The recent recognition of new COVID-19 variants, first detected in South Africa (B.1.135, 501Y.V2), Brazil (P1) and the UK (B.1.1.7) – and the variants’ potential to disrupt vaccine effectiveness and protection from prior COVID-19 infection – is an urgent concern that UWARN partners around the globe are collaborating on to understand.

The United States helped bring the world into the Paris climate accord, the groundbreaking global agreement reached in 2015 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to slow climate change. Under Donald Trump, the U.S. became the only country to withdraw. Now, the U.S. is coming back.

Rising infections and new, highly contagious strains of the coronavirus are pressuring governments to accelerate vaccinations

By Dasl Yoon in Seoul, Rhiannon Hoyle in Sydney and Felicia Schwartz in Tel Aviv, The Wall Street Journal

Public health experts are racing to prepare communities for the vaccine, but they face notable hurdles.

by Lilly Fowler, Crosscut

Rosalinda Martinez, a 47-year-old immigrant from Mexico who lives in Tukwila, doesn’t plan to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, even though she’s at higher risk of dying from the virus because she’s overweight and diabetic.