The World Health Organization and other aid agencies are moving quickly to try to gain control over a new outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Guinea. Guinea is one of three countries that was affected by the 2014 West African outbreak, the largest in history.The outbreak in Guinea was detected February 14, just one week after a new outbreak of Ebola was identified in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.  The two outbreaks are unrelated, but the World Health Organization says both face similar challenges and both can benefit from new treatments and recent experiences. The WHO reports seven family members who attended a burial ceremony in the town of Goueke, Guinea were infected with the virus and three have since died.  WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris says 115 contacts have been identified and the majority have been traced. “We are confident with the experience and expertise built during the previous outbreak that the health team in Guinea are on the move to quickly trace the cause of the virus and curb further infections. But it certainly will be a big job. And WHO is supporting the Guinean authorities to set up testing, contact tracing, treatment structures and to bring the overall response to full speed,” said Harris.Harris says WHO offices in surrounding countries have been contacted and preparedness plans are being put in place. The 2014 West African Ebola outbreak began in Guinea and quickly spread to neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia. By the time the epidemic ended in 2016, 28,000 people had been infected with the disease and more than 11,000 had died. Harris says many lessons have been learned from previous outbreaks to keep the virus from spreading. She says it is important to have a strategic response plan, get it into action early and to coordinate all aspects of the operation. “What is critical is decentralizing the operations to the lowest levels, making sure your operations are with the community now and that the community owns the operations — that your work is community centered and that you work with the community. A one size fits all approach to community engagement is not effective,” she said.Turning to the other Ebola outbreak, the World Health Organization has confirmed four cases, including two deaths in the city of Butembo in DRC’s North Kivu province. The WHO reports nearly 300 contacts have been identified and tracing is underway.  
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For the first time, wild camels have been sold on Australia’s leading online livestock auction. Australia has the world’s largest herd of feral camels that were introduced in the 1840s. Auctioneers in Australia weren’t sure if the group of 93 Arabian camels would sell online, but they all sold for as much as $230 each.  Most were bought to keep prickly weeds under control on farms, and there was interest from domestic meat traders. The animals had been rounded up, or mustered, by helicopter on a remote property in Queensland.  Scott Taylor is a selling agent who helped arrange the auction. He says it took two days for all the wild camels to be caught. “They came in, I think it was probably about 60 kilometers back to the yards. They were mustered in over a two-day period. Yeah, they just came straight in out of the bush and into the yards, and it is surprising how quickly they settled down once they get into captivity, for being a feral animal,” Taylor saidAlmost 100 animals were sold on AuctionsPlus, an online service that normally trades in cattle, sheep and goats.   It is estimated there are at least 300,000 feral camels in central Australia. They can often compete with livestock for scarce supplies of water. Thousands been killed by farmers. They have been declared agricultural pests by state authorities, including Western Australia. Wild herds are also considered to be a health and safety risk to isolated indigenous communities.  The animals were imported from South Asia and elsewhere in the mid-19th century. They were used in colonial Australia as transport, but when they were superseded by motor vehicles, many were released into the wild or escaped. They have, like other invasive species, adapted to Australia’s harsh conditions. Australia has had a long and disastrous record of importing animals that have become uncontrollable feral pests, including cats, foxes, pigs and cane toads.  
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Colombia is set to begin immunizations against COVID-19 after receiving its first shipment of vaccines on Monday. President Ivan Duque and his health minister accepted the first 50,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and said frontline health care workers and the elderly will be the first to get their shots. Colombia has a contract to buy 10 million doses from Pfizer and it expects to soon receive 1.6 million doses from other laboratories. The government says it intends to vaccinate 35 million people this year, including hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants and refugees. Colombia is one of the last countries in Latin America to start vaccinations, behind Ecuador, Panama and Chile. President Duque said his administration was hesitant to start immunizations until it had assurance of getting a steady supply of vaccine to battle the novel coronavirus.  The president also said the arrival of vaccines does not end the use of masks and social distancing. Colombia has more than 2,198,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and 57,786 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University Covid Resource Center.  
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College and university students are low on the list to receive COVID-19 vaccines, according to recent estimatesUnless students are classified as essential workers — such as medical, nursing, medtech or student teachers — or have a health condition — such as human immunodeficiency virus or cancer — they are not likely to receive the COVID-19 vaccine until at least April, Imani Bell, a senior at the University of Delaware. (Courtesy of Bell)“I hope that the rollout starts to pick up and that everyone has access,” said Bell. “It doesn’t make sense that we’ve been in this pandemic for a year and it’s still taking so long. It’s frustrating to me that there are [few] companies making the vaccine when it could go so much faster.” More Universities to Close After Thanksgiving Colleges tell students to stay on campus or go home, but not both While it would “be ideal,” Taylor said, to have campus-based vaccinations, vaccinating students near campuses would suffice.  “And I would hope that schools will do a good deal of advertising about where those locations are, make them convenient for students and also give a lot of information about the vaccine,” she said.  Taylor argues that vaccinating students before they leave campus and travel home would be a huge help to stopping the spread of the coronavirus by college students who routinely go between school and home into the community.  Colleges Closing Quickly as COVID-19 Cases Rise Thanksgiving will end the semester for more schools “We all, students included, still have to pay strict attention to wearing masks, physically distancing, avoiding crowds and washing hands, all of those public health measures that we have had in place throughout still need to be put in place,” she said.  