Month: February 2021

Ancient Mass Production Brewery Uncovered in Egypt 

Archaeologists have discovered a 5,000-year-old brewery that could produce thousands of liters of beer in the ancient Egyptian city of Abydos, Egypt’s Tourism and Antiquities Ministry said. The site in Egypt’s Sohag Governorate likely dates back to the reign of King Narmer around 3,100 BC, the ministry said in a statement on Saturday. Dr. Matthew Adams, one of the leaders of the Egyptian-American mission that made the discovery, said they believe the beer was used in royal burial rituals for Egypt’s earliest kings. The brewery, which had a production capacity of 22,400 liters, was split into eight sections each containing 40 clay pots used to warm mixtures of grain and water. Officials are keen to show off newly discovered artefacts as they try to revive visitor numbers after Egypt’s tourism industry received a painful blow during the coronavirus pandemic. The number of tourists visiting the country dropped to 3.5 million last year from 13.1 million in 2019. 

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Report: British Scientists Developing Universal COVID Vaccine

There are 108.5 million global COVID-19 infections, Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Sunday. The U.S. has the most cases at 27.5 million, followed by India with 10.9 million and Brazil with 9.8 million.The Telegraph newspaper reports British scientists are developing a universal vaccine that would combat all the variants of the coronavirus and could be available within a year.The British newspaper says scientists at the University of Nottingham are working on a vaccine that would target the core of virus instead of the spike protein that current vaccines focus on.Targeting the core alleviates the need to frequently adjust existing vaccines as the virus mutates.The Telegraph said proteins found in the core of the virus are far less likely to mutate, meaning the vaccine would protect against all current variants and would theoretically have greater longevity.A 58-year-old man in France is reported to be the first person infected for a second time with the highly contagious South African variant of the coronavirus.The man’s reinfection is “rare albeit probably underestimated,” according to the authors of an article in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal.New Zealand’s largest city in going into a three-day lockdown, the country’s first in six months. The shuttering of Auckland comes after the discovery of three family members – a father, mother and daughter – with COVID.The rest of the country will be on heightened restrictions.New Zealand is known for having have stamped out the local transmission of the coronavirus, but it regularly detects the virus in travelers to New Zealand who are then placed in quarantine.The mother in the New Zealand family with COVID works at a catering company that does laundry for airlines. Authorities are investigating whether there is a link to an infected passenger.Not all U.S. states are happy about President Joe Biden’s plan to establish 100 COVID vaccine inoculation sites around the country by the end of the month, according to an Associated Press report.The wire service reports that some states have learned that the sites do not come with additional vaccines but would pull vaccines from the state’s existing allocation.A spokesperson for Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee said, “Up until now, we’ve been under the impression that these sites do not come with their own supply of vaccine — which is the principal thing we need more of, rather than more ways to distribute what we already have.”Adding to the confusion, AP reported that some states have been told by federal officials that the new sites would come with their own supply of vaccines.

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Doctors, Selfie Points Help Fight Vaccine Hesitancy in New Delhi

