Bar Crobar

Japan: tsunami-proof walls have become taller and longer since 2011

Since the terrible tsunami in 2011 that led to the Fukushima disaster, Japan has stepped up the construction and reconstruction of protective structures on the worst-affected parts of its coastline. With the help of a huge budget, the country wants to protect itself more effectively against future devastating tsunamis.

The inhabitants thought they were safe

On 11 March 2011, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean around 300 km north-east of Tokyo. Less than an hour later, a tsunami hit the coastline with a wave estimated to be thirty metres high in places. The water also penetrated up to ten kilometres inland, causing the death of several people. the disappearance of at least 18,500 people. This terrible tsunami caused the second biggest nuclear accident in history, after Chernobyl in 1986.

While the main concern at the moment seems to be the future of the contaminated water from Fukushima, another is just as important: protecting against future tsunamis devastating. On 5 March 2021, AFP reported on the situation ten years after the disaster. The publication cites the example of the small town of Taro in the prefecture of Iwate (north-east of the country). Before the terrible tsunami, the inhabitants thought they were safe. For local tourist guide Kumido Motoda, it was even the safest place in the world. the perfect city for disaster protection natural.

It has to be said that since the end of the 19th century, this locality has been hit several times by major tsunamis. So, as early as 1934, the local authority built 10 m high concrete ramparts over a distance of 2.4 km along the coast. The authorities have also installed 44 evacuation routes with solar-powered lighting. The aim? To enable residents to get to safety. in just ten minutes. Unfortunately, the 2011 tsunami generated waves 16 m high. As a result, the waters destroyed the ramparts and swept away houses and vehicles. The human toll from the disaster in Taro is 140 dead and 41 missing.

Better protection for the future

Since then, the Japanese government has invested the equivalent of ten billion euros in building (and rebuilding) ramparts in coastal regions. Coming soon, 430 km of continuous dykes should be completed in the three departments most affected in 2011, namely Fukushima, Iwate and Miyagi. At Taro, the walls are now around 15 m high and once again cover more than 2 km of coastline.

Although the view of the sea is less obvious today, the experts justified the construction of the dykes. They cited dual protection The aim is to repel the force of the waves, while reducing damage and giving residents more time to take shelter. In addition, the new dykes have wider bases and their interiors have been reinforced. In addition, warning systems have been improved and evacuation routes optimised.

Text by by sciencepost.fr Yohan Demeure

SpaceX: the prototype rocket explodes on the ground a few minutes after landing.

The SN10 prototype's "magnificent soft landing" finally came to nothing a few minutes later.

SPACEX - A prototype of SpaceX's future giant Starship rocket, two previous examples of which crashed in huge fireballs at the end of their test flight, landed successfully in Texas on Wednesday 3 March, but exploded on the ground a few minutes later, as you can see in the video at the top of this article.

"A magnificent soft landing", SpaceX commented in the video broadcasting the test flight live. However, flames were visible at the foot of the rocket, which were being extinguished by the teams on site. A few minutes later, a huge explosion threw the rocket into the air, and it crashed to the ground.

No immediate explanation was given.

This vehicle is destined to become the rocket of choice for SpaceX, founded by billionaire Elon Musk, to one day travel to Mars.

Ten kilometres above sea level

The prototype, named SN10 for "Serial Number 10", took off just before 11.20pm from Boca Chica, Texas, for a third suborbital test.

The craft climbed into the sky, powered by three engines that shut down one after the other, and the vehicle rolled over into a horizontal position.

It reached an altitude of 10 kilometres before beginning its descent, and the rocket then returned to a vertical position, managing to land in the desired location without any apparent problem.

Two other prototypes (SN8 and SN9) crashed on landing in December and again in early February.

These tests are taking place in a virtually deserted area rented by SpaceX, in the far south of Texas, close to the border with Mexico and on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico - an area empty enough for an accident or explosion not to cause any damage or casualties.

