Month: February 2021

U.S. President Joe Biden hosted an event at the White House Thursday honoring the 50 millionth coronavirus vaccination administered in the country.Four people — an elementary school counselor, a grocery store employee and two firefighter EMTs — were vaccinated against the virus at the White House Thursday afternoon to commemorate the milestone..@POTUS watching vaccination to commemorate 50 million #COVID19 shots under his watch. pic.twitter.com/CizKLRlXYv— Patsy Widakuswara (@pwidakuswara) February 25, 2021 “Fifty-million shots in just 37 days since I’ve become president,” Biden told reporters at the event, noting that despite extreme weather conditions, the United States is on track to surpass his promise to vaccinate 100 million people in his first 100 days in office.Almost half of Americans over the age of 65 have received at least one of two shots of the vaccine, according to the White House.50 million shots in the past 37 days — no other country has done it.There are about 55m Americans who are over 65:– Six weeks ago, only 8% had gotten a shot– Today, almost 50% have gotten at least one shotLong way to go, but what a change these past weeks!— Ronald Klain (@WHCOS) February 25, 2021But U.S. officials have warned that there is still a long road ahead. Biden urged Americans to continue wearing masks and said Thursday he cannot provide a date for when things will return to “normal.”The president’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also cautioned, “We are still at an unacceptably high baseline level,” preventing the resumption of normal society.Earlier this week, the United States confirmed that half a million people had died of COVID-19 — the highest death rate from the virus in the world. In 2020, the virus shaved a full year off the average life expectancy in the United States, the biggest decline since World War II, according to a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics.
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The COVAX facility for coronavirus vaccines will soon get access to 170 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, according to the U.N. Children’s Fund.  
 
The COVAX Facility aims to ensure at least 2 billion vaccine doses are available to 85 of the world’s poorest countries.  UNICEF said Thursday that deliveries of the vaccine will begin in the first quarter of 2021.   
 
Two other vaccine makers, Pfizer and the Serum Institute of India, are also providing their vaccines to COVAX for distribution.
 
In other COVID-19 news, a new study finds the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is as effective in real-world use as it was during its late-stage clinical trials.  
 
In a large-scale study of 1.2 million people, researchers at Israel’s Clalit Research Institute found the two-dose vaccine reduced symptomatic cases of COVID-19 by 94% across all age groups and reduced severe illnesses by 92%. Researchers also found that a single shot of the vaccine was 57% effective after just two weeks.  
 
The peer-reviewed study, published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, is the first analysis of a national COVID-19 vaccination strategy.    
 
Late-stage clinical trials of the Pfizer-BioNTech showed the vaccine was 95% effective in combating the novel coronavirus.  South Africa variantMeanwhile, Moderna says it has developed a new version of its two-dose vaccine targeted to combat the COVID-19 variant first identified in South Africa. The U.S.-based pharmaceutical company has sent a small amount of the new version to the U.S. National Institutes of Health for additional study.   FILE – Tiffany Husak, left, a nursing student at the Community College of Allegheny County, receives her first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, during a vaccination clinic in Pittsburgh, Jan. 28, 2021.Moderna is also testing whether to add a third booster shot to its current two-dose regimen to determine whether it can create the immunity needed to fight the South African variant.   Both Pfizer and Moderna say they plan to increase their output of the vaccine within the next few months, with Pfizer doubling its output to 13 million doses per week by mid-March, with Moderna hoping to deliver 40 million doses per month by April.  European Union leaders will meet Thursday via videoconference to discuss ways to improve the slow pace of the production and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.  Concerns are growing among the 27-member regional bloc that the fast-spreading variants recently detected in Britain and South Africa will be resistant to the new vaccines.   Tokyo Olympic Games
In Japan, organizers for the postponed Tokyo Summer Olympic Games are placing a number of coronavirus-related restrictions on spectators coming out to witness the traditional relay of the Olympic torch.    The relay will begin March 25 in the northwestern prefecture of Fukushima, the site of the March 2011 nuclear disaster triggered by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami.    President of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Organizing Committee Seiko Hashimoto (R) speaks with Tokyo 2020 Vice Director-General Yukihiko Nunomura (L) before the press briefing on operation and media coverage of Olympic Torch Relay in Tokyo, Feb. 25, 2021.Yukihiko Nunomura, the vice director-general of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee, announced Thursday that spectators will be required to wear masks, and will not be allowed to eat or drink except for water to avoid heatstroke.  Cheering and shouting is also banned, but spectators can clap as the torch relay passes by.    Organizers say spectators will be required to preregister for a spot at each relay point to witness the torch’s arrival, but Nunomura said the relay could be stopped if too many spectators gather along the route.    The 2020 Tokyo Olympics were postponed for a year as the novel coronavirus outbreak evolved into a global pandemic.  However, recent public opinion polls indicate an overwhelming majority of Japanese believe the games should be postponed again or canceled, with Tokyo and other areas under a state of emergency to quell a surge of new infections.   The opening ceremony for the postponed Games will be held on July 23.   
