World: South Africa Variant Spreads

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World
South Africa Variant Spreads

A variant of coronavirus, B.1.351, first identified in South Africa in December has now been detected in dozens of countries. According to BBC News, scientists are concerned about the variant because clinical trials of vaccines are showing that they offer less protection against B.1.351 than other variants. People who recover from other variants may not be able to fend off B.1.351 because their antibodies won’t provide adequate protection. The United Kingdom’s “red list” of countries from which flights into the UK are banned has now grown to over 30. The World Health Organization has identified 64 countries where the South Africa variant has been found. Of those, only 11 are on the red list. The variant is most prevalent in North America, Europe, and the southern region of the African continent.

This map depicts the spread of the South Africa variant. Click on the map to learn more.

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Egypt
Traffic Resumes in the Suez Canal
The MV Ever Given, which was grounded in the Suez Canal, has been refloated and moved to the Great Bitter Lake for inspection for seaworthiness on Monday. A massive backlog of 422 ships has resumed traveling through the canal after a major portion of global shipping was put on hold while the 400-meter-long container ship was stranded for almost a week. The backlog should clear out in three to four days, according to the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), which dredged 30,000 cubic meters of sand and sent 11 powerful tug boats to pull the ship free. More than 100 ships have already passed through the canal since the Ever Given was freed, and another 140 additional ships are likely to go through on Tuesday. The investigation into the cause of the grounding is ongoing.

This map depicts the backlog of ships waiting to travel through the Suez Canal due to the grounding of the MV Ever Given. Click on the map to learn more.

Further Reading: Reuters, BBC News, New York Times, Business Insider

Graphic Source: The Standard
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World
Deforestation Rates Increase
Consumerism in wealthy countries is speeding up the rate of global deforestation, according to a recent study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. Using remotely sensed imagery from 2001-2015, researchers mapped the spatiotemporal changes in global deforestation footprints and found the G7 nations were most responsible for deforestation due to high importation of foreign goods, especially coffee and soybeans from the tropics. On average, each person in a G7 nation accounts for the loss of 3-4 trees somewhere else in the world each year. The deforestation footprint has grown fastest in India and China, although rich nations still have the largest footprint overall. Of the wealthy nations, France has the highest rate of deforestation with 21 square meters as of 2015. Preliminary data analysis suggests that the rate of deforestation increased in 2020.

This map depicts the global deforestation footprint. Click on the map to learn more.

Further Reading: France24, CarbonBrief, BBC, Guardian, Global Times, Economist
Graphic Source: AFP

+ Interesting read! CoastSnap, a citizen science project, utilizes crowd sourced images of coastal beaches to assess the impact of storms. Cameras mounted at more than 100 beaches enable the public to snap a photo and upload it via the app.

+ 80% of the ocean floor remains unmapped, making it difficult to understand and confront critical problems like overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution, and biodiversity loss. Read more about how Esri Chief Scientist Dr. Dawn Wright is hoping to change that:
+ MapLab: What it takes to map Mars. Take a look:

Yesterday’s Answer

Q: Which river is home to the largest hydroelectric power plant in the western hemisphere?

A: Paraná River
The Itaipu Hydroelectric Dam is located on the Paraná River on the border of Paraguay and Brazil. The project has an installed generation capacity of 14 GW, meeting up to 87% of the electricity demand in Paraguay and 19% of the Brazilian interconnected system. The largest hydroelectric facility in the world is the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in China, with a power generation capacity of 22.5 GW.

Source

Today’s Question

Q: The Roman Empire traced its origin to what once-thought-fictitious city over 840 miles (1,363 km) away on another continent?

Stay tuned for the answer to today’s question in tomorrow’s DailyGeo.

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World: South Africa Variant Spreads