US Cigarette sales jumped during COVID-19 pandemic, study says

By Cara Murez, HealthDay News

Researchers say an increase in cigarette sales during the COVID-19 pandemic may reflect people falling back on old habits or picking up new ones because of stress caused by the coronavirus. Photo by Free-Photos/Pixabay

As COVID-19 has surged throughout the United States for the past year and a half, some may have picked up an old bad habit or started a new one.

How do researchers know this? They discovered that cigarette sales jumped during the first 15 months of the pandemic, exceeding their own estimates by 14%.

It's not entirely clear whether that's because current smokers are smoking more, former smokers have restarted or new smokers have joined their ranks. Yet experts are concerned.

"The study provides indirect evidence of increased smoking," said study co-author Samuel Asare, a principal scientist with the American Cancer Society. "We don't directly show whether there was increased smoking. We know that there is a strong correlation between sales and consumption."

RELATED Vaping less likely to help smokers quit than giving up tobacco

For the study, the researchers compared cigarette sales from March 2020 to June 2021 with predicted sales based on the long-term declining trend before the pandemic, from January 2007 to February 2020, then adjusted for expected changes, including seasonality.

The investigators gathered data from the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

Cigarette sales exceeded expected sales during all months after the onset of the pandemic.

ORAL FIXATION
RELATED Study: Nearly 1 in 5 high school kids uses trio of pot, vapes, cigarettes

Many reasons could have contributed to the increase, Asare said.

"Some of them are the stay-at-home orders," Asare said. "Remember, some people used to work in workplaces where we have smoking bans. Now that they're staying at home, they have their freedom to do whatever they want at home."

For others, smoking can be a strategy for coping with stress. Programs that provided aid to Americans during the pandemic may have led households to increase their spending, which could include increasing cigarette purchases for smokers, Asare said.

RELATED Study: Delay on graphic warning labels on cigarettes may have cost lives

Stockpiling of cigarettes early in the pandemic may also have had an impact on the sales numbers.

Further research would be needed to more firmly determine which of these contributed to the increases.

Researchers do know that smoking cessation programs experienced a sharp decline in requests for help.

"Participation in calls to quitline or cessation counseling declined drastically during the pandemic," Asare said. "The North American Quitline Consortium found a 27% decline in calls to the quitline in 2020 for cessation counseling compared to 2019," he added.

The apparent increase in smoking couldn't come at a more challenging time.

"There are a number of studies that have shown that smokers are more vulnerable to COVID-19-related complications compared to nonsmokers," Asare said.

What's needed now? Restoring calls for smoking cessation counseling and increasing tobacco control policies, Asare said.

"It is important to get back to a trend or to a level we had before the pandemic, so that whatever goals we have, we can actually achieve," Asare said.

The findings of the research report were published online Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Patricia Folan is director of the Center for Tobacco Control at Northwell Health in Great Neck, N.Y. She was not surprised to hear that cigarette sales had increased in these past months.

"During the pandemic, there have been many reports indicating increases in other substance use, as well as increases in mental distress, such as anxiety and depression, which are often triggers for relapse," said Folan, who was not involved in the study.

"After the attacks on 9/11, an increase in smoking and relapse to smoking was noted, particularly among first responders. Although very different situations, the stress felt in both instances may have contributed to increased smoking or relapse to smoking," Folan said.

Folan said the smoking cessation program she leads has seen an increase in enrollment during the pandemic.

As Asare suggested, Folan said patients reported smoking more while working remotely at home, without the smoke-free environment at their usual workplaces. They also reported relapsing due to feelings of stress, anxiety and isolation, Folan said.

"Health care providers should continue to ask patients about their tobacco use even if they have quit in the past and, if relapsed, counsel and refer them to the supportive services of a local program or state quitline," Folan said. "Explaining the connection between poor outcomes for smokers with COVID-19 may motivate patients to engage in quit attempts."More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers resources to help you quit smoking.

Copyright © 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

A FIGHT AS OLD AS OLIVER TWIST

Paris Hilton advocates for teen bill of rights in fight against treatment facilities


Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., (L) and Paris Hilton attend a press conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. 