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As Syria approaches the 10-year mark in its civil war next month, the United Nations says the nation’s youngest generation is suffering most, as millions of children suffer malnourishment, stunted growth, and a lack of schooling.“More than half a million children under 5 in Syria suffer from stunting as a result of chronic malnutrition, according to our latest assessments,” U.N. Humanitarian Chief Mark Lowcock said Thursday in his monthly briefing to the Security Council on the situation.“We fear this number will increase,” he said.FILE – In this Tuesday, March 10, 2020 file photo, migrants wait in line for a distribution of blankets close to the Turkish-Greek border near Pazarkule, Edirne region, Turkey.Lowcock said stunting is especially bad in the northwest and the northeast of the country, where data show that in some areas, up to one in three children suffers from impaired growth and development due to poor nutrition and recurrent illnesses. The effects of stunting are irreversible.Last week, Lowcock spoke with a group of Syrian doctors. At one pediatric hospital, the physicians said malnourished children occupy half of the facility’s 80 beds. In the past two months, five children have died from malnutrition.“Another pediatrician told me that she diagnoses malnutrition in up to 20 children a day,” Lowcock said. “But parents are bringing their children to her for completely different reasons, unaware that they are suffering from malnutrition. Malnutrition, she said, has become so normal that parents cannot spot the signs in their own children.”Neglect Drives Child Labor in SyriaMillions of displaced Syrian children work difficult, dangerous jobs just to surviveRobbed of childhoodsIn a decade of war, Syria’s youngest citizens have known nothing but conflict and suffering. They are among the millions of internally displaced and refugees; young girls have been married off in their teens, and boys have been recruited to fight. Children have been physically and psychologically wounded from the violence of war — both perpetrated on them and in front of them. Thousands have been killed.“Around half of Syria’s children are now growing up having known nothing but conflict, which has permeated all aspects of their lives and robbed them of their childhoods,” Sonia Khush, Syria response director for Save the Children, told council members.She said there is an “unprecedented education crisis” affecting millions of Syrian children that will hurt the country’s future.“The combination of conflict, displacement, poverty, and now COVID-19, has created the conditions in which millions of children are missing out on an education,” said Khush.She said schools should be safe places where children can flourish, but in Syria, many schools are attacked, used by armed groups and are littered with unexploded devices.Syria has been in steep economic decline, with its currency — the Syrian pound — plummeting in value since 2019 as inflation soars. Khush said that has led many children to leave school to work and help support their families. They are at risk of never returning to the classroom.IS Winning Battle in Syria’s Displaced-Persons Camps Officials warn US-backed forces are struggling to contain persistent threat from terror group, its criminal affiliates, who may be outgunned but aren’t outnumbered Cross border aid fight brewingIn northwest Syria, which is outside government control, critical humanitarian assistance is brought in entirely through a single cross-border checkpoint from Turkey. The U.N.’s Lowcock said those supplies help 2.4 million people monthly.“Without the cross-border operation, doctors in northwest Syria, like some of those I spoke to, would not be able to provide those children the care that they need to survive,” he said. “They would not have the resources and supplies to carry on within quite a short period of time, they said. The situation would go from terrible to catastrophic.”In the past 13 months, the United Nations has lost three of the four border crossings it used to bring humanitarian assistance into Syria from neighboring countries. Due to objections and obstruction from Russia and China on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government at the Security Council, authorizations for those crossings were not renewed.Damascus prefers all aid to originate internally, but such cross-line deliveries have been insufficient and open the door to regime interference on where the aid goes.The only remaining crossing point, Bab al-Hawa, is up for renewal in July. But it appears Russia has not changed its stance and may seek to block authorization with its veto.