October 2021

The World Health Organization has written an open letter to the heads of state gathered in Rome for the G-20 meeting, urging them to increase vaccine supplies for the world’s poorest, ensure access to vaccines for all people on the move and support low- and middle-income countries in combating COVID-19 with all available means.

“The current vaccine equity gap between wealthier and low resource countries demonstrates a disregard for the lives of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable,” the open letter said. “For every 100 people in high-income countries, 133 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered, while in low-income countries, only 4 doses per 100 people have been administered.”

The WHO letter also warned, “Vaccine inequity is costing lives every day, and continues to place everyone at risk. History and science make it clear: coordinated action with equitable access to public health resources is the only way to face down a global public health scourge like COVID-19. We need a strong, collective push to save lives, reduce suffering and ensure a sustainable global recovery.”

Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, joined WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in signing another open letter to the G-20 leaders, urging them to make good on their promised vaccine donations to poor countries. “When the leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations met at the G-7 Summit in June, they collectively announced that 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines would be sent to low- and low-and-middle-income countries to help vaccinate the world. Pharmaceutical companies have pledged almost the same.

“Yet, as several nations still don’t even have enough vaccines for their own health workers, the world is left asking: Where are the doses?” the letter said. “Of the almost 7 billion doses that have been administered globally, just 3% of people in low-income countries have had a jab so far. Where are the rest? … Promises aren’t translating into vaccines reaching the people that need them.”

British media has reported that Prime Minister Boris Johns is expected to announce at the G-20 summit that the U.K. will donate 20 million vaccine doses to low-income countries by the end of the year.

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said early Saturday that it has recorded more than 246 million global COVID infections and nearly 5 million global deaths. The center said nearly 7 billion vaccines have been administered.

Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in children 5-11 years old.

The FDA approved doses for children that are one-third the amount that teens and adults receive.

 

“With this vaccine kids can go back to something that’s better than being locked at home on remote schooling, not being able to see their friends,” Dr. Kawsar Talaat of Johns Hopkins University said, according to The Associated Press. “The vaccine will protect them and also protect our communities.”

Tuesday, advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will make detailed recommendations, and the CDC director will have the final say.

Approval by the regulatory agencies would make the vaccine available in the coming days to 28 million American children, many of whom are back in school for in-person learning. Only a few other countries, including China, Cuba and the United Arab Emirates, have so far cleared COVID-19 vaccines for children in this age group and younger.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe on Friday called for schools to stay open, provided appropriate prevention and response measures are in place.

The recommendation comes after WHO reported the European region has now seen four consecutive weeks of growing COVID-19 transmission, the only WHO region to do so. The agency said Europe’s rising numbers accounted for 57% of new cases worldwide in the third week of October.

In a statement from the agency’s website, WHO/Europe says instead of closing educational institutions in response to this latest surge, it recommends a “whole-of-society approach” to reducing transmission through mitigation measures such as physical distancing, cleaning hands frequently, wearing masks and ensuring adequate ventilation.

The WHO regional director for Europe, Dr. Hans Henri Kluge, said, “Last year’s widespread school closures, disrupting the education of millions of children and adolescents, did more harm than good, especially to children’s mental and social well-being. We can’t repeat the same mistakes.”

Kluge said that in the coming months, decisions by governments and the public to reduce the impact of COVID-19 should be based on data and evidence, “with the understanding that the epidemiological situation can change, and that our behavior must change with it. Science must trump politics.”

The Pacific island of Tonga has recorded its first COVID infection. The fully vaccinated infected person arrived on the island Friday on a commercial flight from New Zealand.

 

 

 

 

 
…

Before the pandemic effectively closed Thailand off to the rest of the world in March of last year, Bangkok’s Kin & Koff Café was perfectly placed to catch the throngs of tourists traipsing past the city’s gilded Grand Palace and its orbit of opulent temples.

In the capital of one of the world’s most popular holiday getaways, the resplendent grounds of the former royal residence were a must-see for most first-time visitors. Then came COVID-19, lockdown and a hard freeze on foreign tourists, decimating a pillar of Thailand’s economy — and the core of Kin & Koff’s client base with it.

So, like many in the business of catering to those tourists, owner Siripong Sanomaiwong welcomed the news that Thailand will start lifting lengthy quarantine mandates for some fully vaccinated foreigners on Nov. 1. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha announced the move Oct. 11 in a televised address.

