Until a few decades ago, scholars believed that young children know very little, if anything, about what others are thinking. Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, who is credited with founding the scientific study of children’s thinking, was convinced that preschool children cannot consider what goes on in the minds of others.

The interviews and experiments he conducted with kids in the middle of the 20th century suggested that they were trapped in their subjective viewpoints, incapable of imagining what others think, feel or believe. To him, young children seemed oblivious to the fact that different people might hold distinct viewpoints or perspectives on the world, or even that their own perspectives shift over time.

Much of the subsequent research on early childhood thinking was highly influenced by Piaget’s ideas. Scholars sought to refine his theory and empirically confirm his views. But it became increasingly clear that Piaget was missing something. He seemed to have gravely underestimated the intellectual powers of very young kids – before they can make themselves understood by speech or even intentional action. Researchers began to devise ever more ingenious ways of figuring out what goes on in the minds of babies, and the resulting picture of their abilities is becoming more and more nuanced.

Consequently, the old view of children’s egocentric nature and intellectual weaknesses has increasingly fallen out of favor and become replaced by a more generous position that sees a budding sense not only of the physical world but also of other minds, even in the “youngest young.”

Dark Ages of intellectual development?

Historically, children didn’t receive much respect for their mental powers. Piaget not only believed that children were “egocentric” in the sense that they were unable to differentiate between their own viewpoint and that of others; he was also convinced that their thinking was characterized by systematic errors and confusions.

For example, the children he interviewed seemed unable to disentangle causes from their effects (“Does the wind move the branches or do the moving branches cause the wind?”) and could not tell reality apart from superficial appearances (a stick submerged halfway into water looks, but is not, bent). They also fall prey to magical and mythical thinking: A child might believe that the sun was once a ball that someone tossed up into the sky, where it grew bigger and bigger. In fact, Piaget believed that children’s mental development progresses in the same way historians believe human thought progressed over historical time: from mythical to logical thinking.

Piaget firmly believed kids were focused entirely on their own actions and perceptions. When playing with others, they don’t cooperate because they do not realize there are different roles and perspectives. He was convinced that children literally cannot “get their act together”: instead of playing cooperatively and truly together, they play side by side, with little regard for the other. And when speaking with others, a young child supposedly cannot consider the listener’s viewpoint but “talks to himself without listening to the others.”

Piaget and his followers maintained that children go through something like a dark ages of intellectual development before slowly and gradually becoming enlightened by reason and rationality as they reach school age. Alongside this enlightenment develops an ever-growing understanding of other persons, including their attitudes and views of the world.

Changing mindset about minds

Today, a very different picture of children’s mental development emerges. Psychologists continually reveal new insights into the depth of young children’s knowledge of the world, including their understanding of other minds. Recent studies suggest that even infants are sensitive to others’ perspectives and beliefs.

Part of the motivation to revise some of Piaget’s conclusions stemmed from an ideological shift about the origin of human knowledge that occurred in the second half of the 20th century. It became increasingly unpopular to assume that a basic understanding of the world can be built entirely from experience.

This was in part instigated by theorist Noam Chomsky, who argued that something as complex as the rules of grammar cannot be picked up from exposure to speech, but is supplied by an innate “language faculty.” Others followed suit and defined further “core areas” in which knowledge allegedly cannot be pieced together from experience but must be innate. One such area is our knowledge of others’ minds. Some even argue that a basic knowledge of others’ minds is not only possessed by human infants, but must be evolutionarily old and hence shared by our nearest living relatives, the great apes.

Ingenious new investigation tools

To prove that infants know more in this realm than had been acknowledged, researchers needed to come up with innovative ways of showing it. A big part of why we now recognize so much more of kids’ intellectual capacities is the development of much more sensitive research tools than Piaget had at his disposal.

Instead of engaging toddlers in dialog or having them execute complex motor tasks, the newer methods capitalize on behaviors that have a firm place in infants’ natural behavior repertoire: looking, listening, sucking, making facial expressions, gestures and simple manual actions. The idea of focusing on these “small behaviors” is that they give kids the chance to demonstrate their knowledge implicitly and spontaneously – without having to respond to questions or instructions. For example, children might look longer at an event that they did not expect to happen, or they might show facial expressions indicating that they have empathy with another.

When researchers measure these less demanding, and often involuntary, behaviors, they can detect a sensitivity to others’ mental states at a much younger age than with the more taxing methods that Piaget and his disciples deployed.