There have been nearly 400,000 coronavirus cases on more than 1,900 college and university campuses since the start of the pandemic more than a year ago, according to the most recent tracking data from the New York Times. At least 90 students have died of coronavirus-related complications. Joshua Goodart, a 22-year-old student at University of New Haven in Connecticut, died from coronavirus on February 6, the Hartford Courant reported. While Goodart had asthma, he was not considered high-risk for COVID-19 complications.But some college students say they’re wary of coronavirus vaccinations. A study conducted at Eastern Connecticut State University of 592 graduate and undergraduate students showed that about half of students surveyed said they would get the vaccine, and half would not or remained uncertain. Institutions of higher education are debating whether to require students to be vaccinated before returning to school, raising legal questions. “Many colleges and universities can and do require that students be vaccinated against certain diseases,” such as human papillomavirus (HPV) and meningococcal disease, said Suzanne Rode, a counsel at Crowell & Moring, a law firm in San Francisco.  “The COVID-19 vaccines differ in that they have been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration under an Emergency Use Authorization, making the vaccines available sooner than they normally would due to the current public health emergency,” she explained. Other challenges for not getting the vaccine might include “valid medical, disability, and sincere religious reasons can serve as a basis for declining the vaccine,” said Rode. International students will be eligible for the vaccine as other students in their priority group, former Surgeon General Jerome Adams confirmed in December. Specific vaccination guidelines for those living, working and studying in the U.S. can be found on the government websites of the states where they reside. Some international students are deciding whether to receive the vaccine in the U.S. or in their home countries. Nogués plans to get his dose of the vaccine wherever it becomes available first. “From what I know, it is very likely that I will get it in the U.S. before I get it in Spain because the rollout in Spain has been slower than a lot of European countries,” Nogués said. Benjamin Ola. Akande, president of Champlain College in Vermont, says that college and university leaders have a duty to protect the health of international students on campus during this pandemic.“Coming to the college in the U.S. today is a life and death decision, and we need to recognize that,” said Akande, who came to study in the U.S. from Nigeria in 1979. “It’s a very conscious decision and therefore, there’s a responsibility on leaders of academies to ensure the safety and health care of students.” 
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The deaths of two Colorado men caught in avalanches and a third in Montana over the frigid Presidents Day weekend show how backcountry skiers and others in the Rocky Mountain wilderness risk triggering weak layers of snow that have created the most hazardous conditions in a decade, forecasters say. At least 25 people have been killed in avalanches in the United States this year — more than the 23 who died last winter. Typically, 27 people die in avalanches in the U.S. annually. Avalanche forecasters say they have rarely seen the danger as high as it is now — and it will grow as more snow moves into the Rockies, adding weight and stress on a weak, granular base layer of snow that’s susceptible to breaking apart and triggering especially wide slides on steep slopes. The main culprit is that ground layer of snow that dropped in October. A dry November weakened it, which is anywhere from several inches (centimeters) to several feet (meters) thick, and despite more snow falling, it’s stayed the consistency of granular sugar, said Dave Zinn, an avalanche forecaster for the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center in southwestern Montana. “That layer consists of large, sugary crystals that don’t bond together well. It’s impossible to make a snowball from it. And when it becomes weighted down, it becomes fragile and breaks,” bringing down the heavier layers on top of it, Zinn said. “It’s the weakest link in the chain. When you pile on more snow, there’s always one spot that’s going to break,” said Ethan Greene, director of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.  This aerial photo provided by Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center shows a ground team approaching the area of an avalanche in the Gallatin National Forest, Mont., Feb. 14, 2021.On Sunday, backcountry skier Craig Kitto, 45, of Bozeman, Montana, was fatally injured when the forest slope he and a companion were climbing cracked without warning, collapsed and swept him downhill into a tree. The other person wasn’t hurt. Similar conditions may have led to the death of 57-year-old David Heide, a backcountry skier whose body was found in an avalanche debris field Sunday in central Colorado’s Clear Creek County. In neighboring Grand County, an avalanche carried a snowmobiler onto a frozen lake Sunday, and his body was found buried in snow. A coroner is investigating. On February 6, Utah saw its deadliest avalanche in about 30 years when four backcountry skiers in their 20s died. Another four dug themselves out of the 1,000-foot (300-meter) slide east of Salt Lake City. Several factors are at play in the rash of deaths: The snowpack, which can be affected by windstorms shifting and piling snow atop weak layers; weather conditions that can change rapidly in the high altitudes of the Rockies; and the availability of public lands in the U.S. West, where people often take advantage of easily accessible national forest. In contrast, ski areas have long ensured their slopes are groomed, potential avalanches in their areas are triggered, and nearby backcountry areas are closed before the first customers hit the lift lines. It’s not uncommon for skiers at Colorado’s Loveland Ski Area to hear an occasional howitzer targeting danger-prone areas on wind-blown peaks approaching 13,000 feet (3,950 meters) along the Continental Divide. “The ski patrols do lots of work to mitigate hazards,” Zinn said. “But in the backcountry, we have to be our own avalanche experts.” Avalanche centers in Colorado, Montana and Utah, as well as the U.S. Forest Service National Avalanche Center, issue daily advisories on conditions and risk levels, as well as safety and training resources.  The Colorado Avalanche Information Center issued a special advisory Monday, warning that “large, wide and long-running natural and human-triggered avalanches are likely.” Are people getting the message? “That’s a hard one to answer,” Greene acknowledged Monday. “Yesterday was tragic, a horrible thing. We don’t know how many got the messages and pursued some other type of recreation. We don’t know how many made it out safely.” Taking precautionsForecasters emphasize standard precautions before heading into the backcountry: * Have rescue gear: A beacon, a probe to check snow conditions, a shovel. Know how to use them. * Check daily forecasts. * Keep an eye out for recent avalanche activity. * Take a guided tour. * Don’t go it alone if possible. Make sure only one person in your party is in exposed terrain at any given time. “The bottom line is that partner rescue is the only way we have positive outcomes in the backcountry,” Zinn said. Record cold temperatures in much of the Rockies “reduce your margin for error,” Zinn added. “If you have an accident, minor injuries become serious ones, and serious ones become deadly with the compounding factor of hypothermia.” Greene said that while there’s adventure in the wildest parts of public lands, “having the freedom to go where you want comes the responsibility of taking care of yourself.”  
 
