H5N1

Next pandemic may come from melting glaciers, new data shows

Via The Guardian: Next pandemic may come from melting glaciers, new data shows. Excerpt:

The next pandemic may come not from bats or birds but from matter in melting ice, according to new data.  

Genetic analysis of soil and lake sediments from Lake Hazen, the largest high Arctic freshwater lake in the world, suggests the risk of viral spillover – where a virus infects a new host for the first time – may be higher close to melting glaciers.  

The findings imply that as global temperatures rise owing to climate change, it becomes more likely that viruses and bacteria locked up in glaciers and permafrost could reawaken and infect local wildlife, particularly as their range also shifts closer to the poles.  

For instance, in 2016 an outbreak of anthrax in northern Siberia that killed a child and infected at least seven other people was attributed to a heatwave that melted permafrost and exposed an infected reindeer carcass. Before this, the last outbreak in the region had been in 1941.  

To better understand the risk posed by frozen viruses, Stéphane Aris-Brosou and her colleagues at the University of Ottawa in Canada collected soil and sediment samples from Lake Hazen, close to where small, medium and large amounts of meltwater from local glaciers flowed in.  

Next, they sequenced RNA and DNA in these samples to identify signatures closely matching those of known viruses, as well as potential animal, plant or fungal hosts, and ran an algorithm that assessed the chance of these viruses infecting unrelated groups of organisms.  

The research, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggested that the risk of viruses spilling over to new hosts was higher at locations close to where large amounts of glacial meltwater flowed in – a situation that becomes more likely as the climate warms.  

The team did not quantify how many of the viruses they identified were previously unknown – something they plan to do in the coming months – nor did they assess whether these viruses were capable of triggering an infection.  

However, other recent research has suggested that unknown viruses can, and do, loiter in glacier ice. For instance, last year, researchers at Ohio State University in the US announced they had found genetic material from 33 viruses – 28 of them novel – in ice samples taken from the Tibetan plateau in China. Based on their location, the viruses were estimated to be approximately 15,000 years old.  

In 2014, scientists at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research in Aix-Marseille managed to revive a giant virus they isolated from Siberian permafrost, making it infectious again for the first time in 30,000 years. The study’s author, Jean-Michel Claverie, told the BBC at the time that exposing such ice layers could be “a recipe for disaster”. 

Even so, Aris-Brosou’s team cautioned that predicting a high risk of spillover was not the same as predicting actual spillovers or pandemics. “As long as viruses and their ‘bridge vectors’ are not simultaneously present in the environment, the likelihood of dramatic events probably remains low,” they wrote.  

On the other hand, climate change is predicted to alter the range of existing species, potentially bringing new hosts into contact with ancient viruses or bacteria.  

“The only take-home that we can confidently put forward is that as temperatures are rising, the risk of spillover in this particular environment is increasing,” said Aris-Brosou. “Will this lead to pandemics? We absolutely don’t know.”

Over half of known human pathogenic diseases can be aggravated by climate change

Via Nature Climate Change: Over half of known human pathogenic diseases can be aggravated by climate change. The abstract:

It is relatively well accepted that climate change can affect human pathogenic diseases; however, the full extent of this risk remains poorly quantified. Here we carried out a systematic search for empirical examples about the impacts of ten climatic hazards sensitive to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on each known human pathogenic disease. 

We found that 58% (that is, 218 out of 375) of infectious diseases confronted by humanity worldwide have been at some point aggravated by climatic hazards; 16% were at times diminished. Empirical cases revealed 1,006 unique pathways in which climatic hazards, via different transmission types, led to pathogenic diseases. 

The human pathogenic diseases and transmission pathways aggravated by climatic hazards are too numerous for comprehensive societal adaptations, highlighting the urgent need to work at the source of the problem: reducing GHG emissions.

Climate change increases cross-species viral transmission risk

Via Nature, an important new study: Climate change increases cross-species viral transmission risk. The abstract:

At least 10,000 virus species have the capacity to infect humans, but at present, the vast majority are circulating silently in wild mammals. However, climate and land use change will produce novel opportunities for viral sharing among previously geographically-isolated species of wildlife. In some cases, this will facilitate zoonotic spillover—a mechanistic link between global environmental change and disease emergence.  