Azhoni Marina had witnessed the havoc wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic up close as she nursed patients in a COVID ward for seven months at New Delhi’s Indraprastha Apollo Hospital. As she waited after her night shift to get her first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, however, she was apprehensive.“I heard from so many people that there is lot of side effect, so actually I was a bit worried before I received the vaccine,” Marina said.However, a sense of relief washed over her when she did not suffer any aftereffects during the half-hour mandatory wait after she got the shot.“I am now waiting for my second dose,” she said, heading home.Unlike most countries, for India the challenge is not availability of vaccines as it rolls out a nationwide inoculation drive – there are millions of doses ready in the world’s largest vaccine-producing country.Since launching the program in mid-January, though, health officials have been battling to overcome “vaccine hesitancy” as people scheduled to take shots failed to show up at inoculation centers.The waning pandemic in India, health officials warn, has led to a sense of complacency about the need to get vaccines, while initial reports about possible side effects have raised doubts among some. That includes some of the country’s 30 million health and front-line workers, who are first in line to get the shots.At the Apollo Hospital, doctors ramped up the numbers of inoculations by stepping forward to take the vaccine to allay doubts — the daily numbers of inoculations have grown nearly threefold here.Nurse Azhino Marina is apprehensive as she waits for her COVID-19 vaccine shot at New Delhi’s Indraprastha Apollo Hospital. (Anjana Pasricha/VOA)“People were a bit scared, they asked a lot of questions, we kept on answering their questions and then when they saw that vaccine is quite safe, this helped us in building confidence in vaccines,” said Sanjeev Sharma, a hospital clinical pharmacologist.From talks by senior doctors, to individual counseling sessions, to selfie points where those who get vaccinated take photos and upload them on social media, the Indian capital has launched several initiatives to persuade people to take the shots.For Rajesh Kumar Kohli, who worked in the COVID section of the Apollo Hospital for several weeks, getting the vaccine’s first dose brought huge relief.“Even if something happened to me, I will now be safe,” he said.However, the decreased sense of urgency about getting inoculated as India’s case numbers dip dramatically is posing a challenge. India is reporting about 12,000 infections a day, compared to about 90,000 at its peak in September.Indian cities such as New Delhi that were hot spots for the pandemic are fully open. Markets are buzzing, movie theaters and restaurants have opened, the streets are again crammed with vehicles.The government’s decision to administer a homegrown vaccine, Covaxin, before final trial results become available has also created doubts among some, even though health experts have been reiterating that it is both effective and safe, and leading doctors in the city have taken the shot to instill confidence. This is one of the two vaccines being used at inoculation centers.A health care worker in New Delhi gets a photo taken at a selfie point set up to encourage people to come forward to get inoculated. (Anjana Pasricha/VOA)Several big Indian states, such as Tamil Nadu and Punjab, have vaccinated fewer than half of their health care workers who are due to be given shots.Health officials have been constantly reinforcing the message that only vaccinations will end the pandemic, saying the lower numbers present India a with window of opportunity to make sure it is not hit by a second wave, as many Western countries have been.“Where the footfall is not so good, we are organizing talks by senior consultants, we are involving local people and mobilizers to ask them to come to the centers,” said Dr. Pareejat Saurabh, an immunization officer in Delhi. Those steps have boosted numbers.India is expected to move to the next phase of its program next month, inoculating those over 50. This may pose greater challenges, though. Even in this vulnerable group, opinion on taking the vaccine is divided, with some saying they are anxiously awaiting their turn and others preferring to “wait and watch.”“Whenever my turn comes, I will take the vaccine,” said Veena Sawhney, shopping at a New Delhi market.A shop owner, Rajesh Mehta, however, was more cautious.“The old should take it. I want my mother to get it. But I am in no rush, my immunity is OK,” he told VOA.So far, more than 8 million people have been vaccinated – India says it has been the fastest to administer this many shots and plans to accelerate the drive in coming weeks.Given the massive scale of the task, though, the country with the second-highest number of infections after the United States could fall short of its target of reaching 300 million people, nearly one quarter of its population, by August.

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Cloning Diamonds: An Art and Rare Skill

Diamond cloning is said to be a vocation, an artform and a rare skill. New York artist John Hatleberg creates precise reproductions of famous diamonds, but one copy became his life’s work – the Blue Diamond of the French Crown. Vladimir Lenski has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
Camera: Aleksandr Barash and Natalia Latukhina

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More Than 50 Million Doses of COVID-19 Vaccines Administered in US, CDC says

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had administered more than 50 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Saturday morning and delivered about 69.9 million doses.The tally of vaccine doses is for both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, vaccines as of 6:00 a.m. ET Saturday, the agency said.According to the tally posted on Friday, the agency had administered 48.4 million doses of the vaccines, and delivered about 69 million doses.The agency said about 37.1 million people had received one or more doses while more than 13 million people have got the second dose as of Saturday.About 5.7 million vaccine doses have been administered in long-term care facilities, the agency said.   

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Guinea Sees First Ebola Deaths Since 2016 

