YCLOAK

UNICEF has announced a deal with the Serum Institute of India to produce 1.1 billion doses of AstraZeneca/Oxford and Novavax vaccines at a cost of $3 per dose.
 
“This is, of course, just an initial tranche of COVAX vaccines. More will follow. We will continue to work on the supply agreements to meet the needs of the COVAX vaccine requirements for the first half of 2021,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said in a statement Wednesday.
 
COVAX is a coordinated partnership of the World Health Organization (WHO); GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance; the Center for Epidemics Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and others to ensure vaccines are distributed to the world’s poorest countries.
 
“For countries which have already initiated vaccination drives, and those yet to begin, this information is a hopeful marker on the winding path out of a pandemic that will not be truly over until it is over for us all,” Fore said.
 
COVAX already has plans to distribute 100 million doses by the end of March and 200 million more by July.
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Israel has announced it is opening its coronavirus vaccination campaign to anyone over the age of 16, as one-third of the population has already received the first dose. But in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority has received just 2,000 doses from Israel that went to front-line health care workers. Palestinians hope to start receiving larger quantities of the vaccine later this month.Israel continues to move forward with its vaccination drive, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he hopes that 90% of Israelis over the age of 50 will be inoculated in the next two weeks. The campaign includes Arab citizens of Israel, and Palestinians in east Jerusalem who are covered by the Israeli health care system. But close to 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have yet to receive the vaccine.The first 2,000 Palestinians, most of them front-line health care workers, received a vaccine after Israel delivered the doses, and promised 3,000 more in the next few days. Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila said that medical teams will be first in line. She did not say the vaccines made by Moderna came from Israel, although both Israeli and Palestinian officials later confirmed it.The Palestinian Authority has contracted to buy millions of doses of the Russian Sputnik vaccine which was supposed to have been delivered last month. Now officials say they hope it will come later this month.Palestinian officials say they are especially concerned about the densely populated Gaza Strip, where the virus has been spreading quickly and hospitals are on the verge of collapse. Officials said some of the first 2,000 doses were also sent to Gaza.A Palestinian health worker is vaccinated against COVID-19 after the delivery of doses from Israel, in Bethlehem, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Feb. 3, 2021.DisparityThe disparity between the Israeli and Palestinian vaccination campaigns has led to renewed calls on Israel to vaccinate the Palestinians as well. Phyllis Bennis of the U.S.-based Institute for Policy Studies told Al-Jazeera that Israel, as an occupying power, is responsible for Palestinian health care.“Israel is obligated under international law under the Geneva Conventions, Article 56 requires it, to provide all the materials needed for public health and specifically preventive measures to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics, exactly what we’re facing here,” Bennis said.Israeli officials say that according to the 1990 Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, the Palestinians are responsible for their own health care. Israel will offer help if the Palestinians ask for it, they say, and that hasn’t happened yet.The Oslo Accords gave Palestinians limited self-governance in the West Bank and Gaza.Speaking by teleconference to the World Economic Forum last week, King Abdullah of Jordan, where a significant part of the population is Palestinian, said Israel needs to vaccinate Palestinians for its own good.  “The Israelis have had a very successful rollout of the vaccine, however, the Palestinians have not. If you look at the connectivity of the Israeli-Palestinian people, you can’t vaccinate one part of your society and not the other and think you’re going to be safe,” Abdullah said.Some Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Benny Gantz, agree. They say that as long as tens of thousands of Palestinians continue to work in Israel, and hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers live in the West Bank, Israel should also vaccinate its Palestinian neighbors.   
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The top U.S. infectious disease expert has another warning for Americans: Don’t attend Super Bowl parties amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Anthony Fauci says such parties could spread coronavirus. “You don’t want parties with people that you haven’t had much contact with,” he told NBC’s “Today” show. “You just don’t know if they’re infected, so, as difficult as that is, at least this time around, just lay low and cool it.” Despite the warning, some 22,000 fans will be allowed to attend Sunday’s game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Tampa. They will all be required to wear face coverings. Fans were not permitted to attend most games in the National Football League this season. Recently, Fauci warned against Thanksgiving get-togethers, especially in the case of people traveling to see relatives. 
 