Elon Musk imagines one day launching several of these spaceships to conquer Mars. But initially, the rocket, if it becomes operational, could prove useful for closer trips, notably to the Moon.

By huffingtonpost.fr

Daft Punk break up but fans find it hard to believe

DAFT PUNK - More than 160,000 tweets an hour after the "Epilogue" video went online, and an average of 27 tweets per second: the announcement of Daft Punk's split went viral on the social networks. It has to be said that since the start of their career, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo have been accustoming their fans to announcements that are as mysterious as they are surprising.

Monday 22 February 2021, around 3.30pm. After five years of total 'silence', Daft Punk's YouTube channel, which has some 4 million subscribers, shows signs of life. A nearly 8-minute long video entitled "Epilogue" is posted online without any further information.

Some Internet users were quick to rejoice at the idea that this was (finally) the announcement of a new album, eight years after the runaway success of 'Random Access Memories'. All the more so since, in recent months, several rumours and (false) official documents suggested that the band's return was imminent. It was even thought for a while that they would be appearing on The Weekend show at the last Super Bowl.

But amidst the images of the helmeted duo from 'Epilogue', one stands out more than the others: an epitaph reading '1993-2021'. In the end, we had to wait for Kathryn Frazier, the band's long-standing press officer, to speak out in the columns of several leading media (Pitchfork, Variety and AFP in particular) to confirm that this video was indeed the sign of the band's separation after 28 years together.

A new clip? Not at all. The images in this video are just bits and pieces from Daft Punk's 2006 sci-fi feature 'Electroma', which depicts the journey of robots who want to become humans. An unreleased closing track? Not at all. The electro notes that resonate at the end of the video are taken from "Touch", a track on the band's latest album, "Random Access Memories".

And if some people still find it hard to believe that the Daft Punk story has come to an end like this, it's partly because of the marketing strategy skilfully orchestrated by the group over three decades. "Right from the start, the two Frenchmen made marketing an integral part of their creative process, with a simple idea: to cultivate rarity and mystery", sums up AFP. "Daft Punk never show their faces, rarely appear on television and release few records. As a result, every one of their appearances is an event and their robot helmets have become an instantly recognisable brand."

Since 1997, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo have appeared in masks and helmets for rare concerts and interviews. In 2013, they made the release of their album Random Access Memories official with a simple 15-second loop broadcast in an SNL advert. In 2014 they scooped five historic awards on the Grammy Awards stage while remaining completely silent.

"They've managed to create a mystery, they're playing on fantasy. Everyone is
ask what they're like, what it's really like. This is the key to
their success", explained producer Pedro Winter, the duo's former manager, on France Info at the time of the release of their latest album.

In short, in a career spanning almost thirty years, the number of albums released by the group and the number of photos featuring their faces can be counted on the fingers of one hand. And inevitably, so much mystery has always titillated the interest of the greatest number of people, creating a veritable "Daftmania" and theories by the hundreds at the slightest whisper. Daft Punk have brilliantly orchestrated every important moment in their career.

So much so that we still have our doubts: could this unexpected announcement of their separation be hiding another surprise?

Huffpost.fr by Louise Wessbecher

Probe on Mars, astronauts on the Moon... Why China is so keen to win the space race

On Wednesday 10 February, the Tianwen-1 probe arrived in Mars orbit. A new stage in China's conquest of space, analysed on The Conversation.

All eyes on the stars. NASA's Perseverance mission landed on the Red Planet on Thursday 18 February. It is the third mission to arrive on Mars in a week, along with those from the United Arab Emirates and China. The Tianwen-1 probe arrived in the planet's orbit on 10 February. In the spring, it is due to land a remote-controlled wheeled robot on the Martian surface. This mission will enable Beijing to pursue its ambitions for space conquest, which began under Mao sixty years ago. The country "dreams of space", in the words of Chinese President Xi Jinping. For The Conversation, Steffi Paladini, from the University of Birmingham, deciphers these dreams.