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Much of the United States was in the icy grip of an “unprecedented” winter storm on Monday as frigid Arctic air sent temperatures plunging, forcing hundreds of flight cancellations, making driving hazardous and leaving millions without power in Texas.Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for the southern state, and the National Weather Service (NWS) said more than 150 million Americans were under winter weather advisories.”I urge all Texans to remain vigilant against the extremely harsh weather,” Abbott said in a statement.The NWS described conditions as an “unprecedented and expansive area of hazardous winter weather” from coast-to-coast.More than 2.7 million people were without power in Texas, according to PowerOutage.us, and temperatures in the major metropolis of Houston dipped to 16 degrees Fahrenheit (minus nine Celsius).President Joe Biden issued an emergency declaration for Texas on Sunday providing federal assistance to supplement state relief efforts.Texas is not used to such brutal winter weather and the storm caused havoc in parts of the state, including a 100-car pileup on Interstate 35 near Fort Worth last week that left at least six people dead.Austin-Bergstrom International Airport said that all flights had been canceled on Monday due to the “historic weather” and Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport also shut down.The NWS said Arctic air was driving a “polar plunge” that is expected to bring record-low temperatures.Much of the United States has been shivering under chilly temperatures for days, with about half of all Americans now under some sort of winter weather warning.Temperatures have dropped across the country, with only parts of the southeast and southwest dodging it.The cold snap has led to heavy snowfalls and ice storms that have caused a spike in electricity demand and power outages.A truck drives past a highway sign on Feb. 15, 2021, in Houston. A frigid blast of weather across the U.S. plunged Texas into an unusually icy emergency Monday that knocked out power to more than 2 million people.’Polar plunge’ Besides Texas, weather-related emergencies have also been declared in Alabama, Oregon, Oklahoma, Kansas, Kentucky and Mississippi.More than 300,000 customers are without power in Oregon.”Over 150 million Americans are currently under winter storm warnings, ice storm warnings, winter storm watches, or winter weather advisories as impactful winter weather continues from coast to coast,” the NWS said.”This impressive onslaught of wicked wintry weather across much of the Lower 48 (states) is due to the combination of strong Arctic high pressure supplying sub-freezing temperatures and an active storm track escorting waves of precipitation.”The NWS said record low temperatures were expected in much of the country.”Hundreds of daily low maximum and minimum temperatures have been/will be broken during this prolonged ‘polar plunge,’ with some February and even all-time low temperature records in jeopardy,” it said.In a large area known as the southern Plains that spans parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, temperatures are expected to fall well below typical readings for the time of year.”Temperature anomalies are likely to be 25 to 45 degrees (Fahrenheit) below normal for much of the central and southern Plains,” the NWS said.It said six to 12 inches of snow was forecast from the Ohio Valley and eastern Great Lakes to northern New England.Florida will remain the warmest spot in the continental United States, with highs above normal and temperatures generally around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 Celsius).
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Crowds of seals lie on the sand, some wriggling towards the water, on the northern French coast where they are staging a comeback. Drone images show around 250 wild grey seals, adults and cubs, frolicking at low tide near the town of Marck. Seals started to disappear from the Cote d’Opale in the 1970s, under pressure from fishermen who saw them as rivals for their catch. Seals, which have no natural predators in the English Channel, have been a protected species in France since the 1980s and as a result they have begun to return to the coast. Rescued grey seal cubs wait for fish during their quarantine at LPA animal refuge in Calais, France, Feb. 13, 2021.”At low tide, they settle here to get fat, to rest and to prepare for their upcoming hunt at sea,” seal enthusiast Jerome Gressier told Reuters. According to a 2018 report of the Hauts-de-France region’s Eco-Phoques project, at least 1,100 seals now live in the area. In the region’s Baie de Somme, harbor seal numbers grew by 14.4% between 1990 and 2017, while grey seals rose by 20%, the study found. Gressier uses a long-focus lens to identify injured seals. “It allows us to see if there are any animals who are caught in nets,” he said. “It hurts them enormously if they are caught by the neck.” Injured seals are treated at a nearby animal rescue center in Calais. Center manager Christel Gressier says many of the animals they deal with are seals, some abandoned by their mothers. “At around three weeks, the mother will quickly teach it to hunt, but if the seal is not able to manage, or do it quickly enough, she leaves and she goes about her business,” she said. “It is at this moment that we can intervene for seals that would not have been able to adapt quickly enough.” 
 
