AFP

Protection  from two doses of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines wanes within less than six months, according to a study of phone app data Wednesday, suggesting that booster shots may be needed to ensure prolonged coverage.

The latest finding comes as several countries are rolling out additional jabs for the fully vaccinated, a move slammed by the World Health Organization as millions in the world have yet to receive a single dose.

The Pfizer jab was 88 percent effective a month after the second dose, but protection fell to 74 percent after five to six months, according to the latest analysis of data from the Zoe Covid Study.

The study uses real-world data gathered via a mobile phone app with over a million active users, who log details on their vaccinations and test results, which is then analysed by researchers including scientists at King’s College London.

The study drew on more than 1.2 million test results and participants.

Protection from the AstraZeneca vaccine fell from 77 percent one month after a second dose to 67 percent after four to five months.

The lead scientist on the Zoe app, Professor Tim Spector, said that more data was needed on how vaccine effectiveness changes in different age groups. 

UK cases grew sharply after social restrictions lifted in July but hospitalisations have been stable for the last month.

But Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, warned that waning vaccine effectiveness among the most vulnerable could lead to more hospitalisations and deaths by winter.

“In my opinion, a reasonable worst-case scenario could see protection below 50 percent for the elderly and healthcare workers by winter,” he said.

If high levels of infection remain, fuelled by the more transmissible Delta variant and easing of restrictions, “this scenario could mean increased hospitalisations and deaths”, the scientist said.

“We urgently need to make plans for vaccine boosters,” Spector added.

He also said the UK needed to decide whether its current focus on vaccinating children was “sensible if our aim is to reduce deaths and hospital admissions”.

The latest findings come after another study by University of Oxford scientists published last week found that the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine declines faster than that of AstraZeneca.

The UK began vaccinating older or clinically vulnerable people in December last year, so these make up most of the people who have been fully vaccinated for half a year and are now likely to be at increased risk of infection.

A village in the Austrian Alps known for its family-friendly ski resort has been forced to adapt to waning snow due to climate change, turning to a new downhill sport — mountain biking.

Bikers as young as three ride over landscaped jumps and curved forest trails, breathing new life into Sankt Corona am Wechsel, around an hour’s drive from Vienna, and offering a model for other struggling resorts.

“We used to be a 100 percent winter destination. Now, we have to think about climate change, and summers are booming,” said Karl Morgenbesser, who runs the adventure park in Sankt Corona.

As the coronavirus pandemic increases enthusiasm for outdoor activities, many Austrians hope mountain biking and other summer sports can make up for winter losses in the Alpine nation, where skiing accounts for around three percent of the GDP. 

Nearly a month of snow cover has been lost in the Alps at low and medium altitude in half a century, according to a March study published in The Cryosphere scientific journal.

And a recent report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that in the Alps the snow cover will decrease in areas below 1,500 metres (5,000 feet) throughout the 21st century.

– Lift pulls bikers up –

Situated at an altitude of nearly 900 metres, Sankt Corona dismantled its winter infrastructure in 2014 after years of losses as annual visitor numbers fell to 25,000 from 70,000 some 20 years earlier.

A rollercoaster-like summer toboggan and climbing space soon opened, but the 400-resident village’s fortunes truly turned when it devised a network of mountain-biking trails.

While most mountain biking destinations boast steep slopes, Sankt Corona’s undulating trails suit professionals as well as children relying on training wheels, and now draw about 130,000 visitors per season.

“We really like to come here as a family,” said 33-year-old Lisa Goeschl, who used to ski in Sankt Corona as a child and whose husband is an avid mountain biker.

“I think summer is a bigger hit with people (than winter) because there are so many activities on offer.”

This June, a new T-bar lift — which pulls bikers up the slope — opened, as a shuttle bus service taking riders to the top could no longer keep up with demand.

“I wanted the T-bar lift to be as simple as possible,” Simon Hanl, a local mountain biker who conceived the system to pull up the bikers, told AFP.

