Month: September 2020

Amid busy construction crews racing to build an airport in Mexico, scientists are unearthing more and more mammoth skeletons in what has quickly become one of the world’s biggest concentrations of the now-extinct relative of modern elephants.More than 100 mammoth skeletons have been identified spread across nearly 200 excavation sites, along with a mix of other Ice Age mammals, in the area destined to become the Mexican capital’s new commercial airport.Lead archeologist Ruben Manzanilla explained on Tuesday that around 24,000 years ago mammoth herds reached this spot where sprawling grasslands and lakes would have enticed them to reside.”This place was like a paradise,” he told Reuters, noting that as the last glaciers melted a wide range of mammals — including ancient species of camels, horses and buffalo — lived along what would have been an extremely muddy shoreline.”Then over many years the same story repeated itself: The animals ventured too far, got trapped and couldn’t get their legs out of the muck,” said Manzanilla.Ruben Manzanilla Lopez of the National Anthropology Institute shows the skeleton of a mammoth that was discovered in the construction site of Mexico City’s new airport, Sept. 3, 2020.He speculates that most of the mammoths died this way, though he adds that there is some evidence that around 10,000 years ago early humans may have also hunted the 20-ton beasts with flint arrows and spears, or dug rudimentary shallow water pits to snare them.But the sheer amount of bones, including long, curling tusks — technically the animal’s front two teeth — have come as a shock.”We had the idea that we’d find mammoth remains, but not this many,” he said.Once the excavations are finished, Manzanilla said the site, located about 30 miles (50km) north of downtown Mexico City, could rival others in the United States and Siberia as the planet’s biggest deposit of mammoth skeletons.He noted that a museum-style mammoth exhibit is being planned for the airport’s main terminal.The series of inter-connected lakes that once covered the Valley of Mexico were deliberately drained by Spanish colonial masters beginning in the 1600s in an effort to tame annual flooding.Today, the mostly dry landscape is dominated by the working-class neighborhoods and highways that spill out from Mexico City.
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Vaping by U.S. teenagers fell dramatically this year, especially among middle schoolers, according to a federal report released Wednesday.Experts think last year’s outbreak of vaping-related illnesses and deaths may have scared off some kids, but they believe other factors contributed to the drop, including higher age limits and flavor bans.In a national survey, just under 20% of high school students and 5% of middle school students said they were recent users of electronic cigarettes and other vaping products. That’s down from a similar survey last year that found about 28% of high school students and 11% of middle school students had recently vaped.The survey suggests that the number of school kids who vape fell from 5.4 million to 3.6 million in a year, officials said.But even as teen use declined, the report shows a big bump in use of disposable e-cigarettes. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier this year barred flavors from small vaping devices like Juul and others that are mainly used by minors. The policy did not apply to disposable e-cigarettes, which can still contain sweet, candylike flavors.”As long as any flavored e-cigarettes are left on the market, kids will get their hands on them and we will not solve this crisis,” Matt Myers of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids said in a statement.CDC surveyThe national survey is conducted at schools each year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and usually involves about 20,000 middle and high school students. It asks students if they had used any vaping or traditional tobacco products in the previous month. The survey was cut short this year as schools closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.FILE- Flavored vaping solutions are shown in a window display at a vape and smoke shop in New York, Sept. 16, 2019.Federal health officials believe measures like public health media campaigns, price increases and sales restrictions deserve credit for the vaping decline. The age limit for sales is now 21.But they also acknowledge vaping-related illnesses probably played a part. The CDC’s Brian King said sales started falling in August — when national media coverage of the outbreak intensified.”It’s possible that some of the heightened awareness could have influenced decline in use,” said King.By the time the outbreak was winding down early this year, more than 2,800 illnesses and 68 deaths had been reported. Most of those who got sick said they vaped solutions containing THC, the ingredient that produces a high in marijuana. CDC officials gradually focused their investigation on black market THC cartridges, and on a chemical compound called vitamin E acetate that had been added to illicit THC vaping liquids.’Very encouraging’Kenneth Warner, a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan’s school of public health, said the teen vaping drop was larger than expected.”This does look like a very substantial decrease in a single year and it’s very encouraging,” said Warner, a tobacco control expert.Among the likely factors, Warner noted the general negative publicity surrounding vaping. Additionally, Juul preemptively pulled all its vaping flavors except menthol and tobacco last fall ahead of federal action.Warner and other researchers have tracked a recent decline in teen smoking to all-time lows — about 6% — even as vaping has increased. He said it will be critical to watch whether teen smoking begins rising again as fewer teens vape.The new figures were disclosed on the same day that all U.S. vaping manufacturers faced a long-delayed deadline to submit their products for FDA review. Generally, that means the vaping companies must show that their products help smokers reduce or quit their use of cigarettes and other tobacco products.E-cigarettes first appeared in the U.S. more than a decade ago and have grown in popularity with minimal federal regulation.
