YCLOAK

 A British company says it has developed an easy-to-administer, saliva-based test that can detect whether a person is infectious enough to pass along the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The company, Vatic, said in a statement that its test is “extremely accurate” and has not returned a single false positive result in its test group. “This is so important for getting life back to normal,” the company said.

Vatic said its “mission was to design a test that people won’t mind using multiple times a week.” 

Tests results are available in 15 minutes, the company said.

The test is not available to the public yet as it undergoes more trials but Vatic is seeking approval for its sale directly to the public.

A report in The Economist says COVID in 2020 has brought an abrupt halt to the steady rise of the rate of lIfe expectancy.

Impact on life expectancy

Researchers in Britain, Denmark and Germany said that between 2019 and 2020 life expectancy dropped in all but two of the 28 countries surveyed.

Life expectancy rose in Denmark and Norway and for women in Finland. Meanwhile, male life expectancy fell by more than a year in Italy, Poland and Spain and fell by more than two years in the United States. 

Another report in The Economist says that the death rate from COVID in the U.S. “is about eight times higher in America than in the rest of the rich world” due to vaccine hesitancy and other factors.

The report said, “America’s antipathy to vaccines and continued resistance to other interventions, particularly among Republicans, is worrying. YouGov’s poll indicates that, among those who voted for [former U.S. President] Donald Trump in 2020, 31% say they will not get vaccinated, 71% strongly disapprove of President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate and nearly 40% never wear a face mask. That remains a deadly combination.” 

“The pandemic has destabilized societies, economies, and governments. It has shown that there is no global security without global health security,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said about COVID-19 in a recent address to ambassadors and representatives to the European Union’s political and security committee.

“The fastest and best way to end this pandemic is with genuine global cooperation on vaccine supply and access,” Tedros said. “The longer vaccine inequity persists, the longer the social and economic turmoil will continue, and the more opportunity the virus has to circulate and change into more dangerous variants. We need a global realization that no country can vaccinate its way out of this pandemic in isolation from the rest of the world.” 

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported Sunday it had recorded 234.6 million global COVID infections and nearly 5 million deaths.

Protests in Romania

Thousands marched Saturday in Bucharest, Romania, to protest restrictions that begin Sunday to combat a jump in coronavirus infections.

The European nation of 19 million is seeing a shocking rise in the daily number of coronavirus cases. A month ago, the number was about 1,000 new cases a day. On Saturday, Romania reported more than 12,500 new cases, its highest number since the pandemic began in March of last year. 

Protesters, mostly maskless, gathered outside government offices, shouting “Freedom, freedom without certificates,” and “Down with the government,” according to Reuters. One sign read: “Green certificates = dictatorship,” The Associated Press reported. 

The demonstration was organized by Romania’s far-right AUR party, the AP said. 

The rising cases have strained the nation’s hospitals — intensive care beds are nearly full — and the protests angered some medical workers. 

“The situation in hospitals is serious,” Beatrice Mahler, hospital manager of Bucharest’s Marius Nasta Institute of Pneumology, told The Associated Press. “We have patients hospitalized in beds in the hallway — all with extremely severe forms of COVID-19.” 

The restrictions scheduled to take effect Sunday include requiring masks be worn in public, and that shops close at 10 p.m. local time.

Public spaces such as restaurants, theaters and gyms, can remain open — some at only partial capacity — for customers who have COVID-19 passes, meaning they are fully vaccinated, or show proof they have had the illness caused by the coronavirus. 

Romania has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the European Union, 33.5% of all adults are fully vaccinated, second only to Bulgaria. 

There is a weekend curfew in effect for unvaccinated Romanians, and there are plans to make vaccinations mandatory for health care workers, Reuters said. 

Since the pandemic began, Romania has recorded nearly 1.25 million cases of COVID-19 and more than 37,000 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. 

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

“The pandemic has destabilized societies, economies, and governments. It has shown that there is no global security without global health security,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a recent address to ambassadors and representatives to the European Union’s political and security committee.

“The fastest and best way to end this pandemic is with genuine global cooperation on vaccine supply and access,” Tedros said. “The longer vaccine inequity persists, the longer the social and economic turmoil will continue, and the more opportunity the virus has to circulate and change into more dangerous variants. We need a global realization that no country can vaccinate its way out of this pandemic in isolation from the rest of the world.”

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported Sunday it had recorded 234.6 million global COVID infections and nearly 5 million deaths.

Thousands marched Saturday in Bucharest, Romania, to protest restrictions that begin Sunday to combat a jump in coronavirus infections.

The European nation of 19 million is seeing a shocking rise in the daily number of coronavirus cases. A month ago, the number was about 1,000 new cases a day. On Saturday, Romania reported more than 12,500 new cases, its highest number since the pandemic began in March of last year.

Protesters, mostly maskless, gathered outside government offices, shouting “Freedom, freedom without certificates,” and “Down with the government,” according to Reuters. One sign read: “Green certificates = dictatorship,” The Associated Press reported.

The demonstration was organized by Romania’s far-right AUR party, the AP said.