“I think the government is [acting] the right way to open up because we cannot hide from the virus,” Siripong said on another slow day in his café opposite the palace walls.

“We must live together with the COVID; we must live together … in safety,” he added, reflecting the business community’s general mood of wary resolve.

Risk and reward

In his address, Prayut acknowledged the risks. He said daily COVID cases were “almost certain” to rise with new arrivals but insisted Thailand was prepared and had to cash in on the coming November-March high season having missed out on the last one.

“We will have to track the situation very carefully and see how to contain and live with that situation because I do not think that the many millions who depend on the income generated by the travel, leisure and entertainment sector can possibly afford the devastating blow of a second lost New Year holiday period,” he said.

The World Bank says tourism accounted for 20% of Thailand’s gross domestic product and more than 1 in 5 jobs in 2019, when some 40 million people visited the country. The government says Thailand will be lucky to see 100,000 visitors in 2021 and is aiming for 1 million through this high season.

The Tourism Council of Thailand, an industry body, says the lockdown has cost the country some 3 million tourist-linked jobs. Even so, most Thais may not be on board with the government’s timing.

In an online poll conducted by Thailand’s Suan Dusit Rajabhat University between Oct. 11 and Oct. 14, 60.1% of respondents said the country was not yet ready to reopen to tourists without quarantine mandates. They cited Thailand’s low vaccination rate as the main reason.

While Bangkok and the popular resort island of Phuket have fully vaccinated the large majority of locals, the fully vaccinated rate nationwide only recently topped 40%. New daily COVID cases peaked at nearly 22,000 in mid-August but have yet to dip below 7,000. Thailand has recorded about 1.88 million cases in all.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor of political science at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, said local polls can be unreliable but believed Suan Dusit’s latest effort frankly mirrored the popular mood.

“The sentiment on the ground is that the infection numbers are still high and the government’s vaccine management has been inept … [that] lives are still at risk and reopening too soon is still not optimal,” he said.

Positive thinking

The government hopes to allay those fears by opening up to only 46 countries at first, including major markets such as the United States and China, much of Europe and some Asian neighbors.

In addition to showing proof of vaccination and a negative test result before departure, visitors must have health insurance covering COVID for up to $50,000, download a tracking application and wait one night in a government-approved hotel for the results of a second test on arrival. If cleared, they will be free to roam the country. If not, they will have to spend more time in a hospital or approved hotel.

Siripong hopes that will be enough for his café to claw back by March about 40% of the business it had before the pandemic, and he’s confident the authorities can keep the virus in check.

Katenaphas Muattong is not so sanguine.

She left her catering job to help her parents run their small restaurant by the palace after the pandemic hit and their two employees had their wages cut and then quit. Tapping into online delivery services helped them survive, but business is still less than a third of what it was.

Katenaphas worries the government may apply the entry rules in what she called “Thai style,” explaining that to mean a lax attitude toward enforcement.

“On one [hand] we should open because business is going down, down,” she said. “But if we don’t have a good plan, we should wait.”

Turning the thoughts over in her mind a moment, she finally sided with the government and said Thailand should take the risk.

Vali Villa owner Val Saopayana is more of an avowed optimist.

Three years ago, the professional artist turned her childhood home into a boutique mid-range hotel a few blocks from Bangkok’s Khaosan Road, another popular tourist haunt packed with bars and clubs that once throbbed with dance music into the early morning hours. With nary a customer in sight one recent Friday afternoon, most of the strip was closed or boarded up, a microcosm of Thailand’s tourist sector writ large.

With Thailand now reopening to foreigners, Val is hopeful about reclaiming at least half of her pre-pandemic business by the end of this season.

“I have a good feeling that we’re going to be able to do it and the whole economy of Thailand is going to be better because I believe in the medical system and they try to do their best,” she said.

“We just hope that it will be back to normal very soon,” she added. “We have to believe and we have to have positive energy, and people are going to come.”

Reality check

The Association of Thai Travel Agents, another industry body, says “normal” will take a few more years, as some major markets such as China still mandate weeks of quarantine for travelers on their return.

“When you have that amount of quarantine days, it’s going to be a real limit for us. So, I think the opening, while we’re making great progress, it will very much depend on the origin countries’ levels of restrictions and quarantine days as well,” said ATTA board member Pilomrat Isvarphornchai.

