Month: December 2021

Pakistan says it has administered 155 million COVID-19 vaccine doses as of Friday, fully vaccinating 70 million people, or 30% of the country’s total population, since launching the inoculation drive in February.

The South Asian nation of about 220 million reported its first case in early 2020 and since then the pandemic has infected about 1.3 million people and killed nearly 29,000 people, keeping the situation largely under control.

“Of the total eligible population [age 12 and above], 46% is fully vaccinated and 63% has received at least one dose,” Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar who heads the National Command and Operation Center that oversees Pakistan’s pandemic response, tweeted.

 

The government had set the target in May and achieved it “with the help of countless workers, citizens and leadership across the country,” tweeted Faisal Sultan, the special assistant to Prime Minister Imran Khan on national health services.

 

Faisal advised Pakistanis to continue to use masks, avoid crowded places and ensure social distancing in the wake of rising cases of infection from the omicron variant.

Officials said Pakistan has received a total of 247 doses of COVID-19 vaccine to date. The government has purchased 157 million while 78 million arrived through the COVAX dose-sharing program, including 32.6 million donated by the United States, and nearly 9 million donated from China.

 

The United Nations and other global partners have acknowledged Pakistan’s effective response to the pandemic, citing the country’s success in vaccinating children against polio and other transmittable diseases through mass immunization campaigns.

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the federal health ministry adapted its facilities to vaccinate adults, who make up about half of Pakistan’s population, according to a recent UNICEF statement. 
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Record snowfalls in the western United States that closed roads and caused flight delays also brought some good news for drought-hit California on Thursday, with officials saying the state’s snowpack is now well above normal. 

After a string of mountain blizzards, snowpack measured at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada stands at more than 200% of its average for this date, according to the first measurement of the season by California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR). The Sierra Nevada supplies almost a third of the state’s water needs, once the snow runs off to reservoirs and aqueducts. 

Statewide, snowpack is 160% of its average, the DWR said. 

“We could not have asked for a better December in terms of Sierra snow and rain,” said Karla Nemeth, the director of the DWR. 

Droughts in California are growing more frequent and intense with climate change, according to scientists, threatening the state’s already tenuous water supply and creating conditions for dangerous wildfires. 

Despite the precipitation-heavy end to 2021, the DWR warned against complacency. 

The state would still have to see “significant” precipitation in January and February to make up for the two previous winters, the state’s fifth- and second-driest water years on record, the DWR said. 

“California continues to experience evidence of climate change with bigger swings between wet and dry years and even extreme variability within a season,” said Sean de Guzman, manager of DWR’s Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Unit. 

He added that a wet start to the winter season did not necessarily mean precipitation in 2022 would end above average. 

 
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South Africa has lifted a midnight-to-4 a.m. curfew on people’s movement, effective immediately, saying the country has passed the peak of its fourth COVID-19 wave driven by the omicron variant, a government statement said Thursday. 

However, wearing a face mask in public places remains mandatory. Failure to wear a mask in South Africa when required is a criminal offense. 

The country made the curfew and other changes based on the trajectory of the pandemic, levels of vaccination in the country and available capacity in the health sector, according to a press release issued by Mondli Gungubele, a minister in the presidency. 

South Africa is at the lowest of its five-stage COVID-19 alert levels. 

“All indicators suggest the country may have passed the peak of the fourth wave at a national level,” a statement from the special cabinet meeting held earlier Thursday said. 

Data from the Department of Health showed a 29.7% decrease in the number of new cases detected in the week ending December 25 compared with the number of cases found in the previous week, at 127,753, the government said. 

South Africa, with close to 3.5 million infections and 91,000 deaths, has been the worst-hit country in Africa during the pandemic on both counts. 

Besides lifting the restrictions on public movement, the government also ruled that alcohol shops with licenses to operate after 11 p.m. local time may revert to full license conditions, a welcome boon for traders and businesses hard hit by the pandemic and looking to recover during the festive season. 

“While the omicron variant is highly transmissible, there have been lower rates of hospitalization than in previous waves,” the statement said.
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Health authorities in the United States are sounding the alarm again, saying Americans could experience disruptions in the coming weeks because of the rapid spread of the omicron variant of the virus that causes COVID-19. 

The U.S has reported record numbers of cases two days in a row, Reuters reported, adding that 18 states have set pandemic case records. Maryland, Ohio and Washington, D.C., have reported record hospitalizations. 

“We are going to see the number of cases in this country rise so dramatically, we are going to have a hard time keeping everyday life operating,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious-disease expert at the University of Minnesota, told MSNBC. 

Many public agencies like police departments and fire departments have reported numerous employees calling in sick, making it harder to deliver services. 

Omicron is causing havoc in the airline industry, with thousands of flights either delayed or canceled. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned Americans against taking cruises. 

According to a recent University of Texas study, omicron cases could peak between January 18 and February 3. The study said cases could subside by March. 

Roughly 62% of Americans have been given two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or the one-shot dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, USA Today reported. They are considered fully vaccinated, but many health officials are urging booster shots. Only one-third of Americans have gotten boosters, the paper reported. 

