Month: January 2021

The U.S. is increasing efforts to track the several coronavirus variants emerging as the virus continues to spread throughout the world, a health official said Sunday. The plan is to monitor “the impact of these variants on vaccines, as well as on our therapeutics,” as the virus continues to mutate while it spreads, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We are now scaling up both our surveillance of these and our study of these,” Walensky said during a Fox News Sunday interview. She said the CDC was collaborating with the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, as well as the Pentagon, in tracking the coronavirus mutations. The news comes as the world is on the verge of reaching 100 million COVID-19 infections, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. More than 2 million people have died from the virus.A sign reading ‘COVID-19 High-Risk Area’ is posted on a downtown sidewalk amid a surge in coronavirus infections on January 22, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.”We’re in a race against these variants,” said Vivek Murthy, who has been nominated by President Joe Biden to become the next U.S. surgeon general, on ABC’s “This Week” program Sunday. Walensky took the helm at the CDC last Wednesday, as Biden was inaugurated. The recent emergence of several coronavirus variants, which have shown to be more transmissible — and in the case of a strain first identified in Britain, possibly more lethal — has made vaccinations a top issue for health officials.  Walensky said that until enough people have been vaccinated, providing “herd” immunity, mask-wearing and social distancing will need to remain in place to “decrease the amount of virus that is circulating, and therefore, decrease the amount of variants that are out there,” the CDC chief said.   Scientists said last week that while the British variant was associated with a higher level of mortality, it was believed that existing vaccines were still effective against it. However, a more contagious South African variant may reduce the efficacy of current vaccines, scientists said. Meanwhile, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador became the most recent world leader to announce that he had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. “I regret to inform you that I am infected with COVID-19. The symptoms are mild, but I am already undergoing medical treatment,” the 67-year-old wrote on Twitter Sunday.Lamento informarles que estoy contagiado de COVID-19. Los síntomas son leves pero ya estoy en tratamiento médico. Como siempre, soy optimista. Saldremos adelante todos. Me representará la Dra. Olga Sánchez Cordero en las mañaneras para informar como lo hacemos todos los días.— Andrés Manuel (@lopezobrador_) A medical assistant vaccinates a resident of a nursing home with an injection of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the nursing home for seniors, in Froendenberg, western Germany, Jan. 22, 2021.New Zealand health officials confirmed Monday that they are investigating its first domestic case of COVID-19 since mid-November. The positive case is a 56-year-old woman who has become infected with the South African variant. She returned to New Zealand December 30 and probably became infected by a fellow returnee in a quarantine facility, an official said.  COVID-19 response minister Chris Hipkins said officials are looking at whether the coronavirus could have spread through the quarantine facilities’ ventilation and air conditioning systems. Authorities said the woman’s husband has tested negative. With a tough lockdown, New Zealand had nearly eliminated the coronavirus, with new cases found among travelers returning home and quarantining. As of Sunday, there were 79 such cases. The new variants from Britain and South Africa, however, have been found among those cases, raising concerns of community spread returning. New Zealand does not expect to have most of its population vaccinated against the coronavirus until the second half of this year. 
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Honeybees in Bolivia’s mountains are in trouble. Their natural habitat is disappearing, being replaced by an environment they cannot call home. One couple in one of the country’s forest regions is fighting to save them. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports.
