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Europe's Populists Ready to Seize on COVID Vaccination Bungle
Europe’s populists have seen their polling numbers dip since the coronavirus emerged on the continent, but as the economic impact of lockdowns and restrictions starts to be felt in earnest, widening income disparity, they could see a revival, some analysts forecast.
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Feds Unprepared to Meet First U.S. Evacuees from Wuhan Last Year
Federal officials at a California military base last year who met with the first American evacuees from Wuhan, China, the place where the coronavirus emerged, were not prepared for their mission, according to a new report.
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63,000 Extra Deaths and a Year Off Life Expectancy: COVID in 2020 in England and Wales
An estimated 62,750 excess deaths resulted in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic in England and Wales, according to demographic experts at Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science - who reveal life expectancy was cut for men and women by -1.3 and -1.0 years, respectively.
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Biden Unveils National COVID-19 Strategy, Saying: “Help Is on the Way”
“Help is on the way,” said President Joe Biden yesterday as he unveiled his 200-page national COVID-19 strategy and signed 10 executive actions aimed at tackling the pandemic, including ensuring the safe opening of schools, new guidance for foreign travel, and ensuring the National Guard in all 50 states is involved in the pandemic response.
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Taking Proven Measures Now to Mitigate COVID-19 Pandemic
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response is urging all countries to ensure implementation of critical public health measures known to decrease virus transmission in order to curb the spread of COVID-19. It has also expressed grave concern at the prospect of inequitable vaccine rollout around the world.
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Global COVID Rise Continues; 50 Nations Report B117 Variant
In its weekly snapshot of global COVID-19 trends, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday that after lower reporting over the 2-week holiday period, cases and deaths are on the rise again in all but one of its regions and that 50 countries have now detected the more transmissible B117 variant first detected in the United Kingdom.
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Seeking to ‘Flush’ out COVID-19 in Wastewater
Though it may seem a bit unsavory, studying human waste can tell us a lot about COVID-19 and give governments a leg up on containing the spread of the virus. Researchers can predict if the coronavirus might attack a community by checking sewers for viral fragments in the community’s poop.
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Racist, Extremist, Anti-Semitic Conspiracies Surround Coronavirus Vaccine Rollout
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, extremists across the ideological spectrum have used the virus as a platform for elaborate and alarming conspiracy theories. Purveyors of these theories suggest that the vaccine is a new form of population control or elevate debunked fears about the vaccine’s side effects. Some are peddling anti-Semitic tropes about Jewish control of the virus and vaccine, while arguing that Black Americans should be used to test the vaccine’s safety.
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Model Used to Evaluate Lockdowns Was Flawed
In a recent study, researchers from Imperial College London developed a model to assess the effect of different measures used to curb the spread of the coronavirus. A new study, published in Nature, however, claims that the model had fundamental shortcomings and cannot be used to draw the published conclusions.
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Modeling Can Help Balance Economy, Health During Pandemic
Using mathematical modeling, new interdisciplinary research determines the best course of action when it comes to walking the line between economic stability and the best possible health outcomes. The model indicates that of the scenarios they consider, communities could maximize economic productivity and minimize disease transmission if, until a vaccine were readily available, seniors mostly remained at home while younger people gradually returned to the workforce.
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Face Masks Change the Way We Process Faces
Ever want to walk over to say hello to someone but you’re not sure the person behind the mask is in fact someone you know? Researchers say you’re not alone.
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Terrorist Groups Using COVID-19 to Reinforce Power and Influence: INTERPOL
A new report issued by INTERPOL assesses the impact of COVID-19 on global terrorism, trends and potential risks related to attacks on vulnerable targets and bioterrorism is the focus of. As COVID-19 cases subside in some regions and surge in others, the report underlines the critical need to monitor the reaction and response by terrorist networks, violent extremist groups, and other potentially dangerous non-state actors.
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Pandemic Consequences: The Acceleration of Confrontational Politics
Soon after the coronavirus began spreading widely around the world, a dominant narrative emerged about its likely effect on global politics: the pandemic would reinforce autocratic governance. Thomas Carothers and Benjamin Press write in Just Security that, indeed, dozens of authoritarian or authoritarian-leaning leaders, from Cambodia to Hungary, quickly seized the moment to amass more power, undercut institutional checks and balances, and restrict citizen freedoms in ways that exceeded public-health necessity. But “almost a year in, another critical trend has become apparent: contrary to the hopes of some observers, the pandemic is also fueling the longer-term ascendancy of confrontational politics,” they write.
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Countries with Advanced Digital Skills and Safety Nets Doing Better in Pandemic, Report Says
In this year’s Global Competitiveness Report, the World Economic Forum measures the ability of countries to weather and recover from the devastation caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Because of the pandemic and the inability to collect necessary data, country rankings in the report have been suspended. Instead, it examines the factors that help economies better manage and recover from the pandemic.
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Identity Verification in the Age of COVID-19
Face masks have become a way of life due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We now wear them nearly everywhere we go—at grocery stores, on public transportation, in schools, at work—any situation that requires us to be around others. But what about at places that require a higher level of security, like airports?
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