The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has approved Pfizer vaccine booster shots for some individuals who completed their first vaccinations at least six months ago. 

Frontline workers – teachers, healthcare workers and others whose jobs place them at risk of contracting COVID-19 – will be able to get the boosters, in addition to people 65 and older, nursing home residents, and other people, aged 50 to 64, with underlying conditions

Rochelle Walensky added the frontline workers late Thursday to the list of those eligible for the boosters prepared by a CDC’s advisory panel. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine for people 65 and older, those at high risk of severe disease and people who are routinely exposed to the coronavirus. 

 

The European Union’s drug watchdog said Thursday it plans to decide in early October whether to approve a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for those over age 16. 

The European Medicines Agency first approved a two-dose process but said breakthrough infections in those already vaccinated had added urgency to its review of a third dose for people 16 and older, six months after being fully vaccinated.

African leaders on vaccine inequity 

“It is an indictment on humanity that more than 82% of the world’s vaccine doses have been acquired by wealthy countries, while less than 1% has gone to low-income countries,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a video address to the United Nations General Assembly.

The African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 4% of Africa’s population is fully vaccinated.

“The hoarding and inequitable distribution with the resultant uneven vaccination patterns across the globe is not acceptable,” Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa said in a prerecorded message. “Vaccine nationalism is self-defeating and contrary to the mantra that ‘no one is safe until everyone is safe.’ Whether in the global North or South, rich or poor, old or young, all people of the world deserve access to vaccines.” 

Antibodies passed to babies 

Pregnant women who are vaccinated against COVID-19 also pass on the coronavirus antibodies to their unborn children, according to a new study published this week in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology: Maternal-Fetal Medicine.

Researchers at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine examined 36 newborns whose mothers received either the Pfizer or Moderna two-dose vaccine regimen before giving birth, and found that every baby had antibodies when delivered.

The study did not determine how well the babies were protected from COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, or how long the protection might last.

Scientists have discovered that pregnant women develop antibodies in response to a vaccine or an infection, then pass them on to their babies either through the umbilical cord or breast milk.

“Studies continue to reinforce the importance of vaccines during pregnancy and their power to protect two lives at once by preventing severe illness in both mothers and babies,” said Dr. Ashley Roman, one of the study’s principal investigators.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month urged pregnant women and women who were recently pregnant to get vaccinated for COVID-19, saying there is mounting evidence that the benefits of the shot far outweigh any known or potential risks. 

Meanwhile, a new study published in the medical journal Nature Communications found that some COVID-19 patients develop so-called “autoantibodies,” or self-destructive antibodies, that could trick the immune system into attacking otherwise healthy tissue and cause inflammatory diseases. Scientists at Stanford University found autoantibodies in blood samples of at least 50% of nearly 150 patients admitted for treatment of COVID-19, compared to 15% of 41 healthy volunteers.

The researchers found the antibodies have the potential to aggravate the symptoms of COVID-19. 

The foundation that awards the Nobel Prizes announced Thursday that its annual banquet for the laureates in Stockholm has been canceled for the second consecutive year due to the pandemic. The Nobel Foundation said the winners for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, peace and economics will receive their medals and diplomas in their home countries.

In a statement announcing the decision, the foundation said, “Everybody would like the COVID-19 pandemic to be over, but we are not there yet.” 

Some information for this report is from the Associated Press.
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The CIA removed its Vienna, Austria, station chief recently amid criticism the person did not take seriously a surge in mysterious “Havana syndrome” cases, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

Dozens of cases affecting embassy staff and Central Intelligence Agency officers and family members have been reported in Vienna recently, but the unnamed station chief expressed skepticism and showed insensitivity, the Post said, citing intelligence sources.

A CIA spokesperson declined to confirm or deny the report, but said the agency takes seriously scores of possible incidents of the mysterious ailment in U.S. diplomatic missions around the world.

The cause and source remain enigmatic, CIA Deputy Director David Cohen said last week.

“Have we gotten closer? I think the answer is yes — but not close enough to make the analytic judgment that people are waiting for,” he said.

The U.S. government, including the CIA and Pentagon, has ramped up staff to investigate and provide treatment for the cases.

Dubbed “Havana syndrome” because reports of the condition first showed up in the Cuban capital, the ailment is marked by bloody noses, headaches, vision problems and other symptoms that resemble concussions.

Some people experiencing it have reported hearing focused, high-pitched or sharp sounds that left them nauseated.

The incidents are little understood and have sparked theories that they were caused by a weapon that used focused microwaves, ultrasound, poison or are even a reaction to crickets.

But for several years, senior government officials dismissed the complaints, judging them to be the symptoms of people under stress or reacting with hysteria to unknown stimuli.

The administration of Joe Biden has geared up the investigation into what have been renamed anomalous health incidents, or AHI.

If the cases are caused by something like a directed energy attack, U.S. officials suspect Russia could be behind it.

The Post called Vienna, where the United States has a large embassy and intelligence collection operation, a “hotbed” of AHI incidents, with dozens of people reporting unexplained symptoms.

The issue has U.S. officials around the world jittery. In August, Vice President Kamala Harris delayed by several hours a visit to Vietnam after the U.S. Embassy there reported a possible case involving “acoustic incidents.”

And during a visit to India by CIA Director William Burns in early September, an official in his retinue reported symptoms and sought medical assistance, according to the Post. 

 
…

The fluctuating severity of the pandemic and ever-changing public health pronouncements have left North Carolina with a patchwork of masking requirements, mirroring much of the United States. Some residents embrace the mandates, others do not.

“I personally feel like it affects my breathing,” said Mackenzie Gilley when asked about mask-wearing.

Gilley, 26, a leasing agent in a Charlotte high-rise apartment complex, said masks impede her work.

“I have a job that’s always been on the front lines in property management, where it’s very difficult to talk to people and relate to people wearing the mask all day,” Gilley told VOA.

In May of this year, as vaccination rates increased and COVID-19 cases plunged, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper lifted a statewide mask mandate that had been in effect for nearly a year.

In August, amid a surge of COVID-19 cases triggered by the delta variant, the city of Charlotte reimposed a mandate that masks be worn “in any indoor public place, business, or establishment” regardless of a person’s vaccination status.

The Aug. 18 citywide mandate was followed by a similar order for surrounding Mecklenburg County, population 1.1 million, where average daily infection rates topped 500.

The trend of rising infections appears to have reversed in recent weeks, but area residents are nevertheless compelled to embrace a public health measure some find cumbersome, and many had hoped were a thing of the past.

Others applauded Charlotte for requiring masks indoors.

“Personally, I was very happy about the mask mandate,” medical student Kirthi Reddy, 23, told VOA. “I think this is a great step to try and control the virus the best we can.”

Reddy, who is aiming for placement as a medical resident, added, “COVID is something that is rapidly spreading and mutating, so I think it’s very important. If we don’t (mask up), the virus will only mutate and spread even more.”

Gilley urged a case-by-case basis for face coverings.

“I think it should be up to the (individual) business whether or not they want to enforce it,” she said. “It has just gone on for way too long.”

Health care professionals like pediatric nurse Zoe Morgan warned against apathy in preventing virus transmission.

