. The FDA’s Janet Woodcock speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration building on June 14, 2011.”We believe an independent assessment is the best manner in which to determine whether any interactions that occurred between the manufacturer and the agency’s review staff were inconsistent with FDA’s policies and procedures,” Woodcock wrote on Twitter. Biogen pledged to cooperate with the inquiry. Last month, the health news site Stat reported on the unusually close collaboration between Aduhelm drugmaker Biogen and FDA staff. In particular, the site reported an “off-the-books” meeting in May 2019 between a top Biogen executive and the FDA’s lead reviewer for Alzheimer’s drugs. The meeting came after Biogen stopped two studies because the drug didn’t seem to slow the disease as intended. Biogen and …

As Indonesia deals with a surge in COVID-19 cases, the Biden administration is sending three million doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine to the country on July 9, a senior administration official tells VOA. The shipment is one of the largest batches the U.S. has donated, the official said. In total, the U.S. has allocated four million doses for Indonesia, with the remaining one million doses to be shipped “soon.”The administration is also sending 500,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to Moldova, the first batch of U.S. vaccine shared with Europe. A woman receives a shot of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine during a mass vaccination at Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia, June 26, 2021.Indonesia surge Indonesia is battling a record-breaking surge in new cases and deaths, due to the highly contagious delta variant. “We recognize the difficult situation Indonesia currently finds itself in with a surge of COVID-19 cases,” said the Biden administration official. “Our thoughts are with all those in Indonesia affected by this surge. We support the Indonesian people as they fight this surge and are doing everything we can to help them in this time of need.” During a Friday press conference, Indonesian Minister for Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi confirmed the shipment.“This is the first shipment through the COVAX mechanism,” Marsudi said, referring to the United Nations vaccine sharing mechanism.Indonesia relies heavily on Chinese vaccines, with only about 5% of its population fully vaccinated. The country has procured 108.5 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine but is seeing rising infections among medical workers fully vaccinated with it.After several fully inoculated medical personnel died from COVID-19, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said on Friday the …

Authorities in India’s southern Kerala region have issued a statewide alert after a case of the Zika virus was confirmed, officials said Friday.   A further 13 suspected cases were being investigated, state health minister Veena George said.   A 24-year-old pregnant woman was found to be infected with the mosquito-borne disease and was undergoing treatment at a hospital in Thiruvananthapuram city.   Pregnant women are particularly vulnerable and can transmit the infection to their newborns, which can result in life-altering conditions such as Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare auto-immune disease.   Samples from the 13 suspected cases have been sent for further investigation to a lab in Pune, the minister added.   Zika is mostly spread through the bite of the Aedes mosquito but can also be sexually transmitted, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.   The virus was first discovered in monkeys in Uganda’s Zika forest in 1947 and has caused several outbreaks across the world in recent decades.   No vaccines or anti-viral drugs are available as prevention or cure.   Symptoms include fever, skin rashes, conjunctivitis and muscle and joint pain, but fatalities are rare.   Officials said the infected woman had showed symptoms including fever, headache and rashes before being admitted to a hospital, where she safely delivered a baby on Wednesday.   Health teams have been assigned to the area to monitor for any further cases.   India also saw Zika outbreaks in 2017 and 2018, with hundreds of cases reported …

Vietnam enacted on Friday a two-week lockdown on movement in Ho Chi Minh City to battle a growing outbreak of the coronavirus.Hanoi also announced plans to vaccinate 50% of the population age 18 and older by the end of the year and set a goal of 70% of its population vaccinated by next March.”Vaccination against COVID-19 is a necessary and important measure to contain the disease and ensure socio-economic development,” the Health Ministry said in a statement, according to Agence France-Presse.The country of 100 million had registered fewer than 3,000 cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, as of April. As of Friday, Vietnam had 24,810 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 104 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center.Vietnam has administered about 4 million vaccine doses, with about 240,000 people fully vaccinated – 0.25% of the population, according to Johns Hopkins’ Vaccine Tracker.The 9 million residents of Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s economic hub, are barred from gathering in groups larger than two people and are allowed to leave their homes for the next two weeks only in cases of emergency or to buy food or medicine.Meanwhile, Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said the South Pacific nation would make it compulsory for residents to become vaccinated against the coronavirus.”No jabs, no job — that is what the science tells us is safest and that is now the policy of the government and enforced through law,” Bainimarama said in a national address late Thursday, according to …

Coronavirus infections are rising in Australia, despite a two-week-old lockdown intended to stop their spread. Officials are now focusing on how to enforce compliance with COVID-19 lockdown rules, particularly where such restrictions appear to be mostly ignored.Authorities have said that strict stay-at-home orders in some of Australia’s most ethnically diverse areas in Sydney have been widely flouted, although charities have said community health messages for some migrant groups have been inadequate.A major police operation is underway in parts of Sydney to ensure the rules are followed. Officers on horseback are expected to patrol main shopping areas.Senior commanders have denied the crackdown is targeting multicultural areas.Australian Prime Minister Prime Minister Scott Morrison said too many people have broken the rules.“We haven’t seen the compliance that has been necessary. It is important to get that compliance in place,” he said. “The virus does not move on its own. It moves by people moving the virus around, and that is why it is so important that the restrictions that have been put in place that are appropriate just need to be complied with.”Under Sydney’s lockdown, which is due to end on July 16, residents can only leave home to work, study, buy groceries, care for a relative or other dependent, or receive a COVID-19 vaccination.Starting Friday, people will only be able to exercise in groups of two and do so within 10 kilometers of their homes.The New South Wales chief health officer, Dr. Kerry Chant, urged residents to stay home.“People are looking at …