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The unrelenting increase in COVID-19 infections in Spain following the holiday season is again straining hospitals, threatening the mental health of doctors and nurses who have been at the forefront of the pandemic for nearly a year.In Barcelona’s Hospital del Mar, the critical care capacity has more than doubled and is nearly full, with 80% of ICU beds occupied by coronavirus patients.“There are young people of 20-something-years-old and older people of 80-years-old, all the age groups,” said Dr. Joan Ramon Masclans, who heads the ICU. “This is very difficult, and it is one patient after another.”Even though authorities allowed gatherings of up to 10 people for Christmas and New Year celebrations, Masclans chose not to join his family and spent the holidays at home with his partner.“We did it to preserve our health and the health of others. And when you see that this isn’t being done (by others) it causes significant anger, added to the fatigue,” he said.A study released this month by Hospital del Mar looking at the impact of the spring’s COVID-19 surge on more than 9,000 health workers across Spain found that at least 28% suffered major depression. That is six times higher than the rate in the general population before the pandemic, said Dr. Jordi Alonso, one of the chief researchers.In addition, the study found that nearly half of participants had a high risk of anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks or substance- and alcohol-abuse problems.Spanish health care workers are far from the only ones to have suffered psychologically from the pandemic. In China, the levels of mental disorders among doctors and nurses were even higher, with 50% reporting depression, 45% reporting anxiety and 34% reporting insomnia, according to the World Health Organization.In the U.K., a survey released last week by the Royal College of Physicians found that 64% of doctors reported feeling tired or exhausted. One in four sought out mental health support.“It is pretty awful at the moment in the world of medicine,” Dr. Andrew Goddard, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said in a statement accompanying the study. “Hospital admissions are at the highest-ever level, staff are exhausted, and although there is light at the end of the tunnel, that light seems a long way away.”Dr. Aleix Carmona, a third-year anesthesiology resident in Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia, didn’t have much ICU experience before the pandemic hit. But as surgeries were cancelled, Carmona was summoned to the ICU at the Moisès Broggi hospital outside Barcelona to fight a virus the world knew very little about.“In the beginning, we had a lot of adrenaline. We were very frightened, but we had a lot of energy,” Carmona recalled. He plowed through the first weeks of the pandemic without having much time to process the unprecedented battle that was unfolding.It wasn’t until after the second month that he began feeling the toll of seeing first-hand how people were slowly dying as they ran out of breath. He pondered what to tell patients before intubating them. His initial reaction had always been to reassure them, tell them it would be alright. But in some cases, he knew that wasn’t true.“I started having difficulty sleeping and a feeling of anxiety before each shift,” Carmona said, adding that he would return home after 12 hours feeling like he had been beaten up.For a while he could only sleep with the help of medication. Some colleagues started taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs. What really helped Carmona, though, was a support group at his hospital, where his co-workers unloaded the experiences they had bottled up inside.But not everyone joined the group. For many, asking for help would make them seem unfit for the job.“In our profession, we can handle a lot,” said David Oliver, a spokesman for the Catalonia chapter of the SATSE union of nurses. “We don’t want to take time off because we know we will add to the workload of our colleagues.”The most affected group of health care workers, according to the study, were nurse’s aides and nurses, who are overwhelmingly women and often immigrants. They spent more time with dying COVID-19 patients, faced poor working conditions and salaries and feared infecting family members.Desirée Ruiz is the nurse supervisor at Hospital del Mar’s critical care unit. Some nurses on her team have asked to take time off work, unable to cope with the constant stress and all the deaths.To prevent infections, patients are rarely allowed family visits, adding to their dependency on nurses. Delivering a patient’s last wishes or words to relatives on the phone is especially challenging, Ruiz said.“This is very hard for … people who are holding the hand of these patients, even though they know they will end up dying,” she said.Ruiz, who organizes the nurses’ shifts and makes sure the ICU is always staffed adequately, is finding it harder and harder to do so.Unlike in the summer, when the number of cases fell and health workers were encouraged to take holidays, doctors and nurses have been working incessantly since the fall, when virus cases picked up again.The latest resurgence has nearly doubled the number of daily cases seen in November, and Spain now has the third highest COVID-19 infection rate in Europe and the fourth-highest death toll, with more than 55,400 confirmed fatalities.But unlike many European countries, including neighboring Portugal, the Spanish health minister has for now ruled out the possibility of a new lockdown, relying instead on less drastic restrictions that aren’t as damaging to the economy but take longer to decrease the rate of infections.Alonso fears the latest surge of virus patients could be as detrimental to the mental health of medical staff as the shock of the pandemic’s first months.“If we want to be cared for adequately, we also need to take care of the health care workers, who have suffered and are still suffering,” he said. 
