Mexico’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Tuesday that penalizing abortion is unconstitutional, a major victory for advocates of women’s health and human rights, just as parts of the United States enact tougher laws against the practice.The court ruling in the majority Roman Catholic nation follows moves to decriminalize abortion at the state level, although most of the country still has tough laws in place against women terminating their pregnancy early.”This is a historic step for the rights of women,” said Supreme Court Justice Luis Maria Aguilar.A number of U.S. states have recently taken steps to restrict women’s access to abortion, particularly Texas, which last week enacted the strictest anti-abortion law in the country after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.The Mexican ruling opens the door to the possibility for the release of women incarcerated for having had abortions. It also could lead to U.S. women in states such as Texas deciding to travel south of the border to terminate their pregnancies. In July, the state of Veracruz became just the fourth of Mexico’s 32 regions to decriminalize abortion.
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A greater share of U.S. soldiers survived the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq than those who fought in previous conflicts. Advances in medicine and new concepts in trauma care over the past two decades have made the difference. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports on the most dramatic advances.
Camera: Mike Burke         Video editor: Marcus Harton
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The U.S. ended its conflict in Afghanistan, but the Veterans Health Administration continues researching ways to reduce the impact of the most serious injuries U.S. troops suffered in conflicts in both Afghanistan and Iraq. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports on one area of research, traumatic brain injury.
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Koalas, rock wallabies and the Nightcap Oak, a rare tree, are some of the iconic species to be protected under an “historic” zero extinction plan in the Australian state of New South Wales.The New South Wales government Tuesday outlined a strategy to safeguard the survival of endangered plants and animals in the state’s vast network of national parks, to address what Environment Minister Matt Kean said is the worst mammal extinction rate in the world.  More than 90 endangered species at risk from feral pests, bushfires and climate change will be given greater legal protection. There are new safeguards for birds, frogs and reptiles, as well as rare trees, including the dwarf mountain pine.  The species join the Wollemi pine, known as a “dinosaur tree” because of its ancient heritage, which was declared New South Wales’ first asset of intergenerational significance last year after the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires almost wiped out its few known sites in the wild. There will also be a network of predator-free areas and authorities will be able to mandate conservation and fire-management plans to ensure plants and animals are protected. For some species there is little time to waste. Some population groups of the brush-tailed rock wallaby in the Warrumbungle National Park have fallen to just ten animals.  Environmental groups have broadly welcomed the zero extinction initiative. Rachel Lowry, the chief conservation officer of the Australia branch of the international conservation organization the World Wildlife Fund, says it is a promising plan. “What I find really encouraging is that the zero extinction target is the type of principled target that we need that draws a line in the sand and says no more extinctions. Now, I would love to see that being drawn actually for the whole nation, and not just for species in protected areas and in this case species in protected areas in New South Wales only. But like I said, it is a good step forward,” she said.It is not just an Australian problem. Officials in New South Wales have warned that, globally, one million species face extinction in the coming decades.  National Threatened Species Day is commemorated across Australia September 7 to raise awareness of plants and animals at risk of dying out.  
