Tuesday, July 14, 2020

The Lancet: World population likely to shrink after mid-century, forecasting major shifts in global population and economic power

By 2100, projected fertility rates in 183 of 195 countries will not be high enough to maintain current populations without liberal immigration policies

THE LANCET

World's population likely to shrink after mid-century, forecasting major shifts in global population and economic power - new analysis, published in The Lancet forecasts global, regional, and national populations, mortality, fertility, and migration for 195 countries worldwide.

The USA is projected to have population growth until just after mid-century (364 million in 2062), followed by a moderate decline of less than 10% to 336 million by 2100--the world's fourth most populous country.

The USA's total fertility rate--which represents the average number of children a woman delivers over her lifetime--is predicted to steadily decline from 1.8 in 2017 to 1.5 in 2100; well below the minimum birth rate (2.1) considered necessary to maintain existing population levels long-term without immigration.

In 2100, the USA is forecasted to have the fourth largest working-age population in the world (around 181 million), after India, Nigeria, and China (figure 8)--with immigration likely sustaining the US workforce, with the largest net immigration in absolute numbers (more than half a million more people are estimated to immigrate to the USA in 2100 than will emigrate out). However, the researchers warn that US liberal immigration policies have faced a political backlash in recent years, threatening the country's potential to sustain population and economic growth.

The forecasting model predicts that while the USA had the largest economy in 2017, China is set to replace it in 2035, but the USA is forecasted to once again become the largest economy in 2098--bolstered by immigration (figure 9). Among the 10 countries with the largest populations in 2017 or 2100, the USA is predicted to have the fifth highest life expectancy in 2100 (82.3 years), up from 78.4 in 2017 (appendix 2, section 3).

Please find below: 1) Media release, 2) Access to the Article + linked Comments 3) Country data 4) Infographics. For further information, please contact The Lancet press office (pressoffice@lancet.com)

By 2100, projected fertility rates in 183 of 195 countries will not be high enough to maintain current populations without liberal immigration policies.
World population forecasted to peak in 2064 at around 9.7 billion people and fall to 8.8 billion by century's end, with 23 countries seeing populations shrink by more than 50%, including Japan, Thailand, Italy, and Spain.
Dramatic declines in working age-populations are predicted in countries such as India and China, which will hamper economic growth and lead to shifts in global powers.
Liberal immigration policies could help maintain population size and economic growth even as fertility falls.
Authors warn response to population decline must not compromise progress on women's freedom and reproductive rights.

Improvements in access to modern contraception and the education of girls and women are generating widespread, sustained declines in fertility, and world population will likely peak in 2064 at around 9.7 billion, and then decline to about 8.8 billion by 2100--about 2 billion lower than some previous estimates [1], according to a new study published in The Lancet.

The modelling research uses data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017 to project future global, regional, and national population. Using novel methods for forecasting mortality, fertility, and migration, the researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington's School of Medicine estimate that by 2100, 183 of 195 countries will have total fertility rates (TFR), which represent the average number of children a woman delivers over her lifetime, below replacement level of 2.1 births per woman. This means that in these countries populations will decline unless low fertility is compensated by immigration.

The new population forecasts contrast to projections of 'continuing global growth' by the United Nations Population Division [1], and highlight the huge challenges to economic growth of a shrinking workforce, the high burden on health and social support systems of an ageing population, and the impact on global power linked to shifts in world population.

The new study also predicts huge shifts in the global age structure, with an estimated 2.37 billion individuals over 65 years globally in 2100, compared with 1.7 billion under 20 years, underscoring the need for liberal immigration policies in countries with significantly declining working age populations.

"Continued global population growth through the century is no longer the most likely trajectory for the world's population", says IHME Director Dr. Christopher Murray, who led the research. "This study provides governments of all countries an opportunity to start rethinking their policies on migration, workforces and economic development to address the challenges presented by demographic change." [2]

IHME Professor Stein Emil Vollset, first author of the paper, continues, "The societal, economic, and geopolitical power implications of our predictions are substantial. In particular, our findings suggest that the decline in the numbers of working-age adults alone will reduce GDP growth rates that could result in major shifts in global economic power by the century's end. Responding to population decline is likely to become an overriding policy concern in many nations, but must not compromise efforts to enhance women's reproductive health or progress on women's rights." [2]

Dr Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief, The Lancet, adds: "This important research charts a future we need to be planning for urgently. It offers a vision for radical shifts in geopolitical power, challenges myths about immigration, and underlines the importance of protecting and strengthening the sexual and reproductive rights of women. The 21st century will see a revolution in the story of our human civilisation. Africa and the Arab World will shape our future, while Europe and Asia will recede in their influence. By the end of the century, the world will be multipolar, with India, Nigeria, China, and the US the dominant powers. This will truly be a new world, one we should be preparing for today." [2]

Accelerating decline in fertility worldwide

The global TFR is predicted to steadily decline, from 2.37 in 2017 to 1.66 in 2100--well below the minimum rate (2.1) considered necessary to maintain population numbers (replacement level)-- with rates falling to around 1.2 in Italy and Spain, and as low as 1.17 in Poland.

Even slight changes in TFR translate into large differences in population size in countries below the replacement level--increasing TFR by as little as 0.1 births per woman is equivalent to around 500 million more individuals on the planet in 2100.

Much of the anticipated fertility decline is predicted in high-fertility countries, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa where rates are expected to fall below the replacement level for the first time--from an average 4.6 births per woman in 2017 to just 1.7 by 2100. In Niger, where the fertility rate was the highest in the world in 2017--with women giving birth to an average of seven children--the rate is projected to decline to around 1.8 by 2100.

