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The Biden administration launched a plan Wednesday to reduce the death rate from cancer by at least 50% over the next 25 years, a continuation of the 2016 “cancer moonshot” program that President Joe Biden led as vice president in the Obama administration.

“It’s bold. It’s ambitious, but it’s completely doable,” Biden said at the White House launch event. He said his plan would turn cancer from a death sentence into a chronic disease that people can live with, and that it would create a more supportive experience for cancer patients and their families.

Biden urged Americans to get screened, noting that 9 million cancer screenings were missed in the country during the pandemic. He established what he called a “cancer cabinet” — officials who will coordinate and harness the federal government’s approach to fight cancer. He also called on Congress to provide $6.5 billion to boost medical research through a proposed new agency — the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health.

“This will be bipartisan. This will bring the country together, and quite frankly, other nations as well,” he said.

The fight against cancer is a deeply personal issue for Biden, who lost his elder son, Beau, to brain cancer in 2015. The loss is shared by many Americans: The American Cancer Society projects more than 609,000 cancer deaths and more than 1.9 million new cancer cases this year alone.

The administration aims to save more than 300,000 lives annually from the disease.

“More people are surviving cancer. More people are enduring cancer after being diagnosed than ever before,” Vice President Kamala Harris said at the event. Harris is a breast cancer survivor whose mother, a cancer researcher, died from colon cancer in 2009.

Dr. Karen E. Knudsen, CEO of the American Cancer Society, noted there has been a 32% reduction in the cancer mortality since 1991. But while mortality is a key indicator, Knudsen pointed out that some of the 200 different cancers are on the rise, including pancreatic, advanced prostate and early onset colorectal cancer.

“These are areas for which we still need to understand that dynamic through research and understand how to best put in prevention and mitigation strategies,” Knudsen told VOA. “Real success from the American Cancer Society perspective looks like a reduction in mortality and an approach to a cure for all types of cancer.”

The administration did not announce any new funding during the Wednesday launch. In 2016, as part of the “cancer moonshot” initiative, Congress authorized $1.8 billion over seven years, and roughly $400 million of that money has yet to be allocated. The National Cancer Institute oversees the initiative that aims to accelerate scientific discovery in cancer, foster greater collaboration and improve the sharing of data.

Still, this renewed push will give Americans hope, said first lady Jill Biden, who also spoke at the White House event.

“We will build a future where the word cancer forever loses its power,” she said.

Prevention and cancer disparity

Knudsen and other experts stressed the need for reducing “significant cancer disparities” across the United States.

Effective vaccines are available for some cancers such as cervical or head and neck, while other cancers can be detected early with systematic screenings — but only if people receive them, said Dr. Deb Schrag, chair of medicine at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

“Right now, we are leaving people, even entire communities, behind,” Schrag told VOA. “To achieve Biden’s goal, laser-sharp focus on equity must continue. Biden’s goal can only be achieved if we focus on prevention as well as treatment.”

If we provide people with what we already know in terms of treatment and prevention, about 25% of current deaths would be prevented, Dr. Otis Brawley said to VOA. Brawley, an expert in cancer prevention and control at the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in Baltimore, pointed to American Cancer Society data showing that cigarette smoking accounted for the highest proportion of cancer cases and deaths, followed by excess body weight and alcohol intake.

“People die because they do not get adequate care,” he said.

But early detection is not just a matter of health care access. For some people, it’s also overcoming the belief that if you feel healthy, you don’t need screening, said Robert K. Brown, who survived leukemia in his early 20s and chronicled his recovery in his memoir, Hundred Percent Chance.

Brown, who has been cancer-free for more than 30 years, spoke to VOA as he was making funeral arrangements for an uncle who died of esophageal cancer just days ago.

“He passed away pretty quickly from something that could have been treatable had it been caught sooner,” Brown said. “And that’s the stuff that I hear over and over again.”

Pandemic impact

“Whenever there was a peak of COVID, there was a decline in screening,” said Knudsen of the American Cancer Society. “Those lead to later diagnoses, patients presenting with more advanced disease that are more difficult to treat.”