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U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans Tuesday to fulfill a election promise to grapple with the rocketing cost of the long-term care needed by Britain’s growing older population. To do it, he appears set to break another election vow: not to raise taxes. Johnson is scheduled to tell Parliament how his Conservative government will raise billions to fund the care millions of Britons need in the final years of their lives. That burden currently falls largely on individuals, who often have to deplete their savings or sell their homes to pay for care. One in seven people ends up paying more than 100,000 pounds ($138,000), according to the government, which calls the cost of care “catastrophic and often unpredictable.” Meanwhile, funding care for the poor who can’t afford it is placing a growing burden on overstretched local authorities. Johnson has been tight-lipped about his plans, which are being unveiled to the Cabinet on Tuesday morning before he makes a statement in the House of Commons. But the prime minister said late Monday he would “not duck the tough decisions needed.” He is expected to announce an increase in National Insurance payments made by working-age people to fund care and the broader National Health Service, which has been put under immense strain by the coronavirus pandemic. That would break the firm promise in Johnson’s 2019 election platform not to hike personal taxes. Breaking promises is hardly novel for politicians, but those enshrined in British parties’ election manifestos have long been considered binding on governments. Johnson’s rumored plan has alarmed many Conservative lawmakers — both because it involves breaking a firm election commitment, and because the burden would fall on working-age people and not retirees. Jake Berry, one of a crop of Conservative lawmakers representing northern England seats won from the Labour Party with promises of investment and new jobs, said the proposed plan would help affluent, older voters at the expense of younger, poorer ones. And William Hague, a former Conservative leader, said breaking an election promise would be a “loss of credibility when making future election commitments, a blurring of the distinction between Tory and Labour philosophies, a recruiting cry for fringe parties on the right, and an impression given to the world that the U.K. is heading for higher taxes.” Attempts to reform the care system have stymied British governments. Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, campaigned in a 2017 election on a plan to cut benefits to retirees and change the way they pay for long-term care. The idea was quickly dubbed a “dementia tax” by opponents, and May ended up losing her majority in Parliament. 
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NASA confirmed Monday that its Perseverance Mars rover succeeded in collecting its first rock sample for scientists to pore over when a future mission eventually brings it back to Earth. “I’ve got it!” the space agency tweeted, alongside a photograph of a rock core slightly thicker than a pencil inside a sample tube.  The sample was collected on September 1, but NASA was initially unsure whether the rover had successfully held onto its precious cargo, because initial images taken in poor light were unclear. After taking a new photo so mission control could verify its contents, Perseverance transferred the tube to the rover’s interior for further measurements and imaging, then hermetically sealed the container. “This is a momentous achievement, and I can’t wait to see the incredible discoveries produced by Perseverance and our team,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science, likened the achievement to the first samples of rock taken from the Moon, which are still invaluable to researchers today. Perseverance’s sampling and caching system is the most complex mechanism ever sent to space, with more than 3,000 parts.  Its first target was a briefcase-sized rock nicknamed “Rochette” from a ridgeline that is particularly interesting from a geological perspective as it contains ancient layers of exposed bedrock. Perseverance uses a drill and a hollow coring bit at the end of its 2-meter-long (7-foot-long) robotic arm to extract samples. Perseverance landed on an ancient lakebed called the Jezero Crater in February, on a mission to search for signs of ancient microbial life using a suite of sophisticated instruments mounted on its turret. It is also trying to better characterize the red planet’s geology and past climate. The first part of the rover’s science mission, which will last hundreds of sols or Martian days, will be complete when it returns to its landing site.  By then, it will have traveled somewhere between 2.5 and 5 kilometers (1.6 and 3.1 miles) and may have filled up to eight of its 43 sample tubes. It will then travel to Jezero Crater’s delta region, which might be rich in clay minerals. On Earth, such minerals can preserve fossilized signs of ancient microscopic life. Eventually NASA wants to send back the samples taken by the rover in a joint mission with the European Space Agency, sometime in the 2030s. Its first attempt at taking a sample in August failed after the rock was too crumbly to withstand the robot’s drill. 
