It can take hundreds of years for plastic containers to break down, if ever at all. Their presence reshapes entire ecosystems, and experts in Bolivia are calling for action to protect their communities. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.Producer: Arash Arabasadi
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Facebook has frozen Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s page, according to a spokesperson for the social media giant, because the page contained misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic.Maduro violated Facebook policy when he posted a video without any medical evidence, promoting Carvativir, a drink made with the herb thyme, as a cure for the coronavirus, a company spokesperson told Reuters. He described the drink as a “miracle” medication capable of neutralizing the coronavirus without any side effects.“We follow guidance from the WHO [World Health Organization] that says there is currently no medication to cure the virus,” Facebook’s spokesperson told Reuters.The company said it is taking action to limit use of Maduro’s Facebook page. “Due to repeated violations of our rules, we are also freezing the page for 30 days,” the company spokesperson said, “during which it will be read-only.”Brazil is averaging nearly 2,400 deaths a day from COVID-19, about one-fourth of the world’s daily tally, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.The South American nation is on pace to reach 4,000 deaths a day, six experts told The Associated Press, a level that would rival the worst seen in the U.S., which has about one-third more people. The U.S. set a record of 4,477 deaths on Jan. 12, according to Johns Hopkins data.“Four thousand deaths a day seems to be right around the corner,” Dr. José Antônio Curiati, a supervisor at Sao Paulo’s Hospital das Clinicas, the biggest hospital complex in Latin America, told the AP.President Jair Bolsonaro remains unconvinced that restrictions on activity are needed. At this point, they may be too late.Miguel Nicolelis, a professor of neurobiology at Duke University who advised several Brazilian governors and mayors on pandemic control, anticipates the total death toll reaching 500,000 by July and exceeding that of the U.S. by year-end, according to the AP.“We have surpassed levels never imagined for a country with a public health care system, a history of efficient immunization campaigns and health workers who are second to none in the world,” Nicolelis said. “The next stage is the health system collapse.”Spain tests mass-gathering limitsIn Spain, an experiment is under way to find a pandemic-safe way to hold mass events indoors. The setting is an arena in Barcelona filled with 5,000 fans Saturday night for a live concert.The morning of the show, those looking to attend came to one of three field hospitals set up in closed nightclubs. They were given COVID-19 and antigen tests, tests introduced to the body to induce an immune response. If they tested negative, they received a pass to the show and were told to wear a surgical mask. The arena was equipped with a ventilation system.“Over the next 14 days we will look at how many of the audience test positive for COVID and will report back,” Josep Maria Llibre, a doctor at the Germans Trias i Pujol hospital just north of Barcelona, told Agence France-Presse.The aim is “to discover a way in which we can coexist with COVID and hold concerts which are completely safe,” Ventura Barba, executive director of Barcelona’s Sonar festival, one of the organizers, told AFP.WHO seeks COVAX donationsThe head of the World Health Organization on Friday urged the global community to donate COVID-19 vaccines to lower-income countries, citing the urgent need for 10 million doses for a WHO-backed vaccine distribution program.“COVAX is ready to deliver but we can’t deliver vaccines we don’t have,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a virtual news conference in Geneva.COVAX, an abbreviation for the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access initiative, aims to provide equitable access to vaccines worldwide to low- and middle-income countries.“Bilateral deals, export bans, and vaccine nationalism have caused distortions in the market with gross inequities in supply and demand,” Tedros said. “Ten million doses are not much, and it’s not nearly enough.”Tedros’ appeal comes after India, a key supplier to the agency’s COVAX vaccine-sharing program, said it was prioritizing local needs.The WHO chief said India’s move was “understandable” given the rising number of infections in India. He said talks were in progress with India to find a balance between local and international needs.India said Friday it set a record with a tally of more than 59,000 new cases from the previous 24-hour period.UN demands fair vaccine accessAt the United Nations in New York, 181 nations signed onto a political declaration that calls for COVID-19 vaccinations to be treated as a global public good, ensuring affordable, equitable and fair access to vaccines for all.“We can see the end of the crisis, but to reach it, we need to work together with a deeper sense of collaboration,” part of the declaration states.Among the appeals are calls on nations to fully fund the COVAX facility to distribute vaccines to low-income and developing countries, scale up vaccine production through the distribution of technology and licenses and launch public information campaigns on the importance and safety of COVID-19 vaccines.COVAX has so far distributed more than 31 million doses of vaccines to 57 countries.“There is a race everywhere between the vaccines and the pandemic,” said Lebanon’s Ambassador Amal Mudallali, on behalf of the countries that drafted the document. “This race will be won before the start by the ‘haves,’ if there is no equitable, affordable sharing of vaccines.”The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Sunday there are more 126 million global COVID-19 infections. The research center updates its data constantly and provides expert input.The United States has more cases than any other country, with more than 30.2 million infections, followed by Brazil, with 12.5 million, and India, with almost 12 million, according to the center.
