An alliance of world leaders is holding a virtual summit Monday hoping to drum up billions of dollars to fund research into a vaccine for the new coronavirus as well as develop better treatments and more efficient testing.Governments have reported around 3.5 million infections and more than 247,000 deaths from the virus, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University. But deliberately concealed outbreaks, low testing rates and the strain on health care systems mean the true scale of the pandemic is much greater.People in many countries across the globe, and notably in Europe this week, are cautiously returning to work, but authorities remain wary of a second wave of infections, and a vaccine is the only real silver bullet to allow something like normal life to resume.The video-conference’s aim is to gather around 4 billion euros ($4.37 billion) for vaccine research, some 2 billion euros for treatments and 1.5 billion ($1.64 billion) for testing. Officials say that amount is just the start, as much more will be needed in the months ahead to scale up production and distribution.In a statement ahead of the meeting, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Norway and top European Union officials said that the money raised will be channeled mostly through recognized global health organizations. No new structure would be set up to handle the funds raised.”If we can develop a vaccine that is produced by the world, for the whole world, this will be an unique global public good of the 21st century. Together with our partners, we commit to making it available, accessible and affordable to all,” the leaders said.Leaders from Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, Jordan, South Africa and Turkey are also due to speak, along with China’s EU ambassador. The EU had been in contact with the White House and was keen for the United States, where more than 67,000 people have died, to take part but no U.S. official will speak at the event.In her weekly video message, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that “anyone can fall ill with the virus and that is why we have the task of acting together worldwide. It is therefore not only an opportunity for joint action but I would say it is a must, and Germany is facing up to this responsibility.”A British government statement said that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will say that “the race to discover the vaccine to defeat this virus is not a competition between countries, but the most urgent shared endeavor of our lifetimes.”About 100 research groups are pursuing vaccines, with nearly a dozen in early stages of human trials or poised to start. But so far there’s no way to predict which — if any — vaccine will work safely, or even to name a front-runner.Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top expert, has cautioned that even if everything goes perfectly, developing a vaccine in 12 to 18 months would set a speed recordEven if a first useful vaccine is identified, there won’t be enough for everyone. A growing number of vaccine makers say they’re already starting to brew tons of doses — wasting millions of dollars if they bet on the wrong candidate but shaving a few months off mass vaccinations if their choice pans out.EU officials say that pledges made toward vaccine research since Jan. 30, not just on Monday, will be counted as donations toward the 7.5 billion euro ($8.2 billion) target of this conference. 
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Goodbye lockdown, hello smartphone.
As governments race to develop mobile tracing apps to help contain infections, attention is turning to how officials will ensure users’ privacy. The debate is especially urgent in Europe, which has been one of the hardest-hit regions in the world, with nearly 140,000 people killed by COVID-19.
The use of monitoring technology, however, may evoke bitter memories of massive surveillance by totalitarian authorities in much of the continent.  
The European Union has in recent years led the way globally to protect people’s digital privacy, introducing strict laws for tech companies and web sites that collect personal information. Academics and civil liberties activists are now pushing for greater personal data protection in the new apps as well.  
Here’s a look at the issues.Why an App?
European authorities, under pressure to ease lockdown restrictions in place for months in some countries, want to make sure infections don’t rise once confinements end. One method is to trace who infected people come into contact with and inform them of potential exposure so they can self-isolate. Traditional methods involving in-person interviews of patients are time consuming and labor intensive, so countries want an automated solution in the form of smartphone contact tracing apps. But there are fears that new tech tracking tools are a gateway to expanded surveillance.Service unavailableEuropean Standards
Intrusive digital tools employed by Asian governments that successfully contained their virus outbreaks won’t withstand scrutiny in Europe. Residents of the EU cherish their privacy rights so compulsory apps, like South Korea’s, which alerts authorities if users leave their home, or location tracking wristbands, like those used by Hong Kong, just won’t fly.
