March 2021

Leaders of the European Union, (EU) the World Health Organization (WHO) and 23 countries expressed support Tuesday for an international pandemic treaty to help the world better address future global medical emergencies.  The world leaders, along with the WHO and the EU, signed a commentary published in several media outlets Tuesday expressing support for such an agreement. The U.S. China, and Russia are not among the signatories.The idea of such a treaty, to ensure universal and equitable access to vaccines, medicine and diagnostics for pandemics, was floated by European Council (the EU’s political arm) President Charles Michel at a G20 summit last November. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed support for such a treaty earlier this year.British PM Calls for Global Treaty on Pandemics Johnson calls for universal standards for transparency regarding future pandemics In a joint, virtual news conference from Brussels and Geneva, EU Council President Michel and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus laid out the need for such an international agreement.  Michel said, “COVID-19 has exposed weaknesses and divisions across our societies, and now, it is time to come together as one global community to build a pandemic defense for future generations that extends far beyond this crisis.”  Michel compared the situation to post-World War II, when the world’s leaders came together to build a “multi-lateral model” for international cooperation.”Such a treaty would state that the health of humans, animals and the planet are all connected and should lead to shared responsibility, transparency and cooperation globally.Tedros said the treaty would help to tackle gaps exposed by COVID-19, strengthen implementation of international health regulations and provide a framework for cooperation in areas such as pandemic prevention and response.He said, “The treaty, which could be taken forward by the World Health Assembly, would be based on the WHO constitution including the principles of health for all and no discrimination.” He said WHO member states would determine the content and whether it was ratified.He also said that in discussions they have had with member states, all – including the United States and China – have reacted positively to the proposal.
…

Unknown gunmen have shot dead three female anti-polio workers in Afghanistan, one of the two countries in the world along with its neighbor Pakistan, where the crippling children’s disease remains endemic. 
 
Tuesday’s violence came on the second day of a five-day polio immunization drive, this year’s first in the conflict-torn country, that officials say aims to reach nearly one million Afghan children under five years of age in 32 out of the country’s 34 provinces.  
 
Officials said the slain women were administering polio drops to children in parts of Jalalabad, the capital of eastern Nangarhar province. 
 
No one immediately took responsibly for the violence. 
 
Afghanistan reported 56 new cases of polio in 2020, and officials have already detected around two dozen new cases this year.  
 
Continued fighting and a ban on door-to-door vaccinations in areas held by Taliban insurgents are blamed for hampering efforts to eradicate the polio virus in the country. 
 
The Afghan health ministry estimates about three million children were deprived of the polio vaccine in the past three years. 
 
Health Minister Waheed Majroj told a gathering Monday while launching the polio immunization campaign that security concerns may again deprive about one million children from receiving polio drops in 2021.  
 
Pakistan also launched its five-day nationwide door-to-door vaccinations of children against polio on Monday amid a substantial surge in coronavirus infections. 
 
The polio immunization drive targets more than 40 million children under the age of five across 156 Pakistani districts, said Faisal Sultan, special assistant to the Pakistani prime minister on national health services. 
 FILE – A boy receives polio vaccine drops, during an anti-polio campaign, in a low-income neighbourhood in Karachi, Pakistan.Sultan said the government has engaged some 285,000 frontline workers, respecting coronavirus safety guidelines, to administer polio drops to the targeted population. 
 
Anti-polio drives have also suffered setbacks in Pakistan in recent years due to attacks on vaccinators and police personnel guarding them, leading to a spike in new infections. The violence has killed scores of polio workers and security guards escorting them. 
 
Islamist militants see the polio vaccine as an effort to collect intelligence on their activities while radical religious groups in conservative rural parts of majority-Muslim Pakistan reject the immunization as a Western-led conspiracy to sterilize children. 
 
Pakistani officials insist attacks on polio teams have particularly increased since 2011 when the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency arranged a fake vaccination campaign with the help of a local doctor, enabling U.S. forces to locate and kill fugitive al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden deep inside Pakistan. 
 
Pakistan, where polio infected 84 children in 2020, has reported one confirmed case so far this year. 
 
”The year 2021 presents a unique opportunity to leverage the gains made in 2020, despite the challenges of the (COVID-19) pandemic,” said a government statement released in connection with Monday’s launch of the immunization drive. 
 