Some won’t ever remember the parents they lost because they were too young when COVID-19 struck. Others are trying to keep the memory alive by doing the things they used to do together: making pancakes or playing guitar. Others still are clutching onto what remains, a pillow or a photo, as they adapt to lives with aunts, uncles and siblings stepping in to fill the void.The 4 million people who have died so far in the coronavirus pandemic left behind parents, friends and spouses — but also young children who are navigating life now as orphans or with just one parent, who is also mourning the loss.It’s a trauma that is playing out in big cities and small villages across the globe, from Assam state in northeast India to New Jersey and points in between.And even as vaccination rates tick up, the losses and generational impact show no sign of easing in many places where the virus and its variants continue to kill. As the official COVID-19 death toll reached its latest grim milestone this week, South Korea reported its biggest single-day jump in infections and Indonesia counted its deadliest day of the pandemic so far.Victoria Elizabeth Soto didn’t notice the milestone. She was born three months ago after her mother, Elisabeth Soto, checked into the hospital in Lomas de Zamora, Argentina, eight months pregnant and suffering symptoms of COVID-19.Soto, 38, had tried for three years to get pregnant and gave birth to baby Victoria on April 13. The mother …

Anti-poverty organization Oxfam said Thursday that 11 people die of hunger each minute and that the number facing faminelike conditions around the globe has increased six times over the last year.In a report titled The Hunger Virus Multiplies, Oxfam said that the death toll from famine outpaces that of COVID-19, which kills around seven people per minute.”The statistics are staggering, but we must remember that these figures are made up of individual people facing unimaginable suffering. Even one person is too many,” said Oxfam America’s president and CEO, Abby Maxman.The humanitarian group also said that 155 million people around the world are now living in crisis levels of food insecurity or worse — some 20 million more than last year. Around two-thirds of them face hunger because their country is in military conflict.”Today, unrelenting conflict on top of the COVID-19 economic fallout, and a worsening climate crisis, has pushed more than 520,000 people to the brink of starvation,” Maxman said. “Instead of battling the pandemic, warring parties fought each other, too often landing the last blow to millions already battered by weather disasters and economic shocks.”Despite the pandemic, Oxfam said that global military spending increased by $51 billion during the pandemic — an amount that exceeds by at least six times what the U.N. needs to stop hunger.The report listed a number of countries as “the worst hunger hotspots,” including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen — all embroiled in conflict.”Starvation continues to be used as a weapon of …

Two billionaires are putting everything on the line this month to ride their own rockets into space.It’s intended to be a flashy confidence boost for customers seeking their own short joyrides.The lucrative, high-stakes chase for space tourists will unfold on the fringes of space — 88 kilometers to 106 kilometers up, pitting Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson against the world’s richest man, Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos.Branson is due to take off Sunday from New Mexico, launching with two pilots and three other employees aboard a rocket plane carried aloft by a double-fuselage aircraft.Bezos departs nine days later from West Texas, blasting off in a fully automated capsule with three guests: his brother, an 82-year-old female aviation pioneer who’s waited six decades for a shot at space and the winner of a $28 million charity auction.Branson’s flight will be longer, but Bezos’ will be higher. Branson’s craft has more windows, but Bezos’ windows are bigger. Branson’s piloted plane has already flown to space three times. Bezos’ has five times as many test flights, though none with people on board.Either way, they’re shooting for sky-high bragging rights as the first person to fly his own rocket to space and experience three to four minutes of weightlessness.Branson, who turns 71 in another week, considers it “very important” to try it out before allowing space tourists on board. He insists he’s not apprehensive; this is the thrill-seeking adventurer who’s kite-surfed across the English Channel and attempted to circle the world in a hot air balloon.”As …

It seems Richard Branson, and not Jeff Bezos, will be the first billionaire in space.  Plus, a new robot could make work safer on the International Space Station, while the UAE names its first female astronaut.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has the Week in Space.Camera:  AP/NASA/EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY (ESA)/REUTERS/VIRGIN GALACTIC/SPACE X/GSMA/ESA Produced by : Arash Arabasadi   …

