Year: 2022

Nick Barragan is used to wearing a mask because his job in the Hollywood film industry has long required it. So he won’t be fazed if the county that’s home to Tinseltown soon becomes the first major population center this summer to reinstate rules requiring face coverings indoors because of another spike in coronavirus cases.  “I feel fine about it because I’ve worn one pretty much constantly for the last few years. It’s become a habit,” said Barragan, masked up while out running errands Wednesday.  Los Angeles is the most populous county, home to 10 million residents. It faces a return to a broad indoor mask mandate on July 29 if current trends in hospital admissions continue, county health Director Barbara Ferrer said this week.  Requiring masks again “helps us to reduce risk,” Ferrer told Los Angeles County supervisors.  “I do recognize,” she added, “that when we return to universal indoor masking to reduce high spread, for many this will feel like a step backwards.” Variants tough to stop  Nationwide, the latest COVID-19 surge is driven by the highly transmissible BA.5 variant, which now accounts for 65% of cases, with its cousin BA.4 contributing another 16%. The variants have shown a remarkable ability to get around the protection offered by vaccination.  With the new omicron variants again pushing hospitalizations and deaths higher in recent weeks, states and cities are rethinking their responses and the White House is stepping up efforts to alert the public.  Some experts said the warnings are …

Texas sued the federal government on Thursday over new guidance from the Biden administration directing hospitals to provide emergency abortions regardless of state bans on the procedure that came into effect in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the lawsuit argued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was trying to “use federal law to transform every emergency room in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic.” The lawsuit focused on guidance issued Monday advising that a federal law protecting patients’ access to emergency treatment requires performing abortions when doctors believe a pregnant woman’s life or health is threatened. The guidance came after President Joe Biden, a Democrat, signed an executive order on Friday seeking to ease access to services to terminate pregnancies after the June 24 overturning of Roe v. Wade, which recognized a nationwide right of women to obtain abortions. Abortion services ceased July 2 in Texas after the state’s highest court, at Paxton’s urging, cleared the way for a nearly century-old abortion ban to take effect. HHS said the guidance from its U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services agency did not constitute new policy but merely reminded doctors of their obligations under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. But in the lawsuit filed in Lubbock, the Republican-led state of Texas argued that federal law has never authorized the federal government to compel doctors and hospitals to …

The international partnership behind the James Webb Space Telescope takes a victory lap after a week of releasing stunning images of our universe. Plus, we look back at America’s first space station. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. …

The World Health Organization is calling for action to stem the growing spread of deadly infections such as monkeypox and Ebola between animals and humans in Africa. A new WHO analysis finds zoonotic outbreaks on the African continent have increased by 63% from 2012 to 2022 compared to the previous decade. Globally, the WHO says more than 60% of human infectious diseases, and more than 75% of emerging infectious diseases, are caused by pathogens found in wild or domestic animals. It says those diseases sicken about one billion people and kill millions every year. WHO’s regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, said zoonotic diseases pose a severe threat in Africa. In the past decade, she said outbreaks of the animal-transmitted illnesses accounted for one in three confirmed public health events in the region. “A deeper dive reveals that Ebola and similar hemorrhagic fevers constitute nearly 70% of these outbreaks,” she said. “The remainder include, among others, monkeypox, dengue fever, anthrax, and plague. Although there has been a notable increase in monkeypox cases since April this year, compared to the same period in 2021, the positive news is the numbers are still lower than for the 2020 outbreak peak.” That year, the WHO recorded its highest ever monthly cases in the region. So far this year, the health agency has reported more than 2,000 suspected cases of monkeypox. Of those, only 203 have been confirmed. Most cases and deaths are among males, with an average age of 17. Moeti noted infections …

