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Traffic, pedestrians and joggers reappeared on the streets of Shanghai on Wednesday as China’s largest city began returning to normalcy after a strict two-month COVID-19 lockdown that drew unusual protests over its heavy-handed implementation. Shanghai’s Communist Party committee, the city’s most powerful political body, issued a letter online proclaiming the lockdown’s success and thanking citizens for their “support and contributions.” That came amid a steady rollback in compulsory measures that have upended daily life for millions while severely disrupting the economy and global supply chains. Government officials in recent days appeared ready to accelerate the gradual easing of restrictions. While defending President and Communist Party chief Xi Jinping’s hardline “zero-COVID policy,” the country’s leadership appears to be acknowledging the public backlash against measures seen as trampling already severely limited rights to privacy and participation in the workings of government. In one such step, the Cabinet’s Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism issued a circular Tuesday laying out rules banning “non-standard, simple and rude indoor disinfection” by mostly untrained teams in Shanghai and elsewhere that have left homes damaged and led to reports of property theft. Also read: China’s ‘zero-COVID’ restrictions curb May 1 holiday travel Full bus and subway service in Shanghai was being restored from Wednesday, with rail connections with the rest of China to follow. Still, more than half a million people in the city of 25 million remain under lockdown or in designated control zones because virus cases are still being detected. The government says all restrictions will be gradually lifted, but local neighborhood committees still wield considerable power to implement sometimes conflicting and arbitrary policies. Negative PCR tests for COVID-19 taken within the previous 48 hours also remain standard in Shanghai, Beijing and elsewhere for permission to enter public venues. That measure didn’t deter people in Shanghai from gathering outside to eat and drink under the watch of police deployed to discourage large crowds from forming. Cao Yue, who works in the hard-hit travel industry, said she was glad to see “many happy people around me on the street.” Cao said the past two months under lockdown was a depressing experience. “At the beginning of the lockdown I felt hard in my heart because I didn’t know what to do and it was difficult to buy food at the beginning,” she said. “It was quite depressing to be locked at home and see the whole Shanghai under lockdown.” Lu Kexin, a high school senior visiting the famed riverside Bund district for the first time since late March, said she went crazy being trapped at home for so long. “I’m very happy, extremely happy, all the way, too happy,” she said. Schools will partially reopen on a voluntary basis, and shopping malls, supermarkets, convenience stores and drug stores will reopen gradually at no more than 75% of their total capacity. Cinemas and gyms will remain closed. Health authorities on Wednesday reported just 15 new cases of COVID-19 in Shanghai, down from a record high of around 20,000 daily cases in April. A few malls and markets have reopened, and some residents have been given passes allowing them out for a few hours at a time. The lockdown has prompted an exodus of Chinese and foreign residents, with crowds forming outside the city’s Hongqiao Railway Station, where only some train service had been resumed. Even while the rest of the world has opened up, China has stuck to “zero-COVID,” which requires lockdowns, mass testing and isolation at centralized facilities of anyone who is infected or has been in contact with someone who has tested positive. The country’s borders also remain largely closed and the government has upped requirements for the issuance of passports and permission to travel abroad.