“I think the new mask mandate since the delta variant is very necessary,” she said, adding that, even with rising vaccination rates, people shouldn’t lose diligence in protecting themselves.

“I think everyone getting vaccinated and the numbers of vaccinated (people) increasing is wonderful,” Morgan said. “However, the delta variant is just that, it’s a variant. This proves that we can still catch the virus, spread it, even if we are vaccinated.”

Morgan described how a few weeks ago, amid aggressive spread of the delta variant, her entire hospital unit suspended operations when several staffers contracted the virus, forcing her and her colleagues into quarantine. The unit resumed admitting patients this week.

Morgan believes people went about their lives with a false sense of security as the delta variant spread.

“I think this has to do with the delta variant, and people feeling reassured since everyone was getting vaccinated, the numbers were going down, and employees were admittedly less strict and … probably not as diligent as they should have been with masks,” she said.

Enforcing the mandate

Authorities in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County are relying on the public to comply with mask mandates rather than strict enforcement. As of the beginning of the week, the local police department reported it had issued zero citations for failing to wear a mask since the renewed orders went into effect.

The Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) “has worked to reach voluntary cooperation with each member of the community through education and conversations,” Public Information Officer Thomas Hildebrand told VOA, saying officers have focused on communication and outreach to the community.

“Our efforts are prompted through a complaint-driven approach,” he said. “This has been the CMPD’s approach to consistent enforcement of the mandate, and it will remain so until the mandate is rescinded.”

Some see voluntary enforcement as no enforcement.

“I think the overall mask mandate should be enforced a little more,” said Tamia Wately.

The 21-year-old works at an arcade park and said that mask-wearing is not strictly enforced in her workplace. She indicated she would welcome more coercive means to force compliance.

“It would definitely make a difference. I think many companies would start enforcing it more,” she said, adding that, to the extent she can make arcade visitors don masks, “I try to do my best.”

Morgan said business owners should do their part.

“I think everyone should just kind of be, in essence, a team player and wear their masks,” she said.

No date has been set for ending mask mandates in the Charlotte area. Local officials told VOA any decision will be made in consultation with Mecklenburg County’s health department.

Meanwhile, the city is incentivizing municipal employees to get vaccinated, offering a $250 pay bonus to those who provide proof of vaccination by Sept. 30. An additional bonus has been promised if the municipal workforce reaches a 75% inoculation rate.

As of Sept. 1, about 62% of Charlotte city employees were vaccinated.

For Mecklenburg County as a whole, about 54% of the population, or just over 600,000 people, were fully vaccinated as of Sept. 16.

 
…

Nearly 2½ years after the fall of the Islamic State terror group’s self-declared caliphate, there still appears to be no escape for tens of thousands of children left homeless in its wake. 

Aid groups and observers say the children, some from families that flocked to join Islamic State and some from families who fled from its forces, are wasting away in displaced persons camps in northeast Syria, stalked by violence and even death. 

“These children are experiencing traumatic events that no child should have to go through,” said Sonia Khush, Syria response director for Save the Children, in a statement Thursday.

“It is incomprehensible that they are condemned to this life,” Khush added. “Every day they are denied the opportunity to return to their home, denied the specialized services they so desperately need, and denied the right to live in safety and recover from their experiences is a day too many.” 

In a report Thursday, the aid group described the conditions in the two main camps — al-Hol and Roj — as dire for the 40,000 children who live there. 

The camps are strewn with rubbish and waste, the report said, and there is little access to sanitation or health care. Some residents complained they sometimes go days without drinking water. 

Malnutrition rates are rising, and diseases are taking a toll, all contributing to the deaths of two children a week on average through the first eight months of 2021, according to the report. 

Despite a crackdown by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in late March and early April,  violence is also widespread. 

The pro-Kurdish Rojava Information Center (RIC) has recorded 86 killings at al-Hol through the end of August, including more than 30 since the start of April. 

In three cases this year, the victims were children, all shot to death. 

“I fear living in the camp,” one 10-year-old told Save the Children. “The people here keep fighting. I close my ears with my hands whenever I hear them fight. I don’t even let my mother go outside.” 

Many of the children are already starting to lash out. Thirty-seven percent of caregivers at the al-Hol camp told Save the Children that their children “are always or usually angry.” 

And there are concerns it will only get worse. 

“The longer they remain in the camps, the more acute a lack of belonging can become, growing frustration, a sense of uncertainty and a risk — particularly for boys — of prolonged detention can all reinforce trauma and isolation,” the report said. 

Others have also been sounding alarms. 

“Fear, worry and stress is commonplace among children, adolescents and young people,” an international aid worker with access to the camps told VOA last year. “Deprived from the traditional community support they enjoyed back home, it has led to significant long-term mental health and psychosocial consequences.” 

The worker further warned that “specialized targeted mental health interventions” had not been available. 

VOA reached out to the SDF and the Autonomous Administration for North and East Syria, which oversee security for the camps and have yet to respond to the Save the Children report. But both have repeatedly called for more help to maintain the camps and for third countries to repatriate their citizens.

“The international community must help, and the citizens of every country must return to their homeland,” Ali al-Hassan, a spokesman for the internal security forces, said earlier this year. 

The process, though, has been slow. 

According to Save the Children, since 2017, just under 1,200 children have been repatriated from Syria, with just 14 repatriation operations taking place so far this year. 

The U.S. State Department has consistently pressured countries to take back citizens stuck in northeast Syria. The department itself repatriated 27 known Islamic State supporters from SDF custody.

Still, top U.S. military officials have repeatedly raised concerns that the combined efforts have not been enough. 

“It is one of my very highest concerns,” General Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, said in April. 

“The long-term threat is ISIS radicalization,” he said, using an acronym for the terror group. “Unless we find a way to pull these children out of these camps … find a way to reintegrate them into civil society and deradicalize them, we are giving ourselves a very significant military problem 10 years down the road.” 
…

The U.S. vaccination drive against COVID-19 stood on the verge of a major new phase as government advisers Thursday recommended booster doses of Pfizer’s vaccine for millions of older or otherwise vulnerable Americans — despite doubts the extra shots will do much to slow the pandemic.

Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said boosters should be offered to people 65 and older, nursing home residents and those ages 50 to 64 who have underlying health problems that put them at greater risk. The extra dose would be given once they are at least six months past their last Pfizer shot.

Deciding who else might get one was far tougher. While there is little evidence that younger people are in danger of waning immunity, the panel offered the option of a booster for those 18 to 49 who have chronic health problems and want one.

But the advisers refused to go further and open boosters to otherwise healthy front-line health care workers who aren’t at risk of severe illness but want to avoid even a mild infection.

“We might as well just say give it to everyone 18 and older. We have a very effective vaccine, and it’s like saying, ‘It’s not working.’ It is working,” said Dr. Pablo Sanchez of Ohio State University, who helped block the broadest booster option. 

Still, getting the unvaccinated their first shots remains the top priority, and the panel wrestled with whether the booster debate was distracting from that goal.

