Mar112021 by DmediaNo Comments

AstraZeneca Vaccine Stopped in Denmark After Reports of Blood Clots

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Denmark health officials announced Thursday they are suspending the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for 14 days as it investigates reports of patients developing blood clots after being inoculated. On his Twitter account, Danish Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said authorities were looking into "signs of a possible serious side effect in the form of fatal blood clots," though he made clear the stoppage was a "precautionary measure," saying it was not possible yet to conclude whether the clots were linked to the vaccine. The Danish Medicines Agency also confirmed the investigation on Thursday in a statement, saying it would work with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and other European pharmaceutical authorities following the reports. Austria suspended use of a batch of the vaccine earlier this week after a recipient…


Mar112021 by DmediaNo Comments

Four Former US Presidents Promote COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign

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Four former living U.S. presidents are appearing in a new ad campaign to encourage people to get COVID-19 vaccines.In the video produced by the Ad Council, former President Bill Clinton says, “We’ve lost enough people and we’ve suffered enough damage.”There is a photo of Clinton and his wife, Hillary, receiving their vaccines.Former President George W. Bush says, “In order to get rid of this pandemic, it’s important for our fellow citizens to get vaccinated.”Like the Clintons, the video shows Bush and his wife, Laura, getting their shots, as well as former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, and former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn.The former leaders talk about what they are looking forward to after being protected by the vaccine. Obama says he wants to “visit with…


Mar112021 by DmediaNo Comments

Nigeria’s Disabled Hard Hit by COVID Challenges

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The COVID-19 pandemic has made life harder for everyone, but especially people with disabilities, who feel more marginalized than ever before. People in a disabled community in Nigeria’s capital are coping as best they can, but are still in need of assistance.   Physically challenged Nigerian Salamatu Abubakar has four children and is pregnant with another.   Without her sight and any source of income, Abubakar says she has trouble getting by, and sometimes has to beg to survive.     She also notes the coronavirus pandemic has made the challenge even harder.     She says since the pandemic began, "we've struggled to feed our children, we don't have any money. We had to stop our children from going to school."   About 27 million Nigerians live with disabilities…


Mar102021 by DmediaNo Comments

Fauci: US Could Reach Pre-Pandemic ‘Normals’ by September

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Top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday that current vaccination levels indicate the United States could reach pre-pandemic levels of “normal life” by late August or early September.     Fauci made the comment during a virtual news briefing on herd immunity by the White House COVID-19 Response Team.     Fauci said their best estimates regarding when herd immunity would be reached and enough people are considered immune from the virus range between 70% to 85% of the U.S. population.     He said at current vaccination rates, that level should be reached at the end of the North American summer. But he also said that if the nation is vaccinating 2 million to 3 million people a day, society is increasingly more protected.    …


Mar102021 by DmediaNo Comments

British Museum Collects First Meteorite Fragments in UK in 30 Years

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The British Natural History Museum said it has recovered fragments of the first meteorite collected in the United Kingdom in 30 years and one of the rarest ever discovered.  On the night of February 28, a fireball was seen streaking across the sky over southwestern Britain, dazzling onlookers and exciting scientists. No fragments from a meteorite — what a meteor is called once it lands on Earth — had been recovered in the nation since 1991.  Museum researchers asked people to look in an area north of the town of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire County. They received calls from the town of Winchcombe. Scientists went door to door asking people if they had seen anything. Several had, including a family that said a piece landed in their driveway.Researchers were even more…


Mar102021 by DmediaNo Comments

US Climate Envoy Says World’s Nations ‘Have Every Capacity’ To Fight Climate Change

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The U.S. Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry said Wednesday the world’s developed countries - which emit most of the world's greenhouse gases - “have every capacity" to address the climate crisis. Speaking at a joint news conference in Paris with French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, Kerry stressed that no one country or government can address the issue alone. Referencing the 2015 Paris Agreement, Kerry said it was about everyone accepting the same emission reduction goals.   But he said, too few nations have abided by their commitments. He said, “The point of Paris ((agreement)) is everybody has said that we will get on this road, and the problem today is we're not on that road sufficiently.” Former U.S. president Donald Trump had withdrawn from the Paris agreement, and…