The rising cases have strained the nation’s hospitals — intensive care beds are nearly full — and the protests angered some medical workers.

“The situation in hospitals is serious,” Beatrice Mahler, hospital manager of Bucharest’s Marius Nasta Institute of Pneumology, told The Associated Press. “We have patients hospitalized in beds in the hallway — all with extremely severe forms of COVID-19.”

The restrictions scheduled to take effect Sunday include requiring masks be worn in public, and that shops close at 10 p.m. local time.

Public spaces such as restaurants, theaters and gyms, can remain open — some at only partial capacity — for customers who have COVID-19 passes, meaning they are fully vaccinated, or show proof they have had the illness caused by the coronavirus.

Romania has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the European Union, 33.5% of all adults are fully vaccinated, second only to Bulgaria.

There is a weekend curfew in effect for unvaccinated Romanians, and there are plans to make vaccinations mandatory for health care workers, Reuters said.

Since the pandemic began, Romania has recorded nearly 1.25 million cases of COVID-19 and more than 37,000 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

Russia’s vaccine

Russia’s health minister, Mikhail Murashko, said Saturday that just some paperwork needs to be finished before its Sputnik V vaccine can be registered with the World Health Organization.

The shot has been approved in more than 70 countries and is used widely in Russia. If it wins approval from the WHO and the European Medicines Agency, that could make it available to other markets, Reuters said.

The WHO could not be immediately reached for comment, Reuters added.

Nicaragua shots

Nicaragua has OK’d two Cuban-made vaccines for use in the Central American nation, the Cuban manufacturer, BioCubaFarma, said Saturday.

Cuba developed three coronavirus vaccines, all of which are awaiting official recognition by the WHO, Reuters reported. Nicaragua authorized Abdala and Soberana for emergency use.

Iran, Vietnam and Venezuela have also OK’d the Cuban vaccines for emergency use in their countries.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 

 
…

A joint European-Japanese spacecraft got its first glimpse of Mercury as it swung by the solar system’s innermost planet while on a mission to deliver two probes into orbit in 2025. 

The BepiColombo mission made the first of six flybys of Mercury at 11:34 p.m. GMT Friday, using the planet’s gravity to slow the spacecraft down. 

After swooping past Mercury at altitudes of under 200 kilometers (125 miles), the spacecraft took a low-resolution black-and-white photo with one of its monitoring cameras before zipping off again. 

The European Space Agency said the captured image shows the Northern Hemisphere and Mercury’s characteristic pock-marked features, among them the 166-kilometer-wide (103-mile-wide) Lermontov crater. 

The joint mission by the European agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency was launched in 2018, flying once past Earth and twice past Venus on its journey to the solar system’s smallest planet. 

Five further flybys are needed before BepiColombo is sufficiently slowed down to release ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter. The two probes will study Mercury’s core and processes on its surface, as well as its magnetic sphere. 

The mission is named after Italian scientist Giuseppe “Bepi” Colombo, who is credited with helping develop the gravity assist maneuver that NASA’s Mariner 10 first used when it flew to Mercury in 1974. 
…

In a normal year, the smokehouses and drying racks that Alaska Natives use to prepare salmon to tide them through the winter would be heavy with fish meat, the fruits of a summer spent fishing on the Yukon River like generations before them. 

This year, there are no fish. For the first time in memory, both king and chum salmon have dwindled to almost nothing and the state has banned salmon fishing on the Yukon, even the subsistence harvests that Alaska Natives rely on to fill their freezers and pantries for winter. The remote communities that dot the river and live off its bounty — far from road systems and easy, affordable shopping — are desperate and doubling down on moose and caribou hunts in the waning days of fall. 

“Nobody has fish in their freezer right now. Nobody,” said Giovanna Stevens, 38, a member of the Stevens Village tribe who grew up harvesting salmon at her family’s fish camp. “We have to fill that void quickly before winter gets here.” 

Opinions on what led to the catastrophe vary, but those studying it generally agree human-caused climate change is playing a role as the river and the Bering Sea warm, altering the food chain in ways that aren’t yet fully understood. Many believe commercial trawling operations that scoop up wild salmon along with their intended catch, as well as competition from hatchery-raised salmon in the ocean, have compounded global warming’s effects on one of North America’s longest rivers. 

The assumption that salmon that aren’t fished make it back to their native river to lay eggs may no longer hold up because of changes in both the ocean and river environments, said Stephanie Quinn-Davidson, who has worked on Yukon River salmon issues for a decade and is the Alaska Venture Fund’s program director for fisheries and communities. 

Looking for ‘smoking gun’

King, or chinook, salmon have been in decline for more than a decade, but chum salmon were more plentiful until last year. This year, summer chum numbers plummeted and numbers of fall chum — which travel farther upriver — are dangerously low. 

“Everyone wants to know, ‘What is the one smoking gun? What is the one thing we can point to and stop?’ ” she said of the collapse. “People are reluctant to point to climate change because there isn’t a clear solution … but it’s probably the biggest factor here.” 

