Covid Corner

This relates mainly to Australia.
It was written by Virginia Trioli, ABC News.
The last couple of paragraphs are not related,

The room where it happens is cold.

In it stands a Premier who has just been told by his deputy chief health officer that he should lock his entire state down to stage four restrictions for an indeterminate amount of time.

The health officer, a leader in his field in respiratory infection and disease, makes his case and the temperature in the room drops a few more degrees.

The Premier speaks — coldly, evenly: "That's a billion dollar a week decision —are you really sure about that?"

The scene is set in July 2020. The health officer is Professor Allan Cheng, drafted from his major public hospital into the battle to fight Victoria out of its deadly second coronavirus wave.

The Premier is, of course Daniel Andrews, and he, and his public health officials and advisers and all the citizens, workers, traders, teachers and children of Victoria are about to try to recover a series of terrible mistakes and official blunders and try to rewrite the playbook of managing a coronavirus wave.

Professor Cheng has this week returned to his medical life and in a valedictory interview with me on ABC Radio Melbourne he reflected on the "agonising" decisions he and his colleagues had to make — ones they took even when they felt they didn't have all the information they needed.

This meeting in that room was one of those moments, and the Premier's question stopped Professor Cheng short. "And I said, I think I'll go away and think about it a bit more."

He did. And then he and his colleagues came back, and their advice had not changed.

The day after Victoria started what ended up being a 112-day lockdown, Allan Cheng said he was driving to work along deserted streets, through a silent, empty city and he thought, "Oh my god, what have I done?"

If it's true that if you ignore history you are condemned to repeat it, then Victoria had already excelled in repeating mistakes. Even Allan Cheng acknowledges that now.

He says he was too late to realise the importance of face masks (a lesson we failed to learn from our south-east Asian neighbours who had already gone through viral pandemics) and he said he was too late to call the hard shutdown: by the time the public health team called it, Victoria was recording more than 600 new cases a day.

The dreaded COVID cliche of there being no rulebook for this pandemic was contained in that very moment, but that was also the moment when we truly began to write our way out and to write a rulebook of our own.

We already had a great draft to work from. A highly successful outline had been completed by the excellent public health and contact tracing team in NSW in their response to the first wave, and a few terrific chapters were also penned by solid responses in other states and by other health departments.

As a result of all our work, we now have the book, we have the way out and that's why the exasperation felt by many at the response of the NSW government to their most recent outbreak of the even more infectious Delta variant is so real.

This is not a Melbourne vs Sydney fight: it is an Australia vs the virus fight, and it always has been.

The sad absence of the unified response you might hope to see from an apparent Federation of states does not diminish that reality, because every mistake, every misstep has been an Australian one, and every less lesson learned — every painful, hard-won lesson — has been an Australian one too, and they are all chapters in a unique and until now unwritten book on how to beat a rampaging virus back to nothing.

We are all the bewildered, exhausted but proud authors of that, and notwithstanding the missing bits — the chapter on how to manage hotel quarantine properly; how to get your own citizens safely home; how to urgently and effectively protect and support your most vulnerable workers — it's an amazing bit of work.

The fact that various decision makers and authorities and governments are seemingly stubborn about opening this book and learning from all this history does not gainsay the profound wisdom in it.

We have witnessed leadership beyond valour in the medical fraternity, among brilliant epidemiologists, researchers and modellers; from public servants in health departments who have worked under the kind of pressure that would make most of us crack; from political leaders who have never wanted to see their citizens exposed to a dreadful disease.

But it took more mistakes, and more hard-won lessons and the exceptionally hard work of many infectious diseases experts and public health modellers to figure the way out of this labyrinth, and when they did it was not a Victorian win — it was one for every Australian.

And it's one that can still provide a pathway out. I am sure that in NSW one will be found.

In the meantime, let us divert you with some great writing. This weekend, with so many millions of Australians across the states in lockdowns, we can offer a superb insight into the power of silence, the reality of women in politics and some wonderfully engaging reads on the Tokyo games, which — I promise you — we are all going to be right into by the end of this week!

