The top men’s tennis player in the world, Novak Djokovic, spent Orthodox Christmas in an immigration detention hotel in Australia on Friday as he sought to fend off deportation over the country’s COVID-19 rules and compete in the Australian Open.

Djokovic received calls from his native Serbia, including from his parents and the president, who hoped to boost his spirits on the holiday.

On Instagram, he posted: “Thank you to the people around the world for your continuous support. I can feel it and it is greatly appreciated.”

The 34-year-old athlete and vaccine skeptic was barred from entering the country late Wednesday when federal border authorities at the Melbourne airport rejected his medical exemption to Australia’s strict COVID-19 vaccination requirements.

He has been confined to the detention hotel in Melbourne pending a court hearing on Monday, a week before the start of the tournament, where he is seeking to win his record-breaking 21st Grand Slam singles title.

During the day, Djokovic’s supporters, waving banners, gathered outside the Park Hotel, used to house refugees and asylum-seekers.

A priest from the Holy Trinity Serbian Orthodox Church in Melbourne asked to visit the nine-time Australian Open champion to celebrate Orthodox Christmas but was turned down by immigration officials because the hotel is under lockdown.

“Our Christmas is rich in many customs, and it is so important that a priest visits him,” the church’s dean, Milorad Locard, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “The whole thing around this event is appalling. That he has to spend Christmas in detention … it is unthinkable.”

The Australian Border Force said Friday that after further investigations into two other people connected to the Australian Open, one voluntarily left the country, and another was taken into detention pending deportation.

The Czech Embassy identified one of them as 38-year-old doubles player Renata Voráčová and said she won’t play in the tournament.

 

Australia’s COVID-19 rules say incoming travelers must have had two shots of an approved vaccine or must have an exemption with a genuine medical reason, such as an acute condition, to avoid quarantine. All players, staff, officials and fans need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to enter the tournament venue.

Djokovic flew to Australia after obtaining a medical exemption backed by the country’s tennis federation and approved by the Victoria state government. The grounds for the exemption have not been disclosed. But the Australian government pronounced it invalid when he arrived.

The dispute has become a touchy topic in a city where residents spent 256 days in 2020-21 under severe restrictions on their movement. Djokovic’s exemption stirred allegations that the star athlete got special treatment.

While some players have sympathized with his situation, others have said getting vaccinated would have prevented any drama.

But amid the latest turn in the dispute, even some who have been critical of Djokovic in the past are now seemingly in his corner.

“Look, I definitely believe in taking action, I got vaccinated because of others and for my mum’s health, but how we are handling Novak’s situation is bad, really bad,” Nick Kyrgios, an Australian player and outspoken critic of some of Djokovic’s opinions on vaccinations, posted on Twitter. “This is one of our great champions but at the end of the day, he is human. Do better.”

Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley said earlier this week that 26 people connected with the tournament applied for medical exemptions and only a “handful” were granted. Three of those have since been challenged. 
…

The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled Friday to hear oral arguments against two of President Joe Biden’s administration’s COVID-19 vaccine policies issued by government agencies to combat the deadly coronavirus.

The policies “are critical to our nation’s COVID-19 response,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.

The mandates coming under review were issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The OSHA policy requires employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workers are either fully vaccinated or tested weekly. The CMS mandate for workers at health care facilities accepting federal Medicare and Medicaid funds requires workers to be fully vaccinated, with exemptions, including for sincerely held religious beliefs.

Republican-led states and an alliance of business and religious groups are challenging the policies’ broad sweep and the effects the mandates are having on companies and workers.

The policies have, however, been endorsed by the American Medical Association and the American Public Health Association and a number of former federal health officials.

The challenge is being presented before the Supreme Court after a number of lower courts issued differing opinions on the policies.

COVID-19 has infected millions of people in the U.S. and killed more than 800,000.
…

Nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, six former health advisers for U.S. President Joe Biden are urging a different approach to fighting it.

Writing Thursday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, the advisers wrote three articles urging Americans to learn to live with the virus in a “new normal” as opposed to trying to eradicate it.

“Without a strategic plan for the ‘new normal’ with endemic COVID-19, more people in the U.S. will unnecessarily experience morbidity and mortality, health inequities will widen, and trillions will be lost from the U.S. economy,” Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Michael Osterholm and Dr. Celine Gounder, who served on Biden’s transition COVID-19 advisory board in 2020, wrote in one of the articles.

The former officials called for building a “modern data infrastructure” and more public health workers, including school nurses, among other things.

“Two years into the pandemic, the U.S. is still heavily reliant on data from Israel and the U.K. for assessing the effectiveness and durability of COVID-19 vaccines and rate of vaccine breakthrough infections,” they wrote.

They called for better access to cheap and rapid testing, as well as more monitoring of air and wastewater to get ahead of potential outbreaks.

They also called for vaccine mandates and the development of variant-specific vaccines.

Moreover, they called for a rebuilding of trust in the nation’s public health institutions, calling the initial response to the pandemic “seriously flawed.”

The three officials wrote that rather than living in “a perpetual state of emergency,” the public should live with the virus by reducing peak outbreaks, and they called for “humility” in dealing with a persistent and evolving virus.

Booster eligibility

In other U.S. pandemic news, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expanded COVID-19 booster shot eligibility for some adolescents to combat the highly transmissible omicron variant of the coronavirus. The move came as the agency faces criticism over messaging confusion on how to cope with infections.

In a statement late Wednesday, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky urged young people ages 12 and older to get COVID-19 boosters as soon as they’re eligible. Boosters were previously encouraged for people in the United States who were 16 and older.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is the sole option for children in the U.S. The CDC estimates that slightly more than half of 12-to-17-year-olds — 13.5 million people — have received two Pfizer shots. Boosters were first made available to 16- and 17-year-olds in December.

Wednesday’s decision made about 5 million younger adolescents who received their last shots in 2021 immediately eligible for boosters.

“This booster dose will provide optimized protection against COVID-19 and the omicron variant,” Walensky said in the statement. “I encourage all parents to keep their children up to date with CDC’s COVID-19 vaccine recommendations.”

Although children tend to not become as seriously ill from COVID-19 as adults, the omicron variant is fueling hospitalizations among children, most of whom are unvaccinated.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
…

A team of scientists is sailing to “the place in the world that’s the hardest to get to” so they can better figure out how much and how fast seas will rise because of global warming eating away at Antarctica’s ice. 

