Month: March 2021

One year into the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya, thousands of families are struggling with deepening poverty and unemployment.  A survey by the charity Twaweza shows 60% of Kenyan families can no longer afford three meals per day.  Brenda Mulinya reports from Nairobi.
Camera: Amos Wangwa       Producer: Henry Hernandez
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NASA’s newest Mars rover hit the dusty red road this week, putting 6.5 meters on the odometer in its first test drive.The Perseverance rover ventured from its landing position Thursday, two weeks after setting down on the Red Planet to seek signs of past life.The roundabout, back and forth drive lasted just 33 minutes and went so well that more driving was on tap Friday and Saturday for the six-wheeled rover.”This is really the start of our journey here,” said Rich Rieber, the NASA engineer who plotted the route. “This is going to be like the Odyssey, adventures along the way, hopefully no Cyclops, and I’m sure there will be stories aplenty written about it.”In its first drive, Perseverance went forward 4 meters, took a 150-degree left turn, then backed up 2.5 meters. During a news conference Friday, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, shared photos of its tracks over and around small rocks.”I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to see wheel tracks and I’ve seen a lot of them,” engineer Anais Zarifian said.Flight controllers are still checking all of Perseverance’s systems. So far, everything is looking good. The rover’s 2-meter robot arm, for instance, flexed its muscles for the first time Tuesday.Before the car-size rover can head for an ancient river delta to collect rocks for eventual return to Earth, it must drop its so-called protective “belly pan” and release an experimental helicopter named Ingenuity.As it turns out, Perseverance landed right on the edge of a potential helicopter landing strip — a nice, flat spot, according to Rieber. So the plan is to drive out of this landing strip, ditch the pan, then return for Ingenuity’s highly anticipated test flight. All this should be accomplished by late spring.Scientists are debating whether to take the smoother route to get to the nearby delta or a possibly tougher way with intriguing remnants from that once-watery time 3 billion to 4 billion years ago.Perseverance — NASA’s biggest and most elaborate rover yet — became the ninth U.S. spacecraft to successfully land on Mars on Feb. 18. China hopes to land its smaller rover — currently orbiting the Red Planet — in another few months.NASA scientists, meanwhile, announced Friday that they’ve named Perseverance’s touchdown site in honor of the late science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler, who grew up next door to JPL in Pasadena. She was one of the first African Americans to receive mainstream attention for science fiction. Her works included Bloodchild and Other Stories and Parable of the Sower. 
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The White House COVID-19 response team said Friday that all coronavirus vaccines currently available were safe and effective and urged Americans to take whichever one they had access to, after the mayor of Detroit reportedly declined an allocation of the Johnson & Johnson drug.At a news briefing Thursday, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said he was declining a shipment of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, adding that while it was a very good vaccine, he felt the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were better and he wanted to get the people of Detroit “the best.”At a virtual news briefing Friday, coronavirus special adviser Andy Slavitt said that the White House reached out to the mayor and that there had been a misunderstanding. It was not Duggan’s intent to refuse the vaccine, said Slavitt, adding, “In fact, he is very eager for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.”National Institutes of Health infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci again said that all three approved vaccines were “extraordinarily” effective in preventing severe disease and death. He advised taking the first available vaccine because the important thing is to be vaccinated.Meanwhile, Centers for Disease Control Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the agency hoped to release its official guidance for people who have been fully vaccinated. She said she understood people were eager to know what they could and couldn’t do, but that the centers wanted to make sure to get the advice right.The CDC guidelines would address a myriad of questions regarding approved activities, such as wearing a mask, flying on an airplane, or patronizing a bar or restaurant.More than 54 million people in the U.S. have received at least one shot; more than 27 million Americans are fully vaccinated.  
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The World Health Organization says it is using every measure it has to curb the spread of parallel Ebola outbreaks in Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo. One of the biggest lessons learned from the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa — the largest in history — is the critical importance of acting quickly to contain the deadly disease.  World health officials began marshaling staff and working on a strategy to combat the disease as soon as the first cases of the Ebola virus were detected in Guinea on February 14. A rapid assessment conducted by the WHO in the country and in the region found the risk level to be very high. WHO Representative in Guinea, Georges Alfred Ki-Zerbo, said the WHO and partners have been stepping up efforts to implement Guinea’s Strategic response plan. FILE – Health workers from the Guinean Ministry of Health prepare forms to register medical staff ahead of their anti-Ebola vaccines at the N’zerekore Hospital, Feb. 24, 2021.That, he said, involves increased surveillance on the ground, accelerating preparedness measures in neighboring countries, and working closely with communities to interrupt the outbreak as soon as possible. “In doing so, we are engaging traditional healers, including also traditional practitioners, and we are going into communities to discuss with them, to listen to them and see what is the understanding of the disease, what is the fears and the preoccupation of the communities so that we can increase the success of our interventions,” Ki-Zerbo said. To date, the WHO reports 18 cases of Ebola in Guinea, including four deaths. Ki-Zerbo said health workers have traced hundreds of people who have come in contact with infected people. So far, he ssaid, more than 1,600 people have been vaccinated against the virus, including high-risk contacts and health workers. Meanwhile, North Kivu province in eastern Congo is experiencing its own fresh Ebola outbreak. Since February 7, the WHO reports there have been 11 cases and four deaths. Another Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo ended just last June. WHO director of strategic health operations, Michel Yao, said dealing with both the COVID-19 and Ebola epidemics is a challenge, especially in countries with fragile health systems. “There are some similar approaches, at least, in some of the components like community isolation, as well as the preventive measures that have to be implemented,” Yao said. “Vaccination is maybe less challenging because this works in different areas. And I think the approach in most of the countries, as with COVID, they will probably start with health workers.” WHO health officials agree it will likely be difficult to get the funding needed to stem the twin Ebola outbreaks. Besides appealing to government donors, they said they also will tap leading financial institutions such as the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development. 
 
