The White House has announced it will deliver the bulk of its first 25 million donated doses of COVID-19 vaccine through COVAX, the United Nations-backed program delivering vaccines to low- and middle-income countries. That’s according to a White House announcement on Thursday. It’s part of a down payment on a pledge to donate 80 million doses by the end of June. The Biden administration has been under pressure to share its vaccine supply. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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U.S. traffic deaths soared after coronavirus lockdowns ended in 2020, hitting the highest yearly total since 2007 as more Americans engaged in unsafe behavior on U.S. roads, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Thursday.For all of 2020, 38,680 people died on U.S. roads, up 7.2%, or nearly 2,600 more than in 2019, even though Americans drove 13% fewer miles, preliminary data showed. The fatality rate hit 1.37 deaths per 100 million miles, the highest figure since 2006.In the second half of 2020, the number of traffic deaths was up more than 13%.NHTSA said the main behaviors that drove this increase included impaired driving, speeding and failure to wear seat belts.Deaths involving motorists not wearing seat belts were up 15%, speeding-related deaths jumped by 10% and fatal crashes involving alcohol rose 9%.Michigan said traffic deaths in the state rose 10% in 2020 to the highest number since 2007, even as crashes fell 22% and injuries fell 22%.”We intend to use all available tools to reverse these trends and reduce traffic fatalities and injuries,” said acting NHTSA Administrator Steven Cliff.In an open letter to drivers in January, NHTSA said “fewer Americans drove, but those who did took more risks and had more fatal crashes. … It’s irresponsible and illegal to drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol, which not only puts your life at risk but the lives of others.”Some experts said that as U.S. roads became less crowded, some motorists engaged in more unsafe behavior, including those who perceived police were less likely to issue tickets because of COVID-19. Data suggests a higher number of serious crashes last year involved drug or alcohol use than previously.NHTSA said in October a study of early crash data after the pandemic lockdowns found that “drivers who remained on the roads engaged in more risky behavior, including speeding, failing to wear seat belts, and driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”
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Space junk finally hits its mark.  Plus, NASA now eyes Venus after its first major flight issue on Mars. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space.Produced by: Arash Arabasadi
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The Biden administration on Thursday announced it will share 80 million excess doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of June, with FILE – A health worker talks to colleagues as they prepare to receive a coronavirus vaccine at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, March 5, 2021.Approximately 7 million doses will head to Asia, including to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Maldives, Nepal, the Pacific Islands, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Five million vaccine doses will be shared with Africa in coordination with the African Union.  In a briefing to reporters, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the administration will continue to donate excess supply as it becomes available.  “This is just the right thing to do,” Sullivan said. “And as the president has said, [the] United States will not use its vaccines to secure favors from other countries.” Of the 80 million doses — or 13 percent of the total U.S. vaccine production — that the Biden administration has committed so far to share worldwide — 75 percent will be donated through COVAX, prioritizing Latin America and the Caribbean, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa. The rest will be shared directly with places experiencing surges, immediate neighbors, and other countries that have requested immediate U.S. assistance.  Sullivan said that the U.S. will have the authority to determine where the doses distributed via COVAX will be allocated. “But that will be done in very close consultation in partnership with COVAX, and, crucially, according to COVAX’s formula, and then using the COVAX logistics capacity and delivery capacity to ensure that these doses actually translate into shots in arms that help save people’s lives.” The United Nations welcomed the move, with a spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, saying, “It is very important for wealthy countries, developed countries to share as much as possible with COVAX.” “And as the secretary-general has noted, [that] none of us will be safe until all of us are safe, which means that vaccines need to be within reach of everyone, everywhere,” Dujarric said, referring to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. AstraZeneca withheld  White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeffrey Zients said the initial 25 million doses comprised vaccines already approved by U.S. health authorities for emergency use, including Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer.FILE – A health worker injects a doctor with a dose of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi, Vietnam, March 8, 2021.Meanwhile, 60 million excess AstraZeneca doses — the vaccine awaiting authorization for use in the U.S. but widely approved around the world — will remain held per further review by U.S. officials.  Humanitarian organizations welcome the announcement. Tom Hart, acting CEO of ONE Campaign, an organization working to end extreme poverty and preventable disease by 2030, called it a “welcome step that will save lives and help the world extinguish this global pandemic faster.” “However, it’s disappointing to see delays in donating the 60 million AstraZeneca doses — which have been approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization and will go unused otherwise,” said Hart in a statement. More neededOthers say the United States must commit to doing more, as it has secured enough doses to protect its entire population of 330 million and still have more than half a billion surplus vaccines left over.  “The 80 million doses it has promised to share barely scratches the surface of what’s needed,” said Carrie Teicher, director of programs at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) USA. Margaret Besheer and Steve Herman contributed to this report.
