The World Health Organization (WHO) expressed disappointment Tuesday with the failure of Chinese officials to grant final permission to an international team of researchers to enter the country to investigate the origins of the coronavirus.At the agency’s regular COVID-19 briefing at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “very disappointed” that China had not authorized entry of the team, some of whom had begun their travels to Wuhan. The news forced other members of the team to cancel their travel at the last minute.Tedros said plans for the trip had been arranged jointly among WHO officials, the Chinese government and the countries for which the team was meant to travel through on their way to Wuhan. He said the agency just learned Tuesday “that Chinese officials have not yet finalized the necessary permissions for the team’s arrival in China.”Tedros said he had been in contact with senior Chinese officials. “And I have once again made it clear that the mission is a priority for WHO and the international team. I have been assured that China is speeding up the internal procedures for the earliest possible deployment. We are eager to get the mission under way as soon as possible.”FILE – Medical workers move a person who died from COVID-19 at a hospital in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province, Feb. 16, 2020.China reported the first cases of a pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan to the WHO on Dec. 31, 2019, and closed a market where the novel coronavirus was believed to have emerged.Health ministers called on the WHO in May to identify the source of the virus and how it crossed the species barrier.The United States, which has accused China of having hidden the outbreak’s extent, has called for a “transparent” WHO-led investigation and criticized its terms, which allowed Chinese scientists to do the first phase of preliminary research. U.S. President Donald Trump has accused the agency of being a puppet for China during the pandemic. The coronavirus causes the COVID-19 illness. 
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French Health Minister Olivier Veran said Tuesday the nation was going to “amplify, accelerate and simplify” its COVID-19 vaccination program after coming under fire for the initial slow roll out of the program.In an interview with French radio, Veran said more than 2,000 doctors, nurses and other health care workers have received vaccinations. He also announced that firefighters and home aid workers age 50 and older would also be prioritized “because they are also professionals who are in contact with fragile people and who may have to work with the sick.”The faster-paced vaccination campaign comes after the government was criticized for its slow rollout of the vaccine, delivering just over 500 inoculations in the first week, compared to hundreds of thousands delivered by Germany in the same period.The criticism prompted French President Emmanuel Macron to call a meeting with Veran, Prime Minister Jean Castex and other leaders late Tuesday to discuss how to speed up the process.Veran vowed to increase vaccinations exponentially in the next few days, promising the pace of the program “will be on par with that of our neighbors” by the end of the week.He said France is prepared to deliver 500,000 doses per week of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and once it is approved by the European Medicines regulatory agency, (EMA) they will be prepared to deliver 500,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine per month. The EMA is expected to consider the Moderna vaccine Wednesday.
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As millions of people await their turn to get a COVID-19 vaccine that could be months away, scammers online, in emails and on messaging apps are luring victims with claims they can deliver shots within days for as little as $150.
 
COVID-19 vaccine scams are on the rise, according to European and U.S. government officials who are warning the public of fraudsters out for money and personal data.
 
A Reuters search online, in dark web forums and on messaging app Telegram found seven different offers for alleged COVID-19 vaccines.
 
Scams include emails promising entry to supposedly secret lists for early vaccine access and robocallers impersonating government agencies. Message boards on the so-called dark web have added COVID-19 vaccines to more traditional illicit goods for sale.
 
The U.S. FBI and Interpol, among others, have warned of emerging pandemic-related fraud schemes, saying false cures and vaccines advertised on fake websites could pose cyber threats and a significant risk to peoples’ health, or even lives.
 
Website domains containing the word vaccine in combination with COVID-19 or coronavirus more than doubled since October to roughly 2,500 in November, when the first legitimate vaccines were nearing regulatory approval, according to cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, which is tracking COVID-19 fraud online.
 
“So far a lot of these domains just appear to be opportunistic registrations, but some are going to be used for phishing attempts to have people click on (malicious) links,” said Lindsay Kaye, director of operational outcomes at Recorded Future.
 
Kaye said her team, which also scours the dark web, so far has not come across any legitimate vaccine diverted from healthcare facilities or national stockpiles.
 
The scams are preying on concerns about the far slower-than-promised rollout of vaccines to protect against the virus that has claimed more than 1.8 million lives worldwide so far. Most people will likely have to wait well into the spring, or even summer, to get their shot.
 