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A Wall Street Journal report says World Health Organization investigators who recently visited China to determine the origins of the emergence of the COVID-19 virus will not release a promised interim report of their findings.The Journal account, published Thursday, said the WHO team decided not to release its interim account “amid mounting tensions between Beijing and Washington.” Another international group of scientists has called for the WHO to conduct a new inquiry into COVID’s origins.The scientists calling for a new probe said in an open letter Thursday that the WHO team “did not have the mandate, the independence, or the necessary accesses to carry out a full and unrestricted investigation.”The scientists also noted in their letter that the WHO investigators in China were joined by their Chinese counterparts.A report in The Guardian says hospitals in Papua New Guinea have run out of money and are “shutting their doors” because of an uptick in COVID-19 cases. The country had registered 124 new coronavirus cases in all of February but had 108 new infections by March 4.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a public warning Thursday about thermal imaging devices or scanners used by many businesses to measure elevated temperature, a COVID symptom.The FDA alert said, “improper use of the systems may provide inaccurate temperature readings due to a variety of factors.” The agency also said it has sent “several Warning Letters” to companies that are “offering unapproved, uncleared, and unauthorized thermal imaging systems for sale.Auckland, New Zealand, is set to ease its seven-day lockdown on Sunday, moving from alert level three to alert level two because no new community coronavirus cases were recorded Friday. The rest of the country is scheduled to move to alert level one Sunday.Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said early Friday there are more than 115 million global COVID cases. The U.S. remains at the top of the list with almost 29 million infections, followed by India with 11 million and Brazil with 10.7 million.
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U.S. President Joe Biden’s order to secure semiconductor supply chains for high-tech hardware production offers a commercial boost to Taiwan, one of the world’s biggest providers of chips, and gives Taipei new weight in any free-trade talks, analysts say.Biden signed an executive order Feb. 24 for the United States to start overcoming a chip shortage that has hobbled the manufacturing of vehicles, consumer electronics and medical supplies. It will trigger a review process leading to policy recommendations on how to bolster supply chains.Taiwan comes into play as the home of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which spins out more chips than any other contract manufacturer in the world and has some of the most advanced production processes. Those advances generate semiconductors that run on relatively little power without sacrificing the speed of a device.Remote study and telework, two trends that exploded during the 2020 coronavirus outbreak, raised demand last year for chips that run notebook PCs, among other types of consumer hardware. World demand for chips should increase from $450 billion last year to about $600 billion in 2024, market research firm Gartner says.“This is good, and I think at this moment Taiwan finally can offer something concretely and to help the United States somehow, some way,” said Liu Yih-jiun, public affairs professor at Fo Guang University in Taiwan.Taiwan has tried off and on since 1994 to arrange a trade deal with the United States, which is its second-biggest trading partner after China. U.S.-Taiwan trade totaled $90.9 billion in 2020. Americans buy chips, computers and machinery, among other Taiwanese goods, resulting in a $29.3 billion trade surplus for the Asian manufacturing center last year.Starting in January, Taiwan began allowing shipments of American pork from pigs raised on the feed additive ractopamine, and U.S. officials lauded that step as progress in trade relations.The Biden administration has asked Taiwanese officials about pushing their chipmakers to step up semiconductor production amid a shortage of chips for automotive use, Bloomberg reported last month.American demand for semiconductors will help raise Taiwan’s position when negotiators meet again for trade talks, said John Brebeck, senior adviser at the Quantum International Corp. investment consultancy in Taipei.“Because of the [Sino-U.S.] trade war, and because of semiconductors, and because Taiwan did so well on COVID, and it’s a democracy they want to support, I think it moves forward,” Brebeck said.Trade talks will take place “in a much more balanced way” due to Taiwan’s weight in global semiconductors, Liu said.Trade deal or not, Taiwan’s chipmakers will get a surge in business because of the shortage, though they may struggle to prioritize customers, Brady Wang, an analyst in Taipei with the market intelligence firm Counterpoint Research, said.