 
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Just six months after receiving two shots of China’s Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine, some people in Bahrain are being offered booster doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.The decision to mix vaccines comes as the Gulf state is experiencing a wave of virus infections despite having a very high per capita vaccination rate. The booster is being recommended for people who are over 50, obese or have weakened immune systems.Waleed Khalifa Al Manea, Bahrain’s undersecretary of health, told The Wall Street Journal that Sinopharm accounted for 60% of vaccinations in the country and that it offered high levels of protection. He said 90% of those being hospitalized in the current wave had not been vaccinated.The country will continue to offer a choice between Sinopharm and Pfizer-BioNTech, the Journal reported.Both Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates used Sinopharm heavily. Last month, both announced they would offer a booster of the same vaccine amid growing concerns that two doses did not trigger enough antibody response.The World Health Organization approved Sinopharm for emergency use in May, sparking hope that vaccines would better reach the world’s poorer countries. 
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Britain is hosting a two-day summit of health ministers from the Group of Seven nations, with a focus on sharing vaccines and better identifying threats to global health security. The talks in Oxford on Thursday and Friday come ahead of a summit of G-7 leaders next week in Cornwall. Countries that have carried out large-scale vaccination efforts against COVID-19 are facing pressure to do more to help other parts of the world where vaccine supply has been short. World Health Organization Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said “we need doses to be shared right now.” Vaccine equity is “critical to end the pandemic,” he added.  British health minister Matt Hancock said more than 75% of adults in the U.K. have received their first dose. In the United States, another G-7 member, about 63% of adults have received a COVID-19 vaccination. FILE – Workers load boxes of Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines, part of the Covax program, into a truck after they arrived by plane at the Ivato International Airport in Antananarivo, Madagascar, May 8, 2021.The United States has pledged $4 billion to the COVAX global vaccine-sharing program. The goal of the global program is to deliver vaccine doses to people in lower-income countries by the end of 2021. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday the Biden administration would announce in the next week or two its plans for distributing 80 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to other countries. Ahead of Thursday’s start of the G-7 summit, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said his country’s government would add another $800 million to help the COVAX program. The health ministers will also examine ways to prevent diseases from spreading from animals to humans, including joint efforts to identify early warning signs in animals and the environment. 