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A New Hampshire woman who lost her 13-year-old daughter to a brain tumor in 2016 has now given birth to a son — at age 57.Barbara Higgins also had a brain tumor of her own while trying to get pregnant and had it removed.Higgins and her husband, Kenny Banzhoff, of Concord, have been grieving for their late daughter, Molly.In recent years, the couple, who also have an older daughter, thought about having another child. They found an in vitro fertilization clinic in Boston that worked with them.Higgins gave birth to a healthy boy named Jack on Saturday. He weighed 5 pounds, 13 ounces.”Yes, I’m scared and I’m anxious, but I’m so excited,” Higgins told the Concord Monitor for a story published Friday.Higgins, an avid runner who has been a high school track coach, said she did weight training until the day she went into labor.In addition to Higgins’ struggles with her brain tumor, Banzhoff, 65, had been living with kidney disease and underwent a transplant.According to Guinness World Records, the oldest woman to give birth was 66-year-old Maria del Carmen Bousada Lara, who had twins in Spain in 2006.  
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A year ago, Giordana Grego’s parents spent Passover at home in Israel, alone but grateful that they had escaped the worst of the pandemic in Italy. This year, the whole family will get together to mark the Jewish feast of liberation and deliverance from the pandemic.Israel has vaccinated over half its population of 9.3 million, and as coronavirus infections have plummeted, authorities have allowed restaurants, hotels, museums and theaters to reopen. Up to 20 people can now gather indoors.It’s a stark turnaround from last year, when Israel was in the first of three nationwide lockdowns, with businesses shuttered, checkpoints set up on empty roads and people confined to their homes. Many could only see their elderly relatives on video calls.”For us in Israel, really celebrating the festivity of freedom definitely has a whole different meaning this year after what we experienced,” said Grego, who immigrated to Israel from Italy. “It’s amazing that this year we’re able to celebrate together, also considering that in Italy, everybody is still under lockdown.”Passover is the Jewish holiday celebrating the biblical Israelites’ liberation from slavery in Egypt after a series of divine plagues. The week-long springtime festival starts Saturday night with the highly ritualized Seder meal, when the Exodus story is retold. It’s a Thanksgiving-like atmosphere with family, friends, feasting and four cups of wine.An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man dips cooking utensils in boiling water to remove remains of leaven in preparation for the upcoming Jewish holiday of Passover in Jerusalem, March 26, 2021.Throughout the week, observant Jews abstain from the consumption of bread and other leavened foods to commemorate the hardships of the flight from Egypt. Instead, they eat unleavened matzah.Holiday preparations involve spring cleaning to the extreme to remove even the tiniest crumbs of leavened bread from homes and offices. Cauldrons of boiling water are set up on street corners to boil kitchenware, and many burn their discarded bread, known as chametz. Supermarkets cordon off aisles with leavened goods, wrapping shelves in black plastic.Most Israeli Jews — religious and secular alike — spend the Seder with extended family. Last year’s Passover was a major break in tradition.Government-imposed restrictions forced the closure of synagogues and limited movement and assembly to slow the virus’ spread. Some conducted the ritual meal with their nuclear family, others over videoconference, while an unfortunate few held the Seder in solitude.Another lockdown was imposed over the Jewish High Holidays in September, again preventing family gatherings, and a third came earlier this year with the emergence of more contagious variants of the virus.By the third lockdown, Israel had launched one of the most successful inoculation campaigns in the world after the government secured millions of doses from Pfizer and Moderna. Israel has now vaccinated more than 80% of its adult population.It’s too early to say that Israel’s coronavirus crisis is over, as new variants could emerge that are resistant to the vaccines.The vaccination campaign in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza has been slow to get off the ground, with Israel facing criticism for not sharing more of its supplies. Israel has vaccinated over 100,000 Palestinian laborers who work in Israel and West Bank settlements, and has sent a couple thousand doses to the Palestinian Authority.The Palestinians have imported more than 130,000 doses on their own, but it could be several months before shots are available for the vast majority of the nearly 5 million Palestinians in the territories. Experts say that could pose a risk to Israel’s own public health efforts.  
