Month: April 2021

COVID-19 has “shaken” India, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his monthly radio address Sunday.349,691 new COVID cases had been recorded in the previous 24-hour period, yet another daily record, the country’s health ministry said Sunday.The new infection figures are likely undercounted, public health officials have warned. A recent account in The New York Times said, “however staggering” the reports are from the ministry of a string of days with more than 300,000 new infections, the numbers “represent just a fraction of the real reach of the virus’s spread.”The U.S. is under pressure from the international community to release some of its warehoused COVID vaccines to India and other countries that need the shots.In addition to hundreds of thousands of new daily COVID cases, India is also experiencing an oxygen shortage, literally leaving COVID patients gasping for air.The Biden administration’s top medical adviser on the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Friday the U.S. is attempting to help India contain its coronavirus surge by providing technical support and assistance.Phnom Penh closed its markets Saturday. The Cambodian capital went into lockdown April 15, but markets remained open. High infection rates at the markets, however, prompted the local government to issue shutdown orders Friday for the markets. The snap move went into effect Saturday, catching many residents off guard, causing them to plead with the government for food. The market lockdown is in effect until May 7.According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, Cambodia has one of the world’s lowest COVID infection rates with 9,359 cases.The governor of the U.S. state of New York announced Saturday the state would immediately resume vaccinating residents with the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, despite evidence that it is linked to rare cases of blood clots.New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo made the announcement in a statement one day after a U.S. health panel recommended ending a pause on the use of the vaccine.“World-renowned public health experts from the federal government and our own independent state task force have reviewed the data and reaffirmed that the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine can resume,” Cuomo said. “The state of New York will resume administration of this vaccine at all of our state-run sites effective immediately.”Advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should be resumed in the U.S. after regulators had paused it last week to review reports of rare but severe blood clots in a handful of Americans who had received the shot.The panel voted 10-4 for resumption of the vaccine, arguing that benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks.The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Sunday there were more than 146 million global COVID-19 infections. The U.S. remains at the top of the list as the country with the most infections, with more than 32 million. India is second on the list with almost 17 million cases, followed by Brazil with 14.3 million.
…

Thailand on Sunday set a record for the daily number of COVID-19 deaths for the second consecutive day, as authorities step up the response to a rapid third wave of infections after about a year of relative success slowing the spread of coronavirus.Thailand will slow down issuing travel documents for foreign nationals from India due to the outbreak of a new coronavirus B.1.617 variant, said Taweesin Wisanuyothin, a spokesman for the government’s COVID-19 taskforce.“For foreigners from India entering Thailand, right now we will slow this down,” said Taweesin, adding that 131 Thai nationals in India already registered to travel in May will still be allowed into the country.Thailand reported 2,438 new coronavirus cases and 11 new deaths, bringing the total number of infections to 55,460 and fatalities to 140 since the pandemic started last year.Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on his Facebook page on Saturday said provincial governors can close public venues and impose curfews if necessary to stop the virus spreading.Authorities in the capital city of Bangkok have ordered the closure of venues including parks, gyms, cinemas and day care centers from April 26 through May 9.Shopping malls remain open, but the Thai Retailers Association has restricted store opening hours in Bangkok as well as in 17 more of the country’s 73 provinces.Thailand kept its number of infection cases far lower than many other countries throughout last year, but a new outbreak, spurred partly by the highly transmissible B.1.1.7 variant, has resulted in over 24,000 cases and 46 deaths in just 25 days.The rising figures have prompted concern over the number of hospital beds, particularly as government policy is to admit anyone testing positive for the novel coronavirus, even those without symptoms.Health officials have insisted there are still over 20,000 available beds nationwide.To free beds quicker, the prime minister has said health authorities are considering reducing the quarantine period for asymptomatic cases to 10 days from 14, with the remaining four days to be spent in self-isolation at home.
…

During Ramadan many mosques are open, but because of attendance limits there’s no guarantee of a place to pray. But new phone apps can help solve that problem, as VOA’s Yuni Salim found out, in this report narrated by Nova Poerwadi.
Camera: Yuni Salim      Producer: Bronwyn Benito
…