All three of the COVID-19 vaccines used in the U.S. still are highly protective against severe illness, hospitalization and death, even amid the spread of the extra-contagious delta variant. But only about 182 million Americans are fully vaccinated, just 55% of the population.

 

“We can give boosters to people, but that’s not really the answer to this pandemic,” said Dr. Helen Keipp Talbot of Vanderbilt University. “Hospitals are full because people are not vaccinated. We are declining care to people who deserve care because we are full of unvaccinated COVID-positive patients.”

Thursday’s decision represented a dramatic scaling back of the Biden administration plan, announced last month, to dispense boosters to nearly everyone to shore up their protection. Late Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration, like the CDC, signed off on Pfizer boosters for a much more targeted slice of the American population than the White House envisioned.

It falls to the CDC to set final U.S. policy on who qualifies for the extra shot. The CDC usually follows its advisers’ recommendations. A final decision from the agency was expected later Thursday.

The booster plan marks an important shift in the nation’s vaccination drive. Britain and Israel are already giving a third round of shots over strong objections from the World Health Organization that poor countries don’t have enough for their initial doses.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky opened Thursday’s meeting by stressing that vaccinating the unvaccinated remains the top goal “here in America and around the world.”

Walensky acknowledged that the data on who really needs a booster right away “are not perfect.” “Yet collectively they form a picture for us,” she said, “and they are what we have in this moment to make a decision about the next stage in this pandemic.”

The CDC panel stressed its recommendations will be changed if new evidence shows more people need a booster.

 

The CDC advisers expressed concern over the millions more Americans who received Moderna or Johnson & Johnson shots early in the vaccine rollout. The government still hasn’t considered boosters for those brands and has no data on whether it’s safe or effective to mix-and-match and give those people a Pfizer shot.

“I just don’t understand how later this afternoon we can say to people 65 and older, ‘You’re at risk for severe illness and death, but only half of you can protect yourselves right now,'” said Dr. Sarah Long of Drexel University.

About 26 million Americans got their last Pfizer dose at least six months ago, about half of whom are 65 or older. It’s not clear how many more would meet the CDC panel’s initial booster qualifications.

CDC data shows the vaccines still offer strong protection for all ages, but there is a slight drop among the oldest adults. And immunity against milder infection appears to be waning months after people’s initial immunization.

For most people, if you’re not in a group recommended for a booster, “it’s really because we think you’re well-protected,” said Dr. Matthew Daley of Kaiser Permanente Colorado. “This isn’t about who deserves a booster, but who needs a booster.”

Among people who stand to benefit from a booster, there are few risks, the CDC concluded. Serious side effects from the first two Pfizer doses are exceedingly rare, including heart inflammation that sometimes occurs in younger men. Data from Israel, which has given nearly 3 million people — mostly 60 and older — a third Pfizer dose, has uncovered no red flags.

The panelists also wrestled with how to even tell when a booster is needed. While an extra dose revs up numbers of virus-fighting antibodies, those naturally wane over time and no one knows how long the antibody boost from a third Pfizer dose will last — or how much protection it really adds, since the immune system also forms additional defenses after vaccination.

The U.S. has already authorized third doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for certain people with weakened immune systems, such as cancer patients and transplant recipients. Other Americans, healthy or not, have managed to get boosters, in some cases simply by asking. 
…

The all-amateur crew of the SpaceX Dragon capsule makes it home, but not before a string of first time-ever events. Plus, cosmonauts vote from space, and a film crew readies for a trip to the International Space Station. Buckle up, as VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports on this historic Week in Space.
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South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss Deby and Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni are set to address the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday. 

Access to COVID-19 vaccines has been one of the major topics of the annual meeting in New York and is likely to be one of the most discussed again Thursday as leaders from African nations make up a large portion of the day’s list of speakers. 

While some countries such as the United States have had vaccine doses widely available to their populations for months, other countries have struggled to access COVID-19 vaccine supplies. 

The African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 4% of the population is fully vaccinated. 

Ramaphosa was among a group of leaders who participated in a virtual summit Wednesday convened by U.S. President Joe Biden to discuss boosting efforts to vaccinate people all over the world. Biden announced the United States was buying another 500 million doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to distribute to other countries. 

“Of the around 6 billion vaccine doses administered worldwide, only 2% of these have been administered in Africa, a continent of more than 1.2 billion people,” Ramaphosa said. “This is unjust and immoral.” 

Other speakers Thursday include Iraq’s President Barham Salih, Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi. 

The coronavirus pandemic has prompted a number of world leaders to pre-record their remarks instead of traveling to New York to speak in person. About half of Thursday’s speeches were recorded in advance. 
…

As more businesses, universities, and federal and local governments demand proof of inoculation against COVID-19, the black market for fake vaccine cards appears to be booming.

U.S. Customs officials in Cincinnati, Ohio, intercepted five shipments containing 1,683 counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination cards and 2,034 fake Pfizer inoculation stickers since August 16. The shipments from China were headed to private homes and apartments in the states o Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, New York and Texas.

In August, a Chicago pharmacist was arrested after being accused of selling dozens of authentic Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID-19 vaccination cards on eBay. In July, a naturopathic physician in Northern California was arrested for allegedly selling fake COVID-19 immunization treatments and forged vaccination cards. 

‘A type of fraud’

Legal experts compare phony vaccine cards to counterfeit money or fake drivers’ licenses. 

“It’s a type of fraud,” says Wesley Oliver, professor of law at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “There’s another theory that you are stealing from the government their insignia and their imprimatur that you are in fact vaccinated, and both are just sort of different styles of the same crime.”

President Joe Biden recently called on all businesses with 100 or more employees to require their workers either be vaccinated or tested for COVID-19 once a week. A global cybersecurity company reports that the price of fake vaccine cards and the numbers of people selling them shot up since Biden announced the vaccine mandate in early September.

Pretending to be vaccinated trespasses on other people’s rights, according to Boston University law professor Christopher Robertson. 

“Part of the free enterprise system is we decide where we want to go, and who we want to interact with and on what terms. And so, it really is an invasion of everyone else’s bodily integrity, their security, and knowing that they can be safe going into a place that’s requiring proof of vaccination,” Robertson says. “It’s kind of similar to battery in exposing someone to risk that they didn’t consent to be exposed to.” 

Exposing others to risk

Last month, 15 people in New York were charged in connection with selling and buying phony COVID-19 vaccine cards. A woman who called herself @AntiVaxMomma on Instagram stands accused of selling 250 fake vaccination certificates for about $200 per card. A second suspect, a 27-year-old medical clinic worker, allegedly charged an extra $250 to enter fake vaccine data for at least 10 people into New York’s immunization database. Front-line health care and essential workers are among the people accused of buying the phony cards. 

The idea of health care workers falsifying their vaccination status terrifies cancer patient Diana Martinez, who lives in California. She is one of millions of Americans with an impaired immune system, which makes it harder for her body to fight off disease.

She dreads the thought of getting on an elevator with an unmasked, unvaccinated person. 

“They don’t understand how they look to me. It’s like someone has jumped on with a loaded gun,” Martinez says. “Those few moments when I’m just trying to get up to my doctor’s floor, they may have infected me. They may have ended my life because my immune system is so compromised that I’m more vulnerable to whatever they might be spreading.” 

