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).

 

 

 
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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. 
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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. 

 
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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. 

 

 
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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.

 
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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.) 
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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.” 

 
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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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The Pfizer and BioNTech drug companies said Monday that lower dose shots of their two-dose COVID-19 vaccine are safe and effective for five-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 plans to soon seek U.S., British and European Union authorization for use of the vaccine for the younger age group, which could greatly expand the scope of the U.S. vaccination effort. About 28 million U.S. children fall into the affected age range, although millions of adults have themselves declined to get the jab. 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that more than 181 million people have been fully vaccinated in the country, but 70 million others 12 and older have so far, for one reason or another, not been inoculated. 

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

With children now back in school, and the delta variant spreading throughout the U.S., parents in many communities have been anxious for government health officials to approve the vaccine for their children. 

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

Dr. William Gruber, a pediatrician and Pfizer senior vice president, told The Associated Press that by the end of the month, the company would apply for emergency use of the vaccine for five-to-11-year-olds in the U.S. and shortly thereafter in Britain and Europe. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it would then evaluate Pfizer’s data, a process that could take a few weeks. 

 U.S. vaccine maker Moderna also is studying its shots for young children. Both Pfizer and Moderna are studying use of the vaccine for children as young as six months old, with results expected later this year. 

In Britain, the COVID-19 vaccination campaign for children between the ages of 12 and 15 began Monday at schools around the country.

Meanwhile, some private hospitals in Kolkata, India, bracing for a possible surge in pediatric COVID-19 cases, have enhanced their facilities and provided additional training for health care professionals.

A new study published by the CDC revealed that roughly one in three people who has tested positive for COVID-19 still reported symptoms several weeks after the fact.  

The CDC reported that rates were even higher in women, Black people, those older than 40, and those with preexisting conditions. The CDC describes people with “long COVID” as experiencing symptoms more than one month after a positive test result.  

The U.S. has more COVID-19 cases than any other country, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, with more than 42 million infections. Around the world, there have been more than 228 million cases and 4.7 million deaths, according to the data.   

Singapore reported more than 1,000 new cases Sunday, the highest rate for the country since April 2020. Even with 80% of its population fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, Singapore has paused further reopening.    

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.  

 

 

(Some information for this report came from the Associated Press.)
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Within 40 years, more than 800,000 Australians — twice as many as now — will be living with dementia, unless a cure is found, according to a new government-sponsored report. 

Dementia is the second leading cause of death in Australia.  

A new study by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, a government agency, has forecast that 1.1 million Australians will live with dementia by 2058, unless major new treatments are discovered.  

Dementia is a broad term for a number of conditions that impair the functions of the brain.  

In 2019, $2.1 billion was spent in Australia on residential and community-based services, and hospital care for dementia patients, two-thirds of whom are women.  

The release of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare study has coincided with a new awareness campaign by Dementia Australia, a non-profit organization. 

Its chief executive, Maree McCabe, says exercise and a sensible diet can offer protection against several types of dementia. 

“The main type is Alzheimer’s disease but there are about 100 different types and about 60% of people with dementia have Alzheimer’s disease. But there’s types such as frontotemporal dementia, dementia with lewy bodies, vascular dementia, just to name a few. We can definitely reduce our risk of developing dementia by ensuring that we eat well, that we exercise our body and our brain,” McCabe said.

The World Health Organization has said there are currently more than 55 million people living with dementia globally.  

Almost 10 million new cases are diagnosed every year. About a quarter of those are detected in China, the world’s most populous country. 

It is estimated that 10 million people currently suffer from the degenerative brain disorder in China. As its population ages, that number is forecast to rise to 40 million by 2050, according to a study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.  

The study warned that the annual economic costs to China from dementia could reach $1 trillion in medical expenses and lost productivity as caregivers leave the workforce. 

Dementia support groups warn that worldwide, both patients and caregivers face discrimination because of a lack of understanding about the disease that currently has no cure. 
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There is growing optimism that India could resume exports of COVID-19 vaccines as production expands at a rapid pace, putting the country on track to immunize its adult population in the coming months

“We had put a target of 1.85 billion doses for ourselves. That has been organized by the end of December and thereafter the government will be able to allow vaccine exports,” N.K. Arora, head of the national technical advisory group on immunization told VOA. “We will have several billion doses available next year.”