“There’s actually no risk to the companies, but you can say there’s the issue of how much they can spread out production and who they’re going to sacrifice,” Wang said.Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. broke ground in 2018 on a $15 billion factory complex in Taiwan with volume production expected to reach full capacity this year. The complex will produce more than 1 million wafers per year and employ about 4,000 people. In December last year the 34-year-old firm got Taiwan government clearance to build a $12 billion factory in the U.S. state of Arizona. That plant will make up to 20,000 wafers per month.The project in Arizona and the new one in Taiwan are “well on track,” a spokesperson from the company’s headquarters said.Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. and United Microelectronics Corp. also make chips in Taiwan. A spokesperson for United Microelectronics said last month his company was doing all it can to meet demand for automotive chips.
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A Wall Street Journal report says World Health Organization investigators who recently visited China to determine the origins of the emergence of the COVID-19 virus will not release a promised interim report of their findings.The Journal account, published Thursday, said the WHO team decided not to release its interim account “amid mounting tensions between Beijing and Washington.” Another international group of scientists has called for the WHO to conduct a new inquiry into COVID’s origins.The scientists calling for a new probe said in an open letter Thursday that the WHO team “did not have the mandate, the independence, or the necessary accesses to carry out a full and unrestricted investigation.”The scientists also noted in their letter that the WHO investigators in China were joined by their Chinese counterparts.A report in The Guardian says hospitals in Papua New Guinea have run out of money and are “shutting their doors” because of an uptick in COVID-19 cases. The country had registered 124 new coronavirus cases in all of February but had 108 new infections by March 4.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a public warning Thursday about thermal imaging devices or scanners used by many businesses to measure elevated temperature, a COVID symptom.The FDA alert said, “improper use of the systems may provide inaccurate temperature readings due to a variety of factors.” The agency also said it has sent “several Warning Letters” to companies that are “offering unapproved, uncleared, and unauthorized thermal imaging systems for sale.Auckland, New Zealand, is set to ease its seven-day lockdown on Sunday, moving from alert level three to alert level two because no new community coronavirus cases were recorded Friday. The rest of the country is scheduled to move to alert level one Sunday.Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said early Friday there are more than 115 million global COVID cases. The U.S. remains at the top of the list with almost 29 million infections, followed by India with 11 million and Brazil with 10.7 million.
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This week a U.S.-government backed commission of technology experts completed a three-year review of the country’s artificial intelligence capabilities, urging the development of a new national technology strategy to stay competitive with China.The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) has been studying how artificial intelligence and machine learning can address U.S. national security and defense needs. It recommended spending billions of dollars more on research, diversifying the American industrial supply chain for microchips and other high-tech products, and reforming immigration policies to attract talented researchers and workers.Some of those steps are under way. Republican and Democratic lawmakers are now focusing more on ways to address technological competition with China, following years in which officials say China carried out corporate espionage and forced technology transfers to rapidly advance its technological capabilities.Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., talks to reporters on Jan. 28, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington.On Thursday, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation aiming to help the U.S. government develop more technology partnerships with allies to counter China’s rise in artificial intelligence, 5G, quantum computing and other areas.The bill, led by Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner, a former technology entrepreneur, would create a new interagency office within the State Department focusing on coordinating tech strategies with other democratic nations. It would also create a $5 billion fund supporting research projects between government and private companies.In this image from video, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., speaks in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urged a bipartisan effort to draft a bill investing in disruptive new technologies to challenge China.Also last week, President Joe Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., talks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 12, 2018.Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told VOA Mandarin he believes the bill will receive broad bipartisan support.“On the broad issue of China, supply chain is one element of it. But we are working on the broader issue of how do we both compete with China and how do we confront China,” Menendez said, “I think there’s plenty of room where there should be a common ground that we can come together.”He added that he has been discussing America’s China policy with Secretary of State Tony Blinken, and the State Department is conducting its own comprehensive evaluation on current China policies.“There’s a whole of government review vis-a-vis China, which I applaud,” Menendez told VOA.Similar efforts are ongoing in the U.S. Congress, where several Republican legislators are pushing the White House to maintain former President Donald Trump’s hardline posture on China.Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla, speaks during a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill on July 29, 2020 in Washington.Representative Greg Steube, a Florida Republican, introduced the Keep Huawei on the Entity List Act on Wednesday, which would continue export controls and keep China’s telecommunication firm Huawei on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s entity list.“Huawei is one of the most powerful tools that the Chinese Communist Party can use for espionage and potential destruction against the United States,” Steube said in a statement.James Lankford, a Republican senator from Oklahoma, said that he and his colleagues have been talking with the White House about keeping some of the Trump-era policies on China.“We want to make it very clear. And that policy shouldn’t be thrown aside just because they have the name Trump in front of them,” he told VOA. “If there were good policies, and they were good policies, and they should remain.”Artificial intelligence for the futureThe artificial intelligence report recommends that the Department of Defense must have the foundations in place by 2025 for widespread adoption of artificial intelligence systems.The commission also addressed the ethics of using AI-enabled and autonomous weapons. For now, it said the Defense Department has adequate protections in place so that such weapons do not require a global ban and can continue to be used in accordance with international humanitarian law. It recommended establishing systems to build confidence in AI technology and keeping humans in the decision chain for deploying nuclear weapons.Lin Yang contributed to this report.
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Confidence in COVID-19 vaccines is growing, with people’s willingness to have the shots increasing as they are rolled out across the world and concerns about possible side effects are fading, a 14-country survey showed on Friday.Co-led by Imperial College London’s Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI) and the polling firm YouGov, the survey found trust in COVID-19 vaccines had risen in nine out of 14 countries covered, including France, Japan and Singapore, which had previously had low levels of confidence.The latest update of the survey, which ran from Feb. 8-21, found that people in Britain are the most willing, with 77% saying they would take a vaccine designed to protect against COVID-19 if one was available that week.This is up from 55% in November, shortly before the first COVID-19 vaccine — co-developed by Pfizer- BioNTech — gained regulatory approval for use in Britain.People in France, Singapore and Japan remained among the least willing to have a COVID-19 vaccine, at 40%, 48% and 48%, respectively, but all three have seen confidence rising since November when only 25%, 36% and 39% of people were positive.The survey also found that worries over vaccine side effects have faded in the majority of countries, with fewer than half (45%) of all respondents currently reporting concern.Again, people in France, Singapore and Japan are currently most worried about side effects, with around six in 10 feeling concerned (56%, 59%, 61%), while Britain is the least concerned.The latest survey involved more than 13,500 people in Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Spain and Sweden.
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Astronauts aboard the International Space Station this week built the bones for much-needed power upgrades.  Also, SpaceX took flight with and without success, and flaming space junk lights up Australian skies.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space.
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Women’s rights activists in Kenya have welcomed U.S. President Joe Biden’s order revoking the ban blocking U.S. funding to women’s health organizations that provide abortion or abortion-related services. Critics say the so-called gag rule left women uninformed about safe options to end a pregnancy.  
   