Photo by Tasos Katopodis/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 20 (UPI) -- TV personality Paris Hilton visited Capitol Hill on Wednesday to push for legislation to reform the nation's facilities for troubled teenagers, sharing her own experience of living in such a treatment center.

Joined by Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., the Hilton Hotel heiress lent her support to a bill that would put in place a bill of rights for teens in psychiatric treatment facilities.

Hilton spoke about her experience living at Provo Canyon School in Utah, where she said she underwent mental, emotional and physical abuse for several months.

"I was given clothes with a number on the tag, " she said. "I was no longer me, I was only number 127. I was forced to stay indoors for 11 months straight, no sunlight, no fresh air. These were considered privileges.

"I was strangled, slapped across the face, watched in the shower by male staff, called vulgar names, forced to take medication without a diagnosis, not given a proper education, thrown into solitary confinement in a room covered in scratch marks and smeared in blood and so much more."


Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., gives remarks a at press conference at the U.S. Capitol.

 Photo by Tasos Katopodis/UPI | License Photo

Khanna said he was working to write legislation allowing youngsters in such facilities the right to call their parents, be free from restraints, and have access to clean water and proper nutrition.

"This is not a messaging bill -- this is a bill we need to pass," he said.

"Congress needs to act because children are dying in the name of treatment," Hilton added. "This is a human rights issue. People should be outraged with what's happening.

Uvea Spezza-Lopin, a 12-year-old abuse survivor, gives remarks at a press conference. 

Photo by Tasos Katopodis/UPI | License Photo

What exactly is 'the metaverse'?

Facebook has announced major investments in "the metaverse," a virtual reality that could one day coexist alongside the physical world. DW breaks down what it is — and how you might already be in it.

  

Although still in its infancy, many believe the potential of the metaverse to be huge

It's been a long day. You've spent the morning hopping between conference rooms, stealing five minutes in the break room to talk to a co-worker about a concert you're going to that evening. You meet at the venue after work, excited to see your favorite K-Pop band play live. After the show ends, you buy a T-shirt and try to forget that you saw your ex-boyfriend there.

A pretty typical day. The twist? You did it all without leaving your home. Welcome to the metaverse.

What is the metaverse?

The metaverse has no single creator or definition. It can be defined loosely as a digital reality, akin to the World Wide Web, but combining aspects of social media, augmented reality, online gaming and cryptocurrencies to allow users to act and interact virtually. While the concept is still in its infancy, its potential is huge.

"I'm fairly sure at this point that […] the metaverse is going to be a new economy that is larger than our current economy," Jensen Hang, CEO of computer graphics chipmaker NVIDIA, has said. NVIDIA, a company whose investment in the metaverse has led some to predict it will one day outgrow Apple, is just one of many companies scrambling to stake a claim in the metaverse goldrush. Epic Games, Microsoft and many others have launched initiatives of their own.

For years now, Facebook has been investing in virtual and augmented reality for the metaverse. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said he expects people will one day think of the social media company instead as a metaverse company. This week, Facebook doubled down on the project, announcing a major metaverse initiative in Europe.

Second Life is one of many interactive games already containing metaverse elements

Bringing everything together

"Instead of just viewing content — you are in it," Mark Zuckerberg told tech blog The Verge in July, contrasting the idea of the metaverse with standard "two-dimensional" webpages that currently populate the internet.

Iterations of the metaverse have existed for years, whether as social media, virtual reality, online gaming or the cryptocurrency sphere.

Interactive and world-building games such as Second Life, Fortnite, Minecraft and Roblox all have elements of the metaverse. There, users can work and collaborate, attend events and exchange real-world money for virtual goods and services.

Thus far, however, these worlds have been largely self-contained. Metaverse visionaries predict a virtual universe where one might move seamlessly between these different types of digital worlds. Users could even retain the same virtual identity — in the form of a digital avatar — and capital they own in one world would hold the same value in another. Everyone would pay with a universally accepted digital currency.

The cryptofactor

This payment angle is particularly interesting for cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies have made something of a splash this year, due in part to growing public awareness around non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a technology that could play a key role in the metaverse.

