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Seychelles most vaccinated nation on Earth however Covid-19 has surged

Seychelles most vaccinated nation on Earth but Covid-19 has surged

A woman with an umbrella walks in a street in the capital Victoria of the Seychelles.

Valery Sharifulin | TASS | Getty Images

Seychelles worries world health experts after a surge in Covid-19 cases in fully vaccinated people.

The World Health Organization announced Tuesday that it would review coronavirus data from the Seychelles, an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, after the Ministry of Health said in the week leading up to May 8 that more than a third of people were positive tested for Covid-19 had been fully vaccinated.

It is believed that the Seychelles have so far carried out a very successful vaccination rollout. It can boast of having the highest percentage of people vaccinated against Covid-19 in the world, above Israel and the UK

The majority of people vaccinated have received China’s Sinopharm vaccine (approved by WHO for emergency use last Friday) as well as the AstraZeneca shot (known locally as Covishield, a version made in India). Overall, the Seychelles, with a population of over 97,000, recorded just under 8,200 cases and 28 deaths during the pandemic.

On Monday, the Seychelles Ministry of Health reported a sharp increase in the number of cases. Of the 120 new cases reported on April 30, a week later, over 300 cases were recorded a day on May 7 and May 8, respectively.

Of all positive cases, the Department of Health said 63% were either not vaccinated or were only given a dose of SinoPharm or Covishield, but 37% of new infections were in people who received both doses.

The ministry found that 80% of patients in need of hospital treatment had not been vaccinated and were more likely to be people with comorbidities. It added that “almost all” of the critical and severe cases requiring intensive care had also not been vaccinated. To date, none of the patients who died with Covid-19 had been fully vaccinated.

To date, 57% of those who received two doses have received Sinopharm and 43% have received Covishield, the Seychelles Ministry of Health said. It is unclear which vaccine was given to people who were fully immunized but then tested positive for Covid.

While new cases flattened on May 7 and 8 (with 317 new cases reported and 314 cases), the Ministry of Health said, “The transmission rate remains high and is worrying.”

The situation has certainly alarmed experts, especially since 60% of the total population of Seychelles has been fully vaccinated. In addition, 86% of the Seychelles target population for vaccination – 70,000 people – have been fully vaccinated to date, according to data from the ministry.

What the WHO thinks

On Monday, WHO director for Immunization, Vaccines and Biologics, Dr. Kate O’Brien, in a briefing, that the WHO is in direct communication with the Ministry of Health of the Seychelles and that the situation is “a more complicated situation than the top situation”. Line messages. “

“As mentioned earlier, the vaccines are very effective against severe cases and deaths. Most of the cases are mild cases. What is also important is that a significant proportion, over 80% of the population, has been vaccinated. But as we know … occur some of the reported cases occur either shortly after a single dose or shortly after a second dose, or between the first and second dose. “

She said that in this particular situation a very detailed assessment is required, “what the situation is like, first, what pressures are circulating in the country, second, if the cases occur in relation to the time someone has been dosed, third, how.” hard they are of the cases. “

‘Only through this type of assessment can we judge whether or not it is vaccination failure or whether it is more about the nature of the cases occurring, the milder end of the cases, and then the timing of the cases relative to the timing of the doses given to individuals. This assessment is ongoing and we are supporting and working with the country to understand the situation. “

CNBC has asked WHO for an updated comment on the situation in Seychelles but has yet to receive a response.

Effectiveness of the vaccine

The WHO has repeatedly warned that vaccination alone would not be enough to stop the pandemic, but would rather be another weapon in the arsenal to fight the virus.

Restrictions on social contact as well as good personal hygiene are still seen as a basis for preventing the spread. Last week, the Seychelles placed restrictions on some social gatherings and public spaces to curb the spread.

The situation of the islanders is a reminder that no coronavirus vaccine currently in use has been proven to be 100% effective in preventing Covid-19 infection. Still, all vaccines currently approved for use by the WHO have been shown to be very, if not extremely, effective in preventing serious Covid infections, with cases, hospitalizations and deaths falling sharply in countries with advanced vaccination programs like the UK

With a third wave of cases and new virus variants that could lead to further deaths and economic devastation, time is of the essence to get life-saving vaccines approved and distributed worldwide. The more available, the better.

On Friday, the WHO approved the state-owned Chinese pharmaceutical company SinoPharm for emergency use. This could accelerate the use of the shot in the WHO COVAX program, which aims to give poorer countries access to vaccines.

WHO said the addition of the SinoPharm vaccine had “the potential to rapidly accelerate access to Covid-19 vaccines for countries that want to protect health workers and vulnerable populations.”

It noted that the WHO Strategic Advisory Group on Immunization Experts had completed a review of the vaccine and recommended it on a two-dose regimen, three to four weeks apart, for adults aged 18 and over based on all available evidence.

“The effectiveness of the vaccine in symptomatic and hospital illnesses was estimated to be 79%, all ages combined,” it said. However, it was found that “few older adults (over 60 years of age) have participated in clinical trials, so efficacy in this age group could not be estimated”.

In March, AstraZeneca released an updated clinical trial date showing the vaccine is 76% effective against symptomatic Covid-19 infections. Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were found to be 95% effective.

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World News

Chinese language rocket anticipated to plunge again to Earth

Chinese rocket expected to plunge back to Earth

WENCHANG, CHINA – APRIL 29, 2021: A long Y2 rocket dated March 5, 2017, carrying the Tianhe module for the Chinese space station, will be launched from the Wenchang spacecraft launch site in Wenchang on Thursday, April 29, 2021 south China’s Hainan Province.