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In the span of just five days last month, China gave out 100 million shots of its COVID-19 vaccines.After a slow start, China is now doing what virtually no other country in the world can: harnessing the power and all-encompassing reach of its one-party system and a maturing domestic vaccine industry to administer shots at a staggering pace. The rollout is far from perfect, including uneven distribution, but Chinese public health leaders now say they’re hoping to inoculate 80% of the population of 1.4 billion by the end of the year.As of Tuesday, China had given out more than 680 million doses — with nearly half of those in May alone. China’s total is roughly a third of the 1.9 billion shots distributed globally, according to Our World in Data, an online research site.The call to get vaccinated comes from every corner of society. Companies offer shots to their employees, schools urge their students and staffers, and local government workers check on their residents. That pressure underscores both the system’s strength, which makes it possible to even consider vaccinating more than a billion people this year, but also the risks to civil liberties — a concern the world over but one that is particularly acute in China, where there are few protections.“The Communist Party has people all the way down to every village, every neighborhood,” said Ray Yip, former country director for the Gates Foundation in China and a public health expert. “That’s the draconian part of the system, but it also gives very powerful mobilization.”China is now averaging about 19 million shots per day, according to Our World in Data’s rolling seven-day average. That would mean a dose for everyone in Italy about every three days. The United States, with about one-quarter of China’s population, reached around 3.4 million shots per day in April when its drive was at full tilt.It’s still unclear how many people in China are fully vaccinated — which can mean anywhere from one to three doses of the vaccines in use — as the government does not publicly release that data.Zhong Nanshan, the head of a group of experts attached to the National Health Commission and a prominent government doctor, said on Sunday that 40% of the population has received at least one dose, and the aim was to get that percentage fully vaccinated by the end of the month.In Beijing, the capital, 87% of the population has received at least one dose. Getting a shot is as easy as walking into one of hundreds of vaccination points found all across the city. Vaccination buses are parked in high foot-traffic areas, including in the city center and at malls.Residents line up outside a vaccination center in Beijing on June 2, 2021.But Beijing’s abundance is not shared with the rest of the country, and local media reports and complaints on social media show the difficulty of getting an appointment elsewhere.“I started lining up that day at 9 in the morning, until 6 p.m., only then did I get the shot. It was exhausting,” Zhou Hongxia, a resident of Lanzhou, in northwestern Gansu province, explained recently. “When I left, there were still people waiting.”Zhou’s husband hasn’t been so lucky and has yet to get a shot. When they call the local hotlines, they are told simply to wait.Central government officials on Monday said they’re working to ensure supply is more evenly distributed.Before the campaign ramped up in recent weeks, many people were not in a rush to get vaccinated as China has kept the virus, which first flared in the country, at bay in the past year with strict border controls and mandatory quarantines. It has faced small clusters of infections from time to time, and is currently managing one in the southern city of Guangzhou.Although there are distribution issues, it is unlikely that Chinese manufacturers will have problems with scale, according to analysts and those who have worked in the industry.Sinovac and Sinopharm, which make the majority of the vaccines being distributed in China, have both aggressively ramped up production, building brand new factories and repurposing existing ones for COVID-19. Sinovac’s vaccine and one of the two Sinpharm makes have received an emergency authorization for use from the World Health Organization, but the companies, particularly Sinopharm, have faced criticism for their lack of transparency in sharing their data.“What place in the world can compare with China on construction? How long did it take our temporary hospitals to be built?” asked Li Mengyuan, who leads pharmaceutical research at Western Securities, a financial firm. China built field hospitals at the beginning of the pandemic in just days.Security guards help masked residents to scan their health code as they line up to receive the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine at the Central Business District in Beijing, June 2, 2021.Sinovac has said it has doubled its production capacity to 2 billion doses a year, while Sinopharm has said it can make up to 3 billion doses a year. But Sinopharm has not disclosed recent numbers of how many doses it actually has made, and a spokesman for the company did not respond to a request for comment. Sinovac has produced 540 million doses this year as of late May, the company said on Friday.Government support has been crucial for vaccine developers every step of the way — as it has in other countries — but, as with everything, the scope and scale in China is different.Yang Xiaoming, chairman of Sinopharm’s China National Biotec Group, recounted to state media recently how the company initially needed to borrow lab space from a government research center while it was working on a vaccine.“We sent our samples over, there was no need to discuss money, we just did it,” he said.Chinese vaccine companies also largely do not rely on imported products in the manufacturing process. That’s an enormous benefit at a time when many countries are scrambling for the same materials and means China can likely avoid what happened to the Serum Institute of India, whose production was hobbled because of dependence on imports from the U.S. for certain ingredients.But as the availability of the vaccine increases so, too, can the pressure to take it.In Beijing, one researcher at a university said the school’s Communist Party cell calls him once a month to ask him if he has gotten vaccinated yet and offers to help him make an appointment.He has so far declined to get a shot because he would prefer the Pfizer vaccine, saying he trusts its data. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns he could face repercussions at his job at a government university for publicly questioning the Chinese vaccines.China has not yet approved Pfizer for use, and the researcher is not sure how long he can hold out — although the government has, for now, cautioned against making vaccines mandatory outright.“They don’t have to say it is mandatory,” Yip, the public health expert, said. “They’re not going to announce that it’s required to have the vaccine, but they can put pressure on you.”
