The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is proposing switching to an annual COVID-19 vaccination campaign for the country, similar to the flu shot.

In documents posted online Monday, the agency said the new strategy would provide a simplified approach to the coronavirus vaccine. The proposed plan is set to be discussed at a meeting this week of FDA scientists and the agency’s panel of external vaccine advisers.

The FDA said most Americans would need only one annual vaccination to help protect them against the coronavirus, while others — including the elderly, the very young and those with weakened immune systems — might need a two-dose inoculation for additional protection.

Under the current vaccination system, a person must get two doses of the original COVID-19 vaccine, which targets the coronavirus that emerged in 2020. Following that, booster shots have been recommended at periodic intervals, with the latest boosters targeting both the original virus and the omicron variant.

The proposed FDA changes would do away with the system of primary vaccinations and boosters and would instead recommend for most Americans a single vaccine dose that is developed annually.

As with the flu shot, vaccine makers and independent experts would aim to develop a shot that targets the virus strains most likely to dominate in the winter season. The targeted strains could be changed every year.

The FDA is also considering making the shots interchangeable, so people would not have to keep track of which vaccine brand they receive.

The agency is hoping the changes will make it easier for Americans to continue with their COVID inoculations amid a waning interest from the public to receive repeated booster shots.

While more than 80% of the U.S. population has had at least one vaccine dose, only 16% of eligible Americans have received the latest booster shot, according to The Associated Press.

The proposed FDA changes also come as experts have been publicly debating how effective the latest booster shots have been at increasing protection against COVID-19, especially in healthy adults.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Far below our feet, a giant may have started moving against us. 

Earth’s inner core, a hot iron ball the size of Pluto, has stopped spinning in the same direction as the rest of the planet and might even be rotating the other way, research suggested on Monday.

Roughly 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) below the surface we live on, this “planet within the planet” can spin independently because it floats in the liquid metal outer core. 

Exactly how the inner core rotates has been a matter of debate between scientists — and the latest research is expected to prove controversial.

What little we know about the inner core comes from measuring the tiny differences in seismic waves — created by earthquakes or sometimes nuclear explosions — as they pass through the middle of the Earth.

Seeking to track the inner core’s movements, new research published in the journal Nature Geoscience analysed seismic waves from repeating earthquakes over the last six decades.

The study’s authors, Xiaodong Song and Yi Yang of China’s Peking University, said they found that the inner core’s rotation “came to near halt around 2009 and then turned in an opposite direction.”

“We believe the inner core rotates, relative to the Earth’s surface, back and forth, like a swing,” they told AFP.

“One cycle of the swing is about seven decades,” meaning it changes direction roughly every 35 years, they added.

They said it previously changed direction in the early 1970s and predicted the next about-face would be in the mid-2040s.

The researchers said this rotation roughly lines up with changes in what is called the “length of day” — small variations in the exact time it takes Earth to rotate on its axis.

Stuck in the middle 

So far there is little to indicate that what the inner core does has much effect on we surface dwellers.

But the researchers said they believed there are physical links between all Earth’s layers, from the inner core to the surface. 

“We hope our study can motivate some researchers to build and test models which treat the whole Earth as an integrated dynamic system,” they said.

Experts not involved in the study expressed caution about its findings, pointing to several other theories and warning that many mysteries remain about the center of the Earth.

“This is a very careful study by excellent scientists putting in a lot of data,” said John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Southern California.

“[But] none of the models explain all the data very well in my opinion,” he added. 

Vidale published research last year suggesting the inner core oscillates far more quickly, changing direction every six years or so. His work was based on seismic waves from two nuclear explosions in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

That timeframe is around the point when Monday’s research says the inner core last changed direction — which Vidale called “kind of a coincidence.”

Geophysicists ‘divided’  

Another theory — which Vidale said has some good evidence supporting it — is that the inner core only significantly moved between 2001 to 2013 and has stayed put since.

Hrvoje Tkalcic, a geophysicist at the Australian National University, has published research suggesting that the inner core’s cycle is every 20 to 30 years, rather than the 70 proposed in the latest study.

