Day: December 14, 2020

The United States surpassed 300,000 recorded deaths from COVID-19 Monday — the same day the first American was vaccinated against the coronavirus that causes the disease. The grim number comes about two weeks after millions of Americans defied warnings to avoid travel and gathered with family members for the Thanksgiving holiday. According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, by Monday afternoon 300,267 Americans have died of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The U.S. makes up nearly 1-in-5 deaths worldwide from COVID-19. The medical staff listens during a news conference at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center in Los Angeles, Dec. 14, 2020.While it took four months for the first 100,000 Americans to succumb to the virus, some public health experts forecast another 100,000 deaths before the end of January. Similar surges are being recorded around the world, as a number of European countries enter a second round of lockdowns, even as front-line health care workers begin to receive vaccines against the virus. In EuropeGermany is heading for a second lockdown starting Wednesday amid rising coronavirus infections. The government is urging citizens to avoid Christmas shopping in the two days before most stores close and social distancing rules tighten.  People queue in front of a shop, as the coronavirus disease outbreak continues, in Frankfurt, Germany, Dec. 14, 2020.According to Johns Hopkins, as of Monday afternoon, Germany had recorded more than 1,356,650 confirmed cases and more than 22,300 deaths. Italy has overtaken Britain as the European country with the most COVID-19 deaths, according to data collected by JHU. Monday afternoon, Italy had more than 65,000 deaths, while Britain had 64,500. Prime Minister Micheal Martin of Ireland said Monday that some COVID-19 restrictions may be reimposed in January, after top health officials said infection cases may rise again after many sectors of the economy reopened in the past two weeks. In AsiaIn Asia, South Korean health authorities said 150 virus testing centers will be opened in phases in the capital area, adding to more than 210 existing sites.  The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said the country registered 718 new cases Monday, but the additional cases marked a drop from the more than 1,000 reported Sunday. South Korea has seen relatively low total infections and deaths at 43,484 and 587 respectively as of Monday afternoon.  A medical staff member wearing protective gear takes a swab from a woman to test for the COVID-19 coronavirus at a temporary testing station outside Seoul station in Seoul, Dec. 14, 2020.In Singapore, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Monday that the use of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine has been approved, with the first shots to be delivered by the end of this month. New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Monday that her country has agreed to allow quarantine-free travel from Australia in the first quarter of next year. Australia is already allowing New Zealanders to skip a two-week quarantine required of travelers from other countries.  
 
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Pressure is growing on the European Union to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine after regulators in Britain, the United States and Canada gave the green light in recent days. Coronavirus cases are soaring across the continent, with extended lockdowns announced in Germany and the Netherlands. Henry Ridgwell reports.
Camera: Henry Ridgwell 
 
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A narrow 96-kilometer-wide corridor from the Pacific Coast in Chile across the Andes mountain range and into Argentina in South America was treated Monday to views of the final total solar eclipse of 2020. A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, casting a shadow that momentarily extinguishes daylight on Earth. Magdalena Nahuelpan, a Mapuche Indigenous girl, looks at a total solar eclipse using special glasses in Carahue, La Araucania, Chile, Dec. 14, 2020.Despite COVID-19 restrictions on travel and movement, thousands of tourists and residents gathered in Chile’s south-central Araucania region, about 800 kilometers south of the capital, Santiago. While heavy rain and clouds obscured the sun itself, the region was nonetheless plunged into darkness for about two minutes and eight seconds.  The Chilean health ministry issued protective eyewear for safe viewing of the eclipse, along with face masks and sanitizer to keep people safe from COVID-19. The weather was better in Argentina, though the path of the eclipse there went through sparsely populated areas of the Patagonia Desert.  The next total solar eclipse will occur over Antarctica on December 4, 2021.  
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The Philippines aims to finalize negotiations with Sinovac Biotech this week to acquire 25 million doses of the Chinese company’s COVID-19 vaccine for delivery by March, a coronavirus taskforce official said on Monday.President Rodrigo Duterte, who has pursued warmer ties with Beijing, wants to inoculate all his country’s 108 million people, preferably buying vaccines from Russia or China.Philippine officials had met with Sinovac representatives on Friday and there would be another meeting this week to finalize a deal, Carlito Galvez, the country’s vaccine chief, said.”We have already conveyed to them our needs, 25 million for 2021,” Galvez told a news conference, adding that vaccine distribution was targeted for March.Sinovac’s plan to conduct Phase 3 clinical trial in the Philippines is being evaluated by the country’s drugs agency. Trials are taking place in Indonesia and Brazil.Philippine companies last month signed a deal for 2.6 million shots of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca, the Southeast Asian nation’s first supply deal for a coronavirus vaccine, for delivery in May or June.Harry Roque, Duterte’s spokesman, told the news conference for people who were waiting on Western vaccine brands, “the Chinese brand will come earlier.”Since taking office in 2016, Duterte has set aside a territorial spat in the South China Sea in exchange for billions of dollars of pledged Chinese aid, loans and investment.But mistrust of China, including of its vaccines, remains widespread in the Philippines, according to an opinion survey conducted in July.The Philippines’ $370 billion economy, among Asia’s fastest growing before the pandemic, fell deeper into recession in the third quarter as broad curbs aimed at controlling the virus battered the economy.With nearly 451,000 COVID-19 infections and more than 8,800 deaths, the Philippines has the second-highest number of cases and fatalities in Southeast Asia, next to Indonesia. 
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After nearly an hour of widespread global outages of Google services, most users were again able to access their Gmail, Google Drive and YouTube accounts Monday morning.
 
