Life

28, January 2021

WHO team to begin Wuhan Covid-19 probe as China warns US against politicising it ⁰

A team of experts from the World Health Organization left quarantine in Wuhan on Thursday to begin a heavily scrutinised probe into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, after Washington urged a “robust and clear” investigation.

The group started a two-week quarantine on arrival on January 14 in the central Chinese city where the first known cluster of virus cases emerged in late 2019.

Wearing masks, they peered at the ranks of waiting media from the window of a bus which whisked them from the quarantine to another hotel on Thursday — although it was not immediately clear when and where their investigation will start.

“So proud to graduate from our 14 days… no-one went stir crazy & we’ve been v productive,” tweeted team member Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a global NGO focused on infectious disease prevention.

The virus is believed to have come from bats and to have initially spread from a wet market in Wuhan where wild animals were sold as food.

The WHO insists the visit will be tightly tethered to the science of how the virus — which has killed more than two million people — jumped from animals to humans.

But in a sign of the political baggage attached to their mission, US President Joe Biden’s new administration weighed in before the experts had even finished quarantine.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, new White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said it was “imperative we get to the bottom” of how the virus appeared and spread worldwide.

Psaki voiced concern over “misinformation” from “some sources in China” and urged a “robust and clear” probe.

Beijing snapped back on Thursday, warning the United States to “respect facts and science, respect the hard work” of the WHO experts.

They must be allowed to work “free from political interference”, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters.

But in a mission dogged by delays and obfuscation from their Chinese hosts, it was not clear what the expert team will be allowed to see in Wuhan — or what useful evidence remains a year after the outbreak in a country which has vigorously controlled the narrative of how the pandemic began.

The early days of the outbreak remain among the most sensitive topics in China today, with the Communist leadership seeking to stamp out any discussion that shows its governance in a poor light.

Beijing has also sought to seed doubt into the origin story, floating the unsubstantiated theory that the virus emerged elsewhere.

Another theory, amplified by former US president Donald Trump, is that it leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan where researchers were studying coronaviruses.

Relatives of Wuhan’s coronavirus dead have called for a meeting with the team from the UN health agency, saying they have been facing new levels of official obstruction since the WHO team arrived.

According to official Chinese figures the virus killed nearly 3,900 in Wuhan, accounting for the vast majority of the 4,636 dead China has reported.

China is taking no risks in bringing a resurgence of the virus to heel, conducting anal swabs, localised lockdowns and cancelling flights as it makes travel before the Lunar New Year difficult.

(AFP)

27, January 2021

Global tally of Covid-19 cases surpasses 100 million as new strains emerge ⁰

More than 100 million Covid-19 cases have now been recorded worldwide, according to an AFP tally on Tuesday, as newly-inaugurated President Joe Biden pledged to ramp up the United States’s struggling vaccine program.

The number of cases, compiled from data provided by national health agencies, represents just a fraction of the real infections as the coronavirus has spread around the globe.

The United States, which passed 25 million confirmed cases last weekend, remains the country with the largest outbreak — and the largest death toll of over 420,000.

Biden is seeking to turn around the fight against the virus, which took a ferocious grip on the country during Donald Trump’s presidency when the risks were downplayed and officials gave mixed messages on mask-wearing and socialising.

Biden said vaccinating the entire US population was a daunting challenge, and the program inherited from the Trump administration “was in worse shape than we anticipated or expected.”

“This is a war-time undertaking. It’s not hyperbole,” he said, announcing the US was buying an additional 200 million doses and will have enough to vaccinate 300 million Americans — virtually the entire population — by early fall.

In another day of grim milestones, Britain surged past 100,000 Covid-19 deaths, and other European nations looked to tighten their borders, hoping to keep out new, more transmissible virus strains.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was “hard to compute” the loss felt by British families after his country became the first European country to surpass 100,000 Covid-19 deaths.

But he said his government, which faced criticism over its initial response to the outbreak, “did everything that we could to minimise suffering and minimise loss of life.”