“There is no doubt that keeping the cross-border mechanism will also mean keeping supporting terrorists, who are living on what they have extorted and also on how they are controlling smuggling,” Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the council.“If we all had to make a decision on the extension of the cross-border mechanism tomorrow, I fear that we would not have any convincing grounds to do so,” he added.The U.N. said conditions in the northwest are worse now than when the council took up the issue last July.“A failure to extend the authorization in the future would trigger suffering and loss of life potentially on a very large scale,” Lowcock said.
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A new study finds the new Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is as effective in real-world use as it was during its late-stage clinical trials. In a large-scale study of 1.2 million people, researchers at Israel’s Clalit Research Institute found the two-dose vaccine reduced symptomatic cases of COVID-19 by 94% across all age groups, and reduced severe illnesses by 92%.  Researchers also found that a single shot of the vaccine was 57% effective after just two weeks.FILE – People queue to receive a vaccine against COVID-19 at a makeshift vaccination site in Petah Tikva, Israel, Jan. 28, 2021.The peer-reviewed study, published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, is the first analysis of a national COVID-19 vaccination strategy.   Late-stage clinical trials of the Pfizer-BioNTech showed the vaccine was 95% effective in combating the novel coronavirus.   South Africa variantMeanwhile, Moderna says it has developed a new version of its two-dose vaccine targeted to combat the COVID-19 variant first identified in South Africa. The U.S.-based pharmaceutical company has sent a small amount of the new version to the U.S. National Institutes of Health for additional study.   FILE – Tiffany Husak, left, a nursing student at the Community College of Allegheny County, receives her first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, during a vaccination clinic in Pittsburgh, Jan. 28, 2021.Moderna is also testing whether to add a third booster shot to its current two-dose regimen to determine whether it can create the immunity needed to fight the South African variant.   Both Pfizer and Moderna say they plan to increase their output of the vaccine within the next few months, with Pfizer doubling its output to 13 million doses per week by mid-March, with Moderna hoping to deliver 40 million doses per month by April.  European Union leaders will meet Thursday via videoconference to discuss ways to improve the slow pace of the production and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.  Concerns are growing among the 27-member regional bloc that the fast-spreading variants recently detected in Britain and South Africa will be resistant to the new vaccines.   Tokyo Olympic Games
In Japan, organizers for the postponed Tokyo Summer Olympic Games are placing a number of coronavirus-related restrictions on spectators coming out to witness the traditional relay of the Olympic torch.    The relay will begin March 25 in the northwestern prefecture of Fukushima, the site of the March 2011 nuclear disaster triggered by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami.    President of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Organizing Committee Seiko Hashimoto (R) speaks with Tokyo 2020 Vice Director-General Yukihiko Nunomura (L) before the press briefing on operation and media coverage of Olympic Torch Relay in Tokyo, Feb. 25, 2021.Yukihiko Nunomura, the vice director-general of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee, announced Thursday that spectators will be required to wear masks, and will not be allowed to eat or drink except for water to avoid heatstroke.  Cheering and shouting is also banned, but spectators can clap as the torch relay passes by.    Organizers say spectators will be required to preregister for a spot at each relay point to witness the torch’s arrival, but Nunomura said the relay could be stopped if too many spectators gather along the route.    The 2020 Tokyo Olympics were postponed for a year as the novel coronavirus outbreak evolved into a global pandemic.  However, recent public opinion polls indicate an overwhelming majority of Japanese believe the games should be postponed again or canceled, with Tokyo and other areas under a state of emergency to quell a surge of new infections.   The opening ceremony for the postponed Games will be held on July 23.   