Thirty-two scientists on Thursday are starting a more than two-month mission aboard an American research ship to investigate the crucial area where the massive but melting Thwaites glacier faces the Amundsen Sea and may eventually lose large amounts of ice because of warm water. The Florida-sized glacier has gotten the nickname the “doomsday glacier” because of how much ice it has and how much seas could rise if it all melts — more than two feet (65 centimeters) over hundreds of years. 

Because of its importance, the United States and the United Kingdom are in the midst of a joint $50 million mission to study Thwaites, the widest glacier in the world by land and sea. Not near any of the continent’s research stations, Thwaites is on Antarctica’s western half, east of the jutting Antarctic Peninsula, which used to be the area scientists worried most about. 

“Thwaites is the main reason I would say that we have so large an uncertainty in the projections of future sea level rise, and that is because it’s a very remote area, difficult to reach,” Anna Wahlin, an oceanographer from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, said Wednesday in an interview from the research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer, which was scheduled to leave its port in Chile hours later. “It is configured in a way so that it’s potentially unstable. And that is why we are worried about this.” 

Thwaites is putting about 50 billion tons of ice into the water a year. The British Antarctic Survey says the glacier is responsible for 4% of global sea rise, and the conditions leading to it losing more ice are accelerating, University of Colorado ice scientist Ted Scambos said from the McMurdo land station last month. 

Oregon State University ice scientist Erin Pettit said Thwaites appears to be collapsing in three ways: 

— Ocean water is melting it from below.

— The land part of the glacier “is losing its grip” on the place it attaches to the seabed, so a large chunk can come off into the ocean and later melt.

— The glacier’s ice shelf, like a damaged car windshield, is acquiring hundreds of fractures. This is what Pettit said she feared would be the most troublesome, with 6-mile (10-kilometer) cracks forming in just a year. 

No one has stepped foot on the key ice-water interface at Thwaites before. In 2019, Wahlin was on a team that explored the area from a ship using a robotic ship but never went ashore. 

Wahlin’s team will use two robot ships — her own large one called Ran, which she used in 2019, and the more agile Boaty McBoatface, the crowdsource-named drone that could go further under the area of Thwaites that protrudes over the ocean — to get under Thwaites. 

The shipbound scientists will be measuring water temperature, the sea floor and ice thickness. They’ll look at cracks in the ice and how the ice is structured and tag seals on islands off the glacier. 

Thwaites “looks different from other ice shelves,” Wahlin said. “It almost looks like a jumble of icebergs that have been pressed together. So it’s increasingly clear that this is not a solid piece of ice like the other ice shelves are — nice smooth, solid ice. This was much more jagged and scarred.” 

 
…

After launching its next-generation space telescope, NASA scientists mark major milestones in its progress.  Plus, a new spaceplane arrives at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.

Camera: YouTube NASA/ REUTERS/ SIERRA SPACE 
Produced by: Arash Arabasadi
…

World tennis No.1 Novak Djokovic has had his visa canceled by Australian authorities and is facing deportation. He had received a COVID-19 vaccination exemption to defend his title at the Australian Open but has reportedly failed to provide proper evidence to border officials.

The Serbian is the defending Australian Open champion, and a nine-time winner of the event, but the government said Thursday he’s no longer welcome.

He was detained at Melbourne airport Wednesday for several hours before border force officials announced that he had not met immigration regulations and would be deported.

Djokovic’s father had claimed his son was being held “captive.”

Serbian President Aleksander Vucic said he was a victim of “harassment.”

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is standing firm, though.

“On the issue of Mr. Djokovic, rules are rules and there are no special cases,” Morrison said. “That is the policy of the government, and it has been our government’s strong border protection policies and particularly in relation to the pandemic that has ensured that Australia has had one of the lowest death rates from COVID anywhere in the world. Entry with a visa requires double vaccination or a medical exemption. I am advised that such an exemption was not in place and as a result he is subject to the same rule as anyone else.”

With his visa revoked, Djokovic is now an “unlawful non-citizen” in Australia and is being held in immigration detention, where his movements are restricted after he was driven from Melbourne airport by government officials. It is also unclear whether Djokovic is allowed to communicate with his advisers, which is standard practice according to Australian law.

His lawyers are challenging the deportation order in Australia’s Federal Circuit Court.

The 34-year-old tennis star has not publicly confirmed his COVID-19 vaccination status.

He flew to Australia after being granted a controversial medical exemption. Tennis authorities said he had not received any special treatment, but many Australians, who have lived under some of the world’s toughest coronavirus restrictions, believed Djokovic had abused the system.

Australia’s states and territories Thursday reported more than 70,000 new COVID-19 cases. A total of 612,000 infections have been diagnosed in Australia since the pandemic began, according to official figures, 2,289 people have died.

More than 90% of the eligible population have been fully vaccinated.

To curb the spread of the virus, the Northern Territory imposed lockdown restrictions Thursday on unvaccinated residents, who must adhere to stay-home orders until next Monday. 

 
…

The World Health Organization says a new coronavirus variant recently detected in France is nothing to be concerned about right now.

Scientists at the IHU Mediterranee Infection Foundation in the city of Marseille say they discovered the new B.1.640.2 variant in December in 12 patients living near Marseille, with the first patient testing positive after traveling to the central African nation of Cameroon.

The researchers said they have identified 46 mutations in the new variant, which they labeled “IHU” after the institute, that could make it more resistant to vaccines and more infectious than the original coronavirus.  The French team revealed the findings of a study in the online health sciences outlet medRxiv, which publishes studies that have not been peer-reviewed or published in an academic journal.

Abdi Mahmud, a COVID-19 incident manager with the World Health Organization, told reporters in Geneva earlier this week that, while the IHU variant is “on our radar,” it remains confined in Marseille and has not been labeled a “variant of concern” by the U.N. health agency.

Meanwhile, an international team of health care advocates and experts is calling for 22 billion doses of mRNA vaccine to be administered around the world this year to stop the spread of the highly contagious omicron variant.  The team is urging the production of an additional 15 billion doses of mRNA vaccine, more than double the projected 7 billion doses.

The report says mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna have demonstrated the best protection against several variants by providing cross-immunity through so-called T-cells, an arm of the human immune system that kills virus-infected cells and keeps them from replicating and spreading.