‘Drastic measures’

The UK has struggled to counter a brutal third wave blamed on a new variant that emerged there before Christmas before spreading to dozens of countries around the world.

Neighboring Ireland said Tuesday it would enact mandatory travel quarantines for the first time, as well extending its third national lockdown until March 5.

Among other European nations looking to strengthen border controls was Germany, which said it is considering almost completely halting flights into the country.

“The danger from the numerous virus mutations forces us to consider drastic measures,” Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told the Bild newspaper.

Iceland meanwhile started to issue vaccination certificates to ease travel for those who have had both required doses.

The new measures came as anger rises over grinding anti-coronavirus restrictions, with the Netherlands rocked by nightly riots since it imposed a curfew on Saturday.

More than 400 people were arrested after the worst unrest to hit the country in four decades, but the Dutch government said it would not back down.

“You don’t capitulate to people who smash shop windows,” Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra said, calling the rioters “scum.”

Israeli police also clashed with protesters, arresting 14 people after ultra-Orthodox Jews demonstrated against lockdown measures.

With the global death toll at 2.1 million, the world has looked to vaccines to break the gloom, but bickering over access to doses has intensified.

Tensions have in particular mounted between the European Union and pharmaceutical firms over delays to deliveries.

“Europe invested billions to help develop the world’s first Covid-19 vaccines,” EU chief Ursula von der Leyen told the virtual World Economic Forum (WEF). “And now, the companies must deliver. They must honour their obligations.”

‘Vaccine nationalism’

Europe’s vaccination campaign stumbled after British-Swedish drugs company AstraZeneca warned it would not be able to meet promised targets on EU shipments — a week after US group Pfizer said it was also delaying delivery volumes.

AstraZeneca’s CEO insisted Tuesday that the company was not selling vaccines ordered by the EU to other countries at a profit.

The widening gap for vaccine supplies between rich and poor countries led both South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to lash out at “vaccine nationalism.”

Ramaphosa told the WEF that low- and middle-income countries were being shouldered aside by wealthier nations able to acquire “up to four times what their population needs.”

The row over access to vaccines at the WEF — normally held at the Swiss ski resort of Davos — comes as the pandemic compounds economic inequality.

Despite Lebanon being under one of the world’s strictest lockdowns, father-of-six Omar Qarhani told AFP he was still selling vegetables on the side of a road in Tripoli because he is desperate to support his family.

“I’m not scared of corona — what scares me is being in need and poverty,” he said.

Brazil banned flights from South Africa — both countries have their own new variants — while virus deaths in Mexico passed the 150,000 mark on Monday just a day after President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he tested positive.

The IMF now predicts a “cumulative output loss” of $22 trillion — the equivalent of the entire US economy — over 2020-25.

Nevertheless, optimism that vaccines will bring the pandemic under control and allow economic activity to resume, coupled with stimulus in major economies, boosted the IMF’s growth forecast this year to 5.5 percent.

(AFP)

26, January 2021

Britain in Cameroon COVID-19 Relief Caravan ⁰

In solidarity with the Government of Cameroon’s efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, the British High Commission in Yaounde led the British Business Community in Cameroon on a distribution campaign dubbed, “UK in Cameroon COVID-19 Relief Caravan”. The purpose was to handover personal protective equipment (PPE), to over 10,000 persons within semi-urban and rural populations, with focus on vulnerable communities, women and persons living with disability.

This outreach aimed at building resilience in communities through an inclusive strategy of community mobilisation, donation of personal preventive equipment and sensitising/ educating communities in an effort to support the national strategy to combat the spread of COVID-19 in Cameroon.

The British High Commissioner to Cameroon, Rowan Laxton said:

The coronavirus pandemic is a global public health emergency. The disease is life-threatening for people of all ages everywhere in the world. To help save lives and provide support, the UK Government and the British Business Community in Cameroon, together with our implementation partner, Local Youth Corner (LOYOC), is organising a nationwide COVID-19 Relief Caravan.

