While Covid ravaged across the world, air pollution killed about three times as many people. We must fight the climate crisis with the same urgency with which we confronted coronavirus.
An 8.7 Million Death Pandemic Versus A 2.8 Million One
It is undeniably horrific that more than 2.8 million people have died of Covid-19 in the past 15 months. However, in roughly the same period, more than three times as many likely died of air pollution. This should disturb us for two reasons. According to a recent study, one is the sheer number of air pollution deaths – 8.7 million a year – and another is how invisible those deaths are, how accepted, how unquestioned. The coronavirus was a terrifying and novel threat, which made its dangers something much of the world rallied to try to limit. It was unacceptable – though, by shades and degrees, many places came to accept it by letting the poor and marginalized take the brunt of sickness and death and displacement and let medical workers get crushed by the workload.
Read more: There's another pandemic under our noses, and it kills 8.7m people a year. Rebecca Solnit
9 Million People Die Every Year Of Hunger
A child dies from hunger every 10 seconds. Poor nutrition and hunger are responsible for the death of 3.1 million children a year. That’s nearly half of all deaths in children under the age of 5. The children die because their bodies lack basic nutrients.
Globally, 822 million people suffer from undernourishment. Hunger statistics show progress. But it’s fading. The number of people affected by hunger has decreased by 189 million people since 1990. But in recent years, the positive development has stopped. Since 2015, we have seen an increase in hungry people globally every year.
Read more: The World Counts
The Coronavirus Worldwide News Updates 17-04-2021
Coronavirus, COVID-19: 3.012.206death, 140.531.290 infected, and 119.347.8938 recovered worldwide.
Jump quickly to 4 Online Tools by clicking on:
4 Online Coronavirus Tools Provide Up-to-Date Tracking
Below 2 special links that supply you with additional information about coping with the coronavirus, COVID-19
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New Strain Of COVID-19, 70% More Transmissible
Already 4000 variants have been observed since the outbreak in 2019. A few have been significant, but now a new variant has been discovered, which is more than 70% more transmissible. The most important invariants are new developments in the spikes protein.

The red-colored lines show the impact of the new COVID-19 variant.
This is the part that allows the virus to infiltrate cells in the lungs, nose, and throat. It interacts with the ACE-2 receptor. The mutation on the spike protein makes it easier to interact with ACE-2.
In the UK, The Netherlands, Denmark, and Australia emerged the new strain.
Vaccination Shame: No Jabs For The Poor
This article is originally from The Guardian. By Sarah Boseley Health editor. Wed 9 Dec 2020 05.00 GMTLast modified on Wed 9 Dec 2020 05.54 GMT
Nine out of 10 in developing nations miss out on inoculation as the west buys up Covid vaccines. Billions unlikely to get jabs as rich countries secure 53% of the most promising vaccines

The center instructed municipal corporations of ten cities-Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru, Indore, Patna, Lucknow, and Nagpur-to implement a comprehensive scheme to provide free meals to the needy.
Nine out of 10 people in 70 low-income countries are unlikely to be vaccinated against Covid-19 next year because the west has bought up most of the most promising vaccines coming on stream, campaigners have said.
As the first people get vaccinated in the UK, the People’s Vaccine Alliance is warning that the deals done by rich countries’ governments will leave the poor at the mercy of the rampaging virus. Rich countries with 14% of the world’s population have secured 53% of the most promising vaccines.
Canada has bought more doses per head of population than any other – enough to vaccinate each Canadian five times, said the alliance, including Amnesty International, Frontline AIDS, Global Justice Now, and Oxfam.
Vaccination Shame: No One Should Be Blocked
“No one should be blocked from getting a life-saving vaccine because of the country they live in or the amount of money in their pocket,” said Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s health policy manager. “But unless something changes dramatically, billions of people around the world will not receive a safe and effective vaccine for Covid-19 for years to come.”