Four people have died of Ebola in Guinea in the first resurgence of the disease in five years, the country’s health minister said Saturday.Remy Lamah told AFP that officials were “really concerned” about the deaths, the first since a 2013-16 epidemic — which began in Guinea — left 11,300 dead across the region.One of the latest victims in Guinea was a nurse who fell ill in late January and was buried on February 1, National Health Security Agency head Sakoba Keita told local media.”Among those who took part in the burial, eight people showed symptoms: diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding,” he said. Three died and four were in a hospital, he added.The four deaths from Ebola hemorrhagic fever occurred in the southeast region of Nzerekore, he said.Keita also told local media that one patient had “escaped” but had been found and hospitalized in the capital, Conakry. He confirmed the comments to AFP without giving further detail.The World Health Organization has eyed each new outbreak since 2016 with great concern, treating the most recent one in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an international health emergency.’Testing underway’Early Sunday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted that the U.N. health agency had been informed of two suspected cases of the deadly disease in Guinea.”Confirmatory testing underway,” the tweet said, adding that WHO’s regional and country offices were “supporting readiness and response efforts.”The DRC has faced several outbreaks of the illness, with the WHO on Thursday confirming a resurgence three months after authorities declared the end of the country’s latest outbreak.The country had declared the six-month epidemic over in November. It was the country’s 11th Ebola outbreak, claiming 55 lives out of 130 cases.The widespread use of vaccinations, which were administered to more than 40,000 people, helped curb the disease.The 2013-16 outbreak sped up the development of a vaccine against Ebola, with a global emergency stockpile of 500,000 doses planned to respond quickly to future outbreaks, the vaccine alliance Gavi said in January.  

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Poet Amanda Gorman Inspires Young People to Write and Express Themselves

As 17-year-old Darius Jackson watched TV, listening in rapt attention to 22-year-old Amanda Gorman recite her poem The Hill We Climb at the inauguration of U.S. President Joe Biden last month, he was struck by the “powerful words” of the young Black woman.It was a “defining moment in history,” said Jackson, who is a high school senior at Central Visual and Performing Arts School in St. Louis, Missouri.With her reading on Jan. 21, televised nationally and across the globe, Gorman has singlehandedly lit a firestorm of interest in an art form that spans millennia, now drawing a new generation of enthusiasts.Jackson told VOA he saw some similarities in her poem to Martin Luther King Jr.’s stirring I Have a Dream speech in 1963 that called for an end to racism.One of two books by Inaugural Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman that are set to be released in September. “There’s been tension and racial divide in America,” Jackson explained, “and in this poem I feel she was trying to put a Band-Aid on the wound we’ve been going through” to try to bring the country together.His English teacher, Maggie Schuh, said the inspirational poems Gorman recited at the inauguration and more recently at the Super Bowl of American football resonate with her students.Gorman, who became the first National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017, is inspiring children to reach out to poetry, which is “alive and well,” she said, and includes more than just reading “stuffy old dead white guys’ poems.”Today’s poetry, which includes slam, spoken word and hip-hop lyrics, gives them more freedom to express themselves, she said.According to Tyra Jenkins, an English teacher at Northwestern High School in Hyattsville, Maryland, Gorman’s poetry, which focuses on issues such as civil rights, feminism, unity and social justice, is making her students think about “expressing their political voices.”Jenkins also said Gorman’s smooth delivery gives them more confidence that they, too, can be good public speakers.But there was a time when Gorman wasn’t so confident.FILE – A teenage Amanda Gorman at a WriteGirl poetry workshop in 2015. (Courtesy WriteGirl)The poet grew up in Los Angeles and turned to writing when she was young to cope with a speech impediment.  When she was 14, she joined WriteGirl, an afterschool program that mentors teenage girls in underserved communities to give them a voice through creative writing.Karen Taylor, founder and executive director of WriteGirl, recalls that when Gorman first came “she was shy and terrified of the microphone.”  But always eager to learn, once she got over her fear of the microphone, she was “unstoppable.”“Gorman comes from a vibrant slam poetry tradition. She has a lot of energy and there’s a freshness to her delivery” that I think resonates with young people today, explained Kiki Petrosino, a poetry professor at the University of Virginia.“And now she’s considered a shining star,” said Taylor of Gorman, who recently graduated from Harvard University with a degree in sociology.Gorman has also “captivated the imagination of young people because she is the voice of democracy, freedom, and a future of what’s possible,” said Laura Brief, chief executive officer of 826 National, a youth writing network for elementary and high school students in some under-resourced communities across the country. Gorman is on the group’s board and is mentoring some of the students in its workshops, she said.Beyance James, a senior at Northwestern High School in Hyattsville, Maryland, calls Gorman “an inspiration who uses her words to touch everyone, especially in such difficult times.”James said the last lines of The Hill We Climb are special to her because they are a reminder for her and other young people to make a difference, even when times are tough:“For there is always light, 
if only we’re brave enough to see it. 
If only we’re brave enough to be it.” 