The U.S. is getting another COVID-19 vaccine choice as the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday cleared Novavax shots for adults.  Novavax makes a more traditional type of shot than the three other COVID-19 vaccines available for use in the U.S. — and one that’s already available in Europe and multiple other countries.  Nearly a quarter of American adults still haven’t gotten their primary vaccinations even this late in the pandemic, and experts expect at least some of them to roll up their sleeves for a more conventional option — a protein-based vaccine.  The Maryland company also hopes its shots can become a top booster choice in the U.S. and beyond. Tens of millions of Americans still need boosters that experts call critical for the best possible protection as the coronavirus continues to mutate.  For now, the FDA authorized Novavax’s initial two-dose series for people 18 and older.  “I encourage anyone who is eligible for, but has not yet received, a COVID-19 vaccine to consider doing so,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said in a statement.  Before shots begin, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must recommend how they should be used, a decision expected next week.  Novavax CEO Stanley Erck told The Associated Press he expected the U.S. to expand use of the vaccine beyond unvaccinated adults fairly quickly.  Already, the FDA is evaluating it for those as young as 12, Erck said. Novavax also has submitted data on booster doses, including “mix-and-match” use in people who’d earlier …

More than 1.8 billion people worldwide are at risk of severe floods, new research shows. Most reside in low- and middle-income countries in Asia, and four out of 10 live in poverty. The figures are substantially larger than previous estimates. They show that the risk is concentrated among those least able to withstand and recover from flooding. “I thought it was a valuable paper, indeed. Because this link between poverty and flood risk is kind of overlooked,” said hydrologist Bruno Merz, of the German Research Center for Geosciences, who was not involved in the study. Flood risk assessments typically consider risk in monetary terms, which is highest in rich countries where more wealth is at stake. The new study focused on how flood exposure and poverty overlap. Published in the journal Nature Communications, the study combined a global flood risk database with information on population density and poverty. The research focused on places where floods 15 centimeters deep or deeper happen at least once every 100 years on average. The study found that nearly 90% of people at risk of severe flooding live in poor countries, not rich ones. More than 780 million flood-exposed people live on less than $5.50 per day. The substantial overlap between high flood risk and poverty feeds into a vicious cycle that further concentrates flood protections in rich countries that have more resources to deal with floods in the first place, said flood risk researcher Jeroen Aerts of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Aerts was not …

Citing the fast-spreading omicron BA.5 coronavirus subvariant that now makes up a majority of U.S. cases, the White House on Tuesday said it will ensure the availability of COVID-19 vaccines, boosters, treatments and testing to combat the disease. “Currently, many Americans are under-vaccinated, meaning they are not up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at a news briefing Tuesday. “Staying up to date on your COVID-19 vaccines provides the best protection against severe outcomes.” The subvariant, which the CDC says accounts for 65% of the variants circulating in the United States as of last week, reportedly could spread more easily despite vaccination or natural immunity. U.S. President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, speaking at the same briefing, said the subvariant does not cause a more severe illness or hospitalizations compared to other subvariants. “Variants will continue to emerge. The virus circulates globally and in this country. We should not let it disrupt our lives, but we cannot deny that it is a reality that we need to deal with,” Fauci said. The White House says it will focus on boosters, at-home testing, making good masks available and supporting people who are immunocompromised. “We can prevent serious illness; we can keep people out of the hospital and especially out of the ICU. We can save lives, and we can minimize the disruptions caused by COVID-19. Even in the face of BA.5, the tools we have …

Grieving Japanese paid their final farewells to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Tuesday.  Scores of everyday people lined up outside Tokyo’s Zojoji Temple to bring flowers and other tokens of respect for Abe, who was gunned down last Friday in the western city of Nara during a campaign rally. Many of the mourners cried as they bowed in prayer in front of the temple.  Zojoji Temple was the site of a private ceremony for the 67-year-old Abe that was limited to only his close friends and family. Abe’s casket was then removed from the temple and placed in a hearse for a long processional through downtown Tokyo to Kirigaya Funeral Hall for cremation with thousands of residents lined up along the route to wave their final goodbyes.  The hearse was slated to drive by several significant venues from Abe’s political career, including the prime minister’s official office, the Parliament building and the headquarters of his Liberal Democratic Party.  The suspected gunman in Abe’s assassination, 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami, was immediately seized after he shot the ex-prime minister was taken into custody.  Japanese news outlets say Yamagani, a former member of the country’s Self-Defense Forces, wanted to kill Abe because he believed him to be part of an unspecified religious group he blamed for his mother’s financial ruin.  The Unification Church, a global religious movement founded in South Korea in the 1950s by the late Reverend Sun Myung Moon, confirmed Monday that Yamagami’s mother was a member, but did not comment on …

