As a major showcase for the latest innovations in consumer technology, the Consumer Electronics Show typically draws over 170,000 attendees from all over the world. But this year, it’s going all digital for the first time in its history. VOA’s Tina Trinh reports.
Produced by: Tina Trinh
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Day: January 8, 2021
A United Nations global survey reveals a world of unprecedented division, polarization and discord. The report, a year-long consultation to mark the U.N.’s 75th anniversary, surveyed more than 1.5 million people in 193 countries about their hopes, fears, and expectations for the future.The survey paints a picture of a generally fragmented world, but it also finds much of the world united in regard to post-COVID recovery priorities.Assistant Secretary-General Fabrizio Hochschild said most people surveyed are united in wanting much better access to affordable health care, education and access to water and sanitation.“And second, and related is the world seeks much greater solidarity, much greater solidarity with the hardest-hit communities, much greater solidarity with the hardest-hit places,” Hochschild said. “And, related to that, an economic model that it does not just boost inequalities, which is the scourge of our time … People are calling for an economy, an economic model that is more inclusive.”On longer term priorities, Hochschild said environmental degradation and climate change were flagged by respondents as their biggest concerns for the future. Other concerns, he said, include conflict and violence, as well as corruption linked to poverty and employment.He said he was struck by differences in levels of optimism among survey respondents.“Perhaps paradoxically, in countries that are the poorest, sub-Saharan Africa, in countries that are the hardest hit by conflict, levels of optimism about the future are the highest,” Hochschild said. “And, in the most developed countries, levels of optimism of what the future will look like are lower.”The report finds 97% of respondents believe international cooperation is important for addressing global challenges. Many respondents, the survey said, look to the United Nations to lead in addressing immediate and longer-term global challenges in a more inclusive, accountable and effective way.
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With in-person coaching off the table because of the COVID pandemic, hundreds of companies nationwide are using virtual reality training to help employees master some essential skills. Maxim Moskalkov has the story.Camera: Aleksandr Bergan
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2020 has tied 2016 as the hottest year on record, the European Union’s climate monitoring service said Friday, keeping Earth on a global warming fast track that could devastate large swathes of humanity.The six years since 2015 are the six warmest ever registered, as are 20 of the last 21, evidence of a persistent and deepening trend, the Copernicus Climate Change Service reported.”2020 stands out for its exceptional warmth,” said C3S director Carlo Buontempo, of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.”This is yet another reminder of the urgency of ambitious emissions reductions to prevent adverse climate impacts in the future.”
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Health professionals and other scientists are concerned that the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday may also have been a COVID-19 superspreader event.The shouting mob that invaded the building was largely unmasked and not observing social distancing as they went through the halls of Congress and entered some lawmakers’ offices.Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, told The New York Times that, “People yelling and screaming, chanting, exerting themselves — all of those things provide opportunity for the virus to spread, and this virus takes those opportunities.”John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said the virus killed a record 4,085 people in the U.S. on Thursday.Infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci told National Public Radio in an interview Thursday that he believes “things will get worse as we get into January.” A result, he said, of “the holiday season travel and the congregate settings that usually take place socially during that period of time.”Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 10 MB480p | 14 MB540p | 18 MB720p | 41 MB1080p | 79 MBOriginal | 234 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioFauci also said that he believed that tide could be turned “if we really accelerate our public health measures during that period of time, we’ll be able to blunt that acceleration. But that’s going to really require people concentrating very, very intensively on doing the kinds of public health measures that we talk about all the time,” such as wearing masks, social distancing and being inoculated with the coronavirus vaccine.Fauci said he is hopeful that when President-elect Joe Biden is in office, the U.S. will be able to deliver to the U.S. public “1 million vaccinations per day, as the president-elect has mentioned.”The U.S. has more COVID-19 cases than anyplace else in the world — 21.5 million of the globe’s more than 88 million infections, roughly one-fourth of the world’s cases.The figures come as nearly 6 million Americans have been vaccinated against the disease.The U.S. has also suffered more COVID-19 deaths than any other country – more than 365,208 of the world’s nearly 2 million COVID-19 deaths.Britain announced mandatory COVID-19 tests Thursday for all international arrivals to the country.Brazil surpassed 200,000 deaths from COVID-19 on Thursday, making it the country with the second-highest death toll in the world.The Australian city of Brisbane began a three-day lockdown Friday night after a member of a hotel’s quarantine cleaning staff was found to have the highly contagious British mutation of the coronavirus.”Doing three days now could avoid doing 30 days in the future,” Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said Friday morning when she announced the move.The Sydney Morning Herald reports authorities are tracing the woman’s movements around the city. She is reported to be the first local person to have contracted the virus variant that has been reported in several people in hotel quarantine.Johns Hopkins reports that Australia has more than 28,500 COVID cases. Canada moved Thursday to keep elementary schools in the province of Ontario closed until at least Jan. 25. Ontario officials said that the positivity rate among children under 13 was as high as 20%.Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has declared a state of emergency for Tokyo and three surrounding prefectures in response to a surge of new coronavirus cases in the capital city.The decree lasts until Feb. 7. Residents in Tokyo, China, Kanagawa and Saitama prefectures are encouraged to stay home after 8 p.m., and restaurants and bars are also encouraged to close at the same time.
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The number of people who have been infected with COVID-19 in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus was first identified, could be around three times the official figure, according to a study by Chinese researchers based in the city.The paper, published by the PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases journal on Thursday, analyzed blood samples from more than 60,000 healthy individuals taken from locations across China from March to May 2020.It found that 1.68% of those from Wuhan contained antibodies for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, compared to 0.59% in surrounding Hubei province and 0.38% in the rest of China.With the city’s total population at more than 10 million, the researchers estimated that as many as 168,000 Wuhan residents were infected with the virus, compared to the official number of 50,340 hospitalized cases.The study suggested at least two thirds of the total number were asymptomatic, and thousands could have been infected after the “elimination” of clinical cases, raising the possibility the virus could exist in a community for a long period without causing hospitalizations.A separate study published by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) late last month put the “seroprevalence” rate in Wuhan, the percentage of the population with antibodies, even higher at 4.43%, implying that around half a million people in the city could have been infected.COVID-19 was identified in Wuhan at the end of 2019, with the first outbreak associated with a seafood market in the city.China finally locked down Wuhan and other cities in Hubei province on Jan. 23, 2020, but critics say it should have acted sooner.China has dismissed criticism of its early handling of the virus, and officials now point to overseas studies suggesting it was circulating in Europe several months before the Wuhan outbreak.A 10-strong team from the World Health Organization was due to arrive in China this week to investigate the origins of COVID-19, but they have yet to be been given authorization to enter the country.Total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases to date in mainland China now stands at 87,331, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.
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