Day: May 4, 2021

President Biden set a goal of reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2030. His pledge to a virtual summit of world leaders in April is welcomed by those hit hardest by climate change and looking for as much quick action as possible.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.  Camera: AP/REUTERS/NASA/SKYPE/NATIONAL AUTONOMOUS UNIVERSITYProduced by: Arash Arabasadi 
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Turkey was recently heralded as one of the most successful nations in containing the spread of COVID 19, prompting the government to ease controls. But a surge in infections coupled with vaccine shortages has forced a U-turn, with the country now under its most severe lockdown, as Dorian Jones reports for VOA from Istanbul.
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Taiwan, largely spared from the global coronavirus pandemic since it began last year, is grappling with a small but still uncontained outbreak that appeared last month. Since April 20, Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center has confirmed infections of 10 pilots working for the Taiwan-based international carrier China Airlines and eight relatives of pilots. At the Novotel Taipei Taoyuan International Airport hotel, which is next to the island’s chief international airport, four employees, three of their family members and a hotel contractor have been diagnosed since April 29. On Tuesday, the command center reported two new COVID-19 cases, both airline employees. Authorities expect it will take another week or two to determine how wide the outbreak has spread. Health Minister Chen Shih-chung told a news conference Sunday the cluster does not qualify yet as a “community outbreak” but cautioned people to follow guidance on avoiding infections. “Until May 17 we will be in a period of high-level alert, so please everyone cooperate,” Chen told a Tuesday news conference. Command center officials have disclosed the movements of people who were recently infected so anyone who might have crossed paths can be tested for the virus. Potential infection spots include buses, convenience stores and restaurants in northern Taiwan including the capital Taipei, Centers for Disease Control deputy director Luo Yi-jun said. The command center says hundreds of contacts and potential contacts of the 24 patients confirmed through Monday had already been tested for infection. “Two days before these people showed symptoms, they were infectious, so this outbreak poses a very big challenge to the whole community,” said Chiu Cheng-hsun, vice superintendent at Linkou Chang Gung Hospital’s pediatric respiratory department. “Right now, there’s an extremely high risk, an extremely high chance, of a community [caseload].” Any more COVID-19 cases pegged to the airline, or the hotel should show up within the month, Chiu said. A wider outbreak would be Taiwan’s first runaway caseload since COVID-19 began gripping the world in early 2020. FILE – People wearing masks to protect against the coronavirus shop ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, in Taipei, Taiwan, Feb. 9, 2021.Most people in Taiwan, population 24 million, are keeping their hands clean, wearing masks and disinfecting their surroundings, health professionals in Taiwan say. But they show few signs of changing their lifestyles otherwise. “I think the general Taiwanese public at this moment probably doesn’t believe Taiwan overall is so dangerous or so dire, and they’re not on such high alert, because Taiwan was a good student over the past last year, like it performed well,” said Wu Chia-yi, associate professor in the National Taiwan University College of Medicine’s nursing faculty. But she said some people feel “depressed” or “anxious,” especially if in a hospital and exposed to patients’ blood. People around Taiwan should step up disease prevention habits, such as mask wearing and hand washing, that might have slacked before the recent outbreak, Chiu said. The command center said last week it is exploring whether pilots of foreign-registered airlines set off the Novotel cluster. “Novotel teams are fully cooperating and following protocols and measurements as advised by the local authorities,” the command center said in statement. “Meanwhile, our focus is to closely monitor the progress of our staff members and guests who are currently under quarantine. The safety and wellbeing of our staff and guests are our absolute priority.” Taiwan’s success in warding off COVID-19 has allowed people to keep working and going out as usual. The government controlled the virus spread in early 2020 through inspections of inbound aircraft, strict quarantine rules and rigorous contact tracing. Taiwan has logged a cumulative 1,153 cases with 12 deaths. The most recent localized outbreak occurred in December when an infected Eva Airways pilot sparked cluster of four people. Those cases prompted a wave of event cancellations and new restrictions on inbound pilots. Almost all other cases since the start of the pandemic are Taiwan residents returning from overseas. On Tuesday, the command center said it would step up disease controls by restricting bedside visits to hospital patients. Hospitals are tightening their own precautions, particularly in emergency rooms. 