Given its achievements over the last decade, it's only logical that China should be looking to win the new space race. Not only has it been the only country to send a probe to the Moon in the last forty years or so - and the first in history to successfully land on its far side - but it has also planted a flag on lunar soil and brought samples back to Earth.

However, the space race, in which several nations and private companies are taking part, is far from over. China is now turning its attention to Mars with its Tianwen-1 mission, which arrived in Martian orbit on 10 February. This successful insertion into orbit - the rover will not land until May - marks a crucial new stage in more ways than one.

Even though Mars is relatively close to Earth, it's a tough target to hit. Nothing demonstrates this better than the figures. Out of 49 missions up to December 2020, only around 20 have been successful. Not all of these failures were the result of novices or first attempts. In 2016, the European Space Agency's Schiaparelli Mars Explorer crashed on the surface of the Red Planet. In addition, persistent technical problems have forced ESA and its Russian partner Roscosmos to postpone its next mission, ExoMars, until 2022.

China is not the only country to get close to Mars. On 9 February, a probe from the United Arab Emirates, Hope, successfully completed the same insertion manoeuvre. It is not a direct competitor of the Chinese mission (the probe will only orbit the planet to study the Martian weather), but NASA's Perseverance rover, which arrived a week later, is undoubtedly.

One factor makes the stakes even higher for Beijing: one of the few countries to have successfully performed the famous in-orbit insertion manoeuvre is India, China's direct competitor not only in space but also on Earth.

India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), aka Mangalyaan, reached Mars in 2014 - it was the first to achieve this feat on its inaugural mission. This is one of the reasons why the success of Tianwen-1 is so important for China's status as an emerging space power: it's a way of reasserting its space dominance over its neighbour. Unlike India, this is not the first time China has attempted a mission to Mars (the previous one, Yinghuo-1, in 2011, failed on launch). This time, however, the chances of success look much better.

The space age 2.0

Different countries have different space development models. The new space race is therefore partly a competition for the best approach. This reflects the specific character of the Space Age 2.0, which, compared with the first, seems to be more diversified and where non-American players, both public and private, occupy an important place, particularly Asian players. If China is leading the pack, so too is its vision.

But there are more important issues at stake. The development of China's space sector is still largely government-funded and military-led. According to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a US congressional committee, China sees space as a "tool for geopolitical and diplomatic competition". Clearly, with cyberspace, the cosmos has become a fundamental new battleground, where the United States is the main - but not the only - adversary. This means that commercial considerations are taking a back seat for many countries, even if they are becoming increasingly important as a general rule.

China has already adopted five-year plans for its space activities. The most recent ended in 2020 with more than 140 launches. Other missions are planned, including a new orbital space station, the recovery of Mars samples and a mission to explore Jupiter.

While the resources committed by the country remain largely unknown (we only know what is included in the five-year plans), US estimates for 2017 are $11 billion, putting China second only to the US itself - NASA's budget for the same year was around $20 billion.

India has adopted a different approach, where civil and commercial interests predominate. Following NASA's model of transparency, the country publishes reports on the activities and annual expenditure (around US$1 billion a year) of its space agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

Different in ambition, scope and investment, India's space programme has achieved remarkable successes, such as the commercialisation of affordable launch services for countries wishing to send their own satellites into orbit. In 2017, India made history with the most satellites - 104 - ever launched by a rocket on a single mission to date (all but three were foreign-built and foreign-owned). This record was broken by SpaceX in January 2021, with 143 satellites. Even more impressive is the relatively low cost of India's Mars mission, 74 million US dollars - around ten times cheaper than NASA's Maven mission. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the entire mission cost less than the Hollywood film Gravity.

For geopolitical reasons, this could soon change. The Indian government has published its 2019-2020 annual report, which shows growing military involvement in the space sector. And further missions to the Moon and Venus are planned by India's ISRO, as if to further motivate the Chinese to make Tianwen-1 a resounding success. The space race 2.0 is gaining momentum...