Have a safe and happy weekend, let my colleague Sammy J find the slim wafer of humour in all of this for you, and if you feel like hitting the kitchen, my three ingredient recipes are back! This time it's a cake made from a combination of ingredients so mad... it's good.

Play this while you bake: it's 10 years since we lost Amy, but her joy and pain glows eternal.

Our tears will dry. Look after yourselves, New South Wales. And go well.

Virginia Trioli, ABC News. Australia​
 





 
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A little lighthearted message..
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Lambda variant pushes up death toll in Peru | COVID-19 Special - DW News
Covid-19 vaccine myths debunked - CNN
Summary from the CNN link above:
Some of the most popular arguments for not getting vaccinated and why doctors want to set the record straight (and more if you click the link and read):

Q: I don't want to get Covid-19 from the vaccine
A: It's literally impossible to get Covid-19 from any of the vaccines used in the US because none of them contains even a piece of real coronavirus.

Q: We don't know what the long-term side effects are
A: Any adverse side effects from vaccines almost always "show up within the first two weeks, and certainly by the first two months," said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. That's why he and many other health experts asked the US Food and Drug Administration to wait at least two months after trial participants had been inoculated before considering whether to give emergency authorization to Covid-19 vaccines.

Q: I've already had Covid-19, so I don't need to be vaccinated
A: Even if you've had coronavirus, you should still get vaccinated because the immunity you get from vaccination will likely be longer or stronger than the immunity you got after getting infected, health experts say.

Q: The vaccine might hurt my fertility
A: This is pure nonsense, Offit said. There's no evidence that people have lost any fertility because of the Covid-19 vaccines.

Q: It's none of your business if I don't get vaccinated
A; Refusing the Covid-19 vaccine actually impacts a lot of people -- yourself, your loved ones, even the country as a whole. "When people say, 'What do you care? You're vaccinated. I'm going to choose not to be vaccinated. You're vaccinated, so you're good'" -- that makes three false assumptions, Offit said. (For details of the assumptions, read the link above. It's long to explain here).

Q: I'm young and healthy, so I don't need to get vaccinated
A: It's critical for young, healthy people to get vaccinated, Collins and other doctors say. Here's why:
- Young people can get long-term Covid-19 complications.
- Young people can be easy transmitters of coronavirus.
- Young adults can be victims of their strong immune systems.

Q: I might not be able to afford a vaccine
A: "It's all free. The government is paying for this," Offit said.

Compilation: What you need to know about the coronavirus right now - Reuters
Summary from the link above:
- South Korea reports highest daily increase in cases. South Korea on Thursday reported another daily record of 1,842 coronavirus cases, as it struggles to tame its worst-ever wave of outbreaks amid rising infections nationwide fuelled by the more contagious Delta variant.
- WHO urges tougher restrictions in Indonesia. The World Health Organization on Thursday urged Indonesia to implement a stricter and wider lockdown to combat surging infections and deaths, just days after the country's president flagged the easing of restrictions.
- Australian PM apologises for vaccine delays. Australia's prime minister apologised for a sluggish vaccination programme on Thursday, while the country's most populous state reported its biggest one-day spike in infections in 16 months and warned cases would likely rise further.
- 'Pingdemic' grips Britain as fears of food shortages grow. Britain's supermarkets, wholesalers and hauliers were struggling on Thursday to ensure stable food and fuel supplies after an official health app told hundreds of thousands of workers to isolate after contact with someone with COVID-19.

Gamma coronavirus variant detected in Russia
Excerpt from the link: "The Delta variant is widespread on the territory of the Russian Federation, with isolated cases of the Gamma variant detected," Interfax cited the institute as saying.
The institute said the Delta and Gamma variants were categorised as "causing concern" because they spread more easily and can reduce the effectiveness of antibodies.

PS: I am busy with life starting from the past 3 weeks and to the future. But I will post here on COVID Corner at least once per week. Thanks.
 