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Pakistan is struggling to contain a third wave of coronavirus infections, reporting close to 4,500 new cases in the last 24 hours, the highest number of daily infections in nine months.Officials said Saturday that the rate of people testing positive for COVID-19 had alarmingly risen to more than 10% from a low of about 3% a couple weeks ago, suggesting the actual number of infections is likely much higher than the reported cases.The overall number of infections and deaths from COVID-19, however, remains under control in Pakistan, a country of about 220 million people.Since the pandemic hit the South Asian nation a year ago, officials have documented around 650,000 infections and about 14,200 deaths, including 67 fatalities recorded Friday.British variantAsad Umar, the minister who heads the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) overseeing the government’s COVID-19 response, insisted Saturday that a British variant of the virus, detected in Pakistan early last month, was likely behind the flare-up in infections.“This relatively more contagious and deadlier variant seems to be a major cause for the sudden and sharp increase in the spread of the disease,” Umar told reporters after chairing an emergency meeting of the NCOC in Islamabad.FILE – An elderly resident receives his first dose of the coronavirus disease vaccine, at a vaccination center in Karachi, Pakistan, March 10, 2021.He added that public “disregard” for safety guidelines outlined by the government was contributing to the spread.The minister said his office had already started receiving messages that hospitals across Pakistan were nearing capacity and that finding enough beds for coronavirus patients was becoming a challenge.Call for public supportUmar urged people to strictly follow health and safety guidelines to help the government contain the infection, saying that bringing this “very dangerous situation” under control was impossible without public support.The third coronavirus wave is largely being driven by a high number of cases reported in Punjab, the country’s most populous province, and the northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.The Pakistani government earlier this week ordered educational institutions in high-risk districts across the two provinces and the national capital, Islamabad, to remain closed until April 11, tightening restrictions on public gatherings in those areas.FILE – People gather for COVID-19 vaccine doses at a vaccination center in Karachi, Pakistan, March 22, 2021.Meanwhile, Pakistan is struggling to keep the national COVID-19 vaccination campaign going because of supply challenges and vaccine hesitance.Last month, the government began inoculating frontline health care workers and citizens age 60 and over after receiving a donation of 1 million doses of China’s Sinopharm vaccine. Beijing announced a donation of another 500,000 doses and Islamabad is awaiting the delivery.Umar said this week that the national campaign had already vaccinated more than 700,000 people across Pakistan, raising concerns the government will soon run out of the drug.Officials said Pakistan was supposed to receive several million doses of coronavirus vaccine from the World Health Organization’s COVAX program in the first week of March.But the vaccine did not come because of supply issues, and the delay has forced Islamabad to explore other options to fill the gap and try to ramp up the national vaccination drive.COVAX aims to vaccinate people in low- and middle-income countries against COVID-19.Purchases from ChinaFederal Health Minister Faisal Sultan said this week that his government had purchased just over a million doses of the Chinese vaccine and that the consignment would arrive in the country later this month. He added Pakistan was also planning to buy additional Chinese vaccine to ensure its citizens are inoculated against COVID-19.WHO’s chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, urged the global community on Friday to donate COVID-19 vaccines to lower-income countries, citing the urgent need for 10 million doses for the COVAX vaccine distribution program.“COVAX is ready to deliver but we can’t deliver vaccines we don’t have,” Tedros told a virtual news conference in Geneva.“Bilateral deals, export bans and vaccine nationalism have caused distortions in the market with gross inequities in supply and demand,” Tedros said. “Ten million doses are not much and it’s not nearly enough.”   
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After years of waiting tables, Danae De Vries is one step closer to achieving her lifetime dream of becoming a theater coach.Ironically, she owes that to the pandemic. It was after last year’s brutal lockdown that shut the Spanish economy down for weeks that the owners of a small restaurant chain in Madrid offered De Vries to cut her weekly work schedule by one day.Already struggling to make ends meet in a city that has seen rental prices spiral, the 28-year-old was hesitant at first — and then enthusiastic when she was told her wages would remain untouched.“Now I have time to work, to see my family and friends, and to find enough time to study,” she said. “It’s marvelous to have time, to not rush everywhere and find a bit of inner peace.”A happier and more motivated De Vries is also better for her boss María Álvarez, the entrepreneur who turned her two-restaurant business upside-down when she proposed rotational four-day week shifts. Álvarez, a mother of two toddlers, and her startup partner at La Francachela had both struggled to keep the business going with no childcare support.“There was a feeling that society had turned its back on families, that we had been betrayed,” explained Álvarez. “As business owners, we had to come up with some solutions for our businesses, our employees and also for our personal lives.”Experimenting with cutting back one workday per week is about to go nationwide in Spain — the first country in Europe to do so. A three-year pilot project will be using 50 million euros ($59 million) from the European Union’s massive coronavirus recovery fund to compensate some 200 mid-size companies as they resize their workforce or reorganize production workflows to adapt to a 32-hour working week.The funds will go to subsidizing all of the employers’ extra costs in the first year of the trial and then reduce the government’s aid to 50% and 25% each consecutive year, according to a blueprint by the Más País progressive party that’s behind the initiative.Maria Alvarez co-owner of La Francachela and founder of the Campaña 4 Suma poses for a picture at La Francachela restaurant in Madrid, Spain, March 26, 2021.The only condition is that the readjustment leads to a real net reduction of working hours while maintaining full-time contract salaries, explained Héctor Tejero, a lawmaker with Más País in the Madrid regional assembly.