India, a vaccine powerhouse, was expected to be a major supplier of affordable COVID- 19 vaccines to developing countries.

However, after supplying 66 million doses to nearly 100 countries, New Delhi halted exports in April following a deadly second wave of the pandemic, slowing inoculation programs of countries from Africa to Indonesia.

There is no official comment on a timeline for resumption of exports, with officials stressing that for the time being, the focus is on India’s domestic rollout.

“First, all of our adults will have to be immunized, we have to take care of our own people,” Arora said.

The issue of vaccine supplies is expected to figure in the summit meeting of the Quad nations —  the United States, Japan, India and Australia — Friday in Washington.

Public health experts say India will likely wait to restart exports until the country’s festive season ends in November to ensure it does not have to grapple with a third wave. Currently authorities are racing to administer at least one dose to all adults.

India has given one shot to roughly two thirds of its population but only 20% of its approximately 900 million adults have been fully inoculated.

In April, as a ferocious surge in infections took a heavy toll, the government had faced criticism for exporting vaccines when most of its own population was not inoculated.

India has been urged to resume exports as the country’s vaccination program gains momentum and the supply of vaccines increases.

The World Health Organization told a press briefing in Geneva Tuesday that it has been assured that supplies from India will restart this year. Officials said that discussions in New Delhi have emphasized the importance of ensuring that India is “part of the solution for Africa.”

African countries have struggled to inoculate their populations — only about 3% of the continent’s population is vaccinated.

“Given the successful ramp-up of domestic production and the diminishing intensity of its own outbreak, we hope that India will ease its restrictions,” a spokesman for the Gavi alliance, co-leading the global vaccine sharing platform COVAX, told VOA.

The Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest producer of the AstraZeneca vaccines, has said that exports could resume as India nears a level where sufficient stocks are available for its inoculation drive.

“In the next two months, we do expect slow easement of exports. But you have to also check with the government; ultimately it is their decision,” SII chief executive Adar Poonawalla said on Friday.

The institute was to be one of the major suppliers of affordable vaccines to COVAX, but the vaccine-sharing platform’s ability to get sufficient doses for low- and middle-income countries took a hit when India shut down exports.

“Countries with a low level of vaccination can breed variants and if the world does not cover those people there is an opportunity for mutants to rise and creep into other countries, making it harder control the pandemic,” K. Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India, said.

Eyes will also be on the Quad summit next week to see how it makes headway on the vaccine initiative announced in March under which the four countries had decided to produce 1 billion doses in India by 2022 with financial backing from the United States and Japan.

“The summit will be a good opportunity to take stock and expedite that initiative. Some conversations have happened, let us see what progress is made,” an official in India’s Ministry of External Affairs, who did not want to be named, said.

Vaccines produced under the Quad initiative were meant for countries in the Indo-Pacific region. These and other developing countries have turned to China, which has supplied over a billion doses, while Western countries are seen to have lagged in their efforts to vaccinate developing countries.

However, hopes are rising that India will emerge as a major global supplier as new production facilities are set up and the basket of vaccines expands.

The SII for example is set to ramp up production to 200 million doses next month –nearly three times its output in April when India halted exports. Indian companies are also set to make millions of doses of both domestically developed vaccines and those developed overseas, such as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and Russia’s Sputnik V.

“It may look like a presumptuous statement, but we will immunize many countries next year, and these will be with affordable shots. There is no confusion in that. India is committed to it and I see no difficulty at all,” Arora said. 
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A report in The Guardian says U.S. physicians treating unvaccinated patients are “succumbing to compassion fatigue” as a fourth surge of COVID-19 cases sweeps across the country.

Dr. Michelle Shu, a 29-year-old emergency medicine resident, said medical school did not prepare her to handle the misinformation unvaccinated patients believe about the vaccine, calling the experience “demoralizing.”

“There is a feeling,” Dr. Mona Masood, a psychiatrist in Philadelphia told The Guardian, “that ‘I’m risking my life, my family’s life, my own wellbeing for people who don’t care about me.’”

The U.S. has more COVID-19 cases than any other country, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, with over 42 million infections.

