epidemic – Page 18 – Desdemona Despair

Global map showing COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people, 20 July 2021. The map shows the huge difference in vaccination rates between some wealthy nations and the rest of the world. Graphic: Max Roser / Our World In Data

July 20, 2021

Map shows striking vaccination divide between rich countries and the rest of the world – “We are making conscious choices right now not to protect those in need”

By Sinéad Baker 19 July 2021 (Business Insider) – A map shows the huge difference in vaccination rights between some rich countries and the rest of the world. The graph, produced by Max Roser of the site Our World in Data, shows the proportion of each country to receive at least one dose of a coronavirus […]

Daily new Covid cases per 100,000 people in Florida, 20 July 2021. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday downplayed the recent spike in coronavirus cases in his state, and criticized public health officials who continue to push unvaccinated Americans to get Covid-19 shots. Graphic: Covid Act Now

July 20, 2021

Florida governor DeSantis downplays increase in COVID-19 cases after selling “Don’t Fauci My Florida” merch

By Max Greenwood 20 July 2021 ORLANDO, Florida (The Hill) – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday downplayed the recent spike in coronavirus cases in his state and criticized public health officials who continue to push unvaccinated Americans to get Covid-19 shots. “It’s a seasonal virus and this is the seasonal pattern it follows […]

Flames and smoke rise from the Bootleg fire in southern Oregon on Wednesday, 14 July 2021. The largest fire in the U.S. on Wednesday was burning in southern Oregon, to the northeast of the wildfire that ravaged a tribal community less than a year ago. The lightning-caused Bootleg fire was encroaching on the traditional territory of the Klamath Tribes, which still have treaty rights to hunt and fish on the land, and sending huge, churning plumes of smoke into the sky visible for miles. Photo: John Hendricks / Oregon Office of State Fire Marshal / AP

July 19, 2021

Can America save itself? Between the pandemic and climate change, the outlook is grim.

By Joel Mathis 19 July 2021 (The Week) – Is the pandemic akin to climate change? Back in March 2020, my colleague Ryan Cooper argued that it was, in an article that has haunted me ever since. “This is what an uncontrolled, exponentially-accelerating crisis looks like on the ground: first slow, then all at once,” Cooper wrote of […]

Affordable rents in the U.S. in 2021 and wage earners grouped by earnings. Even under the best of circumstances, rent is unaffordable for most low-wage workers. Graphic: NLIHC

July 18, 2021

Minimum wage workers can’t afford rent anywhere in America – “In no state, metropolitan area, or county can a full-time minimum-wage worker afford a modest two-bedroom rental home”

By Anna Bahney 15 July 2021 (CNN) – Housing has become so expensive in the United States that the typical minimum wage worker cannot afford rent, according to a new report. There is no state, county or city in the country where a full-time, minimum-wage worker working 40 hours a week can afford a two-bedroom […]

U.S. greenhouse gas emissions under current policy with energy market and economic uncertainty, 2005-2021 and projected to 2030. Under current trends, the U.S. will miss both of its Paris Agreement reduction targets in 2025 and 2030. Graphic: Rhodium Group

July 18, 2021

Taking Stock 2021: U.S. will miss Paris Agreement emissions reduction targets – Cheap natural gas threatens renewable energy transition

By Hannah Pitt, Kate Larsen, Hannah Kolus, Ben King, Alfredo Rivera, Emily Wimberger, Whitney Herndon, John Larsen, and Galen Hiltbrand 15 July 2021 (Rhodium Group) – For the past seven years, Rhodium Group has provided an independent annual outlook for US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under current federal and state policy. This current policy baseline […]

Map showing percent change in reported 12 month-ending count of U.S. drug overdose deaths, by jurisdiction, December 2019 to December 2020. Graphic: CDC

July 15, 2021

Drug overdose deaths in U.S. hit highest number ever recorded in 2020 – “This is the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a 12-month period, and the largest increase since at least 1999”

By Maggie Fox 14 July 2021 (CNN) – Drug overdose deaths rose by close to 30 percent in the United States in 2020, hitting the highest number ever recorded, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday. More than 93,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2020, according to provisional data released by […]

Number of undernourished people and prevalence of undernourishment globally, 2005-2020. The number of undernourished people in the world has been on the rise since 2015 and is back to levels seen during the global financial crisis in 2008–2009. Graphic: FAO

July 15, 2021

UN: World hunger continued its six-year rise in 2020 – Up to 160 million more people faced hunger in 2020 than in 2019 – “The world is at a critical juncture”

12 July 2021 (UNFAO) – The world is in a very different place to where it was six years ago when it committed to the goal of ending hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition by 2030. At the time, we were optimistic that with transformative approaches, past progress could be accelerated, at scale, […]

Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Photo: Simon Dawson / Bloomberg / Getty Images

July 5, 2021

Nouriel Roubini: Conditions in 2021 are ripe for another global financial crisis – “The stagflation of the 1970s will soon meet the debt crises of the post-2008 period”

By Nouriel Roubini 2 July 2021 (The Guardian) – In April, I warned that today’s extremely loose monetary and fiscal policies, when combined with a number of negative supply shocks, could result in 1970s-style stagflation (high inflation alongside a recession). In fact, the risk today is even bigger than it was then. After all, debt ratios in […]

Global quantities of cocaine seized, by region, 1998–2019. Quantities of cocaine seized reached record levels in 2019. In 2019, the global quantity of cocaine seized increased by 9.6 percent compared with the preceding year to reach 1,436 tons (of varying purities), a record high. The 90 percent increase in the quantities of cocaine seized between 2009 and 2019 is likely a reflection of a combination of factors, including an increase in cocaine manufacture (50 per cent between 2009 and 2019) and a subsequent increase in cocaine trafficking, as well as an increase in the efficiency of law enforcement, which may have contributed to an increase in the overall interception rate. Graphic: UNODC

June 28, 2021

Illegal drug trade back to business as usual in 2020 and 2021 – Cocaine production hits record high – Number of people using illegal drugs increased by 22 percent in 2010-2019 decade

By Pia Lee-Brago 28 June 2021 (The Philippine Star) – Around 275 million people used illegal drugs worldwide in the last year of unprecedented upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, up by 22 percent from 2010, and it is “business as usual” again for drug traffickers, according to the latest annual world drug report by […]

Risk levels for climate-sensitive health outcomes based on different greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation scenarios. Graphic: IPCC WG 2 Sixth Assessment Report / AFP

June 23, 2021

Hunger, drought, disease: UN climate report reveals dire health threats – “The basis for our health is sustained by three pillars: the food we eat, access to water, and shelter. These pillars are totally vulnerable and about to collapse.”

By Patrick Galey 23 June 2021 (AFP) – Hunger, drought and disease will afflict tens of millions more people within decades, according to a draft UN assessment that lays bare the dire human health consequences of a warming planet. After a pandemic year that saw the world turned on its head, a forthcoming report by […]