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Australia Leading Race to Save Endangered ‘Hedge-Trimmer’ Fish

New research has shown that Australia is the “last stronghold on Earth” for four out of five threatened species of sawfish. With their serrated snouts, these predatory fish are one of the ocean’s most unusual and endangered animals.They have a snout, or rostrum, that looks like a hedge-trimmer or a chainsaw. Small electromagnetic sensors help the sawfish detect the heartbeat and movement of buried prey. They are generally unassuming creatures, but when threatened, the saw also serves as a weapon. They can grow up to 7 meters in length and move easily between fresh and salt water. In Australia, they’re found in Queensland, the Northern Territory and on the west coast.Around the world, they are hunted for their fins and other body parts, which are used in traditional medicines or sold as souvenirs. Habitat loss is a significant threat. So is entanglement in fishing nets as their serrated snout is easily caught up in the mesh.An international study published in the journal Science Advances, including research from Charles Darwin University in Australia’s Northern Territory, has found that sawfish are now extinct in more than 50 nations.Leonardo Guida is a shark scientist from the Australian Marine Conservation Society. He says sawfish have disappeared in many parts of the world.“Sawfish are facing the very real threat of global extinction because of overfishing and habitat destruction across the world,” he said. “So we know that in more than half of the countries that they live in, they are no longer found. That equates to about 55 out of 90 countries, and Australia is the lifeboat. It is the last place on Earth where we have chance to really save these species from global extinction.”New research has identified eight nations, including Tanzania, Brazil and Sri Lanka, where urgent action could help to save this unique species.Trade in sawfish is banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, but deliberate and accidental killings still take place.

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CDC: Evidence Is Strong That Schools Can Reopen Doors Safely

The top public health agency in the U.S. said Friday that in-person schooling could resume safely with masks, social distancing and other strategies but that vaccination of teachers, while important, was not a prerequisite for reopening.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its long-awaited road map for getting students back to classrooms in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. But its guidance is just that — the agency cannot force schools to reopen, and agency officials were careful to say they were not calling for a mandate that all U.S. schools be reopened.Officials said there was strong evidence now that schools could reopen, especially at lower grade levels.The new guidance included many of the same measures previously backed by the CDC, but it suggested them more forcefully. It emphasized that all of the recommendations must be implemented strictly and consistently to keep schools safe. It also provided more detailed suggestions about what type of schooling should be offered given different levels of virus transmission, with differing advice for elementary, middle and high schools.Recommended measures included handwashing, disinfection of school facilities, diagnostic testing, and contact tracing to find new infections and separate infected people from others in a school. It was also more emphatic than past guidance about the need to wear masks in school.”We know that most clusters in the school setting have occurred when there are breaches in mask wearing,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director, said in a call with reporters.FILE – Pre-kindergarten teacher Sarah McCarthy works with a student at Dawes Elementary in Chicago, Jan. 11, 2021.Extra ‘layer of protection’Although the guidance said vaccinating teachers should not be seen as a condition to reopen, Walensky said it could provide “an additional layer of protection.”The guidance was issued as President Joe Biden faces increasing pressure to deliver on his promise to get the majority of schools back to in-person teaching by the end of his first 100 days in office. The White House said this week that a national strategy would be guided by science.”This is free from political meddling,” Walensky said.There’s wide agreement that learning in the classroom is more effective and that students can face isolation and learning setbacks at home. But teachers unions in some areas say schools have failed to make buildings safe enough to return.CDC officials emphasized that in-person learning has not been identified as a substantial driver of coronavirus spread in U.S. communities, and that transmission among students is now considered relatively rare.The CDC also stressed that the safest way to open schools is by making sure there is as little disease in a community as possible. The agency urged local officials to assess whether a bad outbreak is occurring in a community when making decisions about sending adults and children in to schools.FILE – Students wear masks as they work in a fourth-grade classroom at Elk Ridge Elementary School in Buckley, Wash., Feb. 2, 2021.Chart offers guidanceThe guidance included a color-coded chart, from blue to red, on assessing community spread, including rates of new cases per 100,000 people and the percentage of positive tests.That said, high community transmission does not necessarily mean schools cannot be open — especially those at the elementary level. If school mitigation measures are strictly followed, the risk of spread in the schools should still be low, the guidance suggested.The document suggested that when things get risky, elementary schools could go hybrid, providing in-person instruction at least on some days, but that middle and high schools might go virtual.Biden has been caught between competing interests as he works to get students into classrooms without spurning the powerful teachers unions that helped get him elected. Critics say he has bowed to unions instead of taking more aggressive action on reopening.Unlike former President Donald Trump, who pressured schools to open and blasted the CDC for issuing guidance that he said was impractical, Biden has kept his distance from the CDC as it works on recommendations. Even after the CDC’s director recently said that vaccinations were not a prerequisite for reopening, the White House declined to take a firm stance on the question.No White House inputWhite House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that “no one on our senior staff” had seen the CDC guidelines ahead of their release. “I can assure you that the White House is not directing the CDC.”FILE – Paul Adamus, 7, waits at the bus stop for the first day of school in Dallas, Ga., Aug. 3, 2020.Getting students back into classrooms is seen as a key to getting parents back to work. As part of Biden’s coronavirus relief package, he’s calling for $130 billion to help schools update buildings, buy protective gear and enact other recommended safety measures.Biden’s national strategy says the administration “will also work with states and local school districts to support screening testing in schools, including working with states to ensure an adequate supply of test kits.”But the CDC guidance stops short of recommending testing, saying, “Some schools may also elect to use screening testing as a strategy to identify cases and prevent secondary transmission.”Some education leaders complained that CDC guidance provided under Trump did not go far enough and that information issued to schools was inconsistent. On masks, for example, it said face coverings were recommended if students could not be spaced 2 meters apart, but with social distancing, it said masks “may be considered.”Early concernsIn the early days of the U.S. epidemic, some health experts worried that schools might become cauldrons of coronavirus infection, with kids infecting each other and then spreading it to family members — as seems to be the case during cold and flu season.Those concerns were stoked by reports of an explosive outbreak in May at a high school in Israel, shortly after schools in that country reopened after a lockdown.But with the economy reeling after lockdowns of schools and businesses last spring, the Trump administration pushed hard for schools to reopen.In July, Trump accused the CDC of “asking schools to do very impractical things” in order to reopen. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos incorrectly said research showed there was no danger “in any way” if kids were in school, and Vice President Mike Pence promised that the CDC would issue new guidance.The CDC did post revised documents late that month that kept many of its earlier recommendations. But in response to reporters’ questions, CDC officials said that the decision on whether to send kids back to school really rested with parents. The agency also posted an introductory document — written by government officials outside the CDC — that stressed the potential risks of children not attending school.   