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Australia has become the world’s first nation to make digital companies such as Facebook and Google pay domestic news outlets for their content.Parliament approved the law Thursday that would allow a government arbitrator to decide the price a digital company should pay news outlets if the two sides fail to reach an agreement.The final legislation includes a set of amendments as part of an agreement reached Tuesday between the Australian government and Facebook. The amendments include a two-month mediation period that would give social media giants and news publishers extra time to broker agreements before they are forced to abide by the government’s provisions.The agreements ended a stalemate that prompted Facebook to block all Australian news content last week, preventing them from being viewed or shared. The websites of several public agencies and emergency services were also blocked on Facebook, including pages that include up-to-date information on COVID-19 outbreaks, brushfires and other natural disasters.
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Residents at an assisted living facility in the US are getting a taste of life before the coronavirus pandemic. Thanks to a “hug tent,” residents can – while wearing plastic sleeves – embrace and hold hands with their families. More from VOA’s Mariama Diallo.
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The COVID-19 vaccine rollout to date has been far from equitable. The vast majority of doses have gone to high-income countries, but a World Health Organization program aiming to change that delivered its first shots Wednesday, in Ghana. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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At a dog training center in Myakka City, Florida, Heather Junqueira, founder of BioScent, brings a four-year-old beagle, Noel, into a room with stainless-steel canisters, several containing samples of COVID-19.   Noel springs into action as she tries to find the ones with a smell that she knows will earn her praise and dog treats. It only takes Noel only a few seconds to figure out which ones contain gauze pads wiped with sweat or surgical masks worn by people infected with COVID.  Heather Junqueira, founder of BioScent in Myakka City, Florida, gives a reward treat to Noel, a beagle, after she successfully detects a sample of COVID-19 in a canister. (Courtesy of BioScent)BioScent, which trains medical detection dogs, was focusing on research with canines sniffing out certain cancers. But Junqueira switched gears last April after the coronavirus pandemic hit. “I realized the importance of this research,” she told VOA, “and how we might save a lot of lives.” Junqueira discovered it is easier for her dogs to detect COVID-19 than cancer.  “The virus must have a much stronger odor, which is really the body’s response to the virus,” she said, which humans cannot smell.  Dogs have up to 300 million scent receptors as compared to about 6 million in humans. Hounds, including beagles like Noel, have famously sensitive snouts. The results of her study have been “incredibly successful,” Junqueira said, with the dogs recognizing the COVID samples about 95 percent of the time.  This is in line with the high success rates of other studies worldwide that have been released so far, explained Tommy Dickey, professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He collaborated with Junquiera on an article that focused on using medical scent dogs to detect COVID-19 that was published in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association in February.   Dickey pointed out “the most striking result is that studies have already demonstrated that dogs can identify people who are COVID-19 positive.” And “they can do it non-intrusively, more rapidly and with comparable or possibly better accuracy than our conventional detection tests,” he added.The National Veterinary School of Alfort in France is among the global institutions doing research on dogs’ ability to detect COVID-19. (Courtesy of veterinary professor Dominique Grandjean)For example, experiments by French and Lebanese researchers concluded that dogs could determine COVID on human sweat samples with high accuracy. And the same was true in Colombia, where trained scent dogs could detect the virus from respiratory secretions. Most of the research dogs are doing a better job than the COVID rapid test by “hitting above 90 percent right now,” Junquiera said.  And that is true at some airports, where the dogs are being used in pilot projects to detect COVID.  At the Dubai airport in the United Arab Emirates, a police dog trained to detect COVID-19 smells a sweat sample from a passenger to determine if the virus is on it. (Courtesy of Emirates News Agency)In the United Arab Emirates, the Dubai airport is using specially trained police dogs to sniff COVID. A sweat sample is taken from arriving passengers, which is placed in a metal funnel for the dog to smell. If the virus is detected, then the passengers must take a nasal test.   In a pilot program at Sweden’s Helsinki airport, trained dogs could determine if arriving passengers were infected with COVID-19. The volunteer passengers wiped their skin with a cloth for the dogs to smell. (Courtesy photo)At an airport in Helsinki, Norway, some arriving passengers volunteered to wipe their skin with cloth that was placed in a canister for the canines to smell. The dogs indicated the test was positive by yelping, pawing or lying down.  Aside from airports, collaborators Dickey and Janquiera said COVID scent-trained dogs could be useful in places like train stations, schools and hospitals, as well as at large public gatherings, including concerts and sporting events. Janquiera said she has already been approached by a sports team and casino in Florida about the possibility of utilizing her dogs in the future.   