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The new White House science adviser hopes that for the next pandemic, a vaccine will be ready in 100 days. Eric Lander tells The Associated Press in his first interview since he was sworn in that he’s pushing for better preparedness for the next pandemic. He says that includes the type of vaccine where researchers can plug in genetic material from the new viral threat and be ready to fight that disease. He also hopes that approach can make a dent in cancer. Lander paints a rosy future where science better fights disease, curbs climate change and further explores space. The new White House science adviser wants to have a vaccine ready to fight the next pandemic in just about 100 days after recognizing a potential viral outbreak. In his first interview after being sworn in Wednesday, Eric Lander painted a rosy near future where a renewed American emphasis on science not only better prepares the world for the next pandemic with plug-and-play vaccines, but also changes how medicine fights disease and treats patients, curbs climate change and further explores space. He even threw in a “Star Trek” reference. “This is a moment in so many ways, not just health, that we can rethink fundamental assumptions about what’s possible and that’s true of climate and energy and many areas,” Lander told The Associated Press. Lander took his oath of office on a 500-year-old fragment of the Mishnah, an ancient Jewish text documenting oral traditions and laws. He is the first director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy to be promoted to Cabinet level. Lander said President Joe Biden’s elevation of the science post is a symbolic show “that science should have a seat at the table” but also allows him to have higher-level talks with different agency chiefs about making policy. Lander is a mathematician and geneticist by training who was part of the human genome mapping project and directed the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard. He said he is particularly focused not so much on this pandemic, but the lessons learned from this one to prepare for the next one. “It was amazing at one level that we were able to produce highly effective vaccines in less than a year, but from another point of view you’d say, ‘Boy, a year’s a long time,’” even though in the past it would take three years or four years, Lander said. “To really make a difference we want to get this done in 100 days. And so a lot of us have been talking about a 100-day target from the recognition from a virus with pandemic potential.” “It would mean that we would have had a vaccine in early April if that had happened this time, early April of 2020,” Lander said. “It makes you gulp for a second, but it’s totally feasible to do that.” Scientists were working on so-called all-purpose ready-to-go platform technologies for vaccines long before the pandemic. They’re considered “plug-and-play.” Instead of using the germ itself to make a vaccine, they use messenger RNA and add the genetic code for the germ. That’s what happened with the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 shots. Beyond being optimistic about confronting future pandemics, Lander wonders about the implications for preventing cancer. “Maybe the same sort of experience about moving so much faster than we thought is applicable to cancer,” said Lander, who during the Obama administration was co-chair of the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. A company already has been working on that. For that matter, the pandemic and telehealth brought the doctor to patients in some ways. Lander said he is reimagining “a world where we rearrange a lot of things” to get more patient-centered health care, including community health workers checking up every few weeks on people about their blood pressure, blood sugar and other chronic problems. Two of Lander’s predecessor praised him. Neal Lane, President Bill Clinton’s science adviser, said Lander is “perfect” for the pandemic because of the need for a strategy and international agreements. Obama’s science chief, John Holden, called him “a Renaissance man.” Lander’s nomination had been delayed for months as senators sought more information about meetings he had with the late Jeffrey Epstein, a financier who was charged with sex trafficking before his apparent suicide. Lander said he only met with Epstein twice, in 2012, and never requested or received funds from Epstein or his foundation. At his confirmation hearing, Lander also apologized for a 2016 article he wrote that downplayed the work of two Nobel Prize-winning female scientists. Lander, who has visited Greenland on a balmy 72-degree day, told the AP he sees climate change as “an incredibly serious threat to this planet in many, many ways.” Still, Lander said he was more optimistic now than he and others were a decade ago because “I see a path to doing something about it.” Lander pointed to a drop of about in 90% in solar and energy wind costs, making them now as cheap as fossil fuels that cause climate change. But he said what’s also needed is “an explosion of ideas” to improve battery life and provide carbon-free energy that is not weather-dependent. Those innovations need federal incentives that are part of Biden’s jobs package, he said. Reducing methane is key to fighting climate change, Lander added, but first improvements are needed in technology to determine where methane is leaking from. As for space, Lander said he was too new to comment on whether heading to the moon or Mars should be the goal. The Obama administration redirected NASA away from the Bush-era plan to send astronauts back to the moon and was more aimed for Mars or an asteroid. The Trump administration not only focused back on the moon but set a 2024 goal for a new moon landing. “Are we going to go to the moon and are we going to go to Mars and are we going to moons of Jupiter? Sure. The exact order I think is great to think about or great to talk about,” Lander said. He quoted “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,” when Captain James T. Kirk’s love interest asked if he was from outer space. He responded: “I’m from Iowa, I only work in outer space.” Adds Lander: “That was a fun line in ‘Star Trek IV,’ but folks in Iowa are really going to say that.” 