The number of COVID-19 jabs administered globally surpassed the 1 billion mark on Saturday, offering hope after months of pandemic misery, even as the number of coronavirus cases worldwide hit another daily record, mainly because of an explosion of the virus in India.At least 1,002,938,540 doses have been administered in 207 countries and territories, according to an AFP tally.Nevertheless, the number of new infections topped 893,000 worldwide on Friday, a one-day record.And India accounted for more than a third of those, with authorities there announcing 346,786 more new cases on Saturday, a record for a single country since the start of the pandemic.The pandemic has now killed more than 3 million people worldwide since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019.And India, with its population of 1.3 billion, has become the new hot spot, with the current surge blamed on a new virus variant and recent “super spreader” public events. The country reported 2,624 new deaths in the past 24 hours.Ambulances carrying COVID-19 patients line up waiting for their turn to be attended to at a dedicated COVID-19 government hospital in Ahmedabad, India, April 22, 2021. Indian authorities scrambled Saturday to get oxygen tanks to hospitals.Transporting oxygenOverwhelmed by the devastating new surge, the Indian government scrambled to organize special trains to get oxygen supplies to worst-hit cities.One “oxygen express” carrying 30,000 liters of oxygen arrived in northern Lucknow at dawn on Saturday, where armed guards were waiting to escort trucks to hospitals.The Indian air force also was being used to transport oxygen tankers and other supplies around the country and to bring oxygen equipment from Singapore.Thailand was also grappling with a spiraling caseload.Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha said Saturday that more than 1,400 COVID-19 patients were waiting to be admitted to hospitals.”If the outbreak becomes more severe, [the government] may consider reducing hospital quarantine for asymptomatic people from 14 days to 10 days,” he said in a move intended to free up hospital beds.FILE – A shipment of COVID-19 vaccines distributed by the COVAX global initiative arrives in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Feb. 25, 2021.With the pandemic still showing no sign of slowing, governments around the world are placing their hopes in vaccines.And worldwide, the number of vaccine doses administered has doubled in less than a month.Nevertheless, while the majority of poor countries have also started to vaccinate — mainly thanks to the COVAX program — inoculation is still largely a privilege of high-income countries. Home to 16 percent of the world’s population, they have administered 47 percent of vaccine doses.By contrast, low-income countries account for just 0.2 percent of shots so far.In the U.S., regulators have approved the restart of a rollout of Johnson & Johnson vaccines halted over blood-clotting concerns.Belgium: J&J jabs for all adultsIn Europe, Belgium said Saturday that it would authorize the J&J shot for all adults, having already received 36,000 doses and expecting a total of 1.4 million between April and June.The European Union as a whole said it would have enough vaccines to immunize 70 percent of its adult population by the end of July.A 91-year-old British grandmother, Margaret Keenan, who on December 8 became the first person in the Western world to get an approved coronavirus vaccine, urged people to get inoculated.”It really is the best thing I’ve ever done,” she said. “I’m telling everyone to go and get it … I hope everyone comes forward.”But despite the optimism, the threat of the virus remains ever-present, with Germany implementing tougher new lockdown rules, including night curfews and school closures, after the government passed a disputed new law designed to slow infections.The controversial new rules — passed this week amid huge protests in Berlin — will apply in all regions with incidence rates of more than 100 new infections per 100,000 people over the last seven days.Demonstrators take part in an anti-lockdown “Unite for Freedom” protest, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London, April 24, 2021.And in Britain, ongoing restrictions continued to fuel a great deal of anger.Huge crowds protested in London on Saturday against Britain’s remaining coronavirus restrictions, the mandatory use of masks and the possible introduction of so-called vaccine passports.Britain began to gradually lift COVID-19 restrictions last month after months of curbs and a successful mass vaccination campaign. Pubs were allowed to serve customers outdoors this month and nonessential shops reopened.The demonstrators marched along several major arteries, including the main shopping district Oxford Street, with videos and photos showing thousands in attendance.Hundreds then rallied in Hyde Park late in the afternoon following the march, an AFP reporter said.Organizers used various websites and online platform pages to encourage turnout, despite curbs that limit outdoor gatherings to 30 people.
…

