Month: November 2022

China on Friday reported another single-day record-high number of COVID-19 infections, as cities across the country enforced measures and curbs to try to control outbreaks. 

Excluding imported infections, China recorded 32,695 new local COVID-19 cases on Thursday, of which 3,041 were symptomatic and 29,654 were asymptomatic, up from 31,144 a day earlier, which was the previous record.

Big outbreaks are numerous and far-flung, with the southern city of Guangzhou and southwestern Chongqing recording the bulk of the new cases, although hundreds of new infections have been reported daily in cities such as Chengdu, Jinan, Lanzhou, Xian and Wuhan. 

Cases quadrupled in Shijiazhuang to 3,197 on Thursday from the previous day.  

China’s capital, Beijing, reported 424 symptomatic and 1,436 asymptomatic cases on Thursday, compared with 509 symptomatic and 1,139 asymptomatic cases the previous day, local government data showed. 

Financial hub Shanghai – where a COVID lockdown that began in mid-April crippled the city of 25 million residents for two months – reported nine symptomatic cases and 77 asymptomatic cases on Thursday, compared with nine symptomatic cases and 58 asymptomatic cases a day before, the local health authority reported. 

Guangzhou, a city in the south of nearly 19 million people, reported 257 new locally transmitted symptomatic and 7,267 asymptomatic cases Thursday, compared with 428 symptomatic and 7,192 asymptomatic cases a day before, local authorities said. 

Chongqing reported 258 new symptomatic locally transmitted COVID-19 infections and 6,242 asymptomatic cases for Thursday, compared with 409 symptomatic and 7,437 asymptomatic cases the previous day, local government authorities said. 
…

Avian flu has wiped out 50.54 million birds in the United States this year, making it the country’s deadliest outbreak in history, U.S. Department of Agriculture data showed on Thursday. 

The deaths of chickens, turkeys and other birds represent the worst U.S. animal-health disaster to date, topping the previous record of 50.5 million birds that died in an avian flu outbreak in 2015. 

Birds often die after becoming infected. Entire flocks, which can top a million birds at egg-laying chicken farms, are also culled to control the spread of the disease after a bird tests positive. 

Losses of poultry flocks sent prices for eggs and turkey meat to record highs, worsening economic pain for consumers facing high inflation and making Thursday’s Thanksgiving celebrations more expensive in the United States. Europe and Britain are also suffering their worst avian-flu crises, and some British supermarkets rationed customers’ egg purchases after the outbreak disrupted supplies. 

The U.S. outbreak, which began in February, infected flocks of poultry and non-poultry birds across 46 states, USDA data show. Wild birds like ducks transmit the virus, known as highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), through their feces, feathers or direct contact with poultry. 

“Wild birds continue to spread HPAI throughout the country as they migrate, so preventing contact between domestic flocks and wild birds is critical to protecting U.S. poultry,” said Rosemary Sifford, the USDA’s chief veterinary officer. 

Farmers struggled to keep the disease and wild birds out of their barns, having bolstered security and cleaning measures following the 2015 outbreak. In 2015, about 30% of the cases were traced directly to wild bird origins, compared with 85% this year, the USDA told Reuters. 

Government officials are studying infections at turkey farms, in particular, in hopes of developing new recommendations for preventing infections. Turkey farms account for more than 70% of the commercial poultry farms infected in the outbreak, the USDA said.  

People should avoid unprotected contact birds that look sick or have died, though the outbreak poses a low risk to the general public, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. 
…

Delegates at a global summit on trade in endangered species were scheduled to decide Thursday whether to approve a proposal to protect sharks, a move that could drastically reduce the lucrative and often cruel shark fin trade.

The proposal would place dozens of species of the requiem shark and the hammerhead shark families on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

The appendix lists species that may not yet be threatened with extinction but may become so unless trade in them is closely controlled.

If Thursday’s plenary meeting gives the green light, “it would be a historic decision,” Panamanian delegate Shirley Binder told AFP.

“For the first time, CITES would be handling a very large number of shark species, which would be approximately 90% of the market,” she said.

Spurring the trade is the insatiable Asian appetite for shark fins, which make their way onto dinner tables in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan.

