Posts tagged vulnerability

Nations can learn from others on lifting lockdowns

0 Comments read Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 02.10.2020 (SciDev.Net): As the second wave of COVID-19 infections sweep many countries, governments are facing the challenge of when and how to ease restrictions and lockdowns while balancing health with socio-economic consequences.

A health policy paper published in The Lancet medical journal on 24 September recommends that governments consider five key factors — knowledge of infection levels, community engagement, public health capacity, health system capacity, and border control measures — while lifting restrictions.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that a premature lifting of lockdowns could spark a resurgence of infections and cause worse damage to the economy than caused by lockdowns.

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© Copyright Neena Bhandari. All rights reserved. Republication, copying or using information from neenabhandari.com content is expressly prohibited without the permission of the writer and the media outlet syndicating or publishing the article.

Global disasters linked to warming Indo-Pacific seas

0 Comments read Environment & Development

By Neena Bhandari

SYDNEY, 29.11.19 (SciDev.Net): East Asian floods, African droughts and the frequent California fires may be linked to the rapid warming of the Indo-Pacific Ocean that impacts global rainfall patterns and corresponding weather, says a new study published on 27 November in Nature.

Each year, weather variability at sub-seasonal to seasonal timescales costs the global economy over US$2 trillion with costs to the US alone amounting to US$700 billion.

“The Indo-Pacific warm pool, a region between the eastern Indian Ocean and western Pacific Ocean, with ocean temperatures generally warmer than 28 degrees Celsius, has been warming since the 1900s, but during 1981—2018, it expanded at a rate of about 400,000 square kilometres per year — the size of Thailand or Spain,” says Roxy Mathew Koll, lead author and climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune.

Continue reading on SciDev.Net Asia & Pacific Edition.

© Copyright Neena Bhandari. All rights reserved. Republication, copying or using information from neenabhandari.com content is expressly prohibited without the permission of the writer and the media outlet syndicating or publishing the article.

Rural-urban divide in deaths from extreme weather

0 Comments read Environment & Development

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 20.03.2019 (SciDev.Net): People in rural areas are at greater risk of dying from extreme hot and cold temperatures than those living in urban areas, says a new study conducted in China’s eastern Zhejiang province.

Published in March in Environmental Health Perspectives, the study relies on the province’s data on weather, air pollution, population density and mortality gathered from 2009 to 2015 to compare rural and urban mortality in Zhejiang.

Although Asian countries are recording steady urbanisation, a large percentage of population continues to live in villages and towns. The UN’s Population Division predicts that by 2025 about 45 per cent of Asia’s population will still be rural.

Continue reading on SciDev.Net Asia & Pacific edition

© Copyright Neena Bhandari. All rights reserved. Republication, copying or using information from neenabhandari.com content is expressly prohibited without the permission of the writer and the media outlet syndicating or publishing the article.