India’s health ministry said Sunday that it had recorded 30,773 new COVID-19 cases in the previous 24-hour period and 309 deaths. Johns Hopkins reports that only the U.S. has more infections than India, which has over 33 million.

Johns Hopkins has recorded more than 228 million global COVID-19 cases and 4.6 million global deaths. Almost 6 billion vaccines have been administered, according to Johns Hopkins.

Meanwhile, in the southern U.S. state of Alabama on Friday, Dr. Scott Harris, Alabama’s state health officer, said that 2020 was the first year in the history of the state that it had more deaths than births – 64,714 deaths and 57,641 births. The state “literally shrunk,” he said. Alabama is headed in the same direction for 2021, Harris said, with the current rate of COVID deaths.

 

 

 
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World leaders are returning to the United Nations in New York this week with a focus on boosting efforts to fight both climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, which last year forced them to send video statements for the annual gathering.

As the coronavirus still rages amid an inequitable vaccine rollout, about a third of the 193 U.N. states are planning to again send videos, but presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers for the remainder are due to travel to the United States.

The United States tried to dissuade leaders from coming to New York in a bid to stop the U.N. General Assembly from becoming a “super-spreader event,” although President Joe Biden will address the assembly in person, his first U.N. visit since taking office. A so-called U.N. honor system means that anyone entering the assembly hall effectively declares they are vaccinated, but they do not have to show proof.

This system will be broken when the first country speaks — Brazil. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is a vaccine skeptic, who last week declared that he does not need the shot because he is already immune after being infected with COVID-19.

Should he change his mind, New York City has set up a van outside the United Nations for the week to supply free testing and free shots of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

 

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told Reuters that the discussions around how many traveling diplomats might have been immunized illustrated “how dramatic the inequality is today in relation to vaccination.” He is pushing for a global plan to vaccinate 70% of the world by the first half of next year.

Out of 5.7 billion doses of coronavirus vaccines administered around the world, only 2% have been in Africa.

Biden will host a virtual meeting from Washington with leaders and chief executives on Wednesday that aims to boost the distribution of vaccines globally.

Demonstrating U.S. COVID-19 concerns about the U.N. gathering, Biden will be in New York only for about 24 hours, meeting with Guterres on Monday and making his first U.N. address on Tuesday, directly after Bolsonaro.

His U.N. envoy, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said Biden would “speak to our top priorities: ending the COVID-19 pandemic; combating climate change … and defending human rights, democracy, and the international rules-based order.”

Due to the pandemic, U.N. delegations are restricted to much smaller numbers and most events on the sidelines will be virtual or a hybrid of virtual and in-person. Among other topics that ministers are expected to discuss during the week are Afghanistan and Iran.

But before the annual speeches begin, Guterres and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will start the week with a summit on Monday to try and save a U.N. summit — that kicks off in Glasgow, Scotland, on Oct. 31 — from failure.

As scientists warn that global warming is dangerously close to spiraling out of control, the U.N. COP26 conference aims to wring much more ambitious climate action and the money to go with it from participants around the globe.

“It’s time to read the alarm bell,” Guterres told Reuters last week. “We are on the verge of the abyss.” 

 
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Millions of Americans who were thrown out of work in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic are now encountering a hot jobs market with businesses eager, even desperate, to hire them.

But amid continued spread of the delta COVID-19 variant, workers are trickling, not rushing, back into the labor market, despite the expiration of augmented federal unemployment benefits and offers of higher wages in some sectors.

Consumers eager to spend money would normally be a boon to the service industry in Charlotte, North Carolina. But businesses here, as in many parts of the United States, can’t find enough workers to accommodate the demand.

Help wanted signs are ubiquitous in storefronts across the city, where, since May 2020, the local unemployment rate has fallen from nearly 14% to less than 5%.

“Oh, there’s business here,” Brixx Wood Fired Pizza general manager Lethr’ Rotherttold VOA. “The restaurant stays busy and we’re making loads of money, but I don’t have the staff to keep up.”

It’s a similar situation at The Giddy Goat Coffee Roasters, an independent outfit with a unique business model of roasting coffee beans in-store and right in front of customers. The coffee shop was launched during the pandemic and has struggled to keep up with demand.