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As India reels from a second wave of COVID-19 infections that is devastating major cities, stockpiles are falling short of surging demand in the country, health experts warn. The country’s mass immunization bid to expand its vaccination drive to all adults is posing to be a herculean task, they say. India opened vaccinations to those who are 18 years of age and older this month. Although it is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, the approximately 70 million shots for COVID-19 being produced per month cannot address the massive needs of the world’s second most populous country, health experts say. K. Srinath Reddy is the president of the Public Health Foundation of India, a health research and policy development organization based in New Delhi. He said the challenge to meet demands includes groups considered “new entrants,” people between the ages of 18 to 44 years old.  “We are talking about 595 million people. So, we are talking of 1.2 billion doses,” he told VOA. “It’s a huge task and our vaccine stocks currently do not measure up anywhere near that.” Several states have said they cannot expand the drive because they are already struggling to inoculate older people with higher levels of risk. FILE – Relatives carry the body of a person who died of COVID-19 as multiple pyres of other COVID-19 victims burn at a crematorium in New Delhi, India.Quest for appointments
In cities like New Delhi and Mumbai, where the shots are being given to younger people, tens of thousands have been scrambling online to book limited slots on a government app for immunization since they became eligible on May 1. Only some have been successful. “We got a slot but then the booking was cancelled,” Piyush Kumar, a New Delhi resident who got vaccinated on the weekend said. “But we persevered and kept on trying to refresh the page and suddenly some slots [opened] at a hospital about 45 kilometers away. We rushed there.” India faces major challenges — Mumbai has an estimated five million people in the 18-44 age group but is only giving 2,500 shots per day due to limited stocks. Vaccinations for older people were suspended for days last week. Critics are blaming authorities for a sluggish rollout of what was ambitiously billed as the world’s largest vaccination program when it began in January with a target of reaching 300 million people by August.  Since then, about 2% of the population has been fully inoculated while about 10% has received one dose. As a result, much of the country was unprotected when it was hit by a ferocious second wave that hit seven million people in April alone — the country’s count is about 20 million cases.  A woman argues with a doctor as she is turned back following shortage of COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination center in Mumbai, India, Monday, May 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)Stockpile failure
Experts say India failed to stockpile enough vaccines or invest early enough in boosting production facilities as it prematurely declared victory against the pandemic during a lull in infections earlier in the year. The government also sent 65 million doses to other countries as part of a “vaccine diplomacy” push. “I think it was factored in their minds that we will not have to deal with a second wave and therefore we could have a measured, steady graduated vaccination program which can flow in steps,” Reddy told VOA. “That is why we even felt we had the luxury of sending vaccines abroad to about 80 countries.”  The vaccine powerhouse was relying on domestically produced vaccines being made by two Indian companies — the Serum Institute of India that is making the Oxford/AstraZeneca shots and a domestically developed vaccine by Bharat Biotech. The government suspended exports and extended loans last month to build up infrastructure in the two companies as demand began exceeding supply. It has also stepped-up efforts to get vaccines from overseas. The first consignment of Sputnik V vaccines arrived from Russia this week and the vaccine will also be produced with local partners, but those doses could take months to reach the market. The government has said it will also grant emergency approval for vaccines approved in the United States, Britain, Europe or Japan.  Experts say the government needed a detailed plan on how it will secure the vaccines. “There was a shortage even when the drive did not open up to all adults,” points out public policy and health expert Chandrakant Lahariya. “Now the target beneficiaries have increased three-fold while the vaccine supply, which was already short, has remained the same. So, you can imagine how big the gap is. Even in months this may not be solved unless some additional approaches and strategies are followed.” Miscalculation
Adar Poonawalla, head of the Serum Institute of India, said this week that the shortages will continue through July when production is expected to increase. In an interview with the London-based Financial Times newspaper, he said he had not boosted capacity earlier because “there were no orders, we did not think we needed to make more than 1 billion doses a year.”  Now fear overhangs cities like New Delhi where the ongoing battle for hospital beds, drugs, and medical oxygen by tens of thousands shows no signs of abating.  Even hospitals have been scrambling for oxygen stocks and patients have died in hospitals that briefly ran out of oxygen. Social media is filled with desperate pleas for help. “I deleted social media apps for about a week in the middle because I just could not take it,” Kumar said. “But I had to get back because a lot of people are seeking help on that platform, and I need to be available. The times are very anxious.”   