Nevertheless, the population of sub-Saharan Africa is forecast to triple over the course of the century, from an estimated 1.03 billion in 2017 to 3.07 billion in 2100--as death rates decline and an increasing number of women enter reproductive age. North Africa and the Middle East is the only other region predicted to have a larger population in 2100 (978 million) than in 2017 (600 million).

Many of the fastest-shrinking populations will be in Asia and central and eastern Europe. Populations are expected to more than halve in 23 countries and territories, including Japan (from around 128 million people in 2017 to 60 million in 2100), Thailand (71 to 35 million), Spain (46 to 23 million), Italy (61 to 31 million), Portugal (11 to 5 million), and South Korea (53 to 27 million). An additional 34 countries are expected to have population declines of 25 to 50%, including China (1.4 billion in 2017 to 732 million in 2100; see table).

Huge shifts in global age structure - with over 80s outnumbering under 5s two to one

As fertility falls and life expectancy increases worldwide, the number of children under 5 years old is forecasted to decline by 41% from 681 million in 2017 to 401 million in 2100, whilst the number of individuals older than 80 years is projected to increase six fold, from 141 million to 866 million. Similarly, the global ratio of adults over 80 years to each person aged 15 years or younger is projected to rise from 0.16 in 2017 to 1.50 in 2100, in countries with a population decline of more than 25%.

Furthermore, the global ratio of non-working adults to workers was around 0.8 in 2017, but is projected to increase to 1.16 in 2100 if labour force participation by age and sex does not change.

"While population decline is potentially good news for reducing carbon emissions and stress on food systems, with more old people and fewer young people, economic challenges will arise as societies struggle to grow with fewer workers and taxpayers, and countries' abilities to generate the wealth needed to fund social support and health care for the elderly are reduced", says Vollset. [2]

Declining working-age populations could see major shifts in size of economies

The study also examined the economic impact of fewer working-age adults for all countries in 2017. While China is set to replace the USA in 2035 with the largest total gross domestic product (GDP) globally, rapid population decline from 2050 onward will curtail economic growth. As a result, the USA is expected to reclaim the top spot by 2098, if immigration continues to sustain the US workforce (figure 9).

Although numbers of working-age adults in India are projected to fall from 762 million in 2017 to around 578 million in 2100, it is expected to be one of the few - if only - major power in Asia to protect its working-age population over the century. It is expected to surpass China's workforce population in the mid-2020s (where numbers of workers are estimated to decline from 950 million in 2017 to 357 million in 2100)--rising up the GDP rankings from 7th to 3rd (figure 8).

Sub-Saharan Africa is likely to become an increasingly powerful continent on the geopolitical stage as its population rises. Nigeria is projected to be the only country among the world's 10 most populated nations to see its working-age population grow over the course of the century (from 86 million in 2017 to 458 million in 2100), supporting rapid economic growth and its rise in GDP rankings from 23rd place in 2017 to 9th place in 2100 (figure 8).

While the UK, Germany, and France are expected to remain in the top 10 for largest GDP worldwide at the turn of the century, Italy (from rank 9th in 2017 to 25th in 2100) and Spain (from 13th to 28th) are projected to fall down the rankings, reflecting much greater population decline (figure 9).

Liberal immigration could help sustain population size and economic growth

The study also suggests that population decline could be offset by immigration, with countries that promote liberal immigration better able to maintain their population size and support economic growth, even in the face of declining fertility rates.

The model predicts that some countries with fertility lower than replacement level, such as the USA, Australia, and Canada, will probably maintain their working-age populations through net immigration (see appendix 2 section 4). Although the authors note that there is considerable uncertainty about these future trends.

"For high-income countries with below-replacement fertility rates, the best solutions for sustaining current population levels, economic growth, and geopolitical security are open immigration policies and social policies supportive of families having their desired number of children", Murray says. "However, a very real danger exists that, in the face of declining population, some countries might consider policies that restrict access to reproductive health services, with potentially devastating consequences. It is imperative that women's freedom and rights are at the top of every government's development agenda." [2]

The authors note some important limitations, including that while the study uses the best available data, predictions are constrained by the quantity and quality of past data. They also note that past trends are not always predictive of what will happen in the future, and that some factors not included in the model could change the pace of fertility, mortality, or migration. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected local and national health systems throughout the world, and caused over half a million deaths. However, the authors believe the excess deaths caused by the pandemic are unlikely to significantly alter longer term forecasting trends of global population.

Writing in a linked Comment, Professor Ibrahim Abubakar, University College London (UCL), UK, and Chair of Lancet Migration (who was not involved in the study) [3], says:"Migration can be a potential solution to the predicted shortage of working-age populations. While demographers continue to debate the long-term implications of migration as a remedy for declining TFR, for it to be successful, we need a fundamental rethink of global politics. Greater multilateralism and a new global leadership should enable both migrant sending and migrant-receiving countries to benefit, while protecting the rights of individuals. Nations would need to cooperate at levels that have eluded us to date to strategically support and fund the development of excess skilled human capital in countries that are a source of migrants. An equitable change in global migration policy will need the voice of rich and poor countries. The projected changes in the sizes of national economies and the consequent change in military power might force these discussions."

He adds: "Ultimately, if Murray and colleagues' predictions are even half accurate, migration will become a necessity for all nations and not an option. The positive impacts of migration on health and economies are known globally. The choice that we face is whether we improve health and wealth by allowing planned population movement or if we end up with an underclass of imported labour and unstable societies. The Anthropocene has created many challenges such as climate change and greater global migration. The distribution of working-age populations will be crucial to whether humanity prospers or withers."

