Investigations are now under way into the Peruvian coronavirus vaccination scandal, in which hundreds of people, many well-connected, were given shots although they did not participate in trials for the Sinopharm vaccine to determine its efficacy.Heath Minister Oscar Ugarte said 3,200 vaccines were given, including 1,200 that went to the Chinese Embassy. He said of the other 2,000 doses, investigators are looking into where they are and who was vaccinated.The state-run Andina news agency reported Peru’s Congress also launched a committee to investigate the scandal, amid a public uproar over how privileged people were able to jump ahead of front-line health workers for vaccinations.Fernando Carbone, the head of the commission investigating those benefiting from the shots is guaranteeing impartiality in the probe, with a threat of sanctions against those involved.Carbone spoke publicly about not being compromised after the Peruvian Medical College called for him to step aside, citing his association with former Health Minister Pilar Mazetti, who was among those improperly receiving vaccinations.Peru’s foreign minister Elizabeth Astete resigned Sunday after revealing she had received the vaccine before health care personnel.The public anger over the scandal has been exacerbated by Peru having one of the highest coronavirus tallies in Latin America, with more than 1.2 million infections and more than 44,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
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Venezuela began its immunization program against the COVID-19 virus by vaccinating front-line health care personnel Thursday, less than a week after receiving the first batch of 100,000 doses of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V.”Fortunately, the strategic cooperation between Russia and Venezuela has allowed us to have access to one of the best vaccines in the world, with an efficacy of 91.6%,” Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said.Venezuela participated in trials of the Sputnik V vaccine trials before signing a purchase agreement with Russia in December.The Latin American country hopes to begin vaccinating the general public in April.Health Minister Carlos Alvarado said officials aim to vaccinate 70% of the population this year in order to achieve herd immunity.Venezuela has so far confirmed more than 134,000 COVID-19 cases and 1,297 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.
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People the world over have questions about the COVID-19 vaccines. Most have heard rumors about their safety. Even some health workers and members of the U.S. military have opted out of getting immunized. VOA’s Carol Pearson helps debunk some common myths about the COVID vaccines.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has erased more than a decade of improvements in life expectancy in the United States and widened racial and ethnic inequalities, Chart shows the change in estimated life expectancy in the U.S. from 2019 to 2020The new CDC data put the United States in line with estimates from England, Wales and Spain, which also calculated about a one-year drop in life expectancy.France projected a half-year decline for men and four-tenths for women. Swedish men also lost an estimated half a year, and women, three-tenths.U.S. life expectancy already “lags substantially behind virtually all of the high-income countries,” Goldman noted. “Now, we’ll just be even further behind.”These estimates look at cases where COVID-19 is listed as the cause of death. But “it’s definitely true that the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting other causes of death indirectly,” said University of Oxford demographer José Manuel Aburto, co-author of the study on life expectancy in England and Wales.He said people have delayed treatment for other diseases, such as cancer and heart disease, out of fear of going to the hospital, which may lead to higher death rates.Experts do not expect life expectancy to snap back to normal when the pandemic ends.For many COVID-19 patients, the disease has worsened existing health problems or created new ones that persist long after the virus is gone.Plus, the social and economic impacts of the pandemic “have been terrible on a large segment of the population that will translate into poorer health and ultimately poor survival,” Goldman said. “And those effects will last for quite a while.”
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NASA’s Perseverance probe landed safely and on time on Mars, at 3:55 p.m. EST, Thursday, marking another success for the U.S. space agency.The nuclear-powered probe made its way through a harrowing landing process, deemed by some engineers as “seven minutes of terror” because it involves parachutes, powered descent and a “sky crane” that gently lowers Perseverance onto a challenging, rocky area of Martian surface. After a confirmed safe landing, members of the probe’s Mission Control erupted in applause and cheers. NASA has now successfully landed nine of 10 probes sent to the Red Planet. Minutes after touching down, Perseverance beamed back a black-and-white image from the surface as more applause broke out at Mission Control.Safe on Mars. https://t.co/heoYjkwfty— NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 18, 2021The probe is equipped with a microphone, which should have recorded its descent. Later Thursday, President Joe Biden sent a congratulatory tweet, saying: “Today proved once again that with the power of science and American ingenuity, nothing is beyond the realm of possibility.” Perseverance, and its helicopterlike companion drone, Ingenuity, began the 300-million-mile journey in July. Ingenuity will test if powered flight can be done in Mars’ thin atmosphere.  The six-wheeled Perseverance, which looks like the other four rover probes that have landed on Mars, set down in Jezero Crater, which is believed to be an ancient lakebed and a potential source for remnants of ancient life.  Determining if Mars once hosted life is the primary goal of the probe’s two-year mission. During its search, the probe will take samples from the Red Planet’s surface and store them in its 43 sample tubes. NASA plans to send another mission to Mars to retrieve the tubes sometime in the early 2030s. Before collecting samples, NASA will spend the next weeks making sure Perseverance’s systems are all working. You can follow Perseverance’s progress on its Twitter account. 
  