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President Joe Biden is launching a monthlong nationwide push to get 70% of American adults vaccinated by Independence Day on July 4. But the administration has not yet outlined its vaccine-sharing strategy with the rest of the world. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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NASA is returning to sizzling Venus, our closest yet perhaps most overlooked neighbor, after decades of exploring other worlds.The space agency’s new administrator, Bill Nelson, announced two new robotic missions to the solar system’s hottest planet, during his first major address to employees Wednesday.”These two sister missions both aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world capable of melting lead at the surface,” Nelson said.One mission named DaVinci Plus will analyze the thick, cloudy Venusian atmosphere to determine whether the inferno planet ever had an ocean and was possibly habitable. A small craft will plunge through the atmosphere to measure the gases.It will be the first U.S.-led mission to the Venusian atmosphere since 1978.The other mission, called Veritas, will seek a geologic history by mapping the rocky planet’s surface.”It is astounding how little we know about Venus,” but the new missions will give fresh views of the planet’s atmosphere, made up mostly of carbon dioxide, down to the core, NASA scientist Tom Wagner said in a statement. “It will be as if we have rediscovered the planet.”NASA’s top science official, Thomas Zurbuchen, calls it “a new decade of Venus.” Each mission — launching sometime around 2028 to 2030 — will receive $500 million for development under NASA’s Discovery program.The missions beat out two other proposed projects, to Jupiter’s moon, Io, and Neptune’s icy moon, Triton.The U.S. and the former Soviet Union sent multiple spacecraft to Venus in the early days of space exploration. NASA’s Mariner 2 performed the first successful flyby in 1962, and the Soviets’ Venera 7 made the first successful landing in 1970.   In 1989, NASA used a space shuttle to send its Magellan spacecraft into orbit around Venus.  The European Space Agency put a spacecraft around Venus in 2006. 
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U.S. President Joe Biden is concerned about the nation splitting into two groups: the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.”I don’t want to see the country that is already too divided become divided in a new way, between places where people live free from fear of COVID, and places where … the fall arrives and death and severe illnesses return,” Biden said Wednesday as he announced new coronavirus vaccination initiatives with inducements.”Getting the vaccine is not a partisan act,” added Biden, noting production of the vaccines was done under presidents from both parties. “We need to be one America — united, free from fear.”FILE – Members of the Nevada National Guard offer coronavirus vaccines at a mobile vaccination clinic held at a tribal health center on the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Reservation and Colony on May 18, 2021 in Fallon, Nev.Biden has set a goal of vaccinating 70% of adults in the United States with at least one injection by July 4, when the country celebrates its Independence Day. The rate is currently 63%.With COVID-19 vaccination rates lagging, especially in some minority communities, Biden recommends the Shots at the Shop program, which includes more than 1,000 neighborhood barbers and hairstylists. The hair professionals will attend training sessions this month about coronavirus vaccines and then hold vaccination clinics in their establishments.”Barbershops, beauty shops are hubs of activity and information in Black and brown communities particularly,” Biden said at the White House.The administration’s National Month of Action will also include several “national organizations, local government leaders, community-based and faith-based partners, businesses, employers, social media influencers, celebrities, athletes, colleges, young people and thousands of volunteers,” according to the White House.FILE – Medical workers and volunteers administer the coronavirus vaccine at a drive-through clinic in Mora, N.M., April 20, 2021. New Mexico is the latest U.S. state to offer cash lottery prizes in a bid to increase vaccination rates.”America is headed into the summer dramatically different from last year’s summer — a summer of freedom, a summer of joy, a summer of get-togethers and celebrations. An all-American summer that this country deserves after a long, long, dark winter that we’ve all endured,” Biden said.Two of the largest child care providers in the United States are offering free drop-in appointments at more than 2,500 sites to parents and other caregivers while they get vaccinated.Some pharmacies this month will stay open overnight on Fridays for vaccinations.”We’re going to continue encouraging people to get vaccinated with incentives and fun rewards,” said Biden.Among vaccine incentives being offered by the private sector and endorsed by the White House:— A national pharmacy chain is launching a sweepstakes for vaccinated people to win free ship cruises, cash prizes and other rewards.