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The test launch and landing of a SpaceX Starship prototype Tuesday ended in a crash for the second time since December.   The bullet-shaped 50-meter-tall SN-9 Starship rocket, a product of entrepreneur Elon Musk’s private space company, lifted off as planned from the southern Texas launch site and traveled 10 kilometers into the sky before making its descent for a planned soft landing back on the launch pad.  Spacex’s 2nd Starship Test Flight Ends with Another Kaboom Elon Musk is developing Starship to carry people to Mars, perhaps in as little as several yearsThe spacecraft failed to return to a vertical position before reaching the ground and exploded on impact. The December test flight ended the same way. The next SpaceX prototype, the SN-10, stood on a launch pad near the crash site but was apparently undamaged. The company did not say when that test launch will be scheduled.The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that it would investigate Tuesday’s explosion, fueling tension between the agency and Musk.The FAA had investigated last year’s launch, saying it did not meet public safety standards, but approved Tuesday’s test after what it called “corrective actions.”The Starship is intended to carry people to the moon and Mars, perhaps in the coming years.
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Mexico’s regulatory agency approved emergency use of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, shortly after Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell announced Tuesday the country’s plan to combat the novel coronavirus would involve use of the vaccine. The Associated Press reports Mexico is launching its vaccination program as its capital, Mexico City, is struggling to accommodate a growing number of coronavirus patients and provide adequate oxygen to hospitals.  Meantime, Lopez-Gattel said the first batches of the 7.4 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine will arrive this month through April.    The Sputnik V vaccine’s credibility was elevated Tuesday after late-stage clinical trial results published in The Lancet international medical journal revealed it was 91.6% effective in preventing people from developing COVID-19.    Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has spoken to Russian President  Vladimir Putin about purchasing 24 million doses of the vaccine.  Argentina joins Mexico in ramping up its efforts to secure an ample supply of the Sputnik V vaccine.     Lopez Gatell said on Monday Mexico would receive between 1.6 million to 2.75 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine through the COVAX global vaccine sharing program this month.  Mexico has one of the highest coronavirus tallies in Latin America with about 159,100 confirmed  deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University COVID Resource Center.  
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China put 38.4 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity into operation in 2020, according to new international research, more than three times the amount built elsewhere around the world and potentially undermining its short-term climate goals.   The country won praise last year after President Xi Jinping pledged to make the country “carbon neutral” by 2060. But regulators have since come under fire for failing to properly control the coal power sector, a major source of climate-warming greenhouse gas. Including decommissions, China’s coal-fired fleet capacity rose by a net 29.8 GW in 2020, even as the rest of the world made cuts of 17.2 GW, according to research released on Wednesday by Global Energy Monitor (GEM), a U.S. think tank, and the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).   “The runaway expansion of coal-fired power is driven by electricity companies’ and local governments’ interest in maximizing investment spending, more than a real need for new capacity,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, CREA lead analyst.   The country’s National Energy Administration (NEA) didn’t immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment. China approved the construction of a further 36.9 GW of coal-fired capacity last year, three times more than a year earlier, bringing the total under construction to 88.1 GW. It now has 247 GW of coal power under development, enough to supply the whole of Germany.   A team of central government environmental inspectors delivered a scathing assessment of China’s energy regulator last Friday, accusing officials of planning failures and focusing too much on guaranteeing energy supply.   The NEA had allowed plants to be built in already polluted regions, while projects in less sensitive “coal-power bases” had not gone ahead, they said. China has been criticized for pursuing an energy-intensive post-COVID recovery based on heavy industry and construction, and experts say new coal plants could end up becoming heavily-indebted “stranded assets.” Christine Shearer, GEM’s coal program director, said China needs to ensure its short-term development plans align with long-term climate goals. “Hopefully as the Chinese government determines its coal power capacity targets for the next five-year plan (for 2021-2025), it will severely restrict if not end new coal plant builds and accelerate retirements,” she said. 
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The White House announced Tuesday new measures to increase the rate of vaccinations against COVID-19, including distributing vaccines to select pharmacies across the country. “Building on last week’s announcement, the Biden-Harris Administration will increase overall, weekly vaccine supply to states, Tribes, and territories to 10.5-million doses nationwide beginning this week,” a statement from the White House said, noting that this constitutes a 22% increase in vaccine supply since President Joe Biden took office January 20. The statement also said the federal government would reimburse states and territories for supplies like masks and gloves as the U.S. continues to battle record numbers of virus infections and deaths. People wait in their vehicles after receiving a shot at the Dodger Stadium COVID-19 vaccination site, in Los Angeles, California, Feb. 1, 2021.The statement included a list of pharmacies which are expected to carry the vaccine as soon as next week, noting that much of the U.S. population relies on local pharmacies to receive their flu shot every year. The announcement comes as many states have complained that they do not have enough vaccines to inoculate vulnerable populations. In cities like New Orleans, many Americans have reported that their scheduled vaccination appointments were canceled because of a lack of doses.Frustrations Mount Over Vaccine Shortages in New OrleansAmid tight supplies, one of America’s most diverse cities works to ensure vaccine equity across racial linesStudies by The Associated Press and The New York Times found that Black and Latinx populations were being vaccinated at lower rates than white populations across the country. Still, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that more Americans had been vaccinated against the disease than had contracted it. According to the CDC, 32 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in the United States. As of Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. had confirmed 26.4 million cases of the virus. 
 