 
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The pollution, emissions and cleanup costs of plastic produced in 2019 alone could be $3.7 trillion, according to a report released Monday by wildlife charity WWF, warning of the environmental and economic burden of this “seemingly cheap” material.  There is increasing international alarm over the sheer volumes of fossil-fuel based plastics entering the environment, as microplastics have infiltrated even the most remote and otherwise pristine regions of the planet.   In its report, WWF said societies were “unknowingly subsiding” plastic. The report estimates the lifetime costs of the 2019 production is equal to more than the gross domestic product of India.  “Plastic appears to be a relatively cheap material when looking at the market price primary plastic producers pay for virgin plastic. However, this price fails to account for the full cost imposed across the plastic life cycle,” said the report, “Plastics: The Cost to Society, Environment and the Economy,” produced for WWF by the consultancy Dalberg. Plastic is everywhere It estimated that unless there was concerted international action, a projected doubling of plastic production could see costs rocket by 2040 to $7.1 trillion.  The analysis looked at factors including the greenhouse gas emissions in the production process, health impacts, waste management and estimates of the reduction in the economic services of ecosystems on land and in water.  Since the 1950s, roughly 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic have been produced with around 60% of that tossed into landfills or the natural environment. Tiny fragments have been discovered inside fish in the deepest recesses of the ocean and peppering Arctic sea ice.  The debris is estimated to cause the deaths of more than a million seabirds and more than 100,000 marine mammals each year. “Tragically, the plastic pollution crisis is showing no signs of slowing down, but the commitment to tackle it has reached an unprecedented level,” said Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International, in a statement.  ‘More plastic than fish’ The report comes as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) meets in the French port city of Marseille, with one motion under consideration calling for an end to plastic pollution by 2030.  Earlier in September the European Union threw its weight behind calls for a legally binding international agreement to reduce plastic pollution, during U.N.-hosted talks in Geneva. The U.N. Environment Program has said the planet is “drowning in plastic pollution,” with about 300 million metric tons of plastic waste produced every year. The proposed resolution is to be discussed during the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi next year. France’s minister in charge of biodiversity, Berangere Abba, said if the world failed to act there would be “more plastic in the oceans than fish” by 2050. 
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In the vast Sunderbans delta that spans eastern India and Bangladesh, coastal erosion due to rising sea levels has been slowly carving away chunks of its low-lying islands, forcing thousands of people to relocate, according to climate experts.“When we talk to families in the Sunderbans, we find that only elderly people are left behind. Many young people are already working in different parts of the country as day laborers or semiskilled workers,” Harjeet Singh, senior adviser at Climate Action Network International, said.The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body, warns that the Indian Ocean is warming faster than other seas. As a result, it says that sea levels around South Asia have increased faster than the global average, leading to coastal area loss and retreating shorelines in densely populated countries such as India and Bangladesh.That is affecting millions — a December report by ActionAid and Climate Action Network South Asia estimated that the combined effects of climate change will result in the displacement of 63 million people in South Asia from their homes by 2050 if emissions continue at the same levels.Many of those displaced will be from coastal communities, and are already seeing their homes regularly inundated from rising sea levels and their farms shrinking or becoming unusable because of increased soil salinity, say experts.Millions displacedWhile disasters such as cyclones and floods linked to climate change have grabbed headlines, the displacement of millions of people in the region has gotten less attention.“The IPCC report points out that the sea level is rising much faster than earlier research had suggested,” said Roxy Mathew Koll at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.“A 3-centimeter rise in a decade might not seem much but it is equivalent to 17 meters of land carved out by the sea every decade along the entire coast of India. That is what we are seeing happening currently,” Koll said.Mega cities in India, such as Mumbai and Chennai, have been witnessing increased monsoon flooding, as rural communities along the shore see livelihoods destroyed.Low-lying Bangladesh, where more than 35 million people live in coastal areas, could lose more than 15% of its land, affecting the homes and livelihoods of millions in coastal areas.“This region is not prepared to deal with such levels of displacement because the poor do not have resources to relocate. These climate migrants are mostly pushed into slums in nearby towns and cities, which are already densely populated,” Singh said.Barriers of mud and rock erected by residents, as well as concrete structures, have done little to keep the ocean out.Bangladesh’s government is planning to improve coastal embankments that were built to keep out tidal flooding and offer protection against severe cyclones, according to Malik Fida Khan at the Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services in Dhaka.Ocean damages soilEven where the land is not swallowed by the ocean, though, the sea water pushing into farms has caused long-term damage.