Day: September 8, 2020

The World Health Organization (WHO) Tuesday opened the initial meeting of an international review panel established to evaluate the performance of its International Health Regulations (IHR) during the COVID-19 pandemic.The IHR were last revised in 2005 and grew out of the response to deadly epidemics that once overran Europe. They provide a framework by which nations can respond to an international health emergency, like the COVID-19 pandemic, and they define countries’ rights and obligations in handling emergencies that have the potential to cross borders.Former WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland told reporters in June that WHO should change the IHR guidelines that led it to oppose travel restrictions early in the outbreak, a step criticized later by the United States.Last month, current WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for the formation of the review panel that is made up of independent health experts from around the world.In his opening remarks to the panel, which is meeting virtually Tuesday and Wednesday, Tedros said he was sure they were aware of “the weight of this moment in history, and of the enormous expectations of your work.”He added that the panel was uniquely equipped to meet the moment.This is the fourth time such a review committee has been established to examine the response to an international health crisis. Such a panel met in 2010 to evaluate responses to the H1N1 Influenza outbreak, in 2014 to review deadlines for implementing international regulations, and in 2016 for the West Africa Ebola outbreak.The panel may present interim findings, if they choose, at the World Health Assembly in November and will present their final report at the May 2021 World Health Assembly. 
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Deirdre Carney suspected she might have COVID-19 when her temperature began to fluctuate above the normal 37 degrees Celsius.  “It was a bit of a shock when I was diagnosed. I could not believe that I had got it. I had not mixed with that many people,” Carney, an English teacher from California living in Madrid, told VOA. In the Spanish capital, which now has about a third of Spain’s coronavirus cases, authorities have been forced to impose several restrictions to try to halt the surge in infections. Since imposing one of the most draconian lockdowns in Europe, Spain became the first Western European country to report more than 500,000 cases, health authorities said Monday. With the number of infections reaching 525,000 Tuesday, Spain has 255.9 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 35.2 in Britain, 125.2 in France and 30.6 in Italy, once one of the worst-affected European countries at the start of the pandemic. Spanish Civil Guards on a checkpoint for all residents of the small village of Alfaro, La Rioja Province, northern Spain, which has been placed in lockdown due to a coronavirus outbreak, Sept. 8, 2020.Fighting the disease in isolation, Carney said she was not contacted by case tracers — a key deficiency that experts say is part of the reason for the surge in infections. “The only people who carried out the tracing was my employer,” she said. New restrictions Madrid, a city of 6.6 million people who often live in densely populated neigborhoods, will limit social gatherings to 10 people inside or outdoors.  Many outbreaks have been linked to family gatherings or when young people get together for outdoor drinking sessions, known as botellones. Bars, restaurants, weddings and funerals will also face curbs on capacity.  A new wave of contagion has been less deadly than at the start of the pandemic, and the number of infections seems to have slowed from the daily peak of over 10,000 more than a week ago. The death rate also remains well below the peak in April when over 900 people died in one day. Nevertheless, many are asking why Spain has once again become the “Sick man of Europe.”  FILE – People wearing face masks walk along a boulevard in Barcelona, Spain, Aug. 30, 2020.Experts suggest a complex mixture of factors have conspired to bring the country back almost to square one just as 8 million children return to school and Spaniards head back to work. “We had a very strict lockdown then relaxed this too quickly in a country with a high propensity to socialize and for family networks to stay very close,” Ildefonso Hernández, a professor of public health at the University Miguel Hernández near Alicante in southeast Spain, told VOA in an interview. “The picture is not homogeneous, but some regions also failed to employ enough case tracers when outbreaks started. It also has to be said that the number of tests being carried out has increased dramatically since March and April, so we are seeing more positive diagnoses,” he said.  