Many Alaska Native communities are outraged they are paying the price for generations of practices beyond their control that have caused climate change — and many feel state and federal authorities aren’t doing enough to bring Indigenous voices to the table. The scarcity has made raw strong emotions about who should have the right to fish in a state that supplies the world with salmon, and it underscores the powerlessness many Alaska Natives feel as traditional resources dwindle. 

The nearly 3,200-kilometer (2,000-mile) Yukon River starts in British Columbia and drains an area larger than Texas in both Canada and Alaska as it cuts through the lands of Athabascan, Yup’ik and other tribes. 

The crisis is affecting both subsistence fishing in far-flung outposts and fish processing operations that employ tribal members in communities along the lower Yukon and its tributaries. 

“In the tribal villages, our people are livid. They’re extremely angry that we are getting penalized for what others are doing,” said P.J. Simon, chairman and chief of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, a consortium of 42 tribal villages in the Alaska interior. “As Alaska Natives, we have a right to this resource. We have a right to have a say in how things are drawn up and divvied up.” 

More than a half-dozen Alaska Native groups have petitioned for federal aid, and they want the state’s federal delegation to hold a hearing in Alaska on the salmon crisis. The groups also seek federal funding for more collaborative research on the effects that ocean changes are having on returning salmon. 

Citing the warming ocean, Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy requested a federal disaster declaration for the salmon fishery this month and has helped coordinate airlifts of about 41,000 kilograms (90,000 pounds) of fish to needy villages. The salmon crisis is one of the governor’s top priorities, said Rex Rock Jr., Dunleavy’s adviser for rural affairs and Alaska Native economic development. 

A vital tradition

That’s done little to appease remote villages that are dependent on salmon to get through winter, when snow paralyzes the landscape and temperatures can dip to minus 29 C (minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit) or lower. 

Families traditionally spend the summer at fish camps using nets and fish wheels to snag adult salmon as they migrate inland from the ocean to the place where they hatched so they can spawn. The salmon is prepared for storage in a variety of ways: dried for jerky, cut into fillets that are frozen, canned in half-pint jars or preserved in wooden barrels with salt. 

Without salmon, communities are under intense pressure to find other protein sources. In the Alaska interior, the nearest road system is often dozens of miles away, and it can take hours by boat, snowmachine or airplane to reach a grocery store.

Store-bought food is prohibitively expensive for many: 3.8 liters (1 gallon) of milk can cost nearly $10, and a pound of steak was recently $34 in Kaltag, an interior village about 528 kilometers (328 air miles) from Fairbanks. A surge in COVID-19 cases that has disproportionately hit Alaska Natives has also made many hesitant to venture far from home. 

Instead, villages sent out extra hunting parties during the fall moose season and are looking to the upcoming caribou season to meet their needs. Those who can’t hunt themselves rely on others to share their meat. 

“We have to watch our people because there will be some who will have no food about midyear,” said Christina Semaken, 63, a grandmother who lives in Kaltag, an Alaska interior town of fewer than 100 people. “We can’t afford to buy that beef or chicken.” 

Semaken hopes to fish next year, but whether the salmon will come back remains unknown. 

Tribal advocates want more genetic testing on salmon harvested from fishing grounds in Alaska waters to make sure that commercial fisheries aren’t intercepting wild Yukon River salmon. They also want more fish-tracking sonar on the river to ensure an accurate count of the salmon that escape harvest and make it back to the river’s Canadian headwaters.

Loss of sea ice

Yet changes in the ocean itself might ultimately determine the salmon’s fate.

The Bering Sea, where the river meets the ocean, has had unprecedented ice loss in recent years, and its water temperatures are rising. Those shifts are throwing off the timing of the plankton bloom and the distribution of small invertebrates that the fish eat, creating potential chaos in the food chain that’s still being studied, said Kate Howard, a fisheries scientist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Researchers have also documented warming temperatures in the river that are unhealthy for salmon, she said. 

Because salmon spend time in both rivers and the ocean during their unique life cycle, it’s hard to pin down exactly where these rapid environmental changes are most affecting them, but it’s increasingly clear that overfishing is not the only culprit, Howard said. 

“When you dig into all the available data for Yukon River salmon,” she said, “it’s hard to explain it all unless you consider climate change.” 

Alaska Natives, meanwhile, are left scrambling to fill a hole in their diet — and in centuries of tradition built around salmon. 

On a recent fall day, a small hunting party zoomed along the Yukon River by motorboat, scanning the shoreline for signs of moose. After three days, the group had killed two moose, enough to provide meat for seven families, or about 50 people, for roughly a month in their small community of Stevens Village. 

At the end of a long day, they butchered the animals as the Northern Lights blazed a vibrant green across the sky, their headlamps piercing the inky darkness. 

The makeshift camp, miles from any road, would normally host several dozen families harvesting salmon, sharing meals and teaching children how to fish. On this day, it was eerily quiet. 