“We can build embankments and resilience against cyclonic storms and sea level rise, but it is very difficult to handle soil salinity. You need fresh water to push back the salinity,” Khan said.“For example, it will take 50 years or more to remove soil salinity that has increased in 10 years. So, you need different kind of adaptation measures such as growing saline-tolerant varieties of rice,” he said.While Bangladesh has developed several such varieties of rice, some studies say the soil salinity has increased so much that even growing these is difficult.Nowhere is the situation more dire than in the Sunderbans, often called one of the world’s climate hotspots. Increasingly battered by more intense cyclones, the region is witnessing one of the fastest rates of coastal erosion in the world, with islands dotting the delta steadily shrinking, according to several studies.Ghoramara island in the Indian state of West Bengal for example has diminished by half since 1970, according to several studies. Once home to 40,000 people, India’s 2011 census counted only 5,000 on the island.Those who have grown up in the Sunderbans in India, such as Bhakta Purakayastha, founder of the Sunderbans Social Development Center, describe the dramatic changes they have witnessed.“When I was a child, we used to cross the river in a boat. Now the river has shrunk so much due to silt deposits from upstream that we can walk across,” he said.He said fish were once abundant in the river but the catch has shrunk as the rising sea pushes into rivers, affecting poor communities that rely on their rice paddies and fish for sustenance.“Now they have to go out into the deep sea to catch fish, but rising tides pose a challenge” Purakayastha said.’We do not have a plan’A severe cyclone that hit the region in May has exacerbated the problem in the delta, with even drinking water becoming scarce because of rising salinity in rivers.Experts are calling on regional governments to develop plans to assist the growing tide of climate migrants, saying marginalized communities are the hardest hit by climate change.“The reality is we do not have a plan, although many of the impacts of climate change are already locked in,” Singh of Climate Action Network International said.“None of the governments in South Asia have specific policies for people forced to migrate due to climate change to eke out a living. Even the recognition of climate induced migration is not there,” he said. 
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Australia recorded three new COVID-19 deaths in its most populous state of New South Wales and nearly 1,500 new cases of the coronavirus disease Sunday.Speaking to reporters in Sydney, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the peak of the most recent outbreak was expected “in the next couple of weeks.”Regarding the vaccination efforts, Berejiklian said 40% of the adult population in her state had received both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.The Australian state of Victoria recorded at least 180 new locally contracted cases of the coronavirus Sunday.Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said the majority of people hospitalized with COVID-19 were not vaccinated. Andrews urged people to take the vaccine.New Zealand officials on Saturday reported the country’s first COVID-related fatality in more than 200 days. Doctors said the nonagenarian had several underlying health problems in addition to COVID-19.In Japan, the Nikkei newspaper reported Sunday that the government plans to issue COVID-19 vaccination certificates online.The report said the certificates for people vaccinated from around mid-December are intended for overseas travel rather than domestic use.In Brazil, federal health regulator Anvisa has placed a 90-day suspension on the use of more than 12 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine because they were made in a plant that had not been authorized by it.Several cities in Brazil have begun providing vaccine booster shots, even though most citizens have yet to receive their second shots. The booster shots were prompted by concerns older Brazilians have about the efficacy of the Sinovac vaccine, The Associated Press reported.France, Israel, China and Chile are among those countries giving boosters to some of their older citizens, and a U.S. plan to start delivering booster shots for most Americans by Sept. 20 is facing complications that could delay third doses for those who received the Moderna vaccine, Biden administration officials said on Friday.Japan and South Korea are planning booster shots in the fourth quarter of this year. Malaysia is also considering boosters, but Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said those who have yet to receive their first shot are being prioritized.Thailand began giving booster shots this week, but only for health and frontline workers.Russia, Hungary and Serbia also are giving boosters, although there has been a lack of demand in those countries for the initial shots amid abundant supplies.According to The Associated Press, France’s worst coronavirus outbreak is unfolding 12 time zones away from Paris, devastating Tahiti and other idyllic islands of French Polynesia.Regional health officials say the South Pacific archipelagos lack enough oxygen, ICU beds and morgue space, and that the vaccination rate is just half the national average.With more than 2,800 COVID cases per 100,000 inhabitants, the region now holds France’s record for the highest infection rate. The majority of the region’s 463 documented COVID-19 deaths have taken place in the past 30 days.Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said early Sunday that it had recorded nearly 220.3 million global COVID-19 infections and 4.56 million deaths. The center said more than 5.4 billion vaccines have been administered.Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.  