– ‘Inspirational’ –

Former snowboard instructor Morgenbesser hosts delegations from some of the world’s biggest ski resorts, curious to see how the tiny, low-lying village has adapted so well to a possibly snowless future. 

“It’s extremely inspirational,” said Marlene Krug, in charge of bike development in Saalbach, Austria, which frequently hosts mountain biking world cup races, and has now modelled part of its kids’ area after Sankt Corona’s.

Ski resorts first reacted to the lack of snow by investing to make it artificially. 

But temperatures have become so warm that resorts across the Alps will have to look into other options, says Robert Steiger, a University of Innsbruck expert on the impacts of climate change on tourism.  

“Diversifying into summer is necessary for all of them, and mountain biking is definitely something everyone’s interested in,” Steiger says.

Silos, smokestacks and brown pools of water line the banks of the Mississippi River in Louisiana, where scores of refineries and petrochemical plants have metastasized over a few decades. Welcome to “Cancer Alley.”

Industrial pollution on this ribbon of land between New Orleans and Baton Rouge puts the mostly African-American residents at nearly 50 times the risk of developing cancer than the national average, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

For years activists, who gave the 87-mile (140-kilometer) stretch its sinister nickname, have been fighting to clean up the area. 

Then, last spring, it began making headlines for a different reason: one of its parishes — Louisiana’s equivalent of US counties — was hit with the highest rate of Covid-19 related deaths in the country. 

“It ran through this community. People were terrified here,” says Robert Taylor, 79, a resident of the parish of St John’s the Baptist. 

In April 2020, at the height of the first wave, three residents were dying every day in the community of 43,000. 

“It changed our way of life,” says Angelo Bernard, 64, who works for the Marathon refinery. 

“In Reserve, we all used to get together all the time,” he remembers. “We don’t anymore. I go out as little as possible.” 

Since then nearly one in eight parishioners has been infected.

The Delta variant has made the situation even worse: infections have exploded in the last three weeks.

– ‘We jumped on it’ –

Deaths, however, have slowed in recent months — eight this summer, perhaps thanks to a vaccination rate that is among the highest in Louisiana.

After the trauma of 2020 parishioners rushed to get their shots, and St John’s the Baptist now has 44.3 percent of its residents fully vaccinated, compared to 39.4 percent in the rest of the state.  

“When it first came up that vaccination, you know, would help people, well we jumped on it,” smiles another resident, Robert Moore.

That reaction is perhaps not surprising in a community that has already dealt with so much tragedy. 

Like many of the residents of his neighborhood in the small town of Reserve, Moore devoted his life to the nearby plant formerly owned by US chemical company DuPont.

Set up in 1968 on a former plantation, the plant — some of whose pipes reach into the opaque waters of the Mississippi — was purchased in 2015 by the Japanese company Denka.

It is the only site in the United States that produces neoprene, a material used to make wetsuits, gloves or electrical insulators. 

To produce neoprene the plant emits chloroprene, a chemical classified as a probable carcinogen by the EPA in 2010.

Astronomical amounts of the chemical were detected in Reserve’s air in the early 2010s, prompting the environmental agency to set a recommended limit of 0.2 micrograms of chloroprene per cubic meter.

Across the road from the plant, an air quality monitoring station serves as a grim reminder.

– ‘Vulnerable’ –

When Taylor got wind of the scandal, he was only half-surprised: the former construction worker had long wondered why cancer — which struck his mother, and his sister, and his wife, and his nephews — was so prevalent in his town.

Chloroprene is not the only factor affecting the health of Cancer Alley residents.

In Reserve, where more than 60 percent of the 9,000 residents are Black, the poverty rate is two and a half times the national average.  

It is a population with “lots of comorbidities, lots of social challenges, socio-economic factors that contribute to poor health outcomes,” notes Julio Figueroa, an infectious disease specialist at Louisiana State University. 

“They are going to be a vulnerable population,” he said. 