In the United States, only about 4.5 million people had received their first shot as of Monday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. That is a fraction of the 20 million who were supposed to have been vaccinated by the end of 2020, according to earlier government forecasts.
  Vaccines, Guns and Money
 
On dark web forum Agartha, fake COVID-19 vaccines were offered next to cocaine, opioid medication, “super high quality fake money,” hand guns and gift cards. Posts showed stock photos of vaccines and offered vials for $500 and $1,000, or the equivalent in Bitcoin.
 
On another dark web site, a seller claiming to be from the “Wuhan Institute of Science” offered COVID-19 vaccines in exchange for a donation, and asked buyers to provide their medical history.
 
On Telegram, several channels claimed to offer COVID-19 vaccines, accompanied by stock images. One user offered supposed Moderna Inc vaccines for $180, and claimed the vaccine from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE could be had for $150 and AstraZeneca’s for $110 per vial.
 
Asked how the vaccines would be shipped, the account creator said they were transported in “regulated temperature packs” and ice packs within a few days, or overnight for an additional charge.
 
Actual COVID-19 vaccines, particularly the Pfizer/BioNTech offering, must be temperature controlled to remain effective, with drugmakers equipping shipments with temperature trackers to ensure the cold chain. Vaccine shipments and distribution are also tightly controlled by officials and will be administered at no cost.
 
The United States has so far authorized two COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use – the ones from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna. The European Union to date has authorized the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and is expected to clear the Moderna vaccine this week.
 
 The UK has already authorized those two and just added the vaccine developed by Oxford University with AstraZeneca.
 
Asked about vaccine scams, Pfizer said it had taken meticulous steps to reduce the risk of counterfeiting and tracked trends very carefully.
 
“Patients should never try to secure a vaccine online – no legitimate vaccine is sold online – and only get vaccinated at certified vaccination centers or by certified healthcare providers,” a Pfizer spokesman said in a statement.
 
Moderna referred a request for comment to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which did not respond. AstraZeneca did not respond to a request for comment.
 
The HHS, FBI and U.S. Department of Justice have urged the public to report any COVID-19 vaccine scams, including people asking for out-of-pocket payments for the vaccine and online vaccine advertisements.
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In France, public frustration with the government is growing as the nation’s coronavirus immunization campaign gets off to a slow start. In response, officials say they will speed up and widen the vaccine rollout.As of Monday, only 2,500 people had received the vaccine against COVID-19 in France — most of them nursing home residents and their nurses.  It is too small a number, critics say,  for a rollout that began, as in other EU countries, on December 27. A doctor administers a dose of Pfizer-BioNtech coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccine to an old woman on Jan. 4, 2020 at the Antonin Balmes gerontology center in Montpellier in the south of France.Critics describe the pace as ridiculously low compared with neighboring Germany, where at least 264,000 people have been vaccinated so far. French President Emmanuel Macron and his government are under pressure to do better, especially considering the relative success of other nations in Europe.    One of the main critics is Jean Rottner, the president of France’s Grand Est region. Rottner says the immunization strategy in France is a scandal, and he says the government keeps failing like it did for the masks and the tests. He says he is devastated since his region is heavily hit by the pandemic. FILE – A woman is tested for COVID-19 at a mobile testing center in Marseille, France, Sept. 24, 2020.French officials claim they are still on track to reach their goal to have one million people vaccinated by the end of January. To make it, authorities say they will set up 600 immunization centers across the territory by the end of this month. Olivier Veran, France’s health minister, addressed concerns Tuesday, and he vowed to catch up with the other EU countries.  Veran says the French government will now amplify, accelerate and simplify the immunization strategy. Firefighters and in-home care workers above 50 years of age, will now receive the vaccine. The minister, who oversees the fight against the virus, says it is a permanent race to save lives. Although the immunization response is coordinated at the European level, each of the 27 members is responsible for setting its own strategy. The Netherlands will only start its immunization campaign on January 8. FILE – Healthcare workers assist a COVID-19 patient in the intensive care unit at the Joseph Imbert Hospital Center in Arles, southern France, April 5, 2020.As of Monday, more than 65,000 people had died from COVID-19 in France according data from Johns Hopkins University.  
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The amount of baked-in global warming, from carbon pollution already in the air, is enough to blow past internationally agreed upon goals to limit climate change, a new study finds. But it’s not game over because, while that amount of warming may be inevitable, it can be delayed for centuries if the world quickly stops emitting extra greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, the study’s authors say. For decades, scientists have talked about so-called “committed warming,” or the increase in future temperature based on past carbon dioxide emissions that stay in the atmosphere for well over a century. It’s like the distance a speeding car travels after the brakes are applied.  But Monday’s study in the journal Nature Climate Change calculates that a bit differently and now figures the carbon pollution already put in the air will push global temperatures to about 2.3 degrees Celsius (4.1 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times.  Previous estimates, including those accepted by international science panels, were about a degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) less than that amount of committed warming. International climate agreements set goals of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, with the more ambitious goal of limiting it to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) added in Paris in 2015. The world has already warmed about 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit).  “You’ve got some … global warming inertia that’s going to cause the climate system to keep warming, and that’s essentially what we’re calculating,” said study co-author Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University. “Think about the climate system like the Titanic. It’s hard to turn the ship when you see the icebergs.” Factoring in cooler spotsDessler and colleagues at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Nanjing University in China calculated committed warming to take into account that the world has warmed at different rates in different places and that places that haven’t warmed as fast are destined to catch up.  Places such as the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica are a bit cooler, and that difference creates low-lying clouds that reflect more sun away from Earth, keeping these places cooler. But this situation can’t keep going indefinitely because physics dictates that cooler locations will warm up and when they do, the clouds will dwindle and more heating will occur, Dessler said.  Previous studies were based on the cooler spots staying that way, but Dessler and colleagues say that’s not likely. Outside experts said the work is based on compelling reasoning but want more research to show that it’s true. Breakthrough Institute climate scientist Zeke Hausfather said the new work fits better with climate models than observational data. Rate of warming Just because the world is bound to get more warming than international goals, that doesn’t mean all is lost in the fight against global warming, said Dessler, who cautioned against what he called “climate doomers.”  If the world gets to net zero carbon emissions soon, 2 degrees of global warming could be delayed enough so that it won’t happen for centuries, giving society time to adapt or even come up with technological fixes, he said.  “If we don’t, we’re going to blow through (climate goals) in a few decades,” Dessler said. “It’s really the rate of warming that makes climate change so terrible. If we got a few degrees over 100,000 years, that would not be that big a deal. We can deal with that. But a few degrees over 100 years is really bad.” 
 