NFTs are a type of digital asset that functions more or less as virtual collector's items. One NFT, a JPG file of a photo collage, made headlines earlier this year when it sold for $69 million (€59 million). Earlier this month, fashion designers Dolce & Gabbana sold a clothing collection in the form of NFTs, with some of the items intended to be worn by digital avatars.

In some virtual worlds currently in existence, users are already paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrencies to buy NFTs of digital real estate and property. Art dealer Sotheby's recently acquired its own chunk of digital real estate, which it used to construct a replica of its London galleries. It then held a virtual art show there.

Immersive art installations will also be part of the metaverse sphere

The transaction and ownership of most NFTs is recorded on the Ethereum blockchain, the network that hosts Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. This puts

NFTs and Ethereum in a good position to become the structural backbone of the metaverse. Such a move could also legitimize crypto as a form of payment, quickening the uptake of cryptocurrencies among the general public.

The COVID-19 push

The full functionality of the metaverse is likely still decades away. Key technologies, particularly in the realm of augmented reality, have yet to become mainstream, and the metaverse raises a whole gamut of legal questions as well.

Creating it will also require a degree of technical cooperation among companies that seems unrealistic when one considers, for example, the mobile phone charger landscape.

But momentum is there, and the COVID-19 pandemic has hastened development of the metaverse. Global digitization efforts got a huge push after the health crisis prompted millions of people to work from home, and in some ways digital communications platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams have familiarized people with the concepts at the heart of the metaverse.

Many companies are already trying to replicate digitally the spontaneity of human interaction at the office for employees working from home. Even DW has launched official internal chat rooms called "break room" and "hallway" dedicated to fostering casual chitchat between colleagues in times of working from home.

Still in its infancy, the metaverse could be a market worth $800 billion as early as 2024, Bloomberg Intelligence reported in July.

'Becoming Cousteau' plumbs depths of French ocean explorer

Much of the kit that Cousteau used had to be invented 

Handout THE COUSTEAU SOCIETY/AFP/File


Issued on: 21/10/2021 - 03:52

Los Angeles (AFP)

"Becoming Cousteau," which hits theaters in the United States this Friday, traces the extraordinary life of the man through archive footage and interviews, and was compiled by double-Oscar nominee Liz Garbus.

"I grew up on Cousteau, and I grew up watching his shows... And my feeling was as I revisited this childhood hero of mine, that there were aspects in his life that I certainly did not know," Garbus told AFP in Los Angeles.

Garbus trawled through hundreds of hours of footage -- much of it never released publicly -- to capture a flavor of a life lived underwater.

"Cousteau was a filmmaker and because his imagery was so groundbreaking, I wanted our viewer today to be immersed in that imagery," she said.

Born in 1910, Cousteau had never set out to be a diver. His initial focus was on the skies.

But at the age of 26, just after begining his training as a pilot at France's naval academy, a serious car accident left him unable to fly.

During his convalescence, he was advised to take up spearfishing. It was a piece of advice that would change his view on life forever.

The Calypso was a converted minesweeper - AFP/File

"As soon as I put my head under water, I understood; I had a shock: an immense and completely virgin domain to explore," he said.

That exploration required ever more complicated kit -- kit that did not exist. So Cousteau invented it.

Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's "slightly crazy" sketches, he borrowed a regulator designed for car engines and, with engineer Emile Gagnan, produced the self-contained diving suit that forms the basis of those still in use today.

"I didn't want pipes, I wanted to be completely independent", he says.

After World War II, he mounted the first expedition aboard the "Calypso", a converted minesweeper that set sail for the Red Sea in 1951.

And wherever he went, so did his cameras, thanks to his diving suit and the waterproof camera housings that he had developed.

The footage he brought back was the first glimpse that many people had of the vast underwater world.

While the modern day conception of Cousteau is of a crusading environmentalist, that was a period of his life that came later.

Like countless contemporaries in the post-war years, Cousteau did not show any real ecological awareness, using explosives to bring fish to the surface.