She said the association was being “realistic” about the coming high season and forecast a 20% return to pre-pandemic business for inbound travel agencies, at least for those still open. The ATTA’s last member survey found that roughly half of them had closed during the past 19 months of lockdown, some for good.

“In terms of the economy, we are at that point now where we’re going to have to learn how to live with the pandemic, not just in terms of tourism but even opening up domestically, for example with restaurants, with retail stores. It needs to happen now,” Pilomrat said. 

 

 

 
…

Some farmers and organizations in Africa are adopting smart and technology-based solutions as the continent seeks to prepare itself for the effects of climate change. Brenda Mulinya reports from Nairobi.
Camera: Amos Wangwa Producer: Amos Wangwa
…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized on Friday the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in children 5-11 years old. 

The FDA approved for children doses that are one-third the amount that teens and adults receive.

“With this vaccine kids can go back to something that’s better than being locked at home on remote schooling, not being able to see their friends,” Dr. Kawsar Talaat of Johns Hopkins University said, according to The Associated Press. “The vaccine will protect them and also protect our communities.” 

On Tuesday, advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will make detailed recommendations, and the CDC director will have the final say. 

Approval by the regulatory agencies would make the vaccine available in the coming days to 28 million American children, many of whom are back in school for in-person learning. Only a few other countries, including China, Cuba and the United Arab Emirates, have so far cleared COVID-19 vaccines for children in this age group and younger. 

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe on Friday called for schools to stay open, provided appropriate prevention and response measures are in place. 

The recommendation comes after WHO reported the European region has now seen four consecutive weeks of growing COVID-19 transmission, the only WHO region to do so. The agency said Europe’s rising numbers accounted for 57% of new cases worldwide in the third week of October. 

In a statement from the agency’s website, WHO/Europe says instead of closing educational institutions in response to this latest surge, it recommends a “whole-of-society approach” to reducing transmission through mitigation measures such as maintaining physical distancing, cleaning hands frequently, wearing masks and ensuring adequate ventilation.

The WHO regional director for Europe, Dr. Hans Henri Kluge, said, “Last year’s widespread school closures, disrupting the education of millions of children and adolescents, did more harm than good, especially to children’s mental and social well-being. We can’t repeat the same mistakes.” 

Kluge said that in the coming months, decisions by governments and the public to reduce the impact of COVID-19 should be based on data and evidence, “with the understanding that the epidemiological situation can change, and that our behavior must change with it. Science must trump politics.”
…

Tongan Prime Minister Pohiva Tuionetoa warned Saturday that residents on the country’s main island Tongatapu faced a possible lockdown next week after recording its first case of COVID-19.

The tiny Pacific kingdom had been among only a handful of countries to escape the virus so far, and the infection was detected in a person in managed isolation after returning to Tonga on a repatriation flight from New Zealand.

“The reason the lockdown won’t happen this weekend is because I have been advised that the virus will take more than three days to develop in someone who catches it before they become contagious,” Tuionetoa said.

“We should use this time to get ready in case more people are confirmed they have the virus.”

Most of Tonga’s population of 106,000 live on Tongatapu, and fewer than a third have received two doses of COVID-19 vaccine.

Health officials said the person who tested positive had received their second jab in mid-October.

The repatriation flight included members of Tonga’s Olympic team, who had been stranded in Christchurch since the Tokyo Games. The athletes were double vaccinated before they left for the Olympics.

New Zealand’s health ministry confirmed the infected person had tested negative before the flight left Christchurch, where there are only four known cases of COVID-19, all of them in the same household 

 
…

The World Food Program says that without consolidated global action to stop the acceleration of climate change, the world faces a crisis of acute hunger.

The WFP says climate shocks are destroying lives, crops and livelihoods and  are undermining people’s ability to feed themselves. It cites Mozambique as an example of a country particularly vulnerable to climate change. It notes millions of people are suffering from food scarcity because of punishing cyclones, drought and pest infestations leading to agricultural losses.

WFP spokesman Tomson Phiri said Friday that hunger would increase rapidly throughout vulnerable communities worldwide if global action is not taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are leading to climate change.

It’s often stated by climate scientists and activists that humans must stop the planet from warming an additional 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to avoid the most destructive effects of climate change. “Research shows that if global temperatures keep rising to hit the 2 degrees Celsius mark, an additional 189 million people could become food insecure,” Phiri said. “Now, in a 4 degree Celsius warmer world, this number could increase by as many as 1.8 billion people.”