The U.S. death toll for the pandemic is 823,743, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. It is unclear how many deaths the omicron variant has caused.

Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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The top infectious disease expert in the United States is urging Americans to avoid taking part in mass New Year’s Eve celebrations as the nation continues to set record-breaking levels of daily new coronavirus infections driven by the highly contagious omicron variant.

The U.S. posted 489,267 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center, just two days after recording a new single-day record of 512,553.

The U.S. is now averaging more than 265,000 new coronavirus cases per day, breaking the previous mark of 250,000 daily new infections set in January.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, said Wednesday he “strongly recommends” that people cancel plans to attend large holiday parties with “30, 40, 50 people” this year, and instead spend the time with small gatherings of friends or relatives who are vaccinated and have received a booster shot.

In an interview Wednesday on financial cable network CNBC, Fauci also predicted the current omicron-driven surge may hit its peak in the U.S. by the end of January.

Health experts say despite omicron’s fast-moving spread around the world since it was first detected in South Africa last month, it appears to cause less severe illnesses than other versions of the coronavirus. However a World Health Organization official warned this week it is still too early to tell how omicron will affect older, more vulnerable people.

Meanwhile, a new study out of South Africa suggests a booster shot of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine provides strong protection against the omicron variant.

Researchers at the South African Medical Research Council say the booster shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was given to about 69,000 health care workers between November 15 and December 20. The results show the effectiveness at preventing hospitalization rose from 63% shortly after it was administered to 84% 14 days later, and 85% within one to two months.

Also, a separate study involving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the United States suggests the vaccine provides a 41-fold increase in neutralizing antibodies when used as a booster shot for people who received the two-dose Pfizer vaccine.

Doctors at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston also told CNN the Johnson & Johnson booster produces a five-fold increase in so-called T cells, an arm of the human immune system that kills virus-infected cells and keeps them from replicating and spreading.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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NASA successfully launched its much-anticipated next-generation space telescope.  Now come weeks of nervousness for project scientists who can only hope the next steps go as planned.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. 

Produced by: Arash Arabasadi 

Camera :  AP/ NASA TV/ PURDUE UNIVERSITY/ YOUTUBE NASA/  “ARMAGEDDON” / TOUCHSTONE PICTURES – JERRY BRUCKHEIMER FILMS/ NASA JOHNS HOPKINS APL
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Tidal waves and coastal erosion have submerged an entire fishing community on Ghana’s eastern coast. Many villagers had already been relocated from past tidal waves and have petitioned the government for a permanent solution. Senanu Tord reports from the village of Fuvemeh in Ghana. 

Camera: Senanu Tord 

 
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The World Health Organization is warning that the rapid circulation of the omicron and delta variants of the coronavirus is leading to a tsunami of cases, severe disease and surging deaths among the unvaccinated.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday that while science had led to the development of COVID-19 vaccines, the global death toll from the disease has kept rising.

In 2020, the World Health Organization reported 1.8 million deaths globally, a number that pales in comparison to the additional 3.5 million deaths reported in 2021.

 

Tedros said the reason for the climb was that politics has too often trumped the need to work together to defeat this pandemic.

“Populism, narrow nationalism and hoarding of health tools, including masks, therapeutics, diagnostics and vaccines, by a small number of countries undermined equity and created the ideal conditions for the emergence of new variants,” he said.

Tedros condemned the misinformation and disinformation that often has been spread by a small number of people for undermining science and trust in lifesaving health tools. He said these twin evils have driven vaccine hesitancy and are to blame for the disproportionately large number of unvaccinated people dying from the delta and omicron strains of the coronavirus.

He warned that the virus that causes COVID-19 would continue to evolve and threaten the health system if nations did not improve their collective response. He said it was time to rise above short-term nationalism and protect populations and economies against future variants by addressing global vaccine inequity.

“Ending health inequity remains the key to ending the pandemic,” Tedros said. “As this pandemic drags on, it is possible that new variants could evade our countermeasures and become fully resistant to current vaccines or past infection, necessitating vaccine adaptations.”

The WHO chief said it was time to banish the politics of populism and self-interests that have been derailing the global response to the pandemic. He asked everyone to make a New Year’s resolution to get behind WHO’s campaign to vaccinate 70 percent of the world’s population by the middle of 2022.
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The United States recorded more than 512,000 daily new coronavirus cases Tuesday – the single highest one-day number of cases recorded since the beginning of the pandemic, according to data released by the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center

The one-day record coincides with a New York Times database showing the seven-day average of cases in the U.S. rose above 267,000 on Tuesday.

The recent surge is driven by a record number of children infected and hospitalized with COVID-19.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, lowered its previous estimate of new coronavirus cases driven by the rapidly spreading omicron variant. The federal health agency said Tuesday that omicron accounted for roughly 59 percent of all variants, far lower than the 73 percent figure it announced last week.