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@MatsuShimizu , thanks for a really good post.

That covers a lot of bases, and a lot of questions that are asked by the general population.

I, for one, look forward to your next post.
 
MODERATOR'S NOTE: The first paragraph below is permissible. The second paragraph is both FUD (spreading of Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) and might be seen as defamatory. It is simply untrue.

I am leaving it intact for now so that readers also read @stan 's rebuttal, and suggest you read at least the first link.

Chris Turner


I'm not vaccinations per-se, but I am against vaccine mandates, and the Powers That Be will gradually make it impossible for anyone to live a normal life again unless they go along with them. One example of that is a number of colleges and universities requiring the vaccine in order to return to campus.
Also, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is involved with the vaccine. Bill Gates has openly called for population control, and after the foundation bullied underage girls in India to take a vaccine for something unrelated to Covid, now they've become infertile, and the Government of India banned the foundation from coming into the country.
 
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Bill Gates has openly called for population control, and after the foundation bullied underage girls in India to take a vaccine for something unrelated to Covid, now they've become infertile, and the Government of India banned the foundation from coming into the country.
I offer the following sources to debunk your claim.

Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gates-org-kicked-out-of-india/

Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-...or-testing-vaccines-on-children-idUSKBN22V27F

India Today: https://www.indiatoday.in/fact-chec...olio-vaccine-disabled-kids-1707666-2020-08-04

Full Fact: https://fullfact.org/online/gates-polio-vaccine/
 
@SpongebobFan1994 - you might want to consider refraining from posting at this Thread, if what you hold up to be fact has not been carefully researched for its veracity (truth).

Please do not post crap, in future it will be deleted without notice.

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
 
@SpongebobFan1994 - you might want to consider refraining from posting at this Thread, if what you hold up to be fact has not been carefully researched for its veracity (truth).

Please do not post crap, in future it will be deleted without notice.

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

After reading @stan's response to me, I'll admit I was spreading a rumor about India that I found somewhere online. While there is a TedTalks video where he actually said he wanted to reduce the human population by at least 15%, I'm not going to provide a link for it, nor am I going to talk about it any further after this, because that's besides the point of this thread.
 
While there is a TedTalks video where he actually said he wanted to reduce the human population by at least 15%, I'm not going to provide a link for it, nor am I going to talk about it any further after this, because that's besides the point of this thread.
Sorry, but I will talk about it a bit longer. You really should investigate these things that you are accepting as true. Or change your news sources. I had all of these links in both posts within minutes. You can believe what you want to believe, but please stop sharing your fake conspiracy theories. Thank you.

Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-gates-vaccinations-depopulation/

Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/fac...s-beentaken-out-of-contextagain-idUSL1N2MF1L8

FactCheck.org: https://www.factcheck.org/2021/03/scicheck-video-targets-gates-with-old-clip-misleading-edit/
 
Sorry, but I will talk about it a bit longer. You really should investigate these things that you are accepting as true. Or change your news sources. I had all of these links in both posts within minutes. You can believe what you want to believe, but please stop sharing your fake conspiracy theories. Thank you.

Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-gates-vaccinations-depopulation/

Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/fac...s-beentaken-out-of-contextagain-idUSL1N2MF1L8

FactCheck.org: https://www.factcheck.org/2021/03/scicheck-video-targets-gates-with-old-clip-misleading-edit/

Point taken. Some of the information I got about that was from a guy on BitChute named Dave Cullens (whom I've stopped watching months ago).
That being said, lets ignore my posts because I've realized I inadvertently came off as a troll. I already ruffled enough feathers and I'm actually trying to stop it from getting worse.
 
For this in NEW SOUTH WALES, Australia


There is interactive map of NSW further down the page that you can enter a postcode and see the number of active cases there and other information..