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Funeral director Wayne Bright has seen grief piled upon grief during the latest COVID-19 surge. A woman died of the virus, and as her family was planning the funeral, her mother was struck down. An aunt took over arrangements for the double funeral, only to die of COVID-19 herself two weeks later. “That was one of the most devastating things ever,” said Bright, who also arranged the funeral last week of one of his closest friends. Florida is in the grip of its deadliest wave of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, a disaster driven by the highly contagious delta variant. While Florida’s vaccination rate is slightly higher than the national average, the Sunshine State has an outsize population of elderly people, who are especially vulnerable to the virus; a vibrant party scene; and a Republican governor who has taken a hard line against mask requirements, vaccine passports and business shutdowns. As of mid-August, the state was averaging 244 deaths per day, up from 23 a day in late June and eclipsing the previous peak of 227 during the summer of 2020. (Because of the way deaths are logged in Florida and lags in reporting, more recent figures on fatalities per day are incomplete.) Hospitals have rented refrigerated trucks to store more bodies. Funeral homes have been overwhelmed. This 2016 photo provided by Cristina Miles shows her and her husband, Austin, in Palm Coast, Fla. Cristina’s husband died after contracting COVID-19, and less than two weeks later, her mother-in-law succumbed to the virus.’Weird dream state’Cristina Miles, a mother of five from Orange Park, is among those facing more than one loss at a time. Her husband died after contracting COVID-19, and less than two weeks later, her mother-in-law succumbed to the virus. “I feel we are all kind of in a weird dream state,” she said, of herself and her three children. Hospitals have been swamped with patients who, like Miles’ husband and mother-in-law, hadn’t gotten vaccinated. In a positive sign, the number of people in the hospital with COVID-19 in Florida has dropped over the past two weeks from more than 17,000 to 14,200 on Friday, indicating the surge is easing.  Florida made an aggressive effort early on to vaccinate its senior citizens. But Dr. Kartik Cherabuddi, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Florida, said the raw number of those who have yet to get the shot is still large, given Florida’s elderly population of 4.6 million. “Even 10% is still a very large number, and then folks living with them who come in contact with them are not vaccinated,” Cherabuddi said. “With delta, things spread very quickly.” Cherabuddi said there is also a “huge difference” in attitudes toward masks in Florida this summer compared with last year. This summer, “if you traveled around the state, it was like we are not really in a surge,” he said. FILE – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at a news conference at Orlando Regional Medical Center, June 23, 2020, in Orlando, Fla.DeSantis’ stancesGovernor Ron DeSantis has strongly opposed certain mandatory measures to keep the virus in check, saying people should be trusted to make decisions for themselves. He has asserted, too, that the spike in cases is seasonal as Floridians spend more time indoors to escape the heat. At his funeral home in Tampa, Bright is working weekdays and weekends, staying past midnight sometimes. “Usually we serve between five and six families a week. Right now, we are probably seeing 12 to 13 new families every week,” he said. “It’s nonstop. We are just trying to keep up with the volume.” He had to arrange the burial of one of his closest friends, a man he had entrusted with the security code to his house. They used to carpool each other’s kids to school, and their families would gather for birthday and Super Bowl parties. “It is very, very difficult to go through this process for someone you love so dearly,” he said. Pat Seemann, a nurse practitioner whose company has nearly 500 elderly, homebound patients in central Florida, had not lost a single patient to COVID-19. Then the variant she calls “the wrecking ball” hit. In the past month, she lost seven patients in two weeks, including a husband and wife who died within days of each other. “I cried all weekend. I was devastated, angry,” she said. Elderly hit hardestOverall, more than 46,300 people have died of COVID-19 in Florida, which ranks 17th in per capita deaths among the states. The majority of the deaths this summer — like last summer — are among the elderly. Of the 2,345 people whose recent deaths were reported over the past week, 1,479 of them were 65 and older, or 63%. “The focus needs to be on who’s dying and who’s ending up in the hospital,” Seeman said. “It’s still going after the elderly.” But the proportion of under-65 people dying of COVID-19 has grown substantially, which health officials attribute to lower vaccination rates in those age groups. Aaron Jaggi, 35, was trying to get healthy before he died of COVID-19, 12 hours after his older brother Free Jaggi, 41, lost his life to the virus. They were overweight, which increases the risk of severe COVID-19 illness, and on the fence about getting vaccinated, thinking the risk was minimal because they both worked from home, said Brittany Pequignot, who has lived with the family at various times and is like an adopted daughter. After their death, the family found a whiteboard that belonged to Aaron. It listed his daily goals for sit-ups and push-ups. “He was really trying,” Pequignot said. 
