YCLOAK

The U.S. government said on Monday it would provide about $11 million to support the packaging of Bavarian Nordic’s BAVA.CO Jynneos monkeypox vaccine at a U.S.-based manufacturer’s facility.

The Danish company, which is the maker of the only approved monkeypox vaccine, had earlier this month signed up Michigan-based Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing to package the two-dose shot.

The production is expected to begin later this year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said, adding that the funding will help the manufacturer recruit more staff and buy additional equipment.

Globally, the number of confirmed monkeypox cases have crossed 47,600 with over 17,000 cases reported in the United States so far.

The Jynneos vaccine is in short supply and U.S. regulators have authorized a method of administration that allows providers to get five doses instead of one from a single vial to expand access.

The United States initially ordered 3 million doses and in July sought another 2.5 million doses. Bavarian Nordic said the additional doses would be packaged at the U.S. facility.

The delivery of the total 5.5 million doses is spread across this year and the next.

More than 207,000 doses of Jynneos vaccine have been given in the country as of Aug. 23, but very few people have received the second shot needed for full protection, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said last week.
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Engineers for the U.S. space agency NASA were troubleshooting several issues early Monday ahead of the planned launch of a new rocket and crew capsule designed to send humans back to the moon. 

NASA teams dealt with delays due to a thunderstorm that passed over the launch site in the southeastern state of Florida as well as a leak discovered during fueling operations. 

NASA’s assistant launch director, Jeremy Graeber, said Monday’s scheduled launch could still go forward. If it does not, another try could happen on Friday. 

The test involves the Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful in NASA’s history, which will propel the Orion capsule without any people on board for this flight. Orion is due to go around the moon and return to Earth, with the entire journey taking about six weeks.    

If successful, NASA plans to fly astronauts around the moon in 2024 and potentially put them on the lunar surface as early as 2025.     

The launch is part of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to have humans walk on the moon for the first time since 1972, including the first woman and person of color to do so.    

NASA is also planning a moon base as part of Artemis, and says it will use what it learns to inform efforts to send the first astronauts to Mars.    

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters  
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The world’s population is surging, and with it, the global demand for poultry and seafood. Some companies are hoping to offer lab-grown meat-based products with the same taste and texture as animal flesh. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more from Washington.
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Years late and billions over budget, NASA’s new moon rocket makes its debut next week in a high-stakes test flight before astronauts get on top.

The 98-meter (322-foot) rocket will attempt to send an empty crew capsule into a far-flung lunar orbit, 50 years after NASA’s famed Apollo moonshots.

If all goes well, astronauts could strap in as soon as 2024 for a lap around the moon, with NASA aiming to land two people on the lunar surface by the end of 2025.

Liftoff is set for Monday morning from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

The six-week test flight is risky and could be cut short if something fails, NASA officials warn.

“We’re going to stress it and test it. We’re going make it do things that we would never do with a crew on it in order to try to make it as safe as possible,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The retired founder of George Washington University’s space policy institute said a lot is riding on this trial run. Spiraling costs and long gaps between missions will make for a tough comeback if things go south, he noted.

“It is supposed to be the first step in a sustained program of human exploration of the moon, Mars, and beyond,” said John Logsdon. “Will the United States have the will to push forward in the face of a major malfunction?”

The price tag for this single mission: more than $4 billion. Add everything up since the program’s inception a decade ago until a 2025 lunar landing, and there’s even more sticker shock: $93 billion.

Here’s a rundown of the first flight of the Artemis program, named after Apollo’s mythological twin sister.

Rocket power

The new rocket is shorter and slimmer than the Saturn V rockets that hurled 24 Apollo astronauts to the moon a half-century ago. But it’s mightier, packing 8.8 million pounds (4 million kilograms) of thrust. It’s called the Space Launch System rocket, SLS for short, but a less clunky name is under discussion, according to Nelson. Unlike the streamlined Saturn V, the new rocket has a pair of strap-on boosters refashioned from NASA’s space shuttles. The boosters will peel away after two minutes, just like the shuttle boosters did, but won’t be fished from the Atlantic for reuse. The core stage will keep firing before separating and crashing into the Pacific in pieces. Two hours after liftoff, an upper stage will send the capsule, Orion, racing toward the moon.