The South Asia nation’s second polio drive of 2021 comes amid a third wave of coronavirus infections, with Pakistani officials reporting more than 4,000 new cases and 100 deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in the last 24 hours. 
 
Hours after Monday’s polio vaccination drive began, authorities imposed partial lockdowns in “high-risk” Pakistani districts, including the capital, Islamabad, citing a “very dangerous” spike in new coronavirus cases. 
 
Since the coronavirus outbreak in the country 13 months ago, the government has recorded nearly 14,400 deaths from COVID-19 and more than 663,000 infections. 
 
Pakistani officials said the rate of people testing positive for COVID-19 had alarmingly risen to nearly 12% from a low of about 3% a few weeks ago, suggesting the actual number of infections is likely much higher than the reported cases. 
 
Sultan said the current wave of coronavirus infections has the “potential to be worse than the first one in the summer of 2020,” when Pakistan had to impose a nationwide lockdown to contain the virus. 
 
Pakistan President Arif Alvi tweeted Monday that he had been tested positive for COVID-19 as did the country’s defense minister, Shaukat Khattak. 
 
Prime Minister Imran Khan had also tested positive for the virus earlier this month. Faisal tweeted Sunday that Khan had made “steady clinical recovery” and had been advised to resume building up his official work routine.
…

A new report to be released Tuesday reveals details about the origins of the COVID-19 virus. The pandemic was most likely transmitted from bats to humans through another animal, the draft report obtained by U.S. news outlets said.  A leak from a lab is “extremely unlikely” as a cause of the coronavirus outbreak, which was first detected in China’s central city of Wuhan in late 2019, the report concluded. The World Health Organization’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged Monday that he had received the report over the weekend but declined to confirm the details in the draft copy seen by media outlets, including The Associated Press, which first reported the story.  “All hypotheses are on the table and warrant complete and further studies,” Tedros told a news conference from Geneva. The WHO sent an international team to China earlier this year to explore the origins of the virus. However, critics of that study say it had limitations due to what the government of China allowed researchers to see.  FILE – Peter Daszak and Thea Fischer, members of the World Health Organization team tasked with investigating the origins of the coronavirus disease, sit in a car arriving at Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, Feb. 2, 2021.‘Impending doom’ U.S. President Joe Biden is urging Americans not to ease up on wearing face masks and other coronavirus precautionary efforts amid growing evidence of a surge of new COVID-19 infections. President Biden made the plea Monday during a White House event where he announced that at least 90 percent of all U.S. adults would be eligible for vaccination, expressing concern over a handful of states that have eased or completely lifted restrictions as more people are being vaccinated against COVID-19. The president directly appealed to all state and locally elected leaders around the country to either reinstate or maintain mandatory mask wearing.  “Please, this is not politics” Biden said. “This is deadly serious.” FILE – Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention testifies during a hearing to examine the COVID-19 response on Capitol Hill, March 18, 2021.Biden’s plea mirrored those made hours earlier by Dr. Rochelle Walenksy, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), during a virtual White House health briefing. Dr. Walensky grew emotional as she spoke of “the recurring feeling I have of impending doom,” noting the U.S. had averaged about 60,000 new COVID-19 cases over the past week, an increase of 10 percent.  Walensky said the current trajectory is putting the U.S. on the same course as France, Germany and Italy and other European countries who are undergoing a dramatic rise in new coronavirus cases. “I’m asking you to just hold on a little longer, to get vaccinated when you can, so that all of those people that we all love will still be here when this pandemic ends,” she said.  Meanwhile, the CDC issued a new report Monday saying the new two dose COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are 90% effective at preventing infections under real world conditions, with the first dose 80% effective after the first two weeks.  U.S. drugmaker Johnson & Johnson announced Monday it has reached a deal to supply the African Union with up to 400 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine beginning this summer. The single-dose vaccine still must receive authorization from regulators in African countries. However, it has already been approved for emergency use by the WHO, the European Union and the United States. In Canada, health officials said on Monday they would stop offering AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine to people under age 55 because of concerns of rare but serious blood clots, especially in younger women.  The pause comes after many European countries briefly stopped using the AstraZeneca vaccine while investigating the reports of blood clots. Almost all of them resumed using the vaccine after the European Medicines Agency (EMA), a drug regulating agency, said the vaccine was “safe and effective” and said the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks of the side effects.   
…