Steffi Paladini, Reader in Economics & Global Security, Birmingham City University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence.

Coronavirus: Dubai, Cuba and Florida take up the challenge of "vaccine tourism

LIGHTNING - Some travel agencies are no longer hesitating to offer "all-inclusive" holidays.

How about basking in the sun, cocktail in hand, between two doses of vaccine? In any case, the concept of "vaccine tourism" seems to be spreading more and more. While Europe shudders at the thought of a shortage, some countries are not hesitating to offer the injection under the coconut trees.

"Caribbean, mojito and vaccine"... This advert has been on air since Cuba to the whole of South America. From next March, tourists staying three weeks on the island will be entitled to Cuban vaccines, as announced by the authorities in this short publicity film, between two beach photos: " Tourists have the option of being vaccinated in Cuba if they so wish".

Not far from there, in FloridaIn Florida, it's the neighbours to the north, Quebecers over 65, who can register to be vaccinated. They don't have to be residents or own property in Florida. A proposal that irritates many Americans.

And then there is the exceptional case of the very rich of Britons over 65Those who belong to a very closed London circle. For a fee of 45,000 euros, they are invited to live in Dubai for a month, including first-class or private jet travel, reserved villas and double-dose vaccinations.

By RTL Bénédicte Tassart

edited by Thomas Pierre

The Starship exploded again on landing, but SpaceX is optimistic

SpaceX has flown another prototype of its future Starship rocket. Although most of the test went well, the landing was missed again. The SN9 rocket ended its career in a spectacular explosion.

Bis repetita for Starship. On Tuesday 2 February, the prototype of SpaceX's future rocket was tested again. This was the ninth example of the vehicle (SN9, for Serial Number 9) to be tested in this way. The aim? To perform a high-altitude "jump", execute complex manoeuvres, test a sequence of ignition and extinction of the engines, then return smoothly to terra firma.

In short, the aim was to reproduce the SN8 test, which took place on 9 December, but with the hope of a different outcome. With the SN8, everything went very well, except on landing: a pressure problem in one of the tanks prevented it from having enough thrust to decelerate sufficiently on return. The result: the SN8 hit the ground too quickly, causing its destruction.

One of the engines failed to restart

Unfortunately, SpaceX didn't manage to write a different ending with SN9. Or to be more precise, it did, but not the one the American company had hoped for. Once again, SN9 ended its career in a huge fireball. Except that this time, the problem that caused the prototype's destruction was not a pressure problem, but an engine incident: one of the three used during the test failed to relight.

" During the tilt-landing manoeuvre, one of the Raptor's engines failed to restart, causing the SN9 to land at high speed and suffer a RUD. "SpaceX explains. A RUD, an acronym for Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly, or Rapid Unplanned Disassembly, is an elegant term and a euphemism for saying that it exploded.

For those who followed the flight live on 2 February, which lasted around a quarter of an hour in all, the SN9's fatal outcome could have been anticipated just beforehand by the fact that the prototype was leaning far too far and arriving far too fast at its landing site for it to go well. In these conditions, it was impossible to land smoothly and correctly on its landing gear.

As with SN8, the SN9 test will undoubtedly be remembered for its fiery conclusion. However, it should be noted that all the previous stages clearly went well: the ascent to an altitude of around ten kilometres, the programmed and sequential shutdown of the engines, the flip onto its side and its return to the launch pad.

" The SN9 was propelled during the climb by three Raptor engines, each stopping in sequence before the vehicle reached its apogee. "comments SpaceX. " SN9 successfully made a propulsion transition to the internal manifold tanks, which contain the landing propellant, before reorienting itself for a controlled aerodynamic re-entry and descent. "adds the company.