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Britain’s prime minister announced a fresh round of lockdowns Monday, closing schools and nonessential shops, as the country begins vaccinating health care workers and the elderly.Prime Minister Boris Johnson said people must stay at home until at least mid-February, noting that British hospitals are under more strain now than they have been at any point during the pandemic.“If the rollout of the vaccine program continues to be successful. If deaths start to fall as the vaccine takes effect. And critically, if everyone plays their part by following the rules, then I hope we can steadily move out of lockdown,” Johnson said in a televised address Monday.Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson visits Chase Farm Hospital in north London, Jan. 4, 2021, part of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.The announcement comes days after British health officials confirmed a variant of the coronavirus that doctors say is far more contagious than the original.New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Monday that a case of the same variant had been confirmed in an older New York state resident who had not traveled recently.NEW: The Wadsworth Lab has confirmed New York State’s first case of the U.K. variant (B.1.1.7) of the virus that causes COVID.An individual from Saratoga County, New York, tested positive for the strain. The individual had no known travel history.— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) Brian Pinker, 82, receives the Oxford University/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from nurse Sam Foster at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, England, Jan. 4, 2021.British officials say half a million doses of the vaccine are ready for use.The AstraZeneca vaccine is cheaper and more easily transported than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine because it does not need to be kept at extremely cold temperatures. The Pfizer shot has already been administered to many health care professionals in Britain and the United States.France, which is administering the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, pledged Monday to increase the speed at which it is inoculating its health care workers after facing criticism from the public.FILE – A man applies finishing touches to graffiti representing a vaccine, amidst the spread of coronavirus disease, in Kolkata, India, Jan. 2, 2021.In Russia, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said that more than 800,000 people had received the domestically produced Sputnik V vaccine and that 1.5 million doses had been distributed throughout the country of 147 million.The Kremlin is pinning its hopes on mass vaccinations, not nationwide restrictions, to stop the spread of the virus and save its struggling economy from the hit of another lockdown.The coronavirus has killed more than 1.8 million people globally since emerging in China in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins.Experts fear the worst is yet to come, predicting a sharp rise in cases and deaths after weeks of holiday gatherings.VOA’s Fern Robinson contributed to this report.
 