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As the Australian state of Victoria enters its third day of a snap COVID-19 lockdown, the national medical association is calling for urgent changes to infection control in hotel quarantine.  Australian travelers returning from overseas must go into isolation for at least 14 days on arrival, but doctors are worried that the airborne transmission of the virus is not being taken seriously enough.   Biosecurity is a growing concern for Australia’s hotel quarantine system after new and highly contagious variants of COVID-19 were detected among returned travelers.   A five-day lockdown imposed in Victoria state Friday was in response to a cluster of infections at a hotel at Melbourne airport.  Infections were passed from passengers to staff, allowing the virus to spread into the community.  The lockdown was ordered to give contact tracers enough time to track known associates of those who have tested positive to the virus.    Doctors, however, believe that ventilation and personal protective equipment for hotel workers needs to be urgently reviewed.   Chris Moy, the federal vice president of the Australian Medical Association, says bio-security controls need to be tightened.   “Quarantine is our first and most important line of defense.  There have been holes punched in it, particularly with these new strains.  It is not just droplets’ spread, which is the big droplets which, you know, you just cough out.  It just stays quite local, to this airborne spread where essentially COVID can be taken up as a mist and stay in the air, and therefore be far more infectious for a long period of time,”  said Moy.  Victoria is in its third coronavirus lockdown since the pandemic began.     FILE – A business is chained and padlocked on the first day of a five-day lockdown implemented in the state of Victoria in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Melbourne, Australia, Feb. 13, 2021.More citizens are being allowed to return to New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, from Monday, but the Victorian government has suggested that repatriation flights be heavily restricted to curb the spread of new virus variants.  FILE – A mostly empty domestic terminal at Sydney Airport is seen after surrounding states shut their borders to New South Wales, in Sydney, Australia, Dec. 21, 2020.State premier Daniel Andrews said Australia had to have a “cold, hard discussion” about reducing international arrivals.   His comments have caused anger and dismay among thousands of Australians stranded overseas.   Foreign nationals were banned from Australia last March, but citizens and permanent residents can return.  They face mandatory quarantine on arrival and weekly quotas are limiting the number of travelers allowed home.   The government in Canberra has also announced it will stop quarantine-free travel for New Zealanders, after three COVID-19 cases were recorded in Auckland, which has been placed into a snap three-day lockdown.   Australia’s first shipment of the Pfizer vaccine has arrived, but federal authorities have conceded that its distribution across such a vast country would not be a flawless exercise.  A mass inoculation program is due to begin by the end of the month.   Australia has recorded just under 29,000 coronavirus cases since the pandemic began.  Across the Tasman Sea, New Zealand has detected about 2,200 infections.    
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Britain on Monday launched its quarantine program for travelers arriving from 33 “red list” countries determined to be a high risk for COVID-19, as part of its effort to keep variant strains of the coronavirus out of the country.  
 
