Vaccination deficiencies and water from thin air: Trends Digest No. 10

Global vaccination against COVID-19 is faster than the release of drugs. The unprecedented popularity of cryptocurrency causes fears of investors. Conference calls harm the environment, and water is “squeezed” out of the air

Topics of the week

• Early signs of a global vaccine shortage

Delays in vaccine supplies are affecting vaccination schedules around the world. In New York, more than 23 appointments for the introduction of the COVID-19 vaccine had to be postponed due to a shortage of the drug. The mayor’s office refers to the fact that the distributor Moderna delayed the delivery of 103 thousand doses. According to the administration’s plan, by the end of the month, at least 1 million citizens should be vaccinated in New York. Regional doctors say that vaccination centers run out of the drug within a few days after receiving a week’s supply.

In the UK, they are forced to increase the time interval between two injections of the vaccine. The Ministry of Health has changed the vaccination protocol: the second injection will be done after 12 weeks, and not after the previously indicated period of three weeks. According to British officials, this is the best way to distribute a limited number of doses. According to them, the extended break does not reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine. At the same time, some doctors are skeptical. “I would not recommend postponing the second dose. We just don’t know for sure how long the immunity acquired from one vaccination lasts, ”Fortune quotes the words of American physician Paul Offit from Philadelphia. The same doubts are heard from pharmaceutical companies. The World Health Organization, for its part, recommended that there should be no more than six weeks between the first and second doses.

There will be no shipments of new doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in Canada this coming week. Within a month, the country will receive 50% less drug than expected. Earlier, the pharmaceutical company announced that it would temporarily reduce supplies to Europe and Canada, but at the same time continues to increase production capacity.

In the Urals, vaccination was temporarily suspended in anticipation of late deliveries of the vaccine. The introduction of Sputnik V in Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk was put on hold. As he wrote, the Ministry of Health of the Chelyabinsk Region stated that the supply mechanism was debugged and a new batch was expected, and the vaccine was running out due to high demand.

• The second wave of popularity of cryptocurrencies

Economists saw an inflating bubble in the cryptocurrency market. According to Deutsche Bank, almost half of the investors surveyed rate risk as a 10. Most of the participants in this survey believe that after a meteoric rise of 300%, the price of bitcoin would halve rather than rise. Meanwhile, in terms of popularity among investors, bitcoin has overtaken even the shares of technology companies, which since October 2019 have consistently been considered the most profitable investment. In January, the price of bitcoin crossed the $40 mark. This week, the value of ten other cryptocurrencies also reached an absolute record. True, their prices remain modest against the backdrop of the leading digital currency and range from a few tens of cents to $1,4 thousand. Meanwhile, massive interest in cryptocurrency has provoked a shortage in the market for video cards for mining. Yandex.Market experts recorded an abnormally high demand for this category of goods – consumer interest increased by 2020% by the end of 70. On the other hand, the shortage of equipment that is used to work with cryptocurrency is associated with production cuts. During the pandemic, some enterprises suspended the production of video cards and components.

Week numbers

• Opposed the introduction of “covid-passports” 59% our countryman.

According to the results of a survey by the SuperJob portal, the number of opponents of such a document is directly proportional to the level of income. Among respondents with earnings of less than 30 thousand rubles. per month, the idea of ​​a document that confirms vaccination against COVID-19 is supported by 12%, and 54% are opposed. Among those who earn more than 80 thousand rubles, the number of supporters of the “covid-passport” is 15%, but there are more opponents – 64%.

• Camera hours during a Zoom meeting results in the release of 1 kg of CO₂.

American scientists have calculated the environmental damage from the active use of Internet technologies. Electricity consumption by data centers is 1% of the world’s – more than the national energy consumption of many countries. Internet traffic has grown by an average of 20% since March 2020, so proportionally more resources are also required to maintain it. The authors of the study say that the use of video chats and platforms such as Netflix, Hulu and YouTube is causing huge damage to the planet. It takes up to 12 liters of water to produce the energy it takes to watch one hour of streaming video.

• PepsiCo announced that it will reach zero level carbon emissions by 2040.

In this case, the company’s environmental program will be ten years ahead of the deadlines set by the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. A beverage manufacturer wants to reduce virgin plastic and use recycled packaging in a new way. In 2020, the company fully provided renewable electricity to its production facilities in the United States.

• Singapore scientists have come up with a way to get drinking water from the air.