The report was a collaboration among scientists at Harvard Medical School, Columbia University, New York University and the University of Saskatchewan and the advocacy groups PrEP4All and Partners in Health.
…

World tennis No.1 Novak Djokovic has had his visa canceled by Australian authorities and is facing deportation. He had received a COVID-19 vaccination exemption to defend his title at the Australian Open but has reportedly failed to provide proper evidence to border officials.

The Serbian is the defending Australian Open champion, and a nine-time winner of the event, but the government said Thursday he’s no longer welcome.

He was detained at Melbourne airport Wednesday for several hours before border force officials announced that he had not met immigration regulations and would be deported.

Djokovic’s father had claimed his son was being held “captive.”

Serbian President Aleksander Vucic said he was a victim of “harassment.”

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is standing firm, though.

“On the issue of Mr. Djokovic, rules are rules and there are no special cases,” Morrison said. “That is the policy of the government, and it has been our government’s strong border protection policies and particularly in relation to the pandemic that has ensured that Australia has had one of the lowest death rates from COVID anywhere in the world. Entry with a visa requires double vaccination or a medical exemption. I am advised that such an exemption was not in place and as a result he is subject to the same rule as anyone else.”

With his visa revoked, Djokovic is now an “unlawful non-citizen” in Australia and is being held in immigration detention, where his movements are restricted after he was driven from Melbourne airport by government officials. It is also unclear whether Djokovic is allowed to communicate with his advisers, which is standard practice according to Australian law.

His lawyers are challenging the deportation order in Australia’s Federal Circuit Court.

The 34-year-old tennis star has not publicly confirmed his COVID-19 vaccination status.

He flew to Australia after being granted a controversial medical exemption. Tennis authorities said he had not received any special treatment, but many Australians, who have lived under some of the world’s toughest coronavirus restrictions, believed Djokovic had abused the system.

Australia’s states and territories Thursday reported more than 70,000 new COVID-19 cases. A total of 612,000 infections have been diagnosed in Australia since the pandemic began, according to official figures, 2,289 people have died.

More than 90% of the eligible population have been fully vaccinated.

To curb the spread of the virus, the Northern Territory imposed lockdown restrictions Thursday on unvaccinated residents, who must adhere to stay-home orders until next Monday. 

 
…

Omicron may not cause as much lung damage as the delta variant of the COVID-19 virus, according to new lab studies.

That, plus vaccination, may help explain why patients with omicron are not being hospitalized or dying as often as patients infected with previous variants.

But omicron is still killing an average of 1,200 people each day in the United States, about equal to the peak of the second COVID-19 wave in July and August of 2020.

“If it’s milder compared to delta; delta was horrible,” said Joe Grove, a senior lecturer at the University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research. “This has not necessarily just turned into the common cold all of a sudden. It is still something that we should be concerned about.”

Plus, experts caution, omicron’s ferocious infectiousness means the less virulent virus can still do a lot of damage, especially among the unvaccinated who are elderly or have preexisting conditions.

Lighter on the lungs

A set of new studies in lab animals and petri dishes found that omicron did not infect lung tissue as much as previous variants. And it didn’t cause as much damage or inflammation when it did.

Omicron had no problem infecting tissues in the nose and throat. A preference for the upper airway might help explain why omicron is so infectious, Grove said.

“It’s going to be more easily coughed or sneezed out and spread more easily,” Grove said. “But I am speculating here.”

The lab results are promising, but what happens in lab animals doesn’t always translate to people, Dr. Mike Diamond, an infectious diseases professor at Washington University School of Medicine, cautioned.

“You might say, ‘Well, maybe it’s less severe,'” he said. “But we don’t fully even know that it’s less severe in humans yet.”

Doctors in South Africa said that omicron patients had not been not as sick when the variant swept through that country. Health officials in the United Kingdom reported similar observations.

But it’s not clear if those cases were milder because of the virus or because people were less susceptible.

“In the U.K. there was a very high vaccination rate,” Diamond noted. “And then in South Africa, a lot of people got infected in the first wave, so they’re naturally immune.”

Some encouraging signs are starting to come in. According to an early study in Ontario, Canada, unvaccinated people infected with omicron were 60% less likely to be hospitalized or die than those infected with delta.

Experts warn, however, that the risk of severe disease may be lower, but the odds of catching omicron are higher. The huge number of people infected cancels out the advantage of the milder virus.

Unvaccinated and hospitalized

That’s why hospitals in parts of the United States are filling up again.

In this wave, most hospitalized patients are unvaccinated, by an overwhelming margin.

In New York City, for example, where COVID-19 is spiking again, unvaccinated patients are being hospitalized at a rate 30 times that of vaccinated patients.

The highest rates of hospitalization are among those over 65.

Even if omicron is milder, “it seems to be still doing quite a bit of damage in unvaccinated people,” said University of Texas Medical Branch virologist Vineet Menachery.

“The good news is that there does seem to be a trend that this virus is less severe than previous waves, especially if you’re vaccinated,” he said. For those who got their shots, “the threat of severe disease is probably off the table for most people.”

“On the other hand, for people who are not vaccinated, I think the threat is just as big as it was in March of 2020,” Menachery added. 
…

Influential government advisers are strongly urging that teens as young as 12 get COVID-19 boosters as soon as they’re eligible, a key move as the U.S. battles the omicron surge and schools struggle with how to restart classes amid the spike. 

All Americans 16 and older are encouraged to get a booster, which health authorities say offers the best chance at avoiding the highly contagious omicron variant. Earlier this week, the Food and Drug Administration authorized an extra Pfizer shot for kids ages 12 to 15, as well — but that wasn’t the final hurdle. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention makes recommendations for vaccinations and on Wednesday, its advisers voted that a booster was safe for the younger teens and should be offered to them once enough time — five months — has passed since their last shot. And while the CDC last month opened boosters as an option for 16- and 17-year-olds, the panel said that recommendation should be strengthened to say they “should” get the extra dose. 

CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky will weigh the panel’s advice before making a final decision soon. 

Vaccines still offer strong protection against serious illness from any type of COVID-19, including the highly contagious omicron variant, especially after a booster. But omicron can slip past a layer of the vaccines’ protection to cause breakthrough infections.

Studies show a booster dose at least temporarily revs up virus-fighting antibodies to levels that offer the best chance at avoiding symptomatic infection, even from omicron.

Fending off even a mild infection is harder for vaccines to do than protecting against serious illness, so giving teens a booster for that temporary jump in protection is like playing whack-a-mole, cautioned Dr. Sarah Long of Drexel University. But she said the extra shot was worth it given how hugely contagious the omicron mutant is, and how many kids are catching it. 