Martinez could be especially vulnerable because the COVID-19 vaccines may not be as effective in people with suppressed immune systems. For example, Martinez’s physician finds that patients with multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, don’t respond as well as healthy people do to mRNA vaccines, like the ones produced by Pfizer and Moderna.

“We found that in the patients who got the vaccination, that 45% had a normal response, 22% had an impaired response, and 33% had no response,” says Dr. James Berenson, founder and president of the Institute for Myeloma and Bone Cancer Research in West Hollywood, California. 

Berenson adds that the list of people with compromised immune systems include “older folks, those who are on immunosuppressive therapies like patients with lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, psoriatic arthritis, people on therapies that are trying to tamp down the immune system.”

‘Wide latitude’ for penalties 

When it comes to suspects charged with buying and selling phony vaccination certificates, the judges are certain to look at who was harmed by the alleged crime, according to Oliver. 

“Basically, people are buying the right to take a risk with other people’s lives. That’s not something that we typically see in criminal law,” Oliver says. “The real harm that you’ve done is create a risk to the population. And with most crimes, the degree of harm that you create, or the risk of physical harm, is part of the sentencing scheme.” 

Which could mean that health care workers, or those who work in nursing homes, involved in the buying or selling of forged vaccine cards could face worse penalties. 

“The more people you put at risk, the more vulnerable the population put at risk, clearly, the more harshly you’re going to be sentenced,” Oliver says. 

The integrity of the entire vaccination card system is at stake, Robertson says. 

“It’s similar to forging money. If half of all the currency in circulation was actually fake, then nobody could trust the currency at all,” he says. “When we do detect it, we really have to drop the hammer and make that deterrent signal clear to the public, that we’re not messing around, that lives are at stake.” 

Judges have wide latitude when it comes to sentencing. When making their decision, they consider both physical and financial harm caused by the perpetrator, according to Oliver. He estimates that if convicted, vaccine card fakers could face anywhere from probation to up to 20 years in prison. 

Berenson hopes judges will deliver harsh punishments that encourage people in the broader community to look beyond themselves and focus on the big picture. 

 

“We’re all in this together. It’s not about you — it’s about the bigger good. You need to think about the bigger good,” the cancer physician says. “So, if you get vaccinated, we can get rid of this. And if you actually wear a mask and socially distance, there’s no place for the virus to go. If you don’t, this is going to go on and on and on for years.” 
…

Jets of red hot lava shot into the sky on Spain’s La Palma on Thursday as a huge cloud of toxic ash drifted from the Cumbre Vieja volcano toward the mainland and jeopardized the island’s economically crucial banana crops.

 

Walls of lava, which turn black when exposed to the air, have advanced slowly westward since Sunday, engulfing everything in their path, including houses, schools and some banana plantations.

 

Farmers near the town of Todoque raced to save as much as possible of their crop, piling their trucks high with sacks of the green bananas, on which many of the islanders depend for their livelihood.

 

“We’re just trying to take everything we can,” said a farmer who gave his name as Roberto from the window of his pickup.  

 

Some 15% of La Palma’s 140 million kilogram annual banana production could be at risk if farmers are unable to access plantations and tend to their crops, Sergio Caceres, manager of producer’s association Asprocan, told Reuters.

 

“There is the main tragedy of destroyed houses — many of those affected are banana producers or employees — but their livelihood is further down the hill,” he said. “Some farms have already been covered.”

 

Caceres said the farmers already were suffering losses and warned that if lava pollutes the water supply it could potentially cause problems for months to come.

 

The island produces around a quarter of the Canary Islands’ renowned bananas, which hold protected designation of origin status.

 

With more than 200 houses destroyed and thousands of evacuated people unable to return home, the Canary Islands’ regional government said it would buy two housing developments with a combined 73 properties for those made homeless. Spanish banks jointly announced they would offer vacant homes they hold across the Canaries as emergency shelter.

 

Property portal Idealista estimated the volcano had so far destroyed property worth about 87 million euros ($102 million). Experts had originally predicted the lava would hit the Atlantic Ocean late Monday, but its descent has slowed to a glacial pace of around 4 meters per hour and authorities say it may stop before reaching the sea.

 

Volcanologists have said gases from the eruption are not harmful to health. But a plume of thick cloud now extends some 4.2 kilometers (2.6 miles) into the air, raising concerns of visibility for flights. The airport remains open, but authorities have created two exclusion zones where only authorized aircraft can fly.  

 

Prevailing winds are expected to propel the cloud northeast over the rest of the Canary archipelago, the Iberian peninsula and the Mediterranean, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service.

 

National weather service AEMET said air quality had not been affected at surface level and ruled out acid rain falling over the mainland or the Balearic Islands and was even unlikely in the Canary islands.

 

Local authorities have warned people to clean food and clothes to avoid ingesting the toxic ash.
…

Thailand’s COVID vaccination rate currently stands at less than 25% of the population as the government says it is ramping up inoculations ahead of a planned reopening of several key tourist regions. Chiang Mai and its surrounding areas in the northern part of the country are among the locations included in the plan to reopen by Oct. 15. Steve Sandford visited Chiang Mai and has this report for VOA.

Camera: Steve Sandford
…

U.S. President Joe Biden convened a virtual COVID-19 summit Wednesday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, aiming to rally world leaders, philanthropists, civil society, nongovernmental organizations and industry to defeat the virus by the end of 2022. He also announced an additional donation of half a billion doses of the Pfizer vaccine. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has more.
…

This week, Pfizer released promising news in the effort to end the coronavirus pandemic, saying its COVID-19 vaccine works for young children. VOA’s Carol Pearson has more on this development.
…

The southeastern U.S. state of Florida says parents or legal guardians can decide whether or not to quarantine their children if they have been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19.

Dr. Joseph Lapado, the state’s newly appointed surgeon general, signed new guidelines Thursday that will allow students to continue attending in-person classes “without restrictions or disparate treatment” as long as they have no symptoms of the virus. The parent or legal guardian can decide to keep their child at home for seven days from the date of last contact with someone who tested positive.

The new guidelines replace a previous one that mandated students enter quarantine for at least four days after being exposed to someone who had tested positive. It does maintain the previous rule that students who test positive either quarantine for 10 days, test negative for the disease and remain free of symptoms or show a doctor’s note giving them permission before returning to school.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis defended the new guidelines during a press conference Wednesday.

“Quarantining healthy students is incredibly damaging for their educational achievement,” DeSantis said.

“It’s also disruptive for families,” he added, saying the state would follow a “symptoms-based approach.”

The new guidelines run counter to recommendations issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control for unvaccinated people to isolate for 14 days if they have been within 2 meters of someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.

The new guidelines also prompted a judge to dismiss a court challenge brought by five local school districts against the state’s ban on local school districts to impose mandatory face masks. The DeSantis administration has withheld funding to school districts and withheld salaries of local superintendents and school board members who went against the governor’s order banning such mandates.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press.

 

 

 

 
…

Scientists have found evidence of a resistant form of malaria in Uganda, a worrying sign that the top drug used against the parasitic disease could ultimately be rendered useless without more action to stop its spread.