 
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Facebook on Wednesday pledged to invest at least $1 billion to support journalism over the next three years as the social media giant defended its handling of a dispute with Australia over payments to media organizations.Nick Clegg, head of global affairs, said in a statement that the company was willing to support news media while reiterating its concerns about mandated payments.”Facebook is more than willing to partner with news publishers,” Clegg said after Facebook restored news links as part of a compromise with Australian officials. “We absolutely recognize quality journalism is at the heart of how open societies function — informing and empowering citizens and holding the powerful to account.”Clegg defended the U.S. social media giant in a blog post titled “The Real Story of What Happened With News on Facebook in Australia.”The social media platform came under fire after it blanked out the pages of media outlets for Australian users and blocked them from sharing any news content, rather than submit to the proposed legislation.Clegg contended in his post that at the heart of the controversy was a misunderstanding about the relationship between Facebook and news publishers.’Free referrals’News groups share their stories at the social network or make them available for Facebook users to share with features such as buttons designed into websites, Clegg noted.Facebook drove some 5.1 billion such “free referrals” to Australian news publishers last year, worth an estimated 407 million Australian dollars, according to Clegg.”The assertions — repeated widely in recent days — that Facebook steals or takes original journalism for its own benefit always were and remain false,” Clegg said. “We neither take nor ask for the content for which we were being asked to pay a potentially exorbitant price.”Clegg said that to comply with the law as originally proposed in Australia, “Facebook would have been forced to pay potentially unlimited amounts of money to multinational media conglomerates under an arbitration system that deliberately misdescribes the relationship between publishers and Facebook.”He maintained that in blacking out all news in the country, “we erred on the side of overenforcement” and acknowledged that “some content was blocked inadvertently” before being restored.  
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The huge parachute used by NASA’s Perseverance rover to land on Mars contained a secret message, thanks to a puzzle lover on the spacecraft team.  
Systems engineer Ian Clark used a binary code to spell out “Dare Mighty Things” in the orange and white strips of the 70-foot (21-meter) parachute. He also included the GPS coordinates for the mission’s headquarters at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Clark, a crossword hobbyist, came up with the idea two years ago. Engineers wanted an unusual pattern in the nylon fabric to know how the parachute was oriented during descent. Turning it into a secret message was “super fun,” he said Tuesday.
Only about six people knew about the encoded message before Thursday’s landing, according to Clark. They waited until the parachute images came back before putting out a teaser during a televised news conference Monday.
It took just a few hours for space fans to figure it out, Clark said. Next time, he noted, “I’ll have to be a little bit more creative.”
“Dare Mighty Things” — a line from President Theodore Roosevelt — is a mantra at JPL and adorns many of the center’s walls. The trick was “trying to come up with a way of encoding it but not making it too obvious,” Clark said.  
As for the GPS coordinates, the spot is 10 feet (3 meters) from the entrance to JPL’s visitor center.