Under the program, anyone legally entering the United Kingdom is required to spend 10 days quarantined in a hotel room. Arrivals from countries not on the red list are required to quarantine at home for 10 days and take two COVID-19 tests.  
 
Also Monday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would like to stick to his current plan to reopen schools in the country March 8, but said it will depend “on the data.” He noted infection rates were still very high in Britain, as is the death rate.    
 
Johnson said he wants to proceed cautiously with easing COVID-19 restrictions, so that once they are lifted, it will be “irreversible.”  
 
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe state media reported Monday the nation received its first doses of the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine, donated from China. The report said Zimbabwe’s government has also purchased an additional 600,000 doses that are expected to arrive in the African nation next month. The amount is still far short of what it will need to inoculate the country’s population of 14 million.   
 
Israel has made great strides in inoculating its population against the coronavirus, but now that progress is being dramatically slowed by what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says is “the fake news and the superstitious and sometimes malicious beliefs that are planted in the public and on the internet.”  
 
The Associated Press reports Israel has increased its digital task force to counter the misinformation and the says Israel has also deployed DJs and offered free food to lure residents to vaccination venues.  
 
Researchers have found at least seven new coronavirus variants in the United States.  It is not immediately clear, however, if the U.S. variants are as highly contagious as the British and South African variants.   
 
The average number of confirmed, daily coronavirus cases in the U.S. has recently dropped below 100,000 for the first time in months.   However, the U.S. remains the country with the highest number of cases.   
 