###

Peer-reviewed / Modelling study / People

NOTES TO EDITORS

The study was in part funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It was conducted by researchers at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA.

The labels have been added to this press release as part of a project run by the Academy of Medical Sciences seeking to improve the communication of evidence. For more information, please see: http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/AMS-press-release-labelling-system-GUIDANCE.pdf if you have any questions or feedback, please contact The Lancet press office pressoffice@lancet.com

[1] The latest (2019) UN Population Division report estimates that world population is likely to reach 10.88 billion by 2100 (https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019_Volume-I_Comprehensive-Tables.pdf) The difference between the new GBD projections and UN Population Division forecasts can largely be explained by the unprecedented pace of fertility decline predicted in sub-Saharan Africa (resulting in 702 million fewer people by 2100 than UN Population Division forecasts), and sustained declines in fertility lower than the population replacement level (2.1 births per woman) in many countries--resulting in estimates of 584 million fewer people in south Asia and 447 million less in southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania by the century's end than UN Population Division forecasts.

Population forecasts from UN Population Division use just past time trends as the determinant of future trajectories for fertility and mortality. Such an approach does not allow for alternative scenarios linked to policies or other drivers of fertility and mortality. In the new study by IHME, researchers developed a statistical modelling strategy that use past and forecasted trends in drivers of fertility (education and met need for modern contraceptives), mortality (sociodemographic variables and more than 70 risk factors for disease) and migration (sociodemographic variables, deaths due to conflict and natural disasters, and the difference between birth and death rates). Also, their model incorporates uncertainty about migration and accounts for women delaying childbirth as they become more educated. They used the model to develop a reference scenario and four alternative scenarios to show the demographic implications of policies which impact the scale-up of educational attainment and access to reproductive health services, including a scenario in which the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on universal access to secondary education and contraception by 2030 are met (figure 2). They also assessed potential economic and geopolitical effects of demographic change this century.

[2] Quotes direct from authors and cannot be found in the text of the Article.

[3] Lancet Migration is a global collaboration between The Lancet and researchers, implementers, and others in the field of migration and health that aims to address evidence gaps and drive policy change building on the recommendations of the UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health published in December 2018. http://www.migrationandhealth.org

Evolution after Chicxulub asteroid impact: Rapid response of life to end-cretaceous mass

New study published in Geology

GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

IMAGE: LEAD AUTHOR FRANCISCO J. RODRÍGUEZ-TOVAR IN BREMEN, GERMANY, WORKING WITH THE K-PG CORE FROM IODP EXPEDITION 364. view more

CREDIT: GEOLOGY AND FRANCISCO J. RODRÍGUEZ-TOVAR

Boulder, Colo., USA: The impact event that formed the Chicxulub crater (Yucatán Peninsula, México) caused the extinction of 75% of species on Earth 66 million years ago, including non-avian dinosaurs. One place that did not experience much extinction was the deep, as organisms living in the abyss made it through the mass extinction event with just some changes to community structure.

New evidence from International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 364 of trace fossils of burrowing organisms that lived in the seafloor of the Chicxulub Crater beginning a few years after the impact shows just how quick the recovery of the seafloor ecosystem was, with the establishment of a well-developed tiered community within ?700,000 years after the event.

In April and May 2016, a team of international scientists drilled into the Chicxulub impact crater. This joint expedition, organized by the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) and International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) recovered an extended syn- and post-impact set of rock cores, allowing study of the effects of the impact on life and its recovery after the mass extinction event. The end Cretaceous (K-Pg) event has been profusely studied and its effect on biota are relatively well-known. However, the effect of these changes on the macrobenthic community, the community of organisms living on and in the seafloor that do not leave body fossils, is poorly known.

The investigators concluded that the diversity and abundance of trace fossils responded primarily to variations in the flux of organic matter (i.e., food) sinking to the seafloor during the early Paleocene. Local and regional-scale effects of the K-Pg impact included earthquakes of magnitude 10-11, causing continental and marine landslides, tsunamis hundreds of meters in height that swept more than 300 km onshore, shock waves and air blasts, and the ignition of wildfires. Global phenomena included acid rain, injection of aerosols, dust, and soot into the atmosphere, brief intense cooling followed by slight warming, and destruction of the stratospheric ozone layer, followed by a longer-term greenhouse effect.

Mass extinction events have punctuated the past 500 million years of Earth's history, and studying them helps geoscientists understand how organisms respond to stress in their environment and how ecosystems recover from the loss of biodiversity. Although the K-Pg mass extinction was caused by an asteroid impact, previous ones were caused by slower processes, like massive volcanism, which caused ocean acidification and deoxygenation and had environmental effects that lasted millions of years.

By comparing the K-Pg record to earlier events like the end Permian mass extinction (the so-called "Great Dying" when 90% of life on Earth went extinct), geoscientists can determine how different environmental changes affect life. There are similar overall patterns of recovery after both events with distinct phases of stabilization and diversification, but with very different time frames. The initial recovery after the K-Pg, even at ground zero of the impact, lasted just a few years; this same phase lasted tens of thousands of years after the end Permian mass extinction. The overall recovery of seafloor burrowing organisms after the K-Pg took ~700,000 years, but it took several million years after the end Permian.

###

Customizable smart window technology could improve energy efficiency of buildings

DOE/ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY

IMAGE: SCIENTISTS DEVELOPED A SMART WINDOW DEVICE FOR CONCURRENTLY HARVESTING AND REGULATING SOLAR ENERGY. view more

CREDIT: (IMAGE BY PETER ALLEN / UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.)