Hernández also said part of the blame lay with regional authorities’ responses to migrant fruit pickers who travel around the country getting work where there are harvests. Many are forced to live in cramped conditions in which social distancing is difficult, if not impossible. “Some authorities, in Catalonia and Aragon, failed to provide adequate accommodation for these people,” Hernandez said. FILE – Francisco Espana, 60, faces the Mediterranean from a promenade next to a hospital in Barcelona, Spain, Sept. 4, 2020. He spent 52 days in intensive care at the hospital, but was allowed by his doctors to spend 10 minutes outdoors for recovery.Worrying situation In Madrid, the number of hospital beds occupied with COVID-19 cases is approximately 18%, compared with the national average of 7%. “The situation in Madrid is worrying. The number of COVID-19 cases is putting pressure on the ability of some hospitals to carry out other operations,” Hernández said. Analysts also point to weaknesses in Spain’s system of governance as a factor. Spain is one of the most decentralized states in Europe, with responsibility for health care and education farmed out to the 17 regional governments. “At the start of the pandemic, the central government took control over the management of the crisis from the regions. Apart from ideological differences with the central government, some regional pride was peaked,” Miguel Otero-Iglesias, an economist at the Elcano Royal Institute, a think tank in Madrid, told VOA. “At the same time, the regions look to the center for leadership. Spain does not have a proper central government, and it does not have a federal state.” In order to improve infection tracing, Spain has called in the army, deploying 2,000 specialized soldiers to help regional authorities. Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa sought to calm fears. “The situation now is nothing like it was in March or April in terms of pressure on hospital beds or intensive care units,” he told reporters at a press conference. 
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Many robots are being developed and used these days to maximize speed so factories can efficiently make more products.  One robot developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology is celebrated for how slow it is.  It’s called a SlothBot and visitors can see it working at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.  VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.Camera: Carlos Andres Cuervo
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China’s foreign minister announced Tuesday the start of a global data security initiative, outlining principles that should be followed in areas ranging from personal information to espionage.Wang Yi announced the initiative in a video as part of conference on international cooperation. The initiative comes as the U.S. continues to put pressure on China’s largest technology companies and tries to convince countries around the world to block them.  China’s initiative has eight key points including not using technology to impair other countries’ critical infrastructure or steal data and making sure service providers don’t install backdoors in their products and illegally obtain user data.Wang, speaking in Beijing, also said the initiative seeks an end to activities that “infringe upon personal information” and opposes using technology to conduct mass surveillance against other states.The initiative says companies should also respect the laws of host countries and stop coercing domestic firms to store data generated overseas in their own territory.  U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last month unveiled the “Clean Network” program, saying it is aimed at protecting citizen privacy and sensitive information from “malign actors, such as the Chinese Communist Party.”  Many points of the initiative appear to address some of those accusations.  In an apparent reference to Pompeo’s comments, Zhao said,” China has always been broad and level, open and cooperative. If all countries, especially those intentionally smearing and slandering China with wild allegations, could make such a promise like China, it will be beneficial to the mutual trust and cooperation on digital security issues among all countries.”The U.S. has accused China’s technology companies of posing national security threats by collecting user data and sending it back to Beijing. Companies, including Huawei and ByteDance, have denied those allegations.It is unclear if any other countries have signed on to China’s initiative and how it will be implemented and policed. 
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The Lost Summer of 2020 drew to a close Monday with many big Labor Day gatherings canceled across the U.S. and health authorities pleading with people to keep their distance from others so as not to cause another coronavirus surge like the one that followed Memorial Day.
Downtown Atlanta was quiet as the 85,000 or so people who come dressed as their favorite superheroes or sci-fi characters for the annual Dragon Con convention met online instead. Huge football stadiums at places like Ohio State and the University of Texas sat empty. Many Labor Day parades marking the unofficial end of summer were called off, and masks were usually required at the few that went on.
“Please, please do not make the same mistakes we all made on Memorial Day weekend. Wear your masks, watch your distance and wash your hands,” said Dr. Raul Pino, state health director in Orange County, Florida, which includes the Orlando area.A few people are seen on the beach on the first day of a record heat wave, amid the global outbreak of coronavirus disease, in Hermosa Beach, near Los Angeles, Calif., Sept. 4, 2020.The U.S. had about 1.6 million confirmed COVID-19 cases  around Memorial Day, before backyard parties and other gatherings contributed to a summertime surge. It now has more than 6.2 million cases, according to the count kept by Johns Hopkins University. Deaths from the virus more than doubled over the summer to nearly 190,000.