Cousteau's life was one of evolution; from a would-be pilot to a diver to a filmmaker, to an environmental crusader

 PATRICK HERTZOG AFP/File

In order to finance the "Calypso", he even started prospecting for oil, discovering reserves in Abu Dhabi in the process.

"I think I was naive... but I didn't have a penny!", he would later plead after his conversion to environmental protection.
'Sea in distress'

In the 1950s, Cousteau produced "The Silent World", which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1956 and an Oscar for best documentary the following year.

He was furious to see his films classed as "documentaries", insisting that they were "real adventure films", says Garbus.

The following decade, he abandoned the cinema to go into television with a series of documentaries on underwater life, the first of their kind.

He was never entirely at peace with the medium, but recognised it had its benefits -- particularly as his consciousness grew about the need to preserve the natural environment.

"Though it is an aesthetic sacrifice, it is a way to reach millions of people rapidly," he said.

These "films are no more about beautiful little fish but are dealing with the future of mankind."

Cousteau was the only non-politician in the official photos of the 1992 Earth Summit Omar TORRES AFP/File

As a pioneer in the field of ecology, Cousteau was sounding the alarm about "the sea in distress" to the US Congress in 1971.

By the end of the 1980s, he was telling anyone who would listen of the dangers of global warming --long before the mainstream woke up to the damage humanity was doing to the planet.

His influence was such that at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, Cousteau was the only non-world leader in the official photo.

"What Cousteau was able to do because of all the love he had built up over the decades, to translate that love and respect into something that was a crucial message... There's nobody who has that power today," says Garbus.

© 2021 AFP

Reichelt and Germany's Bild: Media giant Axel Springer under pressure

Bild tabloid Editor-in-Chief Julian Reichelt was fired after The New York Times detailed misconduct toward female employees. The case is now making waves internationally.



Julian Reichelt has been under fire for his attitudes towards women and many of his editorial decisions

Bild, which Julian Reichelt led since 2017, is the daily newspaper with the highest circulation in Germany and has shaped the country's media landscape significantly since it was founded in 1952. Known for courting controversy, the media outlet often receives criticism: For example after launching a front-page attack on virologist Christian Drosten, one of Chancellor Angela Merkel's advisers, at the start of the pandemic. The publication regularly garners reprimands from the German Press Council.

Behind the newspaper is the billion-euro Axel Springer publishing house, which was founded in Germany in the wake of World War II and initially published daily newspapers and magazines. Today, the company is hardly a traditional publishing house, says media scholar Christopher Buschow of the Bauhaus University of Weimar. Springer is more likely to be considered a media company or digital group, whose central revenues are no longer generated solely through journalism, but also by other investments like the job portal Stepstone.

Looking towards the US market

That Axel Springer aims to further expand abroad makes implications of the current scandal at Bild reach beyond Germany. In recent years, Axel Springer has invested heavily in markets abroad, namely the United States and Poland.

"The company's clear goal is to play on the very big stage," Buschow said. "It's recognized that in a platform-based media world, where the big tech giants make the rules in many ways, the United States is key if you want to have a global impact as a media company."

This expansion, he added, "is now being driven forward with a great deal of energy and financial resources." Axel Springer this August purchased US media outlet Politico for $1 billion. In 2015, the company bought Business Insider.

According to Buschow, it's therefore logical that the situation at Bild is receiving special attention abroad due to the fact that Axel Springer aims to be an international player. After all, it was the The New York Times which broke the story in English detailing acts of misconduct by Reichelt that finally led to his ousting.

"The fact that you need foreign coverage to talk about some topics doesn't surprise me," said Buschow. "I have also observed this in other cases, in which German media were extraordinarily quiet — although there would actually have been a lot to report." That's usually the case when the media are are affiliated with specific political parties, he added.

"With issues like this, in which the press landscape as a whole is affected or large powerful media groups are affected, you often need an outside view," he said.

Bild is Germany's most-read publication

Buschow points out that Axel Springer's chief executive, Mathias Döpfner, is also president of the Federation of German Newspaper Publishers (BDZV) — another reason competitors might not want to get mixed up in reporting negatively on the media giant.

