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President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team said Friday the incoming administration will more quickly release coronavirus vaccines once it assumes power on January 20.Biden’s office said it would limit the Trump administration’s practice of increasing inventories of vaccine doses to guarantee that people get the booster shot several weeks after the first inoculation.Expectations were high when the vaccines were approved last month, but the vaccination campaign got off to a sluggish start. Only 5.9 million of the 29.4 million available doses in the U.S. have been distributed, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.In this file photo, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci speaks during an unscheduled briefing after a Coronavirus Task Force meeting at the White House on April 5, 2020,…

A United Nations global survey reveals a world of unprecedented division, polarization and discord. The report, a year-long consultation to mark the U.N.’s 75th anniversary, surveyed more than 1.5 million people in 193 countries about their hopes, fears, and expectations for the future.The survey paints a picture of a generally fragmented world, but it also finds much of the world united in regard to post-COVID recovery priorities.Assistant Secretary-General Fabrizio Hochschild said most people surveyed are united in wanting much better access to affordable health care, education and access to water and sanitation.“And second, and related is the world seeks much greater solidarity, much greater solidarity with the hardest-hit communities, much greater solidarity with the hardest-hit places," Hochschild said.  "And, related to that, an economic model that it does not just boost inequalities,…

2020 has tied 2016 as the hottest year on record, the European Union's climate monitoring service said Friday, keeping Earth on a global warming fast track that could devastate large swathes of humanity.The six years since 2015 are the six warmest ever registered, as are 20 of the last 21, evidence of a persistent and deepening trend, the Copernicus Climate Change Service reported."2020 stands out for its exceptional warmth," said C3S director Carlo Buontempo, of the Copernicus Climate Change Service."This is yet another reminder of the urgency of ambitious emissions reductions to prevent adverse climate impacts in the future."    ...

Health professionals and other scientists are concerned that the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday may also have been a COVID-19 superspreader event.The shouting mob that invaded the building was largely unmasked and not observing social distancing as they went through the halls of Congress and entered some lawmakers’ offices.Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, told The New York Times that, “People yelling and screaming, chanting, exerting themselves — all of those things provide opportunity for the virus to spread, and this virus takes those opportunities.”John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said the virus killed a record 4,085 people in the U.S. on Thursday.Infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci told National Public Radio in an interview Thursday that he believes “things will get worse as we…

The number of people who have been infected with COVID-19 in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus was first identified, could be around three times the official figure, according to a study by Chinese researchers based in the city.The paper, published by the PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases journal on Thursday, analyzed blood samples from more than 60,000 healthy individuals taken from locations across China from March to May 2020.It found that 1.68% of those from Wuhan contained antibodies for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, compared to 0.59% in surrounding Hubei province and 0.38% in the rest of China.With the city's total population at more than 10 million, the researchers estimated that as many as 168,000 Wuhan residents were infected with the virus, compared to the official number…

The World Health Organization warns the European region is probably in the most acute phase of COVID-19 transmission and drastic measures must be taken to control the spread of the pandemic.   More than 26 million cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in the European region, including over 580,000 deaths.  The World Health Organization reports levels of transmission remain extremely high.  As a consequence, it notes countries and territories across the region are enacting full lockdown measures, affecting more than 230 million people. FILE - Medical personnel attend patients at Casalpalocco Covid 3 hospital in the outskirts of Rome, Jan. 1, 2021.WHO regional director for Europe Hans Kluge says the year ahead offers new opportunities and tools, such as vaccines for controlling the pandemic.  At the same time, he notes new…

A ray of hope emerged Thursday for the Rainbow Nation, which has seen a massive spike in confirmed COVID-19 cases, as South Africa’s health minister announced a large shipment of vaccines is coming this month.      Zweli Mkhize said the country will receive one million vaccine doses by the end of January, and another half million in February, both from the Serum Institute of India. The first doses, he says, will go to health workers.    Mkhize acknowledged that South Africa’s vaccine acquisition was delayed because the nation was unable to pay for vaccines that were still in development -- a barrier wealthier nations haven’t faced. But, he vowed, it will catch up. South Africa’s limited budget also led officials to choose the cheapest vaccine option, offered by AstraZeneca. …

Vaccine inoculations have begun in Italy for medical staff and the most vulnerable, but the country’s daily death toll continues to be well over 500. All Italian primary school students and most middle school students returned to face-to-face lessons on Thursday. But not all regions in the country have agreed to re-open their schools to younger students due to very high numbers of COVID infections in some places.In at least four regions the return of middle school students has been delayed. Regions also adopted different decisions for high school students, but most were being allowed to return to face-to-face classes next Monday, as Education Minister Lucia Azzolina explained on Italian national television.The minister said five million younger students would be returning to school on Thursday. These are the same students, she…

New strains of the coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic have evolved, raising alarms with public health experts. The viruses appear to be more infectious, making them harder to control. But experts say the new vaccines against them should still work. VOA's Steve Baragona has more.  ...