Ever wonder what it would feel like to unplug from a hyperconnected world and hide away in a dark cave for 40 days? Fifteen people in France did just that, emerging Saturday from a scientific experiment to say that time seemed to pass more slowly in their cavernous underground abode in southwestern France, where they were deprived of clocks and light.With big smiles on their pale faces, the 15 left their voluntary isolation in the Lombrives cave to a round of applause and basked in the light while wearing special glasses to protect their eyes after so long in the dark. “It was like pressing pause,” said 33-year-old Marina Lançon, one of the seven female members in the experiment, adding she didn’t feel there was a rush to do anything.Although she wished she could have stayed in the cave a few days longer, she said she was happy to feel the wind blowing on her face again and hear the birds sing in the trees of the French Pyrénées. And she doesn’t plan to open her smartphone for a few more days, hoping to avoid a “too brutal” return to real life.For 40 days and 40 nights, the group lived in and explored the cave as part of the Deep Time project. There was no sunlight inside, the temperature was 10 degrees Celsius (50 F) and the relative humidity stood at 100%. The cave dwellers had no contact with the outside world, no updates on the pandemic nor any communications with friends or family.Scientists at the Human Adaption Institute leading the $1.5 million “Deep Time” project say the experiment will help them better understand how people adapt to drastic changes in living conditions and environments.As expected, those in the cave lost their sense of time.”And here we are! We just left after 40 days … For us it was a real surprise,” said project director Christian Clot, adding for most participants, “in our heads, we had walked into the cave 30 days ago.” 
At least one team member estimated the time underground at 23 days.Johan Francois, 37, a math teacher and sailing instructor, ran 10-kilometer circles in the cave to stay fit. He sometimes had “visceral urges” to leave.With no daily obligations and no children around, the challenge was “to profit from the present moment without ever thinking about what will happen in one hour, in two hours,” he said.In partnership with labs in France and Switzerland, scientists monitored the 15 member’s sleep patterns, social interactions and behavioral reactions via sensors. One sensor was a tiny thermometer inside a capsule that participants swallowed like a pill. It measured body temperatures and transmitted data to a computer until it was expelled naturally. The team members followed their biological clocks to know when to wake up, go to sleep and eat. They counted their days not in hours but in sleep cycles.On Friday, scientists monitoring the participants entered the cave to let the research subjects know they would be coming out soon. “It’s really interesting to observe how this group synchronizes themselves,” Clot said earlier in a recording from inside the cave. Working together on projects and organizing tasks without being able to set a time to meet was especially challenging, he said. Although the participants looked visibly tired Saturday, two-thirds expressed a desire to remain underground a bit longer in order to finish group projects started during the expedition, Benoit Mauvieux, a chronobiologist involved in the research, told The AP.”Our future as humans on this planet will evolve,” Clot said after emerging. “We must learn to better understand how our brains are capable of finding new solutions, whatever the situation.”
…

China will discuss building a defense system against near-Earth asteroids, a senior space agency official said Saturday, as the country steps up its longer-term space ambitions.Zhang Kejian, head of the China National Space Administration, did not provide further detail in his opening remarks at a ceremony for China’s Space Day in the eastern city of Nanjing.China has made space exploration a top priority in recent years, aiming to establish a program operating thousands of space flights a year and carrying tens of thousands of tons of cargo and passengers by 2045.The European Space Agency last year signed a deal worth 129 million euros ($156 million) to build a spacecraft for a joint project with NASA examining how to deflect an asteroid heading for Earth.China is pushing forward a mission where one space probe will land on a near-Earth asteroid to collect samples, fly back toward Earth to release a capsule containing the samples, and then orbit another comet, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing Ye Peijian, an academic at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.The mission could take about a decade to complete, Ye said. China and Russia signed a memorandum of understanding last month to set up an international lunar research station.
…

Malawi’s government says it will go ahead with plans to destroy thousands of expired COVID-19 vaccine doses, despite calls from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Africa Centre for Disease Control not to destroy them.The WHO and Africa CDC this week urged African countries not to destroy COVID-19 vaccines that may have passed their expiration dates, saying they are still safe to use. However, Malawi’s government says the appeals have come too late to prevent the destruction of thousands of doses of expired COVID vaccines.
 