Yet The New York Times was not the only outlet to look into allegations. Journalists at Springer's rival publishing company, Ippen, had been investigating sexual harassment allegations against Reichelt, but did not publish their findings.

The New York Times reported they had been pressured by Axel Springer executives not to publish the bombshell report, prompting concerns about press freedom in Germany. Yet the media group denied that pressure from their rival had anything to do with spiking the story, and instead said it was cut to "avoid the impression we might want to economically harm a competitor."

Sexual harassment in the US media landscape

Earlier this year, Der Spiegel also reported on allegations which did not result in Reichelt leaving his post. Instead, Reichelt filed charges against Der Spiegel. The paper wrote an expose on what it described as "the Reichelt system" — what it called his "pattern” of seducing, promoting and then firing young women at Bild.

The scandal perhaps marks a turning point in Germany's #MeToo movement, which has already been well underway in the media scene in the US. A landmark event on that front in the US was the sexual harassment scandal at Fox News involving the network's head, Roger Ailes. In 2016, Fox News journalist Gretchen Carlson filed a lawsuit which brought about an internal investigation at the network and led to a number of sexual harassment claims against Ailes, considered to be a kingmaker by the Republican party.

The story inspired the 2019 film Bombshell starring Nicole Kidman, who plays Carlson, and Margot Robbie, who plays a fictional character harassed by Ailes as she aims to become a TV news anchor.

The movie 'Bombshell' is based on the fall of Roger Ailes of Fox News in the US

In 1996, Ailes was hired by Rupert Murdoch, who was at the time was CEO of media giant NewsCorp. He launched Fox News, hiring outspoken right-wing commentators like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. The network has since become known for its inflammatory statements and questionable stances, such as casting doubt on where Barack Obama was born; and, more recently, vaccine skepticism.

His reputation damaged, Ailes resigned in 2016 from Fox News. Political commentator Bill O'Reilly was also fired for sexual misconduct. Fox News and the once-top commentator paid out millions of dollars in settlements to accusers.

Isolated and unpaid, Mongolian coal drivers queue at Chinese border

A stream of trucks carrying coal along a once-busy highway has been reduced to a trickle, held up by China and Mongolia's strict Covid-19 measures

 Uugansukh Byamba AFP


Issued on: 21/10/2021 

Tsagaan Khad (Mongolia) (AFP)

Pre-pandemic, the route was packed with drivers delivering the vital fuel to China -- the world's biggest coal importer -- currently grappling with widespread power cuts threatening its economic growth.

But now the line of trucks outside the tiny coal town of Tsagaan Khad has been reduced to a trickle, held up by China and Mongolia's strict coronavirus measures, leaving the drivers stranded without pay or company.

"Our families are calling us and saying they need wood, fuel, and clothes to wear in winter," said Davaasuren Tsogtsaikhan, 32, having waited three months to make a single delivery.

"Life is hard here," he said.

Drivers are tested for Covid-19 in Mongolia then bussed over the Chinese border in masks and hazmat suits, where they undergo yet another test

 Uugansukh Byamba AFP

Last year, resource-rich Mongolia exported over 35 million tonnes of coking coal to China -- this year so far is less than a third of that.

Terrified any outbreak might make China slam the border shut, Mongolia has imposed strict coronavirus rules.

Some 3,500 increasingly wretched drivers have been quarantined in camps of 40 people while they wait.

Undrakh Bold told AFP he spent 42 days waiting without making a delivery, having been quarantined outside capital Ulaanbaatar after one member of his group tested positive.

After returning to Tsagaan Khad, the 43-year-old faced another 28 days of waiting.

Truck drivers protest near Tavan Tolgoi, Mongolia's largest coal deposit, on October 16 Uugansukh Byamba AFP

"If all of us test negative, we will be able to transport our coal the next day," the weary father-of-three said, as he queued to be tested.

On the Chinese side, they are not allowed out of their cabs, or even to open windows.

"I want to dump the coal in China, get my money and go back home," he said.
Empty town, few drivers

Drivers are tested for Covid-19 in Mongolia then bussed over the Chinese border in masks and hazmat suits, where they undergo yet another test.