Cancer patients are more susceptible to severe symptoms and deaths from a COVID-19 infection, especially those who cannot be vaccinated because of their cancer treatment plan, Knudsen said. But even cancer patients eligible for vaccination can sometimes be immunocompromised, meaning that they can’t mount the same type of immune response compared with a healthy individual.

Knudsen said Biden’s initiative might also impact people outside the U.S; it could help connect with the larger oncology community internationally that wants “to both learn from us and share their successes with us as well.” 
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U.S. intelligence agencies may have ruled out the idea that a rash of mysterious illnesses plaguing American diplomats and other officials is part of a sustained campaign by one of Washington’s adversaries, but they now say that in a small number of cases the only likely explanation is the use of some sort of weapon. 

A report released Wednesday by a panel of experts assembled by U.S. intelligence officials finds that the core symptoms in these cases are “distinctly unusual and unreported elsewhere in the medical literature,” making it highly unlikely the cause could be natural. 

“Pulsed electromagnetic energy, particularly in the radiofrequency range, plausibly explains the core characteristics,” the report said. 

“Sources exist that could generate the required stimulus, are concealable, and have moderate power requirements,” the report added. “Using nonstandard … antennas and techniques, the signals could be propagated with low loss through air for tens to hundreds of meters, and with some loss, through most building materials.” 

The mystery illness was first reported in 2016 among diplomats and other employees at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba. 

Since then, hundreds of cases have been reported in Russia, China, Poland, Austria and elsewhere, with symptoms ranging from nausea and dizziness to debilitating headaches and memory problems.  

The U.S. government has been engaged in a yearlong effort to find the source of the anomalous health incidents, or AHI, commonly called Havana Syndrome. 

An interim report issued last month by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), concluded most of the cases “can be reasonably explained by medical conditions or environmental and technical factors, including previously undiagnosed illnesses.” 

However, it warned that a smaller number of cases continued to defy explanation and that, in those cases, officials “have not ruled out the involvement of a foreign actor.” 

Wednesday’s report appears to support that conclusion, though officials said the latest effort was not focused on assigning responsibility for the possible attacks. 

“There are a small number of the cases we looked at that had no other plausible mechanism,” according to one U.S. intelligence official familiar with the expert panel’s work who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity.  

Mystery remains

Exactly how the possible attacks were carried out, though, remains a mystery. 

“We don’t have a specific device,” said a second official, who like the first was familiar with the panel’s work. 

But the official said the idea that some cases of Havana Syndrome are the result of a weapon of some sort is “more than a theory.”  

“We had accounts of people that had been around RF [radio frequency] energy inadvertently and describe symptoms like that,” the official added. 

The notion that a directed, pulsed radio frequency mechanism was behind key symptoms of Havana Syndrome — the quick onset of pain or problems with the inner ear, including a loss of balance, dizziness and nausea — was first raised in 2020 the National Academy of Sciences, which called such as source “the most plausible mechanism in explaining” the growing number of cases. 

Wednesday’s report affirmed that finding, but also left open the possibility that some of the cases could have been caused by a device using ultrasound technology, though it said an ultrasonic device would only be able to produce the right combination of symptoms if deployed in close proximity to the victim. 

Making progress

In a statement Wednesday, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and CIA Director William Burns said the effort to determine the cause of Havana Syndrome is making progress. 

“We continue to pursue complementary efforts to get to the bottom of Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs) — and to deliver access to world-class care for those affected,” they said in a statement. 

“We will stay at it, with continued rigor, for however long it takes,” they added. “Nothing is more important than the wellbeing and safety of our colleagues.” 

Officials familiar with the work on Havana Syndrome said Wednesday “it’s frustrating” not being able to get a clear-cut, definitive answer as to what has happened to as many as a couple of dozen of their colleagues and U.S. diplomatic personnel. 

But they said that despite the many unknowns, the latest findings do offer hope for those who have been impacted. 