“I don’t really think that there is any kind of bell out there that you can ring loud enough to try to explain that type of connection,” said Ben Stevens, whose ancestors founded Stevens Village. “Salmon, to us, is life. Where can you go beyond that?” 
…

Delegates heading to the COP26 U.N. climate summit in Glasgow agreed they must deliver on the $100 billion per year pledge to help most vulnerable nations tackle climate change, COP26 president Alok Sharma said on Saturday.

Speaking after days of meetings at the pre-COP26 climate event in Italy, Sharma said there was a consensus to do more to keep the 1.5 degrees Celsius target within reach, adding more needed to be done collectively in terms of national climate plans.

The COP26 conference in Glasgow aims to secure more ambitious climate action from the nearly 200 countries that signed the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2.0 degrees Celsius – and preferably to 1.5 degrees – above pre-industrial levels.
…

The abortion rights battle takes to the streets across America Saturday, with hundreds of demonstrations planned as part of a new “Women’s March” aimed at countering an unprecedented conservative offensive to restrict the termination of pregnancies.

The fight has become even more intense since Texas adopted a law on September 1 banning almost all abortions, unleashing a veritable legal guerrilla warfare and a counterattack in Congress, but with few public demonstrations until now.

Two days before the U.S. Supreme Court, which will have the final say on the contentious issue, is due to reconvene, nearly 200 organizations have called on abortion rights defenders to make their voices heard from coast to coast.

The flagship event will be held in the nation’s capital Washington, where thousands are expected to march to the Supreme Court, which nearly 50 years ago recognized the right of women to have an abortion in its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling.

Now the court, stacked by former President Donald Trump with conservative justices, seems ready to head in the opposite direction.  

It has already refused to block the Texas law and has accepted reviewing a restrictive Mississippi law that could provide an opportunity to overturn its precedent.

Rallies are planned in these two conservative states’ capitals, Austin and Jackson, as well as in more than 600 cities in all 50 states. According to the organizers, nearly a quarter million people are expected to turn out across the United States.

“Together, we are joining hands to advocate for a country where abortion isn’t just legal — it’s accessible, affordable and destigmatized,” said the organizers of the Rally for Abortion Justice in a statement.  

The group called on Congress to enshrine the right to abortion in federal law, to protect it from any possible reversal by the Supreme Court.

A bill to that effect was adopted a week ago in the House of Representatives, which is controlled by Democrats, but has no chance of passing the Senate where Republicans have enough votes to block it.

‘Patriarchal desire’

In 2017, a first “Women’s March” was held the day after Trump’s inauguration, rallying millions of opponents of the Republican billionaire who had been accused of sexism.

Since then, other demonstrations have failed to turn out such huge numbers, in part due to internal divisions over accusations of anti-Semitism leveled at one of the organizers.  

But that page seems to have been turned.

“This year, we are united with a coalition of nearly 200 organizations,” the organizers said. Participants will include small feminist groups, community and local organizations as well as the giant of family planning, Planned Parenthood.

“We’re taking to the streets once again, for the first time in the (Joe) Biden era,” the statement said. “Because a change in the Oval Office hasn’t stopped the politicized, perverse, and patriarchal desire to regulate our bodies. If anything, it’s only gotten even more intense.”  

That escalation has been spurred on by Trump’s appointment of three conservative justices to the Supreme Court, emboldening local conservative elected officials across to the country to embark on an anti-abortion offensive.  

So far this year, 19 states have adopted 63 laws restricting access to abortions.  

If the high court were to overturn Roe v. Wade, every state would be free to ban or allow abortions.

That would mean 36 million women in 26 states — nearly half of American women of reproductive age — would likely lose the legal right to an abortion, according to a Planned Parenthood report released Friday.
…

Droughts that cause leaves to turn brown and wither before they can reach peak color. Heat waves prompting leaves to fall before autumn even arrives. Extreme weather events like hurricanes that strip trees of their leaves altogether.

For a cheery autumnal activity, leaf peeping is facing some serious threats from the era of climate change.

Leaf peeping, the practice of traveling to watch nature display its fall colors, is a beloved annual activity in many corners of the country, especially New England and New York. But recent seasons have been disrupted by weather conditions there and elsewhere, and the trend is likely to continue as the planet warms, said arborists, conservationists and ecologists.

Typically, by the end of September, leaves cascade into warmer hues throughout the U.S. This year, many areas have yet to even pivot from their summer green shades. In northern Maine, where peak conditions typically arrive in late September, forest rangers had reported less than 70% color change and moderate leaf drop on Wednesday.

Across the country in Denver, high temperatures have left “dead, dry edges of leaves” early in the season, said Michael Sundberg, a certified arborist in the area.

“Instead of trees doing this gradual change, they get thrown these wacky weather events. They change all of a sudden, or they drop leaves early,” Sundberg said. “Its been a few years since we’ve had a really good leaf year where you just drive around town and see really good color.”

The reason climate change can be bad for fall foliage has a bit to do with plant biology. When fall arrives, and day length and temperature drop, the chlorophyll in a leaf breaks down, and that causes it to lose its green color. The green gives way to the yellows, reds and oranges that make for dramatic autumn displays.