The contact-tracing solution gaining the most attention involves using low energy Bluetooth signals on mobile phones to anonymously track users who come into extended contact with each other. Officials in western democracies say the apps must be voluntary.  Rival Designs
The battle in Europe has centered on competing systems for Bluetooth apps. One German-led project, Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing, or PEPP-PT, which received early backing from 130 researchers, involves data uploaded to a central server. However, some academics grew concerned about the project’s risks and threw their support behind a competing Swiss-led project, Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing, or DP3T.
Privacy advocates support a decentralized system because anonymous data is kept only on devices. Some governments are backing the centralized model because it could provide more data to aid decisionmaking, but nearly 600 scientists from more than two dozen countries have signed an open letter warning this could, “via mission creep, result in systems which would allow unprecedented surveillance of society at large.”
Apple and Google waded into the fray by backing the decentralized approach as they unveiled a joint effort to develop virus-fighting digital tools. The tech giants are releasing a software interface so public health agencies can integrate their apps with iPhone and Android operating systems, and plan to release their own apps later.
The EU’s executive Commission warned that a fragmented approach to tracing apps hurt the fight against the virus and called for coordination as it unveiled a digital “toolbox” for member countries to build their apps with.Beyond Borders
The approach Europe chooses will have wider implications beyond the practical level of developing tracing apps that work across borders, including the many found in the EU.
“How we do this, what safeguards we put in, what fundamental rights we look very carefully at,” will influence other places, said Michael Veale, a lecture in digital rights at University College London who’s working on the DP3T project. “Countries do look to Europe and campaigners look to Europe,” and will expect the continent to take an approach that preserves privacy, he said.Country by Country
European countries have started embracing the decentralized approach, including Austria, Estonia, Switzerland, and Ireland. Germany and Italy are also adopting it, changing tack after initially planning to use the centralized model.
But there are notable exceptions, raising the risk different apps won’t be able to talk to each other when users cross Europe’s borders.  
EU member France wants its own centralized system but is in a standoff with Apple over a technical hurdle that prevents its system from being used with iOS. The government’s digital minister wants it ready for testing in “real conditions” by May 11 but a legislative debate on the app was delayed after scientists and researchers warned of surveillance risks.  
Some non EU-members are going their own way. Norway rolled out one of the earliest – and most invasive – apps, Smittestopp, which uses both GPS and Bluetooth to collect data and uploads it to central servers every hour.
Britain rejected the system Apple and Google are developing because it would take too long, said Matthew Gould, CEO of the National Health Service’s digital unit overseeing its development. The British app is weeks away from being “technically ready” for deployment, he told a Parliamentary committee.
Later versions of the app would let users upload an anonymized list of people they’ve been in contact with and location data, to help draw a “social graph” of how the virus spreads through contact, Gould said.
Those comments set off alarm bells among British scientists and researchers, who warned last week in an  open letter against going too far by creating a data collection tool. “With access to the social graph, a bad actor (state, private sector, or hacker) could spy on citizens’ real-world activities,” they wrote.  
Despite announcing plans to back European initiatives or develop its own app, Spain’s intricate plan for rolling back one of the world’s strictest confinements doesn’t include a tracing app at all. The health minister said the country will use apps when they are ready but only if they “provide value added” and not simply because other countries are using them.
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An infant manatee rescued off the coast of Florida over the weekend is being treated at Miami Seaquarium, the Florida Keys News Bureau said. Owners of a private residence spotted the manatee along their dock and contacted the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, according to Florida Keys. The female calf is underweight at about 30  kilograms, a veterinarian at Seaquarium said. The Dolphin Research Center’s Manatee Rescue Team and the Dolphins Plus Marine Mammal Responder unit rescued the manatee, after it was separated from its mother, using a net to isolate the calf and take it out of the water. Manatees, also known as sea cows, are large, aquatic and mostly herbivorous marine mammals.  