Officials said the 16,440 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine that expired April 13 have already been removed from cold storage.
 
Thursday, the WHO and the Africa CDC had urged African countries not to destroy the vaccine that may have expired, saying it is still usable.  
 
“And it’s also a requirement that every vile manufactured, has an expiry date beyond which it cannot be used,” said Dr. Charles Mwansambo, Malawi’s secretary for health. “In this case, we cannot proceed to use these because the vile clearly states the expiry date. And any doctor, any physician would not be forgiven in the event of anything happening after knowingly used a vile that is clearly having labeled as having expired.”
 
The expired vaccine is part of the 102,000-dose donation the country received in March from the African Union.   
 
Malawi and South Sudan earlier announced plans to destroy about 70,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that expired last month.
 
Mwansambo also said using the expired vaccine would scare people from taking the jabs from the remaining stock.  
 
“If we leave or store these expired vaccines that will be big blow to our vaccination drive people will not come. Now even though we are not using them people have been hesitant to come because they feel that we might be given the expired vaccines,” he said.
 
Mwansambo said the country may be considering extending the shelf life of the remaining stock of vaccine received through the COVAX facility and from the Indian government that expires in June and July.
 
George Jobe, the executive director for the Malawi Health Equity Network, said using the expired COVID-19 vaccine would create a negative attitude in people.
   
“We can have phobia from Malawians which we should not. If the [expired] vaccines are safe, the CDC can take the expired vaccines, or WHO, and donate to the developed countries. But we have to witness the day the vaccines are leaving Malawi.”   
 
Mwansambo said destroying the expired vaccine is in line with Malawi government guidelines on expired pharmaceutical products.
 
He said the government will soon announce the date when it will publicly destroy the expired vaccine in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe.  
 
…

When police respond to a person gripped by a mental health or drug crisis, the encounter can have tragic results. Now a government insurance program will help communities set up an alternative: mobile teams with mental health practitioners trained in de-escalating such potentially volatile situations.
 
The effort to reinvent policing after the death of George Floyd in police custody is getting an assist through Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for low-income people and the largest payer for mental health treatment. President Joe Biden’s recent coronavirus relief bill calls for an estimated $1 billion over 10 years for states that set up mobile crisis teams, currently locally operated in a handful of places.
 
Many 911 calls are due to a person experiencing a mental health or substance abuse crisis. Sometimes, like with Daniel Prude in Rochester, New York, the consequences are shocking. The 41-year-old Black man died after police placed a spit hood over his head and held him to the pavement for about two minutes on a cold night in 2020 until he stopped breathing. He had run naked from his brother’s house after being released from a hospital following a mental health arrest. A grand jury voted down charges against the officers.
 
Dispatching teams of paramedics and behavioral health practitioners would take mental health crisis calls out of the hands of uniformed and armed officers, whose mere arrival may ratchet up tensions. In Eugene, Oregon, such a strategy has been in place more than 30 years, with solid backing from police.
 
The concept “fits nicely with what we are trying to do around police reform,” Eugene Police Chief Chris Skinner said. The logic works “like a simple math problem,” he adds.
 
“If I can rely on a mechanism that matches the right response to the need, it means I don’t have to put my officers in these circumstances,” Skinner explained. “By sending the right resources I can make the assumption that there are going to be fewer times when officers are in situations that can turn violent. It actually de-conflicts, reducing the need for use of force.”
 
Eugene is a medium-size city about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Portland, known for its educational institutions. The program there is called Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets, or CAHOOTS, and is run by the White Bird Clinic.
 
