Billions, perhaps even trillions, of cicadas are emerging from the soil over a six-week period in more than a dozen U.S. states. The Washington region, including Northern Virginia, is a hot spot for the plentiful but short-lived thumb-sized insect that some find fascinating and others unnerving.Entomologist Floyd Shockley searched a wooded area in Alexandria, Virginia, for the harmless insects, which slowly climb out of the ground every 17 years from under the deciduous trees on which they feed.An adult cicada climbs up a bush at a forested park in Alexandria, Virginia. Scientists say billions, perhaps even trillions of the insects, may emerge during the next several weeks. (Deborah Block/VOA)”There’s a couple of adults over here,” Shockley said as he gently picked up a black creature with translucent wings and prominent red eyes. Shockley is the collections manager at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington. Today, he is collecting specimens for research.More than 3,000 kinds of cicadas can be found worldwide. While many appear annually, some U.S. varieties spring from the ground either every 17 or 13 years. The cicadas currently blanketing the Washington area are known as Brood X (10).”It’s an amazing phenomenon,” Shockley said.Two-year-old Robert Cody in Alexandria can’t get enough of the cicadas, even when they fly and land on him. “The cicadas are my friends. They tickle my ears, and their eyes look like fire,” he said.Some people are wary of the bugs, like Jeremy Buchanan in Herndon, Virginia, who likes to take a run after work. “When I run by some trees, they sometimes drop on my head,” he said.”There’s no reason for people to be afraid of them,” explained Gene Kritsky, a cicada expert at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, Ohio. “They don’t bite or sting or spread diseases on crops.”Kritsky came up with the idea of a phone app and website called Cicada Safari that citizen scientists can use to post their cicada photos and the location where they were taken.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
A Brood X cicada tracker map on CicadaSafari.com shows locations in the US where the bugs are appearing after 17 years of being underground. (Courtesy Cicada Safari/Gene Kritsky, Mount St. Joseph University, Cincinnati, Ohio)Since the protein-rich cicadas aren’t poisonous, adventurous humans can eat them as well. A cookbook called Cicada-Licious includes recipes for cicada pizza, tacos and cookies.Brian Schwatken in Arlington, Virginia, fried some cicada nymphs with butter, garlic and onions. “They are tender, have kind of a nutty taste and are really good,” he said.The males court the females with a screaming high-pitched mating call that resembles the droning sound of a UFO in an old movie, Shockley said. A chorus of cicadas can be louder than the sounds near an airport when jets are landing, Kritsky added.The females don’t fall for just any male. He must win her over by showcasing his different tones and rhythms. If she’s interested in him, she clicks her wings, McKamey said.Adult cicadas die soon after mating and fertilize the soil.Brian Schwatken in Arlington, Virginia, fries cicadas with butter, garlic and onions. ‘They are tender and have a nutty taste,’ he said. (Courtesy Brian Schwatken)The females lay their eggs on small branches. After they hatch in about six weeks, tiny white nymphs fall from the trees and burrow into the soil, repeating the 17-year natural wonder all over again.Kritsky said it’s a “big mystery” how the cicadas time the 17-year cycle. Underground, they feed on the sap of deciduous tree roots, stopping during the winter and beginning again in the spring. It could be the insects detect the trees’ seasonal changes, Shockley said.
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The White House COVID-19 response team said Friday that major online dating sites are pitching in to encourage more people in the United States to get vaccinated.At the response team’s Friday briefing, Andy Slavitt, senior White House adviser, told reporters that major dating sites including Bumble, Tinder, Hinge, Match, OkCupid and others are offering incentives to members to get vaccinated, including badges to display on their profiles and access to premium features.Slavitt said that the pandemic has had an impact on people’s personal lives, as social distancing is not conducive to dating. He said that while people are eager to get back into dating, they want to be able to do it safely. And, he said, the dating site OkCupid reports that its members who can show they are fully vaccinated are 14% more likely to get dates.Slavitt said online dating sites have access to more than 50 million members, and the White House welcomes the incentives.Numbers droppingMeanwhile, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky reported that as of Thursday, the national daily average number of COVID-19 cases for the past week fell by almost 20% to the lowest daily average since June 13, 2020. Thursday was also the second day in a row the national daily average number of cases fell below 30,000.The good news about declining COVID-19 numbers around the country creates, ironically, a problem for officials trying to get more people vaccinated. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy says the numbers may make people think that the progress made means the pandemic is over and that they should not bother getting vaccinated.Murthy said the only way for the good news to continue is for people to continue getting shots. Slavitt agreed, saying that surveys show that many people who are not yet vaccinated simply have not made it a priority.Prizes, scholarshipsHe said the White House welcomes efforts to encourage people to get vaccinated, such the ones the dating sites are making or, as several states are doing, entering all those who get vaccinated into lotteries with prizes worth thousands of dollars and, in Ohio, five prizes of $1 million and full-ride college scholarships.The CDC director reported that as of Friday, more than 60% of all Americans older than 18 have received at least one shot, and 126.6 million Americans are fully vaccinated.