Chinese authorities on Monday confirmed that a case of cholera had occurred in the central city of Wuhan where the outbreak of COVID-19 began before spreading globally. State media acknowledged that the case has sparked public worries in a society still coping with the COVID outbreak.  China’s official media Xinhua published the news on the front page of its website Monday evening local time, citing a public announcement issued by Wuchang district government’s center for disease control. Wuchang is a district with a little more than one million residents in the city of Wuhan and is home to Wuhan University where the case was reported.  The news item is no longer on Xinhua’s front page as of Tuesday morning local time, nor can it be found in the Local News section of the website, a category it fell under previously.  Wuhan University announced on Monday that a graduate student with gastro disease history was admitted at the university’s hospital on July 8 after experiencing fever, vomiting and diarrhea. The student has since been transferred twice, each time to a higher-level hospital, and is currently in quarantine, the university said.  The dormitory where the student stayed, as well as the lab where the student worked, had both been locked down beginning the evening of July 9, the university said. Three close contacts, including two roommates, and a third person who had dined with the student prior to the student’s hospitalization, have been quarantined.  Between the evening of July 9 and early …

The U.S. space agency is set to release the full set of the first full-color images from the James Webb Space Telescope on Tuesday, a day after sharing a full-color picture showing stars and galaxies from deeper into the cosmos than ever seen before. During a news briefing at the White House Monday to unveil the first NASA image, U.S. President Joe Biden said the telescope was “a new window into the history of our universe.” The $10 billion telescope, the largest and most powerful telescope ever launched into space, peers farther into the cosmos than any before it. A peek into the past Scientists describe the telescope as looking back in time. That is because it can see galaxies that are so far away that it takes light from those galaxies billions of years to reach the telescope. “Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. And that light that you are seeing on one of those little specs (in the picture) has been traveling for over 13 billion years,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who attended Monday’s news briefing along with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The Webb telescope can see light that was created just after the Big Bang, the farthest humanity has peered into the past. A successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, Webb is about 100 times more sensitive than its 30-year-old predecessor. It is also able to use the infrared spectrum, while the Hubble used mainly optical and ultraviolet wavelengths. The telescope is so …

The U.S. space agency has released the first image from its new space telescope — a full color picture showing stars and galaxies from deeper into the cosmos than ever seen before.  During a news briefing Monday at the White House to unveil the NASA image, U.S. President Joe Biden said the telescope was “a new window into the history of our universe.”  The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful telescope ever launched into space, peers farther into the cosmos than any before it.  Scientists describe the telescope as looking back in time. That is because it can see galaxies that are so far away that it takes light from those galaxies billions of years to reach the telescope.  “Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. And that light that you are seeing on one of those little specs (in the picture) has been traveling for over 13 billion years,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who attended Monday’s news briefing along with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.  The Webb telescope can see light that was created just after the Big Bang, the farthest humanity has peered into the past.  A successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, Webb is about 100 times more sensitive than its 30-year-old predecessor. It is also able to use the infrared spectrum, while the Hubble used mainly optical and ultraviolet wavelengths.  The telescope is so precise, Nelson said, that scientists will be able to see the chemical composition of planets …

…

The quickly changing coronavirus has spawned yet another super contagious omicron mutant that’s worrying scientists as it gains ground in India and pops up in numerous other countries, including the United States. Scientists say the variant — called BA.2.75 — may be able to spread rapidly and get around immunity from vaccines and previous infection. It’s unclear whether it could cause more serious disease than other omicron variants, including the globally prominent BA.5. “It’s still really early on for us to draw too many conclusions,” said Matthew Binnicker, director of clinical virology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “But it does look like, especially in India, the rates of transmission are showing kind of that exponential increase.” Whether it will outcompete BA.5, he said, is yet to be determined. Still, the fact that it has already been detected in many parts of the world even with lower levels of viral surveillance “is an early indication it is spreading,” said Shishi Luo, head of infectious diseases for Helix, a company that supplies viral sequencing information to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The latest mutant has been spotted in several distant states in India and appears to be spreading faster than other variants there, said Lipi Thukral, a scientist at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in New Delhi. It’s also been detected in about 10 other countries, including Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada. Two cases were recently identified on …