Despite being described as gelatinous and almost tasteless, shark fin soup is viewed as a delicacy and is enjoyed by the very wealthy, often at weddings and expensive banquets.

Shark fins, representing a market of about $500 million per year, can sell for about $1,000 a kilogram.

From villain to conservation darling

Sharks have long been seen as the villain of the seas they have occupied for more than 400 million years, terrifying people with their depiction in films such as “Jaws” and their occasional attacks on humans.

However, these ancient predators have undergone an image makeover in recent years as conservationists have highlighted the crucial role they play in regulating the ocean ecosystem.

According to the Pew Environment Group, between 63 million and 273 million sharks are killed every year, mainly for their fins and other parts.

With many shark species taking more than 10 years to reach sexual maturity, and having a low fertility rate, the constant hunting of the species has decimated their numbers.

In many parts of the world, fisherman lop the sharks’ fins off at sea, tossing the shark back into the ocean for a cruel death by suffocation or blood loss.

The efforts by conservationists led to a turning point in 2013, when CITES imposed the first trade restrictions on some shark species.

“We are in the middle of a very large shark extinction crisis,” Luke Warwick, director of shark protection for the nongovernmental organization Wildlife Conservation Society, told AFP at the beginning of the summit.

Heated debate

Thursday’s vote followed a fierce debate that lasted nearly three hours, with Japan and Peru seeking to reduce the number of shark species that would be protected.

Japan had proposed that the trade restriction be reduced to 19 species of requiem sharks, and Peru called for the blue shark to be removed from the list.

Both suggestions were rejected, however.

“We hope that nothing extraordinary happens and that these entire families of sharks are ratified for inclusion in Annex II,” Chilean delegate Ricardo Saez told AFP.

Several delegations, including host Panama, displayed stuffed toy sharks on their tables during the earlier Committee I debate.

The plenary was also scheduled to vote on ratifying a proposal to protect guitarfish, a species of ray.

The shark initiative was one of the most discussed at this year’s CITES summit in Panama, with the proposal co-sponsored by the European Union and 15 countries.

Participants at the summit considered 52 proposals to change species protection levels.

CITES, which came into force in 1975, has set international trade rules for more than 36,000 wild species. Its signatories include 183 countries and the European Union.
…

Canadian-American eco-warrior Paul Watson, ousted from the Sea Shepherd conservationist organization he founded, says he is back in business with a new ship and crew and is ready to resume tormenting the world’s whalers and others he sees as despoilers of the world’s oceans. 

“After being knocked down, we have fully recovered and we’re ready to return to battle on the high seas,” Watson declared in a digital announcement earlier this month. “The new Captain Paul Watson Foundation is here and it’s ready to aggressively take on all enemies that look to do harm to our ocean and our planet.”

Watson is among the most controversial figures in the environmental movement, in and out of legal trouble on several continents over aggressive tactics, which have included ramming and sinking or fouling the propellers of whaling vessels. Some of his exploits have been portrayed in the reality TV series Whale Wars, shown on Animal Planet.

His advocacy of “direct action” led to him being ousted in 1977 from the board of Greenpeace, where he was an early member, and his founding of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society where he gained notoriety as a scourge of Norwegian, Japanese and Icelandic whalers, who operate despite global ban on whaling under an exception allowing for research.

Among his most dramatic actions was the sinking of two whaling vessels in a harbor in Iceland by his society members – an action for which Watson claimed personal responsibility. Over his career, such tactics led to legal action in Canada, the United States, Costa Rica, Norway and Japan, although he has never been convicted of a major crime.

Nevertheless, it all became too much for his fellow board members at Sea Shepherd, who removed him from the board and limited his activities, leading him to cut all ties with the group in July.

“I was marginalized and told to be a paid and quiet figurehead as they changed the direction of the organization away from confrontational and controversial campaigns,” Watson told VOA in a telephone interview and follow-up emails.

“I said I could not participate or support this change. Sea Shepherd should not be Oceana or Greenpeace. Our approach should always be aggressive, direct action.”

To that end, he has established the Captain Paul Watson Foundation and, he said, “We’re going to rebuild our navy. I call it Neptune’s Navy.”