The Biden administration is moving to sharply increase offshore wind energy along the East Coast, saying Monday it is taking initial steps toward approving a huge wind farm off the New Jersey coast as part of an effort to generate electricity for more than 10 million homes nationwide by 2030. Meeting the target could mean jobs for more than 44,000 workers and for 33,000 others in related employment, the White House said. The effort also would help avoid 78 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, a key step in the administration’s fight to slow global warming. FILE – National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, Jan. 27, 2021.President Joe Biden “believes we have an enormous opportunity in front of us to not only address the threats of climate change but use it as a chance to create millions of good-paying, union jobs that will fuel America’s economic recovery,” White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy said. “Nowhere is the scale of that opportunity clearer than for offshore wind.” The administration’s commitment to the still untapped industry “will create pathways to the middle class for people from all backgrounds and communities,” she added. “We are ready to rock and roll.” The administration said it intends to prepare a formal environmental analysis for the Ocean Wind project off New Jersey. That would move Ocean Wind toward becoming the third commercial-scale offshore wind project in the United States.  The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said it is targeting offshore wind projects in shallow waters between Long Island and the New Jersey coast. A recent study shows the area can support up to 25,000 development and construction jobs by 2030, Interior said. The ocean energy bureau said it will push to sell commercial leases in the area in late 2021 or early 2022. The administration also pledged to invest $230 million to upgrade U.S. ports and provide up to $3 billion in loan guarantees for offshore wind projects through the Energy Department’s recently revived clean-energy loan program. FILE – Jennifer Granholm speaks during a hearing to examine her nomination to be Secretary of Energy on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 27, 2021.”It is going to be a full-force gale of good-paying, union jobs that lift people up,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.  Ocean Wind, 15 miles off the coast of southern New Jersey, is projected to produce about 1,100 megawatts a year, enough to power 500,000 homes, once it becomes operational in 2024. The Interior Department has previously announced environmental reviews for Vineyard Wind in Massachusetts and South Fork wind farm about 35 miles east of Montauk Point in Long Island, New York. Vineyard Wind is expected to produce about 800 megawatts of power, and South Fork about 132 megawatts. Biden has vowed to double offshore wind production by 2030 as part of his effort to slow climate change. The likely approval of the Atlantic Coast projects — the leading edge of at least 16 offshore wind projects along the East Coast — marks a sharp turnaround from the Trump administration, which stymied wind power both onshore and in the ocean.  As president, Donald Trump frequently derided wind power as an expensive, bird-slaughtering way to make electricity, and his administration resisted or opposed wind projects nationwide, including Vineyard Wind. The developer of the Massachusetts project temporarily withdrew its application late last year in a bid to stave off possible rejection by the Trump administration. Biden provided a fresh opening for the project after taking office in January. FILE – Rep. Deb Haaland, D-NM, looks on during a hearing on her nomination to be Interior Secretary on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 23, 2021.”For generations, we’ve put off the transition to clean energy, and now we’re facing a climate crisis,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, whose department oversees offshore wind. “As our country faces the interlocking challenges of a global pandemic, economic downturn, racial injustice and the climate crisis, we have to transition to a brighter future for everyone,” Haaland said. Vineyard Wind is slated to become operational in 2023, with Ocean Wind following a year later. Despite the enthusiasm, offshore wind development is still in its infancy in the U.S., far behind progress made in Europe. A small wind farm operates near Block Island in waters controlled by the state of Rhode Island, and another small wind farm operates off the coast of Virginia. The three major projects under development are all owned by European companies or subsidiaries. Vineyard Wind is a joint project of a Danish company and a U.S. subsidiary of the Spanish energy giant, Iberdrola. Ocean Wind and South Fork are led by the Danish company, Orsted.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday it is signing an agreement with Orsted to share data about U.S. waters where the company holds leases. The data should aid NOAA’s ocean-mapping efforts and help it advance climate adaptation and mitigation efforts, the agency said. NOAA also will spend $1 million to study the impacts of offshore wind operations on fishing operators and coastal communities. Wind developers are poised to create tens of thousands of jobs and generate more than $100 billion in new investment by 2030, “but the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management must first open the door to new leasing,” said Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association. Not everyone is cheering the rise of offshore wind. Fishing groups from Maine to Florida have expressed fear that large offshore wind projects could render huge swaths of the ocean off-limits to their catch. 
 