President Joe Biden acknowledged the challenges facing “Cancer Alley” shortly after his arrival in the White House.

He said he aimed to address “the disproportionate health and environmental and economic impacts on communities of color… especially… the hard-hit areas like Cancer Alley in Louisiana.”

The United Nations has also drawn attention to the area’s plight, releasing a report earlier this year denouncing “environmental racism” in the area.

For resident Angelo Bernard, the spotlight placed on his community in recent months is an opportunity for the country to overcome some of its divisions — whether they be race, or the intensely partisan divide over vaccinations and other Covid measures.

“God is allowing all this to happen for a reason, you know,” he told AFP. 

“We got to find the right way to come together and get people vaccinated.”

Silos, smokestacks and brown pools of water line the banks of the Mississippi River in Louisiana, where scores of refineries and petrochemical plants have metastasized over a few decades. Welcome to “Cancer Alley.”

Industrial pollution on this ribbon of land between New Orleans and Baton Rouge puts the mostly African-American residents at nearly 50 times the risk of developing cancer than the national average, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

For years activists, who gave the 87-mile (140-kilometer) stretch its sinister nickname, have been fighting to clean up the area. 

Then, last spring, it began making headlines for a different reason: one of its parishes — Louisiana’s equivalent of US counties — was hit with the highest rate of Covid-19 related deaths in the country. 

“It ran through this community. People were terrified here,” says Robert Taylor, 79, a resident of the parish of St John’s the Baptist. 

In April 2020, at the height of the first wave, three residents were dying every day in the community of 43,000. 

“It changed our way of life,” says Angelo Bernard, 64, who works for the Marathon refinery. 

“In Reserve, we all used to get together all the time,” he remembers. “We don’t anymore. I go out as little as possible.” 

Since then nearly one in eight parishioners has been infected.

The Delta variant has made the situation even worse: infections have exploded in the last three weeks.

– ‘We jumped on it’ –

Deaths, however, have slowed in recent months — eight this summer, perhaps thanks to a vaccination rate that is among the highest in Louisiana.

After the trauma of 2020 parishioners rushed to get their shots, and St John’s the Baptist now has 44.3 percent of its residents fully vaccinated, compared to 39.4 percent in the rest of the state.  

“When it first came up that vaccination, you know, would help people, well we jumped on it,” smiles another resident, Robert Moore.

That reaction is perhaps not surprising in a community that has already dealt with so much tragedy. 

Like many of the residents of his neighborhood in the small town of Reserve, Moore devoted his life to the nearby plant formerly owned by US chemical company DuPont.

Set up in 1968 on a former plantation, the plant — some of whose pipes reach into the opaque waters of the Mississippi — was purchased in 2015 by the Japanese company Denka.

It is the only site in the United States that produces neoprene, a material used to make wetsuits, gloves or electrical insulators. 

To produce neoprene the plant emits chloroprene, a chemical classified as a probable carcinogen by the EPA in 2010.

Astronomical amounts of the chemical were detected in Reserve’s air in the early 2010s, prompting the environmental agency to set a recommended limit of 0.2 micrograms of chloroprene per cubic meter.

Across the road from the plant, an air quality monitoring station serves as a grim reminder.

– ‘Vulnerable’ –

When Taylor got wind of the scandal, he was only half-surprised: the former construction worker had long wondered why cancer — which struck his mother, and his sister, and his wife, and his nephews — was so prevalent in his town.

Chloroprene is not the only factor affecting the health of Cancer Alley residents.

In Reserve, where more than 60 percent of the 9,000 residents are Black, the poverty rate is two and a half times the national average.  

It is a population with “lots of comorbidities, lots of social challenges, socio-economic factors that contribute to poor health outcomes,” notes Julio Figueroa, an infectious disease specialist at Louisiana State University. 

“They are going to be a vulnerable population,” he said. 

President Joe Biden acknowledged the challenges facing “Cancer Alley” shortly after his arrival in the White House.