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Drug maker Moderna says it plans to ramp up production of its COVID-19 vaccine by 100 million more doses than what it originally forecast.The Massachusetts-based company said Monday it would produce 600 million doses in 2021.So far, the company says it has supplied 18 million doses of a promised 200 million to the U.S. government.U.S. states have been administering both the Moderna vaccine and a vaccine produced by Pfizer-BioNTech since late last month.Both vaccines are reportedly highly effective in preventing coronavirus infection.According to MarketWatch, Moderna’s stock is up 453.0% over the past year.  
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British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Monday the government is not ruling out new restrictions as the coronavirus continues to spread even in areas with the strictest constraints.In television interviews, Hancock said a new variant spreads more easily than the original strains of the virus and Britain’s three-tiered system of restrictions is proving less effective at controlling it.Hancock said that while new restrictions might be necessary, ultimately it is up to people’s behavior. He said people should act as if they already have the virus and take greater care around others.“Yes, it’s about the government rules, and absolutely we’re prepared to bring in, unfortunately, tougher rules if they are needed on the public health advice. But it’s on all of us,” Hancock said.The health secretary praised the National Health Service (NHS) for its vaccination program, saying it has successfully inoculated more than a million people at 700 sites around the country and that there would be more than a thousand sites by the end of the week.Hancock also praised the latest vaccine, produced in a joint effort between the University of Oxford and drug manufacturer AstraZeneca, saying British science is leading the world.Britain reported 55,157 new cases on Sunday, and 455 new deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The nation set a daily record for new cases Saturday with 57,853. 
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Vaccinations against the coronavirus are off to a slow and chaotic start in the United States, but the country’s top infectious disease expert held out hope Sunday that the pace will soon pick up. “We are not where we want to be, no doubt about it,” Dr. Anthony Fauci told ABC News’ “This Week” show. “We need to catch up.” So far, the U.S. has distributed 13 million doses of two vaccines produced by drug makers Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna throughout the country but only 4.2 million shots have ended up in the arms of Americans. “The vaccines are being delivered to the states by the federal government far faster than they can be administered!” President Donald Trump said on Twitter. But Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical adviser to President-elect Joe Biden, said that the pace of inoculating people – chiefly health care workers and elderly people in nursing homes in the initial stages of the vaccination campaign – is picking up. “There is a glimmer of hope,” Fauci said, with 1.5 million shots administered in the last three days. He added, “We’ve got to get interaction between the federal government and the (country’s 50) states, a real partnership.” Florida Department of Health medical workers prepare to administer a COVID-19 vaccine to seniors in the parking lot of the Gulf View Square Mall in New Port Richey near Tampa, Florida, Dec. 31, 2020.In some states, long lines of people waiting for shots have formed on sidewalks leading to health centers. In the city of Houston, Texas, officials had 750 shots available, but 250,000 people called a registration line in hopes of scheduling a vaccination. Biden has called for 100 million vaccinations in the first 100 days of his administration that starts with his inauguration January 20. Fauci said the stepped-up pace of inoculations can be met. “It’s realistic,” he said. “We can do a million a day.” Fauci said that if 70% to 85% of Americans are vaccinated in the coming months the United States can return to some sense of normality by next September or October. Fauci was for a while the face of the Trump’s administration’s response to the pandemic that has killed more than 350,000 Americans and left more than 20.4 million infected. Both figures surpass those of any other country, according to the Johns Hopkins University.  With the U.S. coronavirus caseload growing by tens of thousands a day and Trump preoccupied with a November reelection bid he lost, the White House mostly sidelined Fauci in favor of a more favorable commentary on the development of the vaccines. In a tweet Sunday, Trump indicated he was still upset about Fauci’s standing in the court of public opinion. “Something how Dr. Fauci is revered by the LameStream Media as such a great professional, having done, they say, such an incredible job, yet he works for me and the Trump Administration, and I am in no way given any credit for my work,” Trump said. “Gee, could this just be more Fake News?” Something how Dr. Fauci is revered by the LameStream Media as such a great professional, having done, they say, such an incredible job, yet he works for me and the Trump Administration, and I am in no way given any credit for my work. Gee, could this just be more Fake News?— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2021