 

Here, we simulate potential hotspots of future viral sharing, using a phylogeographic model of the mammal-virus network, and projections of geographic range shifts for 3,139 mammal species under climate change and land use scenarios for the year 2070.  

 

We predict that species will aggregate in new combinations at high elevations, in biodiversity hotspots, and in areas of high human population density in Asia and Africa, driving the novel cross-species transmission of their viruses an estimated 4,000 times.  

 

Because of their unique dispersal capacity, bats account for the majority of novel viral sharing, and are likely to share viruses along evolutionary pathways that will facilitate future emergence in humans. Surprisingly, we find that this ecological transition may already be underway, and holding warming under 2°C within the century will not reduce future viral sharing.  

 

Our findings highlight an urgent need to pair viral surveillance and discovery efforts with biodiversity surveys tracking species’ range shifts, especially in tropical regions that harbor the most zoonoses and are experiencing rapid warming.

Six unlearned lessons of the pandemic

The Tyee has published my article Six Unlearned Lessons of the Pandemic. Excerpt:

6. We’ll never go back to the ‘before times’  

The neoliberal world order established since the 1980s has been brutally shaken since New Year’s Eve 2019, exposing political failures ranging from worsening climate change to the migration crisis and systemic racism. Yet governments behave as if the pandemic scarcely exists. They play familiar Cold War games: Russia threatens Ukraine, China bullies its critics, the U.S. pretends it’s the leader of something called the “free world.”  

It’s understandable to yearn for a world without a pandemic. But the “before times” got us into this mess. If we did go back to before-times economies and social relations, we would soon face still more pandemics and social conflicts. Omicron’s Here.

As the pandemic continues, with occasional guest appearances by climate disasters like last summer’s heat dome and November’s floods, many of the world’s leading nations (and leaders) are hollowed-out remnants of what they once were. Internally divided, they pretend it’s business as usual. But they seem terrified of their own people and unable to define and carry out a consistent pandemic policy.  

So, having learned nothing from the pandemic, they continue as they began — unless and until we elect new governments that really have learned from the past two years.

Covid recovery poses dire climate, health risks: Lancet

Via The Times of India, an AFP report: Covid recovery poses dire climate, health risks: Lancet. Excerpt:

PARIS: Countries' fossil-fuel powered Covid-19 recoveries will have long-lasting consequences on human health and risk worsening the food and water insecurity, heatwaves and infectious diseases already threatening billions globally, a major assessment warned Thursday.  

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."  

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."

Call for emergency action to limit global temperature increases, restore biodiversity, and protect health

Via The Lancet, but also published in 200 other health journals around the world: Call for emergency action to limit global temperature increases, restore biodiversity, and protect health.

The UN General Assembly in September, 2021, will bring countries together at a critical time for marshalling collective action to tackle the global environmental crisis. They will meet again at the biodiversity summit in Kunming, China, and the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, UK. Ahead of these pivotal meetings, we—the editors of health journals worldwide—call for urgent action to keep average global temperature increases below 1·5°C, halt the destruction of nature, and protect health.  

Health is already being harmed by global temperature increases and the destruction of the natural world, a state of affairs health professionals have been bringing attention to for decades.1 The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1·5°C above the pre-industrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse. Despite the world's necessary preoccupation with COVID-19, we cannot wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions.  

Reflecting the severity of the moment, this Comment appears in health journals across the world. We are united in recognising that only fundamental and equitable changes to societies will reverse our current trajectory.  

The risks to health of increases above 1·5°C are now well established. Indeed, no temperature rise is “safe”. In the past 20 years, heat-related mortality among people older than 65 years has increased by more than 50%. Higher temperatures have brought increased dehydration and renal function loss, dermatological malignancies, tropical infections, adverse mental health outcomes, pregnancy complications, allergies, and cardiovascular and pulmonary morbidity and mortality. Harms disproportionately affect the most vulnerable, including children, older populations, ethnic minorities, poorer communities, and those with underlying health problems.  

Global heating is also contributing to the decline in global yield potential for major crops, falling by 1·8–5·6% since 1981; this, together with the effects of extreme weather and soil depletion, is hampering efforts to reduce undernutrition. Thriving ecosystems are essential to human health, and the widespread destruction of nature, including habitats and species, is eroding water and food security and increasing the chance of pandemics.  