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Some cities in Brazil are providing booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccine, even though most people have yet to receive their second jabs, in a sign of the concern in the country over the highly contagious delta variant.Rio de Janeiro, currently Brazil’s epicenter for the variant and home to one of its largest elderly populations, began administering the boosters Wednesday. Northeastern cities Salvador and Sao Luis started on Monday, and the most populous city of Sao Paulo will begin Sept. 6. The rest of the nation will follow the next week.France, Israel, China and Chile are among those countries giving boosters to some of their older citizens, but more people in those countries are fully vaccinated than the 30% who have gotten two shots in Brazil. A U.S. plan to start delivery of booster shots by Sept. 20 for most Americans is facing complications that could delay third doses for those who received the Moderna vaccine, administration officials said Friday.About nine out of 10 Brazilians have been vaccinated already or plan to be, according to pollster Datafolha. Most have gotten their first shot but not their second.Brazil’s cases and deaths have been falling for two months, with 621 deaths reported in the seven days through Sept. 2 — far below April’s peak of more than 3,000 reported deaths over a seven-day period. Older Brazilians have expressed concern about the efficacy of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine against the delta variant, prompting authorities to offer the booster shots.Diana dos Santos, 71, received two shots of the Sinovac vaccine even after President Jair Bolsonaro spent months publicly criticizing it. Dos Santos, who lives Rio’s low-income Maré neighborhood, is diabetic and was hospitalized for a heart condition. She refuses to leave home until she gets her booster.“I can’t go out like before and I’m still afraid of all of this,” dos Santos said. “I will feel safer (with a booster).”Because of the variant, some experts say the government should slow the rollout of boosters and focus on distributing second doses. Delta is the most contagious variant identified, and many studies have suggested that one dose doesn’t protect against it.Two shots provide strong protection, with nearly all hospitalizations and deaths among the unvaccinated.Ethel Maciel, an epidemiologist and professor at the Federal University of Espirito Santo, said pushing boosters at this early stage recalls the lack of concern given the gamma variant that overwhelmed Amazonian city Manaus earlier this year, only to feed a new wave nationwide. Brazil has seen more than 580,000 deaths from COVID-19, making it home to world’s eighth-highest toll on a per capita basis.Elderly residents wait for a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, during a booster shot campaign for the elderly in long-term care institutions, at Casa de Repouso Laco de Ouro nursing home, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sept. 2, 2021.“It seems we’re in the same movie, repeating the same errors,” Maciel said. “It’s only a matter of time until what’s happening in Rio leads to a greater number of more serious cases in the rest of the country.”The delta variant already is dominant in Rio de Janeiro state, detected in 86% of the samples collected from COVID-19 patients, according to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. Intensive care units have reached full capacity in eight municipalities, although only a small rise in deaths have been recorded so far.Authorities in Sao Paulo state expect a similar scenario within weeks. It registered its first confirmed death from the delta variant on Tuesday, a 74-year-old woman who had received two Sinovac shots.Globally, doubts have plagued Chinese vaccines, especially as the delta variant has gained hold in many countries. Chinese officials have maintained the vaccine protects against delta, particularly preventing hospitalizations and severe cases.Still, Brazil’s Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga said Aug. 25 that people aged 70 or older or who have a weak immune system will be eligible for a third dose, starting Sept. 15 — preferably with the Pfizer vaccine. He said that people over 18 will have received their first doses by then, although he didn’t address their vulnerability to the delta variant without a second shot.He also criticized governors and mayors who sought to deliver booster shots earlier, saying it could lead to vaccine shortages.Carla Domingues, former coordinator of Brazil’s national immunization program, agrees with the need to provide the elderly boosters, but not for people aged 70 and up right away. Shots should first go to nursing homes and people who are bed-ridden, she said, then people 80 and above, with the age slowly decreasing as supply allows.