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The world is on the verge of reaching 100 million COVID-19 infections, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center statistics. More than 2 million people have died from the virus.The coronavirus continues to create an unyielding and staggering path of illness and death across the United States. Johns Hopkins reported early Sunday that the U.S. has nearly 25 million COVID infections, with more than 417,000 deaths. Both tolls are the world’s highest.India follows the U.S. caseload with 10.6 million infections and more than 153,000 deaths. Brazil has nearly 9 million cases and more than 216,000 deaths.Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said COVID vaccines could bring the global pandemic under control, with vaccinations under way in more than 50 countries. However, all but two of those countries are high- or middle-income countries.”We must work together as one global family to ensure the urgent and equitable rollout of vaccines,” he said.For the first time since Nov. 18, New Zealand health officials Sunday began to investigate a probable case of community-spread coronavirus.Community spread occurs when a person contracts the coronavirus without any known contact with a sick person or travel to an affected area.With a tough lockdown, New Zealand had nearly eliminated the coronavirus, with new cases found among travelers returning home and quarantining. As of Sunday, there were 79 such cases. The new variants from Britain and South Africa, however, have been found among those cases, raising concerns of community spread returning.New Zealand does not expect to have most of its population vaccinated against the coronavirus until the second half of this year.On Saturday, the local government in Hong Kong said it locked down one of the territory’s most heavily populated areas to complete mandatory COVID-19 testing of its entire population.Hong Kong’s Special Administrative Region government said the lockdown was imposed in parts of the Jordan District to test nearly 10,000 residents within 48 hours, paving the way for residents to go to their jobs Monday.Authorities said 3,000 government workers had been deployed to the district, where officials said 162 cases of the coronavirus had been confirmed in the first 20 days of the new year.Authorities also locked down Temple Street, one of Hong Kong’s busiest night markets.The shutdown comes as Hong Kong grapples with its fourth wave of COVID-19 infections in two months.
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Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California, will become the first mass vaccination site for the COVID-19 vaccine distribution in Orange County. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.Camera: Vazgen Varzhabetyan.  
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The local government in Hong Kong said Saturday that it had locked down one of the territory’s most heavily populated areas to complete mandatory COVID-19 testing of its entire population.Hong Kong’s Special Administrative Region government said the lockdown was imposed in parts of the Jordan District to test nearly 10,000 residents within 48 hours, paving the way for residents to go to their jobs on Monday morning.Authorities said 3,000 government workers had been deployed to the district, where officials said 162 cases of the coronavirus had been confirmed in the first 20 days of the new year.A man who sought to enter the closed area in Hong Kong’s Jordan District is detained after attacking a police officer, Jan. 23, 2021. Thousands of Hong Kongers were locked down Saturday in a bid to contain a worsening coronavirus outbreak.Authorities also locked down Temple Street, one of Hong Kong’s busiest night markets.The shutdown came as Hong Kong grappled with its fourth wave of COVID-19 infections in two months, and as infections worldwide approached 100 million cases.As of Saturday afternoon, there were 98.5 million COVID-19 cases and 2.1 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center.“For the moment, the virus still has its hand in the game, but we still have our two best players: vaccination and spring,” Yves Van Laethem, a Belgian health ministry spokesman, said about COVID in his country.Van Laethem said he hoped spring’s warmer weather would help alleviate the recent uptick in Belgian hospital admissions.FILE – Cabin crew members, wearing face masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, walk along the departure hall of the Zaventem international airport in Brussels, Jan. 22, 2021.Belgium has had nearly 690,000 COVID-19 cases, and more than 20,000 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins.German health officials said Friday that although the country had surpassed 50,000 deaths, its infection rate was slowing.’Slightly positive trend’At a news conference in Berlin, the head of the Robert Koch Institute, Lothar Wieler, said he saw a “slightly positive trend” in the numbers and credited the drop to a partial lockdown introduced in November and since tightened.Also Friday, European countries were dealt another blow when AstraZeneca announced that initial deliveries of its vaccine to the region would not meet its projected targets.A company statement said, “Initial volumes will be lower than originally anticipated due to reduced yields at a manufacturing site within our European supply chain.” The statement did not give further details.FILE – A medical assistant vaccinates a resident of a nursing home with an injection of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a nursing home in Froendenberg, Germany, Jan. 22, 2021.Europe is struggling to roll out vaccines to its residents after vaccine developers Pfizer and BioNTech announced a temporary shortfall in the supply of their vaccine in order to help a manufacturing site in Belgium boost output.In the United States, President Joe Biden signed executive orders aimed at providing financial and food security to families affected by the pandemic.The orders boosted food assistance, protected unemployment benefits for job seekers and laid the groundwork for federal employees and contractors to get a $15 minimum wage.“We have to act now,” Biden said Friday in remarks at the White House before he signed the orders.Biden has proposed a $1.9 trillion relief plan to Congress to help Americans suffering from the effects of the coronavirus, but it is not clear if the bill has enough support from lawmakers to pass. Congress passed a $900 billion relief bill in December and some Republican lawmakers have questioned whether there is a need for another large relief bill.Walmart moveAlso Friday, U.S. retailer Walmart said it was preparing to expand its vaccination program to seven more states, using its network of pharmacies.The world’s largest retailer said it would start providing inoculations in Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, South Carolina and Texas, as well as in Chicago and Puerto Rico. The company is already providing vaccines to health care workers in New Mexico and Arkansas.Vaccination efforts in the United States have run into numerous difficulties, including logistical hurdles, bureaucratic failures and a basic shortage of vaccines, which have led to residents across the U.S. seeing their vaccine appointments canceled.  