More important, if a child with a mild infection spreads it to a more vulnerable parent or grandparent who then dies, the impact “is absolutely crushing,” said Dr. Camille Kotton of Massachusetts General Hospital. 

“Let’s whack this one down,” agreed Dr. Jamie Loehr of Cayuga Family Medicine in Ithaca, New York. 

The vaccine made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech is the only option for American children of any age. About 13.5 million children ages 12 to 17 have received two Pfizer shots, according to the CDC. Boosters were opened to the 16- and 17-year-olds last month. 

The CDC’s advisers were swayed by real-world U.S. data showing that symptomatic COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are between seven and 11 times higher in unvaccinated adolescents than vaccinated ones. 

If the CDC agrees, about 5 million of the younger teens, those 12 to 15, would be eligible for a booster right away because they got their last shot at least five months ago.

New U.S. guidelines say anyone who received two Pfizer vaccinations and is eligible for a booster can get it five months after their last shot, rather than the six months previously recommended. 

Children tend to suffer less serious illness from COVID-19 than adults. But child hospitalizations are rising during the omicron wave — the vast majority of them unvaccinated. 

During the public comment part of Wednesday’s meeting, Dr. Julie Boom of Texas Children’s Hospital said a booster recommendation for younger teens “cannot come soon enough.” 

The chief safety question for adolescents is a rare side effect called myocarditis, a type of heart inflammation seen mostly in younger men and teen boys who get either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. The vast majority of cases are mild — far milder than the heart inflammation COVID-19 can cause — and they seem to peak in older teens, those 16 and 17. 

The FDA decided a booster dose was as safe for the younger teens as the older ones based largely on data from 6,300 12- to 15-year-olds in Israel who got a Pfizer booster five months after their second dose. Israeli officials said Wednesday that they’ve seen two cases of mild myocarditis in this age group after giving more boosters, 40,000. 

Earlier this week, FDA vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks said the side effect occurs in about 1 in 10,000 men and boys ages 16 to 30 after their second shot. But he said a third dose appears less risky, by about a third, probably because more time has passed before the booster than between the first two shots. 

 
…

Exactly two years after the World Health Organization issued an alert about “a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause” in the central Chinese city of Wuhan that evolved into the global COVID-19 pandemic, the world is now struggling under the weight of the fast-moving omicron variant of the coronavirus that sparked the disease. 

In Brazil, a surge of new COVID-19 cases driven by the omicron variant has prompted authorities in Rio de Janeiro to cancel its iconic Carnival street festival for the second consecutive year. 

Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes announced the cancellation Tuesday during a speech carried live online. Paes said the “nature” and “democratic aspect” of Carnival makes it impossible to control the potential spread of the virus. 

But Paes said the traditional procession of Rio’s samba schools into the city’s Sambadrome stadium will take place next month, as authorities will impose mitigation efforts to inhibit the spread of the virus among spectators.

In Hong Kong, chief executive Carrie Lam on Wednesday announced a two-week ban on flights from eight nations to blunt a possible fifth wave of COVID-19 infections driven by omicron. The ban on incoming flights from Australia, Britain, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines and the United States takes effect Sunday.

Authorities in the semi-autonomous Chinese financial hub are keeping about 2,500 passengers of a Royal Caribbean cruise ship on board the vessel after discovering that nine passengers were close contacts of an omicron cluster in the city. The Spectrum of the Seas returned to Hong Kong on Wednesday, just days after leaving on a short cruise. The nine passengers were taken off the ship and placed in a quarantine center, where they have all tested negative. The remaining passengers and the ship’s 1,200 crew will have to undergo testing before they are allowed to disembark.

Italy has also imposed new measures to battle the virus, announcing Wednesday that COVID-19 vaccination will be mandatory, effective immediately, for people 50 and over. This requirement will remain in place until June 15, according to Reuters.

Overwhelmed by a new wave of coronavirus infections, Italy is one of the few European countries to announce such a measure. 

Since February 2020, when the pandemic began in Italy, the country has reported 138,000 deaths from the virus, the second highest death toll in Europe after Britain.

CDC statements

Meanwhile, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has added the Caribbean island nation of Aruba on its list of destinations considered as “very high” risk of exposure to COVID-19. The CDC designates as “Level 4” any destination with more than 500 cases per 100,000 residents over the past 28 days.

The CDC issued a statement Tuesday on its controversial new guidelines for people who have been infected with COVID-19. The federal agency came under fire last week when it cut the amount of time infected Americans should quarantine from 10 days to five as long as they have no symptoms, while also stating that testing was not necessary after that five-day period.

Independent health experts urged the CDC to revise the guidelines to include a recommendation to seek testing after the five-day isolation periods amid the ever-growing omicron outbreak. But the agency instead issued documents supporting its new recommendations, while saying at-home rapid tests are not a reliable indication that a person is no longer contagious.

The CDC is recommending that people wear face masks everywhere for five days after emerging from isolation.

U.S. numbers

The U.S. has also reached a record single-day number of COVID-19 cases, with more than 1 million infections reported on Monday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

The record high comes as the country continues to battle the omicron variant, resulting in rapid infection across the country on the heels of the holiday season.

Top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci warned Wednesday that Americans could not be complacent about the virus’ spread, saying that while the omicron variant is less severe, it may still overwhelm the country’s health system.

“[Omicron] could still stress our hospital system because a certain proportion of a large volume of cases, no matter what, are going to be severe,” Fauci told reporters during a White House briefing. 

According to Reuters, hospitalizations of COVID patients have risen by 45% in the past seven days and remain at over 111,000, a rate the country has not seen since January 2021.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
…

TRANSCRIPT

The Inside Story: Crossing the Frontier

Episode 21 – January 6, 2022

 

Show Open Graphics:

 

Voice of KANE FARABAUGH, VOA Correspondent:

 

All Systems go, Falcon 9 Blasts off into space.

With high expectations, changing the trajectory of U.S. space exploration.

And signaling a new era in the aerospace industry.

 

 

 

Kelly DeFazio, Lockheed Martin Orion Site Director:

 

We’re going to take humans farther then we’ve ever gone before.

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

A return to the moon. More trips to Mars. And increased competition from China.

 

 

 

Rocky Kolb, Astronomy and Astrophysics Professor:

 

China is gaining rapidly on the U.S.

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

 

On The Inside Story: Crossing the Frontier.