Moonship

NASA’s high-tech, automated Orion capsule is named after the constellation, among the night sky’s brightest. At 3 meters (11 feet) tall, it’s roomier than Apollo’s capsule, seating four astronauts instead of three. For this test flight, a full-size dummy in an orange flight suit will occupy the commander’s seat, rigged with vibration and acceleration sensors. Two other mannequins made of material simulating human tissue — heads and female torsos, but no limbs — will measure cosmic radiation, one of the biggest risks of spaceflight. One torso is testing a protective vest from Israel. Unlike the rocket, Orion has launched before, making two laps around Earth in 2014. This time, the European Space Agency’s service module will be attached for propulsion and solar power via four wings.

Flight plan

Orion’s flight is supposed to last six weeks from its Florida liftoff to Pacific splashdown, twice as long as astronaut trips in order to tax the systems. It will take nearly a week to reach the moon, 386,000 kilometers (240,000 miles) away. After whipping closely around the moon, the capsule will enter a distant orbit with a far point of 61,000 kilometers (38,000 miles). That will put Orion 450,000 kilometers (280,000 miles) from Earth, farther than Apollo. The big test comes at mission’s end, as Orion hits the atmosphere at 40,000 kph (25,000 mph) on its way to a splashdown in the Pacific. The heat shield uses the same material as the Apollo capsules to withstand reentry temperatures of  2,750 degrees Celsius (5,000 degrees Fahrenheit). But the advanced design anticipates the faster, hotter returns by future Mars crews.

Hitchhikers

Besides three test dummies, the flight has a slew of stowaways for deep space research. Ten shoebox-size satellites will pop off once Orion is hurtling toward the moon. The problem is these so-called CubeSats were installed in the rocket a year ago, and the batteries for half of them couldn’t be recharged as the launch kept getting delayed. NASA expects some to fail, given the low-cost, high-risk nature of these mini satellites. The radiation-measuring CubeSats should be OK. Also, in the clear: a solar sail demo targeting an asteroid. In a back-to-the-future salute, Orion will carry a few slivers of moon rocks collected by Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969, and a bolt from one of their rocket engines, salvaged from the sea a decade ago. Aldrin isn’t attending the launch, according to NASA, but three of his former colleagues will be there: Apollo 7’s Walter Cunningham, Apollo 10’s Tom Stafford and Apollo 17’s Harrison Schmitt, the next-to-last man to walk on the moon.

Apollo vs. Artemis

More than 50 years later, Apollo still stands as NASA’s greatest achievement. Using 1960s technology, NASA took just eight years to go from launching its first astronaut, Alan Shepard, and landing Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon. By contrast, Artemis already has dragged on for more than a decade, despite building on the short-lived moon exploration program Constellation. Twelve Apollo astronauts walked on the moon from 1969 through 1972, staying no longer than three days at a time. For Artemis, NASA will be drawing from a diverse astronaut pool currently numbering 42 and is extending the time crews will spend on the moon to at least a week. The goal is to create a long-term lunar presence that will grease the skids for sending people to Mars. NASA’s Nelson, promises to announce the first Artemis moon crews once Orion is back on Earth.

What’s next

There’s a lot more to be done before astronauts step on the moon again. A second test flight will send four astronauts around the moon and back, perhaps as early as 2024. A year or so later, NASA aims to send another four up, with two of them touching down at the lunar south pole. Orion doesn’t come with its own lunar lander like the Apollo spacecraft did, so NASA has hired Elon Musk’s SpaceX to provide its Starship spacecraft for the first Artemis moon landing. Two other private companies are developing moonwalking suits. The sci-fi-looking Starship would link up with Orion at the moon and take a pair of astronauts to the surface and back to the capsule for the ride home. So far, Starship has only soared 10 kilometers (six miles). Musk wants to launch Starship around Earth on SpaceX’s Super Heavy Booster before attempting a moon landing without a crew. One hitch: Starship will need a fill-up at an Earth-orbiting fuel depot, before heading to the moon.
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Citing unparalleled attacks on health care facilities, the World Health Organization said this week it is working to reconstruct Ukraine’s health system. The system has suffered extensive damage since Russia invaded the country six months ago.

Over the past six months, the U.N. health agency says it has verified 173 attacks on medical facilities, which have resulted in nearly 100 deaths and 134 injuries.

WHO Ukraine representative Jarno Habicht told reporters this week that deaths and injuries continue to rise and will continue to do so until Russia ends the war.