“It’s not using the European funds for Spaniards to work less, it’s about seeing how we can improve productivity and competitiveness of our companies,” said Tejero.Arguments in favor of the move also cite benefits for the overall economy. A mass shift to a three-day weekend would lead to more consumption, especially in entertainment and tourism, a backbone of the Spanish economy.Reducing work hours from 40 to 35 per week in 2017 would have resulted in a 1.5% GDP growth and 560,000 new jobs, a study published earlier this year in the Cambridge Journal of Economics found. Salaries would have also increased nationally by 3.7%, especially benefitting women who more often take part-time jobs, the research said.Software Delsol, in southern Spain, invested 400,000 euros last year to reduce working hours for its 190 employees and has since then reported a 28% reduction in absenteeism, with people choosing to go to the bank or see their doctor on their weekday off. Their sales increased last year by 20% and no single employee has quit since the new schedule was adopted.Rocio Sanchez works in the kitchen at La Francachela restaurant in Madrid, Spain, March 26, 2021.Critics say that a pandemic-shaken economy is not the best scenario for experiments. With a 10.8% GDP contraction last year, its worst since the 1930s Civil War, Spain has suffered from intermittent lockdowns and the near-total freeze in international travel. Some experts argue that the priority should instead be fixing the country’s dysfunctional labor market, which is dragging one of Europe’s highest unemployment rates and is marred by precarious, low-wage jobs.ESADE Business School’s Carlos Victoria also warned against the one-size-fits-all approach of the proposal. “There are probably industries or economic areas in which a reduction of working hours won’t necessarily lead to productivity gains,” the economic policy researcher said.But Más País argues that it’s best to try first and decide later how to scale it up — or whether to do it at all.Still, not all unions are fully backing the plan, conservatives have been defensive and CEOE, the main Spanish business association, has so far offered a lukewarm response to the project.Nevertheless, at least half a dozen companies have already reached out expressing interest, according to Tejero, who said the pilot won’t be launched at least until September, when and if mass vaccination helps revive the economy.“In Spain, we have moved from presenteeism, where people had to be at the office for a very long time, to be in front of the computer, at home, for an even longer time,” said La Francachela’s Álvarez. “People are increasingly angry because remote working in itself is not going to solve our problems from a broader perspective.”
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The 9-year-old twins did not flinch as each received test doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine — and then a sparkly bandage to cover the spot.“Sparkles make everything better,” declared Marisol Gerardo as she hopped off an exam table at Duke University to make way for her sister Alejandra.Researchers in the U.S. and abroad are beginning to test younger and younger kids to make sure COVID-19 vaccines are safe and work for each age. The first shots are going to adults who are most at risk from the coronavirus but ending the pandemic will require vaccinating children too.“Kids should get the shot,” Marisol told The Associated Press this week after the sisters participated in Pfizer’s new study of children under 12. “So that everything might be a bit more normal.” She is looking forward to when she can have sleepovers with friends again.So far in the U.S., teen testing is furthest along: Pfizer and Moderna expect to release results soon showing how two doses of their vaccines performed in the 12 and older crowd. Pfizer is currently authorized for use starting at age 16; Moderna is for people 18 and older.But younger children may need different doses than teens and adults. Moderna recently began a study similar to Pfizer’s new trial, as both companies hunt the right dosage of each shot for each age group as they work toward eventually vaccinating babies as young as 6 months.Last month in Britain, AstraZeneca began a study of its vaccine among 6- to 17-year-olds. Johnson & Johnson is planning its own pediatric studies. And in China, Sinovac recently announced it has submitted preliminary data to Chinese regulators showing its vaccine is safe in children as young as 3.Getting this data, for all the vaccines being rolled out, is critical because countries must vaccinate children to achieve herd immunity, noted Duke pediatric and vaccine specialist Dr. Emmanuel “Chip” Walter, who is helping to lead the Pfizer study.Most COVID-19 vaccines being used around the world were first studied in tens of thousands of adults. Studies in children will not need to be nearly as large: Researchers have safety information from those studies and subsequent vaccinations of millions of adults.And because children’s infection rates are so low — they make up about 13% of COVID-19 cases documented in the U.S. — the main focus of pediatric studies is not counting numbers of illnesses. Instead, researchers are measuring whether the vaccines rev up youngsters’ immune systems much like they do adults’ — suggesting they will offer similar protection.Proving that is important because while children are far less likely than adults to get seriously ill, at least 268 have died from COVID-19 in the U.S. alone and more than 13,500 have been hospitalized, according to a tally by the American Academy of Pediatrics. That is more than die from the flu in an average year. Additionally, a small number have developed a serious inflammatory condition linked to the coronavirus.Apart from their own health risks, there still are questions about how easily children can spread the virus, something that has complicated efforts to reopen schools.Earlier this month, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, told Congress he expected that high school students likely would begin getting vaccinated in the fall. The elementary students, he said, may not be eligible until early 2022.In North Carolina, Marisol and Alejandra made their own choice to volunteer after their parents explained the opportunity, said their mother, Dr. Susanna Naggie, an infectious disease specialist at Duke. Long before the pandemic, she and her husband, emergency physician Dr. Charles Gerardo, regularly discussed their own research projects with the girls.In the first phase of the Pfizer study, a small number of children receive different doses of vaccine as scientists winnow out the best dosage to test in several thousand kids in the next phase.“We really trust the research process and understand that they may get a dose that doesn’t work at all but may have side effects,” said Naggie, describing the decision-making that parents face in signing up their children.But 9-year-olds have some understanding of the pandemic’s devastation and “it’s nice to participate in something where it’s not just about yourself but it’s about learning,” Naggie added. “They do worry about others and I think this is something that really, you know, struck home for them.”For Marisol, the only part that was “a bit nerve-wracking and scary” was having to give a blood sample first.The vaccination itself was “really easy. If you just sit still during the shot, it is just going to be simple,” she said.