CAHOOTS is part of the local 911 emergency response system but operates independently of the police, although there’s coordination. Crisis teams are not sent on calls involving violent situations.
 
“We don’t look like law enforcement,” White Bird veteran Tim Black said. “We drive a big white cargo van. Our responders wear a T-shirt or a hoodie with a logo. We don’t have handcuffs or pepper spray, and the way we start to interact sends a message that we are not the police and this is going to be a far safer and voluntary interaction.”
 
CAHOOTS teams handled 24,000 calls in the local area in 2019, and Black said the vast majority would have otherwise fallen to police. Many involve homeless people. The teams work to resolve the situation that prompted the call and to connect the person involved to ongoing help and support.  
 
At least 14 cities around the country are interested in versions of that model, said Simone Brody, executive director of What Works Cities, a New York-based nonprofit that tries to promote change through effective use of data.
 
“It’s really exciting to see the federal government support this model,” Brody said. “I am hopeful that three years from now we will have multiple models and ideally some data that shows this has actually saved people’s lives.” Portland, Oregon, launched its own crisis teams in February and the program has already expanded to serve more areas of the community.
 
About 1,000 people a year are shot dead by police, according to an analysis by the Treatment Advocacy Center, which examined several publicly available estimates. Severe mental illness is a factor in at least 25% of such shootings, it estimated. The center advocates for improved mental health care.
 
Mobile crisis teams found their way into the COVID-19 relief bill through the efforts of Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, who chairs the Finance Committee, which oversees Medicaid.
 
“Too often law enforcement is asked to respond to situations that they are not trained to handle,” Wyden said. “On the streets in challenging times, too often the result is violence, even fatal violence, particularly for Black Americans.”
 
Wyden’s legislation includes $15 million in planning grants to help states get going. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the program could take a couple of years to fully implement. The $1 billion will be available to states for five years, beginning next April. Wyden said it’s a “down payment” on what he hopes will become a permanent part of Medicaid.
 
The idea may be well-timed, said Medicaid expert MaryBeth Musumeci, of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. The coronavirus pandemic has worsened society’s pervasive mental health and substance abuse problems. At the same time, protests over police shootings of Black people have created an appetite for anything that could break the cycle.
 
“All of those things coming together are putting increased focus on the need for further developing effective behavioral health treatment models,” Musumeci said.  
 
In Rhode Island, nurse turned malpractice lawyer Laura Harrington is helping coordinate a grassroots campaign to incorporate crisis teams into the state’s 911 system. She said she’s been surprised at the level of interest.
 
“I don’t want to get into blaming,” Harrington said. “We could blame social services. We could blame people who don’t take their medications. We could blame the police. I want to move forward and solve problems.”
 
…

A recycled SpaceX crew capsule has delivered four astronauts from three countries to the International Space Station.  
 
The SpaceX capsule docked with the orbiting outpost early Saturday, according to the U.S. space agency NASA, after launching Friday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.   
 
Friday’s lift-off was the first time a rocket and crew capsule have been reused in a human mission.  It is the third time SpaceX has sent humans to the space station under its multi-billion-dollar contract with NASA.
 
The deployment of a reusable rocket helps keep down the cost of the space program.
 
SpaceX is owned by entrepreneur Elon Musk.
 