Achieving those peak colors is a delicate balance, and one jeopardized by changes in the environment, said Paul Schaberg, a research plant physiologist with the U.S. Forest Service based in Burlington, Vermont. Warm fall temperatures can cause leaves to remain green longer and delay the onset of what leaf peepers look for in terms of fall color, he said.

Worse, dry summers can stress trees and cause their leaves to miss the fall color turn altogether, Schaberg said. A 2003 study in the journal Tree Physiology that Schaberg cowrote stated that “environmental stress can accelerate” leaf deterioration.

“If climate change is going to mean significant drought, that means trees are going to shut down, and many trees are just going to drop their leaves,” he said. “Severe droughts that really mean that the tree just can’t function — that doesn’t improve color.”

It’s happening already. This summer’s heatwave in the Pacific Northwest brought temperatures of over 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 Celsius) to Oregon, and that led to a condition called “foliage scorch,” in which leaves prematurely browned, said Chris Still, a professor at the Forest Ecosystems & Society department at Oregon State University.

The leaves’ pigment was degraded and they fell shortly thereafter, Still said. That will led to a less scenic fall season in parts of Oregon.

“That’s a really big example of color change just due to heatwave shock,” Still said.

Climate change also poses longer-term threats that could disrupt leaf peeping. The spread of diseases and invasive pests and the northward creep of tree species are all factors tied to warming temperatures that could make for less vibrant fall colors, said Andrew Richardson, a professor of ecosystem science at Northern Arizona University.

The onset of fall colors, which has been drifting later into the fall, could also continue to arrive later, said Jim Salge, foliage expert for Yankee magazine.

“My observations in the last decade have had more years that were later than what we would consider historical averages,” he said.

The economic impact of poor leaf peeping seasons could also be consequential. Officials throughout New England have said fall tourism brings billions of dollars into those states every year.

Conservationists say that’s a good reason to focus on preserving forests and reducing burning fossil fuels. Recent fall seasons have been less spectacular than typical in Massachusetts, but leaf peeping can stay a part of the state’s heritage if forests are given the protections they need, said Andy Finton, landscape conservation director and forest ecologist for The Nature Conservancy.

“If we can keep the big, important forests intact, they will provide what we’ve depended on — clean air, clean water, clean forests, as well as fall inspiration,” Finton said.
…

At the virtual COVID-19 summit on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly last week, U.S. President Joe Biden announced an additional donation of 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine to low-income and lower-middle-income countries, bringing total U.S. pledged donations to 1.1 billion shots.

“I made — and I’m keeping — the promise that America will become the arsenal of vaccines as we were the arsenal of democracy during World War II,” Biden said at the summit.

Here are some facts and context surrounding that claim.

How many doses has the U.S. pledged and shipped?

Of the 1.1 billion doses the U.S. has promised, nearly 172 million have been shipped to more than 100 countries, according to the State Department.

Most are distributed via COVAX, the global vaccine-sharing initiative co-led by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the World Health Organization; and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and some through bilateral agreements.

This makes the U.S. the global leader in both pledged and shipped doses, according to data compiled by the Duke Global Health Innovation Center as of October 1.

The next-largest pledges come from the European Union (500 million), France (120 million), and the United Kingdom, Germany and China (100 million each).

Countries that have shipped the most donations after the U.S. are China (47 million), EU (33.8 million), Japan (21.5 million) and Germany (9.9 million).

The 1.1 billion doses pledged is in line with the administration’s commitment to donate three shots for every shot administered domestically. So far, 392 million shots have been given in the U.S.

The question is when the U.S. will deliver on the rest of its commitment of almost 1 billion doses.

“The claim about being an arsenal of vaccines for the world is a great talking point,” said Krishna Udayakumar, founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center. “It would be great to see put into action.”

The U.S. has shipped only 15% of the 1.1 billion doses it has promised. It is lagging behind other countries with considerably less ambitious donation goals, including China (46%), Japan (30%) and France (8%).

When and to whom will the rest be shipped? 

The White House said 200 million more doses would go out by year’s end, and the remaining 800 million will be sent by September 2022.

“The world can’t wait that long,” said Matthew Kavanagh, director of the Global Health Policy and Politics Initiative at Georgetown University. He said the U.S. should be ramping up shipments now, particularly if it wants to meet its target to support the WHO’s goal of having at least 70% of the world’s population fully vaccinated in every country and income category by September 2022.

The administration has not provided a plan identifying the countries slated for future shipments. Jeremy Konyndyk, executive director of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s COVID-19 Task Force, said countries already signed up with COVAX and ready to receive and distribute the vaccines would be first in line. Those that are not will be supplied with vaccines as their capacity to receive them grows.

“It’s really hard to project over that full time period where any individual country will shake out,” Konyndyk said. “We’re kind of working it out and making adjustments as we go along depending on how the pandemic evolves.”

How much surplus does the U.S. have? 

The administration does not make public the number of doses it has in reserve and those it has secured for domestic needs in the production pipelines of vaccine manufacturers. The numbers are constantly in flux, an administration official told VOA.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that 82 million doses have been distributed across the country but not yet administered. Humanitarian organizations allege that the U.S. is sitting on an even larger stockpile.