“Certainly, there will be problems with shortage, because there won’t be enough vaccine,” Domingues said.Japan and South Korea both wrestled with slow vaccine rollouts, and under half their populations are fully vaccinated; their governments are only planning booster shots in the fourth quarter of this year. Malaysia also is considering boosters, but Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the priority is those who haven’t received a first dose.Aloysio Zaluar, 84, is injected with a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine during a booster shot campaign for elderly residents in long-term care institutions in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sept. 1, 2021.Thailand began giving booster shots even as most people wait to be vaccinated — but only for health and front-line workers who received two Sinovac shots. The decision came after a nurse died of COVID-19 in July.Russia, Hungary and Serbia also are giving boosters, although there has been a lack of demand in those countries for the initial shots amid abundant supplies.In addition to doubts over boosters, the issue is sensitive due to implications for global vaccine distribution. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called for a moratorium on boosters “to allow those countries that are furthest behind to catch up.”Epidemiologist Denise Garrett, vice president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, which advocates for expanding global vaccine access, said in an interview there is no doubt about the need for two jabs, but she sees no scientific or moral justification for a third.“Authorities giving a third dose are prioritizing protection against light disease instead of shielding people in poor countries from death,” said Garrett, who is Brazilian. “That is shameful, immoral, and this vaccine inequity must end.”That doesn’t sway 97-year-old Maria Menezes, who wants to spend time outside her home where she has lived for the last seven decades in Rio’s western region. Her two daughters say Menezes wants to a booster shot.“She asked us to take her for the third vaccine,” said daughter Cristina França, 38. “It will be important to beef up her immunity to reduce her risks. Her life won’t change much after the third dose, because she is more frail now, but she would live with more calm.”
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A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Friday says the coronavirus can cause “severe illness” in children and adolescents.From late June to mid-August, when there was an “increased circulation” of the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus, weekly COVID-associated hospitalization rates for children and adolescents rose nearly fivefold. Hospitalization rates, however, were “10 times higher among unvaccinated than among fully vaccinated adolescents,” the study said.India’s health ministry said Saturday morning that 42,618 new COVID cases were reported in the previous 24-hour period and 330 deaths.India is second only to the United States in COVID tolls. India has almost 33 million COVID-19 infections and 440,225 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The U.S., Johns Hopkins says, has nearly 40 million infections and close to 650,000 deaths. Public health officials have warned, however, that India’s tolls are likely undercounted.The COVID-related death of a woman in her 90s is the first COVID-related death in New Zealand in more than 200 days.In addition to COVID, doctors say the women had several underlying health problems.Fighter Oscar de la Hoya has been hospitalized with COVID-19, forcing him to drop out of a comeback fight scheduled for next month.Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said early Saturday that it had recorded nearly 219.8 million global COVID infections and 4.5 million deaths. The center said 5.4 billion vaccines have been administered.