…

Israel’s health ministry said Friday that no COVID deaths were recorded on Thursday. It was the first day in 10 months that the ministry did not register any COVID deaths.The last time no new cases were recorded in the Middle Eastern country was June 29.Israel has been a world leader in inoculating its population against the coronavirus.More than 5 million Israelis, a little under 58% of the population, have received both doses of the vaccines.Meanwhile, India said Saturday that it had recorded 346,786 new COVID cases in the previous 24-hour period. The South Asian nation has reported record-breaking tolls of new cases for several days. At the same time, India’s hospitals are scrambling to provide oxygen for the COVID patients who are struggling to breathe.The Biden administration’s top medical adviser on the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Friday the U.S. is attempting to help India contain its coronavirus surge by providing technical support and assistance.“It is a dire situation that we’re trying to help in any way we can,” Fauci said at the regularly held White House coronavirus briefing.The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Saturday that there are 145.6 million global COVID-19 infections. The U.S. remains at the top of the list as the country with the most infections at almost 32 million. India is second on the list with more than 16.6 million cases, followed by Brazil with 14.2 million.A U.S. health panel has recommended ending a pause on the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, despite evidence that it is linked to rare cases of blood clots.The advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the CDC, said Friday that use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should be resumed in the U.S. after regulators had paused it last week to review reports of rare but severe blood clots in a handful of Americans who had received the shot.The panel voted 10-4 for the resumption of the vaccine, arguing that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks.Seventy-seven inmates at an Iowa maximum security prison for men received overdoses of the Pfizer COVID vaccine earlier this week.The prisoners at the Iowa State Penitentiary at Fort Madison were reported to have received doses that were six times the amount normally used.“The large majority of inmates continue to have very minor symptoms consistent with those that receive the recommended dose of the vaccine,” Cord Overton, a spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Corrections told the Des Moines Register newspaper in an email.Two members of the prison’s nursing staff, who administered the vaccines, have been placed on leave as the incident is investigated.Pope Francis met with a group of poor people Friday who were getting their coronavirus vaccinations, which had been donated by the Vatican.As the group gathered in the Paul VI audience hall at the Vatican to receive their second dose of the 600 available doses, the pope greeted them and volunteers helping with the vaccinations.
…