Mongolia's vast South Gobi province is home to 12 billion tonnes of coal reserves -- a key supplier to Chinese iron ore smelters.

But now many drivers are considering finding other work.

Mongolia's vast South Gobi province is home to twelve billion tonnes of coal reserves Uugansukh Byamba AFP

"We worry about Covid test results all day and night," said trucker Davaasuren, preparing to take his first test.

There is already a shortage of drivers, with numbers down by around half according to Tsagaan Khad officials, and the impact on the small town has been devastating.

The main street is empty, with canteens and shops closed.

Strict virus measures are necessary to keep trade flowing, officials say.

If the Covid cases increase and China closes the border, "our economy will collapse," frets Soronzonbold Purevjav, head of Tsagaan Khad's emergency commission.

Terrified that any outbreak might make China slam the border shut, Mongolia has imposed strict coronavirus rules 

Uugansukh Byamba AFP

Anxious not to catch the virus, drivers stay inside their round white tents, dwarfed by huge piles of coal and rows of parked trucks.

"We keep an eye on each other all the time," said Turtulga, a 32-year old driver.
Crunch time

Beijing has maintained a strict zero-Covid policy that has all but closed borders to the outside world.

The gridlock comes as China also battles an energy crunch that has seen widespread power cuts due to record coal prices and tough emissions targets.

Hopes of an easing were raised after China's prime minister Li Keqiang held online talks with his Mongolian counterpart last week.

The pair agreed to increase coal export volumes, according to a Chinese state media readout, with plans to allow double the number of trucks through the border -- as long as they meet strict Covid requirements.

Beijing has maintained a strict zero-Covid policy that has all but closed borders to the outside world 

Uugansukh Byamba AFP

But it will take time to clear the backlog.

Yalagdashgui Naranpil, head of a truck drivers' union, told AFP that the restrictions -- including the closure of another border point -- are making life near-impossible for the country's drivers.

A handful of them protested in Ulaanbaatar last week, wearing face masks, high-vis jackets and holding signs reading "Save the lives of drivers".

"We are on the edge of poverty," Yalagdashgui said.

© 2021 AFP

Covid recovery poses dire climate, health risks: Lancet

  

Populations of 134 countries are now at greater threat from wildfires than at any time previously, and millions of farmers and construction workers are losing income because of the rising number of extremely hot days 

RIJASOLO AFP/File

Issued on: 21/10/2021 - 

Paris (AFP)

The Lancet Countdown is the largest annual study of the impacts of climate change on human health.

It found that up to 19 percent of Earth's land mass was affected by extreme drought in 2020 and warned that climate change posed a major threat to food security, which already affects more than two billion people.

Compared with the historic average, the global population of over-65s lived through 3.1 billion additional extreme heat days last year, it found.

Populations of 134 countries are now at greater threat from wildfires than at any time previously, and millions of farmers and construction workers are losing income because of the rising number of extremely hot days.

And climate change is creating ideal conditions for infectious diseases such as dengue fever, Zika virus, cholera and malaria across a far larger span of the globe than just a few decades ago and including Europe, it said.

"Climate change is here and we're already seeing it damaging human health across the world," said Anthony Costello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown.

"As the Covid-19 crisis continues, every country is facing some aspect of the climate crisis too."

'Bleak outlook'

The assessment found that the five years with the most areas affected by extreme drought have all occurred since 2015.

Disruption to the water cycle due to global heating shortens the time in which plants reach maturity, resulting in small yields putting ever-greater stress on food production.

The Lancet said that yield potential for maize -- a global staple -- had already declined 6 percent compared with 1981-2010 levels.

Wheat has seen a 3-percent yield potential fall, and rice a 1.8-percent fall, it found.

And the marine food upon which 3.3. billion people depend on for either sustinence or income is under "increasing threat", with average sea temperature rising in nearly 70 percent of territorial waters compared with just 15 years ago.

The report also warned that nearly three quarters of countries surveyed said they believed they could not afford an integrated national health and climate strategy.

"This year we saw people suffering intense heatwaves, deadly floods and wildfires," said lead author Maria Romanello.