Forty-five-year-old Najma Wangoi lost her sister in 2018 after she bought medicine from a drug store to induce an abortion and it led to her death.   
 
The mother of two says her sister didn’t know there was a better way to end a pregnancy.  
     
“She didn’t know because she bought those medicines for 3,500 shillings ($35). If she knew there was a place to do a safe abortion, she would still be alive. She should have explained her situation to the hospital, and she would have been treated,” Wangoi said.
     
Under the global gag rule, originally enacted by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and revived by President Donald Trump, it became difficult for millions of women to seek abortion services at health centers receiving U.S. funds.    
 
The gag rule blocked U.S. government funding for organizations if they provided abortion services, counseling or referrals.   
 
The rule effectively shut down health clinics, as well as community sensitization programs about sexual and reproductive health.  
 
Boniface Ushie, researcher with the African Population and Health Research Center, says while the ban has now been lifted by U.S. President Joe Biden, it will not be enough to undo the effects it had on women’s health in Africa.  
   
“Lifting it is great, but it’s going to take a while for the impact of the global gag rule as instituted by Trump to begin to lift. So, it’s going to require a lot of funding. It’s going to require a lot of programs to undo what has been done over the past four years,” Ushie said.
 
Thirty-three-year-old Rose Akoth said she is lucky to be alive after taking tablets to abort a baby in 2019. After three days of pain, the fetus emerged but the placenta got stuck in her womb, requiring urgent medical attention.   
 
“I have a health problem now since I did the abortion because it didn’t come out well. These days my menstruation goes for a month and there is nothing I am using like family planning. My menstrual period goes on non-stop,” she said.  
   
Akoth, Wangoi and others hope that with the gag rule lifted, more women can be saved from abortion-related deaths and health crises.  
  
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An unmanned SpaceX Starship SN10 test rocket – designed to take humans to the moon and beyond – perfectly launched and touched down on Earth Wednesday, but then exploded on the launch pad shortly after landing.It was third consecutive test flight of the rocket to end in an explosion, though it did so after flying more than 10 kilometers into the air, descending horizontally, then flipping upright for a perfect landing at the Boca Chica, Texas test facility.Video of the launch pad showed the craft leaning slightly and emitting streams of smoke before it exploded eight minutes after landing. In the previous test, the craft exploded after landing hard.On his Twitter account, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said, “Starship 10 landed in one piece! RIP SN10, honorable discharge.” There was no immediate explanation for why the rocket exploded, but a fuel leak is suspected.Starship SN10 landed in one piece! https://t.co/lO4AF47MaN— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 4, 2021The shiny bullet-shaped rocket ship, which will stand 120 meters tall when placed atop its super-heavy first-stage booster, is the company’s next-generation fully reusable launch vehicle – the center of Musk’s ambitions to make human space travel more affordable and routine.
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An international advocacy group’s claim that the Vietnamese government has tapped hackers to target activists shows that the communist Southeast Asian state is widening the use of technology to quash its biggest opponents, experts believe. Ocean Lotus, a shadowy group suspected of working with the Vietnamese government, is “behind a sustained campaign of spyware attacks,” London-based Amnesty International said in a statement on February 24 following two years of research. It says the attacks surfaced in 2014 and targeted rights activists and the private sector, inside Vietnam as well as abroad. The hack attacks would signal a growing use of technology to muzzle strong vocal opponents of Vietnam’s officials, country observers say. Police already use internet trolls and authorities have been known to damage people’s Facebook accounts, said James Gomez, regional director of the Asia Centre, a Bangkok-based think tank. The FILE – Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs deputy spokesperson Ngo Toan Thang speaks to media in Hanoi, Vietnam, Nov. 7, 2019.”This is groundless information,” deputy ministry spokesperson Ngo Toan Thang told a news conference in May, as quoted on the ministry’s website. “Vietnam strictly bans all cyber-attacks against organizations and individuals in any form.” The ministry’s English-language website does not address Amnesty International’s claims. Amnesty International’s Security Lab said in the February 24 statement it had found Ocean Lotus’s influence in phishing emails sent to two Vietnamese “human rights” advocates. One lives in Germany, the statement says, and the other was a Vietnamese nongovernmental organization in the Philippines. “The hacking group has been repeatedly identified by cybersecurity firms as targeting Vietnamese political dissidents, foreign governments and companies,” the statement adds.  Vietnam ‘cyber-troops’French journalism advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said in 2018 Vietnam had appointed 10,000 “cyber-troops” to fight online dissent. The journalism group called the deployment an “army of internet trolls” aimed at attacking independent media outlets. Authorities showed last year they can quickly shutter social media accounts registered in foreign countries.  After Vietnamese blogger Bui Thi Minh Hang livestreamed an interview with a woman whose 3-year-old child was exposed to tear gas, her posts quickly disappeared from Facebook and YouTube and she was arrested hours later. She lost access to her accounts.Vietnam Pressures Social Media Platforms to Censor Vietnam’s laws and requests for content removal are stifling free speech, bloggers and rights organizations say Jack Nguyen, a partner at the business advisory firm Mazars in Ho Chi Minh City, suggests that internet commentators stick to issues rather than targeting the state or the Communist Party. Pollution and drought are acceptable topics, he said, and it’s even OK to suggest policy changes. “Don’t criticize the party,” Nguyen said. “You can criticize some of the policies but don’t do anything that they can say that it’s counterrevolutionary.” 
 