The surge of new infections in the United States has forced the cancelation of another postseason college football game. The Holiday Bowl was canceled Tuesday just hours before the game’s scheduled kickoff in San Diego, California, when UCLA (the University of California, Los Angeles) announced it would be unable to play against North Carolina State because too many players had been diagnosed with the infection.

Five postseason games have been canceled, while at least one bowl game is going ahead with a different team. Central Michigan will meet Washington State in Friday’s Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, after the Miami Hurricanes were forced to drop out. Central Michigan was supposed to play in the Arizona Bowl, but that game was canceled after Boise State withdrew.

Officials with the coming major college football championship playoffs have warned the four teams – Alabama, Cincinnati, Michigan and Georgia – that if they cannot play in Friday’s semifinal matchups, they may have to forfeit.

The U.S. is among several nations reporting record new numbers of infections. France on Tuesday reported a new one-day record of 179,807 new cases, making it one of the highest single-day tallies worldwide since the start of the pandemic.

Denmark, which has the world’s highest infection rate, with 1,612 cases per 100,000 people, posted a single-day record of 16,164 new infections on Monday.

Other European nations reporting new record-setting numbers of one-day infections Tuesday include Britain (138,831), Greece (21,657), Italy (78,313), Portugal (17,172) and Spain (99,671).

Australia is also undergoing a dramatic increase in new cases driven by omicron, posting nearly 18,300 infections Wednesday, well above Tuesday’s previous high of about 11,300.

New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, reported just over 11,200 infections Wednesday – nearly double the 6,602 new cases posted the previous day.

Worldwide, the number of recorded cases increased by 11% last week, according to the World Health Organization. The United Nations agency said Wednesday the risk posed by omicron remains “very high.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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The growing issue of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans is affecting coastal marine life, transporting many species to areas of the open ocean, surprising researchers. 

A group of U.S. and Canadian marine and environmental scientists were amazed to find that some species are thriving on plastic trash floating in the Pacific Ocean.

The team discovered oceanic barnacles and crabs living alongside coastal barnacles and anemones.

“We expected to find oceanic marine species that have adapted on plastics, but we were absolutely surprised to discover coastal marine species as well,” said Linsey Haram, a research associate with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Maryland.

It is not known how some coastal marine life managed to get out into the ocean, added Haram, the lead author of a recent report on the findings in the journal Nature Communications.

“They may already be out there settling on the plastics, but most likely they are being rafted or transported from the coast on floating debris,” she told VOA.

The study focused on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch located between Hawaii and California. The massive garbage patch, which is over 1.5 million square kilometers, is mostly made up of plastic waste, big and small.

The debris includes massive quantities of tiny plastic fragments, along with water bottles, toothbrushes and abandoned fishing gear that are drawn into the patch by ocean currents called gyres.

The report notes the plastic can remain in the gyres for years.

“They come into the center [of the gyres] where the water is relatively stationary,” explained Amy Uhrin, chief scientist of the Marine Debris Program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington. The majority of the garbage comes from the Pacific Rim and the West Coast of North America, she said.

The size of the patch can change depending on the wind and ocean currents, Uhrin told VOA in an interview.

The Ocean Voyages Institute in Sausalito, California, which works to clean up trash in the ocean, provided plastic samples for the research.

“We’ve had a large sailing cargo ship with a crane hoist tons of trash from the patch onto the deck of the vessel, especially the very harmful elements like plastic fishing nets that still catch and kill whales, dolphins and turtles,” Ocean Voyages founder and President Mary Crowley said.

The results from the samples provided the researchers with some food for thought.

“What has been most eye-opening is that the coastal marine species were not only thriving but reproducing,” Haram said.

However, there are many questions still unanswered.

“How do you survive being on piece of plastic in the middle of the ocean?” asks Greg Ruiz, a marine ecologist with the Smithsonian’s Environmental Research Center and a contributor to the report.

“The coastal species may be creating their own ecosystem on the plastic debris that allows for microorganisms and algae to grow and essentially function as a food chain,” Ruiz said. “Fish and bird waste in the water may also be contributing nutrients.”

“We also want to figure out how the coastal and oceanic species are interacting since they are competing for limited space on the objects,” Haram said. “They could be using each other as a source of food.”

There is concern coastal hitchhikers could become invasive species.

“We want to know if other coastal marine life are on plastics in all of the five main ocean gyres worldwide,” Haram said. 

Ruiz added, “we’re concerned that coastal organisms from different regions could form colonies and spread disease to other marine life, including fish.”
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Beijing on Tuesday accused the United States of irresponsible and unsafe conduct in space over two “close encounters” between the Chinese space station and satellites operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. 

Tiangong, China’s new space station, had to maneuver to avoid colliding with one Starlink satellite in July and another in October, according to a note submitted by Beijing to the United Nations space agency this month. 

The note said the incidents “constituted dangers to the life or health of astronauts aboard the China Space Station.” 

“The U.S. … ignores its obligations under international treaties, posing a serious threat to the lives and safety of astronauts,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a routine briefing on Tuesday. 

Starlink, a division of SpaceX, operates a constellation of close to 2,000 satellites that aims to provide internet access to most parts of Earth. 