In New Orleans, which had one of the largest outbreaks outside of New York City this spring, city officials reminded residents that COVID-19 doesn’t take a holiday after they received 36 calls about large gatherings and 46 calls about businesses not following safety rules on Friday and Saturday.
“This is not who we are, and this is not how we — as a community — get back to where we want to be,” the city said.
In South Carolina, which was a hot spot of contagion over the summer before cases started to decline in early August, 8,000 fans, including Gov. Henry McMaster, were allowed to attend the NASCAR race at the Darlington Raceway on Sunday. State officials approved a socially distant attendance plan at the track, which can hold 47,000 people.
It was the biggest gathering in the state since the outbreak started six months ago. Many rows and seats were kept empty to keep groups of fans apart, and people were asked to wear masks.
Debbie Katsanos drove down from New Hampshire with her husband, her father and a friend. It was their first trip out of state since COVID-19 started spreading. They had time off because the Labor Day weekend fair where they typically sell concessions canceled this year.
Katsanos said they wore masks at all times when they were away from their motor home, ate in a restaurant only once on the way down and tried to stay socially distant when visiting with other people at their campground.
“It’s probably our only chance to get somewhere before the summer ends, ” Katsanos said Monday as she sat in traffic on Interstate 95 in North Carolina on the long trip home. “I saw it as the turning of the corner. We survived this. Let’s live life a little.”
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Many robots are being developed and used these days to maximize speed so factories can efficiently make more products.  One robot developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology is celebrated for how slow it is.  It’s called a SlothBot and visitors can see it working at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.  VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.VIDEOGRAPHER: Carlos Andres Cuervo, Georgia Institute of Technology
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Spain has become the first nation in Western Europe to exceed a half-million COVID-19 total infections, as the total number of cases around the world surged to 27.3 million, including 893,000 deaths.Data from Spain’s Health Ministry showed a total of 525,549 cases as of Tuesday, including 29,516 deaths.  In comparison, France has recorded 367,174 total infections and 30,732 deaths, while Britain has 352,451 total cases, including 41,643 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracking project.    Social culture
Spain imposed one of the world’s strictest lockdowns at the pandemic’s peak back in March, when the country’s hospitals were overwhelmed with new coronavirus patients and the number of fatalities exceeded more than 800 on a daily basis. The outbreak eventually was brought under control, but the number of new infections has steadily risen since the country began relaxing restrictions in July.  Some experts believe the rising COVID-19 infections are due to the country’s highly social culture, while others blame the recent surge on a lack of widespread contact tracing and a premature exit from lockdown.  FILE – Visitors wearing masks to avoid the spread of COVID-19 fill out a form which is mandatory to get into a hospital in Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 26, 2020.South Korea
In South Korea, thousands of physician trainees returned to work Tuesday after a nearly three-week walkout that has complicated the nation’s efforts to contain a new wave in COVID-19 infections.The trainees went on strike on August 21 to protest the government’s medical reform scheme, which called for increasing the number of medical school students and opening new public medical schools.  The walkout caused delays at major hospitals where new and resident doctors play a crucial role in emergency rooms and intensive care units.  South Korea has posted daily new COVID-19 infections in the hundreds since mid-August, averaging well over 300 a day at one point, but have fallen below 200 for the sixth consecutive day Tuesday.People wearing face masks walk on Jinli Ancient Street, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Chengdu, Sichuan province, China, Sept. 8, 2020.In China, cause for celebration
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping is praising the country’s response to the pandemic, which was first detected late last year in the central city of Wuhan.Speaking during a ceremony in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People Tuesday honoring four officials for their contributions during the outbreak, President Xi said China acted quickly to combat the virus in “an open, transparent, and responsible manner,” contradicting accusations by the United States and other Western nations that Beijing either downplayed or possibly covered-up the severity of the virus until it was too late and had spread beyond China’s borders.