The consequences of the environmental crisis fall disproportionately on those countries and communities that have contributed least to the problem and are least able to mitigate the harms. Yet no country, no matter how wealthy, can shield itself from these impacts. Allowing the consequences to fall disproportionately on the most vulnerable will breed more conflict, food insecurity, forced displacement, and zoonotic disease—with severe implications for all countries and communities. As with the COVID-19 pandemic, we are globally as strong as our weakest member.  

Rises above 1·5°C increase the chance of reaching tipping points in natural systems that could lock the world into an acutely unstable state. This would critically impair our ability to mitigate harms and to prevent catastrophic, runaway environmental change.  

Encouragingly, many governments, financial institutions, and businesses are setting targets to reach net-zero emissions, including targets for 2030. The cost of renewable energy is dropping rapidly. Many countries are aiming to protect at least 30% of the world's land and oceans by 2030.  

These promises are not enough. Targets are easy to set and hard to achieve. They are yet to be matched with credible short-term and longer-term plans to accelerate cleaner technologies and transform societies. Emissions reduction plans do not adequately incorporate health considerations. Concern is growing that temperature rises above 1·5°C are beginning to be seen as inevitable, or even acceptable, to powerful members of the global community. Relatedly, current strategies for reducing emissions to net zero by the middle of the 21st century implausibly assume that the world will acquire great capabilities to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

This insufficient action means that temperature increases are likely to be well in excess of 2°C, a catastrophic outcome for health and environmental stability. Crucially, the destruction of nature does not have parity of esteem with the climate element of the crisis, and every single global target to restore biodiversity loss by 2020 was missed. This is an overall environmental crisis.

Health professionals are united with environmental scientists, businesses, and many others in rejecting that this outcome is inevitable. More can and must be done now—in Glasgow and Kunming—and in the immediate years that follow. We join health professionals worldwide who have already supported calls for rapid action.

Equity must be at the centre of the global response. Contributing a fair share to the global effort means that reduction commitments must account for the cumulative, historical contribution each country has made to emissions, as well as its current emissions and capacity to respond. Wealthier countries will have to cut emissions more quickly, making reductions by 2030 beyond those currently proposed and reaching net-zero emissions before 2050. Similar targets and emergency action are needed for biodiversity loss and the wider destruction of the natural world.

To achieve these targets, governments must make fundamental changes to how our societies and economies are organised and how we live. The current strategy of encouraging markets to swap dirty for cleaner technologies is not enough. Governments must intervene to support the redesign of transport systems, cities, production and distribution of food, markets for financial investments, health systems, and much more. Global coordination is needed to ensure that the rush for cleaner technologies does not come at the cost of more environmental destruction and human exploitation.

Many governments met the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic with unprecedented funding. The environmental crisis demands a similar emergency response. Huge investment will be needed, beyond what is being considered or delivered anywhere in the world. But such investments will produce huge positive health and economic outcomes. These include high quality jobs, reduced air pollution, increased physical activity, and improved housing and diet. Better air quality alone would realise health benefits that easily offset the global costs of emissions reductions.

These measures will also improve the social and economic determinants of health, the poor state of which may have made populations more vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the changes cannot be achieved through a return to damaging austerity policies or the continuation of the large inequalities of wealth and power within and between countries.

In particular, countries that have disproportionately created the environmental crisis must do more to support low-income and middle-income countries to build cleaner, healthier, and more resilient societies. High-income countries must meet and go beyond their outstanding commitment to provide US$100 billion a year, making up for any shortfall in 2020 and increasing contributions to and beyond 2025. Funding must be equally split between mitigation and adaptation, including improving the resilience of health systems.

Financing should be through grants rather than loans, building local capabilities and truly empowering communities, and should come alongside forgiving large debts, which constrain the agency of so many low-income countries. Additional funding must be marshalled to compensate for inevitable loss and damage caused by the consequences of the environmental crisis.

As health professionals, we must do all we can to aid the transition to a sustainable, fairer, resilient, and healthier world. Alongside acting to reduce the harm from the environmental crisis, we should proactively contribute to global prevention of further damage and action on the root causes of the crisis. We must hold global leaders to account and continue to educate others about the health risks of the crisis. We must join in the work to achieve environmentally sustainable health systems before 2040, recognising that this will mean changing clinical practice. Health institutions have already divested more than $42 billion of assets from fossil fuels; others should join them.