The World Health Organization’s top monkeypox expert said she doesn’t expect the hundreds of cases reported to date to turn into another pandemic, but acknowledged there are still many unknowns about the disease, including how exactly it’s spreading and whether the suspension of mass smallpox immunization decades ago may somehow be speeding its transmission. In a public session on Monday, WHO’s Dr. Rosamund Lewis said it was critical to emphasize that the vast majority of cases being seen in dozens of countries globally are in gay, bisexual or men who have sex with men, so that scientists can further study the issue and for populations at risk to take precautions. “It’s very important to describe this because it appears to be an increase in a mode of transmission that may have been under-recognized in the past,” said Lewis, WHO’s technical lead on monkeypox. Still, she warned that anyone is at potential risk of the disease, regardless of their sexual orientation. Other experts have pointed out that it may be accidental that the disease was first picked up in gay and bisexual men, saying it could quickly spill over into other groups if it is not curbed. To date, WHO said 23 countries that haven’t previously had monkeypox have reported more than 250 cases. Lewis said it’s unknown whether monkeypox is being transmitted by sex or just the close contact between people engaging in sexual activity and described the threat to the general population as “low.” Also Read: WHO: COVID-19 cases mostly drop, except for the Americas “It is not yet known whether this virus is exploiting a new mode of transmission, but what is clear is that it continues to exploit its well-known mode of transmission, which is close, physical contact,” Lewis said. Monkeypox is known to spread when there is close physical contact with an infected person or their clothing or bedsheets. She also warned that among the current cases, there is a higher proportion of people with fewer lesions that are more concentrated in the genital region and sometimes nearly impossible to see. “You may have these lesions for two to four weeks (and) they may not be visible to others, but you may still be infectious,” she said. Last week, a top adviser to WHO said the outbreak in Europe, U.S., Israel, Australia and beyond was likely linked to sex at two recent raves in Spain and Belgium. That marks a significant departure from the disease’s typical pattern of spread in central and western Africa, where people are mainly infected by animals like wild rodents and primates, and epidemics haven’t spilled across borders. Most monkeypox patients experience only fever, body aches, chills and fatigue. People with more serious illness may develop a rash and lesions on the face and hands that can spread to other parts of the body. No deaths have been reported in the current outbreak. WHO’s Lewis also said that while previous cases of monkeypox in central and western Africa have been relatively contained, it was not clear if people could spread monkeypox without symptoms or if the disease might be airborne, like measles or COVID-19. Monkeypox is related to smallpox, but has milder symptoms. After smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980, countries suspended their mass immunization programs, a move that some experts believe may be helping monkeypox spread, since there is now little widespread immunity to related diseases; smallpox vaccines are also protective against monkeypox. Lewis said it would be “unfortunate” if monkeypox were able to “exploit the immunity gap” left by smallpox 40 years ago, saying that there was still a window of opportunity to close down the outbreak so that monkeypox would not become entrenched in new regions.

A small airplane with 22 people on board flying on a popular tourist route was missing in Nepal’s mountains on Sunday, an official said. The Tara Airlines plane, which was on a 15-minute scheduled flight to the mountain town of Jomsom, took off from the resort town of Pokhara, 200 kilometers (125 miles) east of Kathmandu. It lost contact with the airport tower shortly after takeoff. Police official Ramesh Thapa said there was no information on the Twin Otter aircraft and a search was underway. There were six foreigners on board the plane, including four Indians and two Germans, a police official not authorized to speak to the media said. Also read:5 dead after small plane crashes into soda truck in Haiti It has been raining in the area for the past few days but flights have been operating normally. Planes on that route fly between mountains before landing in a valley. It is a popular route with foreign hikers who trek on the mountain trails and also with Indian and Nepalese pilgrims who visit the revered Muktinath temple. Also read: Search finds 49,000 pieces of plane in China Eastern crash  

Students trapped inside a classroom with a gunman repeatedly called 911 during this week’s attack on a Texas elementary school, including one who pleaded, “Please send the police now,” as officers waited more than an hour to breach the classroom after following the gunman into the building, authorities said Friday. The commander at the scene in Uvalde — the school district’s police chief — believed that 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos was barricaded inside adjoining classrooms at Robb Elementary School and that children were no longer at risk, Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said at a contentious news conference. “It was the wrong decision,” he said. Friday’s briefing came after authorities spent three days providing often conflicting and incomplete information about the more than an hour that elapsed between the time Ramos entered the school and when U.S. Border Patrol agents unlocked the classroom door and killed him. Three police officers followed Ramos into the building within two minutes. In the next half hour, as many as 19 officers piled into the hallway outside. But another 47 minutes passed before the Border Patrol tactical team breached the door, McCraw said. As the gunman fired at students, law enforcement officers from other agencies urged the school police chief to let them move in because children were in danger, two law enforcement officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to speak publicly about the investigation. One of the officials said audio recordings from the scene capture officers from other agencies telling the school police chief that the shooter was still active and that the priority was to stop him. Ramos killed 19 children and two teachers inside the room. His motive remained unclear, authorities said. There was a barrage of gunfire shortly