Supplies of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, approved in the UK last week, will almost all go to rich countries – 96% of doses have been bought by the west. The Moderna vaccine uses similar technology, claimed to have 95% efficacy, and is going exclusively to rich countries. Both vaccines' prices are high, and access for low-income countries will be complicated by the ultra-low temperatures at which they need to be stored.
By contrast, the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine, which has 70% efficacy, is stable at average fridge temperatures, and the price has been set deliberately low for global access. The manufacturers have said 64% of doses will go to people in the developing world. The campaigners applaud this commitment but said one company alone could not supply the whole world. At most, Oxford/AstraZeneca can reach 18% of the world’s population next year.
The alliance has used data from science information and analytics company Airfinity to analyze the global deals with the eight leading vaccine candidates. They found that 67 low and lower-middle-income countries risk being left behind as rich countries move towards their escape route from the pandemic. Five of the 67 – Kenya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Ukraine – have reported nearly 1.5 million cases between them.
The Guardian. By Sarah Boseley Health editor. Wed 9 Dec 2020 05.00 GMTLast modified on Wed 9 Dec 2020 05.54 GMT
Coronavirus, COVID-19, the Flu
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a monumental imbalance to our accepted way of life, removed the illusion of host dominance, and thrown a glaring spotlight on some of the tiniest members of society —viruses. As time dutifully marches on, many are all-too-cognizant of the risks associated with a circulating, pandemic respiratory virus, for which there currently remains no adequate treatment or cure, clashing with a flu season that is imminent and unavoidable. To predict how these 2 heavy-hitting viruses might interact with one another, let’s take a look at what we know about each virus and the diseases they inflict.
Virology: Comparison Of Influenza Virus And SARS-CoV-2 Virus Properties.
SARS-CoV-2 is the official name for COVID-19.
Source: American Society for Microbiology
We know that coinfection with multiple respiratory viruses is possible. More specifically, coinfection has been reported for COVID-19and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), rhinovirus, other Coronaviridae, and the flu. A recent study in the Journal of Medical Virology showed that coinfection of COVID-19 and influenza virus was common during the initial COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China. Patients who experienced coinfection had a higher risk of poor health outcomes.
Is the new Covid vaccine our way back to normality?
Click on Coronavirus, COVID-19, And Influenza to read the whole article.
From the 31st of August 2020, WhatsOrb will only publish headlines from news worldwide. WhatsOrb stops by posting the amount of death and infected people by country. We have concluded that posting these numbers gives an incomplete picture of the situation without knowing the underlying health condition of the people who get infected or pass away from the coronavirus.
4 Online Tools Provide Up-to-Date Tracking of The New Coronavirus Spread
WHO and Centres for Disease Control data to track outbreaks and recoveries, while others are aimed only at a Chinese audience and focused on controlling the infection by helping people track who they might have contacted.
Using these tools, along with preventative measures like handwashing and avoiding contact with sick people, could slow the coronavirus spread. The outbreak originated in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and is now in at least 26 countries. Experts are now calling it a 'mild pandemic' and theorizing that it could become a permanent virus that humans face, akin to the seasonal flu.
Here are five tools to follow the coronavirus:
- Johns Hopkins CSSE map

This online dashboard from Johns Hopkins uses CDC and WHO data to track the outbreak in real-time. Click here for Johns Hopkins CSSE map.
- Health Map
This map also tracks outbreaks of the virus, but it uses AI to scrape posts on news sites and social media to create a heat map of the virus, which can be useful to health officials.

Click here for the Health Map, which tracks outbreaks of the coronavirus worldwide.
- Coronavirus app
This app from two French ex-pats in Taiwan has a useful breakdown of infections, deaths, and region recoveries.

Click here for the Coronavirus Map.
4. Chinese flight and train checker
A Chinese cybersecurity firm created a tool available in China that lets people input flight or train numbers to see if they have traveled with anyone infected with the coronavirus.
Click here for the Chinese flight and train tracker.
Recommended previous updates from this article back to the 24th of January 2020:
Coronavirus History Updates 2020 Globally
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Cover photo Andy Wong. A woman uses a scarf, and others wear masks to cover their faces from pollutants as they walk along a street on a polluted day in Beijing. Schools closed, and rush-hour roads were much quieter than normal as Beijing's first-ever red alert for smog took effect, closing many factories and invoking restrictions to keep half the city's vehicles off the roads.
Before you go!
Recommended: Travel The World: Keeping The Environment Healthy
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