…

A joint World Health Organization-China study on the origins of COVID-19 says that transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal is the most likely scenario and that a lab leak is “extremely unlikely,” according to a draft copy obtained by The Associated Press.The findings offer little new insight into how the virus first emerged and leave many questions unanswered. But the report does provide more detail on the reasoning behind the researchers’ conclusions.The team proposed further research in every area except the lab leak hypothesis — a speculative theory that was promoted by former U.S. President Donald Trump among others. It also said the role played by a seafood market where human cases were first identified was uncertain.Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director at the National Institute Of Allergy and Infectious Diseases speaks at a U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing in Washington, March 18, 2021.Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious diseases expert, said he would like to see the report’s raw information first before deciding about its credibility.”I’d also would like to inquire as to the extent in which the people who were on that group had access directly to the data that they would need to make a determination,” he said. “I want to read the report first and then get a feel for what they really had access to — or did not have access to.”The report, which is expected to be made public Tuesday, is being closely watched because discovering the origins of the virus could help scientists prevent future pandemics. But it’s also extremely sensitive because China bristles at any suggestion that it is to blame for the current one.White House press secretary Jen Psaki said experts from seven U.S. government organizations including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute of Health and the Department of Homeland Security had the report in hand.”Seventeen experts, longstanding leaders from the field, including epidemiology, public health, clinical medicine, veterinary medicine, infectious disease, law, food security, biosafety, biosecurity — we have a lot of experts in government — will be reviewing this report intensively and quickly,” she said at a daily briefing.Matthew Kavanagh of Georgetown University said the report deepened the understanding of the virus’s origins, but more information was needed.”It is clear that the Chinese government has not provided all the data needed and, until they do, firmer conclusions will be difficult,” he said in a statement.Last year, an AP investigation found the Chinese government was strictly controlling all research into the origins of the coronavirus. And repeated delays in the report’s release have raised questions about whether the Chinese side was trying to skew its conclusions.”We’ve got real concerns about the methodology and the process that went into that report, including the fact that the government in Beijing apparently helped to write it,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a recent CNN interview.Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian takes a question at the daily media briefing in Beijing on April 8, 2020.China rejected that criticism Monday.”The U.S. has been speaking out on the report. By doing this, isn’t the U.S. trying to exert political pressure on the members of the WHO expert group?” asked Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian.Still, suspicion of China has helped fuel the theory that the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus was first identified. The report cited several reasons for all but dismissing that possibility.It said that such laboratory accidents are rare, that the labs in Wuhan were well-managed and there is no record of viruses closely related to the coronavirus in any laboratory before December 2019.The report is based largely on a visit by a WHO team of international experts to Wuhan. The mission was never meant to identify the exact natural source of the virus, an endeavor that typically takes years. For instance, more than 40 years of study has still failed to pinpoint the exact species of bat that are the natural reservoir of Ebola.In the draft obtained by the AP, the researchers listed four scenarios in order of likelihood for the emergence of the new coronavirus. Topping the list was transmission from bats through another animal, which they said was likely to very likely. They evaluated direct spread from bats to humans as likely, and said that spread to humans from the packaging of “cold-chain” food products was possible but not likely.That last possibility was previously dismissed by the WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but researchers on this mission have taken it up again, further raising questions about the politicization of the study since China has long pushed the theory.While it’s possible an infected animal contaminated packaging that was then brought to Wuhan and infected humans, the report said the probability is very low.Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh, said even that “very low probability” was an overstatement.”There’s no compelling evidence of people actually being infected through packaging,” he said, calling the theory “far-fetched.”Woolhouse said it was possible the source of COVID-19 might never be identified.”The emergence of a new (disease) is always a sequence of unlikely events,” he said. “It’s hard to be definitive and rule anything out.” But he said most scientists agree that bats are the most likely source.Bats are known to carry coronaviruses and, in fact, the closest relative of the virus that causes COVID-19 has been found in bats.The report said highly similar viruses have been found in pangolins, a scaly anteater prized in traditional Chinese medicine, but scientists have yet to identify the same coronavirus in animals that has been infecting humans.The AP received the draft copy on Monday from a Geneva-based diplomat from a WHO-member country. It wasn’t clear whether the report might still be changed before its release, though the diplomat said it was the final version. A second diplomat confirmed getting the report, too. Both refused to be identified because they were not authorized to release it ahead of publication.FILE – Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, speaks in Geneva, Switzerland, Jan. 18, 2021.WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged he had received the report over the weekend and said it would be formally presented Tuesday.”All hypotheses are on the table and warrant complete and further studies,” he said at a news conference.The report is inconclusive on whether the outbreak started at a Wuhan seafood market that had one of the earliest clusters of human cases in December 2019. Research published last year in the journal Lancet suggested the market may have merely served to further spread the disease rather than being its source.The market was an early suspect because some stalls sold a range of unusual animals — and some wondered if they had brought the new virus to Wuhan. The report noted that animal products — including everything from bamboo rats to deer, often frozen — were sold at the market, as were live crocodiles.
…