SpaceX is a private American company, independent of the U.S. military and civilian space agency, NASA. 

But China said in its note to the U.N. that members of the Outer Space Treaty — the foundation of international space law — are also responsible for actions by their nongovernment entities. 

Addressing reporters, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price declined to respond specifically to the Chinese accusations. 

“We have encouraged all countries with space programs to be responsible actors, to avoid acts that may put in danger astronauts, cosmonauts, others who are orbiting the Earth or who have the potential to,” Price said. 

SpaceX has not responded to a request for comment. 

Evasive maneuvers to reduce the risk of collisions in space are becoming more frequent as more objects enter Earth’s orbit, said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. 

“We’ve really noticed the increase in the number of close passes since Starlink started getting deployed,” he told AFP. 

Any collision would likely “completely demolish” the Chinese space station and kill everyone on board, McDowell added. 

The core module of China’s station Tiangong — meaning “heavenly palace” — entered orbit earlier this year, and it is expected to become fully operational next year. 

‘Prepare to boycott Tesla’ 

Beijing’s complaint about Starlink prompted criticism on Chinese social media of SpaceX’s billionaire founder Musk, who is widely admired in China. 

One hashtag about the topic on the Twitter-like Weibo platform racked up 90 million views Tuesday. 

“How ironic that Chinese people buy Tesla, contributing large sums of money so Musk can launch Starlink, and then he (nearly) crashes into China’s space station,” one user commented. 

Musk’s electric car maker Tesla sells tens of thousands of vehicles in China each month, though the firm’s reputation has taken a hit this year following a spate of crashes, scandals and data security concerns. 

“Prepare to boycott Tesla,” said another Weibo user, echoing a common response in China to foreign brands perceived to be acting contrary to national interests. 

 
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Researchers in South Africa have discovered that people who have been infected with the omicron variant of the coronavirus develop enhanced immunity to the older delta variant. 

The conclusion is the result of a new study conducted at Durban-based Africa Health Research Institute involving 33 vaccinated and unvaccinated people. The scientists found that immunity against a further exposure to omicron rose 14-fold about two weeks after infection, while also discovering that immunity against delta improved 4.4-fold.

The scientists say the immunity is especially enhanced among those who are inoculated.

Alex Sigal, the study’s co-author, said on Twitter Monday that if omicron is “less pathogenic” as it appears, “then this will help push delta out,” making it possible

“the disruption Covid-19 has caused in our lives may become less.”

The study, which has not been peer reviewed, has been submitted to the medical journal MedRxiv. 

An earlier study out of South Africa revealed a reduced risk of hospitalization and severe illness from omicron, compared to delta.

The omicron strain has rapidly spread around the world since it was first detected in southern Africa in November.

Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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The U.S. flu season has arrived on schedule after taking a year off, with flu hospitalizations rising and two child deaths reported. 

Last year’s flu season was the lowest on record, probably because COVID-19 measures — such as school closures, distancing, masks and canceled travel — prevented the spread of influenza or because the coronavirus somehow pushed aside other viruses. 

“This is setting itself up to be more of a normal flu season,” said Lynnette Brammer, who tracks flu-like illnesses for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The childhood deaths, Brammer said, are “unfortunately what we would expect when flu activity picks up. It’s a sad reminder of how severe flu can be.”

During last year’s unusually light flu season, one child died. In contrast, 199 children died from flu two years ago, and 144 the year before that. 

In the newest data, the most intense flu activity was in the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., and the number of states with high flu activity rose from three to seven. In CDC figures released Monday, states with high flu activity are New Mexico, Kansas, Indiana, New Jersey, Tennessee, Georgia and North Dakota.

The type of virus circulating this year tends to cause the largest amount of severe disease, especially in the elderly and the very young, Brammer said. 

Last year’s break from the flu made it more challenging to plan for this year’s flu vaccine. So far, it looks like what’s circulating is in a slightly different subgroup from what the vaccine targets, but it’s “really too early to know” whether that will blunt the vaccine’s effectiveness, Brammer said. 

“We’ll have to see what the impact of these little changes” will be, Brammer said. “Flu vaccine is your best way to protect yourself against flu.” 

There are early signs that compared with last year’s figures, fewer people are getting flu shots. With hospitals already stretched by COVID-19, it’s more important than ever to get a flu shot and take other precautions, Brammer said. 

“Cover your cough. Wash your hands. Stay home if you’re sick,” Brammer said. “If you do get flu, there are anti-virals you can talk to your doctor about that can prevent severe illness and help you stay out of the hospital.” 

 
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While the COVID-19 crisis dominated headlines for a second year, the climate crisis kept intensifying. VOA’s Steve Baragona has a look back at 2021’s major events in climate change.
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Doctors in Israel began administering a fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine Monday as part of a trial study to determine if the extra shot can boost immunity against the virus. 

The trial study involving about 150 staffers at Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv comes just days after a special health advisory panel recommended that people 60 years old and older, as well as those with compromised immune systems and medical workers, receive a fourth dose of the Pfizer vaccine.Health Ministry Director Nachman Ash must give final approval to the panel’s recommendation. 