For SpaceX, the question now is how to overcome the landing hurdle, which is clearly its current weakness with the Starship prototype. The SN10 model will be the next to try its luck. Further tests are expected in 2021. And if all goes well, it's possible that an inaugural Starship flight could take place as early as November. Unless the crashes persist.

By Julien Lausson

Numerama.com

"Hold-up", the documentary on Covid-19 confronted with scientific facts

In the film "Hold Up - retour sur un chaos", Pierre Barnerias and Christophe Cossé claim to be trying to answer questions about the coronavirus. The reality is more complicated.

SCIENCE - It's what you might call a runaway success. Released on Wednesday 11 November, the documentary devoted to Covid-19 "Hold Up - a look back at chaos" is at the heart of discussions in many media and on social networks.

On the Tipeee crowdfunding platform, the Tprod production company went from receiving 28,000 euros in monthly funding to over 110,000 euros in 24 hours, as noted by Tristan Mendès-France, a researcher specialising in digital technology and conspiracy circles. The various extracts from the film posted on social networks have accumulated hundreds of thousands of views. And given the sums already amassed, the target of 200,000 euros a month to make the film available free of charge could well be quickly reached.

But what exactly does this documentary, which has been accused of peddling a conspiracy message, say? Le HuffPost has watched it in its entirety, and below we take a look at some of the false information spread by "Hold-Up" on the coronavirus and management of this global pandemic. This article will be updated regularly.

The Great Reset

Before going into detail, we need to return to the main thesis of this documentary, which takes two hours to appear on screen. According to "Hold-Up", this pandemic was organised by political, economic, intellectual and technological elites to bring about a "Great Reset" of society.

The World Economic Forum is planning to hold a major meeting in January 2021. This was announced in a press release in June. The aim of this project is to devise an "economic and social system for a fairer, more sustainable and more resilient future" in the face of pandemics, climate change and other challenges.

While it is perfectly legitimate to debate the true usefulness of the World Economic Forum and this meeting, to assert that this "Great Reset" has been in the works for a long time is factually inconsistent. The documentary presents no evidence to support this claim.

Still without proof, the authors claim that the purpose of this pandemic for the global elites is both to destroy a useless part of humanity, but also to facilitate the deployment of 5G to better control money, via the virtualisation of money through cryptocurrencies.

It may sound like a big deal when you put it like that. But after two hours of debate on the origins of the coronavirusWhen we look at the real impact of Covid-19, mortality, treatments and the ethics of confinement, we are legitimately keen to hear a solution that explains all this.

Except that the overwhelming majority of what we've heard before is also either false, exaggerated or misleading. Here are a few examples. Many are conspiracy theories or approximations that have been around for months.

The efficacy of hydroxychloroquine

It's one of the subjects that has led to the most debate and polarisation, not only on social networks, but also among doctors and politicians. So it's only logical that Hold Up should take up the subject.

There are many claims to be made on this subject, and it would be futile to try and review them all. It is clear, however, that the documentary asserts that hydroxychloroquine is a highly effective treatment for Covid-19. Hold Up also states that the reason this drug was not authorised was precisely because there was a large-scale conspiracy to ensure that the drug was not authorised. coronavirus cannot be treated until a vaccine arrives.

After several months of debate, there are some clear points to be made about chloroquine. Firstly, it should be remembered that in the early months of the pandemic, we didn't know what to do about the disease. coronavirus. It therefore makes sense to test existing drugs, such as chloroquine and Remdesivir (which is heavily criticised in Hold Up because it comes from the Gilead laboratory, which is supposed to be part of a grand conspiracy).

Some drugs seemed to be effective, but the results were only partial. One of these was hydroxychloroquine, which Didier Raoult was promoting at the time. The question of whether doctors should be allowed to prescribe is a debate in its own right (more information here). However, it is clear that the media coverage of this debate, particularly as a result of the statements made by the professor from the Marseille IHU and by Donald TrumpThese controversies, which are commonplace in the medical world, have not been helped. And they have had undesirable effects.