“These mathematical models are most likely all incorrect because they explain the observed data but are not required by the data,” Tkalcic said.

“Therefore, the geophysical community will be divided about this finding and the topic will remain controversial.”

He compared seismologists to doctors “who study the internal organs of patients’ bodies using imperfect or limited equipment.” 

Lacking something like a CT scan, “our image of the inner Earth is still blurry,” he said, predicting more surprises ahead.

That could include more about a theory that the inner core might have yet another iron ball inside it — like a Russian doll.

“Something’s happening and I think we’re going to figure it out,” Vidale said. “But it may take a decade.” 
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The World Health Organization has called for “immediate and concerted action” to protect children from contaminated medicines after a spate of child deaths linked to cough syrups last year. 

In 2022, more than 300 children — mainly younger than 5 years old — in Gambia, Indonesia and Uzbekistan died of acute kidney injury, deaths that were associated with contaminated medicines, the WHO said in a statement on Monday. 

The medicines, over-the-counter cough syrups, had high levels of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol. 

“These contaminants are toxic chemicals used as industrial solvents and antifreeze agents that can be fatal even taken in small amounts, and should never be found in medicines,” the WHO said. 

It said seven countries had reported finding the contaminated syrups in the last four months, and called for action across its 194 member states to prevent more deaths. 

“Since these are not isolated incidents, WHO calls on various key stakeholders engaged in the medical supply chain to take immediate and coordinated action,” WHO said. 

 
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The World Health Organization is calling for the total elimination of trans fat — an artificial toxic chemical commonly found in packaged foods, baked goods, cooking oils, and spreads which is responsible for half a million premature deaths each year. 

WHO reports 5 billion people are being exposed to this toxic product, increasing their risk of heart disease and death. 

Tom Frieden, the president and chief executive officer of the public health initiative Resolve to Save Lives, said that the global elimination of trans fat from food could prevent up to 17 million deaths from cardiovascular diseases by 2040. 

Frieden also spoke of the importance of distinguishing artificial trans fat, “which is a toxic chemical, which has no valid use in the food supply and should be eliminated,” from saturated fat, which he called “an inherent part of many food groups in which nobody is proposing to ban.” 

To put it simply, Frieden said, “Think of artificial trans fat as the tobacco of nutrition. It has no values.” 

Progress has been made since 2018 when the WHO set a goal for the global elimination of trans fat in 2023. It says 43 countries now have implemented best-practice policies for tackling trans fat in food, thus protecting 2.8 billion people from heart disease and death. 

To Frieden, however, that still leaves 5 billion people at risk from the devastating health impacts of trans fat. He said governments can stop these preventable deaths by enacting WHO’s best-practice policies. 

He noted several countries, especially Mexico, Nigeria and Sri Lanka, are very close to passing these lifesaving policies. According to him, all they need is a simple push to get them over the finish line. 

“Policy wins in one country can help encourage other countries to take action,” Frieden noted. “We hope that leaders such as India, Bangladesh, and the Philippines will be examples for all of the South and Southeast Asia region, and we hope that Nigeria, along with South Africa, which has already banned trans fat, will be a leader for Africa.” 

Friedan said experience shows the industry can adapt, innovate and replace trans fat with healthy alternatives. It is just a few large companies who continue to manufacture a toxic product.  

Friedan added that these companies will come into line when they see the days of trans fat are numbered. 

WHO reports most trans fat elimination policies have been implemented in high-income countries, mainly in the Americas and Europe, and that an increasing number of middle-income countries are following suit. As of now, however, no low-income countries have done so. 
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A study published in the December 2022 issue of the American Journal of Transplantation finds Canada leading the world in harvesting organs from those who received medical assistance in dying.

The study found that in Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain, a total of 286 people who sought euthanasia provided organs to save the lives of 837 people. Almost half of those donors, 136, came from Canada.

Patients who choose a medically assisted death due to suffering from cancer cannot be organ donors, due to the medications that are usually taken. Usable donors were suffering from diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease or multiple sclerosis.