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US Veteran Finds Way to Fight PTSD — and Help Homeless

After Navy veteran Maxwell Moore returned home to Los Angeles following numerous tours to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, the local Veterans Affairs office urged him to find a hobby to help him deal with his post-traumatic stress disorder. His therapy eventually turned into a business, as reporter Angelina Bagdasaryan found in this story narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Vazgen Varzhabetian . 

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Malawi Health Workers Face Harassment over COVID-19 Deaths

In Malawi, health care workers have come under attack several times recently while trying to bury victims of COVID-19 without spreading the coronavirus.Health care workers now want a review of guidelines that say they should handle the burials.The incident happened Tuesday in Mchinji district in central Malawi where villagers threw stones at an ambulance carrying the dead body, in an effort to force the heath care workers to release the body for viewing.The pandemonium forced the heath care workers to return the body to the mortuary.This came a week after villagers in Zomba district in southern Malawi chased away health care workers who had come to bury a COVID-19 victim.They too claimed that their loved one died of other illnesses, not COVID-19, and demanded to bury the body themselves.Shouts Simeza is chairperson for the Human Resources for Health Coalition.He says if the attacks continue, the health care workers will refuse to bury any more bodies.“Because of harassment and abuse, we always leave in fear,” Simeza said. “If the situation continues, all of us heath care workers, we will withdraw ourselves from the service of escorting the remains of our brothers and sisters in the communities.”Families have argued they see no reason they can’t bury COVID-19 victims after health care workers disinfect the bodies. They say they believe the body is safe from coronavirus after disinfection.But Simeza says the health care workers are only following guidelines on how to bury the victims of COVID-19.“The guidelines still demand that the health workers should support in escorting and burying of remains for safety of the public,” Simeza said, “So, the direction now is to work on the guidelines, what we have at hand; review them. For that to be carried out, we will need to involve community so that they can appreciate the scourge.”In the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, experts warned that dead bodies were infectious, like bodies of those killed by the Ebola virus.More recently, however, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued a burial guide that said, “it is believed there is little risk of getting COVID-19 from a dead body.”The guide said the coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, spreads mainly through droplets produced when a person coughs, sneezes or talks.Malawi has seen a surge in COVID-19 cases since November.Health authorities put the current average number of daily infections at 300 cases compared to 10 during the first wave of the pandemic.   