Mar102021 by DmediaNo Comments

Britain’s Prime Minister Denies EU Claim of Blocked COVID-19 Vaccine Exports

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday refuted claims by European Union Council President Charles Michel that Britain had imposed a ban on COVID-19 vaccine exports. In an online blog posted Tuesday to the EU website, Michel wrote that Britain and the United States have imposed "an outright ban" on the export of vaccines or vaccine components produced in their territory. FILE - European Council President Charles Michel attends a news conference in Brussels, August 19, 2020.Speaking during the prime minister's question time in the House of Commons, Johnson said Britain had not blocked the export of "a single COVID-19 vaccine" or any vaccine components.  "This pandemic has put us all on the same side in the battle for global health. We oppose vaccine nationalism in all its forms," he said. Last year,…


Mar102021 by DmediaNo Comments

Critics Say CDC’s Advice for Vaccinated People is Too Cautious

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The first federal recommendations for people vaccinated against COVID-19 allow cautious steps toward normal life.Too cautious, critics say.The In this Jan. 27, 2021, image from video, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaks during a White House briefing.Though vaccinated people are protected from severe illness, there is still a “small risk” that they could carry the virus without showing symptoms and spread it to other people, FILE - In this Feb. 5, 2021, file photo, Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans travel by boat along the Hillsborough River in Tampa, Fla.More than half of Americans are planning or have booked a trip, according to the U.S. Travel Association, an industry group.Public health experts have criticized Texas and Mississippi for completely reopening their economies and canceling their…


Mar102021 by DmediaNo Comments

How One Small Pennsylvania Pharmacy Is Vaccinating Thousands

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Behind the counter of Skippack Pharmacy in Schwenksville, near Philadelphia, owner Mayank Amin has been working late into the night since his independent drugstore received state approval to administer COVID-19 vaccines in late January.   There are thousands of emails to sort through and phone calls to field, supplies to organize, appointments to schedule.   Amin, known as Dr. Mak, set up a vaccination clinic on Super Bowl Sunday at the local firehouse that drew more than 1,000 people who kept their appointments for shots despite the snow that day.   "It was just like a party out there," Amin, 36, recalled during an interview with Reuters in late February. "It was something you could have never imagined in your life, to see four strangers carrying somebody on a wheelchair…


Mar102021 by TechmanNo Comments

Russia Clamps Down on Twitter

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Russia’s Internet regulatory body, Roskomnadzor, announced it had slowed down Twitter’s ability to function in Russia effective Wednesday — part of what authorities said was an initial penalty for the American social media platform’s failure to delete illegal content inside the country.According to a statement posted on Roskomnadzor’s website, 100 percent of mobile devices and 50 percent of stationary devices using Twitter would face a disruption in service in an effort to “protect Russian citizens.”"The mechanism envisions slowing down the transfer of photo and video content without any limitations on text messages. Users will be able to exchange messages freely,” Roskomnadzor official Vadim Subbotin later clarified in comments to reporters.Subbotin added the restrictions would remain in place until Twitter complied with the request to remove offending content.Failure to do so,…


Mar102021 by DmediaNo Comments

WHO: Third of World’s Women Are Abused by Intimate Partner

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The World Health Organization reports one in three women globally, around 736 million, suffer physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence by a non-partner. The study, the largest ever conducted on the prevalence of violence against women, is based on data from 2000 to 2018.Violence often begins at an early age. The study finds one in four young women aged 15 to 24 are violently abused by an intimate partner. WHO officials said this is of particular concern as it is during this formative age that healthy relationships are made.Short- and long-term impactsThe report said intimate partner violence is by far the most prevalent form of violence against women worldwide. It said abusive treatment can have both short- and long-term impacts on women’s physical and mental…


Mar102021 by DmediaNo Comments

WMO Reports Mixed Global Patterns as Northern Winter, Southern Summer Conclude

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The United Nations’ weather agency, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), said Tuesday the record cold felt in the U.S. during February was the result of the same weather phenomena that sent above-average warmth to parts of the arctic.  At a virtual news conference from Geneva WMO, spokeswoman Clare Nullis told reporters that February saw much colder than average temperatures in North America and Russia, but warmer temperatures in parts of the Arctic and other regions.     Nullis cited a report from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) this week showing the contiguous United States had its coldest February since 1989. She said the U.S. set 62 all-time daily cold minimum temperature records in a span of five days between February 11 and February 16.     But…