But things have moved on since then. Behind these ethical debates, there is scientific research that has tried to move forward quickly (more details here), to produce high-quality, robust studies that can tell us with much greater certainty whether the existing drugs tested in the emergency were of any use against Covid-19.

Hold Up also talks a lot about the famous study published in The Lancetwhich led the WHO to suspend (and then resume) its analysis of the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine. And rightly so. These problems were raised by scientists and the media (summarised here). The study was retracted by the scientific journal and research continued to progress. On the other hand, Hold Up does not mention the many approximations and untruths expressed by Didier Raoult in his various interviews or in some of his studies.

The fact remains that today, after all the debate and controversy, we know a lot more about Covid-19. Dexamethasone is one of the only drugs with truly proven efficacy in well-controlled double-blind clinical trials, and no-one had really bet on it. Conversely, a large number of clinical trials have concluded that chloroquine is effective. The two largest of these, from the WHO (solidarity) and Oxford University (recovery), all agree that hydroxychloroquine has no effect.

Researchers also carried out a meta-analysis and found no impact. This study is heavily criticised in Hold Up, but the majority of other similar analyses point in the same direction.

The mask for non-patients is an "aberration".

Pascal Trotta, a nutritionist and anti-vaccine doctor, states in "Hold-Up" that "doctors who put masks on people who aren't ill are fools, Molière's doctors".

The usefulness of the mask was debated at length at the start of the epidemic, as we have explained several times. And not to mention the mistakes made by the various governments, even the scientists disagreed. But after more than 11 months, there are some things we know that constitute a scientific consensus. This consensus is created by the accumulation of studies, tests, analyses and observations.

This is very clear: it is possible for a person infected with coronavirus transmit the disease without showing any symptoms. Particularly in the 48 hours before symptoms appear. It is also increasingly clear that masks reduce the risk of contamination.

Logically, if the coronavirus circulates widely in a population, asking people to wear a mask should reduce the proportion of pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic people who will contaminate healthy people.

There has been a bonus for doctors who "blow the whistle".

The documentary claims that doctors were rewarded for reporting Covid-19 cases and their contacts. It is true that the issue was the subject of debate in May, when the government was putting in place its decontainment strategy, based in particular on contact tracing.

But as LiberationHowever, when the law was finalised by the joint parliamentary committee, the issue of remuneration for this tracing work was dropped. On the other hand, it is true that for a sick patient whose PCR test confirms that he or she is indeed affected by the coronavirusthe doctor gets a bonus.

Why should I do this? Health insurance explained to LiberationThis increase corresponds to the value of the announcement of the positive test, the prescription of tests for close contact cases [...], the information given to the patient on barrier measures, and the registration of the patient and close contact cases in the "Contact Covid" tool".

The WHO has banned autopsies on Covid-19 victims

In "Hold-Up", we hear a doctor explain that autopsies are useful for finding out how best to treat Covid-19 patients. Just before this, the documentary states that the WHO had in fact banned autopsies.

However, a visit to the World Health Organisation's website shows that this is not the case. A document published on 24 March lists the precautions to be taken during an autopsy on a patient who has died of Covid-19 in order to avoid possible infection. This AFP article provides a detailed update on this issue.

The virus was created in a laboratory

It's one of the theories that has circulated the most on social networks. And in many different forms. In "Hold-Up", while some contributors explain that they do not have the answer to the origins of Sars-Cov2, others are more categorical. Like Jean-Baptiste Fourtillan, an anti-vaccine campaigner known for having taken part in a wild clinical trial in an abbey, who claims that the new coronavirus is a Sras genetically modified with bits of the malaria genome. The proof is in the patents.

The origin of Sars-Cov2 is still unclear, but this hypothesis of genetic modification is rejected by the scientific community, especially as these patents do not at all mean that the virus was "created" years earlier, as we explained in March.