Another added touch not widely known until touchdown: Perseverance bears a plaque depicting all five of NASA’s Mars rovers in increasing size over the years — similar to the family car decals seen on Earth.
Deputy project manager Matt Wallace promises more so-called hidden Easter eggs. They should be visible once Perseverance’s 7-foot (2-meter) arm is deployed in a few days and starts photographing under the vehicle, and again when the rover is driving in a couple weeks.
“Definitely, definitely should keep a good lookout,” he urged. 
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The U.S. government has determined that a one-shot COVID-19 vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson is safe and offers partial protection against the disease.In an analysis released Wednesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the vaccine was about 66% effective during global trials in preventing moderate to severe cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.The American company said last month that nearly 44,000 people participated in the trial. Its effectiveness was between 66% and 72% in the United States, 57% in Latin America and in South Africa, where a new variant of the virus has spread.Data Inconclusive on Efficacy of Moderna Vaccine Against COVID-19 VariantsMore clinical evidence is needed to know whether the two-dose regimen of the vaccine protects against the coronavirus variants, experts sayAlthough the vaccine’s effectiveness appears less robust than Moderna’s and Pfizer’s, the results pave the way for final government approval for emergency use of a third vaccine that is easier to administer. The FDA analysis also said the Johnson & Johnson vaccine could help accelerate vaccinations because, unlike the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, two doses are not required.  Israel Starts to Reopen as Study Shows Pfizer Vaccine Works Study suggests vaccines are even better than clinical trials showedAn FDA panel of independent experts meet on Friday to decide whether to approve the vaccine. The FDA then weighs whether to authorize it, as it did before approving the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. A final decision is expected within days.The addition of a third vaccine to combat the coronavirus pandemic could provide a boost to vaccination drives throughout the U.S. that have been slowed by inclement weather and other logistical issues, as the COVID-19 death toll topped 500,000 earlier this week.Even if the FDA grants final approval for the Johnson & Johnson product, U.S. vaccine supplies are not expected to increase significantly in the immediate future. Only a few million doses are expected to be ready for shipping in the first week after approval. The company told Congress earlier this week it hopes to provide 20 million doses by the end of next month and 100 million by summer.So far, around 45 million Americans have received one dose of the previously approved vaccines, and nearly 20 million have received the second dose for full protection. The World Health Organization and European countries are also considering the vaccine from the American health care company that plans to produce about 500 million doses worldwide by the end of the year.
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 Solar energy is a natural fit for sun-drenched Southern Africa, its proponents say. The only problem: Not enough panels to meet soaring demand. VOA’s Anita Powell looks at one company spinning sunshine into energy. Camera:  Zaheer Cassim    
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China’s state media reported Wednesday the country’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft has entered a temporary “parking orbit’ around the planet Mars, where it will stay for about three months before attempting to land a rover on the surface.China National Space Administration (CNSA) said the spacecraft executed a maneuver to adjust its orbit early Wednesday Beijing time.  
 
The Tianwen-1 probe includes an orbiter, a lander and a rover, and while in orbit, the space agency said the probe will be mapping the planet’s surface and collecting additional data, particularly about the prospective landing site for the rover.
 China Probe Becomes Second in Two Days to Reach Mars China’s space agency says goal is to have Tianwen-1 probe land rover on planet’s surface The deputy chief designer of the probe, Tan Zhiyun, told China Central Television (CCTV) the Tianwen-1 will take pictures of the prospective landing zone and judge the topography and potential for dust storms and other factors that will help scientists prepare for a safe landing in May or June.
 
The spacecraft began orbiting Mars on Feb. 10 after a roughly seven-month journey from Earth. An orbiter from the United Arab Emirates arrived one day earlier, and last week, the U.S. space agency NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on the planet.  
 
All three of the missions were launched in July to take advantage of the close alignment between Earth and Mars that happens only once every two years.