— The top professional baseball league is giving free tickets to those who get vaccinated, and it is also offering vaccinations at stadiums.— A supermarket chain will award dozens of vaccinated shoppers free groceries for a year.— An airline is offering its frequent-fliers a year of free flights or a round trip for two in any class of service.FILE – George Ripley, 72, of Washington holds up his free beer after receiving the J & J COVID-19 vaccine shot, at The REACH at the Kennedy Center in the nation’s capital, May 6, 2021.— A major brewery is also giving away free beer to all Americans 21 and older if the U.S. reaches Biden’s 70% goal by July 4.”That’s right — get a shot and have a beer,” Biden remarked, as he listed some of the inducements.The Krispy Kreme doughnut chain says anyone can get a free doughnut June 4 to celebrate National Doughnut Day, but those who have been vaccinated against COVID will get an extra one.A national doughnut chain said Tuesday that it had given away 1.5 million glazed doughnuts to those with proof of vaccination.Krispy Kreme said anyone could get a free doughnut, vaccinated or not, on Friday to celebrate National Doughnut Day. But people who have been vaccinated will get an additional doughnut.”I would not recommend a Krispy Kreme with a beer, but I would leave that to other people to decide,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki remarked about the plethora of nationwide promotions tied to COVID-19 vaccinations.A national vaccination tour, led by Vice President Kamala Harris, will also be launched across Southern and Midwestern states, Biden announced Wednesday.Harris will be joined by her husband, Doug Emhoff, as well as first lady Jill Biden and members of the president’s Cabinet.
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Hundreds of Zimbabweans protested Wednesday about a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines as the country awaits more doses from China.  The government wants to inoculate at least 60% of Zimbabwe’s more than 14 million people by the end of the year but has struggled to get the necessary supplies.  Claudina Maneni brought her 60-year-old mother to get her second vaccine dose Wednesday at Wilkins Hospital, Zimbabwe’s main COVID-19 vaccination center.  She was among people who arrived at 4 a.m. but waited in vain for hours.  The crowd demanded to see authorities and began to protest but dispersed upon hearing police were on their way.  Maneni says she wonders why Zimbabwe’s finance minister, Mthuli Ncube, has not imported more vaccines to avert shortages. “That’s the problem with freebies. Shortages must affect those who want their first jabs,” she said. “I hear some private points are selling it. I will pass through to check. It must be them — government officials — taking vaccines to those places. They are not ashamed at all. There will be chaos here. Why did they call us to come for vaccination?” On Wednesday, Dr. John Mangwiro, Zimbabwe’s junior health minister, refused to comment. Tuesday, he told state-controlled media that government would redistribute COVID-19 vaccines from areas with lower demand to those where uptake has been high to avert current shortages. He said Zimbabwe still had more than 400,000 doses from the 1.7 million COVID-19 vaccines it got from China, Russia and India since February.  Zimbabwe’s Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa was mum about the COVID-19 vaccine shortages on June 1, 2021 in Harare while updating journalists on the global pandemic. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)Updating media Tuesday about Zimbabwe’s COVID-19 situation, Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa was mum about the shortages. “As of 31st May, 2021, a total of 675,678 people had received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and about 344,400 their second dose — this is across the country. Priority is being given to second doses,” she said.