“We’ve learned a lot,” one of the officials said. “While we don’t have the specific mechanism for each case, what we do know is if you report quickly and promptly get medical care, most people are getting well.” 

The report also recommended the U.S. create a central database to collect information on future reported cases, develop a set of so-called “bio-markers” to better identify new cases, try to develop technology capable of detecting an attack, and improve communications. 

The White House Wednesday welcomed the report’s findings. 

“The [experts] panel undertook a rigorous, multi-disciplinary study that has identified important findings and recommendations,” a National Security Council spokesperson said in a statement. 

The findings “will inform intensive research and investigation moving forward as we continue our government-wide effort to get to the bottom of AHI,” the spokesperson added. 

U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday named a top official to lead the government’s interagency response to Havana Syndrome. 
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As several European nations scale back or drop COVID-19 restrictions altogether, the World Health Organization (WHO) is urging caution as the coronavirus remains.

Denmark lifted most of its COVID-19 restrictions Tuesday, including the use of masks in public places or requiring proof of vaccination to enter public venues, with government officials saying they no longer consider COVID-19 a “socially critical disease.” France, Britain and other European nations are following suit.

At a briefing Tuesday at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it is premature for any country either to surrender, or to declare victory over the pandemic.  

Tedros said because of the omicron variant of the virus that causes COVID-19, it remains highly transmissible and deadly. He said that in the 10 weeks since the omicron variant was identified, almost 90 million cases have been reported, more than in all of 2020. And he said the WHO is now starting to see a very worrying increase in deaths, in most regions of the world.

At same briefing, WHO COVID lead Maria Van Kerkhove urged nations to be cautious about lifting restrictions “all at once.” She suggested a more gradual process because many countries have not yet gone through the peak of their omicron surges, and others have low levels of vaccination coverage, especially among vulnerable populations.  

WHO Emergencies Program chief Mike Ryan agreed with the call for a cautious approach, and noted all countries are not in the same place regarding the pandemic. He said countries that are making decisions to open more broadly also need to be sure they have the capacity to close back down just as quickly.

Ryan said, “It is important that we keep communities informed and maybe ensure that communities understand that measures may have to be reintroduced,” should COVID-19 cases make a rebound.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press.
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A study released Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows an extra shot of a COVID-19 vaccine provides solid protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death.

The federal health agency followed more than 400,000 adults in Los Angeles who were infected with either the delta or omicron variants of the coronavirus between November and this past January. Researchers found that unvaccinated residents who were infected with the delta strain between November and December were 83 times more likely to be hospitalized than those who had been vaccinated and gotten the booster shot.

Meanwhile, the study found that in January, when omicron overtook delta as the primary variant in Los Angeles, unvaccinated individuals were more than three times as likely to be infected and 23 times more likely to be hospitalized than people who were fully vaccinated and received a booster.

Elsewhere, France becomes the latest European country to relax its coronavirus restrictions. Effective Wednesday, mandatory outdoor mask-wearing will end, and audience capacity limits for concerts halls, sporting matches and other events are being phased out, according to a report Wednesday by Agence France-Presse. The relaxed mitigation standards are taking effect despite France reaching a record-setting number of new daily cases last month.

France’s actions come a day after Denmark and Norway officially lifted most of their  pandemic restrictions. Britain, Ireland and the Netherlands also have dropped most of their restrictions and containment measures.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse.
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Beijing has been exporting traditional Chinese medicine around the world, including to countries on the African continent. With claims of helping with COVID, these herbal clinics are welcomed by some while others are raising concerns about the effectiveness of such medicines, and the lack of regulation in the field. Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi. Camera: Robert Lutta
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When it comes to measuring global warming, humidity, not just heat, matters in generating dangerous climate extremes, a new study finds. 