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As cases of the coronavirus continue to rise in the United States, officials are racing to open up vaccine eligibility in the hope of staving off another wave of the pandemic.Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, expressed concern Friday about rising case numbers, noting the seven-day average daily case count was up 7% over the past week.“We have seen cases and hospital admission move from historic decline to stagnation to increases, and we know from prior surges that if we don’t control things now there is a real potential for the epidemic curve to soar again,” she said at a White House briefing.Walensky noted that about 1,000 Americans a day are dying of COVID-19 and said, “Please take this moment very seriously.”As of Friday evening, the U.S. led the world in the number of COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began, with 30.2 million, and the number of deaths, with more than 548,000, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Globally, more than 126 million people have contracted COVID-19 and almost 2.8 million have died.Inflection pointNew U.S. cases peaked at nearly 260,000 a day in early January, and that month saw an average of more than 3,100 people dying every day. Case numbers and deaths began to fall later in January and continued to drop in February.New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham talks with National Guard members after receiving her Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine during a vaccination event held in the gym at Desert Sage Academy in Santa Fe, N.M., March 26, 2021.Currently, case numbers are starting to rise, with the average daily case count at 57,000. The increase comes at a time when optimism of a return to normal is growing in the United States with more and more Americans being vaccinated. CDC data on Friday showed that 27% of the U.S. population had received at least one vaccine dose and nearly 15% had been fully vaccinated.Health officials have indicated that the U.S. could be at an inflection point for the pandemic: a time when the country either turns the corner in its battle with the virus or faces a setback.Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert, said at a White House briefing earlier this week: “I’m often asked: Are we turning the corner?“My response is really more like: We are at the corner. Whether or not we’re going to be turning that corner still remains to be seen.”On March 4, Fauci told CNN that states shouldn’t ease restrictions to prevent COVID-19 until new coronavirus cases fell below 10,000 daily.U.S. officials have been warning about the danger of more contagious variants of the virus, like the one first identified in Britain, which is now causing new surges of the pandemic in a number of European countries.FILE – Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks at a U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing in Washington, March 18, 2021.Last week, Fauci said that variant likely accounted for 20% to 30% of coronavirus infections in the United States, adding that the numbers were likely growing. If the variant were to become the dominant strain in the United States, health officials say, reinfections would become more likely among those who have already had COVID-19. Such reinfections, along with the higher transmission rate of the variant, could lead to a wave of new cases.Race to vaccinateTo try to stave off the spread of the new variants, the Biden administration and U.S. state officials are trying to speed up the pace of vaccinations across the country.The governors of South Carolina and Kansas announced Friday that their states would open up vaccine eligibility next week to anyone older than 16.They will join at least a dozen states that have allowed those 16 and older to schedule vaccination appointments. At least 34 states have announced plans to make everyone 16 and older eligible for the vaccine by mid-April, according to a review by The Washington Post.FILE – Michelle Melton, who is 35 weeks pregnant, receives the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 at Skippack Pharmacy in Schwenksville, Pa., Feb. 11, 2021.Of the three vaccines approved for emergency use in the United States, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is authorized for those 16 and older while the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are approved for those 18 and older. No vaccine has been approved for anyone younger than 16.President Joe Biden has set a deadline of May 1 for all states to open up vaccinations to all adults. Jeff Zients, coordinator of the White House coronavirus response, said 46 states have confirmed that they will be able to meet the deadline.He acknowledged, however, that some states were opening up their eligibility for adults more quickly than planned because they had not been able to fill appointments for the most vulnerable populations, including the elderly and those with underlying health conditions.”If there are states that are lagging behind, we’re working with those states to ensure they continue to prioritize the most vulnerable populations,” he said during a briefing Friday.Data from the CDC on Friday showed that more than 71% of people 65 and older had received at least one vaccination shot.3 more vaccination centersThe White House announced Friday that three more cities — Boston, Massachusetts; Norfolk, Virginia; and Newark, New Jersey — were getting new federally run mass vaccination centers as part of the president’s new goal of vaccinating 200 million Americans by the end of April. Biden had previously set a goal of vaccinating 100 million Americans during his first 100 days in office, a goal he surpassed last week.Zients said that while the pace of vaccinations was encouraging, there is still concern about the increasing case numbers of the coronavirus across the country.“It is clear there is a case for optimism, but there is not a case for relaxation,” he said. “This is not the time to let down our guard.”   