The Caravan will reach out to some semi-urban and rural areas in the country and touch persons with disabilities. Women and girls will be particularly targeted. We hope the Caravan will also raise awareness on the importance of inclusion and solidarity towards those experiencing great difficulty in these trying times. Please stay safe!

Source: Gov.uk

24, January 2021

Cameroonian among first imported Covid-19 cases in Taiwan ⁰

Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Friday (Jan. 22) confirmed two new domestic and six imported cases of the Wuhan coronavirus.

The cases, announced by CECC head Chen Shih-chung, bring the country’s total to 881. The latest imported cases include a man from Cameroon, the first person from that country to be diagnosed with COVID-19 in Taiwan, as well as a Taiwanese citizen and four migrant fisheries workers.

Each case had submitted a negative result of a coronavirus test taken within three days of his flight, and each went directly to their residence to begin quarantine upon arrival in Taiwan.

Chen said that Case No. 875 is a Cameroonian male in his 30s who works in Taiwan. He had returned to Cameroon in early December of last year.

When he returned to Taiwan on Jan. 5, he did not report experiencing any symptoms to quarantine officers. After the end of his quarantine, he took a coronavirus test at his own expense on Jan. 20 and was diagnosed with on Jan. 22.

Since the man is asymptomatic and those who interacted with him at the quarantine facility and hospital wore adequate protective equipment, no contacts have been listed.

Case No. 876 is a Taiwanese male who had been working in Indonesia since last August. On Jan. 1 of this year, he began to experience a sore throat and abnormalities with his sense of smell and taste.

He chose to take over-the-counter medication and did not seek medical attention. When he returned to Taiwan on Jan. 19, he informed quarantine officers that he had been experiencing symptoms of the virus and underwent a coronavirus test at the airport.

He tested positive for COVID-19 on Jan. 22. The health department has identified eight passengers who sat near him on the flight and nine crew members.

The passengers have been told to begin home isolation, while the crew members have been asked to start self-health monitoring, as they were deemed to have worn proper protective gear.

Cases 877, 878, 879, and 880 are all male fisheries workers in their 20s and 30s. Three are Indonesian (Cases 877, 879, and 880), and one is Filipino (Case No. 878).

The four came to Taiwan for work on Jan. 7 and have been asymptomatic so far. The four were tested for the coronavirus on Jan. 20, as their quarantines were set to end, and were diagnosed on Jan. 22.

Since all four have been asymptomatic throughout and did not come in contact with others during their quarantine, no contacts have been listed in their cases.

Since the outbreak began, Taiwan has carried out 142,424 COVID-19 tests, with 139,699 coming back negative. Out of the 881 officially confirmed cases, 774 were imported, 68 were local, 36 came from the Navy’s “Goodwill Fleet,” two were from a cargo pilot cluster, one is an unresolved case, and one (Case No. 530) was removed as a confirmed case.

Up until now, seven individuals have succumbed to the disease, while 777 have been released from hospital isolation, leaving 97 patients still undergoing treatment in Taiwan.

Source: Taiwan News

23, January 2021

Larry King dies at 87 ⁰

Larry King, the suspenders-sporting everyman whose broadcast interviews with world leaders, movie stars and ordinary Joes helped define American conversation for a half-century, died Saturday. He was 87.

King died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Ora Media, the studio and network he co-founded, tweeted. No cause of death was given, but CNN had earlier reported he was hospitalised with COVID-19.

A long-time nationally syndicated radio host, from 1985 through 2010 he was a nightly fixture on CNN, where he won many honours, including two Peabody awards.

With his celebrity interviews, political debates and topical discussions, King wasn’t just an enduring on-air personality. He also set himself apart with the curiosity he brought to every interview, whether questioning the assault victim known as the “Central Park Jogger” or billionaire industrialist Ross Perot, who in 1992 rocked the presidential contest by announcing his candidacy on King’s show.