Watson said he recently completed the purchase in Britain of a new ship, to be named the John Paul DeJoria, and, so far, has taken on seven crew members, mostly engineers. “I am also looking for two additional ships” he said, and he has “a few dozen” applicants to sail with him, mainly former Sea Shepherd officers and crew.

Asked whether he expects to resume his pursuit of whaling ships, which according to the NGO Whale and Dolphin Conservation, have killed nearly 40,000 large whales since commercial whaling was banned in 1986, he replied, “Always. It has been my lifetime ambition to eradicate whaling.”   

Nor does he plan to tone down the tactics that have outraged his critics in the past.

“Why would I consider doing that? I established the approach of aggressive non-violence and that continues to be my primary strategy because it is effective. I have not changed my approach for over half a century,” he told VOA.

As for ramming whaling ships, “That depends on the situation, i.e. legal status, location and logistics. I have not rammed a ship since 2013 but it’s always a possibility.”

But, he maintained, “We’re not going to injure anyone. I’ve never injured anyone in my entire career.”

That fact has done little to assuage Watson’s critics, including the Japanese government, which once labeled the Sea Shepherd society an “eco-terrorist” organization.

“A U.S. court declared Sea Shepherds to be ‘pirates’ after considering their history of ramming ships, hurling containers of acid, and other aggression,” noted Rick Berman, executive director of the U.S.-based Center for Organizational Research and Education, which casts a skeptical eye on some environmental and animal rights groups.

“When you hear Paul Watson claim he has a good cause, just remember ISIS says the same thing,” Berman told VOA in an email exchange.

On the other side of the ledger, Watson has been presented in Paris with a Jules Verne Award for his role as a protector of the environment and was named by Time magazine among the Top 20 environmental heroes of the 20th century.

The activist credits public support for his cause for his ability to avoid having ever been convicted of a felony in any country.

Years after his organization scuttled the two Icelandic whaling vessels in 1986, he flew to Iceland and asked to be booked for the crime. “They put me on a plane,” he said. “Iceland knew to put me on trial would be to put themselves on trial for their illegal activities.”

But, he said, he understands why many other conservationists want to keep him at arm’s length.  

“We fill a specific niche within the marine conservation movement,” he emailed. “We are not for everyone. … Although many quietly agree and support what we do, they are hesitant to be seen with us in the light of day.”
…

Abbas Hashem fixed his worried gaze on the horizon — the day was almost gone and still, there was no sign of the last of his water buffaloes. He knows that when his animals don’t come back from roaming the marshes of this part of Iraq, they must be dead.

The dry earth is cracked beneath his feet and thick layers of salt coat shriveled reeds in the Chibayish wetlands amid this year’s dire shortages in fresh water flows from the Tigris River.

Hashem already lost five buffaloes from his herd of 20 since May, weakened with hunger and poisoned by the salty water seeping into the low-lying marshes. Other buffalo herders in the area say their animals have died, too, or produce milk that’s unfit to sell.

“This place used to be full of life,” he said. “Now it’s a desert, a graveyard.”

The wetlands — a lush remnant of the cradle of civilization and a sharp contrast to the desert that prevails elsewhere in the Middle East — were reborn after the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein, when dams he had built to drain the area and root out Shiite rebels were dismantled.

But today, drought that experts believe is spurred by climate change and invading salt, coupled with lack of political agreement between Iraq and Turkey, are endangering the marshes, which surround the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southern Iraq.

This year, acute water shortages — the worst in 40 years, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization — have driven buffalo herders deeper into poverty and debt, forcing many to leave their homes and migrate to nearby cities to look for work.

The rural communities that rely on farming and herding have long been alienated from officials in Baghdad, perpetually engaged in political crises. And when the government this year introduced harsh water rationing policies, the people in the region only became more desperate.

Oil-rich Iraq has not rebuilt the country’s antiquated water supply and irrigation infrastructure and hopes for a water-sharing agreement for Tigris with upstream neighbor Turkey have dwindled, hampered by intransigence and often conflicting political allegiances in Iraq.

In the marshes, where rearing of water buffaloes has been the way of life for generations, the anger toward the government is palpable.