The greatest threat to global public health is the continued failure of world leaders to keep the global temperature rise below 1·5°C and to restore nature. Urgent, society-wide changes must be made and will lead to a fairer and healthier world. We, as editors of health journals, call for governments and other leaders to act, marking 2021 as the year that the world finally changes course.

Storm surge from Ida could overtop some West Bank levees; officials say they will hold

Via nola.com: Storm surge from Ida could overtop some West Bank levees; officials say they will hold. Excerpt:

Hurricane Ida could bring up to 15 feet of storm surge to parts of the west bank of Jefferson Parish, threatening to push water over the tops of the levees that shield those areas. 

If that National Hurricane Center forecast proves true, it would be the first time the levees have been overtopped since the post-Hurricane Katrina upgrades to the system that surrounds much of the metro area. 

But officials said while some localized flooding is possible and urged residents to take precautions, they also stressed that the new barriers are designed for exactly this scenario and are expected to be able to withstand the onslaught. 

Sixteen years ago on Sunday, Katrina swept ashore carrying a deadly storm surge that toppled parts of the New Orleans-area levee system. But the $14.5 billion collection of levees, floodwalls, pumps and gates that has replaced it and now rings parts of New Orleans, Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes represents a radical improvement over the area's previous protections. 

While critics and some government officials have called for higher and more substantial barriers than have been built in recent years, officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, levee authorities and local governments  said that the levee system is capable of handling the expected surge that the New Orleans area will see from Ida. 

“This is a very differently protected city than it was 16 years ago” said Ramsey Green, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s deputy chief administrative officer for infrastructure. 

Built into the new system is the idea that the levees would reduce the risk of a storm surge – not provide an impossible-to-guarantee level of unlimited protection – and that even when overmatched with high water, the system's levees would still be left standing. 

“People need to know if they’re in an area that could get this surge, they need to be prepared, they need to understand that this is exactly what this system was designed to do,” said Ricky Boyett, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans. 

The levees' height is aimed at blocking overtopping from water levels that have a 1 percent chance of occurring in any year, a so-called 100-year event. Worst-case surge created by a Category 4 hurricane striking the area around New Orleans would be greater than such an event.

Madagascar families 'eating mud' in worst drought

Via BBC News: Madagascar families 'eating mud' in worst drought.

The World Food Programme is warning that the worst drought in southern Madagascar for four decades is causing hunger and famine-like conditions. 

Its director, David Beasley, who has just visited the region, said that without immediate assistance more than half a million people would soon be "knocking on famine's door", with another 800,000 marching towards it. 

He said he was shocked by what he had seen in southern Madagascar – children who were just skin and bones, families eating mud and the fruit of cacti because there was nothing else. 

He called it a silent tragedy in a forgotten location. 

The crisis was being driven by climate change, with drought after drought forcing families to leave their homes, through no fault of their own, Mr Beasley said. 

He said wealthy nations had a moral obligation to help.

North China bathed in orange as vast sandstorm descends

A sandstorm smothers Beijing Monday morning. Photo: VCG

Via Caixin Global: Update: North China Bathed in Orange as Vast Sandstorm Descends. Excerpt:

People across northern China awoke to fierce winds and orange-tinted skies Monday as some of the most severe and widespread dust storms for years disrupted transport and sent air pollution soaring. 

Weather officials in a string of cities including the capital, Beijing, warned of reduced visibility through Tuesday morning as air quality monitors surged to their maximum possible readings. 

The haze was caused by cold air and high winds in China’s arid west and other areas kicking up dust and blowing it across the country, the National Meteorological Center (NMC) said. 

Dust storms are uncommon but not unheard of in Beijing, especially in the spring. Monday’s storm followed several days of heavy air pollution in the city of 21 million people. 

The NMC issued (link in Chinese) 24-hour dust storm warnings effective 8 a.m. Monday for Beijing as well as parts of Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi and Hebei provinces and the Inner Mongolia and Ningxia Hui autonomous regions. 