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NASA and the United States have successfully landed the Perseverance on Mars after the rover left the company of spacecrafts from the UAE and China in orbit. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, challenges for the rover – and potentially a treasure trove of discoveries  – await.Produced by:  Arash Arabasadi
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Humans are making Earth a broken and increasingly unlivable planet through climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, so the world must make dramatic changes to society, economics and daily life, a new United Nations report said.Unlike past U.N. reports that focused on one issue and avoided telling leaders what actions to take, Thursday’s report combined three intertwined environment crises and told the world what must change. It called for changing what governments tax, how nations value economic output, how power is generated, the way people get around, fish and farm, as well as what they eat.FILE – U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivers a speech during a meeting of the German federal parliament, Bundestag, at the Reichstag building in Berlin, Dec. 18, 2020.”Without nature’s help, we will not thrive or even survive,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “For too long, we have been waging a senseless and suicidal war on nature. The result is three interlinked environmental crises.”Thus the 168-page report title is blunt: “Making Peace With Nature.””Our children and their children will inherit a world of extreme weather events, sea level rise, a drastic loss of plants and animals, food and water insecurity, and increasing likelihood of future pandemics,” said report lead author Sir Robert Watson, who has chaired past U.N. science reports on climate change and biodiversity loss.”The emergency is in fact more profound than we thought only a few years ago,” said Watson, who has been a top-level scientist in the U.S. and British governments.This year “is a make-it or break-it year indeed, because the risk of things becoming irreversible is gaining ground every year,” Guterres said. “We are close to the point of no return.”The report highlighted what report co-author Rachel Warren of the University of East Anglia called “a litany of frightening statistics that hasn’t really been brought together”:• Earth is on the way to an additional 3.5 degrees warming from now (1.9 degrees Celsius), far more than the international agreed-upon goals in the Paris accord.• About 9 million people a year die from pollution.• About 1 million of Earth’s 8 million species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction.• Up to 400 million tons of heavy metals, toxic sludge and other industrial waste are dumped into the world’s waters every year.• More than 3 billion people are affected by land degradation, and only 15% of Earth’s wetlands remain intact.• About 60% of fish stocks are fished at the maximum levels. There are more than 400 oxygen-depleted “dead zones,” and marine plastics pollution has increased tenfold since 1980.”In the end it will hit us,” said biologist Thomas Lovejoy, who was a scientific adviser to the report. “It’s not what’s happening to elephants. It’s not what’s happening to climate or sea level rise. It’s all going to impact us.”The planet’s problems are so interconnected that they must be worked on together to be fixed right, Warren said. And many of the solutions, such as eliminating fossil fuel use, combat multiple problems, including climate change and pollution, she said.The report “makes it clear that there is no time for linear thinking or tackling problems one at a time,” said University of Michigan environment professor Rosina Bierbaum, who wasn’t part of the work.The report also gave specific solutions that it said must be taken. It used the word “must” 56 times and “should” 37 times. There should be 100 more because action is so crucial, said former U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres, who wasn’t part of the report.”Time has totally ran out. That’s why the word ‘must’ is in there,” Figueres said.FILE – Equinor’s Johan Sverdrup oilfield platforms and accommodation jack-up rig Haven are pictured in the North Sea, Norway, Dec. 3, 2019.Change in tax policyThe report called for an end to fossil fuel use and said governments should not tax labor or production, but rather use of resources that damages nature.”Governments are still playing more to exploit nature than to protect it,” Guterres said. Globally, countries spend about $4 trillion to $6 trillion a year on subsidies that damage the environment, he added.Scientists should inform leaders about environmental risks “but their endorsement of specific public policies threatens to undermine the credibility of their science,” said former Republican Representative Bob Inglis, who founded the free-market climate think tank RepublicEn.org.The report also told nations to value nature in addition to the gross domestic product when calculating how an economy is doing.Getting there means changes by individuals, governments and business, but it doesn’t have to involve sacrifice, said U.N. Environment Program Director Inger Andersen.”There’s a country that has been on that path for 25 years: Costa Rica,” Andersen said. “Yes, these are difficult times, but more and more leaders are stepping in.” 
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Pushed to the back of Gen Z anxieties by the COVID-19 pandemic, a looming stressor for many people younger than 30 remains climate change, say experts. 
 