Mar92021 by DmediaNo Comments

CDC’s Cautious Advice for Vaccinated People Draws Criticism

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The first federal recommendations for people vaccinated against COVID-19 allow cautious steps toward normal life.Too cautious, critics say.The In this Jan. 27, 2021, image from video, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaks during a White House briefing.Though vaccinated people are protected from severe illness, there is still a “small risk” that they could carry the virus without showing symptoms and spread it to other people, FILE - In this Feb. 5, 2021, file photo, Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans travel by boat along the Hillsborough River in Tampa, Fla.More than half of Americans are planning or have booked a trip, according to the U.S. Travel Association, an industry group.Public health experts have criticized Texas and Mississippi for completely reopening their economies and canceling their…


Mar92021 by DmediaNo Comments

US Climate Envoy in Brussels to Meet With EU Leaders

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U.S. Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry was in Brussels Tuesday to discuss transatlantic cooperation with European Union (EU) officials and U.S. President Joe Biden's decision to rejoin the global climate change effort.   Speaking to reporters alongside EU climate chief Frans Timmermans, Kerry reiterated that climate is "one of the most important issues" that Biden's "administration intends to deal with."   Kerry said the climate summit scheduled for November of this year in Glasgow, Scotland “is the last, best opportunity that we have and the best hope that the world will come together and build on [the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference agreement reached in] Paris.”   Kerry said the Paris agreement did not go far enough, noting that if all the parties were doing everything in the…


Mar92021 by DmediaNo Comments

What Doctors Know About COVID-19’s Impact on the Body

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Last March, when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, it had already proved to be lethal and highly contagious. It was a new virus with many unknowns. Since then, scientists have learned a lot about how it affects vital organs and its long-term effects. VOA's Carol Pearson reports. ...


Mar92021 by DmediaNo Comments

Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine Neutralizes Brazil Variant of COVID-19, Study Finds

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The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine neutralizes the rapidly spreading variant of the coronavirus recently discovered in Brazil, according to the results of a laboratory study.   Scientists with Pfizer and the University of Texas took blood from people who had been given the vaccine and mixed it with an engineered version of the mutation, dubbed P.1.  The researchers found the vaccine was roughly as effective against the Brazilian variant as it was against other, less contagious versions of the virus from last year.  The results of the study were published Monday in the New England Journal of Medicine.  Here's What Doctors Know About How COVID-19 Impacts the Body It's been a year since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemicRussia vaccine deal In another vaccine related development, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund RDIF has signed a…


Mar92021 by DmediaNo Comments

Uganda to Begin Nationwide COVID Vaccinations Wednesday

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Uganda launches its national vaccination program on Wednesday, two days after receiving 100,000 additional doses of Covid-19 vaccine donated by the Indian government.   So far, Uganda has received 964,000 doses of the vaccine through donations.   Health minister Jane Ruth Aceng said healthcare workers will be the first to get their shots followed by teachers and those in high risk groups, including the elderly.   The health ministry earlier said Ugandans seeking vaccinations must present a national identification card and non-citizens a passport.   Aceng also warned that vaccination does not mean the public should abandon Covid-19 safety protocols to help prevent the spread of the virus.   Uganda has confirmed nearly 40,500 infections and 334 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University Covid Resource Center. ...


Mar92021 by DmediaNo Comments

US Sues EZ Lynk for Selling Devices to Defeat Vehicle Emission Controls

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The U.S. government on Monday sued the automobile device manufacturer EZ Lynk for selling tens of thousands of "defeat devices" that enabled car and truck owners to disable their vehicles' computerized emission controls at the push of a button. In a complaint filed in the federal court in Manhattan, the U.S. Department of Justice accused EZ Lynk of having since 2016 violated the federal Clean Air Act by selling its aftermarket EZ Lynk System for drivers of Ford, GMC and Chrysler trucks, among other vehicles. The government said the system includes a device that plugs into vehicles' computers to install deletion software, a cloud platform that stores the software, and an app that lets drivers buy and install the software through their smartphones. According to court papers, the Cayman Islands-based company "actively encourages"…


Mar92021 by DmediaNo Comments

US Denounces Russian ‘Disinformation’ Over COVID-19 Vaccines

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The United States denounced Monday what it called a Russian disinformation campaign against U.S.-made COVID-19 vaccines, saying Moscow was putting lives at risk. The Global Engagement Center, an arm of the State Department whose activities include monitoring foreign propaganda, said that Russian intelligence was behind four online platforms involved in a campaign. The sites have "included disinformation about two of the vaccines that have now been approved by the FDA in this country," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters, referring to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "It is very clear that Russia is up to its old tricks, and in doing so is potentially putting people at risk by spreading disinformation about vaccines that we know to be saving lives every day," Price said.A medical specialist holds a vial of Sputnik V vaccine…


