Day: January 3, 2023

Huambo – More than 5,000 plants of narcotic (Cannabis) cultivated in an area of approximately three hectares in Huambo province were destroyed on Monday, police have announced.

The destruction of the cannabis farm in the village of Epalanga, commune of Calima, followed a tipoff, as the product had been planted among the corn crop to deceive the authorities, the chief superintendent António Manuel Katuta told the press,

The product was supposed to be sold in various parts of Huambo province and in the municipality of Chinguar (Bié).

Local peasants have been encouraged to promote the agriculture rather than the production of narcotics.

Police in province of Huambo destroyed in November 2022, 210 kilograms of cannabis and 5,335 plants of the same product.

At least 179 people were arrested in connection with the practice.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

A top health official in China has said that the fatalities from the latest surge in COVID-19 cases are “increasing” but within the normal range for mortality.

In an interview with state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), Jiao Yahui, a National Health Commission official, said, “We have a huge base, so what people feel is that the severe cases, the critical cases or the fatalities are increasing.

“Relative to the rest of the world, the infection peaks we are faced with across the country are not unusual,” she added.

The contrast between statements by Chinese officials assessing the COVID situation and social media footage of crowded hospital hallways and long lines at clinics prompted leading scientists advising the World Health Organization to call Tuesday for a “more realistic picture” about what China is experiencing after the pivot from “zero-COVID.”

Normal mortality is the number of deaths authorities expect for a specific period based on long-term population data. Excess mortality reveals the difference between the number of deaths caused during the current wave of COVID and the number of fatalities expected had the pandemic not occurred. The excess mortality number has been used worldwide during the pandemic to provide a better sense of how many people have died of COVID.

Tong Zhaohui, vice president of Chaoyang Hospital in Beijing, agreed that while the actual number of deaths is growing, the fatalities remain a small percentage of China’s population.

“Think how many people around you have been infected but how many have developed critical cases or pneumonia? I think everyone has the idea,” he told CCTV.

China began relaxing its stringent zero-COVID policy in early December. Since then, Tong has supervised treatment for critically ill COVID patients at two major hospitals in Beijing.

Tong said, “I roughly counted, both severe and critical cases (of COVID) at the two designated hospitals accounted for 3% to 4% of infected patients.” He added that the actual number can’t be determined because PCR testing is no longer mandatory.

Beijing reported three new COVID deaths for Monday, taking the official death toll to 5,253 since the pandemic began in January 2020. China’s population was over 1.4 billion people in 2021.

CCTV’s coverage acknowledged that the number of fever outpatients in some hospitals increased tenfold, and one doctor saw up to 150 patients in one night. A fever patient cannot be assumed to be a COVID patient.

Photos and videos of hospitals full of sick people waiting to be treated are circulating on social media from facilities across the country. Reuters visited a Shanghai hospital and reported finding crowded hallways and emergency rooms. China’s censors are moving quickly to keep photos and videos from circulating inside the country, but many are leaping the country’s Great Firewall for the internet and posting photos and videos that were said to be from hospitals in China’s central and southern Hunan province as well as other cities.

Although VOA Mandarin was unable to independently verify the videos circulating on Twitter that are said to show hospitals in Hunan, a staffer who answered the phone at Changsha No. 1 People’s Hospital in Changsha, the province’s capital, said the hospital has no vacant beds left and new patients are being asked to go to other hospitals. According to Baike, China’s version of Wikipedia, the hospital has a total capacity of 1,593 beds. The staffer said that while many doctors have tested positive, they are still working.

Social media videos from various cities show long lines waiting to be admitted outside crematoriums.

In an interview with Da Jiangdong Studio, an affiliate of the state-run newspaper People’s Daily, Chen Erzhen, vice president of Shanghai’s Ruijin Hospital and a member of the city’s COVID expert advisory panel, estimated that 70% of population of 25 million people in Shanghai may have been infected. The interview was conducted December 31 and published Tuesday.

“Now the spread of the epidemic in Shanghai is very wide, and it may have reached 70% of the population, which is 20 to 30 times more than (in April and May),” he told Da Jiangdong Studio. Shanghai endured a two-month long lockdown in April and May, during which over 600,000 residents were infected and already weakened global supply chains were further strained.

China could see as many as 25,000 deaths a day from COVID later in January, according to a Bloomberg report.

That daily total is “roughly equivalent to China’s normal daily death toll from all other causes,” according to The British Medical Journal referencing research published December 20 from Airfinity, a London-based research firm that focuses on predictive health analytics.

Mortalities from the contagious respiratory illness will probably peak around January 23, the second day of the annual new year holiday, according Airfinity.