“Natural disasters precipitated by climate change, including hurricanes, heatwaves, wildfires, and floods can lead to … increased rates of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and other mental health disorders,” according to researchers at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University in Canada, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. FILE – Firefighters battle the Morton Fire as it burns a home near Bundanoon, New South Wales, Australia, Jan. 23, 2020. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) 
The authors label the fear “eco-anxiety, climate distress, climate change anxiety, or climate anxiety,” writing in the respected British medical and science journal, The Lancet Planetary Health. 
 
In other words, the future is not looking bright from the perspective of many people under 30. 
 
Xiye Bastida, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, has been fighting the climate crisis since her hometown in Mexico flooded when she was 13. She calls it a pivotal moment in her environmental activism. 
 
“Sometimes we don’t realize when we actually start caring about something and acting upon it,” she said. 
 
Mexican-Chilean Bastida is one of the founding members of the New York City chapter of Fridays for Future, a strike movement that pressures public officials about climate change by protesting outside schools and government offices. She is also the co-founder of Re-Earth Initiative, which seeks to educate the public about climate issues.
 
Bastida’s generation might be more likely than adults to experience climate anxiety, the Lancet Planetary Health paper states.  
 
“They are at a crucial point in their physical and psychological development,” the authors wrote, “when … stress and everyday anxiety elevate their risk of developing depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders.”  
 
Bastida said she has experienced eco-anxiety and burnout from climate activism. She ended up in the hospital with heart palpitations because she was so stressed, she told VOA.  
 
“For me, the way I experienced and dealt with climate anxiety was just by always blaming myself for not doing enough,” Bastida explained.  
 
She continued, “If you don’t take care of yourself, if you don’t take care of your home, if you don’t take care of your well-being, you cannot take care of the world.” 
 
“Climate change is rapidly creating a less safe, less secure [food security, national security], less healthy, and less prosperous world,” Edward Maibach, director of George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication (4C), wrote to VOA.  
 
“Today’s young people will be living in this world, as conditions deteriorate, unless the nations of the world rise to the challenge they currently face. 
 
“In my view, young people who don’t care about climate change are not paying attention,” he wrote. 
 
But many young people are paying attention and trying to effect change. The children and grandchildren of those who planted trees for the creation of Earth Day and the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, are giving environmental justice a hard push forward.  
 
The movement has been propelled by young people everywhere.FILE – Climate change environmental activist Greta Thunberg joins Red Cloud Indian School student and activist Tokata Iron Eyes at a youth panel at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, North Dakota, Oct. 8, 2019.Sweden’s Greta Thunberg riveted global attention as she sat outside a Swedish Parliament meeting, her expression capturing the impatient disgust of her generation with inactivity over climate change.  
 
Other famous young environmentalists include Canadian Autumn Peltier from the First Nations community, Argentinian Bruno Rodriguez, and Helena Gualinga from the Ecuadorian Amazon. FILE – Young environmental activists Ayakha Melithafa of S. Africa, Naomi Wadler of the US, Autumn Peltier of Canada and Melati Wijsen of Indonesia take part in a forum during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 20, 2020. 
Nikayla Jefferson is a volunteer writer for the Sunrise Movement, co-founder of the San Diego hub, and a doctoral candidate at University of California-Santa Barbara. For her, the scariest part of climate change is basic, she says. 
 