 

 

The Inside Story:

 

 

Unidentified launch announcer:

 

Ok and here we go. 10. 9. 8. 7.6.5.4.3.2.1. Ignition!  And liftoff! Liftoff of Falcon 9 and IXPE. A new set of x-ray eyes to view the mysteries of our skies!

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

 

Hi, I’m Kane Farabaugh reporting from Cape Canaveral, Florida, where launches again are becoming a more frequent occurrence, thanks to the commercialization of space transportation in recent years, and a new initiative by NASA to return astronauts to the moon and eventually get them to Mars.

It’s a dramatic turnaround from just a decade ago at the end of the Space Shuttle program, when the industry here in Florida realized it needed to diversify to be competitive nationally and globally.

 

 

 

Dale Ketcham, Vice President, Space Florida:

 

I wasn’t born here but I moved here and learned how to walk on Cocoa Beach three years before NASA was created.

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

Not only has Dale Ketchum grown up with the U.S. space program, he’s watched it transform the economies of communities surrounding NASA’s Kennedy Space Center several times since the 1950s.

 

 

Dale Ketcham, Space Florida Vice President:

 

The space program continued to progress, but it was always government focused.

 

 

Brian Baluta, Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast:

 

For 50 years roughly, Florida’s Space Coast was the place for launch.

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

Launch… but not production.  Most of the equipment used in the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs over those years was shipped to Florida for assembly.  When Atlantis touched down in 2011 on the final shuttle mission, it marked the end of an era in human spaceflight.  As launches decreased, the Space Coast’s economy suffered. 

 

 

 

Brian Baluta, Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast:

 

The job losses started to pile up and that happened to coincide with the Great Recession.  So it was really a one two punch for this area. In 2011, unemployment was 12 percent at that point. The economy and its outlook were not strong.

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

Brian Baluta, Vice President of the Economic Development Commission, or EDC of Florida’s Space Coast says that’s when his organization offered a concept that could change the fortunes of the area’s workforce –permanently. 

 

 

Brian Baluta, Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast:

 

And it started with taking the unusual step of reaching out to the companies who were likely to produce the successor to the Space Shuttle.  At the time it was called the Crew Exploration Vehicle and there wasn’t a contract for it yet.  But we reached out to Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman and Boeing – the companies that would likely compete and win for that contract, and we made the unusual pitch of – if you win the contract not only should you consider launching from Cape Canaveral, but you should consider assembling your spacecraft here.

 

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

The concept took off.

 

 

Kelly DeFazio, Lockheed Martin Orion Site Director:

 

Just like diversifying a portfolio, if you diversify the area and your products you can ride through those lows.

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

Lockheed Martin won the contract to create NASA’s next generation spacecraft transporting humans back to the moon.  The Crew Exploration Vehicle, now called “Orion,” will be the capsule of the upcoming Artemis missions.  Some of Orion’s components are pieced together at Lockheed’s new Star Center near Titusville, Florida, which is a former home of Space Camp and the Astronaut Hall of Fame.

 

Kelly DeFazio, Lockheed Martin Orion Site Director:

 

The contractors and the government support teams are investing in the community. This particular center here was an 18 month, $20-million investment by Lockheed Martin and that is helping to expand the manufacturing footprint for the Space Coast and allowing us to be able to increase throughput over time as we rate and support our mission.

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

Kelly DeFazio is also a longtime resident of Florida’s Space Coast.  She now oversees the work at Lockheed Martin’s Star Center which includes creating wiring harnesses…

 

 

 

Unidentified technician:

 

This is basically the nervous system, so to speak, over the capsule.

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

 

…and the application of thermal tiles that will protect the Orion capsule.

 

 

 

Unidentified technician:

 

The panel that covers the side hatch so the hatch would be basically where the while foam is.

 

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

 

DeFazio says excitement is building.

 

 

Kelly DeFazio, Lockheed Martin Orion Site Director:

 

I think that it will start to become very clear with the launch of Artemis 1  that there is a difference, and you know what, we’re going to take humans farther than they have ever gone before.

 

 

Dale Ketcham, Space Florida Vice President:

 

When I was growing up with the original 7 astronauts in Cocoa Beach, it was really a frontier town. People were coming and going rapidly, only staying a little while.

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

That Wild West frontier town description is also how Ketcham characterizes the present day Space Coast, with government contractors and private companies both jockeying for real estate and launch access. 

 

 

Dale Ketcham, Space Florida Vice President:

 

With the commercial sector coming, particularly after the retirement of the shuttle program, in many ways we’re going back… the workforce is younger.  Particularly with Space X.  They’re not afraid to fail.

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

Space X, Blue Origin, and Airbus’s One Web are just a few of the companies with facilities near the rocket launch pads at Kennedy Space Center, thanks in part to the efforts of the EDC and organizations like Space Florida, where Dale Ketchum now serves as Vice President.

 

 

Dale Ketcham, Space Florida Vice President:

 

We just had an announcement this week that there will be a small launch company called Astra coming here to build small rockets for small satellites which is a big new component of the whole space industry. They’re the first small rocket to come here. But we’ve also got Firefly, Relativity, coming, and others will be coming after that.

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

The more the merrier says Ketchum.  Not only does it help the local economy, it also keeps the United States competitive globally in what he sees as a new space race.

 

 

Dale Ketcham, Vice President, Space Florida Vice President:

 

The Chinese will put more rockets into orbit than we will because the Chinese are competitive and very smart and very capable very well resourced and very committed, and they are the major competitors in space that will be our major competitor in space for our lifetime.

 

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

 

One of the top generals in the U.S. Space Force says China’s space program has grown at “an incredible pace,” warning they could gain a military advantage over the United States if America does not step up its game.

 

There is hope among many in the U.S. aerospace industry that China’s success will provide the needed impetus for a new space race to advance exploration of the cosmos — perhaps in cooperation and not competition with China.

 

The steady stream of data Edwin Kite reviews from U.S. and Chinese rovers simultaneously exploring the surface of Mars keeps him busy at his University of Chicago laboratory. 

 

 

 

 

Edwin Kite, Planetary Geoscientist:

 

You can quickly go through a loop of making a discovery, forming a hypothesis based on that discovery and sending a new spacecraft to test it.

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

Gathering information in Kite’s field of study had traditionally been accomplished using telescopes and analyzing meteors and the few moon rocks U.S. astronauts brought to Earth in the 1960s and ’70s.