Researchers say temperature by itself isn’t the best way to measure climate change’s weird weather and downplays impacts in the tropics. But factoring in air moisture along with heat shows that climate change since 1980 is nearly twice as bad as previously calculated, according to their study in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

The energy generated in extreme weather, such as storms, floods and rainfall, is related to the amount of water in the air. So, a team of scientists in the United States and China decided to use an obscure weather measurement called equivalent potential temperature — or theta-e — that reflects “the moisture energy of the atmosphere,” said study co-author V. “Ram” Ramanathan, a climate scientist at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Cornell University. It’s expressed in degrees, like temperature. 

“There are two drivers of climate change: temperature and humidity,” Ramanathan said. “And so far, we measured global warming just in terms of temperature.” 

But by adding the energy from humidity, “the extremes — heat waves, rainfall and other measures of extremes — correlate much better,” he said. 

That’s because as the world warms, the air holds more moisture, nearly 4% for every degree Fahrenheit (7% for every degree Celsius). When that moisture condenses, it releases heat or energy, “that’s why when it rains, now it pours,” Ramanathan said. 

In addition, water vapor is a potent heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere that increases climate change, he said. 

From 1980 to 2019, the world warmed about 0.79 degrees Celsius (1.42 degrees Fahrenheit). But taking energy from humidity into account, the world has warmed and moistened 1.48 degrees Celsius (2.66 degrees Fahrenheit), the study said. And in the tropics, the warming was as much as 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit). 

When judging by temperature alone, it looks like warming is most pronounced in North America, mid-latitudes and especially the poles — and less so in the tropics, Ramanathan said.

But that’s not the case, he said, because the high humidity in the tropics juices up storm activity, from regular storms to tropical cyclones and monsoons. 

“This increase in latent energy is released in the air, which leads to weather extremes: floods, storms and droughts,” Ramanathan said. 

University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles, who wasn’t part of the study, said it makes sense because water vapor is key in extreme rainfall. “Both heat and humidity are important,” Wuebbles said. 

Environmental scientist Katharine Mach of the University of Miami, who wasn’t part of the study, said “humidity is key in shaping the impacts of heat on human health and well-being, at present and into the future.” 
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A group of pharmaceutical companies and distributors agreed to pay $590 million to settle lawsuits connected to opioid addiction among Native American tribes, according to a U.S. court filing released Tuesday. 

The agreement is the latest amid a deluge of litigation spawned by the U.S. opioid crisis, which has claimed more than 500,000 lives over the past 20 years and ensnared some of the largest firms in American medicine. 

The companies involved in the latest agreement include Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and McKesson, according to a filing in an Ohio federal court by a committee of plaintiffs in the case. 

Native Americans have “suffered some of the worst consequences of the opioid epidemic of any population in the United States,” including the highest per-capita rate of opioid overdoses compared with other racial groups, according to the filing from the tribal leadership committee. 

“The burden of paying these increased costs has diverted scarce funds from other needs and has imposed severe financial burdens on the tribal plaintiffs.” 

J&J, McKesson and the other two companies in the accord – AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health – previously agreed to a $26 billion global settlement on opioid cases. 

J&J said Tuesday the $150 million it agreed to pay in the Native American case has been deducted from what it owes in the global settlement. 

“This settlement is not an admission of any liability or wrongdoing and the company will continue to defend against any litigation that the final agreement does not resolve,” the company said.

It was unclear if the other companies would take their portion under the latest agreement from the global settlement. 

‘Measure of justice’ 

Robins Kaplan, a law firm negotiating on the behalf of the plaintiffs, said the agreement still must be approved by the Native American tribes. 

“This initial settlement for tribes in the national opioid litigation is a crucial first step in delivering some measure of justice to the tribes and reservation communities across the United States that have been ground zero for the opioid epidemic,” Tara Sutton, an attorney at the firm, said in a statement. 

Douglas Yankton, chairman of the North Dakota-based Spirit Lake Nation, said the money from the settlement would “help fund crucial, on-reservation, culturally appropriate opioid treatment services.” 

Steven Skikos, an attorney representing the tribes, told AFP they are pursuing claims against other drugmakers. 

“This is hopefully the first two of many other settlements,” he said. 