“They must now get these doses — and more of the 593 million excess doses the U.S. will have by the end of the year — out the door and into the arms of people in low- and middle-income countries,” said Dr. Carrie Teicher, director of programs for Doctors Without Borders USA, responding to Biden’s announcement of an additional 500 million doses.

Data compiled by analytics company Airfinity on COVID-19 vaccine stock in the U.S., EU, U.K., Canada and China — countries with the biggest surpluses — show an excess of close to 670 million doses by the end of September. This projection factored in those countries offering booster shots to people 12 and older six months after their second doses.

Airfinity data also predict that 241 million doses of vaccines stockpiled in the Group of Seven leading industrial nations will expire by December without immediate redistribution.

Is the global vaccine shortage a question of production capacity or distribution? 

Airfinity data show vaccine manufacturers currently produce 1.5 billion doses per month. It forecasts a total global production of 12.2 billion doses for 2021, of which 6.5 billion are Western vaccines and 5.7 billion are Chinese.

This would mean the goal set by the WHO of 11.3 billion doses required to vaccinate the world’s population could be achieved in months, providing wealthy nations do not continue to cushion their reserves to provide booster shots and guard against new variants before lower-income countries get their first shots.

“Wealthy countries bought up most of the world’s supply of vaccines and have not moved fast enough in creating a global plan to get these vaccines delivered and distributed where they are needed around the world,” said Sarah Swinehart, spokesperson for the ONE Campaign, an organization formed to fight poverty and preventable diseases.

High-income countries have now administered almost 100 doses for every 100 people, while low-income countries have administered just 1.5 doses, according to the WHO.

If there is high production capacity, why aren’t producers exporting them? 

“If we’re going to be the arsenal of vaccines, we actually have to export vaccines, not just donate them once in a while,” said Udayakumar of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center. Separate from the doses donated by the administration, American vaccine producers have exported 161 million doses for sale, far below China (1.1 billion) and the EU (nearly 800 million).

Most exports still go to higher-income countries, and some export restrictions are still in place. This week, the EU extended a mechanism to potentially limit vaccine exports until the end of 2021 because of the bloc’s need to secure booster shots.

India, the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines, stopped exports in April to focus on inoculating its own population as infections surged. It will resume exports in October.

The WHO is also urging scaling up manufacturing through technology transfer. In June, it announced the first COVID-19 mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub, to be set up in South Africa.

The world health body also called for the so-called Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement waiver, or TRIPS waiver, the suspension of intellectual property rights for vaccines at the World Trade Organization, so that countries can access vaccine “recipes” and produce their own without fear of legal action.

The TRIPS waiver proposal, submitted by South Africa and India in October 2020, is supported by more than 100 countries, 100 Nobel laureates and prominent human rights groups, but it cannot move forward without the consensus of all WTO members. The EU, U.K. and Switzerland oppose the waiver.

Didn’t the U.S. support the TRIPS waiver?

We have not seen the full weight of the U.S. diplomatic corps engaging on this topic, said Matthew Rose, director of U.S. policy and advocacy for the Health Global Access Project. “In multiple TRIPS council meetings, the U.S. has been mostly silent in reaching a consensus and moving the council to text-based negotiations,” he said.

In May, the U.S. said it broadly supported the proposal to waive TRIPS, but it has since declined to support the proposal as it is, in effect helping prolong negotiations.

Instead of leading, the Biden administration has largely stayed on the sidelines of TRIPS negotiations, said Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, an organization aiming to end global poverty. “We cannot vaccinate 70% of the world with the same tools that have vaccinated only 1% of Africa so far.”

The office of U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, who is leading the TRIPS waiver negotiations at the WTO, did not respond to a request for comment.

The TRIPS waiver received little attention at the COVID-19 summit that Biden convened. Except for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, no other leaders from wealthy nations, including Biden, mentioned it in their remarks.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told VOA that the administration expects TRIPS waiver negotiations to be a lengthy process and that it has “never been the only basket that we’re focused on.”

VOA’s Nike Ching contributed to this report.
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A joint mission of the European and Japanese space agencies, the spacecraft BepiColombo is set to make a close, initial flyby of Mercury on Friday as part of a seven-year mission to put two probes in orbit around the solar system’s closest planet to the sun. 

In a statement on its website, the European Space Agency explains the spacecraft, launched in 2018, will swoop by Mercury on Friday at an altitude of about 200 kilometers (124.3 miles), capturing imagery and data that will give scientists preliminary information on the planet they hope to explore in depth when the mission puts two probes into orbit there in 2025. 

The ESA says the British-built spacecraft will make use of the gravitational swing of nine planetary flybys — one at Earth, two at Venus, and six at Mercury — together with the spacecraft’s solar electric propulsion system, to help steer into Mercury’s orbit. 

The craft made a second flyby of Venus and collected pictures of the planet as it passed within 570 kilometers (354 miles) of its surface.