Arthur Schafer, director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba, is pleased with the findings of the report.

“I was rather proud to learn that Canadian patients who receive medical assistance in dying have been given the opportunity to make something morally significant out of their death, by opting to give life through their organs to other patients,”‘ he said.

Nicole Scheidl, executive director of Ottawa-based Physicians for Life, had a very different reaction.

“I was shocked,” she said. “I also think that it really undermines the organ donation framework in this country.”

A longtime opponent of any form of euthanasia, Scheidl said it reminds her of suspected organ harvesting of executed prisoners in places such as the People’s Republic of China.

“I think people are concerned,” she said. “I know transplant teams would want to make sure that individuals who were euthanized were not coerced.”

Scheidl added that more questions should be asked about euthanasia in Canada. She said there is not enough oversight or data collection, and it is being expanded too fast.

Victoria-based lawyer Chris Considine represented Sue Rodriguez, who suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and made world headlines in the early 1990s for seeking a medically assisted death, which was rejected at the time by Canada’s Supreme Court.

He said the use of organs from patients who received medical assistance in dying, also known as MAID, is something he thought about back then.

“I knew that it would take 20 years for the law to change,” he said. “And that society would then gradually adapt the law to its needs and based on the experiences that Canadians had and the physicians had with MAID.”

Schafer said that, in the future, committees that approve medical assistance in dying should be required to notify organizations that counsel patients about organ donation.

“There shouldn’t be any conflict of interest,” said Schafer. “There shouldn’t be even a hint or a suggestion that maybe a patient was hustled into requesting MAID, or obtaining MAID earlier than they would themselves wish to do, because the doctors are eager to snatch their organs.”

MAID has been legal in Canada since 2016. The Canadian government is expected to delay a planned expansion of the law that would make euthanasia available to those with severe mental health issues.
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The warming of the waters off the East Coast has come at an invisible, but very steep cost — the loss of microscopic organisms that make up the base of the ocean’s food chain.

The growing warmth and saltiness of the Gulf of Maine off New England is causing a dramatic decrease in the production of phytoplankton, according to Maine-based scientists who recently reported results of a yearslong, NASA-funded study. Phytoplankton, sometimes described as an “invisible forest,” are tiny plant-like organisms that serve as food for marine life.

The scientists found that phytoplankton are about 65% less productive in the Gulf of Maine, part of the Atlantic Ocean bounded by New England and Canada, than they were two decades ago. The Gulf of Maine has emerged as one of the fastest warming sections of the world’s oceans.

Potential loss of phytoplankton has emerged as a serious concern in recent years in other places, such as the Bering Sea off Alaska. The loss of the tiny organisms has the ability to disrupt valuable fishing industries for species such as lobsters and scallops, and it could further jeopardize imperiled animals such as North Atlantic right whales and Atlantic puffins, scientists said.

“The drop in the productivity over these 20 years is profound,” said William Balch, a senior research scientist with Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine, who led the study. “And that has large ramifications to what can grow here. The health of the ecosystem, the productivity of the ecosystem.”

The scientists did the study using data gathered since 1998 by tracking chemical changes in the Gulf of Maine. The samples used to perform the work were gathered via commercial ferries and research vessels that run the same routes over and over.

The data showed changes between the gulf and the broader Atlantic, Balch said. Intrusions of warm water from the North Atlantic since 2008 have created a gulf that is hotter, saltier and less hospitable to the phytoplankton, the study states. The scientists published their findings last June in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences.

Phytoplankton are eaten by larger zooplankton, small fish and crustaceans, and they are critically important to sustaining larger marine life up the food chain such as sharks and whales. Loss of phytoplankton “will likely have negative impacts on the overall productivity” of larger animals and commercial fisheries, the study states.

Decline of fish stocks in the Gulf of Maine would be especially disruptive to American fishermen because it’s a key ground for the U.S. lobster industry. Other important species such as haddock, flounder and pollock are also harvested there.