He said he aimed to address “the disproportionate health and environmental and economic impacts on communities of color… especially… the hard-hit areas like Cancer Alley in Louisiana.”

The United Nations has also drawn attention to the area’s plight, releasing a report earlier this year denouncing “environmental racism” in the area.

For resident Angelo Bernard, the spotlight placed on his community in recent months is an opportunity for the country to overcome some of its divisions — whether they be race, or the intensely partisan divide over vaccinations and other Covid measures.

“God is allowing all this to happen for a reason, you know,” he told AFP. 

“We got to find the right way to come together and get people vaccinated.”

With untreated sewage in the water and rubbish piled on the sand, pollution on Tripoli’s Mediterranean coast is denying residents of the war-torn Libyan capital a much-needed escape.

The environment ministry last month ordered the closure of a number of beaches along the 30-kilometre (18-mile) Greater Tripoli coastline, despite the roasting summer heat.

“The situation is catastrophic,” said Abdelbasset al-Miri, the ministry official in charge of monitoring the coast.

“We need quick solutions for this problem because it harms the environment just as much as it harms people.”

Daily discharges of untreated sewage from the capital’s two million population make this the most polluted section of the North African country’s 1,770-kilometre coastline.

Cans, plastic bags and bottles plague the water and shore.

On one beach, near a large hotel, open-air rivulets channel untreated wastewater into the sea, where a few young men brave the contaminated waters in search of cool.

Libya’s infrastructure has been devastated by a decade of conflict, state collapse and neglect since the 2011 overthrow and killing of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a NATO-backed rebellion.

But Tripoli’s only sewage works closed years before that, like many industrial facilities shuttered for lack of maintenance or funding. 

As a result, all of Tripoli’s wastewater goes directly into the Mediterranean.

“Huge amounts of sewage gets dumped in the sea every day,” said Sara al-Naami of Tripoli city council.

– ‘Summer prison’ –

Laboratory tests have found “a high concentration of bacteria, 500 percent more than normal,” including E. Coli, at five sites along the capital’s coastline, she added.

“We have raised the issue of pollution in Tripoli’s seawater with the former and current governments, and emphasised the urgent need for a sanitation facility,” Naami said.

But, she said, in the absence of such infrastructure, “temporary solutions” are needed such as settling tanks to filter wastewater before it reaches the sea.

A hard-won ceasefire last year led to a UN-backed government being installed several months ago, with elections set for December.

But day to day, Libyans continue to face power cuts, a liquidity crisis and biting inflation.

And for a country of seven million where leisure facilities are almost non-existent, swimming is a much-needed way to relax and cool down.

Some take to the water despite the risks.

But shop owner Walid al-Muldi doesn’t want to risk getting sick.

“It’s become worse over the years. During heatwaves, the smell gets disgusting,” the 39-year-old said, sitting on a plastic seat a few paces from the shoreline.

“You have to go more than 100 kilometres east of Tripoli to find water that’s a bit cleaner.”

His friend, Mohammed al-Kabir, agreed.

Because of coronavirus restrictions and the unhealthy sea water, “Libyans live in a summer prison,” he said.

The effectiveness against infection of the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines dropped from 91 percent before the Delta variant became dominant to 66 percent afterwards, according to a large study of US health workers published Tuesday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been examining the real-world performance of the two vaccines since they were first authorized among healthcare personnel, first responders and other frontline workers.

Thousands of workers across six states were tested weekly and upon onset of Covid-19 symptoms, allowing researchers to estimate efficacy against symptomatic and asymptomatic infection.

By looking at the rate of infections among vaccinated and unvaccinated people and the amount of time they were tracked, vaccine effectiveness was estimated at 91 percent in the initial study period of December 14, 2020 to April 10, 2021.

But during weeks in the run-up to August 14, when the ultra-contagious Delta variant became dominant, effectiveness fell to 66 percent.