There have been more than 108 million coronavirus infections worldwide.  The U.S. has more than 27 million, followed by India with 10.9 million and Brazil with 9.8 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking the virus. 
Mental health professionals are warning about a mental health crisis among young people brought on by the pandemic.  Mental health experts say young people are experiencing loneliness and despair and some are contemplating suicide with all the upheavals the virus has brought to their young lives.  
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The World Health Organization says debilitating post-COVID-19 symptoms in patients will have an impact on global health because of the magnitude of the pandemic.  
The World Health Organization is conducting research into  why many people who are infected with COVID-19 continue to suffer from various disabling conditions for up to six months after they have had the illness.    The team lead of WHO’s Health Care Readiness Division, Janet Diaz, says some people with post-COVID-19 conditions, also known as “long COVID” have not been able to go back to work.  She says their incapacitating symptoms prolong their recovery period.   “Some of the more common symptoms of the post-COVID-19 condition can be fatigue, exertional malaise, and cognitive dysfunction.  Sometimes you may be hearing patients describing that as ‘brain fog.’  These are real,”  she said.  Other complications include shortness of breath, cough, and mental health and neurological complications.  Diaz says it is not clear which patients are most at risk of long COVID.  She says they range from patients who have been hospitalized and required intensive care treatment to those with mild illnesses who were treated in ambulatory outpatient settings.   She says researchers do not know why this is happening and are working hard to get the answers to the many questions surrounding this disease, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.   FILE – Health care workers help a woman as she is discharged from the El Salvador Hospital after surviving the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in San Salvador, El Salvador, Jan. 19, 2021.“We are concerned, obviously, with the numbers of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus. … We do not know how common it is or how uncommon it is.  But the numbers, just by the magnitude of the pandemic will impact health systems.  Again, the main message from us is prevent infection with SARS-CoV-2. So, the public health measures are the No. 1 intervention right now that we know will prevent this,” she said.     These measures include observing physical distancing, wearing a mask and handwashing.     WHO is calling for a coordinated global research response and the collection of as much standardized clinical data as possible to better understand the condition and learn how to better treat those afflicted with this complication.      
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There are 108.5 million global COVID-19 infections, Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Sunday. The U.S. has the most cases at 27.5 million, followed by India with 10.9 million and Brazil with 9.8 million.The Telegraph newspaper reports British scientists are developing a universal vaccine that would combat all the variants of the coronavirus and could be available within a year.The British newspaper says scientists at the University of Nottingham are working on a vaccine that would target the core of virus instead of the spike protein that current vaccines focus on.Targeting the core alleviates the need to frequently adjust existing vaccines as the virus mutates.The Telegraph said proteins found in the core of the virus are far less likely to mutate, meaning the vaccine would protect against all current variants and would theoretically have greater longevity.A 58-year-old man in France is reported to be the first person infected for a second time with the highly contagious South African variant of the coronavirus.The man’s reinfection is “rare albeit probably underestimated,” according to the authors of an article in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal.New Zealand’s largest city in going into a three-day lockdown, the country’s first in six months. The shuttering of Auckland comes after the discovery of three family members – a father, mother and daughter – with COVID.The rest of the country will be on heightened restrictions.New Zealand is known for having have stamped out the local transmission of the coronavirus, but it regularly detects the virus in travelers to New Zealand who are then placed in quarantine.The mother in the New Zealand family with COVID works at a catering company that does laundry for airlines. Authorities are investigating whether there is a link to an infected passenger.Not all U.S. states are happy about President Joe Biden’s plan to establish 100 COVID vaccine inoculation sites around the country by the end of the month, according to an Associated Press report.The wire service reports that some states have learned that the sites do not come with additional vaccines but would pull vaccines from the state’s existing allocation.A spokesperson for Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee said, “Up until now, we’ve been under the impression that these sites do not come with their own supply of vaccine — which is the principal thing we need more of, rather than more ways to distribute what we already have.”Adding to the confusion, AP reported that some states have been told by federal officials that the new sites would come with their own supply of vaccines.
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