Archives for March 2021

China manufacturing rebounds in March amid tech, virus risks

BEIJING (AP) — China’s factory activity rebounded in March from a three-month slowdown as export orders rose, a survey showed Wednesday.

A monthly index of manufacturing issued by the China’s statistics agency and an industry group rose to 51.9 from February’s 50.6 on a 100-point scale on which numbers above 50 show activity expanding.

Chinese manufacturing has rebounded to above pre-pandemic levels in most industries but consumer and export demand have been slower to recover.

In March, a measure of new export orders rebounded to growth, registering 51.2, up from February’s 48.8, according to the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing. The index of total new orders rose to 53.6 from 51.5.

“We see this rebound as a fragile one,” said Iris Pang of ING in a report. She pointed to risks including U.S. sanctions on Chinese technology companies and renewed anti-virus measures abroad.

COVID-19 pushed total US deaths beyond 3.3 million last year

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed total U.S. deaths last year beyond 3.3 million, the nation’s highest annual death toll, the government reported Wednesday.

The coronavirus caused approximately 375,000 deaths, and was the third leading cause of death in 2020, after heart disease and cancer. COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. now top 550,000 since the start of the pandemic.

COVID-19 displaced suicide as one of the top 10 causes of death, according to the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The data should serve again as a catalyst for each of us to continue to do our part to drive down cases and reduce the spread of COVID-19 and get people vaccinated as quickly as possible,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday.

The U.S. death toll increases most years, but last year’s death rate was up nearly 16% compared to the previous year. That’s the largest one-year leap since 1918, when U.S. soldier deaths in World War I and the flu pandemic pushed deaths up 46% compared with 1917.

Death rates last year overall were highest among Black people and American Indian and Alaska Native people. The COVID-19 death rate was highest among Hispanic people.

“Sadly, based on the current state of the pandemic, these impacts have remained in 2021 where we continue to see that communities of color account for an outsize portions of these deaths,” Walensky said.

Preliminary data in December suggested 2020 would be an especially deadly year and the CDC’s new report showed it was even worse than anticipated. The new numbers are still considered preliminary and are based on an analysis of death certificates.

Typically, analyzing death certificates takes about 11 months. But the CDC speeded up the timeline, the report said, to address “the pressing need for updated, quality data during the global COVID-19 pandemic.”

In a separate report, the CDC responded to concerns about deaths being misattributed to COVID-19. The agency took a close look at death certificates, finding that most that listed COVID-19 also named other contributing problems. They included conditions such as diabetes, known to increase the danger of severe disease, or conditions such as pneumonia that occurred in the chain of events leading to the deaths.

Only about 5% of the death certificates listed only COVID-19, and that was more frequently the case when the person died at home.

The CDC said its review confirms the accuracy of the death count for COVID-19. ___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Automakers BMW, Volvo back moratorium on deep seabed mining

BERLIN (AP) — Automakers BMW and Volvo announced Wednesday that they support a moratorium on deep seabed mining for minerals used in electric vehicle batteries and other products.

In a statement also backed by Samsung’s EV battery unit and tech giant Google, the companies cited the importance of protecting fragile ocean ecosystems that are already under threat from overfishing, pollution, noise and man-made climate change.

While deep seabed mining is still in its infancy, several prospecting firms are seeking rights to extract potentially lucrative deposits from the depths of the ocean, particularly the metallic nodules that build up around hydrothermal vents.

“Before any potential deep seabed mining occurs, it needs to be clearly demonstrated that such activities can be managed in a way that ensures the effective protection of the marine environment,” the four companies said in their statement.

“All alternatives to deep sea minerals must be explored as a matter of urgency, with a focus on reducing demand for primary metals, transitioning to a resource-efficient, closed-loop materials economy, and developing responsible terrestrial mining practices,” they said.

The companies said they were committed “not to source minerals from the deep seabed; to exclude such minerals from our supply chains; and not to finance deep seabed mining activities.”

The call was supported by the environmental group World Wildlife Fund, which has campaigned against deep seabed mining.

“We need to take pressures off the ocean, not add additional pressures to it in order to guarantee that the ocean can provide services to humanity, such as climate regulation, food and medicines, into the future,” said Jessica Battle, who heads the WWF campaign against deep seabed mining.

While minerals mined from the ocean floor can be used for a variety of goods, they are of particular interest to high-tech industries that rely on precious and rare metals.

“At least one of the leading nodule mining contractors, DeepGreen, cites generating metals for EV batteries as their major motivation for large-scale mining,” said Craig Smith, a professor of oceanography at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Stefan Bratzel, director of the Center of Automotive Management in Germany, said the announcement by BMW and Volvo was significant for other car manufacturers.

“It underlines the importance of ecological considerations in a comprehensive well-to-wheel perspective,” he said, adding that other automakers “will now at least hesitate to use minerals mined from the ocean in their electric vehicle batteries.”