 
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Twenty-two-year-old Meta Josten from the Democratic Republic of Congo was already living a hard life in one of Uganda’s refugee settlements. When the Ugandan government announced measures last year to control the spread of COVID-19, life got even harder.With little or no work available to locals, Josten, who previously survived on casual labor outside the settlement, had no income to supplement the aid his family was given.For Josten, who lived with five siblings and a jobless father, it was the hunger that almost got him to take his life.“We slept two days without eating food,” Josten said. “We were just surviving on just porridge. A bit of porridge which sustained us for the bit of moments. By then I was like if it’s like this, which means, it’s useless for me to stay in this world.”Mamuru Jackson, a refugee from South Sudan, said it was the lack of human interaction that pushed him to the brink. Having fled to Uganda with a younger brother, leaving his mother and father in South Sudan, Jackson wasn’t ready to assume the role of a parent.“Actually, that thought came into my mind,” Jackson  said. “Because, I feel like I’m alone in this world. And also, the work at home. Because I was only elder person. The other brother of mine is still very young. I feel overwhelmed.”Male Ali, a psychologist and counselor, said  both Josten’s and Jackson’s conditions were deepened due to the thought of not being cared for after separation from family. He outlines the underlying issues.“Parental abuse, poverty,” Ali said. “Those who have been stricken … Those who are traumatized. Especially those who faced violence. Exchange of bullets, now like for the refugee dwellers. And they really had a lot of post-traumatic stress that was now transitioning them to another stage of contemplating suicide.”Psychologists say the contemplation of suicide takes place in stages. These include losing hope, planning on how to end their lives by either using an overdose, poison, ropes or falling from high elevations — and finally accomplishing the act.It is at the second stage that psychologists say people at risk must get the attention they need to prevent them going through with suicide.Professor Eugene Kanyinda is a member of the Medical Research Council unit of Uganda.“Illnesses for example like depression in our African culture are not recognized as mental illnesses,” Kanyinda said. “So, I think there’s a need for people to understand that, I mean, if you see a relative for example, talking of suicide, don’t take it lightly. I mean, the person probably is already entertaining those ideas.”Some warning signs psychiatrists said one should look out for are withdrawal, crying, self-isolation, loss of interest in formerly pleasurable activities and lack of sleep.For survivors of suicide attempts, counsellors refer to them as heroes, to encourage them to think positively.
 
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The World Health Organization Friday questioned wealthy nations moving to vaccinate low-risk groups, such as children, against COVID-19, while some poor and middle-income countries do not have enough vaccine for health care workers.
At the agency’s Friday briefing at its headquarters in Geneva, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke once again about the “gross distortions” of vaccine access in the world.
He said just .03 percent of the world’s produced vaccines have gone to low-income nations.
Tedros said he could understand why nations want to immunize their children, but he urged them to reconsider and donate as much vaccine as they can spare to the international vaccine cooperative, COVAX, the WHO-run program that distributes vaccine to poorer countries.
The WHO chief said many nations are still in the throes of the crisis, with hospitals inundated and care workers who have not had access to the vaccine. He said while India remains “hugely concerning,” Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Thailand and Egypt are all seeing spikes in cases and hospitalizations.  
Tedros said some countries in the Americas are still experiencing high numbers of cases. The Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Resource Center reports Brazil continues to rank third in total cases behind the United States and India and second behind the U.S. in total deaths.  The WHO chief said the Americas as a region accounted for 40 percent of all COVID-19 deaths in the past week.
The WHO chief did say there was good news this week as a number of new countries have contributed vaccine to the COVAX program and vaccine manufacturers have announced technology transfers and sharing deals with each other to increase production worldwide.
Tedros said he himself was vaccinated this week, and he urged anyone who lives in a country where vaccines are available, to get inoculated as soon as possible.