Trouble spots

The WFP describes the devastating wide reach climate change is having on the livelihoods in communities in the “dry corridor” of Central America; in Afghanistan, where drought was officially declared in June; and in Yemen, where severe and frequent floods have damaged and destroyed infrastructure and homes.

Phiri said the WFP is helping people in communities where food is in short supply to prepare for, as well as respond and recover from, climate shocks and stresses. He said the agency has reached more than 6 million people in 28 countries with climate risk management solutions.

For example, he said, the WFP provided cash assistance for 120,000 people in Bangladesh four days ahead of severe flooding to help them protect critical assets. In Madagascar, he said, the WFP has launched a microinsurance program to help farmers who have lost their crops because of drought.

“Ahead of COP26, the World Food Program is calling for coordinated global climate action to urgently address the challenges of the climate crisis and to reduce its impact on hunger,” Phiri said. “More specifically, we are advocating for a shift from crisis response to risk management.”

Phiri said governments should manage risks rather than disasters. He said a more forward-looking perspective is needed to prepare for bigger and more frequent climate shocks and enable early action to help prevent predictable climate emergencies.
…

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionally affected midcareer and older working women in the United States. About 40% have experienced at least one job interruption, and of those who remained unemployed, 70% were out of work for six months or more. Lesia Bakalets has more in this report narrated by Anna Rice.

Cameras: Aleksandr Bergan, Artyom Kokhan.
…

The U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) Friday issued a Strong Geomagnetic Storm Watch for Saturday, saying power and communications systems could be affected after a significant solar flare was observed on the sun.

The U.S. space agency NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory reported observing a significant solar flare — or “coronal mass ejection” (CME) — Thursday. Flares or CMEs are powerful eruptions on the sun’s surface that send tons of superheated gas and radiation into space. The observatory, which constantly monitors solar activity, captured an image of Thursday’s event.

The bursts of radiation often head toward Earth, and while harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans, if they are strong enough, they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and other  communications signals travel.

When solar activity could affect day-to-day activity on earth the SWPC, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), issues a watch or warning.  

In this case, the center issued a strong, or G3, storm watch for Saturday, indicating the radiation could affect power systems, creating voltage irregularities, interference with communications systems or the operation of spacecraft, such as satellites. The watch is in effect from the North Pole south to the 50th parallel, roughly halfway to the equator.

The prediction center said the aurora borealis — also known as the northern lights — may also be visible Saturday at unusually lower latitudes. It issued a G2 or moderate geomagnetic storm watch for Sunday.

NASA and NOAA have developed the National Space Weather Strategy and Action Plan to help mitigate the effects of solar events. NASA works as the research arm of the nation’s space weather effort, using a fleet of spacecraft that monitor the sun’s activity, the solar atmosphere, as well as particles and magnetic fields in space surrounding Earth.

NOAA established the SWPC in Boulder, Colorado, to monitor solar activity, much the way NOAA’s National Hurricane Center monitors tropical cyclones. Using NASA’s satellites and solar observatories, SWPC can give forecasts and warnings of solar activity that could impact the Earth.
…

Ahead of next week’s climate conference in Scotland, 10 United Nations and international agency heads, including the World Meteorological Organization, are calling on governments to turn their carbon neutral commitments into climate action.  

Scientists tracking the impact of human activity on the warming of the planet say the scientific case for urgent climate action is unequivocal. They note rising temperatures have led to increased sea levels and more frequent and intense extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, heat waves, and excess rainfall.

The U.N. and international agency heads have issued a united and urgent call to governments to prioritize climate action, particularly when it comes to water.  They say accelerated action is urgently needed to address the water-related consequences of climate change.

World Meteorological Organization spokeswoman Clare Nullis says the agency chiefs warn climate change is dramatically affecting the water cycle, making droughts and floods more extreme and frequent, and decreasing the natural water storage in ice and snow.

“Changing precipitation patterns are already impacting agriculture, food systems, and livelihoods are becoming increasingly vulnerable, as well as ecosystems, and biodiversity. Rising sea levels threaten communities, infrastructure, coastal environments and aquifers,” Nullis said.

Participants at next week’s so-called “make-or-break climate summit” are expected to commit themselves to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. The aim is to stave off climate change by limiting global warming to one-point-five to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Nullis said scientists agree on the urgency to translate the commitments into action and to do more to accelerate carbon neutrality.