In its early years, “Larry King Live” was based in Washington, D.C., which gave the show an air of gravitas. Likewise King. He was the plainspoken go-between through whom Beltway bigwigs could reach their public, and they did, earning the show prestige as a place where things happened, where news was made.

King conducted an estimated 50,000 on-air interviews. In 1995 he presided over a Middle East peace summit with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, King Hussein of Jordan and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He welcomed everyone from the Dalai Lama to Elizabeth Taylor, from Mikhail Gorbachev to Barack Obama, Bill Gates to Lady Gaga.

Especially after he relocated to Los Angeles, his shows were frequently in the thick of breaking celebrity news, including Paris Hilton talking about her stint in jail in 2007 and Michael Jackson’s friends and family members talking about his death in 2009.

King boasted of never over-preparing for an interview. His non-confrontational style relaxed his guests and made him readily relatable to his audience.

“I don’t pretend to know it all,” he said in a 1995 Associated Press interview. “Not, `What about Geneva or Cuba?′ I ask, `Mr. President, what don’t you like about this job?′ Or `What’s the biggest mistake you made?′ That’s fascinating.”

At a time when CNN, as the lone player in cable news, was deemed politically neutral, and King was the essence of its middle-of-the-road stance, political figures and people at the centre of controversies would seek out his show.

And he was known for getting guests who were notoriously elusive. Frank Sinatra, who rarely gave interviews and often lashed out at reporters, spoke to King in 1988 in what would be the singer’s last major TV appearance. Sinatra was an old friend of King’s and acted accordingly.

“Why are you here?” King asks. Sinatra responds, “Because you asked me to come and I hadn’t seen you in a long time to begin with, I thought we ought to get together and chat, just talk about a lot of things.”

King had never met Marlon Brando, who was even tougher to get and tougher to interview, when the acting giant asked to appear on King’s show in 1994. The two hit it off so famously they ended their 90-minute talk with a song and an on-the-mouth kiss, an image that was all over media in subsequent weeks.

‘Regular-guy’ approach became dated

After a gala week marking his 25th anniversary in June 2010, King abruptly announced he was retiring from his show, telling viewers, “It’s time to hang up my nightly suspenders.” Named as his successor in the time slot: British journalist and TV personality Piers Morgan.

By King’s departure that December, suspicion had grown that he had waited a little too long to hang up those suspenders. Once the leader in cable TV news, he ranked third in his time slot with less than half the nightly audience of his peak year, 1998, when “Larry King Live” drew 1.64 million viewers.

His wide-eyed, regular-guy approach to interviewing by then felt dated in an era of edgy, pushy or loaded questioning by other hosts.

Meanwhile, occasional flubs had made him seem out of touch, or worse. A prime example from 2007 found King asking Jerry Seinfeld if he had voluntarily left his sitcom or been canceled by his network, NBC.

“I was the No. 1 show in television, Larry,” replied Seinfeld with a flabbergasted look. “Do you know who I am?”

Always a workaholic, King would be back doing specials for CNN within a few months of performing his nightly duties.

He found a new sort of celebrity as a plain-spoken natural on Twitter when the platform emerged, winning over more than 2 million followers who simultaneously mocked and loved him for his esoteric style.

“I’ve never been in a canoe. #Itsmy2cents,” he said in a typical tweet in 2015.

His Twitter account was essentially a revival of a USA Today column he wrote for two decades full of one-off, disjointed thoughts. Norm Macdonald delivered a parody version of the column when he played King on “Saturday Night Live,” with deadpan lines like, “The more I think about it, the more I appreciate the equator.”

King was constantly parodied, often through old-age jokes on late-night talk shows from hosts including David Letterman and Conan O’Brien, often appearing with the latter to get in on the roasting himself.

Broadcasting ambitions

King came by his voracious but no-frills manner honestly. He was born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger in 1933, a son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who ran a bar and grill in Brooklyn. But after his father’s death when Larry was a boy, he faced a troubled, sometimes destitute youth.