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A surge in coronavirus cases in Zimbabwe has included the deaths of two Cabinet ministers in 48 hours. The government announced Friday night that Transport Minister Joel Matiza had died of COVID-19. On Wednesday, the president’s office said Sibusiso Busi Moyo, Zimbabwe’s minister of foreign affairs and international trade, had died of  complications related to COVID-19.Pallbearers wait for coffins to arrive at a state burial of government ministers who died of COVID-19, in Harare, Zimbabwe, Jan. 21, 2021.Zimbabweans have taken to social media to blame the deaths on President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government, which takes senior officials abroad for treatment instead of rehabilitating the country’s collapsed health care delivery system. Critics say Mnangagwa and his predecessor, the late Robert Mugabe, never bothered to upgrade hospitals or adequately pay health workers, who have recently been on strike for more personal protective equipment and better salaries.Munashe Bradnick, 31, an accountant, noted that  Zimbabweans were not celebrating the deaths of senior government officials.“I am not so much about their deaths, but how they lived,” Bradnick said. “At a personal level, I am mourning the lives that they spent killing others, looting resources, instead of spending on education and health, which would have saved them at this crucial moment.“So, reminding them that they should have spent money on education and not looting is not a celebration. But it is just a lesson to those who are remaining in ZANU-PF. We must not be killed for demanding better health because COVID is not a respecter of persons. When it comes, it does not respect your office, doesn’t respect your status in society. It just kills you. So here we are not celebrating anything, we are just reminding them that life is sacred. Even for us, we need to survive.”Dr. John Mangwiro, Zimbabwe’s deputy health minister, pictured in Harare on Jan. 3, 2021, says “complacency and negligence” over the festive season were major causes of a surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)Following the surge of COVID-19 cases and deaths, Zimbabwe’s deputy health minister, Dr. John Mangwiro, said in a statement that “complacency and negligence” over the festive season were major causes. He said people should take more precautions and adhere to the dusk-to-dawn curfew government imposed early this month.Clifford Hlatshwayo, spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change Alliance, said the recent surge in coronavirus cases confirmed that lockdowns alone had failed to contain the pandemic.Vendors have remained in the streets of Harare, despite a lockdown asking everyone to stay home as part of efforts to contain the coronavirus in Zimbabwe. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)“Zimbabwe [has] more than 90 percent of its population in the informal sector and those in the streets just roaming around,” he said. “Those are the people who do not have money to go to China. Government [is] able to jet to China to get proper medical things. Our health institutions are in a sorry state. And for years the government has not shown interest in upgrading them and making sure that our health institutions are equipped with proper and adequate equipment. Our frontline workers do not have adequate PPEs, drugs, even oxygen.”In a state of the nation address broadcast Saturday on national television, Mnangagwa said his government was assessing coronavirus vaccines that have been developed worldwide, but he was worried about the spike in COVID-19 cases in Zimbabwe.Coronavirus has now infected more than 30,000 citizens and killed nearly 1,000, including four Cabinet ministers and several senior officials.  