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South Africa’s president delivered a rare shot of good news to people in the continent’s coronavirus hotspot: the nation’s second wave appears to be abating, and the government will soon launch a vaccination campaign for health workers. The Monday address, delivered live on national television, was a departure from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s usual tone. For nearly a year, Ramaphosa has the been the bearer of grim news, talking of deaths, rising caseloads and burdened hospitals, of lockdowns and restrictions and of endless reminders, like a chiding father, reminding people to wear your mask, wash your hands.South Africa is the continent’s viral hotspot, with 1.4 million confirmed cases and more than 44,000  COVID-19 deaths since the virus arrived in March. The nation experienced the start of a second wave of the virus, featuring a new variant that is significantly more contagious, in late December. FILE – Family members and volunteers from the Saaberie Chishty Society lower the body of a COVID-19 victim into a grave at the Avalon cemetery in Lenasia, South Africa, Jan. 4, 2021.But this week, a ray of hope: earlier Monday, the president and top ministers stood on the sodden airport tarmac in Johannesburg to greet the arrival of 1 million vaccine doses.  Ramaphosa said they will , in the next two weeks, make their way into the arms of frontline healthcare workers. After that, Ramaphosa said, the country will vaccinate 40 million people — about 67 percent of the population — by year’s end. He emphasized that no one will be required to take the vaccine.  He spoke live on national TV late Monday.  “Fellow South Africans, the first set of good news is the arrival of the vaccine today,” he said. “The second is that we have recorded our lowest daily increase in infections. Since the beginning of December of last year, in fact, the average rate of new infections has been steadily coming down over the last three weeks, indicating that we have now passed the peak of the second wave.” Workers load South Africa’s first COVID-19 vaccine as they arrive at OR Tambo airport in Johannesburg, Feb. 1, 2021. (Elmond Jiyane for GCIS/Handout via Reuters)South Africa will become the fifth African nation to roll out mass vaccinations, after Morocco, Egypt, the Seychelles and Guinea. Ramaphosa also said that, in his role as chairman of the African Union, he is working to secure the delivery of one billion vaccines for the African continent.  “Seven hundred million of these will come through the global COVAX facility and 300 million have been facilitated by the African vaccine acquisition task team. We will be getting other vaccines that will be donated by various private sector companies to add to the vaccines that our continent needs,” the president said.” Ramaphosa, as the only African leader in the G-20, has publicly exhorted wealthy nations to share the vaccines equitably.  FILE – South African President Cyril Ramaphosa visits the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) treatment facilities in Johannesburg,Ramaphosa also announced that his government would ease current COVID-19 restrictions, including loosening the overnight curfew and allowing the resumption of alcohol sales. But, he warned, that doesn’t mean South Africa should breathe a sigh of relief — yet.  “Let us remember that despite the clear progress we have made, the number of new cases is still high and there is an ever present danger of a resurgence,” he said. “It is therefore necessary to maintain the country on coronavirus alert level three, indicating the continued high risk of transmission.”  
 