“While these attacks are not only the violation of international law, they also are a barrier for many who need care as we are going through the war,” he said. “So, it is not only the supplies and others that we need to support, we need to ensure also that the services are available. But also, the health care workers are under immediate risk as we go through these times.”

The United Nations says the war has killed more than 5,500 civilians and injured nearly 8,000, including almost 1,000 children. UNICEF says about five children on average are killed or injured every day. The children’s agency says this is due to the indiscriminate use of weapons, often in heavily populated areas.

Speaking via videolink from an air raid shelter in Dnipro, in central Ukraine, Habicht said many people are on the move and many are suffering and need care.

He said the WHO is accelerating efforts to reach out and provide humanitarian assistance to millions of people across the country.  At the same time, he said the WHO is working on rebuilding Ukraine’s shattered health system in coordination with national and local authorities.

“Reconstruction of the health system has to be part of the recovery of the whole country across all the sectors,” he said. “And that is why we are currently concentrating both on the humanitarian response, as well looking to the recovery as we have seen in the health sector and other sectors.” 

To date, the WHO has delivered more than 1,300 metric tons of medical supplies in Ukraine, including medicines for diabetes, cardiovascular disorders and other noncommunicable diseases.

Habicht said support also is being provided for mental health, trauma, and emergencies. He also said COVID-19 vaccines have been delivered to Ukraine in recent weeks in light of the increasing mortality rate from the virus across the country.
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Canada’s decision to legalize recreational marijuana in October 2018 was greeted by advocates and critics with predictions of dramatic benefits or dire consequences. Almost four years later, questions about the impact of the move elicit mainly shrugs.

“Maybe I am the wrong demographic, but I have not noticed any serious problems arising from legalization,” said one senior veteran of the Canadian legal system, who declined to be identified because of his role in administering the law.

“I think it probably has reduced policing costs and court time arising from simple possession offences (as opposed to trafficking),” the legal veteran added in an email to VOA. “No evidence of lawyers or bankers or Bay Street types going wild. Maybe alcohol is still the drug of choice.

“You do get the occasional whiff of weed walking down Bay Street,” Toronto’s financial industry core, the legal practitioner added, “and there has been an unbelievable (and maybe unsustainable) proliferation of marijuana stores.”

Anecdotal evidence of that sort is the best measure so far of legalization’s impact in just the second country to legalize recreational use of the drug, given a dearth of hard data on the effect on traffic accidents, drug overdoses, mental health outcomes or petty crime.

“Unfortunately, there hasn’t been concrete data I’ve seen that allows someone to comment on all of those goals and how Canada is doing in regards to them,” said Jonathan Wilson, chief executive officer of Crystal Cure Inc., a craft producer of cannabis in the eastern province of New Brunswick.

The 2018 legislation legalizing marijuana called for a thorough assessment of the impact after three years, but the government still has not begun that process, a source of frustration for some in the legal marijuana industry who are seeking reforms that would give them a boost against their illicit competitors.

In fact, the illicit trade has proven surprisingly durable despite the ready availability of legal marijuana at government-licensed outlets. One reason for that may be user complaints about the taste and quality of the legally approved products.

Jon Cappetta, vice president of content with U.S.-based High Times Magazine, said in an interview that the Canadian industry has a reputation for low-quality mass-produced marijuana, which he dismissed as “Walmart weed.”

“That’s not to say there’s not great product up there,” Cappetta said. “But it’s mainly on the traditional market, not the legal one.”

Wilson said it was not until the end of last year that legal marijuana sales surpassed illicit sales, according to estimates by the Ontario Cannabis Store, the only legal online retailer of recreational marijuana in Canada’s most populous province.

“We don’t know exactly how this is measured, but regardless of the lack of empirical data on this, it is very apparent in many parts of the country that the illicit market is very much alive and well.”

That has cut into early projections for a big boost to the economy through direct and indirect taxes, though the benefits are not insignificant.

According to a report prepared by the Deloitte consultancy firm and reported by MJBiz Daily in February, the industry had contributed $34.2 billion through the end of 2021 to a national GDP that totaled almost $2 trillion last year.

On the other hand, fears of an epidemic of underage marijuana use have also not borne out. “Regarding prevalence, there appears to have been no marked increase in cannabis use by youth in Canada yet,” reported the Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 2021.