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The world is steadily inching up to 100 million COVID cases. Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Saturday there are more than 98 million global COVID infections and more than 2 million deaths.“For the moment, the virus still has its hand in the game, but we still have our two best players: vaccination and spring,” Yves Van Laethema, a Belgian health ministry spokesperson said about COVID in his country.Van Laethema said he is hoping spring’s warmer weather will help alleviate the recent uptick in Belgian hospital admissions.Belgium has nearly 690,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 20,000 people have died.Chinese authorities have partially locked down a section of a Hong Kong neighborhood. The Jordan district is one of Hong Kong’s most densely populated neighborhoods. Officials said Saturday they are testing everybody in the area, after the territory recorded 162 cases in January. Hong Kong has reported fewer than 10,000 coronavirus cases.German health officials said Friday that although the country surpassed 50,000 deaths, its infection rate was slowing.At a news conference in Berlin, the head of the Robert Koch Institute, Lothar Wieler, said he saw a “slightly positive trend” in the numbers and credited the drop to a partial lockdown originally introduced in November and since tightened.Also Friday, European countries were dealt another blow when AstraZeneca announced that initial deliveries of its vaccine to the region would not meet its projected targets.A company statement said, “Initial volumes will be lower than originally anticipated due to reduced yields at a manufacturing site within our European supply chain.” The statement did not give further details.Europe is already struggling to roll out vaccines to its citizens after vaccine developers Pfizer and BioNTech announced a temporary shortfall in the supply of their vaccine in order to help a manufacturing site in Belgium to boost output.In the United States, President Joe Biden signed executive orders aimed at providing financial and food security to families affected by the coronavirus pandemic.The orders boost food assistance, protect unemployment benefits for job seekers and lay the groundwork for federal employees and contractors to get a $15 minimum wage.“We have to act now,” Biden said in remarks at the White House on Friday before he signed the orders.Biden has proposed a $1.9 trillion relief plan to Congress to help Americans suffering from the effects of the coronavirus, however it is not clear if the bill has enough support from lawmakers to pass. Congress passed a $900 billion relief bill in December and some Republican lawmakers have questioned whether there is a need for another large relief bill.Also Friday, U.S. retailer Walmart said it was preparing to expand its vaccination program to seven more states, using its network of pharmacies.The world’s largest retailer said it would start providing inoculations in Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, South Carolina and Texas as well as in Chicago and Puerto Rico. The company is already providing vaccines to health care workers in New Mexico and Arkansas.Vaccination efforts in the United States have run into numerous difficulties, including logistical hurdles, bureaucratic failures and a basic shortage of vaccines, which have led to residents across the U.S. seeing their vaccine appointments canceled.
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Twitter said Friday it has permanently banned an account that some in Iran believe is linked to the office of the country’s supreme leader after a posting that seemed to threaten former President Donald Trump.In the image posted by the suspect account late Thursday, Trump is shown playing golf in the shadow of a giant drone, with the caption “Revenge is certain” written in Farsi.In response to a request for comment from The Associated Press, a Twitter spokesperson said the account was fake and violated the company’s “manipulation and spam policy,” without elaborating how it came to that conclusion.The tweet of the photo violated the company’s “abusive behavior policy,” Twitter’s spokesperson added.In Iran, the suspect account — @khamenei_site — is believed to be linked to the office of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei because its behavior mirrored that of other accounts identified in state-run media as tied to his office. It frequently posted excerpts from his speeches and other official content.In this case, the account carried the link to Khamenei’s website.Other accounts tied to Khamenei’s office that did not tweet the photo, including his main English language account, remained active. The photo had also been featured prominently on the supreme leader’s website and was retweeted by Khamenei’s main Farsi language account, @Khamenei-fa, which apparently deleted it after posting.Earlier this month, Facebook and Twitter banned Trump from their platforms for allegedly inciting the assault on the U.S. Capitol, an unprecedented step that underscored the immense power of tech giants in regulating speech on their platforms. Activists soon urged the companies to apply their policies equally to other political figures worldwide, in order to combat hate speech and content that encourages violence.The warning in the caption referenced Khamenei’s remarks last month ahead of the first anniversary of the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Revolutionary Guard general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad. In his speech, Khamenei did not call out Trump by name, but reiterated a vow for vengeance against those who ordered and executed the attack on Soleimani.”Revenge will certainly happen at the right time,” Khamenei had declared.Iran blocks social media websites like Facebook and Twitter, and censors others. While top officials have unfettered access to social media, Iran’s youth and tech-savvy citizens use proxy servers or other workarounds to bypass the controls.Soon after Trump’s ban from Twitter ignited calls to target tweets from other political leaders, the company took down a post by a different Khamenei-linked account that pushed a COVID-19 vaccine conspiracy theory.Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters in Iran, had claimed that virus vaccines imported from the U.S. or Britain were “completely untrustworthy.”  