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Nearly 50 countries have either received or ordered at least one of the three Chinese-developed COVID-19 vaccines, according to an Associated Press survey. More with VOA’s Mariama Diallo on the vaccine rollouts.
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U.S. President Joe Biden, while expressing frustration, has limited power to overrule decisions by state governors who are ending mask mandates and lifting other restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic.”I think it’s a big mistake,” Biden told a small group of reporters Wednesday in the Oval Office when asked about Republican governors in Texas and Mississippi casting off restrictions and allowing businesses to reopen at full capacity.As the nation makes progress with vaccinations, “the last thing we need is the Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, ‘Everything’s fine. Take off your mask. Forget it,’ ” added the president, a Democrat. “It still matters.”During the previous administration of Republican President Donald Trump, who downplayed the severity of COVID-19 despite eventually becoming infected himself, not wearing a mask became a political statement.Since taking office in January, Biden and top federal health officials repeatedly have emphasized mask wearing and social distancing while the country escalates the number of Americans being vaccinated against the virus.He noted during Wednesday’s brief interaction with reporters that he carries a card with the updated number of people in the country who have died because of the coronavirus.“As of yesterday, we had lost 511,874 Americans. We’re going to lose thousands more,” said Biden. “We’ll not have everybody vaccinated until sometime in the summer.”The president, urging people to frequently wash their hands, wear masks and maintain social distancing, added, “And I know you all know that I wish the heck some of our elected officials knew it.”FILE – In this image from video, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky speaks during a briefing on the Biden administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Jan. 27, 2021, in Washington.Earlier Wednesday, Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said that “now is not the time” to lift COVID-19 restrictions.” Her comment came a day after Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared his state “100% open.”Texas, the second most populous state in the country, ranks 47th out of 50 for COVID-19 vaccinations per capita.At a virtual news briefing for the White House COVID-19 response,  Walensky said the next month or two would be pivotal in deciding the trajectory of the pandemic.While infection rates across the country have been leveling off, COVID-19 variants such as the highly transmissible so-called British strain are poised to surge, threatening to destroy what progress has been made, Walensky said.FILE – Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signs legislation at the Governor’s Mansion in Jackson, June 30, 2020.In Mississippi on Tuesday, Governor Tate Reeves followed Texas’ move and lifted his state’s mask mandate and business restrictions.Under the U.S. Constitution and because of Supreme Court decisions, states — not the federal government — have primary authority to control the spread of dangerous diseases within their jurisdictions.“A federalist system means that the central government, the United States government, is a government of limited powers, and the states retain police powers, which historically has included public health,” explained Meryl Chertoff, an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University in Washington.The Commerce Clause, which gives Congress exclusive authority to regulate interstate and foreign commerce, does allow the federal government to order quarantines and impose other health measures to prevent the spread of diseases from foreign countries, as well as between states. But that authority has never been affirmed by the courts, according to the American Bar Association.A year ago, at the start of the pandemic, Trump said he had discussed “a national lockdown” with advisers to minimize the spread of the coronavirus. Several days later, he dismissed the idea.“I think it was a political decision to leave these decisions to the governors in order to be able to allocate praise and blame,” Chertoff, the executive director of the Georgetown Project on State and Local Government Policy and Law, told VOA.Some authorities desired a powerful federal response, but an unprecedented executive order would likely have been challenged in the courts on constitutional grounds.FILE – Tenants’ rights advocates march from the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse, Jan. 13, 2021, in Boston. The protest called on the then-incoming Biden administration to extend the eviction moratorium initiated in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.Courts are currently considering the constitutionality of evictions amid the pandemic, which had been ordered halted by the CDC, a federal agency.“This is relevant to the mask mandates because it suggests that the courts are now starting to consider whether under provisions of the Public Health Services Act of 1944 … the authority of the federal government to act with respect to emergency public health situations is broader than has been previously acknowledged,” said Chertoff.She cautioned that those who want the president and the executive branch to have “a more muscular set of tools” to deal with an unprecedented public health crisis need to consider that once the federal government has such tools, “they will be around not just for the next four years, but for the next 40 years.”   
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