Israel has outpaced much of the world in vaccinating its citizens, including offering booster shots, but the pace has slowed in recent weeks as it faces a fifth wave of new COVID-19 infections driven by the omicron variant of the coronavirus. 

The fast-spreading variant has led to chaotic closures and cancellations around the world since it was first identified last month in a handful of southern African nations.

Thousands of flights in the United States and around the world were cancelled as flight crews called in sick after testing positive for COVID-19, leaving passengers stranded and unable to join family and friends during the Christmas holiday weekend.

Impact on sport events

In U.S. college football, two post-season “bowl” games scheduled this week are the latest to be cancelled due to a large outbreak of COVID-19 infections among players. Boston College was forced to withdraw from Monday’s contest against East Carolina in the Military Bowl inAnnapolis, Maryland, while the University of Virginia pulled out of its matchup against Southern Methodist University Wednesday in the Fenway Bowl, which was to be staged at the iconic home of Major League Baseball’s Boston Red Sox. The two programs join the University of Hawaii, Texas A&M and Miami to withdraw from their respective bowl games because of a high rate of infections that left them without enough players available for the game, which will cost the programs hundreds of thousands of dollars for failing to participate.

New restrictions in France

Elsewhere in the world, French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to announce a new set of COVID-19 related restrictions Monday after holding an emergency meeting with his Cabinet.

The new measures come as France posted a new single-day record of100,000 new coronavirus cases on Saturday.Among the expected new measures is limiting France’s health passport, which is required to enter restaurants and other indoor public venues, only to those who have been fully vaccinated.

China

And authorities in the northern Chinese city of Xi’an have tightened its strict lockdown of the city of 13 million residents as it continues to battle a spike in new COVID-19 cases. The new rules announced Monday bans residents from driving even within city limits unless for work or taking part in virus control work, with violators facing 10 days in detention and up to $78 in fines. Residents are already banned from leaving their homes unless they have essential jobs.

Xi’an, the home of the world-famous Terracotta Warriors, recorded 150 new cases for Sunday, bringing its total number of new infections since December 9 to well over 600, although it is not known if the surge is being driven by omicron or the previous delta variant. 

 

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 
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Australia’s most populous state reported a record number of new COVID-19 cases on Sunday and a sharp jump in hospitalizations while thousands of people were isolating at home after contracting the virus or coming into contact with someone who has.

New South Wales reported 6,394 new infections, up from 6,288 a day earlier. Case numbers in the state have surged over the past two weeks but hospitalizations have lagged behind new infections.

More than 70% of cases in some Australian states are the omicron variant of the coronavirus but New South Wales does not routinely carry out genome testing to identify the variant. State Health Minister Brad Hazzard indicated Sunday that omicron is widespread.

“We would expect that pretty well everybody in New South Wales at some point will get omicron,” Hazzard said. “If we’re all going to get omicron, the best way to face it is when we have full vaccinations including our booster.”

Health officials reported 458 active cases in hospitals across the state, up sharply from 388 the day before. There were 52 people in intensive care in New South Wales.

A major laboratory in Sydney, which is located in New South Wales, said Sunday that 400 people who’d been informed a day earlier they had tested negative for COVID-19 had in fact tested positive. The lab’s medical director said those people were being contacted and informed of the error.

“An emergency response team is now investigating the cause of this mistake, which is believed to be due to human error. We sincerely apologize,” said SydPath medical director Anthony Dodds.

Doctors and pharmacists in New South Wales have said they are running short of vaccine doses amid a rush for shots spurred by concern over the omicron variant.

Victoria, the country’s second most populous state, reported 1,608 new COVID-19 cases and two deaths on Sunday, with 374 people in hospitals, including 77 in intensive care.

More than 30,000 people in Victoria spent Christmas isolating at home, unable to celebrate with family or friends. Of those, about half were reported to be active cases who contracted the virus in the days leading up to Christmas. 

 
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Three members of the K-pop superstar group BTS have tested positive for the coronavirus after returning from abroad, their management agency said.

RM and Jin were diagnosed with COVID-19 on Saturday evening, the Big Hit Music agency said in a statement. It earlier said another member, Suga, tested positive for the virus on Friday.

All three received their second shots in August, the agency said.

BTS is a seven-member boy band. The four other members are J-Hope, Jungkook, V and Jimin.

According to the agency, RM has exhibited no particular symptoms, while Jin is showing mild symptoms including light fever and is undergoing self-treatment at home. The agency said Friday that Suga wasn’t exhibiting symptoms and was administering self-care at home in accordance with the guidelines of the health authorities.

RM had tested negative after returning from the United States earlier this month following his personal schedule there. But he was later diagnosed with the virus ahead of his scheduled release from self-quarantine, the agency said.

After returning to South Korea this month, Jin underwent PCR tests twice — upon arrival and later before his release from self-quarantine — and tested negative both times. But he had flulike symptoms on Saturday afternoon before he took another PCR test that came back positive, the agency said. Media reports said he also had traveled to the U.S.