What modern studies reveal

In the 1980s, these kinds of implicit measures became customary in developmental psychology. But it took a while longer before these tools were employed to measure children’s grasp of the mental lives of others. Recent studies have revealed that even infants and toddlers are sensitive to what goes in others’ minds.

In one series of experiments, a group of Hungarian scientists had six-month-old babies watch an animation of the following sequence of events: A Smurf observed how a ball rolled behind a screen. The Smurf then left. In its absence, the infants witnessed how the ball emerged from behind the screen and rolled away. The Smurf returned and the screen was lowered, showing that the ball was no longer there. The authors of the study recorded the infants’ looks and found that they fixated longer than usual on the final scene in which the Smurf gazed at the empty space behind the barrier – as if they understood that the Smurf’s expectation was violated.

In another set of experiments, my colleagues at the University of Southern California and I found evidence that toddlers can even anticipate how others will feel when their expectations are disappointed. We acted out several puppet shows in front of two-year-old children. In these puppet shows, a protagonist (Cookie Monster) left his precious belongings (cookies) on stage and later returned to fetch them. What the protagonist did not know was that an antagonist had come and messed with his possessions. The children had witnessed these acts and attentively watch the protagonist return.

We recorded children’s facial and bodily expressions. Children bit their lips, wrinkled their nose or wiggled in their chair when the protagonist came back, as if they anticipated the bewilderment and disappointment he was about to experience. Importantly, children showed no such reactions and remained calm when the protagonist had seen the events himself and thus knew what to expect. Our study reveals that by the tender age of two, kids not only track what others believe or expect; they can even foresee how others will feel when they discover reality.

Studies like these reveal that there is much more going on in toddlers’ and even infants’ minds than was previously believed. With the explicit measures used by Piaget and successors, these deeper layers of kids’ understanding cannot be accessed. The new investigative tools demonstrate that kids know more than they can say: when we scratch beneath the surface, we find a fledgling understanding of relations and perspectives that Piaget probably did not dream of.

Old ways have value, too

Despite these obvious advances in the study of young children’s thinking, it would be a grave mistake to dismiss the careful and systematic analyses compiled by Piaget and others before the new tests dominated the scene. Doing so would be like throwing out the baby with the bathwater, because the original methods revealed essential facts about how children think – facts that the new, “minimalist” methods cannot uncover.

There’s no consensus in today’s community about how much we can infer from a look, a grimace or a hand gesture. These behaviors clearly indicate a curiosity about what goes on in the mind of others, and probably a set of early intuitions coupled with a willingness to learn more. They pave the way to richer and more explicit forms of understanding of the minds of other. But they can in no way replace the child’s growing ability to articulate and refine her understanding of how people behave and why.

Piaget may have underestimated infants’ cognitive powers, perhaps for lack of modern tools. But his insights into how a child gradually comes to grasp the world around her and understand that she is a person among a community of other persons remain as inspiring as they were 50 years ago. Today’s challenge for us developmental scholars is to integrate the new with the old, and understand how infants’ sensitivity to other minds gradually develops into a full-blown understanding of other persons as distinct from, and yet similar to, oneself.

The Conversation

Apu Sarker was showing his open palm to me on a video call from his home in Bangladesh. Nothing seemed unusual at first, but as I looked closer I could see the smooth surfaces of his fingertips.

Apu, who is 22, lives with his family in a village in the northern district of Natore. He was working as a medical assistant until recently. His father and his grandfather were farmers.

The men in Apu's family appear to share a genetic mutation so rare it is thought to affect only a small handful of families in the world: they have no fingerprints.

Back in the day of Apu's grandfather, having no fingerprints was no big deal. "I don't think he ever thought of it as a problem," Apu said.

But over the decades, the tiny grooves that swirl around our fingertips - known properly as dermatoglyphs - have become the world's most collected biometric data. We use them for everything from passing through airports to voting and opening our smartphones.

In 2008, when Apu was still a boy, Bangladesh introduced National ID cards for all adults, and the database required a thumbprint. The baffled employees did not know how to issue a card to Apu's father, Amal Sarker. Finally, he received a card with "NO FINGERPRINT" stamped on it.

In 2010, fingerprints became mandatory for passports and driver's licences. After several attempts, Amal was able to obtain a passport by showing a certificate from a medical board. He has never used it though, partly because he fears the problems he may face at the airport. And though riding a motorbike is essential to his farming work, he has never obtained a driving licence. "I paid the fee, passed the exam, but they did not issue a licence because I couldn't provide fingerprint," he said.