Nine out of 10 adults in the United States will be eligible for a coronavirus vaccine three weeks from now, President Joe Biden announced Monday during remarks that were dosed with a warning of a devastating resurgence of COVID-19 in the country.“We’re in a life-and-death race with a virus that is spreading quickly with cases rising again,” Biden said. “New variants are spreading and, sadly, some of the reckless behavior we’ve seen on television over the past few weeks means that more new cases are to come in the weeks ahead.”Earlier in the day, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rochelle Walensky, expressed a feeling of “impending doom,” pointing out a picture similar to that of Europe of a few weeks ago. Another wave of coronavirus infections is now sweeping the continent.Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention testifies during a hearing to examine the COVID-19 response on Capitol Hill, March 18, 2021.But Walensky said the latest virus figures from around the United States show the daily average for infections rising by 10% over the past week, to nearly 70,000 per day. Hospitalizations were up by more than 4% and deaths by almost 3%. Biden, with Vice President Kamala Harris standing in the background in the White House South Court auditorium, reiterated his call to governors, mayors and other local leaders not to relax restrictions on the mandatory wearing of masks.“Please, this is not politics, reinstate the mandate if you let it down,” implored the president, adding that businesses should also require masks.House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., responds during his weekly news conference at the Capitol in Washington, March 18, 2021.Republicans are criticizing Biden for being too slow to reopen the economy and what they deemed an overly cautious approach. “What America needs now is to fully reopen our economy and our classrooms,” House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Twitter.Biden also announced the federal government will ensure, by April 19, the number of pharmacies where people can get inoculated will double so that those eligible for the vaccine will have a site for the shot within 5 miles (8 kilometers) of their homes.Biden also said his administration is increasing the number of pharmacies in the federal vaccination program from 17,000 to nearly 40,000 across the country and will establish a dozen more mass vaccination sites by April 19. A new effort is also under way to fund community organizations to provide transportation and assistance for seniors and other groups deemed at high risk, such as those with disabilities, to be able to get access to vaccines, according to the president.New York, the fourth most populous state, announced Monday that starting March 30 all state residents who are 30 years old or older will be eligible for the vaccine.As of Monday, federal officials report that more than 95 million people have received at least one dose of vaccine and 52.6 million people have been fully vaccinated in the United States.  The coronavirus has killed nearly 547,000 people in the country and infected more than 30 million, according to the CDC.President Joe Biden walks past freezers used to store Pfizer-BioNtech’s COVID-19 vaccine as he tours a Pfizer manufacturing site, Feb. 19, 2021, in Portage, Mich.A study released Monday by the CDC shows that the mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are highly effective at preventing COVID-19 in real-world conditions. The study was conducted among nearly 4,000 health care workers, first responders, and other essential workers in six U.S. states between mid-December of last year and the middle of this month. The results showed the risk of infection was reduced by 80 percent after one dose and 90 percent after two doses. CDC Director Walensky, speaking during a White House COVID-19 response team briefing, said the study showed the two vaccines can be effective not only in symptomatic infections but in asymptomatic infections as well. She called it “tremendously encouraging” and that it complements other recent studies.Meanwhile, a World Health Organization report on the origin of the COVID-19 virus is being reviewed by 17 U.S. experts, according to the White House.”We have been clear that independent, technically sound investigation is what our focus is on, and once this is reviewed, we’ll have an assessment about the steps forward,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Monday about the WHO report.The joint WHO study with China on the origins of COVID-19 says that the virus was probably transmitted from bats to humans through another animal and that a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan was “extremely unlikely” as a cause, according to media organizations which obtained an advance copy of the report.“All hypotheses are on the table and warrant complete and further studies from what I have seen so far,” commented WHO chief  Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
…