A fan of such radio stars as Arthur Godfrey and comedians Bob & Ray, on reaching adulthood, King set his sights on a broadcasting career. With word that Miami was a good place to break in, he headed south in 1957 and landed a job sweeping floors at a tiny AM station. When a DJ abruptly quit, King was put on the air — and was handed his new surname by the station manager, who thought Zeiger “too Jewish.”

A year later he moved to a larger station, where his duties were expanded from the usual patter to serving as host of a daily interview show that aired from a local restaurant. He quickly proved equally adept at talking to the waitresses, and the celebrities who began dropping by.

By the early 1960s King had gone to yet a larger Miami station, scored a newspaper column and become a local celebrity himself.

At the same time, he fell victim to living large.

“It was important to me to come across as a ‘big man,”’ he wrote in his autobiography, which meant “I made a lot of money and spread it around lavishly.”

He accumulated debts and his first broken marriages (he was married eight times to seven women). He gambled, borrowed wildly and failed to pay his taxes. He also became involved with a shady financier in a scheme to bankroll an investigation of President Kennedy’s assassination. But when King skimmed some of the cash to pay his overdue taxes, his partner sued him for grand larceny in 1971. The charges were dropped, but King’s reputation appeared ruined.

King lost his radio show and, for several years, struggled to find work. But by 1975 the scandal had largely blown over and a Miami station gave him another chance. Regaining his local popularity, King was signed in 1978 to host radio’s first nationwide call-in show.

Originating from Washington on the Mutual network, “The Larry King Show” was eventually heard on more than 300 stations and made King a national phenomenon.

A few years later, CNN founder Ted Turner offered King a slot on his young network. “Larry King Live” debuted on June 1, 1985, and became CNN’s highest-rated program. King’s beginning salary of $100,000 a year eventually grew to more than $7 million.

Covid-19 hospitalisation

A three-packs-a-day cigarette habit led to a heart attack in 1987, but King’s quintuple-bypass surgery didn’t slow him down.

Meanwhile, he continued to prove that, in his words, “I’m not good at marriage, but I’m a great boyfriend.”

He was just 18 when he married high school girlfriend Freda Miller, in 1952. The marriage lasted less than a year. In subsequent decades he would marry Annette Kay, Alene Akins (twice), Mickey Sutfin, Sharon Lepore and Julie Alexander.

In 1997, he wed Shawn Southwick, a country singer and actress 26 years his junior. They would file for divorce in 2010, rescind the filing, then file for divorce again in 2019.

The couple had two sons, King’s fourth and fifth kids, Chance Armstrong, born in 1999, and Cannon Edward, born in 2000. In 2020, King lost his two eldest children, Andy King and Chaia King, who died of unrelated health problems within weeks of each other.

He had many other medical issues in recent decades, including more heart attacks and diagnoses of type 2 diabetes and lung cancer.

Early in 2021, CNN reported that King was hospitalized for more than a week with COVID-19.

Through his setbacks he continued to work into his late 80s, taking on online talk shows and infomercials as his appearances on CNN grew fewer.

“Work,” King once said. “It’s the easiest thing I do.”

(AP)

21, January 2021

French doctors unsure of Covid-19 vaccine effectiveness ⁰

Health professionals in France are concerned about the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines on their patients whose immune systems are weakened, for instance by chemotherapy since clinical trials for the vaccines did not focus on immunocompromised patients.

Like many people with immune systems weakened by disease or chemotherapy, Delphine welcomes the idea of a new Covid-19 vaccine.

Since March of last year, Delphine and her seven-year-old daughter have mostly kept to themselves, avoiding social occasions with friends and loved ones. She’s now eager to regain some measure of normalcy. “The vaccine brings hope, to protect us and protect those who are close to us,” Delphine explains.

But health professionals worry about the effectiveness of the vaccines on immunocompromised people. Specialists estimate that vaccines are only about 30% effective for cancer patients.