The report went on to say, “In the lead up to legalization, professional associations including the Canadian Psychiatric Association, the Canadian Medical Association, and the Canadian Pediatric Society suggested that legalization posed a threat to public health, advocated for the legal age for cannabis use to be set at a minimum age of 21 or 25, or that Canada should not legalize at all because it would place youth at greater risk of harm. With such categorical fears now shown to be largely unfounded, this should provide the basis to move forward on more nuanced grounds.”

The Canadian Medical Association, for its part, continues to advise caution. “Today, we continue to advocate for a public health approach to cannabis with three primary aims: prevent problematic drug use; make assessment, counseling and treatment services more available; and improve safety for those who use through harm reduction programs and awareness,” it says on its website.

The limited data that exists provides a mixed picture of the impact on road safety. The federal agency Public Safety Canada reported last year that “while police-reported data tends to indicate a significant decline in overall trends in impaired driving incidents over the past ten years, the proportion of [drug-impaired driving] incidents reported by police has significantly increased from about 2% of the total in 2009, to approximately 9% in 2020.”

On the other hand, the report said, its survey data “tends to indicate that public education and awareness campaigns … appear to have effectively changed Canadians’ perceptions around driving after cannabis use, with an increasing number of respondents agreeing that cannabis use impairs driving abilities. Furthermore, the proportion of Canadians reporting driving after cannabis use has continued to decline in 2020.”

One of the more challenging issues for the nation’s police forces has been whether to permit their own officers to indulge while off duty. Many forces, including the storied Royal Canadian Mounted Police, banned its use altogether while others, particularly in liberal-leaning cities like Vancouver, authorized its off-duty use as long as the officers showed up to work fit for duty.

John Orr is president of the police association in Calgary, Alberta, where officers in February won the right to use cannabis while off duty. Such use “is not unheard of and in Vancouver, it’s been my understanding there’s been no issues at all,” Orr told the Calgary Herald newspaper at the time.

The same article quoted Andrea Urquhart, the executive director of human resources with the Calgary Police Service, saying, “There’s no evidence this particular change would be detrimental to our fundamental goal to serve and protect.”

Jo-Ann Roberts, a former interim leader of the Green Party of Canada, sees what data is available as a vindication of the party’s early advocacy for legalization.

“We believed it would not result in the lawlessness many predicted. In fact, we believed it would reduce policing costs, take pressure off the courts and reduce the influence of organized crime,” she told VOA. “I think provinces and producers are still working out the details of delivering the product, but overall the transition from illegal to legal has gone smoothly.”

Brennan Sisk, the former cannabis coordinator for an NGO based in Fredericton, New Brunswick, argued that legalization has opened the door to peer-reviewed research on the health impact of marijuana and the development of industrial uses.

But, he said, the government has not embraced cannabis as a legal part of everyday culture and continues to approach it “strictly from a harm reduction mechanism.”

“I think Canada has developed a good set of best practices and is ahead of the curve when it comes to identifying practical and productive changes to restrictions,” Sisk said.

“Those working in the Canadian system are well positioned to advise new jurisdictions on how to roll out a legal plan while benefiting from an economic development perspective.”
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As fall draws near in the U.S, Monarch butterflies in the eastern part of the country are primed for their winter sojourn to Mexico. Conservationists worry that the Monarchs are in peril from climate change and farming, but the science isn’t settled. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias looks at the complexities of counting and protecting Monarch butterflies.
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U.N. member states ended two weeks of negotiations Friday without a treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas, an agreement that would have addressed growing environmental and economic challenges.

After 15 years, including four prior formal sessions, negotiators have yet to reach a legally binding text to address the multitude of issues facing international waters — a zone that encompasses almost half the planet.

“Although we did make excellent progress, we still do need a little bit more time to progress towards the finish line,” said conference chair Rena Lee.

It will now be up to the U.N. General Assembly to resume the fifth session at a date still to be determined.

Many had hoped the session, which began on Aug. 15 at the United Nations headquarters in New York, would be the last and yield a final text on “the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction,” or BBNJ for short.

“While it’s disappointing that the treaty wasn’t finalized during the past two weeks of negotiations, we remain encouraged by the progress that was made,” said Liz Karan with the NGO Pew Charitable Trusts, calling for a new session by the end of the year.

One of the most sensitive issues in the text revolved around the sharing of possible profits from the development of genetic resources in international waters, where pharmaceutical, chemical and cosmetic companies hope to find miracle drugs, products or cures.

Such costly research at sea is largely the prerogative of rich nations, but developing countries do not want to be left out of potential windfall profits drawn from marine resources that belong to no one.