The volume of liquid in the Earth’s atmosphere could fill nearly 500 billion Olympic swimming pools. Researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have created a substance that extracts liquid from the air without any power source. In a humid environment, 1 kg of unique airgel can produce 17 liters of water per day. The “smart” polymer autonomously collects water molecules from the air and condenses them. In this way, up to 95% of the moisture from the environment can be concentrated into a liquid. Under laboratory conditions, the material produced water non-stop for more than two months. Now the researchers are looking for business partners to launch the industrial production of this airgel. According to their idea, the substance can be used, for example, in self-rescue kits or for sports.

News of the week

• Chinese scientists have proven that re-infection with coronavirus is possible even in the presence of antibodies.
• On the instructions of Roskomnadzor, the social network TikTok deleted 38% of posts with calls to participate in protests within 17 hours, Instagram – 50%, VKontakte and YouTube – XNUMX%.
• Google has threatened to shut down internet search in Australia if the government forces search engines to pay publishers to link to their content.
• Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit launched ten satellites into Earth orbit for the first time by launching a rocket from under the wing of a Boeing 747 aircraft.
• The German company Volocopter in the United States has launched the VeloCity air taxi certification process.
• The BBC talked about the “smart” bracelet Moonbeam, which will help employers to know how happy or unhappy their employees are.

Facebook post by moodbeamlife

Study of the week

Employers in our country do not have enough “narrow” specialists, so they often call back employees who have left earlier. This conclusion was made by SuperJob analysts, having interviewed a thousand HR managers across the country. One in three companies have invited ex-employees to return over the past year. More often than others, people over 45 and specialists with a salary of 80 thousand rubles or more agree to go to their former employer. At the same time, SuperJob found out that in the dynamics of the last five years, our country is less and less willing to return to their old place of work: in 2016, 30% would agree to leave their former employer, and now it is already 24%.

What to listen

Podcast “How the Internet is changing politics?” Rector of the Russian School of Economics Ruben Enikolopov and Professor of Economics at the Sciences Po Institute for Political Studies in Paris Sergey Guriev discuss this topic with the authors of the “Economics by ear” project. Social networks and instant messengers have given people the opportunity to self-coordinate and turn new social movements into a real political force. Traditional institutions are not capable of this. On the Internet, it is enough to speak a language that is attractive to the audience in order to gain mass support. The Internet leads to the polarization of society: social media have become the main means of communication for non-systemic players in politics. The podcast participants, in particular, discuss the results of a study on how the VKontakte network influenced the mass nature of the protest movement.

The release of “School of the Web without the Internet” from the author of the podcast “Launch Tomorrow”. Samat Galimov talks about how the Kruzhok educational project teaches teenagers in villages about web development and other applied specialties. For three years, a team of six people visited Dagestan, the Kaliningrad region, the Republic of Mari El and several other regions with volunteer programs. Initially, the organizers of the Kruzhok did not suspect that their idea would grow into a full-fledged educational and social project with the opportunity to show teenagers in the provinces a completely different format of education.

What to read

Longread RusBase about how studies in Hamburg are arranged through the eyes of a Russian emigrant. Student Polina Fedorova from Ufa talks about her experience of adapting and studying at a Hamburg school, where grades are not announced aloud and it is not fashionable to use mobile phones. In German schools, high school students must undergo career guidance and get the opportunity to work or do an internship. Graduates, as a rule, are not afraid of exams and are not in a hurry to enter a university, so they often take a break to find themselves, volunteer projects, travel and work part-time.

Translation of a touching essay by New Yorker regular contributor and Pulitzer laureate Nathan Englander. The writer talks about how social ties unexpectedly “healed” in conditions of forced social distance. Having moved from New York to Toronto on the eve of the pandemic, his family has just begun to settle down and acquire new acquaintances. But quarantine has deprived newcomers of the opportunity to socialize in the usual way – at work, at school and in sports. When working and studying Canadians were sent home, one of the writer’s neighbors started a tradition of playing the tuba outside. Unexpectedly, it was this that established communication between people who lived side by side for more than a year. Englander is surprised: “How strong ties have formed between neighbors, what distances we have overcome, while maintaining social distance.”

What to see

Nissan showed off the NV350 concept van, which is equipped as a home office on wheels. The retractable block of the body turns into a mobile office, and on the roof you can organize an open lounge area. The automaker is counting on so-called digital nomads, remote workers who are not tied to a place of residence or company headquarters.

Fascinating footage of a volcanic eruption in Italy. Etna, located in Sicily, woke up on the night of January 18-19. Two craters released lava flows and fountains of sparks. Representatives of the tourist association Etna Walk managed to film the culmination of the eruption. Now on the organization’s Facebook page, you can watch in real time what is happening on top of the highest active volcano in Europe.

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