My town remains satisfyingly greyed out....no active cases

On the other hand, the city of Sydney lights up...active cases everywhere.....particularly the suburbs south west of the Sydney CBD
 
WHO Briefing 30 July 2021: Delta variant, a warning the COVID-19 virus is getting ‘fitter and faster’.
Source: World Health Organization Youtube Channel

News summary:
From Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove (Lead WHO epidemiologist and COVID-19 technical lead):

Note: Dr Maria was answering a question. Watch the video for details.
- It’s in the virus’s interests to evolve, viruses are not alive they don’t have a brain to think through this, but they become more fit the more they circulate, so the virus will likely become even more transmissible because this is what viruses do, they evolve they change overtime.
- Delta variant has certain mutations that allow the virus to adhere to human cells more easily and that experts are also seeing a higher viral load in individuals infected.
- In terms of severity, Dr. Van Kerkhove highlighted that there has been an increase in hospitalizations in certain countries affected by the variant, “but we haven’t yet seen an increase in mortality”.
- The WHO expert reminded that although there is some data that suggest that people vaccinated can get infected and transmit the variant, the likelihood is much reduced after the second dose has been administered and reached full effectiveness.
- Delta is not specifically targeting children as some reports have suggested, but warned that as long as the variants are circulating, they will infect anybody that is not taking proper precautions.

From Dr. Michael Ryan (Executive Director of WHO Health Emergencies):
- Even with the virus getting “faster and fitter” the gameplan does not change, but it needs to be implemented more efficiently.
- Delta is a warning that this virus is evolving, but it is also a call to action before more dangerous variants emerge.

From Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus (WHO Director-General).
Read the full transcript here on who.int or you can watch the video starting from 3:00:
- The pandemic will end when the world choose to end it.
- Almost 4 million cases worldwide were reported last week to WHO and the agency expects the total number of cases to pass 200 million, in the next two weeks. And WHO knows that this is an underestimate.
- So far, four variants of concern have emerged, and there will be more as long as the virus continues to spread.
- The rise is also driven by increased social mixing and mobility, the inconsistent use of public health and social measures, and inequitable vaccine use.
- He said “hard-won gains” are in jeopardy or being lost, and health systems in many countries are increasingly overwhelmed.
- WHO is supporting countries with supplies of oxygen, with guidance to help countries better detect variants, and we continue to work daily with our global networks of experts to understand why the Delta variant spreads so readily.
Situation in Africa:
- In Africa, deaths have increased by 80% over the same period.
- Less than 2% of all doses administered globally have been in Africa. Just 1.5% of the continent’s population are fully vaccinated.
- On current trends, nearly 70% of African countries will not reach the 10% vaccination target by the end of September.
About the Delta variant:
- The Delta variant has been detected in 132 countries, becoming the dominant global strain, according to the WHO.
- In response to the Delta surge, today the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator is launching the Rapid ACT-Accelerator Delta Response, or RADAR, issuing an urgent call for 7.7 billion U.S. dollars for tests, treatments and vaccines.

Compilation: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic now - World Economic Forum
Summary from the WEForum link above:
- President Biden pushes cash incentive to get vaccinated.
- China has reported 64 new COVID-19 cases in the mainland, compared with 49 the day before.
- 300 Australian army personnel are being lined up to help Sydney police door-knock those who've tested positive to check that they are self-isolating.
- Almost 690,000 people in England and Wales were told to isolate by the official COVID-19 health app in the week to 21 July, official data shows.
- Philippines to introduce lockdown restrictions in Manila region.
- India has reported 44,230 new COVID-19 cases, its biggest daily increase in 3 weeks.

7 Ways to Cope With COVID-19: Practical methods to reduce your stress today - Psychology Today.
Summary from the above article:
Some of the strategies that work for me (click the link and read for more details):
Strategy #1: Assess the Four Pillars
Maintain good sleep, healthy nutrition, exercise and social support.
Strategy #7: Understanding Your Problems
Open a text editor and write your emotions or thoughts. We need awareness and insight to start making changes in our lives.
1. First, there is an entanglement with thoughts.
- What memories, worries, self-criticisms, or other unhelpful narratives do we dwell on?
- What thoughts do we allow to hold us back, push us around, or bring us down?
2. Second, what feelings are we struggling against?
- What are the emotions, urges, or sensations we are experiencing?
- What emotions are we ignoring, fighting, suppressing?
3. Third, what life-draining actions are we doing? What keeps us stuck, wastes our time or money, and drains our energy?
4. Fourth, what challenging situations are we avoiding? What have you quit, put off until later, or stayed away from?
You can begin to answer these questions by 1) writing out a short summary of the problem you are facing on a text editor, and 2) describing how it affects your life, and what it stops you from doing or being.