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Chinese officials briefed diplomats Friday on the ongoing research into the origin of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, ahead of the expected release of a long-awaited report from the World Health Organization.The briefing appeared to be an attempt by China to get out its view on the report, which has become enmeshed in a diplomatic spat. The U.S. and others have raised questions about Chinese influence and the independence of the findings, and China has accused critics of politicizing a scientific study.”Our purpose is to show our openness and transparency,” said Yang Tao, a Foreign Ministry official. “China fought the epidemic in a transparent manner and has nothing to hide.”WHO worked with Chinese in WuhanThe report, which has been delayed repeatedly, is based on a visit earlier this year by a WHO team of international experts to Wuhan, the city in central China where infections from a new coronavirus were first reported in late 2019.The experts worked with Chinese counterparts, and both sides have to agree on the final report. It’s unclear when it will come out.Feng Zijian, a Chinese team member and the deputy director of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said the experts examined four possible ways the virus got to Wuhan.They are: a bat carrying the virus infected a human, a bat infected an intermediate mammal that spread it to a human, shipments of cold or frozen food; and a laboratory that researches viruses in Wuhan.Over 50 countries representedThe experts voted on the hypotheses after in-depth discussion and concluded one of the two animal routes or the cold chain was most likely how it was transmitted. A lab leak was viewed as extremely unlikely, Feng said.His remarks were reported by state broadcaster CCTV, which said envoys from 50 countries, the League of Arab States and the African Union attended the briefing at the Foreign Ministry.”China firmly opposes certain countries’ attempts to politicize the origin tracing issue and make groundless accusations and hold China accountable,” the ministry said in an online post about the briefing.Separately, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said, “I would like to stress that virus tracing is a scientific issue that should be studied by scientists through cooperation.”She told reporters that the experts are still discussing the contents and translation of the report, and she did not know when it would be released.WHO report in final stagesAt a press briefing later Friday in Geneva, the World Health Organization expert who led WHO’s China mission said the nearly 400-page report was finalized and in the process of being fact-checked and translated.”I expect that in the next few days, that whole process will be completed and we will be able to release it publicly,” WHO expert Peter Ben Embarek said.At a Biden administration health briefing Friday, U.S. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the agency was looking forward to the release of the WHO report.Dr. Anthony Fauci said the explanation that “most public health officials agree with” about how COVID-19 appeared in humans is that the virus was likely spreading in China below the radar for several weeks, allowing it to be well-adapted by the time it was recognized.The government’s top infectious disease expert’s comments came in response to speculation by former CDC head Robert Redfield on CNN that COVID-19 came from a lab.”What he likely was expressing is that there certainly are possibilities … of how a virus adapts itself to an efficient spread among humans,” Fauci said. 
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The head of the World Health Organization on Friday urged the global community to donate COVID-19 vaccines to poorer countries, citing the urgent need for 10 million doses for a WHO-backed vaccine distribution program. “COVAX is ready to deliver but we can’t deliver vaccines we don’t have,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a virtual news conference in Geneva. “Bilateral deals, export bans and vaccine nationalism have caused distortions in the market with gross inequities in supply and demand,” Tedros said. “Ten million doses are not much and it’s not nearly enough.” FILE – Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, speaks in Geneva, Switzerland, Jan. 18, 2021.COVAX, an abbreviation for the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access initiative, aims to provide equitable access to vaccines worldwide. The WHO chief called on countries to donate spare doses of vaccines to COVAX because a rush to secure vaccines around the world delayed deliveries that COVAX had anticipated. Meanwhile, at the United Nations in New York, 181 nations signed on to a political declaration that calls for COVID-19 vaccinations to be treated as a global public good, ensuring affordable, equitable and fair access to vaccines for all. “We can see the end of the crisis, but to reach it, we need to work together with a deeper sense of collaboration,” part of the declaration states. Among the appeals are calls on nations to fully fund the COVAX facility to distribute vaccines to poor and developing countries, to scale up vaccine production through the distribution of technology and licenses, and to launch public information campaigns on the importance and safety of COVID-19 vaccines. FILE – Boxes of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India and provided through the global COVAX initiative arrive at the airport in Mogadishu, Somalia, March 15, 2021.COVAX has distributed more than 31 million doses of vaccines to 57 countries. “There is a race everywhere between the vaccines and the pandemic,” said Lebanon’s Ambassador Amal Mudallali, on behalf of the countries that drafted the document. “This race will be won before the start by the ‘haves,’ if there is no equitable, affordable sharing of vaccines.” Global numbersThe Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported Friday afternoon that total global COVID-19 infections were at 125.9 million.The United States had more cases than another country, with 30.1 million infections, followed by Brazil, with 12.3 million, and India, with 11.8 million. India said Friday that it had set a record with a tally of more than 59,000 new cases from the previous 24-hour period. On Thursday, Brazil said it had recorded its highest number of new coronavirus cases in 24 hours with 100,158 infections. UNESCO studySeparately, UNESCO said a new study has found that the coronavirus pandemic has adversely affected the reading proficiency of over 100 million children. “The number of children lacking basic reading skills was on a downward curve prior to the pandemic and expected to fall from 483 million to 460 million in 2020,” UNESCO said in a statement Thursday. “Instead, as a result of the pandemic, the number of children in difficulty jumped to 584 million in 2020, increasing by more than 20% and wiping out gains made over the past two decades through education efforts.” UNESCO is convening a meeting Monday with education ministers from around the world to discuss ways to combat the trend. Canada hit a stumbling block in its vaccination program when U.S. vaccine manufacturer Moderna said it was delaying a shipment of nearly 600,000 shots expected to be delivered this weekend.  Anita Anand, Canada’s federal procurement minister, said Moderna officials attributed the setback to a “backlog in its quality assurance process.” The vaccines, however, are expected to be shipped out before the end of next week.  VOA’s Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.