"These are grim warnings that, for every day that we delay our response to climate change, the situation gets more critical.

"It's time to realise that no one is safe from the effects of climate change."

In an editorial, the Lancet called on world leaders at the forthcoming COP26 summit to divert some of the trillions they are spending on Covid-19 recovery to reduce inequality and safeguard health.

"This year's indicators give a bleak outlook: global inequities are increasing, and the direction of travel is worsening in all health outcomes."

AFP in June obtained a draft of an assessment on the impacts of climate change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

It warned that rising temperatures would expose tens of millions more to disease, drought and disease as soon as 2050.

© 2021 AFP

Pandemic of anti-vaxxers and COVID deniers hits Romania

Romania is getting crushed by one of the worst coronavirus waves in Europe. Vaccine skepticism and inaction on the part of the president, the administration and authorities are largely to blame.


Romania's health care system has been overwhelmed by an onslaught of unvaccinated people infected with COVID-19

Images documenting the current situation at a university hospital in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, are tough to watch. In a video published last week by the investigative journalism platform Recorder, not a single intensive care unit (ICU) bed is free, while rooms and hallways are filled beyond capacity with sick people waiting for help and medical staff roll corpses in black plastic body bags past them.

All the while, ambulances keep dropping off new patients. Almost all are old and hardly any are vaccinated. Many can barely breathe; some still refuse to get vaccinated. "This onslaught has to do with people being reckless and uninformed," a doctor says. "Politicians have to be much more insistent. If they cared about the well-being of voters, they would be saying: 'Get vaccinated!'"

The video is 16 grueling minutes long, has no commentary and is titled "This Is What a Health Disaster Looks Like."

Romania and Bulgaria have the lowest vaccination rates in the EU and some of the highest infection rates

Scenes such as those in the video are playing out at hospitals across Romania. The country is currently being hit by one of the worst coronavirus waves in Europe. Record infection and death rates have been recorded almost every day since March 2020. On Tuesday, 19,000 new COVID-19 infections and 574 deaths were recorded.

"We're not just in a pandemic," Daniel Coriu, the chair of the Romanian College of Physicians, said on Tuesday. "We're in a disaster." Last week the college published an open letter describing the current catastrophic state of the health care system under the title "A Cry of Despair."

Low vaccination rates, influential anti-vaxxers

Romania is not an isolated case within the European Union. When it comes to seven-day incidence rates and daily death tolls, Latvia, Lithuania and Bulgaria have similarly high numbers. What makes Romania different from other EU countries is that its health care system is so burdened that many hospital directors and doctors say collapse is imminent. Romania and neighboring Bulgaria also have the lowest vaccination rates in the European Union. 

Only about 30% of the population is fully vaccinated in either country — the cumulative EU average is 74.4%. Vaccine skepticism is widespread and is being fueled by nationalist politicians and the influential Romanian Orthodox Church

Vaccine hesitancy fuels COVID-19 infection rate in Romania

On Tuesday, President Klaus Iohannis told Romanians that the pandemic had become "a national drama of appalling proportion" and promised a crisis management meeting of all government decision-makers for Wednesday. Iohannis blamed broad vaccine skepticism for the situation but also singled out "lack of real government agency action" as a reason for low vaccination rates.

As recently as June, Iohannis described the nation's vaccination program as a "success," saying the pandemic had been halted. Center-right Prime Minister Florin Citu said the coronavirus had been "eliminated" back in June — even though experts contradicted him and warned of a fourth wave.

Romania is awash with fake news and anti-vaccination sentiment from nationalists and the Orthodox Church

Vaccine 'zombies' myth

It wasn't until the devastating fourth coronavirus wave began to swell in early October that the government finally expanded mandatory rules for masks, set curfews and limited capacity at large public events.

The government has made minimal effort to counter vaccine skepticism — anti-vaxxers protest at will, and fake news posts about new vaccines and vaccination programs circulate widely. Recently, classroom audio secretly recorded by students in the north Romanian city of Botosani caused a stir when the teacher was heard claiming that vaccines were turning people into "zombies" and accusing hospitals of committing genocide "like in Auschwitz."