A customizable smart window harnesses and manipulates solar power to save energy and cut costs.

Windows play multiple crucial roles in our homes. They illuminate, insulate and ventilate our spaces while providing views of -- and protection from -- the outdoors. Smart windows, or windows that use solar cell technology to convert sunlight into electricity, present the additional opportunity to leverage windows as energy sources.

However, incorporating solar cells into windows while balancing the other complex, and often conflicting, roles of windows proves challenging. For example, juggling luminosity preferences and energy harvesting goals throughout changing seasons requires complex and strategic approaches to material design.

"This design framework is customizable and can be applied to virtually any building around the world." -- Junhong Chen, scientist at Argonne and professor at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering

Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee recently combined solar cell technology with a novel optimization approach to develop a smart window prototype that maximizes design across a wide range of criteria.

The optimization algorithm uses comprehensive physical models and advanced computational techniques to maximize overall energy usage while balancing building temperature demands and lighting requirements across locations and throughout changing seasons.

"This design framework is customizable and can be applied to virtually any building around the world," said Junhong Chen, a scientist at Argonne and the Crown Family Professor of Molecular Engineering at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. "Whether you want to maximize the amount of sunlight in a room or minimize heating or cooling efforts, this powerful optimization algorithm produces window designs that align with user needs and preferences."

Advanced approach to optimization

The scientists demonstrated a wholistic approach to window design to maximize the overall energy efficiency of buildings while considering lighting and temperature preferences.

"We can regulate the sunlight in a room to ensure the desired luminosity while managing the amount of energy the building uses for heating and cooling," said Wei Chen, the Wilson-Cook Professor in Engineering Design at Northwestern Engineering whose research group led the development of the optimization approach. "Additionally, the sunlight that doesn't pass through is captured by the solar cell in the smart window and converted into electricity."

The approach, called multicriteria optimization, adjusts thicknesses of solar cell layers in window design to meet the needs of the user. For example, to reduce the energy required to cool a building in the summer, the optimal window design might minimize the amount and type of light passing through while maintaining the desired luminosity inside. On the other hand, when winter savings are a priority, the design might maximize the amount of sunlight that passes through, thereby reducing the energy required for heating the building.

"Rather than focusing only on the amount of electricity produced by the solar cell, we consider the entire building's energy consumption to see how we can best use solar energy to minimize it," said Wei Chen.

In some scenarios, for example, it might be more energy efficient to allow a greater amount of light to pass through the window, instead of being converted into electricity by the solar cell, in order to decrease the electricity required for lighting and heating the building.

To determine the optimal design, the algorithm incorporates comprehensive physics-based models of the interactions between light and the materials in the smart window, as well as how the processes affect energy conversion and light transmission. The algorithm also takes into account the varying angles at which the sun hits the window throughout the day -- and year -- in different geographical locations.

"The model we created allows for exploration of millions of unique designs by an algorithm that mimics biological evolution," said Wei Chen. "On top of the physics-based models, the algorithm uses computational mechanisms that resemble reproduction and genetic mutation to determine the optimal combination of each design parameter for a certain scenario."

Promising prototype

To demonstrate the feasibility of a smart window capable of this level of customization, the scientists produced a small prototype of the window with an area of a few square centimeters.

The prototype consists of dozens of layers of varying materials that control the amount and frequency of light passing through, as well as the amount of solar energy converted into electricity.

One group of layers, made of a type of material called a perovskite, comprises the window's solar cell, which harvests sunlight for energy conversion. The window prototype also includes a set of layers called a nanophotonic coating, developed by associate professor of mechanical engineering Cheng Sun and his research group at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering. The coating tunes the frequencies of light that can pass through the window.

Each layer is tens of microns thick -- thinner than the diameter of a grain of sand. The scientists chose an aperiodic design for the layers, meaning each layer varies in thickness. As the angle of the sun's rays against the window changes throughout the day and year, the aperiodic design enables the performance of the window to vary in accordance with the user's preferences.

"The variation in layer thickness is optimized for a wide spectrum of change in the nature of the sunlight that reaches the window," said Sun. "This enables us to systematically allow less infrared transmission in the summertime and more in the wintertime to save energy consumption for temperature regulation, while optimizing the visible transmission for the purpose of indoor lighting and energy harvesting."

The scientists optimized the prototype used in this study for a 2,000 square foot, single-story home in Phoenix. Based on experimental characterization of the window prototype, the scientists calculated significant annual energy savings over leading commercially available window technologies. The calculations used the EnergyPlus building model, a software developed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy laboratory, that estimates realistic power consumption over time.

The synthesis methods the scientists used to produce the window prototype mimic common industrial-level manufacturing processes, and the scientists believe that these existing commercial processes would allow for successful scaling of the window prototype to full-size.

Future considerations include developing the same technology in a flexible form so that the smart window materials can be retrofitted to cover preexisting windows.

A paper on the study, titled "Maximizing solar energy utilization through multicriteria pareto optimization of energy harvesting and regulating smart window", was published July 8 in Cell Reports, Physical Science.

The work was funded in part by the National Science Foundation.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.