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Britain launched an emergency program of door-to-door testing in several areas Tuesday following the discovery of hundreds of cases of the coronavirus variant, first identified in South Africa, which scientists say could be more resistant to vaccines.  Mobile testing units were deployed to several regions, including parts of central and suburban London, while firefighter units and volunteers helped to deliver home testing kits and administer door-to-door testing. Local authorities aimed to conduct 80,000 coronavirus tests. By Tuesday morning, 105 cases of the mutation first seen in South Africa were identified in eight districts across Britain. Eleven of those cases did not have any direct link to international travel, suggesting the variant is being transmitted within the community. Volunteers hand out the COVID-19 home test kit to a resident, in Goldsworth and St. Johns, amid the outbreak of coronavirus disease in Woking, Britain, Feb. 2, 2021.Meanwhile, health authorities announced they are also investigating separate cases of the virus with what they described as worrying new genetic changes. The variants, identified in the cities of Bristol and Liverpool, have the same mutation as the South African variant, called E484K. British Health Secretary Matt Hancock urged people living in the affected areas to adhere to lockdown rules and stay home. “Our mission must be to stop its spread altogether and break those chains of transmission. … It is imperative that people must stay at home and only leave home where it is absolutely essential,” Hancock told members of parliament Tuesday. People queue at a testing center amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease, in Southport, Britain, Feb. 2, 2021.Britain is still battling a separate coronavirus mutation, first identified in Kent in southern England in September, which has contributed to a deadly second wave of the pandemic. An estimated 107,000 people have died in Britain within 28 days of testing positive for the virus since the pandemic began. Scientists say the variants appear to be more transmissible. Early indications from trials suggest they may also be more resistant to vaccines. “There has been a couple of observations, one from Novavax and one from Johnson & Johnson, which suggest that their vaccine trials were less successful in South Africa than they were in the United Kingdom and the United States,” Simon Clarke, a microbiologist at Britain’s University of Reading, told VOA. “(The mutation) renders antibodies less able to bind to the spike protein of the virus and stop the spike protein acting as a key to gain entrance to our cells.” That could affect people’s immunity to the coronavirus, both for individuals who have had the infection and those who have been vaccinated.  An advertisement board is seen, amid the outbreak of coronavirus disease in Woking, Britain, Feb. 2, 2021.”Even if we roll out a vaccine across the population, getting complete 100 percent coverage will be nigh on impossible,” Clarke said. “And the virus will be put under a selective pressure to accommodate and to favor mutations like this, which render it less susceptible to vaccines, or the actions of vaccines.” Britain also announced Tuesday it had given a first vaccine dose to more than 10 million people, by far the highest in Europe. It is not yet clear, however, if the vaccines are as effective against the new variants and may need to be modified. Health Secretary Hancock said such work was under way. “We’re working with pharmaceutical companies and with the scientists to understand both whether such modifications are needed, where they are needed and how they can be brought to use on the front line as quickly as safely possible.”  Scientists say the emergence of new variants around the world underlines the urgent need to roll out global vaccination programs and suppress transmission, as even fully vaccinated populations could be at risk as the virus continues to mutate. 
 
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The head of the Tokyo Olympics expressed confidence Tuesday the event will go forward this year despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Tokyo 2020 President Yoshiro Mori said discussions should be about how and not whether the Olympics will happen. “We will hold the Olympics, regardless of how the coronavirus [situation] looks,” Mori said. The Summer Games were originally scheduled to begin in July 2020, but organizers postponed the event for one year.  The new start date is July 23. FILE – A man wearing a protective mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus walks near a banner of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics at an underpass in Tokyo, Jan. 19, 2021.Adding to doubts about whether it would be possible to stage the games are recent lockdowns initiated in a number of countries.  Large parts of Japan are currently under a state of emergency because of the virus. Malaysia is among those extending lockdowns to try to stop the spread of COVID-19.  Defense Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said Tuesday the restrictions would be extended until February 18. “The Health Ministry has confirmed that daily cases in all states are still showing a rising trend… the sporadic spread in the community is also high,” Ismail Sabri said in a televised address. In Britain, fears of the spread of coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa have prompted a mass door-to-door testing campaign. Volunteers hand out the COVID-19 home test kits to residents, in Goldsworth and St Johns, amid the outbreak of COVID-19 in Woking, Britain, Feb. 2, 2021.The effort involves eight areas of the country where people will be tested whether they have symptoms or not.  In all, about 80,000 people were to be tested. Britain has been one of the hardest-hit countries during the pandemic, with more than 3.8 million confirmed cases and 106,000 deaths. ‘A detective story’A team of World Health Organization scientists investigating the source of the coronavirus, that first emerged in China’s Hubei province in late 2019, visited a provincial disease control center Monday that was key in the early management of the outbreak.       FILE – Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team, investigating the origins of the Covid-19 coronavirus, visit the closed Huanan Seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, China’s central Hubei province, Jan. 31, 2021.China did not release any details about the team’s visit to the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control. Team member Peter Daszak, however, told reporters it had been a “really good meeting, really important.”      Since the WHO team’s arrival last month, the scientists have also visited the Huanan Seafood Market that was linked to a cluster of COVID-19 cases and at least one of the hospitals in Wuhan that treated some of the first patients. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.     The scientists want to know where the virus originated, in what animal and how it made its way into humans — something that could take years to figure out.      “We continue to ask the questions, we continue to push for more data. … It’s a detective story,” Mike Ryan, top emergency WHO official, told a Geneva news conference Monday.     Maria Van Kerkhove, an American epidemiologist and technical lead on COVID-19 at WHO, said at the news conference that the team is focusing on “the early cases” and “are having very good discussions around that” with their Chinese counterparts.      The outbreak in China led to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said Monday there are more than 103 million global COVID-19 infections and more than 2.2 million people have died.     Cases have fallen worldwide for three consecutive weeks. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the decline “encouraging news” but warned, “We have been here before.”     Speaking Monday at the news conference, Tedros said, “Over the past year, there have been moments in almost all countries when cases declined and governments opened up too quickly, and individuals let down their guard, only for the virus to come roaring back.” 
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Nigerian authorities are pledging to provide more protection for healthcare workers following an increase in COVID-19 cases among the group.
 
Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control  Ihekweazu, said Monday the positive coronavirus test of 75 healthcare workers in the past week is worrisome.
 
Ihkekweazu is urging healthcare personnel to exercise caution and suspect COVID-19 in every case until it is ruled out.  He warned even then, the risk of infection still exits.   
 
Ihekweazu also said the NCDC will soon make available rapid diagnostic test kits in more health facilities as an additional form of protection.
 
Anadolu Agency said more than 800 healthcare workers in Nigeria have been infected with the virus since June, according to Health Minister Osagie Ehanire.
 
The Nigerian Medical Association has confirmed at least 20 doctors died from the virus within one week period last month.  
 
Nigeria has confirmed more than 131,000 COVID-19 infections and 1,607 deaths, according Johns Hopkins University Covid Resource Center.
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South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said medical regulators will begin testing the integrity of the country’s first batch of AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19 before vaccinating front line healthcare workers. He made the comment during a national address late Monday, hours after he and other dignitaries accepted 1.2 million doses of vaccine that arrived at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport Monday afternoon. President Ramaphosa said after healthcare workers get their shots the country aims to vaccinate essential workers, people over 60 years of age, people with co-morbidities and those living in places such as nursing homes. The remainder of the adult population will get their shots in the third phase of the vaccination program. South Africa is the African nation hardest hit by the novel coronavirus, with more than 1.4 million confirmed cases since the virus turned up in the country in March. The nation’s second wave of the virus fueled by a new variant that surfaced in late December appears to be subsiding.  The head of South Africa’s coronavirus task force, Dr. Salim Abdool Karim, said the current vaccines are expected to work on the new variant, called 501.V2, Ramaphosa said in addition to Monday’s shipment the country is due to receive another 500,000 doses from the Serum Institute of India next month.  South Africa has also secured millions of doses of vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and the global COVAX facility, which is a worldwide collaboration to speed up the development, production and access to COVID-19 treatments and vaccines. The president said South Africa will also receive an allocation of vaccine doses through the African Union, which has been negotiating with manufacturers to secure vaccines for the entire continent on a pooled basis. South Africa will now become the fifth African nation to roll out vaccinations, after Morocco, Egypt, the Seychelles and Guinea.   
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British Health Secretary Matt Hancock on Monday said 105 cases of a coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa have been found in the nation, with 11 of those cases having no links to international travel.Speaking at a Downing Street news briefing, Hancock said health authorities plan to test 80,000 people from areas around the country to isolate and stop the spread of the new variant.”There’s currently no evidence to suggest this variant is any more severe, but we need to come down on it hard, and we will,” he said.A man takes a swab at a test center in Goldsworth Park, as the South African variant of the novel coronavirus is reported in parts of Surrey, in Woking, Britain, Feb. 1, 2021.Hancock said the surge of new testing is targeted on those areas where the variant had been discovered and that every single positive case is being sequenced. He said health officials, in coordination with local authorities, are going door to door to test people in those areas.Hancock also announced on Monday that Britain had now vaccinated 9.2 million people against COVID-19, including 931,204 vaccinations over the weekend. He also announced that Britain has ordered another 40 million doses of a vaccine developed by the French company, Valneva, as the government prepares for the likelihood that repeated vaccinations will be needed to keep the virus in check.The vaccine, which will be made in Scotland, is still undergoing clinical trials and has not been approved by regulators.Britain has seen the deadliest coronavirus outbreak in Europe — with over 106,000 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University data — but is pushing ahead with one of the world’s quickest vaccine programs. 
 
