September 2021

A new report released Wednesday by the United Nations indicates extreme weather events have increased fivefold over the past 50 years, while the number of fatalities related to those events has dropped.Officials from the U.N.’s weather and climate agency, the World Meteorological Organization, introduced the report during a briefing from the agency’s headquarters in Geneva. The report shows weather-related disasters have occurred on average at a rate of one per day over the past five decades, killing 115 people and causing $202 million in losses daily.Mami Mizutori, U.N. special representative for disaster risk reduction, told reporters she found the report “quite alarming.” She noted that this past July was the hottest July on record, marked by heat waves and floods around the world. The study shows that more people are suffering due to this increased frequency and intensity of weather events.Mizutori said 31 million people were displaced by natural disasters last year, almost surpassing the number displaced by conflicts. She said on average, 26 million people per year are pushed into poverty by extreme weather events. Now, the COVID-19 pandemic is compounding the problem.The U.N. disaster risk specialist said, “We live in this, what we call, the multihazard world, and it demonstrates that we really need to invest more in disaster risk reduction and prevention.”WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said the good news in the report is that during that same period, fatalities related to these disasters dropped by nearly three times, due to early warning systems and improved disaster management.But the study also shows that more than 91% of the deaths that do occur happen in developing or low-income countries, as many do not have the same warning and management systems in place.The WMO officials said the economic losses associated with these disasters will worsen without serious climate change mitigation. Taalas said if the right measures are put in place, the trend could be stopped in the next 40 years. WMO called on the G-20 group of world economic powers to keep their promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
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The United Nations Environment Program on Monday marked the official end of toxic leaded gasoline use in vehicles worldwide. A company in Nairobi, where the UNEP is headquartered, is working on the next step — converting all buses and utility vehicles to electric power by 2030. Lenny Ruvaga has the story.
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After suspending the use of 1.63 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine over contamination concerns last week, Japan is now recalling those doses, Moderna Inc. and its Japanese partner, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. said Wednesday.Last week, some vials of the vaccine were found to be contaminated with stainless steel.Japanese officials said Wednesday that they did not think the stainless steel particles posed a health risk, while Moderna said the contamination was probably caused by pieces of metal rubbing together in the machinery that puts stops on the vials.”Stainless steel is routinely used in heart valves, joint replacements and metal sutures and staples. As such, it is not expected that injection of the particles identified in these lots in Japan would result in increased medical risk,” Takeda and Moderna said in a joint statement.According to Taro Kono, the Japanese minister overseeing vaccinations, around 500,000 people received shots from the suspended Moderna batches.The focus on the contaminated doses was heightened after two men died within days of receiving second doses from the contaminated batches.While their deaths are still being investigated, Moderna and Takeda said there was no evidence the vaccine played a role in their deaths.”The relationship is currently considered to be coincidental,” the companies said in the statement.(Some information in this report comes from Reuters.)  
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The World Health Organization has designated a new strain of COVID-19 as a “variant of interest.”The global health agency announced in its weekly bulletin Tuesday that Mu, also known by its scientific designation B.1.621, has been detected in South America and Europe since it was first identified in Colombia in January.The WHO said the Mu variant has several characteristics that make it more resistant to vaccines, but said more studies needed to be conducted to fully understand how it works.The Mu variant is the fifth one designated by the WHO as a variant of interest.  Four other variants have been designated as “variants of concern,” including alpha, which has been detected in 193 countries, and the more transmissible delta, which is present in 170 countries and has been linked to the current worldwide surge of new infections.Scientists in South Africa announced earlier this week they have detected a new COVID-19 variant designated C.1.2.  The variant has spread across Africa, Asia, Europe and the southern Pacific region of Oceania since it was first spotted in South Africa in May.The variant has not been identified by the WHO as either a variant of interest or variant of concern.Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Tuesday urged Americans who have not received a COVID-19 vaccine to avoid traveling during the upcoming Labor Day holiday weekend due to a surge of new infections and deaths driven by the delta variant.  The United States is averaging well over 100,000 new COVID-19 cases per day, with states like Florida, Mississippi and Washington state reporting record levels of new cases and hospitalizations.Meanwhile, two key officials in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine review office are leaving their posts in the coming weeks. Dr. Marion Gruber, the director of the division, is retiring in October, while her deputy, Dr. Philip Krause, will leave the following month.  The retirements of Gruber and Krause come at a crucial time for the FDA, which is nearing a decision on whether to recommend COVID-19 vaccines for children under 12 years old and booster shots of the current vaccines already approved for the adult Americans.Wenderson Cerisene, 7, right, and his sister Dorah, 9, wait to get tested for COVID-19, Aug. 31, 2021, in North Miami, Florida. Florida schools are seeing a rise in COVID-19 cases forcing of students and teachers to quarantine.The New York Times reports Gruber and Krause are upset over the Biden administration’s recent announcement that booster shots would be offered for some Americans beginning next month, well before the FDA had time to properly review the data.In Australia, Premier Daniel Andrews of Victoria state says authorities will gradually lift the current coronavirus restrictions once 70 percent of its adult residents have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine.  Victoria and its capital city, Melbourne, have been under a strict lockdown since early August due to an outbreak that began back in June, but Andrews says it is now apparent that it was time to switch to a mass vaccination strategy to bring the outbreak under control.“We were aiming to drive it down and have cases falling, it is now the advice of the experts that that is not possible, so now we have to contain the growth of cases and the speed at which they increase,” Andrews told reporters.  He said the state should reach 70 percent vaccination by September 23.Victoria state posted a record 120 new cases on Wednesday, including two deaths.  (Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and AFP.)
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A new report released Wednesday by the United Nations indicates extreme weather events have increased fivefold over the past 50 years, while the number of fatalities related to those events has dropped.Officials from the U.N.’s weather and climate agency, the World Meteorological Organization, introduced the report during a briefing from the agency’s headquarters in Geneva. The report shows weather-related disasters have occurred on average at a rate of one per day over the past five decades, killing 115 people and causing $202 million in losses daily.Mami Mizutori, U.N. special representative for disaster risk reduction, told reporters she found the report “quite alarming.” She noted that this past July was the hottest July on record, marked by heat waves and floods around the world. The study shows that more people are suffering due to this increased frequency and intensity of weather events.Mizutori said 31 million people were displaced by natural disasters last year, almost surpassing the number displaced by conflicts. She said on average, 26 million people per year are pushed into poverty by extreme weather events. Now, the COVID-19 pandemic is compounding the problem.The U.N. disaster risk specialist said, “We live in this, what we call, the multihazard world, and it demonstrates that we really need to invest more in disaster risk reduction and prevention.”WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said the good news in the report is that during that same period, fatalities related to these disasters dropped by nearly three times, due to early warning systems and improved disaster management.But the study also shows that more than 91% of the deaths that do occur happen in developing or low-income countries, as many do not have the same warning and management systems in place.The WMO officials said the economic losses associated with these disasters will worsen without serious climate change mitigation. Taalas said if the right measures are put in place, the trend could be stopped in the next 40 years. WMO called on the G-20 group of world economic powers to keep their promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
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