Barcroft Media | Barcroft Media | Getty Images

The wreckage of a Chinese rocket is expected to land back on earth this weekend. Experts are trying to figure out exactly when and where the remains will touch down.

The Long March 5B was launched on April 29th at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in China. Their mission was to put a module with living quarters into orbit for a future Chinese space station.

But after completing this task, the rocket’s body is now orbiting the earth and will soon re-enter the lower atmosphere. The uncontrolled nature of its reentry has made experts concerned about the potential impact it could have upon landing. The large piece of space debris is 98 feet long and 16.5 feet wide and weighs 21 tons.

Federally funded research firm The Aerospace Corporation posted a tweet late Friday saying that the forecast for landing on Sunday morning was eight hours on either side of 4:19 GMT. It identified an area near New Zealand’s North Island as a possible re-entry point, but said it could happen anywhere in much of the planet.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a press conference on Friday that it was “common” around the world for the upper stages of rockets to burn as they reenter the atmosphere.

“China is closely following the re-entry of the upper stage into the atmosphere. To the best of my knowledge, the upper stage of this missile has been deactivated, which means that most of its parts will burn on re-entry and the likelihood of damage to aviation or ground facilities and activities extremely low” he said, according to a translation on the ministry’s website.

On Thursday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters that the United States had no plans to shoot it down, hoping it would land in a place where it would not harm anyone.

“I think this speaks to the fact that for those of us in space there is a requirement – there should be a requirement – to work in a safe and – and thoughtful mode and make sure we do These kinds of things are taken into account when planning and performing operations, “he said.

Indeed, it is common for rockets and space debris to fall back to Earth. Last year, an 18-ton Chinese rocket passed Los Angeles and New York’s Central Park before falling into the Atlantic.

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World News

New World Map Tries to Repair Distorted Views of Earth

New World Map Tries to Fix Distorted Views of Earth

Most of the world maps you have seen in your life have passed their prime. The Mercator was designed by a Flemish cartographer in 1569. The Winkel Tripel, National Geographic’s preferred map style, dates back to 1921. And the Dymaxion map, hyped by architect Buckminster Fuller, appeared in a 1943 issue of Life.

Enter a new map of the world that vies for global supremacy. As with sports, the card game can get stale at times when top competitors stick to the same old strategy, said J. Richard Gott, a Princeton astrophysicist who previously mapped the entire universe. But then comes an innovator: think of Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors splashing 3-pointers out of areas of the court that the rest of basketball didn’t think were worth guarding.

“We have kind of reached the limit of what you can do,” said Dr. God. “If you wanted a major breakthrough, you had to use a new idea.”

Dr. God’s version of Steph Curry’s wait-you-could-shoot-from-there-3? Use the back of the page as well. Make the world map a double-sided circle, like a vinyl record. You can put the northern hemisphere on top and the southern hemisphere on the bottom, or vice versa. Or to put it another way: You could empty the 3D earth in two dimensions. And if you do, you can blow the accuracy of previous maps out of the water.

Of course, no flat map of our round world can be perfect. First you need to peel off the skin of the earth, and then nail it down. This mathematical taxidermy leads to distortions. For example, if you have a Mercator projection on the walls of your classroom, you might think Greenland is as big as Africa (not even close) or Alaska is bigger than Mexico (also no). This distorted worldview could even subconsciously lead you to underestimate most of the developing world.

Shapes also change in map projections. Distances vary. Straight curve. Some projections, such as Mercator, aim to solve one of these problems, which exacerbates other errors. Other cards compromise, like the Winkel Tripel, because it tries to strike a balance between three types of distortion.

From 2006, Dr. God and David Goldberg, a cosmologist at Drexel University in Philadelphia, developed a scoring system that can summarize these different types of errors. The Winkel Tripel beat out other main competitors. One major source of the distortion remained, however: a mathematical cut that often runs from pole to pole in the Pacific. The resulting shape can never again be stretched and retracted into the unbroken surface of a sphere. “This is what makes the world violent,” said Dr. God.

His new type of double-sided card featuring Dr. Goldberg and Robert Vanderbei, a mathematician at Princeton, completely skips topological violence. The card simply continues over the edge. You could stretch a string across the side; An ant could go there. In a study draft, the team reports in a draft study that the card’s Goldberg-God distortion value blows all other cards currently in use out of the water without any reduction.

Cartographers who regularly study world maps – perhaps fewer than 10 people – now have time to react. “It never crossed my mind that it could be done this way,” said Krisztián Kerkovits, a Hungarian cartographer who works on developing his own projections.

While the new card works great against distortion, Dr. Kerkovits also introduced a new weakness. In contrast to Winkel Tripel and Mercator, you can only see half of the planet at a time. This undermines the basic requirement to hide the whole world for inspection on a single page or screen.

For Dr. God is no different from the 3D globe itself. But Dr. Kerkovits is not entirely sure: after all, you can always easily rotate a globe to see the neighbors of any point. But in the double-sided card, you may have to flip the whole thing over.

Ultimately, the success of a card depends on what applications it is used for and how its popularity grows over time. Dr. God, whose article also features double-sided projections of Jupiter and other worlds, envisions the new map style as a physical object that you can flip over in your hands.

You could cut one out of a magazine or keep a whole stack of them in a thin case that shows different planets or different layers of data. And he hopes that you may be tempted to use the appendix to his paper to try to print out and make your own.

“Tape it back to back with double-sided tape – I think that’s better than Elmer’s Glue, but you can use glue,” said Dr. God. Then cut it out. “Maybe use card stock,” he added.