Hamza Noor found a patch where a trickle of fresh water flows. The 33-year-old sets out five times a day in his small boat across the marshes, filling up canisters with water and bringing it back for his animals.

Between Noor and his two brothers, the family lost 20 buffaloes since May, he said. But unlike other herders who left for the city, he is staying.

“I don’t know any other job,” he said.

Ahmed Mutliq, feels the same way. The 30-year-old grew up in the marshes and says he’s seen dry periods years before.

“But nothing compares to this year,” he said. He urged the authorities to release more water from upstream reservoirs, blaming provinces to the north and neighboring countries for “taking water from us.”

Provincial officials, disempowered in Iraq’s highly centralized government, have no answers.

“We feel embarrassed,” said Salah Farhad, the head of Dhi Qar province’s agriculture directorate. “Farmers ask us for more water, and we can’t do anything.”

Iraq relies on the Tigris-Euphrates river basin for drinking water, irrigation and sanitation for its entire population of 40 million. Competing claims over the basin, which stretches from Turkey and cuts across Syria and Iran before reaching Iraq, have complicated Baghdad’s ability to make a water plan.

Ankara and Baghdad have not been able to agree on a fixed amount of flow rate for the Tigris. Turkey is bound by a 1987 agreement to release 500 cubic meters per second toward Syria, which then divides the water with Iraq.

But Ankara has failed to meet its obligation in recent years due to declining water levels and rejects any future sharing agreements that forces it to release a fixed number.

Iraq’s annual water plan prioritizes setting aside enough drinking water for the nation first, then supplying the agriculture sector and also discharging enough fresh water to the marshes to minimize salinity there. This year, the amounts were cut by half.

The salinity in the marshes has further spiked with water-stressed Iran diverting water from its Karkheh River, which also feeds into Iraq’s marshes.

Iraq has made even less headway on sharing water resources with Iran.

“With Turkey, there is dialogue, but many delays,” said Hatem Hamid, who heads the Iraqi Water Ministry’s key department responsible for formulating the water plan. “With Iran, there is nothing.”

Two officials at the legal department in Iraq’s Foreign Ministry, which deals with complaints against other countries, said attempts to engage with Iran over water-sharing were halted by higher-ups, including the office of then-Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.

“They told us not to speak to Iran about it,” said one of the officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss legal issues.

Iraq’s needs are so dire that several Western countries and aid organizations are trying to provide development assistance for Iraq to upgrade its aging water infrastructure and modernize ancient farming practices.

The U.S. Geological Survey has trained Iraqi officials in reading satellite imagery to “strengthen Iraq’s hand in negotiations with Turkey,” one U.S. diplomat said, also speaking anonymously because of the ongoing negotiations.

As the sun set over Chibayish, Hashem’s water buffalo never returned — the sixth animal he lost.

“I have nothing without my buffaloes,” he said.
…

Every few minutes, 14-month-old Awa coughs, the phlegm rising from deep within her chest.

Her mother, Meta Ba, says Awa’s been coughing that way for as long as she can remember.

Ba, who suffers from chronic migraines, works as an artisanal gold miner in Senegal’s far eastern region of Kedougou, near the borders of Mali and Guinea.

Gold mining in Senegal plays a key role in the country’s economy, but the use of mercury during the treatment process is harming the environment and the health of the miners.

In Kedougou, home to 98% of Senegal’s gold mines, more than five tons of mercury are used annually.

Health experts say the heavy metal attacks the nervous, digestive and immune systems.

It can harm the lungs and kidneys and impair hearing, balance, vision, thinking and breathing. It can also cause birth defects.

Women make up half of the miners and are charged with treating the gold after it is mined, which involves mixing mercury with ore, then vaporizing the mercury to isolate the gold. They do so without gloves or masks.

Some of the female miners have visible health conditions, such large growths stemming from their throats and drooping red eyes.

They often carry their children with them to work, causing both to suffer the health consequences.

“She is still breastfeeding, so I can’t leave her at home,” Ba said. “If I don’t come here to work, how will I survive? How will I make a living?”

But Kedougou’s gold mines are no place for children.

Scores of open pits plunge 15 meters deep, without barriers or markers. There is no safety equipment, and miners say the dust they are being exposed to is toxic.