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A raging pandemic, tumultuous presidential election and deadly Capitol insurrection have combined to make the annual tradition of Dry January less than air-tight for some.Not Sarah Arvizo. She considers it her easiest yet.As much as the 32-year-old Manhattanite would love to partake in a little “vinopeutics,” she said the abstinence from alcohol period she’s participated in for several years has been made smoother this time around by her at-home pandemic life and the closing of bars and restaurants.”Longing for those days, for sure,” said the social drinker who lives alone. “But unless I want to freeze outside, that’s largely off the table this year.”Eight-year-old Dry January, which comes at the height of resolution season after the holidays, has brought on the desired benefits for many among the millions participating around the world. They’re losing quarantine weight, experiencing more clarity and sleeping easier.Others with lockdown time on their hands and round-the-clock access to TV news and the home liquor cabinet are struggling to meet the challenge. Some who have already cheated hoisted a glass on Inauguration Day.Sue Cornick, 52, in Los Angeles, wanted to experience Dry January after her consumption of alcohol rose from three or four days a week to five or six. But she knew pulling the plug wouldn’t work before a celebratory Inauguration Day, so it’s Dry February for her.”Full disclosure, my Dry February will be more like almost dry. I’ll definitely have a cheat day here and there. Just no daily habit,” she said.Others are holding steadfast but said the horrid year that was and the chaotic events of January have made it far more difficult. The odds aren’t in their favor. Studies over the years have shown that a small percentage of New Year’s resolutions overall are actually achieved.Peta Grafham, a 61-year-old retired IT specialist in Tryon, North Carolina, signed on to Dry January after watching her alcohol intake creep up during the pandemic and months of political and racial turmoil.”I’m a social creature and isolating has been difficult. I found that I would open a bottle of wine and watch TV, usually CNN, and could knock back a bottle in less than two hours. Then I would move on to the Grand Marnier,” said Grafham, who lives with her husband. “I announced to my friends and family that I was doing a Dry January, so my pride is what’s keeping me sober.”She hasn’t had a drop since December 31. Her spouse didn’t join, but she said he’s an efficient nurser of bourbon or vodka and has supported her effort.”I seemed incapable of limiting myself to just one glass,” Grafham said.According to a recent survey from the American Psychological Association, 78% of adults report the COVID-19 pandemic has been a significant source of stress, and 65% said the amount of uncertainty in the world is causing strain.At 27, Emily Roethle in Encinitas, California, nearly broke on Jan. 6, when a riotous mob descended on the Capitol.”This is my second Dry January,” she said. “It’s difficult this year. I’ve looked to my glass of wine to separate work from home as I work remote, but in ways it’s easier as there’s no happy hour or dinner invitations.”While addiction treatment experts note that a month of forced sobriety may not have a lasting impact and may lead to binge drinking in February, others believe the show of sobriety can’t hurt.Dry January began after a woman training for her first half-marathon, Emily Robinson in Britain, decided to quit drinking for the month. She later went to work for an alcohol awareness organization that launched a national campaign. The event slowly went global.Well before that, in 1942, Finland began a program called Raitis Tammikuu, meaning sober January, to assist the war effort against the Soviet Union, said Hilary Sheinbaum, who wrote a new book about Dry January, “The Dry Challenge.” She said she wrote from personal experience.”On Dec. 31, 2016, moments before the ball dropped, I made a Dry January bet with a friend,” Sheinbaum said. “In the end, I ended up going the full 31 days. My friend did not. He ended up buying me a very fancy meal, but I had the opportunity to see how alcohol was affecting my day-to-day life. With Dry January, I had clearer skin. I was sleeping better. I had so much more financial savings at the end of the month. This is my fifth Dry January.”When she took on her first dry challenge, she was working regularly at booze-infused events as a red-carpet reporter, and a food and beverage writer. She was also single and going on a lot of dates. Now in a two-year relationship, she and her live-in boyfriend do Dry January together.She and others note that the ritual isn’t meant as a substitute for addiction treatment and recovery.Dr. Joseph DeSanto, a medical doctor and addiction specialist for the recovery program BioCorRx, agreed but said Dry January may give those in trouble “something to rally around, especially if they’re not in a 12-step group, and provide a sense of community.”He added: “Any kind of harm reduction is advantageous. If someone is a heavy drinker, they could benefit greatly from switching to moderate to light drinking, even if they can’t stop altogether. I’ve never met an alcoholic that felt worse from drinking less or not drinking.”