Researchers have tracked similar warming trends in the Bering Sea, Southern Ocean and northern Barents Sea in recent years. Warming’s impact on plankton is an ongoing subject of scientific inquiry. A 2020 article in the journal Nature Communications found that climate change “is predicted to trigger major shifts in the geographic distribution of marine plankton species.”

Cyclical ocean conditions also have placed more stress on phytoplankton. An El Niño climate pattern, when surface water in the equatorial Pacific becomes warmer, can reduce phytoplankton production, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said. The impacts include lack of anchovies off South America, fewer squid off California and less salmon in the Pacific, NOAA said.

The Maine scientists say loss of phytoplankton is also significant because the organisms absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, much like plants do on land.

It’s part of the toll climate change is taking on ecosystems all over the world, said Jeff Runge, a professor in the University of Maine School of Marine Sciences, who was not involved in the study.

“There’s mounting evidence that it’s linked to climate change,” Runge said. “It’s having all kinds of effects on the system that we’re beginning to see.”
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Brazil’s government has declared a public health emergency for the Yanomami people in the Amazon who are suffering from malnutrition and diseases such as malaria because of illegal mining.

The decree, signed by Health Minister Nisia Trindade on Friday, has no expiration date and allows for hiring extra personnel. It determines that the team in charge has to publish reports regarding the Indigenous group’s health and general well-being.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also created a multiministerial committee to be coordinated by his chief of staff for an initial period of 90 days. He is traveling to Roraima state’s capital, Boa Vista, where many ill Yanomami have been admitted to specialized hospitals.

The Yanomami are the largest native group in Brazil, with a population of around 30,000 that lives in an area larger than 9 million hectares (22 million acres) in the northern area of the Amazon rainforest, close to the border with Venezuela.

In recent years, specialists sounded the alarm that humanitarian and sanitary crises were taking shape. The report “Yanomami Under Attack,” written by the nonprofit Socio-Environmental Institute, points out that in 2021 the region was responsible for 50% of the malaria cases in the country. The same report said that more than 3,000 children were malnourished.

Illegal mining is the main root of the problems faced by the Yanomami people. Activists accuse miners of death threats, sexual violence and alcohol and drug abuse, especially against Indigenous children. The same report shows that the region had more than 40 illegal airstrips made by miners and that they had taken over some of the government health centers installed in the region.

Earlier this week, the Health Ministry had already designated a team for a special health mission in the Yanomami region. Lula scheduled an emergency trip to Roraima state following a report by independent local news website Sumauma, featuring shocking pictures of malnourished children.

According to the report, during the last four years of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s government, the death of children aged 5 or less had jumped 29% in comparison to the previous government. The same report shows that 570 Yanomami children died between 2019 and 2022 from curable diseases.

Lula tweeted that the government received information on the “absurd situation” of malnourishment in Yanomami children. The president will be accompanied by several of his ministers in Boa Vista.
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Tons of waste dumped in poorly regulated riverside landfills or directly into the waterways that flow across three countries end up accumulating behind a trash barrier in the Drina River in eastern Bosnia during the wet weather of winter and early spring.

This week, the barrier once again became the outer edge of a massive floating waste dump crammed with plastic bottles, rusty barrels, used tires, household appliances, driftwood and other garbage picked up by the river from its tributaries.

The river fencing installed by a Bosnian hydroelectric plant, a few kilometers upstream from its dam near Visegrad, has turned the city into an unwilling regional waste site, local environmental activists complain.

Heavy rain and unseasonably warm weather over the past week have caused many rivers and streams in Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro to overflow, flooding the surrounding areas and forcing scores of people from their homes. Temperatures dropped in many areas Friday as rain turned into snow.

“We had a lot of rainfall and torrential floods in recent days and a huge inflow of water from (the Drina’s tributaries in) Montenegro which is now, fortunately, subsiding,” said Dejan Furtula of the environmental group Eko Centar Visegrad.

“Unfortunately, the huge inflow of garbage has not ceased,” he added.