Trackvaccines.org - useful website to read clear, and comprehensive updates about COVID19 vaccine development and approvals worldwide.
7 vaccines approved for use by WHO
Source dan details: https://covid19.trackvaccines.org/agency/who/
trackvaccines-whovaccine.png

Vaccines candidates by trial phase
To view the full chart, follow this link: https://covid19.trackvaccines.org/vaccines/
The image below is some of the vaccine candidates, which are in phase 3 trials.

trackvaccines-candidates2.png


Top ten facts about covid-19 vaccines to share with your family and friends
For details, follow this link: https://covid19.trackvaccines.org/how-do-vaccines-work/
vaccinetracker-facts.png

PS: There was so much COVID news this week due to WHO and CDC briefing, so there is a lot of links here. I will post new articles here in 7 days. Thanks.
 
^^^^^^^WOW !....what an EXCELLENT POST ^^^^^^^

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Professor Cunningham,from The Westmead Insitute,(Sydney Australia) an infectious diseases physician, clinical virologist and scientist, said despite some queries over the longevity of vaccines, they were still the one clear element needed for protection.

"We know Delta's far more contagious, and we know it's present in more than 120 countries," he said.

"It has taken over in the UK, India, the US and Indonesia.

"So get yourself immunised, fully immunised, and abide by the health regulations."
 
What we know about the Lambda variant so far
Compilation from various sources: Video from DW News. Articles from The Reuters, Al Jazeera, The Hill. All the links are below.
Tip: The numbers are referring to the news sources, just like Wikipedia. For example, number [1] refers to the Reuters link, [4] refers to Harvard.edu and so on.


Lambda variant research results: Shows vaccine resistance in lab.
[1] From The Reuters:
In laboratory experiments, they found that three mutations in Lambda's spike protein, known as RSYLTPGD246-253N, 260 L452Q and F490S, help it resist neutralization by vaccine-induced antibodies. Two additional mutations, T76I and L452Q, help make Lambda highly infectious, they found. In a paper posted on Wednesday on bioRxiv ahead of peer review, the researchers warn that with Lambda being labeled a "Variant of Interest" by the World Health Organization, rather than a "Variant of Concern," people might not realize it is a serious ongoing threat.

[2] From Al Jazeera:
With a team of scientists, Soto-Rifo carried out preliminary studies – not yet peer-reviewed – assessing the effect of the Chinese-developed CoronaVac vaccine on the Lambda strain. The results showed that Lambda was able to neutralise the antibodies generated by the vaccine. “These results were expected,” Soto-Rifo said. “The virus has changed and that can make the vaccine not as efficient as it was with the original virus, but that doesn’t mean the vaccine doesn’t work any more.

[3] From The Hill:
A preliminary study, which has not been peer reviewed yet and is available as a preprint, suggests that the antibodies induced by the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are able to neutralize the lambda variant.

Summary about the Lambda variant from Al Jazeera article
Below is the summary from the article. To read the full article, follow the link [2] below.