Global Sea Mineral Resources, a company exploring deep seabed mining, said it supports the call for a moratorium but claimed environmental surveys are already required by the International Seabed Authority, which regulates the industry.

“GSR will only apply for a mining contract if the science shows that, from an environmental and social perspective, deep seabed minerals have advantages over the alternative – which is to rely solely on new and current mines on land,” said Kris van Nijen, the company’s managing director.

NFL planning to remove restrictions for vaccinated personnel

The NFL has plans to eliminate some restrictions from its current COVID-19 protocols for vaccinated players, coaches and personnel.

In a memo sent to the 32 teams Wednesday and obtained by The Associated Press, the league detailed potential amendments to the protocols used throughout the 2020 season and current offseason. Among the elements that could be eliminated are the need to participate in daily testing; quarantine periods due to close contact with an infected individual; and/or refraining from social gatherings among other vaccinated individuals.

“It is also anticipated that clubs that achieve a certain rate of vaccination among its tiered staff and players may be permitted to relax restrictions that apply to meetings, meal time and use of locker rooms,” the memo said.

On Tuesday, after the first of two days of virtual meetings among the team owners, Commissioner Roger Goodell noted the value of pursuing coronavirus vaccines.

“We will be encouraging all personnel to get vaccinated and working with the players association on all these issues,” Goodell said. “We are also using our platforms publicly to talk about the importance of getting vaccinations.”

Goodell also mentioned the hope that the 2021 season will be fully attended by fans. That would be subject to local COVID-19 rules and protocols.

“We’re discussing plans to welcome back all fans across the country at all stadiums,” he said. “All of us want to see every one of our fans back. Football is not the same without fans, and we expect to have full stadiums in the upcoming season.”

The league has given the teams permission to begin offseason programs on April 19. Most of those are voluntary, with the exception of mandatory minicamp in June.

However, NFL Players Association President JC Tretter argued again on Wednesday that the coronavirus-caused elimination of such things as organized team activities (OTAs) and minicamps did more good than harm in 2020.

“The good news for our sport is that while the NFL season looked and felt noticeably different from previous years,” the Cleveland Browns center posted on the union’s website, “we learned that the game of football did not suffer at the expense of protecting its players more than ever before. Our process is to follow the science on what is safest for our guys, and many of the changes this past year – like no in-person offseason workouts/practices, the extended acclimation period before training camp and no preseason games – gave us a year of data that demonstrates maintaining some of these changes long term is in the best interest of the game.”

Tretter noted a 23% decrease in time missed for injuries, 30% reduction in concussions, drops in all categories of lower extremity strains and ACL tears within the five-year average, and a 45% decrease in heat-related illnesses.

“The regular season’s missed time injury rate fell within the normal range of the previous five years,” Tretter wrote. “That makes sense considering there weren’t substantive changes to our in-season practice and game-day schedules. Thanks to the new (offseason) acclimation period, however, training camp saw its lowest injury rate in that same time frame. And, with no in-person practices in April, May, or June of last year, our players were able to prepare for the football season while avoiding unnecessary injuries.”

Nothing is finalized regarding the spring and summer programs. In the NFL memo, the teams were told they “should be prepared to conduct meetings virtually, at least during the early phase of the program. As was expressed during (Tuesday’s) meeting, we do not anticipate a duplication of last season’s virtual workout program.”

___

AP Pro Football Writer Teresa M. Walker contributed to this report.

___

More AP NFL coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL

US, China consulted on safety as their crafts headed to Mars

BEIJING (AP) — As their respective spacecrafts headed to Mars, China and the U.S. held consultations earlier this year in a somewhat unusual series of exchanges between the rivals.

China’s National Space Agency confirmed Wednesday that it had working-level meetings and communications with NASA from January to March “to ensure the flight safety” of their crafts.

U.S. law bans almost all contacts between NASA and China over concerns about technology theft and the secretive, military-backed nature of China’s space program.

However, exceptions can be made when NASA can certify to Congress that it has protections in place to safeguard information, acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk said during a video meeting last week.

Jurczyk said the most recent exchange was about China providing orbital and other data for its Mars mission so they could analyze the risk of collision. “We do have targeted engagement with them,” he said.

His remarks were first reported by the SpaceNews website.

Jurczyk added that it will be up to the Biden administration and Congress to determine if and how the U.S. engages with China on non-military space activities as part of the nation’s overall China strategy.

“As the administration and Congress sets those policies, we look forward to how we can contribute in respect to civil space dialogue and collaboration with China,” he said.

The area around Mars has become a bit more crowded this year with the arrival of spacecraft from the U.S., China and the U.A.E.

NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on Mars in February and has begun exploration. China’s Tianwen-1 is orbiting Mars in preparation for a landing in May or June. The U.A.E. craft is only orbiting and will not attempt to land.

Archives for March 2021

Footer