All tribes recognized by the U.S. government, 574 in all, will be able to participate in the agreement, even if they have not filed lawsuits. 

The settlement is separate from a prior agreement that resulted in $75 million in payments to the Cherokee Nation from three distribution companies, including McKesson. 

Many of the lawsuits regarding the opioid crisis have centered on Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin, a highly addictive prescription painkiller blamed for causing a spike in addiction. 

A judge in December overturned the company’s bankruptcy plan because it provided some immunity for the owners of the company in exchange for a $4.5 billion payout to victims of the opioid crisis. 

The litigation wave also has swamped pharmacies owned by Walmart, Walgreens and CVS, which a jury found in November bear responsibility for the opioid crisis in two counties in Ohio. 

 
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A single lightning bolt that leapt across three U.S. states has been identified as the longest ever, the U.N. weather agency said Tuesday. Dubbed a megaflash, the rare low-rate horizontal discharge covered 768 kilometers (477 miles) between clouds in Texas and Mississippi in April 2020.

It was detected by scientists using satellite technology and its distance – beating the previous record by 60 kilometer – confirmed by a World Meteorological Organization committee.

“That trip by air[plane] would take a couple of hours and in this case the distance was covered in a matter of seconds,” WMO spokesperson Clare Nullis said.

Another megaflash that occurred above Uruguay and Argentina in June 2020 also set a record, as the longest-lasting at 17.1 seconds, the WMO said.

While these two newly cataloged megaflashes never touched the ground, they serve as a reminder of the dangers of a weather phenomenon that kill hundreds of people a year.

“We reiterate our message: when thunder roars, when you see lightning — go indoors. Don’t seek shelter in a beach hut, don’t stand under a tree,” Nullis said. 
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The World Health Organization warns of health care risks posed by discarded COVID-19 equipment and is calling on nations to better manage their systems for disposing of the used gear.

Tackling the COVID-19 pandemic requires the use of huge quantities of personal protective equipment or PPE and the use of needles and syringes to administer vaccines, among other essential products.

A new World Health Organization global analysis finds the quantities of health care waste generated by the goods are enormous and potentially dangerous. Maggie Montgomery is the technical officer for water, sanitation and health in the WHO Department of Environment.

She says COVID-19 has increased health care risks in facilities at up to 10 times previous volumes.

“If you consider that two in three health care facilities in the least developed countries did not have systems to segregate or safely treat waste before this pandemic, you can just imagine how much burden this extra waste load has put on health care workers, on communities, especially where waste is burned,” Montgomery said.

The report finds the hazardous disposal of COVID-19 waste potentially exposes health workers to needle stick injuries, burns and pathogenic microorganisms, air pollution and many dangers associated with living near poorly managed landfills and waste disposal sites.

WHO experts analyzed approximately 87,000 tons of PPE that were shipped to needy countries between March 2020 and November 2021 through a joint U.N. emergency initiative. Most of the equipment, they say, was expected to end up as waste.

The report provides an initial indication of the scale of the COVID-19 waste problem that exists only within the health sector, which is enormous. Montgomery says it does not look at the volumes of waste being generated in the wider community.

“In terms of the waste generated by the public, in particular masks. For example, in 2020, there were 4.5 trillion additional disposable masks thrown away by the public, which led to six million tons of additional waste,” Montgomery said. “So, certainly, the public is generating the most. At the same time, we feel that the health sector has a really important role and there are many concrete things that can be done to reduce, unnecessary use of PPE.”

WHO recommendations for safer and more environmentally sustainable waste practices include using eco-friendly packaging and shipping, safe and reusable gloves and medical masks, and investing in non-burn waste treatment technologies.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ((FDA)) Monday gave full approval to U.S. pharmaceutical company Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, which will be marketed under the name Spikevax.

The vaccine has been widely distributed in the United States and around the world under the FDA’s emergency use authorization since December of 2020. It is the second COVID-19 vaccine the agency has fully approved, after Pfizer’s vaccine received the designation in August of 2021.