Mar82021 by DmediaNo Comments

CDC Eases Restrictions for Vaccinated People

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As coronavirus vaccine rates in the U.S. continue to climb, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Monday that those who have been vaccinated can gather with other vaccinated people indoors without masks or social distancing. The CDC also said vaccinated people can gather with younger people and those who are considered low risk for developing a severe case of COVID-19. This would mean that grandparents can now visit their grandchildren, even if the grandchildren are not vaccinated. Furthermore, the CDC said vaccinated people no longer must be quarantined after encountering an infected person. "We know that people want to get vaccinated so they can get back to doing the things they enjoy with the people they love," Dr. Rochelle Walensky, CDC director, said in a statement. "There are some activities that…


Mar82021 by DmediaNo Comments

Italy Surpasses 100,000 COVID-19 Deaths

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Italy's death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 100,000 on Monday, a year after it became the first country in Europe to go into lockdown to try to stop the spread of the virus.  Italy's Health Ministry recorded 318 deaths Monday in the past 24 hours, bringing the country's total of COVID-19 deaths to 100,103 and making it the seventh country in the world to surpass the marker, following the United States, Brazil, Mexico, India, Russia and Britain, according to a tally by Reuters. Italy has the second-highest death toll from the pandemic in Europe after Britain. Earlier Monday, the Italian Health Ministry changed course and signed an order approving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for people 65 and older.  Even though Europe's drug regulator, the European Medicines Agency, fully approved the vaccine,…


Mar82021 by DmediaNo Comments

China Expands Tracking of Online Comments to Include Citizens Overseas  

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Wang  Jingyu didn’t think he would become an enemy of China for his online comments.    The 19-year-old left his hometown of Chongqing in July 2019 and is now traveling in Europe. On February 21, netizens on the popular micro-blogging website, Weibo reported him to Chinese authorities for questioning the actions of the China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as official media reported an incident in the disputed Himalayan border regions.   On February 19, China revealed that four of its soldiers died during a bloody Himalayan border clash with Indian troops in June last year. State media said the men “died after fighting foreign troops who crossed into the Chinese border.”   On the same day, China's military news outlet PLA Daily named the "heroic" Chinese soldiers who “gave their youth, blood and even life"…


Mar82021 by DmediaNo Comments

Italy Approves AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine for People Over 65

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The Italian Health Ministry Monday changed course and signed an order approving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for people 65 and older. Even though Europe’s drug regulator, the European Medicines Agency, fully approved the vaccine, the Italian government initially balked, as did Germany, at giving the vaccine to people over 65 due to “limited data” on its efficacy within that age group. Germany has reversed course on its use, as well. The doubts raised by some health officials prompted people to turn down the vaccine, resulting in doses going unused and slowing down the vaccination process throughout the continent. Italy’s decision comes as the nation’s COVID-19 death toll approaches 100,000 since the pandemic started. The nation is expected to pass the milestone by Tuesday. Syrian President and First Lady Test Covid-19 Positive 'They are in…


Mar82021 by DmediaNo Comments

After Containing Covid, East Asia Lags on Vaccines

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When the coronavirus first emerged, many East Asian countries were hailed as global examples due to their impressive containment efforts. But as the one-year anniversary of the pandemic approaches, some of those countries are falling behind in their vaccine campaigns, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Seoul.Camera: Kim Hyungjin, William Gallo ...


Mar82021 by DmediaNo Comments

Britain Opens Schools; Vietnam Begins Vaccination Campaign

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Britain opened all its schools Monday. The openings come as the country has experienced some of its lowest coronavirus death tolls since October.Vietnam began its COVID-19 vaccination program Monday with its front-line health care workers as the first recipients of the shots.Japan’s rollout of its COVID vaccine program has been slow, hampered by vaccine and syringe shortages. Three weeks in, a little over 46,500 front-line medical workers have received their shots. The elderly will be the next in line.Japan, however, intends to speed up its vaccination program. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has promised to have enough of the shots to vaccinate Japan’s entire population by the start of the Summer Olympics in July, according to Reuters.The European Union has warned member states against purchasing Russia’s COVID vaccine since the EU…