“Update — We’re back up and running! You should be able to access YouTube again and enjoy videos as normal,” YouTube tweeted once service was restored.
 
Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., has not said what caused the outage.
 
Some users of Google Home Services, which can control lighting and other smart devices, reported outages, as well.
 
“I’m sitting here in the dark in my toddler’s room because the light is controlled by @Google Home. Rethinking … a lot right now,” tweeted one user.I’m sitting here in the dark in my toddler’s room because the light is controlled by @Google Home. Rethinking… a lot right now.— Joe Brown (@joemfbrown) December 14, 2020 
According to Bloomberg, Google search and advertisements were not affected by the down time.
 
While outages among Big Tech companies are not uncommon, this outage was notable because it impacted so many different Google products, Bloomberg reported. 
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Daily records continue to tumble for COVID-19 cases and deaths in many parts of the world, forcing governments to impose restrictions or consider lockdowns to halt the spread of the coronavirus.    In Europe, Germany is heading for a second lockdown starting on Wednesday amid rising coronavirus infections. The government in urging citizens to avoid Christmas shopping in the two days before most stores close and social distancing rules tighten. A person wearing protective mask lights a candle on a vigil organised by activist-group #wirgebendenToteneinGesicht (We give a face to the dead) to commemorate the people who died due to COVID-19 in Berlin, Germany, Dec. 13, 2020.According to Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center (JHU), as of Monday morning, Germany had recorded over 1,350,800 confirmed cases and more than 22,080 deaths.   Italy has overtaken Britain as the European country with the most COVID-19 deaths, according to data collected by JHU. Monday morning Italy had 64,520 deaths, while Britain 64,267. A nurse tends to a patient inside a COVID-19 intensive care unit of the Tor Vergata Polyclinic Hospital in Rome, Italy, Dec. 13, 2020.Prime Minister Micheal Martin of Ireland said on Monday that some COVID-19 restrictions may be reimposed in January, after top health officials said infection cases may rise again after many sectors of the economy reopened in recent two weeks.   In Asia, South Korean health authorities said 150 virus testing centers will be opened in phases in the capital area, adding to more than 210 existing sites.    The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said the country registered 718 new cases Monday, but the additional cases marked a drop from over 1,000 reported on Sunday. South Korea has seen relatively low total infections and deaths at 43,480 and 587 respectively as of Monday.  In Singapore, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Monday that use of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine has been approved with the first shots to be deliveres by the end of this month. New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Monday that her country has agreed to allow quarantine-free travel from Australia in the first quarter of next year. Australia is already allowing New Zealanders to skip a two-week quarantine required of travelers from other countries.       In the U.S. last week, California recorded more than 25,000 new infections in one day.  “Lives will be lost unless we do more than we’ve ever done,” Governor Gavin Newsom said.     People wait in line to be tested at an outdoor COVID-19 testing site in the North Hollywood section of Los Angeles, California, Dec. 5, 2020.Overall, more than 16 million people in the U.S. have contracted the disease, while nearly 300,000 have died.       FILE – A nurse prepares to administer the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Guy’s Hospital in London, Britain, Dec. 8, 2020. (Frank Augstein/Pool via Reuters)Across the United States, the first doses of coronavirus vaccine are arriving at regional hubs Monday after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine made by U.S. drug maker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech for emergency use.   
   