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The World Health Organization (WHO) noted Monday that globally, the number of new coronavirus cases fell for the third consecutive week. At the agency’s regular news briefing conducted virtually from its headquarters in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that while many nations are still seeing infections increasing, it is nonetheless encouraging news. Tedros said it shows the virus can be controlled, even with the new variants in circulation, and that with proven public health measures such as social distancing, the wearing of masks and good hygiene, infections can be prevented.   FILE – Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization, Jan. 21, 2021.He warned, however, that the world has been at this point before, and it is no time to relax.“Over the past year, there have been moments in almost all countries when cases declined, and governments opened up too quickly, and individuals let down their guard, only for the virus to come roaring back,” he noted. Tedros said that as vaccines are rolled out around the world, it is important to continue to take the precautions that keep people safe. He said controlling the spread of the virus saves lives now and reduces the chances of more variants emerging.  “And it helps to ensure vaccines remain effective,” he said. Also at the briefing, WHO Emergencies Program Director Michael Ryan responded to a question regarding the WHO-led team currently studying the origins of the virus and early skepticism about what it may find.  FILE – WHO Health Emergencies Program head Michael Ryan, July 3, 2020.Commentators have raised doubts about what the investigators can discover this long after the fact and given China’s wavering cooperation with the investigation. Ryan took exception to those who have already said they would not accept the report from the team or that there may be other intelligence with different findings.  ”No other country has provided any documentary, intelligence or other information to WHO. We are out there looking for it. We are in the field with experts from 10 countries looking to find the answers. If you have the answers, if you think you have some answers, please let us know,” he said. Ryan said the team currently in the field in China represents not just WHO but the world community and deserves support. 
 
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A team of World Health Organization scientists investigating the source of the coronavirus, that first emerged in China’s Hubei province in late 2019, visited a provincial disease control center Monday that was key in the early management of the COVID outbreak.   China did not release any details about the team’s visit to the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control.  Team member Peter Daszak, however, told reporters it had been a “really good meeting, really important.” Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team, investigating the origins of the Covid-19 coronavirus, visit the closed Huanan Seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, China’s central Hubei province, Jan. 31, 2021.Since the WHO team’s arrival last month, the scientists have also visited the Huanan Seafood Market that was linked to a cluster of COVID cases and at least one of the hospitals in Wuhan that treated some of the first patients. The scientists want to know where the virus originated, in what animal, and how it made its way into humans, something that could take years to figure out. The outbreak in China led to the worldwide COVID pandemic.  Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said early Monday that there are nearly 103 million global COVID infections.  More than 2 million people have died, Hopkins said.  FILE – Emergency medical technician Thomas Hoang, 29, of Emergency Ambulance Service, pushes a gurney into an emergency room to drop off a COVID-19 patient in Placentia, Calif., Jan. 8, 2021.The U.S. continues to have more cases than anyplace else at nearly 103 million. India follows with10.7 million infections and Brazil comes in third with 9.2 million cases.  The U.S. also has more deaths from the virus than any other nation with more than 441,000, followed by Brazil with more than 224,000 and Mexico with more than 158,000.  A leading U.S. epidemiologist said Sunday he believes the highly contagious and more deadly British strain of the COVID virus could become the dominant strain in the U.S. in the coming weeks, resulting in a surge of infections “like we have not yet seen in this country.” Michael Osterholm, who served on President Joe Biden’s transition coronavirus advisory board, speaking on NBC’s “Meet The Press” Sunday, urged the Biden administration and U.S. municipalities to be diligent in inoculating Americans with the COVID vaccines ahead of the “hurricane” of the British variant.  In Jerusalem Sunday, thousands of black-clad, ultra-Orthodox Israelis ignored the country’s ban on large gatherings to attend two separate funerals for prominent rabbis. The densely packed crowds also ignored mask-wearing directives and social-distancing observations. Each funeral had a procession through the city’s streets.  Israel has staged an aggressive vaccination program, but officials are concerned that the mass gatherings in Jerusalem Sunday could undo any progress and spark a COVID surge.    The European Union announced Sunday that British company AstraZeneca had agreed to send 9 million more doses of the vaccine to EU countries.    AstraZeneca will also deliver the doses a week earlier than planned, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on Twitter, calling the news a “step forward on vaccines.” Step forward on vaccines.@AstraZeneca will deliver 9 million additional doses in the first quarter (40 million in total) compared to last week’s offer & will start deliveries one week earlier than scheduled.The company will also expand its manufacturing capacity in Europe.— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) January 31, 2021On the African continent, only a handful of countries have been able to begin vaccinating their populations. On Sunday, Ghana announced it planned to acquire 17.6 million doses of the vaccine by this summer, with the first batches arriving by March.    “Our aim is to vaccinate the entire population, with an initial target of 20 million people,” President Nana Akufo-Addo said Sunday.    He also announced stricter measures against the virus, including banning large gatherings, as the country battles a second wave.          
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Lucenia Dunn spent the early days of the coronavirus pandemic encouraging people to wear masks and keep a safe distance from each other in Tuskegee, a mostly Black city where the government once used unsuspecting African American men as guinea pigs in a study of a sexually transmitted disease.
 