China said it had submitted genome sequence data from recently sampled COVID-19 cases to GISAID, an international database hosted by Germany, ahead of a meeting with WHO officials on Tuesday.

Before the meeting, Reuters reported that two unnamed scientists affiliated with WHO had asked Beijing for a “more realistic picture” of COVID in China.

Some experts doubted that Beijing would be forthright in its statistical offerings.

Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at National University of Singapore, told Reuters, “I don’t think China will be very sincere in disclosing information.”

“They would rather just keep it to themselves, or they would say nothing happened, nothing is new,” said Wu. “My own sense is that we could assume that there is nothing new … but the problem is China’s transparency issue is always there.”

Source: Voice of America

The Consumer Electronics Show, the biggest technology trade show in the world, is once again open for business.

After two challenging years coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, which was particularly difficult for the conference and trade show industry, CES is expected to welcome about 100,000 attendees this week in Las Vegas.

That’s down about 40% from CES 2020 but still a significant jump in the numbers who attended in 2022. Over the past two years, CES managed to put on its show, which was all digital in 2021 and a hybrid digital and in-person in 2022 amid the Omicron surge.

This year, the Consumer Technology Association, the trade organization that puts on the annual event, says about one-third of the attendees are coming from outside the U.S.

“On the exhibitor side, a significant number come from outside of the U.S., making CES a truly global event,” said John Kelley, vice president and acting show director for CES, who spoke with VOA via Skype.

In fact, of the estimated 3,200 exhibitors who are expected to show off their wares, more than 1,400, or 43%, are coming from outside the U.S.

In the African pavilion, a dozen companies from the Democratic Republic of the Congo will be showcasing their homegrown innovations. The Ukraine pavilion will include technology firms from the Eastern European nation under siege by Russian forces.

Organizers also expect hundreds of Chinese firms to exhibit, despite recent COVID-related requirements for people traveling from China to the U.S.

“The Chinese presence at CES has always been quite pronounced and we’re starting to see it come back this year, which is quite exciting,” Kelley said.

Digital health, transportation technology and the metaverse are just a few of the latest technological innovations being showcased in Las Vegas.

Addressing global concerns

This year’s theme is technology helping to address the world’s greatest challenges, said Kelley.

“We’ve partnered with a U.N.-affiliated group, the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, to showcase how technology is supporting what we call human securities, or human rights,” he said, which includes food, political and environmental security, and mobility.

Show organizers expect increased focus on the metaverse — a shared digital reality connecting users — and on Web3, also known as Web 3.0, which proponents describe as the third generation of the World Wide Web.

CES has partnered with CoinDesk, a news site specializing in bitcoin and digital currencies, to build a studio on the show floor to showcase these types of Web3 applications, including blockchain and crypto.

Cool cars and trash-collecting sharks

From the internet highway to the interstate, automobiles have always had a major presence at the show, with more than 300 auto industry exhibitors showing off their latest products.

Organizers say there is also growth in marine technology, with boat manufacturers moving toward sustainable forms of energy.

The battery-operated WasteShark by the Dutch firm RanMarine Technology is an autonomous surface vessel designed to remove algae, biomass, and floating pollution such as plastics from lakes, ponds, and other coastal waterways.

“There’s a lot of people doing really great stuff out in the ocean and cleaning that up,” said company CEO Richard Hardiman, who spoke with VOA via Skype.

“Our mandate for our company is to clean it before it goes into the ocean,” he said. “So we’re trying to, sort of, what we call, ‘capture that waste at source,’ before it pollutes the ocean.”

Digital health

Another area that’s grown significantly at CES is digital health, CTA’s Kelley said. Dozens of exhibitors will be showcasing the latest health technologies, including new applications and diagnostic tools.

“What this does is give consumers access to their information, access to their data, and allows them to make decisions based on the data that they receive,” he said.

Canadian-based eSight Eyewear plans to display a headset designed to help people with visual impairments such as age-related macular degeneration, also known as AMD.

“When a person with AMD looks at your face, they wouldn’t see any distinct features; it would just be flesh tones,” explained Roland Mattern, eSight Eyewear’s director of marketing, who spoke with VOA via Skype.

Once the user puts on the device, they will be able to see distinct features such eyebrows, mouth and eyes, Mattern said.

“Users can literally see your entire face,” he said. “Your reaction. And that is an important feature because so much of communication is being able to see the other person’s reaction.”

It’s just one example of the many technologies on display this year at CES 2023, where companies from all corners of the world will come together to share their latest innovations.

Source: Voice of America