  
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Top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday the former U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) director’s belief that the virus that causes COVID-19 escaped from a lab is his opinion, and not one shared by a majority of public health care experts.Fauci who spoke during a regular White House COVID-19 Response Team briefing, was responding to comments by former U.S. president Donald Trump-appointed CDC director Robert Redfield.FILE – Then-Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Robert Redfield speaks during a White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing at the Department of Education building in Washington, July 8, 2020.In an interview, as part of a documentary on the U.S. news channel CNN, Redfield said it is his belief that the virus was created in a lab and escaped, not necessarily intentionally. He said it was his opinion, something he was allowed to have now that he is a private citizen.When asked about the comments, Fauci said he was familiar with the comments and he said it was one of several theories as to the origin of the virus. He said he believes it is based on the idea that when the virus was first identified in late December of 2019, it seemed well adapted to transmission among the human population, suggesting it was adapted in the lab.But Fauci said the explanation that most health professionals go by is that the virus had been circulating in China for several weeks, if not a month, before it was clinically recognized, giving it plenty of time to adapt to the human population.When asked her thoughts on Redfield’s theory, current CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said she had no formal opinion on the origin of the virus. She referred to a study on the origin of the virus being conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and said she is looking forward to their thoughts on the issue.In preliminary comments regarding the virus originating in a lab, leaders of the WHO study said they believed it was highly unlikely. 
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The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Friday there are more 125.5 million global COVID-19 infections.The U.S. has more cases than another country, with over 30 million infections, followed by Brazil, with 12.3 million, and India, with 11.8 million.India said Friday it set a record with a tally of more than 59,000 new cases in the previous 24-hour period.On Thursday, Brazil said it had recorded its highest number of new coronavirus cases in 24 hours with 100,158 infections.UNESCO said a new study has found that the coronavirus pandemic has adversely affected the reading proficiency of more than 100 million children.“The number of children lacking basic reading skills was on a downward curve prior to the pandemic, and expected to fall from 483 million to 460 million in 2020,” UNESCO said in a statement Thursday. “Instead, as a result of the pandemic, the number of children in difficulty jumped to 584 million in 2020, increasing by more than 20% and wiping out gains made over the past two decades through education efforts.”UNESCO is convening a meeting Monday with education ministers from around the world to discuss ways to combat the troubling trend.Canada hit a small stumbling block in its vaccination program when U.S. vaccine manufacturer Moderna said it was delaying a shipment of nearly 600,000 shots expected to be delivered this weekend.Anita Anand, Canada’s federal procurement minister, said Moderna officials attributed the setback to a “backlog in its quality assurance process.” The vaccines, however, are expected to be shipped out before the end of next week.New York City’s theater industry workers are about to receive a literal shot in the arm. Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday that a vaccination site will be set up on Broadway for theater workers, with satellite sites around the city. New York officials say they want Broadway to reopen in the fall. “It’s time to raise the curtain and bring Broadway back,” de Blasio said.
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The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Friday there are more 125.5 million global COVID-19 infections.The U.S. has more cases than another country, with over 30 million infections, followed by Brazil, with 12.3 million, and India, with 11.8 million.India said Friday it set a record with a tally of more than 59,000 new cases in the previous 24-hour period.On Thursday, Brazil said it had recorded its highest number of new coronavirus cases in 24 hours with 100,158 infections.UNESCO said a new study has found that the coronavirus pandemic has adversely affected the reading proficiency of more than 100 million children.“The number of children lacking basic reading skills was on a downward curve prior to the pandemic, and expected to fall from 483 million to 460 million in 2020,” UNESCO said in a statement Thursday. “Instead, as a result of the pandemic, the number of children in difficulty jumped to 584 million in 2020, increasing by more than 20% and wiping out gains made over the past two decades through education efforts.”UNESCO is convening a meeting Monday with education ministers from around the world to discuss ways to combat the troubling trend.Canada hit a small stumbling block in its vaccination program when U.S. vaccine manufacturer Moderna said it was delaying a shipment of nearly 600,000 shots expected to be delivered this weekend.Anita Anand, Canada’s federal procurement minister, said Moderna officials attributed the setback to a “backlog in its quality assurance process.” The vaccines, however, are expected to be shipped out before the end of next week.New York City’s theater industry workers are about to receive a literal shot in the arm. Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday that a vaccination site will be set up on Broadway for theater workers, with satellite sites around the city. New York officials say they want Broadway to reopen in the fall. “It’s time to raise the curtain and bring Broadway back,” de Blasio said.