While the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have so far proven over 90% effective in the general population, immunocompromised patients have been overlooked in clinical trials.

Source: France 24

18, January 2021

US: Biden chief of staff warns COVID deaths will reach 500,000 by end of February ⁰

US President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming chief of staff Ron Klain has warned that the COVID death toll in the US will reach 500,000 by the end of February as Biden is set to assume control of a struggling economy and surging coronavirus outbreak in less than two days.

“The virus is going to get worse before it gets better. People who are contracting the virus today will start to get sick next month, will add to the death toll in late February, even March, so it’s going to take awhile to turn this around,” Klain said

The United States is fast approaching 400,000 virus deaths, with about 3,300 Americans dying from the coronavirus every day in the country.

More than 23,983,600 people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus as of Monday.

Over the past week, there have been an average of 218,971 cases per day in the US, an increase of 3 percent from the average two weeks earlier.

Klain said the Biden’s team was “inheriting a huge mess” in terms of vaccine production and distribution in comments directed at states’ disappointment that a reserve of additional vaccines that the Trump administration had promised to release did not exist, US media say.

“But we have a plan to fix it,” said Klain, who has been critical of President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We think there are things we can do to speed up the delivery of that vaccine.”

Source: Presstv

18, January 2021

Christian Elongué, CEO of Muna Kalati named 2021 Global literacy champions and visionaries by International Literacy Association ⁰

Christian Elongué, the executive Director of Muna Kalati, a nonprofit promoting reading and children literature in Africa, is one of 30 literacy leaders named to the International Literacy Association’s (ILA) 2021 30 Under 30 list. The global list celebrates rising innovators, disruptors and visionaries in the literacy field. The International Literacy Association (ILA) is a global advocacy and membership organization dedicated to advancing literacy for all through its network of more than 300,000 literacy educators, researchers and experts across 128 countries.

Christian Elongué is an author and researcher on children and young adult literature. Dismayed by a lack of black characters in books available to African children, Christian founded munakalati.org in 2017 with the goal of building international recognition for African children’s book authors and increasing access to African children books.

He was also recognized for publishing Muna Kalati magazine, which is becoming a reference for writers, publishers and illustrators of children’s and Young Adult books, as well as librarians, teachers, editors and parents. Christian has supported several researchers, or mentored Master & PhD students to undertake research on African Children literature in Cameroon, Benin, Togo and Burkina Faso. In 2019, he authored the book: An Introduction to Children Literature in Cameroon, the first scientific work with a holistic approach on the children book industry in Cameroon. Prior to that, he collaborated on children literature with the French National Centre for Children’s Literature. As a founding member of International Board of Book for Young People (IBBY-Cameroon), he spent several years developing literacy and educational initiatives as a means to empower children in West Africa.

Chrstian Elongué indicated that the goal of Muna Kalati’s work is to increase awareness and access to diverse and affordable books for children and young adult in Africa. They shape the future of literacy by increasing the culture of reading and it empowers kids and young adults to be lifelong learners and leaders.

According to him, “you can’t consistently be a great leader without being a great learner, you stop growing and maturing when you stop learning. As reading is one of the common and best ways of learning, all great leaders are also great readers. So empowering kids to cultivate a passion and genuine interest in reading, not for utilitarian or academic purpose, will definitely help them become the leaders and changemakers that our societies critically need.”

Reading shapes our thinking. Children’s books shape the way we see the world as we grow up. The stories we discover through books influence our mindset. And since childhood is a period of life where our identity is mostly defined, it’s very important for children to see themselves in characters and heroes they read. Therefore, when unable to see characters and settings that are similar to theirs, children may tend to believe that what they see in those books is the “norm”, the standards.

This might negatively affect their identity construction as they would sometimes try, to conform their attitude and behavior to what they see in their book’s characters and hero. Henceforth, a lack of diversity in children books could be a threat to international understanding and an obstacle to a fruitful dialogue of cultures and civilizations. However, I don’t want children to imagine a world with no differences, but I want them to value difference. Preparing them for a more just world does not mean teaching them to reject others. It means helping them learn to celebrate their identity and be proud of it.