Still, Awa and other children play and nap just steps from the pits.

The metal also infiltrates the environment, damaging the ecosystem.

“When the mercury is separated from the gold, it creates a vapor that rises into the atmosphere and clings to the leaves,” said Mamadou Drame, president of the Gold Panning Federation of Kedougou. “Then with the rain or wind it leaches into the ground and gets washed into the rivers where the fish are exposed.”

Locals risk ingesting the toxic metal, not only when they consume the fish, but when they eat the crops grown from the contaminated soil or the livestock that graze there.

A 2018 study by Duke University found dangerously high levels of the neurotoxic form of mercury in soil and water ecosystems near artisanal gold mines in Senegal that far exceed World Health Organization guidelines.

Mercury can also seep into drinking water.

“The well is contaminated,” Ba said. “When you drink this water, you know you’ll get sick.”

The toxin does not break down over time. Once an ecosystem is contaminated, future generations will pay the price.

Gold mining in Kedougou is also causing soil degradation and deforestation.

Artisanal and small-scale miners work independently in the Kedougou region. The industry is critical to the miners’ ability to make a living.

Kedougou’s mines employed more than 30,000 people in 2018 and generated $136 million. The region draws miners from Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso and other neighboring countries.

In 2016 Senegal ratified the Minamata Convention on Mercury, a multilateral agreement that seeks to reduce mercury pollution.

Senegal’s Ministry of Mines and Geology only created an artisanal and small-scale mining department last year and the sector is still largely unregulated.

Abou Sow, who heads the department, acknowledged the urgency of the health and environment crisis.

In 2020 he helped the ministry launch a project to install 400 mercury-free gold processing units in Kedougou.

“Everyone who comes to the center to process their gold will know that there will be no use of chemicals,” Sow said. “We will also establish regulations that will allow us to sanction those who are treating their gold outside the center using chemicals.”

Construction has yet to start, though, and is expected to take at least two years.

Until then, miners like Ba say they and their children will continue to be exposed to toxic elements.

“These women are breathing nothing but toxins all around them,” said Khady Camara, founder of environmental organization Vacances Vertes. “It’s high time the government start regulating this industry.”
…

More than 40 million children missed getting vaccinated against measles last year, prompting a significant setback in global efforts to eradicate the highly contagious disease worldwide, the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a joint report Wednesday.

Vaccination campaigns were disrupted in several countries because of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, dropping global measles-containing vaccine (MCV) coverage from 86% in 2019 to 81% in 2021, the lowest coverage rate since 2008. 

Now, nearly all of the 40 million children who missed their first or second doses of the MCV are “dangerously susceptible to [a] growing measles threat,” the report warned.  

“The paradox of the pandemic is that while vaccines against COVID-19 were developed in record time and deployed in the largest vaccination campaign in history, routine immunization programs were badly disrupted, and millions of kids missed out on lifesaving vaccinations against deadly diseases like measles,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. 

“The record number of children underimmunized and susceptible to measles shows the profound damage immunization systems have sustained during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, CDC director.

Last year, about 9 million measles cases were reported around the world, with 128,000 deaths.  

Over the last two decades, successful MCV campaigns have helped prevent an estimated 56 million deaths globally, according to WHO.  

Ten countries in Asia and Africa – India, Somalia, Yemen, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Liberia, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Congo – carry the highest numbers of measles cases and fatalities in the world. 

COVID-19 restrictions have also disrupted immunization campaigns for polio, which causes irreversible paralysis. Polio has been eradicated all over the world except in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where immunization drives have seen access restrictions because of insecurity and limited public awareness.
…

A 5.6 magnitude earthquake left more than 260 dead and hundreds injured as buildings crumbled and terrified residents ran for their lives on Indonesia’s main island of Java.

Bodies continued to be pulled from the debris on Tuesday morning in the hardest-hit city of Cianjur, located in the country’s most densely populated province of West Java and some 217 kilometers (135 miles) south of the capital, Jakarta. A number of people are still missing.

While the magnitude would typically be expected to cause light damage to buildings and other structures, experts say proximity to fault lines, the shallowness of the quake and inadequate infrastructure that cannot withstand earthquakes all contributed to the damage.