Researchers in Uganda analyzed blood samples from patients treated with artemisinin, the primary medicine used for malaria in Africa in combination with other drugs. They found that by 2019, nearly 20% of the samples had genetic mutations, suggesting the treatment was ineffective. Lab tests showed it took much longer for those patients to get rid of the parasites that cause malaria.

Drug-resistant forms of malaria were previously detected in Asia, and health officials have been nervously watching for any signs in Africa, which accounts for more than 90% of the world’s malaria cases. Some isolated drug-resistant strains of malaria have previously been seen in Rwanda.

“Our findings suggest a potential risk of cross-border spread across Africa,” the researchers wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine, which published the study Wednesday.

The drug-resistant strains emerged in Uganda rather than being imported from elsewhere, they reported. They examined 240 blood samples over three years.

Malaria is spread by mosquito bites and kills more than 400,000 people every year, mostly children under 5 and pregnant women.

Resistance has ‘a foothold’

Dr. Philip Rosenthal, a professor of medicine at the University of California- San Francisco, said that the new findings in Uganda, after past results in Rwanda, “prove that resistance really now has a foothold in Africa.”

Rosenthal, who was not involved in the new study, said it was likely there was undetected drug resistance elsewhere on the continent. He said drug-resistant versions of malaria emerged in Cambodia years ago and have now spread across Asia. He predicted a similar path for the disease in Africa, with deadlier consequences given the burden of malaria on the continent.

Dr. Nicholas White, a professor of tropical medicine at Mahidol University in Bangkok, described the new paper’s conclusions about emerging malaria resistance as “unequivocal.”

“We basically rely on one drug for malaria, and now it’s been hobbled,” said White, who also wrote an accompanying editorial in the Journal.

He suggested that instead of the standard approach, where one or two other drugs are used in combination with artemisinin, doctors should now use three, as is often done in treating tuberculosis and HIV.

White said public health officials need to act to stem drug-resistant malaria, by beefing up surveillance and supporting research into new drugs, among other measures.

“We shouldn’t wait until the fire is burning to do something, but that is not what generally happens in global health,” he said, citing the failures to stop the coronavirus pandemic as an example.
…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized a booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for those 65 and older and some high-risk Americans, paving the way for a quick rollout of the shots.

The booster dose is to be administered at least six months after completion of the second dose, and the authorization would include people most susceptible to severe disease and those in jobs that put them at risk, the FDA said.

A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel could vote Thursday on the use of a third shot of the vaccine, an agency official said at a public meeting of the panel Wednesday.

President Joe Biden announced in August the government’s intention to roll out booster shots for people 16 and older this week, pending approval by the FDA and CDC.

Advisers to the FDA voted Friday to recommend COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for Americans 65 and older and those at high risk of severe illness, after overwhelmingly rejecting a call for broader approval.

The advisory panel said there was not enough evidence to support booster shots for all those 16 and older who had received a second dose at least six months earlier, and it also sought more safety data.

The agency could revisit the issue of additional shots for a broader authorization in the future. Top FDA members have been split on the need for boosters for the general population, with interim head Janet Woodcock backing them and some of the agency’s senior scientists arguing that current evidence does not support them.

Johnson & Johnson said Tuesday that a second shot of its COVID-19 vaccine increased its effectiveness in the United States against moderate to severe forms of the disease.

Information on booster doses of Moderna Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine is just weeks away, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Sunday.

Some countries, including Israel and Britain, have already rolled out COVID-19 booster campaigns. The United States authorized extra shots for people with compromised immune systems last month, and more than 2 million people had already received a third shot, CDC data showed. 
…

The World Health Organization is issuing new guidelines on improving global air quality, which it says could save many of the seven million lives that are lost each year to pollution.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says inhaling dirty air increases the risk of pneumonia, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, as well as noncommunicable ailments including heart disease, stroke and cancers. 

“Air pollution is a health threat in all countries but especially for vulnerable groups in low- and middle-income countries with poor air quality due to urbanization and rapid economic development and air pollution in the home caused by cooking, heating and lighting,” he said. 

Since the WHO’s last global update in 2005, a new body of evidence has emerged showing that humans suffer damage to their health at lower concentrations of air pollution than previously believed. 

Consequently, the WHO recommends lower air quality levels for five key pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and carbon monoxide. 

Maria Neira, director of the WHO’s department of environment, climate change and health, says a changeover to cleaner energy will improve people’s health and mitigate global warming.

“Moving to renewable and clean sources of energy because [of] this will have a very positive impact on reducing the greenhouse gases emission and tackling the causes of climate change and reducing air pollution,” she said. “Both are critical pillars of our health.” 

Besides improving health and saving lives, reducing air pollution could also have enormous economic benefits.

The World Bank estimates the global cost associated with health damage from ambient air pollution stands at $5.7 trillion a year. 

 
…

Scientists with the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in the U.S. state of Colorado said Wednesday that, as summer was ending in the Northern Hemisphere, Arctic sea ice had shrunk less in 2021 than in other recent years. 

Supported by NASA and other federal agencies, the NSIDC is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado in Boulder. It is among the research organizations that monitor the ebb and flow of the Arctic ice pack. Scientists with the center determined the ice pack reached its minimum extent for the year on September 16.

Sea ice extent is defined as the total area in which ice concentration is at least 15% 

This year, satellite observations determined Arctic ice covered a minimum of 1.82 million square kilometers, which NSIDC scientists said was the highest minimum coverage since 2014, and the 12th lowest in 43 years of satellite records. 

In a statement, NSIDC Director Mark Serreze said, “We had a reprieve this year — a cool and stormy summer with less ice melt. But the amount of old, thick sea ice is as low as it has ever been in our satellite record.” 

The NSIDC said the last 15 years have produced the lowest 15 sea ice extents in the satellite record. The amount of old, multiyear ice — that is, ice that has remained frozen through at least one summer melt season — is at one of the lowest levels in the ice age record, which began in 1984. 

The center cautioned the Arctic Sea ice extent figures were preliminary, as continued melting could still push the ice minimum extent lower before the early winter freeze begins. NSIDC will issue a formal announcement at the beginning of October with full analysis of the possible causes behind this year’s ice conditions.

 
…

Amnesty International is accusing the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies of creating an “unprecedented human rights crisis” by failing to provide enough COVID-19 vaccines for the world’s poorest nations. 

In a report issued Wednesday, the human rights advocacy group says AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Novavax and the partnership of Pfizer and BioNTech have “failed to meet their human rights responsibilities” by refusing to participate in global vaccine sharing initiatives and share vaccine technology by waiving their intellectual property rights.

Amnesty says only a “paltry” 0.3% of the 5.76 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines distributed around the world have gone to low-income countries, while 79% have gone to upper-middle and high-income countries. It says the disparity is “pushing weakened health systems to the very brink and causing tens of thousands of preventable deaths every week,” especially in parts of Latin America, Africa and Asia. 

The organization says Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna alone are set to make $130 billion combined by the end of 2022.

“Profits should never come before lives,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general. 