‘Missed opportunity’

Similar issues of equity arise in other international negotiations, such as on climate change, in which developing nations that feel outsized harm from global warming have tried in vain to get wealthier countries to help pay to offset those impacts.

The high seas begin at the border of a nation’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) — which by international law reaches no more than 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from its coast — and are under no state’s jurisdiction.

Some 60% of the world’s oceans fall under this category.

And while healthy marine ecosystems are crucial to the future of humanity, particularly to limit global warming, only 1% of international waters are protected.

One of the key pillars of an eventual BBNJ treaty is to allow the creation of marine protected areas, which many nations hope will cover 30% of the Earth’s ocean by 2030.

“Without establishing protections in this vast area, we will not be able to meet our ambitious and necessary 30 by 30 goal,” U.S. State Department official Maxine Burkett said at an earlier press conference.

But delegations still disagree on the process for creating these protected areas, as well as on how to implement a requirement for environmental impact assessments before new activity on the high seas.

“What a missed opportunity…” tweeted Klaudija Cremers, a researcher at the IDDRI think tank, which, like multiple other NGOs, has a seat with observer status at the negotiations.
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The head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Friday that very few people in the United States have received a full series of monkeypox vaccinations.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said the large majority of Americans who received a first dose of the vaccine have yet to get their second dose, despite being eligible.

She told a White House briefing Friday that nearly 97% of the inoculations administered so far have been first doses.

Walensky said that while the vaccine was initially hard to get, supplies have now increased.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed for the vaccine to be injected in smaller doses to help stretch supplies.

The Biden administration says it has shipped enough vaccines to jurisdictions around the United States for at least 1.6 million doses.

CDC data show that about 10% of monkeypox vaccine doses have been given to Black people despite the fact that they account for one-third of U.S. cases.

The rate was compiled from 17 U.S. states and two cities.

Walensky said the CDC has taken measures to make the vaccine more accessible to Blacks and other minorities. She said vaccines and educational materials will be available at two upcoming events — Atlanta’s Black Pride festival and New Orleans’ Southern Decadence.

Walensky said the agency is starting to roll out such pilot projects and that “they are working.”

Most cases of monkeypox in the United States have occurred in gay men, but health officials have stressed that anyone can catch the virus.

More than 16,000 people have been infected with the virus in the United States, more than in any other country.

Walensky noted that the spread of the virus is falling in several major U.S. cities.

“We’re watching this with cautious optimism, and really hopeful that many of our harm-reduction messages and our vaccines are getting out there and working,” she said.

Across the United States, cases of monkeypox are still increasing. However, officials say the pace of the outbreak appears to be slowing.

On Thursday, the World Health Organization said global cases of monkeypox dropped 21% in the past week.

The WHO said cases appeared to be slowing in Europe but warned that infections in the Americas were on “a continuing steep rise.”

“In Latin America in particular, insufficient awareness or public health measures are combining with a lack of access to vaccines to fan the flames of the outbreak,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press briefing.

Monkeypox has been endemic in parts of Africa for decades, but since May, cases have been reported around the world.

The virus is typically spread by skin-to-skin contact with an infected person’s lesions. It can also be spread through contact with an infected person’s clothing or sheets.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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The U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of protections for abortion rights has intensified scrutiny of the personal data that technology firms collect. Apple, Facebook and Google typically comply with legal requests for user data. For women who live in states where most abortions are now illegal, their smartphones and devices could be used against them. Tina Trinh reports.
Videographer: Saqib Ul Islam, Greg Flakus Video editor: Tina Trinh
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The first crewed flight of Boeing’s space capsule Starliner is scheduled for February 2023, the company and NASA announced Thursday, as the United States seeks to secure a second way for its astronauts to reach the International Space Station.

Since 2020, American astronauts have traveled to the ISS aboard SpaceX’s vessels, but the U.S. space agency wants to widen its options.

After a series of hiccups in its space program that led to serious delays, including a 2019 flight that did not reach the ISS, Boeing finally managed to send the gumdrop-shaped capsule to the station in May — without a crew.

This time, the aerospace giant will send up the Starliner with humans aboard to earn NASA’s green light to begin regular missions at an expected pace of one per year.

“Currently, we’re targeting a launch date as early as February of 2023,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, told reporters.

“We’re in good shape to execute these plans to be ready for that flight in February,” added Mark Nappi, Starliner program manager at Boeing.