Archbishop Teodosie of Tomis has claimed that vaccines are unsafe telling the faithful the EU is doing away with them

When it comes to vaccine opposition, priests and bishops in the Romanian Orthodox Church are on the front lines. Last week, Archbishop Teodosie Petrescu, of the southern diocese of Tomis, said vaccines were unsafe, going so far as to claim that the European Union was now stopping them.

To date, very few anti-vaxxers or coronavirus deniers have been investigated. Romania's politicians are especially careful when it comes to the church — an institution that yields outsize sway with voters. In rural stretches of the country especially, a priest's words carry a lot of weight.

Last week, the crush of the fourth wave forced the Romanian government to ask for foreign help for the first time, requesting that other countries send oxygen and ICU beds. Neighboring Moldova, far poorer even than Romania, deployed doctors and medical personnel to help. The Hungarian government pledged to treat Romanian COVID-19 patients — the first of whom have already been admitted to hospitals in southern and southeastern Hungary. That sign of solidarity is doubly meaningful as relations between Hungary and Romania have been fraught of late.

Speaking with public television broadcaster TVR on Tuesday, Romanian Health Minister Attila Cseke warned people not to expect things to get better anytime soon. Cseke said the fourth wave was nowhere close to cresting.

Brazil: Senate calls for Bolsonaro to be charged over COVID response

A Senate committee report has recommended President Jair Bolsonaro be indicted on 10 charges related to his government's handling of the pandemic. The right-wing leader has previously downplayed the virus.

A Brazilian Senate committee has recommended that President Jair Bolsonaro face charges for the way in which he handled the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The nearly 1,200 page report is the culmination of 6 months of investigative work and calls for Bolsonaro to be indicted on 10 charges including crimes against humanity.

In addition to the recommended charges, the committee also says that the president should be impeached.

What will happen next?

Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing and claims the inquiry is a political tool meant to sabotage him.

Brazil comes in third position, behind India  and the US, in terms of COVID-19 infections and has had more than 600,000 deaths as a result of the virus.

The right-wing populist leader has downplayed the gravity of the virus, and in the early stages of the pandemic said it was a "little flu."

A vote on the report's recommendations will be held by the investigative committee on October 26. Additions may still be submitted up until that time.

A majority vote is needed before the recommendations can proceed to the prosecutor general's office. From there it will be decided whether charges will be pursued.

kb/wd (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)

New Caledonia separatists call for boycott of independence referendum

This picture shows voting forms at a polling station in the referendum on independence on the French South Pacific territory of New Caledonia in Noumea on October 4, 2020. 

© Theo Rouby, AFP

Issued on: 21/10/2021 - 

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Separatist leaders in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia called Thursday for a boycott of a December independence referendum, urging the government to focus on the Covid crisis.

Members of the pro-independence FLNKS group issued the statement a day after they called on France's minister for overseas territories Sebastien Lecornu to postpone the poll during his visit there.

The government should prioritise fighting the Covid pandemic in the territory, which has claimed 245 lives since September.

Paris agreed the request from the New Caledonia legislature to hold the consultative referendum under the terms of a decolonisation plan, known as the Noumea Accord, agreed in 1998.

But the FLNKS statement said the government -- with the next year's presidential elections in mind -- was insisting on pressing ahead with the vote so as to meet its obligations under the Noumea Accord.

Given the health crisis, it argued, the referendum could not be held properly.

Lecornu, during his visit, said the health situation was "tense" but under control, and only a situation in which the epidemic was running riot could justify postponement of the referendum.

New Caledonia is due to hold what will be its third referendum on independence on December 12, having already twice rejected the proposal.


The Noumea Accord ended a deadly conflict between the mostly pro-independence indigenous Kanak population and the descendants of European settlers.

It allowed for up to three independence votes by 2022 if requested by at least a third of the local legislature.

In a first referendum in 2018, 57 percent voted to remain part of France. In the second, in October 2020, that share decreased to 53 percent.

An archipelago of around 270,000 inhabitants located about 2,000 kilometres (1,250) miles east of Australia, New Caledonia has been a French territory since 1853.

(AFP)