The Drina

The Drina River runs 346 kilometers (215 miles) from the mountains of northwestern Montenegro through Serbia and Bosnia. and some of its tributaries are known for their emerald color and breathtaking scenery. A section along the border between Bosnia and Serbia is popular with river rafters when it’s not “garbage season.”

Some 10,000 cubic meters (more than 353,000 cubic feet) of waste are estimated to have amassed behind the Drina River trash barrier in recent days, Furtula said. The same amount was pulled in recent years from that area of the river.

Removing the garbage takes up to six months, on average. It ends up at the municipal landfill in Visegrad, which Furtula said “does not even have sufficient capacity to handle (the city’s) municipal waste.”

“The fires on the (municipal) landfill site are always burning,” he said, calling the conditions there “not just a huge environmental and health hazard, but also a big embarrassment for all of us.”

Environmental woes

Decades after the devastating 1990s wars that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Balkans lag behind the rest of Europe both economically and with regard to environmental protection.

The countries of the region have made little progress in building effective, environmentally sound trash disposal systems despite seeking membership in the European Union and adopting some of the EU’s laws and regulations.

Unauthorized waste dumps dot hills and valleys throughout the region, while trash litters roads and plastic bags hang from the trees.

In addition to river pollution, many countries in the western Balkans have other environmental woes. One of the most pressing is the extremely high level of air pollution affecting several cities in the region.

“People need to wake up to problems like this,” Visegrad resident Rados Brekalovic said.
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As damaging as it was for more than 32 trillion gallons of rain and snow to fall on California since Christmas, a worst-case global warming scenario could juice up similar future downpours by one-third by the middle of this century, a new study says.

The strongest of California’s storms from atmospheric rivers, long and wide plumes of moisture that form over an ocean and flow through the sky over land, would probably get an overall 34% increase in total precipitation, or another 11 trillion gallons more than just fell. That’s because the rain and snow is likely to be 22% more concentrated at its peak in places that get really doused, and to fall over a considerably larger area if fossil fuel emissions grow uncontrolled, according to a new study in Thursday’s journal Nature Climate Change.

The entire western United States would likely see a 31% increase in precipitation from these worst of the worst storms in a souped-up warming world because of more intense and widely spread rainfall, the study said.

Scientists say the worst-case scenario, which is about 4.4 degrees Celsius (7.9 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times, looks a bit more unlikely since efforts are being undertaken to rein in emissions. If countries do as they promise, temperatures are on track to warm about 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.9 degrees Fahrenheit), according to Climate Action Tracker.

The National Weather Service calculated that California averaged 11.47 inches of precipitation statewide from Dec. 26 to Jan. 17 — including 18.33 inches in Oakland and 47.74 inches in one spot 235 miles north of San Francisco — because of a series of nine devastating atmospheric rivers that caused power outages, flooding, levee breaks, washouts and landslides. At least 20 people died.

“It could be even worse,” said study author Ruby Leung, a climate scientist at the U.S. Pacific Northwest National Lab. “We need to start planning how would we be able to deal with this.”

Leung used regional scale computer simulations to predict what the worst of the western winter storms will be like between 2040 and 2070 in a scenario where carbon emissions have run amok. She looked at total precipitation, how concentrated peak raining and snowing would be and the area that gets hit. All three factors grow for the West in general. California is predicted to get the highest increase in peak precipitation, while the Southwest is likely to see more rain because of a big jump in area of rainfall. The Pacific Northwest would see the least juicing of the three areas.

Overall precipitation is a bit lessened from adding all the factors, because just as the peak rainfall grows the rainfall on the edges of the storms is predicted to weaken, according to the study.

There are two types of storms that Leung said she worries about: Flash floods from intense rain concentrated over a small area and slower, larger floods that occur from rain and snow piling up over a large area. Both are bad, but the flash floods cause more damage and hurt people more, she said.

And those flash floods are likely to get worse from what Leung’s paper calls a “sharpening” effect that happens in an ever warmer world. That means more rainfall concentrated in the central areas of storms, falling at higher rates per hour, while at the outer edges rainfall is a bit weaker.