“The total loss of human life and the land that gives us our history and story,” she said. “We understand climate change science and how devastating it is to the Earth, but addressing carbon emissions is not enough,” Jefferson wrote to VOA. “We need to look at climate change through a human lens because climate change is the not the only existential threat people are facing.”  
 
Anxiety about climate change and a desire to act erases political lines, according to research from Pew, Brookings Institution and 4C. In the 2020 presidential election, climate change was among the top three issues to young voters. COVID-19, Race, Climate Change Dominate Youth Vote IssuesStudent debt polls lower in face of news events 
And 4C’s Maibach says that youth leadership about climate change has woven generations together on the issue. 
 
“Politicians and CEOs alike have every reason to want to keep young people happy, because they won’t keep their jobs for long if they don’t,” Maibach wrote. As the percentage of younger votes eclipses those of Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, the Gen Z and millennial vote becomes more powerful. 
 
“CEOs are not directly accountable to the public, but corporations are becoming increasingly sensitive to public opinion, especially that of young people, because they want to attract the best and brightest young people as employees, and they want to earn the loyalty of young customers,” Maibach wrote.  
 
While Bastida said she still worries about the future, she looks on the bright side and believes her generation can have an impact.   
 
“I think that we have to realize that that timeline is already running out,” she said. “And we cannot just keep talking about what we’re going to do, we need to actually start doing it. And when I see people actually doing things, when I see initiatives coming up, when I see companies changing their whole business model, that’s what makes me optimistic.”  
 