The genome of the coronavirusThe Sars-Cov2, which has been studied in detail for 11 months, does not seem to support the theory that it was modified by humans, for a number of reasons (more details here). In particular, this theory gained momentum after an investigation by the US intelligence services in April, which finally concluded that Sars-Cov2 was not man-made.

The scientific community still does not know exactly how it reached humans. An intermediate host, such as the pangolin, could have been the link between the bat and man, but the debate remains open.

A law on containment from 2019

After an hour and a half, "Hold-Up" slowly begins to lead the viewer down the path of a long-planned plot, a way of preparing the ground for the thesis of a "Great Reset" fomented in the shadows. The documentary then refers to a French law that would have made "confinement legal"... from December 2019.

When questioned, MP Martine Wonner, who was expelled from the LREM group for her (sometimes questionable) positions on the coronavirus, wondered: "It's very surprising, I admit to you that it's practically been passed over in silence", explaining that "we can ask ourselves the question".

The text in question is not specified, but on the Senate website there is a "health security bill" dated 5 December 2019. It refers to "eviction and home maintenance measures" for "persons presenting a high risk of developing a transmissible disease". Another article in the proposal refers to compulsory isolation measures "when a person suffering from a highly contagious transmissible disease creates a serious risk to public health by refusing to comply with medical prescriptions for prophylactic isolation".

But you only have to look at the explanatory memorandum to this law to put all this into context and understand that there were reasons prior to Covid-19 to justify this law. "Our country is facing growing difficulties in the face of the development of vector-borne diseases transmitted by insects, such as dengue fever, chikungunya, zika and yellow fever", says Senator Michel Amiel. A few months earlier, the Zika virus was contracted for the first time in mainland France.

The senator also mentions the return of measles, which highlights "that the State does not have all the necessary means of action". In 2019, France is being singled out along with other countries for the return of this disease, which was thought to have been brought under control. The fact that the French population is one of the most opposed to vaccines is no coincidence.

By Grégory Rozières Head of the C'est Demain, Science and Technology section

COVID-19: Pfizer announces that its vaccine is "effective at 90%".

This "vaccine efficacy" was measured by comparing the number of participants infected with the new coronavirus in the group that received the vaccine and the placebo group.

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said on Monday that preliminary data showed that 90 % of its COVID-19 vaccine was effective, which could enable it to apply to the US authorities for emergency authorisation for its use later this month.

Monday's announcement does not, however, mean that a vaccine is imminent: this interim analysis, carried out by independent experts, examined the 94 infections recorded so far among the 44,000 or so people taking part in the study in the United States and five other countries.

Pfizer did not provide further details about these infections and warned that the initial rate of protection could change by the end of the study. Even the disclosure of such preliminary data is unusual.

"We are able to potentially offer some hope," Pfizer's vice president of clinical development, Dr Bill Gruber, told the Associated Press. We're very encouraged."

The markets reacted favourably to this announcement. Bonds of around 5 % were rated on Monday morning, both in Europe and the United States.

Officials repeat that it is highly unlikely that a vaccine will be available before the end of the year. And when a vaccine is offered, the quantities initially available will be carefully distributed.

The vaccine developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech is one of ten candidates currently in advanced clinical trials around the world. Another pharmaceutical company, Moderna, also hopes to be in a position to request emergency authorisation from the powerful US Food and Drug Administration later this month.

The participants in the clinical trials, and the researchers, do not know who received a vaccine and who received a placebo. But a week after the second dose, Pfizer began counting the number of subjects who had symptoms of COVID-19 and in whom the coronavirus had been detected.

As the study is ongoing, Dr Gruber was unable to say how many participants in each group were infected. However, a quick calculation reveals that virtually all the infections occurred among the subjects who had received the placebo.

Pfizer will continue the study until 164 infections have been detected among participants, a figure the FDA considers sufficient to measure the vaccine's efficacy. The US agency has indicated that an efficacy rate of at least 50 % will be required.