Amal carries the licence fee payment receipt with him but it doesn't always help him when he gets stopped - he has been fined twice. He explained his condition to both bemused officers, he said, and held up his smooth fingertips for them to see. But neither waived the fine.

"This is always an embarrassing experience for me," Amal said.

In 2016, the government made it mandatory to match a fingerprint with the national database in order to purchase a Sim card for a mobile phone.

"They seemed confused when I went to buy a Sim, their software kept freezing every time I put my finger on the sensor," Apu said, with a wry smile. Apu was denied the purchase, and all the male members of his family now use Sim cards issued in his mother's name.

The rare condition likely afflicting the Sarker family is called Adermatoglyphia. It first became widely known in 2007 when Peter Itin, a Swiss dermatologist, was contacted by a woman in the country in her late twenties who was having trouble entering the US. Her face matched the photograph on her passport, but customs officers were not able to record any fingerprints. Because she didn't have any.

Upon examination, Professor Itin found the woman and eight members of her family had the same strange condition - flat finger pads and a reduced number of sweat glands in the hands. Working with another dermatologist, Eli Sprecher, and graduate student Janna Nousbeck, Professor Itin looked at the DNA of 16 members of the family - seven with fingerprints and nine without.

"Isolated cases are very rare, and no more than a few families are documented," Prof Itin told the BBC.

In 2011, the team homed in on one gene, SMARCAD1, which was mutated in the nine printless family members, identifying it as the cause of the rare disease. Virtually nothing was known about the gene at the time. The mutation appeared to cause no other ill-health effects apart from the effects on the hands.

The mutation they were looking for for those years affected a gene "nobody knew anything about", said Professor Sprecher - hence the years it took to find it. Plus, the mutation affected a very specific part of the gene, he said, "which apparently had no function, in a gene of no function".

Once discovered, the disease was named Adermatoglyphia, but Prof Itin dubbed it "immigration delay disease", after his first patient's trouble getting into the US, and the name stuck,

Immigration delay disease can affect generations of a family. Apu Sarker's uncle Gopesh, who lives in Dinajpur, some 350km (217 miles) from Dhaka, had to wait two years to get a passport authorised, he said.

"I had to travel to Dhaka four or five times in the past two years to convince them I really have the condition," Gopesh said.

When his office started using a fingerprint attendance system, Gopesh had to convince his superiors to allow him to use the old system - signing an attendance sheet every day.

A dermatologist in Bangladesh has diagnosed the family's condition as congenital palmoplantar keratoderma, which Prof Itin believes developed into secondary Adermatoglyphia - a version of the disease which can also cause dry skin and reduced sweating on palms and feet - symptoms reported by the Sarkers.

More testing would be needed to confirm that the family has some form of Adermatoglyphia. Professor Sprecher said his team would be "very glad" to assist the family with genetic testing. The results of those tests might bring the Sarkers some certainly, but no relief from the day to day struggles of navigating the world without fingerprints.

For the afflicted Sarkers, society seems to be becoming more and more unwieldy, rather than evolving to accommodate their condition. Amal Sarker lived most of his life without too much trouble, he said, but he felt sorry for his children.

"It is not in my hands, it is something I inherited," he said. "But the way me and my sons are getting in all sorts of problems, for me this is really painful."

Amal and Apu recently got a new kind of national ID card being issued by the Bangladeshi government, after presenting a medical certificate. The card uses other biometric data too - retina scan and facial recognition.

But they still can't buy a Sim card or obtain a driver's licence, and obtaining a passport is a long and drawn out process.

"I am tired of explaining the situation over and over again. I've asked many people for advice, but none of them could give me any definite answer," said Apu. "Someone suggested I go to court. If all options fail, than that's what I might have to do."

Apu hopes he will be able to get a passport, he said. He would love to travel outside Bangladesh. He just needs to start his application.

The forced cremation of a 20-day-old Muslim baby in Sri Lanka has highlighted the government's controversial order to burn the bodies of all those who died of Covid. Critics say the decision is not based in science and only intended to target the minority community. BBC Sinhala's Saroj Pathirana reports.

Mohamed Fahim and his wife Fathima Shafna were thrilled when their baby boy Shaykh was born on 18 November after a six-year wait.

But their joy was short-lived.

On the night of 7 December, they noticed the baby was struggling to breathe. They rushed him to the capital Colombo's best children's hospital, the Lady Ridgeway.