The test flight — aptly named CFT, or Crew Flight Test — will carry U.S. astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams.

They are expected to be docked for eight days at the ISS, where they will conduct a series of experiments, said ISS program manager Joel Montalbano.

“Our agency goal is to get two U.S. commercial providers up and running as soon as we can.”

Boeing had hoped to conduct this test flight before the end of the year, but a few glitches experienced in the uncrewed May flight led to necessary adjustments to the vessel.

An issue was detected in the propulsion system: two thrusters responsible for placing Starliner in a stable orbit failed, though officials insisted there was plenty of redundancy built into the system to overcome the problem.

Boeing’s teams later determined that “debris-related conditions” were to blame, Nappi said, adding that the origin of said debris was still unknown.

Some filters were removed to fix a pressure problem, and flight software was updated to avoid a data overload.

Boeing and SpaceX were awarded contracts in 2014, shortly after the end of the space shuttle program, during a time when the United States was left reliant on Russian Soyuz rockets for rides to the ISS.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX filled the void first, providing space “taxi” service since a successful test mission for its Dragon capsule in 2020.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday the number of new monkeypox cases fell 20% globally last week, but new cases increased in the Americas and said there is still “intense transmission” of the disease.

At a news briefing at agency headquarters in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there are signs the monkeypox outbreak is slowing in Europe, which he credited to a combination of effective public health measures, changes in behavior and vaccination.

But the WHO chief said the opposite is true in the Americas, particularly in Latin America, where insufficient awareness or public health measures are combining with a lack of access to vaccines to “fan the flames of the monkeypox outbreak.”

Tedros said in the early stages of the monkeypox outbreak, most reported cases were in Europe, with a smaller proportion in the Americas. He said, “That has now reversed, with less than 40% of reported cases in Europe and 60% in the Americas.”

The WHO chief said Danish drug maker Bavarian Nordic signed an agreement Wednesday with WHO affiliate the Pan-American Health Organization to support access to its vaccine in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Tedros also noted that this week, globally, the world crossed another tragic milestone, with 1 million reported COVID-19 deaths in 2022.

He said, “We can’t say we are learning to live with COVID-19 when 1 million people have died with COVID-19 this year alone, when we have all the tools necessary to prevent these deaths.”

The WHO director-general, once again, asked “all governments to strengthen their efforts to vaccinate all health workers, older people and others at the highest risk, on the way to 70% vaccine coverage for the whole population.”

Some information for this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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North Korea on Thursday said it found four new fever cases in its border region with China that may have been caused by coronavirus infections, two weeks after leader Kim Jong Un declared a widely disputed victory over COVID-19.

North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said health workers were conducting genetic tests on the samples taken from four people in Ryanggang province who exhibited fevers to confirm whether they were caused by the “malignant epidemic.” The North often uses that term, along with “malignant virus,” to describe COVID-19 and the coronavirus.

Authorities immediately locked down the areas where the fever cases emerged and plan to maintain tight restrictions and quarantines until health workers determine the cause of the illness.

KCNA said health authorities were giving extra attention to the cases because none of the four patients had a history of coronavirus infections.

The country’s emergency anti-virus headquarters dispatched “talented epidemiological, virology and test experts to the area” and is taking steps to “trace all persons … connected with the suspect cases, and persons going to and from the relevant area and keep them under strict medical observation,” KCNA said.

North Korea said there have been no confirmed COVID-19 cases in any part of the country since Aug. 10 when Kim declared victory over the virus, just three months after the country acknowledged an outbreak.

Even as he ordered preventive measures eased, Kim called for vigilance and the maintaining of tight border controls to prevent the virus from reentering the country. Ryanggang province is one of the border areas where North Korean officials for years struggled to clamp down smuggling activities with China.

An official from South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said Seoul isn’t ruling out the possibility that the virus could reemerge in the North.

“North Korea may additionally report on the situation, including whether the fevers were confirmed as COVID-19, and we would need to wait for that before making judgments,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity during a background briefing.

While Kim claimed that the country’s success against the virus would be recognized as a global health miracle, experts believe the North has manipulated disclosures on its outbreak to help him maintain absolute control. The victory statement signals Kim’s aim to move to other priorities, including a possible nuclear test, experts say.

After admitting to an omicron outbreak of the virus in May, North Korea reported about 4.8 million “fever cases” across its mostly unvaccinated population of 26 million but only identified a fraction of them as COVID-19. It claimed just 74 people have died, which experts see as an abnormally small number considering the country’s lack of public health tools.