Ugandan environmentalist Vanessa Nakate is taking the fight against climate change to schools, rallying students to join the fight.  Ahead of Earth Day (April 22), Halima Athumani covers one of her school rallies from Kampala.Camera:  Francis Mukasa     
…

Nine out of 10 adults in the United States will be eligible for a coronavirus vaccine three weeks from now, President Joe Biden announced Monday during remarks that were dosed with a warning of a devastating resurgence of COVID-19 in the country.“We’re in a life-and-death race with a virus that is spreading quickly with cases rising again,” Biden said. “New variants are spreading and, sadly, some of the reckless behavior we’ve seen on television over the past few weeks means that more new cases are to come in the weeks ahead.”Earlier in the day, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rochelle Walensky, expressed a feeling of “impending doom,” pointing out a picture similar to that of Europe of a few weeks ago. Another wave of coronavirus infections is now sweeping the continent.Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention testifies during a hearing to examine the COVID-19 response on Capitol Hill, March 18, 2021.But Walensky said the latest virus figures from around the United States show the daily average for infections rising by 10% over the past week, to nearly 70,000 per day. Hospitalizations were up by more than 4% and deaths by almost 3%. Biden, with Vice President Kamala Harris standing in the background in the White House South Court auditorium, reiterated his call to governors, mayors and other local leaders not to relax restrictions on the mandatory wearing of masks.“Please, this is not politics, reinstate the mandate if you let it down,” implored the president, adding that businesses should also require masks.House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., responds during his weekly news conference at the Capitol in Washington, March 18, 2021.Republicans are criticizing Biden for being too slow to reopen the economy and what they deemed an overly cautious approach. “What America needs now is to fully reopen our economy and our classrooms,” House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Twitter.Biden also announced the federal government will ensure, by April 19, the number of pharmacies where people can get inoculated will double so that those eligible for the vaccine will have a site for the shot within 5 miles (8 kilometers) of their homes.Biden also said his administration is increasing the number of pharmacies in the federal vaccination program from 17,000 to nearly 40,000 across the country and will establish a dozen more mass vaccination sites by April 19. A new effort is also under way to fund community organizations to provide transportation and assistance for seniors and other groups deemed at high risk, such as those with disabilities, to be able to get access to vaccines, according to the president.New York, the fourth most populous state, announced Monday that starting March 30 all state residents who are 30 years old or older will be eligible for the vaccine.As of Monday, federal officials report that more than 95 million people have received at least one dose of vaccine and 52.6 million people have been fully vaccinated in the United States.  The coronavirus has killed nearly 547,000 people in the country and infected more than 30 million, according to the CDC.President Joe Biden walks past freezers used to store Pfizer-BioNtech’s COVID-19 vaccine as he tours a Pfizer manufacturing site, Feb. 19, 2021, in Portage, Mich.A study released Monday by the CDC shows that the mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are highly effective at preventing COVID-19 in real-world conditions. The study was conducted among nearly 4,000 health care workers, first responders, and other essential workers in six U.S. states between mid-December of last year and the middle of this month. The results showed the risk of infection was reduced by 80 percent after one dose and 90 percent after two doses. CDC Director Walensky, speaking during a White House COVID-19 response team briefing, said the study showed the two vaccines can be effective not only in symptomatic infections but in asymptomatic infections as well. She called it “tremendously encouraging” and that it complements other recent studies.Meanwhile, a World Health Organization report on the origin of the COVID-19 virus is being reviewed by 17 U.S. experts, according to the White House.”We have been clear that independent, technically sound investigation is what our focus is on, and once this is reviewed, we’ll have an assessment about the steps forward,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Monday about the WHO report.The joint WHO study with China on the origins of COVID-19 says that the virus was probably transmitted from bats to humans through another animal and that a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan was “extremely unlikely” as a cause, according to media organizations which obtained an advance copy of the report.“All hypotheses are on the table and warrant complete and further studies from what I have seen so far,” commented WHO chief  Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
…

Before the pandemic hit, 82 percent of clinics in the landlocked Southern African nation of eSwatini lacked hot running water. That has changed in the last 6 months, with the installation of solar-powered water heaters in every single government clinic, opening up clean health facilities to up to 10,000 people a day in a nation that has long struggled with building up infrastructure. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Lobamba, eSwatini. 
…