"They told us the baby was in a severe condition and was suffering from pneumonia. But then, around midnight, they did an antigen test and told us the baby was positive for coronavirus," Mohamed Fahim, who drives a three-wheeler for a living, told BBC Sinhala.

Doctors then tested Mr Fahim and his wife but they were both negative.

"I asked how my baby was positive when both of us, even the mother who was breastfeeding him, were negative?"

Despite tears and pleas, the anxious couple were sent home by officials who said more tests were needed. They were told to call the hospital for updates.

The next day, they were informed that their baby had died of Covid. Mr Fahim repeatedly asked doctors to conduct a PCR test to reconfirm this, but they refused.

Then, doctors asked him to sign a document authorising the cremation of their child, as required by law in Sri Lanka.

Mr Fahim refused: the cremation of bodies is forbidden in Islam, considered a form of mutilation, forbidden by Allah. Muslims also believe in the resurrection of the physical body, and cremation is thought to prevent this.

And he is not alone. Some Muslim families have refused to claim the bodies of their dead, leaving the government to cremate them on state expense, while many will not accept the ashes of their loved ones.

Mr Fahim says he repeatedly asked for his baby's body to be handed back to him, but officials said no. The next day, he was told his son's body was being taken to the crematorium.

"I went there but I didn't enter the hall," he says. "How can you watch your baby son being burnt?"

'No evidence'

Political, religious and community leaders representing the Muslim community have repeatedly requested the government to change its "cremate only" policy, pointing to the more than 190 countries allowing burials, and World Health Organization advice. It has even taken its fight to the Supreme Court, but the cases were dismissed without an explanation.

The government argues burials could contaminate ground water, based on the say-so of an expert committee, the composition and qualifications of which are unknown.

World-renowned virologist Prof Malik Peiris, however, has questioned the theory.

"Covid-19 is not a waterborne disease," Prof Peiris told the BBC. "And I haven't seen any evidence to suggest it spreads through dead bodies. A virus can only multiply in a living cell. Once a person dies, the ability of the viruses to multiply decreases."

He added: "Dead bodies aren't buried right in running water. Once you bury the body six feet under wrapped in impermeable wrapping, it is highly unlikely it would contaminate running water."

There had not been much sympathy for the plight of the Muslim community - but the forced cremation of baby Shaykh has changed that.

Soon after the news broke, men, women, clergy from other faiths, rights activists and opposition politicians gathered outside the crematorium, and tied white ribbons on the gate. Many were from the majority Sinhala community.

People have also taken to social media to condemn what happened.

Activist and lawyer Thyagi Ruwanpathirana, who was among those who tied white cloth on the gate, tweeted about her experience: "While I was tying it, a mother and daughter duo crossed the road and joined me with their own white cloths. Till I came they were worried someone may be watching.

"I couldn't quite make out what the mother was trying to say at first because we all had our masks on. Then she said, 'The baby was only two-days-old no? Sin. This way at least my heart will be satisfied'."

The white cloths disappeared overnight, believed to have been removed by authorities, but the anger did not.

Hilmy Ahmed, the vice-president of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, told the BBC it was clear this was all part of a "racist" agenda, targeting the Muslim minority.

"The government doesn't seem to be responding to anything based on science," he said. "They don't seem to take into consideration the advice of virologists or microbiologists or epidemiologists. This is racist agenda of a few in the technical committee."

"This is probably the last straw for Muslims because nobody expected this little baby to be cremated," he added. "That also without even showing the child to the parents."

But the government denies that the measures are aimed at Muslims, pointing to the fact Sinhala Buddhists are having to cremate their loved ones within 24 hours, which also goes against their traditions.

"Sometimes we will have to do things that we don't like too much," the cabinet spokesman, Minister Keheliya Rambukwella, told the BBC.

"Everybody has to make some kind of sacrifices during this Covid pandemic. I understand this is a very sensitive issue. Even my Muslim friends are calling me and asking me to help them. But as a government we have to take the decisions based on science for the sake of all concerned."

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has, meanwhile, instructed authorities to find a suitable dry land to bury those dying from coronavirus, his office said in a statement.

Mannar in northern Sri Lanka is thought to be considered by the authorities as a possible location. But it is not being seen as viable by the Muslim community - many of them were driven out of there by Tamil separatists in 1990. They fear that burials there will cause more tension.

And Mr Ahmed has dismissed the offer as "a carrot they are holding every time the pressure" increases. After all, the prime minister has issued similar instructions before, but Muslims are still being cremated.