 

But the new Mars missions are helping Kite and his colleagues obtain a more direct and complete understanding of Mars, thanks to the information the craft and rovers from the different countries have collected throughout the red planet. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edwin Kite, Planetary Geoscientist:

 

We’re at a really early stage of Mars exploration. We’ve only scratched the surface of what there is to discover. We don’t know which country’s investigation is going to stumble over something that unlocks the next stage of exploration.

 

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

During a U.S. House of Representatives appropriations hearing that was conducted remotely, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, a former astronaut and former U.S. senator from Florida, signaled alarm at the recent success of the Chinese space program, which he says isn’t confined to the red planet. 

 

 

 

 

Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator:

 

They want to send three big landers to the south pole of the moon… and that’s where the water is. And we are still a year or two away from a much smaller lander going there.

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

Which is why Nelson is urging lawmakers to support NASA’s Artemis program, which plans to return humans — including the first woman — to the moon, with Mars as an eventual destination. 

 

Nelson says China is on a similar path. 

 

 

 

Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator:

 

I think that’s adding a new element as to whether or not we want to get serious and get a lot of activity going on landing… humans back on the surface of the moon.

 

 

 

 

 

Rocky Kolb, Astronomy and Astrophysics Professor:

 

China is gaining rapidly on the U.S., and the Europeans are also in this space race. 

 

 

 

 

 KANE FARABAUGH:

 

Rocky Kolb, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago, believes a new space race could be positive.   

 

Kolb would like to see the U.S. and Chinese space programs collaborate rather than compete. 

 

 

 

 

Rocky Kolb, Astronomy and Astrophysics Professor:

 

So there’s a lot of talent in China that we could make use of, and a lot of resources in China, and they have money to explore space.

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

But both Kite and Kolb acknowledge there is a limit to how much cooperation can realistically occur between the United States and China. 

 

 

 

Rocky Kolb, Astronomy and Astrophysics Professor:

 

The technology involved in the peaceful exploration of space can also be transported to military uses.

 

 

 

 

Edwin Kite, Planetary Geoscientist:

 

There are legal barriers to bilateral collaboration between NASA and the Chinese space program. But those don’t apply to non-NASA funded work by academic institutions.

 

 

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

Which is why Kite and Kolb and the scientific community they represent worldwide continue to pore over the tantalizing clues relayed from Mars in order to better understand the origins of our own planet and species — knowledge that Kolb says isn’t confined to national borders. 

 

 

 

 

Rocky Kolb, Astronomy and Astrophysics Professor: 

 

I think it would be great in the future if the U.S. could cooperate with China in the same way that now we cooperate with the European observatories and the European Space Agency.  It adds a lot to the table. So there’s a lot of talent in China that we could make use of, and a lot of resources in China, and they have money to explore space. And I think this is something that mankind should do together. And hopefully in the next few years we’ll have a better relationship in science and we will do it together.

There is only one Mars. It doesn’t belong to the U.S., and it doesn’t belong to China.

 

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

The future of space travel looks promising with private investment fueling this phase of space exploration. According to a 2020 report by Space Capital, 8.9 billion dollars was invested in space companies through private financing.

 

Elon Musk and his aerospace company, Space X, are the leaders in NASA’s “Gateway to Mars” effort.

And the billionaire’s vision of constructing a spaceport in a town best known for its battlefield is receiving mixed reviews from those who live there.

 

From Boca Chica at the tip of Texas, here’s VOA’s Elizabeth Lee:

 

 

ELIZABETH LEE, VOA Correspondent:

At the southern tip of Texas called Boca Chica, along Texas Highway 4, you’ll see the historical site of the last battle of the American Civil War – and a few more minutes down the road there is another history making view – a spaceport that is the beginning of what could be interplanetary travel.

 

SpaceX has been building and testing prototypes for its next generation rocket called Starship, to one day, fly humans to the moon and Mars.

 

 

 

 

 

David Santilena, Rocket Ranch Boca Chica Owner:

 

People are going to want to come down and they’re going to want to see this, this crazy pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.

 

 

 

ELIZABETH LEE:

 

David Santilena is an airline pilot who has not been flying because of the pandemic. When SpaceX picked South Texas as the site of a spaceport for Starship, Santilena saw an opportunity.

David Santilena, Rocket Ranch Boca Chica Owner:

 

You know what? You only live once, so I bought it and then it was a tremendous amount of work but it’s really coming along.

 

 

 

ELIZABETH LEE:

 

He purchased land near SpaceX’s future spaceport and started building to make it a destination for space lovers to watch launches – with campsites and trailers for rent.

 

 

 

David Santilena, Rocket Ranch Boca Chica Owner:

 

If it lands, it’s going to be amazing. If it crashes, it’s going to be amazing.  Either way, I’m going to be there watching.

 

 

 

ELIZABETH LEE:

 

Residents have seen successes and failures, such as this high-altitude flight test that met a spectacular end.

 

SpaceX founder Elon Musk congratulated his team on social media saying, “we got all the data we needed.”

 

Musk describes South Texas as the gateway to Mars. He says he is highly confident humans can land on the Red Planet in six years. 

 

Since SpaceX broke ground in 2014 in South Texas, it’s been building and conducting tests for a working Starship, a rapidly reusable rocket that aims to make interplanetary space travel like air travel. The site has brought jobs to this area.

 

But progress comes at a price. Some residents who live in the village near the new spaceport say they’ve had to sell their homes to SpaceX at prices they wished were higher. In their place, SpaceX employees have moved in.

 

 

 

 

Maria Pointer, Former Boca Chica Area Resident:

 

We had a home that SpaceX needed, and that home was right in the middle of the compound for the production shipyard. We had no way to get away from the construction.

 

ELIZABETH LEE:

 

Maria Pointer negotiated with SpaceX and moved out in March, and SpaceX employees quickly moved in.

 

 

 

Maria Pointer, Former Boca Chica Area Resident:

 

I had to make lemonade out of lemons. I was not going to just take this lying down and say, ‘Oh woe is me they’re going to take everything I have.’ No, no I’m going to reinvent the Pointers so that we have fun.

 

 

 

ELIZABETH LEE:

 

The experience has been bittersweet for her.  From her new home, she’s enjoyed watching the development of the rocket prototypes and writing about it. But she wishes SpaceX could have picked a different location so her life wouldn’t be uprooted and the wildlife in the area stays preserved. 

 

Pointer will continue to write about SpaceX on social media for her followers, just as Santilena will share future launches with anyone who decides to stop by Rocket Ranch.