after Ramos entered the classroom where officers eventually killed him, but those shots were “sporadic” for much of the time that officers waited in the hallway, McCraw said. He said investigators do not know if children died during that time. Throughout the attack, teachers and children repeatedly called 911 asking for help, including the girl who pleaded for the police, McCraw said. Young survivors of the attack said they pretended to be dead while waiting for help. Miah Cerrillo, 11, told CNN that she covered herself with a friend’s blood to look dead. After the shooter moved into an adjacent room, she could hear screams, more gunfire and music being blared by the gunman. Samuel Salinas, 10, who also played dead, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the assailant shot teacher Irma Garcia before firing on the kids. Questions have mounted over the amount of time it took officers to enter the school to confront the gunman. It was 11:28 a.m. Tuesday when Ramos’ Ford pickup slammed into a ditch behind the low-slung Texas school and the driver jumped out carrying an AR-15-style rifle. Five minutes after that, authorities said, Ramos entered the school and found his way to the fourth grade classroom where he killed the 21 victims. But it was not until around 12:50 p.m. that police killed Ramos, McCraw said, when shots could be heard over a 911 call from a person inside the classroom as officers breached the room. What happened during that time frame, in a working-class neighborhood near the edge of Uvalde, has fueled mounting public anger and scrutiny over law enforcement’s response to Tuesday’s rampage. “They say they rushed in,” said Javier Cazares, whose fourth grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack, and who raced to the school as the massacre unfolded. “We didn’t see that.” According to the new timeline provided by McCraw, after crashing his truck, Ramos fired on two people coming out of a nearby funeral home, officials said. Contrary to earlier statements by officials, a school district police officer was not at the school when Ramos arrived. When that officer did respond, he unknowingly drove past Ramos, who was crouched behind a car parked outside and firing at the building, McCraw said. At 11:33 a.m., Ramos entered the school through a rear door that had been propped open and fired more than 100 rounds into a pair of classrooms, McCraw said. He did not address why the door was propped open. Two minutes later, three local police officers arrived and entered the building through the same door, followed soon after by four others, McCraw said. Within 15 minutes, officers from different agencies had assembled in the hallway, taking sporadic fire from Ramos, who was holed up in a classroom. Ramos was still inside at 12:10 p.m. when the first U.S. Marshals Service deputies arrived. They had raced to the school from nearly 70 miles (113 kilometers) away in the border town of Del Rio, the agency said in a tweet Friday. But the commander inside the building — the school district’s police chief, Pete Arredondo — decided the group should wait to confront the gunman, on the belief that the scene was no longer an active attack, McCraw said. The crisis came to an end at 12:50 p.m., after officers used keys from a janitor to open the classroom door, entered the room and fatally shot Ramos, he said. Arredondo could not be reached for comment Friday. No one answered the door at his home, and he did not reply to a phone message left at the district’s police headquarters. Gov. Greg Abbott, who at a Wednesday news conference lauded the police response, said Friday that he was “misled,” and he’s “livid.” Also Read: Texas elementary school shooting: What do we know so far? In his earlier statements, the governor told reporters, he was repeating what he had been told. “The information that I was given turned out, in part, to be inaccurate,” he said. Abbott said exactly what happened needs to be “thoroughly, exhaustively” investigated. The governor previously praised law enforcement for their “amazing courage by running toward gunfire” and their “quick response.” On Friday, Abbott had been set to attend the annual convention of the National Rifle Association, which is being held across the state in Houston. Instead he addressed the gun-rights group’s convention by recorded video and went to Uvalde. Also Read: 'Horrifying' conspiracy theories swirl around Texas shooting At the convention, speaker after speaker took the stage to say that changing U.S. gun laws or further restricting access to firearms isn’t the answer. “What stops armed bad guys is armed good guys,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told those gathered in Houston. Former President Donald Trump was among Republican leaders speaking at the event, where hundreds of protesters angry about gun violence demonstrated outside, including some who held crosses with photos of the Uvalde victims. The motive for the massacre — the nation’s deadliest school shooting since Newtown, Connecticut, almost a decade ago — remained under investigation. Authorities have said Ramos had no known criminal or mental health history. During the siege, frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the school, according to witnesses. “Go in there! Go in there!” women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who watched the scene from outside a house across the street. Cazares said that when he arrived, he saw two officers outside the school and about five others escorting students out of the building. But 15 or 20 minutes passed before the arrival of officers with shields, equipped to confront the gunman, he said. As more parents flocked to the school, he and others pressed police to act, Cazares said. He heard about four gunshots before he and the others were ordered back to a parking lot. “A lot of us were arguing with the police, ‘You all need to go in there. You all need to do your jobs.’ Their response was, ‘We can’t do our jobs because you guys are interfering,’” Cazares said. The many chilling details of the attack were enough to leave parents struggling with dread. Visiting a downtown memorial to those killed, Kassandra Johnson of the nearby community of Hondo said she was so worried the day after the attack that she kept her twin boys home from school. Before she sent the 8-year-olds back, she studied the school building, figuring out which windows she would need to break to reach them. And she drew hearts on their hands with marker, so she could identify them if the worst happened, Johnson said, as she put flowers near 21 white crosses honoring the victims. “Those kids could be my kids,” she said.