###

Experimental COVID-19 vaccine safe, generates immune response

NIAID-sponsored phase 1 trial tested mRNA vaccine

NIH/NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

IMAGE: COLORIZED SCANNING ELECTRON MICROGRAPH OF AN APOPTOTIC CELL (GREEN) HEAVILY INFECTED WITH SARS-COV-2 VIRUS PARTICLES (PURPLE), ISOLATED FROM A PATIENT SAMPLE. IMAGE CAPTURED AT THE NIAID INTEGRATED RESEARCH FACILITY (IRF)... view more

CREDIT: NIAID

WHAT:

An investigational vaccine, mRNA-1273, designed to protect against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), was generally well tolerated and prompted neutralizing antibody activity in healthy adults, according to interim results published online today in The New England Journal of Medicine. The ongoing Phase 1 trial is supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. The experimental vaccine is being co-developed by researchers at NIAID and at Moderna, Inc. of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Manufactured by Moderna, mRNA-1273 is designed to induce neutralizing antibodies directed at a portion of the coronavirus "spike" protein, which the virus uses to bind to and enter human cells.

The trial was led by Lisa A. Jackson, M.D., MPH, of Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle, where the first participant received the candidate vaccine on March 16. This interim report details the initial findings from the first 45 participants ages 18 to 55 years enrolled at the study sites in Seattle and at Emory University in Atlanta. Three groups of 15 participants received two intramuscular injections, 28 days apart, of either 25, 100 or 250 micrograms (mcg) of the investigational vaccine. All the participants received one injection; 42 received both scheduled injections.

In April, the trial was expanded to enroll adults older than age 55 years; it now has 120 participants. However, the newly published results cover the 18 to 55-year age group only.

Regarding safety, no serious adverse events were reported. More than half of the participants reported fatigue, headache, chills, myalgia or pain at the injection site. Systemic adverse events were more common following the second vaccination and in those who received the highest vaccine dose. Data on side effects and immune responses at various vaccine dosages informed the doses used or planned for use in the Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials of the investigational vaccine.

The interim analysis includes results of tests measuring levels of vaccine-induced neutralizing activity through day 43 after the second injection. Two doses of vaccine prompted high levels of neutralizing antibody activity that were above the average values seen in convalescent sera obtained from persons with confirmed COVID-19 disease.

A Phase 2 clinical trial of mRNA-1273, sponsored by Moderna, began enrollment in late May. Plans are underway to launch a Phase 3 efficacy trial in July 2020.

###

Additional information about the Phase 1 clinical trial design is available at ClinicalTrials.gov using the identifier NCT04283461. This trial was supported in part by the NIAID grants UM1AI148373 (Kaiser Permanente Washington), UM1AI148576 (Emory University) and UM1AI148684 (Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Consortium). Funding for the manufacture of mRNA-1273 Phase 1 material was provided by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

ARTICLE:

LA Jackson et al. A SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine--preliminary report. The New England Journal of Medicine. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2022483 (2020).

WHO:

NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., and John Beigel, M.D., associate director for clinical research, Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, NIAID, are available to discuss the results of this trial.

CONTACT:

To schedule interviews, please contact Anne A. Oplinger, (301) 402-1663, niaidnews@niaid.nih.gov.

NIAID conducts and supports research--at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide--to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov/.

NIH...Turning Discovery Into Health®

Maunakea Observatories' quick reflexes capture fleeting flash

The International Gemini Observatory and W. M. Keck Observatory catch short gamma-ray burst within hours

W. M. KECK OBSERVATORY

IMAGE: THE AFTERGLOW OF GRB181123B CAPTURED BY THE GEMINI NORTH TELESCOPE ON MAUNAKEA IN HAWAII. THE AFTERGLOW IS MARKED WITH A CIRCLE. view more

CREDIT: INTERNATIONAL GEMINI OBSERVATORY/NOIRLAB/NSF/AURA/K. PATERSON & W. FONG, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY; IMAGE PROCESSING: TRAVIS RECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE/MAHDI ZAMANI/ DAVIDE DE MARTIN

Maunakea, Hawaii - Astronomers have discovered the second-most distant confirmed short gamma-ray burst (SGRB) ever studied using two Maunakea Observatories in Hawaii - W. M. Keck Observatory and the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF's NOIRLab.

Observations confirm the object's distance at 10 billion light-years away, placing it squarely in the epoch of cosmic high noon when the universe was in its "teenage years" and rapidly forming stars.

The appearance of an SGRB at such an early time could alter theories about their origins, particularly the length of time it takes two neutron stars to merge and produce these powerful explosions, as well as the rate of neutron star mergers in the young universe.

"This was a very exciting object to study," said Kerry Paterson, a postdoctoral associate at Northwestern University's Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) and lead author of the study. "Our research now suggests neutron star mergers could occur surprisingly quickly for some systems -- with neutron star binaries spiraling together in less than a billion years to create an SGRB."

The study has been accepted in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and is available in preprint format on arXiv.org.

SGRBs are short-lived, highly-energetic bursts of gamma-ray light. The gamma-ray light lasts for less than two seconds, while the optical light can last for a matter of hours before fading. Therefore, rapid follow-up of the optical afterglow of these intense flashes of gamma-ray radiation is critical. Within just a few hours after NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory detected the object and broadcast a worldwide alert, Paterson's team quickly pointed the Gemini North and Keck I telescopes toward the location of the SGRB.

Using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph followed by Keck Observatory's Multi-Object Spectrograph for Infrared Exploration (MOSFIRE) instrument, the researchers were able to measure the very faint afterglow of the object, which is named GRB181123B because it was the second burst discovered on November 23, 2018 -- Thanksgiving night.

An artist's impression of how GRB181123B compares to other short gamma-ray bursts. It is the second-most distant short gamma-ray burst to ever be detected, and the most distant to have its optical afterglow captured. Except when they are detected by gravitational wave observatories, the gamma-ray bursts can only be detected from Earth when their jets of energy are pointed towards us.