The world will get its first view of a full-color image from the James Webb Space Telescope at a White House event Monday.  U.S. President Joe Biden is set to release the image, with NASA Administrator Bill Nelson giving remarks.  NASA plans to release more full-color images Tuesday that it says will show the telescope “at its full power as it begins its mission to unfold the infrared universe.”  The $10 billion telescope with a primary mirror measuring 6.5 meters in diameter launched in December 2021.  Some information for this report came from The Associated Press. …

Drawing back the curtain to a photo gallery unlike any other, NASA will soon present the first full-color images from its James Webb Space Telescope, a revolutionary apparatus designed to peer through the cosmos to the dawn of the universe. The highly anticipated July 12 unveiling of pictures and spectroscopic data from the newly operational observatory follows a six-month process of remotely unfurling various components, aligning mirrors and calibrating instruments. With Webb now finely tuned and fully focused, astronomers will embark on a competitively selected list of science projects exploring the evolution of galaxies, the life cycles of stars, the atmospheres of distant exoplanets and the moons of our outer solar system. The first batch of photos, which have taken weeks to process from raw telescope data, are expected to offer a compelling glimpse at what Webb will capture on the science missions that lie ahead. NASA on Friday posted a list of the five celestial subjects chosen for its showcase debut of Webb, built for the U.S. space agency by aerospace giant Northrop Grumman Corp. Among them are two nebulae – enormous clouds of gas and dust blasted into space by stellar explosions that form nurseries for new stars – and two sets of galaxy clusters. One of those, according to NASA, features objects in the foreground so massive that they act as “gravitational lenses,” a visual distortion of space that greatly magnifies the light coming from behind them to expose even fainter objects farther away and further back …

The Yellowstone National Park area’s weather forecast the morning of June 12 seemed fairly tame: warmer temperatures and rain showers would accelerate mountain snow melt and could produce “minor flooding.” A National Weather Service bulletin recommended moving livestock from low-lying areas but made no mention of danger to people.  By nightfall, after several inches of rain fell on a deep spring snowpack, there were record-shattering floods.  Torrents of water poured off the mountains. Swollen rivers carrying boulders and trees smashed through Montana towns over the next several days. The flooding swept away houses, wiped out bridges and forced the evacuation of more than 10,000 tourists, park employees and residents near the park.  As a cleanup expected to last months grinds on, climate experts and meteorologists say the gap between the destruction and what was forecast underscores a troublesome aspect of climate change: Models used to predict storm impacts do not always keep up with increasingly devastating rainstorms, hurricanes, heat waves and other events.  “Those rivers had never reached those levels. We literally were flying blind not even knowing what the impacts would be,” said Arin Peters, a senior hydrologist with the National Weather Service.  Hydrologic models used to predict flooding are based on long-term, historical records. But they do not reflect changes to the climate that emerged over the past decade, said meteorologist and Weather Underground founder Jeff Masters.  “Those models are going to be inadequate to deal with a new climate,” Masters said.  Another extreme weather event where the …

When Melissa, a nurse in the U.S. state of Alabama, went to pick up her regular prescription medication for rheumatoid arthritis last week, she was told the drug was on hold while the pharmacist checked she wasn’t going to use it to induce an abortion. “He said, ‘Well I have to verify if you’re on any contraceptives to prevent pregnancy.’ ” “The hell you do,” she recalled thinking. Melissa, who is in her early 40s and asked to be identified only by her first name for fear that speaking out might affect her livelihood, then called her doctor, who succeeded in having the pharmacy in the Southern U.S. state release the medicine. “I picked it up a couple hours later, but I felt violated,” she told AFP. She said that she’d had a hysterectomy six years ago and that her lack of recent contraceptive history might have led the pharmacist to suspect she was pregnant. Consequence of court ruling Stories of people facing similar struggles have come to light in the weeks since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade on June 24, highlighting an overlooked consequence of new state-level bans or severe restrictions on abortion. It’s not yet clear how widespread the cases are, but national organizations including the Lupus Foundation of America and the American College of Rheumatology said they were aware of such concerns and were asking people affected to come forward. “The Arthritis Foundation supports unencumbered access to and coverage of FDA-approved drugs for managing …