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Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned Sunday of new lockdowns to be issued across the country as cases of the coronavirus surge, particularly with a new variant spreading.Britain has been seeing upwards of 50,000 new cases daily as health experts note that the variant is up to 70 percent more contagious.“We are entirely reconciled to do what it takes to get the virus under control that may involve tougher measures in the weeks ahead,” Johnson told the BBC.A health worker engages in a COVID-19 vaccine delivery system trial in New Delhi, India, Jan. 2, 2021.Also, on Sunday, Travellers walk with their luggage at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, Jan. 2, 2021.Ban on US travelers, tighter lockdowns The Philippines said it would prohibit the entry of foreign travelers from the U.S. until at least January 15 after the new coronavirus variant was detected.In Bangkok, Thai officials shuttered the city’s nightlife with a ban on bar, nightclub and restaurant alcohol sales, among a raft of restrictions aimed at curbing the kingdom’s rising toll. Elsewhere, Tokyo’s governor on Saturday asked Japan’s government to declare a new state of emergency as the country battles a third wave of infections, with record numbers of new cases.France, which recently lengthened an overnight curfew by two hours in parts of the country, has the highest case count in western Europe with more than 2.7 million, according to Johns Hopkins.Spanish police broke up a gathering Saturday near Barcelona, where 300 people had been partying for more than 40 hours.Ireland on Saturday reported 3,394 cases of the outbreak nearly doubling its record for a single day. Irish officials Friday said they had underreported coronavirus cases in recent days by more than 9,000, as its reporting system came under strain. Italy, which has the highest coronavirus death toll in Europe at nearly 75,000, Saturday reported 364 more people had died from the virus, a drop compared with Friday’s total of 462. The Guardian reported that new cases had also decreased, from 22,211 to 11,831.Norway, with one of the lowest infection rates in Europe, Saturday began requiring COVID-19 tests upon arrival into the country, after finding five cases of the British variant. Denmark discovered 86 cases of that new, more contagious strain.Greece has extended until January 10 its strict two-month lockdown measures, ending an easing of the restrictions for the holidays.In Zimbabwe, where recorded cases have almost doubled since the beginning of November, government officials ordered a new containment Saturday evening. The country has recorded nearly 14,500 cases to date, including 377 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.Zimbabwe Reintroduces Dusk-to-Dawn Curfew to Contain Rising COVID-19 Cases Besides the curfew, other measures include limiting the number of mourners at funerals to 30 people, while all other gatherings at weddings, churches, bars, bottle stores, gyms and restaurants are bannedIn South Africa, government-backed security forces stepped up a “zero-tolerance approach” to enforcing a mask mandate, and President Cyril Ramaphosa banned alcohol sales, calling it a root cause of accidents and violence that strain hospital resources.
The coronavirus has killed more than 1.8 million people globally since emerging in China in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins.Experts fear the worst is yet to come, predicting a sharp rise in cases and deaths after weeks of holiday gatherings.  
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Israel said Sunday two million people will have received a two-dose Covid-19 vaccination by the end of January, a pace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasts is the world’s fastest.Starting on December 19, when Netanyahu got his first jab, Israel launched an aggressive push to administer the vaccine made by U.S.-German pharma alliance Pfizer-BioNTech.Health Ministry Director General Hezi Levy said that because of the enthusiastic takeup, Israel would be easing the speed of vaccination to eke out stocks.The vaccine must be given in two separate jabs, administered three weeks apart.”We are slowing the pace of vaccinations of the first dose, so that we can keep reserved stock for a second dose for all those who got a first shot,” Levy told public broadcaster KAN.But he added that around a fifth of Israel’s people, starting with health workers and those over 60, would have had both shots by the end of this month. “By the end of January, we shall have inoculated two million residents, most of them elderly,” he said.As of Friday, one million people had received their first injection.”We are breaking all the records,” Netanyahu said Friday, during a visit to the Israeli Arab city of Umm Al-Fahm, where the millionth jab was reported administered.”We are ahead of the entire world,” the premier said.The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics said in a year-end statement that Israel’s population stood at 9.29 million.The figure includes annexed east Jerusalem, where Israeli sovereignty is not recognized by most of the international community.The health ministry said on Sunday that 435,866 people in Israel had so far tested positive for the virus since the first confirmed case was reported in February. Almost 3,400 people have died, it said.The ministry said on Friday that it had confirmed 18 local cases of a new strain of coronavirus first detected in Britain. 
 
