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Morocco’s OCP group, world’s major phosphates and fertilizers producer, has been selected among the seven finalists vying for the prestigious Frank Edelman Award 2021. The Moroccan state-owned company has been commended for using optimization models to enhance production, marketing and logistical processes to facilitate global distribution. The focus on optimization has boosted OCP’s innovation and entrepreneurship. Leading companies such as Amazon, Ali baba, JD.com, Lenevo, medical center “Memorial Sloan Kettering” and UN World Food Program (WFP) have also been shortlisted for the Franz Edelman award which recognizes and rewards outstanding example of operations research, management science, and advanced analytics.

The U.K.'s highly contagious B.1.1.7 variant of the coronavirus is starting to spread throughout the U.S., making the already difficult task of slowing the virus even more challenging. With recent studies confirming that the new variant of the virus is significantly more transmissible than the current dominant COVID strain in the States, some experts are warning that it's safest to immediately stop doing certain activities to avoid the new COVID strain. Read on to see what you should be staying away from as the pandemic rages on, and for an update on where the U.K. variant is already, check out The New COVID Strain Is Now in These 12 States.

After months of preparation and scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers, FedEx and UPS’ COVID-19 vaccine distribution mission appears to be going as smoothly as the delivery giants assured it would. “Simply put, a global health crisis of this scale requires a network of our scale to address,” COO Raj Subramaniam said days after the company made its first delivery of Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine. “This is who we are and what we do.” The effort to vaccinate America has encountered slowdowns, however, after FedEx and UPS deliver the shipments to administration sites.

The urgency of vaccinating nursing home residents is evident in the numbers. The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed the lives of more than 136,000 residents and employees of long-term care facilities in the U.S. alone, accounting for nearly 40% of all U.S. deaths linked to the disease. Echoing that urgency, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar declared in mid-December, “We can have every nursing home patient vaccinated in the United States by Christmas.” Yet, by Christmas, most states had barely begun. Other states were still far behind when West Virginia became the first state to finish round one of the two-dose vaccine series in nursing homes on Dec. 30.

NBC News' Maura Barrett takes an in-depth look at the Biden administration's plan to increase the rate of Covid-19 vaccine distribution in the U.S.