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The first phase of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout has started in Papua New Guinea, as infection numbers continue to rise. Experts say Australia’s nearest neighbor is also fighting a sea of misinformation and concerns over the safety of vaccines. Experts say misinformation about COVID-19 is spreading even faster in Papua New Guinea than the disease. Conspiracy theories and other falsehoods have found fertile ground online. Adding to a sense of mistrust are deeply held beliefs in sorcery. Aid workers have reported that the family of a health worker in Papua New Guinea, who tested positive for the virus, was tortured by relatives fearful of unexplained illness.  Jonathan Pryke is the director of the Pacific Islands Program at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based research organization. He says hoaxes spread on social media about the novel coronavirus add to the confusion.  “Facebook is where you get all of your information from, and Facebook is just seeding misinformation and misinformation is spreading faster than the virus in that country,” Pryke said.The World Health Organization reported 11,206 COVID-19 cases and 115 deaths Tuesday in Papua New Guinea. Pryke believes the true scale of pandemic in the Pacific island nation is far worse because of a lack of testing and patients with symptoms refuse or fear retaliation from within their communities, preventing them from seeking treatment. Prior to the pandemic, sorcery-related violence against victims has been rampant in the country according to news reports. “The official statistics do not look as serious as the true picture is and, you know, there is a lot of data points you can look at that display just how serious this is. We have had a sitting member of parliament die; we have had two judges die. It is bad. It is a health system that is so stretched to breaking point that it really cannot handle the shock. We are seeing this crisis play out in front of our very eyes,” Pryke said.The pandemic has been felt differently across the Pacific. Some countries have, so far, escaped unscathed. According to the World Health Organization, Tonga has not recorded any infections since the pandemic began. Samoa has had just a single confirmed case, and three cases have been recorded in Vanuatu. Fiji has recorded more than 100 coronavirus infections and two people have died, WHO reported. A mass inoculation program is underway in French Polynesia. So far, there have been almost 19,000 cases detected and 141 deaths in the past 15 months. However, it is reopening its international borders only to vaccinated travelers from the United States, who have already tested negative for COVID. The U.S. territory of Guam has reported its latest figures with 7,700 infections and 136 deaths due to the pandemic. Currently, Guam has a 14-day quarantine period in place for all passengers entering through air or sea.  
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France’s centrist government has released a video ahead of Wednesday’s vote on the so-called Climate and Resilience bill, with Ecological Transition Minister Barbara Pompili explaining how it will lead to cleaner air, more insulated buildings and a greener France overall.Polls find many French citizens support the spirit of the massive legislation, which aims to meet the country’s goal of cutting greenhouse gases by 40% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. A recent report by the EU’s climate service found 2020 was Europe’s hottest year on record, and the region was warming faster than the rest of the world.The French bill’s dozens of measures include limiting the most polluting vehicles in urban areas, slapping ecotaxes on truck transport, banning heated restaurant terraces and capping rent on insulated housing.The National Assembly is expected to pass the legislation before it heads to the Senate.But the bill is deeply controversial, with industry saying it’s too constraining, and green groups saying it doesn’t go far enough.Graffiti near the Place de la Bastille in Paris calling for climate action. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)Chloe Gerbier, legal officer for environmental NGO Notre Affaire a Tous (Our Shared Responsibility), said the legislation in no way meets the urgency of the climate crisis. She and others said it drastically waters down proposals made by a citizens’ climate convention set up by President Emmanuel Macron.Earlier wording in the bill, for example, that made serious environmental abuses a crime now tags them as lesser misdemeanors. Green groups also want a bigger category of short-haul domestic flights banned in favor of train transport.France’s airline industry, hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, doesn’t want any flight bans. Nicolas Paulissen, managing director of the Union of French Airports, says it doesn’t make sense to penalize French airlines, when much of the industry’s growth is happening in Africa and Asia.Paris climate protesters before France’s rolling coronavirus lockdowns. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)“We do rather believe in the greening of aviation through technological innovation, for instance, and that’s why we encourage the French government to finance the research for new technologies allowing the aviation to be greener than in the future,” Paulissen said.Pompili acknowledges a slew of criticism, but says the legislation is balancing sharply opposing interests to bring everyone on board.Earlier this year, a Paris court convicted the French state of failing to address the climate crisis and for not keeping its promises to tackle greenhouses emissions. The government is appealing the ruling. 
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