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The sharp increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases in late 2021 and early 2022, which is associated with the spread of a new strain of coronavirus - omicron - is of great concern and makes it necessary to make at least approximate forecasts for the pandemic dynamics of the epidemic. As this rapid growth occurs even in countries with high levels of vaccinations, the question arises as to their effectiveness. The smoothed daily number of new cases and deaths per capita and the ratio of these characteristics were used to reveal the appearance of new coronavirus strains and to estimate the effectiveness of quarantine, testing and vaccination. The third year of the pandemic allowed us to compare the pandemic dynamics in the period from September 2020 to January 2021 with the same period one year later for Ukraine, EU, the UK, USA, India, Brazil, South Africa, Argentina, Australia, and in the whole world. Record numbers of new cases registered in late 2021 and early 2022 once again proved that existing vaccines cannot prevent new infections, and vaccinated people can spread the infection as intensively as non-vaccinated ones. Fortunately, the daily number of new cases already diminishes in EU, the UK, USA, South Africa, and Australia. In late January - early February 2022, the maximum averaged numbers of new cases are expected in Brazil, India, EU, and worldwide. Omicron waves can increase the numbers of deaths per capita, but in highly vaccinated countries, the deaths per case ratio significantly decreases. Highlights: Vaccinated persons can get and pass the new coronavirus variants. The probability of death is much lower for vaccinated persons.

This article explores the significant role that the state is still expected to play in initiating and implementing the energy transition. In this regard, it is laid out in three parts. Part I focuses on the premise of the role that derives from constitutional law. This role is considered classic, because it is based on different functions of the state, and the legitimate constrain that distinguishes it from other social actors, including non-state actors. Tremendous materials are offered by the analysis either from the perspective of sociology or law studies when it comes to the specific situation of French-speaking African states. The scope of analysis is broadened with the energy law approach. With a focus on African English-speaking countries, the article examines both the way the state is enforcing statutes aiming to design its own transition scheme and exercising its discretionary power through its energy policy. Beyond the functions of the state—deriving from its sovereign power—these elements set out the direction in quest of a specific role the state can play in the energy transition as a process in Part II. As such, the energy transition, if it is to lead to coherent social change, requires strong and dynamic leadership, including clear, nuanced, and forward-looking direction on the broad sections of the overall process, and the environmental justice issues that necessarily cluster around them. For this reason, the role of the state is construed as both a steering role, and an integrative role for environmental, economic and social issues. Part III provides a rationale for the necessary and strong support of international cooperation—to the state—in order to achieve the paradigm shift smoothly. In Part IV, I emphasize the African Union's transition initiatives in the run-up to COP 25, which I hold out as an inducement for states' efforts. In fact, this article seeks to address these issues. Taken together, they could help build a coherent pattern of the role that African states play in the energy ...

Engl. Zsfassungen

The author treats the topic of AIDS as a focal point for artistic politics in the United States and, eventually, in a larger international context as well. He considers a range of representations of AIDS in contemporary art since the 1980s & considers how AIDS became a pivotal point around which thinking about artists' activism & art as social intervention turned. He discusses AIDS as a paradigmatic case for a new global, biopolitical, & mediatized cultural phenomenon that bore with it a new ensemble of political, moral, & economic effects, in turn profoundly affecting conceptions of aesthetics & activist art. In the latter part of the essay, he develops a typology of strategies utilized by artists in addressing the problem of AIDS: 1) transcoding strategies; 2) media critiques and/or critiques of culture industry representations of AIDS; 3) alternative publicity; 4) AIDS exemplars; & 5) strategies of mourning & memoralization. Adapted from the source document.