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America’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Wednesday that AstraZeneca’s suspension of final global trials of its COVID-19 experimental vaccine points to the effectiveness of the safeguards that have been incorporated into the trials.“It’s important to point out that that’s the reason why you have various phases of trials, to determine if, in fact, these candidates are safe,” Fauci said in an interview with “CBS This Morning.”“It’s really one of the safety valves you have on clinical trials such as this.”The British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant paused the trials because a volunteer participant became ill after receiving the experimental drug.“It’s unfortunate that it happened, and hopefully they’ll be able to proceed along with the remainder of the trial,” Fauci said. “But you don’t know. They need to investigate it further.”The company issued a statement Tuesday saying the pause in testing is a “routine action, which has to happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials, while it is investigated, ensuring we maintain the integrity of the trials.”AstraZeneca developed the vaccine, AZD1222, in cooperation with Britain’s University of Oxford. The vaccine is being tested in large-scale Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials in several nations, including the United States, Britain, Brazil, South Africa and India. AZD1222 is one of three COVID-19 vaccines in late-stage Phase 3 trials in the United States.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
People queue to take a COVID-19 test at a walk-in test facility in Bolton, Britain, Sept. 7, 2020.The pandemic also continues to affect ordinary activities around the globe. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to issue an order Wednesday limiting the number of people taking part in most social gatherings to six, from the current 30.The new limit, would take effect next week, as Britain is enduring a surge of nearly 3,000 new daily COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, the highest daily figure since May.And officials in Los Angeles County, California, have issued an order banning most Halloween activities, traditionally observed on Oct. 31. The banned activities include the traditional door-to-door “trick-or-treating,” when costume-clad children knock on doors to receive candy, and “trunk-or-treating,” a similar activity involving going from car to car. Indoor and outdoor events, including carnivals, festivals and “haunted houses” are also prohibited.Los Angeles County officials said nearly 250,000 coronavirus cases had been recorded there, and 6,036 people died from the disease since the start of the pandemic.
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A teacher in Nigeria is offering free mathematics classes via Twitter, WhatsApp and Instagram to help struggling students affected by the coronavirus lockdown. After almost six months, more than 1,000 students are taking her online classes, across Nigeria and even internationally. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
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Development of a COVID-19 vaccine will not be compromised by outside political considerations, U.S. health experts told lawmakers Wednesday.The nation’s top health officials said the six vaccine candidates currently in large-scale U.S. trials are expected to deliver a result that can be distributed to the most vulnerable populations — including health care workers and first responders — by the end of this year.  “We need to follow the process because the process works,” U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams told Senate lawmakers Wednesday.  Surgeon General Jerome Adams appears before a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing to discuss vaccines and protecting public health during the coronavirus pandemic on Capitol Hill, Sept. 9, 2020.President Donald Trump has made vaccine development an issue in the U.S. presidential election, suggesting his administration’s efforts to fast-track a vaccine could yield results by October. If this happened, it would be the fastest ever development of a vaccine for a novel virus.  “Under Operation Warp Speed, we’re producing a vaccine in record time. This is a vaccine that we’re going to have very soon, very, very soon. By the end of the year, but much sooner than that, perhaps. And this is something that’s incredible. This would’ve taken two or three years by the last administration, and in all fairness, by most other administrations,” Trump said Tuesday.  FILE – Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., speaks about the coronavirus during a media availability on Capitol Hill, March 3, 2020.US Drug Execs Promise COVID Vaccine Safety Before Seeking Government Approval Unusual statement by nine competing firms comes as Trump pushes for vaccine approval before Election Day “We want it to be known that also in the current situation we are not willing to compromise safety and efficacy,” said Ugur Sahin, chief executive of Pfizer’s German partner BioNTech and one of the co-signers of the pledge.  Another co-signer, AstraZeneca also said Tuesday that it had voluntarily paused late-stage trials of its vaccine due to illness in one of the study volunteers. The company noted this is not an unusual occurrence or response during vaccine development.  Pharmaceutical Giant AstraZeneca Halts COVID-19 Vaccine TrialTesting of vaccine developed with University of Oxford paused after participant develops ‘unexplained illness’The U.S. leads the world in confirmed COVID-19 deaths, with nearly 190,000. The U.S. is also home to a world-leading 6.3 million coronavirus infections, nearly one-quarter of the more than 27.3 million worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University.   Adams and Collins said the vaccine was still on track to be distributed to the American public by 2021.  