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ICRC Calls for Africa to Get Fair Share of COVID-19 vaccines

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is calling on the world community to make sure Africa gets a fair share of COVID-19 vaccines.  
 
Ahead of a visit to the Central African Republic, one year after the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was reported there, ICRC President Peter Maurer said in a statement Friday that “[i]t is a moral imperative that Africa’s access to needed vaccines is drastically improved, but also that COVID vaccination campaigns do not come at the cost of other key health concerns.”  
 
He said as new COVID-19 variants start to spread, “[n]o one is safe until everyone is safe,” adding that “equitable access to its vaccine today is a critical step towards more equitable access to vaccines more generally.”
 
The World Health Organization said this week that the UN-led COVAX initiative aims to start shipping about 90 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Africa this month.  It said the immunization rollout will be the continent’s largest ever mass vaccination campaign.
 
Most of the doses will be of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
 
The ICRC said as more vaccines become available, it is of paramount importance that authorities give high priority to displaced people, migrants and refugees, people in detention, and to communities in areas under non-government control, the statement said.
 
“Vaccinating vulnerable groups across the globe makes economic sense,” Maurer said.
 
The ICRC, in close cooperation with Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies and other partners, is ready to help with vaccine roll outs, Maurer said.  

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Australian Open Begins Under COVID Lockdown

The Australian Open in Melbourne is underway, but without any spectators. Instead of enjoying the tournament, tennis fans and the millions of people who live in Victoria state are under a five-day snap shutdown, following a coronavirus outbreak at a quarantine hotel in Melbourne, Victoria’s capital. Tennis players have been classified as essential workers. Germany is banning travel from its Czech border regions and Austria’s Tyrol because of an alarming COVID surge in the two locations.  The restrictions go into effect Sunday.Missionaries in some remote areas of Brazil have convinced some Indigenous people that the COVID-19 vaccine is not good for them. The residents of one Amazon village picked up bows and arrows to fight off healthcare workers set on inoculating the region’s residents. Brazil has 9.7 million COVID-19 cases, coming in third place in the world’s infections, behind only India with 10. 8 million and the U.S. with 27.3 million cases. There are more than 107 million global infections. FILE – Packages of protective face masks are show after being donated to Miami-Dade Transit employees during a news conference April 24, 2020, in Miami.In US, N95 mask shortage
In Washington, the White House is working with mask manufacturers and medical supply companies to ensure that frontline workers have the N95 masks they desperately need. U.S. President Joe Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator read in The New York Times about the disconnect between mask makers, supply companies and hospitals and has begun facilitating connections. Jeffrey D. Zients said in a statement, “We will do all we can to get frontline workers the personal protective equipment they need, including breaking down barriers for N95 manufacturers.”“The COVID-19 pandemic has been a stark reminder of the importance of integrating mental health into preparedness and response plans for public health emergencies,” said Dévora Kestel, the World Health Organization’s director of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Use at a recent executive board meeting.  “The inclusion of this issue at the next session of the World Health Assembly is an important next step towards being better prepared to provide people with the support they need for their mental health during future public health emergencies.”The COVID-19 pandemic has killed more than 2.3 million people worldwide, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. 

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Experts Worry About Pandemic’s Impact on Malaria Progress in Nigeria