Amnesty is calling on governments and pharmaceutical companies to immediately deliver 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to low and lower-middle income countries to meet the World Health Organization’s goal of vaccinating 40% of the population of such countries by the end of the year. 

COVID Summit

The report was issued ahead of U.S. President Joe Biden’s virtual COVID Summit, held in conjunction with this week’s United Nations General Assembly. Biden is expected to announce a global vaccination target of 70% along with an additional purchase of 500 million doses of the two-shot Pfizer vaccine, bringing the United States’ overall donations to more than 1.1 billion doses.

“America is committed to beating COVID-19. Today, the United States is doubling our total number of global donated vaccines to more than 1.1 billion. For every shot we’ve put in an American arm to date, we are donating three shots globally,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday on Twitter. 

 

 

Extreme poverty

The Asian Development Bank says the pandemic likely pushed as many as 80 million people in Asia’s developing nations into extreme poverty last year. A report issued Tuesday by the Manila-based institution said the region’s developing economies will likely grow at a slower-than-expected pace in 2021 due to lingering COVID-19 outbreaks and the slow pace of vaccination efforts

The ADB is predicting Southeast Asian economies to grow by just 3.1 percent this year, a drop from the 4.4 percent rate forecast in its economic outlook back in April.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France Presse (AFP).

 

 

 
…

The two biggest economies and largest carbon polluters in the world announced separate financial attacks on climate change Tuesday. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping said his country will no longer fund coal-fired power plants abroad, surprising the world on climate for the second straight year at the U.N. General Assembly. That came hours after U.S. President Joe Biden announced a plan to double financial aid to poorer nations to $11.4 billion by 2024 so those countries could switch to cleaner energy and cope with global warming’s worsening impacts. That puts rich nations close to within reach of its long-promised but not realized goal of $100 billion a year in climate help for developing nations. 

“This is an absolutely seminal moment,” said Xinyue Ma, an expert on energy development finance at Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center. 

This could provide some momentum going into major climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, in less than six weeks, experts said. Running up to the historic 2015 Paris climate deal, a joint U.S.-China agreement kickstarted successful negotiations. This time, with China-U.S. relations dicey, the two nations made their announcements separately, hours and thousands of miles apart. 

“Today was a really good day for the world,” United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is hosting the upcoming climate negotiations, told Vice President Kamala Harris. 

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who has made a frenetic push this week for bigger efforts to curb climate change called the two announcements welcome news, but said “we still have a long way to go” to make the Glasgow meeting successful. 

Depending on when China’s new coal policy goes into effect, it could shutter 47 planned power plants in 20 developing countries that use the fuel that emits the most heat-trapping gases, about the same amount of coal power as from Germany, according to the European climate think-tank E3G. 

“It’s a big deal. China was the only significant funder of overseas coal left. This announcement essentially ends all public support for coal globally,” said Joanna Lewis, an expert on China, energy and climate at Georgetown University. “This is the announcement many have been waiting for.”

From 2013 to 2019, data showed that China was financing 13% of coal-fired power capacity built outside China – “far and away the largest public financier,” said Kevin Gallagher, who directs the Boston University center. Japan and South Korea announced earlier this year that they were getting out of the coal-financing business. 

With all three countries pulling out of financing coal abroad “that sends a signal to the global economy. This is a sector that’s fast becoming a stranded asset,” Gallagher said. 

While this is a big step it is not quite a death knell for coal, said Byford Tsang, a policy analyst for E3G. That’s because China last year added as much new coal power domestically as was just potentially cancelled abroad, he said. 

Tsang cautioned that the one-sentence line in Xi’s speech that mentioned this new policy lacked details like effective dates and whether it applied to private funding as well as public funding. 

What also matters is when China stops building new coal plants at home and shutters old ones, Tsang said. That will be part of a push in the G-20 meetings in Italy next month, he said. “The Chinese are going to respond to international pressure, rather than just American bilateral pressure right now,” said Deborah Seligsohn, an expert on China’s politics and energy at Villanova University. 

“A coal-free energy mix is still decades in the future” because coal power plants typically operate for 50 years or more, said Stanford University environment director Chris Field. 

Many nations that are trying to build their economies — including top polluters China and India — have long argued they needed to industrialize with fossil fuels, like developed nations had already done. Starting in 2009 and then with “a grand bargain” in 2015 in Paris, richer nations promised $100 billion a year in financial help to poorer nations to make the switch from dirty to clean fuel, World Resources Institute climate finance expert Joe Thwaites said. 

But as of 2019, the richer nations were only providing $80 billion a year, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. So, when rich nations like the United States asked poorer ones to do more “it gives any other country a very easy retort,” Thwaites said: “‘You took out commitments and you haven’t delivered on those either.” 

In April, Biden announced he would double the Obama era financial aid pledge of $2.85 billion a year to $5.7 billion. On Tuesday he announced that he hopes to double that to $11.4 billion a year starting in 2024, but he does need passage from Congress. 

The European Union has been doling out $24.5 billion a year with the European Commission recently upping that to more than $4.7 billion over seven years. “The Europeans are doing a lot more and the Americans are lagging behind,” Thwaites said. 

He said several studies calculate that based on the U.S. economy, population and carbon pollution, it should be contributing 40% to 47% of the $100 billion fund to be doing its fair share. 

But Congressional Republicans aren’t convinced. “We shouldn’t be contributing to a fund that picks winners and losers and further subsidizes China in the process,” said Rep. Garret Graves, R-Louisiana, the ranking Republican on the House Climate Committee. 

The time for global grandstanding is over, said Princeton University climate science and international affairs professor Michael Oppenheimer said. “It’s what’s happening on the ground that matters.” 

“Accelerating the global phase out of coal is the single most important step” to keeping the Paris agreement’s key warming limit within reach, said U.N. chief Guterres. 
…

Fast-food giant McDonald’s said Tuesday it would phase out plastic toys from its signature Happy Meals by 2025. 

“Starting now, and phased in across the globe by the end of 2025, our ambition is that every toy sold in a Happy Meal will be sustainable, made from more renewable, recycled, or certified materials like bio-based and plant-derived materials and certified fiber,” the company said in a statement. 

McDonald’s said that this process had already begun in Britain and Ireland, and that all its Happy Meal toys in France were already made sustainably. 

The signature meal for children typically contains a plastic toy, often an action figure. But the new plan means that figurines may be made of cardboard for the child to assemble.

McDonald’s, which has been serving Happy Meals since 1979, said that its new plan to make toys out of renewable materials will reduce fossil fuel-based plastic in its toys by 90%. 

But a large part of McDonald’s packaging remains plastic, the company acknowledges, saying that it has “set goals” for all its packaging to be from “renewable, recycled, or certified sources” by 2025. 

 

 
…

The delta variant of the coronavirus has overtaken all other variants of concern, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. 

“Less than 1% each of alpha, beta and gamma are currently circulating. It’s really predominantly delta around the world,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead on COVID-19. 

According to Van Kerkhove, the delta variant is so highly transmissible it has replaced other variants circulating around the world. 

Hundreds of people demonstrated Tuesday in Australia’s second-largest city against coronavirus restrictions the government imposed on the construction industry. 