About the Lambda variant: Where and when was it first detected?
- The Lambda variant was first detected in Peru last December.
- The exact origins of the Lambda variant, which was previously known as the Andean strain, remain unclear, but scientists say it first emerged in South America.
- Over the last three months, Lambda has grown to represent 80 percent of all cases in Peru, according to the country’s National Institute of Health.
- Around May, Chile and Peru requested the WHO to consider the variant and to add it to the list of variants of interest. In mid-June, the WHO accepted and labelled it as Lambda

Where has it spread?
The Lambda strain has already reached 28 countries. That includes Brazil, Spain, the Netherlands, Aruba, Belgium, France, Portugal and the United States.
Map from the Al Jazeera article.
lambda-8august2021-2-map.png


What are the strain’s characteristics?
- Lambda strain has registered several mutations in its spike protein, the part of the virus that makes contact with human cells, binds to them, and then infects them.
- The mutation observed in the spike protein might be the reason for its “increased transmissibility… and it could provide a reduction of protection by current vaccines”, according to a study released in July by a team from New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine and released on the medical website bioRxiv ahead of peer review.
- According to virologist Ricardo Soto-Rifo of the University of Chile’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, one of the mutations labelled as L452Q was similar to a mutation also shown in the Delta variant that is believed to have contributed to that strain’s high rate of infection.
- But Soto-Rifo cautioned that the real effect of the mutations remains unclear.

Should we be concerned?
According to Tsukayama at Cayetano Heredia University in Lima, Peru:
- He remains cautious.
- Peru’s research capacity to measure the effect of Lambda is limited, which makes it harder to evaluate the variant’s spread.
- Gamma showed up in Brazil and expanded throughout the region, and it’s already considered a variant of concern.
- Lambda shares many of the characteristics of Gamma, and it has also spread in other countries.

According to Dr Roselyn Lemus-Martin (US):
- Not yet, said Dr Roselyn Lemus-Martin, who holds a PhD in molecular and cell biology from the University of Oxford and is based in the US.
- Right now, in the US, for example, we’ve seen that Delta keeps being the dominant strain, and what we’ve noticed is that Lambda is not spreading as quickly [in other areas].

Sources and details from these links:
[1] Reuters August 3, 2021 - reuters.com
[2] Al Jazeera July 27, 2021. aljazeera.com
[3] Article from The Hill July 29, 2021

About the sources/news portals above:
Al Jazeera, is a Qatari government-funded international Arabic news channel based in Doha, Qatar, that is operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera Media Network. - Wikipedia.
The Hill is an American digital media company, based in Washington, D.C. which began as a newspaper publisher in 1994. - Wikipedia.
BioRxiv (biorxiv.org) is an open access preprint repository for the biological sciences co-founded by John Inglis and Richard Sever in November 2013. It is hosted by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). - Wikipedia

Q & A: Coronavirus, Climate Change And Air Pollution
Sources: Harvard School Of Public Health [4] and WHO International [5]

[4] From Harvard.edu:
Q: Does climate change affect the transmission of coronavirus?

A: We don’t have direct evidence that climate change is influencing the spread of COVID-19, but we do know that climate change alters how we relate to other species on Earth and that matters to our health and our risk for infections. As the planet heats up, animals big and small, on land and in the sea, are headed to the poles to get out of the heat. That means animals are coming into contact with other animals they normally wouldn’t, and that creates an opportunity for pathogens to get into new hosts.

Many of the root causes of climate change also increase the risk of pandemics. Deforestation, which occurs mostly for agricultural purposes, is the largest cause of habitat loss worldwide. Loss of habitat forces animals to migrate and potentially contact other animals or people and share germs. Large livestock farms can also serve as a source for spillover of infections from animals to people. Less demand for animal meat and more sustainable animal husbandry could decrease emerging infectious disease risk and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Q: Will warmer weather slow the spread of coronavirus?
A: We don’t yet have a sense of what the changing weather will mean for COVID-19 and so we shouldn’t rely upon warmer weather to curtail transmissions.

Q: How likely are we to see infectious disease spread as a result of climate change?
A: Climate change has already made conditions more favorable to the spread of some infectious diseases. Future risks are not easy to foretell, but climate change hits hard on several fronts that matter to when and where pathogens appear, including temperature and rainfall patterns.

Q: Why are emerging infectious diseases on the rise?
A: Most of these diseases have entered into people from animals, especially wild animals. This trend has many causes. But a look at the origins of COVID reveals that other forces may be in play. With fewer places to live and fewer food sources to feed on, animals find food and shelter where people are, and that can lead to disease spread. (Too long to post the full answer here. Read the link [4] for details).