This happens because of the physics of rain storms, Leung said.

Not only can the atmosphere hold 4% more moisture per degree Fahrenheit (7% per degree Celsius), but it’s what happens in the storm that changes and makes the precipitation come down even more, Leung said. You’ve got air rising inside the storm with more water vapor condensing to produce rain and snow; it then releases heat “that kind of causes the storm to become more vigorous and stronger,” she said.

When water vapor condenses it comes down as rain and snow along the edges of the storm, but heating sort of squeezes that falling precipitation in toward the middle, Leung said.

“The concepts and impacts of how precipitation features are likely to change are well quantified and well explained,” said David Gochis, an expert in how water affects the weather at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, who wasn’t part of the study.

When she used computer simulations, Leung chose the most severe worst-case scenario for how the world’s carbon emissions will grow. It’s a scenario that used to be called business as usual, but the world is no longer on that track. After years of climate negotiations and the growth of renewable fuels the globe is heading to less warming than the worst case, according to climate scientist Zeke Hausfather of the tech company Stripe and Berkeley Earth.

“We are providing more of a worst-case scenario, but understanding that if we do take action to reduce emissions in the future, we could end up better,” Leung said. “If we control the emissions and lower the global warming in the future, we can limit the impacts of climate change on the society, particularly flooding and extreme precipitation that we are talking about in this study.”
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The World Health Organization says there is no evidence that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines increase the risk of strokes in older people.

WHO officials say there is no basis to the recent concerns raised by the media and science communities about the safety of the mRNA booster shots. They say the concerns, which are related to one U.S. data system that monitors safety, presented misinformation about deaths related to COVID-19 infection.

Kate O’Brien, WHO director of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals, said other U.S. and national vaccine safety monitoring systems have not found further evidence that mRNA vaccines lead to strokes.

“At this point in time, the best evidence is that there is no true association between the booster doses of Pfizer in the older adults and strokes,” she said. “And, again, there is an ongoing, unending system to continuously monitor safety, not only for COVID vaccine and dose-by-dose, but also for all other vaccines.”

O’Brien said COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective at preventing hospitalization, severe disease, or death, but less effective at stopping people from getting infected and transmitting the disease.

She noted it is particularly important that people in high priority groups receive all their recommended doses. They include people over age 60, those who have underlying medical conditions or are immunocompromised, pregnant women and health workers.

“For the strains that we have circulating in the world now, the omicron strains, the first booster dose actually improves the performance of your primary series for protection against the severe end of the disease spectrum,” O’Brien said. “So, you actually need three doses to get that optimal protection from vaccines.”

O’Brien said there is no direct evidence of the performance of the monovalent or bivalent vaccines on the XBB.1.5 strain of COVID-19. Since there currently is no data on whether the newer bivalent vaccines are more effective than ancestral vaccines, she said the WHO recommends both for booster doses.
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South Korea on Friday announced an end to its indoor mask mandate, one of the country’s last major pandemic restrictions.

Health authorities said as of Jan. 30, face coverings will no longer be required indoors, except in hospitals, pharmacies, and on public transportation.

The move was made because a winter spike in COVID-19 cases is on the decline and the overall pandemic situation is under control, authorities said.

“Of course, there may be some increase in cases after changing the mandatory mask rule, but given the current situation in Korea we are not expecting a major spike,” said Jee Young-mee, the commissioner of the Korean Disease Control and Prevention Agency.

The announcement came exactly three years after South Korea reported its first COVID-19 case.

South Korea is the world’s last remaining developed country to lift its indoor mask rule and one of just a handful of nations where masks are still expected to be worn in nearly every public setting.

In Seoul, the densely populated metropolitan area where nearly half the country lives, many residents say they disagree with lifting the mask mandate.

“It’s too early,” said Kim Da-young, a 30-year-old nursing student, who said she fears a spike in COVID-19 cases. “I’m still nervous about taking off my mask, so I’ll keep wearing it.”