Suga, who has had a number of personal engagements in the United States during the band’s official time off, was diagnosed with COVID-19 during quarantine after returning from the U.S., the agency said.

The agency said it will continue to provide support for the three members for their speedy recovery. It said it will cooperate with the requests and guidelines of the South Korean health authorities.

Since their debut in 2013, BTS has garnered global recognition for their self-produced music and activism, which includes giving a speech at the United Nations and publicly calling out anti-Asian racism.

BTS was named artist of the year and favorite pop duo or group, and also won the favorite pop song award for Butter at the American Music Awards in November. In October, the group’s collaboration with British rock band Coldplay, My Universe, hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was BTS’ sixth Hot 100 No. 1. 
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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, built to give the world a glimpse of the universe as it existed when the first galaxies formed, was launched by rocket early Saturday from South America’s northeastern coast, opening a new era of astronomy.

The revolutionary $9 billion infrared telescope, hailed by NASA as the premiere space-science observatory of the next decade, was carried aloft inside the cargo bay of an Ariane 5 rocket that blasted off at about 7:20 a.m. EST (1220 GMT) from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) launch base in French Guiana.  

 

The flawless Christmas Day launch, with a countdown conducted in French, was carried live on a joint NASA-ESA Webcast.

 

After a 27-minute ride into space, the 14,000-pound instrument was released from the upper stage of the French-built rocket, and it should gradually unfurl to nearly the size of a tennis court over the next 13 days as it sails onward on its own.

 

Live video captured by a camera mounted on the rocket’s upper stage showed the Webb moving gently away high above the Earth as it was jettisoned. Flight controllers confirmed moments later that Webb’s power supply was operational.

 

Coasting through space for two more weeks, the Webb telescope will reach its destination in solar orbit 1 million miles from Earth – about four times farther away than the moon. And Webb’s special orbital path will keep it in constant alignment with the Earth as the planet and telescope circle the sun in tandem.

 

By comparison, Webb’s 30-year-old predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, orbits the Earth from 340 miles away, passing in and out of the planet’s shadow every 90 minutes.

 

Named after the man who oversaw NASA through most of its formative decade of the 1960s, Webb is about 100 times more sensitive than Hubble and is expected to transform scientists’ understanding of the universe and our place in it.

 

Webb mainly will view the cosmos in the infrared spectrum, allowing it to gaze through clouds of gas and dust where stars are being born, while Hubble has operated primarily at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths.

 

Cosmological History Lesson

 

The new telescope’s primary mirror – consisting of 18 hexagonal segments of gold-coated beryllium metal – also has a much bigger light-collecting area, enabling it to observe objects at greater distances, thus farther back into time, than Hubble or any other telescope.

 

That, astronomers say, will bring into view a glimpse of the cosmos never previously seen – dating to just 100 million years after the Big Bang, the theoretical flashpoint that set in motion the expansion of the observable universe an estimated 13.8 billion years ago.

 

Hubble’s view reached back to roughly 400 million years following the Big Bang, a period just after the very first galaxies – sprawling clusters of stars, gases and other interstellar matter – are believed to have taken shape.

 

Aside from examining the formation of the earliest stars and galaxies in the universe, astronomers are eager to study super-massive black holes believed to occupy the centers of distant galaxies.

 

Webb’s instruments also make it ideal to search for evidence of potentially life-supporting atmospheres around scores of newly documented exoplanets – celestial bodies orbiting distant stars – and to observe worlds much closer to home, such as Mars and Saturn’s icy moon Titan.

 

The telescope is an international collaboration led by NASA in partnership with the European and Canadian space agencies. Northrop Grumman Corp was the primary contractor. The Arianespace launch vehicle is part of the European contribution.

 

Webb was developed at a cost of $8.8 billion, with operational expenses projected to bring its total price tag to about $9.66 billion, far higher than planned when NASA was previously aiming for a 2011 launch.

 

Astronomical operation of the telescope, to be managed from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, is expected to begin in the summer of 2022, following about six months of alignment and calibration of Webb’s mirrors and instruments.

 

It is then that NASA expects to release the initial batch of images captured by Webb. Webb is designed to last up to 10 years.

 
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Hundreds of thousands of people in the Philippines, Asia’s largest Roman Catholic nation, marked Christmas on Saturday without homes, adequate food and water, electricity and cellphone connections after a powerful typhoon left at least 375 people dead last week and devastated mostly central island provinces.

Elsewhere, New Zealanders are celebrating Christmas in the warmth of mid-summer with few restrictions, in one of the few countries in the world largely untouched by the omicron variant of COVID-19.

Australia is marking the holiday amid a surge of COVID-19 cases, worse than at any stage of the pandemic, which has forced states to reinstate mask mandates and other measures.

And adding more pain for travelers, airlines around the world canceled hundreds of flights as the omicron variant jumbled schedules and drew down staffing levels.