Texas authorities said Friday that the gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers inside an elementary school discussed his interest in buying a gun in private online conversations, but backed away from earlier descriptions that he made public threats less than an hour before the attack. Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday, a day after the shooting, that “the only information that was known in advance was posted by the gunman on Facebook approximately 30 minutes before reaching the school.” Abbott’s claim prompted questions about whether technology companies could have provided advance warning. But on Friday, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety said the gunman made the threatening comments in a private message.  “I want to correct something that was said early on in the investigation, that he posted on Facebook publicly that he was going to kill, that he was going to shoot his grandmother and secondly after that that he was going to, that he had shot her and that third he was going to go shoot up a school,” Steven McCraw said. “That did not happen.” Facebook had already noted on Wednesday that the threats were in direct text messages, not a public post. Also read: Gunman kills at least 18 children at Texas elementary school McCraw did not say to whom 18-year-old Salvador Ramos sent the messages. McCraw also told reporters Friday that Ramos asked his sister to help him buy a gun in September 2021, but that she “flatly refused.” He did not say how authorities learned of that request. McCraw shared information from four more of Ramos’ social media private messages. In a Feb. 28 four-person chat, McCraw said that “Ramos being a school shooter” was discussed. In a March 1 four-person chat, he said Ramos discussed buying a gun. In a March 3 four-person chat, another person said “word on the street is that you’re buying a gun.” McCraw said Ramos replied, “Just bought something.” On March 14, McCraw said Ramos shared the words “10 more days” in a social media post. Another user asked “Are you going to shoot up a school or something?” McCraw said. He said Ramos replied, “No and stop asking dumb questions and you’ll see.” McCraw did not identify any of the other people included in those chat groups. The department did not immediately respond to a request Friday for more detail, including screenshots of the communications mentioned during the news conference. Authorities have said Ramos legally purchased two guns not long before the school attack: an AR-style rifle on May 17 and a second rifle on May 20. He had turned 18 just days earlier, permitting him to buy a rifle under federal law. Also read: 3 teens killed, 1 injured in gas station shooting in U.S. Texas Friday’s briefing came after authorities spent three days providing often conflicting and incomplete information about the law enforcement response in Uvalde.  

One by one, they took the stage at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Houston and denounced the massacre of 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school across the state. And one by one, they insisted that further restricting access to firearms was not the answer to preventing future tragedies. “The existence of evil in our world is not a reason to disarm law-abiding citizens,” said former President Donald Trump, who was among the Republicans who lined up to speak before the gun rights lobbying group Friday as thousands of protesters angry about gun violence demonstrated outside. “The existence of evil is one of the very best reasons to arm law-abiding citizens,” he said. The gathering came just three days after the shooting in Uvalde and as the nation grappled with revelations that students trapped inside a classroom with the gunman repeatedly called 911 during the attack — one pleading “Please send the police now” — as officers waited in the hallway for more than 45 minutes. The NRA had said that convention attendees would “reflect on” the shooting at the event and “pray for the victims, recognize our patriotic members and pledge to redouble our commitment to making our schools secure.” The meeting was the first for the troubled organization since 2019, following a two-year hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization has been trying to regroup following a period of serious legal and financial turmoil that included a failed bankruptcy effort, a class-action lawsuit and a fraud investigation by New York’s attorney general. Once among the most powerful political organizations in the country, the NRA has seen its influence wane following a significant drop in political spending.  Also Read: Texas elementary school shooting: What do we know so far? Wayne LaPierre, the group’s embattled chief executive, opened the program with remarks bemoaning the “21 beautiful lives ruthlessly and indiscriminately extinguished by a criminal monster.” Still, he said that “restricting the fundamental human rights of law-abiding Americans to defend themselves is not the answer. It never has been.” Later, several hundred people in the auditorium stood and bowed their heads in a moment of silence for the victims of the shooting. Several thousand people were inside the auditorium during the speeches, which appeared fewer than the number gathered outside. Many seats were empty. Trump accused Democrats of trying to exploit the tragedy and demonizing gun owners. “When Joe Biden blamed the gun lobby he was talking about Americans like you,” Trump said, referring to the president’s