The spacecraft’s main mission — in collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) — is to study the structure of Mercury and its magnetic field. When BepiColombo finally arrives, it will release two probes that will independently investigate the surface and magnetic field of Mercury. 

The ESA-developed probes will operate in Mercury’s inner orbit, while the JAXA probe will be in the outer orbit to gather data that would reveal the internal structure of the planet, its surface and geological evolution. 

Scientists hope to build on the insights gained by NASA’s Messenger probe, which ended its mission in 2015 after a four-year orbit of Mercury. The only other spacecraft to visit Mercury was NASA’s Mariner 10 that flew past the planet in the mid-1970s. 

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

 
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Members of the White House COVID-19 Response Team said Friday that recent trials showing the effectiveness of the U.S. drug company Merck’s experimental new COVID-19 pill were certainly good news, but they stressed that vaccines would remain the best way to end the pandemic. 

During the response team’s virtual briefing, top U.S. infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said early data from the studies on the Merck COVID-19 pill were “impressive,” including a 50% reduction in hospitalizations and deaths.

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said the U.S. government had already arranged to buy 1.7 million doses of the pill, with an option for more if needed.

If approved for emergency use, the Merck pill would be the first COVID-19 treatment that could be taken orally and not through injection or intravenous drip. Fauci said he would not predict when the pill might be approved as both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention evaluate the medication.

Vaccinations still seen as best choice

But, Zients said, while the pill is very good news, vaccinations are still the best way out of the pandemic, and the response team spent the bulk of its briefing presenting statistics to encourage the unvaccinated 70 million U.S. residents to take the shot.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said new data from her agency demonstrated the vaccination’s value at preventing serious illness. The data, collected in August during the peak of the surge of infections caused by the delta variant of the virus, showed that areas where 55% or less of the total population was vaccinated had more than twice the infection rates of areas with greater vaccine coverage. Hospitalization and death rates also were significantly higher where vaccination rates were lower. 

Fauci presented statistics compiled over the past 30 days at hospitals in King County in Washington state, information he said also demonstrated the vaccine’s effectiveness against the delta variant. That data showed that unvaccinated people were eight times more likely to test positive for COVID-19, 41 times more likely to be hospitalized from it and 57% more likely to die from it.

Noting the recent overall decline in new cases and hospitalizations in the past few weeks, Fauci said people should not interpret that decline to mean they now did not need to be vaccinated. He said the best way to prevent resurgences of the disease and end the pandemic was to get vaccinated.

 
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President Joe Biden’s administration urged a judge Friday to block a near-total ban on abortion imposed by Texas — the strictest such law in the nation — in a key battle in the ferocious legal war over abortion access in the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court on September 1 allowed the Republican-backed law to take effect even as litigation over its legality continues in lower courts. The U.S. Justice Department eight days later sued in federal court to try to invalidate it.

During a hearing in the Texas capital of Austin, Justice Department lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman to block the law temporarily, saying the state’s Republican legislature and governor enacted it in an open defiance of the Constitution.

“There is no doubt under binding constitutional precedents that a state may not ban abortions at six weeks,” said Brian Netter, the lead Justice Department attorney on the case.

“Texas knew this but, it wanted a 6-week ban anyway. So, this state resorted to an unprecedented scheme of vigilante justice.” Pitman allowed Netter to argue for about 15 minutes before interrupting him to ask about the limits on the Justice Department’s authority to challenge state laws.

The authority claimed by the Justice Department “is pretty expansive,” the judge said.

Netter said the Justice Department does not often challenge state laws but will do so when a law violates the U.S. Constitution and is written in a way that preclude citizens from vindicating their rights on their own.

“What is unique and different about this law is that it specifically deprives those affected by the law of the ability to obtain redress,” Netter said.

In the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, the Supreme Court recognized a woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. The high court in December is due to hear arguments over the legality of a Mississippi abortion law in a case in which officials from that state are asking the justices to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

The Texas law bans abortions starting at six weeks of pregnancy, a point when many women may not yet realize they are pregnant. It and the Mississippi measure are among a series of Republican-backed laws passed by various states restricting abortion.

About 85% to 90% of abortions are performed after six weeks. Texas makes no exception for cases of rape and incest. It also lets ordinary citizens enforce the ban, rewarding them at least $10,000 if they successfully sue anyone who helped provide an abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected.

The four Whole Woman’s Health abortion clinics across the state have reported that patient visits have plummeted, and some staff have quit since the Texas law took effect.

In an emergency motion to the court, the Justice Department provided sworn statements from doctors who described the impact of the Texas law on patients.

In one statement, Dr. Joshua Yap said he witnessed a “surge” of women crossing into neighboring Oklahoma for abortions. “One of the most heart-wrenching cases I have seen recently was of a Texas minor who had been raped by a family member,” Yap said, adding that a guardian made an eight-hour drive to Oklahoma from Galveston because the girl was more than six weeks pregnant.

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the state’s top law enforcement official, argued in a court filing on Wednesday that the Justice Department’s lawsuit must be dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. The Texas law must be challenged in state court through lawsuits brought against abortion providers by private citizens, Paxton said.