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The first batch of COVID-19 vaccines arrived in South Sudan’s Juba International Airport on Thursday. The 132,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be offered first to health care workers, including doctors and nurses, along with other vulnerable groups.South Sudan Health Minister Elizabeth Achuil said 732,000 additional doses are scheduled to arrive over the next few months through the support of the COVAX facility, a global partnership made up of a coalition that includes the Vaccine Alliance, UNICEF and the World Health Organization. COVAX was established to ensure that all countries can equitably access COVID-19 vaccines.Achuil said the AstraZeneca shipment is a milestone for South Sudan.“The COVID-19 vaccine will help us to protect our population against the COVID infections and prepare for a return to a normal life. We are grateful to all partners for their support in facilitating the arrival of the vaccines in our country,” she told reporters at Juba International Airport.A COVID-19 vaccination campaign will kick off across the country next week, according to Hamida Lasseko, the UNICEF representative for South Sudan.“It is very important that the government has decided to start with the health workers, who are the front-line workers, because they are the ones to be safe so as to continue with delivering health services,” Lasseko said.German Ambassador to South Sudan Manuel Muller, who represented the donor community at Juba International Airport to receive the vaccine doses, said South Sudan is one of 140 countries that will benefit from the COVAX initiative by the end of May.“Our goal is that everyone in the world can have access to the required vaccine. That is what we mean when we say the vaccine against COVID-19 must be a common goal. People in the developing countries also have the right to a vaccine that has been tested safely, thoroughly and transparently,” Muller said.COVAX has secured more than 3 billion doses of vaccines that can cover at least one-third of the global population in 2021, according to Muller.FILE – A pharmacist prepares to fill a syringe with the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at the Vaccine Village in Antwerp, Belgium, March 16, 2021.The AstraZeneca vaccine requires two doses to ensure optimal immune response against the virus. The doses will be provided on a voluntary basis and free of charge in South Sudan.Confidence in the AstraZeneca vaccine had plunged across Europe after recent reports that a small number of recipients had developed unusual blood clots amid a coronavirus wave on the continent.In France, Germany, Italy and Spain, polling shows more people now believe the vaccine is unsafe, compared with those who think it is safe. That is a major setback to a shot that remains Europe’s best hope for saving lives.Millions of doses have been sitting unused in refrigerators across the continent, with doctors reporting some people canceling appointments for injections over fears about side effects.In South Sudan, health experts say people should still wear face masks and practice other preventative measures, said Dr. Fabian Ndenzako, World Health Organization representative for South Sudan.“I would like to emphasize that if the vaccine starts to roll out around the world, they should complement, not replace, the proven public measures such as wearing masks, physical distancing, ventilation and hand hygiene, alongside robust programs to test, trace, isolate and treat,” Ndenzako told South Sudan in Focus.More than 15 African countries received COVID-19 vaccines in recent weeks.
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In the global race against emerging variants of COVID-19, experts say it’s imperative to reach herd immunity quickly by vaccinating as many people as possible. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo reports on the range of vaccines being used in the U.S. and elsewhere. 
 
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U.S. President Joe Biden makes a guest appearance at the European Union’s monthly summit Thursday, which will also be dominated by tensions over COVID-19 vaccinations and the pandemic’s latest surge in parts of the 27-member bloc.Discussions with Biden might be one of the few upbeat moments during this EU summit, taking place by videoconference because of coronavirus lockdowns in several member states. Both sides want to repair transatlantic ties that frayed under former president Donald Trump.   
 
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made that clear in Brussels Wednesday after meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.  
 
“As President Biden has said, the United States will work closely with our allies and our European Union partners across the continent to address our shared challenges and to meet our shared goal of a Europe whole, free and in peace,” Blinken said.
 
The last U.S. leader to join an EU summit was former president Barack Obama in 2009.
 
EU leaders are also discussing ways to boost their vaccine supplies, amid a resurging pandemic in some places. They’re facing mounting criticism from European voters over the bloc’s slow vaccine rollout, which sees it lagging well behind the U.S. and a number of other countries.
 
The EU’s executive arm has proposed temporarily curbing vaccine exports to ensure its citizens have greater access—and equal treatment by other exporting nations, starting with ex-member Britain.
 
“Just since the introduction of the export authorization system, some 10 million doses have been exported from the EU to the UK and zero doses have been exported from the UK to the EU,” noted European Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis. “So if we discuss reciprocity, solidarity and global responsibility, so it’s clear that we also need to look at those aspects of reciprocity and proportionality.”
 
Britain warns against the EU’s proposed curbs, which are also dividing member states. Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said countries need to work together in confronting the pandemic.  
 
“I will make it clear at our meeting this week that I do not support actions that would disrupt vital supply chains and undermine vaccine production when the situation remains so fragile,” Martin said.
 
Some EU countries also want changes to the bloc’s current method of distributing vaccines —another divisive issue that also promises to make this summit a difficult one.  
 
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