TOKYO – The Seoul government said it had found its first case of covid-19 in a cat on Monday, shortly after offering free tests to pets in the South Korean capital.
Experts say there is no evidence cats or dogs can pass the novel coronavirus to humans, but they have nevertheless placed the cat in a 14-day quarantine. It was tested after having symptoms of vomiting and decreased activity, and after the family it lives with were all found to have contracted covid-19, officials said.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced last week it would offer free coronavirus tests to symptomatic dogs and cats, shortly after a kitten at a religious facility in the southeast of the country was found to have contracted the virus.
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says a few pets have been infected with the virus that causes covid-19, mostly after the animals were in close contact with infected humans, although globally such cases have been rare.
Since the beginning of the outbreak, scattered reports of animals contracting the disease have raised fears that pets or farmed animals such as mink could become a reservoir for the disease, prompting widespread culling in infected mink farms.
The CDC, however, says that “based on the limited available information, the risk of animals spreading the COVID-19 virus to people is considered low,” while most animals who had contracted the virus had experienced mild illness and fully recovered.
“There is no evidence that viruses can spread to people or other animals from a pet’s skin, fur or hair,” it says.
Seoul’s city government said it would provide tests only to animals that showed symptoms such as fever or breathing difficulties after coming into contact with infected humans.
The kitten found positive last month was placed into quarantine at a nearby animal shelter but did not show any symptoms, and so after 14 days was released, local health authorities said.
In an online briefing last week, disease control official Park Yoo-mi reminded people to keep their pets “at least two meters away from people and other animals when walking them.”
Research has shown that cats can spread the disease to other cats, at least in a laboratory setting.
Over the weekend, the San Diego Zoo Safari Park said a troop of western lowland gorillas had made a full recovery after several had contracted the coronavirus, but in Pakistan officials said two 11-week-old white tiger cubs appear to have died of covid-19 last month.
By The Washington Post · Juliet Eilperin, Desmond Butler
WASHINGTON – Some of the climate impacts of a grocery store trip are obvious, like the fuel it takes to get there and the electricity that keeps its lights glowing, conveyor belts moving and scanners beeping. But then there are the invisible gases seeping out into the atmosphere when you reach for your ice cream of choice.
In nearly every supermarket in America, a network of pipes transports compressed refrigerants that keep perishable goods cold. Most of these chemicals are hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) – greenhouse gases thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide – which often escape through cracks or systems that were not properly installed. Once they leak, they are destined to pollute the atmosphere.
The Biden administration now sees eliminating these chemicals from the nation’s refrigerators as low-hanging fruit in its broader effort to rein in climate pollutants. The Environmental Protection Agency issued a public call last week for companies to report production and import data on HFCs.
Under the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, which passed in December, the EPA must phase down the production and import of these potent greenhouse gases 85% over the next 15 years.
“The environmental benefits here are very large, they’re very important,” said Cindy Newberg, who directs the stratospheric protection division in the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. The new law, she added, “provides explicit authority for us to do this work, and that’s incredibly important to the agency, and for all of us.”
A new undercover investigation by an advocacy group suggests that some supermarkets are leaking climate-damaging refrigerants at a higher rate than regulators have assumed. The industry estimates that every year supermarkets lose an average of 25% of their refrigerant charge – chemicals introduced in the 1990s to replace ones depleting Earth’s ozone layer.
Armed with high-tech sensors, undercover investigators for the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) have documented widespread leakage of HFCs at grocery stores in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. While Walmart and other supermarket companies have pledged to curb their use of these chemicals, more than half the stores the EIA surveyed were emitting these climate-warming refrigerants.
Out of 45 supermarkets surveyed – including 20 Walmarts as well as stores operated by ALDI, Costco, Giant, Harris Teeter, Safeway, ShopRite, PriceRite, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods – investigators found leaks in 55% of them. (Whole Foods is owned by Amazon, whose founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post.) The investigation did not determine the exact amount of HFCs released.
“This is a systemwide, industry-wide problem,” said Avipsa Mahapatra, climate lead for the EIA advocacy group. “In reality, they could easily check for this.”
None of the companies contacted for this story provided a comment on the survey itself, but a few noted their commitment to curbing these pollutants.
Whole Foods said it is “proud to be a leader among U.S. supermarkets in our efforts to reduce emissions of hydrofluorocarbons.” A little more than 30 of its stores have switched to carbon-dioxide refrigerants, and it touts one market in Brooklyn that has become 100% HFC-free.
Walmart noted that it has pledged to reach zero emissions across its operations within two decades, a goal that includes “transitioning to low-impact refrigerants for cooling and electrified equipment for heating in our stores, clubs and data and distribution centers by 2040.”
Commercial refrigeration, which includes grocery stores, restaurants and food processing, accounts for about 28% of U.S. emissions of HFCs. Air conditioning for commercial buildings and homes represents between 40% and 60% of emissions, according to federal data.
The EIA survey was based on a limited sample in one region of the United States. The investigators were also not able to measure the overall quantity and rate of leakage. But it suggests that large supermarket chains may be unaware of the extent of the problem, and do not have regular monitoring in place. In some cases, the leaks persisted months after they were detected.
The investigators, who began their survey in 2019, used leak detectors that they could insert in refrigerators and freezers as well as an infrared camera that could film fugitive greenhouse gases.