The report’s authors said there were a number of caveats, including that the protection from vaccines could be waning over time anyway, and the 66 percent estimate was based on a relatively short study period with few infections.

“Although these interim findings suggest a moderate reduction in the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines in preventing infection, the sustained two thirds reduction in infection risk underscores the continued importance and benefits of COVID-19 vaccination,” they said.

A number of studies have now concluded vaccine efficacy has dropped against Delta, even though the precise level of that drop differs between papers.

Protection against severe disease appears more stable, exceeding 90 percent, according to a recent CDC study of patients in New York. 

Another CDC study of Los Angeles patients released Tuesday that was carried out from May 1 to July 25 showed unvaccinated people were 29.2 times more likely to be hospitalized with Covid-19 than the vaccinated — corresponding to efficacy of about 97 percent.

Delta became the dominant strain in the United States in early July.

According to a recent paper in the journal Virological, the amount of virus found in the first tests of patients with the Delta variant was 1,000 times higher than patients in the first wave of the virus in 2020, greatly increasing its contagiousness.

The slow rollout of coronavirus vaccines will cost the global economy $2.3 trillion in lost output, a report released Wednesday found.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s study found that emerging and developing economies, whose vaccine rollouts are far behind those of wealthier countries, will bear the brunt of those losses.

The report comes as advanced nations move towards providing booster shots to their populations while the international effort to provide vaccines for poorer nations remains inadequate.

The study calculated that countries which fail to vaccinate 60 percent of their populations by mid-2022 will suffer the losses, equivalent to two trillion euros, over the 2022-2025 period.

“Emerging countries will shoulder around two-thirds of these losses, further delaying their economic convergence with more developed countries,” the EIU said.

It warned the delayed rollout of vaccines could fuel resentment, increasing the risk of social unrest in developing economies.

The Asia-Pacific Region will be the worst hit in absolute terms, accounting for nearly three-quarters of the losses. 

But as a percentage of GDP, sub-Saharan Africa will suffer the worst losses.

Around 60 percent of the population of higher-income countries received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine as of late August, compared to just one percent in poorer nations, according to the study. Two doses are required to be fully vaccinated for most shots.

“Vaccination campaigns are progressing at a glacial pace in lower-income economies,” it said.

The report’s author, Agathe Demarais, said the international effort to provide coronavirus vaccines to poor nations, Covax, has failed to live up to its even modest expectations.

“There is little chance that the divide over access to vaccines will ever be bridged” with rich countries providing only a fraction of what is needed, she said in a statement.

“Finally, the focus in developed economies is shifting towards administering booster doses of coronavirus vaccines, which will compound shortages of raw materials and production bottlenecks,” she added.

The EIU said its study was conducted by combining its in-house forecasts for vaccination timelines in around 200 countries with GDP growth forecasts.

The slow rollout of coronavirus vaccines will cost the global economy $2.3 trillion in lost output, a report released Wednesday found.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s study found that emerging and developing economies, whose vaccine rollouts are far behind those of wealthier countries, will bear the brunt of those losses.

The report comes as advanced nations move towards providing booster shots to their populations while the international effort to provide vaccines for poorer nations remains inadequate.

The study calculated that countries which fail to vaccinate 60 percent of their populations by mid-2022 will suffer the losses, equivalent to two trillion euros, over the 2022-2025 period.

“Emerging countries will shoulder around two-thirds of these losses, further delaying their economic convergence with more developed countries,” the EIU said.

It warned the delayed rollout of vaccines could fuel resentment, increasing the risk of social unrest in developing economies.

The Asia-Pacific Region will be the worst hit in absolute terms, accounting for nearly three-quarters of the losses. 

But as a percentage of GDP, sub-Saharan Africa will suffer the worst losses.

Around 60 percent of the population of higher-income countries received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine as of late August, compared to just one percent in poorer nations, according to the study. Two doses are required to be fully vaccinated for most shots.