 

Elizabeth Lee, VOA News.

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

2021 was a historic year for all-things space – from the success of private spaceflight companies to robots exploring Mars in a road trip for the ages.

 

VOA’s Arash Arabasadi beams us through the Year in Space:

 

 

 

ARASH ARABASADI, VOA Correspondent:

This year, the world witnessed space history not once, not twice, but three times as the private spaceflight companies Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and SpaceX successfully launched their space tourism businesses.

 

Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic became the first to reach the space boundary – in early July…

While Jeff Bezos’ company, Blue Origin, flew a few days later and a bit higher on the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

 

Among the passengers was pilot Wally Funk, who at the time became the oldest person in space at age 82.

 

But, just a few months later, 90-year-old actor William Shatner, claimed that title when he also rode aboard Blue Origin. Shatner made famous the role of Captain James T. Kirk on the iconic 1960s TV show, “Star Trek.”  

 

 

Misty Snopkowski, NASA:

 

If you take a step back and look at 2021, it’s been a really amazing year.  I think that, at this point, we’re kind of experiencing a renaissance in human spaceflight.

 

 

ARASH ARABASADI:

NASA’s Misty Snopkowski tells VOA SpaceX’s fundraiser flight for St. Jude Children’s Hospital – may have been the most significant of the year.

 

 

 

Misty Snopkowski, NASA:

 

Because Inspiration 4 was successful, I think that’s going to stimulate more activities in low-Earth orbit and really enable more people to go into space.

 

 

 

 

ARASH ARABASADI:

The entire mission was bankrolled by a billionaire on board the flight.

 

 

 

Greg Autry, Thunderbird School of Global Management:

 

Now, the private investment into space is bigger than the NASA budget. The private industry is putting more money into space than the government is into space, so this is definitely, in my opinion, the inflection point for the industry.

 

 

ARASH ARABASADI:

Autry says reusable hardware makes going into space cost-efficient and more eco-friendly than single-use rockets. But he adds that it probably won’t be us making those first trips.

Greg Autry, Thunderbird School of Global Management:

 

I think before you see people, though, you’ll probably see cargo.  So, you’ll see sushi coming from Tokyo to London in an hour. That’s crazy, but I know there are crazy people who will pay for that.

 

 

 

 

ARASH ARABASADI:

In other news this year, NASA landed on Mars.  The Perseverance rover – or Percy for short – and its travel buddy, the Ingenuity helicopter, began a quest for signs of ancient life.  The flight took about seven months before a dramatic landing on the Martian surface.

 

That’s all fine, says Autry, but he says the focus should be closer to home.

 

 

Greg Autry, Thunderbird School of Global Management:

 

We could run onto Mars, we could spend a lot of public money, we could stick that flag there, and bring back a soil sample and maybe discover life. But it wouldn’t have actually done anything for people on Earth, right?”

 

 

 

ARASH ARABASADI:

What would do something for people on Earth, he says, is eventually moving mining and manufacturing industries off the planet and onto the moon.

 

But before that happens, NASA plans to launch its Artemis (one) mission next February.  It is the first of three missions with the end goal of landing the first woman and next man on the moon by 2025.

NASA’s Snopkowski tells VOA future moon-missions will include a public-private partnership that will drive down costs for the space agency.

 

 

 

 

Misty Snopkowski, NASA:

 

One of NASA’s goals is to be just one of many customers, right, in this commercial space strategy that we’ve laid out.  And so, in that goal, NASA would be only purchasing what they need as far as goods and services go.

 

 

 

 

ARASH ARABASADI:

Before we turn the page on this year, a look at Space Oddities 2021.There was the first known French crepe made in space, tests on the immune systems of baby bobtail squid, and the first ever space games.

 

For 2022, look for more launches from the private spaceflight giants, NASA’s test trip to the moon, further research from Mars, and the U.S. Mint’s release of the Sally Ride quarter honoring the first American woman in space. 

Arash Arabasadi, VOA News.

 

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

NASA recently revealed its next class of astronauts to train for missions to the moon and Mars.

Half of the 10 new astronauts are military pilots. One is a champion cyclist.

 

Outfitting the next generation of astronauts is a key component of the upcoming lunar mission.

 

A new NASA program has American college students competing to design a high-tech spacesuit for the next phase of interplanetary travel.

 

Bradley University student Zach Bachmann didn’t grow up thinking he’d be an astronaut.

 

 

 

 

Zach Bachmann, Student Team Lead:

 

I’m short, blind, and asthmatic so I can’t really be an astronaut if I wished to.

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

But a lifelong interest in video games and computers is putting him at the center of a nationwide effort to boost new space helmet technology for the next generation of astronauts.

 

 

 

Zach Bachmann, Student Team Lead:

 

I’ve always been into sci-fi and tech, so it sounded like this was kind of a cool project and I kinda just got wrapped into it.

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

That “cool project” – NASA’s Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students, or S.U.I.T.S Design Challenge – allows college students to create spacesuit information displays within augmented reality environments.

 

 

 

Abby Irwin, Design Team Lead:

 

You still see the world around, but you would just have overlays.  So like the vitals would be an overlay, but they would still see the moon or whatever they are working on.

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

Abby Irwin works with Bachmann on Bradley’s S.U.I.T.S. team using the latest Microsoft Holo Lens to create and test their ideas.

 

 

 

Abby Irwin, Design Team Lead:

 

Our navigation we kind of got examples from flight software that pilots use and train with, but we also got like some ideas from the game Skyrim, how they do navigation in video games.

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

While NASA has already announced a new spacesuit for the upcoming Artemis moon missions scheduled later this decade, the next challenge is figuring out the final version of the cutting-edge technology inside. That’s where S.U.I.T.S. plays a role.

 

Brandon Hargis, NASA Office of STEM Engagement Activity:

 

The idea was why don’t we put some funding toward having students contribute solutions to these technical challenges.

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

NASA’s Brandon Hargis says the S.U.I.T.s program helps NASA solve several old problems…

…. including handling the time delay communicating between the Earth and the Moon, and the longer lag time for signals to reach Mars.

 

 

 

 

Brandon Hargis, NASA Office of STEM Engagement Activity:

 

In this case 250,000 miles away from Earth on the moon, or several millions of miles away on Mars.  There’s somewhat of a delay in communications, (((end courtesy)) so if the astronaut has a little more autonomy to make some decisions based on the plan of the mission, augmented reality could help them do that.