The food retail sector represents one part of the puzzle of how to drastically cut back on emissions in the coming years. HFCs trap thousands of times more heat than carbon dioxide, and with increasing sales they are projected to represent nearly a fifth of climate-warming emissions by mid-century. It’s a growing problem: The hotter Earth gets, the more people need cooling infrastructure.
According to new data released Friday, HFC emissions in the United States rose by 4 million metric tons between 2018 and 2019. The 38,000 supermarkets in the United States use thousands of pounds of HFCs each year, according to the EPA, with each store having the equivalent climate impact of 300 cars on the road. Taken together, it is equal to 49 billion pounds of coal being burned each year.
While monitoring for leaks and upgrading refrigeration systems translate into long-term savings by reducing energy use, stores operating on tight margins cannot always afford it.
Ratio Institute co-founder Jonathan Tan, whose organization works with the food retail industry, policymakers and conservationists on the issue, estimated that while it can cost a store between $50,000 to $100,000 to make repairs to a system, transitioning from current refrigerant to a less-potent greenhouse gas such as carbon dioxide can cost between $1 million and $2.5 million.
Walmart said private companies would need government help in making the transition. “We also believe that private and public sector action is needed to foster innovation and enable an economically viable phasedown of HFCs globally,” it said in a statement.
Europe is making a swifter transition than the United States. More than 26,000 supermarkets in European countries are using lower-impact refrigerants, compared with 600 stores in the United States.
The EPA has regulated earlier generations of refrigerants for decades under the 1987 Montreal Protocol, the landmark global treaty aimed at repairing the ozone layer. Those compounds – chlorofluorocarbons and hydrochlorofluorocarbons – damaged the ozone layer that shields Earth from damaging ultraviolet rays from the sun. HFCs made an appealing substitute because they did not deplete ozone, but they warmed the planet instead.
In 2016, the Obama administration helped broker the Kigali Amendment, through which countries pledged to phase down HFCs. But the agency’s effort to regulate the refrigerants ran aground during the Trump administration.
One rule identifying “unacceptable” uses of HFCs was partly overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2017. The administration rewrote the rule, but the same court said it did not follow proper procedures and did not need to abolish the Obama-era requirements altogether. Last year, Trump officials withdrew another Obama-era rule, which required companies to detect and repair leaks from any appliance or piece of equipment using more than 50 pounds of HFCs.
President Donald Trump declined to submit the Kigali Amendment to the Senate for ratification: President Joe Biden signed an executive order last month instructing his secretary of state to take that step.
The federal government has pursued cases against grocery chains, and won, when it comes to leaks of older refrigerants that damage the ozone layer. In 2019, for example, Southeastern Grocers agreed to spend $4.2 million to reduce coolant leaks and pay a $300,000 civil penalty. But HFCs are in a different category.
“EPA’s recognized that it is a significant contributor to climate change and has tried to take action,” said Tom Land, a longtime agency staffer who retired in 2019 after working on international climate negotiations and the agency’s voluntary refrigerants program, GreenChill. “It basically had to stop; it didn’t have authority.”
Food retailers that participate in the GreenChill program have a leak rate of 14.3%, nearly half the industry average. Kristen Taddonio, senior climate and energy adviser at the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development, said in an interview that reinstating regulations mandating leak detection could help grocers make greater reductions.
“It’s like that old adage, you can’t manage what you can’t measure,” said Taddonio, who worked on energy efficiency at the EPA and the Energy Department between 2004 and 2015.
1. ‘สปุตนิก วี’ (Sputnik V) วัคซีนต้านโรคโควิด-19 ที่พัฒนาโดยสถาบันวิจัยและพัฒนากามาเลยา (Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology) ประเทศรัสเซีย
The civil disobedience movement and demonstrations show that the people of Myanmar want democracy. We stand with them.— U.S. Embassy Burma (@USEmbassyBurma) February 13, 2021
ชาวเมียนมากำลังทำให้ประเทศของพวกเขากลายเป็นพื้นที่ชิงอิทธิพลของสหรัฐกับจีน
แม้เวลาจะผ่านมากว่า 8 ปีแล้วแต่การเสียชีวิตของเธอก็ยังคงเป็นปริศนาจนถึงทุกวันนี้
รายงานสดจากเมืองมัณฑะเลย์ระบุว่ามีการใช้กำลังรุนแรงกับประชาชนแล้ว
หลายประเทศเริ่มเทใจให้ ‘สปุตนิก วี’ หลังเผชิญข้อกังขาต่างๆ นานา
เมื่อความเหงารุนแรงกว่าที่คิด นายกญี่ปุ่นจึงตัดสินใจแต่งตั้งรัฐมนตรีว่าการกระทรวงความเหงา
กลุ่มผู้ชุมนุมชาวเมียนมารวมตัวกันหน้าสถานทูตสหรัฐ เรียกร้องกองทัพสหรัฐส่งทหารเข้าช่วยเหลือในประเทศ
กลุ่มผู้ชุมนุมชาวเมียนมายืนหยัดประท้วงต่อแม้กองทัพส่งรถหุ้มเกราะวิ่งทั่วเมืองพร้อมตัดสัญญาณอินเทอร์เน็ตเมื่อคืนที่ผ่านมา