"It was unreal," said Wen-fai Fong, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern University and co-author of the study. "I was in New York with my family and had finished having a big Thanksgiving dinner. Just as I had gone to sleep, the alert went off and woke me up. While somewhat of a nuisance, you literally never know when you'll land a big discovery like this! I immediately triggered the Gemini observations and notified Kerry. Thankfully, she happened to be observing at Keck that night and was able to rearrange her original observing plan and repoint the telescope towards the SGRB."

"It was such an adrenaline-rush to be at Keck when the SGRB alert went off and personally move the telescope towards the object to capture data mere hours after the burst," said Paterson.

Precisely-localized SGRBs are rare, typically only 7-8 are detected per year. To pinpoint the distance of GRB181123B, the team obtained spectra of its host galaxy through follow-up observations using Keck Observatory's DEep Imaging and Multi-Object Spectrograph (DEIMOS).

"Once we obtained the optical spectrum from DEIMOS, it was clear this event was one of the most distant SGRBs measured, which further fueled our investigation to determine its precise distance," said Paterson.

This led the team to collect additional observations with Keck Observatory, along with the Gemini South telescope in Chile and Multi-Mirror Telescope in Arizona. With a distance calculated at a cosmological redshift of 1.754, the data confirmed the object is the most distant high-confidence SGRB with an optical afterglow detection ever found.

"The identification of certain patterns in the spectrum, together with the colors of the galaxy from the three observatories, allowed us to precisely constrain the distance and solidify it as one of the most distant SGRBs to date in 16 years of Swift operations," said Paterson.

Once the team identified the host galaxy, they were able to determine key properties of the parent stellar population within the galaxy that produced the SGRB.

"Performing 'forensics' to understand the local environment of SGRBs and what their home galaxies look like can tell us a lot about the underlying physics of these systems, such as how SGRB progenitors form and how long it takes for them to merge," said Fong. "We certainly did not expect to discover an extremely distant SGRB, as they are very rare and faint, but we were pleasantly surprised! This motivates us to go after every one that we possibly can."

THIS IS FROM THE SET OF OBSERVATORIES ON THE DISPUTED SACRED MOUNTAIN OF MAUNAKEA THAT INDIGENOUS AND ALLIES HAVE BEEN PROTESTING OVER THE BUILDING OF A NEW OBSERVATORY THAT CANADA HAS INVESTED IN.

The plight of the Kalahari San

Hunter-gatherers in a globalized world

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS JOURNALS

Over the past few decades, San (Bushmen) communities in southern Africa, former hunter-gatherers, have developed new adaptive strategies to cope with climate change, the presence of other groups on their land, and the impacts of globalization. While San have likely lived in southern Africa for 20,000 to 40,000 years, they remain politically and economically marginalized in relation to other social groups. Such forms of marginalization have been attributed to governance regimes that have dispossessed San groups from their land and livelihoods. According to a newly published article in the Journal of Anthropological Research, San communities face unprecedented challenges in the era of globalization, as cash-based economies continue to become more prevalent and resource-sharing at the communal level decreases.

In "The Plight of the Kalahari San: Hunter-Gatherers in a Globalized World," author Robert K. Hitchcock describes how challenges faced by San communities are connected to national-level and international-level legal and developmental frameworks. In particular, the legal status of San communities varies substantially across three different southern African countries: Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. In Botswana, where the largest number of San resides, San are not classified as an indigenous ethnic group vis-à-vis other ethnic groups; instead, they are categorized as Remote Area Dwellers, and a Remote Area Development Program (RADP) for these communities exist. Nevertheless, San livelihoods in Botswana continue to be at risk, because land tenure protections remain weak. In Namibia, the San are recognized as a distinct indigenous group, and a national-level San Development Office dedicated for San welfare was established by the Namibian government in 2007. They are now considered 'marginalized communities' along with Himba and Ovatue by the Namibian government. In Zimbabwe, no specific government agency is dedicated to the welfare of the San or other groups, though the Zimbabwe Constitution does recognize people that are defined as 'Koisan.'

Since the 1970s, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Namibia have all instituted reforms to land tenure, which resulted in large portions of former tribal lands to be allocated to non-San groups and individuals. As a result, San communities have been displaced from their land in all three countries. Although some San communities have returned to their ancestral lands after court case victories, as occurred in Botswana San livelihoods continue to be vulnerable after the Botswana government criminalized subsistence hunting in 2014. Hunting rights were restored in 2019 but only for private, citizen and foreign safari hunters.

In Namibia, San groups have been involved in conservancies as a form of community-based natural resources management since 1996. In particular, San communities have enrolled as members of state-sanctioned conservancies, such as the Nyae Nyae Conservancy. These conservancies allow members to share revenues derived from safari hunting and tourism. Nyae Nyae, Namibia is the only area left in Africa, besides the Hadza area near Lake Eyasi, Tanzania, where local people have the right to hunt for subsistence as long as they use traditional weapons. The funds that have been made available to Ju/'hoan and !Kung communities have been used to develop gardens and protection facilities for water points. There is also a village schools program that provides San students with mother-tongue language education at the pre-school and primary school levels.

In the past few decades, San communities have gradually reclaimed their ways of life in southern Africa through legal victories at the national level. By mobilizing support for legal advocacy on behalf of San communities, local non-government organizations continue to play crucial roles among the San. Nevertheless, these community-led San organizations continue to face difficulties in obtaining adequate financing. The author of this article admits that "that it is not inexpensive to engage in international and local human rights efforts" San communities continue to call upon their governments and international organizations to recognize their human rights and protect their welfare.