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In April, during the height of the coronavirus lockdown, Trump administration health experts hailed a test that would confirm if someone had already had the virus and therefore couldn’t get sick again. The antibody test would show who might have “the wonderful, beautiful immunity,” President Donald Trump said was needed to get the nation working again. Months later, the tests exist but haven’t fulfilled their promise of allowing Americans to reclaim their lives, said Dr. Jennifer Rakeman of New York City’s Public Health Laboratory. In fighting off the virus, the body makes antibodies, which the tests measure. Unfortunately, scientists are still figuring out how well and for how long antibodies provide the immunity that protects against another infection by the coronavirus.  An Indian girl cries as a medical worker collects her swab sample for a COVID-19 test at a rural health center in Bagli, outskirts of Dharmsala, India, Sept. 7, 2020.In truth, “there’s no easy path to this knowledge” about immunity, Marc Jenkins of the University of Minnesota said. Long-term human or animal studies are usually needed to reach answers about immunity. Much of that work is done by the National Institutes of Health and universities, but they are occupied developing a vaccine against the coronavirus. Until more is known, antibody tests should not be used to determine when it is safe to return to work or school, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association. But the tests are useful in large studies to see how widely the coronavirus has spread and to screen people who have recovered and could donate their blood plasma for use as a treatment for those in the throes of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. WHO: Learn from pandemicEarlier Monday the World Health Organization (WHO) said that countries that built up their health care systems in recent years fared better amid the COVID-19 pandemic. People pack the Ipanema beach amid the new coronavirus pandemic in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sept.6, 2020.As of Monday, the United States leads the world with about 6.3 million confirmed cases and more than 189,000 deaths, according to the A nurse prepares an injection for a COVID-19 patient in the ICU of the National Hospital in Itagua, Paraguay, Sept. 7, 2020.The other vaccine is a joint project between AstraZeneca and Oxford University currently in late-stage trials. Morrison said Monday that CSL will manufacture that vaccine as well for distribution in Australia, and that he expects 3.8 million doses to be available in January or February 2021. Israel is beginning partial nighttime lockdowns in 40 cities and towns with the country’s highest infection rates. Schools in those areas will also be closed, and gatherings will be limited to 10 people inside and 20 outdoors. “I know that these restrictions are not easy but in the current situation there is no avoiding them,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. 
 
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Researchers in Australia say they have developed a technique to make coal-fired power plants run without coal. They say new thermal energy storage blocks can heat water, which, in turn, produces steam to power turbines using existing power station infrastructure. Researchers at the University of Newcastle in New South Wales say their thermal blocks would allow coal-fired power stations to run coal-free, delivering clean, renewable electricity.   The bricks are made of graphite and metals, including zinc and aluminum, plus other undisclosed materials.   The Australian team says they store energy from solar and wind farms in the form of heat, which can make steam to run electricity-generating turbines.   The aim is to fit the technology to existing power stations where, instead of burning coal, the blocks would generate power without pollution.     Professor of engineering at Australia’s University of Newcastle Erich Kisi says the technology would allow coal-fired stations to phase out the use of the fossil fuel. “As coal burning is reduced, storage of renewable as thermal energy is ramped up.  The final thermal energy storage volume is comparable in size to the existing boiler houses, and that these massive power stations were themselves built with six or seven decade-old technology, I do not think we should baulk at the challenge of renewing their vitality with 21st century technology,” Kisi said.  Engineers believe the Australian-made blocks could be used in combination with other energy storage options, such as lithium batteries and hydroelectricity, to provide reliable power.    The university team says its graphite and metal invention has been proven in the laboratory.   In 2019, it set up the company MGA Thermal, which aims to sell the technology. In partnership with a Swiss company, a full-scale trial of the bricks at a modified power plant is expected to start next year.  Like any new technology, the blocks’ inventors concede they must be financially viable before they could be expected for wide use in commercial projects. Australia is one of the world’s worst per capita emitters of greenhouse gases. That’s in large part because of its reliance on cheap supplies of domestic coal to generate its electricity.   
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