A warning by the World Health Organization that the COVID-19 pandemic could harm efforts to eradicate malaria appears to be coming true in Nigeria. Nigerian officials say people are refusing to get treatment for fear of catching the virus at a clinic.Fatima Mohammed is in her home at a camp for displaced people in Abuja, tending to her two sons who are currently down with malaria.She says she’s can’t afford huge hospital bills and is afraid that taking them to the hospital could potentially expose them to COVID-19 or result in a misdiagnosis.”I don’t have money to take them to the hospital — and, again, at the hospital, they’ll easily call it coronavirus,” she said. “I don’t have money for that.”Malaria and COVID-19 present similar symptoms, but fear and stigma attached to the pandemic are reasons many like Fatima are seeking alternatives to hospital treatment.Health experts say in-hospital visits for malaria declined significantly in Nigeria since reporting the coronavirus in February 2020.The World Health Organization’s World malaria report 2020 suggested the pandemic is threatening years of progress made against malaria and warned that death rates from the mosquito-borne disease could double.WHO malaria consultant Lynda Ozor says disruption of preventive measures is to blame.”The use of long-lasting insecticidal nets, seasonal malaria chemo prevention and prevention of malaria in pregnancy were interrupted,” she said. “So, assuming all these preventive interventions were interrupted, then it was expected, and the model shows that there will be very negative effects.”Nigeria accounts for about a quarter of malaria cases worldwide, and about 23% of deaths globally.Even before COVID-19 hit, many Nigerians took malaria less seriously, says Adeboyega Adeyogo, who heads pharmaceutical operations at WellaHealth, a Nigerian health company focusing on eliminating malaria.”Due to advances in health and technology, many people resolve malaria within days,” Adeyogo said. “So, you see that many Nigerians now take it with a lot of levity because of the ease of treatment. But if they decide to avoid it, then it becomes a major issue and you now start seeing the serious complications associated with malaria.”Nigeria’s National Malaria Elimination Program planned to provide 31 million people with free mosquito nets, anti-malaria drugs and malaria testing last year. But disruptions caused by COVID-19 meant they reached only half of their goal.That has increased concern that malaria, along with COVID-19, will remain a threat to Nigerians for years to come.

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Microsoft Backs Search Engines Paying for News Worldwide

Microsoft on Thursday lobbied for other countries to follow Australia’s lead in calling for news outlets to be paid for stories published online, a move opposed by Facebook and Google.Microsoft last week offered to fill the void if rival Google follows through on a threat to turn off its search engine in Australia over the plan.Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a statement the company fully supports proposed legislation in Australia that would force Google and Facebook to compensate media for their journalism.”This has made for an unusual split within the tech sector, and we’ve heard from people asking whether Microsoft would support a similar proposal in the United States, Canada, the European Union and other countries,” Smith said in a blog post.FILE – This combination of file photos shows a Google sign and the Facebook app. “The short answer is, yes.”Facebook and Google have both threatened to block key services in Australia if the rules, now before Parliament, become law as written.The situation raises the question of whether U.S. President Joe Biden will back away from his predecessor’s objection to the proposal in Australia.”As the United States takes stock of the events on January 6, it’s time to widen the aperture,” Smith said, referring to a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol building by a mob of Trump supporters out to overturn the election results.”The ultimate question is what values we want the tech sector and independent journalism to serve.”Smith argued that internet platforms that have not previously compensated news agencies should now step up to revive independent journalism that “goes to the heart of our democratic freedoms.”“The United States should not object to a creative Australian proposal that strengthens democracy by requiring tech companies to support a free press,” Smith said. “It should copy it instead.”Bing goes big?The proposed law in Australia would govern relations between financially distressed traditional media outlets and the giants that dominate the internet and capture a significant share of advertising revenues.Microsoft’s search engine Bing accounts for less than 5% of the market in Australia, and from 15% to 20% of the market in the United States, according to the tech giant based in Washington State.”With a realistic prospect of gaining usage share, we are confident we can build the service Australians want and need,” Smith said.”And unlike Google, if we can grow, we are prepared to sign up for the new law’s obligations, including sharing revenue as proposed with news organizations.”Under the proposed News Media Bargaining Code, Google and Facebook would be required to negotiate payments to individual news organizations for using their content on the platforms.Australia’s biggest media companies, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Nine Entertainment, have said they think the payments should amount to hundreds of millions of dollars per year.If agreement cannot be reached on the size of the payments, the issue would go to so-called “final offer” arbitration where each side proposes a compensation amount and the arbiter chooses one or the other.Google and Facebook, backed up by the U.S. government and leading internet architects, have said the scheme would seriously undermine their business models and the very functioning of the internet.Both Facebook and Google have insisted they are willing to pay publishers for news via licensing agreements and commercial negotiations, and both have signed deals worth millions of dollars with news organizations around the world.Google has said the bargaining code should focus on facilitating these kinds of negotiations, but it rejected the idea of mandatory “final offer” arbitration.