Moreover, a lack of diversity in children is also influencing children’s love of reading and literacy, mostly at the level of motivation. Kids usually aren’t much excited to continue reading a story in which they do not recognize themselves nor their local environment. And through my experience working with kids and young adults, I noticed that they were more enthusiastic to continue reading books where characters, settings and dialogue were the reflection of their daily realities.

Representing 12 countries, this year’s list of honorees includes educators, nonprofit leaders, authors, volunteers, researchers and social entrepreneurs. “The start of 2021 is filled with much promise thanks to the work of this year’s class of honorees,” said ILA Executive Director Marcie Craig Post. “Their work—whether it’s research on multicultural literacy, helping young students find the power of their voice or dismantling systems of oppression in education—is impacting the lives of countless individuals and communities. Not only do these emerging leaders share in our mission of literacy for all, but also they are helping to ensure that the post-COVID era, when we get there, will be grounded in equity for all.”

Christian Elongué hence joins a growing cohort of leaders. Past honorees include Gerald Dessus, social justice teacher and curriculum developer in Pennsylvania; Shiza Shahid, cofounder of the Malala Fund; Allister Chang, founder of Civic Suds; and Freshta Karim, founder of mobile library Charmaghz in Afghanistan.

If you are interested in writing, blogging, vlogging about reading, child rights and literacy, children and young adult literature, diversity in books for kids, kindly email us at info@munakalati.org. There is an urgent need to increase the visibility and access to diverse and original children books and you can significantly contribute to that agenda, kindly follow us on social media to stay tuned and never forget to offer books with original stories to your kids or teen.

15, January 2021

WHO holds emergency meeting over new coronavirus strains ⁰

Global health experts gathered on Thursday to tackle new coronavirus strains blamed for a fresh surge in infections as countries including Britain and France tightened restrictions to head off a further worsening of the pandemic.

The World Health Organization (WHO) emergency committee session came as their colleagues were seeking the origins of the virus on a long-delayed mission to the pandemic ground zero in Wuhan.

Almost two million of the more than 91 million people who have caught the disease have died, but the figures are widely believed to be an underestimate.

“When you first met almost a year ago, just 557 cases of the disease we now call Covid-19 had been reported to WHO,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in his opening remarks to the emergency meeting.

Much of the planet is facing a second or third wave of infections, with populations chafing under painful and economically damaging restrictions.

Already hard-hit by a new variant at home, Britain announced Thursday it was banning all arrivals from South America, Panama, Cape Verde and Portugal.

The step was taken over fears of importing yet another new coronavirus variant in Brazil, where the northern Amazonas state announced a 7 pm to 6 am curfew.

The health system has been pushed to breaking point in the state capital Manaus.

New variants

The strain, known as E484K, was detected initially in South Africa and on subsequent variants in Brazil and Japan, and it has raised greater alarm among researchers over its possible impact on immunity.

Partly over fears of new variants, France said it would impose a daily nationwide curfew at 6 pm starting Saturday and remaining in force for at least two weeks.

Most of France had been under an 8 pm curfew, with some areas, especially in the hard-hit east, already under the stricter 6 pm limit.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday called for tougher restrictions to contain the country’s worsening coronavirus outbreak and pushed for crisis talks with regional leaders, sources from her party told AFP.

They quoted her as saying the virus could only be stopped with “significant additional measures”.

Lebanon meanwhile went into full lockdown with residents barred even from grocery shopping.

There was better news for those who have already had Covid-19, with a British study suggesting recovery can confer immunity for at least five months.

But the virus’s new strains were causing increasing worry and went under the WHO microscope in Geneva on Thursday after being logged in dozens of countries.

WHO’s emergency committee normally gathers every three months, but the meeting was brought forward by two weeks.