Democratic former President Barack Obama appointed Pitman to the judiciary in 2014.

The hearing will also include arguments from other interested parties, including Oscar Stilley, a disbarred lawyer in home confinement for tax evasion who in September became one of the first people to test a key provision of the law by suing a San Antonio doctor who provided an abortion.
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Geneticists, led by Harvard Medical School’s George Church, aim to bring the woolly mammoth back to life by 2027. But some experts aren’t sure it’s such a good idea. Karina Bafradzhian has the story.
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As COVID-19 has spread in Nigeria, Africa’s most populated country, so have myths about the virus, especially among children. A Nigerian author has written a children’s book to help them understand the pandemic and ways to avoid being infected.

A team of educators arrives at a government school in Abuja. Equipped with books, face masks and sanitizers, they’re here to educate schoolchildren about the coronavirus pandemic and personal hygiene.

The initiative is the brainchild of team leader Raquel Kasham Daniel, a Nigerian author and founder of the nonprofit Beyond the Classroom Foundation.

She started the foundation 11 years ago to help make education accessible to vulnerable children. But she said when COVID-19 hit Nigeria last year, she had to focus on teaching children how to stay safe or reduce their risk of contracting the virus through her books.

“Because COVID was evolving, I knew we’ll not have one edition of the book,” she said. “So, we’ve had different editions of the book where I’ve had to update it from time to time. The support that we’ve received has mostly come from social media and some funders who have seen our work.”

The COVID-19 children’s book is titled There’s a New Virus in Town. It contains colorful images, along with text, to help children better understand the coronavirus. It also contains a quiz at the end where children can guess the next character or topic.

Twelve-year-old Jemila Abdul read it at the Abuja school.

“I’ll wash my hands regularly, and I’ll wear face masks, keep social distances, and keep my compound clean,” she said.

Nine-year-old Peculiar Oyewole said he’ll keep safe in order to keep his friends safe.

“I was angry because the coronavirus killed so many people,” he said. “I don’t want it to kill my friends.”

Nigeria has recorded more than 200,000 cases of the coronavirus, but authorities say myths and misinformation about the pandemic continue to spread, and children are among the most susceptible.

Daniel’s program, which has reached some 14,000 children so far, is helping to address this problem not only in schools but also among vulnerable groups.

“Some will say only older people are dying because God wants to save the children, that God is cleaning the Earth,” Daniel said. “We heard all sorts of things. So, what we do with our volunteers is to teach them and arm them with information about this myth and teach them (that) when you get on the field, this is how to debunk it.”

Nigerian authorities have been making efforts to educate the public and try to overcome misinformation, which authorities blame for a slow vaccine uptake.

But in the meantime, Daniel will be having an impact on kids.

 
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Australia will reopen its international borders in November to allow vaccinated travelers into the country for the first time in 18 months.

Australia banned most foreign nationals in March of last year and required its citizens to seek official permission to leave the country. Now it is preparing to reopen to the world. Under a government plan, international passengers will be able to quarantine at home for seven days rather than the current 14-day mandatory period in hotel isolation.

There will be no travel restrictions for fully vaccinated Australians entering or leaving the country, although major airlines have warned they are not yet ready for a swift increase in flights. The government is also working toward quarantine-free travel with other countries, including New Zealand.

Passengers who are not vaccinated, or who have received a drug that is not recognized by Australian authorities, will be required to undergo 14 days in official quarantine.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Friday that Sydney, the New South Wales state capital, would most likely be the first city to allow international travelers back.

However, he warned that domestic travel could still be restricted.

“Now, Sydney is the biggest arrivals port for Australia,” he said. “Now, that is good news if you are anywhere around the world because that is where most of the flights go. Now, if you live in another state, it may well be that your state may not let you back into your state, and so you’ll need to remain in New South Wales until they let you do that.”

Western Australia and Queensland are threatening to keep their internal borders closed to other parts of the country with high delta variant infections.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she was not told about the prime minister’s plan to resume international travel.

“I am not going to agree to anything when I haven’t seen any formal paperwork,” she said. “It would be irresponsible, and I think Queenslanders would expect me to see some paperwork to understand the issues before an announcement is made.”

Australia has recorded 105,000 coronavirus cases since the pandemic began. More than 1,200 people have died.

Millions of Australians, including residents in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, remain in lockdown.

The government plans to gradually ease restrictions when double-dose vaccination rates reach 70% and beyond. They are currently just over 55%.

Gladys Berejiklian, who has guided New South Wales through the pandemic, unexpectedly quit as leader after it was revealed she was being investigated by the state’s corruption watchdog. 

 
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A newly launched satellite gives researchers near-real-time clues about climate conditions on Earth. Plus, a look at this week’s spaceflight history, and a slightly more affordable way to experience weightlessness. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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In Ivory Coast, there’s a new tool in the fight against counterfeit pharmaceuticals. A start-up company now helps pharmacies digitally trace the sale of drugs to their customers. Yassin Ciyow has more in this report narrated by Lionel Gahima.
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