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German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier says he will begin leaving a light in a window at his official residence, Bellevue Palace, to remember those killed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Steinmeier has called on Germans to do the same as a remembrance that “the dead in the corona pandemic are not just statistics for us.”  He added, “Even if we don’t know their names and families, we know that every figure stands for a loved one whom we miss infinitely.”With more than 850 deaths from the coronavirus in the previous 24-hour period, Germany said Friday its death toll has surpassed the 50,000 mark. Less than two weeks ago, according to an Associated Press report, Germany’s death toll was 40,000.  U.S. President Joe Biden spent his first full day in office Thursday signing executive orders addressing the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has affected more people in the United States than anyplace else in the world. The U.S. has 24.6 million of the world’s more than 97 million infections. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases speaks via video link during the 148th session of the Executive Board on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Geneva, Switzerland, Jan. 21, 2021.In a related story, the Reuters news agency says the COVAX initiative announced Thursday that it is aiming to deliver 1.8 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine to poor countries in 2021, and hopes to fulfill supply deals for wealthier ones in the second half of the year.  The world is racing against time to produce and deliver billions of doses of new coronavirus vaccines to blunt the pandemic, which has killed over 2 million people out of a total of over 97 million confirmed COVID-19 infections, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.Vaccination efforts have run into numerous difficulties, however, including logistical hurdles,  bureaucratic failures and a basic shortage of vaccines, which has led to residents across the U.S. having had their vaccine appointments canceled. In Peru, a group of doctors launched a hunger strike this week to protest the government’s lack of preparation for a second wave of COVID-19 cases.Dr. Teodoro Quiñones, the secretary-general of Peru’s physician’s union, and at least a half-dozen doctors are staging a strike in a makeshift tent outside the headquarters of the health ministry in the capital, Lima.  He told The New York Times the state-run EsSalud network dismissed COVID-19 specialists after the first wave receded and failed to hire them back when more and more new cases began filling up hospital intensive care units.  The South American country has more than a million confirmed coronavirus infections, including over 39,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins. 
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The World Health Organization (WHO) Friday formally welcomed back the United States, after President Joe Biden signed an executive order this week to retain U.S. membership.
Speaking at the agency’s regular briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted the United States was a founding member of the organization in 1948 and has long played a vital role in global health.  
Tedros said he welcomes Biden’s commitment, “not just to remaining part of the WHO family, but to working constructively with the WHO, its Member States and the multilateral system to end the COVID-19 pandemic and address the many health challenges we face globally.”
The director-general also noted that the U.S. committed to joining the WHO-organized international vaccine cooperative, COVAX. Tedros said the cooperative has signed an agreement with Pfizer/BioNTech for up to 40 million doses of its vaccine.  
He said they also expect 150 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccine, pending its approval for emergency use by the WHO. Tedros said if all goes as planned, COVAX is on schedule to begin delivering vaccines by February and meeting its goal of delivering 2 billion doses by the end of year.
The WHO director-general also thanked U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he said he spoke with Thursday on her first full day in office. He said he told the vice president he was grateful for the new administration’s commitment to advancing women’s health as well as action on climate change.
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New coronavirus variants appearing in Britain, South Africa, Brazil and elsewhere have experts concerned. Not only do they spread faster than existing strains, it’s possible that vaccines against them might not work as well, though that hasn’t been a problem so far. Here’s how these variants are different and why scientists think vaccines will still work.
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