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Zimbabwe has reintroduced a 12-hour dusk-to-dawn curfew to contain rising COVID19 cases and combat citizens’ disregard of lockdown regulations. The World Health Organization is calling on Zimbabweans to abide by the new regulations. Public health experts and informal traders have concerns about the measures. 
Announcing the 12-hour curfew Saturday night on national television, Vice President Constantino Chiwenga said the government was concerned by a spike in coronavirus cases in Zimbabwe.      “We have seen a surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths, almost double in two months, from 8,374 on 1 November to 14,084 to date. In light of the recent surge in COVID-19 cases the following stiff lockdown measures are being put in place with immediate effect,”  he said.   Sam Wadzai, who leads the activist group Vendors Initiative Social and Economic Transformation Zimbabwe, wants members get social protection so that they can survive during the lockdown, Jan. 3, 2021. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA) ​Besides the curfew, other measures include limiting the number of mourners at funerals to 30 people, while all other gatherings at weddings, churches, bars, bottle stores, gyms and restaurants are banned. Chiwenga – who doubles as Zimbabwe’s health minister – said a review of the new measures would be done in 30 days. 
 
Participants in the informal sector of Zimbabwe’s economy say the new measures will not work. Sam Wadzai leads the activist group Vendors Initiative Social and Economic Transformation Zimbabwe.  “Clearly the government has not drawn lessons from the first lockdown where [in] March [2020] they announced the existence of a cushioning fund which did not benefit the majority of informal traders. In the few cases where informal traders received these allowances, the value had long been eroded by inflation. Lockdown measures should be implemented along with the introduction of proper social protection schemes to protect the vulnerable of our society. Otherwise, it would be very, very difficult for the measures to be abided by.”    Dr. Pamela Magande, president of Zimbabwe College of Public Health Physicians, says lockdowns should be accompanied with equipping hospitals with medicines, PPEs and modern equipment. (Courtesy: Dr. Magande)Dr. Pamela Magande, president of Zimbabwe College of Public Health Physicians, says lockdowns should be accompanied with equipping hospitals with medicines, PPEs and modern equipment.  “Hospitals are actually difficult to work in because there is nothing to work with. Everyone needs to be brought to the table because lockdown on its own we are just delaying the inevitable. We will emerge from the lockdown and we will have transmissions again and we will be back from where we started,” she said.  Dr. Alex Gasasira heads the World Health Organization in Zimbabwe. He says citizens have to embrace the new lockdown measures so that the southern African nation can contain escalating cases of coronavirus. 
   