No subjects were seriously ill, said Dr Gruber. Nor could he specify how many infections occurred in older subjects, for whom COVID-19 can be particularly dangerous.

Only symptomatic participants were tested, so it is not known whether vaccinated subjects could have been infected and continued to spread the virus without knowing it.

With the pandemic still raging, pharmaceutical companies are hoping to ask the world's governments to authorise emergency use of their vaccines while testing continues. This would enable them to get their products to market more quickly, but would also leave certain scientific data concerning their products in abeyance.

By quebec.huffingtonpost.ca

In a hurry, Joe Biden

Donald Trump has 75 days left of his presidency: what if they were the worst?

Although defeated by Joe Biden, the future leader of the United States, the incumbent retains immense power as President and head of the armed forces... and he has nothing to lose.

UNITED STATES - As Donald Trump prepares to enter the final days of his presidency - which could well be his worst - Americans are worried about what is in store for a president who proposed shooting migrants and using nuclear weapons against hurricanes.

As excessive, reckless and thoughtless as he has been so far, his critics point out that it was election time, which is no longer the case. Beaten by Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, he no longer needs to moderate himself.

"He'll do everything he can to stir up trouble", says Michael Cohen, the president's former personal lawyer, who was tried and sentenced to three years in prison for, among other things, buying the silence of women who had relations with Donald Trump just before the 2016 election.

According to him, the President "will go on TV, radio and the press to complain that these elections were stolen from him by fraud and foreign interference. He will never admit that he owes his defeat to his incompetence and arrogance".

Trump to leave the White House on 20 January

The winner, Joe Biden, is due to take office at noon on 20 January 2021, but Donald Trump retains his presidential prerogatives for another 75 days, including his role as head of the US armed forces and nuclear weapons.

He said he had no intention of facilitating the transition of power because of the FBI investigation into Russian assistance he allegedly received during the 2016 campaign, which the president calls "espionage."

"Are we talking about the transition I had when you spied on my campaign and when you tried to bring down the President of the United States?" he railed again last week at a rally in Pennsylvania.

The White House declined all requests for comment on this matter.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a former senior official believes that the concerns expressed by Michael Cohen and others are exaggerated. "I don't think he'll do anything out of the ordinary", he said of the President.

But a long-standing adviser, who also prefers to remain anonymous, fully expects Donald Trump to demand the resignation of Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease specialist on the coronavirus pandemic task force. He could also fire Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, and Gina Haspel, the director of the CIA, who have repeatedly contradicted him. "Either he's going to fire Wray, Fauci and Haspel and make a fuss, or he's going to hold his nose to make himself look good. It'll be interesting to see. And it's 50-50," he adds.

What if Trump spent all his time playing golf?

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian and specialist in authoritarian regimes at New York University, is sure that the outgoing president "will take revenge on those who have shown him a lack of loyalty". Daniel Goldman, a former federal prosecutor who acted as the Democrats' lawyer in the impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump, predicts 11 busy weeks for the President and his team.

According to him, we can expect "all sorts of executive orders to invalidate other Obama-era regulations, the adoption of new regulations on the sly, attempts to intimidate and neutralise various government agencies, and him using the levers of power to advance the pawns that will serve his financial interests after the presidency. Not to mention a record number of presidential pardons" for his accomplices.

Of course, regulations that have been improperly drafted and adopted can always be invalidated by legal action. Even those that are properly drafted in the final months of the administration could be quickly repealed by the new Congress, and all its executive orders immediately rescinded by Joe Biden as soon as he takes office.

Other people familiar with Donald Trump question the interest he will show in his duties if he loses the election. Anthony Scaramucci, an old friend of the president who briefly served as a White House adviser, sums up the leader's most likely end-of-term agenda in three words: "Play golf". Which is what he was doing when his defeat was announced to the world.

This article, published on Le HuffPost US, was translated by Valeriya Macogon for Fast ForWord.