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U.S. health officials said Thursday that people who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus can go maskless and stop maintaining social distancing in most social settings. Folks, if you’re fully vaccinated — you no longer need to wear a mask.If you’re not vaccinated yet — go to Taisei Kikuchi performs in the park competition during a test event set in preparation at the venue for the Olympic Games, which has been rescheduled to start in July, in Tokyo, May 14, 2021.Calls to cancel Tokyo Olympics
In Japan, a petition with more than 350,000 signatures, calling for the cancellation of the Tokyo Olympics, was submitted Friday to the Olympic and Paralympic committee chiefs, as well as Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike.Japan is experiencing a surge in cases in various locations, including Tokyo where the Olympics are scheduled to start on July 23.  “Precious medical resources would need to be diverted to the Olympics if it’s held,” said “Stop Tokyo Olympics” campaign organizer Kenji Utsunomiya.Japanese officials seem determined to push ahead with plans to open the games which were cancelled last year because of the COVID outbreak.  “Though there is a global pandemic, it is important to hold safe and secure Tokyo 2020 Games,” Governor Koike said recently.Multiple funeral pyres of people who died of COVID-19 burn at the Ghazipur crematorium in New Delhi, India, May 13, 2021.India cases mount
“We are facing invisible enemy, fighting it on war-footing mode,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Friday about the COVID contagion in India.  On Friday, India reported 343,144 new cases in the last 24 –hour period.  Last week, daily cases sometimes totaled more than 400,000. Only the U.S. has more COVID-19 cases than India, but public health officials say India’s coronavirus numbers are likely undercounted.  According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, India has 24 million COVID cases while the U.S. has 32.9 million.  Brazil is in third place, according to Johns Hopkins, with 15.4 million infections. 
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The man in the WhatsApp video says he has seen it work himself: A few drops of lemon juice in the nose will cure COVID-19.”If you practice what I am about to say with faith, you will be free of corona in five seconds,” says the man, dressed in traditional religious clothing. “This one lemon will protect you from the virus like a vaccine.”False cures. Terrifying stories of vaccine side effects. Baseless claims that Muslims spread the virus. Fueled by anguish, desperation and distrust of the government, rumors and hoaxes are spreading by word of mouth and on social media in India, compounding the country’s humanitarian crisis.”Widespread panic has led to a plethora of misinformation,” said Rahul Namboori, co-founder of Fact Crescendo, an independent fact-checking organization in India.While treatments such as lemon juice may sound innocuous, such claims can have deadly consequences if they lead people to skip vaccinations or ignore other guidelines.In January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that India had “saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively.” Life began to resume, and so did attendance at cricket matches, religious pilgrimages and political rallies for Modi’s Hindu nationalist party.Four months later, cases and deaths have exploded, the country’s vaccine rollout has faltered and public anger and mistrust have grown.”All of the propaganda, misinformation and conspiracy theories that I’ve seen in the past few weeks has been very, very political,” said Sumitra Badrinathan, a University of Pennsylvania political scientist who studies misinformation in India. “Some people are using it to criticize the government, while others are using it to support it.”Distrust of Western vaccines and health care is also driving misinformation about sham treatments as well as claims about traditional remedies.The caretaker of a crematorium, center, tries to console a man who lost his 5-month-old child to COVID-19 as they perform a post-burial ritual at the Seemapuri crematorium in New Delhi, India, May 13, 2021.Satyanarayan Prasad saw the video about lemon juice and believed it. The 51-year-old resident of the state of Uttar Pradesh distrusts modern medicine and has a theory as to why his country’s health experts are urging vaccines.”If the government approves lemon drops as a remedy, the … rupees that they have spent on vaccines will be wasted,” Prasad said.Vijay Sankeshwar, a prominent businessman and former politician, repeated the claim about lemon juice, saying two drops in the nostrils will increase oxygen levels in the body.While Vitamin C is essential to human health and immunity, there is no evidence that consuming lemons will fight off the coronavirus.The claim is spreading through the Indian diaspora, too.”They have this thing that if you drink lemon water every day that you’re not going to be affected by the virus,” said Emma Sachdev, a Clinton, New Jersey, resident whose extended family lives in India.Sachdev said several relatives have been infected, yet continue to flout social distancing rules, thinking a visit to the temple will keep them safe.India has also experienced the same types of misinformation about vaccines and vaccine side effects seen around the world.Last month, the popular Tamil actor Vivek died two days after receiving his COVID-19 vaccination. The hospital where he died said Vivek had advanced heart disease, but his death has been seized on by vaccine opponents as evidence that the government is hiding side effects.Much of the misinformation travels on WhatsApp, which has more than 400 million users in India. Unlike more open sites like Facebook or Twitter, WhatsApp — which is owned by Facebook — is an encrypted platform that allows users to exchange messages privately.A sign is displayed at a closed market during a lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus in Hyderabad, India, May 13, 2021.The bad information online “may have come from an unsuspecting neighbor who is not trying to cause harm,” said Badrinathan, the University of Pennsylvania researcher. “New internet users may not even realize that the information is false. The whole concept of misinformation is new to them.”Hoaxes spread online had deadly results in 2018, when at least 20 people were killed by mobs inflamed by posts about supposed gangs of child kidnappers.WhatsApp said in a statement that it works hard to limit misleading or dangerous content by working with public health bodies like the World Health Organization and fact-checking organizations. The platform has also added safeguards restricting the spread of chain messages and directing users to accurate online information.The service is also making it easier for users in India and other nations to use its service to find information about vaccinations.”False claims can discourage people from getting vaccines, seeking the doctor’s help, or taking the virus seriously,” Fact Crescendo’s Namboori said. “The stakes have never been so high.”