Q: Does air pollution increase the risk of getting coronavirus? Does it make symptoms worse?
A: Poor air quality are more likely to die from COVID-19 even when accounting for other factors that may influence risk of death such as pre-existing medical conditions, socioeconomic status, and access to healthcare. This finding is consistent with prior research that has shown that people who are exposed to more air pollution and who smoke fare worse with respiratory infections than those who are breathing cleaner air, and who don’t smoke.

Q: Can you identify the communities most at-risk, and how and why both COVID-19 and climate change harms them?
A: People with chronic health conditions, lower-income, and communities of color are disproportionately impacted by both COVID-19 and climate change. We know that African American communities are disproportionately exposed to air pollution and we’re now seeing this pollution driving higher mortality rates from COVID-19.

Note: Some Q&A from Harvard.edu are not posted here. Click link [4] below if you want to read more.

[5] From WHO.Int:
Q: How concerned should we be about air pollution and COVID-19?

A: We are very concerned, because air pollution – as probably many people know by now – represents 7 million premature deaths caused every year due to the exposure of air pollution.

If you realise that exposure to air pollution will increase the risk of diseases of the respiratory system – and the COVID-19 is mainly a disease of the respiratory system – you will realise that we are increasing the susceptibility, the vulnerability of people who are exposed to air pollution.

Q: Explain to us exactly how air pollution impacts our body.
A: In the case of the patients with COVID-19, those who will be more at severe risk of developing illness are those with underlying conditions like high blood pressure or heart diseases or respiratory diseases. We see where air pollution might exacerbate those diseases and make the patients, the population, more vulnerable to the disease, plus to the severity of developing a more serious illness.

Q: What can we do to protect ourselves from air pollution, as well as COVID-19?
A: Well, I think for COVID-19, WHO has repeated many times what are the measures we need to take: from washing your hands, maintaining good hygiene, ensuring that you respect the physical distance that it is recommending, avoiding the very crowded places where you have very close contact with other people, ensuring natural ventilation, and the use of masks whenever they are recommended.

But in the case of air pollution, the most important recommendation we can say is, that in those countries where the levels of air pollution are very high, we need to enforce legislation to reduce those levels of air pollution. We need to make sure that as citizens, we are aware of the fact that the air pollution is affecting our health.

Sources and full details from these links:
[4] Coronavirus and climate change. harvard.edu - Harvard School Of Public Health.
[5] Air pollution and COVID-19. who.int - Full transcript + video from World Health Organization.

News compilation: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this week
[6] From the World Economic Forum:
- Daily new COVID-19 cases have reached a six-month high in the United States, with more than 100,000 new cases reported nationwide.
- Sydney reports record COVID-19 case rise for second day. With Brisbane, Queensland, also in lockdown it means that more than 60% of the country's population are currently under hard lockdowns.
- Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 200.92 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths stands at more than 4.26 million.
- New data in Indonesia shows that the COVID-19 death rate for unvaccinated people was more than 3 times higher than for vaccinated people.
- Moderna says its COVID-19 vaccine is about 93% effective through six months after the second dose.
- Research suggests that children who contract COVID-19 rarely suffer long-term symptoms - so-called long COVID.
- The United Nations is concerned about COVID-19 vaccines going unused, and has offered its help - but can only do so at the request of governments.

[7] Global daily statistics this week. Chart from The Reuters:
Ten days ago, the WHO Director-General expected the total number of cases to pass 200 million, in the next two weeks. Today, it already passes 200 million cases.

9aug2021-reuterscovidchart.png


Sources:
[6] What you need to know about Coronavirus pandemic 6 August 2021. weforum.org - World Economic Forum
[7] Coronavirus Tracker And Maps - reuters.com - Chart from The Reuters


PS: Sorry for the long post. The above article concluded some of my researches so far. I will post on this thread again in one week. Thanks for reading everyone.
 
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