###

Researchers cast doubt on earlier COVID-19 origins study citing dogs as possible hosts

International collection of scientists says no evidence to support previous conclusion

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO ANSCHUTZ MEDICAL CAMPUS

AURORA, Colo. (July 14, 2020) - A study published earlier this year claiming the coronavirus may have jumped from dogs to humans is scientifically flawed, offering no direct evidence to support its conclusions, according to a collaborative group of international researchers, including scientists at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

"During this time of Covid-19 we are seeing people publish things that make wild leaps to conclusions that are not justified by the evidence," said David Pollock, PhD, professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. "And this seems to be one of them."

Pollock and CU Anschutz alumnus Todd Castoe, an associate professor of biology at the University of Texas Arlington, are lead authors of an academic letter published this week in Molecular Biology and Evolution aimed at refuting the earlier study published in the same journal.

Pollock and his co-authors, including PhD student Kristen Wade and colleague Elizabeth Carlton, PhD, MPH, an assistant professor at the Colorado School of Public Health at CU Anschutz, took issue with the April 2020 study by biology Professor Xuhua Xia of the University of Ottawa in Canada.

Many scientists are interested in the origins of the novel coronavirus. The want to know which host the SARS-CoV-2 virus, responsible for Covid-19, came from before making the leap from animal to human.

The classic way to address this is by finding viruses with similar genome sequences in a particular animal host. Xia, however, focused on a feature of the coronavirus genome known as CpG content, and found that a distantly-related dog coronavirus had similar CpG content as SARS-CoV-2. Because this distant virus replicated well in the dog's digestive tract, he concluded that a dog's intestines were the ideal place to have affected the ancestral SARS-CoV-2's CpG content.

"However, there is no evidence for the logical premise of Xia's argument, considering that all mammals have digestive tracts," the researchers wrote.

They showed that dogs aren't special in their content of ZAP and ABOBEC3G proteins, which help safeguard humans from viruses and can interact with viral CpG content.

"Additionally, a recent inoculation study found that while other domesticated mammalian hosts are highly susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, canines exhibited low susceptibility, and no traces of viral RNA were detectable in any dog organs," the scientists wrote.

Pollock and his colleagues said that although the recent origin of SARS-CoV-2 is uncertain, the best current evidence makes it likely that it was passed to humans by horseshoe bats or possibly pangolins, a kind of spiny anteater in China. There is strong evidence that the virus has recently jumped between humans and these animals or other intermediate hosts.

Bat and pangolin viruses also have CpG content similar to human SARS-CoV-2, so the environment that affected viral CpGs must have happened long ago and possibly in one of these two mammals. They noted that there are signs of prior recombination events among divergent viruses. That suggests that over the years relatives of coronaviruses found in bats and pangolins mixed and mutated to give rise to SARS-CoV-2.

The proposition that dogs were likely recent ancestors of SARS-CoV-2 is not justified by the available evidence, the researchers concluded.

"Xia did not demonstrate that the low CpG frequency in the SARS- CoV-2 genome was driven by a unique selective environment in dog digestive tracts," the authors wrote. "Dogs are not more plausible than most other potential host species, and based on current data, far less plausible than bats or pangolins."

Pollock said determining how the virus jumped from animals to humans is critical in preparing for the next pandemic.

Even so, he said, in the midst of a pandemic scientific results can be over-interpreted and misused, leading to misappropriation of resources and effort. Rather than promote the speculations of a study based on weak evidence, he noted, it is better to admit uncertainty. If not, the scientific community has an obligation to respond.

"Considering the ramifications, scientists need to be particularly careful in interpreting findings, and avoid rushing to conclusions that are not well supported by solid evidence" co-lead author Castoe said. "We need to get this right."

###

Factors maximize impact of yoga, physical therapy on back pain in underserved population

Fear avoidance, pain medication use, and treatment expectations impact response to nonpharmaceutical treatments to relieve chronic low back pain

BOSTON MEDICAL CENTER

BOSTON - New research shows that people with chronic low back pain (cLBP) have better results from yoga and physical therapy compared to reading evidence-based self-help materials. While this finding was consistent across many patient characteristics, a much larger effect was observed among those already taking pain medication to treat their condition and those who did not fear that exercise would make their back pain worse. Led by researchers at Boston Medical Center and published in Pain Medicine, the findings also showed that individuals who expected to do well with yoga were more likely to have a meaningful improvement in their function if they received yoga compared to receiving physical therapy.

Studying a population of predominately non-white and low-income patients, the results from this clinical trial show that overall, 39 percent of participants responded to one of the three treatment options with a greater response to yoga-or-physical therapy (42 percent) than the self-care group (23 percent). There was not a significant difference in proportion of people responding to yoga versus physical therapy - both showed similar improvements in back-related physical function. Among the study participants that were also using pain medication to treat chronic lower back pain, a large effect was observed among more participants in yoga (42 percent) or physical therapy (34 percent) compared with self-care (11 percent).

This study highlights the effect that fear can have on patient outcomes. Among the participants identified to have less fear around physical activity, 53 percent were more likely to respond to yoga and 42 percent were more likely to respond to physical therapy than self-care (13 percent). In contrast, among participants who started out with high fear avoidance around taking part in physical activity, the proportions of responders to the three treatment options showed no additional effect in response to treatment.

"Adults living with chronic low back pain could benefit from a multi-disciplinary approach to treatment including yoga or physical therapy, especially when they are already using pain medication,' said Eric Roseen, DC, MSc, a chiropractic physician at Boston Medical Center.