After speaking, she did not field questions from reporters. Calvin Fambirai, executive director of Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights, says his organization is worried about the COVID-19 vaccine shortages with winter season approaching the region.   “The vaccine shortages could have been avoided if there was proper planning on part of the government,” he said. “Although we understand the limited availability of vaccines on the market, we have some countries like South Africa, which entered into bilateral deals with manufacturers. We cannot afford to rely on donations, government must be proactive and secure the vaccines for all Zimbabweans.” Last week, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization’s director for Africa, appealed for at least 20 million vaccines of second doses for everyone who received their first shots on the continent to curtail a potential third wave of COVID-19.  Zimbabwe has 38,998 confirmed coronavirus infections and just under 1,600 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, which tracks the global outbreak.     
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Authorities in Australia’s southern state of Victoria have extended a one-week lockdown for its capital, Melbourne, to contain the spread of a new COVID-19 outbreak. The lockdown was initially imposed across the entire state last week after health officials detected a highly infectious variant of the coronavirus that was rapidly spreading across Victoria state.  The latest outbreak has been linked to an overseas traveler who became infected with a variant first detected in India during his mandatory hotel quarantine phase. FILE – A mostly-empty city street is seen on the first day of a seven-day lockdown as the state of Victoria looks to curb the spread of a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Melbourne, Australia, May 28, 2021.Health officials announced six new locally acquired COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number of confirmed infections to 60.   “If we let this thing run its course, it will explode,” Victoria state Acting Premier James Merlino told reporters in Melbourne.  “We’ve got to run this to ground because if we don’t, people will die.”   Although Melbourne’s 5 million residents will remain under strict restrictions until June 10, the lockdown measures have been lifted for residents in regional Victoria, with limits on public and private gatherings and restaurant capacity.   The new lockdown is the fourth one imposed on Melbourne and Victoria state since the start of the pandemic.  The most severe period occurred in mid-2020, which lasted more than three months as Victoria was under the grip of a second wave of COVID-19 infections that killed more than 800 people. Moderna seeking full FDA authorization
In the United States, Moderna said Tuesday it is seeking full authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its COVID-19 vaccine for adults 18 years old and older. The Moderna two-shot vaccine is one of three coronavirus vaccines the FDA authorized for emergency use in the United States, playing a major role in the steadily declining number of new infections in the country.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say more than 150 million doses of the Moderna vaccine have been distributed since the emergency use authorization was granted last December.   FILE – A nurse draws a Moderna coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine, in Los AngelesModerna announced last week that it will apply for emergency use authorization this month to administer the vaccine to young people after discovering it was safe and effective for children between 12 and 17 years old.  If approved, it will join the two-shot vaccine developed by Pfizer and Bio N Tech that was authorized for use in 12 to 15 years old last month.   Brazil to host soccer tournamentBrazil confirmed Tuesday that it will host the troubled Copa America soccer tournament despite warnings of an upcoming new wave of new infections.   President Jair Bolsonaro said the tournament, which will take place from June 13 to July 10, will be held in the capital Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, Cuiaba and Goiania.   The tournament’s organizers, the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL), announced Monday it was moving the upcoming event to Brazil due to a surge of new COVID-19 infections in Argentina, which was co-hosting the tournament with Colombia, which is unable to stage the tournament because of massive anti-government street protests.   Scientists in Brazil are concerned about hosting a tournament in a nation with a more transmissible COVID-19 variant, with many predicting another wave of the disease to hit the country in a matter of weeks.  The opposition Workers Party has filed an injunction with the Brazilian Supreme Court to block the tournament.  FILE – Demonstrators shouts slogans during a protest against the government’s response in combating COVID-19, demanding the impeachment of President Jair Bolsonaro, in Rio de Janeiro, May 29, 2021.President Bolsonaro has come under heavy criticism for his apparently dismissive attitude toward the pandemic, and is the subject of a congressional investigation over his government’s management of the crisis.   Brazil trails only the United States and India in the total number of coronavirus cases with more than 16.6  million, and is second only to the U.S. in deaths at more than 465,199, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
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Australian scientists are leading an international consortium that is building one of the world’s most powerful ground-based telescopes. It promises to see further and clearer than the Hubble Space Telescope and unlock mysteries of the early Universe.The telescope is called MAVIS, or Multi-conjugate-adaptive-optics Assisted Visible Imager and Spectrograph. It’s a long name for a highly complex instrument that will be the first of its kind. It aims to remove blurring from conventional telescope images caused by turbulence in Earth’s atmosphere, which is why the stars appear to twinkle in the night sky. Scientists in Australia say the new technology will allow them to “peer back into the early Universe” and help them explore how the first stars formed 13 billion years ago, as well as monitoring changes in the weather on planets and moons in our solar system.  Images produced by MAVIS will be three times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope that was launched into Earth’s low orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. Associate Professor Richard McDermid, a scientist based at Sydney’s Macquarie University, says the new telescope will change the way we explore space. “The clarity gives us two things,” he said. “It helps us see a sharper image, but it also helps us gain in sensitivity, so we can see fainter things and we can see them more clearly. That allows us to push into a new frontier of the furthest and faintest things we can see. So, for example the first stars in formation, inside the first galaxies because when we look far away in astronomy we are also looking far back in time because it takes time for the light to reach us. And so, yes, we are really building on the legacy of Hubble but we are going to go deeper and even sharper.”  The ground-based telescope will be installed at a facility in Chile run by the European Southern Observatory, a research organization based in Germany. It will take seven years to build at a cost of $44 million.  The MAVIS consortium is led by The Australian National University, and involves Macquarie University, Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics and France’s Laboratoire d’Astrophysique.   
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US President Joe Biden’s administration announced Tuesday it was halting petroleum development activity in the Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, reversing a move by former president Donald Trump to allow drilling. The Interior Department said it was notifying firms of the freeze, pending a comprehensive environmental review that will determine whether leases in the area known as ANWR should be “reaffirmed, voided or subject to additional mitigation measures,” the agency said in a statement. The announcement deals a blow to the long-contested quest of oil companies to drill in the sensitive territory. The push for development picked up momentum after Trump announced the leasing plan last November shortly after losing reelection to Biden. At a lease sale in January over some 1.6 million acres, US officials auctioned off 11 oil tracts. Major oil companies sat out the bidding, and nine of the leases went to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a state agency, while two went to small companies. Biden had promised to protect ANWR during the presidential campaign. White House climate advisor Gina McCarthy noted Biden’s promise and said the move reflected his belief that “national treasures are cultural and economic cornerstones of our country,” according to a White House statement. Biden “is grateful for the prompt action by the Department of the Interior to suspend all leasing pending a review of decisions made in the last administration’s final days that could have changed the character of this special place forever,” McCarthy added. Environmentalists have long argued that safeguarding ANWR is critical to protect polar bears and other vulnerable wildlife and for indigenous populations that hunt caribou in the region.  But the oil industry has long sought to drill in the area, which is thought to potentially hold billions of barrels in oil. Key Alaska lawmakers such as Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, have strongly backed development. The Alaska Wilderness League, which had joined other environmental groups in litigation against the Trump administration’s development efforts, applauded the Biden administration’s action. “Suspending these leases is a step in the right direction,” said Kristen Miller, acting executive director for the Alaska Wilderness League. Continued threat”There is still more to be done. Until the leases are canceled, they will remain a threat to one of the wildest places left in America,” Miller said. “Now we look to the administration and Congress to prioritize legislatively repealing the oil leasing mandate and restore protections to the Arctic Refuge coastal plain.” But the American Petroleum Institute said the oil industry knows how to develop responsibly and that the decision will cost Alaska jobs and tax revenue. “Policies aimed at slowing or stopping oil and natural gas production on federal lands and waters will ultimately prove harmful to our national security, environmental progress and economic strength,” API official Kevin O’Scannlain said. “At a time of economic recovery, this action only serves to withhold the good-paying jobs and economic revenue that safe and responsible oil and gas development would provide to local Alaskan communities.” The Biden administration’s move on ANWR comes only days after it sanctioned another Trump administration plan on oil development in Alaska, involving a ConocoPhillips project in Alaska’s North Slope in the former Naval Petroleum Reserve. 
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