Here’s a closer look at the earthquake and some reasons why it caused so much devastation:

Was Monday’s earthquake considered “strong”?

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake late Monday afternoon measured 5.6 magnitude and struck at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles).

Quakes of this size usually don’t cause widespread damage to well-built infrastructure. But the agency points out, “There is not one magnitude above which damage will occur. It depends on other variables, such as the distance from the earthquake, what type of soil you are on, building construction” and other factors.

Dozens of buildings were damaged in Indonesia, including Islamic boarding schools, a hospital and other public facilities. Also damaged were roads and bridges, and parts of the region experienced power blackouts.

So why did the quake cause so much damage?

Experts said proximity to fault lines, the depth of the temblor and buildings not being constructed using earthquake-proof methods were factors in the devastation.

“Even though the earthquake was medium-sized, it (was) close to the surface … and located inland, close to where people live,” said Gayatri Marliyani, an assistant geology professor at Universitas Gadjah Mada, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. “The energy was still large enough to cause significant shaking that led to damage.”

The worst-affected area is close to several known faults, said Marliyani.

A fault is a place with a long break in the rock that forms the surface of the earth. When an earthquake occurs on one of these faults, the rock on one side of the fault slips with respect to the other.

“The area probably has the most inland faults compared to the other parts of Java,” said Marliyani.

She added that while some well-known faults are in the area, there are many other active faults that are not well studied.

Many buildings in the region are also not built with quake-proof designs, which further contributed to the damage, said Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, an earthquake geology expert at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences Geotechnology Research Center.

“This makes a quake of this size and depth even more destructive,” he said.

Does Indonesia usually have earthquakes like this?

The country of more than 270 million people is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin known as the “Ring of Fire.” The area spans some 40,000 kilometers (25,000 miles) and is where a majority of the world’s earthquakes occur.

Many of Indonesia’s earthquakes are minor and cause little to no damage. But there have also been deadly earthquakes.

In February, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed at least 25 people and injured more than 460 in West Sumatra province. In January 2021, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed more than 100 people and injured nearly 6,500 in West Sulawesi province.

A powerful Indian Ocean quake and tsunami in 2004 killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia.
…

The White House brought out two of the nation’s top doctors Tuesday to urge all Americans to update their COVID-19 and influenza vaccinations in the next six weeks as the holiday season approaches.

The nearly $500 million effort will focus on reaching older Americans and communities hardest hit by the virus, which has killed more than 1 million and infected nearly 100 million in the U.S. since the pandemic began. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is currently reporting a “substantial” decrease in weekly deaths, which it attributes to two factors. The first is high levels of population immunity, which are a result of either vaccination or prior infection. The second is improvements in early treatment for high-risk patients.

The White House said it would increase vaccination efforts over the next six weeks by investing $350 million into community health centers for vaccination events or activities that encourage vaccination. The federal Department of Health and Human Services will also award $125 million in grants to organizations that serve older adults and people with disabilities so they can support those communities.

Additionally, the federal agency that oversees the government-funded health insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid now has expanded powers to enforce compliance from nursing homes, which are required to offer vaccines to residents.

The U.S. has donated 665.2 million vaccine doses to 116 countries, the White House said. And last week, the Biden administration asked Congress for $1 billion in supplemental funding for global COVID-19 efforts. That funding, the White House told VOA on Tuesday, would support ongoing vaccination campaigns and test-and-treat programs. The money would also go toward integrating COVID-19 vaccination into the schedule of routine vaccines, which is how the spread of the polio virus was neutralized. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative was largely responsible for a 99% reduction in global polio transmission as a direct result of the vaccination campaign. 

Dr. Fauci’s ‘final message’

Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday made what may be his final appearance at the White House to emphasize that the vaccine is both safe and effective, but that immunity and protection diminish over time. Fauci, at 81, retires later this year after 38 years as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“My final message — it may be the final message I give you from this podium — is that please, for your own safety and for that of your family, get your updated COVID-19 shot as soon as you’re eligible, to protect yourself, your family and your community,” he said.