 
Tianwen-1 represents the most ambitious mission yet for China’s secretive, military-linked space program that first put an astronaut in orbit around Earth in 2003 and last year brought moon rocks back to Earth for the first time since the 1970s. China was also the first country to land a spacecraft on the little-explored far side of the moon in 2019.
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Ghana has received the first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines through the World Health Organization’s global vaccine-sharing program. A flight carrying 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccine arrived Wednesday in the capital, Accra, according to a joint statement from WHO and UNICEF, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. The vaccines were manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer.  The vaccines sent to Ghana were purchased through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility, or COVAX, an initiative launched by WHO in cooperation with  Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, an organization founded by philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates to vaccinate children in the world’s poorest countries. The project purchases vaccines with the help of wealthier countries and distributes them equitably to all countries. U.S. President Joe Biden pledged $4 billion to the COVAX program last week.  WHO announced in December that COVAX has secured agreements for nearly two billion doses of several “promising” vaccine candidates.A pack of AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines is seen as the country receives its first batch of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines under COVAX scheme, in Accra, Feb. 24, 2021.A new variant of the novel coronavirus recently discovered in the western U.S. state of California is more contagious than other versions, according to two new preliminary studies. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco discovered the new variant, called B.1.427/B.1.429, as they were tracking the possible spread of the B.1.1.7 variant, which was first detected in Britain last year.  The team found B.1.427/B.1.429  had become the predominant variant in the state after testing virus samples collected from across the state between September of last year and January.  The UCSF team says people infected with the B.1.427/B.1.429 variant produced a viral load twice as large as that of other variants, which may make them more contagious to others. The new variant is also more likely to cause severe illness, “including increased risk of high oxygen requirement,” and is at least partially resistant to antibodies that could combat and neutralize it.   In the other study, researchers found the variant has spread rapidly throughout San Francisco’s historic Mission District neighborhood, increasing from 16% of all confirmed COVID-19 infections tracked in November to 53% of infections by January.   Dr. Charles Chiu, a virologist who led the UCSF study, said the B.1.427/B.1.429 variant should be designated “a variant of concern” that merited further investigation.   As more Americans are vaccinated, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says new guidelines for vaccinated people will be coming “soon” from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci addresses the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, Jan.21, 2021.“I believe you’re going to be hearing more of the recommendations of how you can relax the stringency of some of the things, particularly when you’re dealing with something like your own personal family when people have been vaccinated,” Fauci told CNN.    Some changes for those vaccinated have already been published. For example, people who have been vaccinated do not need to quarantine if they come in contact with an infected person.  The supply of vaccines is expected to grow as manufacturers say they will increase production, the U.S. based cable news network CNBC reported.    In written congressional testimony, Pfizer’s Chief Business Officer John Young said the company plans to double its output to 13 million doses per week by mid-March.  Moderna hopes to deliver 40 million doses per month by April.  The supply could be further bolstered by Johnson & Johnson’s new one-shot vaccine, which is expected to be reviewed Thursday.  
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The number of people going hungry in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua has nearly quadrupled in the last two years, the United Nations said on Tuesday, as Central America has been battered by an economic crisis. New data released by the U.N.’s World Food Program showed nearly 8 million people across the four countries are experiencing hunger this year, up from 2.2 million in 2018. “The COVID-19-induced economic crisis had already put food on the market shelves out of reach for the most vulnerable people when the twin hurricanes Eta and Iota battered them further,” Miguel Barreto, WFP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a statement.   He was referring to two hurricanes that hit Central America in November. “We’re eating the little food that people give to us,” said Marina Rosado, 70, who along with her son and grandchildren live along a boulevard in the Honduran city of Lima that was inundated by flooding last year. The storms that destroyed their home were the latest blow pushing the family further into hunger, Rosado said, after pandemic-related restrictions limited their ability to collect bottles and cans in the streets to sell to recycling companies.   The WFP also noted that 15% of those surveyed by the organization in January 2021 said that they were making concrete plans to migrate — nearly double the percentage in 2018. 
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