The agency urged people in the affected areas to close doors and windows, wear masks and veils to stop the dust from damaging eyes and lungs, avoid nonessential driving, secure unstable or temporary construction and cover precision machinery. 

Beijing’s environmental monitoring center said the dust originated in southern Mongolia, which borders China. The Mongolian government said six people had died and a further 81 were missing as of 9 a.m. Monday. There have been no reports of deaths or injuries caused by the sandstorm in China. 

Elevated dust levels were first detected in northern Beijing on Sunday morning, the monitoring center said. Schools and workplaces remained open as usual Monday. Daxing International Airport took safety precautions for reduced visibility, disrupting a number of flights, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. 

By 9 a.m. Monday, air quality readings had far exceeded levels deemed safe for human health. 

Average concentrations of airborne PM10, fine particles that can be inhaled into the lungs, neared 10,000 micrograms per cubic meter, 200 times the one-day maximum average recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Readings of PM2.5, ultrafine particles that can enter the bloodstream, were around 30 times WHO guidelines. 

Videos uploaded to Chinese social media Monday morning showed Beijing landmarks swaddled in rust-hued smog. Drivers switched on headlights and slowed vehicles to a crawl as visibility plummeted. 

The picture was similar in other cities. More than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) west of Beijing, residents of Ningxia’s capital of Yinchuan uploaded videos of the haze-choked city and claimed they could see no more than 500 meters in any direction. 

Some internet users poked fun at the weather, joking that the storms provided a readymade sepia-colored filter for their social media photos and comparing the skies with eerie scenes from the “Blade Runner” sci-fi movie franchise. 

Peng Yingdeng, a researcher at a national center for studying urban pollution control, said Monday that loose, dry soils in Inner Mongolia and Ningxia, combined with above-average air temperatures, caused winds to kick up dust and disperse it widely. 

Although dust storms are natural phenomena, human activity like open-pit mining and deforestation can contribute to their frequency and severity, he said. 

Schools and workplaces in Beijing remained open as usual. Peng said dust storms were a less serious health threat than extreme smog events as larger airborne particles interfered less with breathing and blood circulation. 

However, international organizations including the WHO say both PM 10 and PM 2.5 are linked to increased mortality and heightened risk of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.

Tropical Cyclone Yasa approaches Fiji

Google Maps

Via ReliefWeb: Tropical Cyclone Yasa - Dec 2020.

The newly formed Tropical Cyclone YASA is moving in the South Pacific Ocean, between Vanuatu and Fiji Islands...On 14-16 December, YASA is forecast to strengthen, as it moves clockwise between Vanuatu and Fiji islands. Then it is expected to move south-east, reaching Viti Levu island (Fiji) on 18 December, with maximum sustained wind between 170-200 km/h. A strong wind warning has been issued for Rotuma island (northern Fiji), and for the central and southern coastal Vanuatu. A flash flood warning is in effect for northern Vanua Levu (Fiji). (ECHO, 14 Dec 2020) 

Tropical cyclone YASA is strengthening as it continues clockwise in the South Pacific Ocean, between Vanuatu and Fiji Islands....YASA is forecast to move south-east, passing between Viti Levu and Vanua Levu Islands (Fiji) on 17 December, with maximum sustained wind up to 215 km/h. After that, it will cross the Eastern Division islands on 18 December. (ECHO, 15 Dec 2020) 

Tropical cyclone YASA is forecast to move south-east, approaching Vanua Levu Island on the morning of 17 December, with maximum sustained wind up to 220-230 km/h. After that, it will move southward, crossing the Eastern Division Islands on 17-18 December and passing 415 km east of Tongatapu Island (Tonga) on 19 December. According to media reports, the authorities set-up 1,037 evacuation centres across Central, Northern and Western Divisions. (ECHO, 16 Dec 2020)  

TC Yasa will make landfall on 17 Dec around 8pm Fiji time on Vanua Levu island (population 135,961) and pass over many other smaller islands in the Fiji island group as a Cat 5 storm. According to analysis by the Pacific Disaster Center (PDC), approximately 73,000 people are potentially exposed to widespread wind damage. Severe impact for outlying areas on Eastern coast of Vanua Levu in particular Bua Province, is expected. There is a 4pm curfew in place for the whole country and all public transport is stopped. (OCHA, 17 Dec 2020)