“If we, as individuals play our role at our individual levels in our homes, in our communities, this will complement the measures that the government has put in place and will enable the objective of reduced transmission being achieved in Zimbabwe in short time,”  he said.  He said personal hygiene, wearing face masks and social distance were some of the measures that individual Zimbabweans can take if the new strict lockdown measures were to bear fruit.  Meanwhile, Zimbabwe police said it had arrested over 2,000 people over the New Year’s holiday weekend who flouted the country’s lockdown regulations imposed in March.  
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The news came during a hopeful time on the largest Native American reservation.Daily coronavirus cases were in the single digits, down from a springtime peak of 238 that made the Navajo Nation a U.S. hot spot. The tribe, wanting to ensure a COVID-19 vaccine would be effective for its people, said it would welcome Pfizer clinical trials on its reservation spanning Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.Right away, tribal members accused their government of allowing them to be guinea pigs, pointing to painful times in the past when Native Americans didn’t consent to medical testing or weren’t fully informed about procedures.A Navajo Nation review board gave the study quicker approval than normal after researchers with Johns Hopkins University’s Center for American Indian Health made the case for diversity. Without Native volunteers, how would they know if tribal members responded to vaccines the same as others?“Unfortunately, Native Americans have effectively been denied the opportunity to participate in these clinical trials because almost all of the study sites are in large, urban areas that have not done effective outreach to Native Americans,” said Dr. Laura Hammitt of Johns Hopkins.Suspicion and distrustAbout 460 Native Americans participated in the trials for the vaccine by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, including Navajos. The enrollment reflects a growing understanding of the role that people of color play in vaccine development and the push to rapidly deploy it to curb infections among populations that have been disproportionately affected by the virus.Yet, few of the country’s 574 federally recognized tribes have signed on for the studies, a hesitation often rooted in suspicion and distrust. Many tribes also require several layers of approval for clinical trials, a challenge researchers aren’t always willing to overcome and don’t face in the states.While vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna Inc. roll out across Indian Country, others are being studied.In the Pacific Northwest, the Lummi Nation and the Nooksack Indian Tribe plan to participate in a vaccine trial from another company, Novavax Inc. A Cheyenne River Sioux researcher plans to enroll Native Americans and others in South Dakota in the Novavax trial and another by Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline.On the Navajo Nation, Arvena Peshlakai, her husband, Melvin, and their daughter Quortnii volunteered for the Pfizer trials.Arvena Peshlakai said the rumors were rampant: Navajos would be injected with the virus, and researchers would use plasma from people who got COVID-19.She was assured that wasn’t happening and let the words of her parents and grandparents guide her: Don’t let our struggles be your struggles, begin with our triumphs.“What else am I supposed to do? Just sit back and say, ‘No, I don’t trust them’ and not try something new to see if we can find a breakthrough?” Peshlakai said. “We have to do something; we can’t just sit by and wait and hope and pray.”She overcame her fear of needles to get the doses and keeps track of her well-being daily on an app. As trial participants, the family can get the vaccine if they initially received a placebo.The Pfizer trials among the Navajo and White Mountain Apache tribes enrolled 275 people, about 80% of them Native American, Hammitt said. It wasn’t as many as researchers had hoped for, but she said it’s enough to compare immune and antibody responses in Native patients to others.Vaccine trials nationwide have been moving quickly, which doesn’t always align with tribal guidelines on considering research proposals.“It must be done with respect for tribal sovereignty and knowing that each individual has truly been given informed consent,” said Abigail Echo-Hawk, director of the Urban Indian Health Institute in Seattle.It helped that Johns Hopkins has a decades-long history with the Navajos and Apaches, including other clinical trials. Hammitt said the Navajo Human Research Review Board was receptive to a quick review of the vaccine trials because of the devastating impact of the pandemic.’A few brave people’In South Dakota, the Cheyenne River Sioux tribal health committee initially pushed back on Dr. Jeffrey Henderson’s proposal for trials of the Novavax vaccine. Henderson, a tribal member, was sent into the community to gauge support.He expects to get approval from a newly seated tribal council but for now, plans to set up a mobile unit outside the reservation.“We refuse to do this type of research or any research within the boundaries of a tribe without having explicit approval from the tribe,” Henderson said.In Washington state, the Nooksack tribe is set to begin enrolling volunteers in the Novavax trials Monday, said Dr. Frank James, the tribe’s health officer.“I expect a slow start to it, and we have to get a few brave people who are comfortable with it and then people to follow,” he said.The nearby Lummi Nation is moving forward with a three-part review and approval process for the Novavax trials.Initial hesitation among the tribe stemmed from a researcher who took photos of Lummi children years ago to develop a tool to diagnose fetal alcohol syndrome but didn’t offer any ways to address it, said Dr. Dakotah Lane, executive medical director of the Lummi Tribal Health Clinic.“I had already known and was aware of certainly some distrust with any kind of research within our community,” Lane said. “But I also knew the only way out of this pandemic was with access to vaccines.”Other stories about the sterilization of Native American women, noted in a 1976 federal report, and military testing of radioactive iodine on Alaska Natives have bred distrust.The Havasupai Tribe also settled a lawsuit a decade ago that accused Arizona State University scientists of misusing blood samples meant for diabetes research to study schizophrenia, inbreeding and ancient population migration without the tribe’s permission.That case came to mind when Annette Brown, a Navajo woman, heard about her tribe’s willingness to participate in COVID-19 vaccine trials.“There’s this historical distrust when it comes to any type of experimenting,” she said. “It’s just experience, I don’t know that there are many families out there who haven’t been touched by some sort of experimentation (or) biological attacks on tribal communities.”Brown has mixed feelings because she previously participated in a vaccine trial with Johns Hopkins.It was related to research that determined the first generation of vaccines for bacterial meningitis was less effective among Navajo and Apache children 6 months and younger, Hammitt said. The rate of the disease used to be five to 10 times higher among those children than the general population.Researchers and doctors in Native American communities also have found that standard doses for medications like blood thinners weren’t always the best fit for tribal members.For Marcia O’Leary, helping with a study that indirectly discovered HPV vaccines don’t protect against a strain that’s a leading cause of cancer among Native American women in the Great Plains shows the importance of having more Native researchers and being involved in clinical trials.“We can’t wait for this to trickle down,” said O’Leary, director of Missouri Breaks, a small Native American-owned research group on the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation. “It seems like in Indian Country, we keep chasing the ball of health and we never get ahead of it.”
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