Month: February 2022

Kommt der nächste Ölpreisschock?

Energie- und Klimawochenschau: Vom Rohöl-Markt, einem Erfolg der Autolobby und vom fragwürdigen Vorgehen der Justiz gegen eine junge Baumbesetzerin, die gegen Autobahnbau kämpft

Energie- und Klimawochenschau: Vom Rohöl-Markt, einem Erfolg der Autolobby und vom fragwürdigen Vorgehen der Justiz gegen eine junge Baumbesetzerin, die gegen Autobahnbau kämpft

VW, Volvo, Seat, Mercedes Benz: Auto-Abos sollen Einstieg in E-Mobilität erleichtern

Angst wegen Laden und Reichweite: Viele Autofahrer scheuen den Kauf eines Elektroautos. Auto-Abos sollen helfen, sind aber laut einer Studie noch recht unbekannt. Ein Bericht von Friedhelm Greis (Elektroauto, IBM)

Angst wegen Laden und Reichweite: Viele Autofahrer scheuen den Kauf eines Elektroautos. Auto-Abos sollen helfen, sind aber laut einer Studie noch recht unbekannt. Ein Bericht von Friedhelm Greis (Elektroauto, IBM)

Flood of malicious junk traffic makes Ukrainian websites unreachable

DDoS temporarily take out sites as Ukraine stares down Russian soldiers at its border.

Flood of malicious junk traffic makes Ukrainian websites unreachable

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Ukraine's defense ministry and two banks were knocked offline on Tuesday by a flood of malicious traffic designed to prevent people from visiting the sites, Ukraine's information security center said.

The distributed denial-of-service attacks targeted the websites for Ukraine's defense ministry, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and two banks, Privatbank and Oschadbank, the country's State Service for Special Communication and Information Protection reported. At the time this post was being reported, the Defense Ministry site remained completely unreachable. Meanwhile, only the homepage for PrivatBank was available, and it was defaced. Oschadbank's site provided only limited access.

The malicious data floods were also reported by the Ukrainian cyberpolice, but at the time this post was being reported, attempts to visit most of the department's website were unsuccessful. The homepage said: "We apologize for the inconvenience. The site is under maintenance."

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Omicron wave was brutal on kids; hospitalization rates 4X higher than delta’s

Incidental cases do not account for the jump in hospitalizations, the authors found.

A woman in protective gear leans over a toddler in a bed.

Enlarge / Boston Medical Center Child Life Specialist Karlie Bittrich sees to a baby while in a pediatrics tent set up outside of Boston Medical Center in Boston on April 29, 2020. (credit: Getty | Boston Globe)

Despite being widely seen as mild, the omicron coronavirus variant has been brutal on children and adolescents—particularly babies and toddlers, who are still ineligible for vaccination.

According to a study published Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the peak rate of pediatric hospitalizations during the recent omicron surge was four times higher than the peak seen during delta's wave last fall. And the largest increase was seen in children ages 0 to 4, who had a peak hospitalization rate five times higher than that seen amid delta's wave.

The study authors, led by CDC emergency response team researcher Kristin Marks, were careful to note that incidental cases of COVID-19 in hospitalized children do not account for the jump in rates amid omicron. Marks and colleagues looked carefully at medical charts from hospitalized children during both the delta and omicron waves. They compared the proportions of children coming into hospitals who had COVID-19-related symptoms at admission and were marked as being admitted specifically for COVID-19. Between the two waves, they found no significant differences in those proportions.

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