According to an opinion poll released earlier this month, 66% of South Koreans will continue to wear masks even after the mandate is lifted. Several polls suggest a large percentage of South Koreans do not ever anticipate a situation in which masks are not needed.

In Seoul, masks have become an expected part of daily life – and not just in crowded indoor settings. The vast majority of residents wear masks while walking outside. Many even keep the masks on when riding alone in an automobile, jogging on an empty path, or sitting on a park bench away from others.

Many residents say there’s little reason to take a mask off, if they have to put it back on to get on a bus or train. Others cite personal circumstances, such as living with older family members who are more susceptible to even mild diseases. South Korea has one of the world’s oldest populations.

Seoul resident Choi Seo-hyun said she is worried about spreading COVID-19 to her 2-month-old daughter.

“Even if I go out without the baby, I think I’ll still wear [the mask],” said Choi, who also cited fears about the seasonal flu.

“People have been wearing masks for a while, so I understand why they want to take them off. But wouldn’t it still be a little dangerous to take it off indoors?” she asked.

Widespread mask-wearing is seen as one of the main reasons South Korea was able to prevent the level of mass COVID-19 deaths seen in other countries, while at the same time avoiding mass lockdowns.

Other factors include the country’s quick and effective system of contact tracing, which has now ended, and an affordable national health care system.

South Korea has also quickly adjusted its COVID-19 policies as conditions changed. Almost all pandemic restrictions have been lifted, except for a seven-day isolation guideline for those who test positive at an official testing center.

The country has also imposed new rules for visitors from China, which has seen a massive spike in cases after abandoning its zero-COVID policy.

Lee Juhyun contributed to this story.
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Every year, the night sky grows brighter, and the stars look dimmer.

A new study that analyzes data from more than 50,000 amateur stargazers finds that artificial lighting is making the night sky about 10% brighter each year.

That’s a much faster rate of change than scientists had previously estimated looking at satellite data. The research, which includes data from 2011 to 2022, is published Thursday in the journal Science.

“We are losing, year by year, the possibility to see the stars,” said Fabio Falchi, a physicist at the University of Santiago de Compostela, who was not involved in the study.

“If you can still see the dimmest stars, you are in a very dark place. But if you see only the brightest ones, you are in a very light-polluted place,” he said.

As cities expand and put up more lights, “skyglow” or “artificial twilight,” as the study authors call it, becomes more intense.

The 10% annual change “is a lot bigger than I expected — something you’ll notice clearly within a lifetime,” said Christopher Kyba, a study co-author and physicist at the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam.

Kyba and his colleagues gave this example: A child is born where 250 stars are visible on a clear night. By the time that child turns 18, only 100 stars are still visible.

“This is real pollution, affecting people and wildlife,” said Kyba, who said he hoped that policymakers would do more to curb light pollution. Some localities have set limits.

The study data from amateur stargazers in the nonprofit Globe at Night project was collected in a similar fashion. Volunteers look for the constellation Orion — remember the three stars of his belt — and match what they see in the night sky to a series of charts showing an increasing number of surrounding stars.

Prior studies of artificial lighting, which used satellite images of the Earth at night, had estimated the annual increase in sky brightness to be about 2% a year.

But the satellites used aren’t able to detect light with wavelengths toward the blue end of the spectrum — including the light emitted by energy-efficient LED bulbs.

More than half of the new outdoor lights installed in the United States in the past decade have been LED lights, according to the researchers.

The satellites are also better at detecting light that scatters upward, like a spotlight, than light that scatters horizontally, like the glow of an illuminated billboard at night, said Kyba.

Skyglow disrupts human circadian rhythms, as well as other forms of life, said Georgetown biologist Emily Williams, who was not part of the study.

“Migratory songbirds normally use starlight to orient where they are in the sky at night,” she said. “And when sea turtle babies hatch, they use light to orient toward the ocean — light pollution is a huge deal for them.”

Part of what’s being lost is a universal human experience, said Falchi, the physicist at University of Santiago de Compostela.

“The night sky has been, for all the generations before ours, a source of inspiration for art, science, literature,” he said.
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