emotional plea in a national address asking, “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” Also Read: 'Horrifying' conspiracy theories swirl around Texas shooting Trump called for overhauling school security and the nation’s approach to mental health, telling the group every school building should have a single point of entry, strong exterior fencing, metal detectors and hardened classroom doors and every school should have a police officer or armed guard on duty at all times. He also called yet again for trained teachers to be able to carry concealed weapons in the classroom. He and other speakers overlooked the security upgrades that were already in place at the elementary school and did not stop the gunman, who entered the building through a back door that had been propped open. According to a district safety plan, Uvalde schools have a wide range of safety measures in place. The district had four police officers and four support counselors, according to the plan, which appears to be dated from the 2019-20 school year. It also had software to monitor social media for threats and software to screen school visitors. Security experts say the Uvalde case illustrates how fortifying schools can backfire. A lock on the classroom door, for instance — one of the most basic and widely recommended school safety measures — kept victims in and police out. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who, like Trump, is considered a potential presidential candidate in 2024, railed against Democrats’ calls for universal background checks for gun purchases and bans of assault-style weapons and instead pointed to broken families, declining church attendance, social media bullying and video games as the real problems. “Tragedies like the event of this week are a mirror forcing us to ask hard questions, demanding that we see where our culture is failing,” he said. “We must not react to evil and tragedy by abandoning the Constitution or infringing on the rights of our law-abiding citizens.” South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, another potential presidential contender, said calls to further restrict gun access are “all about control and it is garbage. I’m not buying it for a second and you shouldn’t, either.” Some scheduled speakers and performers backed out of the event, including several Texas lawmakers and “American Pie” singer Don McLean, who said “it would be disrespectful” to go ahead with his act after the country’s latest mass shooting. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Friday morning that he had decided not to speak at an event breakfast after “prayerful consideration and discussion with NRA officials.” “While a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and an NRA member, I would not want my appearance today to bring any additional pain or grief to the families and all those suffering in Uvalde,” he wrote in a statement. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who was to attend, addressed the convention by prerecorded video instead. Outside the convention hall, protesters gathered in a park where police set up metal barriers — some holding crosses with photos of the Uvalde shooting victims. “Murderers!” some yelled in Spanish. “Shame on you!” others shouted at attendees. Among the protesters was singer Little Joe, of the popular Tejano band Little Joe y La Familia, who said in the more than 60 years he’s spent touring the world, no other country he’s been to has faced as many mass shootings as the U.S. “Of course, this is the best country in the world,” he said. “But what good does it do us if we can’t protect lives, especially of our children?” Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who is challenging Abbott in the governor’s race, ticked off a list of previous school shootings and called on those attending the convention to “join us to make sure that this no longer happens in this country.” While Biden and Democrats in Congress have renewed calls for stricter gun laws after the Uvalde shooting, NRA board members and others attending the conference dismissed talk of banning or limiting access to firearms. Samuel Thornburg, 43, a maintenance worker for Southwest Airlines in Houston who was attending the NRA meeting, said: “Guns are not evil. It’s the people that are committing the crime that are evil. Our schools need to be more locked. There need to be more guards.” There is precedent for the NRA to gather during local mourning and controversy. The organization went ahead with a shortened version of its 1999 meeting in Denver roughly a week after the deadly shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado. Texas has experienced a series of mass shootings in recent years. During that time, the Republican-led Legislature and governor have relaxed gun laws. Most U.S. adults think that mass shootings would occur less often if guns were harder to get and believe schools and other public places have become less safe than they were two decades ago, polling finds. Many specific measures that would curb access to guns or ammunition also get majority support. A May AP-NORC poll found, for instance, that 51% of U.S. adults favor a nationwide ban on the sale of AR-15 rifles and similar semiautomatic weapons. But the numbers are highly partisan, with 75% percent of Democrats agreeing versus just 27% of Republicans. Though personal firearms are allowed at the convention, guns were not permitted during the session featuring Trump because of Secret Service security protocols.