Kenyans living with HIV say their lives are in danger due to a shortage of anti-retroviral drugs donated by the United States amid a dispute between the U.S. aid agency and the Kenyan government.The delayed release of the drugs shipped to Kenya late last year is due to the government slapping a $847,902 tax on the donation, and the U.S. aid agency having “trust” issues with the graft-tainted Kenya Medical Supplies Authority, activists and officials said.Activists on Friday dismissed as “public relations” the government’s statement on Thursday that it had resolved the issue and distributed the drugs to 31 of Kenya’s 47, counties. The government said all counties within five days will have the drugs needed for 1.4 million people.”We are assuring the nation that no patient is going to miss drugs. We have adequate stocks,” Kenya Medical Supplies Authority customer service manager Geoffrey Mwagwi said as he flagged off a consignment. He said those drugs would cover two months.The U.S. is by far the largest donor for Kenya’s HIV response.Kenya’s health minister, Mutahi Kagwe, told the Senate’s health committee earlier this week that USAID had released the drug consignment that had been stuck in port. Patients are expected to receive them during the week.He said USAID had proposed using a company called Chemonics International to procure and supply the drugs to Kenyans due to “trust issues” with the national medical supplies body.Bernard Baridi, chief executive officer of Blast, a network of young people living with the disease, said the drugs would last for just a month.He said the delay in distributing the drugs, in addition to supply constraints caused by the coronavirus pandemic, meant that many people living with HIV were getting a week’s supply instead of three months.Many of those who depend on the drugs travel long distances to obtain them and may find it difficult to find transport every week, and if they fail to take them they will develop resistance, Baridi said.”Adherence to medication is going to be low because of access. … If we don’t get the medication, we are going to lose people,” he said.According to Baridi, children living with HIV are suffering the most due to the shortage of a drug known Kaletra, which comes in a syrup form that can be taken more easily. Parents are forced to look for the drug in tablet form, crush it and mix it with water, and it’s still bitter for children to ingest.Baridi urged Kenya’s government and USAID to find a solution on who should distribute the drugs quickly, for the sake of the children.On Thursday, about 200 people living with HIV in Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city, held a peaceful protest wearing T-shirts reading “My ARV’s My Life” and carrying posters that read “A sick nation is a dead nation” and “A killer government.”Some 136,000 people live with HIV in Kisumu, or about 13% of the city’s population, said local rights activist Boniface Ogutu Akach.”We cannot keep quiet and watch this population languish just because they can’t get a medicine that is lying somewhere, and that is happening because the government wants to tax a donation,” he said.Erick Okioma, who has HIV, said the government’s attention has been diverted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected even community perception.”People fear even getting COVID than HIV,” Okioma said, asserting that local HIV testing and treatment centers were empty.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden praised world leaders for coming together on climate change and urged them to make good on promises as he closed a virtual climate change summit hosted from the White House.“The commitments we’ve made must become real,” Biden said Friday on the last day of the two-day summit that involved 40 world leaders.Biden pledged during the summit to cut U.S. greenhouse gas pollution by 50-52% by 2030. Japan and Canada also raised climate commitments during the summit while the European Union and Britain announced stronger climate targets earlier this week.John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, said that more than half the world’s economy has now pledged action to stop warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a goal set by the 2015 Paris Agreement.Kerry said Biden’s call for modernizing U.S. infrastructure to operate more cleanly would provide long-term benefits for the U.S. economy. “No one is being asked for a sacrifice,” Kerry said. “This is an opportunity.”Biden’s commitment is the most ambitious U.S. climate goal ever, nearly doubling the cuts the Obama administration pledged to meet in the Paris climate accord.The White House arranged for billionaires, CEOs and union executives to help promote Biden’s plan to reduce the U.S. economy’s reliance on fossil fuels by investing trillions of dollars in clean-energy technology, research and infrastructure while simultaneously saving the planet.Billionaire and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared Friday, “We can’t beat climate change without a historic amount of new investment,” adding “We have to do more, faster to cut emissions.”Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 9 MB480p | 12 MB540p | 16 MB720p | 32 MB1080p | 62 MBOriginal | 80 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioLeaders from Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Denmark, Norway, Poland, Spain, Nigeria and Vietnam participated in Friday’s session, along with representatives from the U.S. transportation, energy and commerce departments.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said hundreds of Israeli start-ups are working to improve battery storage for renewable energy.Denmark’s Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, renewed her government’s pledge to end oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.The new U.S. target for greenhouse gas pollution is relative to 2005 levels and the White House says efforts to reach them include moving toward carbon pollution-free electricity, boosting fuel efficiency of cars and trucks, supporting carbon capture at industrial facilities and reducing the use of methane. U.S. allies have also vowed to cut emissions, aiming to convince other countries to follow suit ahead of the November U.N. climate change summit in Glasgow, where governments will determine the extent of each country’s reductions in fossil fuel emissions.Japan announced new plans to cut emissions by 46%, while South Korea said it would halt public funding of new coal-fired power plants. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada would increase its cuts in fossil fuel pollution by about 10% to at least 40%.The two-day summit was part of Biden’s efforts to restore U.S. leadership on the issue after his predecessor, Donald Trump, withdrew the United States from the legally binding Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2017. Biden reversed the decision shortly after taking office.There is skepticism about the commitment announced Thursday by Biden and there is certain to be a partisan political battle over his pledge to reduce fossil fuel use in every sector of the U.S. economy.“Toothless requests of our foreign adversaries and maximum pain for American citizens,” reacted the top Republican party leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, calling Biden’s climate plan full of “misplaced priorities.”World leaders agreed to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius in the 2015 U.N. Paris climate agreement and to aim for 1.5 degrees Celsius.Averaged over the entire globe, temperatures have increased more than 1.1 degree Celsius since 1980. Scientists link the increase to more severe heat waves, droughts, wildfires, storms and other impacts. And they note that the rate of temperature rise has accelerated since the 1980s.
…

President Joe Biden aimed to accentuate the positive as he wrapped up his Leaders Summit on Climate Change on Friday. Biden highlighted the economic benefits the fight against climate change offers. But his plans still face an uphill battle at home. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
…