Fauci acknowledged to VOA that misinformation and denialism — some of it coming from the White House during the early days of the pandemic — adversely affected the fight against the quickly changing virus. Critics of then-President Donald Trump say his mixed messages about the virus, his minimization of the situation and his unfounded medical pronouncements were detrimental.

“I contradicted those, which set off a whole series of things in my life,” Fauci said.

“People who have correct information, who take science seriously, who don’t have strange, way-out theories about things but base what they say on evidence and data need to speak up more,” Fauci said, “because the other side that just keeps putting out misinformation and disinformation seems to be tireless in that effort. And it’s going to be very difficult.”

Well-known figures, including several U.S. legislators, have spread what critics say is misinformation about the virus. That’s what led the social media site Twitter to suspend Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene in 2021, though the site’s new owner, billionaire Elon Musk, reinstated her account this week.

Other legislators have opposed President Joe Biden’s vaccine policies and mandates, such as Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who said “the CDC continues to make recommendations that ignore science, erode public trust, and target Americans’ healthcare freedom” in response to a CDC vote to make COVID-19 a required vaccine for public schoolchildren.

Much misinformation has gained a wider audience on social media networks, White House officials said. As White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha put it: “You can decide to trust America’s physicians, or you can trust some random dude on Twitter. Like, those are your choices.”

As the doctors were speaking at the White House, a Twitter user replied, in real time, to VOA’s line of questioning, saying, “They ruined public trust. Most will never trust public health again. Myself included.”

 
…

A few weeks ago, Lebanon detected its first cases of cholera in 30 years. The highly contagious disease has since spread and officials in the cash-strapped country fear there is a high risk of it becoming endemic if they are unable to tackle the root causes of the outbreak. Jacob Russell reports from the town of Bebnine, in northern Lebanon.
…

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. health official celebrated and vilified as the face of the country’s COVID-19 pandemic response, used his final White House briefing on Tuesday to denounce division and promote vaccines.

Fauci, who plans to retire soon as President Joe Biden’s top medical adviser and top U.S. infectious disease official, has dealt with the thorny questions around health crises from HIV/AIDS to avian flu and Ebola.

But it was his handling of COVID — and his blunt assessments from the White House podium that Americans needed to change their behavior in light of the pandemic — that made him a hero to public health advocates while serving under President Donald Trump, a villain to some on the right and an unusual celebrity among bureaucratic officials used to toiling in obscurity. Fauci has regularly been subjected to death threats for his efforts.

True to form, Fauci used the final press briefing to strongly encourage Americans to get COVID vaccines and booster shots, and touted the effectiveness of masks, all of which became partisan totems in the United States.

The United States leads the world in recorded COVID-19 deaths with more than 1 million.

After 13 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines given worldwide, Fauci said, there is “clearly an extensive body of information” that indicates that they are safe.

“When I see people in this country because of the divisiveness in our country … not getting vaccinated for reasons that have nothing to do with public health, but have to do because of divisiveness and ideological differences, as a physician, it pains me,” Fauci said.

“I don’t want to see anybody hospitalized, and I don’t want to see anybody die from COVID. Whether you’re a far-right Republican or a far-left Democrat, doesn’t make any difference to me.”

Fauci is stepping down in December after 54 years of public service. The 81-year-old has headed the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, since 1984.

The veteran immunologist has served as an adviser to seven U.S. presidents beginning with Republican Ronald Reagan. He made his first appearance at the White House press briefing in 2001.

Republican lawmakers including fierce critic Senator Rand Paul, with whom Fauci tangled during Senate hearings, have vowed to investigate him when they take control of the House of Representatives following November’s congressional elections.

On Tuesday, Fauci said he “will absolutely cooperate fully” in any congressional oversight hearings launched by Republicans next year.
…

Five months after Thailand became the first country in Asia to legalize cannabis, boosters of the hot-button herb are fighting to keep it that way amid mounting calls to re-list the plant as a narcotic.

Cannabis sellers, growers and smokers rallied outside the national government’s headquarters in the capital, Bangkok, Tuesday to discourage authorities from placing the plant back on the country’s controlled narcotics list, with stiff penalties for possession and distribution.