Meanwhile, Mr Fahil says he still can't come to terms with what happened to his baby son, Shaykh.

"My only wish is that no other person should go through this pain. I don't wish any other child to experience what happened to my son."/aa

RABAT, Morocco (AP) — Morocco announced it has acquired 65 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from China’s Sinopharm and Britain’s AstraZeneca, as the north African kingdom prepares to launch a COVID-19 vaccination program that aims to immunize 80% of the country’s adult population.

Health Minister Khalid Ait Taleb announced the figure at a Cabinet meeting Thursday. The government didn't indicate whether the vaccines were purchased or provided by Covax, the global project to provide vaccines to developing countries, or a combination of both.

His ministry said Friday that Morocco has not yet received the vaccines.

Mustapha Ennaji Moulay, head of the virology department at the Hassan II University in Casablanca and a member of the government's COVID-19 scientific committee, said that regulators are reviewing the Sinopharm vaccine's documentation, and that the vaccination program is expected to begin in the coming days.

Morocco has one of the most advanced vaccination plans in the region. The country has also reported the second-highest number of virus infections and deaths in Africa, after South Africa.

The Moroccan health minister said the government's target is vaccinating 25 million of the country's 36 million people, all free of charge, according to orders from King Mohammed VI.

While the Moroccan government has been promising vaccinations since earlier this month, the minister said preparations have now reached a “very advanced” stage. He said authorities were carrying out simulations at all the immunization sites “to avoid any obstacles that may arise during the implementation of the vaccination program.”

In a first phase, the vaccine will be administered to medical personnel, public authorities, security services, education workers and people suffering from chronic diseases. The Ministry of Health said it has deployed a computerized system to register the target population and track their health status after they receive the vaccine.

Moulay said Morocco has sought to diversify supply by signing contracts with multiple countries.

Morocco has said it will start its vaccination program with the Sinopharm vaccine, though it hasn't yet completed advanced trials to prove that it's safe and effective. The vaccine, which was tested on 600 Moroccans as part of clinical trials this autumn, has been approved for emergency use in a few countries and the company is still conducting late-stage clinical trials in multiple countries.

Morocco's initial vaccine deliveries will come from China, but Morocco also plans to produce the vaccine locally.

The AstraZeneca vaccine is still in advanced trials in countries including Britain and the U.S. and hasn’t been approved yet.

Morocco’s daily virus case count has fallen slightly in the last two weeks, but a dip in testing is raising concerns that the virus could be spreading faster than reported.

As a preventive measure to curb the spread of the virus during New Year’s celebrations, authorities banned public and private gatherings, closed restaurants in the country's main cities, and imposed a curfew that went into effect Wednesday night and is set to last for three weeks./aa

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Four people have been arrested in connection with the 2018 crash of a helicopter that killed a central Mexican governor and her husband — who had preceded her as governor — authorities said Friday.

The Agusta 109 helicopter crashed in flames 10 minutes after takeoff on Dec. 24 that year while carrying newly installed Puebla Gov. Martha Erika Alonso and her husband, former Gov. Rafael Moreno Valle, as well as three other people.

The Puebla state prosecutor's office said the four suspects worked for a Rotor Flight Services, a company “related to the functioning of the aircraft,” It said the suspects were accused of culpable homicide, damage to another's property and false testimony.

The Mexico City prosecutor's office said Friday the woman detained in the capital had been in charge of the shop where the helicopter had received maintenance.

Mexico's then secretary of communications and transportation, Javier Jiménez Espriú, said in March 2019 that investigators had concluded the crash was probably caused by a technical problem known to the company that operated the helicopter and said, “it should not have flown.”

He said maintenance records showed a preexisting problem involving stability systems and a piece inside with two loose screws.

The crash prompted political suspicion because Moreno Valle was a rising figure in the opposition National Action Party, which had governed Mexico from 2000 to 2012..That party went on to lose the state election held to replace Alonso.

Her own victory in 2018 had been challenged by the party of current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, but was upheld.

At least 20 Nigerian doctors last week were killed after being infected by the coronavirus, media reports said Friday.

”For those of us in the health sector, we have lost quite a number of colleagues. Across the country, we have lost not less than 20 doctors in the last one week,” the Premium Times website quoted the chairman of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) FCT chapter, Enema Amodu, at a news conference.

Many doctors do not have access to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) before attending to patients, according to the report.