 

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

In a typical year, ten teams would travel to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas to demonstrate their designs in person.  But due to the coronavirus pandemic, the current experience is all virtual and remote, giving more students a chance to participate.

 

 

 

 

Brandon Hargis, NASA Office of STEM Engagement Activity Manager:

 

Because we are doing this in a virtual environment this year, we actually invited twenty teams to participate in our virtual course online.

 

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

Hargis says the students’ work has NASA ahead of schedule designing the technology.

 

 

 

 

Brandon Hargis, NASA Office of STEM Engagement Activity:

 

The work they are doing has spurred research in the field.

 

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

 

When the first woman, and next men land on the moon, the design of the AR technology influenced by students like those at Bradley University will be there, right in front of astronauts’ faces, helping them boldly go, and do, what few have done before.

 

 

 

Abby Irwin, Design Team Lead:

 

I’m very proud of what we’ve come up with so far and where we could go.

 

 

 

Zach Bachmann, Student Team Lead:

 

I’m all for committing to more space exploration because it’s cool and ya know it’s the future.

 

 

 

 

KANE FARABAUGH:

 

That’s all we have for now.

 

I’m Kane Farabaugh here at The Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Connect with us at VOANews on Instagram and Facebook.

 

Stay up to date at VOANews.com 

 

See you next week for The Inside Story.

 

###

 

 
…

President Joe Biden has directed his administration to buy an additional 10 million courses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 pill, Paxlovid, bringing the total to at least 20 million courses, as part of his strategy to combat omicron. He addressed the American public Tuesday as COVID-19 cases in the U.S. surge to record levels following the holidays. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
…

Illinois farmer Jack McCormick planted 350 acres of barley and radishes last fall as part of an off-season crop that he does not intend to harvest. Instead, the crops will be killed off with a weed killer next spring before McCormick plants soybeans in the same dirt. 

The barley and radishes will not be used for food, but Bayer AG will pay McCormick for planting them as the so-called cover crops will generate carbon offset credits for the seeds and chemicals maker. 

The purpose of cover crops is to restore soil, reduce erosion and to pull climate-warming carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. The carbon trapped in roots and other plant matter left in the soil is measured to create carbon credits that companies can use to offset other pollution. 

The practice shows how the agriculture industry is adapting as a result of climate change. Farmers no longer make money merely by selling crops for food and livestock feed – they may also be paid for the role crops can play in limiting planet-warming emissions. 

More and more U.S. farmers are planting cover crops, from grasses like rye and oats to legumes and radishes. While some are converted into biofuels or fed to cattle, most are not harvested because their value is greater if they break down in the soil. 

Cover crops are a pillar of regenerative agriculture, and they are generally seen by environmentalists as an improvement over traditional agriculture. It is an approach to farming that aims to restore soil health and curb emissions through crop rotation, livestock grazing, cutting chemical inputs and other practices. 

Rob Myers, director for the Center for Regenerative Agriculture at the University of Missouri, estimates cover crop plantings swelled to as much as 22 million acres in 2021. That is up 43% from the 15.4 million acres planted in 2017, according to the most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data. 

“There are so many things pushing cover crops forward. The carbon payments are the newest thing. We’ve seen a tremendous farmer interest in soil health,” he said. 

Myers estimates that by the end of the decade between 40 million and 50 million acres of cover crops will be planted annually. 

The surge will likely accelerate as government and private conservation programs expand, experts say. 

An even greater expansion of cover crop acreage in coming years could be a boon to seed and fertilizer companies, though the companies say it is hard to predict which cover crops farmers will decide to plant. 

Companies including Bayer, Land O’Lakes and Cargill Inc have launched carbon farming programs over the past two years that pay growers for capturing carbon by planting cover crops and reducing soil tillage. 

Land O’Lakes subsidiary Truterra paid out $4 million to U.S. farmers enrolled in its carbon program in 2021 for efforts the company says trapped 200,000 metric tons of carbon in soils. 

Others are expanding from small pilot programs, including Cargill, which aims to increase its sponsored sustainable farming programs to 10 million acres by the end of the decade, up from around 360,000 acres currently. Seedmaker Corteva Inc boosted its carbon offering from three U.S. states to 11 for the 2022 season. 

Federal conservation programs have for years paid farmers to set aside environmentally sensitive lands such as flood plains or wildlife habitat, and the Biden administration plans to expand those programs. President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better legislation targeted some $28 billion for conservation programs, including up to $5 billion in payments to farmers and landowners for planting cover crops, though the bill’s fate remains unclear. 

‘Want to do it’ 

Much of the growth in cover crop plantings to date has been led by a limited number of conservation-conscious farmers pursuing other goals such as soil fertility or water management. Program payments rarely cover the cost of seeds and labor. 

“You’ve got to want to do it,” said McCormick, who has increased his cover crop acres more than tenfold over the past six years and received his first payment from Bayer this autumn. 

“If somebody wants to hand me a couple of bucks an acre for something I’m doing, I’ll take it. But I wouldn’t do it just for the incentive. I don’t think the incentives are great enough,” he said, adding that his main motivation is the role played by cover crops in improving soil and making his farm more drought tolerant. 

Similarly, Ohio farmer Dave Gruenbaum rapidly increased his cover crop plantings beginning five years ago after liquidating his dairy herd, expanding to all of his 1,700 acres in each of the past two years. 

“It’s about having something green growing year-round,” he said. “It’s amazing how the soil is changing.” 

Gruenbaum enrolled in a program administered by Truterra, which has helped to offset a portion of his planting and labor cost. 

Some experts caution that the shift to planting more off-season cover crops could result in narrower planting windows for farmers’ main cash crops, particularly if climate change triggers more volatile spring weather. 

Cover crop seed shortages are also likely. 

“There’s an incredible pulse of demand coming … The demand for seed is going to exceed supply so there’s going to be a huge supply challenge,” Jason Weller, president of Truterra, told an American Seed Trade Association conference in Chicago last month. 

While emissions from destroying the crops are minimal, some critics still say the practice will increase applications of farm chemicals as acres expand. 

Environmentalists say cover crop planting is still an improvement on traditional agriculture, which normally leaves fields fallow for half the year and foregoes an enormous amount of plants’ carbon-capture potential. 

“Cover crops can be a really important part of organic and regenerative farming systems,” said Amanda Starbuck, research director with Food and Water Watch. “But it all depends on how they’re being implemented.” 
…