 
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British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant Astra-Zeneca has paused large-scale global trials of its COVID-19 vaccine because a volunteer participant became ill after receiving the experimental drug.   The company issued a statement Tuesday saying the pause in testing is a “routine action, which has to happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials, while it is investigated, ensuring we maintain the integrity of the trials.”AstraZeneca developed the vaccine, AZD1222, in cooperation with Britain’s University of Oxford. The vaccine is being tested in large-scale Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials in several nations, including the United States, Britain, Brazil, South Africa and India.  AZD1222 is one of three COVID-19 vaccines in late-stage Phase 3 trials in the United States.    US Drug Execs Promise COVID Vaccine Safety Before Seeking Government Approval Unusual statement by nine competing firms comes as Trump pushes for vaccine approval before Election Day The company did not disclose the nature of the participant’s illness, but The New York Times reports the volunteer, based in Britain, was diagnosed with transverse myelitis, an inflammatory syndrome that affects the spinal cord and is often sparked by viral infections.  But the Times says it is unknown whether it is directly linked to the AZD1222 vaccine.Hours before announcing the pause of its COVID-19 vaccine testing, AstraZeneca joined eight other drug makers in pledging not to seek approval from U.S. government regulators for any vaccine until all data showed it was safe and effective.   The chief executive officers of the nine companies, which include Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Moderna and Novavax, as well as those heading two joint vaccine projects, Pfizer and BioNTech, and Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline, issued a statement promising they would “only submit for approval or emergency use authorization after demonstrating safety and efficacy through a Phase 3 clinical study that is designed and conducted to meet requirements of expert regulatory authorities,” including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.The executives said they would “always make the safety and well-being of vaccinated individuals our top priority.”The unusual joint pledge was aimed at alleviating growing fears by health experts that pharmaceutical companies are under considerable political pressure to quickly develop and introduce a COVID-19 vaccine. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested that a successful vaccine could be ready before November 3, the date of the presidential election.But Moncef Slaoui, Trump’s top vaccine adviser and the co-director of the administration’s “Operation Warp Speed” initiative, which is funding many of the efforts to develop, test and manufacture a potential vaccine, told the public broadcasting organization NPR last week that it is “very unlikely” a vaccine would be authorized before Election Day.Trump, Biden Clash Over COVID-19 Vaccine Rhetoric Both presidential candidates are campaigning in battleground states this week as election race enters homestretchThe United Nations is warning that the pandemic could reverse decades of advances in reducing preventable childhood deaths.   A new report by three U.N. agencies — UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and the Population Division of the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs — and the World Bank Group says there were just over 5 million preventable deaths in 2019, compared to 12.5 million in 1990.But the report also found that 68% of respondents across 77 countries reported at least some disruption in children’s physical checkups and vaccinations.  Much of the disruption is due to parents’ fears that their children will be infected with the virus.   “The global community has come too far towards eliminating preventable child deaths to allow the COVID-19 pandemic to stop us in our tracks,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said in a news release.  “When children are denied access to health services because the system is overrun, and when women are afraid to give birth at the hospital for fear of infection, they, too, may become casualties of COVID-19,” Fore said.  COVID Vaccines Approaching Finish Line Use New Technology But crossing the finish line — getting shots in arms — won’t be easy The pandemic also continues to affect ordinary activities around the globe.  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to issue an order Wednesday limiting the number of people taking part in most social gatherings to six, from the current 30.  The new limit, would take effect next week as Britain is enduring a surge of nearly 3,000 new daily COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, the highest daily figure since May.And officials in Los Angeles County, California have issued an order banning most Halloween activities, traditionally observed on October 31.  The banned activities include the traditional door-to-door “trick-or-treating,” when costum-clad children knock on doors to receive candy, and “trunk-or-treating,” a similar activity involving going from car to car.   Indoor and outdoor events, including carnivals, festivals and “haunted houses” are also prohibited.  Los Angeles County officials said nearly 250,000 coronavirus cases had been recorded there and 6,036 people died from the disease since the start of the pandemic. 