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Malawi will reopen schools on Monday (Feb 22), five weeks after President Lazarus Chakwera suspended classes due to a surge in COVID-19 cases. Malawi’s Presidential Task-Force on COVID-19 determined it is safe to resume classes after a drop in the rate of infection.Co-Chairperson of the Presidential Task-Force on COVID-19 Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda said in a televised address Wednesday night the infection rate is at 16%, down from 30% in January, when classes were suspended.She said, “Actually what we wanted is that once we reopen the schools our children should be safe because we know that when we were closing the schools, some teachers were COVID-19 positive and were on quarantine.  So we wanted to give them enough time to recover.”However, Kandodo Chiponda, who is also minister of health, said some schools will require students to produce COVID-19-negative certificates to be allowed into class.She asked parents to comply with such a requirement, saying the government has enough COVID-19 test kits in all public hospitals in the country.She said, “I would like to ask schools with such a requirement not to suspend learners with positive COVID-19 results but reverse their places and give them enough time to recover.”Critics say the decision to resume classes has been rushed and many schools, especially in rural areas, are not ready to reopen.They say unmet requirements include on-the-campus water sources for hand washing and enough classrooms for proper social distancing when learning.   But Education Minister Agness Nyalonje says everything is set and that the ministry has allocated about $6 milion for the reopening of schools.Nyalonje said part of the money will be used to drill 400 boreholes in primary schools and 240 in secondary schools to improve sanitation.“My ministry has made money [available] directly to schools through zonal accounts for them to procure soaps, to procure masks, to procure buckets where buckets need replacing, to make sure that when schools open, these things are in place,” she said.She said the challenge is to find tents for additional classrooms in highly congested schools.“Because it so happens that globally, the scramble for tents is very, very high but we are very advanced to get tents and we are hopeful that we will find tents and probably within a week,” said Nyalonje. Nyalonje also said the government has recruited 2,275 auxiliary teachers to ease pressure on permanent teachers. 
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The latest NASA probe to Mars is set to land Thursday after a journey that began last July.Perseverance’s entry into the Martian atmosphere was set to start at 3:55 p.m. EST, starting a seven-minute process that scientists hope will be successful. During the landing, NASA has no ability to control the probe.The elaborate landing process involves parachutes, powered descent and a “sky crane,” which is expected to lower Perseverance onto the Martian surface using cables.”I can tell you that Perseverance is operating perfectly right now, and that all systems are go for landing,” Jennifer Trosper, a NASA deputy project manager for the rover mission, said during a press briefing Tuesday.Perseverance is targeting a landing in Jezero Crater, which is believed to be an ancient lakebed. There, it will search for signs of ancient life.The terrain around the landing site is rocky, making landing difficult, but NASA said the probe is up to the challenge.“When the scientists take a look at a site like Jezero Crater, they see the promise, right?” said Al Chen, who is in charge of the entry, descent and landing team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, according to The Associated Press. “When I look at Jezero, I see danger. There’s danger everywhere.”NASA has successfully landed eight of nine probes on Mars.Perseverance is similar in appearance to other Mars rovers, but it carries a helicopter-type drone, Ingenuity, which will test if powered flight on Mars is possible.
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President Joe Biden’s administration has pledged to improve the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. This week, the first federally supported mass vaccination sites opened in California. Matt Dibble reports.
Camera: Matt Dibble     Producer: Matt Dibble
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The U.N. secretary-general called on the world’s largest economies Wednesday to create a task force to plan and coordinate a global COVID-19 vaccination plan.  “The world urgently needs a global vaccination plan to bring together all those with the required power, scientific expertise and production and financial capacities,” Antonio Guterres told a high-level virtual meeting of the U.N. Security Council on the global vaccine rollout. “I believe the G-20 is well-placed to establish an emergency task force to prepare such a global vaccination plan and coordinate its implementation and financing.” He said the task force should include the World Health Organization (WHO), the global vaccine alliance Gavi, international financial institutions, as well as the international vaccine alliance COVAX, and all countries that have the capacity to develop vaccines or produce them if licenses are available. “The task force would have the capacity to mobilize the pharmaceutical companies and key industry and logistics actors,” Guterres added. Leaders of the G-7 are holding a virtual summit this Friday, and Guterres said they could use that session to create momentum to mobilize the necessary financial resources. “The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines is generating hope,” he noted, but warned that people affected by conflict and insecurity are at risk of being left behind. US to pay WHO U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made his international debut at the online meeting. He said the Biden administration will work with partners to expand COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing and distribution capacity, and increase access, including to marginalized populations.   He also said Washington would pay over $200 million in assessed and current obligations to WHO by the end this month. Funding stopped to the organization last year under the Trump administration, which did not like how WHO handled the coronavirus pandemic.   “This is a key step forward in fulfilling our financial obligations as a WHO member,” Blinken said. “It reflects our renewed commitment to ensuring the WHO has the support it needs to lead the global response to the pandemic, even as we work to reform it for the future.”   India to vaccinate UN peacekeepers Security Council member India, which is a major pharmaceutical manufacturer and is currently producing two vaccines, one of which it developed, announced it would contribute 200,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses to the U.N. peacekeeping division to inoculate their troops and police. The United Nations has about 95,000 peacekeepers, which means double doses could be available to all of them. Britain presides over the 15-nation Security Council this month and organized Wednesday’s session, which drew nine foreign ministers and one prime minister.   British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called for a U.N. Security Council resolution to facilitate COVID-19 vaccines to millions of people in conflict areas.     “Local cease-fires are going to be essential to enable lifesaving vaccinations to take place, and they are essential to protect the brave health workers and humanitarian workers working in incredibly challenging conditions in conflict zones,” Raab said.   He said that more than 160 million people are at risk of not receiving COVID-19 vaccinations because of instability and conflict in places including Yemen, Syria, South Sudan and Ethiopia.   In July, after three months of negotiations, the council adopted a resolution supporting the U.N. secretary-general’s global cease-fire to assist international containment efforts. It was not immediately clear Wednesday whether the British proposal for smaller cease-fires would have the council’s full support.   China’s foreign minister also participated. Beijing has been the subject of some international criticism for its handling of the coronavirus and for a lack of transparency about its origin in the city of Wuhan. “We need to resist prejudice, respect science and reject disinformation and attempts to politicize the pandemic,” Wang Yi said. “In this regard, members of the Security Council should lead by example.”  He also said China would help realize vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries.   “At the request of the WHO, China has decided preliminarily to donate 10 million doses of Chinese vaccine to help developing countries,” he announced.    The U.N. says progress on vaccinations has been extremely uneven and unfair, with just 10 countries having administered 75% of all COVID-19 vaccines, while more than 130 countries have not received a single dose.  
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