According to FlightAware, there are more than 3,900 canceled flights on Friday and Saturday, with close to half of the cancellations by Chinese airlines. About 30% of affected flights — more than 1,100 — were to, from or within the U.S. This is still a small fraction of global flights. FlightAware says it has tracked more than 100,000 arrivals in the past 24 hours.

Before Typhoon Rai hit on Dec. 16, millions of Filipinos were trooping back to shopping malls, public parks and churches after an alarming spike in infections in September eased considerably.

Gov. Arthur Yap of hard-hit Bohol province, where more than 100 people died in the typhoon and about 150,000 houses were damaged or destroyed, asked foreign aid agencies on Saturday to help provide temporary shelters and water-filtration systems to supplement Philippine government aid.

“I refuse to believe that there’s no Christmas spirit today among our people. They’re conservative Catholics. But it’s obviously very muted. There is overwhelming fear, there are no gifts, there were no Christmas Eve dinners, there is none of that today,” Yap told The Associated Press.

Yap said he was happy that many Filipinos could celebrate Christmas more safely after COVID-19 cases dropped, but he pleaded: “Please don’t forget us.”

In Manila, which was not hit by the typhoon, Filipino Catholics were relieved to be able to return to churches on Christmas, although only a fraction were allowed inside and worshippers were required to wear masks and stand at a safe distance from each other.

In South Korea, tough social distancing rules remained in place, requiring churches to allow only a limited number of worshippers — 70% of their seating capacity — and attendees had to be fully vaccinated.

 

In Seoul’s Yoido Full Gospel Church, the country’s biggest Protestant church, thousands of masked worshippers sang hymns and prayed as the service was broadcast online. Many churches across the country offered both in-person and online services.

South Korea has been grappling with soaring infections and deaths since it significantly eased its virus curbs in early November as part of efforts to return to pre-pandemic normalcy. The country was eventually forced to restore its toughest distancing guidelines, such as a four-person limit on social gatherings and a 9 p.m. curfew for restaurants and cafes.

Christmas celebrations were subdued in much of India, with more decorations than crowds as people feared a new wave of the omicron variant potentially sweeping the country in the coming weeks.

Authorities reintroduced nighttime curfews and restrictions on gatherings of more than five people in big cities like New Delhi and Mumbai. People attended midnight Mass in Mumbai and elsewhere but in smaller numbers.

Christians comprise just over 2% of India’s nearly 1.4 billion people.

In New Zealand, where 95% of adults have had at least one dose of the vaccine, making it one of the world’s most vaccinated populations, the only omicron cases that have been found have been safely contained at the border.

As the pandemic spread around the world the past two years, New Zealand used its isolation to its advantage. Border controls kept the worst of the virus at bay. By Christmas this year, New Zealand had recorded 50 deaths in a population of 5.5 million.

But that success has come at a cost. There were empty chairs at some tables this holiday season because some New Zealanders living and working overseas were not able to return home due to limits in the country’s managed isolation and quarantine program.

The traditional dining tables of a northern winter — turkey and all the trimmings — are common. But Kiwis also celebrate in an antipodean manner, with barbeques on beaches fringed by the native pohutukawa tree, which blooms only at Christmas.

 

At New Zealand’s Scott Base in Antarctica, some New Zealanders enjoyed a white Christmas. During summer on the frozen continent, the sun never dips below the horizon and in 24 hours of daylight the temperature hovers around 0 degrees Celsius.

Around 200 people pass through the base over the summer season — scientists, support staff and defense personnel who provide communications and other services. Numbers are lower this year because of the pandemic and all staff traveling to the continent have had to isolate and undergo COVID-19 testing before departure.

Most Pacific Island nations whose health systems might have been overwhelmed by COVID-19 outbreaks have largely managed to keep out the virus through strict border controls and high vaccination numbers.

Fiji has an ongoing outbreak and has had almost 700 deaths. About 92% of the adult population is now fully vaccinated, 97.7% have received at least one dose and many in the deeply religious nation will celebrate Christmas at traditional church services and family gatherings.

Health Secretary James Fong, in a Christmas message, urged Fijians to “please celebrate wisely.”

In remote Macuata province, residents of four villages received a special Christmas gift: Electricity was connected to their villages for the first time.

In his Christmas message, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison referred to the COVID-19 toll.

“This pandemic, it continues to buffet us,” Morrison said. “The omicron variant is just the latest challenge that we have faced. But together, always together and only together, we keep pushing through.”

The omicron variant is prevalent in some states and is estimated to represent more than 70% of all new cases in Queensland.

Summer heat might have discouraged outdoor Christmas feasts in some places. The temperature in Perth in Western Australia was expected to hit 42 degrees Celsius on Saturday, making it the hottest Christmas since records began more than a century ago.

On Christmas Eve, a student driver in the Northern Territory made off with a truck containing more than $10,000 in Christmas hams that was empty when it was found.

“This behavior can only be described as Grinch-like,” police detective Mark Bland said. 

 
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Despite a second year of travel restrictions because of COVID-19, the town of Bethlehem, the site of Jesus’ birth, is reviving its annual Christmas Eve celebration.