Now, the onetime mayor of the town immortalized as the home of the infamous “Tuskegee syphilis study” is wary of getting inoculated against COVID-19. Among other things, she’s suspicious of the government promoting a vaccine that was developed in record time when it can’t seem to conduct adequate virus testing or consistently provide quality rural health care.
 
“I’m not doing this vaccine right now. That doesn’t mean I’m never going to do it. But I know enough to withhold getting it until we see all that is involved,” said Dunn, who is Black.
 
The coronavirus immunization campaign is off to a shaky start in Tuskegee and other parts of Macon County. Area leaders point to a resistance among residents spurred by a distrust of government promises and decades of failed health programs. Many people in this city of 8,500 have relatives who were subjected to unethical government experimentation during the syphilis study.
 
“It does have an impact on decisions. Being in this community, growing up in this community, I would be very untruthful if I didn’t say that,” said Frank Lee, emergency management director in Macon County. Lee is Black.
 
Health experts have stressed both the vaccines’ safety and efficacy. They have noted that while the vaccines were developed with record-breaking speed, they were based on decades of prior research. Vaccines used in the U.S. have shown no signs of serious side effects in studies of tens of thousands of people. And with more than 26 million vaccinations administered in the U.S. alone so far, no red flags have been reported.
 
Tuskegee is not a complete outlier. A recent survey conducted by the communications firm Edelman revealed that as of November, only 59% of people in the U.S. were willing to get vaccinated within a year with just 33% happy to do so as soon as possible.
But skepticism seems to run deeper here.
 
When Alabama and the rest of the South were still segregated by race, government medical workers starting in 1932 withheld treatment for unsuspecting men infected with syphilis in Tuskegee and surrounding Macon County so physicians could track the disease. The study, which involved about 600 men, ended in 1972 only after it was revealed by The Associated Press.
 
A lawsuit filed on behalf of the men by Black Tuskegee attorney Fred Gray resulted in a $9 million settlement, and then-President Bill Clinton formally apologized on behalf of the U.S. government in 1997. But the damage left a legacy of distrust that extends far beyond Tuskegee: A December survey showed 40% of Black people nationwide said they wouldn’t get the coronavirus vaccine. Such hesitancy is more entrenched than among white people, even though Black Americans have been hit disproportionately hard by the virus.
 
The Chicago-based Black nationalist group Nation of Islam is warning away members nationwide with an online presentation titled “Beyond Tuskegee: Why Black People Must Not Take The Experimental COVID-19 Vaccine.”
 
Gray, now 90 and still practicing law in Tuskegee, rejects such comparisons. The syphilis study and the COVID-19 vaccine are completely different, he said. He believes that enough that he himself has gotten the vaccine and is publicly encouraging others to do the same.
 
Georgette Moon is on a similar mission. Hoping to both protect herself and encourage skittish friends, the former city council member recently bared an arm and let a public health nurse immunize her. Now, Moon said, if only more fellow Black residents could overcome their lingering fears and get the vaccine.
 
“The study is a huge factor,” Moon said. “I’ve had very qualified, well-educated people tell me they are not going to take it right now.”
 
The Macon County health department, which is administering two-step Moderna vaccines in its modern building near downtown, could perform as many as 160 immunizations a day, officials said. But a maximum of 140 people received the vaccine on any single date during the first six days of appointments, with a total of 527 people immunized during the period. Health care workers, emergency responders and long-term care residents are currently eligible for shots in Alabama, along with people 75 and older.
 
There are some signs of hope. State statistics show a slow uptick in the number of people coming in for vaccinations, and word seems to be filtering through the community that it’s OK to be vaccinated.
 
Down the street from the county clinic, the Veterans Affairs hospital in Tuskegee is vaccinating veterans 65 and older. While only 40% of the VA workers in the area have been vaccinated, officials said, more people are agreeing to the shots than during the initial wave.
 
“They know people who have had the vaccine, they hear more about it, they become more comfortable with it,” said Dr. April Truett, an infectious disease physician at the hospital.
 