“Vaccination campaigns are progressing at a glacial pace in lower-income economies,” it said.

The report’s author, Agathe Demarais, said the international effort to provide coronavirus vaccines to poor nations, Covax, has failed to live up to its even modest expectations.

“There is little chance that the divide over access to vaccines will ever be bridged” with rich countries providing only a fraction of what is needed, she said in a statement.

“Finally, the focus in developed economies is shifting towards administering booster doses of coronavirus vaccines, which will compound shortages of raw materials and production bottlenecks,” she added.

The EIU said its study was conducted by combining its in-house forecasts for vaccination timelines in around 200 countries with GDP growth forecasts.

The effectiveness against infection of the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines dropped from 91 percent before the Delta variant became dominant to 66 percent afterwards, according to a large study of US health workers published Tuesday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been examining the real-world performance of the two vaccines since they were first authorized among healthcare personnel, first responders and other frontline workers.

Thousands of workers across six states were tested weekly and upon onset of Covid-19 symptoms, allowing researchers to estimate efficacy against symptomatic and asymptomatic infection.

By looking at the rate of infections among vaccinated and unvaccinated people and the amount of time they were tracked, vaccine effectiveness was estimated at 91 percent in the initial study period of December 14, 2020 to April 10, 2021.

But during weeks in the run-up to August 14, when the ultra-contagious Delta variant became dominant, effectiveness fell to 66 percent.

The report’s authors said there were a number of caveats, including that the protection from vaccines could be waning over time anyway, and the 66 percent estimate was based on a relatively short study period with few infections.

“Although these interim findings suggest a moderate reduction in the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines in preventing infection, the sustained two thirds reduction in infection risk underscores the continued importance and benefits of COVID-19 vaccination,” they said.

A number of studies have now concluded vaccine efficacy has dropped against Delta, even though the precise level of that drop differs between papers.

Protection against severe disease appears more stable, exceeding 90 percent, according to a recent CDC study of patients in New York. 

Another CDC study of Los Angeles patients released Tuesday that was carried out from May 1 to July 25 showed unvaccinated people were 29.2 times more likely to be hospitalized with Covid-19 than the vaccinated — corresponding to efficacy of about 97 percent.

Delta became the dominant strain in the United States in early July.

According to a recent paper in the journal Virological, the amount of virus found in the first tests of patients with the Delta variant was 1,000 times higher than patients in the first wave of the virus in 2020, greatly increasing its contagiousness.

Wildfires, mostly started intentionally, have scorched almost 600,000 hectares of land in eastern Bolivia already this year, authorities said.

On Monday night there were 20 active fires in Santa Cruz state affecting seven protected areas.

The government said 200,000 hectares (495,000 acres) had burned in just two days.

Most of the fires are in the forests of Chiquitania, a region that lies between the Amazon to the north, the plains of Cahco to the south and the Pantanal — the world’s largest wetland — to the southeast.

The San Matias nature reserve — a national park the size of Belgium — is one of the worst affected areas.

Volunteer firefighters and forest rangers have been digging trenches to try to halt the spreading fires.

The government has deployed around 1,800 military personnel to help, with two helicopters due to join in the effort.

Despite a lack of resources to fight wildfires, Bolivia cannot ask neighboring countries for help unless local and regional authorities declare a “disaster,” said Juan Carlos Calvimontes, the deputy civil defense minister.

A disaster can only be declared once the government exhausts its budget for fighting wildfires.

This law “needs to be changed,” said Calvimontes.

The government says most of the fires were started deliberately.

Environmentalists blame laws enacted under former leftist President Evo Morales, who for years encouraged burning of forest and pasture land to expand agricultural production. 

The practice is legal in Bolivia for areas up to 20 hectares between May and July — once the rainy season is over.

Penalties for illegal fires can be remarkably lenient, though, amounting to a fine of just one US dollar per hectare burnt.

However, for large scale wildfires, perpetrators can be given a sentence of up to three years in prison.