“When we think we’re good [for workers], the volume increases, and we suddenly need more help,” said manager Enzo Pazos. “Two people go to school, that’s two less staff on hand, so it’s kind of like it’s never enough.”

“You’re seeing variations of this same theme of a worker shortage across the country,” economist Matthew Metzgar of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte told VOA.

Metzgar notes that a federal economic stimulus program provided some workers with higher temporary incomes than they had received at their old jobs before the pandemic.

“What’s happening is of course with that higher unemployment compensation, people are less willing to work and people are less willing to accept lower wages,” Metzgar said.

Others who remain unemployed say they are reluctant to take jobs that would put them in close contact with the public at a time when the United States is averaging more than 1,500 COVID-19 deaths a day.

“Most people that have stayed on unemployment have done it for safety reasons, it seems,” job seeker Alex Jordan Ku said. “I have some friends on unemployment, and their safety was their main concern. They haven’t been looking for jobs They kind of just went back home to live with their parents so they can be without jobs for a while until things feel safe to them.”

Yet another problem keeping many people out of the workforce has been a shortage of affordable child care – a problem that was exacerbated by COVID-related school closures and remote learning that have forced many parents to remain at home with their children.

That problem may be easing as schools are reopening across the country this fall, but the parents of younger children are still finding it hard to secure placements in child care facilities, which are themselves impacted by difficulty in hiring enough qualified staff.

In a move partly aimed at getting more people back to work, the Biden administration is promoting enhanced child care subsidies as part of a proposed $3.5 trillion plan to fund infrastructure and social safety net programs.

 

This month’s expiration of supplemental unemployment benefits should force at least some workers back into the labor pool as their bank accounts run dry. But Metzgar says many potential workers are less than eager to return to jobs that pay less than what they received in benefits.

“From the worker’s point of view, there is resistance to coming back to lower-wage positions, and in some situations, there may not be much to entice them back in,” he said.

Adequate compensation

At a recent jobs fair in the neighboring state of Virginia, securing adequate compensation was on the minds of many prospective applicants, several of whom stressed factors beyond an hourly wage.

“What I’m looking for is something where there’s long-term stability, and benefits are important,” Lisette Bez told VOA at the Leesburg, Virginia, event. Even though she has run out of unemployment benefits, Bez indicated she is holding out for a job that includes things like generous health insurance benefits.

“The cost of insurance these days continues to go up. And I think for a lot of people that’s a huge concern,” she said. “So it’s not just enough to have a job that will pay you a certain amount. You have to have those other things.”

While employers have no control over the pandemic, they do have leeway in what they offer to entice workers, say labor advocates.

“In all candor, raising wages is the only thing that’s going to be bringing people back to work,” Charlotte labor organizer William Voltz told VOA.

Voltz, president of Unite Here’s Local 23, a union for airport employees, said workers need an hourly wage in the $17-$22 range to get by, far higher than the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

“Unfortunately, to live in Charlotte you really have to make a livable wage to be able to afford housing and life’s necessities,” he said.

Message heard

Amid fierce competition for labor, a growing number of U.S. employers big and small are sweetening wage and benefits packages offered to job seekers. E-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. recently boosted its average starting wage to $18 an hour, up from a $15 minimum wage the company set before the pandemic.

In Charlotte, Giddy Goat founder Carson Clough said he expects a certain amount of negotiation in determining compensation for new employees.

 

“If workers do have requests regarding pay and benefits, I am all ears,” Clough told VOA. “My business partner and I started off with the mindset [in] which we’re going to try and meet high-end wage requests, even prior to the pandemic. I’d be very open to hearing different demands, such as ‘How can I go do this’ or ‘How can this be a part of the package’ or something like that.”

Flexibility and creativity will be key to hiring and retaining workers going forward, according to Metzgar.

“Companies may consider thinking about bringing on workers that could contribute in multiple ways, doing something that brings value to the business. This would be a win-win, it would allow the worker to be invested, while the worker receives a higher wage in return,” the economist said.

“The point is to reimagine some of these positions so that the workers have the opportunity to produce more value, so managers set up workers to flourish to produce value for the company, which again comes with higher wages for the worker,” he added.

 

 
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