Mexico also approved the emergency use of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine late Friday, bringing to six the number of countries that are using or plan to use it.      Britain, Bahrain, Canada and Saudi Arabia have also approved the vaccine.      Brazil is steadily approaching 7 million COVID-19 cases and has recorded more than 181,000 deaths.       Last week, Brazil’s health minister vowed to vaccinate the entire country during the course of next year.    
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Trump administration officials are expected to say this week whether the monarch butterfly, a colorful and familiar backyard visitor now caught in a global extinction crisis, should receive federal designation as a threatened species. Stepped-up use of farm herbicides, climate change and destruction of milkweed plants on which they depend have caused a massive decline of the orange-and-black butterflies, which long have flitted over meadows, gardens and wetlands across the U.S. The drop-off that started in the mid-1990s has spurred a preservation campaign involving schoolchildren, homeowners and landowners, conservation groups, governments and businesses. Some contend those efforts are enough to save the monarch without federal regulation. But environmental groups say protection under the Endangered Species Act is essential — particularly for populations in the West, where last year fewer than 30,000 remained of the millions that spent winters in California’s coastal groves during the 1980s. This year’s count, though not yet official, is expected to show only about 2,000 there, said Sarina Jepsen, director of the endangered species program at the Xerces Society conservation group. “We may be witnessing the collapse of the of the monarch population in the West,” Jepsen said. Scientists separately estimate up to an 80% monarch decline since the mid-1990s in the eastern U.S., although numbers there have shown a recent uptick. FILE – Monarch butterflies fly between trees at the Sierra Chincua butterfly sanctuary on a mountain in the Mexican state of Michoacan, Mexico, Nov. 29, 2019.The Trump administration has rolled back protections for endangered and threatened species in its push for deregulation, even as the United Nations says 1 million species — one of every eight on Earth — face extinction because of climate change, development and other human causes. Under a court agreement, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must respond by Tuesday to a 2014 petition from conservation groups on behalf of the monarch. The agency could propose or decline to list the butterfly as threatened, which means likely to become in danger of extinction within the foreseeable future throughout all or much of its range. Or it could find that a such listing is deserved but other species have a higher priority, which might delay action indefinitely. A recommendation to designate the butterfly as threatened would be followed by a yearlong period to take public comment and reach a final decision. Listing it “would guarantee that the monarch would get a comprehensive recovery plan and ongoing funding,” said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The monarch is so threatened that this is the only prudent thing to do.” If the status is granted, federal agencies would have to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service about potential harm to monarchs from actions proposed for government funding or permitting, such as expanding interstate highways. The service would prescribe other measures in a regulation tailored specifically for the butterfly. Orley “Chip” Taylor, an insect ecologist at the University of Kansas, agreed the butterfly’s long-term prognosis is grim but said he opposes a federal listing for now, fearing it would sour many rural residents on helping the monarch. “There’s a palpable fear of regulation out there,” he said, adding that voluntary measures should be given additional time. Monarchs in southern Canada and the eastern U.S. migrate by the millions to mountainous areas of Mexico each winter, while those west of the continental divide head to coastal California. They congregate so thickly in forests that scientists can estimate their numbers through aerial inspections of trees with an orange hue. Worsening droughts are reducing the number that survive the journey south for winter, Taylor said, while rising temperatures prompt the butterflies to leave their wintering grounds too soon, damaging reproduction. As the forests dry out, wildfire risk worsens. If habitat losses and climate change aren’t slowed, “we aren’t going to have a monarch migration in 30 years,” Taylor said. Environmental groups say 67 million hectares of monarch habitat — an area the size of Texas — have been lost in the past 20 years to development or herbicide applications in cropland.  Twenty-five years ago, the 6-year-old son of a chemist named Jim Edward just happened to catch a monarch tagged by Oberhauser’s researchers, when the butterfly wandered into Edward’s yard in Minnesota. Since then, captivated by the butterfly and its complex migration over generations, Edward has raised monarchs to tell and show hundreds of school groups about the unending migrations. “Just the exposure of kids to that, that don’t necessarily get to see” wildlife otherwise, he said. “Their enthusiasm, their joy, their ‘oh, wowness’ — to see that.” Some enthusiasts fear they could no longer harvest eggs and raise monarchs if the species gains federal protections. Curry said her group has recommended that careful, small-scale, noncommercial raising be allowed. Sheila Naylor, a substitute teacher near Sedalia, Mo., says the chance discovery of a milkweed plant in her yard five years ago inspired a quest to grow the monarch’s host plant in every available inch of yard and roadside. She visits the Missouri state fair, schools and elder care homes, pleading the case for preserving monarch and other native butterflies. “I push myself,” Naylor said, “because the butterflies keep me going.” 
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Daily records continue to tumble for COVID-19 cases and deaths in many parts of the world, forcing governments to impose restrictions or consider lockdowns to halt the spread of the coronavirus.In Europe, Germany is heading for a second lockdown starting on Wednesday amid rising coronavirus infections. According to Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center (JHU), as of Monday morning, Germany had recorded over 1,350,800 confirmed cases and more than 22,080 deaths.Italy has overtaken Britain as the European country with the most COVID-19 deaths, according to data collected by JHU. Monday morning Italy had 64,520 deaths, while Britain 64,267. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
Pharmacy supervisor Kevin Weissman wears a thick glove as he opens the door of a special freezer that will hold the Pfizer vaccine at LAC USC Medical Center, during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease, in Los Angeles, California, Dec. 10. 2020.Overall, more than 16 million people in the U.S. have contracted the disease, while nearly 300,000 have died. Across the United States, the first doses of coronavirus vaccine are arriving at regional hubs Monday after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine made by U.S. drug maker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech for emergency use. 
 
Mexico also approved the emergency use of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine late Friday, bringing to six the number of countries that are using or plan to use it. Britain, Bahrain, Canada and Saudi Arabia have also approved the vaccine.   Brazil is steadily approaching 7 million COVID-19 cases and has recorded more than 181,000 deaths.  Last week, Brazil’s health minister vowed to vaccinate the entire country during the course of next year.
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