Month: December 2020

IBM security researchers say they have detected a cyberespionage effort using targeted phishing emails to try to collect vital information on the World Health Organization's initiative for distributing COVID-19 vaccine to developing countries. The researchers said they could not be sure who was behind the…

More than 100 world leaders and high-ranking government officials will convene a two-day virtual special session of the United Nations General Assembly Thursday to discuss the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic and to craft a recovery strategy.Brendan Varma, a spokesman for General Assembly President…

VOA contributor Greta Van Susteren interviewed the National Institute of Health Director Frances Collins. Among the issues discussed are the COVID-19 vaccine and its development.Here is a transcript of that interview:Greta Van Susteren: Nice to talk to you, sir.Francis Collins: Nice to talk to you,…

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned Wednesday of a bleak winter ahead as the country continues to see nationwide surges of COVID-19 cases."The reality is that December, January and February are going to be rough times," CDC Director Robert Redfield said…

A mysterious object temporarily orbiting Earth is a 54-year-old rocket, not an asteroid after all, astronomers confirmed Wednesday.Observations by a telescope in Hawaii clinched its identity, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.The object was classified as an asteroid after its discovery in…

U.S. hospitals slammed with COVID-19 patients are trying to lure nurses and doctors out of retirement, recruiting students and new graduates who have yet to earn their licenses and offering eye-popping salaries in a desperate bid to ease staffing shortages.With the virus surging from coast…

China’s space program celebrated a major accomplishment this week when its Chang’e 5 lunar probe mission safely landed on the moon. The landing Tuesday brought Beijing a step closer to becoming the third country in the world to retrieve geological samples from the moon, but…

Britain says it plans to start injecting people with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine as early as Monday after becoming the first country to approve a COVID-19 vaccine following large-scale clinical trials. The British government approved the use of the coronavirus vaccine on Wednesday, after the Medicines and…

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday that Americans potentially exposed to COVID-19 could quarantine for 10 days, shortening the previous recommendation of 14 days. The CDC also said that a seven-day quarantine was acceptable with a negative test result, but cautioned that…

Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, has likened the scientists who have developed coronavirus vaccines to the cavalry arriving just in the nick of time. “The toot of the bugle is louder,” he reassured Britons during a recent news conference.   But like his European counterparts, Johnson’s government is scrambling to come up with a vaccine distribution…

A Chinese spacecraft took samples of the moon's surface Wednesday as part of a mission to bring lunar rocks back to Earth for the first time since the 1970s, the government said, adding to a string of successes for Beijing's increasingly ambitious space program. The…

Healthcare workers and nursing home residents should be among the first Americans to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, members of a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee determined Tuesday. The panel voted 13-1 to give a vaccine, as soon as it’s approved, to the…

A huge, already damaged radio telescope in Puerto Rico that has played a key role in astronomical discoveries for more than half a century completely collapsed on Tuesday. The telescope's 900-ton receiver platform and its Gregorian dome — a structure as tall as a four-story building…

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has announced its Chang'e-5 spacecraft, designed to collect lunar samples and return them to Earth, successfully landed on the near side of the moon. China state media report the spacecraft arrived at the preselected landing area Tuesday and sent back images…

Climate change, voracious beetles and disease are imperiling the long-term survival of a high-elevation pine tree that's a key source of food for some grizzly bears and found across the West, U.S. officials said Tuesday.A Fish and Wildlife Service proposal scheduled to be published Wednesday…

Affordable treatment will soon be available for children living with HIV in low- and middle-income countries thanks to an agreement between the global health agency UNITAID and the Clinton Health Access Initiative, or CHAI.The pediatric  treatment has been available in wealthy countries but out of…

Members of a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee meet Tuesday to determine who should get inoculated first against the coronavirus once a vaccine receives final approval.The CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices wants to inform the public about its recommendation before…

Thabani Raymond Kalala, or “coach,” as he prefers to be called, was diagnosed with HIV six years ago. He lives in a small town in rural South Africa, but this year, as societies across the globe went into viral lockdowns, his world expanded.  The 33-year-old…

All Europeans want is a merry and bright Christmas season, just like the ones they used to know. And under public pressure some governments are easing their pandemic restrictions in a bid to salvage something of the holiday spirit.But as some governments plan to soften…

The European Union said Tuesday it could be vaccinating citizens against COVID-19 by the end of the month if medical officials grant emergency approval of two vaccines candidates.  European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen told reporters in Brussels EU member states are working on…

Four years ago, governments around the world committed to achieving targets in testing and treating the vast majority of people with HIV to the point where the AIDS pandemic would end. The tools to do this have been available for 20 years. In 2010, the National Institutes of Health, under the leadership of Dr. Anthony Fauci, found that HIV-negative men whose partners…

Joseph Varon, a doctor treating coronavirus patients at a Texas hospital, was working his 252nd day in a row when he spotted a distraught elderly man in the COVID-19 intensive care unit. Varon's comforting embrace of the white-haired man on Thanksgiving Day was captured by a…

China has provided North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his family with an experimental coronavirus vaccine, a U.S. analyst said Tuesday, citing two unidentified Japanese intelligence sources. Harry Kazianis, a North Korea expert at the Center for the National Interest think tank in Washington, said…