The coronavirus mutant that is now dominant in the United States is a member of the omicron family but scientists say it spreads faster than its omicron predecessors, is adept at escaping immunity and might possibly cause more serious disease. Why? Because it combines properties of both omicron and delta, the nation's dominant variant in the middle of last year. A genetic trait that harkens back to the pandemic's past, known as a “delta mutation," appears to allow the virus "to escape pre-existing immunity from vaccination and prior infection, especially if you were infected in the omicron wave," said Dr. Wesley Long, a pathologist at Houston Methodist in Texas. That's because the original omicron strain that swept the world didn’t have the mutation. The omicron “subvariant” gaining ground in the U.S. — known as BA.2.12.1 and responsible for 58% of U.S. COVID-19 cases last week — isn't the only one affected by the delta mutation. The genetic change is also present in the omicron relatives that together dominate in South Africa, known as BA.4 and BA.5. Those have exactly the same mutation as delta, while BA.2.12.1 has one that's nearly identical. Also read: WHO: COVID-19 cases mostly drop, except for the Americas This genetic change is bad news for people who caught the original omicron and thought that made them unlikely to get COVID-19 again soon. Although most people don't know for sure which variant caused their illness, the original omicron caused a giant wave of cases late last year and early this year. Long said lab data suggests a prior infection with the original omicron is not very protective against reinfection with the new mutants, though the true risk of being reinfected no matter the variant is unique to every person and situation. In a twist, however, those sickened by delta previously may have some extra armor to ward off the new mutants. A study released before it was reviewed by other scientists, by researchers at Ohio State University, found that COVID patients in intensive care with delta infections induced antibodies that were better at neutralizing the new mutants than patients who caught the original omicron. “The omicron infection antibody does not appear to protect well against the subvariants compared to delta,” said Dr. Shan-Lu Liu, a study author who co-directs the viruses and emerging pathogens program at Ohio State. But Liu said the level of protection a delta infection provides depends partly on how long ago someone was ill. That's because immunity wanes over time. People who got sick with delta shouldn’t think of themselves as invulnerable to the new subvariants, especially if they’re unvaccinated, Long said. “I wouldn’t say anyone is safe." Also read: Covid-19: Bangladesh reports 28 new cases, no death One bright spot? Booster shots can provide strong protection against the new mutants, Liu said. In general, vaccines and prior infection can protect people from the worst outcomes of COVID-19. At this point, scientists say, it's too early to know if the new mutant gaining ground in the U.S. will cause a significant uptick in new cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Scientists are still trying to figure out how virulent these new mutants are. Long said he hasn’t seen anything that answers that question for him, but Liu said emerging data points toward more serious illness. Liu said the subvariants have properties suggesting they spread more efficiently cell-to-cell. The virus "just hides in the cell and spreads through cell-to-cell contact,” Liu said. “That's more scary because the virus does not come out for the antibody to work.” Dr. Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute, said the new mutants certainly don’t appear less virulent than previous versions of omicron, and whether they are more virulent or not "will become clear in the months ahead.” In the meantime, scientists expect the latest powerhouse mutants to spread quickly, since they are more transmissible than their predecessors. Though home testing makes it tough to track all U.S. COVID cases, data from Johns Hopkins University shows that cases are averaging nearly 107,000 a day, up from about 87,000 two weeks ago. And new hospital admissions of patients with COVID-19 have been trending upwards since around mid-April, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “I’m hopeful that we don’t see a similar increase in hospitalizations that we’ve had in prior waves,” Long said. “But with COVID, any time you have lots of people being infected, it’s just a numbers game. Some of those people are going to be severe. Some of those people are going to need hospitalization. Some of them, unfortunately, are going to pass away.”

The world will experience 1.5 medium to large-scale disasters every day through the end of the decade unless countries ramp up action on prevention and risk reduction, according to the UN. Disasters are already hampering global efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). "We can – and we must – put our efforts firmly behind prevention and risk reduction, and build a safe, sustainable, resilient and equitable future for all," UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said in Bali, Indonesia Wednesday while addressing the opening of the Seventh Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction – the first international forum on the issue since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Read: Over 4.18 lakh people affected by flash floods in 5 districts "We must secure better coherence and implementation of the humanitarian development nexus. That means improving risk governance. Because despite our efforts, risk creation is outpacing risk reduction," Amina added. There are no governance frameworks in place to manage risks and mitigate their impact. The UN's 2022 Global Assessment Report, published last month, outlines ways in which governance systems can evolve to better address systemic risks. The report makes it clear that in a world of uncertainty, understanding and reducing risk is fundamental to achieving sustainable development. Amina referred to "new multilateral instruments" in this area, such as the UN's Complex Risk Analytics Fund, which supports "data ecosystems" that can better anticipate, prevent, and respond to complex threats, before they turn into full-blown disasters. "This includes jointly developing risk analysis and investing in coordination and data infrastructure that enables knowledge-sharing and joint anticipatory action. Such investments will help us navigate complex risks earlier, faster, and in a more targeted and efficient manner," she said. Read: Tension mounts as BCL, JCD clash at DU "Also, We urgently need to step up international cooperation for prevention and disaster risk reduction in the most vulnerable countries and the most vulnerable communities, including women and girls, people with disabilities, the poor, marginalised and isolated," Amina added.