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Just weeks ago, the Gaza Strip’s feeble health system was struggling with a runaway surge of coronavirus cases. Authorities cleared out hospital operating rooms, suspended nonessential care and redeployed doctors to patients having difficulty breathing.Then, the bombs began to fall.This week’s violence between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers has killed 103 Palestinians, including 27 children, and wounded 530 people in the impoverished territory. Israeli airstrikes have pounded apartments, blown up cars and toppled buildings.Doctors across the crowded coastal enclave are now reallocating intensive care unit beds and scrambling to keep up with a very different health crisis: treating blast and shrapnel wounds, bandaging cuts and performing amputations.Distraught relatives didn’t wait for ambulances, rushing the wounded by car or on foot to Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest. Exhausted doctors hurried from patient to patient, frantically bandaging shrapnel wounds to stop the bleeding. Others gathered at the hospital morgue, waiting with stretchers to remove the bodies for burial.At the Indonesia Hospital in the northern town of Jabaliya, the clinic overflowed after bombs fell nearby. Blood was everywhere, with victims lying on the floors of hallways. Relatives crowded the ER, crying out for loved ones and cursing Israel.”Before the military attacks, we had major shortages and could barely manage with the second (virus) wave,” said Gaza Health Ministry official Abdelatif al-Hajj by phone as bombs thundered in the background. “Now casualties are coming from all directions, really critical casualties. I fear a total collapse.”Gutted by years of conflict, the impoverished health care system in the territory of more than 2 million people has always been vulnerable. Bitter division between Hamas and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority and a nearly 14-year blockade imposed by Israel with Egypt’s help also has strangled the infrastructure. There are shortages of equipment and supplies such as blood bags, surgical lamps, anesthesia and antibiotics. Personal protection gear, breathing machines and oxygen tanks remain even scarcer.Last month, Gaza’s daily coronavirus cases and deaths hit record highs, fueled by the spread of a variant that first appeared in Britain, relaxation of movement restrictions during Ramadan, and deepening public apathy and intransigence.In the bomb-scarred territory where the unemployment rate is 50%, the need for personal survival often trumps the pleas of public health experts. While virus testing remains limited, the outbreak has infected more than 105,700 people, according to health authorities, and killed 976.As cases climbed last year, stirring fears of a health care catastrophe, authorities set aside clinics just for COVID-19 patients. But that changed as airstrikes pummeled the territory.A medic treats a wounded girl in the intensive care unit of the Shifa hospital, May 13, 2021, in Gaza City. She was injured by a May 12 Israeli strike that hit her family’s home.Nurses at the European Hospital in the town of Khan Younis, frantically needing room for the wounded, moved dozens of virus patients in the middle of the night to a different building, said hospital director Yousef al-Akkad. Its surgeons and specialists, who had deployed elsewhere for the virus, rushed back to treat head injuries, fractures and abdominal wounds.If the conflict intensifies, the hospital won’t be able to care for the virus patients, al-Akkad said.”We have only 15 intensive care beds, and all I can do is pray,” he said, adding that because the hospital lacks surgical supplies and expertise, he’s already arranged to send one child to Egypt for reconstructive shoulder surgery. “I pray these airstrikes will stop soon.”At Shifa, authorities also moved the wounded into its 30 beds that had been set aside for virus patients. Thursday night was the quietest this week for the ICU, as bombs had largely fallen elsewhere in Gaza. Patients with broken bones and other wounds lay amid the din of beeping monitors, intercoms and occasional shouts by doctors. A few relatives huddled around them, recounting the chaotic barrage.”About 12 people down in one airstrike. It was 6 p.m. in the street. Some were killed, including my two cousins and young sister. It’s like this every day,” said 22-year-old Atallah al-Masri, sitting beside his wounded brother, Ghassan.Hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia lamented the latest series of blows to Gaza’s health system.”The Gaza Strip is under siege for 14 years, and the health sector is exhausted. Then comes the coronavirus pandemic,” he said, adding that most of the equipment is as old as the blockade and can’t be sent out for repairs.Now, his teams already strained by virus cases are treating bombing victims, more than half of whom are critical cases needing