Kim’s declaration of victory over COVID-19 during a national meeting in Pyongyang was followed by a combative speech from his powerful sister, who said Kim had suffered a fever himself while steering the anti-virus campaign and laid dubious blame against South Korea while vowing deadly retaliation.

North Korea claims that its initial infections were caused by anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets and other items carried across the border by balloons launched by South Korean activists, a claim the South has described as “ridiculous” and unscientific.

Outside experts believe it’s more likely that the virus spread when the North briefly reopened its border with China to freight traffic in January and surged further following a military parade and other large-scale events in its capital, Pyongyang, in April.

There are concerns that the threats by Kim’s sister portend a provocation, possibly a nuclear or missile test or even border skirmishes.

Some experts say the North may try to stir up tensions as South Korea and the United States hold their biggest combined military training in years to counter the growing North Korean nuclear threat. The Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, which involves aircraft, tanks and warships, continues in South Korea through Sept. 1.

Diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang to defuse the nuclear standoff has stalled since 2019 over disagreements in exchanging crippling U.S.-led sanctions against the North for the North’s denuclearization steps.
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A federal judge on Wednesday blocked Idaho from enforcing an abortion ban when women with pregnancy complications require emergency care, a day after a judge in Texas ruled against President Joe Biden’s administration on the same issue. 

The conflicting rulings came in two of the first lawsuits over the Democratic administration’s attempts to ease abortion access after the conservative majority U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized the procedure nationwide. 

Legal experts said the two state rulings, if upheld on appeal, could force the Supreme Court to wade back into the debate. 

About half of all U.S. states have or are expected to seek to ban or curtail abortions following Roe’s reversal. Those states include Idaho and Texas, which like 11 others adopted “trigger” laws banning abortion upon such a decision. 

Abortion is already illegal in Texas under a separate, nearly century-old abortion ban that recently took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision. Idaho’s trigger ban takes effect on Thursday, the same day as those in Texas and Tennessee. 

In Idaho, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill agreed with the U.S. Justice Department that the abortion ban taking effect Thursday conflicts with a federal law that ensures patients can receive emergency “stabilizing care” at hospitals. 

Threat to patients cited

Winmill, an appointee of former Democratic President Bill Clinton, issued a preliminary injunction blocking Idaho from enforcing its ban to the extent it conflicts with federal law, citing the threat to patients. 

“One cannot imagine the anxiety and fear she will experience if her doctors feel hobbled by an Idaho law that does not allow them to provide the medical care necessary to preserve her health and life,” Winmill wrote. “From that vantage point, the public interest clearly favors the issuance of a preliminary injunction.” 

The Justice Department has said the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act requires abortion care in emergency situations. 

Winmill’s decision came after a late-night Tuesday ruling in Texas by U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix holding the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under Biden went too far by issuing guidance holding the same federal law guaranteed abortion care. 

Hendrix agreed with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, that the guidance issued in July “discards the requirement to consider the welfare of unborn children when determining how to stabilize a pregnant woman.” 

Hendrix, an appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump, said the federal statute was silent as to what a doctor should do when there is a conflict between the health of the mother and the unborn child and that Texas’s law “fills that void.” 

He issued an injunction barring the federal government from enforcing HHS’s guidance in Texas and against two groups of anti-abortion doctors who also challenged it, saying the Idaho case showed a risk the Biden administration might try to enforce it. 

Hendrix declined, though, to issue a nationwide injunction as Paxton wanted, saying the “circumstances counsel in favor of a tailored, specific injunction.” 

Appellate courts

Appeals are expected in both cases and would be heard by separate appeals courts, one based in San Francisco with a reputation for leaning liberal and another in New Orleans known for conservative rulings. 

Greer Donley, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School and expert on abortion law, said should those appeals courts uphold this week’s dueling rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court may feel pressured to intervene and clarify the law. 

“Without a federal right to abortion, this is the type of legal chaos that most people were predicting would be happening,” she said. 

Shannon Selden, a lawyer at Debevoise & Plimpton who represents several medical associations supporting the Justice Department’s Idaho case, said “there’s a huge cloud over physicians’ ability to provide stabilizing care for patients who need it.” 

“The Justice Department is trying lift that cloud through its Idaho action, and the Texas court has made that cloud darker,” she said.
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