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For the first time in Australia, teenagers have launched a class-action lawsuit on behalf of young people around the world to stop the extension of a coal mine in the state of New South Wales. Anxiety over global warming is driving this teenage campaign to stop the expansion of a coal mine near Gunnedah, 430 kilometers northwest of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales. The class-action lawsuit asserts that Australia’s Environment Minister Sussan Ley, has a legal duty to protect young people and should reject the proposal. The claimants are between the ages of 13 and 17. They argue that by burning coal, climate change will be made worse, harming their future. Rather than making the claim under environmental legislation, the case asserts the Australian government has a common law duty of care.  The high school students filed an injunction Tuesday in Australia’s Federal Court. The expansion has been approved by an independent planning commission, which ruled the project was in the public interest, but the final decision rests with federal authorities. The federal government has not commented on the lawsuit because the matter is before the courts.   Sixteen-year-old Laura Kirwan is one of the teenage plaintiffs. She told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. how she was scared about the future. “I am really worried. Like, climate anxiety, it affects me and I know many, many people that it affects. It is really, really scary to think about the future and not know whether we will have a safe time. I am involved in this case because climate change is really important and is only getting worse. I think that it is really important that the federal environment minister is aware that she should be protecting the younger generations,” Kirwan said.  Whitehaven Coal, the resources company behind the mine expansion, has said it would bring social and economic benefits to the region, including up to 450 jobs and millions of dollars in direct capital investment. It has not yet commented on the lawsuit.   Legal experts believe that, given its complexity, the case will be tough for the high school students to win. If they do, it could have huge ramifications for other new coal mines in Australia, which is one of the world’s major coal producers, selling mostly to India, China and Japan.  In 2019, coal exports were worth about $50 billion. However, the Reserve Bank of Australia has previously noted that there are “some uncertainties for the longer-term outlook for coal exports” because of the shift to renewable energy and the “pace of global economic growth.” Australia relies on cheap supplies of domestic coal to generate much of its electricity and is one of the world’s biggest per capita emitters of greenhouse gas pollution. 
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A wedding reception in Maine led to nearlyMotorcycles are parked in the audience during The Reverend Horton Heat’s performance on the Wolfman Jack Stage at Buffalo Chip during the 80th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally on Aug. 15, 2020, in Sturgis, S.D.Nearly half a million bikers rolled into the South Dakota town in early August, packing bars, tattoo parlors and concert venues. Images from the event show coronavirus precautions being widely ignored. People walk on the streets amid the global outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Austin, Texas, June 28, 2020.That is why bars and parties worry health officials. Confined indoor spaces with lots of people packed together talking loudly are perfect settings for superspreader events.  That is why two Los Angeles TikTok stars had their power cut in August and face charges for house parties that violated the city’s coronavirus emergency orders.With schools back in session, The New York Times reports more than 100 college towns are seeing increases in coronavirus cases, as students head to bars and parties. While case counts and deaths generally have been trending down in the United States, they still average around 40,000 cases per day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most experts expect infections to rise again as the weather cools. “If we go into this fall with 40,000 cases a day,” Harvard’s Mina said, “we run the risk of having uncontrollable outbreaks.”  
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A group of migrants being held at a dockside camp on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria chanted “freedom” on Tuesday as they tried to force open a police fence and the coast guard brought in more people rescued from boats on the Atlantic sea.Although sea-borne migration to Spain is down nearly 19% this year, arrivals to the Canary Islands have surged 573% to 3,933 migrants, data from Spain’s interior ministry shows.A coast guard spokeswoman said 81 North African men were rescued from three small boats and taken to the port of Arguineguin on Gran Canaria, while another 29 reached the island on their own by boat.A Spanish Red Cross spokesman said another boat with around 10 migrants had also arrived.At the crammed makeshift camp in Arguineguin, police with batons rushed to the area after a group of migrants moved a fence that encircles the camp, and made the protesters retreat without force. Some jumped the fence but were quickly told by police to go back into the camp.Migrant reception centers across the Canary Islands are stretched to capacity and around 420 people are being held at the camp, the Red Cross said. Some of them have been there for several days enduring hot temperatures, sleeping on blankets on the concrete floor, amid increasing despair.Analysts have suggested that beefed-up security in the Mediterranean is pushing more people to risk the perilous crossing to the Canaries, located around 60 miles west of Morocco.Following local politicians’ request for more help, the Spanish government said it plans to open more migrant centers on the island as the camp is meant to house migrants only for the first days, an immigration department spokeswoman said.An interior ministry source said the government had not been transferring migrants from the archipelago to mainland Spain for several years, and their deportation processes were mostly handled locally.
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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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