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Cuban authorities on Friday launched a national campaign to vaccinate children ages 2-18 against COVID-19, a prerequisite set by the communist government for schools to reopen amid a spike in infections.Children 12 and older will be the first to receive one of the two domestically produced vaccines, Abdala and Soberana, followed by younger kids.Schools have mostly been closed in Cuba since March 2020, and students have been following lessons on television. With the school year starting Monday, they will continue learning remotely until all eligible children are vaccinated.Laura Lantigua, 17, got the first of three injections at Saul Delgado high school in the Cuban capital, Havana.”I always wanted to be vaccinated,” Lantigua told AFP. She said that doctors measured her blood pressure and temperature before giving her the shot, then told her to wait for an hour to ensure she didn’t have any side effects.”I felt normal, fine,” Lantigua said.Late Friday, the Medicines Regulatory Agency (Cecmed) announced that it authorized the emergency use of the Soberana 2 vaccine for minors between the ages of 2 and 18.The composition of Cuban vaccines, which are not recognized by the World Health Organization, is based on a recombinant protein, the same technique used by the U.S. company Novavax.With the delta variant spreading across the island of 11.2 million, the country’s health care system has been pushed to the brink.Of the 5,300 novel coronavirus deaths recorded since the outbreak started, nearly half were in August, as were almost a third of all reported cases.The government said it plans to gradually reopen schools for in-person instruction in October after the vaccination campaign among children is completed.
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In the first report of its kind, the World Meteorological Organization examines the close link between air quality and climate change and how measures stemming from COVID-19 influenced air quality patterns in 2020.Government-imposed lockdown measures and travel restrictions to control the spread of COVID-19 resulted in a marked improvement in air quality in many parts of the world. For example, the WMO said Southeast Asia experienced a 40% reduction in air particles in 2020.However, the chief of the WMO’s Atmospheric Environment Research Division, Oksana Tarasova, said the dramatic fall in emissions of key air pollutants was short-lived. She said city dwellers who reveled in seeing blue skies during periods of lockdown inactivity, had to again endure living under a pollution cloud once the cars started rolling again.WMO Chief of atmospheric and environment research division Oksana Tarasova attends a press conference Nov. 25, 2019 in Geneva.“As soon as mobility has increased, we are back to business as usual,” Tarasova said. “So, those improvements were not very long lasting. And that is why we always stress that the extreme measures which were taken under lockdown is not a substitute for long term policies.”During this same period, the WMO said extreme weather events fueled by climate and environmental change triggered unprecedented sand and dust storms and wildfires that affected air quality.In parallel with the human-induced experiment on lockdowns and travel restrictions, Tarasova said those, and other natural phenomena also were controlling air quality around the world.“There were several very strong events that happened in 2020 related to bio-mass burning where the smoke pollution from this burning bio-mass impacted air quality in large parts of Siberia, the United States,” Tarasova said. “Early in the year, there was an episode in Australia that caused dramatic deterioration of air quality in those parts of the world.”Smoke from wildfires is seen east of Hobart in the Australian island state of Tasmania Jan. 4, 2013.The episode Tarasova refers is to Australian wildfires.The WMO says changes in climate can influence pollution levels directly. It says the increased frequency and intensity of heatwaves may lead to greater accumulation of pollutants close to the surface. It notes the intense wildfires breaking out in many parts of the world and huge dust and sandstorms also worsen air pollution.The weather agency warns air pollution has significant impacts on human health. That is borne out by estimates from the latest Global Burden of Disease assessment. The data show global mortality from pollution nearly doubled from 2.3 million in 1990 to 4.5 million in 2019 — most due to particulate matter.  
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Amid the latest wave of COVID-19 infections, less than 1% of people in Africa’s most populated country, Nigeria, have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. Nigerian authorities are scrambling for more vaccines but say misinformation and myths are discouraging uptake. Timothy Obiezu looks at efforts to dispel the rumors in this report from the capital, Abuja.
Camera: Emeka Gibson       Producer: Jason Godman
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