Officials announced that construction sites in Melbourne would be closed for two weeks amid concerns that the movement of workers was contributing to the spread of COVID-19. 

Construction workers are also now required to have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine before being allowed to return to work. 

Victoria state, where Melbourne is located, reported 603 new cases on Tuesday, the most infections there in a single day this year. 

In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Tuesday that fines for breaking coronavirus protocols would increase starting in November. 

The changes would increase the fine for someone intentionally failing to comply with a COVID-19 order from about $2,800 to $8,400. Those breaking the restrictions could also face up to six months in prison. 

Businesses that violate coronavirus restrictions could face fines of up to $10,500. 

“Our success has been really based on the fact that people by and large have been compliant,” Ardern said at a news conference. “However, there has been the odd person that has broken the rules and put others at risk.” 

Meanwhile, Governor Jay Inslee, of the western U.S. state of Washington, is asking the federal government for help dealing with the strain on hospitals as the delta variant drives large numbers of infections. 

Inslee sent a letter Monday to White House pandemic coordinator Jeffrey Zients saying hospitals in his state are at or beyond capacity and that he is requesting military personnel to help staff hospitals. 

“Once the delta variant hit Washington state, COVID-19 hospitalizations skyrocketed,” Inslee said. “From mid-July to late August, we saw hospitalizations double about every two weeks. The hospitals have surged to increase staffed beds and stretch staff and have canceled most non-urgent procedures but are still over capacity across the state.” 

New daily infections and the number of people hospitalized in Washington are at or near their highest levels during the pandemic. 

Washington health officials report 69% of people ages 12 years and older in the state are fully vaccinated. 

That is higher than the national figure, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting 64% of the population ages 12 and older being fully vaccinated. 

The new death toll from the virus in the United States was 2,302 on Monday — the highest recorded since March, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 

 
…

U.S.-based pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson said Tuesday new “real world” and phase 3 study data show a second shot of its single-dose vaccine about two months after the initial shot increased its effectiveness to 94%.

In a news release on its website, the company said its clinical trial in the United States showed the booster shot also provided as much as 100 percent protection against severe or critical COVID-19 symptoms beginning at least 14 days after final vaccination.  

The company also said there was no evidence of reduced effectiveness over the study duration, including when the delta variant became dominant in the U.S.

They said tests performed outside the U.S. showed it provided up to 87% protection against severe or critical COVID-19. The company also said a booster given six months after the initial dose saw antibody levels increase by nine times one week after the booster and continued to climb as high as 12-fold.

On Friday, an FDA advisory committee voted to recommend emergency authorization of additional Pfizer shots for Americans 65 and older and those at high risk of severe illness, but voted to recommend against broader approval, saying it wants to see more data.

J&J said it has submitted data to the FDA and plans to submit it to other regulators, the World Health Organization and other vaccine advisory groups worldwide to inform their decision-making.

Some information in this report came from the Associated Press and the Reuters.

 
…

Hundreds of people demonstrated Tuesday in Australia’s second-largest city to protest coronavirus restrictions the government imposed on the construction industry.

Officials announced construction sites in Melbourne would be closed for two weeks amid concerns that the movement of workers was contributing to the spread of COVID-19.

Construction workers are also now required to have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine before being allowed to return to work.

Victoria state, where Melbourne is located, reported 603 new cases on Tuesday, the most infections there in a single day this year.

In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Tuesday that fines for breaking coronavirus protocols would increase starting in November.

The changes would change the fine for someone intentionally failing to comply with a COVID-19 order from about $2,800 to $8,400. Those breaking the restrictions could also face up to six months in prison.

Businesses that violate coronavirus restrictions could face fines of up to $10,500.

“Our success has been really based on the fact that people by and large have been compliant,” Ardern said at a news conference. “However, there has been the odd person that has broken the rules and put others at risk.”

Meanwhile, Governor Jay Inslee, of the western U.S. state of Washington, is asking the federal government for help dealing with the strain on hospitals as the delta variant drives large numbers of infections.

Inslee sent a letter Monday to Jeffrey Zients, the White House pandemic coordinator, saying hospitals in his state are at or beyond capacity and that he is requesting military personnel to help staff hospitals.

“Once the Delta variant hit Washington state, COVID-19 hospitalizations skyrocketed,” Inslee said. “From mid-July to late August, we saw hospitalizations double about every two weeks. The hospitals have surged to increase staffed beds and stretch staff and have canceled most non-urgent procedures but are still over capacity across the state.”

New daily infections and the number of people hospitalized in Washington are at or near their highest levels during the pandemic.

Washington health officials report 69% of people aged 12 years and older in the state are fully vaccinated.

That is higher than the national figure, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting 64% of the population age 12 and older being fully vaccinated.

The Pfizer and BioNTech drug companies said Monday that lower-dose shots of their two-dose COVID-19 vaccine are safe and effective for 5- to 11-year-old children.

The U.S. company and its German partner BioNTech said trials showed the vaccine was well tolerated and robust, neutralizing antibody responses at the lower dose levels necessary in younger children.

Pfizer said it planned soon to seek authorization to use the vaccine in younger patients in the United States, Britain and the European Union, a move that could greatly expand the scope of the vaccination effort. About 28 million U.S. children fall into the age range, and millions of adults have still declined to get the jab.

Pfizer said it studied a lower dose — one-third the strength of the adult dose — in tests involving more than 2,200 kindergartners and elementary school students. Two-thirds of the children were given the vaccine, and the remaining third were given saltwater shots. The company said the vaccinated children developed antibody levels that were just as strong as those exhibited by teenagers and young adults.

With students now back in school and the delta variant spreading throughout the United States, many parents have been anxious for government health officials to approve the vaccine for their young children.

Compared with older people, children are at lower risk of severe illness or death from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, but more than 5 million children in the United States have tested positive for COVID-19, and at least 460 have died, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

U.S. vaccine maker Moderna is also studying its shots in young children. Both Pfizer and Moderna are studying using the vaccine in infants as young as 6 months, with results expected later this year.

On Monday, deaths in the United States from COVID-19 reached 675,975, surpassing deaths from the 1918 Spanish flu.

(Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.) 
…

When Italian reporter Francesco Giovannetti told protesters that he was covering them for the left-leaning daily La Repubblica, insults poured out with abandon.

It was August 30 in Rome, outside the Ministry of Public Education, and demonstrators were speaking out against Italy’s “green pass,” a COVID-19 measure requiring workers to show proof of vaccination, a negative COVID-19 test, or that they had recovered from the virus.

The verbal assault soon escalated into a physical one when one man, who moments earlier had threatened to kill Giovannetti, began to attack the journalist.

“He beat me in the face,” Giovannetti told VOA. “He landed four or five of these hits.”

The police soon intervened. 

Attacked during protests

The attack occurred two days after Italian journalist Antonella Alba was harassed and assaulted while covering similar protests in Rome.

Neither journalist was seriously injured, but Giovannetti’s and Alba’s experiences underscore a broader danger for journalists who cover the pandemic in Europe and the United States.

Journalists have been harassed and attacked over reporting on COVID-19, especially when it comes to coverage of anti-masking campaigns, anti-vaccine campaigns and other forms of COVID-19 denialism.