“The concentrations that are up there in the atmosphere now are at record levels. Even if we reach carbon neutrality tomorrow, the inertia in the climate system and especially in the ocean means that heat will carry on increasing for several decades even after that,” she said.

At the meeting, Nullis said the WMO, the U.N. Environment Program, and the U.N. Development Program will announce a new coalition fund to improve the collection of essential weather and climate data.  

She said the facility will close the growing data gaps that impede the ability to forecast extreme weather events and, ultimately, protect the climate.
…

Desperate for work, Sabila Dafadar walks every morning from her poor neighborhood tucked behind tall glass and chrome buildings in the business hub of Gurugram, 32 kilometers from New Delhi, to a busy intersection where day laborers wait for contractors who come to pick up construction workers.

After she migrated from her village 10 years ago, she easily found jobs both as household help and in an office as a cleaner. Like millions of other women, she lost her job last year during a stringent lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although Indian businesses and factories have reopened, it has been tough for Dafadar to find work as the economy struggles to recover.

“I have only managed to get work for 15 days during the last three months,” the 35-year-old said.

While women around the world have been hit harder by job losses than have men during the pandemic, the impact on women in India has been particularly severe, experts say.

Even before the pandemic, women made up only about 20% of India’s labor force – far below the global average and lower than is the case in such South Asian countries as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Many of them work in India’s vast informal sector.

Now there are fears their space will shrink further, particularly for women from poorer households.

“Women are in distress in terms of reentering the labor force, especially urban women who were the worst affected,” said Sona Mitra, principal economist at Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy in New Delhi.

“Many who worked or ran small enterprises such as beauty or tailoring services and tiny shops used up their savings during the shutdown and could not restart work when the economy reopened. Others were concentrated in sectors like the garment industry and call centers where workers have less safeguards and can be hired and fired easily.”

A report by the Center of Sustainable Employment at Aziz Premji University this year said more women and younger workers lost jobs during a stringent lockdown last year and that even after jobs recovered, fewer women were able to return to the workforce.

While women are again picking up work, many have had to turn to lower-paid and less secure employment.

“For example, when small private schools in cities shut down, teachers went back to villages and joined unskilled work,” said Amarjeet Kaur, general secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress, one of India’s largest trade unions.

“So, the direction for many women during COVID and even post-COVID has been from skilled to semi-skilled and unskilled work,” she said.

‘Opportunities simply are not there’

Although the formal sector accounts for a much smaller percentage of India’s overall female workforce, here too women were disproportionately affected because industries such as hospitality, tourism and retail that employ more women were the worst-hit.

Six women were among employees laid off last year by a food delivery company in its New Delhi office – women made up a majority of the staff.

“It has been very hard for them to find work,” said a former manager who asked that her name not be used.

“The opportunities simply are not there,” she said.

The women who had lost jobs would not speak on the record.

Experts say the pandemic has highlighted a paradox that women faced even earlier – a steady decline in their participation in the workforce despite rising levels of education and a growing pool of women with college degrees.

From a little over 30% in 2011, their share in the workforce fell to about 20% in 2019.

“The pandemic simply magnified what was already happening. The big employing sectors have not been creating jobs and everything just became much more bare in the job market,” said Sairee Sahal, founder of SHEROES, a portal for female job seekers.

“In retail for example, what has been growing is e-commerce where women’s presence is marginal and not brick-and-mortar retail that employs a lot of women,” she said.

The public health crisis that has kept schools closed for the last year and a half also worsened the situation.

“Social norms in India put the primary burden of household chores and child care on women and put restrictions on their mobility,” Mitra said.

Calling shrinking opportunities for women a wake-up call, she said policymakers must spur expansion of labor-intensive sectors such as garment manufacturing, where women have more opportunities.

“While some work is coming back, we see it coming in the lower rung of the economy,” she said.

Those working on women’s issues say the shrinking space for them will affect not just the economic but also the social position of women in a country where they have struggled to break free of patriarchal norms.

“When they lose their earnings, they lose their independence and status. We have seen that happening during the pandemic,” Kaur said.

“And women who have no support system find themselves struggling to make ends meet,” she added.

Dafadar is aware of that situation.

“In the past year and a half, I have cut back on whatever I could, including food by half.” she said as she looked into the road, hoping for a day’s work. 

 
…