In a statement, acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said full authorization of the vaccine is an important step in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. She said that while hundreds of millions of doses of the Moderna shot have been administered under the emergency use authorization, she understands “for some individuals, FDA approval of this vaccine may instill additional confidence in making the decision to get vaccinated.”

Woodcock said the public can be assured that the Moderna vaccine “meets the FDA’s high standards for safety, effectiveness and manufacturing quality required of any vaccine approved for use in the United States.”

The Moderna vaccine has been approved for use in more than 70 countries including Britain, Canada, Japan and those in the European Union.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press and Reuters.
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The Australian air force is preparing to deliver 20 tons of emergency supplies to remote communities cut off by flood waters. Traffic has been disrupted on the main highway and railway between Adelaide in South Australia and Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territory.    

Heavy rain and storms in recent days have damaged freight routes in South Australia. 

A 14-day major emergency was declared Friday by state authorities. It gives the police special powers to ensure food reaches isolated communities. 

South Australia has a population of 1.7 million who are already under a major emergency declaration for COVID-19. The state was also badly impacted by the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20, although the floods have occurred away from the areas worst-hit by the fires. 

The area is expected to receive yet more rain, with up to 200 millimeters forecast in the coming days.  

A military plane is scheduled to land Monday in the outback settlement of Coober Pedy to deliver food and other essentials.  

The town is 850 kilometers north of Adelaide on the Stuart Highway and is known as the “opal capital of the world” because of its mining resources. The impact on mining and farming might not be known for days. 

Tim Jackson, the administrator of the Coober Pedy Council, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the arrival of supplies would ease community concerns. 

“People are pretty relaxed generally speaking, I think, and particularly now that they know there is a significant food drop being made today. It is just a bit frustrating. It is just the unknown about when the highway is going to be opened again. (I) understand that it is the first time both the rail and road have been impacted simultaneously,” Jackson said.

Flooding in South Australia and the disruption to freight routes have led to shortages on supermarket shelves in the Northern Territory and Western Australia. 

Higher-than-average rainfall this summer is associated with a La Niña weather system, which can also produce a higher-than-normal number of tropical cyclones. 

The naturally occurring system develops when strong winds move the warm surface waters of the Pacific Ocean from South America towards Indonesia. 

In Australia, the La Niña system increases the likelihood of cooler daytime temperatures, reducing the risk of bushfires and heatwaves. 

Conservationists are warning that the impact of climate change will increase the incidence and intensity of “extreme rainfall events” in Australia. They have said that the risks of flooding are exacerbated when the atmosphere is “made warmer and wetter by climate change.” 
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Beijing officials said Sunday they sealed off several residential communities in the city’s northern district after two cases of COVID-19 were found.

Residents in the Anzhenli neighborhood in Chaoyang district were sealed off on Saturday, and will not be allowed to leave their compound.

Beijing is on high alert as it prepares to host the Olympic Games opening on Friday.

While the cases are low compared to other countries in the region, China has double down on its “zero-tolerance” policy, which includes breaking the chain of transmission as soon as it is found.

The city is also setting up 19 points in the area to test residents every day until Friday, officials said at a briefing on the pandemic, according to state-backed Beijing News.

The Chinese capital reported a total of 12 cases of COVID-19 between 4 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday, said Pang Xinghuo, the vice head of the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control. All those cases came from people who were already under some kind of pandemic control measures.

The city conducted multiple rounds of testing for millions of residents this past week in Fengtai district, where some residential compounds were locked down.
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New York authorities have arrested two Long Island nurses who officials say made more than $1.5 million by forging COVID-19 vaccination cards.

Julie DeVuono, the owner of Wild Child Pediatric Healthcare and her employee, Marissa Urraro, have been charged with felony forgery, authorities say. DeVuono was also charged with offering a false instrument for filing.

Officials say the two women entered the false information on the cards into New York’s immunization database.

The Suffolk County district attorney’s office said the women sold the fake cards for $220 for adults and $85 for children.