“We are seen as propaganda right now,” Giovannetti said. “We are a target.” 

Anti-media sentiment was on the rise before the pandemic, according to press freedom analysts. But it has intensified in part due to pressure from extremist and populist groups energized against public health mandates and vaccines, said Attila Mong, a correspondent in Berlin for the advocacy group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Seen as the enemy

In trying to report about health safety, reporters are being viewed by some as the enemy.

“Most responsible media outlets follow scientific and public health instructions and advice, and they broadcast public health messages around mask wearing, about vaccination, about social distancing,” Mong told VOA. “Given this fact, people who oppose these measures perceive the media outlets as part of the government.” 

An international rise in populist rhetoric contributes to this phenomenon, said Reporters Without Borders (RSF) spokesperson Pauline Adès-Mével. “It’s important to recall that some political leaders, such as (former U.S. President) Trump or (Brazil’s president Jair) Bolsonaro, declared the press the enemy of the people,” she told VOA. “Such populist declarations are extremely worrying.”

Not to mention dangerous. 

On August 28, Alba, who reports for Italian public broadcaster Rai News 24, was covering a Rome protest against Italy’s COVID-19 measures. Some of the protesters were affiliated with Forza Nuova – Italian for “New Force” – a far-right, ultra nationalist political party in Italy.

Alba said that demonstrators surrounded her, taunting her for wearing a mask, insulting her and calling the journalist a terrorist. One tried to take Alba’s phone, injuring her in the process.

“I was there to ask (demonstrators), ‘Why are you here?’” Alba told VOA. “My question was very simple, and I couldn’t find an answer that made sense.”

The most coherent explanation was that the green pass would restrict individual freedom. But Alba didn’t buy that. “This is a big contradiction,” Alba said. “If you want freedom, why are you treating me like this? Using violence is not freedom.”

“They wanted to be seen. They wanted to be heard. That’s why I was there, too, because a journalist reports for everybody,” she said. 

COVID-19 deniers and anti-vaccination protesters stormed a newsroom of Slovenian public broadcaster RTV on September 3. And in early August, protesters tried to assault the offices of British public broadcaster BBC – but they had the wrong building.

Journalists in the U.S. haven’t been exempt.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has counted at least 24 pandemic-related press freedom incidents over the past 18 months, including five in August alone. 

Two reporters were assaulted while covering an anti-vaccination rally in Los Angeles on August 14. Four days later in Miami, WLRN reporter Danny Rivero was assaulted while covering a mask mandate protest. 

Rivero told VOA he thinks that some of the protesters, including one who assaulted him, were members of the far-right group, Proud Boys. Some of the protesters were chanting about a conspiracy theory that someone was paying to have a mask mandate instituted, Rivero said. 

Across the street, a group of pro-mask mandate demonstrators had gathered. 

Rivero was interviewing and taking photos of some of the anti-mask mandate protesters. One of them became angry when Rivero took his photo; a group soon formed around Rivero, shoving him and attempting to take his camera, which was around his neck.

“There was a big guy with a big belly, and he just kept walking up toward me, closer and closer,” Rivero told VOA. “And he started bumping me with his belly, and pushing me back and saying, ‘Take off the freaking camera, or I’m going to smash your face in.’” 

Rivero had reported in tense environments before, but the harassment hadn’t gone beyond verbal attacks. He was shocked that people would physically assault him for doing his job.

“I took 30 seconds just to catch my breath a little bit, and then I just went right back to work,” Rivero said. The police advised him against returning to that side of the protest to interview more people, but Rivero didn’t have any issues.

Suspicious of media

The pandemic fury comes at a time when more Americans are suspicious of the media.

A June study from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found 29% of people surveyed in the U.S. trust the news, placing the U.S. last out of 46 countries analyzed in the report.

The pandemic has provided people who were already wary of the media with the affirmation to double down, according to Kirstin McCudden, managing editor at the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

“If you were part of a group that didn’t trust the media to begin with, you can also blame them for the coronavirus coverage,” she told VOA.

“The blame rolls downhill toward journalists,” McCudden said, adding that the media find themselves at an “intersection of being responsible for the news and blamed for the news.” 

WLRN reporter Rivero says he views the current environment “as a growing level of not just distrust but disdain for the work that we do.”

“They don’t want to hear things that might force them to question things and that might poke holes in things that they believe, one way or the other. They don’t like to hear that, so we become a target,” Rivero said. 

CPJ’s Mong told VOA that news outlets, as well as politicians and authorities, are responsible for addressing this issue.

“Journalists themselves very often don’t come forward because they think it’s already part of their everyday lives,” Mong said. “It’s extremely important that even the slightest cases are investigated.” 

For Italian journalist Alba, being assaulted has not deterred her.

“I am continuing to report,” she told VOA. “I’m not afraid.” 

 
…

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern Monday that the world is not on track to meet several urgent targets in the fight against climate change.   

“Based on the present commitments of member states, the world is on a catastrophic pathway to 2.7-degrees [Celsius] of heating, instead of 1.5 we all agreed should be the limit,” Guterres told reporters. “Science tells us that anything above 1.5 degrees would be a disaster.”  

To get to 1.5 degrees, the U.N. says wealthier nations need to step up with $100 billion a year between now and 2025.   

Greenhouse gas emissions also need to be cut by nearly half by 2030 to enable nations to reach carbon neutrality by the 2050 target. This includes the difficult job of getting countries to phase out the use of polluting coal plants.   

“Where I believe there is still a long way to go is in relation to the reduction of emissions,” Guterres said.   

Nearly 80% of emissions are from G-20 countries.  

Review conference  

In November, nations will meet in Glasgow, Scotland, for a key climate conference to review progress on commitments since the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

On Monday, Guterres co-hosted with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson a small meeting of key countries for one of the final gatherings ahead of the conference. Guterres and Johnson have both raised alarms that the review conference, known as COP26, cannot fail and that ambitious commitments are needed.   

“I think that Glasgow — COP26 — is a turning point for the world,” Johnson told reporters. “It is a moment when we have to grow up and take our responsibilities.”  

The U.N. says half of the annual $100 billion in public climate financing needs to go to adaptation efforts in developing countries.  

Guterres expressed concern that progress on this has not been sufficient. Although he did point to some movement, including new commitments from Sweden and Denmark on Monday.   

“I believe that this 50% might gain traction, but we are still not yet there,” he said.

“It is the developing world that is bearing the brunt of catastrophic climate change in the form of hurricanes and fires and floods, and the real long-term economic damage that they face,” Johnson said. “And yet, it is the developed world that over 200 years has put the carbon in the atmosphere that is causing this acceleration of climate change. And so it really is up to us to help them.”  

Climate action activists say it is not spending the money that is holding back accelerated progress.   

“The pandemic has shown that countries can swiftly mobilize trillions of dollars to respond to an emergency — it is clearly a question of political will,” said Nafkote Dabi, Oxfam International’s Global Climate Policy lead. “Let’s be clear, we are in a climate emergency. It is wreaking havoc across the globe and requires the same decisiveness and urgency.”  

 
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