The Rev. John Curry Jr. said he and his wife took the shots after the health department said they could get appointments without a long wait. The pastor of the oldest Black church in town, Curry said he is encouraging congregants to get the vaccine.
 
Yet he said he also understands the power of lingering distrust in a town that will forever be linked to the syphilis study, one of the most reviled episodes of U.S. public health history.
 
“It’s a blemish on Tuskegee,” he said. “It hangs on the minds of people.” 
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U.S. President Joe Biden is planning to bring what he calls a Clean Energy Revolution to tackle climate change. The diesel industry, which had gone through its own revolution a decade ago to meet stricter environmental standards, has seen payoffs in adopting “green” fuel initiatives. Genia Dulot has the story. 
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Since taking office in January, President Joe Biden has reaffirmed a national commitment to integrity in scholarship and research, appointing scientists to numerous leadership roles.  Educators and experts applaud these appointments and say elevating intellectual integrity in research and science will take the combined effort of universities, industry and the public, too.    Biden appointed Eric Lander — who in 2001 was the first author on a paper published in the science journal Nature that heralded human genome sequencing — to be the head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Biden elevated the post to Cabinet-level status for the first time.     “How can we address stresses on academic research labs and promote creative models for federal research support?” the president asked in his January 15 letter announcing Lander’s appointment. Some experts say that with the change in the presidential administration in the U.S., this is a moment for academia and research to review its standards, particularly given that the validity of science is sometimes questioned.  “Many Americans view scientific fact as fake news, aimed at furthering a liberal progressive agenda,” Lynn Pasquerella, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, told VOA. “Higher education, now more than ever, needs to be a visible force in the communities we seek to serve, demonstrating our relevance to the everyday concerns of people within those communities.”    Earl Lewis, professor of history, Afromerican and African studies at the University of Michigan, and founding director of the university’s Center for Social Solutions, said he addresses suspicions about higher education by asking skeptics if they prefer the doctor who finished first in their graduating class or the one who finished last.  “No one raises their hand” for the last in the class, Lewis said. “And I say, ‘So you do value education.’ Why is it that some of us who have been in higher education are viewed as part of the enemy class, rather than the class that can provide solutions to the problems that we all face?”   For Ivan Oransky, who is co-founder of the website Retraction Watch, the lack of quality scholarship in publishing research and reporting errors is part of the problem. Retractions are part of the solution, reporting information in published work “that is no longer reliable,” describing it as “the sort of nuclear option of correction in, in science or in academia, writ large, he told VOA. “How willing are researchers, journals, universities, funding agencies willing to actually correct the record and actually talk about it?” Oransky asked.    But not correcting the record leads to more mistrust of data, Oransky said, and that includes scientific journals as well as the general press that reports discoveries of mass public impact.  “When I look at a news website, I’m actually much more likely to trust them if I see corrections running,” he said. “Look at how much information is coursing through that news website. You would expect some percentage of it to just be an error, not because people tried to make a mistake, but that we’re humans, we make mistakes.  “If I’m reading a website, I see that they’ve never published a correction, I run the other way,” he said.   Rohin Francis, a British cardiologist, said that a kind of overzealousness has had a hand in the erosion of the public’s trust of scholarship and education. He calls those who may mean well but fall short of accuracy in social media posts and memes, the “Yay Science!” crowd.  “I’m a cheerleader for science myself,” he said on his Medlife Crisis YouTube channel, “but I’m fully aware of the complex way we make progress, the missteps, the human biases that are superimposed on discovery and implementation, the corruption, and just the highly erratic quality of published material. Science is a messy business.”Speaking at a video news event January 14 for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Norman Augustine, former chief executive of Lockheed Martin, called scientific research “critically important to the future quality of life in America, and to America’s position in the world.”   But “research is being badly underprioritized” in the U.S., while other nations like China are moving forward, he said.   Augustine quoted former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in China’s pursuit of technological supremacy.  “The history of modernization is in essence a history of scientific and technological progress. Scientific discovery and technological inventions have brought about new civilizations, modern industries and the rise and fall of nations. I firmly believe that science is the ultimate revolution,” Augustine said, quoting Jiabao.“China sets goals for science,” Augustine said. “Furthermore, they meet those goals. … China has already passed the U.S. in terms of the number of doctoral degrees it awards in science and engineering. Furthermore, 19% of the baccalaureate degrees awarded in America are awarded in STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics.”    “In China, over half are awarded in those fields,” he said.    The U.S., however, “certainly can compete in innovation, do our research with higher efficiency, factors like that,” he added.  
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