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Conner Brown, a law student at Stanford University, spent the early days of the pandemic following his brother as he spotted and collected characters in the Pokemon Go mobile game.Then, Brown noticed the birds.”I thought, ‘Why don’t I take up birding?’ It’s like real-life Pokemon Go. It’s super addicting because you can start logging them and you get a little collection. It’s really cool,” said Brown, 25. He paused, then added, “They should really game-ify it.”  Brown, who’s living near Annapolis, Maryland, can now identify 30 different bird species. He can recognize the calls of the brown-headed cowbird and cardinal and tell male birds from females. He bought special binoculars that attach to his iPhone camera, downloaded bird identification and bird-logging apps, and is giving birding advice on Twitter.’A reason to get out of the house'”The world of birds is so much more vibrant and active than I’d ever realized, and once I paid attention, it just hit me in the face,” Brown said. “It’s given me a reason to get out of the house. It’s motivated me.”With coronavirus restrictions dragging on, interest in birdwatching has soared as bored Americans notice a fascinating world just outside their windows. Downloads of popular bird identification apps have spiked, and preliminary numbers show sales of bird feeders, nesting boxes and birdseed have jumped even as demand for other nonessential goods plummets.  FILE – Jordan Miller, 11, watches birds in her backyard in Manlius, N.Y., April 25, 2020, after her Girl Scout troop’s group outing to a New York state park was canceled because of the coronavirus disease outbreak.The trend coincides with peak migration for hundreds of species and nesting season, giving newfound birders a front-row seat to some of nature’s biggest shows. Birds are their most active — and noisy — now, and like Brown, many Americans no longer in an office or classroom all day are taking notice.”The birds don’t know that there’s a pandemic. They’re migrating, building nests and laying eggs, just like they always have,” said Michael Kopack Jr., who put up a birdhouse at his home in Angier, North Carolina, and is watching a pair of bluebirds hatch their eggs.”It kind of takes us back to a magical time six or eight weeks ago when there was no pandemic,” he said. “It lets me decompress and get away from everything that’s going on in the world, at least for a little while.”Downloads of the National Audubon Society’s bird identification app in March and April doubled over that period last year, and unique visits to its website are up by a half-million. The prestigious Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York, has seen downloads of its free bird identification app, Merlin ID, shoot up 102% over the same time last year, with 8,500 downloads on Easter weekend alone.  Live bird camsVisits to Cornell’s live bird cams have doubled, and uploads of bird photos and calls have increased 45% and 84%, respectively, on Cornell’s crowdsourced bird-logging app, eBird.Even retailers seem to be cashing in despite the crashing economy. Preliminary marketing data show overall sales rising 10% to 15% this spring in the “birding category,” according to data from Panacea Products Corp., which makes bird-feeding products.Amid the surging interest, spring bird counts nationwide are getting some adjustments for social distancing. The counts are critical for understanding how migratory birds are faring and are a high point for avid birders each year.In Portland, Oregon, those participating in the Birdathon — a fundraiser for the Audubon Society of Portland — will go birdwatching individually over a period of weeks instead of heading out in teams for a day or a weekend. They will report their sightings by virtual check-in, ending with a Zoom celebration on May 9, said Sarah Swanson, the fundraiser’s coordinator.FILE – An osprey unsuccessfully tries to land on a twig-size branch atop a tree along the Cedar River next to Renton Municipal Airport, April 29, 2020, in Renton, Wash.”Birds are everywhere now. They’re singing, they’re migrating, they’re nesting,” she said. “They’re busy every minute of the day, doing all these interesting behaviors — and I think that’s what draws people in.”Even people who loved the outdoors before the pandemic have discovered — or rediscovered — birding in new ways.Phillip Torres, host of Discovery Channel’s Expedition X, knows a lot about nature but hadn’t paid much attention to birds, preferring to study insects, snakes and plants. When the virus postponed travel to exotic destinations and forced his show into hiatus, Torres moved from New York City to Seattle. He noticed birds in his new backyard, watching robins pluck worms from the ground “just like in the cartoons.”With his professional video gear still in New York, Torres put up hummingbird feeders and invested in a spotting scope and clamps to attach his iPhone to the feeders. He recorded stunning slow-motion video of an Anna’s hummingbird coming to his feeder that he shared on Twitter.”I managed to get something pretty spectacular that’s flying around us all the time, but we don’t get the chance to stop and appreciate it,” Torres said.”I’m really reconnecting with what’s immediately around me,” he said. “Everybody dreams about seeing lions in the wild or tigers in the wild, but we’ve got some pretty amazing stuff right out our window — and it’s really good for the soul.”
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The U.N. Children’s Fund warns that COVID-19 mitigation measures are preventing the shipment of vaccines to dozens of developing countries, putting the lives of millions of children at risk.
   