“Last year, our festival was virtual, but this year it will be face to face with popular participation,” Bethlehem Mayor Anton Salman told the Associated Press.

On a typical Christmas, the biblical town is a popular destination for tourists from around the globe. An average of 3 million tourists come each year. Much smaller crowds attended the holiday celebrations in Bethlehem on Friday, accompanied by gloomy weather.

“It’s very strange,” said Kristel Elayyan, a Dutch woman married to a Palestinian, who came to Bethlehem from Jerusalem. “If it’s one year, it’s an interesting experience,” she told Agence France-Presse. “But because this is the second year and we don’t know what is going to come in the future, it’s a huge loss for the people here.”

Events included traditional marching band parades and street celebrations. Scout bands with drums and flags gathered in Manger Square to celebrate the holiday.

While celebrations are scaled down this year, Salman is hopeful that 2021’s festivities will exceed last year’s, when residents were forced to celebrate inside their homes because of lockdown restrictions, the AP reported.

Israel’s ban on nearly all incoming air traffic, which has lasted two years, continues to prevent tourists from entering the occupied West Bank, and subsequently, the historic town.

The travel ban to curb the spread of COVID-19 was lifted in November to allow foreign tourists in but was soon reimposed with the emergence of the highly contagious omicron variant. Coinciding with the holiday season, the disease’s newest strain has hampered Christmas celebrations.

Without the flood of tourists, local authorities hoped that the Holy Land’s small Christian community would keep the holiday spirit alive.

Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the top Roman Catholic clergyman in the Holy Land, celebrated a midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity, the grotto where Jesus is said to have been born.

“Compared to last year’s Christmas, the participation is much greater, and this is an encouraging sign,” he told the masked congregation, but regretted the absence of foreign worshippers because of the pandemic.

“We pray for them and at the same time ask for their prayers, so that all this may end soon and that the city of Bethlehem may once again be full of pilgrims,” he said, according to AFP. 
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US President Joe Biden says defeating the coronavirus pandemic – both at home and around the world – is his top priority. VOA looks at how he handled this unprecedented global and domestic challenge during his first year as president, with this report from White House correspondent Anita Powell.
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While many countries are fighting off their worst coronavirus outbreaks yet, Japan is detecting hardly any COVID-19 infections at all. Observers are trying to figure out why.

As recently as late summer, Japan’s coronavirus outlook wasn’t great. An outbreak coinciding with the Tokyo Olympics was killing dozens per day and overwhelming hospitals.

Starting in September, though, as Japan ramped up its vaccination campaign, the country saw a dramatic plunge in the number of reported cases and eventually the number of deaths.

Since then, the situation has only improved. Japan this month has reported an average of less than one COVID-19 death per day – a shockingly low number for a country of 126 million.

No one knows exactly why Japan has experienced such success — especially while other countries, even its immediate neighbors, have been hit by serious winter waves of the coronavirus.

There are many possible explanations. Nearly 80% of Japan’s population is fully vaccinated. Virtually everyone wears masks. Even after the government relaxed restrictions this autumn, people continued to socially distance themselves.

Some researchers have pointed to Japan’s low rates of obesity. Several recent studies have concluded that COVID-19 is more severe in obese individuals.

Cultural customs may also play a role. For instance, Japanese do not typically kiss, hug, or even shake hands during greetings. Many Japanese are also relatively quiet in public settings, points out Kentaro Iwata, an infectious disease specialist at Japan’s Kobe University.

“Masking and keeping silent in public places is very important [for fighting the virus]. Everybody knows it, but practicing it can be very difficult in some parts of the world, maybe due to cultural reasons,” said Iwata, who has dealt with infectious outbreaks for more than 20 years, by email.

Those factors, however, do not explain why neighboring South Korea, which shares many cultural traits, is dealing with its worst COVID-19 outbreak yet.

One possible explanation is that Japan is testing far fewer people, Kenji Shibuya, an epidemiologist and researcher at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, said.

In the first half of December, Japan tested an average of 44,623 people per day, according to government data. South Korea, whose population is less than half that of Japan, conducted an average of 238,901 tests per day during the same period, according to official data.

Because of Japan’s lack of testing, it is difficult to believe that official case figures reflect reality on the ground, Shibuya told VOA in an email.

If the lack of testing were a major factor, though, Japan would have likely seen a surge in other indicators, such as the number of hospitalizations or deaths from respiratory illnesses, as other experts have noted.

In the absence of any definitive explanation, some researchers have tried to identify a so-called X-factor. One study even suggested many Japanese people share a genetic feature linked to white blood cells that helps the fight against COVID-19. Others theorize that the coronavirus variant spreading in Japan may have mutated itself into extinction.

Whatever the reason for Japan’s success, the battle is not over, said Shibuya, who said he still expects the country to see a winter wave of infections.

In a possible ominous sign, Japan this week identified its first cases of community transmission of the omicron variant, which scientists say spreads much faster than previous iterations of the virus. Many of those found to be infected with omicron had no history of overseas travel, officials said.

 

 
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