Officials say about $900,000 in cash was seized from DeVuono’s home.

Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, is in self-isolation until Tuesday after a possible COVID exposure on a flight to Auckland, officials said Saturday.

“The prime minister is asymptomatic and is feeling well,” her office said. She is scheduled to be tested for the virus Sunday.

India’s health ministry said Sunday that 234,281 people had tested positive for COVID in the previous 24-hour period.

Meanwhile, more than 100,000 daily cases of the coronavirus were reported in Russia for the first time Saturday as the highly contagious omicron variant spreads throughout the country. The government’s coronavirus task force reported a record high 113,122 new cases, a sevenfold increase from earlier in January.

 
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Dozens of pet stores that sold hamsters in Hong Kong may resume business starting Sunday, Hong Kong’s government said, after being shuttered last week and culling thousands of hamsters over coronavirus fears.

Authorities enraged pet lovers with an order to cull more than 2,200 hamsters after tracing an outbreak to a worker in a shop where 11 hamsters tested positive. Imported hamsters from Holland into the Chinese territory had been cited as the source. All hamster imports remain banned.

The city’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department said in a statement late Saturday that it collected 1,134 samples from animals other than hamsters including rabbits and chinchillas, which were all negative.

Five stores, including the Little Boss pet shop, where authorities traced the outbreak, remained closed until they pass “the virus test,” the government said.

“All the other concerned pet shops on the other hand have been thoroughly disinfected and cleaned and the environmental swabs collected from these shops have all passed the COVID-19 virus test,” it said.

The government said on Friday it would compensate pet shops trading in hamsters, offering a one-off payment of up to $3,850.

People who had in recent weeks bought hamsters, popular apartment pets in the congested city, were ordered to surrender them for testing and what the government described as “humane dispatch.”

Thousands of people offered to adopt unwanted hamsters amid a public outcry against the government and its pandemic advisers, which authorities called irrational.

A study published in The Lancet medical journal, which has not yet been peer reviewed, said Hong Kong researchers have found evidence that pet hamsters can spread COVID-19 and linked the animals to human infections in the city.

However, the economic and psychological tolls from Hong Kong’s hardline approach to curbing the virus are rapidly rising, residents say, with measures becoming more draconian than those first enforced in 2020.
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There has been a mixed response to Australia’s $700 million plan to combat water pollution on the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest reef system.

The nine-year Australian plan promises to fund projects that reduce erosion and pesticides and fertilizers running off farmland into the sea.  There will be other conservation efforts, including combating coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish and illegal fishing.

The Australian Marine Conservation Society has welcomed the initiative.  It said that curbing pollution was essential to build the reef’s “resilience to climate change.” 

Environment Minister Sussan Ley says the plan will help protect one of the country’s great natural treasures.  

“This is an extraordinary investment in a reef.  I don’t think there has ever been one as large anywhere in the world,” said Ley. “The reef economy is worth 6.4 billion [Australian] dollars, there are 64,000 jobs that depend on the reef and if you live anywhere along one of our reef communities in Queensland, you know how important it is.  So, it is also about COVID recovery because our tourism operators are waiting to show national and international tourists our beautiful Great Barrier Reef.”

However, other scientists have said that action to improve water quality will mean nothing if global carbon emissions are not reduced.  

They have identified climate change as the major threat to the 344,400-square-kilometer ecosystem that stretches down Australia’s northeast coast.  Warming ocean temperatures have caused widespread coral bleaching in recent years.  

Under stress, the corals expel symbiotic algae, which live in their tissues, and give the corals their color and supply them with nutrients.

The reef narrowly avoided being listed as “in danger” by UNESCO last year amid concerns over its long-term health.  

In October, a study by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, a United Nations-supported network of researchers, reported that about 14% of the world’s coral had been lost since 2009. 

It found that reefs were among the world’s “most vulnerable ecosystems” to man-made threats, including climate change, overfishing and pollution. 

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef spans an area about the size of Japan.
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