Lockdowns and other measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus are causing a massive backlog in vaccine shipments.  UNICEF reports it had procured nearly 2.5 billion doses of vaccines last year, enough for 45% of all children under age 5 in 100 countries.
 
But the agency says that most of these vaccines are stuck in warehouses because of the dramatic decline in commercial and charter flights due to COVID-19 restrictions.  It says dozens of countries are running out of these vaccines.  It says 26 countries, more than half in sub-Saharan Africa, are at particular risk.
 
UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado says the skyrocketing costs of shipping the vaccines are compounding these problems.  She says freight rates are 100 to 200% higher than before, and the cost of chartering a plane is exorbitant.
    
“Countries with limited resources will struggle to pay these higher prices, leaving children vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and polio.  Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, measles, polio and other vaccines were out of reach for 20 million children under the age of 1 every year,” Mercado said.
    
Health officials report most polio vaccination campaigns have been suspended, putting the decades-long polio eradication initiative at risk.  Mercado told VOA it is possible to organize immunization campaigns in the midst of the pandemic.
    
“In DRC, which you know had the worst measles outbreak last year, we had been immunizing children against measles.  Of course, respecting the social distancing and safety measures that are required now,” Mercado said.
    
UNICEF warns disruptions in routine immunization, especially in countries with fragile health systems, could lead to outbreaks of killer diseases this year and beyond.  It is appealing to governments, the private sector and airline industry to free freight space and make the cost of transporting these vaccines affordable.
 
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The United Nations says torrential rains and flooding have affected nearly 150,000 people throughout Yemen, causing serious damage to vital infrastructure and exposing thousands to potentially life-threatening disease outbreaks.U.N. agencies say the rains, which have been ongoing since mid-April, have damaged houses and shelters, rendering thousands homeless. Flood waters have washed out roads and bridges, contaminated water supplies and knocked out electricity and other vital services.The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says conditions are particularly harsh for thousands of families already displaced by conflict, who have lost shelter, food rations and household supplies.OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke told VOA many people are at risk of getting ill or dying from disease outbreaks, which thrive in flooded, unsanitary conditions.“Water-borne disease such as cholera or vector-borne, such as malaria because the stagnant water after the flooding is a breeding ground for mosquitos. So, getting rid of the water as fast as possible is very important and, of course, providing clean drinking water for the families who are there already,” he said.Laerke said more than 110,000 cases of suspected cholera have been recorded across Yemen since January.Yemen’s civil war, which is in its fifth year, has taken a heavy toll in lost lives and has shattered the country’s socio-economic structure. The U.N. says 80 percent of the population, or 24 million people, are in need of international assistance. It calls Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.Looming over the existing calamity is the threat of COVID-19. Laerke said so far only six cases of the disease have been confirmed in the country.“But really, the setting there almost conspires to make this into a disaster if we start seeing widespread communal transmission of COVID-19. One particular issue here is really the massive funding problems in Yemen at the moment,” he said.Laerke said the U.N.’s humanitarian operation needs a significant boost in funding. Otherwise, he warns many programs critical to combatting COVID-19, such as providing clean water, sanitation and access to health care, risk being shut down in coming months. 
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The U.S. space agency NASA has announced a new high-pressure ventilator developed by its engineers and designed specifically to COVID-19 patients has been approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The device, called VITAL — meaning “Ventilator Intervention Technology Accessible Locally” — was designed and built in 37 days by engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in the city of Pasadena, California. Its designers say it is intended to be used exclusively on COVID-19 patients, freeing up traditional ventilators, which are built for a broad range of medical uses, and the most severe coronavirus cases. In critical cases, the coronavirus damages healthy tissue in the lungs, making it hard for them to deliver oxygen to the blood. Ventilators feed oxygen into the lungs of patients through a tube inserted down the throat. Among those involved in the project, mechatronics engineer Michelle Easter said scientists approached the project in the same way they would build a spacecraft, with an eye towards reliability yet simplicity. NASA says as a result, it is cheaper to build, composed of fewer parts and can be modified for use in field hospitals. The California Institute of Technology, which manages the JPL, is offering a royalty-free license to manufacturers worldwide and is also contacting the commercial medical industry to find manufacturers for the device. Easter says they’ve received interest from potential production partners around the world, not just in the U.S.  
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The World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday that it has not been invited by China to join the investigation into the cause of the coronavirus pandemic.WHO’s representative in Beijing Dr. Gauden Galea said he expected China would discuss collaborations with the organization in the “near future.””We know some national investigation is happening but at this stage we have not been invited to join. We are expecting to get, in the near future, a briefing on where that is and to discuss possible collaboration,” Galea said.The coronavirus disease COVID-19, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has taken over 230,000 human lives worldwide, according to a collection of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, and confirmed infection cases have reached 3.2 million.Beijing has been criticized for lack of transparency in its handling of the pandemic, with the United States investigating whether the virus might have gotten out from a Wuhan biosecurity laboratory.The official tally of infections in Wuhan has been questionable from the very beginning with the government frequently changing its counting criteria at the peak of the outbreak.Meanwhile, China has dismissed the possibility that the coronavirus pandemic originated in that lab and it was not transmitted from animals to humans in Wuhan as commonly believed.Although the origin of COVID-19 is yet to be determined, some scientists suspect the virus was transmitted to humans from animals at a wet market in Wuhan.
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The International Space Station received several tons of supplies this week from an unmanned craft, but the big story this week is a milestone birthday for the ultimate eye in the sky, as the Hubble Telescope turned 30. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi spoke with NASA’s director of astrophysics and brings us this story.
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