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday that the city aims to vaccinate 10,000 police officers against the coronavirus by Sunday.At his daily briefing, De Blasio said police officers and jail guards were now eligible to receive vaccines under guidance provided by state officials. The guidelines released by the state do not explicitly say that police officers can now be vaccinated, but a de Blasio spokesperson said city officials were told they could count police and corrections officers as frontline workers eligible for the shots.De Blasio said the city wanted to make sure “all these frontline workers, folks who work directly with everyday New Yorkers, folks who do things like having to perform CPR or working in very close proximity, that they're going to get the opportunity to…

Malawi has introduced a mandatory quarantine on returnees from South Africa to control rising cases of COVID-19.  Thousands of Malawians have returned from South Africa in recent weeks, and officials fear they could import the new, more contagious form of coronavirus.Malawi has seen a rapid increase of COVID-19 cases since the middle of December.    The Public Health Institute of Malawi reports confirmed cases jumped from 116 on December 18 to 946 on January 5.   Health authorities say they believe the rise is largely driven by Malawians who traveled to South Africa to look for work and escape poverty triggered by the pandemic. According to Malawi’s immigration department, about 10,000 Malawians have returned from South Africa since the start of the pandemic, with others expected to return soon.   Immigration officers at Mwanza border…

A South African virologist says existing COVID-19 vaccines may not be fully effective against the new coronavirus variant found in the country, but he expressed belief the vaccines can be “tweaked” to combat the variant.Scientists studying the variant of COVID-19 found in South Africa say that so far, they have no evidence it causes more severe disease or higher death rates. Wolfgang Preiser, a professor at Stellenbosch University in South Africa’s Western Cape province, however, says there is concern the variant is more infectious.“Seeing our enormous resurgence over the past few weeks, which coincided with the rise of this new virus variant, makes one worry. At this very moment several research groups around the country are trying to find whether it is true that it is more easily transmitted, and…

India has not imposed a ban on export of vaccines for COVID-19, the federal government said amid a controversy that it had imposed restrictions on an Indian company expected to be on the frontlines in supplying vaccines to developing countries.      India, the world’s largest vaccine producer, is expected to play a pivotal role as low and middle income countries look ahead to launching immunization programs to bring the pandemic under control.     But following the emergency authorization granted by Indian authorities to the British-developed AstraZeneca and another vaccine developed locally on Sunday, media reports said that India will not allow exports for several months. “The government hasn't banned the export of any one of the COVID vaccines. That is something that should be absolutely clear,” Rajesh Bhushan, the health ministry's top…

More than two-thirds of the 15 million coronavirus vaccines shipped within the United States have so far gone unused.  As Mariama Diallo reports, some states are vowing to penalize hospitals that fail to dispense shots quickly enough. ...

The World Health Organization (WHO) expressed disappointment Tuesday with the failure of Chinese officials to grant final permission to an international team of researchers to enter the country to investigate the origins of the coronavirus.At the agency’s regular COVID-19 briefing at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was "very disappointed" that China had not authorized entry of the team, some of whom had begun their travels to Wuhan. The news forced other members of the team to cancel their travel at the last minute.Tedros said plans for the trip had been arranged jointly among WHO officials, the Chinese government and the countries for which the team was meant to travel through on their way to Wuhan. He said the agency just learned Tuesday "that Chinese officials…

French Health Minister Olivier Veran said Tuesday the nation was going to “amplify, accelerate and simplify” its COVID-19 vaccination program after coming under fire for the initial slow roll out of the program.In an interview with French radio, Veran said more than 2,000 doctors, nurses and other health care workers have received vaccinations. He also announced that firefighters and home aid workers age 50 and older would also be prioritized “because they are also professionals who are in contact with fragile people and who may have to work with the sick."The faster-paced vaccination campaign comes after the government was criticized for its slow rollout of the vaccine, delivering just over 500 inoculations in the first week, compared to hundreds of thousands delivered by Germany in the same period.The criticism prompted…

As millions of people await their turn to get a COVID-19 vaccine that could be months away, scammers online, in emails and on messaging apps are luring victims with claims they can deliver shots within days for as little as $150.   COVID-19 vaccine scams are on the rise, according to European and U.S. government officials who are warning the public of fraudsters out for money and personal data.   A Reuters search online, in dark web forums and on messaging app Telegram found seven different offers for alleged COVID-19 vaccines.   Scams include emails promising entry to supposedly secret lists for early vaccine access and robocallers impersonating government agencies. Message boards on the so-called dark web have added COVID-19 vaccines to more traditional illicit goods for sale.   The…

In France, public frustration with the government is growing as the nation’s coronavirus immunization campaign gets off to a slow start. In response, officials say they will speed up and widen the vaccine rollout.As of Monday, only 2,500 people had received the vaccine against COVID-19 in France — most of them nursing home residents and their nurses.  It is too small a number, critics say,  for a rollout that began, as in other EU countries, on December 27. A doctor administers a dose of Pfizer-BioNtech coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccine to an old woman on Jan. 4, 2020 at the Antonin Balmes gerontology center in Montpellier in the south of France.Critics describe the pace as ridiculously low compared with neighboring Germany, where at least 264,000 people have been vaccinated so far. French President Emmanuel…

Mexico has become the latest nation to approve the COVID-19 vaccine jointly developed by British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and Oxford University.Foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard announced the “very good news” that the government had granted emergency approval for the vaccine Monday on Twitter, adding that “production will start very soon in Mexico.”  The AstraZeneca vaccine joins the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine as the only ones so far approved by Mexico City.Late-stage clinical trials of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine revealed it to be 70% effective against COVID-19. The vaccine had a 62% efficacy rate for participants given a full two doses, but separate tests revealed it to be 90% effective when given a half-dose followed by a full dose weeks later.Unlike the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which needs to be stored in super-cold refrigerators at temperatures below…

The amount of baked-in global warming, from carbon pollution already in the air, is enough to blow past internationally agreed upon goals to limit climate change, a new study finds. But it's not game over because, while that amount of warming may be inevitable, it can be delayed for centuries if the world quickly stops emitting extra greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, the study's authors say. For decades, scientists have talked about so-called "committed warming," or the increase in future temperature based on past carbon dioxide emissions that stay in the atmosphere for well over a century. It's like the distance a speeding car travels after the brakes are applied.  But Monday's study in the journal Nature Climate Change calculates that a bit differently and now…