Late last year, as COVID vaccines were getting ticks of approval and rolling off production lines, the world began to breathe a sigh of relief. But then new and concerning genetic variants of the coronavirus began to emerge. Some have the potential to sidestep our vaccine defences. And the more the virus circulates and replicates in countries with significant exposure, the more likely it is that even more mutants will arise. That’s why the Lancet Covid Commission Taskforce on Public Health - a high-level international expert group - has issued a stark warning against complacency. They argue that new variants have changed the game, meaning we can no longer win the upper hand with vaccination alone.

Myanmar has been a military dictatorship on and off – but mostly on – since the 1960s. But the army “wasn’t always a repressive force,” writes Tharaphi Than in this brief history, which explains how Myanmar’s generals got so powerful – and so brutal. The generals who took power over Myanmar in a coup earlier this year keep killing in their ruthless campaign to crush a popular uprising against military rule. Over 500 people have been killed in the Southeast Asian country since the Feb. 1 coup, including 40 children.