Cache of 29 Million AstraZeneca Doses in Italy Raises E.U. Suspicions – The New York Times

analysts believe that some of AstraZeneca’s manufacturing difficulties are also a reflection of the company’s ambitious global distribution plans. It had intended to make as many as three billion doses this year, in part by contracting its manufacturing to plants all over the world. Other vaccine makers, by contrast, are relying on only a few facilities.

That global network of factories, analysts said, had the potential to create complications in the company’s supply chain, though it is also part of what has made the vaccine so critical to the global vaccination effort.

Disease outbreaks more likely in deforestation areas, study finds | Deforestation | The Guardian (Me: Deja vu…  disease and deforestation and industrialized forests linked)

Land use change is a significant factor in the emergence of zoonotic viruses such as Covid-19 and vector-borne ailments such as malaria, says the paper, published on Wednesday in Frontiers in Veterinary Science. Even tree-planting can increase health risks to local human populations if it focuses too narrowly on a small number of species, as is often the case in commercial forests, the research found. The authors said this was because diseases are filtered and blocked by a range of predators and habitats in a healthy, biodiverse forest. When this is replaced by a palm oil plantation, soy fields or blocks of eucalyptus, the specialist species die off, leaving generalists such as rats and mosquitoes to thrive and spread pathogens across human and non-human habitats. The net result is a loss of natural disease regulation. “I was surprised by how clear the pattern was,” said one of the authors, Serge Morand, of the French National Centre for Scientific Research. “We must give more consideration to the role of the forest in human health, animal health and environmental health. The message from this study is ‘don’t forget the forest’.” The researchers examined the correlation between

Source: Disease outbreaks more likely in deforestation areas, study finds | Deforestation | The Guardian

{Me: Yellow fever scourge while building Panama Canal (1903-1914) was caused by massive deforestation but link then was not recognized – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_measures_during_the_construction_of_the_Panama_Canal}

Delhi reportedly halts AstraZeneca Covid vaccine exports as cases soar | India | The Guardian (Me: As politicians bungle Covid control, cases spike and vaccine production-distribution politicized and distorted)

Delhi has reportedly put a temporary hold on all major exports of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India (SII) to meet demand at home as infections surge.

The move, first reported by Reuters, will affect supplies to the GAVI/WHO-backed Covax vaccine-sharing facility through which more than 180 countries are expected to get doses, one of the sources said.

The UK has also received only half of the 10m doses it ordered from the SII, leading to warnings that Britain’s vaccination programme might have to slow even as it is facing threats of tighter export controls from the EU for doses produced there.

The reported decision is the latest twist in the increasingly tangled and sometimes murky story of the Serum Institute of India’s involvement in the manufacture of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Confusing the issue has been a lack of transparency over issues with the Serum Institute’s priorities for supply, as well as issues with production, which have emerged in leaks, anonymous briefings and sometimes contradictory statements.

Underlining the issue, there appeared to have been no vaccine export from India since last Thursday, according to the foreign ministry’s website, as the country expands its own immunisation effort.

“Everything else has taken a backseat, for the time being at least,” one of the sources told Reuters.

Both sources had direct knowledge of the matter, but declined to be named as the discussions are not public.

“No exports, nothing till the time the India situation stabilises. The government won’t take such a big chance at the moment when so many need to be vaccinated in India.”

Source: Delhi reportedly halts AstraZeneca Covid vaccine exports as cases soar | India | The Guardian

Spaniards line up for AstraZeneca amid concerns over vaccine – The Washington Post

Desperate to finally put the coronavirus pandemic behind them, thousands of Spaniards lined up to get shots of AstraZeneca on Wednesday as the European country became the latest to restart the vaccine whose credibility has suffered a series of setbacks recently. Like neighboring countries that had halted use of the vaccine while examining possible adverse effects, Spain’s health officials are now trying to restore confidence in the shot, one of three currently available in the European Union. That is particularly critical at a time when many countries on the continent are struggling to ramp up slow vaccinations while they see infections spike again.

Source: Spaniards line up for AstraZeneca amid concerns over vaccine – The Washington Post

The Arizona Nomadic Community That Runs on Solar-Powered Car Batteries

A one-man operation called High Desert Off Grid is repurposing old lithium batteries from electric cars by hooking them up to solar panels and turning them into emissions-free generators. The concept solves two problems — it gives Quartzsite’s boondockers a green energy source, and it offers a second life to cast-off batteries that are too depleted to run a car but still have enough juice to power some lights, a hot plate and a laptop computer. A custom-built software program manages the loads on the batteries, tracking energy output and helping the user choose when to run appliances to optimize efficiency.  Source: The Arizona Nomadic Community That Runs on Solar-Powered Car Batteries

The Crossing

Weekend Stories by Trishikh

A sudden burst of wind revealed the silhouette of a man lying huddled and hidden under the silver desert sand. Visible by the light of a million dotted stars and the enchanting midnight moon magnified in the backdrop of the nomadic night sky painted in hues of lilac, turquoise and electric blue. A night in the desert can be mesmerisingly beautiful while being cold, deathly, and merciless too.

It was somewhere deep in the bowels of the two hundred thousand square kilometres of the ‘Great Indian Desert,’ covering the states of Gujrat, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan in India, continuing to become the Cholistan Desert in the Punjab province of the Republic of Pakistan.

Abrupt gusts of wind made the loose desert sands dance on his grey trenchcoat, the man’s only covering from the elements. The weathered brown leather boots that peeped from the bottom of his coat indicated that he…

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