“There is a very high chance that cannabis may end up being illegal again, so it’s quite a very high stake right now,” said Chokwan Chopaka of the People’s Network for Cannabis Legislation in Thailand, which organized the event.

The government’s Narcotics Control Board was meeting Tuesday to discuss concerns about the reported spike in the recreational use of cannabis among adolescents since the plant was legalized in June.

Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam told reporters Monday that the board would not, and actually could not, re-list cannabis, as some feared.

But threats to the plant’s legal status remain.

Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, who championed and approved the delisting, has stood by the move. On November 10, however, a group of physicians and lawmakers petitioned the Administrative Court, which can rule on government decrees, to reverse Anutin’s original order and in effect recriminalize cannabis.

Anutin pushed for legalization by touting the plant’s health benefits and promising to pull struggling farmers out of poverty by turning it into Thailand’s next big cash crop. Cannabis-laced products from cosmetics to ice cream from local producers now line supermarket shelves, and dozens of new dispensaries in Bangkok alone sell pot by the gram from farmers across the country.

Chokwan, who owns a Bangkok dispensary herself and showed up to Tuesday’s rally with free samples for the crowd, said recriminalizing cannabis now would reverse the gains the budding industry has made.

“So many people have come out of poverty because of it, and it’s not because they got a new job or anything like that; it’s because they had ownership [of] the things that they do,” she said.

“Cannabis is one of those things … where you can actually help minimize disparity,” she added. “It gives people like me that extra leg up because I know a bit more than someone who has a lot of money. So, going back illegal again, all this money that has been made legally — I’ve been paying my taxes, everything is all on point — all of that money is going to disappear.”

Natasha Schmahl, an ethnic Thai and cannabis advocate who showed up at the rally with her own sign, said she and her German husband were building what will be the country’s first house made almost entirely of hemp in hopes of inspiring others to do the same. She said recriminalizing the plant would once again rob much of the country of the plant’s health and environmental bounty.

‘Gift from Mother Nature’

“This plant needs to stop being criminalized because it’s a plant and it’s a gift from Mother Nature,” she said. “Of course there need to be rules and regulations around legalization, but to keep it criminalized … and not being able to use the benefits of nature giving us all these medicines is just not helping humanity, and that’s not the way we should move forward.”

It’s the current lack of strict rules and regulations that has critics worried.

The Health Ministry took cannabis off Thailand’s narcotics list before parliament could pass comprehensive legislation clearly defining its legal use, production, sale and import-export. The House of Representatives voted in September to withdraw a bill proposed by Anutin’s Bhumjaithai party so that an ad-hoc committee could keep working on the fine print. Critics of the draft complained that it failed to emphasize medical over recreational use and lacked guardrails to keep cannabis out of the hands of children and adolescents.

Smith Srisont is president of the Forensic Physicians Association of Thailand, which helped spearhead the petition urging the courts to recriminalizing cannabis. He said Thai social media include many videos of students lighting up, and that cases of youngsters being hospitalized for consuming too much have been rising since June.

“Because in Thailand it’s freely to use, the children can use it very easy; this is the problem,” he told VOA by phone. “It can cause psychiatric problems, it can cause depression problem in children, and it can change the brain of children, and it can cause lower IQ in the children … if they use early.”

Srisont also accused the Health Ministry of being disingenuous in its claims to be promoting cannabis for its health benefits alone, a charge the ministry has denied.

“They promote to mix with food, mix with everything. This is recreational, but they lie, they lie that this is medical,” he said. “This is another problem.”

Chokwan, of the People’s Network, believes the reports of adolescents abusing cannabis are being blown out of proportion, especially in the context of underage smoking or drinking rates. As her group’s full name declares, she supports legislation but says recriminalizing cannabis would only drive most users and sellers underground, making the industry harder to control.

Rather than hitting reverse, Chokwan said the government should be doing more to educate the public — adults and adolescents alike — about cannabis, as she does with her own children.

“Cannabis is my business, cannabis is all around my house. My kids does not access it,” she said. “We discuss it, we talk about it, we have conversation around it, and I explain how it’s used, why it’s used, and they don’t want to go anywhere near it because it’s not something that they care for.”

Another vote on the cannabis bill is set for December 7.
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