More than 1,000 health workers have reportedly tested positive for COVID-19.

As of June 2, 812 health workers in Nigeria tested positive for COVID-19, according to Health Minister Osagie Ehanire, according to the website.

As of July, more than 10,000 health workers in 40 African countries were infected, Premium Times said, citing the World Health Organization (WHO).

Since the virus was first reported in March, Nigerian authorities have confirmed 1,242 deaths, 81,963 infections and 69,651 recoveries in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, according to figures released by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

As the country has been witnessing a second wave of the pandemic, a spike in infections has been seen in Africa’s most populous nation, leaving six killed and 1,041 infected Thursday, according to the NCDC.

The virus was first reported in Wuhan, China, last December before spreading globally. More than 79.7 million people have been infected with 1.74 million deaths, according to US-based Johns Hopkins University./aa

A number of doctors in the US criticized the racist treatment a Black female physician received in a hospital, who later died due to complications from COVID-19.  

Dr. Susan Moore, a 52-year-old Black physician, was being treated for the novel coronavirus at Indiana University Health North Hospital in Carmel, Indiana, her hometown, after she tested positive for COVID-19 in late November.

Lying on her hospital bed, she recorded a video on her cell phone and posted it on her Facebook page on Dec. 4, saying her fight against the virus was made worse by the treatment she received from a doctor in that hospital.

Dr. Moore claimed the doctor giving her treatment repeatedly ignored her complaints and wanted to send her home, saying she no longer trusted the hospital and asked to be transferred.

"This is how Black people get killed. When you send them home and they don't know how to fight for themselves," she told in her almost eight-minute video.

"I had to talk to somebody, maybe the media, to let people know how I'm being treated up in this place ... I put forth, and I maintain, if I was white, I wouldn't have to go through that," she said.

After Dr. Moore died on Sunday from complications due to COVID-19, according to her son, a number of American doctors slammed on Twitter the racist treatment Black people have been receiving across the US during the pandemic.

"Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case," Dr. Jeremiah Schuur, the president of Brown Emergency Physicians, wrote in a tweet on Thursday.

Dr. Ezinne J. Ihenachor, a radiology resident at University of Southern California, said via social media Dr. Moore was lost due to "medracism".

"Black people are often ignored & outright challenged when explaining their symptoms to their unconsciously (& consciously) biased doctors," she wrote.

Indiana University Health North Hospital, where Dr. Moore was treated, released a statement by its President and CEO Dennis M. Murphy on Thursday, requesting both an internal and external review of the case.

"I am concerned, however, that we may not have shown the level of compassion and respect we strive for in understanding what matters most to patients. I am worried that our care team did not have the time due to the burden of this pandemic to hear and understand patient concerns and questions," he said.

"I also have listened to the voices and experiences of our team members and patients of color over the past year. They have shared experiences of discrimination by patients, families and colleagues," he added.

Dr. Nicole Christian Brathwaite, a child and adult psychiatrist, however, said via Twitter on Thursday: "Watching some non-Black Physicians do backflips to argue that Dr. Susan Moore did not experience racism is not surprising, but is truly terrifying. Medicine is not ready to face the racism it was built on."

Blacks, Latino and Native Americans are hospitalized more often because of the novel coronavirus compared to other groups in the US, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Hospitalization rates for American Indians or Alaska Natives, and non-Hispanic Blacks were 4.1 and 3.9 times higher compared to non-Hispanic Whites, respectively, showed the CDC report published on Nov. 13.

Hispanics or Latinos were hospitalized 4.2 times more than non-Hispanic Whites, according to data between March 1 and Nov. 7 among 70,825 confirmed COVID-19 cases./aa

Soumaila Cisse, the opposition leader of Mali, was taken to Paris, France for COVID-19 treatment, and lost his life on Friday at the age of 71, local media reported.

Cisse was released last October after six months of being held hostage by Al-Qaeda. His release followed the release of several terrorists by the government.

He was a leading figure of the Malian opposition because he was a presidential candidate for three times, and served as a minister and leader of the opposition.

According to Bah N'daw, the Malian transitions president, Cisse's death is a "shock” because he is "leaving at a critical turning point" in Mali's evolution.

In a statement released today, he said the country still "particularly" needs Cisse’s experience and wisdom to meet the current challenges.

N'daw's testimony also indicates that the deceased was "more determined and committed after his release” .

He also praised Cisse’s "optimism" despite conditions of being held hostage by Al-Qaeda for several months./aa