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Thursday new cases of COVID-19 were up in the United States by nearly 11 percent in the past week, driven by the prevalence of the delta variant in areas with the nation’s lowest vaccination rates. During the regular weekly White House COVID Response Team briefing, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said hospitalizations were also up in the past week by about seven percent, while deaths from COVID-19 continued to fall.   Walensky said the statistics show “two truths” that exist in the U.S., with the nation’s vaccination effort significantly driving down cases, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 from the peaks they reached in January. She said more than 160 million people in the United States are now fully vaccinated. On the other hand, the CDC director said “new and concerning trends” are being seen indicating the areas with the lowest vaccination rates have the highest rates of new cases and highest percentage of the more contagious delta variant of the virus that causes COVID-19.   She said the delta variant is now the most prevalent variant in the country, accounting for more than 50 percent of all new cases across the country, up from 26 percent in just over two weeks. She said the variant accounts for much as 80 percent of new cases in some areas of the Midwest and mountain states. The CDC director said 93 percent of the 173 counties in the U.S. with infection rates higher than …

As the world surpassed four million coronavirus-related deaths, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that millions more remain at risk “if the virus is allowed to spread like wildfire.” The head of the world body said in a written statement that most of the world is “still in the shadows” due to the inequitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccine between the world’s richest and poorest nations and the rapid global spread of the more contagious delta variant of COVID-19.  Guterres called for the creation of an emergency task force, composed of vaccine-producing nations, the World Health Organization and global financial institutions, to implement a global vaccine plan that will at least double production of COVID-19 vaccine and ensure equitable distribution through the COVAX global vaccine sharing initiative. “Vaccine equity is the greatest immediate moral test of our times,” Guterres said, which he also called a “practical necessity.”   “Until everyone is vaccinated, everyone is under threat,” he added. The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center is reporting 4,002,909 total COVID-19 deaths, out of 185.1 million total confirmed cases. The World Health Organization is urging nations to proceed with “extreme caution” as they ease or altogether end lockdowns and other restrictions in the face of a steady rise of new infections due to the delta variant.  Dr. Mike Ryan, the agency’s head of health emergencies program, told reporters in Geneva Wednesday that countries are making “a false assumption” that transmission rates will not increase because of high vaccination rates.  “The idea that everyone is protected and it’s Kumbaya …

UNICEF said Thursday it has signed a deal to provide up to 220 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine to African Union member states by the end of 2022.   The child humanitarian group announced in a statement the agreement was reached with Belgium-based and J&J-owned Janssen Pharmaceutica NV.   An additional 35 million doses of the single-dose vaccine could be delivered to the African Union’s 55-member states by the end of this year and another 180 million doses could be ordered by year’s end, UNICEF said.   “African countries must have affordable and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines as soon as possible. Vaccine access has been unequal and unfair, with less than 1 per cent of the population of the African continent currently vaccinated against COVID-19. This cannot continue,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. “UNICEF, with its long history of delivering vaccines all around the world, is supporting global COVID-19 vaccination efforts through AVAT, COVAX, and other channels to maximize supply and access to vaccines.”   The J&J vaccine received emergency approval from the World Health Organization in March. …

Chinese state-owned media has claimed that Australian consultants in Papua New Guinea have been hindering the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines flown in from China. It was alleged that they had engaged “in political manipulation and bullying” there.Australia has strongly denied claims it has tried to sabotage China’s efforts to boost vaccinations in Papua New Guinea.Papua New Guinea is currently using the AstraZeneca vaccine. Two hundred thousand doses of the Sinopharm vaccine have recently been flown in from China but have yet to be approved for use by local authorities.A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson warned Australia to “stop interfering with and undermining vaccine cooperation between China and Pacific Island countries.”Australia’s minister for the Pacific, Zed Seselja, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. all international assistance is welcome.“When it comes to the rollout, what we are focused on is making sure that we are providing as much assistance as we possibly can,” Seselja said. “If other countries want to provide assistance that is wonderful.”Papua New Guinea is Australia’s nearest neighbor and has recorded more than 17,000 coronavirus infections and 174 deaths since the pandemic began but it is hard to get accurate figures due to lack of testing, according to media reports.The South Pacific nation has a population of about 9 million. It has administered just under 55,000 vaccine doses, faced with both hesitancy among Papua New Guineans and a lack of supply.Australia has pledged to ship 10,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Papua New Guinea every week, along with medical support. …

The Japanese government is expected to announce Thursday that it will impose a new state of emergency for Tokyo due to the rise of new COVID-19 cases across the country.Yasutoshi Nishimura, the government’s economy minister and head of its coronavirus response efforts, told reporters the state of emergency will begin Monday and last until Aug. 22 — a period that will cover the duration of the Tokyo Olympics, which will take place between July 23 and Aug. 8.The new state of emergency will likely prompt the government to either scale back the number of spectators allowed to witness Olympics events to 5,000 people, or ban them altogether. Organizers of the Tokyo Olympics announced just last month that it would allow just 10,000 people, or 50% of a venue’s capacity, at all events, despite health experts advising the government that banning all spectators was the “least risky” option for holding the games.Foreign spectators have already been banned from attending the event.Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is expected to formally announce the state of emergency Thursday.Local and national government officials along with Olympic and Paralympic officials will make a final decision on Thursday or Friday about allowing spectators after meeting with International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach. Bach is scheduled to arrive in Tokyo on Thursday and enter into a mandatory three-day quarantine period.Tokyo and several other prefectures shifted last month from a state of emergency imposed in April into “quasi-emergency” measures that are set to expire Sunday.However, Japan is coping with a …