surgery.”They work relentlessly,” he added.Ihsan Al-Masri, 24, left, rests at the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, May 13, 2021, as her son plays on a mobile phone on the bed next to her. She was injured in a May 10 Israeli strike that hit a near her home.To make matters worse, Israeli airstrikes hit two health clinics north of Gaza City on Tuesday. The strikes wreaked havoc on Hala al-Shawa Health Center, forcing employees to evacuate, and damaged the Indonesian Hospital, according to the World Health Organization. Israel, already under pressure from an International Criminal court investigation into possible war crimes during the 2014 war, reiterated this week that it warns people living in targeted areas to flee. The airstrikes nonetheless have killed civilians and inflicted damage on Gaza’s infrastructure.The violence also has closed a few dozen health centers conducting coronavirus tests, said Sacha Bootsma, director of WHO’s Gaza office. This week, authorities conducted some 300 tests a day, compared with 3,000 before the fighting began.The U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, ordered staff to stay home from its 22 clinics for their safety. Those now-closed centers had also administered coronavirus vaccines, a precious resource in a place that waited months to receive a limited shipment from the U.N.-backed COVAX program. Those doses will expire in just a few weeks and get thrown away, with “huge implications for authorities’ ability to mobilize additional vaccines in the future,” Bootsma said.For the newly wounded, however, the virus remains an afterthought.The last thing that Mohammad Nassar remembers before an airstrike hit was walking home with a friend on a street. When he came to, he said, “we found ourselves lying on the ground.”Now the 31-year-old is hooked up to a tangle of tubes and monitors in the Shifa Hospital surgical ward, with a broken right arm and a shrapnel wound in his stomach.
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NASA shares the sound of its Mars helicopter.  Plus, space debris triggers a verbal sparring match, and an asteroid sample is heading to Earth.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has This Week in Space.Producer: Arash Arabasadi.
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Health officials are recommending lifting most COVID-19 restrictions for people who are fully vaccinated.That means no more masks or social distancing, indoors or outdoors, according to updated guidance from the U.S. FILE – Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 18, 2021.For now, masks are still required on planes, trains and buses. Walensky said the CDC would be updating travel guidance soon, as well as recommendations for schools, camps and other settings.Walensky left it up to local leaders to decide whether businesses and other gathering places should continue to require masks. The number of cases and the number of people vaccinated in an area should guide the choice, she said.Experts said the announcement was mostly good news.”The science on this is pretty clear. Vaccinated people rarely get sick and don’t do much transmitting,” Brown University School of Public Health Dean Ashish Jha wrote on Twitter.This is realAnd its correctAnd its goodThe science on this is pretty clear. Vaccinated people rarely get sick and don’t do much transmittingCDC to announce that fully vaccinated folks no longer need to mask up or physically distance in most circumstancesGet the shot Thomas Lo, 15, receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for the coronavirus disease at Northwell Health’s Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park, New York, May 13, 2021.Walensky also noted that new research published in the past couple of weeks has shown how effective the vaccines are in the real world, not just in controlled clinical trials, and how they even prevent infection with the variants circulating in the United States. And in the rare cases in which vaccinated people still get infected, their infections are milder and are less likely to spread to others than infections in unvaccinated people.The announcement comes as vaccination rates are dropping in the United States. Just under 2 million doses a day are being administered on average, down from more than 3 million in mid-April.For those still facing barriers to access, health officials are stepping up efforts to make getting vaccinated easier, including delivering doses to more than 20,000 local pharmacies and offering free rides to vaccination sites through ride-sharing companies.For those hesitant or skeptical about getting the vaccine, the CDC is working with “trusted messengers” to spread the word and deliver shots, including local doctors and places of worship.Walensky encouraged everyone to get vaccinated.”Your health and how soon you return to normal life … are in your very capable hands,” she said.
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