The yoga intervention consisted of 12 group-based weekly 75-minute hatha yoga classes incorporating poses, relaxation and meditation exercises, yoga breathing and yoga philosophy. Thirty minutes of daily home practice was encouraged and supported with at-home yoga supplies. The physical therapy intervention consisted of 15 one-on-one 60-minute appointments over 12 weeks. During each appointment, the physical therapist utilized the Treatment-Based Classification Method and supervised aerobic exercise, while providing written instructions and supplies to continue exercises at home. The self-care intervention consisted of reading from a copy of The Back Pain Handbook, a comprehensive resource describing evidence-based self-management strategies for chronic lower back pain including stretching, strengthening, and the role of psychological and social factors. Participants received check-in calls regarding the reading every three weeks.

The study involved 299 participants with chronic lower back pain at a safety net hospital and seven federally qualified community health centers, across 12 weeks of treatment. An exploratory analysis was performed identifying patient-level characteristics that predicted large improvements in physical function and/or modified the effectiveness of yoga, physical therapy, or self-care. The characteristics that were studied as predictors of improvement or treatment effect modifiers were from the domains of sociodemographic, general health, back-related, psychological, and treatment expectations data.

"Focusing on a diverse population with an average income well below the US median, this research adds important data for an understudied and often underserved population," said Roseen, also an assistant professor of family medicine at Boston University School of Medicine. "Our findings of predictors are consistent with existing research, also showing that lower socioeconomic status, multiple comorbidities, depression, and smoking are all associated with poor response to treatment."

###

Funding for this study was supported by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (1F32AT009272, 5R01AT005956), the Boston University Clinical and the Translational Science Institute Clinical Research Training Program (National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, 1UL1TR001430).

About Boston Medical Center

Boston Medical Center is a private, not-for-profit, 514-bed, academic medical center that is the primary teaching affiliate of Boston University School of Medicine. It is the largest and busiest provider of trauma and emergency services in New England. Boston Medical Center offers specialized care for complex health problems and is a leading research institution, receiving more than $97 million in sponsored research funding in fiscal year 2018. It is the 15th largest funding recipient in the U.S. from the National Institutes of Health among independent hospitals. In 1997, BMC founded Boston Medical Center Health Plan, Inc., now one of the top ranked Medicaid MCOs in the country, as a non-profit managed care organization. Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine are partners in Boston HealthNet - 14 community health centers focused on providing exceptional health care to residents of Boston. For more information, please visit http://www.bmc.org.

#MEDICAREFORALL

Correlations identified between insurance coverage and states' voting patterns

'Red' states have the highest uninsured rate, study finds

CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

Cleveland - Researchers at Case Western Reserve University reviewed national data from the U.S. Census bureau and found associations between states' voting patterns in the 2016 presidential elections and decreases in the number of adults 18 to 64 years of age without health insurance coverage.

"Following the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), we observed sharp decreases in the number of uninsured Americans nationwide," said Uriel Kim, lead author on the study and an MD candidate at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. "However, since the 2016 presidential election, these gains are reversing in so-called 'red' states, and 'purple' states that flipped from blue to red."

The paper State Voting Patterns in the 2016 Presidential Election and Uninsured Rates in Non-elderly Adults was recently published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Kim and colleagues at the medical school defined states based on voting patterns in the 2016 general election, categorizing them as Blue (21 states and Washington, D.C.), Red (24), or Purple (6)--states that switched from Blue to Red in the 2016 election. (No Red states switched to Blue.)

"The implementation of Medicaid expansion and the marketplaces has varied across states, at least partially explaining our study findings," Kim said. "For example, of the 14 states that have not expanded Medicaid, most are red or purple states. Additionally, while all Americans have access to the insurance marketplaces, the degree to which states invest in outreach and navigation programs for marketplace insurance generally varies along party lines."

In the years 2014 through 2016 (compared to 2013, before key provisions of the ACA were implemented), the data showed that the number of uninsured adults age 18 to 64 decreased by 15.8 million nationwide.

Blue states saw a decrease in the uninsured of over 7.6 million.
Purple states saw a decrease in the uninsured of nearly 3 million.
Red states saw a decrease in the uninsured of nearly 5.2 million.
While the number of uninsured Americans reached record lows in 2016, over 23.5 million remained uninsured.

From 2017-18, following the presidential election, the number of uninsured individuals increased by more than 850,000 nationwide, reversing the positive trends.

Blue states saw a negligible decrease in the number of uninsured.
Purple states saw the number of uninsured grow by 240,000.
Red states saw the uninsured grow by 620,000
Over 24.3 million were still uninsured by 2018, with the majority living in Red states.

Tables and the full study are available in the paper here. Data from 2019 and 2020 were not yet available for the researchers to review.

The ACA expanded coverage with two approaches: the expansion of Medicaid (in some states) to individuals with higher incomes and the creation of "marketplaces" (in all states) that allow individuals to purchase health insurance for themselves and their families. Individuals purchasing insurance on the marketplace receive sliding-scale subsidies based on their income.

The study's senior author, Siran Koroukian, an associate professor in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences in the medical school, added that the study highlights the importance of policies to enable health care access, which has particular relevance during the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic fallout.

"Since the majority of Americans receive insurance through their employer," said Koroukian, "the rise in unemployment following COVID-19 could mean that millions of people could be left without any insurance coverage, especially in states with less robust Medicaid programs or insurance marketplaces. This is problematic when the ability to access care is essential."

###

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment