Day: June 20, 2022

Hazmat-suited workers poke plastic swabs down millions of throats in China each day, leaving bins bursting with medical waste that has become the environmental and economic levy of a zero-COVID strategy.

China is the last major economy wedded to stamping out infections no matter the cost.

Near-daily testing is the most commonly used weapon in an anti-virus arsenal that includes snap lockdowns and forced quarantines when just a few cases are detected.

From Beijing to Shanghai, Shenzhen to Tianjin, cities are now home to an archipelago of temporary testing kiosks, while authorities order hundreds of millions of people to get swabbed every two or three days.

Mass testing appears set to stay as Chinese authorities insist zero-COVID has allowed the world’s most populous nation to avoid a public health catastrophe.

But experts say the approach — a source of political legitimacy for the ruling Communist Party — creates a sea of hazardous waste and a mounting economic burden for local governments who must plough tens of billions of dollars into funding the system.

“The sheer amount of medical waste that is being generated on a routine basis (is) at a scale that is practically unseen in human history,” said Yifei Li, an environmental studies expert at New York University Shanghai.

“The problems are already becoming astronomical, and they will continue to grow even bigger,” he told AFP.

Beijing has positioned itself as an environmental leader, cracking down on air and water pollution while setting the goal of making its economy carbon-neutral by 2060, a target experts say is untenable given the current trajectory of investments in coal.

Blanket-testing is now posing a new trash challenge.

Each positive case — typically a few dozen a day nationwide — unspools a trail of used test kits, face masks and personal protective gear.

If not disposed of properly, biomedical waste can contaminate soil and waterways, posing threats to the environment and human health.

Cities and provinces, home to a total of around 600 million people, have announced some form of routine testing in recent weeks, according to an Agence France-Presse analysis of government notices and Chinese media reports.

Different regions have imposed different restrictions, and some areas have suspended the policy in step with falling cases.

Nationwide data on the waste footprint has not been disclosed. But Shanghai officials said last month the city produced 68,500 tons of medical waste during its recent COVID lockdown, with daily output up to six times higher than normal.

Under Chinese regulations, local authorities are tasked with separating, disinfecting, transporting and storing COVID waste before finally disposing of it — usually by incineration.

But disposal systems in the poorer rural parts of the country have long been overburdened.

“I’m not sure that … the countryside really has the capacity to deal with a significant increase in the amount of medical waste,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The spike in waste may prompt some local governments to process it improperly or simply “dump it on the ground” in temporary landfills, said Benjamin Steuer of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

In a statement to AFP, China’s Health Ministry said it had made “specific demands for medical waste management” as part of national COVID protocols.

Waste of money?

Beijing has urged provincial capitals and cities with at least 10 million people to set up a test site within a 15-minute walk of every resident.

Top leaders also expect local governments to foot the bill for testing at a time when many are struggling to balance the books.

Expanding the model to the whole of the country could cost between 0.9% and 2.3% of China’s gross domestic product, Nomura financial analysts said last month.

“The economics of that is tricky,” said Li of NYU Shanghai. “You don’t want to invest in permanent infrastructure to process what is perceived as a short-term surge of medical waste.”

Jin Dong-Yan, a professor at Hong Kong University’s School of Biomedical Sciences, said “very ineffective and costly” routine testing would force governments to back away from other much-needed health care investments.

Authorities are also likely to miss positive cases as the omicron variant spreads rapidly and is harder to detect than other strains, he told AFP.

“This will not work,” he said. “It will just wash down millions of dollars into the sea.”

Source: Voice of America

People suffering from eco-anxiety — the fear of environmental catastrophe — may get a boost from a green forum in Paris this week. Gathering hundreds of eco-entrepreneurs, companies and activists, ChangeNOW aims to trace a sustainable blueprint for the future.

From food to fashion, technology to transport, a raft of green solutions for our resource-sucking society is parked through Saturday inside a massive events venue — made of sustainable materials — in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

“It’s 35 days to reach Madagascar from Marseille. Going through the Suez Canal. And we are using the wind. It helps us to save up to 60 percent energy,” says Louise Chopinet who heads a Brittany-based shipping startup called Windcoop. Its wind-powered sailing vessels carry about 14,000 tons of cargo per trip. For now, that means spices from Madagascar farmers. With the shipping industry challenged to become carbon neutral by 2050, sailing is taking off.

“It’s really a growing interest now. Everyone is getting into sails and wind,” she noted.

Berlin-based Noa Climate also works in Africa. It sells systems that recycle organic waste into energy in places far from power grids. Noa’s Janine Gadke says the company works with financial partners so poor communities can buy products on credit.

“In Kenya, we have a project in an orphanage, they have a system on location … they can get electricity and everything. And they feed the system with kitchen waste,” Gadke expressed.

ChangeNOW is considered one of the biggest global green events of the year. This 5th edition includes CEOs and celebrity activists, like British primatologist Jane Goodall.

Being Paris, representatives of a greening fashion industry are also here, like luxury group LVMH. Also companies pitching natural textiles like silk, cotton, hemp and mohair.

“We can feel a boom in terms of demand,” says Eva Pujol who works for British textile nonprofit The Sustainable Angle; adding that “more and more people are coming and we have brands asking more and more about sustainable material … I think the pressure mostly comes from customers to buy better.”

The forum offers a bicycle parking lot, recyclable waste containers, and a stand cooking up veggie burgers. Those who couldn’t find climate-friendly transport to get here can make a contribution to offset their carbon emissions.

Source: Voice Of America

An 18-year-old from South Korea has won the 16th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, one of the top showcases for the world’s best pianists.

The competition held in Fort Worth, Texas, ended Saturday night with Yunchan Lim becoming the competition’s youngest winner of the gold medal. His winnings include a cash award of $100,000 and three years of career management.

The silver medalist was Anna Geniushene, a 31-year-old from Russia, and the bronze medalist is Dmytro Choni, a 28-year-old from Ukraine.

Lim told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that he’ll discuss with his teacher what the next move for his career should be.

“I am still a student and I feel like I have to learn a lot still,” Lim said. “This is a great competition and I feel the burden of receiving this great honor and award so I will just push myself to live up to the honor I received today.”

The competition was founded in 1962 in honor of the celebrated pianist Van Cliburn, who lived in Fort Worth. Cliburn, who died in 2013 at age 78, played for U.S. presidents, royalty and heads of state around the world. He is best remembered for winning the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958, at the height of the Cold War.

The competition is traditionally held every four years. This year’s competition was originally scheduled for last year but was postponed due to the pandemic.

Source: Voice of America

In Numbers

688,000 beneficiaries reached with in-kind food assistance and 177,160 beneficiaries reached through cash transfers under WFP drought response in southern Madagascar in April 2022.

465,595 people affected by current cyclone season to be gradually reached through 3-month food and cash-based assistance.

US$ 132.4 million required until April 2023 for the drought emergency response and US$ 19.3 million required for the cyclone emergency response. The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) is facing a US $1million shortfall in 2022.

1,020,585 people assisted across all activities in April 2022.

Operational Updates

Emergency Responses Cyclone Season Overview and Response

Between January and March 2022, Madagascar was hit by five storms and tropical cyclones (Ana, Batsirai, Dumako, Emnati, and Gombo) that caused considerable damage. More than 960,000 persons have been affected and at least 470,000 people are in urgent need of food assistance in Vatovavy, Fitovinany, and Atsimo Atsinanana regions according to the latest estimate established by the National Office of Risk and Disaster Management (BNGRC) after the passage of Cyclones Batsirai and Emnati. In response, WFP has increased its beneficiary target to include those in rural, hard-to-reach areas and has gradually assisted 465,595 people each month since January. WFP’s 3-month response is providing lifesaving food and cash assistance to families whose homes were fully or partially destroyed by the storms, as well as providing evaluation, coordination, logistics and IT support to the Government and other partners.

Emergency Overview and Response

During the ongoing lean season, WFP intends to assist over 1 million people in IPC 3 and 4 through its emergency response in Southern Madagascar. In April, WFP delivered life-saving assistance (through General Food Distribution and Cash Transfers) to 866,135 people in the Southern provinces. As part of WFP’s strategy to couple general food distributions with prevention of moderate acute malnutrition activities, 122,914 children aged 6 to 59 months and 16,194 pregnant and 58,003 lactating women (PLW) have so far received nutritional supplements. In addition, 56,223 children aged 6 to 59 months have been treated for moderate acute malnutrition since the beginning of the year.

UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS)

In April 2022, UNHAS transported 535 passenger and 22 metric tons of cargo from 28 humanitarian organizations with a fleet of 2 fixed wing aircraft (12-seater each) and 1 Mi-8 helicopter. UNHAS has continued to connect Antananarivo to the main locations in the south of the country while the helicopter delivered life-saving cargo to the remote and unreachable locations. The EU Humanitarian Aid Flight is enabling access to the regions hit by the cyclones such as Mananjary and Manakara. Multi-sectorial assessment missions to 11 hard-to-reach locations in the South of Madagascar were performed with the UNHAS helicopter with the coordination of UN OCHA.

Source: World Food Programme