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Rights Groups Urge Boycott of 2022 Winter Games in China

More than 180 human rights groups are calling for diplomatic boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games to protest Beijing’s abuses of racial and ethnic minorities.  The coalition of FILE – International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound, Nov. 1, 2010.”The games are not Chinese Games, the games are the IOC Games,” FILE – Extending gloved hands skyward in racial protest, U.S. athletes Tommie Smith, center, and John Carlos stare downward during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” in the 1968 Mexico City Games.Since then, South Africa was expelled from the 1970 Games for the country’s policy of apartheid. It was not readmitted to competition until the 1992 Barcelona Games. In 1980, 66 countries, led by the United States, boycotted the Moscow Games because of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Daryl Adair, an associate professor of sports management at the University of Technology Sydney, told VOA via email that the IOC has a responsibility to be sure that the principles that underpin the Olympics are appropriately reflected in countries that host the games.  “For example, would the IOC and the international sporting community be comfortable with an Olympics hosted by Myanmar, given its treatment of the Rohingya people, followed more recently by a military coup?” he asked.”China is, like Myanmar, a country for which external observers have serious and legitimate concerns – most notably with claims about Beijing’s treatment of some ethnic minorities,” Adair added.  Plugged In-Myanmar Democracy in PerilThe United States is levying new sanctions on Myanmar’s military following its takeover of the country’s government on February 1, placing Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest and ending a nearly 10-year experiment in democracy. Plugged In with Greta Van Susteren examines the situation with Derek Mitchell, former U.S. ambassador to Myanmar. Airdate: February 10, 2021.Adair said that unless Beijing can demonstrate that such claims are without merit, calls to disallow Beijing from hosting the 2022 Olympics would continue. “And the IOC will be drawn irrevocably into a discussion it seems reluctant to have,” he told VOA.  Rule 50  Currently, the International Olympic Committee’s official stance is that it is only a sporting body that does not get involved with politics.  The committee points to Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter, which states, “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”  Yet, with athlete activism on the rise, the IOC Athletes’ Commission is now consulting with athletes globally on different ways Olympians can express themselves in a “dignified way,” with a recommendation on Rule 50 expected in early 2021. Jules Boykoff, a political science professor at Pacific University, represented the U.S. on the Olympic soccer team from 1989 to 1992 before turning professional to play for the Portland Pride, Minnesota Thunder and Milwaukee Wave.  He told VOA, “The Chinese government’s treatment of the ethnic Uighur Muslim population in Xinjiang province and its tough and brutal crackdown on the dissent in Hong Kong clash mightily with the principles that are enshrined in the Olympic Charter.”  FILE – Riot police detain a man as they clear protesters taking part in a rally against a new national security law in Hong Kong, July 1, 2020.Boykoff, the author of  Activism and the Olympics, told VOA that the IOC commission’s review of Rule 50 is “absolutely necessary.” “It has long been outdated and it clashes with fundamental human rights principles such as (United Nations) Article 19, which states very clearly that one should be able to speak out with freedom on issues that matter to them,” Boykoff said, adding that curtailing the freedom of speech actually clashes with ideas that are based in the Olympic Charter.  Many human rights groups welcome the review. “In the age of social media, it has had to review this rule,” said Richardson, of Human Rights Watch. “We believe that the IOC should simply remove all barriers to peaceful expression.”  Yet Adair said there might be a flip side to laissez-faire political speech and gestures on the field of play and during ceremonies if athletes advocate for causes that do not align with themes that the IOC endorses.  He took the recent Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement as an example.  “Advocating for a cause like BLM is consistent with the Olympic Charter,” he said, “However, if an athlete advocated for white supremacy or ethnic cleansing, that would be inconsistent with the sport participation equity principles underlying the Olympic Movement.”  He urged the IOC to provide guidelines consistent with the values it espouses for athlete participation because “this would also have the benefit of deterring political commentary that is not about human rights or social justice.”  Yu Zhou from the VOA Mandarin Service contributed to this report.   

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Health Experts Urge Vaccine Equity: ‘No One is Safe Until Everyone is Safe’

Health experts say allocating and delivering adequate supplies of COVID-19 vaccines to the developing world will continue to be a challenge. They add that collective and cooperative solutions will be needed — and failing to provide them will imperil human health worldwide. More with VOA’s Mariama Diallo.

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 ’Ailey’ Documentary Chronicles Black Experience Through Dance

“Ailey,” a documentary about the life and creative spirit of iconic African American dancer, director and choreographer Alvin Ailey, weaves an immersive portrait of Ailey as a creative genius and a complex individual, who emoted his life experience through movement. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. VOA’s Penelope Poulou spoke with the filmmaker about how Ailey’s modern dance reflected the Black cultural experience. 
Camera: Penelope Poulou   Produced by: Penelope Poulou   
 

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