U.S. health officials on Friday ended an 11-day pause on COVID-19 vaccinations using Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose shot, after scientific advisers decided its benefits outweighed the risk of rare blood clots.The government found 15 vaccine recipients who had developed the clots, out of nearly 8 million people given the J&J shot. All were women, most under age 50. Three died; seven are still in hospitals.In the end, however, the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decided that J&J’s vaccine was a key to fighting the pandemic, and that the clot risk could be addressed with warnings to help younger women decide which shot to choose.The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ meeting on Friday followed an emergency meeting last week, the day after the announcement of the pause. At that time, members of the panel said they had too little time to make a recommendation.On Friday, members voted 10-4 for the resumption of the use of the vaccine. The panel debated imposing age restrictions on the vaccine but decided against it.On April 13, the CDC, in a joint statement with the FDA, recommended pausing use of the vaccine “out of an abundance of caution” to give experts an opportunity to examine six cases of blood clots and to see if any additional cases were found.CDC officials later said that “a handful” of other cases were being investigated and that they were encouraged by the relatively small number of them.Earlier this week, Europe’s drug watchdog group, the European Medicines Agency, said that while it found a possible link between the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and the rare blood clots, the vaccine’s benefits outweighed its risks.It said it would recommend its use with an additional warning included in the information about the vaccine.European regulators already had uncovered similar rare blood clots among recipients of another COVID-19 vaccine, from AstraZeneca. The AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, while not identical, are made with similar technology.
…

The coronavirus has conquered the world’s highest mountain.  
A Norwegian climber became the first to be tested for COVID-19 in Mount Everest base camp and was flown by helicopter to Kathmandu, where he was hospitalized.
Erlend Ness told The Associated Press in a message Friday that he tested positive on April 15. He said another test on Thursday was negative and he was now staying with a local family in Nepal.
An ace mountain guide, Austrian Lukas Furtenbach, warned that the virus could spread among the hundreds of other climbers, guides and helpers who are now camped on the base of Everest if all of them are not checked immediately and safety measures are taken.
Any outbreak could prematurely end the climbing season, just ahead of a window of good weather in May, he said.  
“We would need now most urgently mass testing in base camp, with everyone tested and every team being isolated, no contact between teams,” said Furtenbach. “That needs to be done now, otherwise it is too late.”
Furtenbach, leading a team of 18 climbers to Mount Everest and its sister peak Mount Lhotse, said there could be more than just one case on the mountain as the Norwegian had lived with several others for weeks.  
A Nepalese mountaineering official denied there were any active cases on the mountains at the moment.  
Mira Acharya, director at the Department of Mountaineering, said she had no official information about the COVID-19 cases and only reports of illnesses like pneumonia and altitude sickness.  
Mountaineering was closed last year due to the pandemic and climbers returned to Everest this year for the first time since May 2019.  
The popular spring climbing season in Nepal, which has eight of the highest peaks in the world, began in March and ends in May.
…

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Immunization Committee is meeting Friday to consider lifting a pause on use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine.
 
The pause was widely implemented last week following the discovery of six U.S. cases of a rare and severe type of blood clots in people who had received the shot.
 
On April 13, the CDC, in a joint statement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, recommended a pause on use of the vaccine, “out of an abundance of caution” and to give experts an opportunity to examine the blood clot cases and see if any additional cases were found.
 
CDC officials have said since that “a handful” of other cases were being investigated, but offered no details, except to say they were encouraged there was a relatively small number of them.
 
The six cases of blood clots previously identified – out of seven million doses of the vaccine delivered – occurred in women between the ages of 18 and 48. They developed symptoms, most often headaches, six to 13 days after vaccination. One vaccine recipient, a Virginia woman, died in March.
 
The Washington Post reports authorities are leaning toward lifting the pause. Earlier this week, Europe’s drug watchdog group, the European Medicines Agency, said that while it found a possible link between the vaccine and the rare blood clots, the vaccine’s benefits outweigh its risks.  
 
It said it would recommend its use with an additional warning included in the information about the vaccine.
 
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meeting Friday follows an emergency meeting held last week, the day after the announcement of the pause. At that time, members of the panel said they had too little time to make a recommendation.
 
Advisors to the committee tell ABC News it is expected to make a final recommendation on the vaccine later Friday.
…