‘Very long journey’

In China, millions of people have been locked down again to try to tame a fresh outbreak that has now claimed the country’s first reported Covid-19 death in eight months.

The death comes as a 10-strong investigation team arrived in Wuhan, where the virus emerged in late 2019.

Mission leader Peter Ben Embarek said they would enter a two-week hotel quarantine before the probe begins in earnest.

It “could be a very long journey before we get a full understanding of what happened,” he cautioned.

Regardless of origins, scientists say large-scale vaccination is the only way out.

But while the rapid development of vaccines has raised hopes, 95 percent of doses so far administered were limited to only 10 countries, the WHO’s European branch said.

Progress on administering vaccines has often been slow, such as in the United States, where more than 4,000 people are dying every day and around 10 million have received a first shot.

Turkey launched a vaccination drive with China’s Sinovac jab on Thursday despite conflicting data abouts its efficacy, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan among those receiving the jab.

In Africa, where many countries have so far avoided the worst of the pandemic, governments were called on to take urgent steps to prepare for vaccine distribution.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis, aged 84, and his predecessor, former pope Benedict XVI, 93, have both received vaccines, the Vatican said Thursday.

However former world tennis number one Andy Murray’s participation in the Australian Open was thrown into doubt after it was revealed Thursday he had tested positive.

‘Bit of a worry’

Sport has provided some diversion for many trapped at home, but top-flight athletes were warned this week to lead by example.

English Premier League bosses warned clubs they could be sanctioned if players shake hands or hug after goals.

In India, hundreds of thousands of Hindu pilgrims gathered by the Ganges river for the Kumbh Mela festival — trusting in faith rather than masks to protect them.

“The pandemic is a bit of a worry, but we are taking all precautions,” said organiser Siddharth Chakrapani.

“I’m sure Maa Ganga will take care of their safety,” he said, referring to the sacred river.

(AFP)

10, January 2021

UK says on course for Covid-19 vaccination target as deaths top 80,000 ⁰

Britain is on course to have immunised its most vulnerable people against Covid-19 by mid-February and offering a shot to every adult by autumn, with some 2 million people having already received a first dose, its health secretary said on Sunday.

“Over the last week we’ve vaccinated more people than in the entirety of December, so we’re accelerating the roll-out,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the BBC.

Britain is battling surging infections but is pinning its hopes on rapid immunisation to enable life to start returning to some degree of normality by the spring.

Hancock said around 2 million people had already received a first shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech or the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

“We’ve now vaccinated around a third of all of the over 80s, so [we are making] very, very good progress,” he said.

For the government to meet its goal of vaccinating more than 14 million people by mid-February, comprising the over-70s, the clinically vulnerable – the elderly or with pre-existing conditions – and health and social-care workers, it needs to deliver 2 million shots a week.

The current rate is around 200,000 a day, Hancock said.

Seven mass vaccination centres will open this week, supplementing almost 1,000 doctors surgeries and hospitals offering shots. Hancock said every adult would be offered a vaccine by the autumn.

In a bid to speed up vaccinations, the British government has changed its vaccine guidelines to allow a second dose of both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines to be administered up to 12 weeks after the first, instead of three weeks as originally planned.

However, Pfizer scientists have warned governments not to be overly confident that one dose would offer enough protection in the long term, saying there is “no data” showing that protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days.

Surging cases

A highly transmissible new variant of the virus is surging around Britain and Prime Minister Boris Johnson has imposed a third national lockdown in England to try to stem the pandemic before the most vulnerable are immunised. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have imposed similar measures.

More than 80,000 people in Britain have died within 28 days of receiving a positive Covid-19 test, the fifth highest official death toll globally, and over 3 million people have tested positive.

England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said on Sunday the national health service in parts of the country was facing “the most difficult situation anyone could remember”.

Hancock did not rule out a tougher lockdown, saying he would “not speculate” on further restrictions, although he added that the “vast majority” of people were complying with current rules.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)