Over-consumption in the richest countries is creating unhealthy, dangerous, and toxic conditions for children globally, according to a recent report by the UN Children's Fund (Unicef). "Not only are the majority of rich countries failing to provide healthy environments for children within their borders, but they are also contributing to the destruction of children's environments in other parts of the world," said Gunilla Olsson, director of the Unicef Office of Research – Innocenti. The latest Innocenti Report Card 17: Places and Spaces, published Tuesday, compares how 39 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and European Union (EU) impact children's environments. Indicators include exposure to harmful pollutants, such as toxic air, pesticides, damp and lead; access to light, green spaces and safe roads; and countries' contributions to the climate crisis, resource consumption, and e-waste dumping. Read: WHO: COVID-19 cases mostly drop, except for the Americas The report states that if the entire world consumed resources at the rate of the OECD and the EU countries, the equivalent of 3.3 earths would be needed to keep up with consumption levels. If it were at the rate at which people in Canada, Luxembourg and the US do, at least five earths would be needed. While Spain, Ireland and Portugal feature at the overall top of the list, all the OECD and the EU countries are failing to provide healthy environments for all children across all indicators. Based on CO2 emissions, e-waste and overall resource consumption per capita, Australia, Belgium, Canada and the US are among other wealthy countries that rank low on creating a healthy environment for children within and beyond their borders. Meanwhile, Finland, Iceland and Norway are among those that provide healthier environments for their country's children but disproportionately contribute to destroying the global environment. "In some cases, we are seeing countries providing relatively healthy environments for children at home while being among the top contributors to pollutants that are destroying children's environments abroad," said Gunilla. In contrast, the least wealthy OECD and EU countries in Latin America and Europe have a much lower impact on the wider world. Read: Davos climate focus: Can ‘going green’ mean oil and gas? Over 20 million children in this group have elevated levels of lead – one of the most dangerous environmental toxic substances – in their blood. Many children are breathing toxic air both in and outside of their homes. More than one in 12 children in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Israel and Poland are exposed to high pesticide pollution, which has been linked with cancer – including childhood leukaemia – and can harm vital body systems. "Mounting waste, harmful pollutants and exhausted natural resources are taking a toll on our children’s physical and mental health and threatening our planet’s sustainability," said Gunilla.

The number of new coronavirus cases and deaths are still falling globally after peaking in January, the World Health Organization said. In its latest weekly assessment of the pandemic, the U.N. health agency said there were more than 3.7 million new infections and 9,000 deaths in the last week, drops of 3% and 11% respectively. COVID-19 cases rose in only two regions of the world: the Americas and the Western Pacific. Deaths increased by 30% in the Middle East, but were stable or decreased everywhere else. WHO said it is tracking all omicron subvariants as “variants of concern.” It noted that countries which had a significant wave of disease caused by the omicron subvariant BA.2 appeared to be less affected by other subvariants like BA.4 and BA.5, which were responsible for the latest surge of disease in South Africa. Read: Global Covid cases near 530 million Salim Abdool Karim, an infectious diseases expert at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said it appeared that South Africa had passed its most recent wave of COVID-19 caused by the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants; the country has been on the forefront of the pandemic since first detecting the omicron variant last November. Karim predicted that another mutated version of omicron might emerge in June, explaining that the large number of mutations in the variant meant there were more opportunities for it to evolve. Read: Davos climate focus: Can ‘going green’ mean oil and gas? Meanwhile in Beijing, authorities in the Chinese capital ordered more workers and students to stay home and implemented additional mass testing Monday as cases of COVID-19 continue to rise. Numerous residential compounds in the city have restricted movement in and out, although lockdown conditions remain far less severe than in Shanghai, where millions of citizens have been under varying degrees of lockdown for two months. China is vowing to stick to a “zero-COVID” policy despite the fact that the WHO describes the policy as “unsustainable,” given the infectious nature of omicron and its subvariants.